German economic expansion
Before 1871
During the institution of the German Customers Union (1834/Zollverein), plans
were first developed for a "large-area economy" under German leadership. The
manufacturing nations of Prussia and Austria were to assume hegemony over an
area extending from the North Sea to the Black Sea. The countries of eastern
and south-eastern Europe were assigned the status of producers of food and raw
materials. At the same time they were to serve as markets for German products
and as a trade bridge to the Middle East. Areas of Africa and Latin America
were seen as "complementary zones".
This continental imperialism was to endow Germany with major-power status in
competition with Russia and the naval powers of England and France. The
economic penetration of large areas of eastern and south-eastern Europe was
based on control of the Danube plus the construction of railroad lines, which
Prussian and Austrian financiers were pushing ahead rapidly.
Friedrich List
Das nationale System der politischen
Ökonomie (1841)
In: Schriften, Reden, Briefe Band VII,
hrsg. von Friedrich Lenz - Neudruck
Aalen: Scientia-Verlag, 1971
ISBN 3-511-02550-8
1871-1918
Beside economic penetration by means of railroad construction and the provision
of capital, a nationalistic or racial (v�kische) form of German expansionism
arose during the second half of the 19th century, aiming at territorial
annexation and the undermining and control of the targeted European states by,
among other things, strengthening German minorities. This goal was fostered
primarily by the leaders of heavy industry, large property owners (junkers) and
the middle classes. Their most important mouthpiece became the "Pan-German
Union" founded around 1890. A second faction, recruited primarily among circles
of the newer industries such as the electrical, chemical and export industries,
favoured the expansion and the securing of German economic hegemony in Europe by
means of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. Their prime
representative institution before the First World War was the "Central European
Economic Association" founded in 1903.
In spite of differences in strategy, both groups agreed on the goal of a
European large-area economy under German dominance, that - as described in
many plans, popular brochures and strategy papers - was meanwhile expected to
extend from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. Both factions subsumed this goal
under the designation of "Central Europe". Because the peaceful penetration by
means of capital loans and trade agreements met with difficulties and growing
opposition, both factions agreed to seek a solution in the forcible
establishment of a "major Central European economic region" over against
England, France, Russian and the US. This was the primary German motive for
unleashing the First World War.
Von einem Alldeutschen
Großdeutschland um das Jahr
1950
Berlin 1895
Arthur Dix
Deutscher Imperialismus
Leipzig: Dieterich Verlag, 1912
Konrad von Winterstetten
Berlin-Bagdad
Neue Ziele
mitteleuropäischer Politik (12. Auflage)
München 1915
Willibald Gutsche
Mitteleuropaplanungen in der Außenpolitik
des deutschen Imperialismus vor 1918
In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 20 (1972), S. 533-549
Zdenek Jindra
Über die ökonomischen Grundlagen
der "Mitteleuropa"-Ideologie
des deutschen Imperialismus
In: Obermann, Karl (Hg.): Probleme der Ökonomie und Politik in den Beziehungen zwischen Ost- und Westeuropa vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Schriftenreihe der Kommission der Historiker der DDR und der CSR Band 3, Berlin 1960, S. 139-162
Friedrich Naumann
Mitteleuropa
Berlin 1915
Thomas G. Masaryk
Pangermanism and the Eastern Question
In: The New Europe, 1916
André Chéradame
The Pangerman Plot Unmasked
New York 1917
Martin Bennhold
Europa: Expansionsstrategien und
-ideologien des deutschen Kapitals 1840-1918
In: Marxistische Blätter 6 (1992), S. 58-65
1918-1945
Put on the defensive by the loss of the war and the ensuing peace treaties,
German policy was first concerned with the prevention of multilateral trade
agreements to which it was not a participant, e.g. a Danube Federation between
Austria and eastern and south-eastern European states. German foreign policy
activities in the Weimar Republic were directed in equal measure against the
French "Pan-Europe Project", which was to preclude the possibility of German
hegemony on the continent. One essential means of "quiet diplomacy" for the
maintenance of large-area claims was the secret, liberal funding of German
minorities in eastern and south-eastern Europe.
