Lebensraum

Lebensraum, term, in German, translated as “living space”, borrowed by the geopoliticians of the first half of the 20th century from the theories of a German geographer, Friedrich Ratzel. Adolf Hitler used the word Lebensraum to describe what he saw as the German Reich's need for territory in which to expand. After the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1937, Hitler's ruthless programme for the accumulation of Lebensraum involved the Anschluss (union) with Austria, followed by the German invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939, which led to the outbreak of World War II.