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185-720: The primary purpose of the Four Year Plan was to provide for the rearmament of Germany, and to prepare the country for self-sufficiency in four years, from 1936 to 1940. Aside from emphasizing the rebuilding of the nation's military defenses, in disregard of the restrictions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles after the German defeat in World War I , the Four Year Plan sought to reduce unemployment; increase synthetic fibre production, undertake public works projects under

370-567: A casus belli for the conquest and colonisation of Polish territories as living-space and defensive-border for Imperial Germany , the Septemberprogramm derived from a foreign policy initially proposed by General Erich Ludendorff in 1914. Twenty-five years later, Nazi foreign policy resumed the cultural goal of the pursuit and realisation of German living-space at the expense of non-German peoples in Eastern Europe with

555-487: A League of Nations to guarantee the political independence and territorial integrity of all states. It called for what it characterised as a just and democratic peace uncompromised by territorial annexation . The Fourteen Points were based on the research of the Inquiry , a team of about 150 advisors led by foreign-policy advisor Edward M. House , into the topics likely to arise in the expected peace conference. During

740-454: A " Weltanschauung " during his speech at the 1933 Nuremberg rally , Hitler stated: "Already in the word ' Weltanschauung ' lies the solemn proclamation of a decision that all acts are based upon a certain point of view and a visible tendency. Such a view can be true or false: it is the starting point for every opinion on the appearance and events of life, and is therefore a binding and obligating law for every act. The more such an opinion covers

925-638: A "peace without victory". This position fluctuated following the US entry into the war. Wilson spoke of the German aggressors, with whom there could be no compromised peace. On 8 January 1918, however, Wilson delivered a speech (known as the Fourteen Points ) that declared the American peace objectives: the rebuilding of the European economy , self-determination of European and Middle Eastern ethnic groups,

1110-462: A German professor Fritz Fischer reported the results of his investigations into German war aims. These were indeed a "blueprint for aggression", or, as the professor called them, "a grasp at world power": Belgium under German control, the French iron-fields annexed to Germany, and, what is more, Poland and Ukraine to be cleared of their inhabitants and resettled with Germans. These plans were not merely

1295-534: A September 1936 speech before the German Labor Front , Hitler explained the plan's focus and drew a comparison between the resources at Germany's disposal and those accessible to the "incapable" Bolsheviks . Some in the American press interpreted the speech as Hitler's call for war with the Soviet Union to obtain those resources. The correspondent for The New York Times put it this way: There

1480-710: A declaration of war by Britain on Germany on 4 August, creating the conflict that became the First World War . Two alliances faced off, the Central Powers (led by Germany) and the Triple Entente (led by Britain, France and Russia). Other countries entered as fighting raged widely across Europe , as well as the Middle East , Africa and Asia . Having seen the overthrow of the Tsarist regime in

1665-529: A fairer, better world are not written in this treaty". Lord Robert Cecil said that many within the Foreign Office were disappointed by the treaty. The treaty received widespread approval from the general public. Bernadotte Schmitt wrote that the "average Englishman ... thought Germany got only what it deserved" as a result of the treaty, but public opinion changed as German complaints mounted. Former wartime British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and

1850-464: A maximum of seven infantry and three cavalry divisions. The treaty laid down the organisation of the divisions and support units, and the General Staff was to be dissolved. Military schools for officer training were limited to three, one school per arm, and conscription was abolished. Private soldiers and non-commissioned officers were to be retained for at least twelve years and officers for

2035-437: A maximum working day and week; the regulation of the labour supply; the prevention of unemployment ; the provision of a living wage; the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his employment; the protection of children, young persons and women; provision for old age and injury; protection of the interests of workers when employed abroad; recognition of the principle of freedom of association ;

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2220-674: A member of the Artaman League , an anti-Slav, anti-urban, and anti-Semitic organisation of "blood and soil" ideology—developed the Völkisch ideas that advocated Lebensraum , for the realisation of which he said that the: Increase [of] our peasant population is the only effective defense against the influx of the Slav working-class masses from the East. As six hundred years ago, the German peasant's destiny must be to preserve and increase

2405-430: A minimum of 25 years, with former officers being forbidden to attend military exercises. To prevent Germany from building up a large cadre of trained men, the number of men allowed to leave early was limited. The number of civilian staff supporting the army was reduced and the police force was reduced to its pre-war size, with increases limited to population increases; paramilitary forces were forbidden. The Rhineland

2590-462: A mutilated victory, replying at nationalists calling for a greater expansion that "Italy today is a great state....on par with the great historic and contemporary states. This is, for me, our main and principal expansion." Francesco Saverio Nitti took Orlando's place in signing the treaty of Versailles. The Italian leadership were divided on whether to try the Kaiser. Sonnino considered that putting

2775-461: A nationwide speaking tour in the summer of 1919 to refute them. But Wilson collapsed midway with a serious stroke that effectively ruined his leadership skills. The closest the treaty came to passage was on 19 November 1919, as Lodge and his Republicans formed a coalition with the pro-treaty Democrats, and were close to a two-thirds majority for a Treaty with reservations, but Wilson rejected this compromise and enough Democrats followed his lead to end

2960-545: A position opposed by the Dominions . Together with the French, the British favoured putting German war criminals on trial, and included the Kaiser in this. Already in 1916 Herbert Asquith had declared the intention "to bring to justice the criminals, whoever they be and whatever their station", and a resolution of the war cabinet in 1918 reaffirmed this intent. Lloyd George declared that the British people would not accept

3145-540: A promised transfer of British Jubaland and French Aozou strip to the Italian colonies of Somalia and Libya respectively. Italian nationalists , however, saw the War as a " mutilated victory " for what they considered to be little territorial gains achieved in the other treaties directly impacting Italy's borders. Orlando was ultimately forced to abandon the conference and resign. Orlando refused to see World War I as

3330-467: A second telegram with a confirmation that a German delegation would arrive shortly to sign the treaty. On 28 June 1919, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the immediate impetus for the war), the peace treaty was signed. The treaty had clauses ranging from war crimes, the prohibition on the merging of the Republic of German Austria with Germany without the consent of

3515-713: A separate peace treaty with Germany, albeit based on the Versailles treaty. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties , which improved relations between Germany and the other European powers. The reparation system was reorganized and payments reduced in the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan . Bitter resentment of the treaty powered the rise of the Nazi Party , and eventually

3700-637: A similar proposal to the Senate . Clemenceau had told the Chamber of Deputies , in December 1918, that his goal was to maintain an alliance with both countries. Clemenceau accepted the offer, in return for an occupation of the Rhineland for fifteen years and that Germany would also demilitarise the Rhineland. French negotiators required reparations, to make Germany pay for the destruction induced throughout

3885-778: A society. In 1901, Ratzel extended his thesis in his essay titled " Lebensraum ". Ratzel pointed to historical precedent in the Middle Ages, when the social and economic pressures of rapid population growth in the German states had led to a steady colonization of Germanic peoples in Eastern Europe. During the First World War , the Allied naval blockade of the Central Powers caused food shortages in Germany, and resources from German colonies in Africa were unable to slip past

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4070-472: A thousand years. On 3 February 1933, at his initial meeting with the generals and admirals of Nazi Germany , Adolf Hitler said that the conquest of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe and its "ruthless Germanisation " were the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Reich foreign policy. The USSR was the country to provide sufficient Lebensraum for the Germans, because it possessed much agricultural land, and

4255-479: A total effort at rearmament regardless of the economic costs. The basic premise of the Four Year Plan memo was that "the showdown with Russia is inevitable". In the memo, Hitler wrote: Since the outbreak of the French Revolution, the world has been moving with ever increasing speed toward a new conflict, the most extreme solution of which is called Bolshevism, whose essence and aim, however, are solely

4440-487: A treaty that did not include terms on this, though he wished to limit the charges solely to violation of the 1839 treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality. The British were also well aware that the Kaiser having sought refuge in the Netherlands meant that any trial was unlikely to take place and therefore any Article demanding it was likely to be a dead letter. Before the American entry into the war, Wilson had talked of

