Hitler's foreign policy aims

[Amcrae1968]

What were Hitler's foreign policy aims? Was he bent on conquest in the east and dominance in the west, or did he simply want to return Germany to its 1914 boundaries?

[sarahgoodson]

What were Hitler's foreign policy aims? Was he bent on conquest in the east and dominance in the west, or did he simply want to return Germany to its 1914 boundaries?

Hitler had no intention of just gaining back the lands Germany was stripped after World War I, he considered them inadequate.

Hitler had a full chapter in Mein Kampf about Lebensraum or living space for the German people. Hitler wanted a free hand in Eastern Europe to fulfill this concept.

He wrote in Mein Kampf:

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. The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area — viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics — between our historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence.

And so, we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre–War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the East. At long last, we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre–War period and shift to the soil policy of the future.

If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.

In his unpublished book of 1928 known as Hitler's Second Book, he wrote:

The German borders of 1914 were borders that represented something as unfinished as peoples' borders always are. The division of territory on Earth is always the momentary result of a struggle and an evolution that is in no way finished, but that naturally continues to progress. It is dumb to simply take borders, from any given year in the history of a people, and establish it as a political goal.

The National Socialist Movement, on the contrary, will always let its foreign policy be determined by the necessity to secure the space necessary to the life of our Folk. It knows no Germanising or Teutonising, as in the case of the national bourgeoisie, but only the spread of its own Folk. It will never see in the subjugated, so called Germanised, Czechs or Poles a national, let alone Folkish, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of our Folk.

The Folkish State, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make Germans out of them some day. On the contrary, it must muster the determination either to seal off these alien racial elements, so that the blood of its own Folk will not be corrupted again, or it must, without further ado, remove them and hand over the vacated territory to its own National Comrades.

Hitler said that the annexing of the Sudetenland in 1938 was his last territory demand in Europe. He had no intention of keeping his word, he violated the Munich Agreement in 1939 when he declared the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia which consequently meant thousands of Czechs became under Nazi rule. Soon after this he then demanded the annexing of Memel and made further demands towards Poland.

[Szwilpo]

Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932-1945 by Max Domarus, c. 1990

September 19, 1939

p. 1808-9

And now we witness how England and France are outraged at this cooperation of Germany and Russia. It is termed a heinous crime—yes, one Englishman even writes that it is perfidious. Here the English are experts! I believe the English conceive of this perfidy as the failure of cooperation between democratic England and Bolshevist Russia in view of the success of the attempt of National Socialist Germany and Bolshevist Russia at cooperation.

I would like to make a declaration here: Russia remains precisely what it is, and Germany will also remain what it is. On one point there is total agreement between both regimes: neither the Russian nor the German regime wishes to sacrifice even one man to the interests of the Western democracies. The lessons of four years of war are sufficient for both states and both peoples. Ever since then we have known only too well that either one or the other would have the honor to come to the rescue of the ideals of the Western democracies. Both states and both peoples say no thank you to such a mission.

We intend to attend to our interests ourselves from now on. And we have found that we are best able to realize these interests when both great peoples and states come to an understanding. And this is all the easier as the British claims concerning the unrestrained nature of German foreign policy objectives are lies. I rejoice in being able to contradict these assertions of the British statesmen in reality now. Persistently they claimed that Germany intended to rule Europe up to the Ural Mountains.

Accordingly they should be happy to learn of the limited nature of Germany’s ambitions. I believe I am robbing them of yet another rationale for going to war when I proclaim this—as they declare they must fight the present regime because it pursues “unlimited war aims.”

Mein Kampf, Volume 2, Chapter 15:

Today we count eighty million Germans in Europe! This foreign policy will be acknowledged as correct only if, after scarcely a hundred years, there are two hundred and fifty million Germans on this continent, and not living penned in as factory coolies for the rest of the world, but: as peasants and workers, who guarantee each others livelihood by their labor.

Nazi Means War by Leland Stowe

c. 1934, pages 86-87:

But what is most important of all is the fact that it lends an understandable and justifiable support to a dynamic and aggressive campaign for Pan-Germania and the fertile spaces of the east.

"Here also lies our space for existence."

This, too, is a vital argument in the National Socialist foreign program. They say that 65,000,000 German people have been deprived of sufficient space in which to live and breathe. These millions of people cannot continue to exist as they are. There simply is not sufficient room, and it may be that they are right. Who knows?

But while Nazi leaders preach space-strangulation, they also preach a doctrine of growth of population, which Chancellor Hitler has defined with perfect frankness when he wrote that in less than 100 years Europe would be populated, not by 80,000,000 German-speaking people, but by 250,000,000 Germans. If sixty-five or eighty million Germans possess so little space today that they are all living in misery or severe straits, where and how-one wonders-will 250,000,000 Germans live? Where will this vast horde of new Germans come from?

The answer lies, according to the firm policies of the National Socialist government, in a deliberate and scientific increase of the birth rate.

Hitler's Table Talk, c. 2000, Enigma Books

July 1941

p. 15:

We must take care to prevent a military power from ever again establishing itself on this side of the Urals, for our neighbours to the West would always be allied with our neighbours to the East. That's how the French once made common cause with the Turks, and now the English are behaving in the same fashion with the Soviets. When I say, on this side of the Urals, I mean a line running two or three hundred kilometers east of the Urals.

It should be possible for us to control this region to the East with two hundred and fifty thousand men plus a cadre Of good administrators. Let's learn from the English, who, with two hundred and fifty thousand men in all, including fifty thousand soldiers, govern four hundred million Indians. This space in Russia must always be dominated by Germans.

23rd September 1941

p. 37-38, 40:

It's absurd to try to suppose that the frontier between the two separate worlds of Europe and Asia is marked by a chain of not very high mountains—and the long chain of the Urals is no more than that. One might just as well decree that the frontier is marked by one of the great Russian rivers. No, geographically Asia penetrates into Europe without any sharp break.

The real frontier is the one that separates the Germanic world from the Slav world. It's our duty to place it where we want it to be.

. . .

We must create conditions for our people that favour its multiplication, and we must at the same time build a dike against the Russian flood.

. . .

Asia,, what a disquieting reservoir of men ! The safety of Europe will not be assured until we have driven Asia back behind the Urals. No organised Russian State must be allowed to exist west of that line. They are brutes, and neither Bolshevism nor Tsarism makes any difference—they are brutes in a state of nature. The danger would be still greater if this space were to be Mongolised. Suddenly a wave comes foaming down from Asia and surprises a Europe benumbed by civilisation and deceived by the illusion of collective security!

Since there is no natural protection against such a flood, we must meet it with a living wall. A permanent state of war on the Eastern front will help to form a sound race of men, and will prevent us from relapsing into the softness of a Europe thrown back upon itself.

Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 4:

All alliances, therefore, should have been viewed exclusively from this standpoint and judged according to their possible utilization. If land was desired in Europe, it could be obtained by and large only at the expense of Russia, and this meant that the new Reich must again set itself on the march along the road of the Teutonic Knights of old, to obtain by the German sword sod [soil] for the German plow and daily bread for the nation.

[michael mills]

Szwilpo, a simple pasting of various utterances by Hitler without any contextualising of them is not very enlightening.

For example, his speech of 19 September 1939 was made in the context of the Non-aggression Pact with the Soviet Union, which provided for a westward expansion of the Soviet Union, thereby precluding any eastward expansion by Germany.

His monologues of July and September 1941 were made in an entirely different context, where Germany had invaded the Soviet Union for strategic reasons, which had opened the possibility of achieving Lebensraum ambitions which up to that point had been purely theoretical. Even then, Hitler had no hard and fast idea of what he intended to do in the East after elimination Soviet power, and wavered back and forth between different concepts, eg between the idea, based on his impression of British India, of a small number of German administrators ruling over millions of Russians, and the idea of a massive German settlement in the East forming a "human wall" against Asia.

