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Source AHitler showed a similar ruthlessness with his foreign enemies. Since his earliest days his two political aims had been including all Germans inside the Reich and to conquer living space (lebensraum) for Germany in the east by subduing the Poles and Russians. The first was against the terms of the Versailles treaty. It conflicted with the French policy of keeping Germany small and surrounded by countries friendly to France. Nevertheless it seemed to many only fair because Austria was almost entirely German and Czechoslovakia had a large German population. After all, the Versailles settlement had been founded on Wilson's idea of ‘self-determination’. The second aim was clearly a threat to peace so Hitler at first hid it by signing a friendship treaty with Poland (1934). It was to be five years before he felt strong enough to reveal the full extent of his deadly plans. LE Snellgrove, The Modern World since 1870 (1975).
Source BDuring the first stage of his 'Programme' Hitler wanted Germany to achieve the domination of the European continent. German-speaking groups were to be brought together and lost territories recovered. The enlarged Third Reich, which would emerge in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, was to be called the Greater German Reich and it was to last for a thousand years . . . Hitler would, of course, make use of any minority claims under the cover of self-determination. In order to win Britain's connivance he was ready for the time being to make concessions in restraining Germany's claims on her former colonies in Africa. In order to show moderation he accepted a prospective reduction of German naval rearmament embodied in the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935, for he did not, at any rate, envisage using the fleet during the initial stages of his aggressive moves on the Continent. But all these concessions were made on the assumption that Germany was to obtain a free hand in her Eastward expansion (Drang each Osten).. Milan Hauner, Did Hitler Want a World Dominion? (1978).
Source CBy 1937, Hitler’s general views on Germany’s future policy were firmly established, and the basis for implementing that policy was, in his judgment, being assured. Germany was not large enough to feed the existing, to say nothing of an increased, population, and her boundaries must therefore be expanded. That expansion he saw in terms far beyond the borders of 1914, which had been almost as inadequate as those established by the peace settlement. Revision of the Versailles settlement might be a subject of propaganda for consolidating opinion at home or undermining resistance to German moves abroad, but it could never be a guide for policy. In fact, the utilization of the revision theme was a two-edged sword: it might well bring concessions to Germany, but it implied limitations on those concessions, limitations that would hem Germany within borders that were not only too confined but that when broken would reveal the true nature of Hitler’s aims. For this reason, general talk about the ‘wrongs’ done Germany must pave the way not for righting those ‘wrongs’ but for a series of wars for which the German people would be psychologically prepared by propaganda and the militarization of German life at the same time as the will of others to resist was being undermined by promises and threats.. Gerhard Weinberg, Starting WWII (1980).
Source DHitler aimed to make Germany into a great power again and this he hoped to achieve by destroying the hated Versailles settlement, building up the army, recovering lost territory such as the Saar and the Polish Corridor, and bringing all Germans within the Reich. This last aim would involve the annexation of Austria and the acquisition of territory from Czechoslovakia and Poland, both of which had large German minorities as a result of Versailles. There is some disagreement about what, if anything, Hitler intended beyond these aims. Most historians believe that the annexation of Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland was only a beginning, to be followed by the seizure of the rest of Czechoslovakia and Poland and by the conquest and permanent occupation of Russia as far east as the Ural Mountains. This would give him what the Germans called Lebensraum (living space) which would provide food for the German people and an area in which the excess German population could settle and colonise. An additional advantage was that communism would be destroyed. However, not all historians agree about these further aims; A. J. P. Taylor, for example, claims that Hitler never intended a major war and at most was prepared only for a limited war against Poland. Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History (1988).
Source E[Hitler’s] long-term aim was German domination of the Earth, but the critical phase, and the one he wanted to see accomplished in his lifetime, was the establishment of fortress Europe under German control, firstly by the subjugation of France and, secondly, the acquisition of Lebensraum (living space) in the Ukraine at the expense of the Soviet Union. The destruction of the Soviet state would strike a decisive blow against both Bolshevism and world Jewry, and also provide a large area for agricultural settlement by Germany’s ‘surplus population’. The Ukraine would become Germany’s granary. Once German rule in Europe had been consolidated, the time would have arrived for a final showdown with the United States for world domination. This was a contest in which Germany would triumph because of the superior preservation of its racial stock. A critical element in this programme, however, was the high degree of importance Hitler attached to the achievement, at an early stage, of an alliance with Britain, for that would be crucial to the subjugation of France.. Adam Crozier, Was the Second World War as much a consequence of appeasement as an aggressive German foreign policy? (1999).
Source FIf we focus on Hitler, and more precisely on Hitler's policies during the crucial period from his appointment in 1933 to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, and even to the war’s transformation into a global conflict in 1941, then the issue of aggressive war and Drang nach Lebensraum outweighed everything else in Hitler's mind, including deliberations on racial matters. Without any doubt Hitler's thinking and actions during that period were dominated by his obsession with re-establishing Germany as a dominant international power, annihilating the Treaty of Versailles, and, above all, preparing for and conducting a major and potentially interminable war of expansion. “We”, argued Hitler in 1928, “calculate our own sacrifices, way the extent of the possible success and will stride forward to the attack, regardless of whether it will come to a halt 10 or 1000 kilometres behind the present lines. For wherever our success ends it will always be only the point of departure for a new struggle.” Christian Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy (2004).
Source GHitler's Germany was operating against the backdrop of the Great Depression and so focused its attention much more covetously on resource-rich lands in the east. The importance of Lebensraum {Living space} on resources from Eastern Europe was stated explicitly by Hitler in Mein Kampf And were later reinforced in the Hossbach Memorandum (1937). The Nazi economic miracle which saw unemployment all but evaporate came at the expense of committing Germany to a war economy how long loans were raised to finance rearmament, but these could only be repaid if these newly manufactured weapons were used to seize foreign lands and resources. Russel Tarr, Essays in Modern History (2020).
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