Map of Europe Post World War I 1919
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Autarky and Lebensraum. the Political Agenda of Academic Plant Breeding in Nazi Germany[1]
Journal of History of Science and Technology | Vol.3 | Fall 2009 Autarky and Lebensraum. The political agenda of academic plant breeding in Nazi Germany[1] By Thomas Wieland * Introduction In a 1937 booklet entitled Die politischen Aufgaben der deutschen Pflanzenzüchtung (The Political Objectives of German Plant Breeding), academic plant breeder and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (hereafter KWI) for Breeding Research in Müncheberg near Berlin Wilhelm Rudorf declared: “The task is to breed new crop varieties which guarantee the supply of food and the most important raw materials, fibers, oil, cellulose and so forth from German soils and within German climate regions. Moreover, plant breeding has the particular task of creating and improving crops that allow for a denser population of the whole Nordostraum and Ostraum [i.e., northeastern and eastern territories] as well as other border regions…”[2] This quote illustrates two important elements of National Socialist ideology: the concept of agricultural autarky and the concept of Lebensraum. The quest for agricultural autarky was a response to the hunger catastrophe of World War I that painfully demonstrated Germany’s dependence on agricultural imports and was considered to have significantly contributed to the German defeat in 1918. As Herbert Backe (1896–1947), who became state secretary in 1933 and shortly after de facto head of the German Ministry for Food and Agriculture, put it: “World War 1914–18 was not lost at the front-line but at home because the foodstuff industry of the Second Reich [i.e., the German Empire] had failed.”[3] The Nazi regime accordingly wanted to make sure that such a catastrophe would not reoccur in a next war. -
Hitler's American Model
Hitler’s American Model The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law James Q. Whitman Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford 1 Introduction This jurisprudence would suit us perfectly, with a single exception. Over there they have in mind, practically speaking, only coloreds and half-coloreds, which includes mestizos and mulattoes; but the Jews, who are also of interest to us, are not reckoned among the coloreds. —Roland Freisler, June 5, 1934 On June 5, 1934, about a year and a half after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich, the leading lawyers of Nazi Germany gathered at a meeting to plan what would become the Nuremberg Laws, the notorious anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi race regime. The meeting was chaired by Franz Gürtner, the Reich Minister of Justice, and attended by officials who in the coming years would play central roles in the persecution of Germany’s Jews. Among those present was Bernhard Lösener, one of the principal draftsmen of the Nuremberg Laws; and the terrifying Roland Freisler, later President of the Nazi People’s Court and a man whose name has endured as a byword for twentieth-century judicial savagery. The meeting was an important one, and a stenographer was present to record a verbatim transcript, to be preserved by the ever-diligent Nazi bureaucracy as a record of a crucial moment in the creation of the new race regime. That transcript reveals the startling fact that is my point of departure in this study: the meeting involved detailed and lengthy discussions of the law of the United States. -
Tangled Complicities and Moral Struggles: the Haushofers, Father and Son, and the Spaces of Nazi Geopolitics
Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 64e73 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Historical Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg Feature: European Geographers and World War II Tangled complicities and moral struggles: the Haushofers, father and son, and the spaces of Nazi geopolitics Trevor J. Barnes a,* and Christian Abrahamsson b a Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada b Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Postboks 1096 Blindern, Oslo 0317, Norway Abstract Drawing on a biographical approach, the paper explores the tangled complicities and morally fraught relationship between the German father and son political geographers, Karl and Albrecht Haushofer, and the Nazi leadership. From the 1920s both Haushofers were influential within Nazism, although at different periods and under different circumstances. Karl Haushofer’s complicity began in 1919 with his friendship with Rudolf Hess, an undergraduate student he taught political geography at the University of Munich. Hess introduced Haushofer to Adolf Hitler the following year. In 1924 Karl provided jail-house instruction in German geopolitical theory to both men while they served an eight-and-a-half month prison term for treason following the ‘beer-hall putsch’ of November 1923. Karl’s prison lectures were significant because during that same period Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. In that tract, Hitler justifies German expansionism using Lebensraum, one of Haushofer’s key ideas. It is here that there is a potential link between German geopolitics and the subsequent course of the Second World War. Albrecht Haushofer’s complicity began in the 1930s when he started working as a diplomat for Joachim von Ribbentrop in a think-tank within the Nazi Foreign Ministry. -
