help with world war two history!!!?

Question

did adolf hitler want to gain world dominance,or just dominance of germany?

Answer 1

The name "National Socialism" itself describes the fundamental orientation of Hitler's foreign policy. The nation, as a concept, was historically used almost interchangeably with race or ethnicity. Even under the League of Nations' legalistic framework for European state relations, states had been drawn upon ethnically determined boundaries, following the tenets of Wilson's Fourteen Points speech. The first priority of the National Socialists was to focus on the racial aspects of foreign policy. Socialism, on the other hand, is focused on the equitable distribution and redistribution of material goods within an economic system. As a latecomer to nationhood proper and industrialization, Germany was far behind other older colonial powers in the acquisition of territory abroad. Burdened with a burgeoning population, Germany had lagging ability to raise agricultural production to meet food demands, compete in markets for industrial goods, obtain cheap sources of raw materials, and find an acceptable outlet for emigration. National Socialist foreign policy thus focused on what they perceived as a more equitable international redistribution of material resources and markets.

Hitler's foreign policy strategy can be divided into two main concepts: race and space. In 1928, Hitler dictated the text of a follow-up text to Mein Kampf focused on the elaboration of the foreign policy concepts he had previously set forth.Unedited and unpublished it allows a clearer picture of Hitler's thoughts than the edited and revised Mein Kampf, or his populist and over-simplified speeches. There is a lack of development or major shifts in his worldview between the 1926 volume and his assumption of power in 1933, supporting the idea that Hitler was not a foreign policy opportunist, but that his ideas were specific and formed before he had the power to implement his designs.

Hitler outlined eight principles and four goals that were to guide his foreign policy. The principles were concerned with the German military, the League of Nations, and the situation with France. Hitler's first concern was the reinvigoration of the German military, without which all other aims could not be achieved. The League of Nations was a prohibitive factor in the development and change of Germany, because those with influence in the League were the very same states that had demanded Germany's crippling. Germany could not hope for allies found outside the League, but only discontent states that would be willing to break away. Those states would not be willing to leave unless Germany established a clear and articulated foreign policy, with clear costs and consequences, which the others could then follow. He cautions, however, that Germany cannot rely upon inferior allies (undesirable either by dint of their race or past military weakness). France, and the containment alliance it led against Germany, could not be challenged without the strong military Hitler envisioned and a decisive preemptive strike.He recognized that no matter what path Germany takes to regain its strength, France would always assist or even lead a coalition against it.

Hitler's goals for Nazi foreign policy were more straightforward, focusing on German space, rather than the strictly racial aspects of his policy. His designs are meant to give Germany the focus that it lacked in the previous thirty-five years of "aimlessness." He calls for a clear foreign policy of space, not international trade or industry. The concept of lebensraum in the East overrided any perceived need for naval power, which would only bring Germany into conflict with England and Italy. Industrial exports and trade would require a merchant marine force, meeting most directly with the enmity of England, and France its willing ally. Therefore, land expansion was Hitler's primary goal, eschewing the borders of 1914, calling them nationally inadequate, militarily unsatisfactory, ethnically impossible, and insane when considered in light of Germany's opposition in Europe.

Race
While the goals and principles Hitler enunciated were primarily focused on the redistribution of space, they grew out of his focus on race. By 1923, Hitler had outlined his basic ideas on race. The Jews had betrayed Germany in WWI, a fact that necessitated a domestic revolution to remove them from power. He saw history as governed by the racial aspects of society, both internal and national. In his mind, a vulgarized sort of Social Darwinism determined the rise and fall of civilizations. The world was composed not of states, but of competing races of different values, and politics was fundamentally a struggle led by those with the greatest capacity for organization, a characteristic held by Germanic peoples more than any other.Nations of pure and strong racial makeup would eventually prosper over those with ideas of racial equality—France was condemned in this regard because of its acceptance of blacks, and the use of black units in WWI against German troops. Acceptance of inferior races was intimately connected to the Jewish menace, and its threat to the strength of the Germanic race.

The vital strength of a race and its will to survive were the most important conditions which would lead to a resurgence of Germany, despite its lack of resources and materiel.The reestablishment of a truly nationalist German army, free from the hired mercenaries of the imperial era, was Hitler's first goal. With the threat or use of force, Germany would be able to move forward in achieving its goals for space. Thus, he implemented the Four Year Plan in order to overcome internal obstacles to military growth. A German army of considerable size would push its neighbors into conciliation and negotiation without the need for actual military adventures. In justifying the need for decisive military action, Hitler cites a lesson from WWI: those who are neutral gain a little in trade, but lose their seat at the victor's table, and thus their right to decide the structure of the peace to follow. He thus renounced neutrality, and committed his country to taking vital risks that would lead to greater gains.


