Why did Hitler and Stalin not meet in person?

[ljadw]

How much of the content of Mein Kampf was about the Drang nach Osten and the Lebensraum in the East ?
Only a negligible part .
Mein Kampf was a collection of speeches and writings from Hitler who talked and wrote about everything ( including syphilis ) for a living .
Hitler talked in 1925 about the Drang nach Osten,but never said when he would attack the USSR .Even without his talking in 1925 about an attack in the East, he still would have been forced to launch Barbarossa : there was no causal relation between Barbarossa and what he said 16 years before .
Barbarossa was possible only if there was no war with the West ( but still would fail ) ,but the submission/elimination of Poland and Romania were conditions sine qua non for Barbarossa ,and as an attack against these countries would result in war with the West, Hitler was faced by the quadrature of the circle .
About Britain : if Britain capitulated on May 22 1941, where would Hitler get the needed occupational forces ? The answer is : among the Barbarossa forces and Barbarossa would be cancelled .

[George L Gregory]

How much of the content of Mein Kampf was about the Drang nach Osten and the Lebensraum in the East ?
Only a negligible part .
Mein Kampf was a collection of speeches and writings from Hitler who talked and wrote about everything ( including syphilis ) for a living .
Hitler talked in 1925 about the Drang nach Osten,but never said when he would attack the USSR .Even without his talking in 1925 about an attack in the East, he still would have been forced to launch Barbarossa : there was no causal relation between Barbarossa and what he said 16 years before .
Barbarossa was possible only if there was no war with the West ( but still would fail ) ,but the submission/elimination of Poland and Romania were conditions sine qua non for Barbarossa ,and as an attack against these countries would result in war with the West, Hitler was faced by the quadrature of the circle .
About Britain : if Britain capitulated on May 22 1941, where would Hitler get the needed occupational forces ? The answer is : among the Barbarossa forces and Barbarossa would be cancelled .

There’s a whole chapter about it titled Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy.

Why don’t you go and read the book since you posted that Hitler’s vision of Lebensraum didn’t include the USSR?

[ljadw]

Looks like we are in danger of disappearing down yet another bizarre rabbit hole. This time debating whether a bumblevbee can fly - because according to someone's home-grown theories it can't but the damned thing is observed to do so. To me it's fairly straightforward - if someone says, and repeatedly, that their intention is to do something and then he does it, then it's a reasonable assumption that he meant to do so all along. In any event, it is not what we think that matters, it is what the two men in question, and their PR advisers, thought that is relevant. Both clearly did think war with the other was a strong possibility. I would suggest that is all that is necessary for the purpose of this discussion.

In 1925 Hitler was talking about a war in the East to colonize the East .
In 1941 he started a war in the East to force Britain to give up,thus to have peace in the West .
Two TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS .
Besides, between 1925 and 1941 Hitler's words and acts indicated that he had not the intention to start a war in the East .
After WW 2,the Soviets said that war with capitalist Europe was inevitable, but , since 1968 supplied capitalist Europe with oil and gas .If they had also started a war with capitalist Europe in 1988'the reason would not be what they had said after WW 2 .
And, if someone says that it s his intention to do something and he does it ,that thus not prove that it is his intention.Especially if the person in question is a politician .
The causes of acts in 2022 are not words from the past ,but events from 2022 .
People who want to start a war,do not say it in public .

[George L Gregory]

In 1925 Hitler was talking about a war in the East to colonize the East .

Quote Hitler stating that.

[ljadw]

How much of the content of Mein Kampf was about the Drang nach Osten and the Lebensraum in the East ?
Only a negligible part .
Mein Kampf was a collection of speeches and writings from Hitler who talked and wrote about everything ( including syphilis ) for a living .
Hitler talked in 1925 about the Drang nach Osten,but never said when he would attack the USSR .Even without his talking in 1925 about an attack in the East, he still would have been forced to launch Barbarossa : there was no causal relation between Barbarossa and what he said 16 years before .
Barbarossa was possible only if there was no war with the West ( but still would fail ) ,but the submission/elimination of Poland and Romania were conditions sine qua non for Barbarossa ,and as an attack against these countries would result in war with the West, Hitler was faced by the quadrature of the circle .
About Britain : if Britain capitulated on May 22 1941, where would Hitler get the needed occupational forces ? The answer is : among the Barbarossa forces and Barbarossa would be cancelled .

There’s a whole chapter about it titled Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy.

Why don’t you go and read the book since you posted that Hitler’s vision of Lebensraum didn’t include the USSR?

