Fascist Ecology: The "Green Wing" of theNazi Party and itsHistorical AntecedentsPeter Staudenmaier

"We recognize that separating humanityfrom nature, from the whole of life, leads tohumankind’s own destruction and to thedeath of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole ofnature can our people be made stronger.That is the fundamental point of thebiological tasks of our age. Humankindalone is no longer the focus of thought, butrather life as a whole . . . This strivingtoward connectedness with the totality oflife, with nature itself, a nature into whichwe are born, this is the deepest meaningand the true essence of National Socialistthought." 1

In our zeal to condemn the status quo, radicals oftencarelessly toss about epithets like "fascist" and"ecofascist," thus contributing to a sort of conceptualinflation that in no way furthers effective socialcritique. In such a situation, it is easy to overlook thefact that there are still virulent strains of fascism inour political culture which, however marginal,demand our attention. One of the least recognized orunderstood of these strains is the phenomenon onemight call "actually existing ecofascism," that is, thepreoccupation of authentically fascist movements withenvironmentalist concerns. In order to grasp the

peculiar intensity and endurance of this affiliation, wewould do well to examine more closely its mostnotorious historical incarnation, the so-called "greenwing" of German National Socialism.

Despite an extensive documentary record, the subjectremains an elusive one, underappreciated byprofessional historians and environmental activistsalike. In English-speaking countries as well as inGermany itself, the very existence of a "green wing" inthe Nazi movement, much less its inspiration, goals,and consequences, has yet to be adequatelyresearched and analyzed. Most of the handful ofavailable interpretations succumb to either analarming intellectual affinity with their subject." 2 or anaive refusal to examine the full extent of the"ideological overlap between nature conservation andNational Socialism." 3 This article presents a brief andnecessarily schematic overview of the ecologicalcomponents of Nazism, emphasizing both their centralrole in Nazi ideology and their practicalimplementation during the Third Reich. Apreliminary survey of nineteenth and twentiethcentury precursors to classical ecofascism should serveto illuminate the conceptual underpinnings commonto all forms of reactionary ecology.

Two initial clarifications are in order. First, the terms"environmental" and "ecological" are here used moreor less interchangeably to denote ideas, attitudes, andpractices commonly associated with the contemporaryenvironmental movement. This is not ananachronism; it simply indicates an interpretiveapproach which highlights connections to present-dayconcerns. Second, this approach is not meant toendorse the historiographically discredited notion thatpre-1933 historical data can or should be read as"leading inexorably" to the Nazi calamity. Rather, ourconcern here is with discerning ideologicalcontinuities and tracing political genealogies, in anattempt to understand the past in light of our currentsituation -- to make history relevant to the presentsocial and ecological crisis.

The Roots of the Blood and Soil

Mystique

Germany is not only the birthplace of the science ofecology and the site of Green politics' rise toprominence; it has also been home to a peculiarsynthesis of naturalism and nationalism forged underthe influence of the Romantic tradition's anti-Enlightenment irrationalism. Two nineteenth centuryfigures exemplify this ominous conjunction: ErnstMoritz Arndt and Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl.

While best known in Germany for his fanaticalnationalism, Arndt was also dedicated to the cause ofthe peasantry, which lead him to a concern for thewelfare of the land itself. Historians of Germanenvironmentalism mention him as the earliestexample of 'ecological' thinking in the modern sense. 4

His remarkable 1815 article On the Care andConservation of Forests, written at the dawn ofindustrialization in Central Europe, rails againstshortsighted exploitation of woodlands and soil,condemning deforestation and its economic causes. Attimes he wrote in terms strikingly similar to those ofcontemporary biocentrism: "When one sees nature in anecessary connectedness and interrelationship, thenall things are equally important -- shrub, worm, plant,human, stone, nothing first or last, but all one singleunity." 5

Arndt's environmentalism, however, was inextricablybound up with virulently xenophobic nationalism. Hiseloquent and prescient appeals for ecologicalsensitivity were couched always in terms of the well-being of the German soil and the German people, andhis repeated lunatic polemics against miscegenation,demands for teutonic racial purity, and epithetsagainst the French, Slavs, and Jews marked everyaspect of his thought. At the very outset of thenineteenth century the deadly connection betweenlove of land and militant racist nationalism was firmlyset in place.

Riehl, a student of Arndt, further developed thissinister tradition. In some respects his 'green' streakwent significantly deeper than Arndt's; presagingcertain tendencies in recent environmental activism,

his 1853 essay Field and Forest ended with a call tofight for "the rights of wilderness." But even herenationalist pathos set the tone: "We must save theforest, not only so that our ovens do not become cold inwinter, but also so that the pulse of life of the peoplecontinues to beat warm and joyfully, so that Germanyremains German." 6 Riehl was an implacable opponentof the rise of industrialism and urbanization; hisovertly antisemitic glorification of rural peasantvalues and undifferentiated condemnation ofmodernity established him as the "founder of agrarianromanticism and anti-urbanism." 7

These latter two fixations matured in the second halfof the nineteenth century in the context of the völkischmovement, a powerful cultural disposition and socialtendency which united ethnocentric populism withnature mysticism. At the heart of the völkischtemptation was a pathological response to modernity.In the face of the very real dislocations brought on bythe triumph of industrial capitalism and nationalunification, völkisch thinkers preached a return to theland, to the simplicity and wholeness of a life attunedto nature's purity. The mystical effusiveness of thisperverted utopianism was matched by its politicalvulgarity. While "the Volkish movement aspired toreconstruct the society that was sanctioned by history,rooted in nature, and in communion with the cosmiclife spirit," 8 it pointedly refused to locate the sourcesof alienation, rootlessness and environmentaldestruction in social structures, laying the blameinstead to rationalism, cosmopolitanism, and urbancivilization. The stand-in for all of these was the age-old object of peasant hatred and middle-classresentment: the Jews. "The Germans were in search ofa mysterious wholeness that would restore them toprimeval happiness, destroying the hostile milieu ofurban industrial civilization that the Jewishconspiracy had foisted on them." 9

Reformulating traditional German antisemitism intonature-friendly terms, the völkisch movement carrieda volatile amalgam of nineteenth century culturalprejudices, Romantic obsessions with purity, and anti-Enlightenment sentiment into twentieth centurypolitical discourse. The emergence of modern ecology

forged the final link in the fateful chain which boundtogether aggressive nationalism, mystically chargedracism, and environmentalist predilections. In 1867the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel coined the term'ecology' and began to establish it as a scientificdiscipline dedicated to studying the interactionsbetween organism and environment. Haeckel was alsothe chief popularizer of Darwin and evolutionarytheory for the German-speaking world, and developeda peculiar sort of social darwinist philosophy he called'monism.' The German Monist League he foundedcombined scientifically based ecological holism withvölkisch social views. Haeckel believed in nordic racialsuperiority, strenuously opposed race mixing andenthusiastically supported racial eugenics. His ferventnationalism became fanatical with the onset of WorldWar I, and he fulminated in antisemitic tones againstthe post-war Council Republic in Bavaria.

