Hitler's War Aims: The Establishment of the New Order

As its greatest extent Nazi Germany reached from the coast of France to the west bank of the Volga at Stalingrad, a domain even vaster than Hitler had envisaged in his blueprints for conquest. With millions of people under Nazi control, what measures did Hitler promulgate to extend his ideology beyond the borders of his own country, to bring the subject nations into a pan-German racial state that would be free of Jews, Slavs, and other “non-Aryans”? In seeking answers to these questions, Norman Rich carries his study of Hitler’s war aims to the actual policies implemented in the countries that came under German occupation before and during the Second World War. In doing so, he provides a fitting sequel to his previous volume on Hitler’s diplomatic and military ventures, a work that was hailed by H. R. Trevor-Roper as “amply documented, thoroughly scholarly in method, scrupulous in detail; sensible in judgment.”

After an opening chapter that describes the treatment of the Jews in German society, the focus shifts to the government and administration of the conquered countries―ranging from those nations with a substantial population of ethnic Germans to those, such as the Balkan states, where few, if any, “Germanic” peoples could be found. To round out the account, Professor Rich also deals with Hitler’s intentions toward countries and continents that never were brought into the Nazi empire. The volume provides a comprehensive picture of the world that would have existed had Hitler achieved the totality of his war aims.