Finally, "Mein Kampf" is not a reliable guide to the actual foreign policy pursued by Hitler, since very few of the ideas in it were achieved in reality. For example, one of the underlying themes in that book is the need for an alliance with Britain, not war with it.

It needs to be borne in mind that the chapters on foreign policy in Part II, in which the well-known Lebensraum ideas were espoused, as well as his so-called "Second Book", were most probably ghost-written by a person who had absorbed the geopolitical ideas of the Haushofers, the most likely candidate being Rudolf Hess, who had studied under the Haushofers at Munich University. The crux of the matter is that Hitler never considered himself bound by the foreign policy concepts laid down in either "Mein Kampf" or his "Second Book", and was always prepared to be pragmatic, reacting to situations as they arose more often than actively creating the situations he wanted.

[Szwilpo]

his speech of 19 September 1939 was made in the context of the Non-aggression Pact with the Soviet Union, which provided for a westward expansion of the Soviet Union, thereby precluding any eastward expansion by Germany.

That would be so long as the pact would remain in effect. You've said it yourself that Hitler was "prepared to be pragmatic."

What About Germany?, by Louis P. Lochner, c. 1943

p. 1-2

"My decision to attack Poland was arrived at last spring. Originally, I feared that the political constellation would compel me to strike simultaneously at England, Russia, France, and Poland. Even this risk would have had to be taken. Ever since the autumn of 1938, and because I realized that Japan would not join us unconditionally and that Mussolini is threatened by that nit-wit of a king and the treasonable scoundrel of a crown prince, I decided to go with Stalin.

In the last analysis, there are only three great statesmen in the world, Stalin, I, and Mussolini. Mussolini is the weakest, for he has been unable to break the power of either the crown or the church. Stalin and I are the only ones who envisage the future and nothing but the future. Accordingly, I shall in a few weeks stretch out my hand to Stalin at the common German-Russian frontier and undertake the redistribution of the world with him. Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me.

I have issued the command—and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad-that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness-for the present only in the East—with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Hitler Told Me This by Hermann Rauschning, c. 1939

p. 388-90

(note that the link places page 390 after 388)

https://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1939dec-00385

"Will Poland remain neutral if I attack the West?'' was the first question which Hitler put to me when I reported to him about an interview with Marshal Pilsudski of Poland. Then he expounded to me his aims in the East, which went even farther than those which I have just outlined. He added that he would be pleased, of course, if he could carry out his Eastern policy with the help of Poland rather than against Poland. At that time he presented to me plans similar to those which Foreign Minister van Ribbentrop put years later to Polish Minister Beck: a joint German-Polish attack on Russia.

Besides this "classic" dream, however, there is another. It likewise contemplates domination over Europe as a step towards world control. But the road it envisages is diametrically opposite it's basic strategy is an alliance, rather than a conflict, with Russia. Hitler talked to me at length about this idea. Nothing, he indicated in effect, would prevent him from reversing his course—at a moment's notice, if necessary—and marching with the Russians instead of against them.

. . .

I had occasion to speak with Hitler several times on matters touching upon his Russian policy. In 1934 he suggested to me that I go to Russia and make connections. Actually the connections of the National Socialist Party with Soviet Russia had never been broken off. Hitler discussed the difficulties. He railed at the Bolsheviks as ''Jewish masters of chicanery'' ; the Bolsheviks always wanted to get a complete hold of you, he
said. No alliance of equal partners was possible with them: there was only domination or submission. He hinted that in case of an alliance with Russia he faced the danger of dealing with an adversary who was superior to him in the domain of domestic policy. And he explained to me that he was ready to do anything, even to conclude an alliance with Russia, if this should improve Germany's position. But such an alliance would never prevent him from eventually reverting to his real aim—the conquest or dismemberment of Russia.

His monologues of July and September 1941 were made in an entirely different context, where Germany had invaded the Soviet Union for strategic reasons, which had opened the possibility of achieving Lebensraum ambitions which up to that point had been purely theoretical.

Am I misunderstanding or are you saying that those strategic reasons are something other than Lebensraum, and that "the possibility of achieving Lebensraum ambitions" is merely an opportunist outcome. You're aren't going to trot out Viktor Suvorov, are you?

Even then, Hitler had no hard and fast idea of what he intended to do in the East after elimination Soviet power, and wavered back and forth between different concepts, eg between the idea, based on his impression of British India, of a small number of German administrators ruling over millions of Russians, and the idea of a massive German settlement in the East forming a "human wall" against Asia.

The two are not mutually exclusive, he did say, quoting earlier:

I mean a line running two or three hundred kilometers east of the Urals.

It should be possible for us to control this region to the East with . . . administrators.

Hitler can have his German farmers all the way up to the Urals, and past that point, eastward, a reservoir of Russian labor extending so many kilometers.

Finally, "Mein Kampf" is not a reliable guide to the actual foreign policy pursued by Hitler, since very few of the ideas in it were achieved in reality. For example, one of the underlying themes in that book is the need for an alliance with Britain, not war with it.

Besides an alliance with Britain, what else? He never achieved that alliance, but he did pursue it. Did you word that poorly or are you not aware that he actually attempted to attain an alliance with Britain?


Let me switch your first sentence around: since very few of the ideas in it were achieved in reality "Mein Kampf" is not a reliable guide to the actual foreign policy pursued by Hitler.


In my previous post I quoted Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 4:

All alliances, . . .

Immediately after that paragraph, Hitler writes:

For such a policy there was but one ally in Europe: England.

With England alone was it possible, our rear protected, to begin the new Germanic march. Our right to do this would have been no less than the right of our forefathers. None of our pacifists refuses to eat the bread of the East, although the first plowshare in its day bore the name of 'sword' ! Consequently, no sacrifice should have been too great for winning England's willingness.

We should have renounced colonies and sea power, and spared English industry our competition. Only an absolutely clear orientation could lead to such a goal: renunciation of world trade and colonies; renunciation of a German war fleet; concentration of all the state's instruments of power on the land army.

There's a reason why he was willing to renounce oversea colonies.

From the same chapter:

For Germany, consequently, the only possibility for carrying out a healthy territorial policy lay in the acquisition of new land in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose unless they seem in large part suited for settlement by Europeans. But in the nineteenth century such colonial territories were no longer obtainable by peaceful means. Consequently, such a colonial policy could only have been carried out by means of a hard struggle which, however, would have been carried on to much better purpose, not for territories outside of Europe, but for land on the home continent itself.

Mein Kampf, Volume 2, Chapter 14:

I openly confess that even in the pre-War period I would have thought it sounder if Germany, renouncing her senseless colonial policy and renouncing her merchant marine and war fleet, had concluded an alliance with England against Russia, thus passing from a feeble global policy to a determined European policy of territorial acquisition on the continent.

Volume 2, Chapter 13:

In the predictable future there can be only two allies for Germany in Europe: England and Italy.

England's Place in Hitler's Plans for World Dominion by Andreas Hillgruber, c. 1974

Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 9, No. 1

p. 19-22:

On 7 December 1941, as the Japanese set out to bomb the American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hitler was faced with the imminent premature outbreak of a world war, in which America would take an active part; but he still hoped, as Halder noted in his diary after a conversation with von Etzdorf, who represented the Auswartiges Amt at the Army High Command, 'to come to terms with England at the expense of France'.

