Why was Western Europe not incorporated into the Reich? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

The Second World War (1939-1945).
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14218530
Hitler had a massive hard-on for German revanchism. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.ph ... ediaId=379

Until he was stopped, it seems like with the exception of Italy and Switzerland he was going by the rough borders of the Holy Roman Empire: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -map-1.jpg

But as for Poland he just said "fuck it" and might as well annex the whole goddamned thing. And then played with his dog Blondie.

This was Hitler in a nutshell. Basically, the best way to understand Hitler is to play a World War II scenario on Civilization 3 or 4. You're completely disassociated from the units and they're just pieces on a board, and eventually you become obsessed with acquiring more and more territory, as well as slipping into an RP attitude where you want everything that was ever remotely Germanic, just because RPing on Civilization is fun.
#14218632
Sithsaber wrote:They were to be vassal states. Kind of east Germany but with open eradication of minorities and veiled enslavement for the rest.

As usual, the stupidity of your posts makes me barf with disgust.
____________________________________

Western Europe was simply conquered in order to remove the continental Allied forces, so the Reich could then concentrate on conquering the much-desired Lebensraum in the East where real integration and colonization would begin up to the envisioned Volga-Archangelsk Line. France and the Low Countries would later be freed but still be under the Axis boot. The Netherlands was planned to be incorporated into the Reich along with Norway and Denmark due to their Germanic origins, eventually forming the utopian Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation, or something like that, which never came to be. France would be included in a future European Confederation, according to Ribbentrop, but his plans were scrapped by Hitler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Confederation
#14224681
They did not want to bring in France and the non-Germanic parts of Belgium because their plan for their state was to create a Germanic empire for Germanic peoples. This would not include the French, Italians or other non-Germanic nationalities in Europe. Hence such regions were not brought in. Nevertheless they did plan to eventually integrate all Germanic lands into one state, along with the Slavic lands they had occupied in the east. This was to the exclusion of the UK. I do not know why they did not plan to include Britain. Most likely it was because they considered it a separate power in its own right and wanted to let it control the seas while they controlled the land. The initial plan was to let Britain keep India and its empire.
#14224698
This was to the exclusion of the UK. I do not know why they did not plan to include Britain. Most likely it was because they considered it a separate power in its own right and wanted to let it control the seas while they controlled the land. The initial plan was to let Britain keep India and its empire.


Around the time of Dunkirk, Hitler was expecting peace from the brits and held back his generals somewhat. He is said to have spoken regarding his generals

"They do not undeestand the importance of Britain to the world order. We do not have the capability to incorporate their empire at this time and is not our desire to do so."

(paraphrasing)
#14230614
Hitler saw the British and the French as fellow Aryans, to be recruited to the Nazi, cause rather than to be trodden on like the Poles or the Czechs. Operation Sea Lion is today regarded as a joke among historians and many senior Wehrmacht officers did not take it seriously. It is possible that troops could have landed, but the Kriegsmarine simply wasn't capable of holding the channel so much of the Heer would have been left stranded in England with no supply lines.
#14230737
I remember reading that an initial plan that was never fully accepted in regard to France was to break it up. Let Brittany go, which they historically wanted anyway, make a Picardia, a nation of Normandy, etc. Then there would be no France with which to threaten Germany, they wouldn't have to occupy, all would be fine in time. So the theory went.

In practice this never came to be for a few reasons. When the war was winding down, a group that had long wanted independence for Brittany sided with Germany. This was done with the specific purpose of making sure Germany couldn't win the war and as a way to demonstrate independence more than anything else. A similar thing could be said for the IRA.

Regardless, after the war-so I've read-the French and British both went into Brittany and basically went into a frenzy in taking out anyone that may have been too much for independence of Brittany. This included taking out anyone that knew the language and whatnot. It wasn't until the Welsh in the House of Commons got wind of this that it stopped.

And this isn't to say that the fascist scum was somehow extra special because the parliamentary capitalists did something wrong. I know fascist babies try to weep and whine about that all the time. The only difference between the two sides to me is that the fascists are fighting for an imagination land where the petite bourgeoisie and scraps of the peasantry are somehow magically relevant.
#14230749
The Immortal Goon wrote:I remember reading that an initial plan that was never fully accepted in regard to France was to break it up. Let Brittany go, which they historically wanted anyway, make a Picardia, a nation of Normandy, etc. Then there would be no France with which to threaten Germany, they wouldn't have to occupy, all would be fine in time. So the theory went.

Interesting. I'm gonna look this up. If this checks out, it's gonna be a nice addition to my Axis victory mod.
#14408879
Rybak wrote:Why did Nazi Germany incorporate Poland into the Greater German Reich but left France, Netherlands and Belgium as simply occupied nations?

