ABSTRACT
Germany’s long tradition of striving for hegemony over the continent had never produced a widely accepted solution though. The idea of creating racially homogeneous populations shaped German considerations on where to set the borders, on which areas to annex, and even on Belgium’s right to exist. The Reich needed to re-establish “the foundations of a sensible central European order” to foster peace and social welfare. For the sake of autarky, prosperity, and power, the geographical scope of an industrialised European core area and its Ergänzungsraum could be widened at will. The New Order promised to solve a more recent German economic problem: its problematic position on the world market. The economies in the Southeast promised to supplement the German economy perfectly. According to Anton Reithinger, there were many who considered them a “cure-all for Germany’s foreign trade.”