In this way "Haeckel contributed to that specialvariety of German thought which served as the seedbed for National Socialism. He became one ofGermany's major ideologists for racism, nationalismand imperialism." 10 Near the end of his life he joinedthe Thule Society, "a secret, radically right-wingorganization which played a key role in theestablishment of the Nazi movement." 11 But morethan merely personal continuities are at stake here.The pioneer of scientific ecology, along with hisdisciples Willibald Hentschel, Wilhelm Bölsche andBruno Wille, profoundly shaped the thinking ofsubsequent generations of environmentalists byembedding concern for the natural world in a tightlywoven web of regressive social themes. From its verybeginnings, then, ecology was bound up in anintensely reactionary political framework.

The specific contours of this early marriage of ecologyand authoritarian social views are highly instructive.At the center of this ideological complex is the direct,unmediated application of biological categories to thesocial realm. Haeckel held that "civilization and thelife of nations are governed by the same laws asprevail throughout nature and organic life." 12 Thisnotion of 'natural laws' or 'natural order' has long beena mainstay of reactionary environmental thought. Its

concomitant is anti-humanism:

Thus, for the Monists, perhaps the mostpernicious feature of European bourgeoiscivilization was the inflated importancewhich it attached to the idea of man ingeneral, to his existence and to his talents,and to the belief that through his uniquerational faculties man could essentiallyrecreate the world and bring about auniversally more harmonious and ethicallyjust social order. [Humankind was] aninsignificant creature when viewed as partof and measured against the vastness of thecosmos and the overwhelming forces ofnature. 13

Other Monists extended this anti-humanist emphasisand mixed it with the traditional völkisch motifs ofindiscriminate anti-industrialism and anti-urbanismas well as the newly emerging pseudo-scientificracism. The linchpin, once again, was the conflation ofbiological and social categories. The biologist RaoulFrancé, founding member of the Monist League,elaborated so-called Lebensgesetze, 'laws of life'through which the natural order determines the socialorder. He opposed racial mixing, for example, as"unnatural." Francé is acclaimed by contemporaryecofascists as a "pioneer of the ecology movement." 14

Francé's colleague Ludwig Woltmann, anotherstudent of Haeckel, insisted on a biologicalinterpretation for all societal phenomena, fromcultural attitudes to economic arrangements. Hestressed the supposed connection betweenenvironmental purity and 'racial' purity: "Woltmanntook a negative attitude toward modern industrialism.He claimed that the change from an agrarian to anindustrial society had hastened the decline of the race.In contrast to nature, which engendered the harmonicforms of Germanism, there were the big cities,diabolical and inorganic, destroying the virtues of therace." 15

Thus by the early years of the twentieth century acertain type of 'ecological' argumentation, saturated

with right-wing political content, had attained ameasure of respectability within the political cultureof Germany. During the turbulent period surroundingWorld War I, the mixture of ethnocentric fanaticism,regressive rejection of modernity and genuineenvironmental concern proved to be a very potentpotion indeed.

The Youth Movement and theWeimar Era

The chief vehicle for carrying this ideologicalconstellation to prominence was the youth movement,an amorphous phenomenon which played a decisivebut highly ambivalent role in shaping Germanpopular culture during the first three tumultuousdecades of this century. Also known as theWandervögel (which translates roughly as 'wanderingfree spirits'), the youth movement was a hodge-podgeof countercultural elements, blending neo-Romanticism, Eastern philosophies, nature mysticism,hostility to reason, and a strong communal impulse ina confused but no less ardent search for authentic,non-alienated social relations. Their back-to-the-landemphasis spurred a passionate sensitivity to thenatural world and the damage it suffered. They havebeen aptly characterized as 'right-wing hippies,' foralthough some sectors of the movement gravitatedtoward various forms of emancipatory politics (thoughusually shedding their environmentalist trappings inthe process), most of the Wandervöge were eventuallyabsorbed by the Nazis. This shift from nature worshipto Führer worship is worth examining.

The various strands of the youth movement shared acommon self-conception: they were a purportedly 'non-political' response to a deep cultural crisis, stressingthe primacy of direct emotional experience over socialcritique and action. They pushed the contradictions oftheir time to the breaking point, but were unable orunwilling to take the final step toward organized,focused social rebellion, "convinced that the changesthey wanted to effect in society could not be broughtabout by political means, but only by the improvementof the individual." 16 This proved to be a fatal error.

"Broadly speaking, two ways of revolt were open tothem: they could have pursued their radical critique ofsociety, which in due course would have brought theminto the camp of social revolution. [But] theWandervögel chose the other form of protest againstsociety -- romanticism." 17

This posture lent itself all too readily to a verydifferent kind of political mobilization: the 'unpolitical'zealotry of fascism. The youth movement did notsimply fail in its chosen form of protest, it was activelyrealigned when its members went over to the Nazis bythe thousands. Its countercultural energies and itsdreams of harmony with nature bore the bitterestfruit. This is, perhaps, the unavoidable trajectory ofany movement which acknowledges and opposes socialand ecological problems but does not recognize theirsystemic roots or actively resist the political andeconomic structures which generate them. Eschewingsocietal transformation in favor of personal change, anostensibly apolitical disaffection can, in times of crisis,yield barbaric results.

The attraction such perspectives exercised onidealistic youth is clear: the enormity of the crisisseemed to enjoin a total rejection of its apparentcauses. It is in the specific form of this rejection thatthe danger lies. Here the work of several moretheoretical minds from the period is instructive. Thephilosopher Ludwig Klages profoundly influenced theyouth movement and particularly shaped theirecological consciousness. He authored a tremendouslyimportant essay titled "Man and Earth" for thelegendary Meissner gathering of the Wandervögel in1913. 18 An extraordinarily poignant text and the bestknown of all Klages' work, it is not only "one of thevery greatest manifestoes of the radical ecopacifistmovement in Germany," 19 but also a classic exampleof the seductive terminology of reactionary ecology.