Even the entry of Japan and the United States into the war did not materially affect Hitler's hopes of England or his assessment of England as a factor in his policy. Hearing of the fall of Singapore, he said to Antonescu, the Roumanian Premier, that 'this was wonderful, though perhaps also sad, news'—more of a hint than a direct expression of his true feelings. He was more outspoken among his circle of intimates. The former Ambassador von Hassell, always well informed, noted in his diary on 22 March 1942: 'It is said that Hitler himself is not entirely enthusiastic about the amazing Japanese successes and that he would have liked to send the English 20 divisions to drive the yellow men out.'

On 8 March 1942, Helmuth Greiner, who kept the official War Diary of the Chiefs of Staff, had noted: 'Fuhrer does not exclude possibility of different end to war with England. English upper class hates America.' On 29 April, at his meeting with Mussolini, Hitler remarked, presumably to test the Duce's reaction, that 'he doubted whether the Japanese would really object if the Axis came to some arrangement with England. After all, they had achieved all their objectives.'

Hitler believed that the Japanese threat to India, the heart (as he called it) of the British Empire, would force the English to come to terms, especially if he were to carry out his intention of mounting a simultaneous offensive against India via Iran and Afghanistan.

. . .

On 4 February 1945, he admitted that 'I myself... underestimated one factor. Namely, the extent to which Churchill's Englishmen were influenced by the Jews'. This answered his own earlier question in Mein Kampf as to whether England would be able to destroy the pernicious Jewish influence.

. . .

In the event Hitler was unable to achieve more than the opening moves of the continental phase of his programme. If we consider his statements of policy rather than his day-to-day remarks, we find that expressions of regret for the partnership-that-never-was tend to predominate.

It needs to be borne in mind that the chapters on foreign policy in Part II, in which the well-known Lebensraum ideas were espoused, as well as his so-called "Second Book", were most probably ghost-written by a person who had absorbed the geopolitical ideas of the Haushofers, the most likely candidate being Rudolf Hess, who had studied under the Haushofers at Munich University.

Did you first hear of this idea from George Seldes? Reference: youtube.com/watch?v=l543SiQPdlI

Germany's Lebensraum by Charles Kruszewski, c. 1940

The American Political Science Review, Vol. 34, No. 5 , p. 969-72, 973:

In order to get to the pith of the National Socialist ideas concerning foreign policies and Lebensraum, one name deserves special mention, that of Professor Karl Haushofer, retired major-general and president of the German Academy. With his school of Geopolitik, he has contributed a great deal to the clarification of the intentions of the National Socialist regime on foreign policy. Exceptional weight must be attached to his statements, because he has given expression to many aspirations and intentions of the regime with almost criminal candor. Haushofer recently celebrated his seventieth birthday, and his many German followers and students call him "the Master," a master of another school of political thought. This school, fully recognized in Nazi Germany as a discipline of studies, has translated its criticism of the juristic conception of the state into an elaborate socio-political ideology in which the body politic is conceived as a million-headed individual, on the analogy of the old but much deprecated theory of the organic or biological character of the state.

. . .

[T]he New Statesman and Nation (London) on August 26, 1939, illustrated in an article on "Hitler's World Revolution" how the once startling doctrine of "the geographical pivot of history," expounded by the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder in 1904, was utilized by General Karl Haushofer as a background to help effect a Russo-German rapprochement, leading to the well-known agreement in August, 1939.

. . .

These ideas of Sir Halford Mackinder might have remained completely unnoticed in Germany if it had not been for a man who later became the dominant influence in Nazi policy. It was General Haushofer who seized upon Sir Halford's book in one of the first issues of the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, and recommended it as an extremely valuable medicine. His real hour, however, came with Hitler's accession to power.

Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy in the leadership of the Nazi party, had been Haushofer's aide throughout the war and later on for a time his assistant at his institute for Geopolitik. Through him Haushofer had come into contact with the Nazi movement almost from the beginning, and he exercised through his contacts with its leading figures a profound influence upon its policies—in particular in the field of foreign affairs and in seeking a rapprochement with Russia.

Geopolitics Triumphant: The Case of East-Central Europe by George Lerski, c. 1963

Pakistan Horizon, Vol. 16, No. 2

p. 124-5, 126

Through Rudolf Hess, his favourite disciple, Haushofer met in the early 1920's the then rising agitator Adolf Hitler, whom he later visited in the Lech prison at Landsberg after the failure of the 1923 Bierhallen-Putsch. The Fuhrer was profoundly impressed by the General's geopolitical explanation of the recent German defeat. It is widely believed that large portion of Mein Kampf, especially Chapter XIV of Volume II, which expresses an Eastern orientation, were written by Haushofer. Anyhow, the very fact that Hitler appointed him to the position of Director of the specially established Institut fur Geopolitik at the University of Munich and even went so far as to elevate the General's Jewish wife to the status of "honorary Aryan" indicates how highly he must have valued his theory.

Haushofer's numerous writings devoted to preparing the case for the extinction of Germany's eastern neighbours served as the pseudo-scientific inspiration in the subsequent conquest of Austria, Czechoslo vakia and Poland. Moreover, since the geographer-general was pro-Russian he may be considered as one of the chief architects of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, which unleashed Nazi forces against Poland, thus becoming the most important cause of the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 with the unanimous decision of the Polish nation to resist the German invasion. It was only when Hitler decided to make war upon Russia in 1941 that Haushofer fell in dis-favour, because the very issue which brought the traditional partitioners of Poland together proved to be the main reason of the conflict between the two greedy powers competing for spoils in various strategical areas of East-Central Europe.

. . .

Haushofer was jubilant and commented upon the signing of the German-Soviet alliance: "Never again shall Germany and Russia endanger the geopolitical foundations of their adjustable spaces by ideological conflicts.”

You say ghost-written and Lerski asserts it's widely believed it was Haushofer himself. He didn't specify, though.

Returning to the previous article by Charles Kruszewski, p. 973:

The chief lesson to be derived from these, in his [Halford's] opinion, was the vital necessity of preventing Germany and Russia from joining forces. These two powers were able by the control of the heartland to dominate not only the Old World but the world as a whole. They had lost the war because they had been fighting on opposite sides, but by that common loss they might well learn their lesson and unite.

Haushofer desired the exact opposite outcome of Sir Halford (who, remember, is British). Referring back to Lochner and Rauschning this is precisely what Hitler set out to do after Poland refused to join in dismembering Russia, but the Soviet Pact disintegrated when Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union.


The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer, c. 2011

p. 85

Considerable editorial advice and even pruning on the part of at least three helpers could not prevent Hitler from meandering from one subject to another in Mein Kampf. Rudolf Hess, who took most of the dictation first at Landsberg prison and later at Haus Wachenfeld near Berchtesgaden, did his best to tidy up the manuscript, but he was no man to stand up to the Leader.

More successful in this respect was Father Bernhard Stempfle, a former member of the Hieronymite order and an anti-Semitic journalist of some notoriety in Bavaria. This strange priest, of whom more will be heard in this history, corrected some of Hitler’s bad grammar, straightened out what prose he could and crossed out a few passages which he convinced the author were politically objectionable.

The third adviser was Josef Czerny, of Czech origin, who worked on the Nazi newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter, and whose anti-Jewish poetry endeared him to Hitler. Czerny was instrumental in revising the first volume of Mein Kampf for its second printing, in which certain embarrassing words and sentences were eliminated or changed; and he went over carefully the proofs of Volume Two.

