A SHOT rang out across the foothills of the Andes. Heinz Br眉cher, 75, Adolf Hitler鈥檚 top botanist, lay dead in his vineyard on the outskirts of Mendoza in Argentina. It was December 1991. Nobody was ever charged with the murder, but plenty of organisations had a motive, including drug cartels, the KGB and Mossad. In an eventful life full of unanswered questions, Br眉cher had made many enemies.
Half a century before, Br眉cher was a pushy young geneticist at the University of Jena, Germany, a hotbed of Nazi ideology. During the second world war he became one of Hitler鈥檚 biopirates 鈥� scientists who rushed into the Soviet Union behind the advancing German troops, occupying agricultural research stations and commandeering their plants and seeds. These were part of the Soviet Union鈥檚 collection of plant genetic material, at that time the largest in the world. The fate of this plunder after the war is shrouded in mystery. Following a trail that leads from Germany to Sweden, the UK, South America and even back to Russia, 51动漫 has gone in search of Br眉cher鈥檚 loot.
The story begins in the Soviet Union with the legendary scientist Nikolai Vavilov, whose life鈥檚 work was collecting wild and cultivated seeds from across the world. His intention was to breed original varieties of crops with attributes that would allow them to grow anywhere in the expanding Soviet empire. Vavilov鈥檚 seeds would literally be the seeds of a new imperial expansion.
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Under Lenin鈥檚 patronage, in 1924 Vavilov took charge of his own institute, the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops in Leningrad (now St Petersburg). It soon became renowned internationally for housing the largest collection of crop seeds anywhere in the world. By the early 1930s, it had 250,000 samples. Vavilov also assembled back-up collections in research stations across the Soviet Union.
After Lenin鈥檚 death, however, Vavilov fell out of favour, usurped by a former pupil whose ideas appealed more to the new leader, Joseph Stalin. Trofim Lysenko argued that plant genetics, and with it Vavilov鈥檚 collection, was unnecessary, as plants simply acquired new characteristics according to their environment. This struck an ideological chord with Stalin. He liked the idea that plants could be transformed in the same way he believed the workers should be 鈥� by an act of political will.
In 1940 Vavilov was imprisoned for defending the 鈥渂ourgeois pseudoscience鈥� of genetics. He died in prison in 1943, his collections all but forgotten. When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, Stalin moved key infrastructure such as power stations and steel mills east of the Urals. Yet he left some of the most valuable economic treasures behind 鈥� Vavilov鈥檚 seeds.
If Stalin could not see their value, the Germans could. Nazi Germany was obsessed with self-sufficiency and regarded Vavilov鈥檚 collection as highly desirable war loot. Before the invasion, scientists from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (forerunners of today鈥檚 Max Planck Institutes) drew up plans to take over Russian research institutes, and as troops advanced across the Soviet Union, botanists were not far behind. They never got their hands on Vavilov鈥檚 main collection, which stayed secure behind the walls of his institute throughout the siege of Leningrad, but by early 1943 German scientists had taken control of around 200 field stations across Russia and Ukraine.
Afterwards, many German scientists claimed they were merely protecting the seed heritage of humankind. Yet records uncovered by German historians show that there was, in fact, a scramble to grab the spoils. One of the most zealous participants was the Ahnenerbe, the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society, set up in 1935 by SS commander Heinrich Himmler to provide evidence of Aryan racial superiority.
Enter Br眉cher. In 1943 he was 27 years old and already an SS second lieutenant and a prominent member of the Ahnenerbe. After the German defeat at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in early 1943 it was clear that the Nazis would lose most of their territorial gains in the Soviet Union 鈥� and with them the field stations and their seeds. Br眉cher suggested that the Ahnenerbe should send out a 鈥渃ollecting commando鈥� to bring back the loot and build a new institute to house it. Himmler agreed 鈥� and put Br眉cher in charge.
In June 1943, Br眉cher began a botanical blitzkrieg. He and his henchmen raided at least 18 institutes across Ukraine and Crimea. (see Map). All of the commando are now dead except their translator, Arnold Steinbrecher. He is 93 and lives in Canada, where 51动漫 tracked him down with the help of science historian Uwe Hossfeld from the University of Jena.
