Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Policy in the German Reich (1933–1945)

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The agricultural economy and agricultural policy in the National Socialist German Reich was shaped by extensive changes in the agricultural production structures and the associated association structure and legislation.

As early as 1930–1932, the National Socialists had won large numbers of supporters and votes in the farmers' associations . The representation of interests that was centralized in the Reichsnährstand after 1933 was of particular importance. As a self-governing body under the leadership of Walther Darré , it should control the market and production of agricultural products. The requirements of the blood-and-soil ideology propagated by the Reichsbauernführer collided with the requirements for modernizing and increasing agricultural production. The officially propagated self-sufficiency and independence from imports was never achieved. The relatively good nutritional situation of the Germans by European comparison until shortly before the end of the war was ultimately only possible through the millions of forced laborers and the massive exploitation of the occupied territories, which Darré's successor Herbert Backe organized and linked to a ruthless hunger policy .

initial situation

Agriculture in Germany was not very productive by international standards. Agrarian reform measures during the Weimar Republic did not have the hoped-for success; broad deleveraging of farmers after the inflation of the 1920s had been eroded again by 1932. Even a first summary of the agricultural organizations in the German-national and anti-republican-dominated Green Front in 1929 did not produce the desired impetus. The loss of territory suffered in the First World War and the loss of the colonies were particularly discussed , with the available agricultural area falling by 15 percent and the number of people employed in agriculture by 16 percent. The settlement programs of the Weimar Republic were able to develop only 939,000 hectares of additional arable land (in 1937 Germany had an agricultural area of ​​19.422 million hectares). A quarter of the arable land was cultivated by only 0.2 percent of all farms; However, the largest share of land, namely 43 percent, was still owned by the medium-sized to larger farms of 10 to 100 hectares, the size which the National Socialist farmers' representatives regarded as optimal.

At the beginning of the Nazi era (so-called seizure of power by the NSDAP on January 30, 1933), only a few foods such as sauerkraut and beets were able to supply the population entirely from within Germany. In 1937, 29 percent of the workforce in Germany, 9,388,000 people, were employed in agriculture. The number of farms was over 3 million. A farm cultivated an average of slightly more than 6 hectares (in 2007 a German farm cultivated an average of 48 hectares). For comparison: The Soviet Union had a usable area of 223.916 million hectares with 71,734,000 employees, the United States had a usable area of ​​137.333 million hectares with 10,752,000 employees. In 1937, according to the Reich Statistical Office, a Soviet farmer had about twice as much space as a German, and an American six times as much.

Within the peasantry and their organizations, Hitler's NSDAP had gained strong support from 1930–1932 (particularly in northern Germany). The " agricultural political apparatus " Walther Darrés played a special role in this, who promised himself a privileged position from a Nazi government and the realization of agrarian romantic ideas in the sense of the blood-and-soil ideology (also shared by Heinrich Himmler ) . For Hitler and a majority of the Nazi leadership, on the other hand, an increase in production and higher productivity in agriculture was in the foreground, in terms of the ability to wage war as well as to avoid supply shortages. After 1933, both - quite contradicting - goals led to a regulatory reorganization that went much further than in the industrial sector.

In the spring of 1933, Walther Darré succeeded in first taking over the top positions in the various farmers' organizations, cooperatives and chambers and then taking over the ministerial office of Hugenberg as Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture . The extensive organizations were merged in the " Reichsnährstand ", parallel to several legislative projects, agriculture was effectively separated from the regulatory mechanisms of the agricultural market .

Darré's claim and the large organization he led with more than 10,000 employees obviously failed in the face of rural exodus , poor harvests and supply shortages in 1934 and 1935. Agriculture lost its privileged position again and was included in the Nazi four-year plans, Darré increasingly disempowered.

Little of Darré's ideological ideas was implemented. It is true that the peasants were given priority in the regime's symbolic policy and, among other things, upgraded in the context of the neo-pagan " Reichserntedankfest ". In fact, the rural exodus continued unhindered. From 1933 to 1939 around 400,000 farm workers moved to the cities. A total of around 800,000 workers were lacking in rural areas in 1941. The lack of workers could only be partially compensated for by harvest aid from the Hitler Youth , the BDM compulsory year and other Nazi compulsory measures. Despite the alleged striving for self-sufficiency, it was never possible to reduce the dependency on imports, particularly in the case of feed and fats (“ fat gap ”). With the increasingly necessary mechanization of agriculture (see table), the farmers were mainly dependent on imported fuels. Disputes over access to the necessary foreign currency led to considerable internal system conflicts. Last but not least, in the everyday family life of the farmers, the ideological claim that reduced women to the role of mother collided with production policy goals that could not be achieved without their cooperation. After all, the feeding of the Germans loyal to the regime, which was largely secured until the end of the war, could only be achieved through the deployment of millions of forced laborers and the exploitation of the occupied territories.

Development of mechanization in agriculture in the German Empire 1933–1939
year Electric motors Seed drills Mowers Potato harvesters Fertilizer spreaders
1933 1.008.260 667.692 949,895 343,720 153,665
1939 1,807,405 806.452 1,363,396 458,559 233,498

Agricultural domestic policy

The agricultural policy should the highest possible degree of self-sufficiency to achieve and was for the Nazi ideology of great importance:

  • Great famines were considered to have been eradicated in Europe since the early 19th century, but at the end of the First World War the German civilian population had suffered at least 600,000 starvation and millions of undernourished people by the end of the war, especially in the " turnip winter " of 1916/17, which was negative influenced the enthusiasm for war and also contributed to the November Revolution of 1918. Because of this experience, the German rulers paid special attention to the nutritional situation.
  • During the First World War, a trade blockade by opponents of the war (see also sea ​​blockade ) led to food shortages. In order to make themselves independent of imports, the National Socialists strived for a high degree of self-sufficiency.
  • With over 9,000,000 employees in agriculture and a large number of other people indirectly connected to agriculture, agriculture was an important economic factor and a significant voter potential for the German Nationalists and National Socialists, alongside industry and commerce with a total of over 14,000,000 employees.
  • The peasantry played an important role in the “ blood and soil ideology ” of the National Socialists, which was reflected in a number of laws to protect and promote German farmers.

Agricultural politician

Alfred Hugenberg
Richard Walther Darré, 1937
Herbert Backe (1942)

The post of Minister for Agriculture and Food in the Hitler cabinet went to the right-wing conservative industrialist and media entrepreneur Alfred Hugenberg on January 30, 1933 . He tried to strengthen German agriculture with minimum prices, import quotas and other protectionist measures. The climax of this policy was the World Economic Conference in London , at which he opposed free trade without prior consultation with the cabinet and called for the return of the formerly German colonies and areas in the east. His appearance led to a scandal, whereupon the National Socialists stated that Hugenberg had only expressed his personal opinion at the conference. On June 27, 1933, Hugenberg resigned from all his offices and his party, the DNVP , dissolved.

Walther Darré followed him . The Argentine-born minister is considered one of the most important ideologues of the Third Reich. He joined the SS and the NSDAP in 1930. One of his first tasks was the establishment of a farmers' association, the so-called “ Reichsnährstand ”, which developed into one of the largest organizations in National Socialist Germany and was headed by Darré himself. At first he was on friendly terms with Heinrich Himmler , the leader of the SS , whose opinions and views he enthusiastically supported. This was shown, among other things, by the fact that he urged all senior members of the Ministry of Agriculture to join the SS. In his opinion, the preservation of the peasantry deserved the greatest attention; He considered the modern urban population only to be a momentary negative outgrowth of society and he wanted to fight vehemently against the decline of the rural population. He saw his views confirmed by the falling birth rates since urbanization (see demography of Germany ).

