Military Implications of German Geopolitics

THE GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERN OF THE WAR

By H. W. WEIGERT, Professor of International Relations, Trinity College

Delivered before the Institute of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., July 6, 1942

Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. VIII, pp. 645-647.

A LECTURER on German geopolitics in these days should begin his tale with the following story: Near Charlottesville, I believe, a man from the East who was driving in the South discovered a signpost which invited the passerby to attend a local "strawberry festival." He stopped his car, got out, and found under the signpost a smaller announcement which read as follows: "Due to the war situation, prunes will be served."

Geopolitics, this glamorous catchword of power-politics, has rapidly become, in the words of Life Magazine, a "five dollar term" since it invaded this country a year ago. The excited stories about the German super-science, about the "thousand scientists behind Hitler," gave geopolitics in the United States a sinister and even somewhat hysterical start, and the advice to expect prunes instead of strawberries is therefore only too well justified.

The great interest which German geopolitics awakened is not astounding, however. Not only was the importance of this German school, founded and until today directed by the former Major General Professor Doctor Karl Haushofer in Munich, pictured in striking colors, as for instance in the words of Colonel Professor Beukema of West Point that "history will rate Haushofer higher than Hitler because Haushofer's studies made possible Hitler's victories both in power-politics and in war." But, in addition, the American public to which this story was told felt instinctively that such lessons in political geography should have been learned by them a long time ago. Suddenly we awakened to the fact that the United States, in a not too splendid isolation, had missed a few basic geography lessons which the German Caesars had learned earlier than we and had learned by heart.

In Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale," we find a stage direction in which Bohemia is described as "a desert country near the sea." Not long ago, the American public was not too far away from such Shakespearian view, and all of us shared the bewilderment when, in these days of global war in a world which had become a closed unit, we were forced to learn in a hurry the geographical facts which govern its grand strategy. No wonder German geopolitics appeared on the political scene as a super-science.

Of course, the geopolitics of General Haushofer is neither supernatural nor is it one of Hitler's secret weapons. Itsmain characteristic is to be seen in a global view of world politics which sees, in the age of the railroad, the highway, and the airplane, the vast land masses of Eurasia as the geographical pivot of the world's history in the twentieth century. On this basis, German geopolitics developed as an instrument of power-politics, strongly stressing the predominance of land power over what it considers the aging and decaying sea power of the colonial empires. The other significant characteristic of Haushofer's geopolitics seems to me to lie in the fact that this geopolitical school under the leadership of the undoubtedly extremely capable General Haushofer was never satisfied with being but another academic school of geographic thought, but that it jumped from the beginning daringly into the arena where the legions were assembled for the march of the Caesars which is now shaking the world. In other words, Haushofer and his circle aimed at educating and influencing the representatives of political power in Germany, and they succeeded in molding the minds of important power groups. Since 1918, when Haushofer had demobilized his division which he had led in battles in France and Poland, an incessant struggle went on behind the scenes of the political life in Germany in which Haushofer attempted to win over to his grand strategy the elite of the days to come.

Before we cast a brief glance at the blueprints of strategy which were designed by Haushofer and his men, we might look at these power groups which were the educational material of the German geopolitical school. To do this is not merely of academic interest; for the men whom Haushofer tried to make his disciples are either the masters of the Germany of today or, perhaps, the masters of the Germany of tomorrow. I am speaking of two power groups in Germany which today, while Hitler acts as the supreme commander of the German army, are seemingly identical but which in the future might fall apart and clash, thus bringing about another revolution in our day of truly gigantic dimensions: the Party and the Army. Let us, for just a minute, take a long view in order to see the world historical meaning of the struggle for power between groups which, one day in the future, might no longer walk the same road in their march for world conquest. Oswald Spengler, the gloomy prophet of "The Decline of the West," predicted the coming of a "Prussian Socialism" in a Germany where armies will havetaken the place of parties, where armies, not parties, are the future form of power. This was written by Spengler in 1933, at a time when Hitler's internal victories were at their highest. With deep pessimism, Spengler looked at what he described as the "emotional drunkenness" with which the political decisions were made in the Reich of Hitler and he predicted that "the world revolution, however strong it starts out, ends in neither victory nor defeat but in resignation of the forward-driven masses." With the ideals of the Party becoming boring, the leaders of the army would, in cool calculation, assume the heritage and take over the supreme power in the land of the Caesars.

Field Marshals have been dismissed by Hitler and Field Marshals have died mysteriously, yet the hour is still too early to say whether the clash between the Party and the Army elites in Germany which Spengler predicted is already in the making or whether Spengler's view of the things to come was mere speculation. Whatever the outcome may be, and I am inclined to follow Spengler so far as his prophecies deal with the fate of Germany, the story of the geopolitics of Haushofer reflects the struggle for power behind the German scene. Haushofer's geopolitics tried hard, but tried in vain, to win over the Party to its grand strategy. It succeeded, however, in convincing the Army elite that the long view and strategy of Haushoferism was right, and German geopolitics is therefore an integral part of the strategical ideas of the German general staff. For this reason, the subject of German geopolitics today deals with the application of certain aspects of a global geography to military strategy.