In 1925 a lobby organisation was formed, the German Group of the Central
European Economic Conference, to promote the realisation of German large-area
plans. Immediately after the world economic crisis of 1929/30 (and not only, as
has been maintained by propaganda, after 1933 under Nazi rule) new plans for a
now openly termed "German large-area economy". This aimed at the long-term
subordination and control of large areas of eastern and central Europe through
the conclusion of bilateral currency-free trade agreements. They proceeded on
the basic assumption that German industrial products were to be traded for
eastern and central European agricultural products and raw materials.
The "new plan" of Minister for Economic Affairs Schacht in 1934 made such
clearing agreements the decisive instrument of National Socialist foreign
policy in preparation for World War II. Important segments of German import
demand were re-routed from South America to eastern and south-eastern Europe, so
that for war purposes a source of food and raw materials would be available that
could not be blockaded. For the long-term implementation of an "organic
division of labour" in the European large-area economy, strategists of the
Central European Economic Conference under the leadership of IG Farben worked in
cooperation with the German government during the nineteen-thirties for the
restructuring of the eastern and south-eastern European economy. The goal of
this effort was the extensive de-industrialisation of this area and the
orientation of its agricultural production toward the demands of the German
market. Beside the ransacking of important resources, this long-term goal
continued to be pursued during World War II. Military hegemony over the
economic "complementary area" was indispensible for the German war-waging
capacity.
Martin Bennhold
Europa: Expansionsstrategien und
-ideologien des deutschen Kapitals 1918 bis heute
In: Marxistische Blätter 1 (1993), S. 64-70
Dirk Stegmann
"Mitteleuropa" 1925-1934 Zum
Problem der Kontinuität deutscher Außenhandelspolitik
von Stresemann bis Hitler
In: Stegmann, Dirk; Wendt, Bernd-Jürgen; Will, Peter-Christian (Hg.), 1978 Industrielle Gesellschaft und politisches System. Beiträge zur politischen Sozialgeschichte Festschrift für Fritz Fischer zum siebzigsten Geburtstag
Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 1978, S.
203-221
ISBN 3-87831-269-5
28.- DM
Wilhelm Gürge/Wilhelm Grotkopp
(Hg.)
Großraumwirtschaft
Der Weg zur europäischem
Einheit
Berlin 1931
Joachim Petzold
Zur Kontinuität der Balkanpolitik des
deutschen Imperialismus in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik
In: Jahrbuch für Geschichte der sozialistischen Länder Europas Band 19/2 (1975), S. 173-183
Erwin Wiskemann
Mitteleuropa
Eine deutsche Aufgabe
Berlin 1933
A. Deborin
Die Mitteleuropa-Idee in der Propaganda der
deutschen Imperialisten
Zur Geschichte der ideologischen
Vorbereitung der beiden Weltkriege
In: Neue Welt 22 (1954), 2733-2747
Wolfgang Schumann/Ludwig Nestler (Hg.)
Weltherrschaft im
Visier
Dokumente zu den Europa- und Weltherrschaftsplänen
des deutschen Imperialismus von der Jahrhundertwende bis Mai 1945
Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1975
(nur
noch antiquarisch oder über Bibliotheken erhältlich)
Gerhart Hass/Wolfgang Schumann (Hg.)
Anatomie der
Aggression
Neue Dokumente zu den Kriegszielen des
faschistischen deutschen Imperialismus im zweiten Weltkrieg
Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1972
(nur
noch antiquarisch oder über Bibliotheken erhältlich)
Dietrich Eichholtz/Wolfgang Schumann (Hg.)
Anatomie des
Krieges
Neue Dokumente über die Rolle des deutschen
Monopolkapitals bei der Vorbereitung und Durchführung des
zweiten Weltkrieges
Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1969
(nur
noch antiquarisch oder über Bibliotheken erhältlich)
Wolfgang Schumann (Hg.)
Griff nach Südosteuropa
Neue
Dokumente über die Politik des deutschen Imperialismus und
Militarismus gegenüber Südosteuropa im zweiten Weltkrieg
Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1973
(nur
noch antiquarisch oder über Bibliotheken erhältlich)
Manfred Menger/Fritz Petrick/Wolfgang Wilhelmus
(Hg.)
Expansionsrichtung Nordeuropa
Dokumente zur
Nordeuropapolitik des faschistischen deutschen Imperialismus 1939
- 1945
Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1987
ISBN
3-326-00215-7
(nur noch antiquarisch oder über
Bibliotheken erhältlich)
Götz Aly/Christoph Diekmann u.a. (Hg.)
