Home front during World War II
The term "home front" covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war. World War II was a total war; homeland military production became vital to both the Allied and Axis powers. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, evacuation in the face of air raids, and response to occupation by an enemy power. The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda. Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree.
All of the powers used lessons from their experiences on the home front during World War I. Their success in mobilizing economic output was a major factor in supporting combat operations. Among morale-boosting activities that also benefited combat efforts, the home front engaged in a variety of scrap drives for materials crucial to the war effort such as metal, rubber, and rags. Such drives helped strengthen civilian morale and support for the war effort. Each country tried to suppress negative or defeatist rumors.
The major powers devoted 50–61 percent of their total GDP to munitions production. The Allies produced about three times as much in munitions as the Axis powers.
Source: Goldsmith data in Harrison (1988) p. 172
Source: Jerome B Cohen, Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction (1949) p 354
Famines[edit]
Severe food shortages were common throughout the war zones, especially in Europe where Germany used starvation as a military weapon. Japan did not use it as a deliberate policy, but the breakdown of its transportation and distribution systems led to famine and starvation conditions among its soldiers on many Pacific islands.[142] Bose (1990) studies the three great Asian famines that took place during the war: Bengal in India, Honan in China, and Tonkin in Vietnam. In each famine at least two million people died. They all occurred in densely populated provinces where the subsistence foundations of agriculture was failing under the weight of demographic and market pressures. In each cases famine played a role in undermining the legitimacy of the state and the preexisting social structure.[143]
Housing[edit]
A great deal of housing was destroyed or largely damaged during the war, especially in the Soviet Union,[144] Germany, and Japan. In Japan, about a third of the families were homeless at the end of the war.[145] In Germany, about 25% of the total housing stock was destroyed or heavily damaged; in the main cities the proportion was about 45%.[146] Elsewhere in Europe, 22% of the prewar housing in Poland was totally destroyed; 21% in Greece; 9% in Austria, 8% in the Netherlands; 8% in France, 7% in Britain, 5% Italy and 4% in Hungary.[147]