Steinbrecher remembers Br眉cher as 鈥渕eticulous and highly intelligent, but very ambitious, demanding, forceful and autocratic鈥�, but remains loyal to a man who, he says, saved his life. He insists that the commando was not a military operation. Br眉cher 鈥渋ntroduced himself as a botanist and not as a military officer. There was never any attempt to gain access by force.鈥�
Br眉cher brought the seeds back to the new SS Institute of Plant Genetics at Lannach, a remote castle in Austria, where they were amalgamated with an Ahnenerbe collection from an expedition to Tibet five years earlier. 鈥淭he intention was to grow seedlings from both the Ukraine and Tibet stock and to cross-breed them with European strains鈥� to develop hybrids that would grow at higher elevations and in colder climates,鈥� recalls Steinbrecher. Br眉cher, he says, 鈥渉ad grandiose plans, such as to grow plants in the Arctic鈥�.
Lannach was staffed by prisoners, including Allied prisoners of war and 15 women Jehovah鈥檚 Witnesses from a nearby concentration camp. The institute seems to fit many stereotypes of SS operations: sinister and brutal, but also farcical. According to Steinbrecher, the Jehovah鈥檚 Witness gardeners refused to kill weeds because this was against their religion.
Other prisoners proved more useful. One in particular, a British trooper named William Denton-Venables, was a trained botanist. Br眉cher later described him as 鈥渕y British collaborator during the years of 1943 to 1945鈥�. It is not clear exactly how Denton-Venables helped Br眉cher with his plans for botanical world domination, although Steinbrecher remembers that the two had a good rapport and worked together almost as colleagues.
The breeding programme never got off the ground. Within months, the Red Army was advancing rapidly. In February 1945, the SS ordered Br眉cher to blow up the castle. Perhaps seeing the seeds as his passport to a post-war career, Br眉cher ignored the command.
Denton-Venables seems to have had divided loyalties, too. Indeed, the two men鈥檚 loyalties seem to have been mostly to each other. Steinbrecher says that the Lannach PoWs had a short-wave radio and often knew more than their captors about events on the outside. 鈥淔rom time to time, William shared information about military operations with Heinz. At the critical moment, he informed him that the Red Army was expected in one hour.鈥� Br眉cher and Steinbrecher fled, eventually finding sanctuary with Br眉cher鈥檚 parents near Heidelberg.
鈥淎t the critical moment, William warned us that the Red Army was expected in one hour鈥�
Hossfeld says it is not entirely clear what Br眉cher did for the next two years. He apparently wrote some reports on edible seed oils for US occupiers, who were talent-scouting for useful scientists. Botanists were low priority compared with rocket scientists and nuclear engineers, however, so if Br眉cher had hoped for an invitation to the US he was disappointed.
In 1947, he apparently decided it was time to leave Germany. As a former SS officer he did not have the right to free movement in Allied-occupied Germany or Austria, but it seems he somehow made his way back to Lannach, which was then in British hands. Soon afterwards, he chartered a fishing boat from Germany to Stockholm in Sweden.
Why Sweden? Br眉cher knew scientists there who had been Nazi sympathisers during the war. They included the explorer and plant collector Sven Hedin, then 82, who had given the opening address at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Br眉cher worked briefly with Hedin, but in November 1948 he set sail for Argentina with nearly half a tonne of baggage. There he began a new career as a plant geneticist at the National University of Tucum谩n, which employed a large number of exiled German and Italian scientists.
His new circumstances had little effect on his political opinions. 鈥淲hen I knew him [in the 1970s] his repertoire of value judgements mirrored those in force or in vogue during the Nazi period,鈥� says Daniel Gade, a scientific acquaintance from the University of Vermont. Br眉cher also spent a year in South Africa during the apartheid era, where he professed to see evidence supporting his theories on the superiority of white races.
Br眉cher was also an outspoken opponent of all drugs, including tobacco and alcohol. According to Gade, he boasted a few years before his death that he was working on a virus that could destroy the coca plant. True or not, this is a plausible motive for his murder.
Br眉cher is, however, only one part of the story of the stolen seeds. A Soviet state commission set up after the war concluded that, in all, 40,000 plant samples had been lost during the war, having either been destroyed or stolen.
Where did they all go? According to Olga Elina of the Institute for the History of Science and Technology in Moscow, German documents show that, Lannach aside, the seeds mostly went to the plant-breeding centres of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Vienna and M眉ncheberg.
