Greater Germanic Reich
Encyclopedia
The Greater Germanic Reich (German
: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (German
: Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation) is the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany
tried to establish in Europe during World War II
. Albert Speer
stated in his memoirs
that Hitler also referred to the envisioned state as the Teutonic
Reich of the German Nation, although it is unclear whether Speer was using the now seldom used "Teutonic
" as an English synonym
for "Germanic". Hitler also mentions a future Germanic State of the German Nation in Mein Kampf.
This pan-Germanic
empire was expected to assimilate
practically all of Germanic Europe
into an enormously expanded Reich
. Territorially speaking, this encompassed the already-enlarged German Reich itself (consisting of pre-1938 Germany proper, Austria
, Bohemia
, Moravia
, Alsace-Lorraine
, Eupen-Malmedy
, Memel
, Lower Styria
, Upper Carniola
, Southern Carinthia and German-occupied Poland), the Netherlands
, the Flemish
part of Belgium
, Luxembourg
, Denmark
, Norway
, Sweden
, Iceland
, at least the German-speaking parts of Switzerland
, and Liechtenstein
.
The most notable exception was the predominantly Anglo-Saxon
United Kingdom
, which was not projected as having to be reduced to a German province but to instead become an allied
sea-faring partner of the Germans.
In addition, its western frontiers with France were to be reverted to those of the earlier Holy Roman Empire
, which would have meant the complete annexation of all of Wallonia, French Switzerland, and large areas of northern and eastern France. When Germany's war-time ally Fascist Italy
withdrew from the conflict in 1943 even sizable territories of Northern Italy
were slated for direct inclusion. Massive territorial expansion into Eastern Europe
under German leadership was also to take place, in which the peoples of the Germanic countries were to be "encouraged" as settlers (see Lebensraum
).
of Europe as belonging to a racially superior Nordic
subset of the larger Aryan race
, who were regarded as the only true culture-bearers of civilized society. These peoples were viewed as either "true Germanic peoples" which had "lost their sense of racial pride", or as close racial relatives of the Germans. German dictator Adolf Hitler
also believed that the Ancient Greeks and Romans
were the racial ancestors of the Germans, and the first torchbearers of "Nordic-Greek" art and culture. He particularly expressed his admiration for Ancient Sparta, declaring it to have been the purest racial state:
Furthermore, Hitler's concept of "Germanic" did not simply refer to an ethnic, cultural
, or linguistic group, but also to a distinctly biological one
, the superior "Germanic blood" that he wanted to salvage from the control of the enemies of the Aryan race. He stated that Germany possessed more of these "Germanic elements" than any other country in the world, which he estimated as "four fifths of our people".
According to the Nazis, in addition to the Germanic peoples, individuals of seemingly non-Germanic nationality such as French
, Polish, Walloon
, Czech
and so on might actually possess valuable Germanic blood, especially if they were of aristocratic
or peasant
stock. In order to "recover" these "missing" Germanic elements, they had to be made conscious of their Germanic ancestry through the process of Germanization (the term used by the Nazis for this process was Umvolkung, "restoration to the race"). If the "recovery" was impossible, these individuals had to be destroyed to deny the enemy of using their superior blood against the Aryan race. An example of this type of Nazi Germanization is the kidnapping of "racially valuable" Eastern European children.
On the very first page of Mein Kampf
Hitler openly declared his belief that "common blood belongs in a common Reich", elucidating the notion that the innate quality of race (as the Nazi movement perceived it) should hold precedence over "artificial" concepts such as national identity
(including regional German identities such as Prussia
n and Bavaria
n) as the deciding factor for which people were 'worthy' of being assimilated into a Greater German racial state
(Ein Volk, Ein Reich
, Ein Führer
). Part of the strategic methods which Hitler chose to ensure the present and future supremacy of the Aryan race (which was, according to Hitler, "gradually approaching extinction") was to do away with what he described as the "small state rubbish" (kleinstaatengerümpel, see also kleinstaaterei
) in Europe in order to unite all these Nordic countries into one unified racial community. From 1921 onward he advocated the creation of a "Germanic Reich of the German Nation".
(of the German Nation) that existed in mediaeval
times, known as the First Reich in Nazi historiography. Different aspects of the legacy of this mediaeval empire in German history were both celebrated and derided by the Nazi government. The Frankish Emperor
Charlemagne
was admired by Hitler for his "cultural creativity", his powers of organization, and his renunciation of the rights of the individual. He criticized the Holy Roman Emperors however for not pursuing an Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy
) resembling his own, while being politically focused exclusively on the south
. After the 1939 German occupation of Bohemia
, Hitler declared that the HRE had been "resurrected", although he secretly maintained his own empire to be better than the old "Roman" one. Unlike the "uncomfortably internationalist
Catholic empire of Barbarossa
", the Germanic Reich of the German Nation would be racist and nationalist. Rather than a return to the values of the Middle Ages, its establishment was to be "a push forward
to a new golden age
, in which the best aspects of the past would be combined with modern racist and nationalist thinking".
The historical borders of the Holy Empire were also used as grounds for territorial revisionism by the Nazis, laying claim to modern territories and states that were once part of it. Even before the war, Hitler had dreamed of reversing the Peace of Westphalia
, which had given the territories of the Empire almost complete sovereignty. On November 17, 1939, Reich Minister of Propaganda
Joseph Goebbels
wrote in his diary
that the "total liquidation" of this historic treaty was the "great goal" of the Nazi regime, and that since it had been signed in Münster
, it would also be officially repealed in the same city.
themselves in an anticipated post-war racio-political order, the Nazis did not however consider granting the subject populations of these countries any national rights of their own. The other Germanic countries were seen as mere extensions of Germany rather than individual units in any way, and the Germans were unequivocably intended to remain the empire's "most powerful source of strength, from both an ideological as well as military standpoint". Even Heinrich Himmler
, who among the senior Nazis most staunchly supported the concept, could not shake off the idea of a hierarchical distinction between German Volk and Germanic Völker. The SS
's official newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps
, never succeeded in reconciling the contradiction between Germanic 'brotherhood' and German superiority. Members of Nazi-type parties in Germanic countries were also forbidden to attend public meetings of the Nazi Party when they visited Germany. After the Battle of Stalingrad
this ban was lifted, but only if the attendees made prior notice of their arrival so that the events' speakers could be warned in advance not to make disparaging remarks about the country of origin.
Although Hitler himself and Himmler's SS advocated for a pan-Germanic Empire, the objective was not universally held in the Nazi regime. Goebbels and the Reich Foreign Ministry under Joachim von Ribbentrop
inclined more towards an idea of a continental bloc under German rule, as represented by the Anti-Comintern Pact
and the earlier Mitteleuropa
concept.
interpretation of the 'Germanic mission'. When Himmler denounced Charlemagne
in a speech as "the butcher of the Saxons
", Hitler stated that this was not a 'historical crime' but in fact a good thing, for the subjugation of Widukind
had brought Western culture
into what eventually became Germany
. He also disapproved of the pseudoarchaeological projects which Himmler organized through his Ahnenerbe
organization, such as excavations of pre-historic Germanic sites:
In an attempt to eventually supplant Christianity
with a new religion more amenable to Nazi ideology
Himmler, together with Alfred Rosenberg
, sought to replace it with Germanic paganism
, such as renewed worship of the deity Wōden
. For this purpose they had ordered the construction of sites for the worship of Germanic cults in order to exchange Christian rituals for 'Nordic' consecration
ceremonies, which included different marriage
and burial
rites. In Heinrich Heims' Adolf Hitler, Monologe im FHQ 1941-1944 (several editions, here Orbis Verlag, 2000), Hitler is quoted as having said on 14 October 1941: "It seems to be inexpressibly stupid to allow a revival of the cult of Odin/Wotan. Our old mythology of the gods was defunct, and incapable of revival, when Christianity came...the whole world of antiquity either followed philosophical systems
on the one hand, or worshipped the gods
. But in modern times it is undesirable that all humanity should make such a fool of itself."
. Several days before the event Hitler took Albert Speer
aside when both were on their way to the former's Munich apartment with an entourage, and declared to him that "We will create a great empire. All the Germanic peoples will be included in it. It will begin in Norway and extend to northern Italy
. I myself must carry this out. If only I keep my health!" On April 9, 1940, as Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in Operation Weserübung
, Hitler announced the establishment of the Germanic Reich:
The establishment of the empire was to follow the model of the Austria
n Anschluss
of 1938, just carried out on a greater scale. Goebbels emphasized in April 1940 that the annexed Germanic countries would have to undergo a similar "national revolution" as Germany herself did after the Machtergreifung
, with an enforced rapid social and political "co-ordination" in accordance with Nazi principles and ideology (Gleichschaltung
).
The ultimate goal of the Gleichschaltung policy pursued in these parts of occupied Europe was to destroy the very concepts of individual states and nationalities, just as the concept of a separate Austrian state and national identity
was repressed after the Anschluss through the establishment of new state and party districts
. The new empire was to no longer be a nation-state
of the type that had emerged in the 19th century, but instead a "racially pure community". It is for this reason that the Nazi occupiers had no interest in transferring real power to the various far-right nationalistic movements present in the occupied countries (such as Nasjonal Samling, the NSB
, etc.) except for temporary reasons of Realpolitik
, and instead actively supported radical collaborators
who favored pan-Germanic unity (i.e. total integration to Germany) over provincial nationalism (for example DeVlag
). Unlike Austria and the Sudetenland
however, the process was to take considerably longer. Eventually these nationalities were to be merged with the Germans into a single ruling race, but Hitler stated that this prospect lay "a hundred or so years" in the future. During this interim period it was intended that the 'New Europe' would by run by Germans alone. According to Speer, while Himmler intended to eventually Germanize these peoples completely, Hitler intended not to "infringe on their individuality", so that in the future they would "add to the diversity and dynamism" of his empire. The German language
would be its Lingua Franca
however, likening it to the status of English
in the British Commonwealth.
A primary agent used in stifling the local extreme nationalist elements was the Germanic SS, which initially merely consisted of local respective branches of the Allgemeine-SS in Belgium
, Netherlands
and Norway
. These groups were at first under the authority of their respective pro-Nazi national commanders (Quisling
, Mussert
and De Clercq
), and were intended to function within their own national territories only. During the course of 1942, however, the Germanic SS was further transformed into a tool used by Himmler against the influence of the less extreme collaborating parties and their SA
-style organizations, such as the Hird in Norway and the Weerbaarheidsafdeling in the Netherlands. In the post-war Germanic Empire, these men were to form the new leadership cadre of their respective national territories. To emphasize their pan-Germanic ideology, the Norges SS was now renamed the Germanske SS Norge, the Nederlandsche SS the Germaansche SS in Nederland and the Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen the Germaansche SS in Vlaanderen. The men of these groups no longer swore allegiance to their respective national leaders, but to the germanischer Führer ("Germanic Führer
"), Adolf Hitler:
This title was assumed by Hitler on 23 June 1941, at the suggestion of Himmler. On 12 December 1941 the Dutch fascist Anton Mussert
also addressed him in this fashion when he proclaimed his allegiance to Hitler during a visit to the Reich Chancellery
in Berlin. He had wanted to address Hitler as Führer aller Germanen ("Führer of all Germanics"), but Hitler personally decreed the former style. Historian Loe de Jong
speculates on the difference between the two: Führer aller Germanen implied a position separate from Hitler's role as Führer und Reichskanzler des Grossdeutschen Reiches ("Führer and Reich Chancellor
of the Greater German Reich"), while germanischer Führer served more as an attribute of that main function. As late as 1944 occasional propaganda publications continued to refer to him by this unofficial title as well however. Mussert held that Hitler was predistened to become the Führer of Germanics because of his congruous personal history: Hitler originally was a Austrian national, who enlisted in the Bavarian army
and lost his Austrian citizenship. He thus remained stateless
for seven years, during which, according to Mussert, he was "the Germanic leader and nothing else".
