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The termNew Order (German:Neuordnung) ofEurope refers to various political and social conceptsNazi Germany sought to impose onGerman-occupied Europe and beyond.
Planning for theNeuordnung commenced prior toWorld War II, butAdolf Hitler first proclaimed a "European New Order" in a speech on 30 January 1941.[1]
Among other things, the New Order followed an emergentNazi vision for apan-Germanracial state structured to the benefit of a perceivedAryan-Nordicmaster race, and drafted plans for Germancolonization intoCentral and Eastern Europe alongside the continuedHolocaust ofJews,Romani people, and other ethnicities deemed "unworthy of life". These plans intersected with the proposedextermination, expulsion or enslavement of most of theSlavic Peoples (especiallyPoles andRussians) and other groups deemed "racially inferior" calledUntermenschen.[2] Nazi Germany's aggressive desire for territorialexpansion (Lebensraum) ranks as a majorcause of World War II.[3]
Thereremains historical contention on the ultimate scope involved with the New Order: it may have exclusively been a continental project limited to the scope ofEurope, or a broader roadmap for an eventual German-centricworld government.[4]
The termNeuordnung is an abbreviation ofdie Neuordnung Europas ("the New Order of Europe"),[a] used by the Nazi establishment to broadly refer to a planned "reorganization" of the geopolitical landscape.[7]
TheNazi government claimed to pursueNeuordnung as a means of rearranging territory for the common benefit ofa new, economically integrated Europe[8] (excluding the "Asiatic"Soviet Union).[9] Nazi racial views regarded the "Judeo-Bolshevist" Soviet state as a criminal institution in need of destruction and a barbaric place so culturally devoid of "European" character as to make its existence intolerable to the Third Reich.[10]
The central objective ofNeuordnung was to assure absolute continentalhegemony forNazi Germany following the war.[11] This was to be realised foremost through the directexpansion of Germany, and supplemented by the political and economic subjugation of the rest of Europe.
Its use inNazi propaganda found the phrase resonance within Western media. In English-language academic circles especially, it increasingly grew to more broadly refer to the civic policies and war aims of the Third Reich, making it synonymous with the term "Co-Prosperity Sphere" utilised by theEmpire of Japan in reference to their planned imperial domain.
The Nazis implemented a strictracial hierarchy founded upon pseudo-scientific beliefs and practices. At its top was the "master race" composed of the purest stock of theAryan race; the Nazis iconised theNordic race as its strongest manifestation, followed by other "inferior" races.[12] The Nazis believed thatWestern civilization was predominantly created and maintained by Nordiccivilizations, accordingly making the "Nordic" peoples racially superior. The Nazis believed this qualititative superiority entitled them to dominate the world, a concept known asNordicism.[13]
Hitler's ideas about eastward expansion (as promulgated inMein Kampf) were greatly influenced during his 1924 imprisonment through contact with a mentor,Karl Haushofer.[14] Haushofer perceived a dire necessity for Germany to attain theEurasianheartland in order to permanently secure its role as a global power.[15]Italy andJapan were viewed as being ideally situated to complement German control there, geopolitically shielding Germany's more insular position with their regional naval power.[16]
The emergent need for a dominant global power was well-established within Hitler's worldview. In a published 1930 Speech first delivered atErlangen University, Hitler proclaimed that no people held a greater right to seize "control" of the globe (Weltherrschaft, i.e. "world leadership", "world rule") than theGermans.[17] It built upon principles professed in a 1927 letter fromRudolf Hess, paraphrasing Hitler's vision: "World peace is certainly an ideal worth striving for; in Hitler's opinion it will be realizable only when one power, the racially best one has attained complete and uncontested supremacy. That [power] can then provide a sort of world police, seeing to it at the same time that the most valuable race is guaranteed the necessary living space. [...] The lower races will have to restrict themselves accordingly".[18]
TheAnschluss of Austria in 1938empowered Austrian Nazis against rivalAustro-fascists, finally realizing thePan-Germanist cause, while encirclingCzechoslovakia for a future expansionist movement against Slavic states. This led to thePartition of Czechoslovakia, in which the Reich annexed theSudetenland and established aGerman Protectorate to forcibly integrateCzechs to the German nation, reducingSlovakia into a German puppet state and attracting Hungary and Poland (dissatisfied with the Western powers and threatened by Soviet expansionism) to the German sphere of influence by providing for some territorial concessions of left-over Czech lands in theFirst Vienna Award.[19]
Next came the implementation of the Ostpolitik, originally involving the proposed development of a barrier of Germanclient states fromFinland toRomania to containSoviet expansionism in a cooperative front against theComintern. This would facilitate conspiracy and sabotage against theSoviet sphere of influence (including unresolved designs like the total or partial secession ofSoviet Ukraine, a goal in conflict with another instigating Polish expansion towards theBlack Sea).[20][21] This Ostpolitik promised to weaken Germany's eastern neighbors to the point of economic subordination, allowing for the easy utilisation ofexisting German settlements to intervene or balkanise those states, reverse Germany's territorial losses and prepare the conquest ofLebensraum.[22] Based on thoseneocolonialist plans, the Reich established theGerman–Romanian Treaty, the1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, and the expansion of theAnti-Comintern Pact.
However, the Reich's failure to subdue thePoles in theDanzig crisis convinced Hitler that the Polish nation needed punishment for its lack of cooperation with Germany's interest in thePolish Corridor throughBerlinka. AlthoughPoland had been initially willing to avoid war and conform to the annexation of theFree City of Danzig,anti-Polish sentiment intensified after Hitler knew the creation of anAnglo-Polish alliance (menacing Germany to atwo-front war and broad isolation if such alliance merged with theFranco-Soviet Pact).[23] Now Nazis perceived the existence of a Polish state as no longer geopolitically viable for the New Order, seeing it as an Anglo-Frenchbuffer state against the Ostpolitik, and thus Polish territorieswere partially conceded to the Soviets to keep Russians away from the Western Powers, securing Germany and postponing the conquest of the Lebensraum until France and British were not dangerous.[24]
The Reich capitalised on theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact to put an end Stalin's policy of the anti-fascistpopular front. This shift reignited internalleft-wing conflicts andStalinist hostility toward non-Marxist–Leninistsocialists, who Stalin dismissed as "social fascists". More importantly, the pact provided an opportunity to partitionEast Europe with Soviet consent, exploiting the USSR's desperation for "secure borders" amidst its isolation from Western aid. This alignment led to Soviet concessions to Germany's agenda and opened the possibility of afascist-communist anti-capitalist bloc as a perceived lesser evil. A significant step toward preparing Hitler's "New Order", the Nazi–Soviet agreement tacitly sought to restore the former spheres of influence of theRussian,German and theAustro-Hungarian Empires, stretching from theBaltic Sea to theBalkans. This vision included apartition of Poland, withRomania,Hungary,Slovakia, theCzech protectorate, andLithuania recognised as projected German puppet states. Meanwhile,Finland,Estonia,Latvia, andBessarabia (Moldavia) were temporarily ceded to the Soviet sphere. Shortly afterward, however, Lithuania (except forKlaipėda andMarijampolė, west to theŠešupė River) was transferred to Soviets in exchange for Germany gainingLublin andLesser Poland. Initially was stipulated that Germany would only claimpost-NapoleonicAustrian andPrussian Poland, excluding formerRussian Poland. However, Stalin opposed the creation of a residual Polish state, which led instead to the establishment of theGeneral Government under German administration.[25][26][27]
However, the Nazis were never satisfied with this concession to the Soviets and still made efforts toConspire and do deals with anti-Soviet agents interested in their assigned sphere of influence inEastern Poland, including overtures to Lithuania (promisingVilnius if they helped in theInvasion of Poland),[28][29] toHungary (promising the cities ofTurka andSambir),[30] and to domesticUkrainian Nationalists (carving from Poland a pro-Nazi Ukrainepuppet state againstSoviet Ukraine)[31] before theSoviet occupation of Eastern Poland, even searching potential collaborators among theFascist Poles to turn Central Poland into a German Protectorate (with the possibility of recoveringtheir territories from Soviets in the long term).[32]
The initial phase of the establishment of the New Order was:
Had the British been defeated by Germany, the political re-ordering of Western Europe would have been accomplished. There was to be no post-war generalpeace conference in the manner of theone held in Paris after theI World War, merelybilateral negotiations between Germany and her defeated enemies.[33]
One of the primary German foreign policy aims throughout the 1930s had been to establish a military alliance with theUnited Kingdom, and despite anti-British policies were adopted since 1939, hope remained that the UK would in time yet become a reliable German ally.[34] Hitler admirated theBritish Empire and preferred to see it preserved as aworld power, mostly because itsbreak-up would benefit other countries far more than it would Germany, particularly theUnited States andJapan.[34][35] Britain's situation was likened to the historical situation of theAustrian Empire after its defeat by thePrussiain 1866, after which Austria was formally excluded from German affairs but would prove to become a loyal ally of theGerman Empire in the pre-1918power alignments in Europe. It was hoped that a defeated Britain would fulfill a similar role, being excluded fromcontinental affairs, but maintaining its colonies and becoming an allied seafaring partner of the Germans to secureWhite supremacy outside Europe.[36][34]
William L. Shirer, however, claims that the British male population between 17 and 45 would have been forcibly transferred to the continent to be used as industrialslave labour (although possibly with better treatment than the ones from Eastern Europe) and the remaining British females were to be impregnated by German soldiers ensuring that Britain would be fully Germanised within one or two subsequent generations.[37] The remaining population would have been terrorised, taking civilians hostage and punishing even the most trivial acts of resistance with the death penalty. The UK would have been militarily occupied, and plundered for anything of financial, military, industrial or cultural value.[38] German workers would be sent to England, and British industrial production directed towards theEastern Front. The Germans would extract agricultural goods, raw ore, and timber, and would produce war materiel.[39] TheEinsatzgruppen, led by Dr.Franz Six, were to be unleashed to round up and execute all political, intellectual and public figures who had previously spoken out against the Nazis, and other people who might in the future cause problems for the occupying forces.[40] After the war,Otto Bräutigam of theReich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories claimed in his book that in February 1943 he had the opportunity to read a personal report by Wagner, regarding a discussion withHeinrich Himmler, in which Himmler had expressed the intention to exterminate about 80% of the populations of France and England by theSicherheitsdienst after the German victory.[41]
During the proposed invasion of Great Britain underOperation Sea Lion, there were plans to invade neutral Ireland underOperation Green.[42] By occupying largeterritories in northeastern France, Hitler hoped to marginalise the country to prevent any further continental challenges to Germany's hegemony.[43] Evidence suggests themonarchy was to survive.[40] There were proposals to uniteNorthern Ireland with theRepublic of Ireland, and support aCeltic union, to secure the help of theIrish Republican Army (which also proposedPlan Kathleen).[44][45] There were also proposals to establish anindependent andrepublican Scotland, as asocialist-nationalist counter to the capitalisticEngland.[46] Some members of theScottish National Party expressed varying degrees of support for similar ideas.[47] Ultimately, none of these proposals came to fruition, as neither Britain nor Ireland were actually invaded.
Nazi Germany viewed French belligerence (with examples including theFrench–Habsburg rivalry, thehumilitation of Germany following WWI, theThirty Years' War, and theNapoleonic Wars) as a source ofFrench–German enmity, and of general danger to the German nation. Hitler had not initially expected a total victory; he wanted a quick end to the war and no major social rearrangements in Western Europe, so he could return quickly toOstpolitik. As such, his plans focused on turning France into a long-term Germanvassal. During late May 1940, Hitler gave instructions toWilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary at theMinistry of the Interior, to make proposals for a new western border, and precise plans for the "relocation" of the French-speaking population. This concluded in a memorandum written on June 14, 1940, in which the Ministry of the Interior analysed the annexation of certain territories inEastern France which had been part of the historicHoly Roman Empire, expecting the "Westraum" region for the Reich. In the short-term, this would consist of integrateInner Rhineland border areas and theRuhr with annexedAlsace-Lorraine,Eupen-Malmedy,Saarland, theGrand Duchy of Luxembourg, theNetherlands,Belgium and northeastern and eastern France (modernSaarLorLux andMeuse–Rhine Euroregion). In the long-term, this would includeSwitzerland,Burgundy,Savoy (reaching theRhône andMediterranean, like formerLotharingia), and finally establish an annexation of the "Westland" to Nazi Germany inGau Westmark.[48][49][50]
To accomplish the plan, Germany first occupiedGreater Netherlands (impeding France to use theLow Countries asBuffer state or theRhine as aNatural frontiers, while preparing to reunifyDutch people with its GermanVolkgeist to annex them), next to it was planned to include Northern France (modernNord andPas-de-Calais), then was re-annexed Alsace,Moselle and Lorraine, after that Nazi developed plans for the colonization of theZone interdite inSomme,Aisne yArdenas (trying to re-Germanise "Romanised Germans ofAustrasia" to establish a GermanicThiois country (Project Burgund), like formerKingdom of Arles andBurgundian Circle, that would be abuffer zone in West Germany),[51] and finally theArmistice of 22 June 1940 established conditions for the economical domination of France (while also developing the collaborationist regime ofVichy France) and anOccupation Zone to construct theAtlantic Wall againstBritish naval supremacy (and for future expansion of German influence in Europe, starting with the annexation ofoccupied Channel Islands).[52][48] Also it was considered to reward the Italians withthe occupation ofCorsica,[53]Nice,Savoy and other French territories claimed byItalian irredentists that wanted the frontier onMonaco. In a large-scale, theLatin nations of Western and Southern Europe (Portugal,Spain andItaly) were to be eventually brought into a state of total German dependency and control from the OccupiedGreater France.[43]
However, Nazi geopoliticians recognised the role of France as a historicalGreat power of Europe sinceMiddle Ages, believing that the total collapse of France could have catastrophic consequences for the totality of Europe, and also that both countries joining forces would be an unstoppable force to seise the domination of the continent (like didCarolingian Empire) after the eliminating Britain and Russia. Moreover, dominating France would serve to achieve aphilosophical andcultural domination ofWestern civilization by taking advantage of theFrench philosophy andPolitical science preponderance in Academical environments sinceAge of Enlightenment, which would serve to expand a Cultural and Fascist Revolution in a global scale in the future, wanting to make a superation of theModernity and theFrench Revolution (conserving itsClassical radicalism andJacobin proto-totalitariansocial-nationalism, but condemning itsConstitutionalist andBourgeois liberal elements that weakened and degenerated it).[51] Although, Hitler in a pragmatic course of action, also was interested to take advantage ofReactionary movements, likeAction Française, that were against theFrench Third Republic'sLiberal-Democratic values and so a powerful dissidency without being instruments of SovietComintern or Anglo-AmericanCapitalistThink tank, despiteNazi thinkers regretting to empowertraditionalist conservatives that were "clerical andaristocratic" bad elements with theirfederalistcustomal values which were against therevolutionary andtotalitarian character of Nazism and fascism (but recognising that, like inNational CatholicFrancoist Spain withCarliststraditionalists overcomingFalangists, there were no orthodox fascistFrench movements that were powerful or popular enough, being forced to make concessions to defenders of theAncien régime againstBourgeois status-quo), Nazi Germanys had hopes that in the future they could appropriate of the Vichy France'sRévolution nationale, purging theIntegral nationalism of those "Medieval" (Ultra-royalist,Ultramontanism),Legitimists/Orléanist andSocial CatholicIntegralist elements, trying to introduceNazi ideology by usingReactionary modernist andCrypto-fascist movements.[54] For example, theRevolutionary Social Movement,Jacques Doriot of theFrench Popular Party[55] orMarcel Déat of theNational Popular Rally.[56] The role of France in the New Order would be of aMagisterium of Europe toFascistise all Western countries (includying theAmericas).[51][57]
Hitler also had interest in the separatist movements resentful towardscentralism,anti-Catholicism/Anti-clericalism and coerciveFrancization (although Nazi supported those programs forPolitical modernization of France, believing that it would empower them against the Allies), serving as a mean to menace French politicians with a possible punishment byFragmenting the country, abolishing its right to be a modernnation state and restoringFeudalism in France if they were not collaborative to the German masters. Some of those were theBreton nationalism on World War II, giving some hopes to the establishment of aBreton national-state, usingBrittany to domainVichy France and maybeNormandy in the future.[52] Similar plans were done withBasque nationalists, stablishing contact with leaders likeEugène Goyheneche and exploring the possibility of a puppet state to put pressure on both Spain and France in the New Order.[58][59]
Concerning theDutch people andWalloons ofBenelux, Nazi Germany considered themassimilable.[60] Nazism tolerated concessions given to local fascist groups such asVlaamsch Nationaal Verbond andNederlandsche Unie that defended the independence of their countries within the New Order. These groups desired German support for their own irredentist and imperialist claims (seeRexism andNSB), hoping to retain the self-determination ofassociated states as aGreater Netherlandsunder Nazi patronage.[61] Dutch fascists underAnton Mussertclaimed to be the legitimate authority of the Dutch state and in so thecolonial empire, envisioning a "Dietsland" (a union of theNetherlands andFlanders, cedingWallonia toVichy France in exchange of parts ofFrench West Indies orEquatorial Africa) that would serve as a maritime partner to Nazi Germany, propossing that while Germany controlled the continent, the Dutch would control the seas and the overseas territories on behalf of the "Germanic race" (expecting to reach an status ofequal partner to Germany, rather than a vassal), claiming that Dutch colonial expertise was a unique racial asset that could not afford to lose againstJapanese orBritish rivals, and that even the historical lost colonies (likeDutch Cape,Gold Coast,North Brazil,Bengal,Nort America) should be recuperated in the New Order to reunify an alleged DutchVolk scattered around the globe that should be included in theVolkisch reivindications. Hitler gave vague, non-committal answers to keep theDutchEast Indies (expected by Dutch fascist to use it as bargaining chip to Germans, knowing that Dutch international relevance depended above all on the colonies)[62] while privately ceding the area to Japan and putting pressure against accepting mixed-race members of theNational Socialist Movement in the Dutch East Indies.[63][64]
However, the long-term Nazi goal was not the creation and maintenance of local collaborationist regimes or regional Nazi states, but the complete annexation of theDietsland into the Reich, accelerated by the 1944 creation of theReichsgaueFlandern andWallonien.[61] The Nazis started implementingFlamenpolitik—the dissolution of national identities by developing or supporting Germanist and radical groups such as theDeVlag or theNational Socialist Movement of Netherlands. Nazis consideredDutch people andFlemish people not as independent nations, but as different regions that were part of the German race with only a particularGerman dialect (theDutch language). Such Germanist groups were cultivated asanti-clericalist and revolutionary rather than allowingclero-fascism or conservative religious views.[65] In the New Order,Dutch andFlemish nationalism was forced into the Nazi German political structure.[66][61][67] Also was expected that theLow Countries would contribuit withDutch settlers to assist the German ones in theLebensraum through theDutch East Company to help in the "Aryanization" of Eastern Europe and finance the Axis war economy (The Nazis viewed the Dutch as genetically valuable "Aryans" who shouldn't wast their blood in the tropicsmixing with Asian populations), guaranteeing a leading role in colonizing Soviet territory as a Nazi compensation for the lostDutch East Indies toJapanese empire, as the SS argued that the era of maritime colonialism was over (dominated by the "Anglo-Jewish" powers) and the future lay in continental expansion.[68][69]
Also, Adolf Hitler supposedly considered creating a "Burgundian Free State" in theLow Countries and Eastern France in 1943, which was relayed first to Heinrich Himmler and then to the latter's personal physicianFelix Kersten. Karsten claimed that this state would be governed by theSS under the leadership ofLeon Degrelle. It would have consisted of the former possessions of theKingdom of Arles and theDuchy of Burgundy when they were subjects of theHRE. These regions includedPicardy,Artois,Hainault,Champagne,Luxembourg,Lorraine,Franche-Comté,Burgundy proper,Dauphine andProvence (similar to the medievalBurgundian State). Hitler was considering making eitherRheims andTroyes the capital of this hypotheticalLotharingian state, and Himmler planned to make Burgundy "the model state of the Führer's dreams", saying to Kersten, "The Führer is sick of the idea that France, with her hysteria and degeneracy, should occupy the same place in the Europe of the future, at the side of Germany, as she has held in the past...Burgundy will acquire all the territory that France has annexed unjustly...The others can have the rest of France, which will be known as Gaul."[70][71]