Did they stay there after the war? Hossfeld says he has been unable to find any post-war records of the stolen collections or their use in plant breeding in Germany. Henry Shands, director of the main US national seed bank in Fort Collins, Colorado, also reached a dead end searching archives in Washington DC. Elina says that this probably means that the seeds were simply absorbed into Germany鈥檚 own collections.
The Lannach seeds, however, might have had a more colourful post-war existence. The castle was abandoned at the end of the war, and Steinbrecher insists that he and Br眉cher fled at short notice, without any seeds. Yet Hossfeld has uncovered a letter Br眉cher sent to a German colleague, Theodor Herzog, in November 1947, in which he claimed to have recently 鈥渞e-collected鈥� the Lannach seeds, most of which were not at the castle, he said, but had been secretly planted out in villages.
Hossfeld believes that Br眉cher took these seeds with him to Sweden. So does Carl-Gustaf Thornstrom of the Swedish University of Agricultural Science in Uppsala. Thornstrom interviewed five Swedish geneticists who met Br眉cher during his time in the country. All, he said, became 鈥渟tiff鈥� when the question of the Lannach seeds was raised.
Arne Hagberg, head of the Swedish Seed Association in the 1970s, told 51动漫 he met Br眉cher in Sweden before he left for Argentina. He said that Br眉cher had with him material from Lannach, and he believes Br眉cher used this as the basis for a new gene bank he assembled in Argentina. 鈥淚t was probably quite simple for him to bring some paper bags with the desired seeds in his luggage to Argentina. That would certainly not have been the main problem for him.鈥�
Back in the USSR?
There is also intriguing evidence that Br眉cher returned some of the material to the Soviet Union. Thornstrom visited Vavilov鈥檚 old institute, now called the N. I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry, in 2001 and was shown notebooks detailing deliveries by Br眉cher to the institute in 1960 and later. He speculates that Br眉cher was pressured into handing back the material and points out that the then director of the institute, Pjotr Zhukowski, visited Tucum谩n in 1958.
There may also be a British connection. In his letter to Herzog, Br眉cher made it clear that he was still in touch with Denton-Venables. He wrote that his erstwhile 鈥渃ollaborator鈥� had begun a career as director of a company called Taylor and Venables Ltd Agricultural Seed Merchants. The Englishman, he added, showed 鈥渆xcellent correctness and loyal assistance during the re-collection of the seed material鈥�. What could he mean?
51动漫 has reconstructed some of Denton-Venables鈥檚 movements after the war and spoken to surviving members of his family. In 1945, he was awarded the Military Medal. The citation includes an account of events at Lannach, describing how Denton-Venables stayed behind as the Russians invaded in order to prevent the Germans from destroying 鈥渧aluable agricultural material鈥�. The citation concludes: 鈥淒enton-Venables brought back with him samples of wheat seeds, which agricultural experts believe may prove of inestimable value.鈥�
From this version of events it seems that Denton-Venables may have outwitted his chum, hustling him out of the back door while he filled his boots with seeds and slipped out of the front. His daughter says that after he was demobilised he was called to a mysterious meeting in London to discuss some seeds, but after that the trail goes cold.
We contacted the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Rothamsted agricultural research centre in Hertfordshire and the Plant Breeding Institute in Norwich, which would have been the most likely repositories for such seeds and the information about them. Their archivists all drew a blank. Nobody could say what might have happened to the seeds, or even who the 鈥渆xperts鈥� might have been who regarded them as being of potentially 鈥渋nestimable value鈥�.
Perhaps Denton-Venables used the seeds to set up his company. His family say he came back from the war with no money but soon built up a successful business in Chester. Yet if he was living off ill-gotten gains he soon got his comeuppance. By the late 1950s his company was on the rocks and in May 1959, plain old William Venables (the Denton turns out to have been a piece of personal aggrandisement) died of a stroke, aged 44.
It is even possible that Venables and Br眉cher met one more time after leaving Lannach. Venables鈥檚 family are sure that shortly after the war he made a secret journey to visit his old captor and friend. Venables apparently got himself a passport at around this time.
Perhaps Venables joined Br眉cher on his trip to Lannach to re-collect the seeds. That would account for Br眉cher鈥檚 description of his friend鈥檚 鈥渆xcellent correctness and loyal assistance鈥�. Or maybe Venables simply handed over seeds he had kept since their escape. Nobody knows how or why they arranged to meet, exactly when or where they met, or what transpired. It is an intriguing final mystery, but the answer seems to have gone with them to their graves.
