ABSTRACT
A persistent theme of Nazi propaganda was that Germany was a nation with an inadequate land area relative to the size of its population, enshrined in the slogan 'Valk ahne Raum'. Most commonly this was conveyed by reciting the progressive shrinkage in the land area of Germany and its historical predecessors as far back as the Holy Roman Empire (Fig. 4.1). Another misleading device was to compare the population densities of world states with their colonial territories incorporated. In this manner, Germany came close to Japan and far ahead of any European state in the degree of its
Derdeutsche Staatsraum
'overcrowding'. However, the reality was quite otherwise. Germany's 69.6 million people resided on a larger per capita land area than either the British, Dutch or Belgian peoples; only against France was the comparison in any measure valid. What is more, the Nazi state took deliberate steps to raise the reproductive rate of its population. And by the late 1930s it was suffering a chronic shortage of able-bodied manpower. Thus have commentators been led to claim that Nazi Germany was a 'space without people', rather than a 'people without space'.