Didn't they want to incorporate al of Europe into a Nazi Empire, or were the Eastern Slav lands where they wanted to build a German Empire?


Poland was a relatively new state made up mostly of German territory so it was logical for the Germans to annex it.
Poland was believed by many parties in the world to be a state which should not exist (many German and Soviet thinkers thought this).

Germany also had absolutely no plan to dismantle the French and UK Empire because they were seen as righteous rivals that had their right to their own lebensraum. Germany never intended to disrupt the Western European balance of power especially as most Germans including Nazis were profoundly marked by the experiences of WW1.

The German expansion was purely driven by a confrontation in the east where the lebensraum would be fought between Germany and Russia.

Western Europe absolutely does not fit the criteria for being lebensraum. It is highly populated developed European nations. Desiring lebensraum there would mean the destruction of Europe which nobody was stupid enough to want.
#14408896
The short answer is that Hitler as a German nationalist did not hold the Western nations in the same contempt as he did the Slavic ones, and that Hitler had more limited war aims than is sometimes assumed. Like many Germans, he did not think Slavs were really capable of good self-government, citing the decadent Polish Commonwealth, the Tsarist Empire and, worst of all, Bolshevik Russia (although admittedly the leadership of that regime was in very large part drawn from the empire's minorities), so they may as well be under good German rule. Even if Hitler was wary of "Judeo-financialist" domination in Britain and America, he also saw much to admire in these kindred Anglo-Saxon nations, whether it was the British Empire (British India was his model for German supremacism over the Slavs) or Henry Ford (champion of the anti-Semitic productive-as-against-speculative capitalism he espoused). Hitler did not respect decadent France however, seemingly irreparably ruined by liberalism and "mongrelization," although perhaps he imagined it would have been better to let that country rebuild itself under a conservative regime, without prejudging its future.

Germany's "France policy" was above all dominated by immediate wartime concerns so it's hard to say what Hitler would have done with the country had he won the war. Some plans involved annexing a large swathe of the country beyond Alsace-Lorraine for German colonization. But there was also the possibility of more or less rapidly restoring a largely independent French State (this was the early Vichy Regime's hope, based on a swift British capitulation that did not occur), the better to shore up Fortress Europe's Western flank.
#14408916
It's also to be said that Germany absolutely did not have the capacity to dominate Western Europe, even if it wanted to.
Hitler had absolutely no dream of a Napoleonic or Charlemagne-style Empire.

He wanted a fully unified Germany of all Germanophone and Germanic peoples (excluding Switzerland which Hitler had given up on).
But ruling over non Germans was completely out of the question as ruling over non racially unified non nation states was the anti-thesis of Nazism.

Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Fuhrer. Not a million Volk, a million languages, and ethnic tensions.

His view makes total sense from a realpolitik point of view. Of course what France and UK and rest of world didnt agree to was the German expansion to the East.

As to the political aspects concerning France and rest of Europe, like Ombrageux said this is pure speculation.
For example Hitler had fully renounced on Alsace Lorraine before 1939 to maintain peace with France, but after French victory PARTS of Alsace Lorraine were freely annexed as the discussion was now different.

There are two situations here:
1. Nazi and Hitler ideology
2. War reality.

Germany did not want to disrupt French and English Empires.
But once war was declared and they were defeated, its pretty clear that to Hitler they had forfeited their right to be superpowers and that the war would decide who would be running the European new order.

In this case I see France and UK as secondary state. Definitely not annexed as this made no sense to German thinkers (multiethnic state again).
But kind of like a European union/confederation with Germany saying the foreign policy and France & UK on the backseat. This was Hitler plan once they were defeated.

Ironically this is becoming like this in current European Union.

There is also the issue of colonies.
Again war realities would have decided. Most likely British colonies would be divided between Germany but mostly given to Italy as Third Reich was never too interested in Africa.

French colonies would stay part of France as armistice showed. This is very Hitler has conflicting views. He says that although he didnt want to oppose VIchy France and anger them by making them lose the colonies, he said he very much supported the Muslims against their colonial oppressors (Geopolitically this made more sense to him than keeping the French and English Empires in Africa alive.).

And not just French, but Italian colonies were opposed aswell.
Hitler was definitely not in favor of oppressing the local Muslim populations and keeping the colonies alive in the long term

https://twitter.com/huwaidaarraf/status/1773389663[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

What wat0n is trying to distract from: https://tw[…]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1773436787622[…]

PoFo would be a strange place for them to focus o[…]