The Swastika Flag was to be used as a symbol to represent not only the National Socialist movement, but also the unity of the Nordic-Germanic peoples into a single state. Using the Unification of Germany
as an analogy, it was held that since the flag of the Kingdom of Prussia
could not have been imposed on the other German states
that would together form the new German Empire of 1871, so too could the German national flag (referring to the Imperial tricolour, as the Nazis had banned the black-red-gold version) not be imposed on the other Germanic countries of Europe.
Hitler had long intended to architecturally reconstruct
the German capital Berlin
into a new imperial metropolis, which he decided in 1942 to rename Germania upon its scheduled completion in 1950. The name was specifically chosen to make it the clear central point of the envisioned Germanic empire, and to re-enforce the notion of a united Germanic-Nordic state upon the Germanic peoples of Europe.
than for the Nordic states, due in part because of their closer geographical proximity as well as cultural and ethnic ties to Germany. Luxembourg
and Belgium
were both formally annexed into the Nazi state during World War II, in 1942 and 1944 respectively, the latter as the new Reichsgau
e of Flandern
and Wallonien
(the proposed third one, Brabant
, was not implemented in this arrangement) and a Brussels District
. On April 5 1942, while having dinner with an entourage including Heinrich Himmler, Hitler declared his intention that the Low Countries would be included whole into the Reich, at which point the Greater German Reich would be reformed into the Germanic Reich (simply "the Reich" in common parlance) to signify this change.
In October 1940 Hitler disclosed to Benito Mussolini
that he intended to leave the Netherlands
semi-independent because he wanted that country to retain its overseas colonial empire after the war. This factor was removed after the Japanese took over the Netherlands East Indies, the primary component of that domain. The resulting German plans for the Netherlands suggested its transformation into a Gau Westland, which would eventually be further broken-up into five new Gaue or gewesten (historical Dutch term for a type of sub-national polity
). Fritz Schmidt
, a high Nazi official in the occupied Netherlands who hoped to become the Gauleiter
of this new province on Germany's western periphery stated that it could even be called Gau Holland, as long as the Wilhelmus
(the Dutch national anthem
) and similar patriotic symbols were to be forbidden. Rotterdam
, which had actually been largely destroyed
in the course of the 1940 invasion
was to be rebuilt as the most important port-city in the "Germanic area" due to its situation at the mouth of the Rhine river.
Himmler's personal masseur Felix Kersten
claimed that the former even contemplated resettling the entire Dutch population
, some 8 million people in total at the time, to agricultural lands in the Vistula
and Bug River
valleys of German-occupied Poland as the most efficient way of facilitating their immediate Germanization. In this eventuality he is alleged to have further hoped to establish an SS Province of Holland in vacated Dutch territory, and to distribute all confiscated Dutch property and real estate among reliable SS-men. However this claim was shown to be a myth by Loe de Jong
in his book Two Legends of the Third Reich.
The position in the future empire of the Frisians
, another Germanic people, was discussed on 5 April 1942 in one of Hitler’s many wartime dinner-conversations
. Himmler commented that there was ostensibly no real sense of community between the different indigenous ethnic groups in the Netherlands. He then stated that the Dutch Frisians
in particular seemed to hold no affection for being part of a nation-state
based on the Dutch national identity
, and felt a much greater sense of kinship with their German Frisian brethren across the Ems River in East Frisia
, an observation Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
agreed with based on his own experiences. Hitler determined that the best course of action in that case would be to unite the two Frisian regions on both sides of the border into a single province, and would at a later point in time further discuss the topic with Arthur Seyss-Inquart
, the governor
of the German regime
in the Netherlands. By late May of that year these discussions were apparently concluded, as on the 29th he pledged that he would not allow the West-Frisians to remain part of Holland, and that since they were "part of the exact same race as the people of East Frisia" had to be joined into one province.
Hitler considered Wallonia to be "in reality German lands" (although Himmler initially protested against the inclusion of 'racially inferior' French
and Walloon volunteers in the Waffen-SS
) which were gradually detached from the Germanic territories
by the French Romanization
of the Walloons
, and that Germany thus had "every right" to take these back. Before the decision was made to include Wallonia in its entirety, several smaller areas straddling the traditional Germanic
-Romance
language border in Western Europe were already considered for inclusion. These included the small Lëtzebuergesh-speaking area centred around Arlon, as well as the Low Dietsch
-speaking region west of Eupen
(the so-called Platdietse Streek) around the city of Limbourg
, historical capital of the Duchy of Limburg
.
, Hitler vowed that he would never again leave Norway, and favored annexing Denmark
as a German province even more due to its small size and relative closeness to Germany. Himmler's hopes were an expansion of the project so that Iceland
would also be included among the group of Germanic countries which would have to be gradually incorporated into the Reich. He was also among the group of more esoteric Nazis who believed either Iceland or Greenland
to be the mystical land of Thule
, a purported original homeland of the ancient Aryan race
. From a military point of view, the Kriegsmarine command hoped to see the Spitsbergen
, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Isles and possibly the Shetland Isles (which were also claimed by the Quisling regime
) under its domination to guarantee German naval access to the mid-Atlantic
.
The erection of a new German metropolis (with 300.000 inhabitants) called Nordstern ("North Star") next to the Norwegian city of Trondheim
was prepared for, to be accompanied by a major naval base that was expected to become Germany's largest one in all of Europe. This city was to be connected to Germany proper by an Autobahn across the Little
and Great Belt
s and house an art museum for the northern part of the Germanic empire, housing "only works of German art
ists."
Sweden
's future subordination into the Nazis' 'New Order' was considered by the regime. Himmler stated that the Swedes were the "epitome of the Nordic spirit and the Nordic man", and looked forward to incorporating central and southern Sweden to the Germanic Empire. Northern Sweden, with its Finnish minority
, along with the Norwegian port of Kirkenes
Himmler offered to Finland
, although this suggestion was rejected by Finnish Foreign Minister Witting
. Felix Kersten
, claimed that Himmler had expressed regret that Germany had not occupied Sweden during Operation Weserübung, but was certain that this error was to be rectified after the war. In April 1942, Goebbels expressed similar views in his diary, writing that Germany should have occupied the country during its campaign in the north, as "this state has no right to national existence anyway". In 1940, Hermann Göring
suggested that Sweden's future position in the Reich was similar to that of Bavaria
in the German Empire. The ethnically Swedish Åland Islands
, which were awarded
to Finland by the League of Nations
in 1921, were likely to join Sweden in the Germanic Empire. In the spring of 1941, the German military attaché
in Helsinki
reported to his Swedish counterpart that Germany would need transit rights through Sweden for the imminent invasion of the Soviet Union, and in the case of finding her cooperative would permit the Swedish annexation of the islands. Hitler did veto the idea of a complete union
between the two states of Sweden and Finland, however.
Despite the majority of its people being of Finno-Ugric
origin, Finland was given the status of being an "honorary Nordic nation" (from a Nazi racial
perspective, not a national one
) by Hitler as reward for its military importance in the ongoing conflict
against the Soviet Union
. The Swedish-speaking minority of the country, who in 1941 comprised 9.6% of the total population, were considered Nordic and were initially preferred over Finnish speakers in recruitment for the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. Finland's Nordic status did not mean however that it was intended to be absorbed into the Germanic Empire, but instead expected to become the guardian of Germany’s northern
flank against the hostile remnants of a conquered USSR by attaining control over Karelia
n territory, occupied by the Finns in 1941. Hitler also considered the Finnish and Karelian climates unsuitable for German colonization. Even so the possibility of Finland's eventual inclusion as a federated state in the empire as a long-term objective was mulled over by Hitler in 1941, but by 1942 he seems to have abandoned this line of thinking. According to Kersten, as Finland signed an armistice
with the Soviet Union and broke off diplomatic relations with her former brother-in-arms
Germany in September 1944, Himmler felt remorse for not eliminating the Finnish state, government and its "masonic
" leadership
sooner, and transforming the country into a "National Socialist Finland with a Germanic outlook".
such as Sweden was also held towards Switzerland
. Goebbels noted in his diary on December 18, 1941 that "It would be a veritable insult to God
if they [the neutrals] would not only survive this war
unscathed while the major powers
make such great sacrifices, but also profit from it. We will certainly make sure that this will not happen."
The Swiss people were seen by Nazi ideologists as a mere off-shoot of the German nation, although one led astray by decadent
Western ideals
of democracy
and materialism
. Hitler decried the Swiss as "a misbegotten branch of our Volk" and the Swiss state as "a pimple on the face of Europe" deeming them unsuitable for settling the territories that the Nazis expected to colonize in Eastern Europe
.
Himmler discussed plans with his subordinates to integrate at least the German-speaking
parts of Switzerland completely with the rest of Germany, and had several persons in mind for the post of a Reichskommissar
for the 're-union' of Switzerland with the German Reich (in analogy to the office that Josef Bürckel
held after Austria
's absorption into Germany during the Anschluss
). Later this official was to subsequently become the new Reichsstatthalter
of the area after completing its total assimilation. In August 1940, Gauleiter
of Westfalen-South Josef Wagner
and the Minister President of Baden
Walter Köhler
spoke in favor of the amalgamation of Switzerland to Reichsgau Burgund (see below) and suggested that the seat of government for this new administrative territory should be the dormant Palais des Nations
in Geneva
.
Operation Tannenbaum
, a military offensive intended to occupy all of Switzerland, most likely in co-operation with Italy
(which itself desired the Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland), was in the planning stages during 1940-1941. Its implementation was seriously considered by the German military after the armistice with France, but it was definitively shelved after the start of Operation Barbarossa
had directed the attention of the Wehrmacht
elsewhere.
's western border from the time of Charles V. Under the auspices of State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart
the Reich Interior Ministry already produced an initial memo for the planned annexation of a strip of eastern France in June 1940, stretching from the mouth of the Somme
to Lake Geneva
, and on July 10, 1940 Himmler toured the region to inspect its Germanization potential. According to documents produced in December 1940, the annexed territory would consist of nine French departments, and the Germanization action would require the settlement of a million Germans from "peasant
families". Himmler decided that South Tyrol
ean emigrants (see South Tyrol Option Agreement
) would be used as settlers, and the towns of the region would receive South Tyrolean place-names such as Bozen, Brixen
, Meran, and so on. By 1942 Hitler had, however, decided that the South Tyroleans would be instead used to settle the Crimea
, and Himmler regretfully noted "For Burgundy, we will just have to find another [Germanic] ethnic group."