"Man and Earth" anticipated just about all of thethemes of the contemporary ecology movement. Itdecried the accelerating extinction of species,disturbance of global ecosystemic balance,deforestation, destruction of aboriginal peoples and ofwild habitats, urban sprawl, and the increasing

alienation of people from nature. In emphatic terms itdisparaged Christianity, capitalism, economicutilitarianism, hyperconsumption and the ideology of'progress.' It even condemned the environmentaldestructiveness of rampant tourism and the slaughterof whales, and displayed a clear recognition of theplanet as an ecological totality. All of this in 1913 !

It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Klageswas throughout his life politically archconservativeand a venomous antisemite. One historian labels hima "Volkish fanatic" and another considers him simply"an intellectual pacemaker for the Third Reich" who"paved the way for fascist philosophy in manyimportant respects." 20 In "Man and Earth" a genuineoutrage at the devastation of the natural environmentis coupled with a political subtext of cultural despair.21 Klages' diagnosis of the ills of modern society, for allits declamations about capitalism, returns always to asingle culprit: "Geist." His idiosyncratic use of thisterm, which means mind or intellect, was meant todenounce not only hyperrationalism or instrumentalreason, but rational thought itself. Such a wholesaleindictment of reason cannot help but have savagepolitical implications. It forecloses any chance ofrationally reconstructing society's relationship withnature and justifies the most brutal authoritarianism.But the lessons of Klages' life and work have beenhard for ecologists to learn. In 1980, "Man and Earth"was republished as an esteemed and seminal treatiseto accompany the birth of the German Greens.

Another philosopher and stern critic of Enlightenmentwho helped bridge fascism and environmentalism wasMartin Heidegger. A much more renowned thinkerthan Klages, Heidegger preached "authentic Being"and harshly criticized modern technology, and istherefore often celebrated as a precursor of ecologicalthinking. On the basis of his critique of technology andrejection of humanism, contemporary deep ecologistshave elevated Heidegger to their pantheon of eco-heroes:

Heidegger's critique of anthropocentrichumanism, his call for humanity to learn to"let things be," his notion that humanity is

involved in a "play" or "dance" with earth,sky, and gods, his meditation on thepossibility of an authentic mode of"dwelling" on the earth, his complaint thatindustrial technology is laying waste to theearth, his emphasis on the importance oflocal place and "homeland," his claim thathumanity should guard and preservethings, instead of dominating them -- allthese aspects of Heidegger's thought help tosupport the claim that he is a major deepecological theorist. 22

Such effusions are, at best, dangerously naive. Theysuggest a style of thought utterly oblivious to thehistory of fascist appropriations of all the elements thequoted passage praises in Heidegger. (To his credit,the author of the above lines, a major deep ecologicaltheorist in his own right, has since changed hisposition and eloquently urged his colleagues to do thesame.) 23 As for the philosopher of Being himself, hewas -- unlike Klages, who lived in Switzerland after1915 -- an active member of the Nazi party and for atime enthusiastically, even adoringly supported theFührer. His mystical panegyrics to Heimat (homeland)were complemented by a deep antisemitism, and hismetaphysically phrased broadsides against technologyand modernity converged neatly with populistdemagogy. Although he lived and taught for thirtyyears after the fall of the Third Reich, Heideggernever once publicly regretted, much less renounced,his involvement with National Socialism, nor evenperfunctorily condemned its crimes. His work,whatever its philosophical merits, stands today as asignal admonition about the political uses of anti-humanism in ecological garb.

In addition to the youth movement and protofascistphilosophies, there were, of course, practical efforts atprotecting natural habitats during the Weimar period.Many of these projects were profoundly implicated inthe ideology which culminated in the victory of 'Bloodand Soil.' A 1923 recruitment pitch for a woodlandspreservation outfit gives a sense of the environmentalrhetoric of the time:

"In every German breast the German forestquivers with its caverns and ravines, cragsand boulders, waters and winds, legendsand fairy tales, with its songs and itsmelodies, and awakens a powerful yearningand a longing for home; in all German soulsthe German forest lives and weaves with itsdepth and breadth, its stillness andstrength, its might and dignity, its richesand its beauty -- it is the source of Germaninwardness, of the German soul, of Germanfreedom. Therefore protect and care for theGerman forest for the sake of the elders andthe youth, and join the new German"League for the Protection andConsecration of the German Forest."24

The mantra-like repetition of the word "German" andthe mystical depiction of the sacred forest fusetogether, once again, nationalism and naturalism.This intertwinement took on a grisly significance withthe collapse of the Weimar republic. For alongsidesuch relatively innocuous conservation groups,another organization was growing which offered theseideas a hospitable home: the National SocialistGerman Workers Party, known by its acronymNSDAP. Drawing on the heritage of Arndt, Riehl,Haeckel, and others (all of whom were honoredbetween 1933 and 1945 as forebears of triumphantNational Socialism), the Nazi movement'sincorporation of environmentalist themes was acrucial factor in its rise to popularity and state power.

Nature in National SocialistIdeology

The reactionary ecological ideas whose outlines aresketched above exerted a powerful and lastinginfluence on many of the central figures in theNSDAP. Weimar culture, after all, was fairly awash insuch theories, but the Nazis gave them a peculiarinflection. The National Socialist "religion of nature,"as one historian has described it, was a volatileadmixture of primeval teutonic nature mysticism,pseudo-scientific ecology, irrationalist anti-humanism,

pseudo-scientific ecology, irrationalist anti-humanism,

and a mythology of racial salvation through a returnto the land. Its predominant themes were 'naturalorder,' organicist holism and denigration of humanity:"Throughout the writings, not only of Hitler, but ofmost Nazi ideologues, one can discern a fundamentaldeprecation of humans vis-à-vis nature, and, as alogical corollary to this, an attack upon human effortsto master nature."25 Quoting a Nazi educator, thesame source continues: "anthropocentric views ingeneral had to be rejected. They would be valid only 'ifit is assumed that nature has been created only forman. We decisively reject this attitude. According toour conception of nature, man is a link in the livingchain of nature just as any other organism'." 26

