Lebensraum

Lebensraum (German for "habitat" or literally "living space") was one of the major genocidal political goals of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany. In Hitler's book Mein Kampf, he detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and that it should be found in Eastern Europe. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with Germanic people. Entire populations were to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German upper class. Other Slavic populations such as the Czech were to be mass sterilized and more slowly replaced by ethnic Germans.