Breeding Better Peas, Pumpkins, and Peasants: The Practical Mendelism of Erich Tschermak

Abstract

This paper follows the career of Erich Tschermak (1871–1962, aka Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg), one of the three “co-rediscoverers” of Mendel’s laws. It considers the practical ramifications, in agriculture, eugenics, and politics, of Tschermak’s reading of Mendel’s theory, and examines how Tschermak promoted his theories and practices—and himself—in the shifting contexts of the Austro-Hungaian Empire, Austrian First Republic, and Nazi period. Special attention is given to the hybridization work on peas that led him to Mendel’s paper, to the development of the “Tschermak Pumpkin” in the 1930s as an illustration of the practical side of his Mendelism, and to his wartime consultations with the German Minister of Agriculture on selecting and crossing strains of crops, animals, and even the peasants to go with them to planned settlements in occupied Poland and Ukraine.