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]