Hitler claimed French territory even beyond the historical border of the Holy Roman Empire. He stated that in order to ensure German hegemony on the continent, Germany must "also retain military strong points
on what was formerly the French Atlantic coast" and emphasized that "nothing on earth would persuade us to abandon such safe positions as those on the Channel
coast, captured during the campaign in France and consolidated by the Organisation Todt
." Several major French cities along the coast were given the designation Festung
("fortress"; "stronghold") by Hitler, such as Le Havre
, Brest
and St. Nazaire, suggesting that they were to remain under permanent post-war German administration.
, the Italian surrender made it possible for Germany to occupy much of Italy
, and re-arrange the provinces of Trentino, Belluno
and South Tyrol
into the military district Alpenvorland and the provinces of Friuli, Fiume, Pola, Gorizia
, Trieste
and Lubiana
into the district Adriatisches Küstenland. Both districts were to be eventually annexed into the Germanic Reich, in spite of Hitler's admiration and respect for the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
. Hitler had stated that the art of Northern Italy
was "nothing but pure German", and Nazi scholars viewed that the Romansh, Ladin and Friulian
minorities of the two districts were racially, historically and culturally a part of the Germanic world.
Further extension of the Germanic Reich's southern border was considered. According to Goebbels, Hitler had expressed that the border should extend to those of the region of Veneto
. Veneto was to be included into the Reich in an "autonomous form", and to benefit from the post-war influx of German tourists. At the time when Italy was on the verge of declaring an armistice with the Allies, Himmler declared to Felix Kersten that Northern Italy, along with the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, was "bound to eventually be included in Greater Germany anyway". The former Austrian territory of Lombardy
was not specifically mentioned as an annexation target by either Goebbels or Himmler, but seems to have been designed to eventually join Veneto in the Germanic Reich. Hitler speaks favorably of the region's Germanic character in Table Talk
and laments his "predecessors'
" inability of consolidating the Holy Roman Empire's southernmost lands. In a supplementary OKW order dated 10 September 1943, Hitler decrees on the establishment of further Operational Zones in Northern Italy, which were the stretch all the way to the French border. Unlike Alpenvorland and Küstenland, these zones did not immediately receive high commissioners (oberster kommissar) as civilian advisors, but were military regions where the commander was to exercise power on behalf of Army Group B
. Operation zone Nordwest-Alpen or Schweizer Grenze was located between the Stelvio Pass
and Monte Rosa
and was to contain wholly the Italian provinces of Sondrio
and Como
and parts of the provinces of Brescia
, Varese
, Novara
and Vercelli
. The zone of Französische Grenze was to encompass areas west of Monte Rosa and was to incorporate the province of Aosta and a part of the province of Turin
, and presumably also the provinces of Cuneo
and Imperia
.
, Cape Verde
and Madeira
and the Spanish Canary islands
to deny the British a staging ground for military actions against Nazi-controlled Europe. In September 1940, Hitler further raised the issue in a discussion with the Spanish Foreign Minister Serrano Súñer
, offering now Spain to transfer one of the Canary islands to German usage for the price of French Morocco
. Although Hitler's interest in the Atlantic islands must be understood from a framework imposed by the military situation of 1940, he ultimately had no plans of ever releasing these important naval bases from German control.
Himmler's Ahnenerbe
embraced pseudoarchaeological theories of scholars Hermann Wirth
and Otto Huth
, who fantasized that Cape Verde and the Canary islands were the only parts of the mythical submerged continent of Atlantis
still remaining above the ocean. Huth, under Ahnenerbe sponsorship, planned an archaeological expedition to the Canary islands with the goal of finding artifacts
of the antediluvian
Nordic-Atlanteans. He further believed that the native people
of islands were the remnants of an "ancient Nordic civilization" which had "blossomed undisturbed on the happy islands until it was destroyed
”.
The one country that was not included in the Pan-Germanic unification aim was the United Kingdom
, in spite of its near-universal acceptance by the Nazi government as being part of the Germanic world. Leading Nordic ideologist Hans F. K. Günther theorized that the Anglo-Saxons
had been more successful than the Germans in maintaining racial purity, thanks to Britain's island nature, with interbreeding between the Germanic conquerors and the subjugated Celtic nations
being only marginal in effect. Furthermore, the coastal and island areas of Scotland
, Ireland
, Cornwall
and Wales
had received additional Nordic blood through Norse raids and colonization during the Viking Age
, and the Anglo-Saxons of Eastern and Northern England had been under Danish rule
in the 9th and 10th centuries. Günther referred to this historical process as Aufnordung ("additional nordification"), which finally culminated in the Norman conquest of England
in 1066. Britain was thus a nation created by struggle and the survival of the fittest
among the various Aryan peoples of the isles, and was able to pursue global conquest and empire-building because of its superior racial heredity born through this development.
Hitler professed an admiration for the imperial might of the British Empire
in Zweites Buch
as proof of the racial superiority of the Aryan race, hoping that Germany would emulate British "ruthlessness" and "absence of moral scruples" in establishing its own colonial empire in Eastern Europe. One of his primary foreign policy aims throughout the 1930s was to establish a military alliance with both the English (Hitler conflated England
with Britain
and the United Kingdom in his writings and speeches) as well as the Italians to neutralize France as a strategic threat to German security for eastward
expansion
. In this arrangement the two "kindred folks" were to divide the world between each other with Germany dominating continental Europe, while England would reign supreme
over the world’s oceans.
When it became apparent to the Nazi leadership that the United Kingdom was not interested in a military alliance, anti-British policies were adopted to ensure the attainment of Germany’s war aims. Even during the war however, hope remained that Britain would in time yet become a reliable German ally. Hitler preferred to see the British Empire preserved as a world power, because its break-up
would benefit other countries far more than it would Germany, particularly the United States
and Japan
. In fact, Hitler's strategy during 1935-1937 for winning Britain over was based on a German guarantee of defence of the British Empire. After the war, Ribbentrop testified that in 1935 Hitler had promised to deliver twelve German divisions to the disposal of Britain for maintaining the integrity of her colonial possessions.
The continued military actions against Britain after the fall of France had the strategic goal of making Britain 'see the light' and conduct an armistice
with the Axis powers
, with July 1, 1940 being named by the Germans as the "probable date" for the cessation of hostilities. On May 21, 1940, Franz Halder
, the head of the Army General Staff
, after a consultation with Hitler concerning the aims envisaged by the Führer during the present war, wrote in his diary: "We are seeking contact with Britain on the basis of partitioning the world".
One of Hitler's sub-goals for the invasion of Russia was to win over Britain to the German side. He believed that after the military collapse of the USSR, "within a few weeks" Britain would be forced either into a surrender or else come to join Germany as a "junior partner" in the Axis. Britain's role in this alliance was reserved to support German naval and aerial military actions
against the USA in a fight for world supremacy
conducted from the Axis power bases of Europe, Africa and the Atlantic. On August 8, 1941, Hitler stated that he looked forward to the eventual day when "England and Germany [march] together against America" and on January 7, 1942 he daydreamed that it was "not impossible" for Britain to quit the war and join the Axis side, leading to a situation where "it will be a German-British army that will chase the Americans from Iceland". Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg
hoped that after the victorious conclusion of the war against the USSR, Englishmen
, along with other Germanic nationalities, would join the German settlers in colonizing the conquered eastern territories.
From a historical perspective Britain’s situation was likened to that which the Austrian Empire
found itself in after it was defeated by the Kingdom of Prussia in the Battle of Königgratz
in 1866. As Austria was thereafter formally excluded from German affairs
, so too would Britain be excluded from continental affairs
in the event of a German victory. Yet afterwards, Austria-Hungary
became a loyal ally of the German Empire in the pre-World War I
power alignments in Europe, and it was hoped that Britain would come to fulfill this same role.
were to be permanently integrated into the Germanic Empire. On July 22, 1940, Hitler stated that after the war, the islands were to be given to the control of Robert Ley
's German Labour Front
, and transferred into Strength Through Joy holiday resorts. Nazi scholar Karl Heinz Pfeffer toured the islands in 1941, and recommended that the German occupiers should appeal to the islanders' Norman heritage and treat the islands as "Germanic micro-states", whose union with Britain was only an accident of history. He likened the preferred policy concerning the islands similar to the one pursued by the British in Malta
, where the Maltese language
had been "artificially" supported against the Italian language
.
Ulster
with the Irish state.
was to acquire sufficient Lebensraum
in Eastern Europe
for the "Aryan race". The primary objective of this aim was to transform Germany into a complete economic autarky
, the end-result of which would be a state of continent-wide German hegemony over Europe. This was to be accomplished through the enlargement of the territorial base of the German state and the expansion of the German population, and the wholesale extermination
of the indigenous Slavic
and Baltic inhabitants.
Because of their perceived racial worth, the Nazi leadership was enthusiastic at the prospect of "recruiting" people from the Germanic countries to also settle these territories
after the Slavic inhabitants would have been exterminated or otherwise driven out. The racial planners were partly motivated in this because studies indicated that Germany would likely not be able to recruit enough colonial settlers for the eastern territories from its own country and other Germanic groups would therefore be required. Hitler insisted however that German settlers would have to dominate the newly colonized areas. Himmler's original plan for the Hegewald settlement
was to settle Dutch and Scandinavians there in addition to Germans, which was unsuccessful.
, among the organization's leadership (e.g. Felix Steiner
) the proposition for a Greater Germanic Empire gave way to a concept of a European union of self-governing states, unified by German hegemony and the common enemy of Bolshevism. The Waffen-SS was to be the eventual nucleus of a common European army, where each state would be represented by a national contingent. Himmler himself, however, gave no concession to these views, and held on to his Pan-Germanic vision in a speech given on April 1943 to the officers of SS divisions LSAH
, Das Reich and Totenkopf
:
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation) is the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
tried to establish in Europe during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
stated in his memoirs
Inside the Third Reich
Inside the Third Reich is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Hitler's main architect before this period...
that Hitler also referred to the envisioned state as the Teutonic
Teutons
The Teutons or Teutones were mentioned as a Germanic tribe by Greek and Roman authors, notably Strabo and Marcus Velleius Paterculus and normally in close connection with the Cimbri, whose ethnicity is contested between Gauls and Germani...
Reich of the German Nation, although it is unclear whether Speer was using the now seldom used "Teutonic
Teutonic
Teutonic or Teuton may refer to:*the Teutons* Germanic peoples , see Theodiscus**Teutonic Mythology** Germanic languages * Having qualities related to Modern Germans*Nordic race*Furor Teutonicus...
" as an English synonym
Synonym
Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...
for "Germanic". Hitler also mentions a future Germanic State of the German Nation in Mein Kampf.
This pan-Germanic
Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify the German-speaking populations of Europe in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland , where "German-speaking" was taken to include the Low German, Frisian and Dutch-speaking populations of the Low...
empire was expected to assimilate
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
practically all of Germanic Europe
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
into an enormously expanded Reich
Reich
Reich is a German word cognate with the English rich, but also used to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including Germany in many periods of its history...
