Dossier: The Hunger Plan: The Holocaust, Resource Scarcity, and Preventing Genocide in a Changing Climate

Abstract

Nazi leadership sought to exploit the biological fear of starvation and scapegoat the Jewish population and other “useless eaters” for taking more than their fair share. The Nazis utilized and hyperbolized well-known prejudices against Jewish people, and entrenched narratives of Jewish parasitism as a threat to current and future German lives. In this analysis, food scarcity was one of several reasons for the Holocaust, and the first step to seeking Lebensraum for pure Germans to live to the highest international standard. This article will focus on different aspects of the complex antisemitic rhetoric surrounding issues of resource scarcity, including Hitler’s concept of Lebensraum, the ways in which the Nazi party discussed and understood food, food security, and the memory of World War I, as well as how that rhetoric influenced their policies, including Herbert Backe’s Hunger Plan. This analysis presents the so-called Final Solution as an answer to not only the Nazi’s Jewish problem, but a key aspect to their food security plans as well. Placing this analysis in the context of genocide prevention, the increasing insecurity and pressures climate change places on natural resources must be acknowledged as a trigger for future genocides.