Talk:Richard Walther Darré/Archive 1

Richard Walter Darré (1895-1953), SS-Obergruppenführer, was one of the Nazi leading ideologists. Soon after the Nazis had come to power, from June 1933 to May 1942, Darré served as the Reichsminister of Food and Agriculture, Director of the Reich and Settlement Office, and Reich Peasant Leader. He took a leading part in setting up the SS Race and Resettlement Office, a fiercely racist, anti-Semitic organization. He developed a plan for "Rasse und Raum" (race and space, or territory) which provided the ideological background for the Nazi expansive policy. Darré strongly influenced SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler in his goal to create a German racial aristocracy based on selective breeding. This policy led to the annihilation of millions of non-Germans until the end of the war. Darré was captured in 1945 and tried at the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings (the Ministry Case, 1947-49). Sentenced to 5 years in prison, he was released in 1950 and died in Munich in 1953. - This looks like a copyvio but can't find it. Secretlondon 22:04, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How Can One Put an Accent Mark?
BKH2007, 24 June 2004

Wrong name
The title of this page is wrong: He was Walther, not Walter. Not sure how to fix it.

82.17.109.162 16:04, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Did he really make this speech?
The quoted extract from the "chilling" speech seems a little implausible; even in the way it's cited, it's described as hearsay. Fog of war perhaps? It seems intrinsically unlikely since Darre generally spoke highly of the British, regarded them as racially Nordic, and argued (from his experience at an English school) that Germany could learn from the strengths of the English education system. On the other hand, it's possible that he was telling the German crowd what he thought they wanted to hear. Or it could be simply what the media in Britain wanted the British to think the Germans were saying. It would be nice to know. For this article, it would be better to quote from what he actually wrote, rather than from what he is said to have said.


 * This is with no doubt a propagandistic fabrication. Do you really want to quote as fact everything British magazines wrote in WW2? No further sources?
 * It really sounds like the British atrocity propaganda about allegedly cannibalistic German soldiers devouring Belgian children in WWI. Remeber that one? I hope nobody will re-quote those British articles as fact in Wikipedia.
 * Wikipedia should really have higher standards.
 * 217.236.225.70 10:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

As no-one has defended the inclusion of this quote, I have removed it.

Mhkay (talk) 20:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The reference to the Life article has been added again at some stage (with a different extract from the original, I think.) At least this time there is a reference to an online copy of the entire article, so readers can judge its authenticity for itself. Personally, I read the editorial intro ("Even if the speech was not delivered exactly as recorded here, it might have been. The reader should therefore regard it as an example of the kind of doctrine currently being voiced...") as a great big caveat - they are effectively admitting that the source is not reliable, and covering themselves in case it is proved to be fraudulent. I think that if we retain the quote we ought somehow to capture the fact that there is doubt about its authenticity. Also, if you read the whole (alleged) speech, the passage cited here is not an objective precis; it is a selective quotation of the scary bits. This is a tabloid sexing-up of the article, not a dispassionate analysis of what Darre is alleged to have been saying. Mhkay (talk) 00:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Richard Oscar: Womanizer and Drinker?
A statement like this really needs some kind of source. I know and could probably find written evidence that Richard Oscar had a child by the elder childrens' governess, Agnes Prophet from Berwick-upon-Tweed, but that's not quite the same as being a "womanizer". And I haven't seen anything to support the claim that he was a heavy drinker, though it's not implausible.

I removed the use of star and dagger to mark birth and death dates. It's a common and very useful convention in Germany, but not in English, and it doesn't fit into Wikipedia house style.

Mhkay (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Note: I subsequently discovered that RWD had made this statement about his father, and the article now correctly ascribes the views to him rather than stating them as fact.

Mhkay (talk) 00:35, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Problems with sourcing and war crimes conviction description
Towards the end of the article there is a statement that the subject's writings remain somewhat influential. This requires support in my opinion. Also the the statement that the subject was acquitted of the most serious charges to me seems a matter of opinion. It would be more consistent with NPOV to state what the charges were and what what he was convicted of, and let the reader make the judgment. My reading of the German article on the subject indicates he was convicted of crimes against humanity, got a seven year sentence, and was released early.Mtsmallwood (talk) 08:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Right-wing?
"His theories to this day inspire right-wing radicals"

Is it regarded as NPOV on wikipedia to describe fascism as "right-wing"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cagliost (talk • contribs) 07:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Munci's edits
I reverted a couple of Munci's edits while retaining the rest.

There was a sentence summarizing the content of one of the books. Any simple summary of such dense material is bound to be simplistic, but no reason was given for the removal, and its absence leaves the paragraph ungrammatical and the reader with less information; so I put it back.

Then there was a general statement saying Bramwell is unreliable, with a citation presumably to someone who asserts that she is unreliable. This doesn't seem to be the right way to handle this. If there are contrary views, they should be stated, and the points of disagreement noted explicitly, rather than just a general slur on on the scholarship of someone who has read far more of the documentary evidence than I have ever seen. As far as I can discover, Bramwell's facts are usually reliable, or as reliable as one could reasonably expect; but her interpretation of them is inevitably personal.

(I might add another note here. There are one or two statements in this article which are supported by papers I have read (both published and unpublished) but which I do not currently have access to. The "citation needed" flags are therefore perfectly fair; but at the same time, it would be a mistake to remove the information.)

