Geopolitik

Geopolitik was a German school of geopolitics which existed between the late 19th century and World War II.

It developed from the writings of various European and American philosophers, geographers and military personnel, including Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), Alexander Humboldt (1769–1859), Karl Ritter (1779–1859), Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922), Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914), Homer Lea (1876–1912), Halford Mackinder (1861–1947) and Karl Haushofer (1869–1946). The ideology of Adolf Hitler adapted, and eventually incorporated some of its tenets.

The defining characteristic of Geopolitik is the inclusion of organic state theory, informed by social Darwinism. It was characterized by clash of civilizations-style theorizing. It is perhaps the closest of any school of geostrategy to a purely nationalistic conception of geostrategy, which ended up masking other more universal elements.

Germany acted as a revisionist state within the international system during both World Wars by attempting to overthrow British domination, and to counter what it saw as rising US and Russian hegemony. As a latecomer to nationhood proper, lacking colonies or reserved markets for industrial output but also experiencing rapid population growth, Germany desired a more equitable distribution of wealth and territory within the international system. Some modern scholars have begun to treat the two World Wars, participated in by Germany, as a single war (1914–1945) in which the revisionist Germany attempted to bid for hegemonic control with which to reorder the international system.^[1]

German foreign policy was largely consistent in both wars. The foreign policy of Nazi Germany (1933–1945) was unique insofar as it learned from what it saw as past imperial mistakes but essentially followed the very same designs laid out by German Geopolitik in the historical record of the German Empire.