The Nazi Empire

On April 30, 1945, in the deep recesses of his Berlin bunker and with no longer any hope of victory, Adolf Hitler placed a pistol against his temple and a cyanide capsule in his mouth and committed suicide. His dream of a continental German Empire, shared by many but feared by more, was shattered. He had sustained this hope to the last days of his life even though any reasonable chance of victory had ended several years before. But in the heady days of 1941 when Hitler was at the zenith of his power with his armies ranging from the tip of Brittany to the Norwegian North Cape and from the deserts of North Africa to the gates of Moscow, Hitler’s vision was within reach of becoming reality. The Nazi state he had setup between 1933 and 1939 had laid the foundations necessary for the building of his colossus in the form of a Germanic Empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains. The form of this empire was everything that German nationalists had never dared to wish for but would have meant the submission, slavery, and death of countless millions of Europeans and the embroiling of the globe into war after war. What Hitler and the Nazi elite wanted for their empire was an autarkic Europe with future world domination, either in economic or military terms, as a long-term objective. The Continent would be dominated by Germany, now dotted with awe-inspiring cities, and people of Germanic racial stock would colonise eastern Europe and reduce the people there to slaves under complete German mastery. The remainder of Europe not under direct German administration would be reduced to the level of vassal. This German domination of the continent would be in the form of government seen in Nazi Germany during 1933-1945 giving the state complete authority over the lives of all citizens, subjects, and slaves. The Nazi German Empire would be a return to medieval feudal governance merged with 20th century racial doctrines and technology and would be the most powerful and terrible empire history had ever witnessed.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what the post-war Nazi Empire would have looked like as Germany was embroiled in a world war from 1939 to its demise in 1945 and so little beyond early planning was completed. Even concrete plans are difficult to locate and so to understand what the Nazi Empire would have been one has to draw from memoranda and discussions between Hitler and other Nazi leaders for any information. Much of this planning was done very chaotically with little order and organisation and a great deal of it is in the form of off-the-cuff remarks from Hitler himself. Thus it is a challenge to pull together a cohesive idea of the form of the future Nazi Empire but in looking at government laws, planning, and Hitler’s ideas as they related to one another on certain subjects, a clearer picture forms. Throughout this paper, the term ‘empire’ will be used to describe only the planned state following a German victory in World War II rather than the empire that existed before 1945.

