English source-aligned edition
Richard Walther Darré
Richard Walther Darré served as Reich agriculture minister, former head of RuSHA and ideologue of 'Blood and Soil'. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in German Reich and plans for occupied Eastern Europe through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- Darré developed the 'Blood and Soil' doctrine and became Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture and Reich Peasant Leader in 1933.
- He helped establish the SS Race and Settlement Main Office and led it until 1938, developing racial-selection rules used by the SS.
- The Ministries Trial convicted him on counts concerning crimes against civilians, plunder and membership in a criminal organisation and sentenced him to seven years.
Place in the chain of responsibility
Darré's responsibility lies primarily in supplying racial-settlement policy with ideological doctrine and administrative tools later used for dispossession, selection and Germanisation. He did not command the field units that carried out every expulsion or killing associated with those policies.
Key events and mechanisms
- the creation and early direction of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office from 1931
- the use of racial-settlement policy to seize Polish and Jewish agricultural property
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
Darré was tried in the Ministries Trial, acquitted of crimes against peace but convicted on three other counts in April 1949. He received seven years, was released in 1950 and died in 1953.
Limits of the evidence
Darré formally remained agriculture minister beyond the point at which he lost effective influence in 1942, and he had ceased leading RuSHA in 1938. The profile therefore separates the influence of institutions and doctrines he created from later operations directed by other officials.
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.