The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.

The Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture was responsible for the agricultural policy of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933 and during the Nazi dictatorship of the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945. It was headed by a Reichsminister under whom a state secretary served. On 1 January 1935, the ministry merged with the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, Domains and Forests, founded in 1879. Until 1938 and the Anschluss with Austria, it was called the "Reich and Prussian Ministry of Food and Agriculture". After the end of National Socialism in 1945 and of the Allied occupation of Germany, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture was established in 1949 as a successor in the Federal Republic of Germany.