Nazi philosophers had a greater esteem towardNordic countries, considering them obviousAryans due to beingGermanic peoples and also having a cultural brotherhood with the Reich since the times of theGermanic tribes, eulogizing theViking expansion andNordic colonialism as an example for Germans of Central Europe, being defined as "racially suitable". Some considered that Danes, Swedes and Norwegians were more racially and culturally pure than Southern Germans sinceProtestant reformation, due to being free ofHabsburg Austrian,Bavarian Wittelsbach andCatholic teaching promotion ofMiscegenation andPluriculturalism, moreover there were beliefs that Germany has a debt towardGothaland for being the homeland ofGermanic race. Therefore, it was established that they deserved the most chivalrous and gentle treatment from the rest of the occupied countries, but without hesitating to deal with a firm hand any attempt of opposition or rivalry to the German domination.[72][73] A key role to achieve its "logical absorption" to the Germanic Reich were theGermanic SS, having the responsibility to prepare the bases for a pro-Germanic elite within Scandinavian peoples and Dutch peoples.[74]
Also some local fascist movements, like theNational Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark and theNational Socialist Workers' Party of Sweden, were propossing anScandinavian Alliance with patronage of Nazi Germany that would serve as a step towards a total Nordic Union (like theKalmar One) in the New Order, with the goal of becoming a barrier againstSoviet expansionism throughFinland and a'spiritual power central for a new nationalist Europe', although Nordic Fascists were expected to renounce any ambition to restore an empire based inDominium maris baltici like theSwedish Empire (as theBaltic Sea was expected to became aGermanic Lake and a step towards a total conquest ofNordic countries for theGreater Germanic Reich), which alienated some Nordic fascists to perceive that the Nazis will become a potential threat to Scandinavia and tried to proppose a polycentric international fascism with multiple power blocs (Italians inSouthern Europe, Germans inCentral Europe and Nordics inNorthern Europe) instead of an imperialist fascism vassal to theRome-Berlin Axis' sole interests (even planning to make alliances withDutch Fascists who opposed their annexation into the Reich). Germany in reaction was prepared to useNorwegian nationalists (with Anti-Swedish and Anti-Danish sentiments due to the memories ofDenmark-Norway andSwedish-Norwegian union) and empower their irredentist ambitions as a mean to put pressure against the projected Nordic Union if Swedes and Danes did not cooperate with Nazi's will.[75]
Before the start of the war, Nazi Germany desired to establishNon-aggression pacts withFinland,Sweden,Norway andDenmark (like theGerman–Estonian andGerman–Latvian ones), althoughonly Denmark accepted.[76][77] AfterGerman invasion of Denmark andof Norway, the Reich claimed that it will "respect Danish sovereignty and territorial integrity, and neutrality" and that they were forced to do it to avoid theBlockade of Germany. Denmark was the only occupied country that maintained the continuity in the functions of its domestic institutions, being intact theFolketing and theDanish monarchy headed byChristian X of Denmark, but carried a big pressure over Danish to be collaborative against Nazi enemies (like repressingDanish Communist Party), punishing them in theOperation Safari of 1943 for their resistance, which led to a German Putsch of their government and the disarming of the Danish defense.[78][79] During German indirect rule of Denmark, they put pressure over them to turn it into an economically subordinate state, transferring industrial capital and the unemployed population of Denmark to Germany to help in the racial and economic necessities of the Reich. Nazi Germany was waiting for the opportunity to crackdown Danish state through repressing civil unrest in the future.[80][81]
In occupied Norway, Nazi Germany originally wanted to negotiate with the Norwegian government led byHaakon VII. However, then Germans established theQuisling regime as a puppet state under the nominal leadership of theNorwegian fascist collaborator,Vidkun Quisling (wanting a pan-European union led, but not dominated, by Germany), although the real power was in the hands of theReichskommissariat Norwegen, headed byJosef Terboven (who disliked the idea of sharing the power with Norwegians, but Hitler make pressure in favour of a shared domain in the short-term).[82] However, the Nazi had never seen Norwegian fascists as equal, giving them the role of an occupying authority, but using them to bring false hopes of a possible independence of Norway, as Germans would hand over the sovereignty of Norway in the future as their northest province (although sometimes was considered to give a political independence if it could be useful temporarily).[83][84] Also it was considered from theGermanic SS to supportNorwegian irredentist claims to annex theFaroes,Orkney,Shetland,Outer Hebrides,Iceland (after a proposed invasion namedOperation Ikarus) and maybeGreenland or at leastErik the Red's Land (although Hitler see it unrealistic in the short-term);[85] most of them conditioned in the degree of collaboration of the Danes and the possibility to punish them by threatening theDanish colonial empire or in the level of militar contribution of Norwegians against a possible invasion ofScotland.[86][87] Even were proposals to restore aNorwegian Colonial Empire in theNorth Pole andSouth Pole to defyRussian Arctic andBritish Antarctic claims, based on Norwegianpolar expedition prestige.[88] Moreover, Nazi Germany was interested in supporting Norwegian expansionism overNorthern Russia, being reserved a territory namedAustrveg (based in theBjarmaland) which would be probably theKola Peninsula, while also Norway would contribute with Norwegian settlers to assist the German ones in theLebensraum.[89][90][91] Another possibility was the expansion over Swedish territory in caseSweden in World War II joined the Allies and needed to be punished by the Germanic Reich, being considered the annexation ofJämtland,Härjedalen andBohuslän to Norway (rather as a puppet state or as a German province).[92][93] In the future, it was planned to construct in Norway theNordstern city, inhabited mostly by Germans and serving for the global projection of naval power of the reich as a "German Singapore" over theNorth Atlantic area, being inevitable a Germanexclave for a future war against Atlantic Powers likeUnited States and the remains of British Empire.[94]
Concerning Sweden, it was considered through the war the possibility of a German invasion if Swedish neutrality was not useful and also to integrate Swedes to the Germanic Reich. In the long-term, Nazi plans for Sweden involucrated the exportation ofThe Holocaust, establishing concentration camps inSjöbo andStora Karlsö and empower the National Socialist Workers' Party.[95]
Initially, the Reich respected Finnish autonomy in the New Order, considering it useful to maintain relations. However, when Finnish officials considered cutting off their alliance with Germany, the Reich started pressure to make Finland aclient state completely dependent on Germany, ending the possibility of the Finnish government making a separate peace with the Allies.[96]Since theFinnish Civil War, theFinnish nationalists codified[clarification needed] the annexation ofEast Karelia into theFinnish nation, and in theFinland collaboration with Nazi Germany some Finnish politicians suggested that they had the mission to not only recoverKarelian territories, but to liberate thetribal peoples of Finnic origin from the tyranny of the Bolsheviks and the Russians, while also having a more defensive frontier with the expansion overKarelian Isthmus toKola Peninsula. Nazi Germany and racial investigators supported theFinnish irredentists (specifically thePatriotic People's Movement andAcademic Karelia Society) as they could be useful to weaken the Soviet-Russian control (also due to wanting the German conquest ofNorthern Russia untilArkhangelsk) and even helped Finnish ethnologists to find out what part of the Russian-speaking population was of the Finnish national population (RussifiedKarelians), and what part was of the non-national population (Russian settlers), taking the latter toconcentration camps for their future expulsion (although the Finnish government was not aware of the particular brutality ofNazi concentration camps, andthose administered by Finns provided more humane treatment).[97][98] In the short-term, a process offinlandization andde-stalinization had to take place by organizing programs inVepsä,Lydy andKarelian languages onAunus Radio, bringing educators from Finland to teach them againstSoviet propaganda, make population exchanges in which the Germans transported 62,000Ingrian Finns,Izhorians andVotians to Finland (most of them voluntarily, escaping theSoviet Genocide of the Ingrian Finns), and the development of aFinnish military administration that ironically developed a very effectivehealth care system (better than pre-war Soviet one, being less levels ofInfant mortality andDisease). However, the areas were not legally annexed to Finland (despite German pressure), the parliament declared that only the areas lost in the Winter War belonged to Finland, while the "new provinces" were to wait until a peace treaty was concluded and also the investigation of theState Scientific Committee of Eastern Karelia.[99][100][101]
"We don't dream of Novgorod or Moscow, the coasts of Syväri, Ääninen and Vienna are enough for us"
— Ilkka (Finnish newspaper)
Spanish dictator GeneralFrancisco Franco contemplated joining the war on the German side during the early years of itsforeign policy, and in return Nazi Germany planned to reward Spaniards in the New Order, because they were (withFascist Italy) the only reliable allies Germany had. SpanishFalangists made numerous border claims and sent those to Hitler and Mussolini (who recognised theSpanish irredentism againstBritish Gibraltar andFrench North Africa).[102] Franco on June 16, 1940, claimedFrench Basque,Catalan-speakingRoussillon,Cerdagne andAndorra.[103] Spain also wanted to annexGibraltar from theUK because of the symbolic and strategic value. Franco also called for the reunification ofMorocco as a Spanish protectorate, the annexation of theOran district fromFrench Algeria (this both belonged to Spain'sLebensraum in falangist circles)[104] and large-scale expansion ofSpanish Guinea throughFrench Cameroon. This last project was especially unfeasible because it overlapped German territorial ambition to reclaimGerman Cameroon (which angered Hitler, who was planning on taking it back)[105] and Spain would most likely be forced to give up Guinea entirely.[106] Spain also sought federation withPortugal on common cultural and historical grounds (such as theIberian Union),[107] even some Spanish nationalists claimed that "Geographically speaking, Portugal has no right to exist".[104] Despite, Hitler showed little interest in Franco's offers (preferring to defeat the British on his own to avoid bringing economic support to Spain) or in accepting his excessively irredentist conditions (Spanish ambitions regardingFrench colonies clashed with Germany's need to secure the cooperation ofVichy France), only making vague considerations regardingFrench Morocco andSalazarist Portugal, demanding that Spain deploy troops to thePortuguese border and pressing Franco to let theWehrmacht entering the Iberian Peninsula if theAnglo-Portuguese alliance was activated (promising that Germans would return Gibraltar and possible restore Iberian Union as a reward toFrancoist Spain), although Franco did not agree to this request (fearing a German betrayal similar to the French one in theNapoleonic invasion) and tried to convince the Germans that the Spanish could make those conquests on their own (something the Germans did not foresee, as they underestimated thedeclining Spaniards and wanted to prevent them to have much autonomy in the new order).[102]
About a hypotheticalGreater Catalonia independent country proposed byAnarchists onSpanish Civil War, the Nazis viewed that as an unacceptable possibility, because it would only help to secure French power in Mediterranean Sea, being a French policy sinceCharlemagne to establish a Catalan State as abuffer state against the Iberian Peninsula. The Nazis and especially Italians were tolerable with the possibility of aGreater Spain in a strategic encirclement of France in the future, considering Spain as Germany's natural ally (in reference to the alliance ofHabsburg Spain and theHabsburg monarchy) and that the rise of both powers depended on France's downfall in the New Order. Nazis hoped to make Spain strong enough to be in an equal position like Mussolini's Italy and avoid the status of a Franco-British condominium in geopolitics since1834 Quadruple Alliance, hoping that it would be unable to remain neutral in the new order, having to choose between the Italo-German coalition or a revanchist French coalition in the future.[108] Furthermore, Hitler confessed to GeneralFranz Halder that his plan was"to promise the Spanish anything they wanted, regardless of whether the promise could be fulfilled", so in the long term he hoped to limit this empowerment of Spain to what was convenient for the Germans and keep them as aclient state with the illusion of equality while being squeezed by Germany, which was summarized in a comment ofEberhard von Stohrer that said:"Spain cannot expect us to provide them with a new colonial empire through our victories and receive nothing in return".[102]
During the summer of 1940, Hitler considered the possibility of occupying the Portuguese territories ofAzores,Cape Verde, andMadeira and the SpanishCanary Islands, all of them in the Atlantic Ocean, in an effort to deny the British a staging ground for military actions against Nazi-controlled Europe.[109][110] In September 1940, Hitler further raised the issue in a discussion with the Spanish Foreign MinisterSerrano Súñer, offering now Spain to transfer one of the Canary islands to German usage for the price ofFrench Morocco.[110] Although Hitler's interest in the Atlantic islands must be understood from a framework imposed by the military situation of 1940, he ultimately had no plans of ever releasing these important naval bases from German control.[110] In the same month, Serrano Suñer visited Berlin to meet the German Foreign MinisterJoachim von Ribbentrop to discuss how Spain might best enter the war on the Axis side. However, Serrano Suñer and Ribbentrop did not get along and they shortly after developed a mutual hatred for each other. Then, Ribbentrop told Serrano Suñer that, in return for the Nazi military and economic aid, and theirallowing to Spain of the return of Gibraltar, the German Reich have to annex at least one of theCanary Islands (Ribbentrop stated that ideally Germans should have all of the Canaries, but was prepared to be magnanimous by taking only one). Also was stated that Nazis had to be allowed air and naval bases inSpanish Guinea andSpanish Morocco with extraterritorial rights (German concessions inMogador andAgadir with the "appropriatehinterland", similar to formerGerman Tsingtao), that German companies should receive control of the Spanish mines and to develop an economic treaty that would have turned Spain into aneconomic colony of Germany. Serrano Suñer was shocked that Germans viewed Spain as a potentialsatellite state instead of an equal valuable ally.[104]
After the Spanish refusal to join the war at theMeeting at Hendaye (in which Hitler threatened Franco with a possible annexation of Spanish territory by Vichy France) andPortuguese neutrality reinforcing theIberian Pact to keep theIberian Peninsula out ofAxis andAllies spheres of influences by late 1940, Spain and Portugal were expected to beinvaded and becomepuppet states. They were to turn over coastal cities and islands in the Atlantic to Germany as part of theAtlantic Wall and to serve as German naval facilities. Portugal was to cedePortuguese Mozambique andPortuguese Angola as part of the intendedMittelafrika colonial project.[111] To a large extent, thisanti-Hispanic turn occurred because Hitler began to label the Spanish and Portuguese as opportunists for not wanting to enter the war until Great Britain was defeated, seeing it as proof of the inferiority of the "Latin race" compared to the "Germanic race" due to their fear of British power and desire to depend on German successes and economical maintenance without contributing anything in return to gain the Reich's favour of a great territorial conquest at virtually no cost. Thus, the initial optimism about the importance of the Spanish contribution to the New Order was lost and German military advisors and diplomats declared that"Spain's internal situation is so deteriorated that it makes it a useless political partner. We must achieve our essential objectives (Gibraltar's) without its active participation".[102]
Nazi Germany, phocused inNorthern-East Europe, had few interested to expand in theMediterranean World on the short-term and initially was interested in the region only for military matters as Germans were trying to prevent their southern flank from being breached by an Allied invasion fromFascist Italy orYugoslavia. Although Hitler personally respectedMussolini's regime, the Nazi leadership viewedItalians as ratially inferiors, nationally incompetents and lacking of ideological purity (resisting to theRacist aspects ofNazism), so thePact of Steel was seen as a "marriage of convenience" than a partnership of equals, never agreeing the Fascist and Nazi regimes on what form the New Order might take due to mutual distrust and conflict of prestige andSphere of influence (with Italy viewing Germany as coarse and a threat to Italian interests inCentral Europe andBalkans since the fall of theirAustro-fascist allies in theAnschluss and theGerman occupation of Croatia). Also followers of theVolksgemeinschaft aspired to clash with Italy at some point in the future due to theTyrolean Question, which would be an opportunity to abolish its status of senior partner and restore the subordination of Italy to Germans, likewithin the HRE andHabsburg, to finally reach total European domination and then claiming the Third Reich to be the trueSuccessor of the Roman Empire, turning it as final Thousand-Year Reich to restore an alleged German supremacy overMediterranean region fromClassical antiquity (believing that thepatrician elite class ofRome was actuallyNordic/Aryanpeople that migrated south and dominatedItalic peoples, so being a natural right of Nazi Germany to restore Rome against the perceived Italian usurpation of its legacy) and rectify theLatin error of having "racial mixing" with "inferiorpeoples" likeHellenic,Gauls,Iberians,Berbers,Slavs, etc.[112][113] Similarly, the Italians also had a contempt for their German allies as they argued that the "Italian Race" was superior because of its history and culture (Roman spirit), not because of its blood or racial purity. They viewed the Germanic peoples (both British and German) as "barbarians" who lacked civilization, which they saw as evidenced by their differing approaches to subjugating other peoples, due to the Germanic obsession with jus sanguinis and their inability to transform the conquered into citizens unlikeItalian imperialism under fascism tried withAlbanians,Afro-Arabs, etc. (seeking to contain Nazi expansion in the New Order so that it would not pose a threat with their ideological differences).[114]
That contempt forLatin Europe by the Nazis would be exemplified again during theHendaye meeting, whereFrancoist Spain was relegated to less than a minor partner, and then theMontoire andSaint-Florentin meetings, whereVichy France's treatment as a client state and exporter ofslave labor was consolidated despitePétain's offers for closer collaboration against the British on Africa in exchange for elevating his regime as a respectable partner to reach favourable Peace conditions and revision of thearmistice, thereby Nazis prevented the restoration of French sovereignty in the New Order and expected to exploit its economy in the long term as a permanent defeated nation without any favourable concessions, only total subordination to Germany at the lowest possible cost to the Reich (even preferring toliquidate the French fleet andcolonial empire than let Vichy French to use it as partners to defyBritish naval supremacy and protectOccupied Europe), being expected the total dependence of Spain, France and Italy to Germany.[115] Despite, Nazis supported with propaganda theLatin Bloc proposed byMussolini and approved byFrancisco Franco to create a "Rome-Madrid axis" withVichy French leaderPetain.[116] Their main objective was to defy Britain domain in theMediterranean region, expelling them fromGibraltar (to Spain),Malta (to Italy) andCyprus (to Italy, or to theHellenic State in exchange of granting theIonian Islands,Crete ornorthwestern Greece to Italy), as theFascist Italy main goals for entering the war was, aside of restoring theMare Nostrum, to‘liberate the world from British domination of the seas’, expecting that an Anti-British Mediterranean Bloc would menace theirThalassocratic hegemony at theIndian Ocean trade andTransatlantic crossing (and so the global power of theBritish Empire), as also to project Axis powers' influence to theArab world through theEastern Mediterranean andNorth Africa.[117][118]
However, Mussolini and Franco hoped to balance the power between Latin countries to avoid aGerman preponderance.[119]Mihai Antonescu inFascist Romania showed his support to the initiative in the summer of 1941, proposing an alliance between Romania with France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, which offered the expansion of Latin Block influence to theBlack Sea andDanubian through theCroatian–Romanian–Slovak friendship (restoring the FrenchCordon sanitaire) while also developing a block powerful enough to stand up to Hitler and negotiate an armistice with the Western Allies in case Nazi Germany lost his projected war against the Soviets (in the long term it would serve to save from Soviet expansionism all the minor partners of the Nazis inEastern Europe, likeHungary,Croatia,Finland, etc.), avoiding to being forced by Western Allies to restoreliberalism and maybe the collapse of Nazi Germany in a total defeat (although, being free of German influence).[120]António de Oliveira Salazar, a personal friend of Petain, showed interest to the incorporation ofPortugal after being invited by Vichy France, as Salazar was convinced that the Latin countries should play a full role and still join forces in the New Order after the Allies were defeated, not only for the development of ananti-communist andanti-British bloc based in their common ideologies (founded onCorporatism,Clerical fascism and elements ofCatholic social teaching withSyndicalism), but also for the inevitable conflict betweenPan-Latinism-Mediterraneanism andPan-Germanism-Nordicism geopolitical vision for theWestern civilisation. These very long-term intentions caused Nazi Germany to distrust the French state and tiedy to undermine the project by taking advantage of the amateurism of Vichy diplomacy.[121] Also Vichy France tried to inviteVatican City in the Latin Bloc by arguing that in the long-term it would serve as ananti-Protestant andanti-Jewish (but notAntisemitist) bloc that would helptraditionalist Catholicism against the menace ofliberal democracy fromNorthern Europe and the legacy ofFrench Revolution (as itsromanticization was beingacademically questioned in theRévolution nationale that sought to found a post-republican France reconciled with theCatholic counterrevolution movement), butPope Pius XII refused to provide support to regimes that were openlyauthoritarian,caesarist and practiced "statolatry" (asCatholic Church condemnedFascism in theNon abbiamo bisognoencyclical) while militarly actively collaborated withanti-Semitic Nazi Germany and itsTotalitarian ideologies (asNationalsocialism has been condemned in theMit brennender Sorge encyclical), not being able theHoly See to fully legitimise Vichy France, and its equivalentnationalcatholic clerical regimes, until thosereactionary modernist regimes practiced theCatholic integrism of itssocial doctrine, which involved their detachment fromnationalist ideologies andpolitical modernism (and so, get out of the collaboration with the Axis Powers).[122]
