Plant Breeding and Agrarian Research in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institutes 1933–1945 Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science

PLANT BREEDING AND AGRARIAN RESEARCH IN KAISER-WILHELM-INSTITUTES 1933–1945 BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Editors

ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University JÜRGEN RENN, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens

Editorial Advisory Board

THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ADOLF GRÜNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY, (Editor 1960–1997)

VOLUME 260 PLANT BREEDING AND AGRARIAN RESEARCH IN KAISER- WILHELM-INSTITUTES 1933–1945

CALORIES, CAOUTCHOUC, CAREERS

SUSANNE HEIM

123 Susanne Heim

c Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2003 Originally published – Kalorien, Kautschuk, Karrieren. Pﬂanzenzüchtung und landwirtschaftliche Forschung in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten 1933–1945, Wallstein (Göttingen), 2003, translator: Sorcha O’Hagan

ISBN: 978-1-4020-6717-4 e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-6718-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007936989

c 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microﬁlming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied speciﬁcally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

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987654321 springer.com Contents

Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research ...... 1 Sources and Literature ...... 9

Calories – Agricultural Research, the Food Economy and War ...... 15 Herbert Backe and Science Policy ...... 15 Research on Plant and Animal Breeding ...... 23 Foreign Currencies, Genetics and the Fodder Gap ...... 23 Autochthonous Animal Species and Artiﬁcial Insemination . . . . . 35 The Four-Year Plan, ‘Greater Europe’, and Substitute Substances ...... 46 HydrobiologyandLimnologyfortheFour-YearPlan...... 46 Institute Projects in South-Eastern Europe ...... 53 Research on Native Textile Plants ...... 63 Productivization of People ...... 69 The Science of Agricultural Work ...... 69 Work Physiology and Nutritional Science ...... 78 Résumé: War as Opportunity ...... 91

Caoutchouc – A Vital War Reserve ...... 97 TheDevelopmentofaResearchProgramme...... 97 Dependence on Natural Rubber ...... 98 The Kok-Sagyz Network ...... 102 Slave Labour for Science ...... 118 Kok-Sagyz Cultivation in German-Occupied Europe ...... 118 Plant Breeding Research in Auschwitz ...... 133 Résumé: Scientiﬁc Productivity and Terror...... 149

Careers – Hans Stubbe and Klaus von Rosenstiel ...... 155 Two Breeding Researchers ...... 155 ThePureAirofScientiﬁcResearch ...... 156 The Seamy Side of Academic Life ...... 162 The Advance of Science ...... 165 WildPlantsasaGeneticResource...... 165 Research Organisation in the Occupied East ...... 178

v vi Contents

Post-WarCareers...... 184 Résumé: Creators, Experts, Servants ...... 190

Conclusions ...... 193 Science, Nazi Rule and War ...... 193

Bibliography ...... 203

Illustrations ...... 213

Index ...... 215

Sources ...... 219 Acknowledgements

This study was completed as part of the research programme ‘History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the National Socialist Era’, which was initially developed under the leadership of Doris Kaufmann and then continued by Carola Sachse. My colleagues in the research programme have helped in the creation of this book over a number of years, with discussions, criticism and much useful information. I am particularly indebted to them. During my literature research, the staff of the library of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science assisted me with admirable competence and enthusiasm. I owe thanks to them and to Axel Hüntelmann and Anke Pötzscher, without whose help on a variety of details the book could not have been produced in its current form. Christine Rüter edited the manuscript in an extremely professional, careful and meticulous manner and improved it in all manner of ways. Thank you! I am grateful to Simone Floersheim, Maria Ossowski, Eva Tichauer and Brigitte Ullrich, who agreed to be interviewed and who patiently answered all my subse- quent questions. I would also like to thank Brigitte Ullrich for providing a great deal of expert information on the breeding of rubber plants. The Presidential Commission of the Max Planck Society supported my work most generously. I owe heartfelt thanks to the Commission in general and in particular to its Chairman, Reinhard Rürup, who contributed valuable ideas during the ﬁnal editing phase. A number of personal friends read the manuscript of this study at various phases of its development, in full and in part, and helped with criticisms, suggestions and encouragement. They know, as do I, how much I owe them.

vii Abbreviations

AdBBAW Archive of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences Amt W Amt Wirtschaft (part of the WVHA (see below)) AOK Armeeoberkommando (Army Headquarters) Aufbaustab “K” Aufbaustab Kaukasus (a spy organisation) BA Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive) BDC Berlin Document Center BdK Bevollmächtigter für das Kraftfahrwesen (Plenipotentiary General for Automotive Affairs) BStU Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (Federal Commissioner for the Records of the National Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic) Chefgruppe La Chefgruppe Landwirtschaft (the Agriculture Group of Göring’s Economic Staff East, under Herbert Backe) Chefgruppe W Chefgruppe Wirtschaft (the Economics Group of Göring’s Economic Staff East) DAF Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) ERR Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (the special task force set up to seize cultural assets in the occupied territories) GBChem Generalbevollmächtigter für Fragen der chemischen Erzeugung (the Plenipotentiary General for Special Issues of Chemicals Production) HJ Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) HSSPF Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (Higher SS and Police Führer) IMG/IMT Internationaler Militärgerichtshof (International Military Tribunal) KfG Kopiensammlung für Grieger (archival note) KVR Kriegsverwaltungsrat (a civilian SS ofﬁcer) KWS Kaiser Wilhelm Society KWI Kaiser Wilhelm Institute MPS Max Planck Society MPI Max Planck Institute MWT Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag (Central European Economic Conference)

