In the twelve months preceding the end of the Second World War,
the International
Committee of the Red Cross and various voluntary organizations acting
with the Red Cross, were able
to dispatch food parcels to increasingly large numbers of concentration
camp inmates in Germany and
German-controlled territory. As Allied pressure on Germany increased
during the last months of the
war, the possibilities of sending large-scale relief into the camps
prior to their liberation expanded
dramatically. However, Allied blockade policy was so deeply entrenched
that it was almost impossible
for these possibilities to be fully exploited. Official relief agencies
failed to convince Supreme
Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) that improving the
rations of the camp
inmates would not strengthen the German working force but
would alleviate the problems that SHAEF
itself would confront when it liberated the camps shortly thereafter.