Kommissbrot, formerly Kommißbrot, is a dark type of German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 bread, baked from rye and other flours, historically used for military provisions.

Description

Kommissbrot is a dark bread made from rye and wheat flours as a sourdough

Sourdough

Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of biological leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast...

. It has a firm but not hard crust, and because it is normally baked in a loaf pan, it only develops a crust on the top. It is noted for staying fresh for long periods of time.

History

Since the 16th century, Kommiß has been used as a word for a military troop, and so Kommißbrot was used to mean the bread provided for the military, since Brot is the German word for bread, and it came to be used to denote the type of bread.

The nutitional value of kommissbrot was studied by Prausnitz in 1893 and by Wenceslaus Plagge and Georg Lebbin in 1897.

It was used as military provisions in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, when sawdust was sometimes added to the ingredients to compensate for shortages of flour, and in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. A study by M. Gerson in 1941 concluded that kommissbrot covered the daily requirements of vitamin B₁

Thiamine

Thiamine or thiamin or vitamin B1 , named as the "thio-vitamine" is a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex. First named aneurin for the detrimental neurological effects if not present in the diet, it was eventually assigned the generic descriptor name vitamin B1. Its phosphate derivatives are...

.

Following World War I, it was made available in non-military bakeries, and the recipe was changed to make a softer bread.