4625-401: Is Germany's duty to secure her own existence by every means in face of this catastrophe, and to protect herself against it, and that from this compulsion there arises a series of conclusions relating to the most important tasks that our people have ever been set. For a victory of Bolshevism over Germany would not lead to a Versailles treaty, but to the final destruction, indeed the annihilation of

4810-565: Is credited to Karl Ernst Haushofer and his Institute of Geopolitics, in Munich, especially the ultra-nationalist interpretation of it, which was used as a justification for the desire to avenge Germany's military defeat at the end of the First World War (1914–18) and the desire to reverse the dictates of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), which reduced Germany geographically, economically, and militarily. The politician Adolf Hitler said that

4995-660: Is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years."; a criticism over the failure to annex the Rhineland and for compromising French security for the benefit of the United States and Britain. When Clemenceau stood for election as President of France in January 1920, he was defeated. Reaction in the Kingdom of Italy to the treaty was extremely negative. The country had suffered high casualties, yet failed to achieve most of its major war goals, notably gaining control of

5180-605: Is to say, resettlement of nationalities". On 20 October 1939, Hitler told General Wilhelm Keitel that the war would be a difficult "racial struggle" and that the General Government was to "purify the Reich territory from Jews and Polacks, too." Likewise, in October 1939, Nazi propaganda instructed Germans to view Poles, Jews, and Gypsies as Untermenschen . Nazi Germany's pursuit of its bio-geo-political ambitions

5365-550: The Septemberprogramm was unsuccessful due to its infeasibility, with too few soldiers to realise the plans during a two-front war. Politically, the Programm allowed the Imperial Government to learn the opinions of the nationalist, economic, and military elites of the German ruling class who financed and facilitated geopolitics. Nationally, the annexation and ethnic cleansing of Poland for German Lebensraum

5550-591: The "eternal Jewish threat" ( Der ewige Jude , 1937). Emphasis was put on the need for rearmament and the pseudoscience of superior races in the pursuit of " blood and soil " ( Blut und Boden ). During the twenty-one-year inter-war period between the First (1914–18) and the Second (1939–45) World War, Lebensraum for Germany was the principal tenet of the extremist nationalism that characterised German party politics. The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, demanded not only

5735-642: The Atlantic Ocean . The Blockade of Germany was a naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers to stop the supply of raw materials and foodstuffs reaching the Central Powers. The German Kaiserliche Marine was mainly restricted to the German Bight and used commerce raiders and unrestricted submarine warfare for a counter-blockade. The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 stated that 763,000 German civilians had died during

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5920-800: The Baltic governorates , Belarus , Ukraine , and the Caucasus region. Despite such an extensive geopolitical victory, tactical defeat in the Western Front, strategic over-extension, and factional division in government compelled Imperial Germany to abandon the Eastern European Lebensraum gained with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in favour of the peace-terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), and yielded those Russian lands to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. As

6105-742: The Crimea , and were stationed, in smaller numbers, in Transcaucasia . Even the unoccupied "rump" Russia appeared—with the conclusion of the German–Soviet Supplementary Treaty, on 28 August 1918—to be in firm, though indirect, dependency on the Reich . Thus, Hitler's long-range aim, fixed in the 1920s, of erecting a German Eastern Imperium on the ruins of the Soviet Union was not simply a vision emanating from an abstract wish. In

6290-603: The Dalmatian coast and Fiume . President Wilson rejected Italy's claims on the basis of "national self-determination." For their part, Britain and France—who had been forced in the war's latter stages to divert their own troops to the Italian front to stave off collapse—were disinclined to support Italy's position at the peace conference. Differences in negotiating strategy between Premier Vittorio Orlando and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino further undermined Italy's position at

6475-751: The February Revolution and the Kerensky government in the October Revolution , the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic under Vladimir Lenin in March 1918 signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , amounting to a surrender that was highly favourable to Germany. Sensing victory before the American Expeditionary Forces could be ready, Germany now shifted forces to the Western Front and tried to overwhelm

6660-402: The Fourteen Points . They outlined a policy of free trade , open agreements , and democracy. While the term was not used, self-determination was assumed. It called for a negotiated end to the war, international disarmament, the withdrawal of the Central Powers from occupied territories, the creation of a Polish state , the redrawing of Europe's borders along ethnic lines, and the formation of

6845-606: The Free City of Danzig . Article 119 of the treaty required Germany to renounce sovereignty over former colonies and Article 22 converted the territories into League of Nations mandates under the control of Allied states. Togoland and German Kamerun (Cameroon) were transferred to France, aside from portions given to Britain, British Togoland and British Cameroon . Ruanda and Urundi were allocated to Belgium, whereas German South-West Africa went to South Africa and Britain obtained German East Africa . As compensation for

7030-684: The German Revolution . The German government tried to obtain a peace settlement based on the Fourteen Points, and maintained it was on this basis that they surrendered. Following negotiations, the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice , which came into effect on 11 November while German forces were still positioned in France and Belgium . Many aspects of the Versailles treaty that were later criticised were agreed first in

7215-651: The Greater Poland Uprising , was also to be ceded to Poland. Pomerelia (Eastern Pomerania), on historical and ethnic grounds, was transferred to Poland so that the new state could have access to the sea and became known as the Polish Corridor . The sovereignty of part of southern East Prussia was to be decided via plebiscite while the East Prussian Soldau area , which was astride the rail line between Warsaw and Danzig ,

7400-539: The Independent Liberal opposition in the British Parliament after the 1918 general election believed the treaty was too punitive. Asquith campaigned against it while running for another House of Commons seat in the 1920 Paisley by-election . Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald , following the German re-militarisation of the Rhineland in 1936, stated that he was "pleased" that the treaty

7585-549: The Kingdom of Bulgaria ). In March 1918, in an effort to reform and modernise the Russian Empire (1721–1917) into a soviet republic , the Bolshevik government agreed to the strategically onerous territorial cessions stipulated in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (33% of arable land, 30% of industry, and 90% of the coal mines of Russia). As a result, Russia yielded to Germany much of the arable land of European Russia ,

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7770-608: The Nazi geopolitics of "inevitable expansion" would reverse overpopulation, provide natural resources, and uphold German national honor. In Mein Kampf (1925; My Struggle ), Hitler presented his conception of Lebensraum as the philosophic basis for the Greater Germanic Reich that was destined to colonize Eastern Europe—especially Ukraine in the Soviet Union —and so resolve the problems of overpopulation, and that

7955-676: The Nordic people . This combination of biopolitical and geo-political agenda of the Nazi Reich became the basis for its Germanization policies, the mission of what it regarded as the "purification of the Volksgemeinschaft ", as well as its state-sponsored genocidal apparatus. On 6 October 1939, Hitler told the Reichstag that after the fall of Poland the most important matter was "a new order of ethnographic relations, that

8140-1097: The Polish decrees (8 March 1940), the Nazis ensured that the racial inferiority of the Poles was legally recognized in the German Reich, and regulated the working and living conditions of Polish laborers ( Zivilarbeiter ). The Polish decrees also established that any Pole "who has sexual relations with a German man or woman, or approaches them in any other improper manner, will be punished by death." The Gestapo were vigilant of sexual relations between Germans and Poles, and pursued anyone suspected of race defilement ( Rassenschande ); likewise, there were proscriptions of sexual relations between Germans and other ethnic groups brought in from Eastern Europe. "Hitler's ideas of Lebensraum , also elaborated in Mein Kampf , meant that his desire to expand German power and control to

8325-440: The Prussian government had already allocated 200,000,000 ℳ︁ for purposes of German colonization of Polish portions of eastern Prussia. These funds were intended to support the creation of settlements by acquiring Polish estates. By 1907, Prussian Chancellor Bülow was promoting bills that explicitly called for the forced sale of Polish estates. A bill in late 1907 asked for another $ 100,000,000 for expropriations. In 1903,