Concerning theEastern Mediterranean andBalkans, initially was expected to be granted to the Italian Sphere of influence as Hitler has a lack of interest overGreece andYugoslavia, even forcing the later to jointo the Tripartite Pact only to be free of another front of war before the imminentNazi-Soviet War (not desiring to have more problems in the Balkans since theItalo-Greek War, which delayed theOstpolitik), without caring to consolidate further German domination and wantingPragmatist approaches. However, thePolitical instability made byYugoslavists against theHouse of Karađorđević after joining the Axis Powers (despite guarantees of territorial integrity), convinced Nazi thatSerbian nationalists with theirAnglophilia were traditional enemies of Germany and should be intervened to be neutralized before reaching British help and ruining the Reich expansionist plans in the east like Serbians did in theFirst world war. So Hitler backedCroatian nationalist as a proxy to counterSerbian irredentists andBalkanizate the state to have more secure borders with puppet states that would beMilitary Marchs againstSouth Slavs, in spite of Mussolini's protests about a violation of the repartitions made between Germans and Italians (who should have the monopoly of intervening in theAdriatic Sea and its SlavicHinterland) as he wanted all Yugoslavia as an Italian puppet and also the total influence overUstaše collaborationists. Germany tried toappease Italians by giving them landsfrom Slovenia andDalmatia, as also receiving total controlin Montenegro. Despite, whenPrince Aimone (Duke of Aosta) from theHouse of Savoy was crowned asKing ofUstaše Croatia (which also had control overBosnia and Herzegovina) and facilitated Italian annexations inDalmatia, it was confirmed that it would be an Italian primacy over Germany concerning theSouthern Slavic peoples in the New Order.[123][124] Another favoured peoples in the region were theAlbanian nationalists of theBalli Kombëtar (who were considered "Aryans of Illyrian heritage" by the Nazis and also theirirredentists were backed byItalian colonists to weakYugoslavists and improve their image among locals for a further integration in theEmpire),[125] theBulgarian nationalists (who received theirlost territories in Macedonia and Greece)[126] andHungarian irredentists (whorecuperated territories from Slovenia and Serbia).[127]
ConcerningGreece, it was expected to be under Italian protectorship due to not being a territory of interest for the Reich and in so were made plans ofPartitioning theHellenic State like in theFrankokratia (although Hitler did not like Italian plans due to wanting Greeks as partners andbuffers againstYugoslav socialists andTurkey).[128] The region ofChameria (Thesprotia) in northwestern Greece would beawarded to Albania alikeYugoslav Kosovo (asAlbanian Irredentist were trusted alleys) and divideVardar Macedonia withBulgaria,the later also would receiveEastern Macedonia and parts ofWestern Thrace alikeYugoslav Macedonia, and Italy would annex formerVenetian colonies (mainly theIonian Islands,Crete and theSporades) ruled fromItalian Aegean islands. The minorities, likeLocal Muslims (specially thePomaks)[129] andAromanians in Greece, were expected to receiveEmpowerment and maybe grant themNational states under Italian and Bulgarian patronage (like thePindus principality), while forcedPopulation transfer andCultural genocide were to be done to achieveBulgarisation andItalianization of the territories.[130][131] It was considered thatBritish Cyprus would be annexed to Greece as a compensation forGreek fascists and serving as an step for an Italo-Turkish confrontation for the supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, in whichGreek irredentist claims inAsia minor could've been supported to punish hostileTurkish nationalists.[132]
However, after the start of theItalian Civil War, the Nazis also felt betrayed byItalians asNation, and so the Italian sphere of influence in the Mediterranean (Croatia,Slovenia,Montenegro,Albania,Greece andItalian occupied France) was expected to be absorved by the German Reich, even doing plans to turnItalian Social Republic into a mere puppet state like the rest ofRump states in the Balkans, which should be controlled from theOperational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral that occupiedIstria, which would be annexed to theReichsgau ofCarinthia and so restore theAustrian Littoral. TheItalian Tyrol was planned to be annexed to theGermanic Reich by turning theOperational Zone of the Alpine Foothills into part of theReichsgau ofTirol-Vorarlberg and so restoreGerman Tyrol.[133][134] The Nazis expected to then conquerAustrian Empire's territories ofNorthern Italy for theIII Reich (likeLombardy–Venetia,Tuscany andAustria-Este), restoringHabsburg expansionist objectives in theBalkans (inspired in theAustro-Slavist programs to vassalizeSerbia,Bulgaria,Romania, etc.) throughUstashe Croatia andFascist Hungary, which were expected to reemplace Italians as favorite partners. The ethnic complexity of the Adriatic region was to be used to dismish Italian influence, promote ethnic segmentation and introduce Germandom as a stabilizing force (expecting to replace Rome with Vienna as the cultural capital of the Balkan region in the new order) until turning the region intomarch land like in theCarolingian and themedieval German empires.[135][136][137]
Immediately prior to Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, five countries, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania,Bulgaria, andCroatia were alreadyclient states of Nazi Germany. Serbia was under direct German military occupation andMontenegro andAlbania were under the occupation of Italy. Greece was under directGerman-Italian military occupation because of the growingresistance movement. Although technically in the Italian sphere of influence, Croatia was, in reality, acondominium puppet state of the two Axis powers, with Italy controlling the southwestern half, and Germany the northeastern half.[citation needed]
Hitler observed that permanent German bases might be established inBelgrade (possibly to be renamed toPrinz-Eugen-Stadt) andThessaloniki.[138] TheReichfestung Belgrad had been referred to in a "great secret memorandum" by Secretary of State and SS Brigade ChiefWilhelm Stuckart in 1941, being about the situation and future fate of Germany in the territories of the formerYugoslavia, based on scripts of 1939 fromWerner Lorenz and theHauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle.[139][140] Names such asPrinz-Eugen-Gau, Reichsgau Banat, Donauprotektorat, Schwabenland, Donaudeutschland orAutonomes Siebenbürgen were proposed to designate said territory. This buffer state ofGermans of Serbia would have been for the purpose of ensuring permanent German supremacy over the Danube basin, and then, to plan an economic reorganization of the Balkans. The resettlement of Germans in this administrative division was planned to be the logical consequence.[141][142][143]
Even without the annexation of the Banat to theGreater Germanic Reich, the Southeast European states would have remained only formally independent, while in reality their economic and military domination would have gravitated as satellites in the German hegemonic orbit, in a similar dependency like theMitteleuropa plans of World War I.[citation needed]Ferenc Szálasi, as a way to restore theGreater Hungary, proppossed the development of a "Carpathian-Danubian federation" where nationalism is region based ("con-nationalism" instead ofethnic nationalism) in which non-Hungarians are willing to join and mantaing their localCustomary laws, expecting to develop something similar to theUnited States of Greater Austria andHungary-Romanian unionist projects, but underFascist ways to crush the menace ofYugoslav Partisans backingLeft-wing nationalisms and solicitating a German protectorship to accommodate his project in the New Order. Nazis considered to support it as a way to dominate more easy the Balkans without so muchEthnic conflicts (and also taking a role of mediator between the local nationalists and take advantage of such differences to improve Nazi domination and make them more dependants of German intervention) and turning it as abuffer state againstSoviet partisans.[144]
One of the most elaborate Nazi projects initiated in the newly conquered territories during this period of the war was the planned establishment of a "Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation" (Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation).[146] This future empire was to consist of, in addition to Greater Germany, virtually all of historically Germanic Europe (except Great Britain),whose inhabitants the Nazis believed to be "Aryan" in nature. The consolidation of these countries as mere provinces of the Third Reich, in the same manner in which Austria was reduced to the "Ostmark", was to be carried out through a rapidly enforced process ofGleichschaltung (synchronization). The ultimate intent of this was to eradicate all traces of national rather thanracial consciousness, althoughtheir native languages were to remain in existence.[147][148]
Adolf Hitler inMein Kampf argued in the chapter "Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy" that the Germans neededLebensraum in the East and described it as a "historic destiny" which would properly nurture the future generations of Germans. Hitler believed that "the organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacity of the German element in an inferior race." Hitler spoke on 3 February 1933 to the staff of the army and declared that Germany's problems could be solved by "the conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization".[149] His earlier invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland can be directly connected to his desire for Lebensraum inMein Kampf.[citation needed]
Implementation of the long-term plan for the New Order was begun on June 22, 1941, withOperation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The goal of the campaign was not merely the destruction of the Soviet regime—which the Nazis considered illegitimate and criminal—but also the racial reorganization ofEuropean Russia, outlined for the Nazi elite in theGeneralplan Ost ("Master Plan for the East").[150] Nazi party philosopherAlfred Rosenberg (who, incidentally, protested against the inhumane policy shown toward the Slavs[151]) was theMinister for the Eastern Territories, the person nominally in charge of the project, andHeinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was assigned to implement the General Plan for the East which detailed the enslavement, expulsion, andextermination of the Baltic peoples and Slavic peoples.[citation needed]
Furthermore, Hitler hoped to turn Germany into a total blockade-proofautarky by exploiting the vast resources lying in Soviet territories: Ukraine was to provide grain, vegetable oil, fodder,iron ore,nickel,manganese, coal,molybdenum; Crimeanatural rubber,citrus fruit, cotton; the Black Sea fish, and the Caucasus crude oil.[152]
By 1942, the quasi-colonial regimes called theGeneral Government in Poland, theReichskommissariat Ostland in theBaltic states and Belarus, and theReichskommissariat Ukraine inUkraine had been established. Three more administrative divisions were envisaged: aReichskommissariat Moskowien that would include the majority of European Russia, aReichskommissariat Kaukasien in theCaucasus, and aReichskommissariat Turkestan in Soviet Central Asia. This policy was accompanied by theannihilation of the entire Jewish population (theFinal Solution), as well as the enslavement of their Slavic inhabitants, who it was planned, would be made slave laborers on the estates to be granted to SS soldiers after the conquest of European Russia. Each of these SS "soldier peasants" was expected to father at least seven children.[153]
However, about the threat in the short-term for the Anti-Soviet indigenous population (Balts,Eastern Slavs,Finno-Ugric, Caucasian peoples, Turkic peoples,Kalmyks and others) there were inner conflicts between Rossenberg'sMinister for the Eastern Territories and Hitler'sReichskommissariats with Himmler'sSS. The first ones supported apragmatic moderation and being a bit gentle with the inferior races, trying to take advantage ofanti-Soviet sentiment of the oppressed peoples byStalin andBolshevist regime (proposingland reform ofdecollectivization and a degree of autonomy only at municipal level), so theUntermensch would see Germans as their liberators and would make easier the conquest, postponing their annihilation and enslavement until German control was consolidated. The second ones supported a radical and brutal approach, disdaining the idea of giving social and political concessions to pro-German collaborators, assuming that the conquest would be an easy and fast victory, soUntermensch should had to get used to servitude to their new Aryan masters instead of deluding them into the idea of being partners of the Reich, seeing them only as object of exploitation.[154]
German women were encouraged to have as many children as possible to populate the newly acquired Eastern territories. To encourage this fertility policy, theLebensborn program was expanded and the state decoration known as theGold Honor Cross of the German Mother was instituted, which was awarded to German women who bore at least eight children for the Third Reich. There was also an effort byMartin Bormann and Himmler to introduce new marriage legislation to facilitate population growth, which would have allowed decorated war heroes to marry an additional wife.[155] Himmler envisaged a German population of 300,000,000 by 2000.[citation needed]
Rosenberg viewed the political goal of Operation Barbarossa as not merely the destruction of the Bolshevik regime, but the "reversing of Russian dynamism" towards the east (Siberia) and the freeing of the Reich of the "eastern nightmare for centuries to come" by eliminating the Russian state, regardless of its political ideology.[156] The continued existence of Russia as a potential instigator ofpan-Slavism and its suggestive power over other Slavic peoples in the fight between "Germandom" and "Slavism" was seen as a major threat, so Russian nation should be dissolved.[157] This was to be solved by exploiting ethnic centrifugal forces and limiting the influence of "Greater Russiandom" (Großrussentum) by promoting segmentation in the manner ofdivide and conquer.[citation needed]
In a memorandum sent to Rosenberg in March 1942, Nazi anthropologistOtto Reche argued for the disappearance of 'Russia' both as an ethnic and political concept, and the promotion of a new plethora of ethnicities based onmedieval Slavic tribes such as theVyatichs andSeverians.[157] EvenWhite Ruthenia, and in particular Ukraine ("in its present extent") he deemed to be dangerously large.[157] TheBelarusians were perceived by Alfred Rosenberg as
"the most harmless and because of this the least dangerous for us of all the peoples in the Eastern Space",
which implied that were the easiest one to exploit and dissolve, using their territory to agglomerate undesirable ethnics and traitorous Aryans (anti-Nazi), and finally turn the territory of Belarus as anature reserve, serving as natural barrier to protect the projected Germanised Baltic Region from the non-assimilable peoples.[158]
Heinrich Himmler had already advocated for such a general policy towards Eastern Europe in 1940.[159] A top-secret memorandum in 1940 from Himmler entitled "Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Peoples in the East" expressed that the Germans must splinter as many ethnic splinter groups inGerman-occupied Europe as possible, includingUkrainians, "White Russians" (Belarusians),Gorals (seeGoralenvolk),Lemkos, andKashubians and to find all "racially valuable" people and assimilate them in Germany.[159] The Eastern Ministry responded that Reich's emphasis on the plurality of ethnic groups in the Soviet Union was correct "in itself", but was skeptical about his proposal to resurrect obscure and extinct nationalities.[157] He defended his proposal by arguing that
" [sic] in the area of ethnicity much has already been successfully brought back to life!"
but inquired as to whether names connected with the main towns in each area might serve this role instead.[157]
A memorandum written byErhard Wetzel from theNSDAP Office of Racial Policy administration, in April 1942 details the splitting up ofReichskommissariat Moskowien into very loosely tied Generalkommissariats.[2] The objective was to undermine the national cohesion of the Russians by promoting regional identification; a Russian from the Gorki Generalkommissariat was to feel that he was different from a Russian in the Tula Generalkommissariat.[2] In July 1944, Himmler orderedErnst Kaltenbrunner, the head of theRSHA, to begin the exporting of the faith of theJehovah's Witnesses to the occupied east.[160] Himmler considered the Jehovah's Witnesses to be frugal, hard-working, honest and fanatic in theirpacifism, and he believed that these traits were extremely desirable for the suppressed nations in the east[160] – despite some 2,500 and 5,000 Jehovah's Witnessesbecoming victims of the Holocaust.[citation needed]
Also, a source of discussion in the Nazi circles was the replacement of theCyrillic letters with theGerman alphabet.[161] Also was planned to rename Russian places with German names, likeNovgorod asHolmgard (trying to justify with the cultural influence of medievalHanseatic League on North Russia).[162] A series of "semantic guidelines" published by theGerman Interior Ministry in 1942 declared that it was permissible to use the word 'Russia' only in a reference to the "Petersburg empire" ofPeter the Great and its follow-ups until theRevolution of 1917.[157] The period from 1300 to Peter the Great (theGrand Duchy of Moscow and theTsardom of Russia) was to be called the "Muscovite state", while post-1917 Russia was not to be referred to as an empire or a state at all; the preferred terms for this period were "bolshevik chaos" or "communist elements".[157] Furthermore, historic expressions such asLittle Russia (Ukraine),White Russia (Belarus/White Ruthenia),Russian Sea (for theBlack Sea), andRussian Asia (forSiberia andCentral Asia) were to be absolutely avoided as terminology of the "Muscovite imperialism".[157] "Tatars" was described as a pejorative Russian term for theVolga,Crimean, andAzerbaijanTurks which was preferably to be avoided, and respectively replaced with the concepts "Idel (Volga)-Uralian", "Crimean Turks", andAzerbaijanis.[157]
Baltic peoples (Estonians,Latvians andLithuanians) were seen as mostly assimilable in a long-term by the Nazi anthropologists[163] and were considered to have a process of Germanization in a future, inspired in theOstsiedlung andGermanization of Prussia withinOld Prussians, and then being turned into racially valuable settlers. In the short-term, those peoples would have a bit level of local government under a "National Director" (Reichskomissar) in Estonia, a "General Director" in Latvia, and a "General Adviser" in Lithuania. Also it was seen that Germans fromTeutonic State andHanseatic League (sinceNorthern Crusades toPolish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War), along with the Germanic brothers of Swedish and Danish (untilGreat Northern War), were the masters ofBaltic region during 700 years, until they were gradually overrun by Slavs withPolonization andRussification on theBaltic Governorates ofCourland-Semigallia,Livonia andEstland, so it gave an historical right for theGreater Germanic Reich to restore its influence and get theDominium maris baltici, in whichBaltic Germans would have had a key role in that plan, restoring them as political elites in aGermanisedprotectorate prior to union with proper Germany in a near future (being considered the most easy region of the USSR to be turned in a permanent form of administration).[164][165]
Originally theReichskommissariat Ostland was going to be called "Reichskommissariat Baltenland" to secure the support of native Baltics to Germany, but due to the inclusion ofWest Belarus (withIngria,Smolensk,Pskov, andNovgorod) as a planned hinterland for the occupied Baltic region, it was considered inappropriate to give false hopes to Slavicuntersmensch to be considered assimilable as most of them were notBalto-Slavs, and also serving as a message against baltic nationalists that wanted the restoration of their national independences or the respect of their own terminology (although Rossenger andGeorg Leibbrandt protested these decisions, as the sympathy from the Baltics will be lost).[166] DuringGerman Occupation of the Baltic states, after the Baltic collaborators stopped to being useful, Nazi disarmed nationalist groups like theLithuanian Activist Front,Latvian Pērkonkrusts orEstonian Defence League, while also (after a brief toleration) influenced to dismantle their attempts to develop their own political structures as pro-German states, like theProvisional Government of Lithuania, theLatvian diplomatic service in exile orJüri Uluots's Estonian cabinet.[167][168] Finally were divided into fourGeneralbezirke (General Districts) ruled by German civil administrators that repressed bothSoviet partisans and Baltic independentists (like theLithuanian partisans of theSupreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania,Latvian Central Council orNational Committee of the Republic of Estonia).[citation needed]
Some of the priorities for Hitler in the conquest of the Lebensraum was to conquer theCaucasus region, as it was economically important for itsoil refineries (specially onBaku) and would help theeconomy of Nazi Germany that lacked prime resources (and also depriving theSoviet Union of a vital one like oil),[169] but also was a strategical territory to seizure of the domain ofSouthern Russia and establishing a German presence in theGreater Middle East (planning a future Nazi intervention ofMiddle East andCentral Asia to reachBritish Raj and the Japanese Allies). So, Nazi Germany was open to give concessions to some non-SlavicUntermensch nations (such asChechens,Daghestani orAzerbaijanis) that wereanti-Russian, so facilitating the establishment of a German Sphere of Influence in Asia from theReichskommissariat Kaukasien (which would have had a territory fromVolga-Don toIran-Turkey borders).[170] That concessions to thePeople of Caucasus would involve the creation of sub-national entities as "autonomous" units in the German Reich (giving some privileges to the members of theNational Socialist Party of the North Caucasian Brothers) unlike the rest of the Reichskomimisariats,[171][172] and maybe the restoration of theSouth Caucasus states under German Protectorate, avoiding intimidation to Iran and Turkey.[173][174]
Though the Armenian prisoners of war and refugees were somewhat discriminated against, the ultimate status of Armenia remained an academic problem because the Germans never reached it.
