NAZI Hunger Plan: Officials--Minister of Food and Agriculture Richard Walther Darré (1895-1953)

NAZI World War II Hunger Plan
Figure 1.--Am 13.12.1937 sprach R.W. Darré während einer Großkundgebung des faschistischen Reichsnährstandes in Goslar. Lt. Angaben des Scherl-Bilderdienstes soll sich Darré von "3000 Vertretern des Landvolkes aus Niedersachsen.... über die Erzeugungsschlacht des kommenden Jahres" ausgelassen haben. This translates as, "R.W. Darré [at the time Minister of Food] spoke at a mass rally of the NAZI Reich Food in Goslar (December 13, 1937). Details of the speech include Darré demanded service should have from '3,000 representatives of the country people from Lower Saxony .... battle on the production of next year". Source: Deutsches Bundesarchiv, Bild_183-H1215-503-009.

Richard Walther Darré popularized the 'Blut und Boden' (Blood and Soil) ideology as the NAZIs were rising to power He wrote a book titled Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (A New Nobility Based On Blood And Soil) in 1930. He was a strong proponent of eugenics. He saw breeding as the solution to the problems of the German Volk. Darré was an influential NAZI and and played a major role in developing NAZI race theory. Darré helped popularize the NAZI Party in rural areas that played a key role in the NAZI rise to power. Hitler rewarded Darré by appointing him Minister of Food and Agriculture. Hitler by the time of World War II, however, came to regret this appointment as radical plans began to surface about dealing with Poles and Jews. Hitler turned more to Herbert Backe, a technocrat in the Ministry. As Darré lost influence with Hitler, he also found other NAZI leaders distancing themselves from him. Darré from an early point got on poorly with Economy Minister Hjalmar Schacht, in part because of poor harvests in the mid-1930s that Darré did mothing to address. Hitler did not trust Darré to take the radical actions he wanted, namely starving millions of people to death. Darré was no humanitarian, but saw slavery as a more practical approach. Unlike Hitler and Backe, he saw the economic benefits of not destroying a useful labor force. Darré described his vision in a speech (1940). We are not sure as to the venue. Luce published a transcript of the speech in Life Magazine during 1940. He explained that "... by blitzkrieg ... before autumn [here he was obviously already thinking about Barbarossa]... we shall be the absolute masters of two continents ... a new aristocracy of German masters will be created [with] slaves assigned to it, these slaves to be their property and to consist of landless, non-German nationals .... we actually have in mind a modern form of medieval slavery which we must and will introduce because we urgently need it in order to fulfill our great tasks. These slaves will by no means be denied the blessings of illiteracy; higher education will, in future, be reserved only for the German population of Europe...." [Darré, 'Secret Speech'] Only in Hitler's Germany would mass slavery be seen as a moderate approach. Himmler broke with Darré as plans for Generalplan Ost were being finalized. Himmler saw Darré as too theoretical. Actually the opposite seems true. Himmler demanded that Darré resign his SS post (1938), leader of the RuSHA so Günther Pancke could take over. Darré finally was forced to resign as Reich Minister (1942). Publically th ereason was his health grounds. He was succeeded by Staatssekretär Herbert Backe who had prepared the Hunger Plan which met Hitler's objectives. Hitler wanted large numbers of people eliminated.

Sources

Darré, Richard Walther. Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (A New Nobility Based On Blood And Soil) (1930).

Darré, Richard Walther. "Secret Nazi Speech: Reich Minister Darré discusses the world's future under German rule", Life Magazine (December 9, 1940), pp. 43-44. The terrible details in this article would have seemed unbelievable to most Americans, incongrousily it came with Ginger Rogers on the front cover. The true nature of the NAZI regime was still not fully understood. And the editor apparently was not positive that Darré, still Ministr of Food and Agriculture actually openly said such things. The editor added "Even if [this address] was not delivered exactly as recorded here, it might have been."







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Created: 6:47 PM 3/22/2013
Last updated: 5:51 PM 9/7/2015