Herbert Backe

Herbert Backe
Herbert Backe in 1942
Minister Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture
In office 6 April 1944 – 23 May 1945 (Acting from 23 May 1942)
Chancellor	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Richard Walther Darré
Succeeded by	Position abolished
State Secretary Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture
In office 27 October 1933 – 6 April 1944
Chancellor	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Hans Joachim von Rohr
Succeeded by	Hans-Joachim Riecke
Personal details
Born	Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe (1896-05-01)1 May 1896 Batumi, Kutais Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	6 April 1947(1947-04-06) (aged 50) Nuremberg Prison, Bavaria, Allied-occupied Germany
Cause of death	Suicide by hanging
Nationality	German
Political party	Nazi Party
Alma mater	University of Göttingen
Profession	Agronomist

Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe (1 May 1896 – 6 April 1947) was a German politician and SS Senior group leader (SS-Obergruppenführer) in Nazi Germany who served as State Secretary and Minister in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture. He was a doctrinaire racial ideologue, a long-time associate of Richard Walther Darré and a personal friend of Reinhard Heydrich.^[1] He developed and implemented the Operation Hunger that envisioned death by starvation of millions of Slavic and Jewish "useless eaters" following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

Operation Hunger was developed during the planning phase of Operation Barbarossa and provided for diverting and redirecting of Ukrainian food stuffs away from central and northern Russia for the benefit of the invading army and the population in Germany. As a result, millions of local civilians died in the German-occupied territories. He was arrested in 1945 at the end of World War II and was due to be tried for war crimes at Nuremberg in the Ministries Trial but he committed suicide in his prison cell in 1947.