Space
Hitler's racial ideas were indirectly expressed in his concept of space for German foreign policy. Space was not a global concept in the same way that older imperial states conceived of it, with their massive colonial empires carving up the world abroad. Hitler saw only value in adjacent and agriculturally viable land, not in trade and industry outlets that required a maritime orientation. He had no faith in increasing productivity, thus leading to the need to expand within Europe. Lebensraum for Germany required moving beyond the "arbitrary" goal of the border of 1914, expanding into the East, and adopting policies toward the Western European nations, Great Powers, and treaty arrangements, which would facilitate this land redistribution.

A lack of space for a race's growth would lead to its decay through degenerate population control methods and dependence upon other nations' imports. Expansion is directly correlated to the race's vitality, space allowing for larger families that would repopulate the nation from the losses it incurs fighting wars for territory. Where Hitler's expansionism differed greatly from that of imperial nations was his idea of racial purity, which required driving out or exterminating the native populations of any conquered territory. Industry and trade were only transient solutions, subject to the vicissitudes of the market, and likely leading to war as economic competition escalates. Lebensraum was thus the only permanent solution for securing the German race's vitality. Colonies would take far too long to solve the Reich's agriculture and space problem; furthermore, they constitute a naval and industrial policy rather than a land-based agricultural policy, which is where Germany's strength lies. Thus, Hitler committed Germany to a role as a land power rather than a sea power, and focused his foreign policy on attaining the highest possible concentration of land power resources for a future that lay in Europe.

The racial struggle for space envisioned by Hitler was essentially unlimited, a policy that could only have two results: total defeat or total conquest. Rudolf Hess discovered in 1927, while the two were imprisoned at Landsberg prison, that Hitler believed only one race with total hegemony could bring about world peace.Hitler confirmed this attitude, regarding Europe specifically, in August 1943 speaking to his naval advisors, declaring, "Only if all of Europe is united under a strong central power can there be any security for Europe from now on. Small sovereign states no longer have a right to exist."

Lebensraum as a foreign policy concept was based upon domestic considerations, especially that of population growth and the pressure it placed upon existing German resources. War for lebensraum was justified by this need to reestablish an acceptable ratio between land and people. Whereas the Weimar foreign policy was based on borders, the National Socialist foreign policy would be based on space and expansionism, pointing to fundamentally different conceptions of world order—the bourgeois saw in terms of states and law, whereas Hitler maintained an image of ethnic or racially defined nationhood. Lebensraum served to create the economic condition of autarky, in which the German people would be self-sufficient, no longer dependent on imports, or subject to demand shifts in international markets, which had been forcing industry to struggle against other nations.

To achieve lebensraum, Hitler cautioned against what he saw as a dangerous Weimar policy of demanding a return to the 1914 borders. Foremost, and inexcusable in his mind, those borders would not unite all ethnic Germans under the Reich. In order to commit to a nation of all German-speaking peoples, the borders of 1914 must be abandoned as incompatible with racial unity and their arbitrary nature.Open advocacy of border restoration would only urge a coalition to form against Germany before it could raise an army to achieve its ends. Further, he believed that empty saber-rattling on this issue would shift public opinion against Germany, in support of France's anti-German measures, and even if achieved would only guarantee instability without achieving the racial goals he sees as so central to German vitality.

This doctrine of space focused on Eastern Europe, taking territory from the ethnically inferior Slavs. While Western European nations were despised for allowing racial impurity, they were still essentially Aryan nations, but the small and weak Slavic nations to the East were legitimate targets. In talking to the Associated Press, Hitler commented that if Germany acquired the Ukraine, Urals and territory into the heartland of Siberia it would be able to have surplus prosperity. Thus, Germany would have to be concerned about the newly independent states to the East, sitting between Germany and its goal of Russian territory. These states, especially the reconstituted Poland, were viewed as Saisonstaat, or states that exist for no enduring reason. No alliance with Russia would be possible either, because of German designs on Eastern territory. Still, Hitler maintained faith that if Germany were to make clear its aspirations for space in the inferior East, the Great Powers in Europe would not intervene, with the possible exception of France.


