Editing Pan-Germanism (section)

== 1918 to 1945 ==
{{Further|Areas annexed by Nazi Germany|Völkisch movement|Heim ins Reich|Generalplan Ost}}
[[File:NS administrative Gliederung 1944.png|thumb|Administrative division of Nazi Germany, following the [[Areas annexed by Nazi Germany|annexing of Austria, Sudetenland and others]] to form the Greater German Reich as of 1944]]
[[File:German Map Sudeten.PNG|thumb|Map showing Nazi German plans, given to [[Sudeten Germans]] during the [[Sudeten Crisis]] as part of an intimidation process. Re-published in the British socialist newspaper ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)#The Daily Worker (1930–1966)|Daily Worker]]'' on 29 October 1938.]]
[[File:Greater Germanic Reich.png|thumb|300px|Boundaries of the planned "[[Greater Germanic Reich]]" based on various, only partially systematised target projections (e.g. [[Generalplan Ost]]) from [[Nazi Germany|state administration]] and the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] leadership sources<ref>{{cite web|title=Utopia: The 'Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation'|url=http://www.obersalzberg.de/utopie-grossgermanisches-reich.html?&L=1|publisher=[[Institut für Zeitgeschichte]]|location=München – Berlin|date=1999|access-date=24 January 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214200221/http://www.obersalzberg.de/utopie-grossgermanisches-reich.html?&L=1|archive-date=14 December 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>]]

World War I became the first attempt to carry out the Pan-German ideology in practice, and the Pan-German movement argued forcefully for expansionist imperialism.<ref name=Blamires>World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1 Cyprian Blamires ABC-CLIO, 2006. pp. 499–501</ref>

Following the defeat in [[World War I]], the influence of German-speaking elites over [[Central and Eastern Europe]] was greatly limited. At the [[Treaty of Versailles]], Germany was substantially reduced in size. [[Alsace-Lorraine]] was also influenced by the [[Francization]] after it returned to France. [[Austria-Hungary]] was split up. A rump Austria, which to a certain extent corresponded to the [[Austria-Hungary#Linguistic distribution|German-speaking areas of Austria-Hungary]] (a complete split into language groups was impossible due to multi-lingual areas and language-exclaves) adopted the name "[[German Austria]]" ({{langx|de|link=no|Deutschösterreich}}) in hope for union with [[Weimar Republic|Germany]]. Union with Germany and the name "German Austria" was forbidden by the [[Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)|Treaty of St. Germain]] and the name had to be changed back to Austria.

It was in the [[Weimar Republic]] that the Austrian-born [[Adolf Hitler]], under the influence of the [[stab-in-the-back myth]], first took up German nationalist ideas in his ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref name="Blamires"/> Hitler met [[Heinrich Class]] in 1918, and Class provided Hitler with support for the 1923 [[Beer Hall Putsch]]. Hitler and his supporters shared most of the basic pan-German visions with the [[Pan-German League]], but differences in political style led the two groups to open rivalry. The German Workers Party of Bohemia cut its ties to the pan-German movement, which was seen as being too dominated by the upper classes, and joined forces with the [[German Workers' Party]] led by [[Anton Drexler]], which later became the [[Nazi Party]] (National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP) that was to be headed by Adolf Hitler from 1921.<ref name="Levy2">Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1, Richard S. Levy, 529–530, ABC-CLIO 2005</ref>

Nazi propaganda also used the political slogan ''[[Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer]]'' ("One people, one Reich, one leader"), to enforce pan-German sentiment in Austria for an "[[Anschluss]]".

The chosen name for the projected empire was a deliberate reference to the [[Holy Roman Empire]] (of the German Nation) that existed in the [[Middle Ages]], known as the ''First Reich'' in Nazi historiography.<ref name="hattstein">Hattstein 2006, p. 321.</ref> Different aspects of the legacy of this medieval empire in German history were both celebrated and derided by the [[Government of Nazi Germany|Nazi government]]. Hitler admired the [[Frankish Empire|Frankish Emperor]] [[Charlemagne]] for his "cultural creativity", his powers of organization, and his renunciation of the [[Individual liberty|rights of the individual]].<ref name="hattstein" /> He criticized the [[Holy Roman Emperor|Holy Roman Emperors]] however for not pursuing an ''Ostpolitik'' ([[Drang Nach Osten|Eastern Policy]]) resembling his own, while being politically focused exclusively on [[Italy|the south]].<ref name="hattstein" /> After the ''Anschluss'', Hitler ordered the old [[Austrian Crown Jewels#The Holy Roman Empire|imperial regalia]] (the [[Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire|Imperial Crown]], [[Imperial Sword]], [[Spear of Destiny#Vienna Lance .28Hofburg spear.29|the Holy Lance]] and other items) residing in [[Vienna]] to be transferred to [[Nuremberg]], where they were kept between 1424 and 1796.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hamann|first1=Brigitte|url=https://archive.org/details/hitlersviennadic00hama|title=Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship|publisher=Oxford University Press|others=Trans. Thomas Thornton|date=1999|isbn=978-0-19-512537-5|location=New York|author-link1=Brigitte Hamann}}</ref> Nuremberg, in addition to being the former unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire, was also the place of the [[Nuremberg rallies]]. The transfer of the regalia was thus done to both legitimize Hitler's Germany as the successor of the "Old Reich", but also weaken Vienna, the former imperial residence.<ref>Haman 1999, p. 110</ref>

