As Minister of Agriculture he attempted an agrarian reform designed primarily to strip the great landowners east of the Elbe of their power. The centerpiece of his idea was a policy that would settle former soldiers on fallow lands. The soldiers would have obtained civilian employment, and at the same time the strained food situation in Germany would have improved. Fierce resistance from large-scale agriculturalists, Hirsch's hesitant stance and the fact that Braun's plans ran counter to law caused them for the most part to fail.
