Did the German Popluation want Lebensraum

Over the past several weeks I was reading a lot about this extremely important subject. More I read about the Lebensraum, more I understand proceedings of the Potsdam conference. It appears that the aim of the post-war expulsions of Germans wasn't really revenge but purely elimination of possible reasons for future wars. Without German minorities out of the borders of Germany the motivation for possible war ceases to exist. In my view, the main objective of the Potsdam conference was to provide a foundation for ever-lasting peace in Europe.

Furthermore, after the European Union has been established, we live in a common living space: Europe, which is the Fatherland of all European nations. The need for the Lebensraum entirely ceased to exist.

 

Correctamente, mi Amigo! Now this will bring some more troubles for us....maybe Greece....but that is OT.

 

No, Dear Ulrich, that isn't OT at all. Today, I've heard some ecconomist saying: "For Greece, it is quite irrelevant whether they have Euro, G-Euro or good old Drahmas - Their economy is a disaster anyway!"

I wish Greece will recover soon. Greece is great place for holidays.

 

Yep, it is! Especially the Islands ans Chalkidiki! Some politicians said last week that they should have made a State bankrupt 2 years ago as they had a chance to get out of the sh... with only a few losses.

 

If Greece does not get money from the EU they will not have the following: Police, Banks, cash,pensions... It will be a horror film....

 

It is a Horror film! They brought at TV, that some of the Greeks pensioners let give Aids to them to get double cash. Thats one of the weird laws at there.

 

Yes...beware of Greeks bearing debt!

The Global Economy is a terribly stupid concept. A country like Greece with a GDP the equal of a small U.S. state brings the rest of economic Europe down because her people like the high life and can't be bothered paying their debts. Greek love of fine food and good times are what really caused their financial woes...oops off topic

 

Back to the topic please. Greece and its debt has nothing to do with the subject. One more similar posting and I'll move this to the stump or the latrine.

 

Sorry Skipper! Thats correct!


It was too tempting!

 

Let's get back to the subject. It is very important for understanding the reasons and consequences of the WWII.

Recently, I have got a copy of a paper by A. Allemann entitled “The Decreasing Birth Rate of the German Empire” published 1914 in “The Science”. Please note that this is relatively old paper published by a prominent scientific magazine. That’s reliable source.

The paper analyses demographic changes in the German Empire at the beginning of the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century. The paper indicates that the birth rate in the German Empire has significantly reduced. Here is a short snippet:

Furthermore, the article concludes that: “A reasonable increase in population is absolutely necessary for any people to maintain its position among the nations.”

From this scientific paper published before the WWI, it is absolutely clear, that German nation did not need the Lebensraum already in 1914, let alone in 1939.

Where they would get enough new citizens to fill such a wast territory?

 

That is interesting, a decreasing birth rate and an increasing population. Hmmmm. Perhaps it has to do with the poor records kept of the illegitimate births in the new German Confederacy and the collapsing Austro-Hungarian Empire where those births (out of wed-lock) ran at nearly 48%?

Since the pre-WW2 Germany was about the size of Montana (roughly) it might have seemed congested to them, but then again their agribusiness was small scale and interconnected with quality rather than quantity being the norm. The rising population was going to have to be fed somehow, and they didn't have the "funds" to buy food, fuel, and fiber. The populace moving to the urban rather than rural setting increased the population growth stats, while decreasing the number of people working on the farms to feed them. Just a thought.

Goto:

Population of Germany

 

Where indeed? It amazes me that at the same time as deciding to eliminate Slavs, Himmler was on the look out for suitable Poles with Aryan features, tall and blond to adopt as honorary Germans.

Even collecting the Baltic and Volga Germans they did not have enough to fill the new territories in Poland and East Prussia was facing a decline in population due to an exodus to the USA.

 

There was some weird stuff going on between Germany, the Baltic states, and the former USSR as per "displaced" German nationals in their nations. And what is most bizarre is that the displaced German nationals, or those of German decent were urban dwellers and wouldn't know how to use the land on a bet. It was a failed concept, and policy.

However, the one "redeeming" factor might be that Himmler and Hitler both thought some of the nominally Christian "slavic people" could be literal "slaves" to their German overseers and do all the work while the imported German populace reaps the reward and supplies the "homeland'. The book by Michael Burleigh: Moral Combat: Good and Evil in WWII really gets into this segment of thought process.

I must warn all who wish to read this, it is graphic and disturbing. It spares none, not Allied nor Axis. It is where I found the "occupation fees" the Nazis demanded from the conquered and occupied, it is where I found records of POW murders and tortures on both sides of the conflict, where I found internal documentation of all sorts of "evil" on all sides. It is filled with snippets of "letters home", from German, Japanese, UK, Commonwealth, American and Soviet. Officers and enlisted.

One of the "saddest" is from a young corporal on the eastern front who tells his parents he cannot allow the thought of loosing against the "Russians" to enter his mind since what he has seen done in the east will enrage the Red Army to return the horror two-fold against any Germans they ever run across going west.

And also where records of altruistic "good" also appeared to the honor of those who didn't let war propaganda corrupt themselves exist. Even though I'm not yet done I feel it is well worth the read my friends.

 

The reduced birth rate doesn't mean that the absolute number of inhabitants decreases. This just indicates that the absolute number of inhabitants increases much slower with time. On the other side of the equation stands the mortality rate. The increase of population stalls when birth and mortality rates achieve equilibrium state i.e. have equal absolute but opposing values. It is interesting to note that the birth rate in Berlin 1914 was almost the same as 2010! This indicates that the life-style was changing while the German imperial ruling class wanted to preserve medieval social relationships. The German nation simply couldn't fit into the projected size of the Lebensraum. It was growing too slow and the rate of its growth has significantly decreased already at the beginning of the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

 

He could have found many more than adequate Aryans everywhere among Slavs, in Moscow, for example:

 

And to reach a higher birth rate the SS developed the " Lebensborn"

Lebensborn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Thats right, Lou!But it never worked out for the Germans and as they had a chance, it seems that it was useless for them without Germans to settle at the east! It has some ironic in it.

 

Only "Treue" Heinrich Himmler, a former chicken farmer, could conceive such idea. I just hope he knew his genetic material was too poor to be used for a mass production of Aryan kids! By the way, which of Nazi elite remotely resembled what was considered a real Aryan? Just Heydrich, I guess, all others, including the Führer looked "irredeemably decadent"!