There was no need for Lebensraum

The feeling I have is that they utilised Lebensraum as a way of justifying an agressive foreign policy. Its easier to convince a population that agressive war is necessary if you make some kind of practical reasoning, even if there is no basis for it, than if you admit that you want to avenge an earlier defeat or just want to go on the rampage.

 

Germany had not enough food,raw materials and land for a mechanised agriculture . The SU had a lot of foof,raw materials and land for a mechanised agriculture . Thus Germany was goying to occupy European Russia . The extermination of the Jews would be an extra bonus :this is the essence of the Lebensraum .

Even assuming your first sentence is correct, yes, but they were getting everything they wanted from a shitless-scared Stalin, and delivered on time, while which the Sovs could no console themselves about the converse. Even on the very daw of 22Jun41 there was inbound goods traffic crossing the border!

Yes, the Nazis went to get (or thought they would, for instance the famous Nikopol mines Adolf made such a big fuss about never extracted a ton during Occupation bar some stockpile scrapings) the same stuff but it simply was bad business even in commercial sense: too much capital, goods and labour squandered to obtain a fraction of what they were getting anyway. It's sad to be a loser.

The feeling I have is that they utilised Lebensraum as a way of justifying ...
Yes, if you say the same lie often enough then it becomes policy. Germany always had this Lebensraum dream about it, they had East Prussia with it's interminable wheatfields, and all over it was just more of the same: more wheatfields with only a few Slaves here and there. All so easy, all so within grasp.

 

Even assuming your first sentence is correct, yes, but they were getting everything they wanted from a shitless-scared Stalin, and delivered on time, while which the Sovs could no console themselves about the converse. Even on the very daw of 22Jun41 there was inbound goods traffic crossing the border!

Yes, the Nazis went to get (or thought they would, for instance the famous Nikopol mines Adolf made such a big fuss about never extracted a ton during Occupation bar some stockpile scrapings) the same stuff but it simply was bad business even in commercial sense: too much capital, goods and labour squandered to obtain a fraction of what they were getting anyway. It's sad to be a loser.


Yes, if you say the same lie often enough then it becomes policy. Germany always had this Lebensraum dream about it, they had East Prussia with it's interminable wheatfields, and all over it was just more of the same: more wheatfields with only a few Slaves here and there. All so easy, all so within grasp.
They were not getting everything they wanted from Stalin ,they could BUY from Stalin,but the moment Stalin was not selling or at a double price,the Germans would be in very big trouble .
I think you would have to search longtime for wheatfields in East Prussia,you would finf a lot of pigs and sheeps,the quality of the land was dubious and a lot was used by the military .

 

Then they could trade the Prussian pork for Hungarian wheat, right? That's how trade works, you sell your surplus and with the proceeds buy the rest.

How did Jerry get hold of the Skoda Works? With a somewhat harsher interpretation of 'hostile take over'

Even without colonies like GB, Fr, Belgium, Holland, etc., Germany from the Industrial Revolution onwards never had any trouble economically mastering Central Europe and beyond, through trading superior industrial manufactures goods in exchange for raw materials and foodstuffs, benefitting from open sea trade routes. Things only went apesh!t through the intervention of such luminaries as Wilhelm II and Adolf Einkugel.

 

I was reading that even with exceptional birth-rates there wouldn't be enough Germans even by the 1970s to fill the lands in the east with pure-bred Germanic volk.

This is what I'm trying to get at.
This is why the Nazis were all for talking up the importance of the role of Mothers in the Third Reich. To try and boost the birth rate.

 

Gerard / Gott
This is why the Nazis were all for talking up the importance of the role of Mothers in the Third Reich. To try and boost the birth rate.


A mother's Cross in Gold for multiple child births - the book Owen mentions I have in a long line waiting to be read or gutted - it seems to be a well put together work.

The living space thing - one of those notions and ideas which appealed to the NSDAP - the security of Germany , the resources , the dreams of Empire and the link between "blood and soil" , the need to protect Germans from other races , destruction of the Jews and Communism - coherent policy and sensible thinking don't really interface with what was an insane and incoherent view of the world and how Germany should be governed.
When you look at what was under way - "Germania" - the rebuild of Berlin , the total rearmament programme - a naval plan which German could not hope to resource , the expansion into the east , dependant on the defeat of Poland , Russia and the West - all being done at once or within a time scale which was so unrealistic.
Hitler's Germany and its policies reflected what was going on in Hitler's mind and those of his sycophants , the economic factors ( who was going to pay) , irrational planning which took no account of what was possible , impossible , the thinking in broad brush strokes which others attempted to make reality - "working towards the Fuhrer" - a lunatics view of the world.

 

That's it James. They had no rational idea whether they had any real, concrete need for Lbsrm or not, it was just a hunch, Adolf simply postulated they needed it and there it was. And when they got it, what did they do with it that was worth any mention in economic terms? Nothing, it was all completely irrational.