In his day Hitler was lectured to by all and sundry all over Germany. He was told that he should eat more meat. It was good for him, but he merely smiled and continued to eat eggs and potatoes along with vegetable concoctions prepared by his chefs and dieticians that he hired to serve him. Martin Bormann, who controlled nearly all access to the Dictator in the last years of his life, planted a vegetable garden on the Obersaltzberg near the Berghof, Hitler’s country estate.
In those days Germans were meat and potatoes people. They would be puzzled by the article in the Monday, June 6 Wall Street Journal, “Hamburg Restaurants Just Say No To Vegetables”, talking about what a financial hardship the current scare is for the food business in northern Germany. You’d think that Germans had been piling lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers on top of their meat and cheese sandwiches forever to hear how the vegetable deprivation is affecting restaurant sales. Apparently German farmers are losing 30 million euros/week in sales. The Cafe Knuth in Hamburg has reduced its offerings by one half because one half of them were vegetables!
Hitler would be astonished at just how much the people he ruled over in the 30’s and 40’s have changed. But he would join in their lament about the lack of edible vegetables.