ix x Abbreviations

NA National Archives NL Nachlaß (unpublished works/literary estate) NSD Nationalsozialistischer Dozentenbund (National Socialist Lecturers’ Association) NSV Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NS People’s Welfare Organization) OKH Oberkommando des Heeres (High Command of the Army) OKW Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces) LG Landgericht (district court) PA Personalakte (Human resources file) PA AA Politisches Archiv, Auswärtiges Amt (Political archive of the German Foreign Office) RA Reichsamt (Reich Office) REM Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erzieung und Volksbildung (Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Popular Culture) RFR Reichsforschungsrat (Reich Research Council) RFSS Reichsführer SS (i.e. Himmler) RK Reichskommisariat (Reich Commissariat) RKF Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood) RMEL Reichsministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture) RMfbO Reichsministerim für die besetzten Ostgebiete (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories) RMIn Reichsministerium des Innern (Reich Ministry of the Interior) RWM Reichsministerium für Wirtschaft (Reich Ministry of Economic Affairs) SBZ Sowietische Besatzungszone (the Soviet-occupied zone which later formed the GDR) SD Sicherheitsdienst SS-Ogruf. SS-Obergruppenführer StA Staatsanwaltschaft (public prosecutor’s office) TG Technische Gutsberatung (Technical Land Management) uk unabkömmlich (indispensable, i.e. released from military service) USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum VoMi Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans) V-Waffe Vergeltungswaffe (‘vengeance weapon’) WiIn Wirtschaftsinspektion (Economic Inspectorate) WiStab Wirtschaftsstab (Economic Staff) WVHA Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt (SS Economic and Administrative Main Office) ZfO Zentrale für Ostforschung (Centre for Research on the East) ZK Zentralkommittee (Central Committee) ZStL Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen in Ludwigsburg Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research

Of the three terms that form the title of this volume, ‘calories’, ‘caoutchouc’ and ‘careers’, none carries undertones of the ‘blood and soil’ ideology or the romanti- cised view of agriculture that are often seen as the typical characteristics of National Socialist agricultural policies. And indeed, the subject under investigation in this book is not the backward-looking ideas of men such as Richard Walther Darré,1 wallowing in myths of peasants inextricably linked with their native soil. Rather, this study examines a variety of attempts to eliminate continental Europe’s dependence on imports of raw materials from overseas, examining in particular the relationship between science and war. The investigation focuses on scientists working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes that specialised in agricultural and food research, and how these individuals behaved towards the Nazi state and its expansionary policies. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWS), founded in 1911, was an umbrella organization that oversaw a range of scientific research institutes (KWIs). These were given excellent material support and were devoted to fundamental research in specific fields of science. The funding of the institutes came from the German state and partly depending on the institutes, from German industry. In contrast to university-based researchers, those at KWIs had no teaching obligations. The study forms part of the research programme ‘History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the National Socialist Era’, which is funded by the Max Planck Society, and is a summary of the findings of the project ‘ “East” and “Lebensraum” Research at Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes’. The political concept of Lebensraum [‘living space’], according to which the Germans saw themselves as ‘a people without space’, also took a scientific form. As such, it became linked with disciplines such as geography, spatial research, history, sociology and demography that used a variety of data to provide a rationale for strategies of spatial conquest.2 At first glance, the natural sciences would seem to be far removed from this kind of ideologised science. But agricultural research was

1 Darré had a degree in agriculture and was Minister of Food and Education from 1933 to 1944. He outlined his ideas on the role of the peasantry in the ‘national renewal’ of Germany in two books, Das Bauerntum als Lebensquell der Nordischen Rasse (The Peasantry as the Life Source of the Nordic Race) (1929) and Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (A New Nobility from the Blood and the Soil) (1930). 2 Köster, Rede über den ‘Raum’.

S. Heim, Calories, Caoutchouc, Careers, 1–13. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008 1 2 Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research in fact assigned a very specific role within the Lebensraum concept. This was to carry out targeted research that would allow the territories seized in the east to be exploited in order to meet the needs for food and raw material of Germany, and later of the European continent. Germany suffered serious food shortages during the First World War. Afterwards, it was believed that this was one of the main reasons for the country’s defeat. In simplified terms, agricultural and food policy before and during the war had been based on the erroneous beliefs that the war would not last long and that it would not disrupt agricultural production to any major extent. Both assumptions proved false, but those in political power did not realise this until it was too late. Mass conscription drastically reduced the supply of labour available for agriculture, and the use of large amounts of nitrogen by the explosives industry reduced the supply of artificial fertiliser, which also depended on nitrogen as a raw material. Above all, the war disrupted imports of animal fodder; this had a negative effect on livestock keeping and thus on the supply of protein foods.3 During the second half of the war, especially in the ‘turnip winter’ of 1917/1918, the consequences of this supply crisis became dreadfully evident. The experience of this famine ‘had a similar effect on the civilian population as the often-cited experiences of the soldiers at the front’4 and led to a huge loss of confidence in the government; reinforced by other factors, this culminated in the revolution of November 1918. The consequences of this collapse of the agricultural economy could be felt for years afterwards. Soils were exhausted and animal stocks had been decimated; investment in both buildings and machinery had ceased during the war years, so that many were outdated and in need of repair. As a result, agricultural productivity remained fairly low for a considerable length of time, generally reaching pre-war levels only by the mid-1920s. As in other sectors of the economy, the efforts to redevelop agriculture after the war were accompanied by a comprehensive debate about rationalising and intensi- fying production. The Reich Settlement Act (Reichssiedlungsgesetz) was passed in 1919, with the dual aims of creating settlements for demobilised soldiers and using agricultural land more efficiently. This process of ‘inner colonisation’ was intended to compensate for the territory that had been lost after the war. Discussions on re- organising agriculture also focused on the conclusions that should be drawn from the collapse of the food economy during the war, to ensure that German agriculture would be better prepared for a future conflict. Those concerned with agricultural policy were in no doubt that productivity had to be increased if the country was to increase its self-sufficiency in agricultural products and thereby reduce its dependence on imports. To do this, they felt, it would be necessary to completely reform agrarian social structures and to rationalise work. And ideas on how to reduce the amount of labour needed and how to apply scientific methods to organising work practices in farms were already in demand in any case: from the mid-1920s onwards, the