The German Dictatorship by Karl Bracher, c. 1971

p. 82:

As the center of old and new völkisch prophets, the Thule Society gave many of the future ideologists of National Socialism their first public platform. Gathered here were Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, who in December, 1918, had begun to publish the anti-Semitic journal Auf gut deutsch (In Plain Language), as well as a völkisch Catholic priest. Father Bernhard Stempfle, who helped Hitler in the writing of Mein Kampf. (As a reward, he was among those murdered in the purge of June 30, 1934.)

p. 128:

He [Hitler] read voraciously, and pursued the study of congenial theories, such as the geopolitics of Karl Haushofer, who at the instigation of his pupil Rudolf Hess visited Hitler more than once. In June, Hitler began work on his book, intended as a settling of accounts with the past and present and as a plan for the new, "legal" road to power and the glorious National Socialist future. He probably hoped to overshadow his comrades Rosenberg, Feder, and Eckart, both as writer and leader. In his sunny room, he dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf to his chauffeur, Emil Maurice, and to his devoted "secretary" and future deputy, Rudolf Hess, who had voluntarily returned from his Tyrolean refuge to Landsberg. The second volume was written two years later. As mentioned earlier, the requisite editorial work was performed by the ex-priest Bernhard Stempfle, whose confidential services were later rewarded by murder.

You say it's probable that parts of Mein Kampf were ghost-written, who's to say that he hadn't “absorbed the geopolitical ideas of the Haushofers” and made them his own?

The crux of the matter is that Hitler never considered himself bound by the foreign policy concepts laid down in either "Mein Kampf" or his "Second Book", and was always prepared to be pragmatic, reacting to situations as they arose more often than actively creating the situations he wanted.

Hitler's War Aims by Klaus Hildebrand, c. 1976

The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 48, No. 3, p. 523

[This is a review of 2 Volumes, Hitler's War Aims by Norman Rich]

Closely connected with the question of Hitler's "status" in the Third Reich, the problem is repeatedly raised as to whether the dictator was acting in keeping with a set program or as a Machiavellian, that is, whether he consistently followed certain fundamental assumptions in foreign policy which he had defined comparatively early as part of an overall program or whether he merely seized whatever opportunities the situation happened to present. Rich comes back again and again to this central question concerning Hitler, and, not least in his footnotes where he carefully analyzes the findings of previous research, he makes one thing clear: It is surely just as wrong to understand Hitler's foreign policy and conduct of war as the result of sheer opportunism as it would be exaggerated to conceive of Hitler's strategy as a "timetable for world conquest," rigidly laid down in minute detail, which no serious historian has in fact ever maintained. By exhaustively examining both the fundamental principles of Nazi foreign policy in his first volume and the measures the Third Reich took in dealing with the occupied countries in the second, Rich is able to show at what moments Hitler's policies and military actions were governed by opportunism or expediency and at what points by a consistent program.

I don't have these 2 volumes. They would be very useful.

The Inner Nazi: A Critical Analysis of Mein Kampf by Hans Staudinger, c. 1981, originally written in 1944

p. 99-100

But the realist in Hitler acknowledged circumstances which called for what we may term tactical moves or, better, detours.' For example, Germany's tie-up with the most inferior race of Russia was such a deviation from his "principled" power policy. For Hitler it meant an undesirable but unavoidable detour. To be sure the Soviet-German nonaggression pact of 1939 was signed with full mutual distrust and misgivings on the part of both. Hitler's adherents understood at once the ephemeral value of this pact with Russia. They had learned to see Hitler's foreign policy in its totality and, therefore, knew how to distinguish between strategy and tactics. For if only adherents and followers of a movement were fully absorbed by the guiding goal and understood the nature of the "principled" foreign policy by which to reach this goal, they would easily consent, and with malicious approval, to the most paradoxical, yet tactical, maneuvers.

Theoretically, Hitler was well aware of the fact that favorable or unfavorable shifts in the power constellation would demand changes in his strategy. He acknowledged in principle that the attainment of one step toward his final goal might necessitate a reexamination of alliances to determine whether the next step had to be executed with new partners. He took great satisfaction in conjuring up the ghost of Bismarck, for whom a political course was never "a matter of eternal principle" (953). Yet in practice Hitler never basically changed his strategy after he wrote Mein Kampf nor the picture of desirable allies he had once formed in his mind. He did change his tactics, as we know from the case with Russia. His strategy was too much bound up with other, particularly the racial factors to permit political expediencies to prevail.

Hitler was continually exposed to the implications of his own bias that inferior races could be considered as trusted allies from the strategic point of view. Thus, for instance, his prejudiced analysis of the natural interests of England as opposed to France continued to be valid for him up to the time when the events immediately after Munich might have taught him better. It is quite conceivable that Hitler even today thinks of England as a natural ally with regard to his world conquest and especially in his fight against the United States.

Hitler's Weltanschauung: A Blueprint for Power by Eberhard Jäckel, c. 1972

p. 42-3, 46

But apart from these and many other contradictions, absurdities, and gaps, disregarding also for the moment any kind of moral judgment, it can hardly he denied that this program of foreign policy already manifests a high degree of purposeful orientation, consistency, and coherence. Here we have clearly defined political goals and an indication of the means which might be used to strive for and possibly attain these goals. This certainly does not yet add up to a Weltanschauung as Hitler himself understood the term. The system of ideas was still too fragmentary, still too much restricted to only one segment of human life, namely foreign policy. But would a mind capable of developing such a grand design not also be capable of demonstrating a similar kind of purposive drive and the gift of combining ideas in other areas as well? And might he not also have been capable in the end of developing an all-encompassing and coherent Weltanschauung? These are obvious questions, and they will have to be pursued further in the subsequent course of this study.

One thing at least seems clear already; one may call this opportunism, but as it has goals, it is not a nihilistic opportunism. One may call this power politics for the sake of power, but it has a clearly defined purpose beyond the pure wielding of power. One may call it lacking in principles, but it is not devoid of intelligible considerations of principles and tactics. One might say with Polonius that there is method in this madness, even though madness it is.

Having made this kind of judgment, the question becomes significant whether Hitler readily gave up or revised this outline of foreign policy for opportunistic reasons or whether he persisted in it. The answer is unequivocal. Even a cursory glance at the military and diplomatic history of the Third Reich demonstrates that this outline formed the guideline of those German policies which were defined by Hitler himself.

. . .

The erroneous assessment of Great Britain turned out to be the decisive error in Hitler's equation and it continued to remain so. Because of this mistake, Hitler was forced to modify his grand design repeatedly, especially in the case of the Soviet-German Pact of 1939. But the grand design remained the lodestar of all his decisions in the field of foreign policy just the same. Few statesmen have ever pursued their goals with greater obstinacy or tenacity. One may continue to call his innumerable breaches of promises and treaties along the way opportunistic, but two things should be kept clearly in mind. This opportunism of cunning and lies was, first of all, one of principle. For Hitler, politics, as he repeatedly stated and as we shall see below, was a natural struggle for power fought according to the laws of the jungle. And secondly, this opportunism had clearly defined goals which did not at all arise from the opportunities offered by any given moment. They remained unflinchingly the goals and means which had been developed in the 1920's and which had been unified into a coherent conception of foreign policy by 1926 at the latest.

[ljadw]

What Rauschning said has been debunked by serious historians

[Szwilpo]

Concerning one of Rauschning's books, The Voice of Destruction

Hitler's Millennial Reich by David Redles, c. 2005

p. 194-5

The next most significant, and certainly most controversial, of the Hitler gospels is Hermann Rauschning’s The Voice of Destruction. National Socialist senate president of the Free State of Danzig from 1933 to 1934, Rauschning became disenchanted with Hitler and fled Germany, writing a series of books on what he perceived to be Nazism’s inherent nihilism. According to Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction was based in part on notes taken during his brief time with Hitler, in part on his memory, and in part on other sources.

The work has been used repeatedly since its publication, often as if it contains the exact words of Hitler and without much critical assessment. Many scholars, have questioned Rauschning’s reliability, but I am in agreement with Theodor Schieder that his book can be used, albeit with care (as should be the norm with any source). Schieder properly notes that Rauschning employed direct discourse as a literary form, much like Eckart so many years before.

