The leadership of Nazi germany all had lived through World War 1 so their policy was heavily influenced by their experiences of that war.

Although the Imperial German Army was well prepared for a (short) war in Europe the economic situation was diffrent. The goverment hadn't planned on shortages for the civilian population, they also hadn't expected a British declartion of war when they invaded Belgium.

This resulted in immediate shortages for the civilian population when the war began:

- Manpower, horses and equipment were needed for the Imperial Army, reducing Germany's agricultural production.

- The British (and French) Naval blockade.

- British and French diplomatic pressure on neutral continental countries like Denmark to stop/limit trade with the Central powers.

All of these led to severe problems in late 1914 and a crisis in early 1915.

- Police had a hard time keeping order in the cities.

- Morale of the army was suffering because while they were risking their lives on the frontline their families were suffering.

- Forced to change wargoals like the invasion of Romania.

To resolve all of these problems was quite difficult, as you can imagine, and especially in Imperial Germany, which was a rather complicated country. I can't go into much detail but you have to remember that Imperial Germany consisted of 4 Kingdoms, 7 Grand-Duchies, 6 Duchies, 7 Principialies, 3 City-States (republics), and 1 Imperial terriory (alsace-lorraine) with varying degree of sovereignity. (and their own armies)

Although the police was used to keep order the federal goverment and other goverments started issuing controls on production, price, transport, etc in varying degrees starting from november 1914 (wheat, bread, potatoes) and this would increase throughout the war to more and more products. In March 1915 for example farmers were ordered to start slaughtering livestock so fodder fit for you human consumption wasn't wasted on animals. Although by 1916 nearly everything was regulated by a goverment the situation was still dire. The winter of 1916 is known by the germans as the Turnip winter. Due to all the diffrent goverments their were a lot of measures taken by local goverments which increased the civil unrest on every level. (Rural vs Urban, Rich vs Poor, Regional diffrences, Ethnic vs Non-ethnic Germans, Essential people vs non-essential peopl, goverment vs farmers)

Nobody was happy with how the regulations were implemented, hunger and starvation were a severe problem, their aren't any national statistics but the rations were insufficient. One docter reported that the loss of 60 pounds for a healthy adult between 1914 and 1917 was not a rare occurence. The quote of Helmut von Gerlach written near the end of 1917 sums it up best: "Those who don't follow the rules should be imprisoned, those who do should be in an asylum."

The increasing unrest would eventually result in a breakdown of the civilian support for the war, mutiny in the armed forces and eventually revolution and the withdrawal of Germany in WW1 and the end of the monarchy.

The leadership of Nazi germany had lived through these events and were scared they would repeat themselves when the second world war began. That's why they postponed a complete civil mobilisation for a total war until it was to late.