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Lebensraum

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'''''Lebensraum''''', the German language German term for "Habitat (ecology) habitat" (used both in ecological and sociological contexts; literally, "living room") is used in English to refer to a motivation for Nazi Germany's expansionist policies, to provide extra space for the growth of the German population.

Origins
The idea of a Germanic people without sufficient space dates back long before Adolf Hitler brought it to prominence. The term ''Lebensraum'' in this sense was coined by Friedrich Ratzel in 1897, used as a slogan in Germany referring to the unification of the country and the acquisition of colonies, as per the English and French models. It was adapted from Darwinian and other scientific ideas of the day about how ecological niches are filled. Similar concepts are still used today in geography and biology.{{ref|Knoll}} Ratzel believed the development of a people is primarily influenced by their geographical situation and that a people that successfully adapted to one location would proceed naturally to another. This expansion to fill available space, he claimed, was a natural and ''necessary'' feature of any healthy species. These beliefs were furthered by scholars of the day, including Karl Haushofer and Friedrich von Bernhardi. In von Bernhardi's 1912 book ''Germany and the Next War'', he expanded upon Ratzel's hypotheses and, for the first time, explicitly identified Eastern Europe as a source of new space.

Nazi usage
Hitler himself was attracted to these Pan-European ideals but was initially unsure as to where the space should come from. Indeed, he admonished Germany's wartime government for supporting Austria-Hungary against Russia. By the time that ''Mein Kampf'' was published in 1926, though, Hitler had come to believe that Russia was, in fact, the direction in which Germany should expand. He had become suspicious of the links between the Bolshevik revolutionaries and the Jews and decided that only through the elimination of the Eastern European Jewry could Germany acquire its living space. The elements of the program outlined in ''Mein Kampf'' included three general ideas: * idea of military expansion and force expulsion of the nations of Poland, Ukraine, Russia and other countries in order to prepare settlements for German people (both Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche). Some German historians underlined German claims to those countries. * idea of supporting a high birth rate among the German women to increase the country's population. * idea of selection of young German women and German soldiers in order to produce race racially optimal Germanic peoples Germanic material to replace soldiers killed in action. Implemented in institutions resembling brothels. The attempts to implement the Lebensraum happened in Zamosc County and Reichsgau Wartheland Wartheland (see Generalplan Ost). The biggest obstacle to implement the Lebensraum further was the fact that by the end of 1942 the Sixth Army was Battle of Stalingrad defeated in Stalingrad. After the second big defeat in the Battle of Kursk tank battle at Kursk during July 1943 and the Operation Husky Allied landings in Sicily, all further Lebensraum plans came to a halt. The Lebensraum ideology was a major factor in Hitler's launching of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. The Nazis hoped to turn large areas of Soviet territory into German settlement areas as part of Generalplan Ost. Developing these ideas, the Nazism Nazi theorist, Alfred Rosenberg, proposed that the Nazi administrative organization in lands to be conquered from the Soviets be based upon the following ''Reichskommissar Reichskommissariats'': * Reichskommissariat Ostland Ostland (Baltic States, Belarus and eastern Poland), * Reichskommissariat Ukraine Ukraine (Ukrain Ukrainian and adjacent territories), * Reichskommissariat Kaukasus Kaukasus (Caucasus area), * Reichskommissariat Moskau Moskau (Moscow metropolitan area and adjacent European Russia) The Reichskommissariat territories would extend up to the European frontier at the Urals. These administrative entities were to have been early stages in the displacement and dispossession of Russian and other Slav peoples and their replacement with German settlers, following the Nazi "Lebensraum im Osten" plans. Rosenberg also feared the danger of "Grossrussische Expansion" (a supposed Soviet expansionist policy), and advocated "preventive armed action" to protect the German nation against this alleged threat. When German forces entered Soviet territory, they promptly organized occupation regimes - the Reichskomissariats of Ostland and Ukraine. The development of the expansionist ideas continued in these territories until 1943-44, when the military situation reversed following the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk.

Hitler on ''Lebensraum''
''In an era when the earth is gradually being divided up among states, some of which embrace almost entire continents, we cannot speak of a world power in connection with a formation whose political mother country is limited to the absurd area of five hundred thousand square kilometers.'' --- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971, page 644. ''Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.'' --- Adolf Hitler, ''Mein Kampf'', page 646. ''For it is not in colonial acquisitions that we must see the solution of this problem, but exclusively in the acquisition of a territory for settlement, which will enhance the area of the mother country, and hence not only keep the new settlers in the most intimate community with the land of their origin, but secure for the total area those advantages which lie in its unified magnitude.'' --- Adolf Hitler, ''Mein Kampf'', page 653. ---- ''Lebensraum'' is also the name of a contemporary play by playwright Israel Horovitz, in which the chancellor of Germany wakes up one night after a nightmare and decides to invite 6 million Jews to come live in Germany as restitution for the Holocaust.

See also

Expansionism Expansionist movements in other countries
*Manifest Destiny (United States) *Akhand Bharat (India) *Greater Israel *Greater Albania *Greater Hungary *Greater Mongolia *Greater Morocco *Greater Somalia *Greater Croatia *Greater Serbia *Greater Syria *Transmigration program *Virgin Lands Campaign *Green March

References
*{{note|Knoll}}{{cite book | author=Knoll, Andrew H. | title=Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth | publisher=Princeton University Press | year=2003 | id=ISBN 0-691-00978-3}} page 217. *{{note|late19th}} ''Genocide & The Second Reich'', BBC Four, David Olusoga, October 2004

External links

- Hitler and 'Lebensraum' in the East By Jeremy Noakes
- Utopia: The Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation - map of Nazi plans Category:German loanwords Category:Nazi Germany de:Lebensraumpolitik es:Lebensraum fr:Lebensraum it:Lebensraum he:מרחב מחיה nl:Lebensraum no:Lebensraum nn:Lebensraum pl:Lebensraum ro:Spaţiu vital fi:Lebensraum sv:Lebensraum zh:生存空间

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