Geopolitik: Haushofer, Hitler and Lebensraum

Journal of Strategic Studies

Volumn 22, Issue 2-3, 1999, Pages 218-241

  Herwig, Holger H ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033456004     PISSN: 01402390     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402399908437762     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Karl Haushofer. Leben und Werk [Schriften des Bundesarchivs 24] (2 vols., Boppard: Harald Boldt 1979) Vol. 1, pp.409-12, 568-69. All original Haushofer documents stem from the Nachlass (N 122) at the Bundesarchiv (BA), Koblenz; the latter also contains copies of the Haushofer materials (T 253) at the National Archives, Washington DC, as well as of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, as ED 98 Nachlass Haushofer, MA162, MA 618-19, MA 1190, and MA 1464-66. Jacobsen culled from the Haushofer Nachlass all materials that he used in his two-volume biography and hence much of this is in the Nachlass Jacobsen (N 413) rather than N 122 at Koblenz. Finally, there is a private Haushofer family archive at the Hartschimmelhof near Pähl, Bavaria. My various attempts to see this material were met with silence, my letters returned unopened.
2. For a most recent apologia, see Frank Ebeling, 'Karl Haushofer und die deutsche Geopolitik 1919-1945', unpub. diss., Hanover 1992.
3. See Haushofer's Nov. 1945 'Apologie der deutschen Geopolitik' in BA, N 413, Vol.2.
4. Statement of 2 Nov. 1945. BA, N 413, Vol.6.
5. Karl Dietrich Bracher, et al., Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung. Studien zur Errichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933/34 (Cologne and Opladen: Westdeutscher 1962) p.226.
6. Robert Srausz-Hupé, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (NY: Putnam's 1942); Johannes Mattem, Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1942); Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest (NY and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart 1942); Andreas Dorpalen, The World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat 1942); and Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War (NY and London: Harper 1941).
7. Robert Srausz-Hupé, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (NY: Putnam's 1942); Johannes Mattem, Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1942); Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest (NY and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart 1942); Andreas Dorpalen, The World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat 1942); and Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War (NY and London: Harper 1941).
8. Robert Srausz-Hupé, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (NY: Putnam's 1942); Johannes Mattem, Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1942); Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest (NY and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart 1942); Andreas Dorpalen, The World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat 1942); and Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War (NY and London: Harper 1941).
9. Robert Srausz-Hupé, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (NY: Putnam's 1942); Johannes Mattem, Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1942); Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest (NY and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart 1942); Andreas Dorpalen, The World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat 1942); and Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War (NY and London: Harper 1941).
10. Robert Srausz-Hupé, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (NY: Putnam's 1942); Johannes Mattem, Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1942); Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest (NY and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart 1942); Andreas Dorpalen, The World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat 1942); and Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War (NY and London: Harper 1941).
11. Rudolf Kjellén, Der Staat als Lebensform, German ed. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1917); in Swedish, Stolen som Lifsform (Stockholm 1916). Kjellén lived 1864-1922.
12. Rudolf Kjellén, Der Staat als Lebensform, German ed. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1917); in Swedish, Stolen som Lifsform (Stockholm 1916). Kjellén lived 1864-1922.
13. Friedrich Ratzel, Politische Geographie (Munich and Leipzig: R. Oldenbourg 1897). Ratzel lived 1844-1904.
14. Karl Haushofer et al., Bausteine zur Geopolitik (Berlin: K. Vowinckel 1928) pp.23-4. Already in the summer of 1916, after his first reading of Kjellén, Haushofer vowed to find a German term for geopolitics; he failed, rejecting even his own best effort, Erdmachtkunde 10. Ratzel (note 8) p.7.
15. Karl Haushofer et al., Bausteine zur Geopolitik (Berlin: K. Vowinckel 1928) pp.23-4. Already in the summer of 1916, after his first reading of Kjellén, Haushofer vowed to find a German term for geopolitics; he failed, rejecting even his own best effort, Erdmachtkunde 10. Ratzel (note 8) p.7.
16. Karl Haushofer, 'Nationaler Sozialismus und soziale Aristokratie' Zeitschrift für Geonolitik 1 (1924) pp.127ff.
17. Halford J. Mackinder, 'The Geographical Pivot of History', The Geographical Journal 23 (April 1904) pp.421-44. See also Paul M. Kennedy, 'Mahan versus Mackinder: Two Interpretations of British Sea Power', Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen (1974) pp 39-66
18. Halford J. Mackinder, 'The Geographical Pivot of History', The Geographical Journal 23 (April 1904) pp.421-44. See also Paul M. Kennedy, 'Mahan versus Mackinder: Two Interpretations of British Sea Power', Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen (1974) pp 39-66
19. Alldeutsche Blätter 4, 7 Jan. 1894.
20. Karl Haushofer, Grenzen in ihrer geographischen und politischen Bedeutung (Berlin and Heidelberg: K. Vowinckel 1927 and 1939).