ONE chapter : there were 17 chapters . .
Besides : Hitler told Hans Frank that if he knew in 1925 that he would become German Chancellor, he never would have written the book .

[George L Gregory]

ONE chapter : there were 17 chapters . .
Besides : Hitler told Hans Frank that if he knew in 1925 that he would become German Chancellor, he never would have written the book .

Indeed, one whole chapter, not just a sentence or a paragraph, but one whole chapter.

Let us all know once you have actually read the book.

[gebhk]

Yep that really makes sense. Invade a huge country at the other end of Europe, starting a 2-front war in the process, that will really make the British decide to throw in the towel. Can't recaall of asny mention of the wails of despair in Britain when that happened, but maybe I am missing something. In any event, as I said, half baked theories about motivation are irrelevant here, what is relevant is what the two gentlemen in question thought. And there can be little doubt that they believed war with the other was a strong possibility.

[ljadw]

ONE chapter : there were 17 chapters . .
Besides : Hitler told Hans Frank that if he knew in 1925 that he would become German Chancellor, he never would have written the book .

Indeed, one whole chapter, not just a sentence or a paragraph, but one whole chapter.

Let us all know once you have actually read the book.

I read it more than once : it is all nonsense and pub talk .
Besides, if he was serious in 1925, he would have taken the needed measures for an attack after he became dictator ,but the truth is that when he ordered the attack, nothing was ready for the invasion, for the occupation, for the exploitation and for the colonization .

[George L Gregory]

I read it more than once : it is all nonsense and pub talk .
Besides, if he was serious in 1925, he would have taken the needed measures for an attack after he became dictator ,but the truth is that when he ordered the attack, nothing was ready for the invasion, for the occupation, for the exploitation and for the colonization .

Hitler wasn’t stupid, he was biding his time and when he first became the Chancellor of Germany he tried to convey a public image as the peacemaker who only wanted to annex lands that had previously been part of Germany.

[ljadw]

Hitler was not stupid, but what he was saying in Mein Kampf was nonsense (and he knew it ) ,it was only written pub talk .
Germany did not need Lebensraumin June 1941 or in an other year and if it had Lebensraum,it could do nothing with it . The Germans living in the East (East-Elbians ) were leaving for the west . There was a Drang nach West . But, in the pubs ,drunk ignorant people were still talking about a great German Empire that would extend to the Urals and even farther .
What Hitler wanted ( and what was realizable ) was the reconstructing of the German Empire with the borders of August 1914 . Every one in Germany wanted this and every one outside Germany knew this . It was only the continuation of the foreign policy of Weimar. And Britain agreed,as long it would not result in a war .
Hitler also dreamed about a German Empire in the East with unknown borders :maybe those of November 1918 ,or borders farther to the East .He had grown up with the stories of Karl May,but he was realistic enough to know that it would remain a dream ,as there would never be millions of colonists available .Maybe, later, after his death, communist Russia would collapse and meanwhile there would be millions of Germans willing to go to the East ,in the middle of nowhere .
That it was a dream is proved by the fact that when he ordered to start the preparations for Barbarossa, nothing had been done about the colonisation of his new empire .And that since 1933 . In July 1941 he said to Speer : I never will see my new empire ,and : if only the German people knew .
He did not attack in June 1941 because of what he had said in 1925 .Barbarossa was an improvisation and the reason was the catastrophic strategic situation of Germany .
And even without Mein Kampf, he would attack the Soviets .

[George L Gregory]

Hitler was not stupid, but what he was saying in Mein Kampf was nonsense (and he knew it ) ,it was only written pub talk .

According to whom? You?

It can’t have been that much “nonsense” considering the book outlines his main ideas which he never changed.

Germany did not need Lebensraumin June 1941 or in an other year and if it had Lebensraum,it could do nothing with it . The Germans living in the East (East-Elbians ) were leaving for the west . There was a Drang nach West . But, in the pubs ,drunk ignorant people were still talking about a great German Empire that would extend to the Urals and even farther .

You may want to check out what Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and other top Nazis were spouting about German expansion in the East. According to Himmler, the East was to only be populated by people of German blood.

What Hitler wanted ( and what was realizable ) was the reconstructing of the German Empire with the borders of August 1914 . Every one in Germany wanted this and every one outside Germany knew this .

Austria wasn’t part of the German Empire and that was annexed in 1938. The rest of Czechoslovakia that was invaded in March 1939 wasn’t part of the German Empire.

“Everyone” - that’s a bit of a generalisation.

