PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland

SECTION THREE: HITLER’S FOREIGN POLICY: 1933-1939
Source A
Hitler on German foreign policy in ‘Mein Kampf’.
Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany. And for world
power she needs magnitude which will give her the position she needs in the present
period, and life to her citizens. And so we National Socialists consciously draw up a
line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-war period … We stop endless
German movement to south and west, and turn our gaze towards 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.
Source B
Hitler’s first major ‘peace speech’ on 17 March 1933.
Speaking deliberately as a German National Socialist, I desire to declare in the name
of the national Government, and of the whole movement of national regeneration, that
we in this new Germany are filled with deep understanding for the same feelings and
opinions and for the rightful claims to life of the other nations … Our boundless love
for and the loyalty to our own national traditions makes us respect the national
claims of others and makes us desire from the bottom of our hearts to live with them
in peace and friendship. We therefore have no use for the idea of Germanization.
Source C
Hitler decides to remilitarise the Rhineland in 1936.
In accordance with the fundamental right of a nation to secure its frontiers and
ensure its possibilities of defence, the German Government has today restored the full
and unrestricted sovereignty of Germany in the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland.
Source D
On 5 November 1937 Hitler allegedly outlines his foreign policy aims before the
leaders of the armed services. (The Hossbach Memorandum.)
The aim of German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community
(Volksmasse) and to enlarge it. It was therefore a question of space …
If we did not act by 1943-5, any year could, in consequence of a lack of reserves,
produce the food crisis, to cope with the necessary foreign exchange was not
available, and this must be regarded as a ‘warning of the regime’. Besides the world
was expecting our attack and was increasing its counter measures from year to year.
It was while the rest of the world was still preparing its defences (sich abriegele) that
we were obliged to take the offensive…
If the Fuhrer was still living, it was his unalterable resolve to solve Germany’s
problems of space at the latest by 1943-5
History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 86