Herbert Backe
| Herbert Backe | |
|---|---|
Herbert Backe in 1942
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| Reich Minister of Food | |
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In office 1942–1945 |
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| Chancellor | Adolf Hitler |
| Preceded by | Richard Walther Darré |
| Succeeded by | none |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe 1 May 1896 Batumi, Russian Empire |
| Died | 6 April 1947 (aged 50) Nuremberg, Allied-occupied Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | NSDAP |
| Spouse(s) | Ursula Backe |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Profession | Agronomist |
| Cabinet | Hitler |
Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe (1 May 1896 – 6 April 1947) was a German Nazi politician and SS Lieutenant general (Obergruppenführer). He developed and implemented the Hunger Plan that envisioned death by starvation of millions of Slavic and Jewish "useless eaters" following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.
This plan was developed during the planning phase for the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) invasion and provided for diverting of the Ukrainian food stuffs away from central and northern Russia and redirecting them for the benefit of the invading army and the population in Germany. As a result, millions of civilians died in the German-occupied territories. Arrested in 1945 and due to be tried for war crimes at Nuremberg in the Ministries Trial, he committed suicide in prison in 1947.
Herbert Backe was born in Batumi, Russian Georgia, the son of a retired Prussian lieutenant turned trader. His mother was a Caucasus German, whose family had emigrated from Württemberg to Russia in the early 19th century. He studied at the Tbilisi gymnasium (grammar school) from 1905 and was interned on the outbreak of World War I as an enemy alien because he was a citizen of Prussia. This experience of being imprisoned for being German and witnessing the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution made Backe an anti-communist.
Backe moved to Germany during the Russian Civil War with the help of the Swedish Red Cross. In Germany, he initially worked as a labourer, and enrolled to study agronomy at the University of Göttingen in 1920. After completing his degree he briefly worked in agriculture and then became an assistant lecturer on agricultural geography at Hanover Technical University. In 1926, he submitted his doctoral dissertation, titled The Russian Cereals Economy as the Basis of Russian Agriculture and the Russian Economy (German: Die russische Getreidewirtschaft als Grundlage der Land- und Volkswirtschaft Russlands), to the University of Göttingen, but it was not accepted. Later, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Backe self-published his dissertation with a print of 10,000 copies.
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