Darré lost a lot of power by including agriculture in the four-year plan . During his time as Minister of Agriculture, conflicts with other politicians became noticeable again and again: for example, he and Hjalmar Schacht were in a constant foreign exchange dispute , which led to his influence becoming increasingly weak. The beginning of the Second World War and the ensuing complete subordination of the Reichsnährstand to the Reichsfoodministerium was to be equated with a final disempowerment of Darré. Darré had already lost a lot of influence to Herbert Backe after he accepted a position in the Göring management of the four-year plan. Darré was Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture until May 16, 1942, when he was, at least officially, on leave due to his state of health. In fact, the relationship between Darré and Himmler had been clouded since the late 1930s, while the relationship between Himmler and his State Secretary Backe kept getting better. He had also angered Hitler with a proposal for a drastic cut in food rations , which would have been too unpopular for the current precarious situation after Stalingrad and El Alamein .

Darré was followed by the previous State Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Herbert Backe. Backe's family emigrated to Georgia in the early 19th century, where Backe was born. It was not for nothing that Backe would later become so enthusiastic about the Nazis' “ Drang nach Osten ” ideology, as he himself came from such a settler family. In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, he was interned as a German citizen near the Urals , from where he fled back to Germany during the unrest in 1918. In 1922 he joined the NSDAP and from 1931 began to be politically active for it. In 1933 he was promoted to State Secretary in Darré's Ministry of Agriculture. In 1936 he took over the management of the “Agriculture Business Group” of the four-year plan, which made his position stronger than the Darrés; a certain rivalry arose between the two. The difference between Backe and Darré was less in their ideology than in their character. Darré was seen as a weak person who could not assert himself in front of political opponents, while Backe, like Albert Speer , was seen as a rational and strong-willed technocrat . On May 23, 1942, he succeeded Darré as Minister of Agriculture and remained so until the end of the war.

Ideological foundations

The blood-and-soil ideology was not specifically founded by the National Socialists, but was used intensively for propaganda purposes. As early as 1850, in the course of increasing urbanization and industrialization, among other things, elements of agrarian romanticism, anti-urban reflexes and profound anti-Semitism were propagated in the völkisch movement . The widespread life reform movement also relied in part on such fears. In the German Empire, the agrarian milieu was still firmly integrated into society. The gradual loss of importance in the Weimar Republic led to an alienation from democracy.

Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl was an important proponent of an ideology of "big-city hostility and agrarian romanticism". The history philosopher Oswald Spengler also uses the term, in his famous work The Downfall of the Occident , but speaks more philosophically and historically than ideologically and politically of the “battle between blood and soil”. Richard W. Darré often referred to Spengler. Darré himself idealized the peasant class; He published several treatises on this topic, such as "The peasantry as a source of life for the Nordic race" or "New nobility from blood and soil". Later, when Darré became 'Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture', his ideology shaped almost every law he passed, especially the “ Reichserbhofgesetz ” of Sept. 29, 1933, one of the basic laws of the Nazis. Section 1 of this law explicitly stated: " The Reich government wants to preserve the peasantry as a source of blood for the German people while safeguarding old German inheritance ."

After the global economic crisis of autumn 1929 became noticeable in Germany (from 1930), the National Socialists had propagated privileges for agriculture, especially for small and medium-sized farmers, as well as for the so-called middle class in general. Between 1930 and 1932 they succeeded in attracting a large number of the former German national voters from the Hugenbergs DNVP to their side: the DNVP was increasingly perceived as an interest group of the large agrarians. The management staff in the Reichslandbund and the Association of German Farmers' Associations changed accordingly . In the southwest, the special role of the Württemberg farmers and wine gardeners' association kept the NSDAP's vote results below the Reich average. In northern Germany, the rural people's movement was sometimes violent.

Hitler himself supported Darré in his ideological endeavors, but above all because the rural people were a great potential voter for him. Even if the idea of ​​the “new nobility” dominated the agricultural ideology on German farms, reality presented a different picture. Samples carried out by the “ Reichsnährstand ” in 1938 showed that forced sterilization was carried out on many farms and that an above-average number of farm workers had an intellectual disability. The rural exodus continued unhindered, to which infrastructure projects such as the construction of the motorway or the construction of the West Wall contributed as well as the armament of the Wehrmacht , which created new jobs in industry.

Legislative measures, research and education policy

In addition to agriculture, the Nazi regime also intensified research in related areas such as ecology (see Reinhold Tüxen , Alwin Seifert ), spatial planning (see Walter Christaller , Konrad Meyer ) and geography ( Carl Troll , Josef Schmithüsen ), soil science ( cf. Fritz Scheffer ) as well as forestry and forestry and introduced corresponding legislative projects. After the propaganda intensively accompanied Reich Animal Protection Act of 1933 of was Kurt coat commented "Empire forest devastation Law" in 1934 adopted the first, reach Forstgesetzgebung, 1936, the Reich Nature Protection Act and 1938 the Reich Hunting Act , including a Hege bid decided, all of which survived the end of the regime. The country-wide soil appraisal based on the Soil Appraisal Act , begun in 1934, made it possible to collect comprehensive data on soil quality and productivity figures.

Genetics and Hereditary Sciences

In the area of ​​genetics and hereditary sciences, preliminary work by Erwin Baur was used, who had systematically used genetic knowledge for agricultural purposes as early as 1914 as head of the Institute for Hereditary Science in Berlin.

Today's Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne is a direct successor to the Institute in Müncheberg founded by Baur in 1928. Baur, originally a doctor, was also co-editor of the journals Archive for Race and Social Biology and People and Race . While breeding research before 1918 was particularly focused on the colonial economy, after the First World War the focus was shifted to domestic plants and Germany's agricultural self-sufficiency. Baur played a central role in the autarky demands from 1930–1932 and welcomed the Nazi takeover. After Baur's death in 1933, breeding research in the Third Reich was supported with extensive funding; likewise the u. a. Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics sponsored by Baur , in which (after Baur's death) the so-called “race research ” was a focus under the National Socialists .

Renewable raw materials

Between 1933 and 1945, the agricultural scientist Konrad Meyer , among other things as Vice President of the German Research Foundation, decisively determined the content of university courses in agricultural science and the organization of agricultural research in Germany. Meyer managed to concentrate almost a third of the research funds of the Reich Research Council in the field of agricultural science and general biology . The closing of the "protein, oil and fiber gap" (see also fat gap ) was viewed as strategic , which among other things resulted in unsuccessful research projects for hardy olives and soybean cultivation in Germany. They were more successful in the field of renewable raw materials such as rapeseed, flax, hemp, rapeseed and forage plants. The German Tibet Expedition Ernst Schäfer tried, among other things, to find wild plants for breeding hardy cereals. During the war, researchers from Germany used resources, collections and research results in the occupied territories. Institutes were founded in Sofia and Vienna, among others, and by the SS on the subject of plant genetics in Lannach near Graz .

A central research project, personally driven by Himmler, was the attempted production of rubber from rubber dandelion ( Taraxacum bicorne). After the SS had captured the plant's seeds in the Soviet Union in 1942, experiments were carried out on a farm and sub-camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp near Rajsko under the direction of Joachim Caesar . At the beginning of 1945, the associated plant cultivation command comprised over 150 female prisoners who had been transferred from the Ravensbrück concentration camp ; Soviet scientists were also interned there.

