THE BAVARIAN PEASANTRY UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALIST RULE, 1933-1945 (GERMANY, AGRICULTURE).
Item
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Title
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THE BAVARIAN PEASANTRY UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALIST RULE, 1933-1945 (GERMANY, AGRICULTURE).
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Identifier
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AAI8601660
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identifier
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8601660
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Creator
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JUCOVY, JON.
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, European
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Abstract
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This dissertation is about the peasantry under National Socialism, especially in Bavaria. Before coming to power, the Nazis had promised to restore peasant prosperity and to assure the survival of the German peasantry for all time. After assuming power, it is often argued, they ignored these promises and shifted priorities to rearmament and military conquest. As a consequence, peasant agriculture continued its decades-long decline.;The evidence in Bavaria suggests that the National Socialist record with respect to the peasantry is more complex. The Nazis did, indeed, attempt to revive the peasant sector. The Erbhof Law benefited larger-sized farms and denied protection to dwarf farms and inefficient peasants. Market regulation of the dairy sector compelled Bavarian peasants to deliver their milk to modern dairies, while they were prohibited from producing farm butter. Peasants who lacked adequate capital (the bane of Bavarian agriculture) were given access to machines, electricity, and select livestock through cooperatives.;If these measures fell short of success, it was due not only to military priorities. Many peasants resented the Nazi agrarian program, for they regarded it as an intrusion into their private affairs. Geographical and technological factors helped them to resist Nazi reforms. Many farms in the remote Bavarian forests and mountains were inaccessible. Since many Bavarian peasants did not own radios or read newspapers they could not be reached by Nazi propaganda either. Farm production techniques also slowed the pace of reform and impeded Nazi control. For example, the Bavarian livestock markets were scattered throughout the countryside and difficult to regulate. Most peasants in Lower Bavaria owned equipment that enabled them to produce farm butter, which was easily hidden and generally sold on the black market. Finally, many peasants retained their loyalties to Catholicism and the still-lively traditions of Bavarian regionalism, and they opposed unwelcome economic reforms with even greater intensity. Bavarian agriculture remained a hybrid of advanced farm and marketing techniques and practices which had not significantly changed in over a hundred years.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