By 1942, Hitler's empire encompassed much of Europe, but the territories annexed lacked population desired by the Nazis.[185] From the point of view of the Nazis, though Germany had acquired herLebensraum, she now needed to populate these lands according to Nazi ideology and racial principles.[185] This was to be accomplished before the end of the war by a "reordering of ethnographical relations".[185] The initial step of this project had already been taken by Hitler on 7 October 1939, when Himmler was named the Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of Germandom (Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums) (RKFDV) (see alsoHauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, VoMi)[185] This position authorised Himmler to repatriate ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) living abroad to occupied Poland.[185] Himmler's jurisdiction as the guardian of theVolksdeutsche re-settlement efforts was increased to other occupied territories to be Germanised as the war continued. To make room for the German settlers, hundreds of thousands of Poles and French living in these lands were transferred across borders.[186] The great majority of Himmler'sVolksdeutsche were acquired from the Soviet sphere of interest under theGerman–Soviet "population exchange" treaty.[186]
At the end of 1942 a total of 629,000Volksdeutsche had been re-settled, and preparations for the transfer of 393,000 others were underway.[186] The long-term goal of the VoMi was the resettlement of a further 5.4 millionVolksdeutsche, mainly fromTransylvania,Banat, France, Hungary and Romania.[186] The immigrants were classified either as racially or politically unreliable (settled inAltreich), of high quality (settled in theannexed eastern territories) or suitable for transit camps.[186] Himmler encountered considerable difficulties with theVolksdeutsche of France and Luxembourg, who often wished to retain their former status as citisens of their respective countries.[186] Moreover, it was considered to have help from otherGermanic peoples outside Germans, like Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch and British collaborators. An example was theDutch East Company (Nederlandsche Oost-Compagnie), a German-Dutch organization that send Dutch settlers toPskov to help in the Germanic re-settlement of Lebensraum.[164]
| Territory of origin | Total | Re-settled in annexed eastern territories |
|---|---|---|
| Estonia and Latvia | 76,895 | 57,249 |
| Lithuania | 51,076 | 30,315 |
| Volhynia, Galicia, Narew | 136,958 | 109,482 |
| Eastern Government-General | 32,960 | 25,956 |
| Bessarabia | 93,342 | 89,201 |
| NorthernBukovina | 43,670 | 24,203 |
| Southern Bukovina | 52,149 | 40,804 |
| Dobruja | 15,454 | 11,812 |
| Romania, Regat | 10,115 | 1,129 |
| Gottschee andLjubljana | 15,008 | 13,143 |
| Bulgaria | 1,945 | 226 |
| Residual Serbia | 2,900 | 350 |
| Russia | 350,000 | 177,146 |
| Greece | 250 | |
| Bosnia | 18,437 | 3,698 |
| Slovakia | 98 | |
| South Tyrol | 88,630 | Reich, Protectorate, Luxembourg: 68,162 |
| France | 19,226 | Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Reich, Protectorate: 9,572 |
| Total | 1,009,113 | 662,448 |
Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany had two mean of operations to extend itsSphere of influence outside Europe, consisting on intergovernmental diplomacy from theForeign Ministries of each country with theirConsulates, while also developing propaganda and subversive through unofficial agencies linked to Axis Powers, like theFascist League of North America or theAusland-Organization (foreign organisations) branch of the Nazi Party. Serving to establish the political and economic hegemony of the Axis Powers in selected countries, using them to expand Axis Powers influence through theirContinents.[188]
Hitler's geopolitical thoughts about Africa always occupied a secondary position to his expansionist aims in Europe itself. His public announcements prior to outbreak of the war that Germany'sformer colonies be returned to it served primarily as bargaining chips to further territorial goals in Europe itself. Africa was nevertheless expected to fall under German control in some way or another after Germany had first achieved supremacy over its own continent.[189] However, Hitler's interest in African colonies were mostly for reasons of international prestige by pressure from the German elites, but he himself was indifferent and was even opposed to the creation a German colonial policy in Africa because it did not fulfill the goal ofDrang nach Osten (a colonial policy over Eastern Europe), being convinced that African affairs would be a distraction from Germany's real socio-economic goal of achievingLebensraum, railing againstWilhelmine Germany for its lack of long-term vision in wanting to imitate thethalassocratic nature of the British Empire as he believed that the German Reich was determined by history and geography to practice aContinentalist-oriented geopolitics (praising the imperialist vision ofOtto Von Bismarck andFrederick the Great, both opposed to the development ofoverseas empires and closer to the "authentic Germanic imperial character" that existed in theHoly Roman Empire under theHohenstaufens andOttonians, or in theGermanic invasions) unlikeWestern European states that were conditioned to cross theAtlantic Ocean.[190]
Also, wanting to prevent the British Empire and Germany from conspiring at the expense of theFrench Empire in the projected New Order,Vichy France developed plans to forge closer political ties with the Reich for the expected evolution of the conflict to an intercontinental phase between the Axis andUnited States after a British defeat, proposing that they would use hisAfrican empire and colonial fleet to protectNazi occupied Europe from the American menace, as well as participating in a projectedEuropean customs union (seeEuropean Confederation project), thus allowing Axis Europe to benefit from its colonial empire. Those plans underFrançois Darlan went so far that in theParis Protocols (1941) were given air and naval bases with extraterritorial to Nazi Germany inDakar (Senegal),Bizerte (Tunisia) andAleppo (Syria). However, Hitler's distrust of France ruled out any possibility of France allying with Germany as an equal overseas partner in the long term (being expected to become a minorcolonial power in the New Order).[115]
However, in a global perspective, Hitler's overall intentions for the future organization of Africa divided the continent into three overall. The northern third was to be assigned to itsItalian ally (believing that his natural geopolitics pointed towards theMediterranean-Red Sea region, alike Roman Empire, and that Germany should respect that as long as Italy did not betray them), while the central part would fall under German rule, based in restoring formerMittelafrika projects. The remaining southern sector would be controlled by a pro-NaziAfrikaner state built on racial grounds.[189] On 30 March 1933, in a reunion with the president of theGerman Colonial Society,Heinrich Schnee, Hitler promised support to the Germans abroad in the former colonies (especially in formerTogoland andKamerun).[191]
"As for our overseas colonies, we have by no means abandoned colonial aspirations; this problem must also be resolved fairly. There are many things that Germany must get from the colonies, and we need colonies as much as any other country"
— Adolf Hitler, British newspaper "Sunday Express" of January 30, 1933
In the Long-Term, Nazi Germany was planning to create a system ofKolonialkanonenboot (Colonial gunboat) with the aim of parking them in the restored oversea colonies, that would serve to restore theStationsdienst of the German Empire, which was a system of German ports in foreign territory [Auslandsstationen] for tasks in foreign waters to protect German commercial and colonial interests, and thus securingsea routes around the world for military and economical reasons on a larger global geopolitical scale against the naval power of othergreat powers like British Empire,French Empire and United States (alsoItalian Empire and Japanese empire in the future).[192][193][194] It is theorised that was complementary to thePlan Z of theKriegsmarine and its efforts to be a fleet worthy of a world power, alikeBritish Royal Navy.[195][196]
In the Short-Term, Nazi Germany wanted only to gain international prestige, satisfy the nationalists demands of theKolonialrevisionismus movement, the economical necessities of an expansiveBourgeoisie, and the political ones of former German Colonial Classes, both German ex-Colonial rulers and the ex-subjectedAfro-Germans that maintained his loyalty to the Reich (Nazis desired to return them to Africa, so that they would not contaminate German culture and racial purity, while also achieving a propaganda effect of the benevolence of Nazi racial policies toward Black Peoples). March 1935 was the first time that the return of former German colonies were put into official negotiations by Nazi Germany to the representatives of the British government, and so the "colonial question" remained a constant (while relatively minor) topic of negotiation between the German and British governments.[197] On February 4, 1936, Hitler publicly demanded the cession of two colonies in exchange for continued "active German friendship" with Great Britain.[191][198] Great Britain urged Germany to "come to terms" first with parts of theBelgian,Portuguese andDutch colonial empires, trying to avoid the claims.[199] After pressures, England would only agree to the return of the colonies to Germany if they were declaredmandates of the League of Nations (avoiding arming the natives) and demanding economic compensations. However, Hitler wanted the return of the colonies without compensation of any kind, because the German colonies had also been expropriated from Germany without compensation. On March 3, 1938, British ambassadorNevile Henderson presented Adolf Hitler a colonial offer on behalf of his Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain, consisting in the redistribution of all ofCentral Africa (below the 5° parallel and above theZambezi) in an international administration of Africa on the basis of common economic and humanitarian principles. British offered that, in addition to some of its former colonies, Germany was also to receive part of Portuguese and Belgian colonial possessions, compensating also the loss of other colonies. However, Nazi Germany was not interested in a shared domain and much less to loss its original colonies that still hadGermanvolkisch, Hitler personally asked whether it would not be easier to return Germany its former colonies instead to make Belgium and Portugal believe that Germany was eager for other people's property.[199] TheGerman Civil Service Federation began training courses for colonial officials in 1938 and in October 1938 was founded the first colonial policy training center of the Reich as theNSDAP Office of Colonial Policy (KPA) opened a see inLadenburg, near Berlin. The KPA since September 1936 was developing courses to"form a team of colonial experts who will pass on their knowledge to others", with the main goal to train administrative personnel for the former colonies that were expected to return sooner to German rule since the start of negotiations with the British. Also theReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda started to use the term "German Colonies" instead of "Lost Colonies" or "Former Colonies" since February 14, 1939. Further, on March 9, 1939, Hitler commissioned the head of the NSDAP's Office for Colonial Policy,Franz Ritter von Epp, to re-establish theReich Colonial Office for the management of the colonies in Africa, which would later become a Reich Colonial Ministry that would be located in theNeuer Marstall under Hitler's order in March 1941. Also, by decree of Heinrich Himmler on 14 January 1941, a Colonial Police Office was established under the command ofKarl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, while in March 1941 afirst colonial police school (withHelbert Jilski as his commander) was inaugurated on theOranienburg Palace (near Berlin), and in January 1942 was opened the second one in Vienna. Moreover, aTechnical School of Foreign Trade and Colonial Merchants was founded in Bremen in November 1942, with the goal to imitateHanseatic League in a colonial scale. Finally, Hitler stated that he wanted to develop special forces in Africa like theSchutzstaffel or former, preferring to just moving personnel directly from theWehrmacht to develop a German colonial army.[197][194]
Concerning the partition of the Africancolonies from the Allied Powers (The French andBelgian Colonial Empires, in which branches of theNazi colonial offices were established) that were defeated on theFall of France, it was expected that it would be a territory bigger than the formerGerman colonial empire. In that ideal,Franz Halder told directly to Hitler himself (on July 13, 1940) that:"The French andBelgian Congo will be claimed for us." Also, when a fast victory againstBritish Empire was a possibility,Joachim von Ribbentrop traveled to Italy in September 1940 with the mission to start negotiations about the division of Africa after a victorious end to the war with Great Britain. According to those conversations, was agreed that all ofCentral and Southern Africa would go to the Germansphere of influence, while West andNorth Africa to Italy's one, with the exception ofGreater Morocco, which was considered to be given toFrancoist Spain or restored as an independent nation to serve as aBuffer state.[194]
The Nazis considered that to rule North Africa, first, they needed to collaborate with the fascists from Italy, Spain and France, and then, use the localMaghreb populations andIslamic nationalist as bargaining chips, spreading the idea that Germany was their savior from the other empires and thus have a meaning to put pressure on their partners (in the long term, potential rivals to dominate alike their Arab subjects).[200] Nazi Germany was content to give Italian Empire the primacy on North Africa as well as the complete control of East Africa (except former German East Africa), being a contiguous Empire from the coasts ofTunisia to the ones inGreater Somalia, fulfillingMussolini's imperial ambitions. This was due to an old German-Italian exchange on colonial projects in Africa, provocating that German military plans during the Nazi era were more oriented towards Italian Africa than towards the former German Africa.[201][193] Even courses for potential German colonial officers were being held by the Italian colonial police school inTivoli.[202] Moreover, Mussolini codiciated to gain control overSpanish Morocco,Ceuta and theBalearic Islands, without having opposition from Nazi Germany.[203][204]
During the early years of the war, several staffs of theItalian Foreign Ministry, at theMinistry for Italian Africa and at theRoyal Army's Ufficio Operazioni, were developing maps for a newScramble of theMiddle East and North Africa.Serafino Mazzolini (former Italian Minister inCairo) andCorrado Baldoni (former First Secretary at theItalian consulate in Cairo) created by 29 July 1940 a monograph on what should become of Egypt after the Axis victory, such monograph would then be delivered toGino Buti (Director General of European and Mediterranean affairs in theForeign Ministry). They conceived to restore the independence ofEgypt fromBritish rule instead of being turned into an Italian colony (although theSinai Peninsula andAnglo-Egyptian Sudan were to be turned into a joint Italian-Egyptiancondominium), wanting to avoid a bad propaganda forFascist Italy amongMuslims andArab nationalists and instead wanting to be seen asProtector of Islam, and so having their cooperation againstBritish Palestine andFrench Syria in future expansionist movements, and also leaving the defense of theSuez Canal to Egyptians to save costs (considering them as having trustworthy political institutions and a strongnationalism). However, the Ministry for Italian Africa (more focused on economic matters than diplomatic affairs) wanted a total conquest of the Sinai (to‘exercise decisive influence’ over theNear East andRed Sea as well as to intervene militarily in Suez) and Sudan (to linkItalian Libya withItalian East Africa without the nuisance fromEgyptians), arguing that they would accept the losses in return for full independence for Egypt itself as well as some territorial compensations in theArabian Peninsula (probablyMuhammad Ali's former conquests inHejaz). Mazzolini and the Foreign Ministry disliked those separate plans, fearing the creation of internal problems, disliking their being contrary to totalitarian doctrines of fascism requiring a unified bureaucracy, and not wanting to harass potential Arab collaborators in the region, fearing that hostility from Egyptians would cause negative repercussions for Italy across the Middle East as well as inside Italy's colonies. The total annexation of Suez was only considered in the possibilty thatFrancoist Spain conqueredGibraltar and turned into an Italian rival in theIndo-Mediterranean. ConcerningItalian Ethiopia, its territory would increase by annexingBritish Somaliland andFrench Somaliland, and restoring theAksum Empire under Italian patronage to conquerSouth Arabia.[117] TheItalian Empire wasn't conceived as a purely economic end, but a cultural and psychological means to transform the Italians themselves to erase the image of the Italian as "mandolinist", "peaceful" or "soft", and instead form anew fascist man of "warrior" and virile Italians who would be hardened through the exercise of brutality, "curing" modern Italians of its inferiority complex in relation toFrance andGreat Britain by declaring that they had ceased to be a "proletarian nation" and had become a dominant race. Moreover, there would be a turning point betweenAssimilationism toSegregationism in the colonial policy (before the alliance with the Nazis, Italian fascism sometimes permitted a degree ofMiscegenation or limited culturalSyncretism), as the "New Order" would impose strict racial segregation in the Italian colonies by German pressure. Sexual and interracial relations (madamato) would be prohibited to preserve the "prestige of the race", as well as UtilitarianGenocide practised as an administrative policy to cleanse territories from punished nations (likeEthiopians andLibyans) and assert the hierarchy of the "master" over the "subject", giving privileges to others (likeEritreans orSomalis) who acceptedItalianization.[205]
On the division of French African colonies, between the Spanish and Italian governments, Hitler refused to provide any official promises during the war, fearful of losing the support ofVichy France. However, the cession ofFrench Tunisia andFrench Djibouti to the Italians was considered inevitable in the future. Also, in theMeeting at Hendaye, Hitler personally and secretly promised toFrancisco Franco that Spanish Empire in Africa would gain territories over the remnants ofFrench West Africa, only in the condition ofSpain entry in World War 2,[206][207] but showing his displeasure with the exaggerated demands of theSpanish Africanists (Spain wantedMorocco,North West Algeria,Mauritania andCameroon)[208] and trying to be the most ambiguous possible in the hypothetical compromises over Spain to avoid infuriate Mussolini andPétain's ambition overNorth Africa (Germans even believed that Vichy France was better able to defend itself from a British attack thanFrancoist Spain), and also maintaining in secret that Nazi Germany wanted to expel Spaniards fromEquatorial Guinea or theCanary Islands, as Hitler wanted to conquer both for Germany in a future Atlantic Policy againstNorth America after winning the War (considering to compensate Spain withBritish Sierra Leone, WestBritish Nigeria or pro-Allies Liberia). However, Hitler recognised Spain's Moroccan ambitions and considered to giveFrench Morocco toSpanish Morocco in theOperation Felix, as legally France was not the owner of Morocco according toTreaty of Fes, which recognised the nominal sovereignty of theMoroccan sultan (who granted powers to the French occupiers by his concession), but that eventuality was considered only if Spain was militarily competent in theMediterranean Theatre to deserve be awarded by Germany, and also by Spain giving privileges to Germans for military bases onAgadir andMogador[208] and the trade control of Morocco (in a relation ofEconomic colonialism, something that Vichy France or an IndependentMoroccan Sultanate would not accept, as it was a preliminary step towards a total German conquest).[209][210] Similar case happened later inFrench Tunis andFrench Senegal when Nazi Germany economic colonialist policy demanded military privileges for them onDakar,Bizerte and theRail transport in Tunisia at theParis Protocols, which was protested byMaxime Weygand and his fears that were steps for a future German conquest.[115] Also Francoist Spain was developing theOperation Cisneros to instigate Arab-berber insurrections againstFrench Algeria to restore the domain ofSpanish Oran, trying to convince Germany or at least Italy, but both rejected support.[211] Although the German despise for Spain in the plans of New Order,Vichy France made important concessions to Spain and made efforts to maintain cordial relations with Madrid to prevent Germany from changing its mind and dismantling the French colonial empire in order to incorporate Francoist Spain into the Axis and then partition the rest of French Oversea territories with Italy.[212] Similar plots toconspire against French Algeria were done byFascist Italy to instigate rebellions inConstantinois to annex it andFrench Tunis, as well as byNazi Germany broadcasting radio programs in Arabic (like the one presided byYounis Bahri) with promises that the Reich would bring freedom to Algerians while also trying to establish contact with theAlgerian People's Party and its leaderMessali Hadj (who declined the offer, so the pro-German faction founded theNorth African Revolutionary Action Committee). The Italian Consul in Algiers in 1942 revealed that there were no plans fromAxis Powers to help the Algerians for the purpose of emancipation in the New Order, but that the partition of the country was being considered between Oran (to Spain),Algiers (to Germany) eastern Constantinois (to Italy) and western Constantinois (still under France), only offering support on their terms and without any operational freedom.[213][214]
"Hitler's colonial ambitions for a vast Central African empire with bases in the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco as staging posts were more important to him than good relations with Franco"
In 1940 theGeneral Staff of theKriegsmarine (navy) produced a much more detailed plan accompanied by a map showing a proposed German colonial empire delineated in blue (the traditional color used in German cartography to indicate the German sphere of influence as opposed to the red or pink that represented the British Empire) insub-Saharan Africa, extending from theAtlantic Ocean to theIndian Ocean.[215] Those plans were inspired by the publications of the Nazi juristWilhelm Crohne in the "Deutscher Colonial Service" (based on theMittelafrika expansionist goals of theSecond Reich), in which he also warned of the dangers of "racial mixing" that occurred under the influence of the Christian churches in the colonies.[216] The proposed domain was supposed to fulfill the long-sought territorial German goal ofMittelafrika, and even further beyond. It would provide a base from which Germany would achieve a pre-eminent position on the African continent just as the conquest of Eastern Europe was to achieve a similar status over the continent of Europe. This Nazi Germany "Kolonialreich nach Plänen" consists of establishing asphere of influence in a territory from the Atlantic to theIndian Ocean,Ghana (Gold Coast),Benin (Dahomey),Togo, western Nigeria, southernNiger,Cameroon,Democratic Republic of the Congo,Rwanda,Urundi,Chad,Central African Republic,Uganda, southern Kenya,Tanzania,Zambia,Malawi andNamibia.[200] Portuguese Africa (Angola andMozambique) was meant to be partitioned in the future, after the consolidation of German Colonial power in Namibia and Tanzania.
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In contrast to territories that were to be acquired in Europe itself (specifically European Russia), these areas were not envisaged as targets for extensive German population settlement. The establishment of a vast colonial empire was to serve primarily economic purposes, for it would provide Germany with most natural resources that it would not be able to find in its continental possessions, as well as an additional nearly unlimited supply of labor.Racialist policies would nevertheless be strictly enforced on all inhabitants (meaning segregation of Europeans and blacks and punishing of interracial relationships) to maintain "Aryan" purity, while natives would live on black men's camp.
The"Reich Colonial Law" of July 10, 1940 defined the expected German colonies as"territory of theGerman Reich" and stated that"are economic components of the German economy as a whole." The colonial population was to be classified into"Germans, Natives and Strangers." The Germans were automatically considered"German citisens and citisens of the Reich", the Natives were legally defined as"warded persons of the Reich", and the Strangers were further subdivided into"strangers of related [German] blood, strangers of unrelated blood, andmixed-race people."[217]
However, Nazi Germany also wanted to develop apaternalist strategy towards the African inhabitants, trying to transform them in "loyal pupils" by a culturalGermanization and economically developing them to the extent that it was useful to the white Germans, based in the threatment thatAfro-Germans had in theGerman Africa Show (aNazi Propaganda program that emphasise the connection between the former African neighborhoods and the German colonial rulers while at the same time their inferiority). For example, Nazis praised the Africanaskari soldiers who had fought for Germany in theWorld War I, which deserved to be awarded according to his contribution to the Reich (providing colonial immigrants, who were declared stateless, a solution to their difficulty in finding work), while also being without basic rights and living on a "strictly closed community" that was part of ahuman zoo system (in which they could still practise their native customs while serving also as a spectacle for theAryans by witnessing folklore festivals ofsubhumans), and also being punished for inter-racial marriages and sexual relationships with White Germans.[218] The main goal was to give Black people, which would beapatrid and without legal protection, the opportunity to climb socially and earn money while at the same time keep them under state control, forcing the Africans to serve Nazi Germany if they wanted to be treated in a civilised manner by their Aryan masters, or be disposable and be expelled out of Western civilization, to return to live in the uncivilised natural condition of their race, asNazi Philosophers thought thaturbanization was against the nomadic nature of black race and that explained the apparent lack ofAfrican civilizations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Nazi Thinkers believed that if Germany could fight againstAnti-German prejudices of colonialdespotism in the former German Africa by proving to be capable of managing colonies and its natives (considering that it would be an act of philanthropy and mercy of the white man to inferior peoples whom should be living in their naturalbarbaristtribalism on the African jungle, instead of being included in whiteurbanism) without contradicting itsracial theories, while also gaininghuman capital for the Reich from inferior races, instead of just expel them and not take advantage of their workforce, with a strict control againstMiscegenation orCultural exchange to avoid a cultural contamination of undesirable black elements among the ideal Germans.[219] Unlike theGeneralplan Ost, Nazi Germany wanted Africa to be aStützpunktkolonien (a colony for economical exploitation from a few and strategic Germanurban areas), notSiedlungskolonien (a colony for complete national occupation and German settlement) like theLebensraum, so Black People were not needed to be extinguished and expelled from their lands unlike theEast Slavs or the European Jews.[citation needed]
The area included all pre-1914German colonial territories in Africa (at the time,British Tanganyika,Belgian Ruanda-Urundi,British South West Africa), as well as additional parts of the French, Belgian and British colonial holdings in Africa. These included theFrench andBelgian Congos,Northern andSouthern Rhodesia (the latter going perhaps to South Africa),Nyasaland, southernKenya withNairobi (northern Kenya was to be given to Italy),Uganda,Gabon,Ubangui-Chari,Nigeria,Dahomey, theGold Coast,Zanzibar, nearly all of Niger and Chad, as well as the naval bases ofDakar andBathurst.[220] A second part of the plan entailed the construction of a huge string of fortified naval and air bases for future operations against the Western hemisphere, spanning much of the Atlantic coastline of Europe and Africa fromTrondheim in Norway all the way down to the Belgian Congo, as well as many off-lying islands such asCape Verde and theAzores. A less extensive but similar initiative was intended for the east coast of Africa.Bernhard Ruberg got the mission to prepare the transfer of sovereignty ofFrench Cameroon to Germany (with plans of projecting future expansion overFrench Equatorial Africa andBritish Nigeria), whilePhilipp Bouhler was responsible for the one inTanganyika Territory (projecting future expansion overBelgian Congo), while by July 1942, preliminary organizational plans had been completed for German economic control of Cameroon, Nigeria, French Equatorial Africa, the Belgian Congo and Tanganyika, in addition to examining applicants for these colonial administrations on a technical basis.[221]
"Some time ago, the Sisal Organization and the Banana Organization were set up in the field of colonial planning. These two names are camouflages for the East Africa Task Force (Sisal) and the West Africa Task Force (Banana). Reichsleiter SS-Obergruppenführer Bouhler, who is later to become Governor General of East Africa, is to be the head of the Sisal Organization. The head of the Banana Organization is the head of Gauleiter Bohle's staff office in the AO [foreign organization of the NSDAP], SS-Brigadeführer Ruberg. The task forces have already begun their preparatory work. – It is assumed in authoritative circles that Bouhler will not remain Governor General of East Africa, but that after he has gained practical experience out in the colonies, he will replace General Ritter von Epp as Colonial Minister."
— Otto Ohlendorf, Letter to Himmler dated June 17, 1942
Even beforeAdolf Hitler's rise to power, many German nationalist organizations in theUnion of South Africa attracted a large number ofGerman Namibians, developing numerous offices inSouth West Africa. The Nazi organizations there had a comparatively similar number of followers among Namibians of German ancestry and started to conquer those German Nationalists institutions, like theUnion of German Scouts in South West Africa (which in 1934 became part of theHitler Youth). This expansion of theNazi Foreign Organization among Namibians forced the South African state to ban them as early as 1934, because of the fear that they would serve for a future German reconquest ofNamibia. It is known that in November 1940 theforeign organization of the NSDAP was commissioned by the Reich to make all preparations for the (re-establishment) of party organizations in the former African colonies.[191] TheGerman Confederation for South West Africa was the only German group that survived, as it was a non-partisan mobilization movement that Nazi Germany belittled.
