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Castle Hülchrath
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/22/18

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Schloss Hülchrath, view of the Hochschloss from northeast

Castle Hülchrath is a former kurkölnische country castle in Grevenbroicher district city ​​Hülchrath in the Rhine district Neuss . The moated castle on Gillbach goes back to a castle of the 12th century and has preserved a large part of its medieval fabric.

The history of the complex illustrates very well the typical development of a noble residence in the Rhineland : Through continuous growth, a wooden moth changed over a two-part moated castle in the Renaissance to a palace complex , which was destroyed in the 17th century at the beginning of the 20th century in the style of Neo-Gothic was rebuilt. In the Middle Ages, the Hülchrather plant was one of the most important provincial castles in the Cologne territory. [1]

The palace complex is now privately owned and is partly used for residential purposes. An inside inspection is not possible. The courtyard area of ​​the outer bailey and the grounds are accessible to visitors free of charge.

Castle and place Hülchrath stand as a monument area under monument protection . In addition, the castle has been protected since 27 March 1985 as a monument . [2]

History

The Beginnings

When exactly the first castle Hülchrath emerged in the marshy lowlands of the Gillbach, a tributary of the Erft , is still not clear. It was presumably the seat of the Counts of Gillgau , who were appointed provincial counts by the ruler, the archbishop of Cologne , and administered the district for him. From 1122 this task was performed by the Counts of Saffenberg , who probably came to the office through the marriage of Adolf von Saffenberg with Margaretha von Schwarzenburg, the niece of the Archbishop Friedrich I von Schwarzenburg . Already in 1120 Hülchrath was first mentioned by name as Holkerode in a document and was described there as castellum vetustissimum et munitissimum [6] ( German very ancient and heavily fortified castle ). The plant stood near an old Roman road that led from the former Roman camp in Grimlinghausen near Neuss to Kaster . Early on, a settlement would have formed around the castle, the 1321 was designated [8] as oppidum . When Adolf's son Hermann died around 1175, Hülchrath came to the counts of Sayn , because Hermann's daughter Agnes had married Henry II of Sayn in 1173. 1202 was the son of the couple, Henry III. , Lord of Hülchrath. Under him, the celestial sovereignty over the castle apparently lost temporarily, because in a document from the year 1206, she was referred to as his allod . In his time as lord of the castle was probably also the first major expansion of the plant, this being surrounded by a polygonal ring wall with flanking towers .

As Henry III. 1247 died without descendants (his daughter had died before him), Hülchrath came to his nephew Simon von Sponheim , who exchanged it in 1248 against other areas with his brother Heinrich , Herr von Heinsberg . This pledged castle and rule temporarily to William IV , the Count of Jülich , it later redeemed, because when Heinrichs daughter Adelheid (also Aleidis) on September 22, 1255 married Dietrich , later Count of Cleves , came the castle as a dowry to the Klever counts. After the death of Dietrich V Hülchrath came to his son Dietrich Luf II , who called himself from 1296 Count of Hülchrath. In 1298 he sold the county and castle to his brother Dietrich VI. von Kleve and got her back as an after-loan . 1305 followed him as the owner of Hülchrath his eponymous son from the marriage with Elizabeth of Virneburg. Eight years later he had to give the Cologne archbishop a right of first refusal at the castle, which took Henry II of Virneburg on 12 June 1314 to complete. For 30,000 Cologne Mark [12] moved castle and county to the Cologne cathedral chapter . However, only 15,000 marks were payable because many of the lands belonging to Hülchrath were pledged. [13] Dietrich Luf III. should keep the county until full payment. This was the case after many delays in late 1331, but as early as 1323 Hülchrath became a Kurkölnische office. [14]

Kurkölnische Landesburg

Kurköln had the Hülchrather weir built in the 14th and 15th centuries strong. It was then one of the most massive castles in the Rhineland and was designed for demonstration of power and representation at the same time. As a regional castle Hülchrath fulfilled the same functions as the kurkölnischen plants in Linn , Zülpich , Lechenich , Kempen and Zons . Particular importance was attached to it as a strategically important base against the largest territorial adversary Kurkölns in this area, the Duchy of Jülich, because the neighboring Grevenbroich belonged since 1307 to the Jülich possessions. In 1499, troops of the Jülich Duke besieged the castle but were unable to capture it. The settlement was also unscathed, contrary reports result from a misreading of the Cologne Chronicle Johann Koelhoff the Younger . [16]


The Siege of Hülchrath in the Truchsess War, engraving by Frans Hogenberg

During the Truchsess War Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg fled with his wife Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben behind the protective walls of the Hülchrather castle, whereupon imperial troops besieged them under the leadership of the choirmaster Friedrich von Sachsen-Lauenburg , drained their moats and shot at them with cannons , After thirteen-day cannonade, the lock crew finally gave up and handed over the facility to the besiegers on March 16, 1583. [17] [18] Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg and his wife were previously escaped through a secret passage . The place Hülchrath was then destroyed, the castle heavily damaged. In the same year they went to eliminate the damage, with stones of the previously looped upper monastery were used at Neuss . After the cathedral chapter had ceded the meantime converted into a castle complex 1605 to the archdiocese of Cologne, the then coadjutor and later Elector Ferdinand of Bavaria in 1608 so began to fix Hülchrath again. The ruined place was newly founded and created on schedule in the northeast of the castle. Previously, he had located in the southeast of the plant. Subsequently, the village was combined with the outer bailey and the high castle to a closed fortification system with bastions , ramparts and moats. She took over the function of a second outer bailey. The work lasted until 1612. [22]


Figure of Hülchrath Castle in Matthäus Merian's Topographia Germaniae , 1646

Also during the Thirty Years' War Hülchrath was besieged in the Hesse War . After five days of shelling Hessian-weimar troops were able to take place and castle in 1642, but were only a short time later expelled by imperial and Bavarian soldiers. In the French-Dutch War , the castle complex on October 26, 1676 met the same fate, this time there were soldiers of the Prince Bishopric of Osnabrück , who besieged the castle and took. In 1688, the fortifications erected eighty years before were demolished, leaving only the outer bailey and the prison in the high castle. The castle was still inhabited, but due to lack of maintenance followed a gradual decline.

The castle to the present time

When after the Peace of Lunéville in 1801 the existing since 1798 four left-bank departments were recognized as French territory, in 1802 the secularization was carried out. As a result, the French government sold in 1803 the castle for 4929 francs to the last Kurkölnischen bailiff Heinrich Joseph von Pröpper. His descendants lived in the castle until the end of the 19th century, but had already sold it in 1874 to Prince Alfred zu Salm-Reifferscheidt. He sold it in 1901 to Heinrich Maas, with which the castle first came into civil hands. After six years, the plant changed again the owner, because in 1907 it acquired the Duesseldorf-based Freiherr Enno Rudolf von Bennigsen and had the ruins rebuilt in the historically-romantizing style of the Neo-Gothic. However, he did not resort to existing buildings, but let the renaissance-temporal games lie down and build completely new buildings in the northern part of the Hochschlosses along the ring wall. Other owner changes followed. Among the temporary owners of the castle Hülchrath belonged among other things a Mr. Queckenberg as well as in the 1920s four manufacturers from Rheydt. [27]

After the buildings had belonged to the Landbauernschaft Rheinland in 1930, [28] followed in the Third Reich, the National Socialists as users. From 1937 on, the facility served as a small NS-Ordensburg, in which, among other things, members of werewolf groups were trained to carry out sabotage after the occupation of the German Reich by the Allies. From there, for example, the assassination of Aachen Lord Mayor Franz Oppenhoff was organized. After the Second World War, the castle buildings were used temporarily as accommodation for war refugees from the former German eastern territories. In 1954, the Mönchengladbach family Wennmacher bought the plant and had the war damage repaired until 1959. Today, the outer bailey is used for residential and commercial purposes. The Hochschloss is home to a restaurant, which also hosts numerous events on the grounds of the castle. In addition to knight's meals and concerts, there is also a medieval market every year.

Architectural History and Architecture

Development

Castle Hülchrath went through seven construction phases in its history, which - with one exception - are still legible on today's condition.


Hülchrath on a drawing by the Walloon artist Renier Roidkin

The roots of today's plant lie in a high medieval moth, which bears much resemblance to Linn Castle. The Moth Hill was probably surrounded in the 13th century [30] with a polygonal ring wall with three flanking towers. After the Cologne cathedral chapter had taken over the plant in the first quarter of the 14th century, it was extensively expanded in the style of the Gothic style and strongly fortified. Presumably at that time, the Romanesque keep of the Motte was eliminated. The extensions end of the 14th / beginning of the 15th century included, for example, the newly built Palas on the southern ring wall and an elevation of the same, which thus received a coat wall- like appearance. During the expansion of the castle, the gate tower received the fortification function of the old, central main tower, which is why it is often mistakenly referred to as a keep. In addition, the foundation stone was laid for today's forecourt with its commercial buildings and its gate tower. It was separated from the main castle by a moat , which could be overcome by a drawbridge , [31] and even secured by a upstream, second moat. South of the palace was built in the 15th century to secure a kennel .

In 1608, Ferdinand of Bavaria erected the bastion tower east of the gate tower in the high castle. At the same time, a new entrance gate was built between the two towers, while the old one was walled up. The medieval Palas received in the same year rich architectural jewelry in the forms of the Renaissance . All these changes took place in the context of work that united the Hochschloss, the outer bailey and the newly founded at that time settlement Hülchrath to a closed defense system.


Courtyard of the castle on a painting by F. A. Reuters

In a fifth phase, the fortified complex in the 17th century was transformed into a castle in the style of the Italian Renaissance . The style had made its way to the Rhineland via the Spanish Netherlands . The result was a building wing along the northwestern ring wall, which had two-story arcades to the courtyard. At its western end stood a slender tower designed for astronomical observation, with stone-walled porches , windows, and cornices . The renaissance-era elements are no longer extant today, but were detailed in four gouache frescoes by F. A. Reuter dating from 1795, which have disappeared today.

At the time of the Baroque changes were made in the Vorburg area. On the northeastern side, a new gate construction with a stone access bridge was built. He was in flight with the high-rise entrance, according to the architectural taste of the time. The old Gothic gate tower of the bailey at the south end was meaningless and was abandoned. The seventh and final construction phase consisted of the romanticizing reconstruction of the high castle at the beginning of the 20th century, in which, however, the medieval basic structure of the plant was largely preserved.

Description


Floor plan of the castle of Ludwig Arntz

Schloss Hülchrath is a two-part complex consisting of a high castle and a north-eastern forecourt. The high castle has the form of a ring castle , because the 1.75 meter [33] thick enclosure wall looks at first glance circular, but in reality is polygonal. Their shape reflects the layout of the high medieval predecessor, and even today the moth mound and the surrounding ditch can be seen in the terrain. The ring wall was increased in Romanian times with bricks , so that these new lots differ greatly from the older substructure. This consisted in the lowest part of horizontally layered basalt and Liedberger sandstone with leveling layers of tuff . Above it rose masonry of tuff. In the enclosure wall west of the gate tower are still good to see the old, 0.7 meters high [33] high battlements of the low ring wall. Her heiress had a protruding battlement , which was supported by a pointed-arched sandstone consoles frieze . He is still recognizable today from the outside. The ring wall had three semicircular shell towers as flanking. Near the southeast of them seems to have been the castle chapel . [30] The northeastern one of them is called Hexenturm and reminds of a dark episode of the Hülchrath plant. This became famous in the 17th by numerous witch trials , in which the so-called water sample was performed in the moat. In 1629 in Hülchrath 13 women were burned as alleged witches at the stake . [34] A saying of the population at that time said: "Who in Hülchrath goes over the bridge, rarely or never returns." [35] Another half-open tower is in the northeastern part of the ring wall. The so-called bastion tower was built there only in the 17th century.

