Did the German Popluation want Lebensraum

@ulrich and @skipper
If you go back to the pervious page of this thread you may find a territory named “Steyermark” at the lower right corner at Skipper’s map of the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Reich . I am located somewhere in the middle of it. I think that Skipper can even verify this form my IP address which is visible to moderators.

I have been often to Poland and I like it very much. I have been even more often to Germany, predominantly to Bavaria. I have many friends there and some distant relatives. One of them originates from Eastern Poland. I love them all and I like Germany too.

However, regarding the subject under consideration I think am unbiased and I just want to find out the truth. Finally I think that the WWII was an unnecessary large- scale loss of human lives.

 

No need for any kind of apology, Tamino no one will think in a other way of you. You have good posts and no problems at all with it. Which corner of the Steiermark is your location? I´ve been the last time close to Goisern.

 

At the northeast from Marburg an der Drau, practically at the Austrian border. This territory was considered 100% Arian. Family names are identical at the both sides.

 

Something more that you might find interesing and which shows the Lebensraum concept existed before the 3rd Reich

The September programm of 1914 planned the deporting of Poles in case of a German victory and settle the voids with Gemrans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm


Also Ratzel's concept of the Lebensraum was not so much in eastern Europe but more in the colonies.

Friedrich Ratzel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

And, finally, here it is - a map of "The Future" Grossraum (Source:

© Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München - Berlin):
​

 

A funny dream! Divide the kilometers of borderline with the number of soldiers and any dumbhead must´ve seen that there is no way to hold or defend the Grossdeutsche Reich.

 

You are right to say this was an utopia.

In MeinKampf it is also stated that Burgundy would eventually have been annexed to the Reich.

Also Süd Tirol would have been difficult to annex from an ally (Italy)

 

Do you know when Hitler was first introduced to the teachings of Lebensraum. Was that Hess during their imprisonment in Justizvollzugsanstalt Landsberg or before?

 

For those who understand German language there is even more information:
Lebensraum im Osten

 

Interesting question. I believe it was when he was in prison, but this is just a supposition. He was inspired by the works of Gobineau regarding the Aryan aspect , but I don't know who introduced this author to him

An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

That is valid point. But keep in mind that Western Poland was part of Poland for many centuries, and it was "German" as well for many centuries. Poland did lose more land in the East then it gained in the West. Small price to pay for the cost of WW2 in Poland.

Also I am kind off lost how the Teutonis Knights got involved in this conversation. If its Lebensraum then just about every nation in the world has explained war using this excuse. I guess its because they were kind of German, which they really were not. Im not a histroy expert, but Prussia and "Germanic" states were not brothers and sisters. In fact I believe Poland and Prussia for a long time had more in common with each other then "Germanic" states and Prussia.

Oh Skipper the Prince Krak myth is not fairy tale. I saw the Dragon breath fire hundreds of times as a kid
My childhood was going to Krakow every couple of Sundays for ice creme.

 

Tom I love your sense of humor, for a moment I thought you were dead serious when you spoke about the dragon, especially as you added this after a credible post.


The Teutons are part of this thread because they were among the first Germans (or German speaking populations since there was no Germany at the time) to go East.

 

Nevertheless, Teutonic knights, myth or not, mean nothing.

Even if Teutonic knights have really existed, their presence is proof of something else: isolated spots of German speaking inhabitants over Eastern and Central European countries indicate just that colonization of foreign territories was attempted before but it was never completed successfully. That isn't a proof of the ownership over the entire territories owned by other nations, quite in contrary: it just means that German colonists were once accepted as welcome new neighbors. With the arrival of Axis, those once good neighbors have turned into local Nazis responsible for suffering of the nations who have accepted them as their neighbors.

Even Nazis were aware of that. Just Look at the map below: they wanted to relocate Volksdeutschers into »their« newly occupied territories: Czech Republic and Poland!

Sorry, but Teutonic knights are not an adequate excuse.

 

That becomes something of a matter of how you define the words. If you take a general enough definition then the drive by most if not all people for wealth and position becomes "imperialism" but that makes the word so general it's useless. To me "Imperialism" is a practice of nation states and today most of what you are calling "Imperialism" seems to be practiced by corporations and in some cases by accident.

