What territories exactly were "Lebensraum"?

[Hektor]

What is surprising is that almost all the powers became what they are thanks to the sword, genocide and exploitation of the native population. But a larger development in Germany has been treated in a special way by historians and politicians. Germany should restrict itself to the free market, with no resources other than the brains of its people, “either export or die” so to speak. What is a fact is that even at the gates of Moscow and Stalingrad Germany refused to annex those territories, was content with the northeast of the General Government, how in the long term the Reichskomissariat would develop, whether full autonomy of its peoples or transformed into colonies there is no way to know because the war was lost, there was a Reichskomissariat in Norway and the Netherlands, so there is no way to talk about future atrocities without clear sources in this regard but historians think they have the right to predict the future and ensure that all would be exterminated or enslaved, sent to the Ural Mountains and that Hitler would create a lake around Moscow.

Yes and no. One can also say that any country had a ruling group lording it over other groups within a territory and those territories were increased by conquest and/or exchange with others. Some where added by primary settlement, though. Now the ruling group extracted goods in some way from the people in that territory. In feudal times they were tithing agricultural produce.

Lebensraum CAN include colonies or dependent areas, but it can include independent states as well, with whom one can trade.

As far as WW2 is concerned, they need to talk about 'future atrocities' just to have all gaps field with slogans and imagination that make their narrative on what supposedly happen more believable.

But there are also texts by Walther Funk on the 'future order for Europe'... And there it does appear that they wanted to leave the territories mostly in tact and organize them in a way they would trade with. But apparently the 'Polish Question was still open. Understandable, when one considers that the conflict with Poland was decisive for World War Two.

[TLSMS93]

Hitler, in a discussion on October 6, 1939, when the war with Poland was over, refuted journalists in democratic countries who said that his foreign policy objective was to conquer the world or the USSR, including Ukraine and the Ural mountains. The fact is that Lebensraum, as far as it can be extracted from works such as Mein Kampf, would be developed in a matter of centuries and not in Hitler's life, Viktor Suvorov defended this point of view, it seems that the occupation of Austria and Bohemia and Moravia would be sufficient for the needs of that generation, perhaps the annexation of areas of Poland would guarantee enough space for a few more centuries in terms of resources and land, that is, as space did not fit the size of the population, more development would be necessary, Germany had about 70 million inhabitants at the time, doubling the population would require twice as much territory, so to speak. But there was never any mention of the need to enslave or exterminate people who inhabited these occupied regions, I believe that at most it would be to make them dependent on Germany, create a pro-German culture internally to ensure that Germany would have primacy over foreign policy and trade relations , Hitler saw the Russian State organized thanks to Germanic elements in its political elite and which now found itself under Jewish Bolshevism, which would always be hostile to Germany despite attempts to reach a balance of interests prior to Barbarossa.

[Hektor]

Hitler, in a discussion on October 6, 1939, when the war with Poland was over, refuted journalists in democratic countries who said that his foreign policy objective was to conquer the world or the USSR, including Ukraine and the Ural mountains. The fact is that Lebensraum, as far as it can be extracted from works such as Mein Kampf, would be developed in a matter of centuries and not in Hitler's life, Viktor Suvorov defended this point of view, it seems that the occupation of Austria and Bohemia and Moravia would be sufficient for the needs of that generation, perhaps the annexation of areas of Poland would guarantee enough space for a few more centuries in terms of resources and land, that is, as space did not fit the size of the population, more development would be necessary, Germany had about 70 million inhabitants at the time, doubling the population would require twice as much territory, so to speak. But there was never any mention of the need to enslave or exterminate people who inhabited these occupied regions, I believe that at most it would be to make them dependent on Germany, create a pro-German culture internally to ensure that Germany would have primacy over foreign policy and trade relations , Hitler saw the Russian State organized thanks to Germanic elements in its political elite and which now found itself under Jewish Bolshevism, which would always be hostile to Germany despite attempts to reach a balance of interests prior to Barbarossa.

Indeed. Germany did not have the number of people to fill all the territory they occupied. Not remotely. And they also found out that one shouldn't meddle with populations too much. Rather go easy on this. Develop as is in the present. Some addition of territory was feasible, but not more. Rather go with what is at hand and let the territories develop over time there.

[TLSMS93]

Especially because demanding everything without leaving a margin of autonomy for the peoples of these territories would cause revolts and which country would surrender in the future with this treatment? By occupying Denmark he did not take back territories lost after the First War in a gesture of good faith because they had surrendered quickly and many Germans lived there, that is, not all Germans were a cause of dispute for Hitler, only those under oppressive governments without autonomy as in Poland. How many Poles lived in West Prussia which was annexed to the Reich? Were they allowed to continue living there or were they displaced? How many were transferred to the General Government? Was it orderly or inhumane? In any case the good guys did worse to the Germans after the war, the biggest exodus in modern history, wikipedia justifies this in retaliation for ethnic cleansing practiced by the Germans.