3 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung’, p. 69. 4 Ibid., p. 61. Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research 3 general recovery of industry and the increase in urban wages once again led to labour shortages in agriculture. New training institutes were planned, where compulsory attendance might sometimes be used to increase skills levels. Women, in particular, were to receive training because, in the eyes of the agricultural experts, their abilities had been proven during the war.5 In addition, the experts believed that supplies of fertiliser had to be increased, that the cooperatives needed to be rationalised, and that the mechanisation of agriculture had to be speeded up.6 Developments such as these also turned the agricultural sector into a promising market for industry, especially for the armaments industry, which had been forced by the Treaty of Versailles to reallocate much of its capacity. The agricultural histo- rian Volker Klemm has established that ‘an expanding agriculture, and agricultural production that was based more closely on science, i.e. more efficient ...provided new opportunities for promising investments’. There was the prospect of ‘increasing demand for modern agricultural machinery, equipment, facilities, buildings, higher- performance seed and livestock, more effective mineral fertilisers, chemical pesti- cides and industrially-produced fodder’.7 Low-interest loans were used to encourage investment in these areas. Investments by farmers were further influenced by relatively low prices for agricultural machinery and other industrial goods, and targeted propaganda promoted intensification, so that what has occasionally been called a ‘wave of rationalisation’ is described as having passed over German agriculture.8 The consequences for peasant agriculture will be described here only in brief, more or less in note form: Indebtedness grew quickly, leading to a surge in farm foreclosures and, from 1928 onwards, to the development of a militant peasants’ movement in northern Germany.9 Although this movement was organised by peasants and focused on foreclosures and the extent to which farms were in debt because of taxes and loans, it attracted agitators from the cities on both the left and the right. They whipped up feelings against the Weimar ‘system’ and the ‘shame of Versailles’, picking up on ‘an antipathy towards large cities that had flared up in 1929/1930 as never before’.10 The question of most interest for the present study is to what extent the intensification and modernisation of agriculture influenced the development of agricultural research in Germany. From the early 1920s onwards, many research institutes and experimental farms were set up – in 1922, the Experimental and Research Cen- tres for Dairy Farming (Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalten für Milchwirtschaft)in Kiel (for northern Germany) and in Weihenstephan (for southern Germany), and similar centres for animal breeding in Tschechnitz, near Breslau, and in Grub, near Munich. In 1923, the Research Centre for Cereals Processing (Forschungsanstalt für

5 Von Braun, Hebung der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion,p.16. 6 Aereboe, Agrarpolitik, p. 553; Ritter, Einwirkung, p. 110. 7 Klemm, Agrarwissenschaften,p.8. 8 Poppinga, Bauern,p.44. 9 Between 1924 and 1928, the total indebtedness of German agriculture increased from 3 billion to almost 10 billion Reichsmark; Stoltenberg, Politische Strömungen, p. 108. 10 Bergmann, Agrarromantik, p. 325. 4 Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research

Getreidearbeiten) was set up in Berlin, and, in 1924, two research centres on fruit- growing and market gardening in Eisenheim (in Bavaria) and in Berlin–Dahlem. Further institutes followed, researching agricultural work practices and market regulations, and other agricultural topics.11 The universities at Gieÿen, Göttingen, Hohenheim (near Stuttgart), Leipzig, Halle, Jena, Hamburg and Königsberg all established their own independent institutes for animal breeding and dairy farming. Within a few years, the Agricultural College in Berlin (Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule) developed its Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetics of Domestic Animals, and became a world leader in its subject; the agricultural institutes at the University of Breslau were among the best equipped in Europe.12 The KWS was rather slow to follow these examples. In 1922, it took over the poorly-equipped German Entomological Institute in Berlin–Dahlem (Deutsches Entomologisches Institut), which had been founded in 1886 as the National Ento- mological Museum and was concerned with the control of insects believed to be damaging to agriculture and forestry.13 But it was not until 1928 that the KWS opened its first new institute dealing with agricultural research, the KWI for Plant Breeding Research (KWI für Züchtungsforschung) in Müncheberg. Plans for this institute had been developed some 11 years previously, but had been left on ice in the meantime. The new institute was mainly concerned with issues related to plant utilisation, such as developing new strains and increasing crop yields.14 In the mid-1930s, the KWS took over two further institutes that had been created during the boom of the early 1920s: the Institute for Limnological Research and Lakes Ex- ploitation (Institut für Seenforschung und Seenbewirtschaftung) and the Bast Fibre Research Institute (Institut für Bastfasererforschung). In 1938, the Society decided to set up an Institute for Animal Breeding Research (Institut für Tierzuchtforschung) in Dummerstorf, near Rostock. During the Second World War, the Society greatly strengthened its agricultural science expertise: the Institute for the Science of Agri- cultural Work (Institut für landwirtschaftliche Arbeitswissenschaft) in Breslau was formally opened in 1940, the German-Bulgarian Institute for Agricultural Research (Deutsch-Bulgarisches Institut für landwirtschaftliche Forschung)wassetupin Sofia in 1942, and the Vine Breeding section at the KWI for Plant Breeding Research was converted into a separate institute, but initially remained at Müncheberg. And, in 1943, the KWI for Cultivated Plants (KWI für Kulturpflanzen- forschung) was opened in Vienna. During the first 30 years of the twentieth century, biology in general and genetics in particular developed rapidly, and breeding research was part of this development. At the Müncheberg institute, experiments focusing on increasing crop yields were accompanied by basic research on genetics. By this time, the decisive role that genes played within the cell nucleus had been recognised, but the precise manner in which