Spatial planning and spatial planning

Another research focus after 1935 concerned structural problems in rural areas and spatial research. In 1935 Meyer founded the " Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung " ( Reich Working Group for Spatial Research ) and thus institutionalized the research area of spatial planning in Germany. His central participation in the General Plan East and membership in the SS did not prevent him from continuing this again after 1945, first in the agricultural sector and until 1968 as professor for spatial planning in central functions.

Nutrition and public health

In the area of ​​nutrition and popular education, the recommendations of the German Society for Nutritional Research, founded in 1935, played an important role, which continued to have an impact after 1945. Gerhard Wagner, the head of the top medical associations, tried to organize a "Reich working group of associations for natural living and healing". This association existed until 1941 and was then transferred to the "German Public Health Association". With the coming into force of the four-year plan in 1936 at the latest, an initially planned “synthesis” of conventional medicine and naturopathy in the sense of “German medicine” took a back seat, the focus was placed on a diet adapted to the needs of the war, simple measures to maintain personal health and nursing at home .

Became known Werner Kollath , located in the Third Reich with racial hygiene profiled writings and as a pioneer of post-1945 value nutrition occurred.

Integration of agriculture in the four-year plan

In October 1936 the so-called four - year plan was announced at the Nazi Party Congress. This had two major tasks:

"I. The German army must be operational in 4 years.
II. The German economy must be capable of war in 4 years. "

The four-year plan aimed at the establishment of military capability as well as the need to economically guarantee the supply of the German people. In his memorandum on the four-year plan , Hitler formulated in 1936: "We are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves on our own basis [...] The final solution lies in an expansion of the living space or the raw material and nutritional basis of our people."

The aim was to achieve the greatest possible self-sufficiency and production through greater controls and regulations on the part of the state. Primarily the armaments industry was meant, but since the imports of agricultural products could not be restricted to the desired extent, agriculture was also subject to the four-year plan. The question of whether the forced armament could be continued in view of the lack of foreign currency and raw materials led to internal government power struggles between Hermann Göring , Darré and in particular Hjalmar Schacht (1933 to 1939 Reichsbank President and from 1934 to 1937 Reich Economics Minister ), which Göring won . Goering, who was entrusted with the implementation of the plan, was given the right to intervene in the powers of other ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture; According to Hitler, "he [...] was entitled to issue instructions to all authorities, including the highest Reich authorities [...]." Göring set up several "business groups" to organize the four-year plan, including the "Agriculture Business Group" to head it he explained to Herbert Backe. Backe was able to give instructions to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Reichsnährstand without Richard Walther Darré's consent. Measures that Göring and Backe decided to take included: B. lowering the price of fertilizers, increasing the price of agricultural products, state subsidies for the purchase of machines, amelioration , a ban on feeding rye, ban on grain burning and an obligation to deliver all grain except personal needs. Furthermore, the state could now intervene in the management of farms that were not hereditary farms.

As a result of these measures, agricultural revenues increased by a quarter from 1936 to 1939, fertilizer use increased by a fifth and the expenditure on agricultural machinery almost tripled. The number of tractors owned by German farms in 1939 was 66,000; In 1933 there were 24,000. Cultivation increased, the area under cultivation of sugar beet was around 389,000 hectares in 1936 and 537,000 hectares in 1939. The cultivation area of hemp also increased almost threefold. These increases are largely due to the budget that the Agriculture Business Group received from the four-year plan authority. In the first version of the plan, agriculture was granted only 3.1 percent of the budget, in the fourth version in 1937 16 percent of the total of 8.6 billion. However, it should be noted with these figures that the population growth was about seven percent at the same time. Despite these advances, agriculture continued to rely on imports, especially for feed and fats .

Agricultural foreign policy

Even in the early days of the National Socialists, foreign policy was strongly influenced by agricultural interests. In propaganda speeches , the German lack of space was repeatedly pointed out, and reference was made to the comparatively better situation of Eastern European countries . " Living space " and " supplementary space " should be conquered to improve the food situation. Darré was of the opinion, however, that this goal could not be achieved with the means available at the time, he said:

“First and foremost, it is necessary to see the goal and to deal with it. Such a political goal must (sic!) Be passed on from mouth to mouth on German farms and must (sic!) Be a natural basis for teaching in our farm schools. Then one day the people will also follow that statesman who seizes the opportunities presented to him to open up space to the east for our people without space . "

- Richard W. Darré, 1936

Agricultural considerations also influenced the planning of the war. The invasion of Czechoslovakia was scheduled so that farm workers were available for the army after the harvest. The invasion of Poland was also important for the food supply, as Poland had a self-sufficiency rate of almost 100 percent. Hitler took up this topic in his speech on March 8, 1939:

“As for Hungary and Romania , there is no question that they belong in the vital area of ​​Germany. The case of Poland, as well as appropriate pressure, will undoubtedly make them give in. Then we will have absolute control over the immeasurable sources [...]. The same can be said of Yugoslavia . "

- Adolf Hitler, 1939

General plan east

The General Plan Ost was a plan drawn up by the agricultural scientist and SS-Oberführer Konrad Meyer (1901–1973) for the agricultural restructuring of the conquered Eastern European areas for the benefit of the German population. It was the basis for the Eastern Settlement Program, which envisaged the large-scale resettlement of millions of Germans to the Eastern Territories, as well as the deportation or murder of the local populations who were viewed as racially inferior. The Nazi regime wanted to obtain the manpower required for these projects from forced labor , which was one of the triggers for the mass deportation of European Jews. The General Plan Ost remained top secret for fear of local resistance, such as the Wannsee Conference . The National Socialists hoped that the colonization of the Eastern European areas would primarily provide agricultural resources in order to secure the future of the “ master race ” - despite the high birth rate .

According to this plan, around 30 million people should fall victim to Germany's drive to expand into arable land, even though the country was much less populated than Germany. While Germany had a population density of 135 / km² in 1938 , the Soviet Union only had 13 / km². It was planned to shift the focus of European agriculture to Eastern Europe. After the Second World War, the eastern areas were to be made fertile through ecological landscaping. When they are implemented, the “General Order on the Design of the Landscape in the Integrated Eastern Regions of December 21, 1942” should be followed.

Forced evacuation of the Polish population from the " Warthegau " annexed after the attack on Poland (1939)

General settlement plan

The General Plan East included the “General Settlement Plan”, which envisaged the relocation of almost 10 million Germans to the East within 20 years. The borders of Germany should be extended to the east by about 1000 kilometers. Statements by Hitler that the Volga should one day become Germany's Mississippi were oriented more towards the settlement of the American continent than towards the historical German settlement in the east. When planning, particular emphasis was placed on a "healthy soil distribution", the average farm should cultivate 20-30 ha of land, the three economic sectors should ideally be balanced, see table:

Area The ideals of the SS Reich average 1933
Agricultural professionals 35 21st
Craft and industry 35 39
Trade and transport 15th 17th
Public services 7th 8th
Other 8th 15th

Note: All values ​​are given in percent.

The table shows that the general plan only wanted to change the population structure in favor of agriculture. All other sectors of the economy should make workers free.

The goals of the general settlement plan could only be achieved after a war had been won. The plan envisaged a total of 67 billion RM for the implementation, about 2/3 of the gross domestic product of the Third Reich at the time. A huge inflow of private capital was expected. The labor force required to implement the plan was estimated at 400,000 to 800,000 people, 175,000 of whom were slave laborers. In early 1941, however, “only” 60,000 people were imprisoned in the concentration camps of the Reich. Because the number of prisoners was too small for the construction project, it was decided in September 1941 to build two more camps, the Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration camps , which together had a capacity of 275,000 people.