21. BA. N 413, Vol.1.
22. Ibid.
23. Karl Haushofer, Dai Nihon. Betrachtungen über Groß-Japans Wehrkraft und Zukunft (Berlin: E.S. Mittler 1913).
24. Karl Haushofer, 'Der deutsche Anteil an der geographischen Erschließung Japans und des subjapanischen Erdraums und deren Förderung durch den Einfluß von Krieg und Wehrpolitik', Munich Univ. diss. 1914.
25. Letter to his wife, 4 Feb. 1915; Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.1, p.121.
26. Letter to his wife, 6 July 1917; ibid, p.128.
27. Letter to his wife, 8 May 1916; ibid, p.124.
28. Karl Haushofer, Grundrichtungen in der geographischen Entwicklung des Japanischen Reiches 1854-1919, special Habilitationsschrift publication (Munich: Bieler 1919).
29. The essay is reproduced in Bruno Hipler, Hitlers Lehnneister. Karl Haushofer als Vater der NS-Ideologie (Erzabtei St Ottilien: EOS 1996) pp.221-6. Haushofer's description of Hess is from the 5 Oct. 1945 interrogation by the US Army. BA, N 413, Vol.1.
30. See the Nov. 1945 'Apologie' in BA, N 413, Vol.2.
31. See Willi Gautschi's report in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Vol.199, Femausgabe Nr. 302, 30 Dec. 1978, pp.23-4.
32. Letter of 24 Dec. 1938. BA, N 413, Vol.5.
33. Strangely, the dates of these visits have been scissored out of the letter, Justice Department Landsberg to Jacobsen, 24 Aug. 1971. BA, N 413, vol. 2.
34. Statement of 1925. BA, N 122, Vol.955b.
35. Haushofer deposition of 22 Sept. 1945, US Third Army Intelligence Center. BA, N 413, Vol.2. See also Wolf Rüdiger Hess (ed.) Rudolf Hess. Briefe 1908-1933 (Munich and Vienna: Langen Müller 1987) p.328. 'He [Hitler] is at the moment reading the general's Japan books ...'.
36. Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.1, p.241. The notes were last known to be deposited with the Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank at Munich in 1945.
37. See Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Frz. Eher Nachf. 1939); Werner Jochmann (ed.) Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941-1944 (Munich: Wilhelm Heyne 1980); and Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.) Hitlers Zweites Buch. Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1961). Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims (London: Thomton Butterworth 1939) p.226, states simply: 'Hitler recognised no predecessors - with one exception: Richard Wagner.'
38. See Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Frz. Eher Nachf. 1939); Werner Jochmann (ed.) Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941-1944 (Munich: Wilhelm Heyne 1980); and Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.) Hitlers Zweites Buch. Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1961). Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims (London: Thomton Butterworth 1939) p.226, states simply: 'Hitler recognised no predecessors - with one exception: Richard Wagner.'
39. See Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Frz. Eher Nachf. 1939); Werner Jochmann (ed.) Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941-1944 (Munich: Wilhelm Heyne 1980); and Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.) Hitlers Zweites Buch. Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1961). Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims (London: Thomton Butterworth 1939) p.226, states simply: 'Hitler recognised no predecessors - with one exception: Richard Wagner.'
40. See Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Frz. Eher Nachf. 1939); Werner Jochmann (ed.) Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941-1944 (Munich: Wilhelm Heyne 1980); and Gerhard L. Weinberg (ed.) Hitlers Zweites Buch. Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1961). Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims (London: Thomton Butterworth 1939) p.226, states simply: 'Hitler recognised no predecessors - with one exception: Richard Wagner.'
41. Elke Fröhlich (ed.) Die Tagebücher Joseph Goebbels. Sämtliche Fragmente 4 (Munich: K. G. Saur 1987) p.727.
42. See Friedrich Ratzel, Erdenmacht und Völkerschicksal. Eine Auswahl aus seinen Werken (ed.) Karl Haushofer (Stuttgart: A. Kröner 1940) p.xxvi.
43. Deposition of 22 Sept. 1945. BA, N 413, Vol.2.
44. See Derwent Whittlesey, 'Haushofer: The Geopoliticians', in Edward Mead Earle (ed.) Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton UP 1943) pp.398-406. The article was dropped from the major rewrite of the volume by Peter Paret in 1986.
45. Karl Lange, 'Der Terminus "Lebensraum" in Hitlers "Mein Kampf", Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 13 (Oct. 1965) pp.427, 431.
46. Haushofer consistently acknowledged his intellectual debt to Mackinder. See James Trapier Lowe, Geopolitics and War: Mackinder's Philosophy of Power (Washington DC: UP of America 1981) pp.86-7.
47. Karl Haushofer, Geopolitik der Pan-Ideen (Berlin: Zentral 1931).
48. Hitler, Mein Kampf (note 31) p.142.
49. Ibid, pp.638-9. Italics in the original.
50. Ibid, pp.645, 650, 651-2. Italics in the original. The Haushoferian view on borders in general and especially against merely reconstituting those of 1914 was also repeated by Hitler in the Zweites Buch, p. 114. Yet it would overstretch the evidence to suggest that Dai Nihon and Mein Kampf were cast from the same mould: Hitler (note 31) pp.178ff.
