Gerald McSwiggan
The Doctrine of Blut und Boden
Introduction
Translated into English, Blut und Boden means “blood and soil,” and was a phrase used by Hitler to mean that people of German descent (blood) have the right to live on German soil.

Although Hitler used the phrase to establish German supremacy over the Jews, it was popularized by Walther Darré in 1930 to establish a connection between race and land (Staudenmaie 1). For the defenders of the doctrine, the Jews were a wandering people without roots or land, and did not belong on German soil. The term “blood and soil” had been circulating for some time before Hitler or Darré, but it was the Nazis who used the doctrine as a principle of thought. The phrase in itself is not dangerous, it could simply be used to motivate German nationalism, particularly that of farmers; however, Hitler used the infamous words to give moral justifications for the extermination of the Jews.