Such arguments have a chilling currency withincontemporary ecological discourse: the key to social-ecological harmony is ascertaining "the eternal laws ofnature's processes" (Hitler) and organizing society tocorrespond to them. The Führer was particularly fondof stressing the "helplessness of humankind in the faceof nature's everlasting law."27 Echoing Haeckel andthe Monists, Mein Kampf announces: "When peopleattempt to rebel against the iron logic of nature, theycome into conflict with the very same principles towhich they owe their existence as human beings.Their actions against nature must lead to their owndownfall."28

The authoritarian implications of this view ofhumanity and nature become even clearer in thecontext of the Nazis' emphasis on holism andorganicism. In 1934 the director of the Reich Agencyfor Nature Protection, Walter Schoenichen,established the following objectives for biologycurricula: "Very early, the youth must develop anunderstanding of the civic importance of the'organism', i.e. the co-ordination of all parts andorgans for the benefit of the one and superior task oflife."29 This (by now familiar) unmediated adaptationof biological concepts to social phenomena served tojustify not only the totalitarian social order of theThird Reich but also the expansionist politics ofLebensraum (the plan of conquering 'living space' inEastern Europe for the German people). It alsoprovided the link between environmental purity and

provided the link between environmental purity andracial purity:

Two central themes of biology educationfollow [according to the Nazis] from theholistic perspective: nature protection andeugenics. If one views nature as a unifiedwhole, students will automatically developa sense for ecology and environmentalconservation. At the same time, the natureprotection concept will direct attention tothe urbanized and 'overcivilized' modernhuman race.30

In many varieties of the National Socialist world viewecological themes were linked with traditionalagrarian romanticism and hostility to urbancivilization, all revolving around the idea ofrootedness in nature. This conceptual constellation,especially the search for a lost connection to nature,was most pronounced among the neo-pagan elementsin the Nazi leadership, above all Heinrich Himmler,Alfred Rosenberg, and Walther Darré. Rosenbergwrote in his colossal The Myth of the 20th Century:"Today we see the steady stream from the countrysideto the city, deadly for the Volk. The cities swell everlarger, unnerving the Volk and destroying the threadswhich bind humanity to nature; they attractadventurers and profiteers of all colors, therebyfostering racial chaos."31

Such musings, it must be stressed, were not mererhetoric; they reflected firmly held beliefs and, indeed,practices at the very top of the Nazi hierarchy whichare today conventionally associated with ecologicalattitudes. Hitler and Himmler were both strictvegetarians and animal lovers, attracted to naturemysticism and homeopathic cures, and staunchlyopposed to vivisection and cruelty to animals.Himmler even established experimental organic farmsto grow herbs for SS medicinal purposes. And Hitler,at times, could sound like a veritable Green utopian,discussing authoritatively and in detail variousrenewable energy sources (including environmentallyappropriate hydropower and producing natural gasfrom sludge) as alternatives to coal, and declaring"water, winds and tides" as the energy path of the

future.32

Even in the midst of war, Nazi leaders maintainedtheir commitment to ecological ideals which were, forthem, an essential element of racial rejuvenation. InDecember 1942, Himmler released a decree "On theTreatment of the Land in the Eastern Territories,"referring to the newly annexed portions of Poland. Itread in part:

The peasant of our racial stock has alwayscarefully endeavored to increase thenatural powers of the soil, plants, andanimals, and to preserve the balance of thewhole of nature. For him, respect for divinecreation is the measure of all culture. If,therefore, the new Lebensräume (livingspaces) are to become a homeland for oursettlers, the planned arrangement of thelandscape to keep it close to nature is adecisive prerequisite. It is one of the basesfor fortifying the German Volk.33

This passage recapitulates almost all of the tropescomprised by classical ecofascist ideology:Lebensraum, Heimat, the agrarian mystique, thehealth of the Volk, closeness to and respect for nature(explicitly constructed as the standard against whichsociety is to be judged), maintaining nature'sprecarious balance, and the earthy powers of the soiland its creatures. Such motifs were anything butpersonal idiosyncracies on the part of Hitler, Himmler,or Rosenberg; even Göring -- who was, along withGoebbels, the member of the Nazi inner circle leasthospitable to ecological ideas -- appeared at times to bea committed conservationist.34 These sympathies werealso hardly restricted to the upper echelons of theparty. A study of the membership rolls of severalmainstream Weimar era Naturschutz (natureprotection) organizations revealed that by 1939, fully60 percent of these conservationists had joined theNSDAP (compared to about 10 percent of adult menand 25 percent of teachers and lawyers).35 Clearly theaffinities between environmentalism and NationalSocialism ran deep.

At the level of ideology, then, ecological themes playeda vital role in German fascism. It would be a gravemistake, however, to treat these elements as merepropaganda, cleverly deployed to mask Nazism's truecharacter as a technocratic-industrialist juggernaut.The definitive history of German anti-urbanism andagrarian romanticism argues incisively against thisview:

Nothing could be more wrong than tosuppose that most of the leading NationalSocialist ideologues had cynically feignedan agrarian romanticism and hostility tourban culture, without any innerconviction and for merely electoral andpropaganda purposes, in order to hoodwinkthe public [ . . . ] In reality, the majority ofthe leading National Socialist ideologistswere without any doubt more or lessinclined to agrarian romanticism and anti-urbanism and convinced of the need for arelative re-agrarianization.36

The question remains, however: To what extent didthe Nazis actually implement environmental policiesduring the twelve-year Reich? There is strongevidence that the 'ecological' tendency in the party,though largely ignored today, had considerablesuccess for most of the party's reign. This "green wing"of the NSDAP was represented above all by WaltherDarré, Fritz Todt, Alwin Seifert and Rudolf Hess, thefour figures who primarily shaped fascist ecology inpractice.

Blood and Soil as OfficialDoctrine

"The unity of blood and soil must be restored,"proclaimed Richard Walther Darré in 1930.37 Thisinfamous phrase denoted a quasi-mystical connectionbetween 'blood' (the race or Volk) and 'soil' (the landand the natural environment) specific to Germanicpeoples and absent, for example, among Celts andSlavs. For the enthusiasts of Blut und Boden, theJews especially were a rootless, wandering people,

Jews especially were a rootless, wandering people,

incapable of any true relationship with the land.German blood, in other words, engendered anexclusive claim to the sacred German soil. While theterm "blood and soil" had been circulating in völkischcircles since at least the Wilhelmine era, it was Darréwho first popularized it as a slogan and thenenshrined it as a guiding principle of Nazi thought.Harking back to Arndt and Riehl, he envisioned athoroughgoing ruralization of Germany and Europe,predicated on a revitalized yeoman peasantry, inorder to ensure racial health and ecologicalsustainability.

