Documentation of the SS Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA-SS Main Office for Race and Resettlement), 1934-1945 The SS Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA-SS Main Office for Race and Resettlement) was founded in 1931; its functions included maintaining the purity of race of members of the SS, dealing with matters pertaining to farmers and settlement, and education of the population in the spirit of Nazi ideology. Richard Walther Darre, who at the time also served as Reichsbauernfuehrer (Reich Farmers' Leader), was appointed to head the organization. Darre's independent world view brought him into conflict with Himmler, and Darre was removed from his position as Head of RuSHA in the summer of 1938. Guenther Pancke headed the organization between 1938 and1940, Otto Hoffmann from 1940 to1943, and Richard Hildebrandt, from 1943. The organization's activities were influenced by the nationalist-romantic Blut und Boden (Blood and Earth) ideology that saw in the farmer and his ties to the land a primary source of the German nationalist spirit, and with the decline of this outlook among the Nazi leadership, RuSHA began to lose its influence. From 1939, educational affairs were gradually removed from the organization, and in early 1940, it was divested of its involvement with settlement affairs. During the war, RuSHA's areas of activity were reduced to issuing Aryan certificates of origin, carrying out biological experiments among various population groups and the recruiting and training of candidates for settlement in the occupied territories. In addition, from 1942, the organization dealt with welfare assistance to SS members, cataloguing SS casualties and burying Waffen-SS members who were killed in battle. The Collection includes mainly guidelines regarding the origins and emotional health required from SS members and their wives, clarifications regarding the racial character of various nationalities and the ability of their children to assimilate into the German nation, directives regarding children of mixed marriages (Mischlinge) and excerpts from antisemitic propaganda.