Lebensraum

(Living Space)

   A primary objective of Germany during World War II was the acquisition of living space for the purpose of extending the ethnic boundaries of “Germandom” eastward, in order to reclaim land that had once been part of German territory. Much of the territory was to be annexed at the expense of Poland and included Danzig, West Prussia, Pozaan, and eastern Silesia. Heinrich Himmler, however, believed that the German empire of the Middle Ages stretched as far east as Livonia, now part of the territory of Latvia and Estonia. Lebensraum was also a product of Nazi racial ideology, which held that the Slavic peoples of the east were inferior to the Aryan race. Ultimately, the millions of ethnic Germans living in the east would be resettled on the conquered territory, and the former inhabitants would serve as a source of cheap labor for the Reich.