Darré was one of the party's chief "race theorists" andwas also instrumental in galvanizing peasant supportfor the Nazis during the critical period of the early1930s. From 1933 until 1942 he held the posts ofReich Peasant Leader and Minister of Agriculture.This was no minor fiefdom; the agriculture ministryhad the fourth largest budget of all the myriad Naziministries even well into the war.38 From this positionDarré was able to lend vital support to variousecologically oriented initiatives. He played anessential part in unifying the nebulous proto-environmentalist tendencies in National Socialism:

It was Darré who gave the ill-defined anti-civilization, anti-liberal, anti-modern andlatent anti-urban sentiments of the Nazielite a foundation in the agrarianmystique. And it seems as if Darré had animmense influence on the ideology ofNational Socialism, as if he was able toarticulate significantly more clearly thanbefore the values system of an agrariansociety contained in Nazi ideology and --above all -- to legitimate this agrarianmodel and give Nazi policy a goal that wasclearly oriented toward a far-reaching re-agrarianization.39

This goal was not only quite consonant withimperialist expansion in the name of Lebensraum, itwas in fact one of its primary justifications, evenmotivations. In language replete with the biologisticmetaphors of organicism, Darré declared: "The concept

metaphors of organicism, Darré declared: "The concept

of Blood and Soil gives us the moral right to take backas much land in the East as is necessary to establish aharmony between the body of our Volk and thegeopolitical space."40

Aside from providing green camouflage for thecolonization of Eastern Europe, Darré worked toinstall environmentally sensitive principles as thevery basis of the Third Reich's agricultural policy.Even in its most productivist phases, these preceptsremained emblematic of Nazi doctrine. When the"Battle for Production" (a scheme to boost theproductivity of the agricultural sector) was proclaimedat the second Reich Farmers Congress in 1934, thevery first point in the program read "Keep the soilhealthy !" But Darré's most important innovation wasthe introduction on a large scale of organic farmingmethods, significantly labeled "lebensgesetzlicheLandbauweise," or farming according to the laws oflife. The term points up yet again the natural orderideology which underlies so much reactionaryecological thought. The impetus for theseunprecedented measures came from Rudolf Steiner'santhroposophy and its techniques of biodynamiccultivation.41

The campaign to institutionalize organic farmingencompassed tens of thousands of smallholdings andestates across Germany. It met with considerableresistance from other members of the Nazi hierarchy,above all Backe and Göring. But Darré, with the helpof Hess and others, was able to sustain the policy untilhis forced resignation in 1942 (an event which hadlittle to do with his environmentalist leanings). Andthese efforts in no sense represented merely Darré'spersonal predilections; as the standard history ofGerman agricultural policy points out, Hitler andHimmler "were in complete sympathy with theseideas."42 Still, it was largely Darré's influence in theNazi apparatus which yielded, in practice, a level ofgovernment support for ecologically sound farmingmethods and land use planning unmatched by anystate before or since.

For these reasons Darré has sometimes been regardedas a forerunner of the contemporary Green movement.

as a forerunner of the contemporary Green movement.

His biographer, in fact, once referred to him as the"father of the Greens."43 Her book Blood and Soil,undoubtedly the best single source on Darré in eitherGerman or English, consistently downplays thevirulently fascist elements in his thinking, portrayinghim instead as a misguided agrarian radical. Thisgrave error in judgement indicates the powerfullydisorienting pull of an 'ecological' aura. Darré'spublished writings alone, dating back to the earlytwenties, are enough to indict him as a rabidly racistand jingoist ideologue particularly prone to a vulgarand hateful antisemitism (he spoke of Jews,revealingly, as "weeds"). His decade-long tenure as aloyal servant and, moreover, architect of the Nazistate demonstrates his dedication to Hitler's derangedcause. One account even claims that it was Darré whoconvinced Hitler and Himmler of the necessity ofexterminating the Jews and Slavs.44 The ecologicalaspects of his thought cannot, in sum, be separatedfrom their thoroughly Nazi framework. Far fromembodying the 'redeeming' facets of NationalSocialism, Darré represents the baleful specter ofecofascism in power.

Implementing the EcofascistProgram

It is frequently pointed out that the agrarian andromantic moments in Nazi ideology and policy were inconstant tension with, if not in flat contradiction to,the technocratic-industrialist thrust of the ThirdReich's rapid modernization. What is not oftenremarked is that even these modernizing tendencieshad a significant ecological component. The two menprincipally responsible for sustaining thisenvironmentalist commitment in the midst ofintensive industrialization were Reichsminister FritzTodt and his aide, the high-level planner and engineerAlwin Seifert.

Todt was "one of the most influential NationalSocialists,"45 directly responsible for questions oftechnological and industrial policy. At his death in1942 he headed three different cabinet-levelministries in addition to the enormous quasi-official

ministries in addition to the enormous quasi-officialOrganisation Todt, and had "gathered the majortechnical tasks of the Reich into his own hands."46

According to his successor, Albert Speer, Todt "lovednature" and "repeatedly had serious run-ins withBormann, protesting against his despoiling thelandscape around Obersalzberg."47 Another sourcecalls him simply "an ecologist."48 This reputation isbased chiefly on Todt's efforts to make Autobahnconstruction -- one of the largest building enterprisesundertaken in this century -- as environmentallysensitive as possible.