In the middle of the area enclosed by the ring wall stands the stump of an old round tower with a diameter of 8.5 meters. These are the rebuilt remnants of the former motto tower. So far it has not been clarified whether it was a keep or a residential tower . However, the assumptions of historians go because of the small size in the direction of a keep. In the southern part of the castle courtyard, the ruins of the well over 35 meters long [30] long palace, where the ring wall and the two southern shell towers were included in the construction. Numerous bar holes on the inside of the ring wall still point to the basement housing construction. On the ground floor was a large two-nave hall with barrel vault , which served as Dürnitz in the Middle Ages. [36]


Hochschloss, view from the east

The most striking component of the Hochschloss is the 64 meter [19] high gate tower on the north side. The five-storey building was the tallest tower in the complex and not only fulfilled a defense-related but also a symbolic function. The lower part of its masonry consists mainly of basalt, while the higher parts consist of tuff. He has a high, slated pyramid roof , as it was typical of the Gothic period. The top floor of about 8 × 9 meters [3] measuring tower consists of a cantilevered battlements with four pentagonal Scharwachttürmchen . The floor rests on a round arch frieze, which is supported by trachyte consoles. Some of these have Hebrew inscriptions, because there are recycled grave stones of the old Jewish cemetery Judenbüchel Cologne, devastated in the plague year of 1349 by angry Cologne citizens and his grave stones were misappropriated as a building material. [35] At a courtyard-side corner of the gate tower stands a slender staircase tower with a wooden spiral staircase . The windows are framed by trachyte stones and are therefore made of the same material as the gurney of the arched main portal. [27] [38]


The southern part of the outer bailey including today's gate

The Hochschloss is connected to the outer bailey by a bridge-like earth rampart. The former separating moat is now drained but still clearly visible as a deep terrain sink. The two-storey outer bailey can be reached from Hülchrath via a wide nine-arched brick bridge over the moat. It consists of three brick walls with slated roof pitches . At the corners of the buildings there are round towers with eight-sided helmets . The two floors of Vorburgtrakte are clearly separated from each other by a block frieze. The corner towers and the field-side outer walls and the former gate tower at the southern end of the outer bailey date back to the 14th century. Around the middle of the northeast wing is today's castle gate with stepped gable . The round-arched passage with house entrances is flanked by two pilasters . Above his architrave is a balcony with a wrought-iron railing.

The southern end of the outer bailey is formed by the former gate tower from the Gothic period. Its three storeys rise on an approximately 8.5 × 8.5 meters [3] measuring floor plan. Behind the arcade portal on the outside there was a barrel vaulted passage, but the portal is walled up today. The still existing, framing aperture testifies to a portcullis , which was previously embedded in the gate. On the outside of the top floor remains of a pointed arch frieze with Maschikulis are recognizable. Above it was a battlement with Wurferker . This served at the same time as a groove for the chain of the fall grid. Until the year 1810 [39] the weir-building-ground had turret towers at the corners, but these were demolished, so that today only their console-stones are preserved. After being used as a barn in the 19th century, [40] it now serves as a dwelling.

In 1995, the parks of the castle were redesigned for the Landesgartenschau . In them you can still find remnants of the former trench system, some of which are pond-like and are fed by the Gillbach, as well as a valuable stock of trees. In addition, there are still some relics of arcades from hornbeams to see. [34]

Literature

• Paul Clemen : The art monuments of the district Grevenbroich (= The art monuments of the Rhine Province, Volume 3, Dept. 5). L. Schwann, Dusseldorf 1897, pp. 43-51 ( digitized ).
• Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments . North Rhine-Westphalia, Part 1: Rhineland . Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich / Berlin 2006, pp. 444-445.
• Brigitte and Walter Janssen: Castles, palaces and court festivals in the district of Neuss . Neuss district administration, Neuss 1980, ISBN 3-9800327-0-1 , pp. 120-139.
• Hans Kisky: Hülchrath (= Rheinische Kunststätten, issue 9). Neusser printing and publishing house, Neuss 1964.
• Hans Kisky: Castles and manors in the Rhineland . Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 41-43.
• Werner Meyer: German castles, palaces and fortresses . Volume 1. Flechsig, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-88189-469-1 , p. 137-141.
• Gregor Spohr, Ele Beuthner: How nice to dream here. Castles on the Lower Rhine . Pomp , Bottrop / Essen 2001, ISBN 3-89355-228-6 , P. 46-49.
• Theodor Wildeman : Schloß Hülchrath on the pictures of Paretz . In: Arnold Mock (Hrsg.): Lower Rhine yearbook . Volume 4. Association Left Lower Rhine , Krefeld 1959, ISSN 0549-1665 , pp. 73-74.
• Christian Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath (= Contributions to the History of the City of Grevenbroich, Volume 18). 1st edition. History Society for Grevenbroich and surroundings, Grevenbroich 2006, pp. 99-106.
• Jens Wroblewski, André Wemmers: Theiss Castle Guide Lower Rhine . Konrad Theiss , Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1612-6 , S. 78-81 .

Web links

Commons: Schloss Hülchrath - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
• Website of the castle
• Entry by Karin Striewe to Hülchrath Castle in the EBIDAT , the scientific database of the European Burgeninstitut
• Schloss Hülchrath in the Burgerbe blog

Item Details and Notes

1. Hanns Ott: Rhenish water castles. History, forms, functions . Weidlich, Würzburg 1984, ISBN 3-8035-1239-5 , p 146.
2. Brief description of the monument authority on limburg-bernd.de , accessed on 4 July 2014.
3. Entry of Karin Striewe to Hülchrath Castle in the EBIDAT , the scientific database of the European Burgeninstitut
4. C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 99.
5. C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 100.
6. J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss castle guide Niederrhein , 2001, p. 78.
7. J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss Castle Guide Niederrhein , 2001, p. 79.
8. G. Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume 1: Rhineland . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1967, p. 496.
9. Walther Zimmermann, Friedrich von Klocke (ed.): North Rhine-Westphalia (= Handbook of Historical Sites of Germany, Volume 3). Kröner, Stuttgart 1963, p. 306.
10. Theodor Joseph Lacomblet : document book for the history of the Lower Rhine . Volume 2. Wolf book printing, Dusseldorf 1846, No. 1011 ( digitized ).
11. Hermann Aubin (ed.): The Weistümer the Electorate of Cologne. Volume 1: Amt Hülchrath . Reprint of the 1913 issue. Droste, Dusseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-7700-7593-5 , p. 309.
12. According to C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 101. According to other sources, the purchase price was 30,000 pounds of silver or 30,000 guilders.
13. C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 101.
14. C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 102.
15. A Corneel Voigt , Stefan Frankewitz : Flight over the Rhineland . Pomp, Bottrop / Essen 1996, ISBN 3-89355-138-7 , p. 28.
16. C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 457, note 32.
17. Friedrich Everhard von Mering : History of castles, manors, abbeys and monasteries in the Rhineland and the provinces of Jülich, Cleve, Berg and Westphalia . Volume 7. Lengfeld, Cologne 1844, p. 114 ( digitized ).
18. C. Wiltsch: Neukirchen-Hülchrath , 2006, p. 103.
19. Ludger Fischer : The most beautiful castles and castles on the Lower Rhine . 1st edition. Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1326-1 , p 36.
20. B. and W. Janssen: castles, palaces and court festivals in the circle Neuss , 1980, p. 129.
21. P. Clemen: The monuments of Grevenbroich , 1897, p. 44.
22. G. Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume 1: Rhineland , 2006, p. 444.
23. Heinrich Hubert Giersberg: History of the parishes of the deanery Grevenbroich (= history of the parishes of the archdiocese of Cologne, volume 12). Bachem, Cologne 1883 ( online ).
24. Wilhelm Janssen, Small Rhenish History, Dusseldorf 1997, pp. 261-264.
25. G. Spohr, E. Beuthner: How nice to dream here. Castles on the Lower Rhine , 2001, p. 47.
26. In the literature, these two different details can be found throughout.
27. Käthe Maas-Krickelberg: Hülchrath Castle . In: Bergisch-Jülich history sheets. Monthly magazine of the Bergisch History Association for the Duchies of Berg and Jülich . 6, no. 6, 1929, p. 118.
28. Chronicle of the castle on schlosshuelchrath.com ( Memento of 4 March 2016 in the Internet Archive )
29. Volker Koop: Himmler's last contingent. The NS organization "werewolf" . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar 2008, ISBN 9783412201913 , p. 128 ( digitized ).
30. J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss Castle Guide Niederrhein , 2001, p. 80.
31. H. Kisky: Hülchrath , 1964, p. 6.
32. J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss Castle Guide Lower Rhine , 2001, p. 81.
33. P. Clemen: The monuments of the district Grevenbroich , 1897, p. 50.
34. Ferdinand GB Fischer : Excursion destinations on the Lower Rhine. Beautiful castles, palaces and moths from the Alps to Zons. Pomp, Bottrop / Essen 1998, ISBN 3-89355-152-2 , p. 28.
35. Karl Emerich Krämer : From Brühl to Kranenburg. Castles, palaces, gates and towers that can be visited . Mercator, Duisburg 1979, ISBN 3-87463-074-9 , p 34.
36. W. Meyer: German castles, palaces and fortresses , Volume 1, 2002, p. 138.
37. G. Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume 1: Rhineland , 2006, p. 445.
38. P. Clemen: The art monuments of the district Grevenbroich , 1897, p. 49.
39. Harald Herzog: Rhenish palace buildings in the 19th century (= Landeskonservator Rheinland, Arbeitshefte, Volume 37). Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-7927-0585-0 , p 66.
40. P. Clemen: The art monuments of the district Grevenbroich , 1897, p. 48.

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Part 1 of 2

New Order (Nazism) [die Neuordnung Europas (the New Order of Europe)] [Neurop] [Neu Europa]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/23/18

"New Order (political system)" redirects here. For other political organizations called "New Order", see New Order (disambiguation) § Politics.

At the beginning of 1945 Sassen was asked to participate in a Werewolf organisation in case the allied forces overran the German army in the Netherlands. He became the leader of Neurop (Neu Europa). The group was to pass on military intelligence on allied troop movements and to commit sabotage.

-- Willem Sassen, by Wikipedia

The New Order (German: Neuordnung), or the New Order of Europe (German: Neuordnung Europas), was the political order which Nazi Germany wanted to impose on the conquered areas under its dominion. The establishment of the New Order had already begun long before the start of World War II, but was publicly proclaimed by Adolf Hitler in 1941:

The year 1941 will be, I am convinced, the historical year of a great European New Order.[1]

Among other things, it entailed the creation of a pan-German racial state structured according to Nazi ideology to ensure the supremacy of an Aryan-Nordic master race, massive territorial expansion into Central and Eastern Europe through its colonization with German settlers, the physical annihilation of the Jews, the Slavs (especially Poles and Serbs), Roma ("gypsies") and others considered to be "unworthy of life" and the extermination, expulsion or enslavement of most of the Slavic peoples and others regarded as "racially inferior".[2] Nazi Germany's desire for aggressive territorial expansionism was one of the most important causes of World War II.

Historians are still divided as to its ultimate goals, some believing that it was to be limited to Nazi German domination of Europe, while others maintain that it was a springboard for eventual world conquest and the establishment of a world government under German control.[3]

The Führer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world.

— Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda and close associate of Hitler, 8 May 1943[4]

Origin of the term


The New Order in Europe: German and other Axis conquests in Europe during World War II.

The term Neuordnung originally had a different and more limited meaning than in its present usage. It is typically translated as New Order, but a more correct translation would actually be more akin to reorganisation. When it was used in Germany during the Third Reich-era it referred specifically to the Nazis' desire to essentially redraw the contemporary state borders within Europe, thereby changing the then-existing geopolitical structures. In the same sense it has also been used now and in the past to denote similar re-orderings of the international political order such as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Vienna Congress in 1815, and the Allied victory in 1945. The complete phrase which was used by the Nazi establishment was actually die Neuordnung Europas (the New Order of Europe), for which Neuordnung was merely a shorthand.

According to the Nazi government this goal was pursued by Germany to secure a fair rearrangement of territory for the common benefit of a new, economically integrated Europe,[5] which in Nazi terminology meant the continent of Europe with the exclusion of the "Asiatic" Soviet Union.[6] Nazi racial views regarded the "Judeo-Bolshevist" Soviet state both as a criminal institution which needed to be destroyed as well as a barbarian place as yet lacking any actual culture that would give it a "European" character.[7] Neuordnung was therefore hardly ever used in reference to Soviet Russia since theoretically there weren't even any actual structures that could be re-organized along National Socialist designs.

The actual objective was to ensure a state of total post-war continental hegemony for Nazi Germany.[8] This was to be achieved by the expansion of the territorial base of the German state itself, combined with the political and economic subjugation of the rest of Europe to Germany. Eventual extensions of the project to areas beyond Europe as well as on an ultimately global scale were anticipated for the future period in which Germany would have secured unchallenged control over her own continent first, but Neuordnung did not carry this extra-European meaning at the time.

Through its wide use in Nazi propaganda it quickly gained coinage in Western media. In English-language academic circles especially it eventually carried a much more inclusive definition, and became increasingly known as a term used to refer to all the foreign and domestic politics and war aims of the Nazi German state as well as its dictatorial leader Adolf Hitler. It therefore holds approximately the same connotations as the term co-prosperity sphere did in Japanese circles in reference to their planned imperial domain. Nowadays it is most commonly used to refer to all the post-war planning and policies both in and outside of Europe that the Nazi government expected to implement after an anticipated victory for Germany and the other Axis powers in World War II.