Hitler also dreamed about a German Empire in the East with unknown borders :maybe those of November 1918 ,or borders farther to the East .He had grown up with the stories of Karl May,but he was realistic enough to know that it would remain a dream ,as there would never be millions of colonists available .Maybe, later, after his death, communist Russia would collapse and meanwhile there would be millions of Germans willing to go to the East ,in the middle of nowhere .
That it was a dream is proved by the fact that when he ordered to start the preparations for Barbarossa, nothing had been done about the colonisation of his new empire .And that since 1933 . In July 1941 he said to Speer : I never will see my new empire ,and : if only the German people knew .
He did not attack in June 1941 because of what he had said in 1925 .Barbarossa was an improvisation and the reason was the catastrophic strategic situation of Germany .
And even without Mein Kampf, he would attack the Soviets .

The idea of extending Germany’s borders way into the East was what many Germans thought should have been the case, e.g.:

Increase of our peasant population is the only effective defense against the influx of the Slav working-class masses from the East. As six hundred years ago, the German peasant's destiny must be to preserve and increase the German people's patrimony in their holy mother earth battle against the Slav race.

- Heinrich Himmler

You claim to have read Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, but you ignore the fact that he dedicated a whole chapter to German Lebensraum. Since you ignored the other quote, here is another one:

The foreign policy of a folkish state is charged with guaranteeing the existence on this planet of the race embraced by the State, by establishing between the number and growth of the population, on the one hand, and the size and value of the soil and territory, on the other hand, a viable, natural relationship … Only a sufficiently extensive area on this globe guarantees a nation freedom of existence.

In a speech in 1928, he said:

As a people without power, the German people will, according to every indication, completely lose its position within the not-too-distant future. The German people will disappear from the earth; in fact, it will perish. This fateful question is the point of departure of our National Socialist doctrine, our Weltanschauung, and out teaching.

What is the relationship which the population has to the soil on which it lives? Can the soil on which a people lives support the entire population for the time being, and is it sufficient to allow for a further increase in the population?

Germany is the Fatherland of 62,000,000 people who live together on an area which is 450,000 kilometers square. This is a ridiculous figure when one considers the size of the other nations in the world today.

The only thing left for a people to do, then, is to attempt an adjustment in the relationship between the area on which it lives, that is its reservoir of subsistence, and its population … even if it must be done by war. This is the natural way which Providence has prescribed. Providence has given the world unto man, not so that he should degenerate into Pacifism, but so that in the eternal struggle with one another the strength and vigor of man should be preserved and so that some day the greatest freedom might belong to the most vigorous and most mighty people.

Shortly after Operation Barbarossa, in July 1941, he said:

Twice in history our people has drawn the sword to advantage. The first time, when our people colonized the south and east marches with German peasants, and second, when they, here in the north, east of the Elbe, gained the territory which has been the most precious treasure of our people. If we had not promoted these great colonies and shed the blood which gained them, what would be the situation today? This colonization returned a high rate of interest. The sword of those days has become the plow of today, and even today this plow assures a great part of our people its daily bread. If ever in the future of Germany the sword must be drawn … then it must be drawn in the service of the plow – so that some day the time will come when the sword will again become the plow.

With regard to the borders:

The Crimea must be cleared of all [racially] foreign peoples, as must the parts of Galicia which formerly belonged to the Austrian Empire. …We must make a Garden of Eden out of the newly won eastern territories; this is important for our future existence; [overseas] colonies play a subordinate role. … All of the Baltic lands must be annexed to the Reich. Similarly, the Crimea, with a significant adjoining region (the region north of the Crimea) must become Reich territory. The annexed territory must be as large as possible. … The Reich must also annex the Volga Colony and the area around Baku.

As well as:

The [eastern] region must lose the character of the Asiatic steppe, it must be Europeanized! It is for this purpose that we are building great highways to the southern tip of the Crime and to the Caucasus. German cities established along these roadways will stretch like a string of pearls, and around these will be German settlements. The two or three million people we need [for this program] can be found quicker than we think. We will take them from Germany, the Scandinavian lands, Western Europe, and America. Chances are that I will not live to see this, but in twenty years twenty million people will inhabit this territory. In three hundred years we will have a blossoming parkland of extraordinary beauty!

As for the people indigenous to the area, we will be sure to select those [of importance]. We will remove the destructive Jews entirely. … We will not enter Russian cities, they must die out completely.

There is only one task: Germanization through the introduction of Germans [to the area] and to treat the original inhabitants like Indians. … I intend to stay this course with ice-cold determination. I feel myself to be the executor of the will of History. What people think of me at present is all of no consequence. Never have I heard a German who has bread to eat express concern that the ground where the grain was grown had to be conquered by the sword. We eat Canadian wheat and never think of the Indians.

