Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion v. 1

"On the walls of the Roman Forum, Mussolini hung a series of maps contrasting the growth of the ancient Roman Empire with Italy's contemporary position. No comparable maps hung in Berlin.... Not that Nazi Germany was without its maps. Ethnic maps, linguistic maps, geopolitical maps, maps embodying every variety of claim and speculation decorated Nazi party offices. government buildings, and school rooms. Their very profusion gave them an air of unreality." There was, however, no air of unreality about the conquests-first diplomatic, ultimately military-that took Germany farther beyond its boundaries in World War II than even its fanatical leader had contemplated. In this volume Norman Rich shows how Hitler's policies followed his blueprint of expansion, outlined in Mein Kampf and based mainly on racial ideology, until political and military necessities, real and imagined, drove him to war against nations that played no part in his ideological program.After an introduction that places Hitler and the Nazi regime in the perspective of German history, Professor Rich relates Hitler's actual theories to the rise of the Nazi state and the development of a system of men and institutions dedicated to carrying out the Fuhrer's orders. This system was to provide the machinery of expansion that becomes the focus of this study, as the spread of the Nazis is traced in detail from the annexation of Austria to Hitler's attack on Russia and declaration of war against the United States.