Canned Rations

Generally speaking German filed rations were considerably different than that of other nations. The time honored battle tested method of using field kitchens at a company level with local assets supplementing provost logistics may not have always worked, but it was comfortable. Entire companies in 1945 surrendered with their field kitchens in tow, six years of fighting with a horse drawn double boiler not unlike those used over a hundred years earlier.

It’s main drawback was that as German forces became more mechanized, so did the fighting forces ability to “out run” their logistical supply, making field kitchens totally dependent on local assets. A failure that the Soviets took full advantage of.

The OKW experimented with various kinds of iron rations that were to be used if the company level kitchen was more than 24 hours out from service.  Officers could giver permission to open the iron ration and provide a single meal. The Ration was similar to the hard rations of the US but without the frills of candies, drink mix or tobacco. It contained a ration of Knäckebrot, zweibeck or some other kind of dense dry bread, and some kind of canned meat of which there were also a bevy of substitutions. Originally a specific canned pork was issued, but later many German civilian as well as captured cans from other countries were used.

Eventually a plan was hatched to try to track and account for these canned goods, and the OKW began to pack more “army issue” ration supplement cans.
These rations were packed in black enamel steel cans. While this method of storage was reported by the OKW as “favorable” actual reports of the quality of the storage were to the contrary. Even with perfect storage under cover, cans stored this way were given a shelf life of eight months. Cans examined at the 1^st German army substance depot at Eckstein near Markt Grafing noted that many cans marked as having been produced in November had already become badly rusted by the following June.
Save for a manufacture date stamp and a coded contents mark, these cans were simply black to grey-green enamel. Without the code list, their contents were luck of the draw.

The majority of the known code list is as follows-

Mixed meats and vegetables