8510-431: The Quai d'Orsay in Paris. Initially, 70 delegates from 27 nations participated in the negotiations. Russia was excluded due to their signing of a separate peace (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ) and early withdrawal from the war. Furthermore, German negotiators were excluded to deny them an opportunity to divide the Allies diplomatically. Initially, a "Council of Ten" (comprising two delegates each from Britain, France,

8695-424: The Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht and the Price Commissioner Dr. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler calling for decreased military spending and a turn away from autarkic policies, and another faction around Göring calling for the opposite. Hitler hesitated for the first half of 1936 before siding with the more radical faction in his "Four Year Plan" memo of August. Historians such as Richard Overy have argued that

8880-417: The September Campaign (1 September – 6 October 1939) that began the Second World War in Europe. In Germany and the Two World Wars , the German historian Andreas Hillgruber said that the territorial gains of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) were the imperial prototype for Adolf Hitler's Greater German Empire in Eastern Europe: At the moment of the November 1918 ceasefire in the West, newspaper maps of

9065-403: The South African delegation) wrote to Lloyd-George, before the signing, that the treaty was unstable and declared "Are we in our sober senses or suffering from shellshock? What has become of Wilson's 14 points?" He wanted the Germans not be made to sign at the "point of the bayonet". Smuts issued a statement condemning the treaty and regretting that the promises of "a new international order and

9250-399: The eastward expansion of German territories . In the worldview of Adolf Hitler , the idea of restoring the 1914 borders of the German Reich ( Imperial Germany , 1871–1918) was absurd, because those national borders did not provide sufficient Lebensraum for the German population; only a foreign policy for the geopolitical conquest of the proper amount of Lebensraum would justify

9435-412: The invasion of Poland (1939), the propaganda of the Nazi Party in Germany used popular feelings of wounded national identity aroused in the aftermath of the First World War to promote policies of Lebensraum . Studies of the homeland focused on the lost colonies after the establishment of the Second Polish Republic , which was ratified by the Treaty of Versailles ( Volk ohne Raum ), as well as

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9620-421: The "Big Three" following the temporary withdrawal of Orlando). These four men met in 145 closed sessions to make all the major decisions, which were later ratified by the entire assembly. The minor powers attended a weekly "Plenary Conference" that discussed issues in a general forum but made no decisions. These members formed over 50 commissions that made various recommendations, many of which were incorporated into

9805-406: The "Office of the Four-Year Plan", a cabinet-level agency, had grown to such a power base that the plan was extended indefinitely. Rearmament was in direct violation of the strict terms set by the allies of World War I at the Treaty of Versailles . The German army was to be restricted to 100,000 men, and there were to be no conscription , tanks or heavy artillery or general staff. The German navy

9990-477: The 11 November armistice agreement, whilst the war was still ongoing. These included the German evacuation of German-occupied France , Belgium , Luxembourg , Alsace-Lorraine, and the left bank of the Rhine (all of which were to be administered by the Allies under the armistice agreement), the surrender of a large quantity of war materiel, and the agreed payment of "reparation for damage done". German forces evacuated occupied France, Belgium, and Luxembourg within

10175-426: The 19th century, the term Lebensraum was used by the German geographer and biologist Oscar Peschel in his 1860 review of Charles Darwin 's Origins of Species (1859). In 1897, the geographer and ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel in his book Politische Geographie applied the word Lebensraum ("living space") to describe physical geography as a factor that influences human activities in developing into

10360-406: The Allied blockade, although an academic study in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000 people. The blockade was maintained for eight months after the Armistice in November 1918, into the following year of 1919. Foodstuffs imports into Germany were controlled by the Allies after the Armistice with Germany until Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. In March 1919, Churchill informed

10545-664: The Allies at Versailles . Ratzel said that the development of a people into a society was primarily influenced by their geographic situation (habitat) and that a society that successfully adapted to one geographic territory would naturally and logically expand the boundaries of their nation into another territory. Yet, to resolve German overpopulation , Ratzel pointed out that Imperial Germany (1871–1918) required overseas colonies to which surplus Germans ought to emigrate. Friedrich Ratzel's metaphoric concept of society as an organism—which grows and shrinks in logical relation to its Lebensraum (habitat)—proved especially influential upon

10730-467: The Allies declared that war would resume if the German government did not sign the treaty they had agreed to among themselves. The government headed by Philipp Scheidemann was unable to agree on a common position, and Scheidemann himself resigned rather than agree to sign the treaty. Gustav Bauer , the head of the new government, sent a telegram stating his intention to sign the treaty if certain articles were withdrawn, including Articles 227 to 231 (i.e.,

10915-482: The Allies. It failed. Instead, the Allies won decisively on the battlefield, overwhelmed Germany's Turkish, Austrian, and Bulgarian allies, and forced an armistice in November 1918 that resembled a surrender. The United States entered the war against the Central Powers in 1917 and President Woodrow Wilson played a significant role in shaping the peace terms. His expressed aim was to detach the war from nationalistic disputes and ambitions. On 8 January 1918, Wilson issued

11100-400: The American peace delegation, and the overall American position echoed the Fourteen Points. Wilson firmly opposed harsh treatment on Germany. While the British and French wanted to largely annex the German colonial empire, Wilson saw that as a violation of the fundamental principles of justice and human rights of the native populations, and favored them having the right of self-determination via

11285-411: The Americans differed to the British and French in that Wilson's proposal was that any trial of the Kaiser should be solely a political and moral affair, and not one of criminal responsibility, meaning that the death penalty would be precluded. This was based on the American view, particularly those of Robert Lansing , that there was no applicable law under which the Kaiser could be tried. Additionally,

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11470-424: The Americans favoured trying other German war criminals before military tribunals rather than an international court, with prosecutions being limited to "violation[s] of the laws and customs of war", and opposed any trials based on violations against what was called " laws of humanity ". Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and his foreign minister Sidney Sonnino , an Anglican of British origins, worked primarily to secure

11655-460: The Articles related to the extradition of the Kaiser for trial, the extradition of German war criminals for trial before Allied tribunals, the handing over of documents relevant for war crimes trials, and accepting liability for war reparations). In response, the Allies issued an ultimatum stating that Germany would have to accept the treaty or face an invasion of Allied forces across the Rhine within 24 hours. On 23 June, Bauer capitulated and sent

11840-542: The British Empire. Lloyd George also intended to maintain a European balance of power to thwart a French attempt to establish itself as the dominant European power. A revived Germany would be a counterweight to France and a deterrent to Bolshevik Russia. Lloyd George also wanted to neutralize the German navy to keep the Royal Navy as the greatest naval power in the world; dismantle the German colonial empire with several of its territorial possessions ceded to Britain and others being established as League of Nations mandates ,

12025-449: The Commonwealth and British Government had mixed thoughts on the treaty, with some seeing the French policy as being greedy and vindictive. Lloyd George and his private secretary Philip Kerr believed in the treaty, although they also felt that the French would keep Europe in a constant state of turmoil by attempting to enforce the treaty. Delegate Harold Nicolson wrote "are we making a good peace?", while General Jan Smuts (a member of

12210-400: The Dominions. The four Dominions and India all signed the Treaty separately from Britain, a clear recognition by the international community that the Dominions were no longer British colonies. "Their status defied exact analysis by both international and constitutional lawyers, but it was clear that they were no longer regarded simply as colonies of Britain." By signing the Treaty individually,

12395-485: The East ' ) was based on its tenets. It stipulated that Germany required a Lebensraum necessary for its survival and that most of the populations of Central and Eastern Europe would have to be removed permanently (either through mass deportation to Siberia , extermination, or enslavement), including Polish , Ukrainian , Russian , Czech , and other Slavic nations considered non- Aryan . The Nazi government aimed at repopulating these lands with Germanic colonists in

12580-489: The East ". Based upon Johan Rudolf Kjellén's geopolitical interpretation of Friedrich Ratzel's human-geography term, the Nazi regime (1933–45) established Lebensraum as the racist rationale of the foreign policy by which they began the Second World War , on 1 September 1939, in an effort to realise the Greater Germanic Reich at the expense of the societies of Eastern Europe. Some Prussian politicians were increasingly thinking in terms of Lebensraum by 1907. In 1902,