The Buildup of the German War Economy: the Importance of the Nazi-Soviet Economic Agreements of 1939 and 1940 by Samantha Carl I
The Buildup of the German War Economy: The Importance of the Nazi-Soviet Economic Agreements of 1939 and 1940 By Samantha Carl INTRODUCTION German-Soviet relations in the early half of the twentieth century have been marked by periods of rapprochement followed by increasing tensions. After World War I, where the nations fought on opposite sides, Germany and the Soviet Union focused on their respective domestic problems and tensions began to ease. During the 1920s, Germany and the Soviet Union moved toward normal relations with the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.(1) Tensions were once again apparent after 1933, when Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany. Using propaganda and anti-Bolshevik rhetoric, Hitler depicted the Soviet Union as Germany's true enemy.(2) Despite the animosity between the two nations, the benefits of trade enabled them to maintain economic relations throughout the inter-war period. It was this very relationship that paved the way for the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 and the subsequent outbreak of World War II. Nazi-Soviet relations on the eve of the war were vital to the war movement of each respective nation. In essence, the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact on August 23, 1939 allowed Germany to augment its war effort while diminishing the Soviet fear of a German invasion.(3) The betterment of relations was a carefully planned program in which Hitler sought to achieve two important goals. First, he sought to prevent a two-front war from developing upon the invasion of Poland. Second, he sought to gain valuable raw materials that were necessary for the war movement.(4) The only way to meet these goals was to pursue the completion of two pacts with the Soviet Union: an economic agreement as well as a political one. -
Was Hitler a Darwinian?
Was Hitler a Darwinian? Robert J. Richards The University of Chicago The Darwinian underpinnings of Nazi racial ideology are patently obvious. Hitler's chapter on "Nation and Race" in Mein Kampf discusses the racial struggle for existence in clear Darwinian terms. Richard Weikart, Historian, Cal. State, Stanislaus1 Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, 2. 1. Introduction . 1 2. The Issues regarding a Supposed Conceptually Causal Connection . 4 3. Darwinian Theory and Racial Hierarchy . 10 4. The Racial Ideology of Gobineau and Chamberlain . 16 5. Chamberlain and Hitler . 27 6. Mein Kampf . 29 7. Struggle for Existence . 37 8. The Political Sources of Hitler’s Anti-Semitism . 41 9. Ethics and Social Darwinism . 44 10. Was the Biological Community under Hitler Darwinian? . 46 11. Conclusion . 52 1. Introduction Several scholars and many religiously conservative thinkers have recently charged that Hitler’s ideas about race and racial struggle derived from the theories of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), either directly or through intermediate sources. So, for example, the historian Richard Weikart, in his book From Darwin to Hitler (2004), maintains: “No matter how crooked the road was from Darwin to Hitler, clearly Darwinism and eugenics smoothed the path for Nazi ideology, especially for the Nazi 1 Richard Weikart, “Was It Immoral for "Expelled" to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Racism?” (http://www.discovery.org/a/5069.) 1 stress on expansion, war, racial struggle, and racial extermination.”2 In a subsequent book, Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (2009), Weikart argues that Darwin’s “evolutionary ethics drove him [Hitler] to engage in behavior that the rest of us consider abominable.”3 Other critics have also attempted to forge a strong link between Darwin’s theory and Hitler’s biological notions. -
Chronology of Events 1918 – 1938
Chronology of Events 1918-1938 1918: Czechoslovakia is established after the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire following the First World War. The country is made up of two groups of Slavic peoples, the Czechs and the Slovaks. 1920: The Treaty of Versailles, in which Germany is held responsible for World War I and its consequences, is signed. The treaty deals harshly with a defeated Germany and includes territorial, military, financial and general provisions, including the demilitarization and 15-year occupation of the Rhineland (area between France and Germany), limitations on German armed forces and reparations of 6,600 million pounds. 1921: Adolf Hitler becomes leader of National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party. 1923: Beer Hall Putsch (Hitler’s attempt to overthrow regional government in Munich) is unsuccessful and Hitler is jailed. 1925: Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler’s book, is published. 1933: Japan attacks China. The Nazi party gains majority in the German Reichstag and Hitler is named Chancellor. The Reichstag building burns in a “mysterious” fire and all other political parties are abolished. Hitler denounces the Treaty of Versailles. There are public book burnings in Germany. Anti-Jewish laws are passed in Germany: no kosher butchering, no Jewish Civil servants, no Jewish lawyers, quotas for Jews in universities. Any Germans holding non-Nazi political meetings are subject to arrest and imprisonment in concentration camps (the first is Oranienburg, outside of Berlin). Dachau is built as concentration-work camp (specific death camps not yet built, but elderly, those who were very young, disabled or sick have difficulty surviving harsh conditions of camps). -
