ABSTRACT
National Socialist rule limited what could be said about Europe, so that the German perspective on Europe was A German reconciliation with France, for example, became unthinkable and unjustifiable because France was regarded as the country of origin of the previously dominant but misguided ideas that had led to racial degeneration, spiritual aberration, and Europe’s decline. The Romantic period had spawned a volkisch thinking in which Paul de Lagarde’s dictum that “Germanism lies not within the blood but in the character” was the decisive factor. Stripped of all aspects that touched on the political principles of freedom and equality, German discourse on Europe lost some of its features but one broadly shared core element was far from being changed beyond recognition. The discursive congruence of geopolitical thinking and Mitteleuropa ideas makes clear why the basic economic principles of the latter found its way into most German interwar notions of Europe.