After a hypothetical victory over United Kingdom, the Nazis hoped to establish a friendly power-sharing agreement between Nazi Germany and British Monarchy by establishing a fascistAfrikaner government in theUnion of South Africa, which would remain as part of theCommonwealth realm, but also being a pro-AxisClient state with German influence from a restoredGerman Namibia.[200] In case British were not willingly to be co-operative after their projected defeat, there were another proposals to instead give more influence to theDutch Nazis in theReichskommissariat Niederlande, due to their former influence on theDutch Cape Colony and the projected total annexation of Netherlands into the German Reich (inheriting Dutch colonialism).[48]
In early 1940 Foreign MinisterRibbentrop had communicated with South African leaders thought to be sympathetic to the Nazi cause, informing them that Germany was to reclaim its former colony of German South-West Africa, then a mandate of the Union of South Africa.[222] South Africa was to be compensated by the territorial acquisitions of theBritish protectorates of Swaziland,Basutoland andBechuanaland and the colony ofSouthern Rhodesia.[222]
Ironically, during early stages of the War, there were someGerman–Soviet Axis talks, promoted byJoachim von Ribbentrop andFriedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg in 1940–1941 (having someStrasserist andNational Bolshevist elements), to temporarily includeSoviet Union in the Axis Powers (until theWehrmacht were fully prepared for the conquer ofLebensraum) to develop an EurasianKontinentalblock against theBritish Empire and theUnited States, trying to menace or even liquidate the globalThalassocracy of theAnglosphere, while also convincing SovietComintern to abandonCommunist world revolution projects and instead phocus on threatening the existence of thecapitalist democratic system in the "socialist" New Order (Nazi Germany main goal was to finally conclude theWestern Front and be free to start anEastern Front without the risks of a temibleTwo-front war, while replacingUK as 1° WorldSuperpower). So, the Soviet sphere of influence would be focused on the partition of Asia (and so distracting Stalin of European affairs), receiving Russians in the New Order the non-ArabianMiddle East, fromAnatolia toPersian Gulf, andIndian subcontinent towardsArabian Sea.[223][224]Yōsuke Matsuoka supported such project and believed that the world in the New Order should be divided into four blocks in which each one would be represented by a "leading nation" (Western-Central Europe byNazi Germany, East Asia byImperial Japan, America by theUSA, and Eastern Europe-Central Asia by theUSSR), with the expectation that by dividing countries into continental blocs, they would transcend nationalism and eventually become aworld state through cooperation with the other leading nations of each bloc (and competition forWorld domination).[225] However, there were some conflict of interests, like a Soviet-Japanese one concerningSakhalin,Eastern India,Chinese Xinjiang (occupied by the Soviets) andMongolia-Manchukuo (due toSoviet–Japanese border conflicts onNorth China); and a Soviet-German one concerning the destiny overTurkey and its role in controllingBosporus Straits for entry into the Black Sea (and also other disagreements concerning EuropeanBulgaria,Romania andFinland) that frustrated Hitler and intensified his anti-Russian sentiments, which lead to the restoration ofOperation Barbarossa and the exclusion of the Soviets in Partitioning Asia in the New Order.[226][227]
"After the conquest of England, the British Empire would be apportioned as a gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of forty million square kilometres. In this bankrupt estate there would be for Russia access to the ice-free and really open ocean. Thus far, a minority of forty-five million Englishmen had ruled six hundred million inhabitants of the British Empire. He was about to crush this minority.... Under these circumstances there arose world-wide perspectives.... All the countries which could possibly be interested in the bankrupt estate would have to stop all controversies among themselves and concern themselves exclusively with the partition of the British Empire. This applied to Germany, France, Italy, Russia and Japan."
— Adolf Hitler
In 1942, a secret diplomatic conference was held between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in which they agreed to divideAsia along a line that followed theYenisey River to the border of China, and then along the border of China and the Soviet Union, the northern and western borders ofAfghanistan, and the border betweenIran andBritish India (which included what is nowPakistan).[228] This treaty, of which a draft was presented to the Germans by ambassadorHiroshi Ōshima, was rejected by the German Foreign Office and theKriegsmarine, as it allocated India to Japan and limitedKriegsmarine operations in theIndian Ocean.[229] Hitler, however, found the treaty acceptable, leading to its signing on 18 January 1942.[229]
The treaty proved to be detrimental for Axis strategic cooperation in the Indian Ocean, as crossing the boundary line required tedious and prior consultation.[229] This made any joint German-Japanese offensive against British positions in the Middle East impossible.[229] Japanese operations against Allied shipping lines during theIndian Ocean raid had been highly successful along with theattack against Ceylon, but these were not followed due to the non-existent German-Japanese strategic cooperation.[230] The Germans vigorously maintained watch on the demarcation line and objected to any Japanese incursion to the "German sphere" of the Axis-divided world.[230] Thus the Japanese were forced to cancel a planned massive attack against Madagascar, as the island had been delegated to Germany in the treaty.[230]
Germany'sformer colonial possessions in the Pacific (German New Guinea andGerman Samoa), which had been allocated to Australia and New Zealand after World War I asC-Class Mandates according to theTreaty of Versailles, were to be sold to Japan (bothWeimar and Nazi-era Germany never relinquished claims to their pre-war colonial territories) at least temporarily in the interest of theTripartite Pact, its alliance with that country.[231]
However, initially there were some projects to restore the property ofGerman Samoa, like the one fromAlfred Matthes by establishing in 1934 aSamoan branch of the Nazi Party with a large-scale goal to re-annex it,[232] even developing plans to seize control of Samoa and make radio broadcasts across the Pacific duringSudetenland crisis,[233] but the Nazi leadership decline his help due to being ironically strongest the support of German nationalism among mixed-race settlers of German descent withPolynesiansSamoans (as they see Nazi Germany as a possible liberator against New Zealand and British Commonwealth's colonialism),[234][233] rather than white German settlers in the territory (whom supported the Concordia Club that was pro-British).[235][236] The Samoan Nazis, having the only recorded non-Eurasian Nazi party members, make a lot of effort to convinceNazi racial theorist to classify thePolynesian people as members of the Aryan race, but they were rejected by the German Consul,Walter Hellenthal.[237][235] Alfred Matthes claimed that he had the support of Adolf Hitler in 1938.[234] Also there was a Nazi interest to gain some influence over formerGerman New Guinea during World War II, like theFar East Association and itsGerman attacks on Nauru (that generated diplomatical conflicts with Japanese Empire due to conflict of interests) in which the German flag briefly flew on the uninhabited BritishHenderson Island in the south-east Pacific, trying to announce with a note that the island was now owned by the Greater German Empire.[238] Moreover, some Samoan people of German descent were recruited to fight in the European theatre of World War II.[239]
Concerning the otherEuropeans territories in Oceania, like Australia and New Zealand were designated as future Japanese territories, although Hitler lamented his belief that the Aryan race would disappear from those regions.[240] He nevertheless made it clear to his officials that "the descendants of theconvicts in Australia" were not Germany's concern and that their lands would be colonised by Japanese settlers in the immediate future, an opinion also shared by Joseph Goebbels, who expressed his conviction inhis diary that the Japanese had always desired "the fifth continent" for emigration purposes.[241][better source needed] Hitler loathed New Zealanders as a "lower form of human being".[242] At a speech given on 15 July 1925 – his only recorded lengthy discussion on New Zealand – he argued that New Zealanders lived in trees and "clambered around on all fours" having not yet learned to walk upright.[243] The speech was later reprinted as a pamphlet.[242] Historian Norman Rich stated that it can be assumed that Hitler would have attempted to recruit the Anglo-Saxons of these two countries as colonists for the conquered east; some of the English were to share the same fate.[240][244]
Nazi Germany policy towards the Far East was based in the Nazi party's use of German communities inChina,Japan,India,Australia, and theDutch East Indies as pawns of German Asiatic policy (starting first by removing anti-Nazi representatives in those communities). The leadership of the party's members in China and East Asia was given toFranz Hasenöhrl, who tried to exploit theAnti-communist andAnti-Russian sentiments among Chinese (however, Hitler initially ordered him to avoid provoking theSoviet Union). Also the Nazi Branch of the Far East defended the possibility of marriage of Germans between Eurasians, Siamese or Japanese due to their "superior culture". However, theNazi racial theories accommodated the German Foreign Ministry due to damage its efforts at diplomacy in Asia (theNazi leaders answered by hating that institution and his highly educated, sophisticated, and cautious officials).[188]
Originally, Nazi Germany saw theRepublic of China as its strategic partner in East Asia, believing that theKuomintang regime would be a natural ally againstSoviet UnionComintern and theWestern powers in Asia that were enemies of Germany. Also, initially, Nazi Germany wanted to restore the formerGerman colonial empire in Asia, having some revanchism againstJapanese actions in World War I (as they conqueredGerman New Guinea andGerman Tsingtao), which generated Germany's preference over China, reinforced with the sympathy overChinese humiliation for being betrayed by British and French in theParis Peace Conference (1919–1920), alike Germans withTreaty of Versailles.[245] So the cooperation fromWeimar Germany with China was continued afterNazi accession to power, and the Nazi politics initially desired to conciliate Chinese and Japanese nationalists with the common enemy of theCommunists and Russian expansionism in theFar East, believing that Germany had a mission to mediate between both Asiangreat powers as a demonstration of the superiority of the "Aryan Race" over the "Yellow Race" and their lack of long-term vision and barbarism.[246] Nazi Germans initially were favourable forChinese irredentist claims overOuter Manchuria as that would blockSoviet Far East and alsoJapanese Manchukuo (initially unrecognised by Nazi Germany),[188] as theMinister of War,Werner von Blomberg, and even the Foreign Minister of the time,Konstantin von Neurath, mistrusted theEmpire of Japan (but considered to compensate Japanese with no German opposition for the total annexation ofSakhalin and potentiallyKamchatka), desiring to avoid a German intervention in a hypothetical war between Japan and the USSR, as theWehrmacht was not prepared for a war against United Kingdom and France in case they supported Soviets to maintainBalance of power.[247][248] Although, Nazi's did not want to supportChinese nationalist's goals to restoreGreater China, and they did not want to end theUnequal treaties from Western Powers, just an economical and industrial cooperation thatHans von Seeckt and the Hapro created in 1933–34 (even sending military advisers such asAlexander von Falkenhausen), but only temporal and until it was no longer military useful to German plans, which envisioned the continuation of European dominance in Asia against theYellow Peril, but without British colonial leadership nor any presence of the Russians.[249] AlsoJoachim von Ribbentrop, sponsored by Hitler, started to develop a different approachment that strongly preferred an alliance with Japan due to its economic superiority, something that was taken advantage of byKintomo Mushanokōji andHiroshi Ōshima to offer theAnti-Comintern Pact (which started Nazi shift away from China and towards Japan).[245] TheChinese diplomacy responded by sendingH. H. Kung to a mission inBerlin in June 1937, trying to convince Nazi leaders, likeHans Georg von Mackensen,Hermann Göring and evenHitler, that Japan was not a reliable ally for Germany and they were only flaunting themselves and that they were a "Far East Italy" (an analogy of how Japan would broken its alliance and declare war against Germany, likeItaly in World War I). The Chinese mission only got support fromHjalmar Schacht and Konstantin von Neurath, while Hitler stated that Germany did not want political or territorial demands in Asia and that he would mediate between Japan and China.[250][251] However, the Germans considered themselves betrayed by China after theSecond Sino-Japanese War, which showed the weakness of theChinese National Army, which paved the way for theSecond United Front (an alliance of the Kuomintang and theChinese Communist Party), and then theSino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. The Kuomintang's intermingling with the communists infuriated the Nazi leaders, whom began to replace theSino-German cooperation with an empowerment of theGerman-Japanese Pact, believing that Japan was demonstrating greater economic and military superiority (not racial), and had gained their right in the New Order by proving their will to impose and concretise their interests.[252]
With the replacement of Neurath by Ribbentrop as German Foreign Minister in 1938, the approachments with Imperial Japan intensified[245] and were consolidated with theTripartite Pact, in which Nazi German concedeEast Asia,Southeast Asia and EasternIndian Ocean to Japan, recognizingManchukuo and JapanesePan-Asianist goals to establish theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, fromCeylon toPacific Ocean and fromRussian Far East toOceania,[253] regardless off the protests of theNazi Foreign Organization in China represented bySegfried Lahrmann.[188] Also German diplomats hidden from the general public, and even to spheres of the Berlin government, this renunciation of the recovery ofGerman New Guinea,Samoa andNauru in the short-term,[254] even with Japanese offers to purchase those territories, but Nazi Germany stayed conservative about the matter (showing a colonial conflict of interests for the long-term).[188] However, discussions over how to deal with theIndo-Iranian land territories were attempted to be avoided and only areas of military operation were delimited in the line at 70° E. It is pretty known that ultra-nationalist Japanese were developing plans to reach the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, India, formerChinese Western Regions (Central Asia) and formerMongol Domains in theEurasian Steppe, as they considered themselves the rightful heir of all AsianNomadic empires andEastern civilization's as a whole, whileorientalists of theAhnenerbe association proposed to expand German Sphere of influence overTurkestan (includingXinjiang),Tibet andNorthern-Western India as the rightful heirs ofGreat Game's Russo-British imperialism in Central Asia, desiring to develop aNeopagan solidarity withHinduist,Buddhist andTaoist communities (considered remnants ofAryan race's legacy in Asia before being lost withMiscegenation, and spiritually more near to the authentic "Germanic religion" before being infected by "Jewish Christianity" and itsSlave morality).[253]
"The alliance (which was reconfirmed by the Tripartite Pact of September 1940 that included Italy) was a 'marriage of convenience' and an 'alliance without a backbone', as the partners quarrelled over control of the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina, Germany's invasion of Russia, Japanese diplomatic talks with the United States in April 1941, German demands that Japan attack Singapore in early 1941, and the exchange of strategic wartime resources. Such serious differences notwithstanding, neither side (and particularly Germany) needed this additional bone of contention that centred around the Nazi party's silly insistence that it still be permitted to operate in Japan.(...) The activities of the Nazi party in the Orient reflected several things about Hitler's foreign policy, namely its highly racial orientation, its heavy reliance on propaganda and subversion, its efforts to mobilize German communities abroad for Nazi aims, its disdain for the regular channels of diplomacy, and its ignoring of fundamental interests of Germany's allies. In particular, the party's work had a far more negative than positive impact on Germany's efforts in the Far East and on her relations with Japan. Regarding the latter, the party revealed its dearth of diplomatic sense and its stubborn view that all Germans outside the Reich must be united into a world-wideVolksgemeinschaft [racial community]; it was willing even to undermine Germany's agreement with Japan with its political agitation and propaganda in the country."
— Donald M. McKale, The Nazi Party in the Fast East, 1931–45
Moreover, during the initial phases of the WWII, betweenFall of France (on June 25, 1940) and the start ofSouth-East Asian theatre of World War II (on December 5, 1941), theNazi Party Foreign Organization was planning to expand theReichskolonialbund area of operation onGerman-occupied Netherlands (aperturingNSDAP Office of Colonial Policy inAmsterdam andBatavia),[194] which implicated the interest to conquer theDutch East Indies (or at least secure it for German Sphere of Influence) before aJapanese invasion of Indonesia. TheNational Socialist Movement of Netherlands (pro-Axis) had the support of significativeDutch colonists, which were attracted by genuine sympathy forWhite nationalism and convinced that fascism would unify the nation under a strong central authority, while also pragmatic ones, as they knew of the weak Dutch defense and desired the military or at least diplomatic support of Nazi Germany to avoid an invasion from both the Allies inAustralia or the Axis in Japan (or in the worst case, to have a threat like in theJapanese invasion of French Indochina, in which French colonialists still ruledFrench Vietnam). However Nazi Germany, recognisin their lack ofNaval supremacy, abandoned those oversea offers from Dutch fascists[255][256]
Being secured their interests in the New Order with theTripartite Pact,Fascist Japanese propaganda developed plans for establishing aGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere from anEast Asia League whereJapan,Manchukuo, andChina would cooperate to unify the rest ofEastern world (mainlyConfucian,Dharmic andTaoist nations under a commonEastern spirituality againstWestern-Abrahamic world) in which Japan should lead bymoral example (the "Kingly Way") to take up the "Yellow Man's Burden". Although the Japanese theoretically would respect existing local organizations and customs, in practise the Japanese reserved their right to use brute force against what they perceived asuncivilized Asian people (like the "physically large but spiritually weak"Chinese people) to discipline and perfect them. This JapanesePan-Asianist supremacy (influenced byKōdōha fascist ideologies,[257] as well asState Shinto andNichiren Buddhism of theKyoto School) was based in the argument that, if theEmperor descended from the Sun GoddessAmaterasu in an "unbroken line for ages eternal" (Bansei Ikkei), then rebellion against his authorities is never justified and people should obey to the Japanese Monarchy as embodiment of the ConfucianSage King, perceived as a superior system unlike the unstable one of otherAsian monarchies (based indynastic cycles of rise and fall) and that the "New Order in East Asia" would be stable because it would be anchored by thepermanent Japanese Emperor under an eternalIus sanguinis as guarantee, so other Asian nations were strictly ranked below him in a Confucian-style family hierarchy of "proper place" (meibun), with Japan'sYamato people as the "father and nucleous" while the others as "children" or "younger brothers" (classifying Chineses andKoreans in an "Inner Circle", which was superior to the "Outer Circle", in which wereIndians,Austroasiatic andAustronesians) in contraposition to the "Periphery" (theEuropeans and otherBarbarians).[258][259]
For that end, Japanese claimed that they were liberatingAsian peoples from the "feudalwarlords" (whoruled by force, likeWestern imperialists andChinese Warlords, instead ofruling by virtue, like Japanese Kingship), being a crusade with enemies indistinguishable from their races and instead based on clashes ofImperial ideology (in which theSoviet empire was perceived as the most dangerous menace due to theirMarxist materialism, but alsoChinese nationalists andPan-Mongolists). Then Japan would establish a Pan-Asiatic state based on reinterpretations of Confucian morality (even installing the lastQing Emperor,Puyi in Manchukuo, to legitimize this "Confucian revival") and claiming that Japan was now the actual repository of "Oriental" (Confucian) virtue. Therefore, for civilization to survive, Japan, the expected new center, had to lead China, the rotting periphery; believing that "China" as the center of civilization had effectively died after the fall of theSong Dynasty (due toMongol,Manchu andEuropean "barbarian" invasions) and had lost any possibility of revival of its own after it completely collapsed underWesternhumiliation, unlike Japan, which have never been conquered by "barbarians" and have successfully modernized while keeping its traditions based onTang/Songculture as true preserver of East Asian traditions, and so having become the rightful heir of theChinese civilization (as also its right to be the center of theTributary system to vassalize all theKnown world, justifying thePacific War as a legitimate claim of the sovereign rights of theChinese empire that viewed the rest ofAsia-Pacific asTributary states), wishing that theHouse of Yamato will be recognised as legitimateemperorsof China through the doctrine ofShinako (Shifting of the Center, which stated that China "to be saved" had to be led by the cultural heir that was Japan) and allowing Japanese to perceive theChinese invasion not as a conquest, but as a "restoration" of order, and the otherSouth-East Asian theatres of theNanshin-ron as an intervention in the name of theCelestial Empire'sSuzerainty.[260][261]
ConcerningSoviet Union territories, it wasn't seen as a civilization to be integrated, but as a threat to be neutralized and a resource base to be seized by purely geostrategic reasons of theHokushin-ron, in which the territories fromChukotka andPrimorye toLake Baikal were to be annexed directly into the Japanese Empire to secure theSea of Japan and to gain sympathy ofChinese irredentists (givingOuter Manchuria toManchukuo), whileEastern Siberia (at the east ofBaikal toYenisey) andSoviet Central Asia were to be turned into a separate non-communist buffer state and protectorate of theRussian Far East leaded by theRussian Fascist Party (and probably other namedTurkestan ifPan-Turanian movements were strong),[262] while givingTuva andBuryatia to a Japanese Mongolian puppet state ruled bylocal princes.[263] ConcerningMongol heartland, Japan presented itself as the "Protector of theSteppe" against the Soviet destruction of nomadictraditionalism under theStalin Purges ofLamas to stablsihforced collectivization, and claimed that the Japanese and Mongols were racially linked (theDōbun Dōshu theory—"Same Script, Same Race"), but also Japanese consistently blockedPrince De Wang's requests for a unifiedPan-Mongol state fromMengjiang (not wanting an inner conflict between them andManchu nationalist over the control ofHsingan, mantaining a policy ofDivide and Rule with the nomadic peoples), keeping him dependent and geographically limited toInner Mongolia while also making propanda in which their Emperor was portrayed as the modern guarantor of theMongol heritage solely to legitimize their presence inInner Asia, offering no concrete plan for unification withOuter Mongolia until the total collapse of China and Russia (due to the fears of having a Pan-NomadicTurco-Mongol state that could defy Japanese aspirations), expecting that in the long term theMongolian shamanists would recogniseHirohito as true successor ofGenghis Khan's spirit as also to put pressure overMongol Buddhist clergy to declare that Japan was the "Shambhala" destined to help the Mongols defeat the Slavic invaders. Only then it would be considered the possibility of restore theMongolian Empire under total leadership of Japanese for anEurasianist policy. If not, Japan would mantain the division of theMongolian (between Hsingan, Inner and Outer Mongolia) as Fragmented Buffer Zones, based in theFive Races Under One Union, to startJapanese colonization without collaborative Mongolian nationalism (instead planning to destroy theirNational identity throughSedentarist colonies, with help ofJapanizated Chinese andKoreans, until reaching a quiet frontier without Nomads).[264][265][266]
The final goal of Japan, after "liberating" Asia from thewhite race and consolidating an AsiaticMonroe Doctrine, was to prepare Asia for a coming apocalyptic "Final War" between the East (championingspiritual civilization) and the West (championingmaterialist civilization) to liberate the World fromWestern modernism and reachWorld domination, in whichHuman race would reach the state ofKindai no Chokoku (overcoming Modernity) and will be created a new global civilization that transcended soullessModern world under the guide of Japanese emperor as aUniversal monarchy, expecting to impose theKokutai belief that theJapanese state and Emperor are a singular and divine entity destined to rule the universe to fulfill theHakkō ichiu (and so demonstrating their claims as trueSon of Heaven against ChineseMandate of Heaven). Japanese New Order had no natural geographic limit, it would expand as far as Japan's power could reach until Japanese Imperial principles (Kodo) would become the universal standard for human civilization.[267]
Another example of those German interests in the assigned Japanese Sphere of Influence in China was theOperation Tibet, developed by theSS-SturmbannführeErnst Schäfer,[268] which consisted to instigate an anti-British rebellion within the Tibetan people after a hypothetical German occupation ofEurasian Steppe and theGreater Middle East (the success ofOperation Barbarossa or at least the success ofFall Blau in which the collapse of the Soviet war machine was assumed, and also the simultaneous execution ofOperation Orient andOperation Amanullah) to undermine Allied influence over theHimalayas, being part of a large-scale plan to invade theAkhand Bharat territories (Greater India and Afghanistan) before Japan, so ensuring White Man's dominance in theHindustan region for a long time, although the total collapse of the British Empire (and even succeeding the British Empire in India or Russian Empire in Central Asia with neutered desires to conquerTibet), while also avoiding Japanese expansion over Central Asia from Tibet andXinjiang.[269] The German interest in Tibet was not only for the establishment of military bases and instigation of Guerrilla warfare against the British and Communists, it had an ideological content, as Nazi racial theories proposed that a group of pure-blooded Aryans had settled inAncient Tibet and was responsible for giving theTibetan culture to barbaricMongoloids [native Tibetan].[270] A key figure on Nazi plans over Tibet was the employer of theKempeitai andBlack Dragon Society,Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln (a Hungarian scammer and former Orthodox Jew that converted toBuddhism and developed his own monastery inShanghai), as he was proposed to be a pro-AxisDalai Lama, after the death of the13th Dalai Lama [Thubten Gyatso]. He joined theAbwehr and proposed to theSS ColonelJosef Meisinger (chief of theGestapo in theFar East) that he could raise up all the Buddhists of Asia against any remaining Western influence in the area (specifically the British from India and Soviets fromMongolia) while also helping the Japanese war effort against China and India by generating a new war front on theTibetan Plateau,[271] being accompanied by German agents (likeFranz Huber andFrederick Anton Wiehl) to protect the projected Tibetan puppet state from being a Japanese colony. He also tried to convince theNazi occultists that he receivedDivine revelation's predicting the ascension of anIndo-Aryan Civilization with aSuperhuman clergy that will haveMystical powers and would make the Allied military efforts useless, claiming that Hitler was an instrument of theDevas for a new age of prosperity (this was interesting forHeinrich Himmler and convinced him to give his support).[272] However, the political and religious leaders of theTibetan state recognised the14th Dalai Lama as Tenzin Gyatso, frustrating the scheme which needed the support of theTibetan Buddhists. Another impediment was the lack of interest of Ribbentrop (as he did not trust a project from a Jew)[273] arrest ofRudolf Hess (someone interest in the plan) and finally being canceled by the death of Trebitsch-Lincoln in October 1943.[274][275]