. Territorially speaking, this encompassed the already-enlarged German Reich itself (consisting of pre-1938 Germany proper, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
, Alsace-Lorraine
Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
, Eupen-Malmedy
Eupen-Malmedy
Eupen-Malmedy, or the East Cantons , is a group of cantons in Belgium, composed of the former Prussian districts of Malmedy and Eupen, together with the Neutral Moresnet...
, Memel
Klaipėda Region
The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors...
, Lower Styria
Lower Styria
Lower Styria or Slovenian Styria is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of Lower Styria in its historical boundaries amounts to around 705,000 inhabitants, or 34.5% of the population of Slovenia...
, Upper Carniola
Upper Carniola
Upper Carniola is a traditional region of Slovenia, the northern mountainous part of the larger Carniola region. The centre of the region is Kranj, while other urban centers include Jesenice, Tržič, Škofja Loka, Kamnik, and Domžale.- Historical background :...
, Southern Carinthia and German-occupied Poland), the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, the Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
part of Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, at least the German-speaking parts of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
.
The most notable exception was the predominantly Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, which was not projected as having to be reduced to a German province but to instead become an allied
Alliance
An alliance is an agreement or friendship between two or more parties, made in order to advance common goals and to secure common interests.See also military alliance and business alliance.-International relations:...
sea-faring partner of the Germans.
In addition, its western frontiers with France were to be reverted to those of the earlier Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
, which would have meant the complete annexation of all of Wallonia, French Switzerland, and large areas of northern and eastern France. When Germany's war-time ally Fascist Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
withdrew from the conflict in 1943 even sizable territories of Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
were slated for direct inclusion. Massive territorial expansion into Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
under German leadership was also to take place, in which the peoples of the Germanic countries were to be "encouraged" as settlers (see Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
).
Racial theories
Nazi racial ideology regarded the Germanic peoplesGermanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
of Europe as belonging to a racially superior Nordic
Nordic theory
The Nordic race is one of the racial subcategories into which the Caucasian race was divided by anthropologists in the first half of the 20th century...
subset of the larger Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
, who were regarded as the only true culture-bearers of civilized society. These peoples were viewed as either "true Germanic peoples" which had "lost their sense of racial pride", or as close racial relatives of the Germans. German dictator Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
also believed that the Ancient Greeks and Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
were the racial ancestors of the Germans, and the first torchbearers of "Nordic-Greek" art and culture. He particularly expressed his admiration for Ancient Sparta, declaring it to have been the purest racial state:
Furthermore, Hitler's concept of "Germanic" did not simply refer to an ethnic, cultural
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, or linguistic group, but also to a distinctly biological one
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
, the superior "Germanic blood" that he wanted to salvage from the control of the enemies of the Aryan race. He stated that Germany possessed more of these "Germanic elements" than any other country in the world, which he estimated as "four fifths of our people".
According to the Nazis, in addition to the Germanic peoples, individuals of seemingly non-Germanic nationality such as French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, Polish, Walloon
Walloons
Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...
, Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
and so on might actually possess valuable Germanic blood, especially if they were of aristocratic
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
or peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
stock. In order to "recover" these "missing" Germanic elements, they had to be made conscious of their Germanic ancestry through the process of Germanization (the term used by the Nazis for this process was Umvolkung, "restoration to the race"). If the "recovery" was impossible, these individuals had to be destroyed to deny the enemy of using their superior blood against the Aryan race. An example of this type of Nazi Germanization is the kidnapping of "racially valuable" Eastern European children.
On the very first page of Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
Hitler openly declared his belief that "common blood belongs in a common Reich", elucidating the notion that the innate quality of race (as the Nazi movement perceived it) should hold precedence over "artificial" concepts such as national identity
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
(including regional German identities such as Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n and Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n) as the deciding factor for which people were 'worthy' of being assimilated into a Greater German racial state
Racialism
Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
(Ein Volk, Ein Reich
Reich
Reich is a German word cognate with the English rich, but also used to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including Germany in many periods of its history...
, Ein Führer
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...
). Part of the strategic methods which Hitler chose to ensure the present and future supremacy of the Aryan race (which was, according to Hitler, "gradually approaching extinction") was to do away with what he described as the "small state rubbish" (kleinstaatengerümpel, see also kleinstaaterei
Kleinstaaterei
is a German word, mainly used for the political situation in Germany and neighbouring regions during the Holy Roman Empire and during the German Confederation...
) in Europe in order to unite all these Nordic countries into one unified racial community. From 1921 onward he advocated the creation of a "Germanic Reich of the German Nation".
Name
The chosen name for the projected empire was a deliberate reference to the Holy Roman EmpireHoly Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
(of the German Nation) that existed in mediaeval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
times, known as the First Reich in Nazi historiography. Different aspects of the legacy of this mediaeval empire in German history were both celebrated and derided by the Nazi government. The Frankish Emperor
Frankish Empire
Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...
Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
was admired by Hitler for his "cultural creativity", his powers of organization, and his renunciation of the rights of the individual. He criticized the Holy Roman Emperors however for not pursuing an Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
) resembling his own, while being politically focused exclusively on the south
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. After the 1939 German occupation of Bohemia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
, Hitler declared that the HRE had been "resurrected", although he secretly maintained his own empire to be better than the old "Roman" one. Unlike the "uncomfortably internationalist
Multinational state
A multinational state is a sovereign state which is viewed as comprising two or more nations. Such a state contrasts with a nation-state where a single nation comprises the bulk of the population...
Catholic empire of Barbarossa
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...
", the Germanic Reich of the German Nation would be racist and nationalist. Rather than a return to the values of the Middle Ages, its establishment was to be "a push forward
Progress (history)
In historiography and the philosophy of history, progress is the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc...
to a new golden age
Golden Age (metaphor)
A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure .-Golden Age in society:...
, in which the best aspects of the past would be combined with modern racist and nationalist thinking".
The historical borders of the Holy Empire were also used as grounds for territorial revisionism by the Nazis, laying claim to modern territories and states that were once part of it. Even before the war, Hitler had dreamed of reversing the Peace of Westphalia
Peace of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...
, which had given the territories of the Empire almost complete sovereignty. On November 17, 1939, Reich Minister of Propaganda
Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was Nazi Germany's ministry that enforced Nazi Party ideology in Germany and regulated its culture and society. Founded on March 13, 1933, by Adolf Hitler's new National Socialist government, the Ministry was headed by Dr...
Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
wrote in his diary
Goebbels Diaries
Joseph Goebbels, a leading member of the German National Socialist Party and Propaganda Minister in Adolf Hitler's government from 1933 to 1945, kept a diary from 1923, when he was an unemployed ex-student with no interest in politics, until shortly before his death by suicide in Berlin on 1 May 1945...
that the "total liquidation" of this historic treaty was the "great goal" of the Nazi regime, and that since it had been signed in Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
, it would also be officially repealed in the same city.
Pan-Germanism versus Pan-Germanicism
Despite intending to accord the other "Germanics" of Europe a racially superior status alongside the GermansGermans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
themselves in an anticipated post-war racio-political order, the Nazis did not however consider granting the subject populations of these countries any national rights of their own. The other Germanic countries were seen as mere extensions of Germany rather than individual units in any way, and the Germans were unequivocably intended to remain the empire's "most powerful source of strength, from both an ideological as well as military standpoint". Even Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
, who among the senior Nazis most staunchly supported the concept, could not shake off the idea of a hierarchical distinction between German Volk and Germanic Völker. The SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
's official newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps
Das Schwarze Korps
Das Schwarze Korps was the official newspaper of the Schutzstaffel . This newspaper was published on Wednesdays and distributed free of charge. Each SS member was supposed to read the publication and urge others to do so as well...
, never succeeded in reconciling the contradiction between Germanic 'brotherhood' and German superiority. Members of Nazi-type parties in Germanic countries were also forbidden to attend public meetings of the Nazi Party when they visited Germany. After the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
this ban was lifted, but only if the attendees made prior notice of their arrival so that the events' speakers could be warned in advance not to make disparaging remarks about the country of origin.
Although Hitler himself and Himmler's SS advocated for a pan-Germanic Empire, the objective was not universally held in the Nazi regime. Goebbels and the Reich Foreign Ministry under Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
inclined more towards an idea of a continental bloc under German rule, as represented by the Anti-Comintern Pact
Anti-Comintern Pact
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ....
and the earlier Mitteleuropa
Mitteleuropa
Mitteleuropa is the German term equal to Central Europe. The word has political, geographic and cultural meaning. While it describes a geographical location, it also is the word denoting a political concept of a German-dominated and exploited Central European union that was put into motion during...
concept.
Germanic mysticism
There were also disagreements within the Nazi leadership on the spiritual implications of cultivating a 'Germanic history' in their ideological program. Hitler was highly critical of Himmler's esoteric völkischVölkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
interpretation of the 'Germanic mission'. When Himmler denounced Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
in a speech as "the butcher of the Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
", Hitler stated that this was not a 'historical crime' but in fact a good thing, for the subjugation of Widukind
Widukind
Widukind was a pagan Saxon leader and the chief opponent of Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. Widukind was the leader of the Saxons against the Frankish king Charlemagne...
had brought Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
into what eventually became Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. He also disapproved of the pseudoarchaeological projects which Himmler organized through his Ahnenerbe
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...
organization, such as excavations of pre-historic Germanic sites:
In an attempt to eventually supplant Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
with a new religion more amenable to Nazi ideology
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Himmler, together with Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, sought to replace it with Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...
, such as renewed worship of the deity Wōden
Woden
Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....
. For this purpose they had ordered the construction of sites for the worship of Germanic cults in order to exchange Christian rituals for 'Nordic' consecration
Consecration
Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, usually religious. The word "consecration" literally means "to associate with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups...
ceremonies, which included different marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
and burial
Burial
Burial is the act of placing a person or object into the ground. This is accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing an object in it, and covering it over.-History:...
rites. In Heinrich Heims' Adolf Hitler, Monologe im FHQ 1941-1944 (several editions, here Orbis Verlag, 2000), Hitler is quoted as having said on 14 October 1941: "It seems to be inexpressibly stupid to allow a revival of the cult of Odin/Wotan. Our old mythology of the gods was defunct, and incapable of revival, when Christianity came...the whole world of antiquity either followed philosophical systems
Ancient philosophy
This page lists some links to ancient philosophy. In Western philosophy, the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire marked the ending of Hellenistic philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of Medieval philosophy, whereas in Eastern philosophy, the spread of Islam through the Arab Empire...
on the one hand, or worshipped the gods
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
. But in modern times it is undesirable that all humanity should make such a fool of itself."
Establishment strategy
The goal was first proclaimed publicly in the 1937 Nuremberg Rallies. Hitler's last speech at this event ended with the words "The German nation has after all acquired its Germanic Reich", which elicited speculation in political circles of a 'new era' in Germany's foreign policyForeign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
. Several days before the event Hitler took Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
aside when both were on their way to the former's Munich apartment with an entourage, and declared to him that "We will create a great empire. All the Germanic peoples will be included in it. It will begin in Norway and extend to northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
. I myself must carry this out. If only I keep my health!" On April 9, 1940, as Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign...