Mhkay (talk) 00:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you will read the online version the book, linked to in the citation you will see the statements "The book also stood out for gross errors." and, in the previous page, "her argument quickly drew massive criticism from other researchers. "To extract a conservationist message from Darré, one would have to ignore the bulk of his writing," Raymond Dominick wrote in 1987. " and "this argument was even more devoid of credible evidence ". So it's not just this ones oruce I'm citing that doesn't accept her dieas; it's just generally within scholarly research on the subject that she's been criticised. Munci (talk) 17:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Many of the criticisms of Bramwell just seem to be upset that she should try and find something positive to say about the man's writings, or that there should be any connection between his 1920s ideas and modern conservation thinking. And perhaps Bramwell did dwell a little too much on the similarities rather than the differences. On the whole, though, I found her attempts to translate his very impenetrable writing into terms accessible to a modern audience helpful. There's no doubt he was a fanatical idealist, and an article like this should try to make some attempt to capture where his ideas came from and where they led, and how they slowly evolved from purely technical studies of animal husbandry to wild political theories. That's not easy to do, but Bramwell does it as well as anyone I've seen. Mhkay (talk) 00:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Munci has again inserted material that attempts to discredit Bramwell. Having read Bramwell, I think it's unreasonable in this article to imply that her work is worthless, which is what these critics are saying. The book is thoroughly researched and full of useful citations. One can disagree with the conclusions she comes to, and one can find the occasional error of fact, but it contains a wealth of useful information about Darre that is not readily available elsewhere, and the facts that this article cites from Bramwell are generally reliable and uncontroversial. Mhkay (talk) 15:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The summary of Branwell in scholarly literature mentions that it contains many major errors. Your own personal interpretation and judgement of Branwell is irrelevant.Munci (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Bramwell is part of the scholarly literature. There will always be disagreements among scholars. It's appropriate in a Wikipedia article to point out that such disagreements exist; it's not appropriate to take sides in the argument, which your form of words does. The previous wording was much more neutral: it mentioned that there were disagreements, without claiming one party was right and the other was wrong. Mhkay (talk) 23:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, you say "the summary.. in scholarly literature" but you cite one scholar; you say "gross errors" but he cites one error which isn't very gross at all, even if it is in fact an error; and you apply the phrase "devoid of credible evidence" to the entire book, or at least to its conclusions, when the critic you quote applies it to one very specific argument which isn't that central. In short, you are displaying bias. Mhkay (talk) 23:18, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm just quoting the source and rephrasing somewhat. It's not me that's applying the phrase "devoid of credible evidence" to the entire book, it's the source. Same with "the summary.. in scholarly literature". That's what he says after himself going throguh the scholarly. Frank Uekötter is the one that wrote the source but he also mentions Raymond Dominick as an example. There's also Piers Stephens . It's clear that Bramwell is a fringe theory and should be treated as such. Munci (talk) 13:06, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reference to Piers Stephens. While it's a solid and reasoned argument that Bramwell's conclusions are wrong, he never "discredits" her; on the contrary, by analyzing her work in such detail, he rather does the opposite by suggesting that her writings need to be taken seriously. But Stephens is interested only in the relationships of different political and philosophical movements, he is not interested in Darre the man. By contrast, this article is about Darre, not primarily about the Blood and Soil philosophy, and as far as I am aware Bramwell has done far more biographical work on Darre than anyone else, and those who disagree with her theories about the relationship of different philosophical/political movements have not actually challenged her story about Darre's life and career, the route by which he came to power, or his role in the Nazi pecking order. Reducing an article like the one you cite to a simple sentence that says Bramwell is discredited is not a fair summary, and is a disservice to readers of this article who are looking primarily for biographical information rather than political theories. Mhkay (talk) 23:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

bibliography from Darré
Apparently Darré did not write books but tracts were published from his speeches. The reference Pig as Criterion for Nordic Peoples and Semites (1933), is obviously a hoax from a nazi sympathizer. It does not appear in the Deustche national bibliotek catalog, if there was need of proof. --Alexandre Rongellion (talk) 01:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I wish you were right about it being a hoax. But it's not: see here http://www.worldcat.org/title/schwein-als-kriterium-fur-nordische-volker-und-semiten/oclc/2829954. It's also typical of his writing - he was constantly drawing analogies between the animal behaviour and the behaviour of human races.Mhkay (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, you're probably right... There's a French writer of the same period, Paul Claudel, a diplomat by trade, that claimed that everything in Germany was "wurst", even Goethe.--Alexandre Rongellion (talk) 19:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Reason for resignation
For the record, the deleted statement about Darre's reason for resignation came from a letter I read many years ago which he wrote to a family member while he was imprisoned in Nuremberg. I've no idea where the letter is now. Without access to the source, I accept that it's reasonable to leave it out; in any case, it's quite possibly after-the-event rationalisation of his motives at the time. Mhkay (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Richard Walther Darré → Walther Darré — This prominent and unmissed Nazi was known as Walther, not Richard. Varlaam (talk) 14:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Your evidence please? As far as I can tell, in his published writings he generally called himself "R. Walther Darré". There are plenty of citations that use his full name (Richard Walther) (for example the cited Life article gives both his Christian names). It's true enough that he was often referred to simply as Walther; though in family correspondence he is often just Richard. I'm no expert on the Wikipedia policies for deciding such matters, but I would expect to see the proposal backed by evidence and reference to editorial policies rather than a bland assertion (let alone an assertion that contains opinions ("prominent and unmissed") that are totally irrelevant to the proposal.Mhkay (talk) 23:48, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.