[Great Power relationships
Because of French opposition, it was crucial for Germany's plans to defeat France before moving against the states in the East and Russia.As an ally of Poland and Yugoslavia, a supporter of racial equality, and a constant opponent of German designs, action against France was deemed the highest priority in allowing those designs to come to fruition. By allying with states hostile to France and its coalition, Germany's military first-strike would be quickly successful.

England was supposed to be Germany's natural ally, according to Hitler. It maintained good relations with Italy, while sharing key German interests, foremost of which was that neither country desired a French continental hegemon. Since Hitler had decided to abandon Germany's naval power, trade and colonial ambitions, he believed that they would be likely to ally with Germany against France, which still maintained conflicting interests with England. And because Russia threatened English interests in Middle Eastern oil and India, action against Russia ought to also find German and England on the same side.

Italy would serve as Germany's other natural ally. Hitler perceived their interests as being far enough apart that they would not come into conflict.Germany was concerned primarily with Eastern Europe, while Italy's natural domain was the Mediterranean. Still, their divergent interests both led them into conflict with France. Ideological ties were supposed to ease their relations, providing something more than simply shared interests to bind them together.The major sticking point between the two countries was the South Tyrol. Hitler believed (incorrectly in retrospect) that if he were to cede this territory, then Italy would drop its objections to the Anschluss.

Hitler repeatedly stressed another long-term fear, apparently driving his desire for German economic domination of European resources, which was the rise of America as a Great Power. Underlining his lack of faith in the ability to increase agricultural or industrial productivity, he cites America's vast size as the reason that economic policy will fail and expansionism can be the only route for Germany.He rejects popular conceptions of a Pan-European economic union designed to counter American economic power, saying that life is not measured by quantity of material goods, but by the quality of a nation's race and organization.Instead of this Pan-Europe, Hitler desires a free association of superior nations bound by their shared interest in challenging America's domination of the world. In his mind, American economic power is more threatening than English domination of the world. Only after defeating France and Russia could Germany establish its Eurasian empire that would lead nations against America, whose power he saw as undermined by its acceptance of Jews and Blacks.


Bases for Hitler's strategies
In constructing these designs for Europe, Hitler realized that treaties would only serve him as short-term measures. They could be used for immediate space-gaining instruments, partitioning third countries between Germany and another power. Or they could function as a means of delaying a problem until it could be dealt with safely. Treaties of alliance were only regarded as viable if both parties clearly gained; otherwise, they could legitimately be dropped. Multilateral treaties were to be strenuously avoided. Even among countries that shared interests, alliances could never be planned on being permanent, as the allied state could become the enemy at short notice. Still, Hitler realized that Germany would need allies in order to successfully leave the League of Nations and pursue its goals.

Hitler had not traveled abroad, nor read extensively, and as such his foreign policy grew out of his domestic concerns.Foreign policy's ultimate goal was the sustenance of its people, and so domestic concerns were tightly connected and complimentary to foreign policy initiatives. Thus, the traditional separation of domestic and foreign policy do not apply in the same way to German policy under the National Socialists. The domestic situation informed foreign policy goals, and foreign policy requirements demanded certain domestic organization and mobilization. It is clear, however, that what appears as opportunism in the conduct of Nazi foreign policy was actually the result of plans conceived well before Hitler assumed power, and in line with his long-term theories of political vitality based on historical experience.

Hitler idolized Germany in the times of Bismarck's Prussia, before the democratic Reich botched treaties and alliances, ultimately undermining German ethnic goals. Bismarck succeeded in giving Germany a suitably "organic" state, such that the German race could realize its "right to life." He achieved prestige for Germany by uniting the varied German states into the Reich, but was unable to unite the whole German nation or pursue a truly ethnic foreign policy. Hitler perceived the Reich's rallying cry of peace as giving it no goal, consistency or stability in foreign policy, and allowing it no options to take aggressive steps to realize those goals. He cites the warning of the Pan-German League against the "disastrous" policy of the Wilheminian period. The borders of the Reich were inherently unstable in his opinion, allowing for easy avenues of attack by hostile powers, with no natural geographic barriers for protection, and incapable of feeding the German people. His central criticism of the Reich was that it too failed to unify the German people, and failed to pursue a policy that would solve the agricultural problem, in lieu of policies aimed at attaining international prestige and recognition.