The further military development made the resettlement plans of the General Plan East obsolete. After the development of the plan and the eastern settlement projects in 1941/1942, the mass deportation and murder of European Jews in connection with the Wannsee Conference in early 1942 was put on a systematic basis. In advance, the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories wanted to know that economic issues in relation to the "executions of Jews" were "fundamentally disregarded".

The hunger plan

Starved Soviet prisoners of war in Mauthausen concentration camp

The Hunger Plan, also known as the Backe Plan, was drawn up in 1941 by Herbert Backe. His aim was to bring the Ukrainian grain surplus to the Reich and thereby bring the Soviet Union into supply difficulties. The deaths of up to 30 million people were expected and accepted. The records of General Georg Thomas from the Defense Economic and Armaments Office of the OKW show that everyone involved knew the extent of human life this decision would require. Due to military and security problems, the plan was only partially implemented, mostly with Jews and prisoners of war. In most of the occupied cities they were allowed rations of 420 kcal , if any . Soldiers had almost ten times as much available. Probably the largest group of victims of the hunger plan were the Soviet prisoners of war. Of the total of 5.7 million Soviet soldiers captured, 3.3 million had died by the end of the war; Two out of three million Red Army soldiers captured in the first year of the war died by the spring of 1942, most of them starving to death. According to Yale historian Timothy Snyder , “there was a conscious intention to starve her. If it hadn't been for the Holocaust, it would be remembered as the worst war crime of modern times. "

Trade policy

The economic and trade policy of the Nazi government was geared towards self-sufficiency in a large European area. At the beginning of the Second World War, according to Nazi information, the self-sufficiency rate was 84 percent. In 1927 it was 65 percent. The low share in the Weimar Republic was due, among other things, to trade with overseas. According to Hjalmar Schacht's “New Plan”, the focus of trade should be shifted to European nations, which in the event of a conflict should guarantee a blockade-safe supply of food and raw materials through contracts. After the annexation of Austria (March 1938), Germany bordered on southeastern Europe and thus had optimal conditions for extensive trade agreements. In the period between the occupation of the Sudetenland as part of the Munich Agreement of autumn 1938 and the occupation of the "rest of the Czech Republic", Germany benefited from the commodity trading agreements and foreign exchange income of the former Czechoslovakia, which, in contrast to Germany, had the most-favored nation clause .

In 1939 the German-Soviet economic agreement on Soviet raw material supplies to the German Reich was negotiated as a preliminary stage to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact . In return for Soviet orders for machines, goods and foreign currency, large quantities of raw materials were delivered from the Soviet Union, including 1,000,000 tons of wheat and vegetables worth 120 million Reichsmarks. The treaty was fulfilled by both sides until the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.

After the National Socialists came to power, Germany tied itself more closely to Southeastern Europe in terms of trade policy (see table):

Food 1932 1938
flesh 7531 30,031
Grain 368.271 673.737
Oil fruits 23,519 68,988
fruit 78.114 129,704
vegetables 10,751 19,563
total 488.186 922.023

The figure refers to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, all figures are given in tons.

Agricultural and food policy remained oriented and dependent on cross-border trade.

Food Self-sufficiency rate
Grain -7424
sugar -190
Fruits, vegetables, fruits -1482
oil cake -4019
Oils and fats -1472
flesh +6
Bacon and Lard +58
butter +175
cheese +19
Eggs in billions of pieces +1967

Import requirement (-) or export surplus (+) of agricultural products in the German Reich in 1000 tons, 1939

After the war began, the food shortfalls were largely claimed from the occupied territories as war repairs . The extent to which these demands were implemented is shown by the export statistics from France to the Third Reich, see table.

Food
Reichsmarschall demand		 Delivered
Bread grain 800,000 666.234
Feed grain 600,000 540.014
flesh 220,000 163,312
fat 24,000 18,626
Potatoes 400,000 369.913
cheese 12,000 9,905
Vegetables
and fruits		 424,000 171,308

Figures in tons, financial year 1943/44

According to export statistics, the required amount of food was rarely delivered, partly because French agriculture was not even productive enough to supply France without imports. Since the Third Reich and the Wehrmacht also had to be supplied, there were in some cases considerable supply shortages in the French cities.

The Reichserbhofgesetz

In autumn 1933 the Reichserbhofgesetz (Reichserbhofgesetz) was enacted, which not only had the goal of optimizing agriculture as much as possible, but was also intended to anchor National Socialist ideology in German law. Richard Walther Darré announced:

“The farms should be protected against over-indebtedness and fragmentation in inheritance, so that they remain in the hands of free farmers as the legacy of the clan. The aim is to work towards a healthy distribution of the size of the agricultural property, since a large number of viable small and medium-sized farms, as evenly distributed as possible over the whole country, is the best guarantee for the health of people and the state. "

- Richard W. Darré, 1933

The law was promulgated at the first Reichserntedankfest on October 1, 1933. In contrast to membership in the Reichsnährstand, the farmer was not obliged to register his farm as an hereditary farm. A farm could only apply for an hereditary farm role if it was not smaller than 7.47 hectares (the size that was generally sufficient to support a farming family) and not larger than 125 hectares. Deviations were possible and required but a permit. Honorary appointments were also possible, for example at Gut Hindenburgs.

The arrangement .

Owners of the hereditary farm had to be " German or blood of the same tribe ", German citizens, "respectable" and initially male; women were only admitted from 1943 onwards. The term “respectable” was interpreted to mean that Jews, people with disabilities and other people classified by the Nazis as unworthy of life were excluded from it. The actual number of Jews in agriculture was small, but the law also had an ideological effect: Since the introduction of the law, only owners of hereditary estates were allowed to call themselves farmers; all other farm owners had to call themselves a farmer. This made it possible to determine, among other things, the political reliability, and the hereditary farm farmer was symbolically placed above the farmers. Furthermore, the estate was "inalienable", so it could neither be pledged nor given as security for loans. The aim was to remove the “ capitalist commodity character” from the court . However, since this regulation left almost no investment opportunity open for the farmer, specially convened recruiting courts decided whether in some cases the farm could be used as loan security. The hereditary farmers were obliged to recognize the new regulation of inheritance law . This right of inheritance was in breach of traditional inheritance, because the farmer was no longer free to distribute his property to his descendants at his own discretion. From then on, the succession was precisely determined and could no longer be determined, for example, by will; see figure on the right.

With this right of inheritance one wanted to prevent a farm from being divided up among the farmer's descendants, i.e. splintered and thus economically unstable. The attempt to compensate for the fact that many descendants were disadvantaged in this new inheritance law by the fact that the heir had to provide them with education and training and also had to grant them “home refuge” if they got into trouble through no fault of their own. The fixed order prevented many farmers from having their farm registered as an hereditary farm. In regions where inheritance sharing was common, such as southern and western Germany, the law was very unpopular. But even in areas in which the right to inheritance was predominant, such as northern Germany, the peasants were not satisfied with the law, as it was felt to be dictated from above; Without consulting the farmers, they had been denied their right to freely decide on their own property. It was only after the law was amended several times to appease the farmers, for example through the creation of the so-called anhery courts, that it was accepted by the majority of the farmers.

The Reichserbhofgesetz was not free from bureaucracy and legal "small stuff": you first had to go to a notary to file an application; The farm then had to be entered in the land register as an hereditary farm, and thirdly, various conditions had to be met - all of which cost time and money. In 1939, of a total of 3,198,563 agricultural and forestry holdings, 689,625 holdings were registered as hereditary farms. The proportion of hereditary farms on the farms was only 21.6 percent, but these hereditary farms managed over 38 percent of the total arable land. The largest proportion of the hereditary farms were in the size range of 10 to 15 ha, the size that the National Socialists regarded as ideal. Immediately afterwards followed the farms between 25 and 50 hectares, which alone owned almost 30 percent of the heritage farm area. 21,000 farms were registered that were outside the size norm, i.e. smaller than 7.5 or larger than 125 hectares.