After the [[German occupation of Czechoslovakia|1939 German occupation of Bohemia]], Hitler declared that the Holy Roman Empire had been "resurrected", although he secretly maintained his own empire to be better than the old "Roman" one.<ref name="brockmann">Brockmann 2006, p. 179.</ref> Unlike the "uncomfortably [[Multinational state|internationalist]] Catholic empire of [[Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor|Barbarossa]]", the Germanic Reich of the German Nation would be [[racist]] and [[nationalist]].<ref name="brockmann" /> Rather than a return to the values of the Middle Ages, its establishment was to be "[[Progress (history)|a push forward]] to a new [[Golden age (metaphor)|golden age]], in which the best aspects of the past would be combined with modern racist and nationalist thinking".<ref name="brockmann" />

The historical borders of the Holy Roman Empire were also used as grounds for territorial revisionism by the NSDAP, laying claim to modern territories and states that were once part of it. Even before the war, Hitler had dreamed of reversing the [[Peace of Westphalia]], which had given the territories of the Empire almost complete sovereignty.<ref name="winkler">Sager & Winkler 2007, p. 74.</ref> On November 17, 1939, [[Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Reich Minister of Propaganda]] [[Joseph Goebbels]] wrote in [[Goebbels Diaries|his diary]] that the "total liquidation" of this historic treaty was the "great goal" of the Nazi regime,<ref name="winkler" /> and that since it had been signed in [[Münster]], it would also be officially repealed in the same city.<ref>Goebbels, p. 51.</ref>

{{Nazism sidebar}}

The ''[[Heim ins Reich]]'' ("Back Home to the Reich") initiative was a policy pursued by the [[Nazis]] which attempted to convince the [[ethnic Germans]] living outside of [[Nazi Germany]] (such as in [[Austria]] and [[Sudetenland]]) that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into a [[Kleindeutschland and Großdeutschland#Later influence|Greater Germany]]. This notion also led the way for an even more expansive state to be envisioned, the Greater Germanic Reich, which Nazi Germany tried to establish.<ref name="elvert1">Elvert 1999, p. 325.</ref> This pan-Germanic empire was expected to [[Annexation|assimilate]] practically all of [[Germanic languages|Germanic Europe]] into an enormously expanded Greater Germanic Reich. Territorially speaking, this encompassed the already-enlarged Reich itself (consisting of pre-1938 Germany plus the [[Areas annexed by Nazi Germany|areas annexed into the ''Großdeutsche Reich'']]), the [[Netherlands]], [[Belgium]], [[zone interdite#Zone of intended German settlement|areas in north-eastern France]] considered to be historically and ethnically Germanic, [[Denmark]], [[Norway]], [[Sweden]], [[Iceland]], at least the [[German-speaking Switzerland|German-speaking parts of Switzerland]], and [[Liechtenstein]].<ref name="Rich401402">Rich 1974, pp. 401–402.</ref> The most notable exception was the predominantly [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] United Kingdom, which was not projected as having to be reduced to a German province but to instead become an [[Political alliance|allied]] seafaring partner of the Germans.<ref>Strobl 2000, pp. 202–208.</ref>

The eastern ''[[Reichskommissariat]]s'' in the vast stretches of Ukraine and Russia were also intended for future integration, with [[Generalplan Ost|plans for them]] stretching to the [[Volga]] or even beyond the [[Urals]]. They were deemed of vital interest for the survival of the German nation, as it was a core tenet of [[Nazism|Nazi ideology]] that it needed "living space" (''[[Lebensraum]]''), creating a "pull towards the East" (''[[Drang nach Osten]]'') where that could be found and [[colonization|colonized]], in a model that the Nazis explicitly derived from the American [[Manifest Destiny]] in the [[American frontier|Far West]] and its clearing of native inhabitants.

As the foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS were increasingly of non-Germanic origin, especially after the [[Battle of Stalingrad]], among the organization's leadership (e.g. [[Felix Steiner]]) the proposition for a Greater Germanic Empire gave way to a concept of a European union of self-governing states, unified by German hegemony and the common enemy of [[Bolshevism]].{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} The Waffen-SS was to be the eventual nucleus of a common European army where each state would be represented by a national contingent.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} Himmler himself, however, gave no concession to these views, and held on to his Pan-Germanic vision in a speech given in April 1943 to the officers of the [[1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler]], the [[2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich|2nd SS Panzer Division ''Das Reich'']] and the [[3rd SS Division Totenkopf|3rd SS Division ''Totenkopf'']]:{{blockquote|We do not expect you to renounce your nation. [...] We do not expect you to become German out of opportunism. We do expect you to subordinate your national ideal to a greater racial and historical ideal, to the Germanic Reich.<ref>Stein 1984, p. 148.</ref>}}