Like other Hitler gospels, The Voice of Destruction suffers from inaccurate chronology and biased interpretations, in this case by an apostate Nazi who hoped to support his own nihilist myth concerning the nature of Nazism. But it is this subjectivity, the image-world Rauschning paints, that is most important for my investigation. Schieder in the end argued that the work “is not a document in which one can expect to find verbatim, stenographic records of sentences or aphorisms spoken by Hitler, despite the fact that it might appear to meet that standard.

It is a document in which objective and subjective components are mixed and in which alterations in the author’s opinions about what he recounts become mingled with what he recounts.” Despite these caveats, Schieder concludes that “it is, however, a document of unquestionable value, since it contains views derived from immediate experience.” Thus, like all such gospels, we have one individual’s subjective interpretation of the symbolic world view of Adolf Hitler. Used, therefore, in combination with other such sources, it is certainly a valid source.

[Szwilpo]

Hitler's Table Talk, c. 2000, Enigma Books

Preface to the Third Edition by H.R. Trevor-Roper, p. X

I would not now endorse so cheerfully the authority of Hermann Rauschning which has been dented by Wolfgang Hanel, but I would not reject it altogether. Rauschning may have yielded at times to journalistic temptations, but he had opportunities to record Hitler's conversations and the general tenor of his record too exactly forestalls Hitler's later utterances to be dismissed as fabrication.

[Szwilpo]

What makes the Holocaust a uniquely unique genocide? by Gunnar Heinsohn, c. 2000

Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 2 issue 3

p. 418

There is a long-standing controversy regarding the authenticity of Hitler’s statements in Rauschning’s report. The essential—though not word-for-word— correctness of Hitler’s tone is supported by mainstream historians (e.g. Schieder, and Broszat) whereas others—including right-wing exponents like Haenel—refuse to acknowledge Rauschning as a historical source (e.g. Tobias).

This author chooses a middle course, i.e. draws on passages borne out by statements of Hitler made at other times and in other contexts. The fact that Rauschning never supplied stenographic notes of his encounter with Hitler and that his text contains interpretations of Hitler’s ideas is indisputable for all participating in the controversy. Basic ideas of Hitler reported by Rauschning strike one as being not only original but rich in consequences. Should one want to reject them as a basic source one would have to acknowledge Rauschning himself as the creator of these unusual thoughts. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever to support the assumption that the formulations by Rauschning being examined here are derived from his own research.

[Szwilpo]

Nazi Ideology and Ethics, edited by Wolfgang Bialas and Lothar Fritze, c. 2014

p. 117

The authenticity of Hitler's statements in Rauschning's Hitler Speak is very much debated among scientists. Established historiography defends the basic substance of his reports. Other authors, among them some from the far right, completely reject him as a source. This is why several of the authors do not quote Rauschning at all whereas others use him cum grano salis. All the participants in the debate agree that Rauschning does not present any records of his meetings with Hitler and that his text includes his own interpretation. Here, I will follow neither the "mostly correct" fraction nor the other extreme of "just a complete invention." I will however make use of some similar passages which are known from other sources. If we simply reject what Rauschning reports on Hitler's ideas on the "conscience" having been developed by Jewry, which are typically right-wing and Nietzsche-inspired, we must declare Rauschning to have been the inventor of these ideas. At least, the manuscript of Hitler Speaks (published in 1940) had already been completed by 1939, that is, before the large-scale killings began. Accordingly, the ideas look much more harmless than what was about to happen.

[ljadw]

Rauschning was a liar :he claimed to have met HItler more than hundred times,while it was only 4 times .

The question is not what were Hitler's ideas, but was Rauschning reliable ?

And Rauschning was not reliable : it is inconceivable that Hitler would have said in 1932/1933 to Rauschninh what Rauschning was claiming .Rauschning was a meaningless person without any importance who in 1939 was working for the French propaganda,for obvious reasons : as a German national,he risked to be arrested .

[ljadw]

Concerning one of Rauschning's books, The Voice of Destruction

Hitler's Millennial Reich by David Redles, c. 2005

p. 194-5

The next most significant, and certainly most controversial, of the Hitler gospels is Hermann Rauschning’s The Voice of Destruction. National Socialist senate president of the Free State of Danzig from 1933 to 1934, Rauschning became disenchanted with Hitler and fled Germany, writing a series of books on what he perceived to be Nazism’s inherent nihilism. According to Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction was based in part on notes taken during his brief time with Hitler, in part on his memory, and in part on other sources.

The work has been used repeatedly since its publication, often as if it contains the exact words of Hitler and without much critical assessment. Many scholars, have questioned Rauschning’s reliability, but I am in agreement with Theodor Schieder that his book can be used, albeit with care (as should be the norm with any source). Schieder properly notes that Rauschning employed direct discourse as a literary form, much like Eckart so many years before.

Like other Hitler gospels, The Voice of Destruction suffers from inaccurate chronology and biased interpretations, in this case by an apostate Nazi who hoped to support his own nihilist myth concerning the nature of Nazism. But it is this subjectivity, the image-world Rauschning paints, that is most important for my investigation. Schieder in the end argued that the work “is not a document in which one can expect to find verbatim, stenographic records of sentences or aphorisms spoken by Hitler, despite the fact that it might appear to meet that standard.

Rauschning was not disenchanted with Hitler,he was fired by Hitler .

No one can take serious some one (Rauschning) who said that on a certain moment Hitler was terrified and said that there was something/someone in the corner,who wanted to get him .

[michael mills]

What About Germany?, by Louis P. Lochner, c. 1943

The passage published by Lochner that you have quoted is known to be a falsified version of Hitler's speech of 22 August 1939 to his military commanders. It was rejected as evidence by the IMT, which accepted two records of the meeting made by persons who were present.

The falsification rests in lurid embellishment of what Hitler actually said, to make it sound more violent. Thus, Hitler did not say that he had given orders to "send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language"; there is nothing like that in the genuine records of his speech. What he did say was that the aim of the forthcoming invasion of Poland would be to destroy the Polish armed forces and not just to occupy pieces of Polish territory.

On a more general note, statements made by Hitler ex post facto, particularly after an abrupt change in his actions, need to be treated with a great deal of reserve, since he never admitted to making a mistake, or having been forced into specific actions contrary to his initial intentions, and always claimed that a major change in direction was something he had intended all along. Thus, when his policy in regard to Poland failed disastrously and he ended up at war with both Britain and France, he claimed that it had always been his intention to fight them eventually, which in the case of Britain is certainly false.

Am I misunderstanding or are you saying that those strategic reasons are something other than Lebensraum, and that "the possibility of achieving Lebensraum ambitions" is merely an opportunist outcome

The strategic reasons were to prevent the Soviet Union from abandoning its position of neutrality and joining Britain in the latter's war against Germany. That reason was specifically stated by Hitler, when he told his military leaders that Britain's refusal to make peace was based on its calculation that the Soviet Union would eventually join it against Germany.

Hitler's analysis of the strategic situation was based on Stalin's refusal to abandon his ambition for further westward expansion in the Baltic and Balkan areas, and his avoidance of a definitive commitment to Germany in the form of an alliance with her against Britain. That situation became clear to him during Molotov's visit to Berlin in November 1940, when Molotov presented Stalin's demand that Hitler agree to Soviet occupation of Finland, the stationing of Red Army bases in Bulgaria and the parts of Turkey bordering the Straits, and the removal of the German guarantee to Romania, which would effectively place that country, Germany's main source of oil, under Soviet domination.

It was after the Molotov visit that Hitler made the definitive decision to attack the Soviet Union, and issued his directive to his military commanders to prepare that attack. His calculation was that if Stalin continued to avoid joining Germany against Britain, it was because he was planning to eventually join Britain against Germany, and therefore it was better to attack the Soviet Union as soon as possible, before it became too strong militarily.