Himmler made it very clear:

This war makes no sense if afterwards … Bohemia and Moravia, the German eastern districts of southeast Prussia, Danzig-West Prussia, the Warthegau, Upper Silesia, the General Government, the Ostland (inc. the Baltic States and Belorussia), the Crimea, and Ingermanland aren’t completely settled with Germans within twenty years.

This is the task that we have set out to accomplish, for as long as we still live, once peace is established … the land is Germanized when the populace is German.

Now I’m not sure why it is that every thread you post on you decide to digress and turn it into one of your mish-mash of comments back and forth, but if you want to discuss Hitler’s Lebensraum thoughts then feel free to create a new thread.

[ljadw]

Hitler was not stupid, but what he was saying in Mein Kampf was nonsense (and he knew it ) ,it was only written pub talk .

According to whom? You?

It can’t have been that much “nonsense” considering the book outlines his main ideas which he never changed.

Germany did not need Lebensraumin June 1941 or in an other year and if it had Lebensraum,it could do nothing with it . The Germans living in the East (East-Elbians ) were leaving for the west . There was a Drang nach West . But, in the pubs ,drunk ignorant people were still talking about a great German Empire that would extend to the Urals and even farther .

You may want to check out what Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and other top Nazis were spouting about German expansion in the East. According to Himmler, the East was to only be populated by people of German blood.

What Hitler wanted ( and what was realizable ) was the reconstructing of the German Empire with the borders of August 1914 . Every one in Germany wanted this and every one outside Germany knew this .

Austria wasn’t part of the German Empire and that was annexed in 1938. The rest of Czechoslovakia that was invaded in March 1939 wasn’t part of the German Empire.

“Everyone” - that’s a bit of a generalisation.

Hitler also dreamed about a German Empire in the East with unknown borders :maybe those of November 1918 ,or borders farther to the East .He had grown up with the stories of Karl May,but he was realistic enough to know that it would remain a dream ,as there would never be millions of colonists available .Maybe, later, after his death, communist Russia would collapse and meanwhile there would be millions of Germans willing to go to the East ,in the middle of nowhere .
That it was a dream is proved by the fact that when he ordered to start the preparations for Barbarossa, nothing had been done about the colonisation of his new empire .And that since 1933 . In July 1941 he said to Speer : I never will see my new empire ,and : if only the German people knew .
He did not attack in June 1941 because of what he had said in 1925 .Barbarossa was an improvisation and the reason was the catastrophic strategic situation of Germany .
And even without Mein Kampf, he would attack the Soviets .

The idea of extending Germany’s borders way into the East was what many Germans thought should have been the case, e.g.:

Increase of our peasant population is the only effective defense against the influx of the Slav working-class masses from the East. As six hundred years ago, the German peasant's destiny must be to preserve and increase the German people's patrimony in their holy mother earth battle against the Slav race.

- Heinrich Himmler

You claim to have read Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, but you ignore the fact that he dedicated a whole chapter to German Lebensraum. Since you ignored the other quote, here is another one:

The foreign policy of a folkish state is charged with guaranteeing the existence on this planet of the race embraced by the State, by establishing between the number and growth of the population, on the one hand, and the size and value of the soil and territory, on the other hand, a viable, natural relationship … Only a sufficiently extensive area on this globe guarantees a nation freedom of existence.

In a speech in 1928, he said:

As a people without power, the German people will, according to every indication, completely lose its position within the not-too-distant future. The German people will disappear from the earth; in fact, it will perish. This fateful question is the point of departure of our National Socialist doctrine, our Weltanschauung, and out teaching.

What is the relationship which the population has to the soil on which it lives? Can the soil on which a people lives support the entire population for the time being, and is it sufficient to allow for a further increase in the population?

Germany is the Fatherland of 62,000,000 people who live together on an area which is 450,000 kilometers square. This is a ridiculous figure when one considers the size of the other nations in the world today.

The only thing left for a people to do, then, is to attempt an adjustment in the relationship between the area on which it lives, that is its reservoir of subsistence, and its population … even if it must be done by war. This is the natural way which Providence has prescribed. Providence has given the world unto man, not so that he should degenerate into Pacifism, but so that in the eternal struggle with one another the strength and vigor of man should be preserved and so that some day the greatest freedom might belong to the most vigorous and most mighty people.