, Hitler announced the establishment of the Germanic Reich:
The establishment of the empire was to follow the model of the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
of 1938, just carried out on a greater scale. Goebbels emphasized in April 1940 that the annexed Germanic countries would have to undergo a similar "national revolution" as Germany herself did after the Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
, with an enforced rapid social and political "co-ordination" in accordance with Nazi principles and ideology (Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
).
The ultimate goal of the Gleichschaltung policy pursued in these parts of occupied Europe was to destroy the very concepts of individual states and nationalities, just as the concept of a separate Austrian state and national identity
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
was repressed after the Anschluss through the establishment of new state and party districts
Ostmark (Austria)
Ostmark was the name used by Nazi propaganda to replace that of the formerly independent Austria after the Anschluss annexation of that country by Nazi Germany in 1938....
. The new empire was to no longer be a nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
of the type that had emerged in the 19th century, but instead a "racially pure community". It is for this reason that the Nazi occupiers had no interest in transferring real power to the various far-right nationalistic movements present in the occupied countries (such as Nasjonal Samling, the NSB
National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands
The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands was a Dutch fascist and later national socialist political party. As a parliamentary party participating in legislative elections, the NSB had some success during the 1930s...
, etc.) except for temporary reasons of Realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
, and instead actively supported radical collaborators
Collaboration during World War II
Within nations occupied by the Axis Powers, some citizens, driven by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, anti-Semitism or opportunism, knowingly engaged in collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II...
who favored pan-Germanic unity (i.e. total integration to Germany) over provincial nationalism (for example DeVlag
Devlag
Deutsch-Vlämische Arbeitsgemeinschaft , better known as DeVlag, was a pro-Nazi organization active in Flanders during the German occupation of Belgium...
). Unlike Austria and the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
however, the process was to take considerably longer. Eventually these nationalities were to be merged with the Germans into a single ruling race, but Hitler stated that this prospect lay "a hundred or so years" in the future. During this interim period it was intended that the 'New Europe' would by run by Germans alone. According to Speer, while Himmler intended to eventually Germanize these peoples completely, Hitler intended not to "infringe on their individuality", so that in the future they would "add to the diversity and dynamism" of his empire. The German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
would be its Lingua Franca
Lingua Franca
Lingua Franca was an American magazine about intellectual and literary life in academia.-Founding:The magazine was founded in 1990 by Jeffrey Kittay, an editor and Professor of French Literature at Yale University...
however, likening it to the status of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in the British Commonwealth.
A primary agent used in stifling the local extreme nationalist elements was the Germanic SS, which initially merely consisted of local respective branches of the Allgemeine-SS in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. These groups were at first under the authority of their respective pro-Nazi national commanders (Quisling
Vidkun Quisling
Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a Norwegian politician. On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he seized power in a Nazi-backed coup d'etat that garnered him international infamy. From 1942 to 1945 he served as Minister-President, working with the occupying...
, Mussert
Anton Mussert
Anton Adriaan Mussert was one of the founders of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and its de jure leader. As such, he was the most prominent national socialist in the Netherlands before and during the Second World War...
and De Clercq
Staf De Clercq
Staf De Clercq was a Flemish nationalist collaborator, co-founder and leader of the Flemish nationalist Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond .-Biography:...
), and were intended to function within their own national territories only. During the course of 1942, however, the Germanic SS was further transformed into a tool used by Himmler against the influence of the less extreme collaborating parties and their SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
-style organizations, such as the Hird in Norway and the Weerbaarheidsafdeling in the Netherlands. In the post-war Germanic Empire, these men were to form the new leadership cadre of their respective national territories. To emphasize their pan-Germanic ideology, the Norges SS was now renamed the Germanske SS Norge, the Nederlandsche SS the Germaansche SS in Nederland and the Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen the Germaansche SS in Vlaanderen. The men of these groups no longer swore allegiance to their respective national leaders, but to the germanischer Führer ("Germanic Führer
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...
"), Adolf Hitler:
This title was assumed by Hitler on 23 June 1941, at the suggestion of Himmler. On 12 December 1941 the Dutch fascist Anton Mussert
Anton Mussert
Anton Adriaan Mussert was one of the founders of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and its de jure leader. As such, he was the most prominent national socialist in the Netherlands before and during the Second World War...
also addressed him in this fashion when he proclaimed his allegiance to Hitler during a visit to the Reich Chancellery
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945...
in Berlin. He had wanted to address Hitler as Führer aller Germanen ("Führer of all Germanics"), but Hitler personally decreed the former style. Historian Loe de Jong
Loe de Jong
Louis de Jong was a Dutch journalist and historian specialising in the history of the Netherlands in World War II and the Dutch resistance....
speculates on the difference between the two: Führer aller Germanen implied a position separate from Hitler's role as Führer und Reichskanzler des Grossdeutschen Reiches ("Führer and Reich Chancellor
Chancellor of Germany
The Chancellor of Germany is, under the German 1949 constitution, the head of government of Germany...
of the Greater German Reich"), while germanischer Führer served more as an attribute of that main function. As late as 1944 occasional propaganda publications continued to refer to him by this unofficial title as well however. Mussert held that Hitler was predistened to become the Führer of Germanics because of his congruous personal history: Hitler originally was a Austrian national, who enlisted in the Bavarian army
Bavarian army
The Bavarian Army was the army of the Electorate and then Kingdom of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty of Bavaria into that of the German State in 1919...
and lost his Austrian citizenship. He thus remained stateless
Statelessness
Statelessness is a legal concept describing the lack of any nationality. It is the absence of a recognized link between an individual and any state....
for seven years, during which, according to Mussert, he was "the Germanic leader and nothing else".
The Swastika Flag was to be used as a symbol to represent not only the National Socialist movement, but also the unity of the Nordic-Germanic peoples into a single state. Using the Unification of Germany
Unification of Germany
The formal unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor Wilhelm of the German...
as an analogy, it was held that since the flag of the Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
could not have been imposed on the other German states
States of the German Confederation
The States of the German Confederation were those member states that from June 20, 1815 were part of the German Confederation, which lasted, with some changes in the member states, until August 24, 1866, under the presidency of the Austrian imperial House of Habsburg, which was represented by an...
that would together form the new German Empire of 1871, so too could the German national flag (referring to the Imperial tricolour, as the Nazis had banned the black-red-gold version) not be imposed on the other Germanic countries of Europe.
Hitler had long intended to architecturally reconstruct
Welthauptstadt Germania
Welthauptstadt Germania refers to the projected renewal of the German capital Berlin during the Nazi period, part of Adolf Hitler's vision for the future of Germany after the planned victory in World War II...
the German capital Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
into a new imperial metropolis, which he decided in 1942 to rename Germania upon its scheduled completion in 1950. The name was specifically chosen to make it the clear central point of the envisioned Germanic empire, and to re-enforce the notion of a united Germanic-Nordic state upon the Germanic peoples of Europe.
Low countries
The German plans of annexation were more advanced for the Low CountriesLow Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
than for the Nordic states, due in part because of their closer geographical proximity as well as cultural and ethnic ties to Germany. Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
were both formally annexed into the Nazi state during World War II, in 1942 and 1944 respectively, the latter as the new Reichsgau
Reichsgau
A Reichsgau was an administrative subdivision created in a number of the areas annexed to Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945...
e of Flandern
Reichsgau Flandern
The Reichsgau Flanders was a short-lived Reichsgau of Nazi Germany established in 1944. It encompassed the present-day Flemish Region in its old provincial borders, so including Comines-Warneton but excluding Voeren...
and Wallonien
Reichsgau Wallonien
The Reichsgau Wallonia was a short-lived Reichsgau of Nazi Germany established in 1944. It encompassed present-day Wallonia in its old provincial borders, so excluding Comines-Warneton but including Voeren...
(the proposed third one, Brabant
Province of Brabant
Brabant was a province of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1815 until 1830 and a province of Belgium from 1830 until 1995, when it was split into the Dutch-speaking Flemish Brabant, the French-speaking Walloon Brabant and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region.-United Kingdom of the...
, was not implemented in this arrangement) and a Brussels District
District of Brussels
The District of Brussels was a short-lived administrative polity created by Nazi Germany in 1944...
. On April 5 1942, while having dinner with an entourage including Heinrich Himmler, Hitler declared his intention that the Low Countries would be included whole into the Reich, at which point the Greater German Reich would be reformed into the Germanic Reich (simply "the Reich" in common parlance) to signify this change.
In October 1940 Hitler disclosed to Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
that he intended to leave the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
semi-independent because he wanted that country to retain its overseas colonial empire after the war. This factor was removed after the Japanese took over the Netherlands East Indies, the primary component of that domain. The resulting German plans for the Netherlands suggested its transformation into a Gau Westland, which would eventually be further broken-up into five new Gaue or gewesten (historical Dutch term for a type of sub-national polity
Polity
Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...
). Fritz Schmidt
Fritz Schmidt (Generalkommissar)
Fritz Schmidt was the German Commissioner-General in the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945.He is regarded as a compromiser and promoted the interests of Anton Mussert and the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging ....
, a high Nazi official in the occupied Netherlands who hoped to become the Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
of this new province on Germany's western periphery stated that it could even be called Gau Holland, as long as the Wilhelmus
Wilhelmus
Wilhelmus van Nassouwe, usually known just as the Wilhelmus , , is the national anthem of the Netherlands and is the oldest national anthem in the world though the words of the Japanese national anthem date back to the ninth century...
(the Dutch national anthem
National anthem
A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...
) and similar patriotic symbols were to be forbidden. Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, which had actually been largely destroyed
Rotterdam Blitz
The Rotterdam Blitz refers to the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Air Force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch to surrender...
in the course of the 1940 invasion
Battle of the Netherlands
The Battle of the Netherlands was part of Case Yellow , the German invasion of the Low Countries and France during World War II. The battle lasted from 10 May 1940 until 14 May 1940 when the main Dutch forces surrendered...
was to be rebuilt as the most important port-city in the "Germanic area" due to its situation at the mouth of the Rhine river.
Himmler's personal masseur Felix Kersten
Felix Kersten
Felix Kersten was before and during World War II the personal masseur of Heinrich Himmler...
claimed that the former even contemplated resettling the entire Dutch population
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, some 8 million people in total at the time, to agricultural lands in the Vistula
Vistula
The Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....
and Bug River
Bug River
The Bug River is a left tributary of the Narew river flows from central Ukraine to the west, passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it empties into the Narew river near Serock. The part between the lake and the Vistula River is sometimes referred to as...
valleys of German-occupied Poland as the most efficient way of facilitating their immediate Germanization. In this eventuality he is alleged to have further hoped to establish an SS Province of Holland in vacated Dutch territory, and to distribute all confiscated Dutch property and real estate among reliable SS-men. However this claim was shown to be a myth by Loe de Jong
Loe de Jong
Louis de Jong was a Dutch journalist and historian specialising in the history of the Netherlands in World War II and the Dutch resistance....
in his book Two Legends of the Third Reich.
The position in the future empire of the Frisians
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia, that was a part of Denmark until 1864. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...
