Did the German Popluation want Lebensraum

This is indeed a good starting point to reconsider this subject from another point of view. The truth by all means isn't unique.

 

I would say they perhaps do not colonize as formally but I would like to point out that Russia closely guards the activities of former Soviet Union countries such as what happened in Georgia when they were in recent times "policed" and I point out that Russia will impose its pipelines for energy across what it wills to market their products as they wish without regard to the smaller entities wishes. This is colonialism in its new form.....perhaps you need a new name for it. Sorry, perhaps we could say so about most European countries but the Malvinas will be held by England....if it was once necessary to deport a population to do so. Colonialism is still alive and well today.

 

an enlarged picture of the Landsdienst settlers in Poland. At least three of the Girls seem to be Norwegian , according to their sleeve insignia. It appears to be Geography class. One girl is showing the Baltic countries on a map of Europe while three others are watching around a cup of tea under the command of a Leiterin. The picture on the wall could be Goering.

 

Poland is a beautiful and exceptionally fertile land but colonists from Baltic countries were disappointed to be relocated there. They were told that they would be resettled to the Reich and suddenly they found themselves disappointed in the "broader" Reich. What I have heard, colonists were ordinary people who did not like to live in stolen houses at the stolen land and were afraid what might happen if and when real owners do return. In theory, the Lebensraum seemed to be an attractive idea but in practice it has caused rather scary consequences. Territorial aspirations of the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Reich have caused a spectacular implosion of German territories and suffering of German nation.

 

Imperialism/colonialism has if not ended certainly been discouraged and that process has been accelerating since the end of WWII with very few exceptions and those exceptions have not been successful in the long run.

Germany went well beyond what had been acceptable even in the 1800s.

IMO calling it such is not only inaccurate it is misleading and tends to obscure important differences in say what Japan did in the 70's and 80's and what China is doing now. Certainly it is an attempt to gain both wealth and influence but calling it "imperialism" or "colonialism" I see as an attempt to discredit the practices by a fault comparison to a failed and discredited system.
[qyite]... the US has been practicing a cultural and media imperialism for decades. [/quote]
This is even more misleading as it implies a unfied purpose and intent that simply wasn't and isn't there.

I'd argue that the goals are similar but certainly not the same. One of the primary goals of imperialism/colonialism was outright control by nation states. That simply isn't occurring now for the most part. In a larger sense perhaps you are right as people in general are driven by the persuit of wealth, power, and pride but that's in such a large sense that it makes the terms useless.

 

The point of my post was to say that Imperialism had evolved from the colonial archtype to what we see today. I would also argure that not only are the goals similar, they are in fact the same.

Yes German and Japanese 'colonial' methods were cruel in the extreme, but other European and American efforts were hardly gentle by any means. Ask the natives of Australia or North America if they feel that they are not strangers in their own land. The measures of Germany and Japan were harsher because the technology of the time made it possible and the temper of the time and subject peoples made it a requirement to have any long term success. The time when a small number of soldiers could hold a large restless population in check were rapidly running out. The only way to ensure dominance indefinitly was to remove the native population.

Today the goal remains the same, to insure the wealth and prosperity of the home nation and to insure the free and uninterupted flow of vital resources home and finished goods out. Is the East India Company and its lesser breathern really all that different from todays multi national companys and Wall Street?

 

Good point Belasar, you might want to join the Armenia thread, your point of view would fit in well .

 

Tha is an interesting point of view but I respectfully disagree.

Barbarossa wasn't an ordinary colonial conquest.
Regards, T

 

Because of it size and scope nothing about the invasion of the Soviet Union could be called ordinary, but then the traditional and ordinary paths to colonial empire, undeveloped, distant lands governed by 'primitve tribesmen' were unavailable to Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union was neither primitive or undeveloped, and required a more ruthless approach to succeed. Traditional and ordinary colonialism dictated you subdue the native population, made them labor for you and and become vassels of the 'mother country'. Nazi colonial policy viewed the native population not as integral tools of empire, but as detriment to that empire and therefore not of long term use to that very empire.