Unit I Spiral Exam – World War II (75 Points Total) PLEASE DO NO
Mr. Huesken 10th Grade United States History II Unit I Spiral Exam – World War II (75 points total) PLEASE DO NO WRITE ON THIS TEST DIRECTIONS – Please answer the following multiple-choice questions with the best possible answer. No answer will be used more than once. (45 questions @ 1 point each = 45 points) 1) All of the following were leaders of totalitarian governments in the 1930’s and 1940’s except: a. Joseph Stalin b. Francisco Franco. c. Benito Mussolini d. Neville Chamberlain. 2) In what country was the Fascist party and government formed? a. Italy b. Japan c. Spain d. Germany 3) The Battle of Britain forced Germany to do what to their war plans in Europe in 1942? a. Join the Axis powers. b. Fight a three-front war. c. Put off the invasion of Britain. d. Enter into a nonaggression pact with Britain. 4) The Nazis practiced genocide toward Jews, Gypsies, and other “undesirable” peoples in Europe. What does the term “genocide” mean? a. Acting out of anti-Semitic beliefs. b. Deliberate extermination of a specific group of people. c. Terrorizing of the citizens of a nation by a government. d. Killing of people for the express purpose of creating terror. 5) The term “blitzkrieg” was a military strategy that depended on what? a. A system of fortifications. b. Out-waiting the opponent. c. Surprise and quick, overwhelming force. d. The ability to make a long, steady advance. 6) In an effort to avoid a second “world war”, when did the Britain and France adopt a policy of appeasement toward Germany? a. -
National Socialism
National Socialism (Nazism; NS), German political movement led by Adolf Hitler. The notion of combining the concepts of "national" and "social" became popular in Germany before World War I. In 1919 an antisemitic right-wing political party called the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) was founded in Munich; this party adopted the combined "national-social" ideology. In 1920 the party added "National Socialist" to its name and thus became the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP or Nazi Party). A year later Adolf Hitler, a man who started out as a public speaker for the party, became its undisputed leader, or Fuehrer. The National Socialist ideology was an outgrowth of earlier political theories that also gave birth to fascism--- a political movement that became popular in Italy some years before the Nazis took over Germany. Nazism brought together the ideas of racial anti-semitism (that Jews were inferior by virtue of their race, or genetic makeup), Social Darwinism (that certain individuals or ethnic groups are dominant because of their inherent genetic superiority), and lebensraum (the belief that Germans needed more "living space," i.e. more territory, particularly in Eastern Europe). Nazism also embraced the attitude of total anti-Bolshevism, and demanded revenge against those people--- especially Jews---who, they claimed, had "betrayed" Germany during World War I and caused it to be vanquished by the enemy (see also stab in the back myth). During its first three years of existence, the Nazi Party was mainly active in Bavaria. However, its members used emotional appeals and violence to attract many new members. -
How Much Did the Germans Know About the Final Solution?: an Examination of Propaganda in the Third Reich
Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Honors Theses Lee Honors College Spring 2010 How Much Did the Germans Know about the Final Solution?: An Examination of Propaganda in the Third Reich Issa A. Braman Western Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses Part of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons Recommended Citation Braman, Issa A., "How Much Did the Germans Know about the Final Solution?: An Examination of Propaganda in the Third Reich" (2010). Honors Theses. 3371. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses/3371 This Honors Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Lee Honors College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. How Much Did the Germans Know about the Final Solution?: An Examination of Propaganda in the Third Reich by Melissa A. Braman In 1925, while Adolf Hitler was serving a short sentence in jail for his failed Beer Hall Putsch, he wrote in Mein Kampf, “With the year 1915 enemy propaganda began in our country, after 1916 it became more and more intensive till finally, at the beginning of the year 1918, it swelled to a positive flood.” Hitler, a soldier of World War I, had experienced firsthand the power of propaganda during the war. With the failure of Germany to counter-act the Allied propaganda, Hitler noted, “The army gradually learned to think as the enemy wanted it to.”1 Hitler applied this same concept to promoting the rhetoric of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). -
