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> The Nazi leadership wanted expansion of the German state to include all of Europe. No they didn't. They wanted to expand the German state to include areas wi
by olavk 8y ago
> The Nazi leadership wanted expansion of the German state to include all of Europe.
No they didn't. They wanted to expand the German state to include areas with significant German population (Austria, Sudentenland, Elsass, Slovenia etc.) and then they wanted to expand the state eastwards into Poland and Western USSR for "Lebensraum".
Germany occupied France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway etc. for military strategic reasons. They had no plans of incorporating these countries in the Reich, which would be counter to the whole Nazi ideology of a German ethnostate.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoThis is exactly the primary point of my post - yes, the Nazis didn't consider those countries to be "German", but they intended to include them in their conquests to build "Festung Europa" ("Fortress Europe"). You're right, I didn't differentiate between the areas they aimed to conquer for Lebensraum and the areas they intended to conquer for strategic purposes. Should I have? Why? Should I have gone so far as to mention that while they didn't intend to occupy Britain, they certainly intended to bomb them into submission? "Nazi Germany wanted the German state to include all of Europe" is accurate, just incomplete. They also didn't intend to invade Switzerland or Sweden. They fought alongside the Finns for most of the war, until they fought against them. Hell, you could even go so far as to color the actions of some of the German military staff as anti-Nazi even as they fought against the Allies - Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, for instance. Things like that are important pieces of information for historians and other interested people, but are they really important enough to cover in a high school history class? Infinite nuance.