 

The Lebensraum concept was born much earlier with the Teutonic invasions. Large cities in poland (Like Krakau) and in the Baltics were founded by the Teutonic knights. Cathrina the Great attracted many German settlers to Russia under her rule. After 1914 these settlers were regarded as potential ennemies and after 1917 their fate became worse. I have stories in my archives (probably exagerated, but it gives an idea of the German state of mind at the time) where German villagers were deprived from new clothing for their children because they would not look "poor" enough according to the Soviets. Then the mothers thought about using the cloth from linen maps to make new clothing and when the Soviets found out, they would stop selling maps to them (Source: Deutsche Mädel Jahrbuch 1944) .


The Versailles Treaty was another blow to the Gemrn presence in the East. People always mention Danzig, but many territories had a Plebiscite and had allied occupation troops way in eastern Prussia. people are always amazed when I mention the 1921 Plebiscite of Upper Silezia which was supervised by French, British and even Italian occupation troops!
Source : Haute Silézie 1920-1922. Haute Silesie, 1920-1922 : laboratoire des leçons oubliées de l'armée française, Rémy Porte tous les livres à la Fnac(great picture of a French, English and Italian soldier together in Oppeln)
Similar plebicites were held at Marienwerder, Allenstein and Sleswig.

West PREUSEN (the Posen/Poznan district had large Germn minorities that were detached from the Reich.

Even Romania and Bessarabia had settlers in the Siebenbergen and Hermannstadt area. Those were Saxons who were brought there during the Renaissance to built fortified villages to prevent the Turks fro minvading Europe.

So the Lebensraum concept was nothing new. Hitler just woke up old nationalistic demons and was sure to attract some popularity by offering conquered land to the Germans.

 

Thanks Ulrich for your great post and let's pray for victims at the both sides.

 

If you don't mind, let me correct you a little bit even though your knowledge is so impressive.

Germans have lived abroad much before the idea of Lebensraum even existed. The concept of Lebensraum was founded by Ratzel in 1890's and was later adopted and further developed by the orientalist Haushofer, Hess' professor in Leipzig. It is very likely that Hess has introduced Hitler to that novel concept. Later on, Himmler has derived its ultimate form: Grossraum. I believe that the idea of the Lebensraum ceased to exist in May 1945. That is its timeframe.

Now, was that worthy to occupy the entire Poland just to provide Lebensraum for few ancestors of Teutonic knights in Krakow, situated at south-east Poland?

I don't believe that German population ever really needed Polish soil as their Lebensraum.

 

To become an imperial power, what they indeed wanted, the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Reich really lacked and needed an unlimited access to enough quantities of raw materials for military production. They had enough low quality iron ore, but to build modern weapons they needed other rare metals to produce different kinds of steel, which is essentially a mixture of iron with different metals like nickel, chromium, tungsten and vanadium. In the list below, you can see the global distribution of some essential raw materials required in the production of steel. That is what they really needed and couldn’t provide. Even in the case of capture of Moscow, nickel was located in Sebiria while mines of chromium, vanadium and tungsten were also too far away. Therefore the Axis needed a quick end of the USSR. Lebensraum was propaganda needed to convince soldiers to execute the Fuehrer’s command of March 30th 1941 without asking too many questions.

Nickel:. . . . . Canada; Russia (Siberia)
Chromium:. . . . South Africa, Russia, India, Kazakhstan
Tungsten:. . . . China, Russia, Canada, Bolivia, Austria
Vanadium:. . . . China, South Africa, Russia

 

Tamino,

now you´re on the right track what really was meant with occupying Lebensraum! It wasn´t more behind this word than collecting minerals and oil to be indepentend from others nation good will. And as a advice please read the Tagebuch des OKW der Wehrmacht. There are some really good hints in there. And don´t give a thing on the distances to Siberia. If the Wehrmacht has captured Moscow it would have been like breaking the neck of the USSR. I´m sure that the Red Army would have surrendered soon after that and i´m sure too that it has given more Partisan war. But the minerals would have been in reach of the Nazis.

