What is Lebensraum (living space)?
What German word means living space? Lebensraum is the land or territory that a country's leaders believe it requires in order to grow and flourish. The Nazis used the idea of Lebensraum, literally "living space" in German, as the basis of their policy for the Germany's expansion.
What does Lebensraum mean in German?
Nov 05, 2021 · "Lebensraum" is a German word meaning "living space" or "living room." It was coined by Ratzel, who stated that nations were obligated to obtain lands rich in resources to provide for their people. Leland ⭐ Answeregy Expert BBC - History - World Wars: Hitler and 'Lebensraum' in the ... Idea of 'Lebensraum'.
What is the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum?
Suggest new translation/definition living space n (in house) Wohnraum m , (for a nation) Lebensraum m Translation English - German Collins Dictionary See also: living, living cell, high living, disability living allowance Collaborative Dictionary English-German » …
Did Hitler ever publicly speak about the need for living space?
Mar 12, 2011 · Living space was supposed to be cleaned of the old people and German people would move in and populate the areas. Definition of living space? What is …
What is the German term for living space?
LebensraumThe concept of Lebensraum—or “living space”—served as a critical component in the Nazi worldview that drove both its military conquests and racial policy.
What is German Lebensraum mean?
Definition of lebensraum 1 : territory believed especially by Nazis to be necessary for national existence or economic self-sufficiency. 2 : space required for life, growth, or activity.
What is Hitler's Lebensraum?
Overview. By 1939, Nazi Germany was ready for the next phase of Hitler's racial program, which called for Lebensraum, or “living space,” for the Aryan race. The German invasion of Poland in September 1939 both set this quest for “race and space” in motion and began World War II in Europe.
What is an example of Lebensraum?
The Nazi usages of the term Lebensraum were explicitly racial, to justify the mystical right of the racially superior Germanic peoples (Herrenvolk) to fulfill their cultural destiny at the expense of racially inferior peoples (Untermenschen), such as the Slavs of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the other non–Germanic ...
What is Weimar Republic in Germany?
The Weimar Republic was the German government from 1919 to 1933. It is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar from February 6 to August 11, 1919. On February 11, the assembly elected Friedrich Ebert president of the Reich.
What does Gestapo mean in English?
Gestapo, abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei (German: “Secret State Police”), the political police of Nazi Germany.
Who owns the Rhineland?
The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces. Under the Treaty of Versailles, German troops were banned from all territory west of the Rhine and within 50 kilometers east of the Rhine.
What did Germany lay claim on?
With the rise of Pan-Germanism before and during WWII, Germany claimed the Sudetenland, and annexated it after the Munich Agreement. After the war, Czechoslovakia expelled the Sudeten Germans from their territory, and the area is now almost exclusively inhabited by Czech speakers.Mar 20, 2019
What does blitzkrieg stand for?
lightning warblitzkrieg, (German: “lightning war”) military tactic calculated to create psychological shock and resultant disorganization in enemy forces through the employment of surprise, speed, and superiority in matériel or firepower.
What was the Anschluss & Lebensraum of the Germans?
German for “living space,” this term refers to policies and practices of settler colonialism proliferated in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s. This is the term used to describe the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938, but the idea goes back to the 19th century.
What did the Luftwaffe do?
Luftwaffe, (German: “air weapon”) component of the German armed forces tasked with the air defense of Germany and fulfillment of the country's airpower commitments abroad.
Who created the concept of living space?
The concept of Lebensraum originated with German geographer and ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), who studied how humans reacted to their environment and were especially interested in human migration. In 1901 Ratzel published an essay called "Der Lebensraum" ("The Living Space"), in which he posited that all peoples ...
What is the meaning of Lebensraum?
In Nazi ideology, Lebensraum meant the expansion of Germany to the east in search of a unity between the German Volk and the land (the Nazi concept of Blood and Soil).
Why did Hitler use Lebensraum?
Although the term was originally used to support colonialism, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler adapted the concept of Lebensraum to support his quest for German expansion to the east.
What did Hitler say about the Soviet Union?