Ideological background

Racialist doctrine
Further information: Master race

The Nazis claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy of human race; the "master race" was said to be the most pure stock of the Aryan race, which was narrowly defined by the Nazis as being identical with the Nordic race, followed by other sub-races of the Aryan race.[9] The Nazis said that since Western civilization, created and maintained they asserted mostly by Nordics, was obviously superior to other civilizations, then the "Nordic" peoples were superior to all other races and thus, the Nazis believed, they were entitled to world domination. This concept is known as Nordicism.[10]

Geopolitical strategy
Further information: Geopolitik § Hitler's geostrategy

Hitler’s ideas about eastward expansion that he promulgated in Mein Kampf were greatly influenced during his 1924 imprisonment by his contact with his geopolitical mentor Karl Haushofer.[11] One of Haushofer’s primary geopolitical concepts was the necessity for Germany to get control of the Eurasian Heartland in order for Germany to attain eventual world domination.[12]

Anticipated territorial extent of Nazi imperialism
Further information: Nazi Foreign Policy (debate)

In a subsequently published speech given at Erlangen University in November 1930 Hitler explained to his audience that no other people had more of a right to fight for and attain "control" of the globe (Weltherrschaft, i.e. "world leadership", "world rule") than the Germans. He realized that this extremely ambitious goal could never be achieved without an enormous amount of fighting.[13] Hitler had alluded to future German world dominance even earlier in his political career. In a letter written by Rudolf Hess to Walter Hewel in 1927, Hess paraphrases 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. And if no other way is open to them, the lower races will have to restrict themselves accordingly".[14]

Heinrich Himmler discussed the territorial aspirations of Germany during his first Posen speech in 1943. He commented on the goals of the warring nations involved in the conflict, and stated that Germany was fighting for new territories and a global power status:[15]

[T]he Seven Years' War brought Prussia's confirmation as a great European power. That war was carried on for seven years to ensure that the already conquered province of Silesia would remain part of Prussia. This war will ensure that everything annexed to the German Reich, to Greater Germany, and then to the Germanic Reich in the years since 1938, will remain ours. This war is being carried on to keep the path to the East open; so that Germany may be a world power; to found the Germanic World Empire (Germanisches Weltreich).

Implementation in Europe
See also: European Confederation


Polish resistance satirical poster - "New European Order" (German: Die Neuordnung Europas) - Polish reaction to Hitler's plans to establish a "new order" in Europe, under the domination of Nazi Germany. In the middle: Adolf Hitler; background: imprisoned European nations (France, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Greece, Poland, Hungary)

Military campaigns in Poland and Western Europe

The initial phase of the establishment of the New Order was:

• First, the signing of the German–Soviet non-aggression agreement on 23 August 1939 prior to the invasion of Poland to secure the new eastern border with the Soviet Union, prevent the emergence of a two-front war, and to circumvent a shortage of raw materials due to an expected British naval blockade.

• Second, the Blitzkrieg attacks in northern and western Europe (Operation Weserübungand the Battle of France respectively) to neutralize opposition from the west. This resulted in the conquest of Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, all of which were under German rule by the early summer of 1940.

Had Britain succumbed to Germany, the political re-ordering of Western Europe would have been accomplished. There was to be no post-war general peace conference in the manner of the one held in Paris after the First World War, merely bilateral negotiations between Germany and her defeated enemies.[16] All still existing international organizations such as the International Labour Organization were to be dismantled or replaced by German-controlled equivalents. According to captured German documents, the commander-in-chief of the German Army, Walther von Brauchitsch, directed that "The able-bodied male population between the ages of 17 and 45 will, unless the local situation calls for an exceptional ruling, be interned and dispatched to the Continent." This represented about 25% of the surviving population. The United Kingdom was then to be plundered for anything of financial, military, industrial or cultural value,[17] and the remaining population terrorised. Civilian hostages would be taken, and the death penalty immediately imposed for any acts of resistance.[18]

The deported male population would have most likely been used as industrial slave labour in areas of the Reich such as the factories and mines of the Ruhr and Upper Silesia. Although they may have been treated less brutally than slaves from the East (whom the Nazis regarded as sub-humans, fit only to be worked to death), working and living conditions would still have been severe.[19]

In late February 1943 Otto Bräutigam of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories claimed he had the opportunity to read a personal report by General Eduard Wagner about a discussion with Heinrich Himmler, in which Himmler had expressed the intention to kill about 80% of the populations of France and England by special forces of the SS after the German victory.[20] In an unrelated event, Hitler had on one occasion called the English lower classes, descendants of Anglo-Saxons—a Germanic people, "racially inferior".[21]

By annexing large territories in northeastern France, Hitler hoped to marginalize the country to prevent any further continental challenges to Germany's hegemony.[22] Likewise, the Latin nations of Western and Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain and Italy) were to be eventually brought into a state of total German dependency and control.[22]

Establishment of a Greater Germanic Reich
Further information: Greater Germanic Reich


Boundaries of the planned "Greater Germanic Reich" based on various, only partially systematised target projections (e.g. Generalplan Ost) from state administration and SS leadership sources.[23]

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).[24] 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 of Gleichschaltung (synchronization). The ultimate intent of this was to eradicate all traces of national rather than racial consciousness, although their native languages were to remain in existence.[25][26]

Establishment of German domination in Southeastern Europe
Further information: Nazi rule over the Danube River

Immediately prior to Germany's invasion of Soviet Russia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia (including the German-dominated autonomous area of Banat) were already satellites of Nazi Germany. Montenegro was a satellite of Italy while Albania had been annexed by Italy. Greece was under direct German-Italian military occupation because of the growing resistance movement. Although technically in the Italian sphere of influence, Croatia was in reality a condominium puppet state of the two Axis powers, with Italy controlling the southwestern half, and Germany the northeastern half. Hitler observed that permanent German bases might be established in Belgrade (possibly to be renamed to Prinz-Eugen-Stadt) and Thessaloniki.[27]

Conquest of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe
Further information: A-A line, The Ural mountains in Nazi planning, and Hunger Plan

“And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future. If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.”

— Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf on Lebensraum in the East.[28]

Offensive plan for Operation Barbarossa.

Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf argued in the chapter "Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy" that the Germans needed Lebensraum 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".[29] His earlier invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland can be directly resonate from his desire of Lebensraum in Mein Kampf.

Implementation of the long term plan for the New Order was begun on June 22, 1941 with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR. 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 of European Russia, outlined for the Nazi elite in the Generalplan Ost ("General Plan for the East").[30] Nazi party philosopher Alfred Rosenberg (who, incidentally, protested against the inhumane policy shown toward the Slavs[31]) was the Minister for the Eastern Territories, the person nominally in charge of the project, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was assigned to implement the General Plan for the East which detailed the enslavement, expulsion, and extermination of the Baltic peoples and Slavic peoples.

Furthermore, Hitler hoped to turn Germany into a total blockade-proof autarky by exploiting the vast resources lying in Soviet territories: Ukraine was to provide grain, vegetable oil, fodder, iron ore, nickel, manganese, coal, molybdenum; Crimea natural rubber, citrus fruit and cotton; the Black Sea fish, and the Caucasus crude oil.[32]

By 1942 the quasi-colonial regimes called the General Gouvernment in Poland, the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltic states and Belarus, and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine in the Ukraine had been established. Two more administrative divisions were envisaged: a Reichskommissariat Moskowien that would include the Moscow metropolitan area and vast tracts of European Russia, and a Reichskommissariat Kaukasus in the Caucasus. This policy was accompanied by the annihilation of the entire Jewish population (the Final 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" were expected to father at least seven children.[33]

German women were encouraged to have as many children as possible to populate the newly acquired Eastern territories. To encourage this fertility policy, the lebensborn program was expanded and the state decoration known as the Gold 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 by Martin Bormann and Himmler to introduce new marriage legislation to facilitate population growth, which would have allowed decorated war heroes to marry an additional wife.[34] Himmler envisaged a German population of 300,000,000 by 2000.

Rosenberg viewed that the political goal of Operation Barbarossa was 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.[35] The continued existence of Russia as a potential instigator of Pan-Slavism and its suggestive power over other Slavic peoples in the fight between "Germandom" and "Slavism" was seen as a major threat.[36] This was to be solved by exploiting ethnic centrifugal forces and limiting the influence of "Greater Russiandom" (Großrussentum) by promoting segmentation in the manner of divide and conquer.

In a memorandum sent to Rosenberg in March 1942, Nazi anthropologist Otto Reche argued for the disappearance of 'Russia' both as an ethnic and political concept, and the promotion of a new plethora of ethnicities based on medieval Slavic tribes such as the Vyatichs and Severians.[36] Even White Ruthenia, and in particular the Ukraine ("in its present extent") he deemed to be dangerously large.[36]

The Vyatichs or more properly Vyatichi or Viatichi (Russian: вя́тичи) were a tribe of Early East Slavs who inhabited a part of the Oka basin. The Primary Chronicle names a certain tribal leader Vyatko as the forefather of the tribe. The Vyatichi were mainly engaged in farming and cattle-breeding. Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the Vyatichi paid tribute to the Khazars and later Kievan princes.

-- Vyatichi, by Wikipedia

The Severians or Severyans or Siverians (Russian: Северяне; Ukrainian: Сiверяни; Belarusian: Севяране; Bulgarian: Сeверяни) were a tribe or tribal union of early East Slavs occupying areas to the east of the middle Dnieper river, and Danube. They are mentioned by the Bavarian Geographer (9th century), Emperor Constantine VII (956-959), by Khazars ruler Joseph (c. 955), and in the Primary Chronicle (1113).

The etymology of the name of Severians is uncertain. One theory propose derivation from the Slavic word for "north" (sěver; men of the north[1])...

The other Severians had as neighbours the Radimichs, Krivichs and Vyatichs in the north, and the Derevlians and Polianians tribes in the west. Those tribes along the Polianians and the Viatichians in 859 had to pay tribute to the Khazars in the form of squirrel and beaver skin. This suggests they lived in or near the north forests.

-- Severians, by Wikipedia

Heinrich Himmler had already advocated for such a general policy towards Eastern Europe in 1940.[37] 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 in German-occupied Europe as possible, including Ukrainians, "White Russians" (Belarusians), Gorals (see Goralenvolk), Lemkos, and Kashubians and to find all "racially valuable" people and assimilate them in Germany.[37] The Eastern Ministry responded that Reche'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.[36] 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.[36] A memo date written by Erhard Wetzel from the NSDAP Office of Racial Policy administration, on April 1942 details the splitting up of Reichskommissariat Moskowien into very loosely tied Generalkommissariats.[38] 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.[38] Also, a source of discussion in the Nazi circles was the replacement of the Cyrillic letters with the German alphabet.[39] In July 1944, Himmler ordered Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the RSHA, to begin the exporting of the faith of the Jehovah's Witnesses to the occupied east.[40] Himmler considered the Jehovah's Witnesses of being frugal, hard-working, honest and fanatic in their pacifism, and that these traits were extremely desirable for the suppressed nations in the east[40] — despite some 2,500 and 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses becoming victims of the Holocaust.

