ABSTRACT
In the 1920s, research into Volk and cultural regions received a considerable impetus. Part of the reason for this can be found in its innovative academic approach, whose interdisciplinary procedures and broad-ranging methods yielded fresh results. It also corresponded to a political need following Germany’s defeat in World War I. Academics felt compelled to enquire much more deeply into the two factors which they considered the natural
analogy and politics. His concept of Lebensraum (“living space”) at once defined the characteristics of a national culture while establishing an argument justifying Germany’s territorial expansion into neighboring lands – on the basis that the territorial state, like a living organism, needed “room to grow” as it developed and matured.