12765-438: The Eastern sphere, established in 1918, this goal had a concrete point of departure. The German Eastern Imperium had already been—if only for a short time—a reality. The Septemberprogramm (1914) documents " Lebensraum in the East" as philosophically integral to Germanic culture throughout the history of Germany; and that Lebensraum is not a racialist philosophy particular to the 20th century. As military strategy,

12950-424: The European states had to accede to his geopolitical demands. The Nazi Party's usages of the term Lebensraum were explicitly racial, to justify the mystical right of the racially superior Germanic peoples ( Herrenvolk ) to fulfill their cultural destiny at the expense of racially inferior peoples ( Untermenschen ), such as the Slavs of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the other non–Germanic peoples of "

13135-409: The Four Year Plan had been based primarily on his public popularity as a war hero and his easy access to Hitler. The Reichswerke , an industrial conglomerate aimed at hastening growth in ore mining and steel output of Nazi Germany, a major piece of the Four Year Plan, was established and controlled by Göring. Although the appointment of Göring as head of the plan had short-term benefits to Hitler, in

13320-407: The Fourteen Points, because Europe would eventually have to reconcile with Germany. Lloyd George wanted terms of reparation that would not cripple the German economy, so that Germany would remain a viable economic power and trading partner. By arguing that British war pensions and widows' allowances should be included in the German reparation sum, Lloyd George ensured that a large amount would go to

13505-514: The French and Germans held separate talks, on mutually acceptable arrangements on issues like reparation, reconstruction and industrial collaboration. France, along with the British Dominions and Belgium, opposed League of Nations mandates and favored annexation of former German colonies . The French, who had suffered significantly in the areas occupied by Germany during the war, were in favour of trying German war criminals, including

13690-530: The German Empire, and pay reparations to the Entente powers. The most critical and controversial provision in the treaty was: "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by

13875-508: The German empire's alliance with Austria-Hungary during World War I. In his works such as Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch , Hitler viewed the Slavs as lacking the capability to form a state. Although Hitler openly spoke about the need for living space in the 1920s, he never publicly spoke about it during his first years in power. It was not until 1937, with the German rearmament program well under way, that he began again to publicly speak about

14060-580: The German invasion of Portuguese Africa, Portugal was granted the Kionga Triangle , a sliver of German East Africa in northern Mozambique . Article 156 of the treaty transferred German concessions in Shandong , China, to Japan, not to China. Japan was granted all German possessions in the Pacific north of the equator and those south of the equator went to Australia, except for German Samoa , which

14245-526: The German people's patrimony in their holy mother earth battle against the Slav race. In Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler dedicated a full chapter—titled "Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy"—to outlining the need for the new "living space" for Germany. He claimed that achieving Lebensraum required political will, and that the Nazi movement ought to strive to expand population area for the German people and acquire new sources of food. Lebensraum became

14430-488: The German people...I consider it necessary for the Reichstag to pass the following two laws: 1) A law providing the death penalty for economic sabotage and 2) A law making the whole of Jewry liable for all damage inflicted by individual specimens of this community of criminals upon the German economy, and thus upon the German people. Hitler called for Germany to have the world's "first army" in terms of fighting power within

14615-436: The German reliance on food imports by sea during the First World War, believing it to be a contributing factor to Germany's defeat in the war. He believed that only through Lebensraum could Germany shift "its dependence for food... to its own imperial hinterland". Hitler's bio-geo-political doctrine of Lebensraum consisted of two components existing in tension: the materialist endeavour to expand Germanic territories and

14800-718: The Germanisation of Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German [and] Germanic blood". In the secret memorandum Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East (25 May 1940), Himmler outlined the future of the Eastern European peoples: (i) division of native ethnic groups found in the new living-space; (ii) limited, formal education of four years of elementary school (to teach them only how to write their names and to count to five hundred); and (iii) obedience of

14985-466: The House of Commons, that the ongoing blockade was a success and "Germany is very near starvation." From January 1919 to March 1919, Germany refused to agree to Allied demands that Germany surrender its merchant ships to Allied ports to transport food supplies. Some Germans considered the armistice to be a temporary cessation of the war and knew, if fighting broke out again, their ships would be seized. Over

15170-476: The Kaiser on trial could result in him becoming a "patriotic martyr". Orlando, in contrast, stated that "the ex-Kaiser ought to pay like other criminals", but was less sure about whether the Kaiser should be tried as a criminal or merely have a political verdict cast against him. Orlando also considered that "[t]he question of the constitution of the Court presents almost insurmountable difficulties". In June 1919,

15355-414: The Kaiser. In the face of American objections that there was no applicable existing law under which the Kaiser could be tried, Clemenceau took the view that the "law of responsibility" overruled all other laws and that putting the Kaiser on trial offered the opportunity to establish this as an international precedent. Britain had suffered heavy financial costs but suffered little physical devastation during

15540-655: The League of Nations confirmed the change of status on 20 September 1920, with the line of the German-Belgian border finally fixed by a League of Nations commission in 1922. To compensate for the destruction of French coal mines, Germany was to cede the output of the Saar coalmines to France and control of the Saar to the League of Nations for 15 years; a plebiscite would then be held to decide sovereignty. The treaty restored

15725-431: The League of Nations, freedom of navigation on major European rivers , to the returning of a Quran to the king of Hedjaz . The treaty stripped Germany of 65,000 km (25,000 sq mi) of territory and 7 million people. It also required Germany to give up the gains made via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and grant independence to the protectorates that had been established. In Western Europe , Germany

15910-459: The Next War ), General von Bernhardi developed Friedrich Ratzel's Lebensraum concept as a racial struggle for living space, explicitly identified Eastern Europe as the source of a new, national habitat for the German people, and said that the next war would be expressly for acquiring Lebensraum —all in fulfillment of the "biological necessity" to protect German racial supremacy. Vanquishing

16095-650: The Prussian authorities tried a Polish countess for "presenting a false heir" for an estate near Wróblewo . The case, tried in Berlin , generated crowds of people and police. Observers expressed concern that Prussian "race partiality" would result in a guilty verdict. In September 1914, when the German victory in the First World War appeared feasible, the German government introduced the Septemberprogramm as an official war aim ( Kriegs‌ziel ), which

16280-642: The Rhineland and bridgeheads east of the Rhine were to be occupied by Allied troops for fifteen years. If Germany had not committed aggression, a staged withdrawal would take place; after five years, the Cologne bridgehead and the territory north of a line along the Ruhr would be evacuated. After ten years, the bridgehead at Coblenz and the territories to the north would be evacuated and after fifteen years remaining Allied forces would be withdrawn. If Germany reneged on

16465-524: The Slavic and the Latin races was deemed necessary because "without war, inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy, budding elements" of the German race—thus, the war for Lebensraum was a necessary means of defending Germany against cultural stagnation and the racial degeneracy of miscegenation . In the national politics of Weimar Germany , the geopolitical usage of Lebensraum

16650-500: The Slavs is based on a sub-race with a few drops of our blood, the blood of a leading race; the Slav is unable to control himself and create order." In that vein, Himmler published the pamphlet Der Untermensch , which featured photographs of ideal racial types, Aryans, contrasted with the barbarian races, descended from Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan , to the massacres committed in the Soviet Union dominated by Jewish Bolshevism. With

16835-456: The Swedish political scientist and conservative politician Johan Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922), who interpreted that biological metaphor as a geopolitical natural-law. In the political monograph Schweden (1917; Sweden ), Kjellén coined the terms geopolitik (the conditions and problems of a state that arise from its geographic territory), œcopolitik (the economic factors that affect

17020-431: The United States' territorial expansion and saw the destruction of Native American peoples and their cultures that took place during the United States' westward expansion as a template for German expansion. He believed that in order to transform the German nation into a world superpower , Germany had to expand their geopolitical presence and act only in the interest of the German people. Hitler had also viewed with dismay

