B.P. Terpstra
The Who’s Who of Munich Cultural Life (1937) proclaimed “all of Germany has become his garden” for Alwin Seifert, the organic-first gardener was fashionably green and fascist. In How Green Were the Nazis? Thomas Zeller adds, “Seifert, however, was constantly trying to extend his influence. The chaotic style of governance in Nazi Germany matched his strategy of molding alliances, especially since he enjoyed the tacit protection of his two most powerful patrons, Hess and Todt.”
As I’ve noted, there’s a wide difference between peaceful made-for-television environmentalists and reality, or power-hungry greens. “With Hess, he shared an interest in Steiner’s methods of ‘bio-dynamic’ agriculture. Seifert designed a garden for Hess’s private home and bragged to a colleague that he would do likewise for Hitler ‘after the war.’ In 1939, Hitler awarded Seifert the title of professor, and Todt issued a document one year later declaring Seifert as his Reich landscape advocate as a birthday present.”
Nor was it a coincidence that the concentration camp Dachau, was home to an organic herb garden/farm. Like Hess, nature-loving Seifert also appeared interested in generating gas from the feces of inmates in Auschwitz. Moreover, he railed against impure dams.