The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan. The Axis were united in their far-right positions and general opposition to the Allies, but otherwise lacked comparable coordination and ideological cohesion.
Lebensraum is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in World War I (1914–1918), as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion. The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. Lebensraum was a leading motivation of Nazi Germany to initiate World War II, and it would continue this policy until the end of the conflict.
Karl Ernst Haushofer was a German general, professor, geographer, and diplomat. Haushofer's concept of Geopolitik influenced the ideological development of Adolf Hitler. Rudolf Hess was also a student of Haushofer, and during Hess and Hitler's incarceration by the Weimar Republic after the Beer Hall Putsch, Haushofer visited Landsberg Prison to teach and mentor both Hess and Hitler. Haushofer also coined the political use of the term Lebensraum, which Hitler also used to justify both crimes against peace and genocide. At the same time, however, Gen. Haushofer's half-Jewish wife and their children were categorized as Mischlinge under the Nuremberg Laws. Their son, Albrecht Haushofer, was issued a German Blood Certificate through the influence of Rudolf Hess, but was arrested in 1944 over his involvement with the July 20th plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi Party. During the last days of the war, Albrecht Haushofer was summarily executed by the SS for his role in the German Resistance.
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, also known as the GEACPS, was a pan-Asian union that the Empire of Japan tried to establish. Initially, it covered Japan, Manchukuo, and China, but as the Pacific War progressed, it also included territories in Southeast Asia. The term was first coined by Minister for Foreign Affairs Hachirō Arita on June 29, 1940.
Drang nach Osten was the name for a 19th-century German nationalist intent to expand Germany into Slavic territories of Central and Eastern Europe. In some historical discourse, Drang nach Osten combines historical German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe, medieval military expeditions such as those of the Teutonic Knights, and Germanisation policies and warfare of modern German states such as those that implemented Nazism's concept of Lebensraum.
The Generalplan Ost, abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe categorized as "Untermenschen" in Nazi ideology. The campaign was a precursor to Nazi Germany's planned colonisation of Central and Eastern Europe by Germanic settlers, and it was carried out through systematic massacres, mass starvations, chattel labour, mass rapes, child abductions, and sexual slavery.
The causes of World War II have been given considerable attention by historians. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France, but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes. Primary themes in historical analysis of the war's origins include the political takeover of Germany in 1933 by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; Japanese militarism against China, which led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Second Sino-Japanese War; Italian aggression against Ethiopia, which led to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War; or military uprising in Spain, which led to the Spanish Civil War.
Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a relative few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers. It is estimated that 74 million people died, with estimates ranging from 40 million to 90 million dead. The main Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, and the Kingdom of Italy; while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.
The New Order of Europe was the political and social system that Nazi Germany wanted to impose on the areas of Europe that it conquered and occupied.
Germany–Japan relations are the current and historical relations between Germany and Japan. The diplomatic relations were officially established in 1861 with the first ambassadorial visit to Japan from Prussia. Japan modernized rapidly after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, often using German models through intense intellectual and cultural exchange. After Japan aligned itself with Britain in 1900, Germany and Japan became enemies in World War I. Japan declared war on the German Empire in 1914 and seized key German possessions in China and the Pacific.
Reichskommissariat Moskowien was the civilian occupation-regime that Nazi Germany intended to establish in central and northern European Russia during World War II, one of several similar Reichskommissariate. It was also known initially as the Reichskommissariat Russland, but was later renamed as part of German policies of partitioning the Russian state. Siegfried Kasche was the projected Reichskomissar, but due to the Wehrmacht's failure to occupy the territories intended to form the Reichskommissariat, it remained on paper only.
The Reichskommissariat Kaukasien, also spelled Kaukasus, was the theoretical political division and planned civilian occupation regime of Germany in the occupied territories of the Caucasus region during World War II. Unlike the other four planned Reichskommissariats, within the borders of the proposed Caucasus Reichskommissariat experiments were to be conducted for various forms of autonomy for "indigenous groups".
Reichskommissariat is a German word for a type of administrative entity headed by a government official known as a Reichskommissar. Although many offices existed, primarily throughout the Imperial German and Nazi periods in a number of fields, it is most commonly used to refer to the quasi-colonial administrative territorial entity established by Nazi Germany in several occupied countries during World War II. While officially located outside the German Reich in a legal sense, these entities were directly controlled by their supreme civil authorities, who ruled their territories as German governors on behalf of and as representatives of Adolf Hitler.
Foreign relations of the Axis powers includes states which were not officially members of the Axis but had relations with one or more Axis members.
The meridian 70° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.
German–Soviet Axis talks occurred in October and November 1940 concerning the Soviet Union's potential adherent as a fourth Axis power during World War II. The negotiations, which occurred during the era of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, included a two-day conference in Berlin between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The talks were followed by both countries trading written proposed agreements.
Reichskommissariat Turkestan was a projected Reichskommissariat that Germany proposed to create in Russia and the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union in its military conflict with that country during World War II. Soviet historian Lev Bezymenski claimed that names Panturkestan, Großturkestan and Mohammed-Reich were also considered for the territory.
Wehrbauer, plural Wehrbauern, is a German term for settlers living on the marches of a realm who were tasked with holding back foreign invaders until the arrival of proper military reinforcements. In turn, they were granted special liberties. Wehrbauern in their settlements, known as Wehrsiedlungen, were mainly used on the eastern fringes of the Holy Roman Empire and later Austria-Hungary to slow attacks by the Ottoman Empire. This historic term was resurrected and used by the Nazis during the Second World War.
The Ural Mountains played a prominent role in Nazi planning. Adolf Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership made many references to them as a strategic objective of the Third Reich to follow a decisive victory on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union.
The foreign relations of Third Reich were characterized by the territorial expansionist ambitions of Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler and the promotion of the ideologies of anti-communism and antisemitism within Germany and its conquered territories. The Nazi regime oversaw Germany's rise as a militarist world power from the state of humiliation and disempowerment it had experienced following its defeat in World War I. From the late 1930s to its defeat in 1945, Germany was the most formidable of the Axis powers - a military alliance between Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and their allies and puppet states. Adolf Hitler made most of the major diplomatic policy decisions, while foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath handled routine business.