It was in this view that Hitler added a racist element to Lebensraum. By stating that the Soviet Union was run by Jews (after the Russian Revolution ), Hitler concluded Germany had a right to take Russian land. "For centuries Russia drew nourishment from this Germanic nucleus of its upper leading strata.
Who is Jennifer Rosenberg?
Jennifer Rosenberg is a historian and writer who specializes in 20th-century history. The geopolitical concept of Lebensraum (German for "living space") was the idea that land expansion was essential to the survival of a people. Although the term was originally used to support colonialism, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler adapted the concept ...
What does "ersatz" mean in German?
der Ersatz. This word literally means “replacement” [e.g. “spare parts” are “Ersatzteile”], and is typically used in English to refer to a cheap, inferior substitute for something, e.g. “ersatz coffee” was coffee made from substances other than coffee beans in wartime. das Fahrvergnügen.
What does "gemütlichkeit" mean in German?
gemütlich, die Gemütlichkeit. These terms indicate a cozy sense of well-being in a comfortable environment, e.g. relaxing alone or with friends, perhaps over a drink or two, after a hard day’s work. General descriptions of “the Germans” will usually list Gemütlichkeit as one of the highest priorities of every German.
What is a dachshund in German?
der Dachshund. Ironically, although the word comes from German, it is not much used in German, having been replaced by a contraction: these dogs (also sometimes called “Wiener. dogs” in English because of their shape) are normally called “Dackel” in German. Der Dachs = badger; der Hund = dog. der Doppelgänger.
What does "Ragnarok" mean?
This literally means “dawn/dusk of the gods.”. It is the German term for the rather pessimistic concept of “Ragnarok” in Norse mythology, which refers to “the destruction of the world in the last great conflict between the gods and the forces of evil” [ Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1986].
What is power politics?
Defined by Wikipedia as the practice of politics independent of moral or ethical considerations, usually for the advancement of the national interests of a country. frequently used in English to refer to “power politics.”. Associated famously with the Prussian/German statesman Otto von Bismarck in the second half.
Is kitsch expensive?
Kitschy objects are often cheap, but can be quite expensive ; owners of kitschy objects often think the object is beautiful, and creators of kitschy art are often just bad artists, but much kitsch is also created and collected in the full knowledge and enjoyment of its kitschyness.
Overview
Origins
In the 19th century, the term Lebensraum was used by the German biologist Oscar Peschel in his 1860 review of Charles Darwin's Origins of Species (1859). In 1897, the ethnographer and geographer Friedrich Ratzelin his book Politische Geographie applied the word Lebensraum ("living space") to describe physical geography as a factor that influences human activities in developing into a soc…
First World War nationalist premise
In September 1914, when the German victory in the First World War appeared feasible, the government of Imperial Germany introduced the Septemberprogramm as an official war aim (Kriegsziel), which was secretly endorsed by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg(1909–17), whereby, upon achieving battlefield victory, Germany would annex territories from weste…
Interwar propaganda
In the national politics of the Weimar Republic (1919–33), the German Eugenicists took up the nationalist, political slogan of Volk ohne Raum, and matched it with the racialslogan Volk ohne Jugend (a People without Youth), a cultural proposition that ignored the declining German birth-rate (since the 1880s) and contradicted the popular belief that the "German race" was a vigor…
Lebensraum in practice: the Second World War
On 6 October 1939, Hitler told the Reichstag that after the fall of Poland the most important matter was "a new order of ethnographic relations, that is to say, resettlement of nationalities". On 20 October 1939, Hitler told General Wilhelm Keitel that the war would be a difficult "racial struggle" and that the General Governmentwas to "purify the Reich territory from Jews and Polacks, too." Like…
Historical retrospective
The scope of the enterprise and the scale of the territories invaded and conquered for Germanisationby the Nazis indicated two ideological purposes for Lebensraum, and their relation to the geopolitical purposes of the Nazis: (i) a program of global conquest, begun in Central Europe; and (ii) a program of continental European conquest, limited to Eastern Europe. From the strategic …
Contemporary usages
Since the end of World War II, the term Lebensraum has been used in relation to different countries throughout the world, including China, Egypt, Israel, Poland and the United States.
See also
• Colonialism
• Expansionism for expansionist ideas in other countries
• Imperialism
• Irredentism
• A land without a people for a people without a land