Once that decision was made, it opened the question of what to do with Soviet territory once the Red Army had been decisively defeated, and it was at that point that the theoretical concepts of Lebensraum began to re-emerge. However, there were many different and competing ideas on what to do with conquered Soviet territory, eg Rosenberg's concept of a number of puppet states such as Ukraine, and Hitler never definitively committed himself to any of them before they all became nugatory due to the failure to defeat the Red Army.

You're aren't going to trot out Viktor Suvorov, are you?

That is a rather impertinent question from someone who has trotted out Lochner and Rauschning.

Did you first hear of this idea from George Seldes?

No, I have never even heard of someone called George Seldes.

My opinion that the so-called "Second Book" was substantially ghost-written came from my reading of the text itself, which contained highly theoretical sections on geopolitics that were very tightly argued and quite logical if one accepts the basic premise that all history consists of an existential struggle between peoples. The logicality of those sections suggested to me that they had been drafted by an intellect superior to that of Hitler, who was never a theoretician and never claimed to be one, and that Hitler had simply copied them, perhaps recasting them to some extent into his own rather turgid style.

It is generally recognised that Hess made a major contribution to the foreign policy sections of part II of "Mein Kampf", and that he was not simply a steno-secretary taking dictation from Hitler. Indeed, Captain Mayr, Hitler's commanding officer in the propaganda section of the Bavarian Army in 1919, claimed in 1941, after he had turned against Hitler and fled from Germany, that almost all of "Mein Kampf" consisted of material contributed by various people, including Hess, Haushofer and Streicher, and that Hitler himself had written almost none of it since he was too stupid to have composed anything.

That claim by Mayr is of course propagandistic and grossly exaggerated, but nevertheless contains a grain of truth in that the work does incorporate the ideas of a number of people. For example, the passages about Jews "poisoning the blood of the German people" through sexual intercourse is very likely a contribution by Streicher, since that was his core belief.

[Szwilpo]

Rauschning was not disenchanted with Hitler,he was fired by Hitler .

Do you have a source for that?

On his wiki page it is stated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Rauschning

On 23 November 1934, he resigned from the Senate and the Party. In the April 1935 Danzig elections, he supported "constitutionalist" candidates against the Nazis, and wrote articles supporting co-operation with the Poles, which angered the Nazis, and Rauschning found himself in personal danger.

The source is listed as

Andrzejewski, Marek. Hermann Rauschning. Biographische Skizze (Hermannn Rauschning biographical sketch) in Gornig Gilbert (ed.), German-Polish meeting on science and culture, Societas Physicae Experimentalis, Series of Gdansk Scientific Society, Volume 5, 2001, pp. 170–185

The biographical sketch of Rauschning by Marek Andrzejewski is available online here:

http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~dnfg/i ... chning.pdf

On page 6 of the PDF

Im Herbst 1934 war die Position Rauschnings sichtbar geschwächt, so daß er gezwungen war zurückzutreten.

Using an online translator:

In the autumn of 1934 Rauschning's position was visibly weakened, so that he was forced to resign.

The passage published by Lochner that you have quoted is known to be a falsified version of Hitler's speech of 22 August 1939 to his military commanders. It was rejected as evidence by the IMT, which accepted two records of the meeting made by persons who were present.

The falsification rests in lurid embellishment of what Hitler actually said, to make it sound more violent. Thus, Hitler did not say that he had given orders to "send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language"; there is nothing like that in the genuine records of his speech. What he did say was that the aim of the forthcoming invasion of Poland would be to destroy the Polish armed forces and not just to occupy pieces of Polish territory.

Document 1014-PS specifically stated 'living forces', not military forces. Halder also noted such in his diary.

Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 3, published 1946, p. 665:

Destruction of Poland in the foreground. The aim is elimination of living forces, not the arrival at a certain line: Even if war should break out in the West, the destruction of Poland shall be the primary objective.

The Origins of the Final Solution by Christopher Browning, c. 2004

Notes for Chapter 2, p. 437-8

8. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washingon dc, 1946) (hereafter cited as nca), 3:665
(1014-ps: Unsigned notes on Hitler’s second speech, August 22, 1939, from the okw files).

Winfried Baumgart, ‘‘Zur Ansprache Hitlers vor den Fuhrern der Wehrmacht am 22. August 1939,’’ explains why this document probably contains the original notes of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of military intelligence (Abwehr), and is thus to be preferred over various other accounts of Hitler’s remarks later written up from memory or reworked from notes taken at the time. General Halder’s war diary conveyed the same sentiments: ‘‘Goal: destruction of Poland—elimination of its living force. It is not a question of reaching a certain line or new boundary but the destruction of the enemy. . . . The means do not matter. The victor will never be questioned whether his reasons were justified. It is not a question whether our side is right but only of victory.’’ Franz Halder, Kriegstagebuch: Tagliche Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Generalstabes des Heeres 1939–1942, 1:25.

A more apocalyptic version, smuggled to the British presumably with the purpose of persuading them to stand by Poland, attributed to Hitler the following: ‘‘Genghis Khan had millions of women and children killed by his own will and with a gay heart. History sees only in him a great state builder. What weak western civilization thinks about me does not matter. . . . I have sent to the East my ‘Death head Units’ with the order to kill without mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians.’’ nca, 7:753 (L-3).

Halder's notes in German

http://www.ns-archiv.de/krieg/1939/22-0 ... halder.php

2.) Ziel: Vernichtung Polens - Beseitigung seiner lebendigen Kraft. Es handelt sich nicht um Erreichen einer bestimmten Linie oder einer neuen Grenze, sondern um Vernichtung des Feindes, die auf immer neuen Wegen angestrebt werden muß.

Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932-1945 by Max Domarus, c. 1990

The Year 1939—Notes

Note 678

p. 2235:

2) Aim: Annihilation of Poland—elimination of its vital forces. It is not a matter of gaining a specific line or a new frontier, but rather of the annihilation of an enemy, which must be constantly attempted by new ways.

That's precisely what Hitler set out to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion

One should have in mind not merely the initial invasion, but the aftermath of occupation as well.

Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity by Alexander Rossino, c. 2003

p. 9-10:

Assembling on the morning of 22 August 1939, the commanders of Germany's military endured a long monologue during which Hitler referred to the Reich's rapidly deteriorating relations with Poland. He informed his audience that the Polish situation had become "unbearable" and that leaders in Britain and France did not want war with Germany. As for the Soviet Union, Hitler surprised the assembled military commanders by revealing that negotiations with Stalin were under way. These would soon lead to the conclusion of a nonaggression pact between Germany and the USSR, an event that he said would place Poland in the isolated position he desired. Hitler then commented on the conduct of the coming invasion and exhorted the officers to avoid viewing the military campaign in traditional terms. They should instead concentrate on the "elimination of living forces, not the arrival at a certain line. " "Have no pity," Hitler demanded; the campaign was to be carried out with "the greatest brutality and without mercy."

According to some accounts, Hitler also stated that one of the invasion's goals was the physical elimination of at least some of Poland's inhabitants. Following an afternoon break the audience reconvened. At this time Hitler reportedly informed his listeners that "SS Death 's Head units stand ready under orders to mercilessly send to death men, women, and children of Polish descent." General Halder was sitting in the audience that day, and he later recorded a similar statement in his diary, writing that Hitler had called for the "physical annihilation of the Polish population. " Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, the commander of Army Group North, provides further evidence. Recalling in his memoir that Hitler "did not wish to burden the army with the necessary liquidation [of] the Polish upper class, especially the Polish clergy," the Fuhrer had stated that he was designating the task to the SS instead. Hitler concluded his monologue by declaring that occupied Poland would be "depopulated and settled by Germans." Given this comment, it appears certain that Hitler had decided mass murder and the extensive resettlement of Poles and Jews would be the twin elements of his plans for the Germanization of Poland.