A series of "semantic guidelines" published by the Reich Interior Ministry in 1942 declared that it was permissible to use the word 'Russia' only in a reference to the "Petersburg empire" of Peter the Great and its follow-ups until the revolution of 1917.[36] The period from 1300 to Peter the Great (the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Tsardom 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".[36] Furthermore, historic expressions such as Little Russia (Ukraine), White Russia (Belarus/White Ruthenia), Russian Sea (for the Black Sea), and Russian Asia (for Siberia and Central Asia) were to be absolutely avoided as terminology of the "Muscovite imperialism".[36] "Tatars" was described as a pejorative Russian term for the Volga, Crimean, and Azerbaijan Turks which was preferably to be avoided, and respectively replaced with the concepts "Idel (Volga)-Uralian", "Crimean Turks", and Azerbaijanis.[36]

Re-settlement efforts
Further information: Heim ins Reich and Wehrbauer


A German map produced after the defeat of Poland in 1939 calling for German-descendant settlers in eastern Europe to return to the Warthegau

By 1942, Hitler's empire encompassed much of Europe, but the territories annexed lacked population desired by the Nazis.[41] After Germany had acquired her Lebensraum, she now needed to populate these lands according to Nazi ideology and racial principles.[41] This was to be accomplished before the end of the war by a "reordering of ethnographical relations".[41] 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 also Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, VoMi)[41] This position authorized Himmler to repatriate ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) living abroad to occupied Poland.[41] Himmler's jurisdiction as the guardian of the Volksdeutsche re-settlement efforts was increased to other occupied territories to be Germanized 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.[42] The great majority of Himmler's Volksdeutsche were acquired from the Soviet sphere of interest under the German–Soviet "population exchange" treaty.[42]


Gauleiter Greiser greeting the millionth German of Reichsgau Wartheland, 1944

At the end of 1942 a total of 629,000 Volksdeutsche had been re-settled, and preparations for the transfer of 393,000 others were underway.[42] The long-term goal of the VoMi was the resettlement of a further 5.4 million Volksdeutsche, mainly from Transylvania, Banat, France, Hungary and Romania.[42] The immigrants were classified either as racially or politically unreliable (settled in Altreich), of high quality (settled in the annexed eastern territories) or suitable for transit camps.[42] Himmler encountered considerable difficulties with the Volksdeutsche of France and Luxembourg, who often wished to retain their former status as citizens of their respective countries.[42]

Settlement/resettlement figures on 1 June 1944[43]

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
Northern Bukovina / 43,670 / 24,203
Southern Bukovina / 52,149 / 40,804
Dobruja / 15,454 / 11,812
Romania, Regat / 10,115 / 1,129
Gottschee and Ljubljana / 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

Spain and Portugal

Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco contemplated joining the war on the German side. The Spanish Falangists made numerous border claims. Franco claimed French Basque departments, Catalan-speaking Roussillon, Cerdagne and Andorra.[44] Spain also wanted to reclaim Gibraltar from the United Kingdom because of the symbolic and strategic value. Franco also called for the reunification of Morocco as a Spanish protectorate, the annexation of the Oran district from French Algeria and large-scale expansion of Spanish Guinea. This last project was especially unfeasible because it overlapped German territorial ambition to reclaim German Cameroon and Spain would most likely be forced to give up Guinea entirely.[45] Spain also sought federation with Portugal on common cultural and historical grounds (such as the Iberian Union).[46]

After the Spanish refusal to join the war, Spain and Portugal were expected to become puppet states. They were to turn over coastal cities and islands in the Atlantic to Germany as part of the Atlantic Wall and to serve as German naval facilities. Portugal was to cede Portuguese Mozambique and Portuguese Angola as part of the intended Mittelafrika colonial project.[47]

Plans for other parts of the world outside Europe
Further information: Nazi foreign policy debate

Plans for an African colonial domain
Further information: NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy and Reichskolonialbund


Approximate location of Mittelafrika in medium blue and dark blue, with pre-World War I German colonies in dark blue. Possible inclusions (Portuguese colonies) appear in light blue.

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's former 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.[48]

Hitler's overall intentions for the future organization of Africa divided the continent into three overall. The northern third was to be assigned to its Italian ally, while the central part would fall under German rule. The remaining southern sector would be controlled by a pro-Nazi Afrikaner state built on racial grounds.[48] In early 1940 Foreign Minister Ribbentrop 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.[49] South Africa was to be compensated by the territorial acquisitions of the British protectorates of Swaziland, Basutoland and Bechuanaland and the colony of Southern Rhodesia.[49] On the division of French African colonies between the Spanish and Italian governments Hitler refused to provide any official promises during the war, however, fearful of losing the support of Vichy France.

In 1940 the general staff of the Kriegsmarine (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) in sub-Saharan Africa, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.[50] The proposed domain was supposed to fulfill the long-sought territorial German goal of Mittelafrika, 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.

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.

The area included all pre-1914 German colonial territories in Africa, as well as additional parts of the French, Belgian and British colonial holdings in Africa. These included the French and Belgian Congos, Northern and Southern Rhodesia (the latter going perhaps to South Africa), Nyasaland, southern Kenya with Nairobi (northern Kenya was to be given to Italy), Uganda, Gabon, Ubangui-Chari, Nigeria, Dahomey, the Gold Coast, Zanzibar, nearly all of Niger and Chad, as well as the naval bases of Dakar and Bathurst.[51]

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 from Trondheim in Norway all the way down to the Belgian Congo, as well as many off-lying islands such as Cape Verde and the Azores. A less extensive but similar initiative was intended for the east coast of Africa.

Division of Asia between the Axis powers
Further information: Axis power negotiations on the division of Asia during World War II


The Yenisei River in Siberia was the agreed division point of Eurasia between Japan and Nazi Germany[52]

In 1942, a secret diplomatic conference was held between Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire in which they agreed to divide Asia along a line that followed the Yenisei River to the border of China, and then along the border of China and the Soviet Union, the northern and western borders of Afghanistan, and the border between Iran and British India (which included what is now Pakistan).[52] This treaty, of which a draft was presented to the Germans by ambassador Hiroshi Ōshima, was rejected by the German Foreign Office and the Navy, as it allocated India to Japan and limited the Kriegsmarine's operations in the Indian Ocean.[53] Hitler, however, found the treaty acceptable, leading to its signing on 18 January 1942.[53]

The treaty proved to be detrimental for Axis strategic cooperation in the Indian Ocean, as crossing the boundary line required tedious prior consultation.[53] This made any joint German-Japanese offensive against British positions in the Middle East impossible.[53] Japanese operations against Allied shipping lines during the Indian Ocean raid had been highly successful along with the attack against Ceylon, but these were not followed due to the non-existent German-Japanese strategic cooperation.[54] The Germans vigorously maintained watch on the demarcation line, and objected to any Japanese incursion to the "German sphere" of the Axis-divided world.[54] Thus the Japanese were forced to cancel a planned massive attack against Madagascar, as the island had been delegated to Germany in the treaty.[54]

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Part 2 of 2

Concession of Oceania to Japan
Further information: Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

Germany's former colonial possessions in the Pacific (German New Guinea and German Samoa), which had been allocated to Japan after World War I as C-Class Mandates according to the Treaty of Versailles, were to be sold to Japan (both Weimar and Nazi-era Germany never relinquished claims to their pre-war colonial territories) at least temporarily in the interest of the Tripartite Pact, its alliance with that country.[55] Australia and New Zealand were designated as future Japanese territories, although Hitler lamented his belief that the white race would disappear from those regions.[56] He nevertheless made it clear to his officials that "the descendants of the convicts in Australia" were not Germany's concern and that their lands would be colonized by Japanese settlers in the immediate future, an opinion also shared by Joseph Goebbels, who expressed his conviction in his diary that the Japanese had always desired "the fifth continent" for emigration purposes.[57] In his only recorded lengthy discussion on the subject he argued that its people still lived in trees and had not yet learned to walk upright.[58] 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.[56][59]

Middle East and Central Asia
Further information: Führer Directive No. 30 and Fritz Grobba


Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Adolf Hitler, December 1941

After the projected fall of the USSR, Hitler planned to intensify the war in the Mediterranean.[60] The OKW [Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, "High Command of the Armed Forces," was the High Command of the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of Nazi Germany during World War II] produced studies concerning an attack against the Suez Canal through Turkey, an offensive towards Baghdad-Basra from the Caucasus (most of which was already under German occupation as a result of Fall Blau) in support of revolting Arab nationalists, and operations in Afghanistan and Iran directed against British India.[61] Hitler did not envision German colonization of the region, and was most likely to allow Italian dominance at least over the Levant.[62][63][64] The Jews of the Middle East were to be murdered, as Hitler had promised to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in November 1941 (see Einsatzgruppe Egypt).[63]

Turkey was favoured as a potential ally by Hitler because of its important strategic location on the boundaries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as its extensive history as a state hostile against the Russian Empire and the later Soviet Union.[65] To assure that Germany wanted to work with them on a long-range basis, the Turks were guaranteed an equal status in the German-dominated order, and were promised a number of territories which they might desire for reasons of security. These encompassed Edirne (Adrianople) and an expansion of Turkish frontiers at the expense of Greece, the creation of buffer states in the Caucasus under Turkish influence, a revision of the Turkish-Syrian frontier (the Baghdad Railway and the State of Aleppo) and the Turkish-Iraqi frontier (the Mosul region), as well as a settlement of "the Aegean question" to provide Turkey with suitable protection against encroachments from Italy.[65] The Black Sea (which Hitler derided as "a mere frog-pond")[66] 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 the Soviet Black Sea Fleet.[65] Crimea (tentatively dubbed Gotenland 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.[67]

Allied-occupied Iran was also to be drawn into the Axis camp, possibly by the means of an uprising.[61] The possibility of Iran as an anti-Soviet bastion was already considered in the 1930s, and coincided with Hitler's declaration of Iran as an "Aryan state" (the name Iran literally means "homeland of the Aryans" in Persian). 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".[68] However the Iranians had always called their country "Iran", a name that predated the rise of Nazi Germany by more than a thousand years.[69] On the eve of World War II Germany was already Iran's single-biggest trading partner, followed by the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States.[68]

During pre-war diplomatic maneuvers, the NSDAP Foreign Affairs Office took special interest in Afghanistan, believing that the German Empire had failed to exploit the country diplomatically during the First World War despite the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition.[70] 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.[70] Despite the NSDAP Foreign Office's good relations with the Afghan government, the Foreign Ministry under Ribbentrop favored overthrowing the current government and restoration of the rule of Amānullāh Khān, who had been living in exile since 1929.[71] Hitler eventually came to support Rosenberg's office on this issue.[71]After the German-French armistice of 1940, the Kabul government tried to question Berlin on German plans concerning the future of Afghanistan.[72] Of special interest were the post-war borders of the country - the Afghan government hoped to see the liberation of 15 million ethnic Afghans living in British India, and the securing of the northern Afghan border so that an expansion towards the Indian Ocean became possible (See Pashtunistan).[72] As the Nazi–Soviet Axis talks of October–November were then underway (and the possible expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence in south-central Asia and India was on the table), Berlin was reluctant to give any binding offers to Kabul.[73]

The Third Saudi State under Ibn Saud was seen as a natural ally, and was to be given territorial concessions in south-west Arabia and Transjordan.[74] Also, a post-war satellite Greater Arab Union was discussed.[62]

Although initially intending to concede Italy control of the region, after that country had 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 National Socialist Germany, as opposed to the "treacherous" Italians.[75] On 17 February 1945 in particular he explained to his entourage his regrets that Germany's prior alliance with its southern neighbour had prevented her from pursuing a more revolutionary policy towards the Arab world, which would have also allowed its exit from the British and French spheres of influence in the area:[75]

In the nature of things, this territory was becoming an Italian preserve and it was as such that the 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.

Hitler's plans for India
Further information: Indische Legion and Azad Hind

Hitler's views on India were disparaging.[76] He considered the British colonial rule of the subcontinent as an exemplary one and intended the German rule in the occupied East to resemble it.[76] Hitler thought little of the Indian independence movement, declaring the freedom fighters to be racially inferior "Asiatic jugglers".[76] As early as 1930 he spoke of the Indian freedom movement as the rebellion of the "lower Indian race against the superior English Nordic race", and that the British were free to deal with any subversive Indian activists as they liked.[77] In 1937 he told the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that the British should "shoot Gandhi, and if this doesn't suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of the Congress, and if that doesn't suffice shoot 200, and so on, as you make it clear that you mean business."[77] During the same discussion Hitler reportedly told Halifax that one of his favorite films was The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, because it depicted a handful of "superior race" Britons holding sway over an entire continent.[78]

Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg stated that although the Vedic culture was Aryan in origin, any Nordic blood had long since been lost due to racial mixing.[76] Like Hitler, he viewed the British rule in India as being desirable.[76] Asit Krishna Mukherji, with support of the German consulate, published The New Mercury, a National Socialist 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."[76] Savitri Devi, who would later marry him, shared his beliefs "in the pan Aryan revival of India", as well as in Hindu nationalism, and once World War II started, both "undertook clandestine war work on behalf of the Axis powers in Calcutta."[76]

During the first years of the war in Europe, as Hitler sought to reach an arrangement with Britain, 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.[76] As Britain had rejected German peace offers, 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 Britain to come to terms.[60] A week later the Afghanistan operation was the subject of a discussion between head of the Army General Staff Franz Halder, Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres Walter von Brauchitsch and chief of the Operationsabteilung OKH Adolf Heusinger.[79] In an assessment produced on 7 April 1941, Halder estimated that the operation would require 17 divisions and one separate regiment.[79] A Special Bureau for India was created with these goals in mind.


