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Sunday, July 09, 2006

Hitler's Geopolitical Plan

The unholy trinity of monsters of the twentieth century goes Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. Mao's plan was focused on changing Chinese culture and Stalin was more of a thug than an ideologue. Hitler; however, had plans when it came to the rest of the world. While many people know about Mein Kampf Hitler had a second book. This one, named "Hitler's Second Book," described Hitler's foreign policy.

Here is a good point-by-point of Hitler's plot with commentary and historical results.

Step 1: Alliances needed to be made. Germany would ally with Italy and England. Italy was under control by Mussolini who was Hitler's inspiration. Hitler saw Britain as a fellow Aryan nation. Even during World War II Hitler would stress the strong points of English culture and enjoyed going out on fox hunts.
In the real world Hitler got one out of two as allies. He was disappointed by the outcome.

Step 2: The Roman-Aryans Axis would take down France and any of her allies like Yugoslavia or Poland. This would give Germany Lebensraum. Lebensraum means living space and was stressed even in school as a necessity.
The real Italian-German axis took down Poland, Eastern Europe, and France pretty easily. I think it surprised Hitler that Petain would make France Germany's most powerful ally.

Step 3: In Mein Kampf Hitler claimed the Soviet Union was Germany's most dangerous opponent. Step three called for the destruction of the USSR and gaining a heck of a lot of Lebensraum.
Never get involved in an Asian land war! I have learned that too many times in board games and Hitler should have known that. "That's Stalingrad; you wouldn't have any fun in Stalingrad!"

Step 4: It is not discussed in the Second Book but Hitler talked about forming a "European union" which would primarily benefit Germany. It would be an economic and somewhat political pact between the victors of Hitler's wars.
Today's scorecard: European Union - check! Hitler as victor - blank.

Step 5: Hitler had nightmares of a sort of anti-Christ anti-Aryan state. He feared a country populated by Aryans but "controlled by Jews." This country was the United States. America was populated by Germanics, practicing segregation and eugenics, but Jews living openly and some with wealth. Hitler predicted a war between the United States and the German-English European powerhouse around 1980. The war would be for control of the world.
I bet Hitler really wished he had England as an ally rather than Italy towards the end.

Hitler order the book to be held in secret because openly publishing "I will destroy France!" would end appeasement. The book can be read online here.


Category: Historical Geography

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you read "The Pity Of War" by Niall Ferguson? One of his main points was that a WW I which ended with the Germans as the victors would have ushered in a relatively benign German-centric European Union, decades before it actually happened.

Interesting post...

Catholicgauze said...

No but I read articles he did summing up the book. It is something how we fought two world wars to keep Europe out of a German-centered "European Union" (Hitler's exact words) only to have a German/French European Union try to take over Europe.

Kasier Bill did get the shafted. Without US intervention Germany would have defeated the Allies and history would have been greatly altered. However, I don't know if a romantic Europe stuck in a 19th century mindset of imperial kingdoms could stand against Uncle Joe

Anonymous said...

That last observation is most interesting because I recently finished "A Force More Powerful", about the history of the use of non-violence in 20th Century conflict, political/social revolutions, etc. Fantastic book, which has opened up an entire corridor of strategic and tactical possibilities I had never considered, as well as offering an incredibly new and worthy vantage point on the activities, motives and decisions of people like MLK Jr, Trotsky, Gandhi, Solidarity, etc.

Essentially for the point of this comment (sorry), the failed revolution of 1905 (doomed in the author's viewpoint primarily by the use of indiscriminate, counterproductive violence by arch communists who later made up the armed wing of Lenin and Stalin) led to the violent, bloody revolution of 1917. The authors then point out the difference between that failed revo. and the one of 1991, where Boris stood on a tank and Russians used flowers, vodka and kisses to win over Russian soldiers from the coup side.

So what am I trying to say? Aside from sharing a slice of info that perhaps you were not aware of, I mean to suggest that the underlying problems of czarist Russia could have been addressed by Germany.... or more likely, a strong German military and its allies would have made the Russian civil war a much more interesting one than the already intriguing conflict it was.

Shit, I didn't know that the US had sent troops to Russia right after WW1 to help the Whites. (Learned that from Max Boot's "Savage Wars of Peace"). Right there is worth a good blog post with a map or three on Catholicgauze for historical novelty alone..