Everything about Lebensraum totally explained
(
German for "
habitat" or literally "living space") served as a major motivation for
Nazi Germany's territorial aggression. In his book
Mein Kampf,
Adolf Hitler detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum (for a
Grossdeutschland, land, and raw materials), and that it should be taken in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other
Slavic populations, whom they regarded as
Untermenschen, and to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German
upper class.
Origins
The idea of a
Germanic people without sufficient space dates back to long before
Adolf Hitler brought it to prominence. The term
Lebensraum in this sense was coined by
Friedrich Ratzel in 1897, and was used as a slogan in Germany referring to the unification of the country and the acquisition of colonies, based on the English and French models. Ratzel believed that the development of a people was primarily influenced by their geographical situation and that a people that successfully adapted to one location would proceed naturally to another. This expansion to fill available space, he claimed, was a natural and
necessary feature of any healthy species.
These beliefs were furthered by scholars of the day, including
Karl Haushofer and
Friedrich von Bernhardi. In von Bernhardi's 1912 book
Germany and the Next War, he expanded upon Ratzel's hypotheses and, for the first time, explicitly identified Eastern Europe as a source of new space. According to him, war, with the express purpose of achieving
Lebensraum, was a distinct "biological necessity." As he explained with regard to the Latin and Slavic races, "Without war, inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy budding elements." The quest for
Lebensraum was more than just an attempt to resolve potential demographic problems: it was a necessary means of defending the German race against stagnation and degeneration."
Lebensraum almost became a reality in 1918 during
World War I. The new communist regime of
Russia concluded the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, ending Russian participation in the war in exchange for the surrender of huge swathes of land, including the
Baltic territories,
Belarus,
Ukraine, and the
Caucasus. Only unrest at home and defeat on the Western Front forced Germany to abandon these favorable terms in favor of the
Treaty of Versailles, by which the newly acquired eastern territories were agreed to sacrifice the land to new nations such as
Estonia,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Poland, and a series of short-lived independent states in
Ukraine. The desire for revenge over the loss of territory in the Treaty of Versailles was a key tenet of several nationalist and extremist groups in post-World War I Germany, notably the
Nazi Party under
Adolf Hitler. There are, however, many historians who dismiss this "intentionalist" approach, and argue that the concept was actually an "ideological metaphor" in the early days of
Nazism.
Implementation
The Lebensraum ideology was a major factor in Hitler's launching of
Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. The Nazis hoped to turn large areas of
Soviet territory into German settlement areas as part of
Generalplan Ost. Developing these ideas,
Nazi theorist
Alfred Rosenberg proposed that the Nazi administrative organization in lands to be conquered from the Soviets be based upon the following
Reichskommissariats:
The
Reichskommissariat territories would extend up to the European frontier at the
Urals. They were to have been early stages in the displacement and dispossession of Russian and other Slav people and their replacement with German settlers, following the Nazi
Lebensraum im Osten plans. When German forces entered Soviet territory, they promptly organized occupation regimes in the first two territories—the Reichskomissariats of Ostland and Ukraine. The defeat of the Sixth Army at the
Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, followed by defeat in the
Battle of Kursk in July 1943 and the
Allied landings in Sicily put an end to the plans' implementation.
Historical perspective
In his book
Mein Kampf,
Hitler notes that history is an open-ended struggle, and links the concept of
Lebensraum with his own brand of
racism and
social Darwinism. Nevertheless, historians debate whether Hitler's position on
Lebensraum was part of a larger program of world domination or a more modest "continentalist" approach, by which Hitler would have sufficed with the conquest of Eastern Europe. Nor are the two positions necessarily contradictory, given the idea of a broader
Stufenplan, or "plan in stages," which many claim lay behind the regime's actions. Historian
Ian Kershaw suggests just such a compromise, claiming that while the concept was originally abstract and undeveloped, it took on new meaning with the invasion of the
Soviet Union. He goes on to note that even within the Nazi regime, there were differences of opinion about the meaning of
Lebensraum, citing Rainer Zitelmann, who distinguishes between the near-mystical fascination with a return to an idyllic agrarian society (for which land was a necessity) as advocated by
Darré and
Himmler, and an industrial state, envisioned by Hitler, which would be reliant on raw materials and forced labor.
What seems certain is that echoes of lost territorial opportunities in Europe, such as the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, played an important role in the Hitlerian vision for the distant future:
Mein Kampf,
Hitler expressed his view that history was an open-ended struggle to the death between races. His plan to conquer Lebensraum is closely connected with his
racism and
social Darwinism. Racism isn't a necessary aspect of expansionist politics in general, nor was the original use of the term 'Lebensraum.' However, under Hitler, the term came to signify a specific,
racist kind of expansionism.
In an era when the earth is gradually being divided up among states, some of which embrace almost entire continents, we can't speak of a world power in connection with a formation whose political mother country is limited to the absurd area of five hundred thousand square kilometers.
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971, page 644.
Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.
— Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf, page 646.
For it isn't in colonial acquisitions that we must see the solution of this problem, but exclusively in the acquisition of a territory for settlement, which will enhance the area of the mother country, and hence not only keep the new settlers in the most intimate community with the land of their origin, but secure for the entire area those advantages which lie in its unified magnitude.
— Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf, page 653.
References in Film
The spaghetti fight between Hitler and Mussolini in Charlie Chaplin's
The Great Dictator Charlie Chaplin originally coined this term in his second year as British Prime minster in a speech to the English Parliament entitled
The Rubber Curtain.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lebensraum'.
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