The pre-eminent historian of German engineeringdescribes this commitment thus: "Todt demanded ofthe completed work of technology a harmony withnature and with the landscape, thereby fulfillingmodern ecological principles of engineering as well asthe 'organological' principles of his own era along withtheir roots in völkisch ideology."49 The ecologicalaspects of this approach to construction went wellbeyond an emphasis on harmonious adaptation to thenatural surroundings for aesthetic reasons; Todt alsoestablished strict criteria for respecting wetlands,forests and ecologically sensitive areas. But just aswith Arndt, Riehl and Darré, these environmentalistconcerns were inseparably bound to a völkisch-nationalist outlook. Todt himself expressed thisconnection succinctly: "The fulfillment of meretransportation purposes is not the final aim of Germanhighway construction. The German highway must bean expression of its surrounding landscape and anexpression of the German essence."50

Todt's chief advisor and collaborator on environmentalissues was his lieutenant Alwin Seifert, whom Todtreportedly once called a "fanatical ecologist."51 Seifertbore the official title of Reich Advocate for theLandscape, but his nickname within the party was"Mr. Mother Earth." The appellation was deserved;Seifert dreamed of a "total conversion from technologyto nature,"52 and would often wax lyrical about thewonders of German nature and the tragedy of"humankind's" carelessness. As early as 1934 he wroteto Hess demanding attention to water issues andinvoking "work methods that are more attuned to

invoking "work methods that are more attuned to

nature."53 In discharging his official duties Seifertstressed the importance of wilderness andenergetically opposed monoculture, wetlands drainageand chemicalized agriculture. He criticized Darré astoo moderate, and "called for an agriculturalrevolution towards 'a more peasant-like, natural,simple' method of farming, 'independent of capital'."54

With the Third Reich's technological policy entrustedto figures such as these, even the Nazis' massiveindustrial build-up took on a distinctively green hue.The prominence of nature in the party's philosophicalbackground helped ensure that more radicalinitiatives often received a sympathetic hearing in thehighest offices of the Nazi state. In the mid-thirtiesTodt and Seifert vigorously pushed for an all-encompassing Reich Law for the Protection of MotherEarth "in order to stem the steady loss of thisirreplaceable basis of all life."55 Seifert reports that allof the ministries were prepared to co-operate save one;only the minister of the economy opposed the billbecause of its impact on mining.

But even near-misses such as these would have beenunthinkable without the support of Reich ChancellorRudolf Hess, who provided the "green wing" of theNSDAP a secure anchor at the very top of the partyhierarchy. It would be difficult to overestimate Hess'spower and centrality in the complex governmentalmachinery of the National Socialist regime. He joinedthe party in 1920 as member #16, and for two decadeswas Hitler's devoted personal deputy. He has beendescribed as "Hitler's closest confidant,"56 and theFührer himself referred to Hess as his "closestadvisor."57 Hess was not only the highest party leaderand second in line (after Göring) to succeed Hitler; inaddition, all legislation and every decree had to passthrough his office before becoming law.

An inveterate nature lover as well as a devoutSteinerite, Hess insisted on a strictly biodynamic diet -- not even Hitler's rigorous vegetarian standards weregood enough for him -- and accepted only homeopathicmedicines. It was Hess who introduced Darré to Hitler,thus securing the "green wing" its first power base. Hewas an even more tenacious proponent of organic

was an even more tenacious proponent of organicfarming than Darré, and pushed the latter to takemore demonstrative steps in support of thelebensgesetzliche Landbauweise.58 His office was alsodirectly responsible for land use planning across theReich, employing a number of specialists who sharedSeifert's ecological approach.59

With Hess's enthusiastic backing, the "green wing"was able to achieve its most notable successes. Asearly as March 1933, a wide array of environmentalistlegislation was approved and implemented atnational, regional and local levels. These measures,which included reforestation programs, billsprotecting animal and plant species, andpreservationist decrees blocking industrialdevelopment, undoubtedly "ranked among the mostprogressive in the world at that time."60 Planningordinances were designed for the protection of wildlifehabitat and at the same time demanded respect for thesacred German forest. The Nazi state also created thefirst nature preserves in Europe.

Along with Darré's efforts toward re-agrarianizationand support for organic agriculture, as well as Todtand Seifert's attempts to institutionalize anenvironmentally sensitive land use planning andindustrial policy, the major accomplishment of theNazi ecologists was the Reichsnaturschutzgesetz of1935. This completely unprecedented "natureprotection law" not only established guidelines forsafeguarding flora, fauna, and "natural monuments"across the Reich; it also restricted commercial access toremaining tracts of wilderness. In addition, thecomprehensive ordinance "required all national, stateand local officials to consult with Naturschutzauthorities in a timely manner before undertakingany measures that would produce fundamentalalterations in the countryside."61

Although the legislation's effectiveness wasquestionable, traditional German environmentalistswere overjoyed at its passage. Walter Schoenichendeclared it the "definitive fulfillment of the völkisch-romantic longings,"62 and Hans Klose, Schoenichen'ssuccessor as head of the Reich Agency for NatureProtection, described Nazi environmental policy as the

Protection, described Nazi environmental policy as the"high point of nature protection" in Germany. Perhapsthe greatest success of these measures was infacilitating the "intellectual realignment of GermanNaturschutz" and the integration of mainstreamenvironmentalism into the Nazi enterprise.63

While the achievements of the "green wing" weredaunting, they should not be exaggerated. Ecologicalinitiatives were, of course, hardly universally popularwithin the party. Goebbels, Bormann, and Heydrich,for example, were implacably opposed to them, andconsidered Darré, Hess and their fellowsundependable dreamers, eccentrics, or simply securityrisks. This latter suspicion seemed to be confirmed byHess's famed flight to Britain in 1941; after that point,the environmentalist tendency was for the most partsuppressed. Todt was killed in a plane crash inFebruary 1942, and shortly thereafter Darré wasstripped of all his posts. For the final three years of theNazi conflagration the "green wing" played no activerole. Their work, however, had long since left anindelible stain.

Fascist Ecology in Context

To make this dismaying and discomforting analysismore palatable, it is tempting to draw precisely thewrong conclusion --namely, that even the mostreprehensible political undertakings sometimesproduce laudable results. But the real lesson here isjust the opposite: Even the most laudable of causescan be perverted and instrumentalized in the serviceof criminal savagery. The "green wing" of the NSDAPwas not a group of innocents, confused andmanipulated idealists, or reformers from within; theywere conscious promoters and executors of a vileprogram explicitly dedicated to inhuman racistviolence, massive political repression and worldwidemilitary domination. Their 'ecological' involvements,far from offsetting these fundamental commitments,deepened and radicalized them. In the end, theirconfiguration of environmental politics was directlyand substantially responsible for organized massmurder.

