Lebensraum, Lebensraum
This short subject from MGM that came out in 1943 was at the time a reminder we still had a long way to go for total victory. That was the message that Lewis Stone conveyed as narrator. It was a collective feeling in the German body politic that they were sold out by the ruling classes and made to bear the brunt of the onus of starting World War I. There was enough guilt on that to go all around.
A name that few Americans knew about a retired German general and university professor Karl Haushofer is identified as the intellectual father of the Nazi movement. This was wartime and not a time for subtleties. The real Haushofer was the professor of Rudolf Hess who introduced him to a rightwing activist named Adolf Hitler whom he felt would be in sympathy with Haushofer's ideas on an expansive and expanding and dynamic Germany. In German they called that Lebensraum.
The story of the real Haushofer was far more fascinating than what you see here and in the one dimensional portrayal that Frank Reicher gives him. He never joined the party, he had too many differences with them. Chiefly on their anti-Semitism and that would be natural since he married a woman whose father was Jewish. She had to be given the status of honorary Aryan due to whatever strings Rudolf Hess could pull.
Haushofer's son was picked up and executed in the Von Stauffenberg conspiracy. There's a lot more, but you get the idea this is not a short subject that has stood the test of time.
A name that few Americans knew about a retired German general and university professor Karl Haushofer is identified as the intellectual father of the Nazi movement. This was wartime and not a time for subtleties. The real Haushofer was the professor of Rudolf Hess who introduced him to a rightwing activist named Adolf Hitler whom he felt would be in sympathy with Haushofer's ideas on an expansive and expanding and dynamic Germany. In German they called that Lebensraum.
The story of the real Haushofer was far more fascinating than what you see here and in the one dimensional portrayal that Frank Reicher gives him. He never joined the party, he had too many differences with them. Chiefly on their anti-Semitism and that would be natural since he married a woman whose father was Jewish. She had to be given the status of honorary Aryan due to whatever strings Rudolf Hess could pull.
Haushofer's son was picked up and executed in the Von Stauffenberg conspiracy. There's a lot more, but you get the idea this is not a short subject that has stood the test of time.
- bkoganbing
- Mar 1, 2015