The Politics of Nature in Nazi Germany: Environmental Ideals and the Myth of Blood and Soil

For some Germans, Nazism represented an ecological outlook and a return to a simpler, healthier, more natural way of life founded on environmental harmony. That image fundamentally conflicts with the astonishing destructiveness of the Nazi military machine and its legacy of concentration camps, dictatorship, and mass murder. This study argues that these two facets of Nazism, the ecological and the imperial, were integrally intertwined. Peter Staudenmaier uses new archival evidence to examine this contested history, ranging from early organic farming movements to landscape protection advocates. In doing so, Staudenmaier reveals a remarkable range of practical endeavors in Nazi Germany that were shaped by ecological ideals coupled with potent racial myths. The Politics of Nature in Nazi Germany challenges previous scholarly frameworks, bringing together environmental history and the history of Nazism in new and revealing ways.

About the Author

Peter Staudenmaier is Associate Professor of History at Marquette University. He has authored books and articles on the history of Nazi Germany and environmentalism, including Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era (2014) and Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics between Left and Right (2021).