The Rise of the Nazis Revision Guide
Rise of the Nazis Revision Guide Name: Key Topics 1. The Nazis in the 1920s 2. Hitler becomes Chancellor, 1933 3. Hitler becomes Dictator, 1934 @mrthorntonteach Hitler and the early Nazi Party The roots of the Nazi party start in 1889, with the birth of Adolf Hitler but the political beginnings of the party start in 1919 with the set up of the German Workers Party, the DAP. This party was one of the many new parties that set up in the political chaos after the First World War and it was the joining of Adolf Hitler that changed Germanys future forever. The early life of Hitler Hitler wanted to In 1913, he moved to Hitler was shocked by become an artists but Munich and became Germanys defeat in WWI was rejected by the obsessed with all things and blamed the Weimar Vienna Art School German Republic Hitler was born Between 1908- He fought in the First In 1919, Hitler begins to spy in Austria in 13, he was World War, winning the on the German Workers 1889 to an homeless and Iron Cross but was Party (DAP) but then joins abusive father. sold paintings wounded by gas in 1918 the party, soon taking over. Who were the DAP? The DAP were national socialists: The German Workers Party Nationalists – believed that all policies should should (DAP) was set up by Anton be organised to make the nation stronger Drexler in 1919 in Munich. Socialists – believed that the country's land, industry At first there were only a small and wealth should below to the workers. -
3. Nazism & the Rise of Hitler 3. the Nazi Worldview 3.1 Establishment
Class: IX Subject: History Week- 26 (4th January- 9th January) Name of Textbook: India and the Contemporary World- I Chapter: 3. Nazism & the Rise of Hitler Day 1 Step I Read the following topic from textbook (page 61-62) 3. The Nazi Worldview 3.1 Establishment of Racial State Watch the following video on Nazi world view- https://youtu.be/Nd2b03O21RY Step II Learn the same topic in the following part of Extramarks app: Detailed learning- Understanding concept Step III Clear your doubts (if any) with your subject teacher (Please check name and ph. number from school website) Step IV Revise the topic with the help of the following bullet points: 3. The Nazi World View • Nazi crimes associated with a system of belief and practices. • In social hierarchy, Nordic German Aryans were at the top. • The Jews at the lowest were regarded as enemies of the Aryans. • Hitler’s racial idea borrowed from Charles Darwin’s concept of evolution and Herbert Spencer’s theory of survival of the fittest. • Aryan race to dominate the world as it is the finest, strongest and purest race. • New territories to be acquired for settlement and enhancement of material resources & power of the German nation. 3.1 Establishment of Racial State • Pure Germans were considered as desirable in Hitler’s Nazi society. • Impure and abnormal were considered as undesirable & were killed. • Jews, Gypsies and blacks were persecuted as undesirable. Russians and Polish were considered as subhuman and used as slave labour. • Hatred for Jews based on traditional Christian hostility as killers of Christ and greedy moneylenders. -
German 691 Context Sheets FINAL with Highlights Copy
RESOURCES ON THE GERMAN MILITARY AND THE HOLOCAUST Racial Ideology in Practice in the Soviet Union One motivation for the German invasion of the Soviet Union was the desire to acquire Lebensraum (living space) for the German people to colonize at the expense of the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Baltic peoples whom the Nazis considered racially inferior. Consequently, German forces murdered almost all of the Soviet Jews they could identify, and shot, starved, or worked to death millions of Soviet civilians and prisoners of war. This was the result not only of Nazi propaganda—in which the Soviet population was portrayed as subhuman—but also of the basic orders issued by the military leadership, who shared the Nazi view that Soviet soldiers and civilians were inferior. “ Only a Jew can be a Bolshevik, for this blood-sucker there can be nothing nicer than to be a Bolshevik …. Wherever one spits one finds a Jew .... As far as I know … not one single Jew has worked in the workers’ paradise, everyone, even the smallest blood-sucker, has a post where he naturally enjoys great privileges.” — Lance-Corporal Paul Lenz, Russia, 1941 1 “ Hardly ever do you see the face of a person who seems rational and intelligent. They all look emaciated and the wild, half-crazy look in their eyes makes them look like imbeciles …. These scoundrels, led by Jews and criminals, wanted to imprint their stamp on Europe.” 2 —Soldier Karl Fuchs on Soviet POWs, August 1941 Top: This photo was found by an American liberator and was likely taken by a German soldier who fought with Army Group Center in the Soviet Union.