11 Tornow, Entwicklungslinien, p. 123. 12 Klemm, Agrarwissenschaften, p. 10. 13 Jansen, ‘Schädlinge’. 14 On the KWI for Plant Breeding Research and differences between its methods and those of the KWI for Biology, see Harwood, Styles, esp. chapter 6, and Gausemeier, ‘Netzwerk’. Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research 5 this worked was not yet clear; nor was it known what role cell plasma played in inheritance, to what extent environmental factors could influence hereditary characteristics, or what role mutation played in evolution.15 Genetics formed the basis of interdisciplinary cooperation between zoologists, botanists and chemists, establishing itself as a primary biological discipline. For breeding research in particular – as for eugenics – the apparent link between hereditary characteristics and individual genes opened up the possibility of ‘improvements’ by breeders and eugenicists, although a range of other practical factors also came into play in practical breeding work. Genetics based on Mendel’s laws provided the plant breeders with the scientific basis for new selection processes, promising more targeted breeding of individual characteristics than had been possible with the simple selection breeding processes used until then. German genetics research was also at the leading edge of the discipline world- wide, especially after the Fifth International Congress of Genetics was held in Berlin in 1927. After this conference, there was a revival of contacts between German scientists and their foreign colleagues that had been dormant since the First World War. Erwin Chargaff, a biochemist who did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Hygiene at Berlin University in the early 1930s, describes in his memoirs the interdisciplinary nature of research in natural sciences and the sense of new beginnings and openness to new ideas that he found in academic circles in Berlin, making it refreshingly different from the ‘nagging, malevolent, and immobile Vienna’16 that he had encountered previously. Chargaff’s memoirs do not otherwise tend to idealise the past, but this epoch is presented as a period during which he himself felt ‘that the last rays of the setting sun of the civilized 19th century were falling on my head’, and as one of the ‘greatest eras’ in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.17 For Chargaff this was part of a better world that was disappearing before his eyes, a world that had nothing to do with the ominously approaching era of National Socialism. Like many of his contemporaries, Chargaff did notice the increasing political instability, but at the same time enjoyed ‘the most sparkling cultural life that [he would] ever encounter’.18 His colleague Georg Melchers, who worked at the KWI for Biology for many years, reports a similar atmosphere in Göttingen during the same period; the enthusiasm for new discoveries and interesting scientific questions allowed him to push to the back of his mind the harbingers of National Socialism that were becoming noticeable (in the university perhaps even more so than outside).19 Both Chargaff and Melchers rejected the Nazi regime, albeit from different perspectives. As a Jew, Chargaff was forced to emigrate and left Germany in the spring of 1933, while Melchers was able to stay in the country and continue his research throughout the war. Both were fascinated by the new scientific territory being explored and

15 Sapp, Beyond the Gene,esp.p.54. 16 Chargaff,Heraclitean Fire, p. 48. 17 Ibid., p. 51. 18 Ibid., p. 75. 19 Melchers, ‘Ein Botaniker’. 6 Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research the stimulating atmosphere, especially within the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes, and ignored the fact that science in general, and biology in particular, was in no sense an alternative world untouched by political realities. One of the main pioneers in establishing genetics as a leading biological sub- discipline was Erwin Baur, director of the KWI for Plant Breeding Research, and a scientist with exceptional organisational skills. His close links with leading seed- breeding companies had played a major role in the foundation of the new institute, which had been set up to investigate plant breeding issues of practical relevance that were too complicated for commercial plant breeding companies to explore. Baur combined an interest in scientific issues that had practical applicability with strong opinions on agricultural policy, which should, he believed, be focused on achieving autarky. He was also a committed member of various eugenic and racial hygiene as- sociations20 and was involved in the publication of relevant journals. Baur believed, in Harwood’s words, that genetics was ‘the key element in a rationally planned society’21 and as relevant to increasing agricultural production as it was to controlling supposed ‘signs of degeneration’ in human society by means of population policy. Harwood describes Baur as a typical exponent of a pragmatic way of thinking that developed in science during the first 30 years of the twentieth century. He contrasts this with the style that developed at the KWI for Biology, which was founded in 1915.22 There, research focused less on short-term results and on the ‘improvement’ of crop plants, and more on issues of developmental biology and the theory of evolution.23 Broadly speaking, practical breeding research at the Müncheberg institute, and research into theoretical biology at the KWI for Biology, were separated in institutional terms, but their research goals often overlapped and influenced each other. After all, it was also in the interest of breeding researchers that answers to basic biological questions would be found. The research subjects used to gain these insights were usually the standard ob- jects used by genetics research i.e. plants such as the snapdragon Antirrhinum majus and the willowherb Epilobium, or animals such as the Drosophila fly or the flower moth, all of which could easily be reproduced under laboratory conditions and had a limited number of chromosomes, or in which hereditary characteristics could be traced particularly well for other reasons. In addition, research was carried out on ‘practical’ subjects such as maize or, especially in the US, mice. Although work had only just begun on understanding the complex issues sur- rounding genetic inheritance, some scientists, in particular the ‘pragmatists’, felt entitled to draw implications for humans and human society from their new knowledge, by warning against ‘signs of degeneration’ and calling for active ‘genetic