Most Wehrmacht officers had never heard of plans for the physical elimination of the educated and leading segments of Polish society before 22 August 1939. However, negotiations had been under way for several months between Gestapo headquarters, Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH; Army High Command), and the Abwehr for the deployment of SS and police forces behind German lines during the invasion. Called Einsatzgruppen (Operational Groups), these units would be composed primarily of men from the Gestapo, Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo; Security Police), Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), and Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police). The Einsatzgruppen would be responsible for security in areas of Poland conquered by the German army, but they were also charged with carrying out the liquidation of the Polish intelligentsia, clergy, nobility, and political leadership. One of the military officers intimately involved in arranging the use of Einsatzgruppen by the army was General Halder. Already in late April 1939, just weeks after Hitler informed Army High Command of his intention to attack the Poles, Halder notified his colleagues on the General Staff that "paramilitary [Nazi] Party formations” would undertake the occupation of Poland alongside the army.

The Order of the Death's Head by Heinz Höhne, c. 1967, Martin Seeker & Warburg Limited.

p. 335-6

Adolf Hitler had decided upon a solution of the "Polish question." In his eyes the Polish war was far more than the violent settlement of the Danzig and Polish corridor problems; now was the moment to fulfill the prophecy made years before in Mein Kampf "We begin where we left off 600 years ago. We put an end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the South and west of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East. We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of prewar times and pass over to the territorial policy of the future. " “In the path of this "territorial policy," however, stood a foreign people already cultivating the soil. But on this subject too Hitler knew his own mind as early as 1928; the Reich, he wrote, must "either sterilise these racially foreign elements to ensure that its own people's blood is not continually adulterated or . . . remove them altogether and make over to its own people the land thereby released.”

Translated into 1939 terms this meant that the Poles were to be reduced to the level of a nation of helots, deprived of their upper class, of their existence as a nation or a State, and of their culture. The proud Polish people were to become a nation of slave labour, condemned to serve one purpose only—to work for their German masters. From the 22 August conference in the Obersalzberg Germany's senior soldiers knew that Hitler was set upon the destruction of Poland. Field-Marshal von Bock recalls that Hitler said that "things would be done of which the German generals would not approve. He did not therefore wish to burden the army with the necessary liquidations but . . . would have them carried out by the SS.”

This was the reason for Hitler's summons to Himmler and this is why, for all time, the SS must remain indissolubly linked with the Polish tragedy. Hitler gave Himmler the task of forming "Einsatzgruppen" [Task forces] to follow the German troops as they advanced into Poland and liquidate Poland's upper class wherever it was to be found.

Hitler and Genghis Khan by Richard Breitman, c. 1990

Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 25 issue 2-3

Hitler obliquely acknowledged a source of information about Genghis Khan in one of his most famous—or infamous—speeches, to the commanders of the armed services on 22 August 1939.

Our strength is in our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children killed by his own will and with a gay heart. History [author's emphasis] sees only in him a great state builder . . .

So Hitler was familiar with at least one historian's judgment of Genghis Khan.

This quotation is found in only one of the three surviving accounts of this speech, the so-called Lochner version, which is not a pure rendition. Even so, there is good reason to believe that this section of the speech was authentic, since Hitler later referred to Genghis Khan a number of times. But he did not footnote his source. One possibility is some general account of world history and great empires, but Hitler elsewhere presented enough information about the Mongol leader to suggest that he had access to something more specific.

An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians? by Geoffrey Robertson, c. 2014

In the Notes section, note 2:

2. This translation, from the notes taken on 22 August 1939 by Wilhelm Canaris at Hitler's villa at Obersalzburg, appeared in Louis Lochner, What about Germany (Dodd Mead, 1942). A more ponderous translation is reproduced in Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, 3rd Series, 9 vols (HMSO 1949-1955), Vol 7 p 258, published by the UK Foreign Office, and can be found in 'German Foreign Policy Documents (Ser D, Vol 7 p 193)', published in 1961. There is no doubt that Hitler delivered a shocking and brutal speech on this day to his commanders, urging them to show no mercy during the impending invasion of Poland, and that he had made a similar remark about the success of the 'extermination' of the Armenians in a newspaper interview in 1931: see Edouard Calic, Unmasked: Two Confidential Interviews with Hitler (Chatto & Windus 1971), p 81.

Canaris, head of German Military Intelligence, loathed Hitler (who had him executed in 1945) and is thought to have passed notes to another anti-Hitler general (also later executed for treason) who sent them to Lochner via a trusted intermediary whom Lochner later identified as Hermann Mass (also executed), and Lochner passed them to the British embassy in Berlin a few days before the outbreak of war. Other notes of the speech exist which do not mention the comment about the Armenian genocide, but convey similar sentiments.

Heath Lowry disputes the authenticity of the quote (http://www.ataa.org/reference/hitler-lowry.html), suggesting that it was an embellishment by the anti-Hitler faction so that, when published in a 'doctored' version in the West, it 'would have portrayed Hitler in an extremely negative light to his allies (or potential allies) to the neutrals and to the rest of the world'. This is a poor argument – the speech in any version was brutal (Goering, who was there when it was delivered, admitted at Nuremberg that it was 'severe') and the comment about the Armenians would have added nothing to its distaste, other than to Armenians. Their fate was not yet a 'genocide' (the word had not been invented) and they were just a powerless Soviet state. (Ironically, the main 'potential ally' at the time was Turkey, which would, if anything, have been pleased by Hitler's comment.) Lowry relies mainly on the fact that the prosecution did not produce the Lochner version at Nuremberg, but the does not seem to understand the rules of evidence with which the prosecution had to comply. It could only introduce documents that were 'admissible' because it could show their origin and providence. Two other versions had been discovered at a German army base, and so they were admissible and were admitted.

The Chain leading to Lochner could not be proven (they had all been executed) so that the version he received was 'marked for identification' – i.e. was available to the court if it became relevant (it did not – Hitler's incitement to the brutality was all too clear). So the notion peddled by some denialists, that it was rejected by the court, is false. Lochner had no doubt at all about its authenticity, and the German government never challenged it after his book was published in 1942 and he was permitted to return to Berlin as a neutral US correspondent. The British embassy reported to London in 1939 that the Lochner version 'tallies in several details with information from other sources'. Further analysis of the quote is provided by Hannibal Travis ('Did the Armenian Genocide inspire Hitler?', Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2013, pp 27-35); and see K. B. Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenian Genocide (Zorayan Institute, 1985)

The speech is made on the 22nd, Lochner relays information to the British Embassy on the 25th

Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Volume 7, p. 257

https://archive.org/details/DocumentsOn ... lumeVi1939

No. 314

Letter from Sir G. Ogilvie-Forbes (Berlin) to Mr. Kirkpatrick
C [12341 1518]

British Embassy, Berlin, August 25, 1939

The Ambassador has seen the enclosed which was communicated to me by Lochner of the Associated Press of America. His informant is a Staff Officer who received it from one of the Generals present at the meeting who is alleged to have been horrified at what he heard and to have hoped for the curbing of a maniac. Lochner specially asked that his name should not be disclosed. It is interesting and tallies in several details with information from other sources.

. . . [he goes off-topic after that]

German Resistance against Hitler by Klemens von Klemperer, c. 1992

p. 132-3

On 22 August Hitler had called together the leaders of the Armed Forces on the Obersalzberg, treating them to an intemperate harangue in which he, the self-styled latter-day Genghis Khan, outlined his plans to crush Poland and to redistribute the world together with his soon-to-be soulmate, Stalin. Among the several transcriptions of Hitler's speech one found its way into the hands of Louis P. Lochner, Bureau Chief of the Associated Press in Berlin.

