Richard Walther Darré

Richard Walther Darré (born Ricardo Walther Óscar Darré; 14 July 1895 – 5 September 1953) was one of the leading Nazi "blood and soil" (Blut und Boden) ideologists and served as Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture. As the National leader (Reichsleiter) for agricultural policy, he was a high-ranking functionary in the Nazi Party and as a Senior group leader (Obergruppenführer) in the SS, he was the seventh most senior commander in that organisation.

Born in Belgrano, Buenos Aires to German parents, Darré was schooled in Germany and saw active service in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. After the war, he pursued a degree in agriculture at the University of Halle and joined the agrarian and Völkisch Artaman League, where he began to develop the tendency which would become "blood and soil". His philosphy was a major influence on Heinrich Himmler, a fellow Artaman. In 1930, Darré joined the Nazi Party. Himmler appointed him chief of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) in 1932, and a year later he was made Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture.

Darré was gradually sidelined as both Hitler and Himmler came to regard him as excessively theoretical. Himmler asked him to step down as leader of RuSHA in 1938, and by 1942 he was effectively forced into retirement. At the end of the war, Darré was arrested, tried and found guilty on three counts at the Ministries Trial. He was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment; following his release, he spent his final years in Bad Harzburg and died of liver cancer in 1953.