The division of India into two parts administered by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan respectively

Indian revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose escaped from India on 17 January 1941 and arrived in Berlin via Moscow. There he proposed organizing an Indian national government in exile and urged the Axis to declare their support for the Indian cause.[80] He eventually managed to extract such promises from Japan after the Fall of Singapore and later on from Italy as well, but the Germans refused.[77] Bose was granted an audience with Benito Mussolini, but Hitler initially refused to see him, although he did acquire access to Joachim von Ribbentrop after much difficulty.[77] The German Foreign Ministry was sceptical of any such endeavours, 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.[81] These propaganda measures included anti-Raj radio broadcasts and the recruitment of Indian prisoners of war for the "Free India Legion".[82] Bose eventually met with Hitler on 29 May 1942.[83] During the discussion, which mostly consisted of Hitler monologuing to Bose,[77] Hitler expressed his scepticism for India's readiness for a rebellion against the Raj, and his fears of a Soviet takeover of India.[83] 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,[77] although he did promise to financially support Bose and help relocate him to the Far East.[83] Bose later described the encounter by stating that it was impossible to get Hitler involved in any serious political discussion.[77]

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, while the rest of British India, along with Afghanistan, was marked for Japan.[84][85]

Hitler's plans for North America
Further information: American Theater (World War II) § German operations, Amerika Bomber, Consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Zweites Buch, and If Day

Before completing the expected German conquest of Europe, the Nazi leadership hoped to keep the United States out of the war.[86] In an interview with Life 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 was a lie promoted by American big business hoping to gain from war profiteering.[87]

American pro-Nazi movements such as the Friends of the New Germany and the German-American Bund played no role in Hitler's plans for the country, and received no financial or verbal support from Germany after 1935.[88] However, certain Native American advocate groups, such as the fascist-leaning American Indian Federation, were to be used to undermine the Roosevelt administration from within by means of propaganda.[89][90] In addition, in an effort to gain Native American support, the Nazis classified the Sioux, and by extension all Native Americans, to be Aryans,[89] a theory echoed in the sympathetic portrayal of the Natives in German westerns of the 1930s such as Der Kaiser von Kalifornien. Nazi propagandists went as far as declaring that Germany would return expropriated land to the Indians, while Goebbels predicted they possessed little loyalty to America and would rather rebel than fight against Germany.[89] As a boy, Hitler had been an enthusiastic reader of Karl May westerns[9] and he told Albert Speer that he still turned to them for inspiration as an adult when he was in a tight spot;[91] the Karl May westerns contained highly sympathetic portrayals of American Indians.

Approximately nine months before the United States joined the Allies, U.S. President Franklin 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 all elective 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.[92]

Hitler actually held the American society in contempt, stating that the United States (which he consistently referred to as the "American Union") was "half Judaized, and the other half Negrified"[93] and that "in so far as there are any decent people in America, they are all of German origin".[94] As early as 1928, he had maintained that National Socialist Germany must prepare for the ultimate struggle against the USA for hegemony.[95] In mid-late 1941, as Axis victory against the USSR and Britain seemed certain, Hitler began planning an enormous extension of the Kriegsmarine, 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's Plan Z.[96] Historian Gerhard L. Weinberg stated that this super-fleet was intended against the Western Hemisphere.[96] Hitler also considered the occupation of the Portuguese Azores, Cape Verde and Madeira and the Spanish Canary islands to deny the British a staging ground for military actions against Nazi-controlled Europe, and also to gain Atlantic naval bases and military airfields for operations against North America.[97][98] Hitler desired to use the islands to "deploy long-range bombers against American cities from the Azores", via a plan that actually arrived on Hermann Göring's RLM office desks in the spring of 1942 for the design competition concerning such an aircraft.[99] In July 1941, Hitler approached Japanese ambassador Ōshima with an offer to wage a joint struggle against the USA[100]—Japan's own Project Z aircraft design program was one possible manner in which such a goal could be accomplished, all during the timeframe that the USAAC had itself, on April 11, 1941, first proposed a competition for airframe designs for the same sort of missions against the Axis forces, the Northrop XB-35 and the Convair B-36, flying directly from North American soil to attack Nazi Germany.

In this final battle for world domination, Hitler expected a defeated Britain to eventually support the Axis forces with its powerful navy.[98] 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."[101] 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".[102]

The actual physical conquest of the United States was unlikely, however,[103] and the future disposition of American territories remained cloudy in Hitler's mind.[104] 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 American thought, such as the opening text from the second film in Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, illustrating one American viewpoint of what Hitler could have thought on such matters while viewing the crowds at the 1934 Nuremberg rally[105]—with a Nazi-dominated Old World fighting for global dominance against the New World, in which Germany would attain leadership of the world rather than establish direct control over it.[106] 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 to his own opinions towards the United States from 1928 in his unpublished volume, Zweites Buch[107]—Hitler considered the United States a negligible political factor in the world, while Canada interested him even less.[108] He politically grouped the country together with the United States in an American-dominated North America, and considered it equally as "materialistic, racially bastardized, and decadent" as its southern neighbour.[108] 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,[109] and that the Canadians would be quick to welcome such a move.[108]

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.[108] The country was noted for its abundance of natural resources, and because of its great geographic size coupled with a low population density was characterized as "a country without people", in contrast to Germany which was considered "a people without space".[108] In his 1934 travelogue account of Canada, Zwischen USA und dem Pol (Between the USA and the North Pole), German journalist Colin Ross described Canadian society as artificial because it was composed of many different parts that weren't tied together by either blood or long-standing traditions (highlighting the differences between the French and English Canadians in particular), and that for this reason one could not speak of either a Canadian nation or Volk.[110] As a result the country's political system was also considered mechanic 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".[111]

Plans for economic domination in South America

Neither Hitler nor any other major Nazi leader showed much interest towards South America, except as a warning example of "racial mixing".[112] However, the NSDAP/AO was active in various South American countries (notably among German Brazilians and German Argentines), and trade relations between Germany and the South American countries were seen as of great importance.[113] During 1933–1941, the Nazi aim in South America was to achieve economic hegemony by expanding trade at the expense of the Western Powers.[114] Hitler also believed that German-dominated Europe would displace the United States as the principal trading partner of the continent.[115] Long-term Nazi hopes for political penetration of the region were placed on the local Fascist movements, such as the Integralists in Brazil and right-wing nationalists in Argentina, combined with the political activation of the German immigrant communities.[116][117] Hitler also had hopes of seeing German immigrants "returning" from the Western Hemisphere to colonize the conquered East.[118] 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.[119]

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 organize it" into five countries under German domination. The speech amazed both the United States and Germany; the latter claimed the map was a forgery. While British 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.[120][121][122]

Future wars against Asia
See also: Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

Although pursuing an alliance based on Realpolitik with Imperial Japan in the battle against the "Western Plutocracies" and Soviet Bolshevism, the Nazi leadership ultimately considered this cooperation only temporary in nature. The racial ideology of Nazism predicted that the fate of human civilization depended on the ultimate triumph of the Germanic-Nordic peoples, and in fact the populous Asian continent was seen as the greatest threat to hegemony of the white race. The Japanese people were characterized as 'culture-bearers', meaning they could make use of the technological and civilizational achievements of the Aryan race and by so doing maintain an advanced society, but could not truly create 'culture' themselves.[123] 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.[124] In early 1942, Hitler is quoted 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."[125]

In July 1941, as plans were being laid out for post-Barbarossa military operations, the Wehrmacht's naval top-level command, the Oberkommando der Marine was not ready to exclude the possibility of a war between Germany and Japan.[126] In 1942, NSDAP official Erhard 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".[127] Wetzel further pondered on Germany's choices on the population policies in occupied Russia: if the Russians were restricted to having as few children as possible in the interest of German colonization, this would further "weaken the white race in view of the dangers of Asia".[127]

As the Japanese were conquering one European colonial territory after another in Asia and Oceania, and seemingly poised to take over Australia and New Zealand as well, Hitler further believed that the white race would disappear altogether from these regions, which he viewed as a turning point in history.[128] He was relieved that Japan had entered the war on Germany's side, however, as he had long hoped to use that country as a strategic counterweight against the United States, but also because Japanese hegemony in East Asia and the Pacific would guarantee both countries' security against 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 of digestion: we for Russia, they for the Far East".[128]

During his speech at the meeting of SS major-Generals at Posen on 4 October 1943, Heinrich Himmler commented on the 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 with an 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.[129]

Himmler addressed this apocalyptic vision in an earlier speech given to SS generals at the University of Kharkiv, Ukraine in April 1943. He first spoke on the necessity of the war against the USSR and Jewry:

These clashes are the only evolutionary possibility which will enable us one day, now that Fate has given us the Führer Adolf Hitler, to create the Germanic Reich. They are the necessary condition, for our race, and our blood to create for itself and put under cultivation, in the years of peace, (during which we must live and work austerely, frugally and like Spartans), that settlement area in which new blood can breed, as in a botanical garden so to speak. Only by this means can the Continent become a Germanic Continent, capable of daring to embark, in one or two or three or five or ten generations, on the conflict with this Continent of Asia which spews out hordes of humanity.[130]

End of the New Order project


Areas still under German control in March 1945.

After the decisive German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943, Germany was forced onto the defensive and was no longer able to actively pursue implementation of the New Order in the Soviet Union, although the genocide against Jews, Romani, and other minorities continued. Following the subsequent failure of the 1943 summer offensive to regain the territories lost to the Soviets earlier that year, the Wehrmacht was no longer able to mount an effective large-scale counter-attack on the Eastern Front. In a discussion with Joseph Goebbels on 26 October 1943 Hitler opined that Germany should conclude a temporary armistice with the Soviet Union and return to its 1941 border in the east.[131] This would then give Germany the opportunity to defeat the British forces in the west first (no mention was made of United States's part in the Allied alliance) before resuming a new war for Lebensraum against the Soviet Union at a later point in time. Hitler thought that his future successor might have to carry out this later war, as he believed himself to be too old by then.[131]

Late in the war, after the failure of the final Ardennes offensive and the Allied crossing of the Rhine into Germany itself, Hitler hoped that a decisive victory on the Eastern Front might still preserve the Nazi regime, resulting in Operation Spring Awakening.[132] He believed that, with the conclusion of a separate peace-treaty with the Soviet Union, a division of Poland might still be realized and leave Hungary and Croatia (the former still under German occupation at the time, the latter a Croatian fascist puppet-state) under German control.[132] Hitler only acknowledged Germany's imminent defeat mere days prior to his suicide.[133]

See also

• Areas annexed by Nazi Germany
• Greater Germanic Reich, the domain which the Nazis tried to create by merging all the Germanic-populated countries in Europe into one state.
• Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the envisioned Japanese economic equivalent to the New Order and the Greater Germanic Reich.
• A-A line
• Jewish settlement in the Japanese Empire
• SS State of Burgundy
• The Ural Mountains in Nazi planning
• Wehrbauer
• Imperial Italy (fascist), the Fascist Italian project for securing dominion over the Mediterranean area.
• Axis power negotiations on the division of Asia during World War II
• Grossdeutschland
• Drang nach Osten ("The Drive Eastward")
• Lebensraum
• Generalplan Ost
• Lebensborn
• Final solution
• The Holocaust
• European theatre of World War II
• German-occupied Europe
• New world order (international relations theory)
• Posen speeches – In two notable speeches given in October 1943, Himmler details the tasks of the SS in implementing the New Order.
• Hegemony
• Hypothetical Axis victory in World War II

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114. Leitz (2004), pp. 118-119
115. Friedman, Max Paul (2003). Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of South America in World War II. Cambridge University Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-521-82246-7.
116. Historia de las Relaciones Exteriores Argentinas. Las actividades del nazismo en la Argentina. http://www.argentina-rree.com/9/9-027.htm. Retrieved 03/09/2013 (spanish)
117. Weinberg, Gerhard L. (2005). A world at arms:a global history of World War II. Cambridge University Press. p. 506. ISBN 0-521-61826-6.
118. Rich (1974), p. 329.
119. Friedman (2003), p. 46
120. Cull, Nicholas John (1995). Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign against American "Neutrality" in World War II. pp. 170–173. ISBN 0-19-508566-3.
121. "Imperial German Territorial Aspirations - Latin America".
122. "Hitler's amazing map that turned America against the Nazis: A leading novelist's brilliant account of how British spies in the US staged a coup that helped drag Roosevelt to war".
123. Rich, Norman (1973). Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion, 224. W. W. Norton & Company, New York.
124. Weinberg (2005), p. 10.
125. ^Echternkamp, Jörg. ed. Germany and the Second World War Volume IX/I: German Wartime Society 1939–1945: Politicization, Disintegration, and the Struggle for Survival (2008). p. 331
126. Stegemann & Vogel 1995, p. 636.
127. Ben Kiernan (2007), Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10098-1, p. 455
128. Rich (1974), p. 415.
129. [11]
130. [12]
131. Weinberg 2005, p. 35.
132. Weinberg 2005, p. 37.
133. Joachim C. Fest (2005). Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich. Margot Bettauer Dembo.