Much has been speculated about the relations between Haushofer and Hitler and between Haushofer and Hess, who was, for a time, the docile pupil of Haushofer and whose descent in Scotland reflects symbolically the break between Haushoferism and Hitlerism. I shall not attempt to tell the inside story of the struggle but shall rather deal briefly with a few main points of Haushofer's global strategy by stressing that these views of Haushofer and his school were for a long time adopted by the most intelligent officers of the German army who saw in Haushofer not a professor at the University of Munich but a former general in the imperial German army, a friend and comrade. The grand theme of German geopolitics, from the beginning, was that the dawning world revolution would bring about another world war which would be a war over Asia. This foresight and the conclusions which Haushofer and his disciples drew for actual strategy were based on the teachings of two men, both of whom possessed the long global view which we, pressed on our insecure ramparts, are now trying to digest hastily. The one was a German, Friedrich Ratzel, the other an Englishman, Sir Halford Mackinder. Ratzel, who died in 1904 at the age of sixty, had learned his first geography lessons while traveling in the United States, and it was while here that he perceived the importance, in political geography, of vast land spaces and the significance which the space conception possesses as a psychological factor in power politics. "Every people," he maintained, "has to be educated up from smaller to larger space concepts; this process has to be repeated again and again to prevent the people from sinking back into small space conceptions. The decay of every state is the result of a declining space-conception." This is the "law of growing spaces" which became the main pillar of Haushofer's geopolitics. The other pillar, closely connected with the first one, was the global view of Eurasia as the Heartland whose possession would lead the conqueror to world domination. This idea, tragically enough, was the long view of an Englishman who tried in vain to make the Democracies understand it in time. Mackinder, who is now eighty-two years old, and whom I consider one of the greatestgeographers of all time, issued in 1919 this fateful warning to the Allies: "When our statesmen are in conversation with a defeated enemy, some airy cherub should whisper to them from time to time this saying: 'Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world'." The law of growing spaces, linked with the insight that the land masses of East Europe represent the nucleus of continental power, was the foundation on which Haushofer erected his building of actual strategy. During all the decades in which the Anglo-American world drifted along in isolation, these ideas gave German geopoliticians and the planners in the German army the measurements for blueprints of strategy which were of a truly global nature. All their attention was focused on the regions of the vast land masses in which they saw the cradle of the dawning world revolution. Asia and, holding the central position, Soviet Russia, became thus the center of gravity which German strategy would have to accept as an indisputable factor. During all the years, when the Democracies looked fascinated at the tragic struggle for survival of the small buffer states which, in the age of the airplane, had lost their strategical meaning of separating the big powers, German geopolitics was busy drawing the blueprints for a transcontinental bloc reaching from the river Rhine to the Amur and to the Yangtse.

But the most significant conclusion which Haushofer's school drew from its geographical and strategical studies, and especially from its studies of Soviet Russia which were unbiased by ideological prejudices, was that Germany, if she wanted to play her part in the coming revolution of Asia, would have to become a partner of these revolutionary forces, not their enemy. "Germany will have to decide," wrote Haushofer's Journal of Geopolitics as early as 1925, "where she stands; does she want to be a satellite of the Anglo-Saxon powers and their super-capitalism which are united against Russia, or will she be an ally of the Pan-Asiatic union against Europe and America?" And the answer is that "no nation is closer to Russia than is Germany; only Germany can understand the Russian soul; Germany and Russia have been friends for centuries; their economic structures are complementary; they must hang together." For years Haushofer struggled to persuade Hitler to live in peace with Russia. The German-Russian Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939, was Haushofer's greatest triumph, It brought him close to the fulfillment of his most audacious dreams of cementing the continental bloc in Eurasia, with Germany as adviser and eventually as leader of an invincible Asiatic power combination. "Never again," he prayed, "shall Germany and Russia endanger, by ideological conflicts, the geopolitical foundations of their adjustable spaces." At last, he felt, Hitler had been persuaded to give up his concepts of a foreign policy which aimed at the destruction of Russia and France and an alliance with England and Italy as it was outlined in Mein Kampf. At last, Hitler had been won over to forget his hatred of Russian Bolshevism and to embark on a realistic foreign policy. Almost jubilantly did Haushofer, in August 1939, express his pride over the fact that the influence of the Rosenberg group, which preached a crusade against Bolshevism, had been broken and the way paved for German-Russian cooperation.