, another Germanic people, was discussed on 5 April 1942 in one of Hitler’s many wartime dinner-conversations
Hitler's Table Talk
Hitler's Table Talk is the title given to a series of wartime conversations and monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944...
. Himmler commented that there was ostensibly no real sense of community between the different indigenous ethnic groups in the Netherlands. He then stated that the Dutch Frisians
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
in particular seemed to hold no affection for being part of a nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
based on the Dutch national identity
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, and felt a much greater sense of kinship with their German Frisian brethren across the Ems River in East Frisia
East Frisia
East Frisia or Eastern Friesland is a coastal region in the northwest of the German federal state of Lower Saxony....
, an observation Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel was a German field marshal . As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II...
agreed with based on his own experiences. Hitler determined that the best course of action in that case would be to unite the two Frisian regions on both sides of the border into a single province, and would at a later point in time further discuss the topic with Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart was a Chancellor of Austria, lawyer and later Nazi official in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Third Reich and for wartime Germany in Poland and the Netherlands...
, the governor
Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar , in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and the Nazi Third Reich....
of the German regime
Reichskommissariat Niederlande
The Reichskommissariat Niederlande, literally "Reich Commissariat of the Netherlands", was the civilian occupation regime set up by Nazi Germany in the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II. Its full title in German was the Reichskommissariat für die besetzten niederländischen Gebiete...
in the Netherlands. By late May of that year these discussions were apparently concluded, as on the 29th he pledged that he would not allow the West-Frisians to remain part of Holland, and that since they were "part of the exact same race as the people of East Frisia" had to be joined into one province.
Hitler considered Wallonia to be "in reality German lands" (although Himmler initially protested against the inclusion of 'racially inferior' French
33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)
The 33. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS Charlemagne and Charlemagne Regiment are collective names used for units of French volunteers in the Wehrmacht and later Waffen-SS during World War II...
and Walloon volunteers in the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
) which were gradually detached from the Germanic territories
German-speaking Europe
The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in West, Central and Eastern Europe...
by the French Romanization
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
of the Walloons
Walloons
Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...
, and that Germany thus had "every right" to take these back. Before the decision was made to include Wallonia in its entirety, several smaller areas straddling the traditional Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
-Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
language border in Western Europe were already considered for inclusion. These included the small Lëtzebuergesh-speaking area centred around Arlon, as well as the Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....
-speaking region west of Eupen
Eupen
Eupen is a municipality in the Belgian province of Liège, from the German border , from the Dutch border and from the "High Fens" nature reserve...
(the so-called Platdietse Streek) around the city of Limbourg
Limbourg
Limbourg is a medieval town located in the province of Liège, Wallonia, Belgium.On 1 January 2008 Limbourg had a total population of 5,680. The total area is 24.63 km² which gives a population density of 231 inhabitants per km²...
, historical capital of the Duchy of Limburg
Duchy of Limburg
The Duchy of Limburg, situated in the Low Countries between the river Meuse and the city of Aachen, was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. Its territory is now divided between the Belgian provinces of Liège and Limburg , the Dutch province of Limburg , and a small part of North Rhine-Westphalia in...
.
Nordic countries
After their invasion in Operation WeserübungOperation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign...
, Hitler vowed that he would never again leave Norway, and favored annexing Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
as a German province even more due to its small size and relative closeness to Germany. Himmler's hopes were an expansion of the project so that Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
would also be included among the group of Germanic countries which would have to be gradually incorporated into the Reich. He was also among the group of more esoteric Nazis who believed either Iceland or Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
to be the mystical land of Thule
Thule
Thule Greek: Θούλη, Thoulē), also spelled Thula, Thila, or Thyïlea, is, in classical European literature and maps, a region in the far north. Though often considered to be an island in antiquity, modern interpretations of what was meant by Thule often identify it as Norway. Other interpretations...
, a purported original homeland of the ancient Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
. From a military point of view, the Kriegsmarine command hoped to see the Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Isles and possibly the Shetland Isles (which were also claimed by the Quisling regime
Quisling regime
The Quisling regime, or the Quisling government are common names used to refer to the collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling in occupied Norway during the Second World War. The official name of the regime from 1 February 1942 until its dissolution in May 1945 was Nasjonale regjering...
) under its domination to guarantee German naval access to the mid-Atlantic
Mid-Atlantic Ridge
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. It separates the Eurasian Plate and North American Plate in the North Atlantic, and the African Plate from the South...
.
The erection of a new German metropolis (with 300.000 inhabitants) called Nordstern ("North Star") next to the Norwegian city of Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
was prepared for, to be accompanied by a major naval base that was expected to become Germany's largest one in all of Europe. This city was to be connected to Germany proper by an Autobahn across the Little
Little Belt
The Little Belt is a strait between the Danish island of Funen and the Jutland Peninsula.The belt is about 50 km long and 800m to 28 km wide, the maximum depth is approximately 75 m, and contains numerous small Danish islands....
and Great Belt
Great Belt
The Great Belt is a strait between the main Danish islands of Zealand and Funen . Effectively dividing Denmark in two, the Belt was served by the Great Belt ferries from the late 19th century until the islands were connected by the Great Belt Fixed Link in 1997–98.-Geography:The Great Belt is the...
s and house an art museum for the northern part of the Germanic empire, housing "only works of German art
German art
German art has a long and distinguished tradition in the visual arts, from the earliest known work of figurative art to its current output of contemporary art....
ists."
Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
's future subordination into the Nazis' 'New Order' was considered by the regime. Himmler stated that the Swedes were the "epitome of the Nordic spirit and the Nordic man", and looked forward to incorporating central and southern Sweden to the Germanic Empire. Northern Sweden, with its Finnish minority
Tornedalians
The Tornedalians are descendants of Finns who in some point in history settled to the areas of today's Northern Sweden near the Torne Valley district and west from there.-History:...
, along with the Norwegian port of Kirkenes
Kirkenes
is a town in the municipality of Sør-Varanger in the county of Finnmark in the far northeast of Norway...
Himmler offered to Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, although this suggestion was rejected by Finnish Foreign Minister Witting
Rolf Witting
Rolf Johan Witting was a renowned oceanographist and Swedish-speaking Finnish politician, member of four of Finland's cabinets 1926–1943...
. Felix Kersten
Felix Kersten
Felix Kersten was before and during World War II the personal masseur of Heinrich Himmler...
, claimed that Himmler had expressed regret that Germany had not occupied Sweden during Operation Weserübung, but was certain that this error was to be rectified after the war. In April 1942, Goebbels expressed similar views in his diary, writing that Germany should have occupied the country during its campaign in the north, as "this state has no right to national existence anyway". In 1940, Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
suggested that Sweden's future position in the Reich was similar to that of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
in the German Empire. The ethnically Swedish Åland Islands
Åland Islands
The Åland Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. They are situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and form an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking region of Finland...
, which were awarded
Åland crisis
The Åland crisis was one of the first issues put up for arbitration by the League of Nations on its formation. The Åland Islands' population's demand for self-determination was not met and sovereignty over the islands was retained by Finland, but international guarantees were given to allow the...
to Finland by the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
in 1921, were likely to join Sweden in the Germanic Empire. In the spring of 1941, the German military attaché
Military attaché
A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission . This post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer who retains the commission while serving in an embassy...
in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
reported to his Swedish counterpart that Germany would need transit rights through Sweden for the imminent invasion of the Soviet Union, and in the case of finding her cooperative would permit the Swedish annexation of the islands. Hitler did veto the idea of a complete union
Sweden-Finland
Sweden–Finland is an outdated Finnish historiographical term referring to the Swedish Kingdom from the Kalmar Union to the Napoleonic wars, or the period from the 14th to the 18th century. In 1809 the realm was split and the eastern half came to constitute the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, in...
between the two states of Sweden and Finland, however.
Despite the majority of its people being of Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric peoples
The Finno-Ugric peoples are any of several peoples of Europe who speak languages of the proposed Finno-Ugric language family, such as the Finns, Estonians, Mordvins, and Hungarians...
origin, Finland was given the status of being an "honorary Nordic nation" (from a Nazi racial
Racial policy of Nazi Germany
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy...
perspective, not a national one
Nordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
) by Hitler as reward for its military importance in the ongoing conflict
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
against the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The Swedish-speaking minority of the country, who in 1941 comprised 9.6% of the total population, were considered Nordic and were initially preferred over Finnish speakers in recruitment for the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. Finland's Nordic status did not mean however that it was intended to be absorbed into the Germanic Empire, but instead expected to become the guardian of Germany’s northern
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
flank against the hostile remnants of a conquered USSR by attaining control over Karelia
Karelia
Karelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...
n territory, occupied by the Finns in 1941. Hitler also considered the Finnish and Karelian climates unsuitable for German colonization. Even so the possibility of Finland's eventual inclusion as a federated state in the empire as a long-term objective was mulled over by Hitler in 1941, but by 1942 he seems to have abandoned this line of thinking. According to Kersten, as Finland signed an armistice
Moscow Armistice
The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on September 19, 1944, ending the Continuation War...
with the Soviet Union and broke off diplomatic relations with her former brother-in-arms
Co-belligerence
Co-belligerence is the waging of a war in cooperation against a common enemy without a formal treaty of military alliance.Co-belligerence is a broader and less precise status of wartime partnership than a formal military alliance. Co-belligerents may support each other materially, exchange...
Germany in September 1944, Himmler felt remorse for not eliminating the Finnish state, government and its "masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
" leadership
Risto Ryti
Risto Heikki Ryti was the fifth President of Finland, from 1940 to 1944. Ryti started his career as a politician in the field of economics and as a political background figure during the interwar period. He made a wide range of international contacts in the world of banking and within the...
sooner, and transforming the country into a "National Socialist Finland with a Germanic outlook".
Switzerland
The same implicit hostility toward neutral nationsNeutrality (international relations)
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
such as Sweden was also held towards Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Goebbels noted in his diary on December 18, 1941 that "It would be a veritable insult to God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
if they [the neutrals] would not only survive this war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
unscathed while the major powers
Participants in World War II
The participants in World War II were those nations who either participated directly in or were affected by any of the theaters or events of World War II....
make such great sacrifices, but also profit from it. We will certainly make sure that this will not happen."
The Swiss people were seen by Nazi ideologists as a mere off-shoot of the German nation, although one led astray by decadent
Decadence
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...
Western ideals
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
. Hitler decried the Swiss as "a misbegotten branch of our Volk" and the Swiss state as "a pimple on the face of Europe" deeming them unsuitable for settling the territories that the Nazis expected to colonize in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
.
