Alternate locations for German Lebensraum if Slavs are considered Aryan?

If the Nazis considered the Slavs as Aryans, and the war in the East was limited to restoring WW1 borders and liberating the eastern Aryan from Judeo–Bolshevism, how else could the Nazis have achieved the kind of living space and resources they would have achieved from Lebensraum in the east?

Would Lebensraum in Africa have worked? Assuming Germany is successful in defeating the British, and manages to make some kind of continuous African empire, could East Africa have become German? I have heard that the only reason East Africa (Kenya and Uganda in particular) received so little settlement was because of British policies and the fact that British settlers had other places to settle, and that East Africa would have been an ideal place for a settler colony to exist. If the Nazis also succeeded in controlling French Equatorial Africa and the Congo, along with securing control over the Mediterranean, they could have supplied this colony through railways through Chad or along the Nile from Italy (which would have probably become a German satellite in an Axis victory).

Could parts of the western Slavic nations have been integrated, similar to how the Netherlands was planned to be integrated? The Baltic nations and Czech Republic would be low hanging fruit for this, they all had significant German cultural influences.

How about the north? Could low density Nordic nations have been integrated and become German?
 
I really don't understand their Aryan theory anyway, when I think about someone Slavic I think about what hilter described as his ideal race, blonde hair, blue eyes, put a German and Czech side by side, I can't tell a difference, how the hell did they.
 
They did consider Slavs Aryans.

The issue was that they lived on land which Germany wanted, and beyond that they were believed to have been influenced by Asiatic groups (Mongols etc.) and were of course governed by "Judeo-Bolshevism".

But the big issue was that they were on land that the Germans wanted. Though major racial theorists like Rosenberg did advocate for rather more generous terms with the occupied territories IIRC, I think those folks were also more enthusiastic about the Nazi-Soviet pact and the possibility of the USSR joining the Axis.
 
Last edited:
Depends on the Slavs, though the Nazis spun the Croats, west Ukrainians and Bulgarians as being "Gothic" and stuff like that.
 
They already did consider the Slavs Aryan, just of an implacably hostile civilization to them. There's a reason the Polish section of Warsaw still counted as "the Aryan side."

All being Aryan means is that you're not immediately Genocide Target Number One like the Jews. It doesn't stop you from being Number Two.
 
They did consider Slavs Aryans.

The issue was that they lived on land which Germany wanted, and beyond that they were believed to have been influenced by Asiatic groups (Mongols etc.) and were of course governed by "Judeo-Bolshevism".

But the big issue was that they were on land that the Germans wanted. Though major racial theorists like Rosenberg did advocate for rather more generous terms with the occupied territories IIRC, I think they were also more enthusiastic about the Nazi-Soviet pact and the possibility of the USSR joining the Axis.
They already did consider the Slavs Aryan, just of an implacably hostile civilization to them. There's a reason the Polish section of Warsaw still counted as "the Aryan side."

All being Aryan means is that you're not immediately Genocide Target Number One like the Jews. It doesn't stop you from being Number Two.
I understand that, but let's say that the Nazis don't consider genocide of fellow Aryans a valid option. So for the purpose of this question, assume that under no circumstances is the mass killing of Slavs will happen.
 
I understand that, but let's say that the Nazis don't consider genocide of fellow Aryans a valid option. So for the purpose of this question, assume that under no circumstances is the mass killing of Slavs will happen.
I think it would be more plausible to simply have Hitler trust Stalin a little more and for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Axis_talks to go better - as otherwise you'd presumably be causing issues with the Polish occupation too.

Although colonialism in Africa had a popular domestic audience in Germany Hitler and other Nazi leaders recognized that there were serious issues with the Wilhelmine dream - the biggest one is that much of Africa simply isn't all that hospitable to German colonists, and much of the land that was particularly desirable to Europeans already had colonists and would be difficult to take or hold. Of course the biggest issue is that Germany is better suited to be a continental power than a maritime one. Or if you want a German invasion of the USSR but with a gentler hand on the occupied territories you could somehow increase Rosenberg's influence (I think that would entail marginalizing Himmler as well).
 
I think it would be more plausible to simply have Hitler trust Stalin a little more and for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Axis_talks to go better - as otherwise you'd presumably be causing issues with the Polish occupation too.

Although colonialism in Africa had a popular domestic audience in Germany Hitler and other Nazi leaders recognized that there were serious issues with the Wilhelmine dream - the biggest one is that much of Africa simply isn't all that hospitable to German colonists, and much of the land that was particularly desirable to Europeans already had colonists and would be difficult to take or hold. Of course the biggest issue is that Germany is better suited to be a continental power than a maritime one. Or if you want a German invasion of the USSR but with a gentler hand on the occupied territories you could somehow increase Rosenberg's influence (I think that would entail marginalizing Himmler as well).
What I'm looking for is a way for Germany to be a superpower with a large amount of territory and resource autonomy without mass genocide of Slavs. Would it be possible to integrate the Poles, Czechs and Baltic states into Germany? As for the maritime problem, my plan was that Mussolini would give Germany permanent railway concessions through Italy and Libya to reach Chad, which would be connected to the rest of German Africa. Does this work?
 
You are not getting a buy-in from The German population on that.
The whole "living space in the east" goes back to the Year Without Summer, 1817, when the global cooling due to Tambora eruption triggered a very stable low pressure situation over Northern Europe with wet cold killing most crops, and Germany experiencing it's last peacetime famine (being ravaged by Napoleonic wars just a few years ago didn't help). At the same time western Russia had a fairly stable high pressure area sitting over it and for this reason had a bumper crop of wheat. This massive imbalance has triggered two trends: Some (especially smaller) German princedoms and city states founded higher technical and agricultural schools to learn how to avoid a second time, and some others (particularly rural conservatives) began talking about how, if Russian territory were partly or fully under German control and farmed by Germans, the famine would not have happened. The latter was the beginning of the "Eastern Colonization" movement (not necessarily advocating military conquest) which in the end got fully hijacked by the Nazis in the 1920s - when the original reason mainly passed out of popular memory... Eastern Africa had no such meaning in the popular culture.
 