References

• Stegemann, Bernd; Vogel, Detlef (1995). Germany and the Second World War: The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa, 1939-1941. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822884-8.
Further reading[edit]
• Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich at War (2009) pp 321–402
• Förster, Jürgen (1998). "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation". In Boog, Horst; Förster, Jürgen; Hoffmann, Joachim; Klink, Ernst; Müller, Rolf-Dieter; Ueberschär, Gerd R. The Attack on the Soviet Union. Germany and the Second World War. IV. Translated by McMurry, Dean S.; Osers, Ewald; Willmot, Louise. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Military History Research Office (Germany) ). Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 481–521. ISBN 0-19-822886-4.
• Fritz, Stephen G. Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East (2011)
• Longerich, Peter. Heinrich Himmler: A Life (2012)
• Lund, Joachim. "Denmark and the 'European New Order', 1940-1942," Contemporary European History, (2004) 13#3 pp 305–321,
• Mazower, Mark. Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (2009)
• Mazower, Mark. "Hitler's New Order, 1939-45," Diplomacy and Statecraft (1996) 3#1 pp 29–53,
• Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010)

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Otto Reche
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Accessed: 9/23/18

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Otto Reche.

Otto Carl Reche (24 May 1879 – 23 March 1966) was a Nazi German anthropologist and professor from Glatz (Kłodzko), Prussian Silesia. He was active in researching whether there was a correlation between blood types and race. During the Second World War he openly advocated the genocide of ethnic Poles. Once a member of the Nazi Party, he remained active in anthropological issues following the downfall of Nazi Germany.

Education and career

Reche was educated at the University of Breslau (now the University of Wrocław), the University of Jena and the University of Berlin.[1]

In his career, Reche served as the director of the Departments of Anthropology at the University of Vienna and then the University of Leipzig,[1] and also taught at the University of Hamburg. Among the organizations he was involved in were the Nazi Party and the German Society for Blood Group Research (which he founded along with Paul Steffan). In 1928, Reche and Steffan founded Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, a magazine on the subject.[2]

Blood type research and conclusions

Reche's work with blood types, involving studies in northwestern Germany, was an attempt to prove a correlation between which blood type a person had and whether they were of German ancestry. He claimed that the three blood types, A, B, and O, were each originally attached to European, Asian, and Native American races, but that interracial marriage had diluted this over the centuries.[2]

Support for the genocide of Poles

Reche justified the invasion of Poland in 1939 in a letter to Albert Brackmann by stating:

we need Raum but no Polish lice on our fur. I am absolutely of the opinion that the racial-scientific side is determinative in the solution of all these questions since we do not want to build a German people in the East in the future that would only be a linguistically germanised, racial mish-mash, with strong asiatic elements, and Polish in character. That would be no German Volk, nor a corner stone [sic] for a German future!...Since I also know the anthropological conditions in Poland and know what is racially and hereditarily useful in this people and what at all events is to be driven out of the German settlement area, I believe I have gathered together in the course of many years several ideas which should now be used for the general good and for our future.[3]

During the Second World War Reche became director of Institute for Racial and Ethnic Sciences in Lipsk. In this position he wrote about ethnic Poles that they "unfortunate mixture" consisting among others of Slavs, Balts and Mongolians and that they should be eliminated to avoid possible mixing with the German race.[4]

Life after the war

On April 16, 1945, Reche was arrested by American forces for membership in the Nazi Party but was released after sixteen months of detainment.[1]

In 1959, Reche was chosen by a German court investigating the claims of Anna Anderson that she was Anastasia Nikolaevna, a Russian royal thought to have been murdered along with the rest of the royal family. He concluded that Anna Anderson was either the Grand Duchess herself or an identical twin.[5] After Anderson's death, however, it was concluded based on DNA evidence that she was not Anastasia.

Reche died near Hamburg in 1966.[1]

See also

• Albert Brackmann
• Scientific racism

References

1. Geisenhainer, Katja (2002). "Rasse ist Schicksal" Otto Reche (1879–1966) – ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkundler (in German). Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. ISBN 3-374-02015-1.
2. Proctor, Robert N. (1988). Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-74578-7.
3. Anton Weiss Wendt (2010). Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-dominated Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 66–67. ISBN 1443823686.
4. Tomasz Ceran, The History of a Forgotten German Camp: Nazi Ideology and Genocide at Szmalcowka, page 40, I.B.Tauris, October 2014
5. Lovell, James Blair (1998). Anastasia: The Lost Princess. Robson. ISBN 0-86051-807-8.

Further reading

• Arthur L. Caplan, ed. (1992). When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust. Humana Press. p. 359. ISBN 0-89603-235-3.
• Neugebauer, Wolfgang. "Racial Hygiene in Vienna 1938". Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes. Archived from the original on 2012-12-21. Retrieved 2007-07-13.

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Albert Brackmann
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/23/18

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Albert Brackmann

Albert Brackmann (24 June 1871, Hanover – 17 March 1952, Berlin-Dahlem)[1] was a leading nationalist German historian associated with the Ostforschung, a multi-disciplined organisation set up to co-ordinate German propaganda on Eastern Europe. After Nazis were elected to power, he became one of the chief propagandists in service of the regime. In this position he supported Nazi genocidal policies, ethnic cleansing and anti-semitism.

At the conclusion of his university education in Tübingen, Leipzig, and Göttingen, Brackmann joined, at the age of twenty-seven, the staff of MGH (Monumenta Germaniae Historica),[2] the leading German source publication for medieval documents. He was appointed professor of history at Königsberg in 1913, Marburg in 1920, and Berlin in 1922.[1] In 1929 he became the director general of the Prussian Privy State Archives, in Berlin-Dahlem.[3] In connection with accepting the position he advocated for the establishment of a special Institute for Archival Sciences and Historical Training (Preußisches Institut für Archivwissenschaft), to provide for the professional training of archivists; the institute, which came under the administration of the state archives, opened in Berlin-Dahlem in May 1930.[3][4] Brackmann, in his capacity as director general of the archives, simultaneously served as the archival institute's first director, until his retirement in 1936.[5] During his term at the archives he retained an honorary professorship at the University of Berlin.[2]

Originally a specialist in relations between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, he turned towards the history of the Germans in Eastern Europe as a result of his experiences of the First World War.[2] Politically right-wing, he was a member first of the DVP (German People's Party) and then of the DNVP (German National People's Party) during the Weimar Republic,[6] and was joint editor of the prestigious and influential Historische Zeitschrift from 1928 to 1935.[2]

Favoured by leading Nazis, including Adolf Hitler himself, Brackmann steadily turned the Ostforschung away from detached academic work towards projects that fed directly into the wider foreign policy and expansionist aims being pursued by the Nazi government. In September 1939, he congratulated himself on heading a research organisation that had become the central agency "for scholarly advice for the Foreign, Interior and Propaganda ministries, the army high command and a number of SS departments."[7][8] He was also an author for the Ahnenerbe, a research body set up under the auspices of Heinrich Himmler, publishing a booklet entitled "Crisis and Construction in Eastern Europe"[9] that questioned the historical validity of Poland as a nation by arguing that Mitteleuropa (Central Europe) was the original Lebensraum of the German nation.[10]

After the outbreak of World War II, Brackmann's work also extended to issues of Germanisation, and the removal of "undesired ethnic elements" from German domains. In this particular context he did much to promote the work of Otto Reche, professor of racial studies at the University of Leipzig, and a noted anti-Semite. Responding to Reche's appeal that Germany needed Raum (room), and not "Polish lice in the fur", Brackmann brought his argument for a strict definition of ethnicity to the attention of a number of different ministries. In essence, Reche argued that the Poles should be pushed eastwards further into Ukraine, whose population, in turn, would be pushed even further east.

Defeat in the war produced only a temporary halt in Brackmann's academic work. In 1946 he was actively involved in the reconstruction of Ostforschung, and many of his pupils went on to occupy important academic positions in the German Federal Republic, with anti-communism replacing the former fashion for expansionism. Brackmann died in 1952, but the Zeitschrift für Ostforschung went on, amongst other things, to re-publish some of the work of the notoriously anti-Polish Dr Kurt Lück, who served as an SS-Sonderführer, before he was killed by Soviet partisans in 1942.

Kurt Lück (December 28, 1900, in Kolmar (today Chodzież ), Province of Poznan – March 5, 1942, near Orsha, Belarus) was a German historian and SS Obersturmbannführer. He was an ethnographer, an activist minority in Poland and lieutenant colonel in the body of SS officers, doctor of philosophical sciences.

-- Kurt Luck, by Wikipedia

References

1. Goetting, Hans (1955). "Brackmann, Albert Theodor Johann Karl Ferdinand." in: Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 2, p. 504-505. Online version retrieved 2015-11-03.
2. Burleigh, Michael (1988). "Albert Brackmann (1871-1952) Ostforscher: The Years of Retirement." Journal of Contemporary History, 23(4), p. 573-588; here: p. 573.
3. Musial, Torsten (1996). Staatsarchive im Dritten Reich. Zur Geschichte des staatlichen Archivwesens in Deutschland 1933-1945. Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg. p. 24.
4. Bemis, Samuel Flagg (1939). "The Training of Archivists in the United States." The American Archivist, 2(3), p. 154-161; here: p. 156. Available as a PDF file: [1].
5. Eckert, Astrid M. (2012). The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives After the Second World War. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute. p. 115.
6. Burleigh (1988), "Albert Brachmann," p. 574.
7. Burleigh, Michael (1987). "Albert Brackmann & the Nazi adjustment of history." History Today, 37(3), p. 42–46; here p. 44. The quotation is from Brackmann.
8. Burleigh, Michael (1988). Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of 'Ostforschung' in the Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-35120-0. p. 157. Burleigh quotes Brackmann, citing a letter from Brackmann to a fellow professor, the geographer Friedrich Metz, September 23, 1929.
9. Brackmann, Albert (1939). Krisis und Aufbau in Osteuropa: ein weltgeschichtliches Bild. Berlin: Ahnenerbe-Stiftung. 68 p. OCLC 576558911
10. Burleigh (1988), Germany Turns Eastwards, p. 150.

Further reading

• Burleigh, Michael (2002) [1987]. Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich. London: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-330-48840-6.
• Burleigh, Michael (1988). "Albert Brackmann (1871-1952) Ostforscher: The Years of Retirement," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Oct.), pp. 573–588.
• Burleigh, Michael (1987). "Albert Brackmann & the Nazi adjustment of history," History Today, Vol. 37, No. 3 (March), pp. 42–46.

External links

• Works by or about Albert Brackmann at Internet Archive

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Asit Krishna Mukherji
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/23/18

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Asit Krishna Mukherji

Asit Krishna Mukherji (1898-March 21, 1977) was a Bengali with National Socialist convictions who published pro-Axis journals. He married Savitri Devi in 1940 in order to protect her from deportation or internment.

Biography

Mukherji attended the University of London taking a doctorate in history. After graduating, he traveled in the Soviet Union. Unimpressed with Marxist materialism, he turned down several offers to work for communist newspapers back in India. He began, instead, to publish The New Mercury in collaboration with Sri Vinaya Datta. Openly proclaiming its support for Nazi Germany and Aryan racism, it expressed admiration for the race laws and Hellenic ideals. Mukherji recognised parallels between the Third Reich and Hindu nationalism: common use of the swastika on the Nazi and pan-Hindu flag; the similarity of the Hitler Youth and K.B. Hedgewar's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh boys; the challenging of British authority.

Hitler's views on India were disparaging.[76] He considered the British colonial rule of the subcontinent as an exemplary one and intended the German rule in the occupied East to resemble it.[76] Hitler thought little of the Indian independence movement, declaring the freedom fighters to be racially inferior "Asiatic jugglers".[76] As early as 1930 he spoke of the Indian freedom movement as the rebellion of the "lower Indian race against the superior English Nordic race", and that the British were free to deal with any subversive Indian activists as they liked.[77] In 1937 he told the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that the British should "shoot Gandhi, and if this doesn't suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of the Congress, and if that doesn't suffice shoot 200, and so on, as you make it clear that you mean business."[77] During the same discussion Hitler reportedly told Halifax that one of his favorite films was The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, because it depicted a handful of "superior race" Britons holding sway over an entire continent.[78]

Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg stated that although the Vedic culture was Aryan in origin, any Nordic blood had long since been lost due to racial mixing.[76] Like Hitler, he viewed the British rule in India as being desirable.[76] Asit Krishna Mukherji, with support of the German consulate, published The New Mercury, a National Socialist 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."[76] Savitri Devi, who would later marry him, shared his beliefs "in the pan Aryan revival of India", as well as in Hindu nationalism, and once World War II started, both "undertook clandestine war work on behalf of the Axis powers in Calcutta."[76]

-- New Order (Nazism) [die Neuordnung Europas (the New Order of Europe)] [Neurop] [Neu Europa], by Wikipedia

In January 1938, Mukherji met Savitri Devi who was deeply impressed with his knowledge. They married on June 9, 1940 in Calcutta.

After The New Mercury was closed down by the British government, he began publishing The Eastern Economist in collaboration with the Japanese legation from 1938-1941.

Mukherji used his connections with Subhas Chandra Bose and the Japanese authorities to put them in contact with one another, thus facilitating the formation of the Indian National Army.

After the war he made his living as an astrologer and had his wife's books printed.