The Weimar government, which could do no good in Hitler's eyes, was centrally responsible for the treasonous act of signing the peace at Versailles, which he held crippled Germany and placed it at the mercy of hostile powers. In fact, Versailles had not significantly weakened Germany, as it still had the largest population in Europe, with skilled workers and substantial resources. Russia, which Bismarck had feared and allied with Austro-Hungary against, had been defeated in WWI and then underwent a destabilizing revolution. Austro-Hungary itself had been divided into a number of small weak states. If not absolutely, Germany was in a relatively better position than most states after WWI.


Overview
Hitler's National Socialist foreign policy contained four broad goals: racial unification, agricultural autarky, lebensraum in the East, culminating in a Eurasian land-based empire. Not justified by strategic or realpolitik considerations, Hitler's ideas stemmed almost exclusively from his conception of racial struggle and the natural consequences of the need for German expansion. The historical record shows that German geopoliticians, chief among them General Karl Haushofer, were in contact with and taught Nazi officials, including Adolph Hitler, Rudolf Hess and Konstantin von Neurath. Furthermore, Nazi leaders used the language of geopolitik, along with Haushofer's maps, and reasoning in their public propaganda. How receptive they were to the true intent of Haushofer's geopolitik, and what that intent was exactly, is unclear. The ideas of racial organic states, lebensraum, and autarky clearly found their way into Hitler's thinking, whereas pan-regions and the landpower-seapower dichotomy did not appear prominently, much less correctly, in National Socialist strategy. Examination of Germany's pre-WWI imperial aims demonstrates that many of the ideas which would later surface in Nazi thought were not novel, but simply continuations of the same revisionist strategic aims. Racially motivated autarky, achieved by annexation, especially in the East, found its way into National Socialist policy as a continuous and coherent whole. However, Hitler along with the geopoliticians would drop the imperial focus on industry, trade and naval power. The practical outcomes of Imperial, geostrategic, and Nazi foreign policy plans were all largely the same.

atp

Answer 2

It certainly wasn't just Germany - he had that by 1933. His plan was world domination and the destruction of the Jews. Read Mein Kampf, or at least a synopsis of it.

If it was merely European domination, why then attack Russia as well? I know part of Russia is in Europe, but that attack was to gain control of Asia. Had he defeated Russia, most other Asian nations would have had to form some kind treaty with him. And you know what he thought of treaties. They were a way to keep someone at bay until he was ready to conquer him.

Answer 3

My thinking is little bit different. Regarding Adolf Hitler.
Sincerly i respect him.(because he tried to capt. the world)
Firstly i think he do not want to dominate the world or something like that.
I think that he were working for some one like a doll but never revealed that thats why i respect him.
In world war II. Hitler had lots of money from differnt country they had the hi-tec machines.

I think that they found something sacred/evil (e.g. Alchemy,portol to diffrent dimension) or some thing like that.

I belive that hitler was just a doll.

Since the money they were used in world war II is around to 30-50%

And most of the money/gold bar/silver etc.... they hid somewhere safe. to do further reasearch on the secrect that i said before.

govt. found lots of different currency and boxes filled with golds after WWRII.


But, this is just my thinking.
I never belive any thing without seeing/calculating properly basicly we are highly complex cell.

Answer 4

World dominance. If he just wanted dominance of germany...his actions make no sense. He invaded all of Europe, tried to invade Russia. Enlisted the Japanese as allies....

He already had full control of Germany...why start world war 2???

Answer 5

Today Germany, Tomorrow the World!

Answer 6

I do not know if he wanted world dominance or not---for one thing is sort of respected the United States.

However he had world wide influence. From Europe to Asia including Russia. And into North and South America. Mexico, while did not fight for Hitler provided him with supplies. (and so did companies from the U.S.---eg Dupont who developed the gas used in the gas chambers and Texaco who provided petroleum products to Hiltler.

Additionally he had made inroad into Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia---remember that is where many Nazis fled.

Answer 7

he wanted world dominance after he gained himself control of Germany.

Answer 8

world dominance or at least Western European dominance, but definately more than the boundaries of Germany

Answer 9

His first objective was to bring Europe under one leadership. (Its happening now). After that the rest of the world would have fallen into place.

Answer 10

i recently find out ................all he wanted to do it was defend his people(german people)ho lived in other countries..... :) if is true..... good for him...........:) :) :)