Erhard Bartsch

Erhard Bartsch (born January 7, 1895 in Breslau ; † September 5, 1960 in Klagenfurt ) was a German pioneer of biodynamic agriculture . He was instrumental in the creation and development of the new agricultural method. His farm Marienhöhe in the Mark Brandenburg developed into the center of the biodynamic economy until 1941.

Life

In 1914 he went to war as an officer candidate in the artillery , but in 1916 he joined the air force . For his efforts he was awarded the Knight's Cross with Crown and Swords of the Hollenzollern House Order. After the end of the war he was taken over into the 100,000-man army , but left at his own request in 1920 and headed the federal office for threefolding in Breslau. Then he turned to agriculture and received his doctorate from the University of Breslau in 1925 with very good success.

At the same time he completed a one-year internship with Carl Graf von Keyserlingk at the Koberwitz Castle near Wroclaw . Together with Immanuel Vögele , he looked for people interested in an agriculture course from Rudolf Steiner and worked out questions for such a course. The course took place in 1924 at the invitation of Keyserlingk at Koberwitz Castle.

The former Chancellor Georg Michaelis , who was very interested in biodynamic agriculture, offered Bartsch his 100-hectare Marienhöhe farm near Bad Saarow in Brandenburg, which largely consisted of extremely sandy soil. In 1928 Bartsch acquired this farm thanks to a donation of 30,000 Reichsmarks. Bartsch, who played a central role in founding the experimental ring of the Anthroposophical Society , was responsible for the monthly communications of the experimental ring. In 1930 the notifications were stopped and Bartsch became editor of the new monthly magazine Demeter alongside Franz Dreidax , of which he became the sole publisher from 1933.

Bartsch ran the office of the Versuchsring in Bad Saarow, where its regular winter conferences took place and where, on his initiative, its center and, from 1933, that of the “Reich Association for Biodynamic Economy” was located. Bartsch's father, Moritz Bartsch, wrote in January 1932 that "staunch National Socialists" were also present at the 1931 agricultural winter conference in Bad Saarow. In 1933 he married Hemma Wurzer.

Bartsch initially had high hopes for National Socialism and the person of Hitler; He saw the Darré self-sufficiency program as a favorable perspective for biodynamic cultivation. [22] He campaigned for a 'culture-bearing peasantry' and hoped that the Nazi state would strengthen the organic economy against the vehement and existential attacks of the chemical industry. The leading representatives of the biodynamic movement were generally positive, at least loyal, to his activities. [11] When Bartsch resisted the ideological appropriation of biodynamic agriculture detached from anthroposophy and resolutely refused to join the NSDAP, the party-internal advocates could no longer hold the ecological method.

A visit by Darré - in fact already disempowered in 1939 after a conflict with Himmler and on leave from office in 1942 - to the farm in 1940 [25] and a subsequent favorable statement by the Reichsbauernführer to the members of the Reichsbauernrat had no effect:

   „Ich habe in Marienhöhe festgestellt, dass die von Dr. Bartsch angewandten Methoden auf dem richtigen Wege sein müssen, denn die Ergebnisse seiner Wirtschaftsweise sprechen zu eindeutig zu seinen Gunsten. Der Erfolg spricht eindeutig für Dr. Bartsch. Wenn die Wissenschaft und unsere bisherige landwirtschaftliche Betriebslehre für diese Erfolge keine Erklärung haben, so ist das deren Angelegenheit. Für uns kann ausschliesslich die Leistung und der Erfolg massgeblich sein.“

- Letter (extract) from the Reichsbauernführer Walther Darré, June 20, 1940. [26]

The Reich Association for Biodynamic Economics was dissolved in 1941 and Bartsch was imprisoned twice in the Gestapo prison on Alexanderplatz in Berlin, among other things on the grounds of sabotage of the Reichszeugungsschlacht [25]. After his release on November 30, 1941, he was allowed to continue to work at Marienhöhe in a kind of house arrest and to continue running the farm. [22] [13] [11]

   Siehe auch: „Zeit des Nationalsozialismus“ im Artikel Biologisch-dynamische Landwirtschaft

In 1950 he moved to the farm of his wife and sister-in-law, the Wurzerhof in Scheifling near St. Veit an der Glan in Carinthia. There he took the initiative to combine agriculture and curative education and to train disabled young people for agriculture.

Fonts

• The plight of agriculture: its causes and overcoming them . Demeter exploitation cooperative, 1927
• The plight of agriculture: its causes and overcoming them . Recycling cooperative Demeter, Bad Saarow, 1928
• The biodynamic economy: core ideas u. Basic facts . Weise, Dresden, 1934

literature

• Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag Munich 1999. ISBN 978-348656362-7
• Herbert H. Koepf and Bodo von Plato: The biodynamic economy in the 20th century , Verlag am Goetheanum 2001. ISBN 978-372351122-0
• M. Heimeran: About the new peasantry. In memory of Dr Erhard Bartsch in Anthroposophical . News 1960 No. 48;
• H. Bartsch, Erhard Bartsch: Memory of the co-founder of biodynamic agriculture . In “Lebendige Erde” 1961, No. 1, supplement.
• H. Koepf, Erhard Bartsch in Biograghien Documentation, Kulturimpuls Research Center , Dornach 2010

Web links

• Research Center Kulturimpuls, Dornach

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag Munich 1999. p. 82.