17205-435: The United States, Italy, and Japan) met officially to decide the peace terms. This council was replaced by the "Council of Five", formed from each country's foreign ministers, to discuss minor matters. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau , Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando , British Prime Minister David Lloyd George , and United States President Woodrow Wilson formed the " Big Four " (at one point becoming

17390-597: The Versailles conference, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson claimed that "at last the world knows America as the savior of the world!" However, Wilson had refused to bring any leading members of the Republican party, led by Henry Cabot Lodge , into the talks. The Republicans controlled the United States Senate after the election of 1918, and were outraged by Wilson's refusal to discuss the war with them. The senators were divided into multiple positions on

17575-575: The Versailles question. It proved possible to build a majority coalition, but impossible to build a two-thirds coalition that was needed to pass a treaty. A discontent bloc of 12–18 " Irreconcilables ", mostly Republicans but also representatives of the Irish and German Democrats, fiercely opposed the treaty. One bloc of Democrats strongly supported the Versailles Treaty, even with reservations added by Lodge. A second group of Democrats supported

17760-469: The aggression of Germany and her allies." The other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles. This article, Article 231 , became known as the "War Guilt" clause. Critics including John Maynard Keynes declared the treaty too harsh, styling it as a " Carthaginian peace ", and saying the reparations were excessive and counterproductive. On the other hand, prominent Allied figures such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized

17945-537: The area to the Republic of China 's control. Further confounding the Americans, was US internal partisan politics. In November 1918, the Republican Party won the Senate election by a slim margin. Wilson, a Democrat , refused to include prominent Republicans in the American delegation making his efforts seem partisan, and contributed to a risk of political defeat at home. On the subject of war crimes,

18130-685: The autumn of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse. Desertion rates within the German army began to increase, and civilian strikes drastically reduced war production. On the Western Front , the Allied forces launched the Hundred Days Offensive and decisively defeated the German western armies. Sailors of the Imperial German Navy at Kiel mutinied in response to the naval order of 24 October 1918 , which prompted uprisings in Germany, which became known as

18315-570: The blockade; this caused support to rise during the war for a Lebensraum that would expand Germany eastward into Russia to gain control of their resources to prevent such a situation from occurring in the future. In the period between the First and the Second World Wars, German nationalists adopted the term Lebensraum in their political demands for the re-establishment of the German colonial empire , which had been dismembered by

18500-688: The breach of the treaty that he had helped to formulate: That Germany is rearming cannot be denied. After all the victors in the Great War except Britain disregarded their own disarmament pledges, the Führer abrogated the agreement which bound his own country, thus following the example of the nations who were responsible for the Versailles Treaty. It is today a commonly admitted part of Hitler's policy to develop an army strong enough to resist any attack, regardless of from which side it may come. I believe that he has already reached this point of inviolability. In

18685-549: The chances of ratification permanently. Among the American public as a whole, the Irish Catholics and the German Americans were intensely opposed to the treaty, saying it favored the British. Lebensraum Final solution Parties Lebensraum ( German pronunciation: [ˈleːbənsˌʁaʊm] , living space ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism ,

18870-582: The colonial and commercial policy of the pre–War period and shift to the soil policy of the future. But when we speak of new territory in Europe today we must principally think of Russia and the border States subject to her. The ideologies found at the root of Hitler's implementation of Lebensraum modeled that of German colonialism of the New Imperialism period as well as the American ideology of manifest destiny . Hitler had great admiration for

19055-464: The conference. A furious Vittorio Orlando suffered a nervous collapse and at one point walked out of the conference (though he later returned). He lost his position as prime minister just a week before the treaty was scheduled to be signed, effectively ending his active political career. Anger and dismay over the treaty's provisions helped pave the way for the establishment of Benito Mussolini 's Fascist dictatorship three years later. Portugal entered

19240-407: The conquest of Lebensraum as a major ideological goal of his party, Hitler wrote in " Mein Kampf ": And so, we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre–War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the East. At long last, we break off

19425-704: The continuation blockade after the armistice. In the UK, Labour Party member and anti-war activist Robert Smillie issued a statement in June 1919 condemning continuation of the blockade, claiming 100,000 German civilians had died as a result. Talks between the Allies to establish a common negotiating position started on 18 January 1919, in the Salle de l'Horloge (Clock Room) at the French Foreign Ministry on

19610-550: The creation of mandates. The promoted idea called for the major powers to act as disinterested trustees over a region, aiding the native populations until they could govern themselves. In spite of this position and in order to ensure that Japan did not refuse to join the League of Nations, Wilson favored turning over the former German colony of Shandong , in Eastern China , to the Japanese Empire rather than return

19795-435: The current level of military spending was bankrupting Germany were irrelevant. Hitler wrote that: "However well balanced the general pattern of a nation's life ought to be, there must at particular times be certain disturbances of the balance at the expense of other less vital tasks. If we do not succeed in bringing the German army as rapidly as possible to the rank of premier army in the world...then Germany will be lost!" Along

19980-472: The declining German birth rate (since the 1880s) and contradicted the popular belief that the "German race" was a vigorous and growing people. Despite each slogan (political and racial) being contradicted by the reality of such demographic facts, the nationalists' demands for Lebensraum proved to be ideologically valid politics in Weimar Germany. In the lead-up to Anschluss (1938) and

20165-497: The destruction of the Soviet Union would have led to the exploitation of millions of peoples as slave labor in the occupied territories and the eventual re-population of the areas with Germans. Nazi Germany's initiation of Operation Barbarossa was motivated by the racial theories and bio-political doctrines of the NSDAP , which were fervently anti-Slavic , anti-communist and anti-semitic . The Nazi party's doctrine of Lebensraum

20350-475: The determination either to seal off these alien racial elements, so that the blood of its own Folk will not be corrupted again, or it must, without further ado, remove them and hand over the vacated territory to its own National Comrades. The conquest of living space for Germany was the foremost foreign-policy goal of the Nazis towards establishing the Greater Germanic Reich that was to last

20535-484: The direction of Fritz Todt , increase automobile production, initiate numerous building and architectural projects and further develop the Autobahn system. In 1933, Hitler had laid down his foreign policy priorities as "natural antagonism" towards the Soviet Union. In the autumn of 1935, various business leaders complained to Hitler about the overwhelming costs of the rearmament, only for Hermann Göring to speak about

20720-661: The east with the intention of colonising this territory with German settlers would involve the expulsion, enslavement and death of the Slavs who lived there.. If the awful counterfactual of a Nazi victory had come to pass... Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians would surely have shared the fate of the Poles and been eliminated culturally and ethnically as distinct peoples and nations. Genocidal actions against those peoples would have been completed." — Historian Norman Naimark As official policy, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler said that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind to mingle with any alien races; and that

20905-538: The economy, including the private sector, especially after the Minister of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht , had begun to lose favour with Hitler for opposing the growing military expenditures at the expense of civilian economic growth. During the following years, the state, under the industrial conglomerate Reichswerke , began building refineries , aluminium plants, and factories for the development of synthetic materials. The Four-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, but

21090-467: The elimination of those strata of mankind which have hitherto provided the leadership and their replacement by worldwide Jewry. No state will be able to withdraw or even remain at a distance from this historical conflict...It is not the aim of this memorandum to prophesy the time when the untenable situation in Europe will become an open crisis. I only want, in these lines, to set down my conviction that this crisis cannot and will not fail to arrive and that it

21275-642: The establishment of German Lebensraum allowed the Nazis to unilaterally launch a war of aggression ( blitzkrieg ) against the countries of Eastern Europe, ideologically justified as historical recuperation of the Oium (lands) that the Slavs had conquered from the native Ostrogoths . Nazi propaganda depicted Eastern Europe as historically Germanic territories, promoting the myth that these regions were stolen from Aryan races by Hunnic and Avar tribes. Hitler viewed Slavs as primitive subhumans, and he detested

