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.
The Generalplan Ost, abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's blueprint for the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe categorized as "Untermensch" 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.
Reichskommissar, in German history, was an official governatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and Nazi Germany.
The Reichskommissariat Ostland was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.
Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in East Prussia from 1 October 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from September 1941 until August 1944 and in Reichskommissariat Ostland from September 1944. After the Second World War, Koch stood trial in Poland and was convicted in 1959 of war crimes and sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison and Koch died of natural causes in his cell at the Barczewo prison on 12 November 1986.
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.
The Reichskommissariat Ukraine was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It was the civilian occupation regime of much of Nazi German-occupied Ukraine. It was governed by the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories headed by Alfred Rosenberg. Between September 1941 and August 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Erich Koch as the Reichskommissar. The administration's tasks included the pacification of the region and the exploitation, for German benefit, of its resources and people. Adolf Hitler issued a Führer decree defining the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern territories on 17 July 1941.
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".
During World War II, in the course of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invaded Estonia in July–December 1941, and occupied the country until 1944. Estonia had gained independence in 1918 from the then warring German and Russian Empires. However, in the wake of the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Stalinist Soviet Union had invaded and occupied Estonia in June 1940, and the country was formally annexed into the USSR in August 1940.
The Gaue were the main administrative divisions of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states were under military occupation by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans liberators from the Soviet Union.
The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created by Adolf Hitler on 17 July 1941 and headed by the Nazi theoretical expert, the Baltic German Alfred Rosenberg. Alfred Meyer served as Rosenberg's deputy. The German government formed the ministry to control the vast areas captured and projected for capture by the Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe and Russia. The ministry also played a part in supporting anti-Soviet groups in Central Asia.
The Reichskommissariat Niederlande was the civilian occupation regime set up by Germany in the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II. Its full title was the Reich Commissariat for the Occupied Dutch Territories. The administration was headed by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, formerly the last chancellor of Austria before initiating its annexation by Germany.
The Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France was an interim occupation authority established during the Second World War by Nazi Germany that included present-day Belgium and the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. The administration was also responsible for governing the zone interdite, a narrow strip of territory running along the French northern and eastern borders. It remained in existence until July 1944. Plans to transfer Belgium from the military administration to a civilian administration were promoted by the SS, and Hitler had been ready to do so until Autumn 1942, when he put off the plans for what was intended to be temporary but ended up being permanent until the end of German occupation. The SS had suggested either Josef Terboven or Ernst Kaltenbrunner as the Reich Commissioner of the civilian administration.
Siegfried Kasche was an ambassador of the German Reich to the Independent State of Croatia and Obergruppenführer of the Sturmabteilung (SA), a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. Kasche was the proposed ruler of the Reichskommissariat Moskowien, but the Reichskommissariat failed to materialize. He was hanged for war crimes in Yugoslavia on 7 June 1947.
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.
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 Reichskommissariat of Belgium and Northern France was a Nazi German civil administration (Zivilverwaltung) which governed most of occupied Belgium and northern parts of occupied France in the second half of 1944 during World War II.
Generalbezirk Weißruthenien was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the 1941–1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three Baltic countries and the western part of the Byelorussian SSR.
