Did Germany have its ideal borders in August 1939?

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Futurist
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Did Germany have its ideal borders in August 1939?

#1

Post by Futurist » 18 Mar 2018, 03:58

I am curious as to what your thoughts on this are--did Germany have its ideal borders in August 1939? :

http://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/images/Map_1_eng ... h-edit.jpg

Image

I mean, I would think that any rational (and non-sectarian) nationalist German leader would have been overjoyed to have German borders such as these. After all, almost all German-majority areas--including those in the former Austria-Hungary--are already a part of Germany and Germany also controls heavily industrialized Czechia as a bonus. I mean, the Polish Corridor could be a problem, but if Germany would have continued to have friendly relations with Poland, it might have been able to get transit rights across the Polish Corridor. As for Danzig, if the people there want to be a part of Germany that badly, they could move to Germany (and the same also applies to the people of South Tyrol).

Frankly, when I look at the map above, it shows just how much of a blunder Hitler made when he got Germany into World War II. (Of course, Hitler also committed other blunders even before World War II, such as treating German Jews badly and thus causing most of them to emigrate. He could have toned down his anti-Semitism and made good use of German Jews' talents, but he was unfortunately blinded by his anti-Semitism. ) I mean, almost all ethnic Germans in Europe were already a part of the Greater German Reich and Germany even had Czechia as a bonus which it could use for Lebensraum (specifically, the modern, urban-style Lebensraum--not the outdated, rural, agrarian Lebensraum of Nazi fantasies). Indeed, in comparison to what Germany already had in August 1939, Danzig and South Tyrol were chump change.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Do you also think that Germany had its ideal borders in August 1939?

ShadowWave
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Re: Did Germany have its ideal borders in August 1939?

#2

Post by ShadowWave » 18 Jun 2018, 18:20

Depends. Seems the Nazis wanted 100% self sufficiency, and felt those borders were inadequate should Germany become blockaded again. Hitler apparently felt they needed the Ukraine for food, because he was afraid Germany could be starved as in WWI. I also remember reading he wanted the Crimea for rubber.


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sitalkes
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Re: Did Germany have its ideal borders in August 1939?

#3

Post by sitalkes » 19 Jun 2018, 02:25

They also wanted the German speaking part of Switzerland but many people say that too much had been spent on non-productive things (i.e. armaments) and the economy was close to collapse with the government unable to finance its debt and short on foreign exchange - in short, going to war was the only possible way for the Nazi government to survive, even if it wasn't led by a megalomaniac dictator

ManfredV
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Re: Did Germany have its ideal borders in August 1939?

#4

Post by ManfredV » 19 Jun 2018, 19:37

Germany never included all german speaking areas, but it always had region with minorities or even majorities (f.e. Westpreußen, Posen, Nothern Schleswig) of other language people. In Middle Europe we have/had regions of mixed populations and not clear frontier lines.
Neither HRE, German Confederation nor Deutsches Reich were only german speaking states. History of middle european area and esp. Germany was influenced by fortune and other things. What if Karl der Große had a capable son? Lothar line of Carolingians survived? Henry V and Maud of England had sons? What about Switzerland an its four languages/nations? And so on...
What are "German ideal borders"?

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