Himmler discussed plans with his subordinates to integrate at least the German-speaking
Swiss German
Swiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg...
parts of Switzerland completely with the rest of Germany, and had several persons in mind for the post of a Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar , in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and the Nazi Third Reich....
for the 're-union' of Switzerland with the German Reich (in analogy to the office that Josef Bürckel
Josef Bürckel
Joseph Bürckel was a German politician and a member of the German parliament...
held after Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
's absorption into Germany during the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
). Later this official was to subsequently become the new Reichsstatthalter
Reichsstatthalter
The term Reichsstatthalter was used twice for different offices, in the imperial Hohenzollern dynasty's German Empire and the single-party Nazi Third Reich.- "Statthalter des Reiches" 1879-1918 in Alsace-Lorraine :...
of the area after completing its total assimilation. In August 1940, Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
of Westfalen-South Josef Wagner
Josef Wagner (Gauleiter)
Josef Wagner was from 1928 the Nazi Gauleiter of the Gau of Westphalia-South, and as of January 1935 also of the Gau of Silesia.-Early life and First World War:...
and the Minister President of Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
Walter Köhler
Walter Köhler
Walter Friedrich Julius Köhler, was Minister President of Baden, Germany during the Nazi regime. Köhler was born in Weinheim, Baden. He was known as a talented speaker and strict anti-semite...
spoke in favor of the amalgamation of Switzerland to Reichsgau Burgund (see below) and suggested that the seat of government for this new administrative territory should be the dormant Palais des Nations
Palais des Nations
The Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, was built between 1929 and 1936 to serve as the headquarters of the League of Nations. It has served as the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva since 1946 when the Secretary General of the UN signed a Headquarters Agreement with the Swiss...
in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
.
Operation Tannenbaum
Operation Tannenbaum
Operation Tannenbaum , known earlier as Operation Green, was a planned but cancelled invasion of Switzerland by Nazi Germany during World War II.-Background:...
, a military offensive intended to occupy all of Switzerland, most likely in co-operation with Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
(which itself desired the Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland), was in the planning stages during 1940-1941. Its implementation was seriously considered by the German military after the armistice with France, but it was definitively shelved after the start of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
had directed the attention of the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
elsewhere.
Eastern France
After the German victory over France, the regime took the initial steps for the "restitution" of the Holy Roman EmpireHoly Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
's western border from the time of Charles V. Under the auspices of State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart
Wilhelm Stuckart
Wilhelm Stuckart was a Nazi Party lawyer and official, a state secretary in the German Interior Ministry and later, a convicted war criminal.-Early life:...
the Reich Interior Ministry already produced an initial memo for the planned annexation of a strip of eastern France in June 1940, stretching from the mouth of the Somme
Somme
Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....
to Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva or Lake Léman is a lake in Switzerland and France. It is one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. 59.53 % of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40.47 % under France...
, and on July 10, 1940 Himmler toured the region to inspect its Germanization potential. According to documents produced in December 1940, the annexed territory would consist of nine French departments, and the Germanization action would require the settlement of a million Germans from "peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
families". Himmler decided that South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
ean emigrants (see South Tyrol Option Agreement
South Tyrol Option Agreement
The South Tyrol Option Agreement refers to the period between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin speaking people in South Tyrol and three communes in the province of Belluno were given the "option" of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy and...
) would be used as settlers, and the towns of the region would receive South Tyrolean place-names such as Bozen, Brixen
Brixen
Brixen is the name of two cities in the Alps:*Brixen, South Tyrol, Italy*Brixen im Thale, Tyrol, AustriaBrixen may also refer to:*Bishopric of Brixen, the former north-Italian state....
, Meran, and so on. By 1942 Hitler had, however, decided that the South Tyroleans would be instead used to settle the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, and Himmler regretfully noted "For Burgundy, we will just have to find another [Germanic] ethnic group."
Hitler claimed French territory even beyond the historical border of the Holy Roman Empire. He stated that in order to ensure German hegemony on the continent, Germany must "also retain military strong points
Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the western coast of Europe as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of the mainland continent from Great Britain.-History:On March 23, 1942 Führer Directive Number 40...
on what was formerly the French Atlantic coast" and emphasized that "nothing on earth would persuade us to abandon such safe positions as those on the Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
coast, captured during the campaign in France and consolidated by the Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt
The Todt Organisation, was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
." Several major French cities along the coast were given the designation Festung
Fortification
Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...
("fortress"; "stronghold") by Hitler, such as Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
, Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
and St. Nazaire, suggesting that they were to remain under permanent post-war German administration.
Northern Italy
Initially intending to use the Germans of South Tyrol as settlers for Generalplan OstGeneralplan Ost
Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...
, the Italian surrender made it possible for Germany to occupy much of Italy
Operation Achse
Operation Achse , also called Operation Alaric, were the codenames of the German plans to forcibly disarm the Italian armed forces after their expected armistice with the Allied forces...
, and re-arrange the provinces of Trentino, Belluno
Province of Belluno
TheThe Province of Belluno is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Belluno.It has an area of 3,678 km², and a total population of 214,026 .-Geography:...
and South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
into the military district Alpenvorland and the provinces of Friuli, Fiume, Pola, Gorizia
Province of Gorizia
The Province of Gorizia is a province in the autonomous Friuli–Venezia Giulia region of Italy.-Overview:Its capital is the city of Gorizia. It belonged to the Province of Udine between 1924 and 1927 and the communes of Sonzia, Plezzo, Bergogna, Caporetto, Tolmino, Circhina, Santa Lucia d'Isonzo,...
, Trieste
Province of Trieste
The Province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Trieste.It has an area of 212 km², and a total population of 236,520...
and Lubiana
Province of Ljubljana
The Province of Ljubljana was a province of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Nazi German Adriatic Littoral during World War II. It was created on May 3, 1941 from territory occupied and annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia, and it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when...
into the district Adriatisches Küstenland. Both districts were to be eventually annexed into the Germanic Reich, in spite of Hitler's admiration and respect for the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
. Hitler had stated that the art of Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
was "nothing but pure German", and Nazi scholars viewed that the Romansh, Ladin and Friulian
Friulian language
Friulan , is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulan has around 800,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian...
minorities of the two districts were racially, historically and culturally a part of the Germanic world.
Further extension of the Germanic Reich's southern border was considered. According to Goebbels, Hitler had expressed that the border should extend to those of the region of Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
. Veneto was to be included into the Reich in an "autonomous form", and to benefit from the post-war influx of German tourists. At the time when Italy was on the verge of declaring an armistice with the Allies, Himmler declared to Felix Kersten that Northern Italy, along with the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, was "bound to eventually be included in Greater Germany anyway". The former Austrian territory of Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
was not specifically mentioned as an annexation target by either Goebbels or Himmler, but seems to have been designed to eventually join Veneto in the Germanic Reich. Hitler speaks favorably of the region's Germanic character in Table Talk
Hitler's Table Talk
Hitler's Table Talk is the title given to a series of wartime conversations and monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944...
and laments his "predecessors'
Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180....
" inability of consolidating the Holy Roman Empire's southernmost lands. In a supplementary OKW order dated 10 September 1943, Hitler decrees on the establishment of further Operational Zones in Northern Italy, which were the stretch all the way to the French border. Unlike Alpenvorland and Küstenland, these zones did not immediately receive high commissioners (oberster kommissar) as civilian advisors, but were military regions where the commander was to exercise power on behalf of Army Group B
Army Group B
Army Group B was the name of three different German Army Groups that saw action during World War II.-Battle for France:The first was involved in the Western Campaign in 1940 in Belgium and the Netherlands which was to be aimed to conquer the Maas bridges after the German airborne actions in Rotterdam...
. Operation zone Nordwest-Alpen or Schweizer Grenze was located between the Stelvio Pass
Stelvio Pass
The Stelvio Pass , located in Italy, at 2757 m is the highest paved mountain pass in the Eastern Alps, and the second highest in the Alps, slightly below the Col de l'Iseran .-Location:...
and Monte Rosa
Monte Rosa
The Monte Rosa Massif is a mountain massif located in the eastern part of the Pennine Alps. It is located between Switzerland and Italy...
and was to contain wholly the Italian provinces of Sondrio
Province of Sondrio
The Province of Sondrio is in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the town of Sondrio.It has an area of 3,212 km², and a total population of 176,856...
and Como
Province of Como
The Province of Como is a province in the north of the Lombardy region of Italy and borders the Swiss cantons of Ticino and Grigioni to the North, the Italian provinces of Sondrio and Lecco to the East, the Province of Milan to the south and the Province of Varese to the West...
and parts of the provinces of Brescia
Province of Brescia
The Province of Brescia is a Province in Lombardy, Italy. It borders with the province of Sondrio in the N and NW, the province of Bergamo in the W, province of Cremona in the SW and S, the province of Mantova to the S, and to the east, the province of Verona and Trentino .Source for statistical...
, Varese
Province of Varese
The Province of Varese is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Varese but its largest city is Busto Arsizio....
, Novara
Province of Novara
Novara is a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Novara.It has an area of 1,339 km², and a total population of 365.156 . There are 88 communes in the province.-External links:*...
and Vercelli
Province of Vercelli
Vercelli is a province in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. Its capital is Vercelli., it has an area of 2,088 km², and a total population of 176,829...
. The zone of Französische Grenze was to encompass areas west of Monte Rosa and was to incorporate the province of Aosta and a part of the province of Turin
Province of Turin
The Province of Turin is a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Turin.It has an area of 6,830 km², and a total population of 2,277,686 . There are 315 comuni in the province – the most of any province in Italy...
, and presumably also the provinces of Cuneo
Province of Cuneo
ayr is a province in the southwest of the Piedmont region of Italy. To the west it borders on the French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur ....
and Imperia
Province of Imperia
The Province of Imperia is a mountainous and hilly province, in the Liguria region of Italy, situated between the Maritime Alps to the north and the Ligurian Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean Sea to the south...
.
Atlantic islands
During the summer of 1940, Hitler considered the possibility of occupying the Portuguese AzoresAzores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
, Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
and Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
and the Spanish Canary islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
to deny the British a staging ground for military actions against Nazi-controlled Europe. In September 1940, Hitler further raised the issue in a discussion with the Spanish Foreign Minister Serrano Súñer
Ramón Serrano Súñer
Ramón Serrano Súñer , was a Spanish politician during the first stages of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, the Spanish State, between 1938 and 1942, when he held the posts of President of the Political Junta Política of Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS , and Interior and...
, offering now Spain to transfer one of the Canary islands to German usage for the price of French Morocco
French Morocco
French Protectorate of Morocco was a French protectorate in Morocco, established by the Treaty of Fez. French Morocco did not include the north of the country, which was a Spanish protectorate...
. Although Hitler's interest in the Atlantic islands must be understood from a framework imposed by the military situation of 1940, he ultimately had no plans of ever releasing these important naval bases from German control.
Himmler's Ahnenerbe
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...
embraced pseudoarchaeological theories of scholars Hermann Wirth
Hermann Wirth
Herman Wirth was a Dutch-German lay historian and scholar of ancient religions and symbols....
and Otto Huth
Otto Huth
Otto Huth was a German theologian, ethnologist, archeologist and an expert on folklore, who taught at the University of Tübingen....
, who fantasized that Cape Verde and the Canary islands were the only parts of the mythical submerged continent of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
still remaining above the ocean. Huth, under Ahnenerbe sponsorship, planned an archaeological expedition to the Canary islands with the goal of finding artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
of the antediluvian
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a book published during 1882 by Minnesota populist politician Ignatius L. Donnelly, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1831...