The question is, of course, from whom he got it and what he did with it. The person—referred to as 'my informant' in Lochner's book,—was Hermann Maass, a Social Democrat who in the Weimar years had been engaged in the co-ordination of German youth organizations and who was well known to Lochner as an ardent anti-Hitlerite active in the underground against the Nazis. Maass came a week before the assault on Poland—it must then have been on 24 August—'at the suggestion of Col. Gen. Beck' to turn over to the American the three-page typed manuscript of the Hitler diatribe. The text, Maass said, had been taken 'surreptitiously' by 'one of the high officers present'. The officer in question who was responsible for the particular version of the Hitler speech which reached Lochner was, as has been meanwhile established, none other than Admiral Canaris. Seated in a corner, Canaris at first merely took notes for transmission to Beck, but then, realizing that Hitler was saying outrageous things of enormous potential consequence, he shifted over to verbatim stenographic reporting of the latter part of the proceedings.

Lochner thereupon, on 25 August, offered the document to the American Charge d'Affaires, Alexander Kirk, asking him to take it into safe custody and of course to forward its contents to Washington, only to be told that it was 'dynamite' especially in view of the fact that at this date Hitler was still in the process of negotiating with the British Ambassador, and that he should take it away 'at once'. Kirk, in fact, kept reporting to the Secretary of State on Sir Nevile Henderson's continued efforts at pacification, but concerning the meeting at the Obersalzberg he remained silent. In contrast, his British colleague, Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, to whom Lochner proceeded to show the document, was on the job and reported the Fiihrer's speech of 22 August in detail to London. One way or the other, it would not have made much difference; the switches had been set by Hitler for war, and the British knew it all too well. But in the turmoil of the preparations for war another fact also got drowned out which was contained in the intelligence from Mr Lochner, namely that there were highly placed Germans who were willing to go to the limit of treason to oppose the manifest danger emanating from their own country.

In footnote 352 it is stated

p. 152:

[. . .] for a critical analysis of the various transcriptions of the Fuhrer's speech which actually was delivered in two installments, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, see Winfried Baumgart, 'Zur Ansprache Hitlers vor den Fuhrern der Wehrmacht am 22. August 1939: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung', VfZ, 16 (Apr. 1968), 120-49.

Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 2

p. 285-6

http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/ ... inals.html

In this presentation of condemning documents, concerning the initiation of war in September 1939, I must bring to the attention of the Tribunal a group of documents, concerning an address by Hitler to his chief military commanders, at Obersalzberg on 22 August 1939, just one week prior to the launching of the attack on Poland.

We have three of these documents, related and constituting a single group. The first one I do not intend to offer as evidence. The other two I shall offer.

The reason for that is this: The first of the three documents came into our possession through the medium of an American newspaperman and purported to be original minutes of this meeting at Obersalzberg, transmitted to the American newspaperman by some other person; and we had no proof of the actual delivery to the intermediary by the person who took the notes. That document, therefore, merely served to alert our Prosecution to see if it could find something better. Fortunately, we did get the other two documents, which indicate that Hitler on that day made two speeches, perhaps one in the morning, one in the. afternoon, as indicated by the original minutes, which we captured. By comparison of those two documents with the first document, we concluded that the first document was a slightly garbled merger of the two speeches.

On 22 August 1939 Hitler had called together at Obersalzberg the three Supreme Commanders of the three branches of the Armed Forces, as well as the commanding generals bearing the title Commanders-in-Chief (Oberbefehlshaber).

I have indicated how, upon discovering this first document, the Prosecution set out to find better evidence of what happened on this day. In this the Prosecution succeeded. In the files of the OKW at Flensburg, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces), there were uncovered . two speeches delivered by Hitler at Obersalzberg, on 22 August 1939. These are Documents Numbers 798-PS and 1014-PS, in our series of documents.

Lochner can be read here, it is in the public domain:

What about Germany?

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=m ... 2up;seq=22

[michael mills]

Szwilpo,

The two records of Hitler's speech of 22 August 1939 accepted into evidence by the IMT are not the only extant versions; there exist other records made by officers who attended the meeting. Those records are sufficiently similar to each other to make it clear that the version peddled by Lochner was a falsification in which statements were attributed to Hitler that he did not make, such as the references to Genghis Khan and the Armenians, or the order to kill Polish, men, women and children.

It does not matter how many publicists for various political causes make use of Lochner's falsified version of Hitler's speech; a falsification remains a falsification no matter how many times it is repeated.

The real issue is why those publicists continue to peddle Lochner's falsification, despite its having been revealed as such. In the case of its use by Geoffrey Robertson QC, his motivation is quite clear; he is using Hitler's alleged reference to the Armenians as a support for the case he is making on behalf of the Armenian political lobby in relation to their claim about the Ottoman treatment of Armenians during the First World War.

It is important to remember that Robertson is not an impartial historian but a barrister, ie a person who is hired to plead a case, which involves presenting material that supports the case while suppressing material that contradicts it. Thus, Robertson is not concerned about whether statements attributed to Hitler by Lochner are true, he is concerned only with whether they support the case he is making on behalf of the Armenians.

I know from personal experience that Robertson is in many ways a careerist who has misrepresented some aspects of his background and early life, such as coming from a humble background. I went to high school with him from 1959 to 1963, was mostly in the same class as he, and know the truth about his background, and therefore the extent to which he has invented his public persona. The upshot is that he is not averse to "massaging" the facts when it suits his purposes.

As to the genuine version of Hitler's speech, it is clear that his words "Vernichtung Polens, Beseitigung seiner lebendigen Kraft" denote the demolition of the structures of the Polish State, the institutions that make it function, ie its "vital force". In the Lochner version, that statement is falsified into a command to kill Polish men, women and children, something that Hitler never said in his speech on 22 August.

What Hitler meant is shown in a later portion of his speech, as recorded in the Nuremberg Document 1014-PS.

Erste Forderung: Vordringen bis zur Weichsel und bis zum Narew. Unsere technische Ueberlegenheit wird die Nerven der Polen zerbrechen. Jede sich neu bildende lebendige polnische Kraft ist sofort wieder zu vernichten. Fortgesetzte Zermuerbung.

Neue deutsche Grenze nach gesunden gesichtspunkten evtl Protektorat als Vorgelaende. Mil. Operationen nehmen auf diese Ueberlegungen keine Ruecksicht. Restlose Zertruemmerung Polens ist das militaerische Ziel. Schnelligkeit ist die Hauptsache. Verfolgung bis zur voelligen Vernichtung.


My translation:

First demand: Advance up to the Vistula and Narew (Rivers). Our technical superiority will smash the nerves of the Poles. Any newly forming living Polish force is to be destroyed immediately. Continued attrition.

New German border according to healthy points of view, possible protectorate as a buffer territory. Military operations take no account of these considerations. Complete demolition of Poland is the military goal. Speed is the main thing. Pursuit until complete destruction.

In the above section, Hitler is clearly distinguishing between political and military goals. The political goals are the creation of a new German border in the East, with the remainder of Poland possibly becoming a German puppet state. However, those political goals are not to stand in the way of the military goals, which are the destruction of Poland and of any "living force" that might form as resistance.

Thus, it is clear that "destruction" is a military aim, and must refer to the elimination of Polish military power. The same applies to the expression "living Polish force"; since its elimination is mentioned in the context of military goals, it obviously denotes any Polish entity that can offer armed resistance to the German advance.

It follows that when Hitler spoke of the "elimination of Poland's living force", he meant the crushing of any Polish resistance to the advancing German armed forces, not the massacre of Polish civilians, as claimed in the falsified Lochner version.