No aspect of the Nazi project can be properly

No aspect of the Nazi project can be properlyunderstood without examining its implication in theholocaust. Here, too, ecological arguments played acrucially malevolent role. Not only did the "greenwing" refurbish the sanguine antisemitism oftraditional reactionary ecology; it catalyzed a wholenew outburst of lurid racist fantasies of organicinviolability and political revenge. The confluence ofanti-humanist dogma with a fetishization of natural'purity' provided not merely a rationale but anincentive for the Third Reich's most heinous crimes.Its insidious appeal unleashed murderous energiespreviously untapped. Finally, the displacement of anysocial analysis of environmental destruction in favorof mystical ecology served as an integral component inthe preparation of the final solution:

To explain the destruction of thecountryside and environmental damage,without questioning the German people'sbond to nature, could only be done by notanalysing environmental damage in asocietal context and by refusing tounderstand them as an expression ofconflicting social interests. Had this beendone, it would have led to criticism ofNational Socialism itself since that was notimmune to such forces. One solution was toassociate such environmental problemswith the destructive influence of otherraces. National Socialism could then beseen to strive for the elimination of otherraces in order to allow the German people'sinnate understanding and feeling of natureto assert itself, hence securing a harmoniclife close to nature for the future.64

This is the true legacy of ecofascism in power:"genocide developed into a necessity under the cloak ofenvironment protection."65

* * *

The experience of the "green wing" of German fascismis a sobering reminder of the political volatility ofecology. It certainly does not indicate any inherent orinevitable connection between ecological issues and

inevitable connection between ecological issues and

right-wing politics; alongside the reactionary traditionsurveyed here, there has always been an equally vitalheritage of left-libertarian ecology, in Germany aselsewhere.66 But certain patterns can be discerned:"While concerns about problems posed byhumankind's increasing mastery over nature haveincreasingly been shared by ever larger groups ofpeople embracing a plethora of ideologies, the mostconsistent 'pro-natural order' response found politicalembodiment on the radical right."67 This is thecommon thread which unites merely conservative oreven supposedly apolitical manifestations ofenvironmentalism with the straightforwardly fascistvariety.

The historical record does, to be sure, belie thevacuous claim that "those who want to reform societyaccording to nature are neither left nor right butecologically minded."68 Environmental themes can bemobilized from the left or from the right, indeed theyrequire an explicit social context if they are to haveany political valence whatsoever. "Ecology" alone doesnot prescribe a politics; it must be interpreted,mediated through some theory of society in order toacquire political meaning. Failure to heed thismediated interrelationship between the social and theecological is the hallmark of reactionary ecology.

As noted above, this failure most commonly takes theform of a call to "reform society according to nature,"that is, to formulate some version of 'natural order' or'natural law' and submit human needs and actions toit. As a consequence, the underlying social processesand societal structures which constitute and shapepeople's relations with their environment are leftunexamined. Such willful ignorance, in turn, obscuresthe ways in which all conceptions of nature arethemselves socially produced, and leaves powerstructures unquestioned while simultaneouslyproviding them with apparently 'naturally ordained'status. Thus the substitution of ecomysticism for clear-sighted social-ecological inquiry has catastrophicpolitical repercussions, as the complexity of thesociety-nature dialectic is collapsed into a purifiedOneness. An ideologically charged 'natural order' doesnot leave room for compromise; its claims are absolute.

not leave room for compromise; its claims are absolute.

For all of these reasons, the slogan advanced by manycontemporary Greens, "We are neither right nor leftbut up front," is historically naive and politically fatal.The necessary project of creating an emancipatoryecological politics demands an acute awareness andunderstanding of the legacy of classical ecofascism andits conceptual continuities with present-dayenvironmental discourse. An 'ecological' orientationalone, outside of a critical social framework, isdangerously unstable. The record of fascist ecologyshows that under the right conditions such anorientation can quickly lead to barbarism.

Footnotes

1. Ernst Lehmann, Biologischer Wille. Wege und Zielebiologischer Arbeit im neuen Reich, München, 1934,pp. 10-11. Lehmann was a professor of botany whocharacterized National Socialism as "politicallyapplied biology."2. Anna Bramwell, author of the only book-lengthstudy on the subject, is exemplary in this respect. Seeher Blood and Soil: Walther Darré and Hitler’s 'GreenParty', Bourne End, 1985, and Ecology in the 20thCentury: A History, New Haven, 1989.3. See Raymond H. Dominick, The EnvironmentalMovement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers, 1871-1971, Bloomington, 1992, especially part three, "TheVölkisch Temptation."4. For example, Dominick, The EnvironmentalMovement in Germany, , p. 22; and Jost Hermand,Grüne Utopien in Deutschland: Zur Geschichte desökologischen Bewußtseins, Frankfurt, 1991, pp. 44-45.5. Quoted in Rudolf Krügel, Der Begriff desVolksgeistes in Ernst Moritz ArndtsGeschichtsanschauung, Langensalza, 1914, p. 18. 6. Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, Feld und Wald, Stuttgart,1857, p. 52.7. Klaus Bergmann, Agrarromantik undGroßstadtfeindschaft, Meisenheim, 1970, p. 38. Thereis no satisfactory English counterpart to"Großstadtfeindschaft," a term which signifies hostilityto the cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and culturaltolerance of cities as such. This 'anti-urbanism' is theprecise opposite of the careful critique of urbanizationworked out by Murray Bookchin in Urbanization

worked out by Murray Bookchin in Urbanization

Without Cities, Montréal, 1992, and The Limits of theCity, Montréal, 1986. 8. George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology:Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, New York,1964, p. 29.9. Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945, New York, 1975, pp. 61-62.10. Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of NationalSocialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and theGerman Monist League, New York, 1971, p. xvii.11. ibid., p. 30. Gasman's thesis about the politics ofMonism is hardly uncontroversial; the book’s centralargument, however, is sound.12. Quoted in Gasman, The Scientific Origins ofNational Socialism, p. 34.13. ibid., p. 33.14. See the foreword to the 1982 reprint of his 1923book Die Entdeckung der Heimat, published by thefar-right MUT Verlag.15. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology, p. 101.16. Walter Laqueur, Young Germany: A History of theGerman Youth Movement, New York, 1962, p.41.17. ibid., p. 6. For a concise portrait of the youthmovement which draws similiar conclusions, see JohnDe Graaf, "The Wandervogel," CoEvolution Quarterly,Fall 1977, pp. 14-21. 18. Reprinted in Ludwig Klages, Sämtliche Werke,Band 3, Bonn, 1974, pp. 614-630. No Englishtranslation is available.19. Ulrich Linse, Ökopax und Anarchie. EineGeschichte der ökologischen Bewegungen inDeutschland, München, 1986, p. 60.20. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology, p. 211, andLaqueur, Young Germany, p. 34.21. See Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair,Berkeley, 1963.22. Michael Zimmerman, Heidegger’s Confrontationwith Modernity: Technology, Politics and Art,Indianapolis, 1990, pp. 242-243.23. See Michael Zimmerman, "Rethinking theHeidegger -- Deep Ecology Relationship",Environmental Ethics vol. 15, no. 3 (Fall 1993), pp.195-224.24. Reproduced in Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, Aufder Suche nach Arkadien, München, 1990, p. 147.25. Robert Pois, National Socialism and the Religion