The Reichsnährstand

Sign of an ancestral farm awarded by the Schleswig-Holstein State Farmers Association

On September 13, 1933, all agricultural businesses in Germany were compulsorily combined into one of the largest organizations or professional representations in Germany to date, the so-called Reichsnährstand (RNS), headed by the Reichsbauernführer Richard Walther Darré.

Not only farmers, but all businesses and people who had to do with the processing, processing and trading of agricultural products were interconnected in the RNS, which gave it enormous influence over the whole of agriculture and nutrition in Germany. Every farm owner had to hand in 2 Reichsmarks per 1000 Reichsmark unit value annually. 20 rural farmers were subordinate to the Reichsnährstand, 521 district farmers were subject to these and 50,153 local farmers were subject to these. The number of members in 1934 was over 12 million people, a total of almost 40 percent of the German workforce. Of the total annual turnover of 30 billion Reichsmarks for all members, the RNS was the largest economic unit in the world. The associated ministry had almost 2,000 employees at peak times, and the total workforce was 20,000.

The RNS controlled prices and production. Initially, this system was only applied to wheat and rye and was extended to every major agricultural product by 1936. The law for securing prices for domestic grain of September 26, 1933 prescribed fixed producer prices. This guaranteed the farmer stable sales independent of the market. Farmers' incomes had risen by more than a quarter by 1935, while the taxes that the farm owners had to pay fell. As a result, the prices for agricultural products in Germany were almost twice as high as on the world market . Parts of the Reichsnährstand survived the end of the Second World War; officially the Reichsnährstand was not completely dissolved until January 1948.

The Generation Battle

Immediately after the NSDAP came to power, the yields of agriculture grew: There was an increase from 22.8 million tons of grain in 1931 to 24.3 million tons in 1933. In 1934, however, the harvest yields fell by up to in part due to the weather to 20 percent, which ran counter to the National Socialist autarky efforts of imports. In order to motivate the rural population for the goals of Nazi agricultural policy, Richard W. Darré called for the so-called "production battle" at the second Reichserntedankfest on September 30, 1934 in front of around 700,000 participants, a war rhetoric that was being adopted in more and more areas of society. The concept was developed by Herbert Backe, the then State Secretary for Food and Agriculture. Above all, it reminded of the "responsibility of the farmers towards the German population" in order to motivate the farmers to increase productivity and to achieve food self-sufficiency. One month after the announcement, the Reichsnährstand published the 10 commandments of the production battle, which was primarily intended to encourage farmers to use existing resources efficiently.

  1. Use your soil intensively: Germany, which is poor in space, cannot afford extensiveness.
  2. Fertilize more and fertilize properly! Where more is supposed to grow, more substances are also used.
  3. Always use perfect seeds.
  4. Manage versatile and avoid one-sidedness in cultivation ; because versatility is security, one-sidedness but uncertainty in earnings for you and the German people.
  5. Manage versatile, but avoid increasing the cultivation area of ​​the fruits that the German people do not need and that give unsafe harvests in your business.
  6. Build green fodder as a catch crop, so you save concentrate and the people foreign currency.
  7. Improve your soil through amelioration . Turn wasteland into farmland.
  8. Keep only as much cattle as you can feed with your own forage.
  9. Keep performance animals and not incapacitated eaters.
  10. Keep sheep (note: sheep keeping should ensure wool self-sufficiency)! You, too, let (sic!) Your own farm's fodder go to waste on fields, paths and stubble for you and Germany. Generate more from your soil, use what is generated sparingly and correctly with your cattle - then, German farmer, you serve your people and your future. Again it is about being and not being of your people and thus also about you. So don't hesitate: act!

The concept of the production battle had already been used by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1925 , but he only called for the “ wheat battle ”. Initially, the production battle was intended as a one-off propaganda campaign , but after another bad harvest in 1935, which in some cases even undercut the 1934 harvest, it was decided to continue it, and from then on every harvest was called "production battle". After the beginning of the Second World War, the production battle was expanded to become a “war production battle”, which, however, hardly differed from the previous commandments of the production battle.

Food situation in Germany

The rulers in the Third Reich derived the importance of adequate nutrition for a satisfied population, primarily from their own experiences from the First World War. Herbert Backe wrote that “the 1914/18 World War [...] was not lost at the front , but at home because the food industry [...] failed. It had to fail because German agriculture was not productive enough to be able to meet the increased demands. "

An agricultural politician of the Third Reich said that "[...] supplying a Wehrmacht with food is as important as supplying it with ammunition ." In order to prevent a collapse of the civilian population, the National Socialists initiated measures very early on to ensure that the to secure the German people.

Before the war

After the NSDAP came to power, the crop yields were too high and the RNS was able to build up supplies. But from 1934 to 1937 the harvest yields fell so sharply that people in Germany spoke of a “food crisis”. In addition, wages did not go up, but food prices officially went up by eight percent, probably more than that. After the Reichsnährstand called for a production battle in 1934, imports could be temporarily reduced in order to use the scarce foreign currency for the armaments industry, but consumption remained the same and so for the first time there was a serious food shortage . In the fall of 1935 and January 1936, groceries such as butter, eggs, meat and fat became scarce and expensive, and in the big cities you had to queue at grocery stores.

Put in relation: A skilled worker earned an average of 78.5 pfennigs an hour in 1936. For 500 g of Gouda cheese, consumers paid 1.40 RM, for the same amount of edible oil and salami 1.30, for coffee even 2.50 and for 1 kg of butter 3.10 RM. Beer was comparatively cheap at 88 pfennigs per liter. The main food of the Germans was potatoes, 5 kilos of which could be had for only 50 pfennigs. Overall, the average German is likely to have used up about half of their total household budget on food and beverages.

The Berlin police reported that as a result the anger of the population at the government and its pricing policy in 1935 was alarmingly great, communist remarks were made and the Hitler salute was largely not used. The food supply of the population was therefore important to keep the regime in power. However, it was assumed that the allocation of ration cards would have further worsened the mood of the population.

In October 1935 and again in the spring of 1936, Hitler therefore approved an increase in the provision of foreign currency for agricultural products, mainly for fats, which at least partially alleviated the supply problems. Nevertheless, these foreign currencies were still far below the level of the Weimar Republic, which had provided almost twice as much foreign currency for food imports. As a result, from 1934 onwards, many propaganda campaigns for the economical use of food were introduced. In newspapers, for example, recipes and menus were published that consisted of exclusively domestic products. For example, the switch from meat to fish was praised, as a lot of plant-based feed had to be provided for animal husbandry, and the consumption of potatoes, “folk bread” and sauerkraut was recommended. Meat products were usually so expensive that they were only occasionally consumed in average households, which is also indicated by the decline in livestock numbers, see table. One wanted to counteract the spoilage of food with slogans such as “Fight against the spoil”, since according to estimates the German economy caused 1.5 billion RM annually in damage from spoiled food.

German rich Horses Bovine Pigs
1933 3,408 19,811 24,014
1934 3,370 19,266 23,298
1935 3,390 18,938 22,827
1936 3,410 20,088 23,892
1937 3,434 20,504 23,847
1938 3,446 19,934 23,567
1939 3,023 19,948 25,240
1940 3,093 19,663 21,578

All information is based on 1,000 pieces.

