Study On The Agricultural Policy In Nazi Germany

The agricultural policy in Nazi Germany is a dramatic and controversial topic because of its specific character. It showed an obvious inclining to "Reagrarsierung" (going back to the agricultural society), which was in discord with industrialization. Were these policies the real reflection of the Nazi Leaders'ideology, or only nursed the constituency in the rural region? What kind of the affection the government could make, when these policies were implemented?The Nazi party won the support from the peasantry in the election, and after it assumed the reins of government, it must maintain the interest of the countryman and consolidated its authority. Added to this, the shadow of the starvation in the WWII hung over in the mind of German people, achieving the national autarky certainly was the keystone of the Nazi agricultural policy. The both interests of the Reich Fuhrer and the Nation chose Darre as the Reichsminister of Food and Agriculture to implement its ideology of "Blut and Boden"(Blood and Soil).Richard Walther Darre developed the idea of "Blood and Soil" into an ideology. In his view, the identity of farmer is not only an occupation but also the difference in essence between the Nordic race and the Nomadic race. The farmer's production provided the provisionment of Germany, preserved the consanguinity of German race, protected the homeland of German people. It was a mutual and long-term relationship between the people and the land that they occupy and cultivate.According to the guidance of this ideology, the Nazi govermment set up a series of special policies to maintain the profit of the German farmer and protect the agricultural production. Among them there were four outstanding aspects.First of all, the Reichsnahrstand (The Reich Food Corporation) was founded by nazi government, and Darre was appointed as its leader. The Reichsnahrstand had legal authority over everyone involved in agricultural production and distribution. Its members accounted for one sixth of the German population. It seemed to be a self-govering organization but actually was a quasi-official organ manipulated by the Nazi government. Secondly, it promoted the controversial Erbhofgesetz (The National Entailed Farms Act). The Law prescribed the farms between 7.5 hectare and 125 hectare in size as the Entailed Farm, which could not be sold, mortagaged and split up among the heirs. The owners of the Entailed Farm were entitled to call themselves "Bauern" (farmer peasant). They were given favourable financial support in terms of the debt-relief and the foreclosure of an Entailed Farm was not permitted. Thirdly, the Nazi government enacted the law of "Neubildung deutschen Bauerntums" (the fostering new german peasantry law) in order to promote the settlement of the peasant farmer in a big way and break a new path for the heirs of the Bauern who could not inherited the farm land. Finally, the Nazi government advocated the "Erzeugungsschlacht" (the production battle) in agriculture. It called for enlarging the planting area, cropping densely, devoting attention to the management, allocating kinds of resource in reason so that it could advance the capability of the food supplies of Germany and realize the autarky.While on the contrary, these policies contrived in agriculture by Nazi government didn't achive the anticipated purpose. The Reichsnahrstand become arena of powers'competition since it was founded. Its relationship to the other official Bodies was not only problem it should deal with, but also it faced the crisis in its own leader circle. Added to the bureaucracy, overstaffing and extra spending, its competence of conducting agricultural production was weakened strongly. The Reichserbhofgesetze intervened in the heirdom, which used to be decided by the farmers themselves. Morever it cutted out the possible path in which the farmer obtained the loan. Therefore it wasn't as popular among the Bauern as it hopped. In the face of the economic reality, the content of the law was constantly modified and the implementation of the law was loose. Its ideological color came out gradually. The settlement program of Bauern in Nazi Germany was restrained by the higher price of the land, which was driven up because the Entailed Farm and military utilizing forced large quantity of land out of the market. As the result, the area and the population of the settlement during the period of the Nazi Germany is less than that of the Weimar Republic. As for the "Erzeugungsschlacht", although the self-sufficiency in the Third Reich was improved a little, the structural problem of the german agricultural production was not fundamentality settled. Contrarily it magnified the demand of the import of the feedstuff and intensified the dispute for the foreign exchange.When the Second World War broke out, the organizations and acts in charge of the field of agriculture which the Nazi government contrived transferred quickly to suit the war machine. The government took all-around interventions in the production and allocation of agricultural product. The forced handing-in of the grain implemented more and more strictly, the range of the food's rationing enlarged step by step. These measures as well as the plundering in the occupied countries by Nazi Gennany contributed to maintain the relative ample food supplies for German people until a radical turn in the course of the war. The war caused a great scale of the population flowing and resource integration, but did not lead to the basically change of the social ranking in german villiage and badly crippled the capability of the agricultural production.The fact that Nazi government attached great importance to the agriculture based on the racism ideology which served its economic, national and population policies. It came from the unreasonable motive. The agricultural policy carried out this ideology, collided with the reality of the German agricultural development, mutually composed of the landscape of the agriculture in Third Reich. And the fact turned out that it cannot depend on a racism nation to fit the transformation of the agricultural function, to achieve the agricultural upgrading and to harmonize the development of industry and agriculture sector.This dissertation consists of five chapters and takes the "ideology——shaping of the policies——implementation of the policies——the affection of the policies" as a clue. The first chapter analyses the content of the Nazi ideology "Blood and Soil" and its origin. The second chapter discusses the evolvement of the Nazi agricultural policy and its outspread in the rural region, introduces the agricultural policy made by Hugenberg at the early stage of the Nazi government. The third chapter dissertates the formation and the content of the major policies in the field of agriculture. The forth chapter analyses the practical affection of the implementation of the agricultural policy. The fifth chapter explains the change of the agricultural policies of Nazi government and practical result.