Works

• A History of Japan, 1945

References

• Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 1998, ISBN 0-8147-3111-2
• The Saffron Swastika by Koenraad Elst, Voice of India, Delhi 1999 ISBN 81-85990-69-7

External links

• The strange case of Savitri Devi and Zydenbos vs. Rajaram: a Case Study in Aryan Invasion Polemic by Koenraad Elst
• Savitri Devi: Life and Work at the Wayback Machine (archived October 27, 2009)
• 1949: Prophetess of the Saucers from the UFO ROUNDUP Volume 7 Number 39
• Shinto - The Way of the Gods by Savitri Devi (portions of which may have first appeared in The Eastern Economist)

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Savitri Devi
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/23/18

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Savitri Devi Mukherji
Portrait of Savitri Devi
Born Maximiniani Julia Portas
30 September 1905
Lyon, France
Died 22 October 1982 (aged 77)
Sible Hedingham, Essex, England
Alma mater University of Lyon
Occupation Teacher, author, political activist
Spouse(s) Asit Krishna Mukherji

Savitri Devi Mukherji (30 September 1905 – 22 October 1982) was the pseudonym of the Greek-French-Italian writer Maximiani Portas (pronounced [mak.si.mja.ni pɔʁ.tɑ]; also spelled Maximine Portaz), a prominent proponent of deep ecology[1] and Nazism, who served the Axis cause during World War II by spying on Allied forces in India.[2][3][4] She wrote about animal rights movements and was a leading member of the Nazi underground during the 1960s.[2][4][5]

Devi authored the animal rights manifesto The Impeachment of Man in 1959[4] and was a proponent of Hinduism[6] and Nazism, synthesizing the two, proclaiming Adolf Hitler to have been sent by Providence, much like an avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu. She believed Hitler was a sacrifice for humanity which would lead to the end of the Kali Yuga induced by those who she felt were the powers of evil, the Jews.[4] Her writings have influenced neo-Nazism and Nazi occultism. Among Savitri Devi's ideas was the classifications of "men above time", "men in time" and "men against time".[7] Rejecting Judeo-Christianity, she believed in a form of pantheistic monism; a single cosmos of nature composed of divine energy-matter.[8][9]

She is credited with pioneering neo-Nazi interest in occultism, deep ecology and the New Age movement, and more contemporaneously has influenced the Alt-right.[10] She also influenced the Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano. In 1982, Franco Freda published a German translation of her work Gold in the Furnace, and the fourth volume of his annual review, Risguardo (1980–), was devoted to Savitri Devi as the "missionary of Aryan Paganism".[2]

Savitri was an associate in the post-war years of Françoise Dior,[11] Otto Skorzeny,[11] Johannes von Leers,[11] and Hans-Ulrich Rudel.[11] She was also one of the founding members of the World Union of National Socialists.[3]

Early years

Born as Maximiani Julia Portas in 1905,[4] Savitri Devi was the daughter of Maxim Portas, a French citizen of Greek and Italian ancestry and an Englishwoman, Julia Portas (née Nash). Maximine Portas was born two and a half months premature, weighing only 930 grams (2.05 lbs), and was not at first expected to live. She formed her political views early. From childhood and throughout her life, she was a passionate advocate for animal rights. Her earliest political affiliations were with Greek nationalism.[3]

Portas studied philosophy and chemistry, earning two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Lyon.[4] She next traveled to Greece, and surveyed the legendary ruins. Here, she became familiar with Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of swastikas in Anatolia. Her conclusion was that Ancient Greeks were Aryan in origin. Her first two books were her doctoral dissertations: Essai-critique sur Théophile Kaïris (Critical Essay on Theophilos Kairis) (Lyon: Maximine Portas, 1935) and La simplicité mathématique (Mathematical Simplicity) (Lyon: Maximine Portas, 1935).

Sometime between 1932 and 1935, she was the French tutor of the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997), as he revealed in a radio interview by Katherine von Bülow (France Culture 20/4/1996).[12]

National Socialism

In early 1928, she renounced her French citizenship and acquired Greek nationality. Joining a pilgrimage to Palestine during Lent in 1929, Portas decided that she was a National Socialist.

In 1932, she travelled to India in search of a living pagan Aryan culture. Formally adhering to Hinduism, she took the name Savitri Devi ("Sun-rays Goddess" in Sanskrit). She volunteered at the Hindu Mission as an advocate against Judeo-Christianity,[8] and wrote A Warning to the Hindus to offer her support for Hindu nationalism and independence, and to rally resistance to the spread of Christianity and Islam in India.[2] During the 1930s, she distributed pro-Axis propaganda and engaged in intelligence gathering on the British in India.[4]

In the late 1930s, through her personal contacts, she enabled Subhas Chandra Bose (leader during World War II of the Axis-affiliated Indian National Army), to make contact with representatives of the Empire of Japan.[13]

World War II

During World War II, Devi's connection to the Axis powers led to a clash with her mother, who served with the French Resistance during the German occupation of France.[14]

In 1940, Devi married Asit Krishna Mukherji, a Bengali Brahmin with National Socialist views who edited the pro-German newspaper New Mercury. During 1941, Devi chose to interpret Allied military support for Greece, against Italian and German forces, as an invasion of Greece. Devi and Mukherji continued to gather intelligence for the Axis cause. This included entertaining Allied personnel, which gave Devi and Mukherji an opportunity to question them regarding military matters. The information gathered was passed on to Japanese intelligence officials and contributed to attacks on Allied airbases and army units.[13]

Post-war Nazi activism

After World War II, she travelled to Europe in late 1945[11] under the name Savitri Devi Mukherji as the wife of a British subject from India, under a British Indian passport. She stopped briefly in England, then visited her mother in France, and then travelled on to Iceland where she witnessed the eruption of Mount Hekla. She then returned to England, before travelling to Sweden where she met with Sven Hedin.[2]

On 15 June 1948 she took the Nord-Expreß from Denmark to Germany,[2] where she distributed many thousands of copies of handwritten leaflets encouraging the "Men and women of Germany" to "hold fast to our glorious National Socialist faith, and resist!" She recounted her experience in Gold in the Furnace (which has been reedited in honour of her 100th birthday under the title Gold in the Furnace: Experiences in Post-War Germany).[2][11]

Arrested for posting bills, she was tried in Düsseldorf on 5 April 1949 for the promotion of Nazi ideas on German territory subject to the Allied Control Council, and sentenced to two years imprisonment. She served eight months in Werl prison, where she befriended her fellow Nazi and SS prisoners (recounted in Defiance), before being released and expelled from Germany. She then went to stay in Lyon, France.[2][11]

In April 1953, she obtained a Greek passport in her maiden name in order to re-enter Germany, and she began a pilgrimage, as she called it, of Nazi "holy" sites. She flew from Athens to Rome then travelled by rail over the Brenner Pass into "Greater Germany", which she regarded as "the spiritual home of all racially conscious modern Aryans". She travelled to a number of sites significant in the life of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP (German Nazi Party), as well as German nationalist and heathen monuments, as recounted in her 1958 book Pilgrimage.[2]

Savitri Devi became friends with Hans-Ulrich Rudel, and completed her manuscript of The Lightning and the Sun at his home in March 1956. Through his introductions she was able to meet a number of Nazi émigrés in Spain and the Middle East. In 1957 she stayed with Johannes von Leers in Egypt as she traveled across the Middle East when returning home to New Delhi, including stops in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, and Zahedan.[2] In 1961 she stayed with Otto Skorzeny in Madrid.[11]

Savitri Devi took employment teaching in France during the 1960s, spending her summer holidays with friends at Berchtesgaden. In the spring of 1961, while on her Easter holiday in London she learned of the original British National Party. This group emerged after the Second World War when a handful of former members of the British Union of Fascists took on the name. (The original BNP was absorbed quite quickly into the Union Movement – it is not directly connected with the present BNP.) She met with the British National Party president Andrew Fountaine. Beginning a correspondence with Colin Jordan, she became a devoted supporter of the National Socialist Movement.[11]

In August 1962, Savitri Devi attended the international Nazi conference in Gloucestershire and was a founder-signatory of the Cotswold Agreement that established the World Union of National Socialists (WUNS). At this conference she met, and was greatly impressed by, George Lincoln Rockwell. When Rockwell became leader of WUNS, he appointed William Luther Pierce editor of its new magazine: National Socialist World (1966–68). Along with articles by Jordan and Rockwell, Pierce devoted nearly eighty pages of the first issue to a condensed edition of The Lightning and the Sun. Because of the enthusiastic response, Pierce included chapters from Gold in the Furnace and Defiance in subsequent issues.[11]

After retiring from teaching in 1970, Savitri Devi spent nine months at the Normandy home of close friend Françoise Dior while working on her memoirs; although she was at first welcome, her annoying personal habits began to disrupt life at the presbytery (amongst other traits, she did not take a bath during her stay and chewed garlic continually). Concluding that her pension would go much further in India and encouraged by Françoise Dior, she flew from Paris to Bombay on 23 June 1971. In August she moved to New Delhi, where she lived alone, with a number of cats and at least one cobra.[11]

Savitri Devi continued correspondence with Nazi enthusiasts in Europe and the Americas, particularly with Colin Jordan, John Tyndall, Matt Koehl, Miguel Serrano and Ernst Zündel. She was the first to claim to Zündel that the Nazi genocide of the Jews was untrue; he proposed a series of taped interviews (conducted in November 1978) and published a new illustrated edition of The Lightning and the Sun in 1979.[11]

Animal rights activism

Devi was a pioneer in animal rights activism, and was a vegetarian from a young age and held ecologist views in her works. She wrote Impeachment of Man in 1959 in India[4] in which she declared her views on animal rights and nature. According to her, human beings do not stand above the animals; but in her ecologist views, humans are rather a part of the ecosystem and should respect all life, including animals and the whole of nature.

She always held radical views on vegetarianism[4] and supported the death penalty for those who didn't "respect nature or animals". She once broke into laboratories and took animals being held there, releasing them from being used in experiments. She believed that vivisection, circuses, slaughter and fur industries among others do not belong in a civilized society.

Death

By the late 1970s she had developed cataracts and her eyesight was rapidly deteriorating. A clerk from the French embassy in India named Myriam Hirn looked after her, making regular house visits. She decided to leave India, returning to Germany to live in Bavaria in 1981 before re-moving to France in 1982.[2]

She eventually died in 1982 in Sible Hedingham, Essex, England, at a friend's home. The cause of death was recorded as myocardial infarction and coronary thrombosis. She was en route to lecture in America at the invitation of Matt Koehl at the time. Devi's ashes are enshrined next to those of George Lincoln Rockwell in the small red brick building, often misidentified today as Rockwell's former headquarters (now a coffee shop called The Java Shack) in Arlington, Virginia.[11]

Works

Year / Title / ISBN / Summary

1935 / Essai critique sur Théophile Kaïris / -- / First doctoral thesis, on the life and thought of the Greek educator and philosopher Theophilos Kairis.
1935 / La simplicité mathématique / -- / A 500-page thesis on the nature of simplicity in mathematics. It included a discussion of Léon Brunschvicq and drew upon the work of George Boole, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Henri Poincaré and Alfred North Whitehead.
1940 (written 1935-6) / L'Etang aux lotus (The Lotus Pond) / -- / Impressions of India. A combination of travelogue and philosophical, cultural and political reflections.
1936 / A Warning to the Hindus / ISBN 978-81-85002-40-8 / Written to rally support for Hindu nationalism and independence, and to rally resistance to the spread of Christianity and Islam in India.
1940 / The Non-Hindu Indians and Indian Unity / -- / Promotes the idea that India must put aside social prejudice and communal hatred to create the political unity to achieve independence.
1946 / A Son of God: The Life and Philosophy of Akhnaton, King of Egypt / ISBN 0-912057-95-5 and ISBN 0-912057-17-3 / Detailing the life of the Egyptian monotheist (whom Sigmund Freud in Moses and Monotheism speculates was "Moses").
1951 / Defiance / ISBN 0-9746264-6-5 / Autobiographical account of her propaganda mission, arrest, trial and imprisonment in occupied Germany in 1949.
1952 (written 1948-9), reedited 2005 / Gold in the Furnace / ISBN 978-0-906879-52-8 and ISBN 978-0-9746264-4-4 / Conditions in post-war Germany.
1958 (written 1953-9) / Pilgrimage / -- / Account of her pilgrimage to various National Socialist holy sites.
1958 (written 1948–56) / The Lightning and the Sun / ISBN 978-0-937944-14-1 (abridged) / A work synthesizing the Hindu philosophy of cyclical history with National Socialism. Contains biographies of Genghis Khan, Akhnaton and Adolf Hitler. Famous for the claim that Hitler was an avatar of the God Vishnu.
1959 (written in 1945) / Impeachment of Man / ISBN 978-0-939482-33-7 / Animal rights and ecology.
1965 (written 1957–60) / Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess, or The True Story of a "Most Objectionable Nazi" and... half-a-dozen Cats / -- / A fictionalized autobiography and memoir of her favorite cats.
1976 (written 1968–71) / Souvenirs et reflexions d’une aryenne (Memories and Reflections of an Aryan Woman) / -- / A series of philosophical essays rather than a memoir, this is the most comprehensive statement of her philosophy.
2005 / And Time Rolls on: The Savitri Devi Interviews / ISBN 978-0-9746264-3-7 / 1978 autobiographical interviews originally recorded in Calcutta.
2012 (written 1952-53) / Forever and Ever: Devotional Poems / -- / Collection of devotional poems dedicated to Adolf Hitler.