Vuu

Banned
The entire "muh slavs" because path of least resistance.

The territories Slavic peoples inhabit would be reduced but there wouldn't be the entire kill everyone people like to scream so much because this isn't the bronze age
 
The entire "muh slavs" because path of least resistance.

The territories Slavic peoples inhabit would be reduced but there wouldn't be the entire kill everyone people like to scream so much because this isn't the bronze age
What is the minimum amount of territory Germany needed to take to become and remain a superpower? I'm looking for a Germany that can support a superpower-level population base without murdering the entirety of Russia. Assume that genocide is off the table, but resettlement and forced integration are still OK. And Slavs are treated kindly by Germans (no slavery or serfdom, and Slavs have equivalent living standards).
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
If you are seeking lebensbraum for Germans, but only at the expense of speakers of non-Indo-European language speakers (because the terms Indo-European and Aryan were often used interchangeably in the 20s, 30s & 40s), the nearest and most desirable lands to Germany are the following, in order of proximity:

Hungary
Finland
Lapland
Basque Country (el paid Vasco)
Turkey
Tunisia
Georgia
Azerbaijan & assorted ASSRs in Caucasus
Assorted ASSRs of Ugric or Turkic speakers in European Russia
Syria
Lebanon
Palestine
Central Iraq

It is an interesting assortment, and you will notice only one (Hungary) is contiguous to Greater Germany by land and another (Finland) is fairly close by sea.
 
What I'm looking for is a way for Germany to be a superpower with a large amount of territory and resource autonomy without mass genocide of Slavs. Would it be possible to integrate the Poles, Czechs and Baltic states into Germany? As for the maritime problem, my plan was that Mussolini would give Germany permanent railway concessions through Italy and Libya to reach Chad, which would be connected to the rest of German Africa. Does this work?

The maritime option can't give Germany resource autonomy unless Germany is a dominant naval power, which requires Britain to be defeated.
Economic integration of eastern Europe is possible, but the USSR is also playing that game, and Britain and France will also be alarmed by German expansionism
Military integration is possible, but eastern Europe is insufficient to overturn Germany's industrial/resource/population inferiority relative to the USSR, suggesting that further territory is required. In the historical attempt to achieve that, the troops, and Germany itself, were sustained by looting those territories. To prevent this, an attack must be much weaker and slower than OTL.

The fundamental problem is that Germany is a relatively small country whose access to foreign trade is limited and vulnerable and who is surrounded by peer or superior unaccommodating powers.
 
The maritime option can't give Germany resource autonomy unless Germany is a dominant naval power, which requires Britain to be defeated.
Economic integration of eastern Europe is possible, but the USSR is also playing that game, and Britain and France will also be alarmed by German expansionism
Military integration is possible, but eastern Europe is insufficient to overturn Germany's industrial/resource/population inferiority relative to the USSR, suggesting that further territory is required. In the historical attempt to achieve that, the troops, and Germany itself, were sustained by looting those territories. To prevent this, an attack must be much weaker and slower than OTL.

The fundamental problem is that Germany is a relatively small country whose access to foreign trade is limited and vulnerable and who is surrounded by peer or superior unaccommodating powers.
Assume Germany has already defeated the Soviet Union and Britain (ASB I know, but my timeline has a reasonable POD for this to work). The question is how can Germany command enough resource to become a superpower, without mass genocide of Slavs? The Africa option I was talking about involves Germany seizing French Equatorial Africa, the Congo and some British colonies to gain a resource base, and transporting these resources through the Sahara and into the Mediterranean, where each inlets are controlled by Axis powers (Italy does far better). Would this not work?
 
If you are seeking lebensbraum for Germans, but only at the expense of speakers of non-Indo-European language speakers (because the terms Indo-European and Aryan were often used interchangeably in the 20s, 30s & 40s), the nearest and most desirable lands to Germany are the following, in order of proximity:

Hungary
Finland
Lapland
Basque Country (el paid Vasco)
Turkey
Tunisia
Georgia
Azerbaijan & assorted ASSRs in Caucasus
Assorted ASSRs of Ugric or Turkic speakers in European Russia
Syria
Lebanon
Palestine
Central Iraq

It is an interesting assortment, and you will notice only one (Hungary) is contiguous to Greater Germany by land and another (Finland) is fairly close by sea.
Aren't the Georgians an IndoEuropean language?
 
Aren't the Georgians an IndoEuropean language?

Georgian is part of the Kartvelian language family not the Indo-European. It's supposed to be one of the earliest language families.

Proto-Kartvelian is thought to have been influenced by Proto-Indo European at a very early date, but had a different origin and remained its own thing.
 
They did consider Slavs Aryans.

No. They just thought that some Slavs who looked like Germans could be "umvolked" (that's a term the extreme right of today uses for "exchanging European people by Third World people", but the original meaning was different). They got German citizenship (provisional only), had to learn German and so on. This included kids who were taken from their families.
 
So the consensus seems to be that the only realistic way Germany could have achieved enough of a resource and population base to become a superpower is by expansion eastward. Does anybody know the minimum requirements for how much Slav territory Germany has to take? Surely they don't have to go all the way to the Urals to become self-sufficient?
 
Top