25. Robert Pois, National Socialism and the Religion

of Nature, London, 1985, p. 40.26. ibid., pp. 42-43. The internal quote is taken fromGeorge Mosse, Nazi Culture, New York, 1965, p. 87.27. Hitler, in Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche imFührerhauptquartier 1941-1942, Stuttgart, 1963, p.151.28. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, München, 1935, p. 314.29. Quoted in Gert Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, "Politics, planning and the protection ofnature: political abuse of early ecological ideas inGermany, 1933-1945", Planning Perspectives 2 (1987),p. 129.30. Änne Bäumer, NS-Biologie, Stuttgart, 1990, p.198.31. Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20.Jahrhunderts, München, 1938, p. 550. Rosenberg was,in the early years at least, the chief ideologist of theNazi movement.32. Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche, pp. 139-140.33. Quoted in Heinz Haushofer, Ideengeschichte derAgrarwirtschaft und Agrarpolitik im deutschenSprachgebiet, Band II, München, 1958, p. 266.34. See Dominick, The Environmental Movement inGermany, p. 107.35. ibid., p. 113.36. Bergmann, Agrarromantik undGroßstadtfeindschaft, p. 334. Ernst Nolte makes asimilar argument in Three Faces of Fascism, NewYork, 1966, pp. 407-408, though the point gets lostsomewhat in the translation. See also Norbert Frei,National Socialist Rule in Germany, Oxford, 1993, p.56: "The change in direction towards the 'soil' had notbeen an electoral tactic. It was one of the basicideological elements of National Socialism . . . " 37. R. Walther Darré, Um Blut und Boden: Reden undAufsätze, München, 1939, p. 28. The quote is from a1930 speech entitled "Blood and Soil as theFoundations of Life of the Nordic Race."38. Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century, p. 203. Seealso Frei, National Socialist Rule in Germany, p. 57,which stresses that Darré's total control overagricultural policy constituted a uniquely powerfulposition within the Nazi system.39. Bergmann, Agrarromantik undGroßstadtfeindschaft, p. 312.40. ibid., p. 308.

40. ibid., p. 308.

41. See Haushofer, Ideengeschichte derAgrarwirtschaft, pp. 269-271, and Bramwell, Ecologyin the 20th Century, pp. 200-206, for the formativeinfluence of Steinerite ideas on Darré.42. Haushofer, Ideengeschichte der Agrarwirtschaft, p.271.43. Anna Bramwell, "Darré. Was This Man 'Father ofthe Greens'?" History Today, September 1984, vol. 34,pp. 7-13. This repugnant article is one long series ofdistortions designed to paint Darré as an anti-Hitlerhero -- an effort as preposterous as it is loathsome. 44. Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Hess: ABiography, London, 1971, p. 34.45. Franz Neumann, Behemoth. The Structure andPractice of National Socialism 1933-1944, New York,1944, p. 378.46. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, New York,1970, p. 263.47. ibid., p. 261.48. Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century, p. 197.49. Karl-Heinz Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure imDritten Reich, Düsseldorf, 1974, p. 337.50. Quoted in Rolf Peter Sieferle, Fortschrittsfeinde?Opposition gegen Technik und Industrie von derRomantik bis zur Gegenwart, München, 1984, p. 220.Todt was just as convinced a Nazi as Darré or Hess; onthe extent (and pettiness) of his allegiance toantisemitic policies, see Alan Beyerchen, ScientistsUnder Hitler, New Haven, 1977, pages 66-68 and 289.51. Bramwell, Blood and Soil, p. 173.52. Alwin Seifert, Im Zeitalter des Lebendigen,Dresden, 1941, p. 13. The book's title is grotesquelyinapt considering the date of publication; it means "inthe age of the living."53. Alwin Seifert, Ein Leben für die Landschaft,Düsseldorf, 1962, p. 100.54. Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century, p. 198.Bramwell cites Darré's papers as the source of theinternal quote.55. Seifert, Ein Leben für die Landschaft, p. 90.56. William Shirer, Berlin Diary, New York, 1941, p.19. Shirer also calls Hess Hitler's "protégé" (588) and"the only man in the world he fully trusts" (587), andsubstantiates Darré's and Todt's standing as well(590).57. Quoted in Manvell and Fraenkel, Hess, p. 80. In a

57. Quoted in Manvell and Fraenkel, Hess, p. 80. In a

further remarkable confirmation of the 'green'faction's stature, Hitler once declared that Todt andHess were "the only two human beings among allthose around me to whom I have been truly andinwardly attached" (Hess, p. 132).58. See Haushofer, Ideengeschichte derAgrarwirtschaft, p. 270, and Bramwell, Ecology in the20th Century, p. 201.59. ibid., pp. 197-200. Most of Todt's work also ranthrough Hess's office.60. Raymond Dominick, "The Nazis and the NatureConservationists", The Historian vol. XLIX no. 4(August 1987), p. 534.61. ibid., p. 536.62. Hermand, Grüne Utopien in Deutschland, p. 114.63. Dominick, "The Nazis and the NatureConservationists", p. 529. 64. Gröning and Wolschke-Bulmahn, "Politics,planning and the protection of nature", p. 137.65. ibid., p. 138.66. Linse's Ökopax und Anarchie, among others, offersa detailed consideration of the history of eco-anarchism in Germany.67. Pois, National Socialism and the Religion ofNature, p. 27.68. Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century, p. 48.

Go to:"Ecology" and the Modernization ofFascism in the German Ultra-Right byJanet Biehl

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