Hitler's views on India were generally disparaging, and his plans for the region were heavily influenced by his racial views, especially related to India's subdued status under British rule.[276] Though manyIndian nationalists looked to Nazi Germany as a potential ally in their struggle againstBritish colonial rule, Hitler "made no secret of his contempt foranticolonial movements."[276] In May 1930, Hitler wrote that theIndian independence movement was carried out by the "lower Indian race against the superior EnglishNordic race", and referred toIndians involved in the struggle as "Asiatic jugglers".[277] Seven years later in 1937, Hitler informedBritish Foreign SecretaryLord Halifax that the British should "shootGandhi, and if this doesn't suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members ofthe Congress, and if that doesn't suffice shoot 200, and so on, as you make it clear that you mean business."[277] During the same discussion Hitler reportedly told Halifax that one of his favorite films wasThe Lives of a Bengal Lancer, because it depicted a handful of "superior race" Britons holding sway over theIndian subcontinent.[278]
Nazi theoristAlfred Rosenberg, who shared Hitler's racial and political views on India, claimed that althoughVedic culture was Aryan in origin, any Nordic blood in India had long since dissipated due to racial miscegenation.[276]Asit Krishna Mukherji, with support of the German consulate, publishedThe New Mercury, a Nazi magazine and was lauded by Baron von Selzam in a "communiqué to all German legations in the Far East that no one had rendered services to the Third Reich in Asia comparable to those of Sir Asit Krishna Mukherji's."[276]Savitri Devi, who would later marry him, shared his beliefs "in the pan Aryan revival of India", as well as inHindu nationalism, and once World War II started, both "undertook clandestine war work on behalf of the Axis powers in Calcutta."[276]
During the first years of the war in Europe, as Hitler sought to reach an arrangement with the British, he held the notion that India should remain under British control after the war, as in his mind the only alternative was a Soviet occupation of the subcontinent.[276] As the British had rejected German peace offers, Nazi Germany opted firstly fortalks with the Soviets to join them in the Axis and proposed to givePersian Gulf and the Indian Ocean to theSoviet Sphere of Influence (trying to push away the Soviets from European affairs) and develop a EurasianKontinentalblock against theBritish Empire (which provocated that the British Staff in India proposed in May 1940 the "Plan A" for the defense ofBritish Raj against a Soviet invasion through a pro-Axis Afghanistan) in whichIndus River was proposed by Afghans to be the new frontier with a liberated India.[279] After theGerman invasion of Soviet Union, Hitler ordered on 17 February 1941 to prepare a military study for a post-Barbarossa operation in Afghanistan against India. The goal of this operation was not so much to conquer the subcontinent, but to threaten British military positions there to force the British to come to terms.[280] A week later the Afghanistan operation was the subject of a discussion between head of theArmy General StaffFranz Halder,Oberbefehlshaber des HeeresWalter von Brauchitsch and chief of theOperationsabteilung OKHAdolf Heusinger.[281] In an assessment produced on 7 April 1941, Halder estimated that the operation would require 17 divisions and one separate regiment.[281] ASpecial Bureau for India was created with these goals in mind.[citation needed]
Indian revolutionarySubhas Chandra Bose escaped from India on 17 January 1941 and arrived in Berlin via Moscow. There he proposed organizing an Indian nationalgovernment-in-exile and urged the Axis to declare their support for the Indian cause.[282] He eventually managed to extract such promises from Japan after thefall of Singapore and later on from Italy as well, but the Germans refused.[277] Bose was granted an audience withBenito Mussolini, but Hitler initially refused to see him, although he did acquire access toJoachim von Ribbentrop after much difficulty.[277] The German Foreign Ministry was skeptical of any such endeavors, as the German goal was to use Bose for propaganda and subversive activity, especially following the model of the 1941 pro-Axis coup in Iraq.[283] These propaganda measures included anti-Raj radio broadcasts and the recruitment of Indian prisoners of war for the "Free India Legion".[284] Bose eventually met with Hitler on 29 May 1942.[285] During the discussion, which mostly consisted of Hitler monologuing to Bose,[277] Hitler expressed his skepticism for India's readiness for a rebellion against the Raj, and his fears of a Soviet takeover of India.[285] He stated that if Germany had to do anything about India it would first have to conquer Russia, for the road to India could only be accomplished through that country,[277] although he did promise to financially support Bose and help relocate him to the Far East.[285] Bose later described the encounter by stating that it was impossible to get Hitler involved in any serious political discussion.[277]
On 18 January 1942, it was decided that the Indian subcontinent was to be divided between the Axis powers. Germany was to take the part of British India roughly corresponding to the western part of modern-day Pakistan (inhabited byAryan peoples), while the rest of British India, along with Afghanistan, was marked for Japan.[286][287] Although India wasn't considered in the early designs for theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1940, the Japanese developed plans based inpan-Asianists experts inIndology likeOkawa Shumei, who argued that India was the "source" ofAsian spirituality andMetaphysics which made Asia distinctivelyAsian (giving theirsystems of logic andepistemology in opposition toWestern philosophy), so Japan was to be the "shield" of suchOrientalist spiritual order against theAbrahamic world. This great steem to India was complemented in the fact that the historical inspiration forJapanese artistic expressions was traced to India's spiritual ideals as the birthplace ofThe Buddha, which was enough fundament to believe in a debt of theJapanese people to theIndic civilisation (which was viewed with a level of respect not afforded to Western nations). Therefore, in theGreater East Asia Joint Declaration of 1943, India (represented byBose's provisional government) was treated as an independent ally, not a subordinate puppet state likeManchukuo, and so was expected to be a friendly and independent partner in the New Order, not a colonial subject of theJapanese Empire (which would en in theIndo-Burma border), but anEmpire of it's own in theGreater India, with an equal status and under an stratecig alliance based inBuddhist kingship (although still Japan having a preeminence, wanting to have a relationship with India like the one between Italy and Germany). In the long term such Indo-Japanese alliance would expel the British from their remnants colonies in Asia by cutting off theBritish naval supremacy in the WesternIndian Ocean and meeting up with Italo-Germans in theMiddle East (with the potential help ofArab nationalists andPahlavi Iran) to finally crushWestern imperialism in Asia after the hypothetical success of theKuroshima Western Strategy and NaziOperation Orient.[288][289]
After the projected fall of the Soviet Union, Hitler planned to intensify thewar in the Mediterranean.[280] TheOKW produced studies concerning an attack against theSuez Canal through Turkey, an offensive towards Baghdad-Basra from theCaucasus (most of which was already under German occupation as a result ofFall Blau) in support ofrevolting Arab nationalists, and operations in Afghanistan andIran directed against British India.[290] Specifically Nazi Germany was planning to foment Islamic uprisings from North Africa to theFertile Crescent region to ensure the domain of theIslamic world, taking advantage ofanti-Western colonialism,anti-Marxism and anti-Jewish sentiments amongArab nationalists.[291] The Axis plans to support Arab nationalists in theKingdom of Iraq were considered a priority after theFührer Directive No. 30, andVichy France with theParis Protocols was interested to expand the territory (or at least the influence) ofFrench Syria-Lebanon,[292] while Germany was interested in empowerPahlavi Iran and transformingGreater Persia into a pro-German client state to counter Soviet and British influence in the region.[293] Hitler did not envision German colonization of the region (unlike the2nd Reich with theIntelligence Bureau for the East), and was willing to allow Italian dominance at least over theLevant, South Arabia andBahrain.[294][295][296] TheJews of the Middle East were to be murdered, as Hitler had promised to theGrand Mufti of Jerusalem in November 1941 (seeEinsatzgruppe Egypt).[295]
Nazi orientalists likeAlfred Rosenberg conceived thatCentral Asia were a natural extension ofLebensraum and thatTurkic peoples should be included in theGeneralplan Ost, developing maps for a German annexation ofSoviet Turkestan andTatar Autonomous SSR after the conquest ofEuropean Russia. However Hitler preferred to just conquer the Lebensraum inEastern Europe, leaving Central Asia as a mere military march, serving as a set of nomadicBuffer states (opposing to aPan-Turkist state andTuranist movements) for the German Reich against the remnants of Soviets and British Empires. Some Pan-Turkist and Turanist collaborators, likeNuri Killigil orHüseyin Hüsnü Emir Erkilet, attempted to instigate a Turkic insurrection against Stalin, but Nazis rejected those plans as they did not want to have a unifiedTurkic Kaganate as a pro-Axis puppet state.[297]
In the other hand, theEmpire of Japan had its own agenda about extending influence into Central Asia through theKaikyō Seisaku (Islamic Policy) by supporting Pan-Turkic and Muslim independence movements, mainly exiled Central Asian nationalists (such as theTatars andUyghurs) who sought independence from theUSSR,China andBritish Raj, expecting to create puppet states fromXinjiang toTatarstan and expand theGreater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to the limits ofEurasia, claiming that they were restoring formerTang China'sProtectorate of the Western Regions and theMongolian Golden Horde. For that means, theImperial Japanese Army was sponsoring with propaganda the development of aDai Nihon Kaikyō Kyōkai (Greater Japan Muslim League) to promote "friendship" and project Japan as a protector ofIslam like were doing the other Axis Powers, portraying Muslims as Asian brothers that were victims ofWestern imperialism in Asia andBolshevization that needed to be liberated alikePagans. Japanese were expecting to turn those Central Asian puppet states into basis for a future restoration of theMongolian Empire and the inevitable clash withNazi Europe in the name ofPan-Asianism againstWestern world, as also to contain the menace from an unifiedMuslim world and theirJihads againstEastern religions.[298][299][300] In the long term Japanese were considering to reverse theIslamization of formerHindu-Buddhist andTaoist territories likeDzungaria,Malaysia,Indonesia,Moro Philippines, etc. (asReligious nationalists consideredIslamic conquests as a prototype of Western Imperialism, seeing both Muslims and Christians alike as representants of a foreign WesternAbrahamic world hostile toShinto and the trueEastern civilisation), as also to have future excuses to restoreBudhist Afghanistan and conquerMuslim India in the name of protectingReligious Freedom againstReligious conflicts in India. Even was suggested to restore theOttoman Caliphate underŞehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim's lineage (or proclaim a newCaliphate inXinjiang)[301] as aClient to turn the Muslim population of Asia as a unified community under Japanese governance and force the Muslim population (hesitant toApostasy) to adhere Shinto interpretations of Islam and theQur'an in line with theYamato-damashii while repressingOrthodox Muslims with the help of such collaborative clergy. At the end, Islam was not considered as a valuable religion per se, but only as the basis for an international movement capable of counteringChristian colonization andCommunist revolutions until its utility ended.[302][303]
Turkey was favored as a potential ally by Hitler because of its importantstrategic location on the boundaries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well asits extensive history as a state hostile to theRussian Empire and the later Soviet Union.[304] During 1941 and 1942,Franz von Papen (asAmbassador to Turkey) reunited with retired pro-German Turkish generals of WWI (likeNuri Killigil,Hüseyin Hüsnü Emir Erkilet andAli Fuad Erden) to negotiate the entry of Turkey in the Axis Powers by pushing on Turkish political affairs, holding parties at the German embassy which should attract leading Turkish politicians, even considering to use "special funds" to bribe Turks into following a pro-Axis alignment.[305][306] To assure them that Germany wanted to cooperate with them on a long-range basis, the Turks were guaranteed an equal status in the German-dominated order, and were promised anumber of territories which they might desire for reasons of security. These encompassedEdirne (Adrianople) and an expansion of Turkish frontiers at the expense of Greece, the creation ofbuffer states in the Caucasus under Turkishinfluence, a revision of the Turkish-Syrian frontier (theBaghdad Railway and theState of Aleppo) and the Turkish-Iraqi frontier (theMosul region), as well as a settlement of "theAegean question" to provide Turkey with suitable protection against encroachments from Italy.[304] The Black Sea (which Hitler derided as "a mere frog-pond")[307][clarification needed] was also to be conceded to Turkey as part of its sphere of influence, for this would negate the need of stationing a German navy in the region to replace theSoviet Black Sea Fleet.[304]Crimea (tentatively dubbedGotenland by the Nazis) was nevertheless to be fortified to ensure permanent German possession of the peninsula, and the Black Sea exploited as an "unlimited" resource of seafood.[308]
However, according to documents found in theReich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Nazis sawpan-Turkism as a threat to the control of Asia between Aryans against Non Aryans (like Turkic peoples), and there were plans, likeGertrude operations, that considered the split of Turkey (between Bulgaria, Greece, Vichy France, Iraq and the proposed puppet states of Great Armenia and Georgia) if they did not cooperate with the Axis new order and their goals of controlAnatolia and support to theIraqi coup d'état. Turkey would be reduced to a similar territory like in theTreaty of Sèvres in that consequence of events if Turkey went against theGerman–Turkish Treaty of Friendship or even joined the Allies.[309] Some Nazi leaders were convinced of the necessity of restoringArmenia as an independent country (with German protection) against the menace of the Soviet Union, so theArmenian Legion was promised the restoration ofGreater Armenia. This project could have been a balancing idea against Turkish aspirations in the Caucasus about an unification withAzerbaijan under the name of "Büyük Turan" [GreatTuran], which would pose a threat to Germany and their aspirations.[310][311] However, Hitler did not trust the Armenian aspirations, considering it a very risky formation of purely Caucasian battalions or making these kinds of promises to theOstlegionen, preferring instead to support Muslims.[312] Beside, Franz Von Papen menaced Turkey to send them economic sanctions and disarm the country if they were not collaborative with the New Order,[313] while supporting at the same time theBulgarian claims to Thrace and the possibility of an Axis destruction ofIstanbul andIzmir withBombardments, which ended in theGerman–Turkish Treaty of Friendship.[314] Also make efforts to place Turkey in the German economic sphere of influence instead of the Italian one.[314]
In a memorandum of 6 September 1940, theItalian Foreign Ministry published its plan for the region after the expected German victory in Europe, reserving theEastern Mediterranean in itsSphere of influence, and so contacts where done fromItalian secret services[315] with someIslamofascist movements like theSyrian Social Nationalist Party and theFutuwwaAl-Muthanna Club of Iraq (although not having unanimous support from the leadership) to fascistizate theArab Nationalist Movement and later thePan-Islamist one.[316][317][318] These plans included an independentSyria as aRepublic (giving autonomy to theJabal Druze andAlawites) under ItalianProtectorate, an ItalianMandate overLebanon (having their ownlegislature), and a perpetual Italian military force in theSuez Canal and theLebanon–Syria border to avoid conflicts betweenSyrians andLebanese, as also to check the surroundingArab states (likeEgypt or theArab states of the Persian Gulf) and also the potentialArab–Israeli conflict in theHoly Land, whose future was not yet defined in this memorandum. Another proposal from theRoyal Army's Ufficio Operazioni envisioned an Italian mandate over a‘Swiss-type’ federatedLevant state comprising the territories of modern Syria, Lebanon,Palestine,Transjordan and theSinai (with Jerusalem as capital), in which all the localCantons should beEthnically homogenous (securing cantons in theHoly Land for theIsraeli Jews, theMuslims in Israel and theChristians in Palestine). In both plans, the Fascists would force all the remaining states in the region to recognise Italy as the Protector of theChristians in the Middle East (similar toFrench Protectorate of Latin Christians andRussian one over Orthodox in theOttoman Empire) for future projects of expansionism under the pretext of protectingArmenians,Assyrians,Antiochian Greeks,Iranian Christians, etc. while also securing a monopoly of EuropeanEvangelisation in the region and forcing thePapacy to be more dependent of theFascist state (which would take the property of theHoly Sepulchre and also promote aCaesaropapist,Gallicanist and neo-Ghibbeline clergy) in its relation with theEastern Catholic Churches, justifying that the ‘sacred orient’ (where succeeded theMinistry of Jesus andCatholicity wasrevealed to humanity) was also the place in which one could understand what it meant to be Italian due to the Roman legacy inSyria Palaestina. In the long term was to be reached theItalianization of the local people through granting special status to the Italian culture in the local educative systems, teachingMediterraneanist ideologies to the youngLevantine Arabs about the old‘spiritual bonds’ that tied Levantines with the Italian Peninsula since AncientRoman colonization, medievalMaritime republics and theSpread of Christianity throughLatin Church in the Middle East.[117] Also Fascist Italy wanted to be declared asProtector of Islam and promotingOrientalist scholars of Islam on the colonial policy to gain the sympathy of local Arabs, starting with developingArabicPropaganda institutions in which Italians were seen as liberators from British, French and Zionist as also benefactors who wanted theEconomic development of the Muslims in exchange of their loyalty to theDuce, while expecting to compete against Nazi own propaganda service in the region to avoid a German traitorous penetration at the Italian assigned Middle East after the consolidation of the New Order.[319][320]
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Ironically, although having an antisemitic position, and with the main goal to make Germanyjudenrein (free of Jews), Hitler initially was not opposed to establish a Jewish state in theHoly Land and even supportedZionist since theHaavara Agreement until Invasion of Poland, considering to locate the Jews there as a lesser evil solution to the Jewish question, being preferable to expel them rather than havingJews in Europe and still being vulnerable to their influence (like in the1933 anti-Nazi boycott), while also was economically easier to instigatevoluntary emigration than spend resources in persecute, exile orkilling them.[321] In a large-scale, Nazis likeLeopold von Mildenstein andWerner Otto von Hentig believed that foreign diplomatic policy and containment of the Jews would become simpler if they were concentrated in a specific territory rather than adiaspora, while also avoiding the menace ofJewish assimilation in the German nation.[322][323] Even in 1940,Lehi representativeNaftali Lubenchik went to the German embassy atBeirut and proposed an anti-British alliance with Nazi Germany, in exchange for a fascist Jewish state with Axis patronage.[324] Moreover,Fascist Italy, having theLevant in their sphere of influence in the New Order, was interested in bringing support toRevisionist Zionism, specially thoseRevisionist Maximalism factions, like formerBrit HaBirionim or the activesLehi andIrgun, that wanted to develop a Jewish fascism and were admirers ofBenito Mussolini (some of them, likeZe'ev Jabotinsky orAbba Ahimeir, believed that Italian Empire would be their only ally against the oppression on British Palestine).[325][326][327] Fascist Italy throughCount Quinto Mazzolini, elder brother ofSerafino Mazzolini and former Italian representative inJerusalem, developed plans to restore theKingdom of Jerusalem (based in the historical claims of theHouse of Savoy in theCrusader states), whose territory would be a confederation ofTransjordan andPalestine, ruled in aPersonal union withVictor Emmanuel III (likeItalian Albania), or as a nominal independent state‘with Italian influence like the type England has had in Egypt andIraq' underlocal royal houses (like theHashemites orAl-Husayni), with political participation ofArab Christians andSephardic Jews with a pro-Italian attitude. Although the ‘undesirable’ elements of the Jewish population (mainly the illegal immigrants and unemployedJews, but also theAshkenazi, who Fascists italians believed that‘provoked’ the Germans into passingantisemitic laws) would have to emigrate from theHoly Land under Italian rule, being planned to be replaced byArab diaspora ofLatin America, encouraging them to return and so counteracting theAliyah (while also dismantlingJewish Agency to de-Zionized the localJewish identity from theWorld Zionist Organization influence, hostile toAxis Powers). The Italians considered that the grave problem of theJewish diaspora should not be solved at the expense of the Arabs, as they planned to turnIslamofascist andChristian nationalist Arabs into allies alikefascist Jews, believing the Italians that they had acivilizational mission to teach theSemites how to live in peace despite their religious and cultural differences, wanting to emulateRoman Empire successes ofMulticulturalism underLatin supremacy.[117]
However, due to the lentitude of the Jewish migration into Palestine, and also the radicalization of anti-Jewish sentiment during the war, Nazi Germany developed an anti-Zionist foreign policy based on the worries about the dangers of a strong Jewish state in the Middle East that could be a pro-Allies and a potential menace for a Nazi global geopolitic after winning the war. Germany began to preferArab nationalism, especially after theFall of the Fascist regime in Italy, being favorable to bring concessions toanti-colonial movements that were not only anti-European, but also anti-Jewish.[328] After the Nazis adopted theFinal Solution and radicalised its antisemitism, the Axis Powers developed ananti-Zionist foreign policy and started to supportPalestinian nationalism. Nazi Germany preferred to supportAmin al-Husseini and thePalestine Arab Party, planning to establish theAl-Husayni family in the government of a pro-Axis puppet Palestinian state. After Fascist Italy, which had the Eastern Mediterranean in their Sphere of Influence, and Vichy France were defeated, Nazi Germany intensified its support for anti-colonial movements amongPalestinians, developingOperation Atlas in 1944 to instigate an Islamic insurgency inBritish Palestine in an effort to devastate Allied forces on theWestern Front while simultaneously sabotaging theJewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine. In the long-term, the plan was forPalestinian Germans to supervise the operations to ensure Muslims remained loyal due to possible conflicts amongArab tribes, which had a strong control of the German interests in the region.[329]
Italian imperialism under fascism foresaw much of Africa and parts of the Middle East coming under Italian control, without the opposition of Nazi Germany. Italy expected to project power over theArab world through aprotectorate over Egypt and a colony in theSinai Peninsula (assuming anSphere of influence over theSuez Canal in military matters), stablishing contact with theIslamofascistYoung Egypt Party to have a proxy collaborationist in the future.[316]Giuseppe Bottai,Minister of National Education, envisioned that Italy would replace theBritish Empire asGreat power in theRed Sea and so an Italo-Egyptian empire would rise in theArabian Peninsula, to the detriment of the localEmirates (with the intention of expandingPolitical modernization againstAbsolute monarchies, and so doing anIslamofascist revolution with the help of Arab republicans). To secure such supremacy in the Red Sea, it was projected a philo-Islamic peaceful economic penetration in Yemen underYahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din (potential ally against the pro-BritishHouse of Saud) as an step for the conquest ofSouth Arabia fromItalian East Africa (specially securing the ports ofHodeidah,Mokha andSheikh in theBab-el-Mandeb strait) to have control over the entrance at Suez and theGulf of Aden at the same time and so being the main power at theIndo-Mediterranean. The main goal was to transforme Rome into a bridge between theEastern World andWestern Civilisation both in culture exchange and global trade through controlling a newMaritime Silk Road.[117]
TheThird Saudi State underIbn Saud was seen as a natural ally, and was to be given territorial concessions in south-westArabia andTransjordan.[330] Also, a post-war satelliteGreater Arab Union was discussed.[294] Although initially intending to concede Italy control of the region (Jordan,Palestine,Saudi Arabia,Iraq,Yemen,Aden) with the condition that German companies should be able to successfully exploit raw materials and have numerous cities on the coast hosting military bases as a hedge against Anglo-American military activity,[200] after Italyhad defected to the Allied camp in 1943, Hitler came to regard the Islamic countries and the pan-Arab movement increasingly more as the natural ally of Nazi Germany, as opposed to the "treacherous" Italians.[331] On 17 February 1945 in particular he explained to his entourage his regrets that Germany'sprior alliance with its southern neighbor had prevented her from pursuing a more revolutionary policy towards the Arab world, which would have facilitated the exit of the British and French spheres of influence in the area:[331]
In the nature of things, this territory was becoming an Italian preserve and it was as such thatthe Duce laid claim to it. Had we been on our own, we could have emancipated the Moslem countries dominated by France; and that would have had enormous repercussions in the Near East, dominated by Britain, and in Egypt. But with our fortunes linked to those of the Italians, the pursuit of such a policy was not possible. All Islam vibrated at the news of our victories. The Egyptians, the Iraqis and the whole of the Near East were all ready to rise in revolt. Just think what we could have done to help them, even to incite them, as would have been both our duty and in our own interest! But the presence of the Italians at our side paralyzed us; it created a feeling of malaise among our Islamic friends, who inevitably saw in us accomplices, willing or unwilling, of their oppressors.
