Were Hitler’s Political Actions Planned or Improvised?
According to the British historian Alan John Percival Taylor, Hitler was both a dreamer and a planner of German domination of Europe. Already in Mein Kampf he denounced the harshness of the Versailles Treaty and dreamt of destroying French supremacy in Europe. The Austrian Anschluss was not planned by Hitler and was carried out by the Austrian Nazi Party. Similarly, the four million Germans in Czechoslovakia did the work for Hitler, who did not want war at that stage. With regard to Danzig, whose population was almost exclusively German, Hitler demanded that the Poles cede Danzig to Germany, which they refused to do. Great Britain hastily gave the Poles her pledge to stand by Poland. Hitler had expected negotiations with Britain. The Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact was another attempt by Hitler to stave off war. Taylor expects us to believe that on both occasions Hitler lost his normal restraint and rashly attacked first Poland and later Russia. However, the writings of Hitler (Mein Kampf), Bormann, Goebbels, Rauschning, etc., paint an entirely different picture. Hitler wrote of contiguous land acquisition and resettlement of Germans because of overcrowding in Germany. The German Aryan race must become a world power. Subject people would become slaves. The strong have the right to subjugate the weak. The most detrimental element to racial superiority is the Jewish poison and the Jewish leaven must be exterminated. Hitler’s second book, never published, only strengthens his writings in his first book. He stresses that vast land masses in Eastern Europe must be conquered to make lebensraum (living space) for Germany’s ever-growing population. The locals must be cleared away (exterminated). It is quite clear that every move was planned ahead and not just a result of circumstances.