51. Ibid, pp.645, 650, 651-2. Italics in the original. The Haushoferian view on borders in general and especially against merely reconstituting those of 1914 was also repeated by Hitler in the Zweites Buch, p. 114. Yet it would overstretch the evidence to suggest that Dai Nihon and Mein Kampf were cast from the same mould: Hitler (note 31) pp.178ff.
52. Harry Pross, Literatur und Politik. Geschichte und Programme der politisch-literarischen Zeitschriften im deutschen Sprachgebiet seit 1870 (Olten and Freiburg: Walter 1963) p. 113.
53. See Karl-Heinz Harbeck, 'Die "Zeitschrift für Geopolitik" 1924-1944', unpubl. diss., Kiel University 1963, pp.257-64.
54. David Thomas Murphy, The Heroic Earth: Geopolitical Thought in Weimar Germany 1918-1933 (Kent, OH and London: Kent State UP 1997) p.242.
55. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung 1962) p.312.
56. Murphy (note 44) pp. 106-8.
57. Cited in ibid. p.28.
58. BA, N 413, Vol.1. 'Finanzen'; Gerhard Bry, Wages in Germany 1871-1945 (Princeton UP 1960), pp.439 ff.
59. BA, N 413, Vol.1. 'Finanzen'; Gerhard Bry, Wages in Germany 1871-1945 (Princeton UP 1960), pp.439 ff.
60. Oron J. Hale, The Captive Press in the Third Reich (Princeton UP 1964) pp.131-2.
61. Haushofer's statement of 2 Nov. 1945. BA, N 413, vol. 6.
62. Bracher (note 5) pp.609-11.
63. The following is compiled from Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.1. See also Donald Hawley Norton, 'Karl Haushofer and His Influence on Nazi Ideology and German Foreign Policy, 1919-1945', unpubl. diss., Clark Univ., Worcester, MA, USA 1965.
64. Hess to Radio Munich, 9 Feb. 1935. BA, N 413, Vol.5.
65. Rainer Matern, 'Karl Haushofer und seine Geopolitik in den Jahren der Weimarer Republik und des Dritten Reiches. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis seiner Ideen und seines Wirkens', unpubl. diss., Karlsruhe Univ. 1978, pp.143-4.
66. 'Stimme der Geopolitik zum 29. März 1936', Zeitschrift für Geopolitik 13 (1936) p.247.
67. 'Geopolitischer Erntedank 1938!', ibid. 15 (Oct. 1938) p.782.
68. Jacobsen (note 31) Vol.1, p.372.
69. Hipler (note 23), p.173.
70. Haushofer to Hess, 1 July 1934, in Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.1, pp.377-8.
71. Ibid. pp.370-71.
72. Haushofer to Hess' staff, 17 May 1939. BA, N 122, Vol.23.
73. 'Herbsten?', Zeitschrift für Geopolitik 16 (Oct. 1939) p.741.
74. Karl Haushofer, Der Kontinentalblock. Mitteleuropa-Eurasien-Japan (Munich: F. Eher Nachf. 1941).
75. Haushofer to Hess, 20 Oct. 1939. BA, N 122, Vol.15; and 'Geopolitische Gundlagen', Die Verwaltungs-Akademle. Ein Handbuch für den Beamten im nationalsozialistischen Staat (Berlin and Vienna: Deutscher n.d. [1940]) Vol.1, p.40.
76. BA, N 122, Vol.15, Jan. 1940; Jacobsen (note 1) Vol. 1, p.394.
77. Haushofer to Hess, 22 June 1940. BA, N 122, Vol.15.
78. See Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie. Politik und Kriegführung 1940-1941 (Frankfurt: Bernard & Graefe 1965) p.241.
79. Haushofer to Hess, 27 Sept. 1940. BA, N 122, Vol.23.
80. Gerhard Engel, Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938-1943. Aufzeichnungen des Majors Engel (ed.) Hildegard v. Kotze (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1974) p.105.
81. Suicide note cited in Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.1, p.447.
82. Ibid. pp.460-61.
83. Karl Haushofer, 'Die größte Aufgabe', Zeitschrift für Geopolitik 18 (July 1941) pp.369-70.
84. 'Gedanken zur Friedensordnung', BA, N 122, Vol.832.
85. Cited in Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.I, p.447.
86. Ibid. p.343.
87. Edmund A. Walsh, 'Die Tragödie Karl Haushofers', Neue Auslese aus dem Schrifttum der Gegenwart 2 (March 1947) p.22.
88. Jacobsen (note 1) Vol.I, p.389.
89. Albrecht Haushofer, Moabit Sonnets (London and NY: Norton 1978) pp.49, 77.
90. Edmund A. Walsh, Total Power: A Footnote to History (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1948) p.7.
91. Dennis E. Showalter, Little Man, What Now? Der Stürmer in the Weimar Republic (Hamden, CT: Archon Books 1982) p.236.