Winemaking under the Third Reich
The rise of the Nazi regime made a huge impact on Germany’s wine-growers. Julian Hitner assesses its effects during World War II and in the following decades
The Nazis severely impacted Germany’s wine growers during World War II – and beyond. Julian Hitner reports
JUST IMAGINE: MAGNIFICENT, serenely arrayed wine-growing districts, such as the saar or Kaiserstuhl, laden with lovingly tended vineyards, terraced fences, homesteads and gardens. And then bunkers, lots of them, poking out of the earth like mini fortresses, their surreal appearance by the late 1930s not only a portent of events to come; their function a dreadful reminder of the experiences that wine-growers and merchant traders faced within germany under the Third Reich.
Truly, the Nazi years were ones of searing misfortune for countless german winegrowers and wine dealers. There were the terrifying day-to-day difficulties of running estates with bombs raining down from above, the incessant risk of retribution for those
‘By VE Day, more than a third of Rheingau vineyards had been taken out’
opposed to the authorities, the morbid treatment of Jewish wine merchants and, associatively, the post-war recovery of vineyards and the ongoing challenges of coming to terms with the legacy of Nazism in germany in the 21st century.
surveying, all these decades later, the unblemished rows of vines blanketing the hillsides of the Rheingau or Baden, the frights of aerial warfare appear preposterously far removed. And yet, especially during the latter half of the war, these and neighbouring regions were subject to recurrent bombardment. Although vineyards and estates were not intentionally targeted, Allied air forces would, once completing a mission over germany, routinely jettison remaining