Despite this, Hitler saw Arab support as a mere asset for his plans of conquest. He "wanted nothing from the Arabs"[332] and found genuine cooperation between Aryans and Arabs to be implausible since he saw the latter as racially inferior:[333]
Exploitation of the Arab Freedom Movement. The situation of the English in the Middle East will be rendered more precarious, in the event of major German operations, if more British forces are tied down at the right moment by civil commotion or revolt. All military, political, and propaganda measures to this end must be closely coordinated during the preparatory period. As central agency abroad I nominate Special Staff F, which is to take part in all plans and actions in the Arab area, whose headquarters are to be in the area of the Commander Armed Forces South-east. The most competent available experts and agents will be made available to it. The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces will specify the duties of Special Staff F, in agreement with the Foreign Minister where political questions are involved.[334]
The Imperial State of Iran (under Allied occupation since August 1941) was to be drawn into the Axis camp, possibly by the means of an uprising.[290] The possibility of Iran as an anti-Soviet bulwark was already considered in the 1930s, and coincided with Hitler's declaration of Iran as an "Aryan country" (the nameIran literally means "homeland of the Aryans" inPersian). The changing of Persia's name to Iran in 1935 was done by the Shah at the suggestion of the German ambassador to Iran as an act of "Aryan solidarity".[335] However the Iranians had always called their country "Iran", a name that predated the rise of Nazi Germany by more than a thousand years.[336] In 1936, the Hitler cabinet declared Iranians to be immune to the Nuremberg Laws, as they were considered to be "pure Aryans".[337] On the eve of World War II Germany was already Iran's single-biggest trading partner, followed by the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States.[335] In 1939, Nazi Germany sent over 7500 books with racial tones advocating for greater collaboration between Persians and Germans. The German Scientific Library contained over 7500 books selected"to convince Iranian readers... of the kinship between the National Socialist Reich and the Aryan culture of Iran".[338] In the New Order, Nazi Germany considered that Iran should have its own empire like theSafavid Iran, and by so offeredBritish Iraq to be part of Iranian sphere of influence, and suggested that Iran should annex territory until theKarbala Governorate, promising that Iranians needed to have theImam Husayn Shrine (the largest Shi'ite sanctuary) on itssovereign,[339] even Hitler personally promised that, after the defeat of Soviet Union, he would return all of the Persian land taken by Russians (during theRusso-Persian Wars of the 19th and 20th centuries). Also, the economic plans ofHjalmar Schacht for the global outreach of the Nazi economy coincided with the nationalist desires of Reza Shah's Iran for industrial modernization, investing a lot of capital for Iranian infrastructure. Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey were planned to be part of a "northern tier" ofbuffer states, against the Soviet global menace, in which economic interests of each country were of primary importance, instead of only German interests.[340][341]
The Aryan sense of friendship also assisted in political rapprochement between Iran and Germany,[342] and Nazi leaders viewed Iran as unique society with ample parallels between them and Germans (making analogies that Iran, as an isolateShi'ite country with its own peculiarities, is similar to the Nazi conception of the story about Germany as an isolatePositive Christian country with its own peculiarities).[339] Hitler personally respectedReza Shah as an admirable leader, whose anti-liberal and anti-socialist ideals were in accordance with the fascist beliefs of aThird Position against British capitalists and Soviet communists (and also have admiration for the establishment of Iranian well-organised police apparatuses to silence therepublican andanarchist opposition to the Monarchy). Through broadcasters likeBerliner Rundfunk, Nazi propaganda made use of the IslamicMysticism to spread pro-Hitler sentiment, stating that there was a kinship betweenAllah with the "Germanic God", or that Hitler was considering to convert toIslam or even that he was the precursor of thetwelfth hidden Imam that will make a new order of peace and prosperity in theIslamic world (the Nazi desired that the Iranian popular classes received the message that Iranian social problems would be solved through the global leadership of Germany). Despite Nazi propaganda, the Iranian clergy and government did not receive well thereligious aspects of Nazism (being consideredheresy) and persecuted them. They were also skeptical of German suggestions to implement reforms in thePahlavi Monarchy according to fascism.[339]
Despite these concerns, most of the Iranian leaders had interests in the Axis projects of a New Order (Iran even supported the initial expansionism campaigns likeAnschluss over Austria orOccupation of Czechoslovakia), as they attempted to develop a strong monarchy that would be capable of releasing themselves from British and Russian spheres of influence that had shaped the nation throughout the Global Order of theNew Imperialism era, and by so doing the Iranian nationalists expected a larger role for Iran in the World in case of German victory, with the main goal of the restoration of a Persian Empire that honoured the grandiosity of itsimperial past (which was also acceptable by Germans, according to a note of 1938 from theGerman foreign ministry that considered a strong independent Iran as favourable for German global plans).[339]
"The interests of Nazi Germany are best preserved through a free, independent, militarily strong Iran that is intimately connected to Germany through political and economic collaborations."
— German Ambassador in Tehran,Erwin Ettel
Also, according toOperation Orient, Germans wanted to march through Iran and Iraq in force, finally converging in India. The Nazi geopolitical concerning Persians (Iran and Afghanistan) had the goal to have a strong ally in theMiddle East, being a strategic contact point to theEastern civilization and believing to had an "Aryan Brotherhood" with Germans. During pre-war diplomatic maneuvers, theNSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs took special interest in Afghanistan, believing that theGerman Empire had failed to exploit the country diplomatically during the First World War despite theNiedermayer–Hentig Expedition.[343] The objective was to ensure that the country would remain neutral during a possible German-British conflict and even use it militarily against British India or Soviet Russia.[343] After the German-French armistice of 1940, the Kabul government tried to question Berlin on German plans concerning the future of Afghanistan.[344] Of special interest were the post-war borders of the country – the Afghan government hoped to see the re-incorporation of 15 million ethnic Pashtuns which had been placed in British India thanks to theDurand Line, and the securing of the northern Indian border so that an expansion towards the Indian Ocean became possible (seePashtunistan).[344] As theGerman–Soviet Axis talks of October–November were then underway (in which the possible expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence in south-central Asia, fromEastern Turkey toIndia, was on the table), Berlin was reluctant to give any binding offers to Kabul.[345]
However, after theAxis invasion of Soviet Union, the Nazi geopolitics changed and now Afghanistan was a strategical territory to be in the German Sphere of influence in the New Order (as the main goal was that, afterLebensraum's conquests ofEuropean Russia, Germans would had to inherit the formerRussian Central Asia and also the rivalry with the British from theGreat Game). So,Abwehr agents, likeManfred Oberdörffer andFred Hermann Brandt (with Italian help, like the agentsAdolf Crescini andPietro Quaroni), had the mission to instigate aPashtun rebellion against British India on thePakistani Side, and then form a pro-AxisPashtunistan state, developing it in June 1941 byErwin von Lahousen, with the condenameOperation Fire Eater, in which was considered to give in the future thePashtun Tribal Areas andWaziristan, from theBritish Raj, to theKingdom of Afghanistan (only if they were cooperative, if not, usingPashtun nationalists against Afghans, Soviets, British and Indians).[346] But, due toOperation Fire Eater being discovered by the Afghan government in July 1941 (arresting some key figures of the Abwehr), the German planifications concerning Central Asia were renewed in theOperation Tiger, which now had direct participation of theGerman Foreign Ministry in a recently developed sub-section specifically for the Nazi interests in India (entrusted that subsection toAdam von Trott zu Solz, and supervised byWilhelm Keppler) while also included the participation of perceived pro-AxisIndian nationalists agents ofSubhas Chandra Bose, likeBhagat Ram Talwar (who actually was a spy of theComintern, in contact with the head of the Soviet foreign intelligence station,Mikhail Andreevich Allahverdov).
The new objectives were lesser about intervention in Afghan intern politic, trying to avoid provocations against their government, and more about to develop a German intelligence network for theGestapo in South Asia (naming it "Kirti Group") to instigate Anti-British revolts between the Pashtuns (specially among theMohmand andAfridi), like the1939 Waziristan campaign, with long-term plans to create a pro-Axis Pashtun state inWaziristan, waiting for an intervention by Germany after a hypotheticalconquest of the Caucasus.[347] However, also Nazi Germany wanted to overthrow the neutral Afghan government first, menacing them to start a Civil War orBalkanizate Afghan state between Iran, a puppet Indian state and a residual Pashtun state, if they were reluctant to co-operation. So, despite the NSDAP Foreign Office's good relations with the Afghan government, the Foreign Ministry under Ribbentrop favored overthrowing the current government underMohammad Zahir Shah and restoration of the rule ofAmanullah Khan, who had been living in exile since 1929.[348] Hitler eventually came to support Rosenberg's office on this issue,[348] and so started theOperation Amanullah in 1942, in which theAbwehr in Afghanistan had the mission to instigate a pro-AxisPashtun andTurkic insurrection in Central Asia (inspired in theBasmachi movement),[citation needed] waiting for a German invasion ofAfghanistan (through Soviet occupied territory of the plannedReichskommissariat Turkestan) to form an Afghan puppet state headed byAmanullah Khan, preparing the conditions for the main goal of invade British India after an hyphotetical Soviet Union total collapse inEurasia.[349]
"the Turks can achieve independence only with the assistance of the Axis countries, and therefore turkestanis consider themselves their soldiers and are ready to fulfill any task"
— K. Rasmus
Before completing the expected German conquest of Europe, the Nazi leadership hoped to keep the United States out of the war.[350] In an interview withLife in the spring of 1941, Hitler stated that a German invasion of the Western Hemisphere was as fantastic as an invasion of the moon, and he said he was convinced that the idea was being promoted by men who mistakenly thought that war would be good for business.[351] U.S. pro-Nazi movements such as theFriends of the New Germany and theGerman-American Bund played no role in Hitler's plans for the country, and received no financial or verbal support from Germany after 1935.[352]
However, certainNative American advocate groups, such as the fascist-leaningAmerican Indian Federation, were to be used to undermine the Roosevelt administration from within by means of propaganda.[353][354] Fictitious reports about Berlin declaring theSioux as Aryans were circulated by the German-American Bund with the aim of increasing tensions between Native Americans and the government of the United States, impelling Native Americans to resist being drafted or registered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Nazi propagandists went as far as declaring that Germany would return expropriated land to the Indians or even create a Native American independent country likeTecumseh's confederacy orIndian barrier state plans, whileGoebbels predicted they possessed little loyalty to America and would rather rebel than to fight against Germany; such rumors were reported byJohn Collier, commissioner of Indian Affairs, to the Congress as true, thus not merely spreading them further but also legitimating them in the eyes of many.[355][356][357] As a boy, Hitler had been an enthusiastic reader ofKarl May westerns[12] and he toldAlbert Speer that he still turned to them for inspiration as an adult when he was in a tight spot.[358] The influence of Karl May's writing in Hitler Youth and German society generated the belief that native people somehow possessed aquasi-Aryan nature in itsVolk.[359] Nazis pragmatically utilised popular tropes of Indian imagery (Indianthusiasm) to use against the US.[360] Also, in the late 1930s, Nazis even attempted to enlist American Indian support, mostly from Sioux and Lakota peoples, for Nazi Germany,[361] The Nazis had hoped to incite an uprising by the "hemispheric Indian" against their brutal treatment, creating allies and instability to undermine American arguments for the moral superiority of democracy.[362]
Approximately nine months before the United States joined the Allies, U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt made a reference to the New Order in a speech he gave on March 15, 1941, recognizing Hitler's hostility towards the United States and the destructive potential it represented, about which Roosevelt was quite acutely aware:
...Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries. They openly seek the destruction of allelective systems of government on every continent, including our own. They seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers who seize power by force.
Yes, these men and their hypnotized followers call this a "New Order." It is not new, and it is not order. For order among nations presupposes something enduring, some system of justice under which individuals over a long period of time are willing to live. Humanity will never permanently accept a system imposed by conquest, and based on slavery. These modern tyrants find it necessary to their plans to eliminate all democracies—eliminate them one by one. The nations of Europe, and indeed we, ourselves, did not appreciate that purpose. We do now.[363]
Hitler held U.S. society in contempt, stating that the United States (which he consistently referred to as the "American Union") was "half Judaised, and the other half Negrified"[364][clarification needed] and that "in so far as there are any decent people in America, they are all ofGerman origin".[365][clarification needed] Already in his 1928 bookZweites Buch, he had maintained that Nazi Germany must prepare for the ultimate struggle against the U.S. for hegemony.[366] In mid-late 1941, as Hitler became overconfident of an Axis victory in Europe against the UK and the Soviet Union, he began planningan enormous extension of theKriegsmarine, projected to include 25 battleships, 8 aircraft carriers, 50 cruisers, 400 submarines and 150 destroyers, far exceeding the naval expansion that had already been decided on in 1939'sPlan Z.[367] HistorianGerhard L. Weinberg stated that this super-fleet was intended against the Western Hemisphere.[367]
Hitler also considered the occupation of thePortuguese Azores,Cape Verde,Madeira and theSpanish Canary Islands to deny the British a staging ground for military actions againstNazi-controlled Europe, and also to gain Atlantic naval bases and military airfields for operations against North America.[368][369] Hitler desired to use the islands to "deploy long-range bombers against American cities from the Azores", via a plan that actually arrived onHermann Göring'sRLM office desks in the spring of 1942 forthe design competition concerning such an aircraft.[370] Due to their location of those Spanish and Portuguese islands in the Atlantic, Hitler seemed to think that a Luftwaffe airbase located on the Portuguese Azores islands were Germany's "only possibility of carrying out aerial attacks from a land base against the United States", in a period about a year before the May 1942 emergence of theAmerika Bomber trans-oceanic range strategic bomber design competition.[371]
In July 1941, Hitler approached Japanese ambassador Ōshima with an offer to wage a joint struggle against the U.S.[372]—Japan's ownProject Z aircraft design program was one possible manner in which such a goal could be accomplished, all during the timeframe that theUSAAC had itself, on April 11, 1941, first proposed a competition for airframe designs for the same sort of missions against the Axis forces, theNorthrop XB-35 and theConvair B-36, flying directly from North American soil to attack Nazi Germany.[citation needed]
In this final battle for world domination, Hitler expected the defeated British to eventually support the Axis forces withits large navy.[369] He stated that "England and America will one day have a war with one another, which will be waged with the greatest hatred imaginable. One of the two countries will have to disappear."[373][clarification needed] and "I shall no longer be there to see it, but I rejoice on behalf of the German people at the idea that one day we will see England and Germany marching together against America".[374][clarification needed]
The actual physical conquest of the United States was unlikely, however,[375] and the future disposition of U.S. territories remained cloudy in Hitler's mind.[376] He perceived the anticipated battle with that country, at least under his own rule, to be a sort of "battle of the continents"—possibly along the lines of then-contemporary U.S. thought, such asthe opening text from the second film in Frank Capra'sWhy We Fight series, illustrating one U.S. viewpoint of what Hitler could have thought on such matters while viewing the crowds at the 1934Nuremberg rally[377]—with a Nazi-dominatedOld World fighting for global dominance against theNew World, in which Germany would attainleadership of the world rather than establish direct control over it.[378] Further decisions down the line were left up to future generations of German rulers.
