Fascist Pigs: Technoscientific Organisms and the History of Fascism

The tight connections between scientists’ concerns and the Nazi food policies expressed in Richard Darré’s diatribes are not difficult to trace. The fattening performance tests developed at academic institutes offered standards with which to evaluate animals’ potential contribution to the building of the Nazi regime. In Darré’s words, “we need animals achieving the highest performance when fed exclusively with homeland feedstuff.”[52] Hogs bred according to the results of performance tests would guarantee the nation’s nutritional independence, materializing the “Blut und Boden” dictum.

^{Figure 4.5 The animal bureaucracy of the Reichsnährstand.}

^{(Albert Brummenbaum, “Die Organisation der deutschen Tierzucht,” Kühn-Archiv 49, 1938: 3–7)}

But performance tests could have such large effects only if connected with an extended bureaucracy reaching the entire territory. In December of 1933, soon after the seizure of power by the Nazis, the Reichsnährstand took over the entire organization of German animal breeding, integrating in its structure the breeding societies scattered through the country.[53] All the local societies were now part of RNS-controlled associations of breeders of cattle, pigs, sheep, and small animals.

A few months before the takeover by the RNS, the Zeitschrift für Schweinezucht (Journal of Pig Breeding) was already welcoming the new regime. In its account of the May 1933 exhibition of the Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft in Berlin, the journal not only reminded readers that two thirds of Germany’s meat intake was pork; it also emphasized the importance of bringing practical breeders and scientists together to increase the performance of the nation’s swine herd.[54] A picture of Gustav Frölich exchanging thoughts with a pig herder at the exhibition demonstrated explicitly the union of mind and hand. The reporter couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for the task awaiting German pig breeders in the years to come:

During [World War I] there was a denomination for people who didn’t earn the iron cross or other medals but who nevertheless demonstrated notable courage, purposeful energy, brotherly love, and sincere comradeship. They were called the front pigs (Frontschweine)…. Let us borrow this term into our field of action so that we may say that in the gigantic battle that has now started… for a vital Germany inhabited by loyal people, the German pig breeders will gladly be the front pigs![55]

To induce German pig breeders to become “front pigs” mobilized for the building of a national community, the RNS devised a new institutional arrangement in addition to the breeders’ societies. Each of the nineteen Landbauernschaften in the provincial structure of the RNS was provided with an office for animal breeding, an office for animal health, and a registry office (Köramt). The latter was responsible for publishing an annual list of the stallions, bulls, boars, and rams recorded in the provincial registers. This task was performed locally by register posts (Körstellen) operating in the 541 Landkreise (counties) and directly controlling the farmers’ management of their herds.[56] The stakes were high, since the holding of domesticated animals accounted for about 60 percent of the value of Germany’s agricultural output.[57]