21460-588: The exact amount which Germany would pay and the form that such payment would take. The commission was required to "give to the German Government a just opportunity to be heard", and to submit its conclusions by 1 May 1921 . In the interim, the treaty required Germany to pay an equivalent of 20 billion gold marks ($ 5 billion) in gold, commodities, ships, securities or other forms. The money would help to pay for Allied occupation costs and buy food and raw materials for Germany. To ensure compliance,

21645-509: The fifteen days required by the armistice agreement. By late 1918, Allied troops had entered Germany and began the occupation of the Rhineland under the agreement, in the process establishing bridgeheads across the Rhine in case of renewed fighting at Cologne, Koblenz, and Mainz. Allied and German forces were additionally to be separated by a 10 km-wide demilitarised zone. Both Germany and Great Britain were dependent on imports of food and raw materials, most of which had to be shipped across

21830-507: The final text of the treaty. France had lost 1.3 million soldiers, including 25% of French men aged 18–30, as well as 400,000 civilians. France had also been more physically damaged than any other nation; the so-called zone rouge (Red Zone), the most industrialized region and the source of most coal and iron ore in the north-east, had been devastated, and in the final days of the war, mines had been flooded and railways, bridges and factories destroyed. Clemenceau intended to ensure

22015-487: The forces of " Judeo-Bolshevism " sooner rather than later.  In August 1936, in response to a growing crisis in the German economy caused by the strains of rearmament, Hitler issued the "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" ordering Göring to carry out the Four Year Plan to have the German economy ready for war within the next four years. During the 1936 economic crisis, the German government was divided into two factions with one (the so-called "free market" faction) centering around

22200-585: The four Dominions and India also were founding members of the League of Nations in their own right, rather than simply as part of the British Empire. The signing of the treaty was met with roars of approval, singing, and dancing from a crowd outside the Palace of Versailles. In Paris proper, people rejoiced at the official end of the war, the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France, and that Germany had agreed to pay reparations. While France ratified

22385-415: The geographic reversion of Germany's post-war borders (to recuperate territory lost by the Treaty of Versailles), but also the German conquest and colonisation of Eastern Europe (whether or not those lands were German before 1918). To that end, Hitler said that flouting the Treaty of Versailles was required for Germany to obtain needed Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. During the 1920s, Heinrich Himmler —as

22570-417: The importance of the memo, which was written personally by Hitler, can be gauged by the fact that Hitler, who had something of a phobia about writing, hardly ever wrote anything down, which indicates that Hitler had something especially important to say. The "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" predicated an imminent all-out, apocalyptic struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German National Socialism, which necessitated

22755-703: The impulsive nature of Hitlerism. In 1941, in a speech to the Eastern Front Battle Group Nord, Himmler said that the war against the Soviet Union was a war of ideologies and races, between Nazism and Jewish Bolshevism and between the Germanic (Nordic) peoples and the Untermenschen peoples of the East. Moreover, in one of the secret Posen speeches to the SS-Gruppenführer at Posen, Himmler said: "the mixed race of

22940-523: The independence of Poland , which had regained its independence following a national revolution against the occupying Central Powers, and renounce "all rights and title" over Polish territory. Portions of Upper Silesia were to be ceded to Poland, with the future of the rest of the province to be decided by plebiscite. The border would be fixed with regard to the vote and to the geographical and economic conditions of each locality. The Province of Posen (now Poznań ), which had come under Polish control during

23125-472: The inhabitants of German-occupied territories into categories of desirability according to criteria. In the same memorandum, Himmler advocated the kidnapping of children who appeared to be Nordic because it would "remove the danger that this subhuman people ( Untermenschenvolk ) of the East through such children might acquire a leader class from such people of good blood, which would be dangerous for us because they would be our equals." According to Himmler,

23310-497: The judges were to "fix such punishment which it considers should be imposed". The death penalty was therefore not precluded. Article 228 allowed the Allies to demand the extradition of German war criminals, who could be tried before military tribunals for crimes against "the laws and customs of war" under Article 229. To provide an evidentiary basis for such trials, Article 230 required the German government to transfer information and documents relevant to such trials. The delegates of

23495-471: The long term it was a disaster, as Göring knew next to nothing about economics, a factor that Hitler cited as one of the reasons for the choice. The Four-Year Plan favoured both the protection of agriculture and the promotion of autarky (economic independence) for Germany. Göring was put in charge of the Four-Year Plan at its inception and given plenipotentiary powers. He had complete control over

23680-594: The military situation showed German troops in Finland, holding a line from the Finnish fjords near Narva , down through Pskov – Orsha – Mogilev and the area south of Kursk , to the Don east of Rostov . Germany had thus secured Ukraine. The Russian recognition of Ukraine's separation, exacted at Brest–Litovsk, represented the key element in German efforts to keep Russia perpetually subservient. In addition, German troops held

23865-578: The most important treaty of World War I , it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers . It was signed in the Palace of Versailles , exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand , which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, and agreed certain principles and conditions including

24050-589: The mystical quest to revive what the Nazis viewed as the "idealized German medieval past". The explicit embrace of these contradictions was evident in the promulgation of Nazi slogans such as " Blut und Boden " (blood and soil). National Socialism was presented by its ideologues as an organic world-view (" Weltanschauung ") that subordinated all aspects of life—physical bodies, soul, mind, culture, government, religion, education, economy, etc.—into an "organic totality" existing within Lebensraum . Defining Nazism as

24235-443: The name of Lebensraum during and following World War II . Entire populations were ravaged by starvation; any agricultural surplus was used to feed Germany. The Jewish population was to be exterminated outright . Hitler's strategic program for Greater Germany was based on the belief in the power of Lebensraum , especially when pursued by a racially superior society. People deemed to be part of non-Aryan races, within

24420-592: The natural law of organic life, the better its conscious utility can be applied for the sake of the people's life." In the unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf , the Zweites Buch (1928, Second Book ), Hitler further presents the ideology of Nazi Lebensraum , in accordance with the then-future foreign policy of the Nazi Party. To further German population growth, Hitler rejected the ideas of birth control and emigration, arguing that such practices weakened

24605-491: The necessary sacrifices entailed by war. Hitler thought that history was dominated by a merciless struggle for survival among the different races of mankind; and that the races who possessed a great national territory were innately stronger than those races who possessed a small national territory—which the Germanic Aryan race could take by what he viewed as their natural right . Such official racist perspectives for

24790-530: The necessity of preparing for the coming war against the Soviet Union. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 put Hitler into an apocalyptic mood in the summer of 1936 as he became convinced that a war with the Soviet Union would occur in the near-future. The diary of Josef Goebbels shows that a leitmotiv of Hitler's thinking in 1936 and 1937 was his conviction that Germany would have to take on

24975-405: The need for living space. The bio-geo-political nature of Nazi Weltanschauung was the core ideological force that instigated Nazi Germany to launch its violent project in pursuit of a new global order . This scheme aimed to dissolve the contradictions between the Nazi conceptualizations of "race" and "space" through the creation of a Germanic Lebensraum and achievement of world domination by

25160-449: The next four years and that "the extent of the military development of our resources cannot be too large, nor its pace too swift " (emphasis in the original) and the role of the economy was simply to support "Germany's self-assertion and the extension of her Lebensraum ". Hitler went on to write that given the magnitude of the coming struggle that the concerns expressed by members of the "free market" faction like Schacht and Goerdeler that

25345-534: The ocean. Not even Napoleon himself could touch England. You are both sheltered; we are not". The French wanted a frontier on the Rhine , to protect France from a German invasion and compensate for French demographic and economic inferiority. American and British representatives refused the French claim and after two months of negotiations, the French accepted a British pledge to provide an immediate alliance with France if Germany attacked again, and Wilson agreed to put

25530-475: The orders of Germans. Despite Nazi Germany's official racism, the extermination of Eastern European native populations was not always necessary because the racial policy of Nazi Germany regarded some Eastern European peoples as being of Aryan-Nordic stock, especially the local leaders. On March 4, 1941, Himmler introduced the German People's List ( Deutsche Volksliste ), which intended to segregate