20 For example, Baur was a member of the German Society for Genetics (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Vererbungswissenschaft) and the German Society for Racial Hygiene (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene); Weindling, Health, p. 301. See also Gilsenbach, ‘Erwin Baur’, and Kröner et al., Erwin Baur; Hagemann, Erwin Baur. 21 Harwood, Styles, p. 240. 22 Ibid., pp. 227–274. 23 Gausemeier, ‘Netzwerk’; Harwood, Styles. Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research 7 care’ (Erbpflege).24 And because of this tendency to transfer the findings and value judgements developed in plant and animal breeding more or less unquestioningly to human genetics and social conditions, agricultural research is deserving of attention, beyond its direct area of influence, because it also influenced the eugenics debate. Under Nazi rule, however, breeding research had no need to attempt to legitimise itself as a test area for eugenics, although it did gain prestige and importance in the context of the general debate on eugenics and racial hygiene. Its importance was unquestioned because it contributed to increasing agricultural productivity in a number of ways. From the start, breeding research formed part of the scientific basis for the ‘production battle’, the autarky policy and the Four-Year Plan to prepare for a possible war. At this point only slightly over 80% of German consumption of agricultural products was supplied by home production; indeed, for some products, the percentage imported was considerably more than 20%. Agricultural science could boast that it had contributed to a considerable increase in per-hectare yields in agriculture over the first 30 years of the twentieth century, even though it took years for overall agricultural productivity to recover from the First World War and regain its 1914 levels. And Germany was not the only country in which increasing production and import substitution were seen as goals for agriculture research, just as the idea of autarky was not a German invention. Immediately after taking power, the Nazi government created a number of agricultural policy instruments. The Reich Food Estate (Reichsnährstand)wassetup in 1933. Membership of this organisation was compulsory for all those involved in the production and marketing of agricultural products, i.e. farmers/peasants, farm workers, dealers and the entire processing industry.25 Market regulations were introduced for the most important agricultural products, under which farmers were given guaranteed prices for their products. It must be said, however, that the prices were fixed at a relatively low level, while prices for equipment and supplies could vary. In addition, obligatory cartels were introduced for processing companies.26 The fundamental goal of the market regulations was to keep consumer prices for the most important foodstuffs low, or rather to ensure that they could be adjusted by the state in order to cater to the interests of either peasants or industry, depending on the situation. This set of instruments was accompanied by the introduction of the Hereditary Entailment Act (Reichserbhofgesetz), which protected peasants from debt foreclosure but also placed strict limitations on their ability to use the land as collateral for loans, to sell it or to have it disposed of as they wished after their death.27

24 On the linking of discourses on plant genetics and human genetics, not just in Germany but also in the US and the Soviet Union, see Flitner, ‘Agrarische Modernisierung’, p. 94; Kühl, Interna- tionale der Rassisten. Weindling, Health, p. 301 refers to Erwin Baur, among others, who used his knowledge of plant genetics to justify his eugenic demands and would use the example of a ﬁeld of wheat or a strain of Antirrhinum majus to explain the results that degeneration and negative selection would have on the population. 25 Corni/Gies give an extensive account of the Reichsnährstand; see Corni/Gies, Brot, pp. 75–250. 26 Grundmann, Agrarpolitik; Bauer, Nationalsozialistische Agrarpolitik, pp. 43–46. 27 Grundmann, Agrarpolitik. 8 Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research

Along with these changes in the system for production and sale of agricultural products, far-reaching reforms were also introduced in the organisation of agricultural research. The main agent of these changes was Konrad Meyer, a professor of agricultural science and, from 1933 onwards, a head of department in the Reich Ministry of Education.28 In the latter role, he reorganised agricultural research at universities and colleges with the aim of ensuring that they were based on the guid- ing principles of Nazi agricultural policy.29 After only a few months, Meyer initiated the Reich Working Group on Agricultural Science (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Landbauwissenschaft) to improve the coordination of the numerous research groups and to focus their activities on issues related to agricultural practice and the priori- ties of Nazi agricultural policy. The organisation was renamed the Research Service (Forschungsdienst) in the following year. As head of this new compulsory body for agricultural science, Meyer had acquired far-reaching powers.30 After the war started, he became head of Himmler’s Planning Office (Planungsamt) and was one of the authors of the General Plan for the East (Generalplan Ost), which envis- aged the forced resettlement and murder of several million Russian civilians and the ‘Germanisation’ of large areas of the occupied territories.31 In 1934, some two years before economic preparations for war were commenced under the aegis of the Four-Year Plan, an agricultural ‘Production Battle’ was proclaimed. The main purpose of this campaign was to increase domestic agricultural production so that foreign currency that would otherwise have been needed for im- porting food could be reallocated to imports of armaments.32 Agricultural research was to contribute to this goal (and had been doing so since before the ‘Production Battle’ was proclaimed) by carrying out research on plants containing oils and pro- teins. These would, it was hoped, help fill the ‘fats gap’ and ‘protein gap’ that had been identified in agricultural production. When the Four-Year Plan was launched, this aim of import substitution was stepped up further. Along with the production of foodstuffs, a new objective was to grow crops for industrial use, such as fibre crops for producing alternative fabrics. Under the leadership of Konrad Meyer, who, in addition to his other roles, was head of the ‘Agricultural Science and General Biology’ branch of the newly-founded Reich Research Council (Reichsforschungsrat) from 1937 onwards, and had been

