"" (; "people without space") was a political slogan used in the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...

and

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. The term was coined by the nationalist writer

Hans Grimm Hans Grimm (22 March 1875 – 29 September 1959) was a German writer. The title of his 1926 novel '' Volk ohne Raum'' became a political slogan of the expansionist Nazi ''Lebensraum'' concept. Early life Hans Grimm was born in Wiesbaden, in the P ...

with his novel ''Volk ohne Raum'' (1926). The novel immediately attracted much attention and sold nearly 700,000 copies.

Use

The slogan was used in a political context to suggest that due to the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...

depriving

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

of her

colonial empire A colonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state. Before the expansion of early mode ...

, the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

had become a people without living space (''

Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...

''), struggling with poverty, misery, hunger and overpopulation. Closely linked to this idea was the claim that the earth was divided unfairly among the

Great Powers A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power in ...

, leaving the Germans possessing little land compared to the less populous European nations. The most known usage of the slogan is by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

. In Nazi propaganda the slogan was repeatedly used to at least justify or legitimize the German conquest of Poland and the Soviet Union and for the massive territorial expansion into Eastern Europe to ensure Germanic

Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...

'' Herrenvolk'' ("Aryan master race") rule over Poles and Russians who the Nazis considered "non Aryan" and subhuman. Slavs as non-Aryans were to be ethnically cleansed and exterminated, and their territories settled by Germans. From the very early days of the Nazi party, the notion that the Germans were people without living space and had a right to expand was widespread among German nationalists and right-wing organisations. On February 24, 1920, Hitler proclaimed the party program and one of the 25 points of the National Socialist Program stated: "We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people, and colonization for our surplus population." In order to justify their '' Drang nach Osten'' ("desire to push East"), the Nazis amended the slogan of ''Volk ohne Raum'' by declaring the vast, sparsely populated lands of Russia a ''Raum ohne Volk'' (a "space without people") which had to be conquered by Germany, the "nation without space".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volk ohne Raum Nazi terminology German colonial empire Political catchphrases 1927 German-language novels Political terminology in Germany

Use

See also

References