25715-559: The organization of vocational and technical education and other measures. The treaty also called for the signatories to sign or ratify the International Opium Convention . Article 227 of the Versailles treaty required the handing over of Kaiser Wilhelm for trial "for supreme offence against international treaties and the sanctity of treaties" before a bench of five allied judges – one British, one American, one French, one Italian, and one Japanese. If found guilty

25900-809: The outbreak of a second World War . Although it is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference", only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the "Big Four" meetings taking place generally at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay . War broke out following the July Crisis in 1914. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, followed quickly by Germany declaring war on Russia on 1 August, and on Belgium and France on 3 August. The German invasion of Belgium on 3 August led to

26085-525: The partition of the Habsburg Empire and their attitude towards Germany was not as hostile. Generally speaking, Sonnino was in line with the British position while Orlando favored a compromise between Clemenceau and Wilson. Within the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles, Orlando obtained certain results such as the permanent membership of Italy in the security council of the League of Nations and

26270-522: The payment of reparations, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations before signing the treaty. The treaty required Germany to disarm , make territorial concessions, extradite alleged war criminals, agree to Kaiser Wilhelm being put on trial, recognise the independence of states whose territory had previously been part of

26455-435: The peace conference. Her promised share of German reparations never materialized, and a seat she coveted on the executive council of the new League of Nations went instead to Spain —which had remained neutral in the war. In the end, Portugal ratified the treaty, but got little out of the war, which cost more than 8,000 Portuguese Armed Forces troops and as many as 100,000 of her African colonial subjects their lives. After

26640-430: The people and culture of Germany, and that military conquest was the only means for obtaining Lebensraum : The National Socialist Movement, on the contrary, will always let its foreign policy be determined by the necessity to secure the space necessary to the life of our Folk. It knows no Germanising or Teutonising , as in the case of the national bourgeoisie , but only the spread of its own Folk. It will never see in

26825-411: The philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in World War I (1914–1918), as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion. The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany . Lebensraum

27010-439: The power of the state), and demopolitik (the social problems that arise from the racial composition of the state) to explain the political particulars to be considered for the successful administration and governing of a state. Moreover, he had a great intellectual influence upon the politics of Imperial Germany, especially with Staten som livsform (1916; The State as a Life-form ), an earlier political-science book read by

27195-434: The principal foreign-policy goal of the Nazi Party and the government of Nazi Germany (1933–45). Hitler rejected the restoration of the pre-war borders of Germany as an inadequate half-measure towards reducing purported national overpopulation. From that perspective, he opined that the nature of national borders is always unfinished and momentary, and that their redrawing must continue as Germany's political goal. Identifying

27380-406: The promotion of free trade, the creation of appropriate mandates for former colonies, and above all, the creation of a powerful League of Nations that would ensure the peace. The aim of the latter was to provide a forum to revise the peace treaties as needed, and deal with problems that arose as a result of the peace and the rise of new states. Wilson brought along top intellectuals as advisors to

27565-528: The provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to France by rescinding the treaties of Versailles and Frankfurt of 1871 as they pertained to this issue. France was able to make the claim that the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine were indeed part of France and not part of Germany by disclosing a letter sent from the Prussian King to the Empress Eugénie that Eugénie provided, in which William I wrote that

27750-522: The same lines, Hitler wrote later in his memo: "The nation does not live for the economy, for economic leaders, or for economic or financial theories; on the contrary, it is finance and the economy, economic leaders and theories, which all owe unqualified service in this struggle for the self-assertion of our nation." Hitler extended to Göring the power to make law simply by publishing decrees , which enabled him to create other plenipotentiaries in overall charge of various industries. Göring constantly expanded

27935-508: The scope of the plan until he became the de facto master of the German economy, and the Office of the Four Year Plan became, along with his control of the Luftwaffe as an independent armed service, the power base that he had lacked since the weakening of the other government positions that he held. Göring held no significant position in the Nazi Party , and his influence before he took on

28120-418: The security of France, by weakening Germany economically, militarily, territorially and by supplanting Germany as the leading producer of steel in Europe. British economist and Versailles negotiator John Maynard Keynes summarized this position as attempting to "set the clock back and undo what, since 1870, the progress of Germany had accomplished." Clemenceau told Wilson: "America is far away, protected by

28305-596: The society of Imperial Germany, for whom the concept of geopolitik acquired an ideological definition unlike the original, human-geography definition. Kjellén's geopolitical interpretation of the Lebensraum concept was adopted, expanded, and adapted to the politics of Germany by publicists of imperialism such as the militarist General Friedrich von Bernhardi (1849–1930) and the political geographer and proponent of geopolitics Karl Haushofer (1869–1946). In Deutschland und der Nächste Krieg (1911; Germany and

28490-418: The subjugated, so called Germanised, Czechs or Poles a national, let alone Folkish, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of our Folk. Therefore, the non-Germanic peoples of the annexed foreign territories would never be Germanised: The völkisch State, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make Germans out of them some day. On the contrary, it must muster

28675-534: The subsequent repopulation of the border strip with ethnic-German colonists; likewise, the colonisations of Lithuania and Ukraine. However, military over-extension lost the war for Imperial Germany, and the Septemberprogramm went unrealised. In April 1915, Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg authorised the Polish Border Strip plans in order to take advantage of the extensive territories in Eastern Europe that Germany had conquered and held since early in

28860-446: The territories of Alsace-Lorraine were requested by Germany for the sole purpose of national defense and not to expand the German territory. The sovereignty of Schleswig-Holstein was to be resolved by a plebiscite to be held at a future time (see Schleswig Plebiscites ). In Central Europe Germany was to recognize the independence of Czechoslovakia and cede parts of the province of Upper Silesia to them. Germany had to recognize

29045-691: The territory of Lebensraum expansion, were subjected to expulsion or destruction. The eugenics of Lebensraum assumed it to be the right of the German Aryan master race ( Herrenvolk ) to remove the indigenous people in the name of their own living space. They took inspiration for this concept from outside Germany. Hitler and Nazi officials took a particular interest in manifest destiny , and attempted to replicate it in occupied Europe. Nazi Germany also supported other Axis Powers ' expansionist ideologies such as Fascist Italy 's spazio vitale and Imperial Japan 's hakkō ichiu . In

29230-400: The time. Volk ohne Raum ( People Without Space ), for instance, by Hans Grimm sold much better than Mein Kampf when it was published in 1925. For that matter, plans for acquiring new territory were much aired in Germany during the First World War. It used to be thought that these were the plans of a few crack-pot theorisers or of extremist organisations. Now we know better. In 1961,

29415-493: The treaty and was active in the League, the jubilant mood soon gave way to a political backlash for Clemenceau. The French Right saw the treaty as being too lenient and saw it as failing to achieve all of France's demands. Left -wing politicians attacked the treaty and Clemenceau for being too harsh (the latter turning into a ritual condemnation of the treaty, for politicians remarking on French foreign affairs, as late as August 1939). Marshal Ferdinand Foch stated "this (treaty)

29600-595: The treaty but followed Wilson in opposing any amendments or reservations. The largest bloc, led by Senator Lodge, comprised a majority of the Republicans. They wanted a treaty with "reservations", especially on Article 10, so that the League of Nations could not draw the US into war without the consent of the US Congress. All of the Irreconcilables were bitter enemies of President Wilson, and he launched

29785-415: The treaty for treating Germany too leniently. This is still the subject of ongoing debate by historians and economists. The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left no one satisfied. In particular, Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The United States never ratified the Versailles treaty; instead it made

29970-578: The treaty obligations, the bridgeheads would be reoccupied immediately. Part I of the treaty, in common with all the treaties signed during the Paris Peace Conference , was the Covenant of the League of Nations , which provided for the creation of the League, an organization for the arbitration of international disputes. Part XIII organized the establishment of the International Labour Office , to regulate hours of work, including

