Food was at the heart of many of the policies which set Germany, Italy and Japan on the path to war in the 1930s. The rise of fascism, the humiliation and resentment felt by the Germans as a result of the Treaty of Versailles and the economic and social instability which developed in the wake of the Great Depression more commonly spring to mind as factors which contributed towards conflict. However, changes in eating habits were equally powerful in their effect and the need to secure the food to satisfy new appetites played into the aggressive, expansionist policies of the dictatorial regimes of the Axis powers.

The story of food’s role as one of the causes of international conflict in the twentieth century begins in the last quarter of the previous century when the urban population in Europe shifted from a grain-to a meat-based diet. This development went hand in hand with the emergence of a new global food economy. Germany felt disadvantaged by the terms of the international food trade, dominated as it was by the United States and Great Britain and its empire. Indeed, Germany went to war in 1914 hoping to establish for itself a stronger position in the balance of international powers. After 1918 nationalists within Germany, Italy and Japan continued to see international trade and politics as the stumbling block which prevented their respective nations from realizing their potential as great powers. In Japan concerns about the poverty and inefficiency of the agrarian sector and the security of the urban food supply allowed right-wing militarist groups to gain power and influence within the government. In ultranationalist Japan, fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany these anxieties fuelled the desire for empire which would not only provide the resources to wage war but transform these nations into great players on the world stage.

If dreams of agrarian empires drove Germany, Italy and Japan into waging war, the plans Germany and Japan hatched for transforming these empires resulted in some of the most murderous criminal actions of the war. The implementation of the German General Plan for the East in Poland and the Japanese Settlement of One Million Households in Manchuria demonstrate that food was an engine not only of war but also of German and Japanese atrocities.