Reichserbhofgesetz


The Reichserbhofgesetz was a Nazi law to implement principles of blood and soil, stating that its aim was to: "preserve the farming community as the blood-source of the German people". As peasants appeared in Nazi ideology as a source of economics and racial stability, the law was implemented to protect them from the forces of modernization.

Description

Conditions

Any farm of at least one Ackernahrung, area of land large enough to support a family and evaluated from 7.5 to 125 hectares, was declared hereditary as an Erbhof, to pass from father to son, and could not be mortgaged or alienated, and only these farmers were entitled to call themselves Bauern or "farmer peasant", a term the Nazis attempted to refurbish from a neutral or even pejorative to a positive term.
A Greater Aryan certificate was required to receive its benefits, similar to the requirements for becoming a member of the Nazi Party.
Farms too small could became Erbhof by combination while larger farms would have to be subdivided.

Transmission

Regional custom was only allowed to decide whether the eldest or the youngest son was to be the heir. In areas where no particular custom prevailed, the youngest son was to be the heir. Still, the eldest son inherited the farm in most cases during the Third Reich. Priority was given to the patriline, so that if there were no sons, the brothers and brothers' sons of the deceased peasant had precedence over the peasant's own daughters.
Only about 35% of all farming units were covered by it, and East Elbian landed estates were not affected.
Richard Walther Darré, in accordance with his strong "blood and soil" beliefs, did much to promote it as the Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture and Reichsbauernführer.

Suppression

In Allied-occupied Germany, after much debate about whether this law should be repealed for its Nazi roots or if this law should be kept for now, after excising its most odious clauses, to protect the German food supply, on 1947 the Allied Control Council decided to repeal it and to regulate the transfer of forests and farms. On the occasion, other entailments were also repealed.