But this was only one side of the global picture. Germany was only one station on the "inner line" which, in the age of the railroad and the airplane, gave continental powers such decisive advantages over the aging sea powers. The other side was East Asia, with Japan as the pivot power which had embarked on the march for conquest. If Haushofer's dream of a transcontinental bloc from the Rhine tothe Yangtse was to be fulfilled, Japan would have to become a member of it. The vastness of the Russian spaces and the strength of her human masses which convinced Haushofer that Germany must choose a peaceful cooperation with the giant Russia—these same considerations demanded that Japan would have to cooperate peacefully with Soviet Russia. Unless this goal was reached, the blueprints of German geopolitics would never be translated into actuality. Therefore Haushofer, and with him German geopolitics, tried to influence not only German foreign policy but also Japan towards friendship with Soviet Russia, and a logical conclusion, with China, too. Haushofer wrote, "If it were possible for the nations of the Rising Sun and of the Hammer and Sickle to end their mutual distrust . . . they would be invincible." "Japan could become the continent-minded partner of a continental politics of the Old World. . . ." "This," said Haushofer, "would give Japan complete protection and freedom for action in the Pacific, a geopolitical possibility of immense importance not only for Japan and Russia but also for Central Europe and its enemies."

Action in the Pacific—by that Haushofer meant lightning action, without a declaration of war, thus predicting Pearl Harbor. But Japan did not listen to Haushofer's admonitions to strike first against the British Empire and the other colonial possessions in the southwest Pacific. Instead of turning to the south, Japan started her drive on the continent against China. Haushofer warned that this would draw the Chinese and the Indians together and would result in the formation of an unconquerable human bloc of eight hundred millions. "China," he said, "is a sea which makes all rivers flowing into it salty; if Japan penetrates too far into China, she will be drowned." Yes, if an empire could arise with "Japan's soul in China's body," it would be a power that would put even the empires of Russia and the United States in the shade. But this, Haushofer knew, was an old man's empty dream.

Neither did Hitler listen to his would-be mentor, and on June 22, 1941, the geopolitical dreams of a German-Russian-Chinese-Japanese bloc were smashed forever when Hitler gave his generals the order to invade Russia. It was the same generals who were, and remained, convinced that the ex-General Haushofer was a better strategist than the ex-corporal Hitler.

Manifold are the lessons which Haushofer's geopolitics can teach us; many of them are vital in our day. Some of the most important ones, like the concept that this is a war over Asia and that Russia holds the key to the decision of this war, have become part of our thinking—not because we have studied German geopolitics, which has seen these factors clearly for decades, but because the dark realities of the warhave taught us this lesson. There is not much sense in looking at Haushofer's concepts in retrospect and to weep over the blunders of which we are guilty by not perceiving the most elementary rules of a global view. But if we win this war, we shall be aware that our inability to see those events in their totality and interrelationship, as for instance the links between German and Japanese strategy, would have almost cost us the victory.

However, the war is not yet won. At an hour which is darker than any time of this war, it is almost criminal to indulge in armchair strategy and speculation. But the study of Haushofer's geopolitics leads to something more important than to follow the path of gloomy prophets and befuddled star-gazers. It makes us see that there was and there is in Germany an important group, strongly represented in the army, which did not want war with Russia. If this statement is true, the other conclusion is inevitable—that a decisive setback of the Axis in Russia would not only give the German generals the right to tell Hitler "we told you so"; it would open the way for what Spengler predicted, the revolt of the army against Hitler and his Party, a revolt which, at the moment of defeat, would, by compelling necessity of fate, lead to a complete moral and physical breakdown.

Those are a few hopeful conclusions which we might acquire from the study of Haushofer's geopolitics. When Oswald Spengler, during the first World War, wrote his famous "The Decline of the West," he planned to give the last chapter the title, "Russia and the Future." But at last even he, the most daring of all prophets, did not have the courage to predict Russia's date with Destiny. This omission is symbolic. How can we dare to try to look behind the curtain of our day's history in which Russia, Asiatic Russia, is the main actor on the world's stage? We must not forget that Hitler still tries to prove to Haushofer and the Generals that the Little Corporal knew better. It will take all our courage and effort to prove before the judgment of history that the action of June 22, 1941, sealed Hitler's fate and saved our world. The fundamental lesson of German geopolitics in its application to military strategy lies in the words "Russia and the future." Destiny, guiding Hitler, has given us an undeserved present when it made the Land of the Free the ally of Russia—undeserved because our own inability to see the signs on the wall in time makes us unable to claim that it is due to our geopolitical wisdom that America and Asiatic Russia, the greatest continental powers on earth, are united today against the arch-enemy of free men. But since they are allies, much to Haushofer's distress, there is hope that on the fateful June day a year ago, the road was opened which will lead us to victory.