Nordic-Atlanteans. He further believed that the native people
Guanches
Guanches is the name given to the aboriginal Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago sometime between 1000 BCE and 100 BCE or perhaps earlier...
of islands were the remnants of an "ancient Nordic civilization" which had "blossomed undisturbed on the happy islands until it was destroyed
Conquest of the Canary Islands
The conquest of the Canary Islands by the Kingdom of Castille took place between 1402 and 1496. It can be divided into two periods, the Conquista señorial, carried out by Castilian nobility in exchange for a covenant of allegiance with the crown, and the Conquista realenga, carried out by the...
”.
Role of the British Isles in the Germanic order
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, in spite of its near-universal acceptance by the Nazi government as being part of the Germanic world. Leading Nordic ideologist Hans F. K. Günther theorized that the Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
had been more successful than the Germans in maintaining racial purity, thanks to Britain's island nature, with interbreeding between the Germanic conquerors and the subjugated Celtic nations
Celtic nations
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's own Celtic languages and some cultural traits have survived.The term "nation" is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common traditional identity and culture and are identified with a traditional...
being only marginal in effect. Furthermore, the coastal and island areas of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
had received additional Nordic blood through Norse raids and colonization during the Viking Age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
, and the Anglo-Saxons of Eastern and Northern England had been under Danish rule
Danelaw
The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , is a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the "Danes" held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. It is contrasted with "West Saxon law" and "Mercian law". The term has been extended by modern historians to...
in the 9th and 10th centuries. Günther referred to this historical process as Aufnordung ("additional nordification"), which finally culminated in the Norman conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
in 1066. Britain was thus a nation created by struggle and the survival of the fittest
Survival of the fittest
"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of Natural selection. The phrase is today commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert...
among the various Aryan peoples of the isles, and was able to pursue global conquest and empire-building because of its superior racial heredity born through this development.
Hitler professed an admiration for the imperial might of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
in Zweites Buch
Zweites Buch
The Zweites Buch is an unedited transcript of Adolf Hitler's thoughts on foreign policy written in 1928; it was written after Mein Kampf and was never published in his lifetime.-Composition:...
as proof of the racial superiority of the Aryan race, hoping that Germany would emulate British "ruthlessness" and "absence of moral scruples" in establishing its own colonial empire in Eastern Europe. One of his primary foreign policy aims throughout the 1930s was to establish a military alliance with both the English (Hitler conflated England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
with Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the United Kingdom in his writings and speeches) as well as the Italians to neutralize France as a strategic threat to German security for eastward
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
expansion
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
. In this arrangement the two "kindred folks" were to divide the world between each other with Germany dominating continental Europe, while England would reign supreme
Command of the sea
A naval force has command of the sea when it is so strong that its rivals cannot attack it directly. Also called sea control, this dominance may apply to its surrounding waters or may extend far into the oceans, meaning the country has a blue-water navy...
over the world’s oceans.
When it became apparent to the Nazi leadership that the United Kingdom was not interested in a military alliance, anti-British policies were adopted to ensure the attainment of Germany’s war aims. Even during the war however, hope remained that Britain would in time yet become a reliable German ally. Hitler preferred to see the British Empire preserved as a world power, because its break-up
Societal collapse
Societal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by collapses , as well as more extended gradual declines of superpowers...
would benefit other countries far more than it would Germany, particularly the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
. In fact, Hitler's strategy during 1935-1937 for winning Britain over was based on a German guarantee of defence of the British Empire. After the war, Ribbentrop testified that in 1935 Hitler had promised to deliver twelve German divisions to the disposal of Britain for maintaining the integrity of her colonial possessions.
The continued military actions against Britain after the fall of France had the strategic goal of making Britain 'see the light' and conduct an armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
with the Axis powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
, with July 1, 1940 being named by the Germans as the "probable date" for the cessation of hostilities. On May 21, 1940, Franz Halder
Franz Halder
Franz Halder was a German General and the head of the Army General Staff from 1938 until September, 1942, when he was dismissed after frequent disagreements with Adolf Hitler.-Early life:...
, the head of the Army General Staff
Oberkommando des Heeres
The Oberkommando des Heeres was Nazi Germany's High Command of the Army from 1936 to 1945. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht commanded OKH only in theory...
, after a consultation with Hitler concerning the aims envisaged by the Führer during the present war, wrote in his diary: "We are seeking contact with Britain on the basis of partitioning the world".
One of Hitler's sub-goals for the invasion of Russia was to win over Britain to the German side. He believed that after the military collapse of the USSR, "within a few weeks" Britain would be forced either into a surrender or else come to join Germany as a "junior partner" in the Axis. Britain's role in this alliance was reserved to support German naval and aerial military actions
Amerika Bomber
The Amerika-Bomber project was an initiative of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the Nazi Germany Air Ministry, to obtain a long-range strategic bomber for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the continental United States from Germany, a range of about 5,800 km...
against the USA in a fight for world supremacy
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
conducted from the Axis power bases of Europe, Africa and the Atlantic. On August 8, 1941, Hitler stated that he looked forward to the eventual day when "England and Germany [march] together against America" and on January 7, 1942 he daydreamed that it was "not impossible" for Britain to quit the war and join the Axis side, leading to a situation where "it will be a German-British army that will chase the Americans from Iceland". Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
hoped that after the victorious conclusion of the war against the USSR, Englishmen
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
, along with other Germanic nationalities, would join the German settlers in colonizing the conquered eastern territories.
From a historical perspective Britain’s situation was likened to that which the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
found itself in after it was defeated by the Kingdom of Prussia in the Battle of Königgratz
Battle of Königgrätz
The Battle of Königgrätz , also known as the Battle of Sadowa, Sadová, or Hradec Králové, was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Kingdom of Prussia defeated the Austrian Empire...
in 1866. As Austria was thereafter formally excluded from German affairs
German Confederation
The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...
, so too would Britain be excluded from continental affairs
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
in the event of a German victory. Yet afterwards, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
became a loyal ally of the German Empire in the pre-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
power alignments in Europe, and it was hoped that Britain would come to fulfill this same role.
Channel Islands
The British Channel IslandsChannel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
were to be permanently integrated into the Germanic Empire. On July 22, 1940, Hitler stated that after the war, the islands were to be given to the control of Robert Ley
Robert Ley
Robert Ley was a Nazi politician and head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He committed suicide while awaiting trial for war crimes.- Early life :...
's German Labour Front
German Labour Front
The German Labour Front was the National Socialist trade union organisation which replaced the various trade unions of the Weimar Republic after Adolf Hitler's rise to power....
, and transferred into Strength Through Joy holiday resorts. Nazi scholar Karl Heinz Pfeffer toured the islands in 1941, and recommended that the German occupiers should appeal to the islanders' Norman heritage and treat the islands as "Germanic micro-states", whose union with Britain was only an accident of history. He likened the preferred policy concerning the islands similar to the one pursued by the British in Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, where the Maltese language
Maltese language
Maltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic...
had been "artificially" supported against the Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Ireland
A Military operation plan for the invasion of Ireland in support of Operation Sea Lion was drawn up by the Germans in August 1940. Occupied Ireland was to be ruled along with Britain in a temporary administrative system divided into six military-economic commands, with one of the headquarters being situated in Dublin. Ireland's future position in the New Order is unclear, but it is known that Hitler would have reunitedUnited Ireland
A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...
Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
with the Irish state.
Expected participation in the colonization of Eastern Europe
Despite the pursued aim of pan-Germanic unification, the primary goal of Nazi Germany’s territorial expansionismExpansionism
In general, expansionism consists of expansionist policies of governments and states. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth , more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a state expanding its territorial base usually, though not necessarily, by means of military...
was to acquire sufficient Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
for the "Aryan race". The primary objective of this aim was to transform Germany into a complete economic autarky
Autarky
Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic policies. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky...
, the end-result of which would be a state of continent-wide German hegemony over Europe. This was to be accomplished through the enlargement of the territorial base of the German state and the expansion of the German population, and the wholesale extermination
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
of the indigenous Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
and Baltic inhabitants.
Because of their perceived racial worth, the Nazi leadership was enthusiastic at the prospect of "recruiting" people from the Germanic countries to also settle these territories
Settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is a specific colonial formation whereby foreign family units move into a region and reproduce. Land is thus the key resource in settler colonies, whereas natural and human resources are the main motivation behind other forms of colonialism...
after the Slavic inhabitants would have been exterminated or otherwise driven out. The racial planners were partly motivated in this because studies indicated that Germany would likely not be able to recruit enough colonial settlers for the eastern territories from its own country and other Germanic groups would therefore be required. Hitler insisted however that German settlers would have to dominate the newly colonized areas. Himmler's original plan for the Hegewald settlement
Hegewald (colony)
Hegewald was a short-lived German colony in Reichskommissariat Ukraine near Zhitomir during World War II. Its purpose was to hold Poles and Ukrainian settlers who had been classified as Volksdeutsche for Germanization...
was to settle Dutch and Scandinavians there in addition to Germans, which was unsuccessful.
Later development
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler's preoccupation with the Pan-Germanic plan began to fade, although the idea was never abandoned. As the foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS were increasingly of non-Germanic origin, especially after the Battle of StalingradBattle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
, among the organization's leadership (e.g. Felix Steiner
Felix Steiner
Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a German Reichswehr and Waffen-SS officer who served in both World War I and World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords...
) the proposition for a Greater Germanic Empire gave way to a concept of a European union of self-governing states, unified by German hegemony and the common enemy of Bolshevism. The Waffen-SS was to be the eventual nucleus of a common European army, where each state would be represented by a national contingent. Himmler himself, however, gave no concession to these views, and held on to his Pan-Germanic vision in a speech given on April 1943 to the officers of SS divisions LSAH
1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard. Initially the size of a regiment, the LSSAH eventually grew into a divisional-sized unit...
, Das Reich and Totenkopf
3rd SS Division Totenkopf
The SS Division Totenkopf , also known as 3. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf and 3. SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf, was one of the 38 divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Prior to achieving division status, the formation was known as Kampfgruppe Eicke...
:
See also
- New Order (Nazism), the overall Nazi conceptions of a post-WWII restructuring of the world.
- Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity SphereGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity SphereThe Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a concept created and promulgated during the Shōwa era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan. It represented the desire to create a self-sufficient "bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers"...
, the envisioned Japanese equivalent to the Greater Germanic Reich and the New Order. - Greater ItalyGreater ItalyGreater Italy , or Imperial Italy , was an ambitious project envisioned by fascist Italy in which the objective was to create an Italian empire which would expand, in addition to the irredentist claimed territories , to additional Mediterranean basin territories...
, the Fascist Italian project for securing dominion over the Mediterranean area. - Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany (see Planned future districts)
- Kleindeutschland and Grossdeutschland
- Racial policy of Nazi GermanyRacial policy of Nazi GermanyThe racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy...
- Pan movements
- Axis victory in World War IIAxis victory in World War IIAn Axis victory in World War II is a common concept in alternate history. World War II alternate histories are one of the two most popular points of divergence in the English language...
External links
- Expansion of German Conquest and Policy Towards Jews on the Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
website - Map detailing the early political plans for the creation of the Greater Germanic Reich