Heinz Brücher

Heinz Brücher (14 January 1915, Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse – 17 December 1991, Mendoza Province, Argentina) was a botanist and plant breeder who served as a member of the special science unit in the SS Ahnenerbe in Nazi Germany.

[1] Brücher then joined to work as an assistant to the Nazi eugenicist Karl Astel at the Institute for Human Hereditary Research and Race Policy at the University of Jena.

The proposal was supported by SS-Sturmbannführer Dr Ernst Schäfer and approved by Heinrich Himmler which led to the creation of the SS ''Sammelkommando'' or collection expedition which included Hauptsturmführer Konrad von Rauch, and an interpreter Arnold Steinbrecher.

The seeds and plant material collected by the expedition included large parts that had been deposited by Nikolai Vavilov who had already been imprisoned by Stalin.

Brücher headed subsequent research and worked with a British prisoner of war, William Denton-Venables, a trained botanist who later served as a director of Taylor & Venables, a seed company in Norfolk.

After moving to South America, Brücher focused on ethnobotanical research and worked on the wild relatives of potatoes and beans.

Brücher even used the word "hygiene" when referring to addictions in his publication, a term from Nazi times and personally avoided alcohol and meat.

Another possibility was that Brücher had discovered and threatened to disclose financial fraud made by a German-owned company called Fiduciaria Transatlántica Alemana where he served as a consultant.