Darre, Walther

(1895-1953)

   politician; developed the NSDAP's first agricultural program in 1930. Although he was born and raised near Buenos Aires, he attended Oberrealschule in Heidelberg and Bad Godesberg, and was an exchange student at Wimbledon's King's College. Hoping to become a co-lonial farmer, he was attending the colonial school in Witzenhausen when World War I erupted. He quickly enlisted and advanced to the rank of lieutenant while serving the full fifty-one months on the Western Front. After he returned to Witzenhausen in 1919, he took a diploma in colonial farming, farmed for two years, and then pursued further studies at Halle in genetics and animal hus-bandry. After he received a further diploma in 1925, he spent 1927-1929 in the Baltic States; while living in Riga, he was an agricultural advisor to the German embassy.

   Darre joined the NSDAP in 1930. Persuaded that the Party suffered from a big-city orientation, he endeavored to bring it into contact with rural issues. In March 1930 he created the NSDAP's first agricultural program, the foundation of which was his 1929 publication Das Bauerntum als Lebensquell der nor-dischen Rasse (The farming class as life source of the Nordic race). His program mingled romanticized rambling with hard-headed material interests. After the Party's dramatic success in the September 1930 elections, owed largely to the support of farmers,* Hitler* placed Darre in charge of an Office of Agriculture. Thereupon he infiltrated the farming community in an effort to gain control of agriculture's key interest group, the Reichslandbund.* The modern "noble farmer" was developed in his book Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (New nobility out of blood and soil), in which the catchphrase "blood and soil" was popu-larized. Although he became Hitler's Agriculture Minister in June 1933, his influence steadily waned, and in 1942 he was relieved of all responsibilities.

   REFERENCES:Larry Jones, "Crisis and Realignment"; Orlow, History of the Nazi Party.