Hitler's Military Ideology

Throughout his reign as head of the Third Reich, Hitler promoted a nationalist and a German supremacist attitude for his government. During World War II, these attitudes carried over to Hitler’s military strategy in the form of Lebensraum, the belief that the German race required an addition of geographic in order to survive. Due to this perceived need for conquest, Hitler evoked the image of Volkstumkampf, the belief that Germany was involved in an ethnical war to preserve the superiority of the Aryan blood. Due to the specific, militant attitudes of Volkstumkampf and Lebensraum, along with the overall nationalist message of the Nazi Party, Hitler adopted a policy of total warfare and used extremely aggressive tactics throughout the war, regardless of the possible negative implications. Therefore, Hitler’s ideology had a near stranglehold on his overall military strategy for Nazi Germany along the Eastern Front in World War II and eventually this adherence to ideology resulted in his downfall. In establishing the strength of the connection of the ideology of Hitler on his overall plan for military action on the Eastern Front, one …show more content…
As Gerhard Weinberg discusses, Poland was in an economically and militarily fragile position at the time of German invasion. Furthermore, Poland had the misfortune of being close in geographical proximity to Germany, thus providing the greatest opportunity for German expansion in the pursuit of Lebensraum. These factors created a perfectly positioned target for Hitler’s war machine. On September 1, 1937, Hitler activated Case White, the invasion name for the conquest of Poland, starting the second World War. As Liulevicius points out in his review, Poland is extremely important because it is the first demonstration of Hitler’s belief in Volkstumkampf. In order to deliver this devastating ethnic victory, Hitler employed an advanced strategic weapon: the