A Hegemonic Narrative of German Politics over Geography; Geopolitik in Comparison to Colonial and Imperial Geopolitics (original) (raw)

German Geopolitical Thinking in the Course of Time

2017

The German geopolitics in the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century succumbed multiple severe changes. This paper aims to reconstruct the most important episodes. The first sections focuses on the aftermath of the First World War and how the defeat influenced German political suppositions. The second part will take a closer look on the role of a divided Germany in a bipolar world-system, dominated by the USSR and the United States. Finally, the third and last paragraph aims to give an insight on contemporary German geopolitical thinking and how German researchers and politicians involve geopolitics into their actions.

Race Contra Space: the Conflict Between German Geopolitik and National Socialism

Political Geography Quarterly, 1987

Popular views of the role of geopolitics in the Third Reich suggest a fundamental significance on the part of the geopoliticians in the ideological orientation of the Nazi state. The present article is an examination of the relationship of geopolitical doctrine to National Socialism, and ...

The conception of politics in political geography and geopolitics in Germany until 1945

Political Geography Quarterly, 1989

The history of German geography ascribes the aberrations of the discipline from 1900-1945, especially during the National Socialist period, mainly to the negative influence of geopolitics. The example of the political concepts of political geography and geopolitics, however, shows that the lack of theoretical foundations and ideological one-sidedness are responsible for this development. Accordingly, geopolitics was not an innovation but only reinforces patterns of thinking which have been a component of the German geography since the end of the 19th century and only made possible the rise of geopolitics.

German School of Geopolitics . Evolution , Ideas , Prospects

2012

German School is considered the founder of the discipline simply because the geopolitical research effort in this area was one massive, bringing together many illustrious German scientists. Through their contribution in the field of geopolitics, they gave it stand-alone character, and of particular importance, different from the other branches of human geography. One of the main contributions to the achievement of geopolitical concerns, was the understanding that since the dawn of history, people have been in a constant battle for space; this has led to changes in both human consciousness and thought and geographical space.

Ratzel and the German Geopolitical School-The Inception of Culture as an Essential Element and Factor in the Political Geography

R Re ev vi is st ta a R Ro om mâ ân nă ă d de e G Ge eo og gr ra af fi ie e P Po ol li it ti ic că ă Year X XI II I, no. 2 2, N No ov ve em mb be er r 2 20 01 10 0, pp. 2 29 98 8-3 30 08 8 ISSN 1 14 45 54 4-2 Abstract: This study deals with the passing from geopolitics to cultural geography. To highlight the translation under discussion, we have set forth the first geopolitical theories on space and frontiers and outlined some theories about civilization and political power; all these are embryonic factors in outlining the cultural identities. The article underlines, also, the evolution of the basic geopolitical terms that constitute the base of the cultural geography approach. The relation between the political geography and cultural geography is shown at the end of this study.

Germany: Caught in Geopolitical Power Shifts "Deutschland: Gefangen in geopolitischen Machtverschiebungen"

Deutschland: Gefangen in geopolitischen Machtverschiebungen In “Macht und Machtverschiebung,“ Walter de Gruyter GmbH · Genthiner Str. 13 · 10785 Berlin · Deutschland, 2022., 2022

The world has experienced several global power shifts from the defeat of the fascist, National Socialist, and Japanese dictatorships with the end of the Second World War that led to the establishment of a liberal order of multilateralism with the United Nations, Bretton Woods, and other institutions. The Soviet communist challenge to that order collapsed in the peaceful revolutions that spread parliamentary democracies in what Francis Fukuyama asked whether that power shift would lead to the end of history. The "Rise of China," returning after centuries of humiliation, challenged democracy with authoritarianism and American primacy in the world order. Russian return to imperial designs has challenged democracies using military force and genocide. Germany's awakening to support democracy will shape the relevance of Europe to the ongoing power shift between authoritarianism and democracy. This essay addresses Germany's role in the shifting power structures. Future power transitions will likely be based on geopolitical power shifts in the economy, technology , and digital transformation. Germany has been the center of global power shifts for centuries. The German Question arises again in the geopolitical power shift between Russia, China, and the United States. Henry Kissinger captured the German Question when he said Germany was too big for Europe and too small for the world. After the Napoleonic Wars, the prospect of a revived Holy Roman Empire, a once-powerful entity without a sense of unity or shared "German" identity, was frightening for Europeans. Prussia's militarism made their fears all the more acute. [i] The German Question loomed large until the unification of German states in 1871. However, it was not laid to rest as the German Reich led to a century of imperial and dictatorial governance in "Blood and Iron." In the aftermath of World War II, the German Reich lay in ashes, divided and occupied. Soon afterward, a great power conflict arose as Americans were confronted with Soviet communism in Europe. That led to the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany, in 1949. Chancellor Adenauer chose "Westbindung," and an emerging liberal democracy grew in the West part of a divided nation. The United States became a European power and prioritized the political, economic, and, eventually, military integration of the fledgling Federal Republic with the West. That relationship grew into an alliance based on the German-American partnership that dominated European politics. As a European power, the United States stood on the side of West Germany, prosperous democracy, and pursued a policy of "containing" Soviet-Communist power to the east. Christian Ostermann noted, "Under the Truman and then the Eisenhower administrations, American policy also included efforts to undermine and "roll back" Soviet and German communist control in the eastern part of the country." [ii] The Cold War standoff with Soviet troops occupying Eastern Europe, the bipolar great power bipolar order would continue. Winston Churchill famously declared that an "Iron Curtain" had fallen on the continent from "Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic." His vivid metaphor soon became part of the standard vocabulary of the Cold War. East Germans found themselves caught under Soviet and then communist control by the post-1945 geopolitical fallout of the war that Nazi Germany had launched. They were the ones who most dearly paid the price for the country's division. [iii] West Germany aligns with the Transatlantic Partnership in the Cold War. Defining moments come in each generation. Past policies and models of self-comprehension needed to be updated. Otherwise, they were obstacles on the road to the future. During the