I disagree that it was simply a matter of technology. Certainly in the European record one can find other episodes that were as extreme but they are rather rare of course in the long run most didn't succeed in assuring "dominance indefinitely" although the ones that did tended to abosrb or displace the native populations.

I would argue that they are indeed different. The goals may remain the same but the methods are different and I see a huge difference between offering someone a reasonable deal and taking control of their country and dictating what happens.

 

If one goes West rather than East one of the differences that seems to have been remarked on between the native Celts and the invading Germans in Britain was the "land hunger" of the latter.

 

I think it was Hess who introduced Hitler to the teachings of Lebensraum and that has happened during their inprisonment in Landsberg Jail. Here is a snippet from Hess biography:

 

I have been reading over the past days a little bit about German migrations to the East and I must admit I wasn’t aware of its proportions. I wonder how the WW2 on the Eastern front has affected lives of German inhabitants of the former USSR:

1. Volga Germans
2. Black Sea Germans
3. Crimea Germans
4. Caucasus Germans
5. Germans of Ukraine

Can anyone, please, provide more informations/sources on this subject?

 

They were deported by Stalin in 1941 to Siberia or Kazakhzstan. Their autonom country was dimsantled and never given back again . About 30% were executed or died during their transportation, many more died of hardships in the gulags.
The Volga and Krim Germans were fully innocent and were rehabilated only in 1964. Stalin never paid for these war crimes.

On august 26 1941, 12350 NKVD members occupied the German colonies and it only took them 2 days to start deporting the German civilians with express approval of the Kremlin ( Bill of Kalinine signed on August 28th 1941)

sources :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans


[h=2](GELOBTES LAND - GEHASSTES LAND. DIE DEUTSCHEN IN RUSSLAND)[/h]Film documentaire, Allemagne, 2002, de Jochen Trauptmann, en couleur, sonore.
Réalisation : Jochen Trauptmann Musique : Firus Bachor, Jean Pacalet Image : MichaelLosche Montage : Jana Ketel

http://books.google.fr/books?id=LcQBAgG67FUC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=allemands+volga&source=bl&ots=LL6hvGP7fO&sig=NYfVa5bxJs4iBnfMWBS9aVBpEuY&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=bbz-Tp3HNcKf8gOiyL3oDA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=allemands%20volga&f=false

(in French with quotes in Russian and German) If this last link doesn't work, type "allemands des steppes"

 

Meanwhile, I have studied this subject more in detail and I have learned that in reality Germans indeed did need the Lebensraum.

Since the Middle Ages both tradition and inheritance laws in German lands required that only the oldest son inherited the whole farm. When disforestation has failed to provide enough soil for new farms for younger sons, the search for new lands was directed towards east. First, new lands have been conquered and then the original population was expulsed to make enough room for German younger sons who couldn’t get their own farms from parents by inheriting.

Around 1.100 AD the area along the line starting at the east of Harz, along the Saale and the Thüringen Forest, then along the Bohemian forest was settled by German farmers. In the 12th Century the German eastern settlements extended across the Elbe to Brandenburg and went further to the south along the river Elbe. By the year 1.250 AD, the extension of the eastern settlements at the Neisse continued to the west of the Oder in Silesia and continued in a southerly direction. With each new generation of adolescent sons in the newly settled areas, the settlement movement has gained a new impetus. As the eastern settlement lasted for several centuries, one can assume that over time they developed a momentum of its own and became a normal part of life. For the settler families, it became a matter of course, that the eldest son inherited the farm while the younger sons moved on to clear their own land. For centuries there was systematic and organized colonization of Polish and Czech lands. Slowly, the original population was replaced by Germans, while Slavonic population was expulsed to less fertile territories.

Obviously, the idea of the Lebensraum has existed as a common practice long before Nazis have turned it into a well-planned industrial-scale mass murder. Expansion to the east was for German population a matter of course. What they really did over centuries was ethnic cleansing. However, the subject under consideration cannot be judged by modern criteria. What's Done is Done.

We may just conclude that after the end of the First World War some of German settlements have remained in new countries created at territories of former Austro-Hungarian and Germen empires. This will be exploited by Nazis to mobilize the whole nation to resume the Ostsiedlung, but this time with formidable weappons that could erase te entire population from wast areas.

 

I think Hitler also considered the way the British Empire controlled India the way things should be handled with the Russian area later on they had conquered the area.