28 Meyer had studied agricultural sciences in Göttingen (where one of his teachers was the later director of the KWI for Biology, Fritz von Wettstein) and had obtained his Ph.D. with a thesis on wheat genetics. After spending two years working in agriculture, he returned to the Institute for Plant Cultivation at the University of Göttingen as an assistant and, during the period that followed, had a major part in disseminating Nazism throughout the university; Becker, ‘Nahrungssicherung’, p. 635. See also Hammerstein, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, pp. 175–179; Stoehr, ‘Von Max Sering zu Konrad Meyer’. In Meyer’s unpublished autobiography, Über Höhen und Tiefen (Through Highs and Lows) (typewritten manuscript), he describes his work as a research organiser in detail. I am grateful to Matthias Burchard, who made this document accessible to me. 29 Becker, ‘Nahrungssicherung’, p. 639. 30 Ibid., p. 640. 31 See Aly/Heim, Architects, pp. 93 and 253 ; Rössler, ‘Konrad Meyer’. 32 Backe, ‘Bauerntum’, p. 111. Sources and Literature 9 vice-president of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemein- schaft or DFG) since 1936, agricultural research received extremely generous funding. Agricultural research did not just receive more funds than any other subject area; in fact, in most years it received more funding than all the other natural science and technical branches put together (except for 1940 and 1942).33 Research at the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes was funded not just by the DFG, however, but to a large extent also by the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture (hereinafter referred to as the RMEL or, for the sake of simplicity, the Food Ministry or the Agriculture Ministry). The undersecretary in this ministry, Herbert Backe, had considerable influence within the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. When the regime initiated its expansionary policies in 1938, the areas of activity for agricultural research expanded too, in several stages. After the Austrian An- schluss and the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the first task was for the areas that had been added to the Reich to be ‘attached’ in a variety of ways. This included scientific institutions; institutes were moved from the old Reich area to the new territories and new institutes were established in these areas. A similar process occurred, slightly later, with the economic and cultural expansion in south-eastern Europe, which was accompanied by initiatives to set up new institutes for agricultural research. Fur- thermore, once the war started and in particular after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the entire geographical context of the autarky policy changed, and with it, that of agricultural research. Planning and research were no longer limited to the borders of the German Reich, but could extend across an imagined continent-wide European economic area under German leadership. Scientists were encouraged to develop animals and plants that were specially adapted to the agricultural conditions of the occupied territories, in order to maximise the potential for exploitation. After the occupation of large parts of the Soviet Union, research on non-tropical rubber plants, which had been very limited until then, was expanded considerably. In paral- lel, the science of agricultural work began to develop agricultural equipment suited to the conditions in the east and was able to apply this knowledge to the planning of new settlements. At the same time, plant genetic resources and research potential in the occupied territories were to be assimilated into German research and made accessible for further scientific work ‘in the service of food independence’. Finally, during the second half of the war, the research being done at the KWI for Work Physiology, also funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, on the optimal utilisation of scarce food resources became increasingly important.

Sources and Literature

This study is based mainly on the sources contained in the Historical Archives of the Max Planck Society (MPS). The ﬁles prepared by the staff of the Administrative Headquarters of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society who were in charge of looking after

