The quotation below talks about workers, so we're talking people in a deficit from activity (like women in contest prep), but I've also discovered that German people who were not in work camps, for example women who were working clerical jobs or nursing, ALSO wasted away on 1500 calories per day (and then many were repeatedly raped by their liberators at the end of the war, but I digress). Everyone in the country, not just people in the work camps, was skin and bones.
In 1942 Göring told leaders of the occupied countries "The Führer repeatedly said, and I repeat after him, if anyone has to go hungry, it shall not be the Germans but other peoples." Below the normal rationing system, a second tier of food allocation operated for non-Aryans. From 1939, Jews were charged an extra 10% for food and were only allowed to shop after 4 p.m., when most food shops had run out of stocks. By 1942, Jews were not allowed to buy meat, eggs, or milk. A similar starvation policy was applied to the mentally ill and disabled living in institutions, particularly to children. But these policies did not work when applied to people who were expected to work for German industry. The 6.5 million industrial workers brought in from the east were each only allowed 1500 calories a day, but it soon became apparent that few could not carry out physical work at that level. Speer wanted the rations to be improved, pointing out that two workers on 1500 calories could not do the same work as one worker receiving 3000 calories. But this request came up against Nazi ideology. "It would be politically unthinkable to improve the diet of these subhumans...".More (from Wikipedia's Morgenthau Plan entry for efficiency):
In early 1946 U.S. President Harry S. Truman finally bowed to pressure from Senators, Congress and public to allow foreign relief organization to enter Germany in order to review the food situation. In mid-1946 non-German relief organizations were finally permitted to help starving German children. During 1946 the average German adult received less than 1,500 calories a day. 2,000 calories was then considered the minimum an individual can endure on for a limited period of time with reasonable health.
Ladies, if you think a sub 1000 calorie contest prep diet is okay, followed by a 1500 calorie per day offseason, please rethink your thinking. If you're being coached or otherwise advised by someone who thinks this amount of food is okay, fire that person's ass NOW!!
If you're abusing yourself in this way for whatever reason, think of what these low calories did over time to people on war rations.