Shortly after Operation Barbarossa, in July 1941, he said:

Twice in history our people has drawn the sword to advantage. The first time, when our people colonized the south and east marches with German peasants, and second, when they, here in the north, east of the Elbe, gained the territory which has been the most precious treasure of our people. If we had not promoted these great colonies and shed the blood which gained them, what would be the situation today? This colonization returned a high rate of interest. The sword of those days has become the plow of today, and even today this plow assures a great part of our people its daily bread. If ever in the future of Germany the sword must be drawn … then it must be drawn in the service of the plow – so that some day the time will come when the sword will again become the plow.

With regard to the borders:

The Crimea must be cleared of all [racially] foreign peoples, as must the parts of Galicia which formerly belonged to the Austrian Empire. …We must make a Garden of Eden out of the newly won eastern territories; this is important for our future existence; [overseas] colonies play a subordinate role. … All of the Baltic lands must be annexed to the Reich. Similarly, the Crimea, with a significant adjoining region (the region north of the Crimea) must become Reich territory. The annexed territory must be as large as possible. … The Reich must also annex the Volga Colony and the area around Baku.

As well as:

The [eastern] region must lose the character of the Asiatic steppe, it must be Europeanized! It is for this purpose that we are building great highways to the southern tip of the Crime and to the Caucasus. German cities established along these roadways will stretch like a string of pearls, and around these will be German settlements. The two or three million people we need [for this program] can be found quicker than we think. We will take them from Germany, the Scandinavian lands, Western Europe, and America. Chances are that I will not live to see this, but in twenty years twenty million people will inhabit this territory. In three hundred years we will have a blossoming parkland of extraordinary beauty!

As for the people indigenous to the area, we will be sure to select those [of importance]. We will remove the destructive Jews entirely. … We will not enter Russian cities, they must die out completely.

There is only one task: Germanization through the introduction of Germans [to the area] and to treat the original inhabitants like Indians. … I intend to stay this course with ice-cold determination. I feel myself to be the executor of the will of History. What people think of me at present is all of no consequence. Never have I heard a German who has bread to eat express concern that the ground where the grain was grown had to be conquered by the sword. We eat Canadian wheat and never think of the Indians.

Himmler made it very clear:

This war makes no sense if afterwards … Bohemia and Moravia, the German eastern districts of southeast Prussia, Danzig-West Prussia, the Warthegau, Upper Silesia, the General Government, the Ostland (inc. the Baltic States and Belorussia), the Crimea, and Ingermanland aren’t completely settled with Germans within twenty years.

This is the task that we have set out to accomplish, for as long as we still live, once peace is established … the land is Germanized when the populace is German.

Now I’m not sure why it is that every thread you post on you decide to digress and turn it into one of your mish-mash of comments back and forth, but if you want to discuss Hitler’s Lebensraum thoughts then feel free to create a new thread.

You continue to discuss about what Hitler said and to claim that what he did was determined by what he said in 1925 .
And what he said in 1925 was nonsense,because it could not be done : Germany had not the manpower to conquer Russia, to occupy Russia, to colonize Russia and to exploit Russia .

[ljadw]

Even if Hitler had not said this in 1925 , he still would have attacked the USSR in 1941. There is no causal relation between what he said in Mein Kampf and the Barbarossa order.
Mein Kampf was not the blueprint of Germany's foreign policy after 1933 .

Of course there is! He never changed his mind when it came to his thoughts about gaining living space and repeatedly in the 1920s and 1930s said that it was in the East.

Don’t put words into my mouth. I never said it was the “blueprint”, but anyone who wanted to see what his desires were could have easily read the book. His views never changed from when he started his political career in the late 1910s to when he died in 1945.

That his views did not change since between `1918 and 1945 ( which is very questionable ) is irrelevant,as his views did not determine his foreign policy ,and this is so for most politicians .
His foreign policy was determined by other factors ,on which he had no influence .

[ljadw]

And about digressing : i replied on post 4 ( by gebhk ) who said that Hitler had since long made the decision to attack the USSR .
There is NO proof for it and everything is indicating the opposite .
There is NO proof that in December 1940 Hitler decided to attack the SU,because of what he had said in 1925 .

[ljadw]

And, I will give the opinion of an historian whose authority is much greater than yours or mine : Christian Gerlach .
In Forum Barbarossa : Beitrag 4-2001
Operative Planungen der Wehrmacht für den Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion
he writes :
''Aus Sicht Hitlers und der deutschen Führung stellten die Vernichtung der Sowietunion und des Weltkommunismus zwar langjhärige.grundlegende politische Ziele dar .Auf lange Sicht hielt man daher einen Krieg im Osten für unvermeidlich .Doch nicht deswegen fiel 1940 der Entschluss zum Angriff . ....''
This means that both, the hostility to the USSR and international communism and the decision to attack the USSR were NOT related .