33 Wieland, ‘Aufgaben’, p. 43. 10 Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research individual institutes were particularly useful, as the surviving archives of the institutes themselves are usually incomplete. For some of the institutes discussed here (e.g. the KWI for Animal Breeding Research), all their own files have been lost. For others, it is only by comparing their files with those of the Bundesarchiv,for example, that we can gain an impression of what is missing from the institutes’ files. Unfortunately, the problem of incompleteness is particularly serious in respect of the involvement of Kaiser Wilhelm institutes in research on the east and on Lebensraum. For example, the documents contained in the MPS archives contain almost no ref- erences at all to the cooperation between the KWI for Plant Breeding Research and the agricultural research unit at Auschwitz concentration camp. But such documents must have existed – not just because there was, at least for a period, close cooperation between the two, extending even to the transfer of the caoutchouc research centre to Auschwitz, but also because documents on the issue are contained in the files of the Plenipotentiary for Plant Rubber (Sonderbeauftragter für Pflanzenkautschuk) that have been preserved in the Bundesarchiv. Of particular interest were the files of the KWI for Plant Breeding Research, which have only recently been returned to the Historical Archives of the MPS. For many years, these files had been believed lost, but in reality they had been confiscated by the Red Army at the end of the war and had been stored under lock and key in the former Special Archive in Moscow. They are now available as microfiche copies in the Dahlem MPS archive. They contain the correspondence between Wilhelm Rudorf and several of his colleagues and staff, several of whom worked as scientists or research organisers in the occupied eastern territories, and provide us with insights that could not have been gained from the files available up to now. For the reasons already suggested, the chapter on caoutchouc research, in particular, could not have been written without files other than those contained in the Max Planck archives. These included the files of the Plenipotentiary, mentioned above, and documents contained in the archive of Continental, the tyre company. However, these sources do not allow us to reconstruct the role of the KWI for Plant Breed- ing Research in full. For example, the files of the Plenipotentiary contain mainly documents that throw light on the role played by the SS in the caoutchouc project, and the documents in the Continental archives reveal certain aspects of the chemical industry’s reservations about the research project, but very little about the research work itself. It was thus all the more helpful that several contemporary witnesses who had carried out research on the rubber plant Taraxacum kok-sagyz, either as prisoners in Auschwitz concentration camp or as employees of the Müncheberg institute, were willing to provide me with information. To their accounts were added information gained from records of trials by the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjus- tizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg. These records contain the minutes of interviews with several former prisoners who were members of the plant breeding detail in Auschwitz. For the section on the careers of individual scientists, the most important sup- plement to the MPS archive was the DFG’s documentation on research funding, stored in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, and personnel files on various individuals in various university archives. Another important source was the archive of the Sources and Literature 11

Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften), especially the files of the correspondence between Hans Stubbe and many of his colleagues at home and abroad. However, although the documentary record is relatively good, it was only possible to reconstruct the general outlines of some of the important issues, such as Stubbe’s work on biological weapons. The literature on the history of the KWS generally focuses on the biological institutes and those involved in armaments research; until now, little attention has been paid to the agricultural institutes.34 Brief overviews have been written for each of these institutes,35 but these do not deal with the issue of the role that the expansion towards the east played in the development of research. This is not entirely sur- prising for publications that focus on the ‘survival’ of the institutes under the Nazi regime, not their involvement in that regime. The anniversary publications produced both by the MPS and by individual institutes do provide some important data on the history of its member institutes, but in general they present their activities as an uninterrupted path of scientific advancement, from one outstanding achievement to the next.36 Biographies of some of the scientists with whom this study is concerned also provide extensive information on their characters and work, even though some biographers seem to not to have maintained sufficient professional distance from their subjects.37 Jonathan Harwood has investigated in detail the KWI for Plant Breeding Re- search, which is of central importance for this study. However, he concentrated on working methods, research areas and styles of thought in this institute and others, without exploring the way these changed during the German expansion to the east.38 Volker Klemm has investigated agricultural research during the Third Reich in general and his work has been an important source for this volume although the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes are only of minor interest for him. And Michael Flitner’s work is the authority on the use and ownership of plant genetic resources, relevant to this study in the context of the expansion towards the east.39 The literature on the KWS’s activities in agricultural science is not very extensive overall, but with regard to the project on breeding natural rubber plants, it is almost non-existent. The corresponding chapter of this book is thus based, apart from primary sources and a few contemporary publications, on an unpublished Diplom thesis by Alexander Schlichter, some fragmentary portrayals in the

34 On the history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society see, among other sources, Vierhaus/von Brocke (eds.), Forschung; vom Brocke/Laitko (eds.), Kaiser-Wilhelm/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft; Kaufmann (ed.), Geschichte; Sachse/Massin, Biowissenschaftliche Forschung. 35 Kazemi, ‘Tierzuchtforschung’; Macrakis, ‘Survival’. 36 Kraut, ‘Max-Planck-Institut für Ernährungsphyiologie’; Witt, ‘Max-Planck-Institut für Tierzucht’; 50 Jahre Tierzucht- und Tierproduktionsforschung Dummerstorf; Rübensam, 70 Jahre; Rudorf (ed.), Dreiÿig Jahre. 37 Käding, Engagement; Schattenberg/Spaar, Rudolf Schick; Kröner et al, Erwin Baur. 38 Harwood, Styles. Important information on the research activities of the KWI for Plant Breeding Research and the KWI for Animal Breeding Research is also given in Deichmann, Biologen. 39 Klemm, Agrarwissenschaften; Flitner, Sammler. 12 Introduction: Politics and Agricultural Research literature and the few publications that exist on the topic of the ‘plant breeding detail’ in Auschwitz.40 In June 2000, agricultural research under National Socialism was the topic of a workshop held as part of the research programme ‘History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the National Socialist Era’. This workshop focused mainly (though not exclusively) on the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes and their role in the context of the autarky policy and the expansion towards the east. The results of this workshop and of some thematically-related studies have been published as Volume 2 of the series Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. They throw light on some previously little-explored aspects of the history of plant breeding, and on some institutes and individuals, including two of the scientific institutions under German leadership in the occupied territories.41 One topic could be dealt with only to a very limited extent in the latter volume, and it forms the focus of the present study: the question of how research perspectives and methods changed with the expansion towards the east. As indicated by its title, this study is divided into three main sections, each of which analyses agricultural and food research from a different perspective. The first section discusses Herbert Backe and his ideas for the food economy. As an undersecretary in the RMEL, Backe was responsible for planning the wartime food economy, but he was also an enthusiastic supporter of the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes and in this role was responsible for integrating agriculture and food research into the planning of the war economy. The extent to which this influenced the research agenda and practice at the KWS is illustrated by reference to eight of its institutes and the plans for two more centres. These eight institutes (and the two planned) were concerned with optimising yields from crop plants and livestock, with creating alternative raw materials, and with using the findings of ergonomics and nutrition science to increase workers’ productivity. The second section investigates the organisation of and networks in agricultural research and the manner in which agricultural research results were converted into practical agricultural policy, using as an example a project to produce natural rubber in German-occupied areas using non-tropical plants. Although the production of chemical rubber was developing apace, natural rubber was still needed by the rubber-processing industry, especially for making tyres. The natural rubber project was therefore considered to be a critical step in overcoming a strategic supply bottleneck. It was run by a network of institutions, in which both the SS and the KWI for Plant Breeding Research played major parts. This research network made extensive use of the Nazi regime’s repertoire of forcible measures, from occupying land for cultivation right through to having research done in concentration camps: in 1944, the KWI for Plant Breeding Research moved its caoutchouc research centre from Müncheberg to Auschwitz.

