Abstract
ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to rethink the concept of Lebensraum and its significant role in Nazi policies. During World War II, the notion of Lebensraum increasingly transcended its original geographic–geopolitical and agricultural frameworks. Nazi policy was based on the idea of racially homogenizing existing as well as conquered space. As opposed to earlier colonial land seizure, the Nazi policies of resettlement, expulsion, and murder of racially undesirable population groups were not the consequences of the occupation policy, but rather their very purpose and objective. Focusing on the category of space, this essay identifies certain continuities as well as significant breaks between colonialism and National Socialism. The author contends that the goal of colonial rule was the economic and political subjugation of the conquered countries, which necessitated heterogeneity as a structural principle. Lebensraum, on the other hand, represented a different and unprecedented model of domination, one that did not imagine, in colonial fashion, the spaces as being empty, but rather intended to empty these spaces and radically reorganize them for the purpose of racial selection.
Published Version
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