Reading on this. One of the main reasons given for the Nazi’s “living space” policy of eastern expansion is that Germany needed millions of hectares of extra farmland to ensure they would have more than enough food forever and couldn’t be starved via blockade if they were in another major warI always find it odd seeing how under developed east Prussia was compared to other areas of Germany. If you want to squeeze out all the agricultural produce you can, why was this area so little invested in? Even the worries about self sufficiency and living space seem strange from a modern POVUnless you subscribe to the Hitler theory that you NEED huge tracts of land with your own personal slave farmers to prosper and have enough to eat. It makes no sense.E.g. why didn’t they focus on artificial fertilisers more, or land redistribution to maximise efficiency?
>In February 1939, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler told a group of Wehrmacht officers that food was the most important problem facing Germany. The solution proposed to alleviate Germany's dependence on food imports was to create more Lebensraum (living space) for the German people by conquest and colonization. The Nazis did not create the concept of Lebensraum but adopted it as a central element of their racial and economic objectives>Germany indeed had a shortage of arable land. In 1937, farmers in Germany tilled an average of 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres) each compared to 2.8 hectares (6.9 acres) for each French farmer, 3.8 hectares (9.4 acres) for each British farmer, and a munificent 12.8 hectares (32 acres) for each American farmer. Moreover, German agriculture was backward with too many small or inefficient farms and agricultural workers. Farmers and agricultural workers made up 26 percent of Germany's labor force in 1939 (compared to about 17 percent of the U.S. labor force in the same year which produced a large surplus of food.)Given the technocratic top down nature of much of German industry by then. Is there any good reason Hitler didn’t think perhaps letting a shit ton of arable land be split up into tiny household sized farms that cannot contribute on a mass scale was a good idea?Outside of some romantic idea where everybody deserves their own farm like the American dream. This seems stupid Even that stat on he many hectares the farmers used is misinterpreted a lot. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t enough room. It meant there were a lot more farming homesteads in Germany who therefore had to share a lot of this arable land in smaller plots. Britain is obviously a lot smaller than Germany, and most of their agriculture was only in England. Much smaller than Germany. Yet they had more hectares per farmer because they had moved past the old fashioned idea of homesteading and urbanised a lot more, leaving farming to much larger land owners and corporations.
>>16804646Blut and Boden (Blood and Soil) necessitates that homesteading becomes the major agricultural practice. Of course it is inefficient and requires huge ressources but the idealogy ruled supreme. And the rest was just the simple desire for a land grap.
>>16804793What’s the logical basis for homesteading being needed as the dominant agricultural practice in this idea?It’s it logic based or some kind of mythological ideal? Perhaps some shit shout it being the ideal family generator and the heart of Germanic volk culture or something I think I recall some vague plans once the east was conquered. Where the west German empire would be the urbanised,industrialised cities who create produced goods and send them east, to the rural folk in the many farms of the breadbasket regions like Ukraine. In turn, the East German empire would send raw materials like crops, metals. A symbiotic relationship in theory. Sounds like it wouldn’t actually work in practice mind you
>>16804646The problem with lebensraum is that nobody actually wanted to live and farm there. It sounds stupid because it is stupid. Huge tracts of land ended up being unused.
>>16804814There was nothing logical about it as it was based on the idealization of the agrarian farmers life. According to this idea such a lifestyle would result in a healthy race in contrast to the unhealthy urbanism (not to be confused with the actual health benefits or drawbacks of both, as this was about the idea of the racial Volkskörper).>heart of Germanic volk culture or somethingClose. The settled ancient germanic tribes were idealized and the extensive outgrowth into the modern urbanism was decried as an unhealthy effect. Other than that it goes: farmer life is hard life > hard life creates hard people > hard people are the desired outcome>I think I recall some vague plans once the east was conqueredYes, the idea of the fighting/bleeding eastern border, where there would be perpetual conflict between the german settlers (Wehrbauern meaning defensive/armed farmers) and the slavs/asians not within the Reich. And as you have articulated yourself: the development plans of the NSDAP were often quite contradictory. On one hand supposedly ancient practices were ought to be revived and idealized and on the other hand modern industries and planning ideals were to be implemented.
>>16804974I believe Hitler said he was inspired by the stories of American colonisation of the western frontier. Which lines up nicely with stories of farmer families homesteading a hostile frontier while fighting off a hostile race all while expanding the nation forward. Slavs/Asians instead of native Americans in this case.
>>16804988The Manifest Destiny was definately an inspiration for the NSDAP. Of course the USA had the advantage of having only Mexico and Canada to compete with and even then the whole domination of the Continental United States took somewhat over a century.