Since 1938, shortly before the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the RNS began to stock up on food in order to guarantee supplies to the civilian population as well as to the armed forces in the event of war. The RNS had been promoting the construction of granaries and warehouses since 1934 . In February 1939 there were a total of 4,700 granaries in Germany with a total volume of 25 million tons. The Reichsnährstand had stored 8.8 million tons of grain in 1939, enough to supply the German population with bread for over a year. According to the Reich Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the stored supplies only lasted until 1942, due to the poor harvests in 1940 and 1941. The food crisis, however, did not threaten the existence of the Germans; The harvest yields could no longer meet domestic demand until after the start of the war, see table.

Overall, the imbalances in pricing policy, which were caused by the RNS, among other things, had a negative effect on the population's approval of the Nazi regime.

German rich 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 * 1939 * 1940 * 1941 * 1942 * 1943 *
Grain harvest 24.3 20.3 21.0 20.9 21.1 29.6 27.5 24 23.6 22.7 23.9
Domestic consumption 20.3 18.8 20.4 19.5 19.1 25.1 27.9 27.7 24.9 24.2 25th
Net import −0.4 1.1 0.0 1.2 1.6 2.5 2.1 2.2 3.0 5.1 4.6
Stock levels
at the beginning of the year		 2.0 3.1 3.4 1.7 2.0 4.8 8.8 7.5 3.1 1.8 2.5

All figures are in millions of tons
* Greater German Empire after expansion policy

During the war

A few weeks before the war, Germany had a self-sufficiency rate of 83 percent, which was a significant increase compared to the 68 percent of 1928, but was still not sufficient to protect itself from a possible trade blockade by the Allies. As a result, the German regime introduced ration cards that were in use for most of the war. Immediately after the beginning of the war, bread, meat, fat, cheese, milk, sugar, jam and eggs were rationed, and from 1942 on, potatoes were also rationed; while vegetables, fruit, fish and poultry were subject to more relaxed consumption rules. The allocation was made by the food offices, which issued the food cards to the communities and through them to the population. The recipients of these rationings can be roughly divided into 3 groups: the civilian population, the armed forces and forced laborers. In the civilian population, exceptions have been made for heavy workers, heavy laborers, pregnant or breastfeeding women, children and the sick. The food expenditure for soldiers in 1939 was 4000 kcal, that of civilians 2570 kcal. In an international comparison, Germany's rations were high, see table, which, however, indicates a critical supply situation in the other European countries rather than good supply in the German Reich. Rationing was given irregularly to prisoners of war - at least the Soviets - and Jews who did not work. By February 1, 1942, 2 million of 3.2 million Soviet prisoners of war had perished, that is just over 60 percent. For comparison: in the First World War, 5.4 percent of 1.4 million Russians captured were killed.

Physiological energy consumption of normal consumers in January 1941–1944
countries 1941 1942 1943 1944
Germany 1990 1750 1980 1930
Italy 1010 950 990 1065
Belgium 1360 1365 1320 1555
protectorate 1690 1785 1920 1740
Finland 1940 1491 1630 1780
France 1365 1115 1080 1115
Baltic states - 1305 1305 1420
Netherlands 2050 1825 1765 1580
Norway 1620 1385 1430 1480
Poland 845 1070 855 1200

Since the supply of the population with sufficient food was important for the regime, the food problem was directly included in the war considerations. Göring, for example, classified silos as "directly important to the war effort". In 1940 the military leadership came to the conclusion that the supply from its own resources could only be maintained for another year at most. But just supplying the 3 million German soldiers in Operation Barbarossa (Russian campaign) was already too much for the German supplies. Herbert Backe therefore worked out a plan with Hermann Göring according to which the entire German Eastern Army was instructed to "feed on the country". This plan could only be partially implemented, which is why Backe finally sent monthly deliveries of basic foodstuffs to the Wehrmacht. The priority in nutrition can be underscored very well with a quote from Göring: "When there is starvation, it is not a German who goes hungry, but someone else."

Hardly any German died of malnutrition by the end of the war. Only during and after the end of the war did supply bottlenecks arise, but these were gradually eliminated by Allied aid deliveries. The supply bottlenecks were mainly caused by the fact that all available resources were invested in the armaments industry during the war. For example, the production of agricultural machinery declined by up to 90 percent from 1939 to 1944, and artificial fertilizers were increasingly in short supply, since the same nitrogen was needed for their production as for powder production . In February 1945, the Finance Ministry in Berlin had a spread of the " black market determined", "it was only available in the countries that were on the verge of collapse." 1944/45 full control of which was tractor production from the Reich Ministry of Agriculture and Transfer nutrition to Albert Speer, who immediately stopped production, excluding light-motorized vehicles. Furthermore, more and more horses were withdrawn from the population , which still did a large part of the labor force in the country. In 1946/1947 only half of the population could be fed from their own produce.

Labor shortage in agriculture

In the agricultural sector alone, the Wehrmacht recruited around 750,000 men, which caused a particularly high labor shortage.

The situation before the war began

Foreign seasonal workers , especially from Poland, had already worked in agriculture before the start of the war ; 10,000 people were admitted in 1937, and 90,000 in 1939. In addition, labor exchange agreements have been concluded with several European countries. In 1939 Germany employed 37,000 Italians, 15,000 Yugoslavs, 12,000 Hungarians and 5,000 Bulgarians as seasonal workers on the basis of this agreement. In Austria there were around 400,000 unemployed in the summer of 1938. These were also available to the German economy after the "Anschluss" of Austria and around 100,000 of them were subsequently obliged to work in the area of ​​the "Old Reich". About the same number were recruited from the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" after the defeat of Czechoslovakia.

Forced labor and prisoners of war

Deportation from Cherkashchyna to Germany, 1942

In October 1939 the first Polish prisoners of war were transferred to Germany for forced labor; by the beginning of 1940 their number should rise to 300,000. Almost 90 percent of them were used in agriculture. Since this treatment of prisoners of war did not correspond to the Geneva Conventions, they soon received the status of "civilian workers". In addition to Poland, civilian forced laborers were also recruited from Ukraine, Russia, but also from France and, from 1943, from Italy. Since March 1942 Fritz Sauckel was responsible for this . By 1944, a total of 862,000 Soviet citizens had been committed to agriculture in Germany, the majority made up of civilian workers. At the beginning of 1945 foreigners made up a third of the total workforce in agriculture.

In August 1942, 43.8 percent of all forced laborers in the Third Reich were employed in agriculture, which means that, measured by the number of forced laborers, agriculture was just behind industry, with 47 percent. In May 1944 the distribution of forced labor was shifted in favor of industry, with 49.3 percent already working in industry and 36.4 percent in agriculture. The table shows the distribution of forced labor by nationality.

nationality Slave labor
Poland 1,125,632
Soviet Union 862.062
France 405.897
Italy 45,288

The development of the number of forced laborers in the German Reich shows that a particularly large number of new forced laborers were deported to Germany after Sauckel took office. From 1942, the year he took office, to 1943, the number of forced laborers in agriculture doubled, see table.

