The following is excerpts of 44-year-old Danish-German soldier Peter Paulsen's diary entry from February 24, 1917 on his experience with starving German children. Translated by myself:
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"We left Gnesen on February 24th, traveled across Germany and had many small experiences underway. One of the most gripping was in Essen, where the train halted. We were very well-supplied with food stuffs.
A fence was placed outside around the train, and on the other side of this chain there were thousands of women and children, begging for bread, but were rejected.
They weren't allowed to approach the train and the soldiers. The guards proceeded with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. We pitied those starving humans who stood and asked for bread.
Some soldiers walked from carriage to carriage asking if we would offer them our support in trying to get permission to take the children aboard the trains, so they could have some bread. The whole train load were willing to do so.
On a given signal we all rushed out of the train - our leader stood forward and threatened the train haulier with not willingly going back onto the train before the children had come over to us and were handed some bread.
The haulier was forced to swallow the bitter pill and the children came in the masses; we were happy to share the bread with them."

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