30155-405: The war and to decrease German strength. The French also wanted the iron ore and coal of the Saar Valley , by annexation to France. The French were willing to accept a smaller amount of World War I reparations than the Americans would concede and Clemenceau was willing to discuss German capacity to pay with the German delegation, before the final settlement was drafted. In April and May 1919,

30340-410: The war on the Allied side in 1916 primarily to ensure the security of its African colonies , which were threatened with seizure by both Britain and Germany. To this extent, she succeeded in her war aims. The treaty recognized Portuguese sovereignty over these areas and awarded her small portions of Germany's bordering overseas colonies, including the Kionga Triangle . Otherwise, Portugal gained little at

30525-413: The war. British public opinion wanted to make Germany pay for the War. Public opinion favoured a "just peace", which would force Germany to pay reparations and be unable to repeat the aggression of 1914, although those of a "liberal and advanced opinion" shared Wilson's ideal of a peace of reconciliation. In private Lloyd George opposed revenge and attempted to compromise between Clemenceau's demands and

30710-413: The war. The decisive campaigns of Imperial Germany almost realised Lebensraum in the East, especially when Bolshevik Russia unilaterally withdrew as a combatant in the "Great War" among the European great powers —the Triple Entente (the Russian Empire , the French Third Republic , and the United Kingdom ) and the Central Powers (the German Empire , Austria-Hungary , the Ottoman Empire , and

30895-457: The winter of 1919, the situation became desperate and Germany finally agreed to surrender its fleet in March. The Allies then allowed for the import of 270,000 tons of foodstuffs. Both German and non-German observers have argued that these were the most devastating months of the blockade for German civilians, though disagreement persists as to the extent and who is truly at fault. According to Max Rubner 100,000 German civilians died due to

31080-407: The work of the German General Staff. They were endorsed by the German Foreign Office and by the "Good German", Bethmann–Hollweg. In the national politics of the Weimar Republic (1919–33), the German eugenicists took up the nationalist political slogan of Volk ohne Raum , and matched it with the racial slogan Volk ohne Jugend (a People without Youth), a cultural proposition that ignored

31265-476: Was "vanishing", expressing his hope that the French had been taught a "severe lesson". The Treaty of Versailles was an important step in the status of the British Dominions under international law . Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa had each made significant contributions to the British war effort, but as separate countries, rather than as British colonies. India also made a substantial troop contribution, although under direct British control, unlike

31450-417: Was a leading motivation of Nazi Germany to initiate World War II , and it would continue this policy until the end of the conflict . Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power , Lebensraum became an ideological principle of Nazism and provided justification for the German territorial expansion into Central and Eastern Europe . The Nazi policy Generalplan Ost ( lit.   ' Master Plan for

31635-558: Was allowed six pre-dreadnought battleships and was limited to a maximum of six light cruisers (not exceeding 6,000 long tons (6,100 t)), twelve destroyers (not exceeding 800 long tons (810 t)) and twelve torpedo boats (not exceeding 200 long tons (200 t)) and was forbidden submarines . The manpower of the navy was not to exceed 15,000 men, including manning for the fleet, coast defences, signal stations, administration, other land services, officers and men of all grades and corps. The number of officers and warrant officers

31820-416: Was an official and a popular subject of "nationalism-as-national-security" endorsed by German society, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP). In The Origins of the Second World War , the British historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote: It is equally obvious that Lebensraum always appeared as one element in these blueprints. This was not an original idea of Hitler's. It was commonplace at

32005-546: Was carried out through fanatical perpetration of a racist war of annihilation ( Vernichtungskrieg ) which inflicted industrial-scale terrorism against entire populations. These policies resulted in the genocide of numerous ethnic groups in German-occupied territories, including the Jews, Poles, Russians , Romani people , etc. and also contributed to the failure of German war aims. Nazi policies in German-occupied territories were marked by spontaneous adaptation, on-the-fly modifications, and bureaucratic competition, underscoring

32190-453: Was central to its programme of waging a racial war against Russia, a geopolitical agenda advanced by Hitler since the 1920s. During the final months of the Second World War , Nazi Germany intensified its anti-Semitic , anti-Slavic , and anti-communist propaganda. Hitler fanatically reiterated the core ideological tenets of Nazism, such as his goal of expanding German territories eastwards in pursuit of Lebensraum . He continued to advocate

32375-430: Was forbidden to manufacture or import aircraft or related material for a period of six months following the signing of the treaty. In Article 231 Germany accepted responsibility for the losses and damages caused by the war "as a consequence of the ... aggression of Germany and her allies." The treaty required Germany to compensate the Allied powers, and it also established an Allied "Reparation Commission" to determine

32560-443: Was inhabited by Slavic Untermenschen ruled by Jewish Bolshevism . The racism of Hitler's Lebensraum philosophy allowed only the Germanisation of the soil and the land, but not of the native peoples, who were to be destroyed, by slave labour and starvation. Anti-Slavism was a central component of the NSDAP 's racist ideology, and a driving force behind Nazi Germany 's irredentist schemes to seize " Lebensraum " through

32745-426: Was no expression of a wish to acquire these resources and there was distinctly no threat. Yet when the cheers... had died away one was conscious that a thought had been cast into the pool of German mentality and that the ripples created by it might spread far indeed. Notes Bibliography Further reading Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As

32930-423: Was not allowed to exceed 1,500 men. Germany surrendered eight battleships , eight light cruisers, forty-two destroyers, and fifty torpedo boats for decommissioning. Thirty-two auxiliary ships were to be disarmed and converted to merchant use. Article 198 prohibited Germany from having an air force, including naval air forces, and required Germany to hand over all aerial related materials. In conjunction, Germany

33115-475: Was required to recognize Belgian sovereignty over Moresnet and cede control of the Eupen-Malmedy area. Within six months of the transfer, Belgium was required to conduct a plebiscite on whether the citizens of the region wanted to remain under Belgian sovereignty or return to German control, communicate the results to the League of Nations and abide by the League's decision. The Belgian transitional administration, under High Commissioner General Herman Baltia ,

33300-435: Was responsible for the organisation and control of this process, held between January and June 1920. The plebiscite itself was held without a secret ballot , and organized as a consultation in which all citizens who opposed the annexation had to formally register their protest. Ultimately, only 271 of 33,726 voters signed the protest list, of which 202 were German state servants. After the Belgian government reported this result,

33485-482: Was restricted to 15,000 men and no submarines while the fleet was limited to 6 battleships (of less than 10,000 tonnes), 6 cruisers and 12 destroyers. Germany was not permitted an air force. Finally, Germany was explicitly required to retain all enlisted men for 12 years and all officers for 25 years so that only a limited number of men would have military training. Following a tour of the German countryside in 1936, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George said of

33670-409: Was secretly ordered by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1909–17), whereby, upon achieving battlefield victory, Germany would annex territories from western Poland to form the Polish Border Strip ( Polnischer Grenzstreifen , c.  30,000 km ). Lebensraum would be realised by way of ethnic cleansing , the forcible removal of the native Slavic and Jewish populations, and

33855-409: Was taken by New Zealand . The treaty was comprehensive and complex in the restrictions imposed upon the post-war German armed forces (the Reichswehr ). The provisions were intended to make the Reichswehr incapable of offensive action and to encourage international disarmament. Germany was to demobilize sufficient soldiers by 31 March 1920 to leave an army of no more than 100,000 men in

34040-510: Was to be demilitarized, all fortifications in the Rhineland and 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the river were to be demolished and new construction was forbidden. Military structures and fortifications on the islands of Heligoland and Düne were to be destroyed. Germany was prohibited from the arms trade , limits were imposed on the type and quantity of weapons and prohibited from the manufacture or stockpile of chemical weapons , armoured cars , tanks and military aircraft. The German navy

34225-426: Was transferred to Poland outright without plebiscite. An area of 51,800 square kilometres (20,000 square miles) was transferred to Poland under the agreement. Memel was to be ceded to the Allied and Associated powers, for disposal according to their wishes. Germany was to cede the city of Danzig and its hinterland, including the delta of the Vistula River on the Baltic Sea , for the League of Nations to establish

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