Number of forced laborers in agriculture
month number
May 1939 110,000
May 1940 260,000
May 1941 970,000
May 1942 1,400,000
May 1943 2,800,000
May 1944 3,200,000

Nutritional situation of the forced laborers

In 1942, with the exception of 1945, the food situation in Germany was the most critical. During this time, most of the forced laborers starved to death because the Reich Ministry of Food drastically cut their rations. "It was the lack of food, which is why the forced laborers were killed in such large numbers even as they were urgently needed for war production." From the end of 1942 the situation stabilized again; the rations were generally increased, in the military and armaments office in the OKW the motto was: “It is a fallacy (sic!) that (sic!) one can do the same work with 200 insufficiently fed people as with 100 fully fed people. On the contrary: the 100 fully-nourished people achieve far more, and their use is much more rational. "

Women in Agriculture

Propaganda illustration of a BDM mission in the hay harvest, Brandenburg 1939

The peasant woman had a special position in the ideology of the Nazi agrarians. In addition to the semi-official image of women, which emphasized the role of the mother of many “hereditary” and “racially pure” children, the country woman was given a role as a work companion and as a manager. In view of the surprisingly large number of female voters 1930-32 and the noticeable labor shortage in the mid-1930s, measures initially introduced to discriminate against women in professional life were increasingly being weakened again. As part of the compulsory year from 1937 and the compulsory year prescribed for women as so-called “work maids” in the Reich Labor Service , young women were employed as hard-working workers, especially in agriculture. In 1939, 100,000 women were committed in this way.

There were repeated disputes over competence between the Reichsnährstand and the Nazi women. In 1935 and 1936, attempts were made to settle these in agreements negotiated by Walther Darré and Gertrud Scholtz-Klink . Ultimately, the RNA seems to have prevailed; the Reichsfrauenschaft or the Deutsches Frauenwerk only managed to a small extent to win over rural women. Therefore women were mainly organized within the Reichsnährstand; Educational work was also organized separately by the Reichsfrauenschaft. In 1935 the rural vocational school was introduced and apprenticeship training in the country was systematized and extended. The long-term abolition of women's ownership of farms planned by Darré in the Reichserbhofgesetz (Reichserbhofgesetz) was soon revised again; the proportion of female farm owners remained largely constant between 1933 and 1939 at around eleven percent.

In 1939, 35 percent of employed women were employed in agriculture, a significantly larger proportion than among men, at around 27 percent. In terms of the division of labor, it is noteworthy that the number of female employees decreased with the size of the company. The proportion of female workers in farms up to 5 hectares was around 67 percent, in farms over 100 hectares the proportion was only around 30 percent. This indicates that women mostly worked in family businesses , but less often in large companies. The official assignment of women to the private sector and the work in the family business was also expressed here. The workload of the women was higher than that of the farmers, as they were often responsible for the household and the children in addition to the field work. Their burden increased as the war progressed because of the drafting of many farm workers. The smaller the farm, the greater the burden on the farmer. Because of the heavy workload, the birth rate did not increase that much; in communities with more than 2,000 inhabitants it rose more sharply from 1934 than in rural areas. According to contemporary studies, working times of 16 to 19 hours per day were not uncommon for women farmers and work-reducing health problems were widespread among rural women over 40.

See also

literature

About agriculture and nutrition in general

  • Gustavo Corni , Horst Gies : Bread – Butter – Cannons: the food industry in Germany under Hitler's dictatorship. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-05-002933-1 .
  • Adam Tooze : Economics of Destruction. The history of the economy under National Socialism . 2nd Edition. Siedler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1 .
  • Daniela Münkel : National Socialist Agricultural Policy and Everyday Farmers' Life . Campus textbook, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-593-35602-3 ( Campus - Research 735), (At the same time: Hanover, Univ., Diss., 1994: “Switching point district farming community” between National Socialist agricultural policy and peasant interests).
  • Susanne Heim (Ed.): Autarky and eastward expansion. Plant breeding and agricultural research during National Socialism . Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-89244-496-X ( History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism 2).
  • Hans-Erich Volkmann : Economy and Expansion. Basics of Nazi economic policy; selected fonts . Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56714-4 ( contributions to military history 58).
  • Newspaper Witnesses , No. 12: Blood and Soil. Agriculture under National Socialism. Newspaper witnesses , Hamburg 2009, ZDB -ID 2474318-5 .

About agriculture

  • Wolfram Fischer (ed.): European economic and social history from the First World War to the present . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-12-904780-8 ( Handbook of European Economic and Social History 6).
  • Dieter Gosewinkel: Economic control and law in the National Socialist dictatorship . Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-465-03366-3 ( Studies on European legal history 180 = The Europe of dictatorship 4).

About forced labor in agriculture

  • Ela Hornung, Ernst Langthaler , Sabine Schweitzer: Forced labor in agriculture in Lower Austria and northern Burgenland . Oldenbourg, Vienna / Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56801-9 ( Publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 26, 3: Forced Labor in the Territory of the Republic of Austria 3).
  • Stefan Karner , Peter Ruggenthaler: Forced labor in agriculture and forestry in Austria from 1939 to 1945 . Oldenbourg, Vienna / Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56800-0 ( Publications of the Austrian Commission of Historians 26, 2: Forced Labor in the Territory of the Republic of Austria 2).
  • Ulrich Herbert : History of the policy on foreigners in Germany. Seasonal workers, forced laborers, guest workers, refugees . CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47477-2 .

About the Hunger Plan and the General Plan East

  • Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 .
  • Christian Gerlach : War, Food, Genocide. German extermination policy in World War II . Pendo Verlag, Zurich u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-85842-404-8 .
  • Czeslaw Madajczyk (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan. Documents . Saur, Munich a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-598-23224-1 ( individual publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin 80).