 

Tamino you missed something aboutmy last post. I mentionned the Teutonics knight cities and the German settlements which were over 700 years old

 

Skipper, what Teutonic invasion are you speaking off? Poland had many wars with the Teutons but I would not call any of them an invasion. Also, Krakow was not founded by Teutons. It was Price Krak who killed a dragon and founded Krakow I dont think the Teutonic knights were living on Polish land till hundereds of years after the foundation of Krakow and Poland as a kingdom (secong oldest to France) There werent many cities founded by the Tuetons in Poland either. Many had influance such as Torun, Olsztyn, Gdansk, etc. But all these were founded by the Poles long before Teutons. In fact from what I remember (and please people dont tear my apart, I dont have time to visit Wiki and others to get my dates, etc) a Polish king brought the Teutonic Knights (who were from many different nation, not Germany as Germany is a new country in comparison) to help "convert" the pagons living in Northeast parts of Poland to Christianity. These knights had not much to do since the Crusades were over and they were offered land in return. Well after many years they wanted their own kingdom and thus Prussia. They were Polish at times and they were Prussain at times, whatever suited them better, I know this is an over simplification, but my point is, oh I forgot. Oh ya, what invasion and what cities were founded by Teutons? Poland was a nation/kingdom long before Teutons and to say what you said simply undermines the Polish history. Western and Russian history books already did a great job of that. My other point is that for a hunders of years Teutonic Knights were a minor part of Polish history. Poland at that time was a powerfull kingdom and to say that Teutons started Lebensraum is wrong. How could they? They werent powerfull enough. It took two other empires before Prussia could claim parts of Poland. Sorry for going off topic with the Mediaval history.

 

Tom, you weren't off-topic at all; you have just gone a bit deeper into the substance. It appears that Teutonic knights are yet another myth used by Nazi »historians« to advocate validity of the conquest of the Lebensraum.

Now, let’s go a bit further and ask even more important question:

3. Whom the Lebensraum really belongs?

Historically Poland has existed much longer than any German state and was populated by Poles then and now. For skeptics who might want more than just historical data I may present a rock solid proof: a recent DNA study of Y chromosomes of German and Polish males indicates that:
The present border between Germany and Poland is almost identical to the genetic border.

The title of this scientific paper is: »Significant genetic differentiation between Poland and Germany follows present-day political borders, as revealed by Y-chromosome analysis« and can be found here: http://www.zgms.cm.umk.pl/prace/428-443.pdf

Please, note that this article was published in respectable scientific journal »Human Genetics« by Springer Verlag. Someone could claim that historical data could be falsified but you cannot falsify genes. The above cited article is an undeniable proof. Obviously, Poles are the rightful owners of Poland and Nazis had no right to cross the border except as peaceful tourists.

During the 1939-1945 every fifth Pole died! Why?

 

Tamino,

your post is really good meant and i know that you are well informed about a topic you post to and it is a scientific validation added, but i fear this will lead into dangerous discussion with other nationalities. So we should stay at the origin question of the thread. No personal attack included, but i know how some things will turn out by discussion in that way.

 

Don't worry Ulrich , things are under control and no-one has gone off track . thanks for your diplomatic intervenion .


Tamino "Prince Krak" is a fairy tale and he was invented, so was his killing of a Dragon.

I'll amend my post and will call the Teutonic colonisation "expansion" rather than "invasion".
As to the foundation I meant 1257 when the initial town was reconstructed after the destruction by the Tatars . The city had large German minorities and became a Hanseatic city. Krakau is just one example I mentionned.

Regarding the notion of Lebensraum , I like Belasar's definition when he said it was also an economic and cultural influence and not only military , to this extent the Teutonic expansion fits the definition.

 

This article refers to modern figures only it has little interest if not compared to pre-war figures.

1) Take 6 million Germans , expel them to the west in 1945

2) take poles and settle them in western Poland.

3) make genetic tests and see Poland is now peopled with poles...

I'll need more to be convinced.