Modelle für
ein deutsches Europa
Ökonomie und Herrschaft im
Großwirtschaftsraum
Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag 1992
(Beiträge zur
nationalsozialistischen Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik Band
10)
ISBN 3-88022-959-7
DM 28,-
Christoph Diekmann/Matthias Hamann u.a. (Hg.)
Besatzung und
Bündnis
Deutsche Herrschaftsstrategien in Ost- und
Südosteuropa
Berlin: Verlag der Buchläden, 1995
(Beiträge zur
nationalsozialistischen Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik Band
12)
ISBN 3-924737-24-X
DM 26,-
Richard Riedl
Weg zu Europa
Gedanken über ein
Wirtschaftsbündnis Europäischer Staaten (W.E.St.)
In: Reinhard Opitz (Hg.): Europastrategien des deutschen Kapitals 1900-1945, Bonn (Pahl-Rugenstein Nachfolger) 1994, S. 990-1007
1945-1989
Through the Marshall Plan and the avoidance of reparations in the London Debt Agreement of 1952, Germany rapidly became the leading economic power in Europe. Former plans for a European large-area economy without trade barriers under German leadership were pursued through the establishment of and participation in the European Economic Community (EEC), later the European Community (EC) and the European Union (EU). As early as the nineteen-fifties the German economy already supplanted the American and West-European competition in the eastern and south-eastern European states. The Hallstein-Doctrine notwithstanding, Germany became the foremost trading power in eastern and south-eastern Europe after the Soviet Union. Credit agreements and an imbalance in the terms of trade were used to drive eastern and south-eastern European states into debt and long-term dependence.
Gerhard Schröder
Für eine politische Union
Europas
Presseerklärung des Bundesministers des
Auswärtigen vom 25. April 1962. (Auszug).
In: Auswärtiges Amt der Bundesrepublik Deutschland:
Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Vom Kalten Krieg zum
Frieden in Europa. Dokumente von 1949-1989
Bonn: 1990
ISBN
3-87959-438-4
Ludolf Herbst
Die Bundesrepublik in den Europäischen
Gemeinschaften
In: Wolfgang Benz (Hg.): Die Geschichte der
Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Band 2: Wirtschaft
Frankfurt am
Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989
Franz Josef Strauß
Herausforderung und Antwort. Ein
Programm für Europa
Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1968
Reinhard Opitz
Deutsche Frage und Mitteleuropa-Diskussion
In: Marxistische Blätter 6 (1986), S. 21-30
Martin Bennhold
Mitteleuropa - eine deutsche
Politiktradition
Zu Friedrich Naumanns Konzeption und ihren
Folgen
In: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 8 (1992), S. 977-989
Friedrich Wilhelm Christians
Wege nach Rußland
Bankier im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ost und West
Hamburg:
Hoffmann und Campe, 1989
1989-2002
After the end of the socialist system German economic interests strove for a
separation of economically lucrative areas and production zones and their
complete detachment from economically uninteresting and debt-ridden areas in
eastern and south-eastern Europe.
This was the fundamental background for
German support of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the
Soviet-Union. The new Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Slovenia
were closely bound to the European Union by means of association treaties, whose
conditions forced them to restructure their economies. This was combined with
the louder and louder propagation of the idea of a Europe with a hard core
(Kerneuropa), that is, the creation of a hierarchy within the European Union,
the decision-making centre of which was to consist of Germany as the leading
power and France as a junior partner. After an attempt by Wolfgang Sch�ble and
Karl Lamers in 1993 was firmly repulsed by the other states of the EU, the
German concept of a European nucleus with concentric circles of varying depths
of production and degrees of bonding has meanwhile been gradually implemented by
Gerhard Schr�er and Josef Fischer.
Hans Peter Linss, Roland Schönfeld (Hg.)
Deutschland
und die Völker Südosteuropas
Festschrift für Walter Althammer zum 65.
Geburtstag
München: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, 1993
Wolfgang Michal
Deutschland und der nächste Krieg
Berlin: Rowohlt, 1995
Stefan Eggerdinger
Maastricht II und die Europastrategien
des deutschen Kapitals
In: Streitbarer Materialismus Nr. 21 (1997), S. 7-62