From National Socialist agrarians

Web links

Individual evidence

  • (hw) 
 Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Band Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten 1914–1949. C.H. Beck, 2003, ISBN 3-406-32264-6.
  1. ↑ Wehler , pp. 325, 383 and 384
  2. ↑ a b c d Wehler , p. 339 ff.
  3. ↑ a b c Wehler , p. 699 ff.
  4. ^ Wehler , p. 695.
  5. ↑ Wehler , p. 755 ff.
  • (at) 
 Adam Tooze: Ökonomie der Zerstörung. Siedler, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1.
  1. ↑ Tooze , p. 212 f.
  2. ↑ Tooze , p. 202.
  3. ↑ Tooze , p. 213.
  4. ↑ Tooze , p. 203.
  5. ↑ Tooze , p. 205.
  6. ↑ Tooze , p. 309 f.
  7. ↑ cit. n. Tooze , p. 264.
  8. ↑ cit. n. Tooze , p. 239.
  9. ↑ Tooze , p. 539.
  10. ↑ Tooze , p. 544.
  11. ↑ Tooze , p. 546.
  12. ↑ Tooze , p. 547.
  13. ↑ cit. n. Tooze , p. 553.
  14. ^ Tooze , p. 555.
  15. ↑ Tooze , pp. 225 f.
  16. ↑ Tooze , p. 224 f.
  17. ↑ Tooze , p. 175.
  18. ↑ Tooze , p. 230.
  19. ↑ Tooze , p. 485.
  20. ↑ Tooze , p. 918 f.
  21. ↑ Tooze , p. 553.
  22. ↑ Tooze , p. 418.
  23. ↑ a b quot. n. Tooze , p. 621.
  • (dm) 
 Daniela Münkel: Nationalsozialistische Agrarpolitik und Bauernalltag. Campus Fachbuch, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35602-3.
  1. ↑ Münkel , p. 393.
  2. ↑ Münkel
  3. ↑ Münkel , p. 95.
  4. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 112.
  5. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 121 f.
  6. ↑ Münkel , p. 122.
  7. ↑ Münkel , p. 123 f.
  8. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 112.
  9. ↑ a b Münkel , p. 115.
  10. ↑ Münkel , p. 117.
  11. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , pp. 193-195.
  12. ↑ Münkel , p. 107.
  13. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 110.
  14. ↑ Münkel , p. 111.
  15. ↑ a b Münkel , p. 427.
  16. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 436.
  17. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 437.
  18. ↑ Münkel , p. 457.
  19. ↑ Münkel , p. 440.
  20. ↑ cit. n. Münkel , p. 443 ff.
  • (sh) 
 Susanne Heim: Autarkie und Ostexpansion: Pflanzenzucht und Agrarforschung im Nationalsozialismus. Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-89244-496-X.
  1. ↑ a b c d e home
  2. ↑ Heim , p. 47.
  • (hv) 
 Hans-Erich Volkmann: Ökonomie und Expansion. Oldenbourg, München 2003, ISBN 3-486-56714-4.
  1. ↑ Volkmann , p. 378.
  2. ↑ cit. n. Volkmann , p. 376.
  3. ↑ a b Volkmann , p. 19ff, chapter on the European dimension of National Socialist economic policy
  4. ↑ cit. n. Volkmann , p. 405.
  5. ↑ cit. n. Volkmann , p. 366.
  6. ↑ Volkmann , p. 370.
  7. ↑ Volkmann , p. 372.
  8. ↑ cit. n. Volkmann , p. 393.
  9. ↑ Volkmann , p. 365 f.
  • (uh) 
 Ulrich Herbert: Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland. C.H. Beck, München 2001, ISBN 3-406-47477-2.
  1. ↑ Herbert , p. 124.
  2. ↑ a b Herbert , p. 125.
  3. ^ Herbert , p. 131.
  4. ^ Herbert , p. 143.
  5. ↑ Herbert , p. 148 f.
  • (ga) 
 Götz Aly: Hitlers Volksstaat. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5.
  1. ↑ Aly , p. 201.
  2. ↑ cit. n. Aly , p. 196 f.
  3. ↑ Aly , p. 195.
  • (hb) 
 Herbert Backe: Um die Nahrungsfreiheit Europas. W.Goldmann, Leipzig 1942.
  1. ^ Backe , p. 216.
  2. ↑ Backe , p. 225.
  3. ↑ Backe , p. 10.
  • Other
  1. ↑ Wolfram Fischer (Ed.): Handbook of European Economic and Social History. European economic and social history from the First World War to the present . Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-12-904780-8 . , P. 431 f.
  2. ↑ Manfred Kittel: Province between Empire and Republic: Political Mentalities in Germany and France 1918–1933 / 36 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2000, ISBN 3-486-56501-X , p. 571 ff.
  3. ↑ Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection: Selected data and facts from the agricultural sector . Retrieved November 21, 2008 .
  4. ↑ Statistisches Reichsamt (Ed.): Statistical Yearbook for the German Reich 1937 . Berlin, 1937, p. 20.
  5. ↑ which were rationed as early as 1937
  6. ↑ Statistical Yearbook for the German Reich 1933, p. 75/1941, p. 108.
  7. ↑ Martin Blenkle, Claudia Bodem: cannons instead of butter. Nutrition and Propaganda in the “Third Reich” - An exhibition in the State and University Library Bremen January 17th - March 1st 2008 . Suub.uni-bremen.de. Retrieved October 21, 2011.
  8. ↑ Statistisches Reichsamt (Ed.): Statistical Yearbook for the German Reich 1937 . Berlin 1938, p. 114 f.
  9. ^ Klaus-Peter Hoepke:  Hugenberg, Alfred. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , pp. 10-13 ( digitized version ).
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Benz : History of the Third Reich . CH Beck, 2000, ISBN 3-406-46765-2 , p. 33.
  11. ^ Martin Moll: Leader Decrees 1939-1945 . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-06873-2 , p. 251.
  12. ^ Franz-Josef Brüggemeier : How Green Were the Nazis? . Ohio 2005, ISBN 0-8214-1647-2 , p. 137.
  13. ↑ Oswald Spengler: The fall of the occident. 10th edition. 1991, dtv, Munich, p. 708.
  14. ^ Reichserbhofgesetz (Reichserbhofgesetz, September 29, 1933)
  15. ↑ see also HU Berlin: Timeline
  16. ↑ Among other things, Baur was an assistant doctor in the state insane asylum (today the center for psychiatry) in Emmendingen and welcomed the Nazi sterilization laws.
  17. ↑ Michael Flitner: Collectors, robbers and scholars. Political interests in plant genetic resources 1895–1995 . Frankfurt / Main 1995.
  18. ↑ Folk healing lay associations in the Third Reich ( Memento from December 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Whole food nutrition: Dietetics, Naturopathy, National Socialism, Social Claims, by Jörg Martin Melzer, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-515-08278-6 .
  20. ↑ The National Socialist War of Extermination and Conquest - "... Conquering New Living Space in the East ..." . h-ref.de. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  21. ^ Rainer Karlsch, Raymond G. Stokes: Factor oil: The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859-1974 . CH Beck, 2003, ISBN 3-406-50276-8 , p. 186.
  22. ↑ The technical development and spread of the tractor . Home.arcor.de. Archived from the original on May 27, 2010. Retrieved on August 21, 2010.
  23. ↑ General arrangement No. 20 / VI / 42 on the design of the landscape in the incorporated eastern areas of December 21, 1942 . gplanost.x-berg.de. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  24. ↑ How green were the Nazis? . Falter.at. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  25. ^ Memorial and Educational Center House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9808517-4-5 , p. 90.
  26. ^ Christian Streit: No comrades. The Wehrmacht and the Soviet prisoners of war 1941–1945. Dietz, new edition, Bonn 1991, p. 10 u. P. 128.
  27. ↑ Timothy Snyder: The Holocaust. The hidden reality ( memento of the original from October 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eurozine.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Eurozine , February 18, 2010, printed in: Transit , Heft 38, 2009, pp. 6–19, quoted on p. 9.
  28. ↑ Stefan Karner: Forced labor in agriculture and forestry in Austria from 1939 to 1945 . Oldenbourg, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-486-56800-0 . , P. 223.
  29. ↑ The " honor " is seen here as a sharp legal term (eg in a court judgment the accused can be deprived of "civil rights"). In the National Socialist ideology, however, the ethical and moral concept of “honor” was primarily intended (e.g. one spoke of the honor of dying for the “Führer”). The ethical and moral honesty should be identified with the legal, political and racist term. Jews, homosexuals, and others (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses ) were generally not considered to be honorable .
  30. ↑ Helene Alberts: Agriculture and Chamber of Agriculture in Westphalia-Lippe 1899-1999. P. 30 f.
  31. ^ Willi A. Boelcke: Social history of Baden-Württemberg 1800-1989 . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1989, p. 322.
  32. ↑ Statistical Yearbook for the German Reich 1938, p. 622.
  33. ↑ Schmitz-Berning 1998, p. 210.
  34. ↑ Kershaw 1998, p. 724.
  35. ↑ Kershaw 1998, p. 725.
  36. ^ Statistisches Reichsamt (Hrsg.): Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 1942, p. 142.
  37. ↑ Hunger in the Hitler State . stern.de. March 15, 2005. Retrieved August 21, 2010.
  38. ↑ Michael Salewski: War year 1944. In the big and in the small. Steiner, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-515-06674-8 , pp. 257 f.
  39. ^ Eva Kolinsky: Women in 20th-century Germany. 1995, ISBN 0-7190-4175-9 , p. 86.
  40. ^ Anne Marie Koeppen: The German country women book. 1937 .; Hildegard Caesar-Weigel: The country woman's daily work.
  41. ↑ Georges Duby: History of Women. 20th century. Frankfurt 1997, ISBN 3-596-14035-8 , p. 184.
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