See also

• Hinduism portal
• Fascism portal
• Nazism and race

Notes

1. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1998). Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism. NY: New York University Press, ISBN 0-8147-3110-4
2. "Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism", Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. NYU Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8147-3111-2, ISBN 978-0-8147-3111-6. pp. 6, 42–44, 104, 130–148, 179, 222
3. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (2003). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press. p. 88. ISBN 0-8147-3155-4. OCLC 47665567.
4. "The new encyclopedia of the occult", John Michael Greer. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2003. ISBN 1-56718-336-0, ISBN 978-1-56718-336-8. p. 130-131
5. "Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen", Gary Lachman. Quest Books, 2008. ISBN 0-8356-0857-3, ISBN 978-0-8356-0857-2. p. 257
6. Smith, Blake (17 December 2016). "Writings of French Hindu who worshipped Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu are inspiring the US alt-right". Scroll.in. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
7. "Gods of the blood: the pagan revival and white separatism", Mattias Gardell. Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8223-3071-7, ISBN 978-0-8223-3071-4. p. 183
8. "Christ, Faith, and the Holocaust", Richard Terrell. WestBow Press, 2011. ISBN 1-4497-0912-5, ISBN 978-1-4497-0912-9. p. 70-71
9. "The Hunt for the God particle", Popular Science, November 2001, Vol. 259, No. 5. ISSN 0161-7370. p. 55
10. "Savitri Devi: The mystical fascist being resurrected by the alt-right". BBC Magazine. 2017-10-29. Retrieved 2017-10-29.
11. "Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity", Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. NYU Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8147-3155-4, ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0. p. 97-106
12. "Savitri Devi: The Woman Against Time" by R. G. Fowler. Mourning the Ancient. Accessed 30 September 2011.
13. Shrabani Basu, 1999, "The spy who loved Hitler", Rediff; (6 November 2012).
14. Greg Johnson, 2006, "Savitri Devi’s Communist Nephews", savitridevi.org; (6 November 2012).

Further reading

• Elst, Koenraad, The Saffron Swastika: The Notion of "Hindu Fascism", chapter V. "Savitri Devi and the "Hindu-Aryan Myth"" (New Delhi, India: Voice of India, 2001, 2 Vols., ISBN 81-85990-69-7).
• Gardell, Matthias, Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, Duke University Press (2003, ISBN 0-8223-3071-7).
• Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (New York University Press, 1998, hardcover: ISBN 0-8147-3110-4, paperback: ISBN 0-8147-3111-2).
• Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity, "Savitri Devi and the Hitler Avatar", chapter 5 (New York University Press, 2002, hardcover: ISBN 0-8147-3124-4; reissue edition, 2003, paperback: ISBN 0-8147-3155-4).
• Kaplan, Jeffrey (editor), Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right, Altamira Press (2000, ISBN 0-7425-0340-2).
• Death by Dior: Françoise Dior, by Terry Cooper (Dynasty Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-9568038-6-3)

External links

• The Savitri Devi Archive

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“The Contribution of Savitri Devi”
by Ernesto Milà
Translated with notes by R.G. Fowler

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

The following text is extracted from Professor Ernesto Milà’s book Nazisme et ésotérisme [Nazism and Esotericism] (Paris: Pardès 1990). Although I cannot agree with many of Professor Milà’s judgments, and although his book contains a number of small factual errors (some indicated below in my notes), his book is an honest and remarkably fair-minded overview and analysis of the connection between National Socialism and esotericism, written from a Traditionalist point of view. —R. G. Fowler

Every time one speaks about Nazi esotericism, sooner or later the figure of Savitri Devi appears. Two strong reasons contribute to this: in the first place, she was the wife of a well-read man of the higher caste, with a perfect knowledge of the Vedic doctrines, which, in one way or another, bestows a certain Traditional preparation. In the second place, her fidelity with the convictions of her youth led her to give eulogistic lectures on the figure of Hitler right up to the days preceding her death (1982).1

Savitri Devi appears in all the more or less scandalous books touching on the topic of neo-Nazism. She took part in the creation of the World Union of National Socialists [W.U.N.S.] and collaborated with various neo-Nazi groups. Her ambition was to create an international “Aryan” organization able to fight the enemies of Aryan man. She presented her ideas on all these topics in a multitude of articles2 and lectures generally given in front of the very small public predisposed to receive her preaching favorably. Savitri Devi arrived at a better definition of the Hitlerian phenomenon than Miguel Serrano. Thus, for example, whereas Serrano affirms that Hitler was an Avatar of Vishnu, Savitri Devi spoke with more prudence:

Adolf Hitler was not Kalki—although he was the same, essentially speaking, as the ancient Rama Chandra, or the historical Krishna, or Siegfried, or the Prophet Mohammed, the Leader of a true “holy war” (i.e., of a ceaseless combat against the Forces of disintegration; against the Forces of the abyss). He was, like every great Combatant against the current of Time, a Precursor of Kalki. He was—always in his essence—the Emperor of the Cave. In him, the Emperor reappeared, intensely awakened, and armed, as he had reappeared already under the figures of various great German leaders, in particular Frederic II of Prussia, whom Adolf Hitler venerated so much. But he was not his last and definitive reappearance in this cycle. [Souvenirs et réflexions d'une aryenne, 1976]

This being the case, Savitri Devi considered the defeat of Nazism and the end of Hitler as logical: his hour has not yet sounded; when he seized power, the cycle had not come to an end, and a victorious movement could not prevail against the current of decadence. Hitler was dramatically predestined to defeat, because the hour of the end of Kali Yuga had not yet sounded. In this sense, her cyclical interpretation is correct. The Führer, based on the cyclical view of history created by Hörbiger, which does not correspond to the Traditional view, perhaps believed in the possibility of a final victory in accord with the cyclic laws of the cosmos that Hörbiger was praised for having discovered. But it was only a miscalculation: his final failure shows this was so.

Savitri Devi’s advantage over other specialists in Nazi esotericism lies in formation she received in the Tradition, hence the preeminence she gave to the sacred texts of the Tradition. Despite her “orthodox” point of departure, Savitri Devi was not freed from some “distortions” due to her admiration beyond all reason for the figure of Hitler. Indeed, Savitri Devi was a Hitlerian fanatic, and this fanaticism sometimes spoils and deforms her Traditional formation, obliterating the validity of her conclusions.

In particular, the work of Savitri Devi suffers from an erroneous appreciation of the racial problem. She is unaware that, when Hitler spoke about the Aryan race, he meant the Germanic people, and that is also manifest, although in a more attenuated way than in Hitler, in Rosenberg himself. National Socialism, apart from any occultist veins, was above all a form of Pan-Germanism which, at most, towards the end of the war and partly constrained by the state of the conflict, had to “open” itself by authorizing the formation of volunteer contingents from Aryan and non-Aryan countries.

Even when Savitri Devi sketches the caste system of India, she does not seem to understand its base exactly. It would perhaps be useful to quote on this subject the luminous essay of Frithjof Schuon, Castes and Races: “. . . The race is a form, the caste a spirit,” placed at the beginning of the part entitled “The meaning of races.” But without going into considerations on the caste system, it is obvious that Hitler destroyed it implicitly when it wrote in Mein Kampf that, “to be a sweeper in the Reich is more honorable than to be a monarch of a foreign nation.” That said, the assessment of Savitri Devi, when she tells us—quoting a Brahmin—that Hitler wanted “to restore the caste system and extend it to the whole world,” expresses, it seems, only an illusion.

The origin of the caste system is not simple racial separation; it is connected with the Aryan concept of victory and life before and after death. Insofar as the victors are opposed to other people throughout a war, and especially insofar as victory goes to those who have a superhuman and transcendent power, they superimpose themselves on the vanquished and stratify themselves as castes, each of which takes up a determined duty, which corresponds to its dominant interior characteristics. The racial theme in the formation of castes is something of an accessory; it is only a posteriori that one race—the Dravidian tribes—forms the lower castes, or the outcasts, and another race, the Aryan, forms the higher castes.

Can one find something of that in National Socialism? To discover elements there having a remote relationship with this thesis, it is necessary to make an historical effort of comprehension. For example, for the rebuilding of the caste system, one needed not a leveling but a diversified education, adapted to the spirit and the requirements of the character of each caste. In fact, one found something of that in the SS. The SS, whether consciously or not, made itself into a true “warrior caste.” In the same way, one could think of the “Labor Front” as forming a caste of “proletarians” (pardon the expression: not of proletarians in the modern sense of the term, but of producers as masters of the forces of their work). In any case, it should not be forgotten that the dominant component within National Socialism was the warlike element: as is known, the warrior aristocracies were at the origin of the phenomenon of “Titanism”; and, if one wishes to describe Hitlerism adequately, one must choose the term “Titanic.”

One of the most contradictory aspects of National Socialism was this double tendency: on the one hand, egalitarian and leveling (great demonstrations in which the principle of personality was diluted in the oceanic and standardized masses, equal pride of membership of the same nation, etc.) and, on the other hand, inclined to create a warlike and “Titanic” atmosphere.

Another correct discovery by Savitri Devi is to have located the center of Traditionalist influence within the Nazi regime: she saw in the Ahnenerbe “the guardian of the Tradition.” And, in that, she was right, as she was right not to want to venture hypotheses on the esotericism of the Thule Lodge whose rituals where not clear to her . . . And she adds, as proof of sincerity: “It is impossible to say up to what point the Thule Society was in possession of this priceless heritage of the ages . . .” [op. cit.].

Thus, whereas Miguel Serrano is inclined to fall into occultist commonplaces from consumer literature, Savitri Devi is perfectly aware of the danger the anti-Traditional sects pose. It does not matter that she considers Theosophy and the movement of Rabindranath Tagore as excluded from the Hindu tradition solely because they were anti-Hitlerian; what counts it is that she identified them as counter-initiatory forces.

This woman, Savitri Devi, born in Lyons on 30 September 1905, went to India where she married the Brahmin A.K. Mukherji when he published the review The New Mercury,3 supported by the German consulate in Madras.4 Mukherji accepted the congratulations of the civil servants of the German consulate and appeared among the partisans of Subhas Chandra Bose, still a hero of the Indian people today, who offered his services to the Japanese. When her husband died, she returned to Europe,5 working as a teacher in a school in Montbrison, from 1960 to 1969. Then she returned to India, and finally died in Europe in 1982. Her eyesight much diminished and in bad health, she spent her last years6 in France, Germany (from where she was expelled for diffusing Nazi ideas), and in England, where she died as she awaited a visa to go to the United States to give to a series of lectures organized by group Yankee neo-Nazis. It is there that her ashes were sent.

The final assessment of the work of Savitri Devi is obviously more positive than that of Miguel Serrano; there we find a better Traditional formation, fewer occultist tendencies, perhaps also a bit more sincerity. Savitri Devi never claims to speak ex cathedra or to have occult Masters who communicate with Hitler “in the astral plane”; but, in the end, both have an unconditional and irrational admiration for Adolf Hitler, an admiration which, in the case of Savitri Devi, often makes her mistake her desires for realities.

_______________

Notes:

1 Savitri Devi was planning a lecture tour before her death, but she died before it began. Of course Savitri did bear witness to her National Socialist convictions to the very end of her life, but not in the setting of formal lectures.—Trans.

2 Savitri Devi was actually the author of very few articles, but perhaps the author is counting each chapter of Souvenirs et réflexions as a separate essay.—Trans.

3 Savitri Devi married A.K. Mukherji on 29 September 1939 (in a civil ceremony) and on 9 June 1940 (in a religious ceremony). The New Mercury had been suppressed by the British in 1937.—Trans.

4 The New Mercury had been supported through the German Consulate in Calcutta.—Trans.

5 Savitri Devi lived in India from 1935-45, 1957-60, and 1971-81. A.K. Mukherji died in New Delhi on 21 March 1977.—Trans.

6 Savitri Devi’s last sojourn in Europe lasted a little more than a year, from 4 October 1981 until her death on 22 October 1982.—Trans.