In any case that image on the map of the Reich extending to the A-A line is pure fantasy, the youtuber TIK quoted a speech by Hitler in January 1941 to military leaders outlining the plans for Operation Barbarossa, which the objective would be to dominate it economically and politically without attaching it, see link below from 12:07

https://youtu.be/kVo5I0xNRhg

In any case Hitler's directive 21 for Barbarossa was to create a protective zone against Asian Russia and protect Germany from bombers, nowhere does it say that Hitler was ambitious for the long term resources for the German people, it was all a matter of war strategy .

[Whodunnit?]

The German historian Bernd Schwipper has published several books with copies of original German military intelligence reports from the Soviet border, and after that the science should be literally settled. We are not talking about somebody interpreting speeches and hear-say, he has two books which are just photocopies of the originals. They were observing a huge military build-up, and they had also cracked the soviet's code.

Hitler's "insanity" is often the excuse for things that on the face of it would make you draw different conclusions. Some excepts:

When detailed planning began in August 1940, Germany had only nine armored divisions and 3,420 tanks. The number of divisions was to be increased to 19 before the operation, and another 13 divisions of motorized infantry were to be assembled. Each armored division was to be equipped with 160–200 tanks. Production had to be increased rapidly to meet the quotas. There was no room for optimism of the kind expressed at the highest levels of the Nazi hierarchy. It seemed unlikely there would be enough fuel for the mechanized forces or for transporting goods by truck. Further, Russian roads were notoriously bad, and wide-gauge Russian railroads would be useful only when the entire system was adapted to handle standard-gauge German tankers and freight cars. With prospects for oil bleak, German officials imposed stiff conservation measures at home, and draconian steps were inflicted on the occupied countries.
(...) After 1940, the panzers were constantly short of fuel and constituted a small—though feared—part of the Wehrmacht. Blitzkrieg was a fizzle after 1940. When Hitler invaded Russia, the German Army was equipped with a total of 600,000 motorized vehicles. That same army's mobility, however, was severely circumscribed by its dependence on 650,000 horses attached to its 134 field divisions. Only 17 divisions were armored, and 13 more were motorized infantry. The bulk of the force that invaded Russia was little changed from the kaiser's army that fought in World War I.
(...) Some studies conclude that 70 percent of the Wehrmacht's movement was horse-pulled, not horse-powered. (...) Germany's supply difficulties were compounded enormously by having to provide 3,000 tons of horse feed daily to its dispersed divisions.
In turn, scarce fuel was expended bringing animal food forward. It exceeded the amount used for hauling both troop rations and fuel needed for battle operations. Supply officers and planners would have preferred a higher level of mechanized support for fighting a modern war, but that was beyond Germany's industrial reach and resources. Inadequate supplies of fuel and incompetent meshing of vehicle production with demonstrated needs forced the army to restrict its mobility. Panzer units in combat were capable of advancing up to 97 km daily before refueling. Ordinary infantry groups could go only half that far. As had been demonstrated in France, armored forces regularly had to wait for the infantry to catch up in order to not risk encirclement.

Source:


"Hitler always wanted to conquer the USSR" - but for that purpose, August 1940 is a bit late to start the preparations, isn't it? It also looks like there wasn't a lot of planning in their plan. Looks a bit rushed. But again, insanity fills the plot holes. Hitler was crazy, he didn't care, he just got furious, and in one speech he said one time "if you kick down the door the whole building comes crumbling down", so there you go. Ignore everything else he said, and don't draw conclusions from things you can't fake.

[Hektor]

....

"Hitler always wanted to conquer the USSR" - but for that purpose, August 1940 is a bit late to start the preparations, isn't it? It also looks like there wasn't a lot of planning in their plan. Looks a bit rushed. But again, insanity fills the plot holes. Hitler was crazy, he didn't care, he just got furious, and in one speech he said one time "if you kick down the door the whole building comes crumbling down", so there you go. Ignore everything else he said, and don't draw conclusions from things you can't fake.

True. And if the 'Conquest of Russia as Lebensraum' was part of Hitler's Master Plan... Why wasn't their strategic preparations during the 1930s. Why no office for "Lebensraum in the East" or something. In fact this wasn't even a subject prior to 1940. The policy goals during the 1930s were national, consolidating Germany... That there was some sinister Master Plan for "World Conquest" is a bad conspiracy theory. Not more.