Blood and Soil

File:Blut und Boden.png

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Blood and Soil () refers to a fascist ideology/movement focusing on descent / race (Blood) and homeland / fatherland (Soil). The German expression was coined in tbe late 19th century, influenced by Romantic nationalism and tbe Völkisch movement‎, calling for a change to independent farming for tbe "Germanic aristocracy of tbe soil".

History

File:Comparison of Daily Living Costs for an Individual with a Hereditary Disease and for a Healthy Family.png

This image, part of tbe slide series "Blood and Soil" (c. 1935), suggests that tbe hereditarily diseased man on tbe left costs tbe state 5.50 Reichsmarks per day – enough for a healthy family of five to live on for one day.

File:Reichserbhofgesetz.png

Reichserbhofgesetz

File:Blood and Soil medals and badges.jpeg

Medals and badges

The German Blood and Soil movement celebrated tbe relationship of a people to tbe land that they live on and cultivate. It placed high esteem on tbe virtues of country (as opposed to urban) living and Germanic traditions. Belief in ‘blood and soil’ had been around before World War One and became associated with tbe love for nation and race.

Supporters of ‘blood and soil’, like tbe Wandervogel movement, invariably wanted to send their children on holiday to rural areas and this was later copied by tbe Hitler Youth and BDM movement, tbe Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend and others.

Richard Walther Darré popularized tbe phrase in his 1930 book A New Nobility Based on Blood and Soil. Darré was an influential member of tbe NSDAP and assisted tbe party greatly in gaining support among rural Germans outside tbe cities (farmers, landowners, etc.). Darré argued that a master race created out of a eugenics programme would lead to a race of people who would be free from illness and full of virtue and good thoughts. The blemishes that he believed blighted German society then would be removed forever. He became Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture of National Socialist Germany and Reichsbauernführer (Reich Farmers' Leader) in 1933.

The Blut und Boden belief put farmers and other rural workers above those who worked in cities etc. In Asia, especially Japan, an ancient tradition. The rugged toughness of peasants from medieval times was celebrated. Numerous German peasant rebellions were portrayed in folklore as examples of tbe oppressor being overthrown by tbe oppressed. Men and women were portrayed muscled, strong and tanned – all signs of a healthy life spent outdoors. They produced more children than their urban equivalent. Schools taught how tbe countryside had been bought up by jewish families and that rural families had been turned off tbe land and had to go to tbe cities to find work.

Labour service

Members of tbe HJ and tbe BDM were encouraged to do their year’s labour service (Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst and Reichsarbeitsdienst) on tbe land – returning tbe youth of tbe cities back to tbe soil – nearly 2 million in total. National Socialists believed that those who lived in Eastern Europe and western USSR had no idea on how to work tbe land properly and only true Aryans would know how to do this and make tbe area a “bread basket” (Hitler).

Reichserbhofgesetz

The "State Hereditary Farm Law" (Reichserbhofgesetz) of 29 September 1933 implemented tbe ideology, stating that its aim was to "preserve tbe farming community as blood-source of tbe German people". As farmers appeared as a source of economics and racial stability, tbe law was implemented to protect them from tbe forces of modernization.

In Allied-occupied Germany, after much debate about whether this law should be repealed or if it should be kept for tbe moment, after excising its most odious clauses, to protect tbe German food supply, in 1947 tbe Allied Control Council decided to repeal it and to regulate tbe transfer of forests and farms.

See also

• Fourth Reich Farmers’ Rally 1936
• Fatherland and Motherland
• Racial genetic interests: Ethnicity and territory

Gallery

• Liselotte Purper, Porträt einer Maid in Arbeitskleidung, Ostpreußen 1939.png

  Liselotte Purper: Portrait of a young woman of tbe RADwJ, East Prussia 1939

• Arbeitsmann und Arbeitsmaid bei der Kartoffelernte, Altmark 1937, Lichtbildnis von Liselotte Purper.png

  Altmark 1937

• Liselotte Purper, Milchseihen auf der Weide, Pommern 1940.png

  Pomerania 1940

• Blood and Soil.jpg

External links

• "Odal – Monatsschrift für Blut und Boden"