Beware the ‘intellectual-yet-idiots’ VIEWPOINT
Certain words and phrases are ambiguous because the associated meanings have changed over time. “Gay”, for instance, meant “carefree/cheerful” in times when people were either straight, or closeted, or persecuted. “Social Justice Warrior” was originally just a neutral variation on “civil rights activist” before it started being deployed pejoratively.
“Lebensraum” is not one of those words. It is unambiguous. The compound word means “Living Space” in German. It was coined in the 1890s by Friedrich Ratzel, who believed ethnic Germans needed to occupy more square metres per capita of the planet. It was used to justify 19th century colonial impulses common to European nations. It underpinned Germany’s occupation of what is now Namibia, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
Later on, Lebensraum was used by the Nazis to justify the concept of Grosse Deutschland (Greater Germany). This was a vast patch of Eastern Europe, which was to be settled by ethnically pure, “Aryan” Germans. Lebensraum was the underlying principle that led Adolf Hitler to occupy Czechoslovakia and Poland and then, invade the Soviet Union. It was the principle cited to justify enslaving and exterminating millions because they were not “pure” Germans.
The word has never been used in any other context. Therefore, anybody who knows the word knows the context. Every military officer who has studied World War II campaigns, and most military officers have, at some level, knows the word. It will pop up if you Google “Barbarossa” or look up “Nazi Party” on Wikipedia. Any senior military officer will know the word for sure, and he will know the exact context.
The usage was popularised by a gang of “intellectual-yet-idiots” to use another phrase that has gained currency in the recent past. The Reichsmarschall of Nazi Germany and the grandees of the party cited Lebensraum extensively, as did their leader.
They were all nationalists to a man (women took a backseat with a few dishonourable exceptions). They were all, including the leader, bright men in a street-smart sort of way, capable of rising to the top in a paranoid regime where bigotry, backstabbing, and the ability to indulge in shameless flattery were all career-enhancing qualities.
Some, including the leader himself, were men of personal courage, decorated in the battles of World War I. Many were street-fighters, who distinguished themselves if that is the right word, in the German civil war that followed. Hermann Göring for instance, won Imperial Germany’s highest military award as a flying ace. (His father presided over an early instance of Lebensraum-related genocide in what is now Namibia).
Quite a few top-level Nazis had genuine intellectual accomplishments to their credit. Albert Speer designed and built things on a vast scale and managed Germany’s war-manufacturing effort. (That meant running factories efficiently on slave labour.) Goebbels turned propaganda into an art-form. He was a supertroll, an ur- troll, the forefather of trolls long before trolling became a word. Between them, the “Lebensraumers” managed to persuade vast armies of ordinary people and brilliant professional soldiers to enthusiastically participate in a series of senseless wars.
They were also idiots. It was terribly stupid to get into a series of fights, which you knew you couldn’t win. It was really idiotic to assume that you could corral and murder entire populations without attracting retribution. In the end, between them, the Lebensraumers destroyed Germany.
Over 5 million Germans died during World War II. The country was split up. East Germany became a vassal state of the Soviet Union. In 1939, Germany had a population of 79 million (including Germans in Austria and Czechoslovakia). In 1950, West Germany had a population of 49 million; East Germany 18 million.
Most of the Reichsmarschalls died nasty deaths, or served long years in prison. Nobody who is not an idiot uses that word, except in an ironic way. The concept of Lebensraum lives on, of course. There are intellectual-yet-idiots, hyper-nationalists who dream toxic dreams of Greater, Undivided nations. One can only hope that they don’t lead India down the same road to destruction.