Critical Historiographical-Political Science Policy Paper on German Geopolitics as a Spatial-Political Conceptual Paradigm

Living space “Lebensraum” constituted a central ideological construct and a geopolitical imperative of action for the power elites of the ‘Third Reich’. The term itself, however, did not originate with them. Rather, it had already been coined at the turn of the 20th century by the German geographer and zoologist Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904). His numerous political-geographical writings, concerned internationally with space, state and people, offered Nazi ideologues a convenient reservoir of theses for the development of their own pseudo-scientific and radical theoretical edifices. Nevertheless, it remains debatable whether Ratzel can thereby be considered a precursor to their expansionist, geopolitical Lebensraum policy. For this reason, after 1945, geopolitical research was stigmatized and subsequently rejected within German academia. In the wake of the geopolitical reconfigurations after 1989, however, ‘space’ was once again rediscovered. Particularly within the cultural and social sciences, geography ceased to be regarded as the dominant compass of foreign policy. Instead, politically charged geographical space — geopolitics — was understood as being politically, socially, and culturally constructed through discourse. Geo-economics, since 1989, has not supplanted geopolitical thought and practice but has rather provided it with additional resources and instruments.