The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (Studies in Environment and History)

The author goes in depth to discuss the Third Reich's environmental policy in the contexts of urban planning and development, agriculture, resource management, unemployment and economic development, and wildlife management. The author doesn't adequately explore the systemic connection between the Reich's governing style and its environmental policy. I did grasp the various environmental issues facing Germany between 1930 and 1945, but I didn't grasp the systemic connection between the Reich's policy set, and their course of action.

Hitler was a well-known lover of animals, so it comes as no surprise that the Nazis were favorable to conservation. Further, the ideology of "blood and soil" supported conservationist ends. However, conservation was a comparatively minor interest of the Nazis, so the conservationists never played a major role in Nazi policymaking. To try and increase their status, conservationists allied themselves with the Nazi Party and occasionally embraced fascist and anti-Semitic rhetoric to try and shore up support with the Nazis.

Teilweise vielleicht zu ausführlich, absolut zu empfehlen für Menschen die sich vorurteilsfrei mit den Ursprüngen der Naturschutzbewegungauseinander setzen wollen.

An excellent exploration of the often poisonous interactions between National Socialism and the conservation movement, though the precise nature of NS government with which conservationists were working only became fully apparent to me in Kershaw's massive Hitler biography which I happened to be reading at the same time. The regime operated in ways so different from what came before and after that it is difficult to understand how competing elites within such a diabolical set up addressed issues such as the natural environment. As someone who taught US environmental history for twenty years and thought he'd seen it all this was an eye opener.

Eine gute Darstellung der ideellen Verstrickung des Naturschutzes in das Dritte Reich, die vor allem bis heute nachwirkt. Schade, dass das Buch offenbar nur in Englisch erschienen ist und viele Naturschutzaktivisten deswegen nicht erreicht. Etwas ausführlicher hätte ich mir die verhängnisvolle Verbindung der Jagd-Revolution des Dritten Reiches mit der des Naturschutzes gewünscht. Insgesmat macht das Buch deutlich, dass es sich lohnt die dringende Reform des "grünen" Rechts auch aus der historischen Sicht zu beurteilen und zu bewältigen.