At a meeting on Wednesday, the German cabinet approved a new strategy for civil defence. While the details are yet to be made public, a report on Sunday in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung revealed that as part of the strategy, citizens will be encouraged to prepare for a catastrophe or crisis by stockpiling food, water, and other supplies.
The new strategy was first commissioned in 2012, and replaces previous guidelines set out in 1995. It is meant as a response to the sort of threat posed by so-called hybrid warfare, conceived to include cyber attacks and damage to critical infrastructure. It raises the prospect of a return for some form of conscription, which Germany only suspended in 2011. But it is the thought of having to hoard provisions which has captured the imagination of many Germans, as the proposals have drawn accusations of scaremongering and encouraged a flurry of comparisons with the humble hamster, so fond of storing food in its capacious cheeks.
The term ‘Hamsterkaeufe’, a reference to such hoarding, was trending among German users on Twitter at the start of the week. And what the strategy supposedly lays out is far from insignificant: a requirement that citizens stock ten days of food, five days of drinking water amounting to two litres per person each day, plus necessities like money and medicine so that the people will be ready for the world still to come. It will mean more than a little planning and a sizeable, trolley-filling shop.
Yet scratch a little deeper and there’s more at stake than a full larder and a surfeit of fear. The website of Germany’s Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance already provides an emergency checklist which suggests citizens stock up on rice and noodles, while a public health manager with the German Red Cross saw fit in a recent interview with ARD to add to the noodles with some tomato sauce.
Rice, noodles, and tomato sauce hardly sound traditionally German. True Bavaria has provided the world with a heirloom variety of the meaty red fruit, but as a whole the trio bring to mind instead images of Italy, Asia, and the Middle East. In all this talk of food and crisis, there is neither a Bratwurst nor Black Forest gateau in sight. Will kebab find its way next onto the provisions list? For a country already concerned with issues of identity in the face of mass immigration, this new diktat from the authorities will have good Germans roughly choking on their Sauerbraten, Salzkartoffeln, and Leberwurst.