40 Schlichter, Forschung; Wieland, ‘Aufgaben’; Deichmann, Biologen; Shelley (ed.), Criminal Ex- periments;Zi˛eba, ‘Nebenlager Rajsko’. 41 The agricultural research unit in Puławy, in occupied Poland, and the German-Greek Institute for Biology; see Meducki, ‘Agrarwissenschaftliche Forschungen’, and Zariﬁ, ‘Forschungsinstitut für Biologie’. Sources and Literature 13

The final section of this study also focuses on breeding research. The careers of two plant breeding researchers are used as examples to explore the relationship between scientists and the Nazi regime, the interests which each side had in cooperating with the other, the extent to which the scientists had the freedom to make decisions and take action, and the role that scientists’ self-image as ‘pure researchers’ played in this cooperative relationship. Overall, the present study attempts to investigate the interactions between scientific research and the policies of occupation in the occupied territories. One issue to be examined is whether National Socialism, as is frequently assumed, prevented scientific development or whether it in fact created space and opportunities for research. In addition, the goal is to find out to what extent scientists in the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes took action on their own initiative. Did they develop their own initiatives, based on their own research agenda, for using research resources that were available to them only because of the expansionary policy? And finally, the study will examine whether and to what extent members of staff of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society made use of the National Socialist state’s forcible measures, even if this meant disregarding the fundamental rights, sometimes even the life, of other human beings. Calories – Agricultural Research, the Food Economy and War

Herbert Backe and Science Policy

In my opinion, the fact that individuals such as Backe, the former Reich Minister of Food, or Baron v. Schröder, the banker, were members of the Senate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society is of no signiﬁcance. The Senate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society always included members of the national government. These individuals had not played a leading role in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in previous eras and they did not do so during the Third Reich. For the most part, they did not make themselves felt and refrained from exerting their inﬂuence in any way. Letter from Otto Hahn to Anton Pfeiffer, 2 June 19471

Herbert Backe had been a member of the Senate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Soci- ety since 1937, initially in his role as undersecretary and later as a Minister. In 1941, he was appointed Vice-President of the Society, after forcefully arguing that ‘his’ Ministry, the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was contributing more funds to the KWS than the Reich Ministry of Education and that for this reason, it should have more inﬂuence in the KWS’s decision-making bodies.2 Backe was the key decision-maker for the funding of all the institutes of the Society involved in ‘agricultural research’ in the broadest sense of the term. Minutes of the meetings of the KWS Senate3 and entries in the diary kept by Backe’s wife4 testify to his very high level of interest in the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes. This is also con- ﬁrmed by his daughter.5 Herbert Backe committed suicide in 1947 while in Allied

1 MPS Archive, Gründungsakten 12. I am grateful to Mark Walker for bringing this document to my attention. 2 Telschow, Memorandum on a visit to Backe, 29 May 1940, MPS Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 2605/1. See also Macrakis, Surviving the Svastika, p. 134. 3 The minutes of the Senate meetings are stored in the reading room of the MPS Archive. 4 Ursula Backe’s conversations with her husband included discussions on issues related to his professional life. Her diary is kept by the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz. I am grateful to her daughter, Armgard Henning, who provided me with copies of the few entries related to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. 5 Personal communication by Armgard Henning, 7 March 2000. Her brother, Albrecht Backe, has also kindly provided me with additional information.

S. Heim, Calories, Caoutchouc, Careers, 15–95. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008 15 16 Calories – Agricultural Research, the Food Economy and War

Herbert Backe (1896–1947), c. 1944 custody awaiting trial. Before doing so, he composed a short review of his life, which also contains a few sentences about the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. Backe had had a friendly relationship with Heinrich Himmler, but here he writes that Himmler had lacked ‘any conception of an economic division of labour’. Himmler had wanted to do everything himself, together with the SS, even including breeding horses and livestock for the settlers in the east. ‘It was pure dilettantism, especially when they moved on to breeding using cross-breeding methods, which I also carried out, but only within the scientific institutes in the KWS.’6 Evidently, Backe saw the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes as his institutes in which he had research carried out, just as Himmler did in the Ahnenerbe foundation – except that Backe felt, justifiably, that his own scientific empire was better qualified than that of the SS. Backe set great store on scientific research to solve the problems that faced his ministry. In mid-June 1942, he informed the KWS, through its General Secretary,

6 Herbert Backe, Großer Bericht Ziegenhain, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, N 1075 (NL Herbert Backe), vol. 3, p. 46.