Canada featured fairly little in Nazi conceptions of the post-war world. Because Hitler's political objectives were primarily focused on Eastern Europe before and during the war—in contrast tohis own opinions towards the United States from 1928 in his unpublished volume,Zweites Buch[379]—Hitler considered the United States a negligible political factor in the world, while Canada interested him even less.[380] He politically grouped the country together with the United States in a U.S.-dominated North America, and considered it equally as "materialistic, racially bastardised, and decadent" as its southern neighbor.[380] In 1942, when expressing his fear of an imminent collapse of the British Empire which he preferred to remain intact, Hitler believed that the United States would seize and annex Canada at the first opportunity,[381] and that the Canadians would be quick to welcome such a move.[380]
This lack of policy direction from the top meant that Nazi politicians concerned with representing Germany's interests and relations with Canada had to resort to an improvised line of policy which they believed to be in accordance with Hitler's wishes.[380] The country was noted for its abundance of natural resources, and because of its great geographic size coupled with a low population density was characterised as "a country without people", in contrast to Germany which was considered "a people without space".[380] In his 1934 travelogue account of Canada,Zwischen USA und dem Pol (English:Between the U.S. and theNorth Pole), German journalist Colin Ross described Canadian society as artificial because it was composed of many different parts that were not tied together by either blood or long-standing traditions (highlighting the differences between theFrench andEnglish Canadians in particular), and that for this reason one could not speak of either a Canadian nation orVolk.[382] As a result, the country's political system was also considered mechanical and non-organic, and that Ottawa did not constitute "the heart of the nation". Because of both these factors the Canadians were deemed incapable of comprehending "true culture", and German immigration in Canada was considered a mistake because they would be forced to live in an "empty civilization".[383]
Despite Nazi Germany's lack of interest in Canada,Vichy France was very interested in gaining a hegemony overQuébécois people as a means of developing a sphere of influence in North America that would be comparable toNew France. The main goal was to export theRévolution nationale toQuebec through a system of propaganda developed in theFrench Embassy in the United States, taking advantage of anti-Gaullist sentiments inFranco-Canadians (due to the strong influence ofUltramontanism in their society, seeingFree France and the formerFrench Third Republic as a bad representation of theFrench political traditions). However, Quebécois people were ambivalent in their opinions about fascism (although there was more sympathy for Vichy France due to itsconservative tendencies rather than any desire for an Axis victory) and even theCatholic Church in Quebec (that had a lot of social influence before theQuiet Revolution) tried to purge the most "ardently Vichyist" elements in the society, while at the same time criticizing theFrench liberal tendencies of Free France (althoughCharles de Gaulle had support among theUniversité de Montréal due to distrust of the German invader).[384][385] In addition, there were some Franco-Canadian fascistsecret societies around the Université de Montréal (François Hertel,Pierre Trudeau, andJean Drapeau were members) and with minor contact with Nazi Germany and Vichy France (although it was an initiative of their own) that were planning to start a fascist revolution, based onClerical fascism and theFrères chasseurs, against theCanadian Confederation and itsparliamentaristparty-baseddemocracy with "Jewish"capitalistplutocracy, having the main goal to proclaim theindependence of Quebec (taking advantage of theConscription Crisis of 1944) and hoping to get Axis Powers help in the future in case the Allies, or at least theCommonwealth from UK, intervened to restoreLiberalism andBritish Canadian supremacy.[386]
Both, Nazi German (Operation Pelikan) and Japanese Empire had plans to conquerPanama Canal. However, there was not much planning from the Germans for the administration of an occupiedPanama, nor plans forSocial engineering concerning theMestizo elements withinHispanic andIndigenous Americans (probably due to the lack of interest from Nazi Germany inLatin America). From the Japanese, there were some plans, mostly in an early ideation stage, to develop aGovernment-General of Central America (consisting mostly in the formerCaptaincy General of Guatemala,Spanish Main and the totality of theGreater Antilles) to defy theMonroe Doctrine and also expand Japanese sphere of influence over thePacific Rim (menacingMexico,Peru andChile to giveTerritorial concession in strategical ports, likeForeign concessions in China, and then being turned into client states), transforming the Pacific Ocean into a Japanese Lake and controlling the United States of America's 'backyard' (humiliating USA by blocking their control of Caribbean and Mexican gulf). However, theLeeward Islands,Trinidad andThe Guianas were considered to be ceded toItalian colonial empire or a possible new German colonialism, as Japan wanted to avoid a conflict of interest in the Atlantic Ocean with its Axis allies orBrazil.
German Foreign Policy never opposed, nor approved these Japanese ambitions, but in the case of victory, the most probable answer would be total indifference (like all the related toIbero-America) while German interests inABC countries (Operation Bolívar) and possibleGerman interest in the Caribbean were not menaced.[253] Taking advantage of such German indifference,Francoist Spain expected to use theServicio Exterior de Falange to recover the former privileged relationship thatSpanish Empire had inSpanish America and to strengthen their global position in the face of the New Order that theAxis Powers were organizing (expecting to be grantedLatin America to Spain in exchange of not interfering inGerman Europe,Italian Africa andJapanese Asia). This was frowned upon by theState Department, which consideredFranco's foreign policy in Central and South America as an instrument ofNazi Germany andFascist Italy to defy theMonroe Doctrine, since thepan-Hispanic doctrine of the Falange to resist againstAnglo world imperialismo found acceptance among the Latin American ruling elites (specially inPuerto Rico and evenPhilippines,[387] in which there were several possibilities of a falangist revolt against theAmerican rule), and constituted a challenge to USA hegemony in the area. EvenFrancis Biddle denounced the existence of an Anti-American subversive conspiration between Francoist Spain, theNational Synarchist Union in Mexico and theUnited Officers' Group in Argentina to instigate a pro-Axis New Order againstAmericans.[388][389][390] Similar plans of falangist-Nazi cooperation to make a fascistCoup d'état inColombia (with the help of dissidents among theConservative Party andBolivarianists fromVenezuela andEcuador) were denounced during 1940s by American intelligence andEric Rath's reports from theBlack Front, althoughFranklin D. Roosevelt considered those informs too exaggerated and with a bit of sensationalism, but feared the real possibility that such operations could menace thePanama Canal.[391]
Fascist Italy had an special steem forLatin American due to having the inheritancy fromRoman culture in theirLocal culture through theHispanidad,Lusofonia andFrancophonie determinating theirNational identities, as also for having relevant communities of theItalian diaspora in their societies (specially the political and economical relevance ofItalian Argentines andItalian Brazilians in those countries), expecting that in the New Order theLatin Axis could expand their memberships to all the states ofLatin America to consolidate Italian claims ofSuccession of the Roman Empire by unifying all the Latin World under the Italian leadership, and also to join forces betweenPan-LatinNationalists against the potential menace of theGreater Germanic Reich or theAnglosphere after the end of the War (predicting a possibleCold War against aPan-Germanist/Nordicist global bloc that would probably ally to the remnants ofBritish Empire and theUnited States). To reach such goalsItalian foreign policy tried to compete to Anglo-American liberalThink tanks by giving patronage toCatholic Nationalists andIlliberalist thinkers sympathizers ofMaurrassisme andFalangism (in the line ofJosé de la Riva-Agüero y Osma,Jordán Bruno Genta,Osvaldo Lira,José Vasconcelos, etc.) until they manage to appropriate ofCatholic Integralist andTraditionalism movements to eliminate them as competitors in theCriticism of United States foreign policy (as those more Orthodox Catholicists were critical of bothliberalism andsocialism as well asfascism andnationalism, seeing the last ones asPolitical heresy according toNon abbiamo bisogno's condemns toItalian fascism by the Church, as also the CatholicCounter-Enlightenment criticism toItalian nationalism), taking advantage that the boundaries between the many ideas ofPolitical catholicism had not yet clearly distinguished themselves among the Common population and were easy to manipulateChristian conservatives (fascinated by very superficial aspects of fascism like theCorporatism andPolitical stability, stripped of itsTotalitarian andSecularist character) in the region to turn them into Clients in the New Order. Another strategy was to associate withLatin American dictatorships, as theirDevelopmentalist andAuthoritarian conservatist tendencies made them candidates to fascistize like already was being done toFrancoist Spain regime (in which were purgedCarlists andIntegrists that criticised the usurpation of theSpanish Counter-Revolutionary movement byNational-CatholicsClerical fascists that were not in line withCatholic social teaching and were subservient to the interests of Axis powers instead of Spain andCatholicity).[392][393]
However, Hitler nor any other major Nazi leader showed much interest towardsSouth America, except as a warning example of "racial mixing".[394] Despite, theDutch collaborator,Anton Mussert, proposed theGuayanaplan in which South American colonies ofBritish Guiana,French Guiana, andDutch Surinam could become a country where Jews expelled from Europe could forcibly settled in the New Order (during the timeMadagascar Plan was considered before theFinal Solution) in exchange of receiving parts ofPortuguese Mozambique (Maputo Bay) for a newDutch colonialism in Africa, although Nazi Germany showed little interest.[395] However, theNSDAP/AO was active in various South American countries, notably amongGerman Brazilians andGerman Argentines, and trade relations between Germany and the South American countries were seen as of great importance, specially theABC countries (due to having biggerGerman communities, its strategical position near Europe from theSouth Atlantic, and being the most economically powerful at the time), but without developing strategic designs on the region.[396][397] Between 1933 and 1941, the Nazi aim in South America was to achieve economic hegemony by expanding trade at the expense of the Western Powers.[398] Hitler also believed that German-dominated Europe would displace the United States as the principal trading partner of the continent.[399]
In the Short-term, the main goal of the Reich was to Nazify German South-Americans (usually with help ofLutheran churches) and try to turn them into an extension of the German state based in theBlood and soil principle (not necessarily annexing them, the Reich was conformed to develop a "state within a state" to menace those countries in the future), while also developing Spy Networks against the Allies during WWII.[400][401] Long-term Nazi hopes for political penetration of the region were placed on the local fascist movements, such as theIntegralists in Brazil, theNational Socialist Movement of Chile and fascists inPeronist Argentina, combined with the political activation of the German immigrant communities.[402][403] Even some localThird Position parties (hostile toAmerican imperialism andFrench philosophy legacy in the political elites) tried to approach to the Axis Powers and co-operate in the New Order, like theBolivian government ofGermán Busch solicitating German political advisers (proposing to the Nazi representative,Ernst Wendler, the development of a Latin American branch of theAnti-Comintern Pact between Bolivia,Argentina,Paraguay andPeru that would also expand anAnti-American revolution in the region against theLiberal democracy ineffective model).[404] Also there were some plans from some Nazis (although without direct support from Nazi leaders) to instigateCoup d'état from the German communities on South American small territories to conquer them andgermanise them later, likeTheFuhrmann Plan (Uruguay),[405] or theGuayana-Projekt (military takeover of French Guiana).[406][407][408] Reports of possible coups, allegedly orchestrated and attributed to local Nazi parties, were common inArgentina,Brazil,Chile, andBolivia.[391] Hitler also had hopes of seeing German immigrants "returning" from the Western Hemisphere to colonise the conquered East.[409] Despite being occasionally suspicious of the South American Germans of adopting a "South attitude towards life", top Nazis believed that their experience working in underdeveloped areas would make them ideal settlers for the annexed eastern territories.[410]
On 27 October 1941 Roosevelt stated in a speech "I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler's government, by planners of the new world order. It is a map of South America and part of Central America as Hitler proposes to organise it" into five countries under German domination.[411] The speech amazed both the United States and Germany; the latter claimed the map was a forgery. WhileBritish Security Coordination indeed forged the map and arranged for discovery by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it likely was based in part on a real, public map of boundary changes German agents used to persuade South American countries to join the New Order.[412][413] Similar case happened when theGovernment of Argentina denounced in April 1939 that existed Nazi espionage networks since 1937 (leaded byAlfred Müller, leader of theNazi Party in Argentina) developing plans to conquer thePatagonia with a meticulous plan to sent German immigrants to settle in southern Argentina and provoke a separatist revolution which would waith for the Reich intervention (through a German invasion of near-uninhabited land south ofRío Negro Province, declaring itRes nullius and legit its annexation to the Reich underInternational law) that would strengthen the claims for aNazi Antarctic territory through controlling theMagellan Strait, and also bringing valuable resources and the possibility to defy theMonroe Doctrine from a place very remote from USA influence (and an alternative toPanama Canal route to connect the Pacific and Atlantic), expecting to then overthrow the presidentRoberto Marcelino Ortiz and establish a fascist regime in Argentina supported from Europe. Despite that later was concluded that it was a forgery from Anti-Fascist germans likeHeinrich Jürges who were Nazi renegades related toOtto Strasser'sBlack Front (and working for British and American espionage) and even Hitler personally denied the plan by saying"It's ridiculous what the American Jewish press attributes to me, for example, that I want to conquer Canada and occupy Patagonia!", laterOtto Skorzeny mentioned in his memoirs that Hitler's denial of foreign interventions was a protocol excuse for all members of theNazi Party and that there might have been real but not formalized plans yet that were leaked through oral means.[414][415][416] TheChilean Government also denounced in 1940 that that Nazi spies were being trained insouthern Chile to develop a paramilitary group with close ties to the German Embassy and with the aim of carrying out subversive activities on a territory betweenValdivia to theArgentina-Uruguay border. Even speculations by informs made byKurt D. Singer (to theAllies) andMarcial Martínez Prieto (toChile) mentioned the existence of a group linked to aFifth column that sought to trigger a putsch to turn Chile in a Protectorate of the Third Reich underWalter Bottger leadership, simultaneously to another putsch from theBolivian Socialist Falange to turnBolivia into an Axis puppet state ruled byElías Belmonte Pabón (although the last claim was debunked as a fabrication by the British intelligence service),[417] due to being founded boxes containing propaganda, weapons, flags, plans and maps after some raids on communities where livedGerman Chileans (related to Nazis and theOperation Bolívar) whileVölkisch ideology was taught to the younger and contacts with theChilean Army were made throughArturo Ahumada for a possibleCoup d'état.[418]
Another accusations, about Nazi Germany's possible plans for border changes in South America, came from the diplomatSergio Corrêa da Costa, who claimed that he has proof that Brazilian Nazis were planning to separate Southern Brazil in a newRiograndense Republic, with the main goal the establishment of a "New Germany" colony (based on previous projects fromSecond German Empire of partitioning Latin America, like the one proposed by Otto Richard Tannenberg),[419] mentioning that he had a quote of Hitler himself saying:"We will create a new Germany in Brazil. There we will find everything we need". In the large place, that "New Germany" would try to expand its territory, with help of pro-AxisGauchos of white skills, amongUruguay,Paraguay andNorth-East Argentina, trying to conquer the temperate zones of theRío de la Plata Basin (which offered a colonisation space very similar to the geography of Germany) and displacing Portuguese and Spanish in favor of German asNational language.[420] However, another historians are skeptical about the existence of those territorial plans for the New Order, saying that there isn't sufficient documentation and were mostly part of theCollective hysteria of Brazil in World War II, while also mentioning thatGetúlio Vargas was initially a pro-Axis (as hisEstado Novo was inspired in fascist ideology)[421][422][423] and that it was nominated by Nazi Germany to be an Axis Partner in South America in equal conditions, mentioning the fact that Nazi Party in Brazil had no interest in participating in the elections or in registering the party with the Electoral Court of Brazil, so being politically inoffensive.[424] However, after Brazil joined the Allies and also started theNationalization campaign against German culture, there were rumors that Nazi Germany was trying to useBrazilian Integralist to depose Vargas and establish a pro-Axis puppet state and start a campaign againstMestiço andBlack elements. But those claims were negated by both,Plínio Salgado (Integralist leader) andHans von Cossel (leader of theNSDAP in Brazil), even some Nazi Germans claimed that Integralists asBrazilian nationalists were also a threat againstGermanism, while also despised its defense ofCatholic social teaching aboutcultural pluralism orassimilationism in an "inferior people [theBrazilians]" because of its mixed race character (preferring to practice a clear hierarchy that separated native Germans from Brazilians of German descent: only the former could join the NSDAP, while the others were inferior to native Germans because being excessively Brazilian).[425] Beside all, there were concrete plans to indoctrinate German children in Brazil and to expand German schools in America on the model of Hitler Youth.[426]
Nazi Germany envisioned to establish a colonial domain, namedNew Swabia, in the region between 20 ° West and 20 ° East ofAntarctic territory, in modernQueen Maud Land (on NorwegianTerritorial claims in Antarctica), causing that Norway formally annex it 5 days before the arrival of the1st German expedition in theMS Schwabenland.[427] There were plans for a 2nd and 3rd expeditions, probably to the other side of Antarctica (in the Pacific sector), but all Antarctic activities were cancelled due to the World War II.[428]
The main goal of this project was to establish some whaling stations in the continent, which would extractwhale oil to secure margarine and other goods, reducing the Reich's economical dependence onForeign exchange reserves with the import of industrial oils, fats and dietary fats.[429] In the short-term, was needed to develop a whaling fleet and aerial bases with acquisition of fishing grounds, using it as a mean of improve international prestige of Germany with propaganda (although the lack of anEffective occupation). In the long-term, it was planned to start a German occupation of the territory, with the objective to compete against Britain, France, and the United States in terms of global reach.[430]Alfred Ritscher and Heinrich Himmler were interested in the total annexation of the hypothetical German Occupied Antarctic territories, starting with the "Schirmacher See" due to have some vegetation and hot springs near a lake.[431] Himmler and Rudolf Hess were interested in reach a caste of white-skinned bringers of civilization, theorised byoccultist societies,[432] and so New Swabia would had to serve forNazi esotericist investigations (even was considered to develop the colony only with members of theAhnenerbe that were interested to discover "superhumans").[citation needed]
Although it pursued an alliance withImperial Japan in the battle against the "WesternPlutocracies" and SovietBolshevism which was based onRealpolitik, the Nazi leadership believed that its alliance with Japan was only temporary. The racial ideology of Nazism predicted that the fate of human civilization depended on the ultimate triumph of the Germanic-Nordic peoples, and according to it, the populous Asian continent was seen as the greatest threat to the hegemony of the white race. The Japanese people were characterized as "culture-bearers", but they could not create "culture" themselves.[433] Gerhard Weinberg asserts that the historical evidence points to the conclusion that Hitler, like he had done with the Soviets in the 1939–1941 period, employed a tactic of conceding to the Japanese whatever they desired until they in turn could be defeated in a subsequent war.[434] In early 1942, Hitler is quoted as saying to Ribbentrop: "We have to think in terms of centuries. Sooner or later there will have to be a showdown between the white and the yellow races."[435]
In July 1941, as plans were being laid out for post-Barbarossa military operations, the Wehrmacht's naval top-level command, theOberkommando der Marine, was not ready to exclude the possibility of a war between Germany and Japan.[436] In 1942, NSDAP officialErhard Wetzel (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories) predicted that "the self-determination of the numerically strong Asian peoples after this war" would challenge German-controlled Europe with Japanese instigation, and stated that "a Greater Asia and an independent India are formations that dispose over hundreds of millions of inhabitants. A German world power with 80 or 85 million Germans by contrast is numerically too weak".[437]
As the Japanese were conquering one European colonial territory after another in Asia and Oceania, and while they were also seemingly poised to take over Australia and New Zealand as a result of their conquests, Hitler believed that the white race would completely disappear in these regions, which he considered a turning point in human history.[438] He was relieved by the fact that Japan had entered the war on Germany's side, however, because he had long hoped to use that country as a strategic counterweight to the United States, based on his belief that Japanese hegemony in East Asia and the Pacific would guarantee the security of both countries by deterring the ambitions of other powers. Looking into the future, he remarked that "There's one thing Japan and Germany have in common; both of us need fifty to a hundred years for purposes ofdigestion: we for Russia, they for theFar East".[438]
In hisspeech which he made during the meeting ofSS major generals in Posen on 4 October 1943,Heinrich Himmler commented on future conflicts between Nazi-controlled Europe and Asia:
[W]e will create the necessary conditions for the whole Germanic people and the whole of Europe, controlled, ordered and led by us, the Germanic people, to be able, in generations, to stand the test in her battles of destiny against Asia, who will certainly break out again. We do not know when that will be. Then, when the mass of humanity of 1 to 1½ [billion] lines up against us, the Germanic people, numbering, I hope, 250 to 300 million, and the other European peoples, making a total of 600 to 700 million – (and withan outpost area stretching as far as the Urals, or, a hundred years, beyond the Urals) – must stand the test in its vital struggle against Asia. It would be an evil day if the Germanic people did not survive it. It would be the end of beauty and "Kultur", of the creative power of this earth. That is the distant future. It is for that that we are fighting, pledged to hand down the heritage of our ancestors.[439]
After the decisive German defeat at the end of theBattle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943, Germany was forced to go on the defensive and as a result, it was no longer able to actively pursue its implementation of the New Order in the Soviet Union, but it was able to continue itsgenocide against the Jews, theRomani, and other minorities. Following the subsequent failure of the1943 summer offensive and the resulting failure to regain the territories which it lost to the Soviets earlier that year, theWehrmacht was no longer able to mount an effective large-scale counter-attack on theEastern Front. In a discussion withJoseph Goebbels on 26 October 1943, Hitler opined that Germany should conclude a temporary armistice with the Soviet Union and return to its1941 border in the east.[440] This would then give Germany the opportunity to defeat the British forces in the west first, before resuming a new war forLebensraum against the Soviet Union at a later point in time. Hitler thought that his future successor might have to carry out this later war, because he believed that he himself would be too old by then.[440][441]
Late in the war, after the failure of the finalArdennes offensive and after the successful alliedcrossing of the Rhine into Germany itself, Hitler hoped that a decisive victory on the Eastern Front might still enable the Nazi regime to preserve itself, resulting inOperation Spring Awakening.[442] He believed that, with the conclusion of a separate peace-treaty with the Soviet Union, adivision of Poland might still be realized and leave Hungary and Croatia under German control.[442] Hitler only acknowledged Germany's imminent defeat mere days prior tohis suicide.[443]
[...] expansion policies and practices of Germany in southeastern Europe and Japan in Asia were likewise a major cause of World War II.
The Black International, which operated under the name of the European New Order, held a summit at Barcelona on behalf of the Palestinians. The organization was composed of various Nazis and fascists from Nazi Germany, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Mussolini's Italy, and the Greek colonels' military junta.
[...] the misguided belief in the existence of an international conspiracy often referred to as the 'black international' which allegedly co-ordinated neo-Nazi activity on a world-wide scale.
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