The Law, Society, and Government within Nazi Germany

The most important aspect of Nazi rule before the war would have no doubt remained a priority after the war. This was political control. The control by the state of every part of daily life would have been a keystone of Nazi rule of their empire. The foundations for this control were laid as early as March 1933, less than two months after Hitler had been named Chancellor. In that month the Enabling Act was passed and this meant the “removal of almost all constitutional constraints on his power.” With the passing of the Enabling Act Hitler was given near-dictatorial powers. This act would be the justification behind Hitler’s rise to F hrer and the power and prestige that went along with the title. To further secure his stranglehold on the government, in July 1933 the ‘Law Against the New Construction of Parties’ was passed making the Nazi Party the sole party in Germany. Without a doubt this would have remained true for the duration of the Nazi Empire. Now that Hitler had near-dictatorial powers and had no political rivals, he next moved to put himself above the law. In July 1934 the ‘Law for the Emergency Defense of the State’ was passed and this allowed Hitler to commit murder if he deemed it necessary for the protection of the state. Unjustified execution and murder would become an important part of Nazi control and would have been the most important part of Nazi control within its empire. Finally, the last restraint on Hitler’s power faded away with the death of President Paul von Hindenburg. With the passing of the ‘Law on the Head of State of the German Reich’ Hitler was made the supreme commander of the German armed forces as well as the top man in Germany. This law marked the beginning of one-man rule in Germany and this was to be the political system of the country until its fall in 1945 and would have been the system in the Nazi Empire. Absolute political control in the hands of one man and one party was to be the system of government in the empire and no opposition would have been tolerated. As early as the 1920s, Hitler wrote that “if any new idea, a doctrine, a new philosophy, or even a political or economic movement tries to deny the entire past, tries to make it bad or worthless, for this reason alone we must be extremely cautious and suspicious.” Hitler realised at this early date that new political ideas were dangerous and just like he did in the 1930s, he would certainly have not tolerated them in his empire.
Citizenship within the Reich had a very cloudy definition during the 1930s and 1940s but what it would mean in Hitler’s empire was much clearer. The ‘Reich Citizenship Law’ distinguished “state subjects from Reich citizens, which only those of German or related blood were eligible to become.” Interesting is the distinction between subjects and citizens as it demonstrates a desire to prevent some elements within Germany from having full political and legal rights. With German domination over many native peoples in the empire, this distinction would have had paramount importance. Hitler wrote that “it must be a greater honour to be a street-cleaner and citizen of this Reich than a king in a foreign state. The citizen...is the lord of the Reich.” Within the empire the whims of a Reich citizen would not be questioned even if it involved the abuse of lesser subjects. The rule of the citizen would be total. Yet, interestingly, not all Germans could be citizens. “The German girl,” Hitler wrote, “is a subject and only becomes a citizen when she marries.” This demonstrates an emphasis on family and child-rearing and the submissive role of women.
Of course within the Nazi Empire the greatest act a citizen would be able to do would be to fight for his country, and the Wehrmacht of the empire would be the most important institution after the Party. Hitler wished to have a standing army of 1,500,000 men in the empire as “with the discharge of soldiers after 12 years of service, we shall have 30,000-40,000 men to do what we like with every year.” These thirty to forty thousand men would be the building blocks of the empire and would be at the disposal of the state, despite having been discharged from service. The priorities within the Wehrmacht would be “in the first place, the land army, then aviation and, in the third place only, the navy.” This reflects Hitler’s plans for the land-based Nazi Empire that would be required to fight wars in the East against the conquered peoples and any force massing on the east side of the Ural Mountains. But aside from the defense of the state, the greatest role of the Wehrmacht would be as a classroom for the people.
Hitler wanted free education for his young German citizens, but the priorities of this education were to be different from anything seen in Europe at the time. “The training of mental abilities is only secondary,” he wrote. “First place must be taken by the development of character, especially the promotion of will-power and determination, combined with the training of joy in responsibility, and only in last place comes scientific schooling.” With the emphasis on character, will-power, determination, and love for responsibility, the education system would have produced psychologically perfect soldiers. This was necessary as “the German Army...should be a school for the mutual understanding and adaptation of all Germans” as well as “the conclusion of the average German’s normal education.” Actual plans for the education of the German people were carried out and three types of schools were constructed and operated in the 1930s and 1940s. The Adolf Hitler Schools educated promising boys from the Jungvolk from the ages of 12-18 under the supervision of the Hitlerjugend, the Political Institutes of Education under the SS instilled a soldierly spirit in their students, and the Order Castles (Ordensburgen) emphasised racial, physical, and military education and prepared the students for their role in administration and policing of the Eastern Territories. These schools were all state-controlled by various Party institutions and all emphasised the militaristic and racial aspects of the Nazi ideology. They would have been the central parts of the education of youth within the empire.
In addition to racial education and policy, Hitler also had plans for the sick. Hitler wrote that “the demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand of the clearest reason and if systematically executed represents the most humane act of mankind.” This was the moral justification for the sterilisation laws of the 1930s. Hitler also believed that “if necessary, the incurable sick will be pitilessly segregated - a barbaric measure for the unfortunate who is struck by it, but a blessing for his fellow men and posterity.” It is not surprising then that in July 1933 the ‘Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring’ was passed and by 1945 400,000 people had been sterilised. This law would have continued within the empire and would have led to the sterilisation of millions more. One can only speculate at the attempts at sterilisation that would have occurred in the Eastern Territories.
The Nazis had unrestrained control of Germany for 12 years and managed to form the kind of society Hitler had wanted. The form of the German state prior to 1945 demonstrates how the German Empire would have been operated.

The German Cities of the Nazi Empire

Hitler considered himself an artist and perhaps his greatest passion was architecture. He thus took great interest in the re-development of cities within Germany and plans were drawn up, models built, and early work completed in cities across the country. These new cities would demonstrate the power and superiority of the Reich in everything from culture to architectural prowess.
Plans were drawn up for all major cities, with special attention being paid to Berlin, Munich, and Linz. Other cities included Königsberg and Hamburg. In Königsberg, the city was to be the major cultural site in the east. The East Prussian city would “have a fine new opera house, theatres, a library and museums to house all the artistic loot from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.” Hamburg was to be built up to become the greatest port in the world and was to have the largest bridge and the tallest building in the world. Hamburg was to be the greatest European rival to American cities.
But the great bulk of planning went to Berlin, Munich, and Linz. Berlin, as capital of the empire and later the world empire, is dealt with in another section. Linz, however, was Hitler’s home town and so he had a great affection for it. Linz was to become the new metropolis of the Danube and was to house the greatest art gallery on the planet. In addition to being the new cultural capital of Austria, it was to be the greatest art centre in the empire and the world. Linz was also to have both a mausoleum for Hitler’s parents and a tomb for Hitler himself. It would have undoubtedly become the centre for Hitler worship within the empire.
While Linz would be Hitler’s city, Munich was the “Capital of the Movement.” Munich was to be given another opera house and new theatres and museums. Hitler also wanted a “gigantic railway station to be crowned with the world’s largest dome...he also agreed that the building should be constructed in Modernist steel and glass... ‘a monument to the technology of our century.’” This was an unusual departure for Hitler who detested most Modernist design and artwork. But it is another case of Hitler wanting to have the best of everything. The jewel of the city, however, was to be a 700-foot column dedicated to the Party. It would have bas-reliefs depicting the Party’s time of struggle and would be topped by a gilded eagle with a 100-foot wingspan. The objective was to have any visitor of Munich leave with no doubt of the power of the Nazi Party.
In addition to designs for specific cities, there were also some uniform designs to be built in cities throughout the country. For example, Party forums were to be built in all major cities. They would have a “large marching area, a People’s Hall, an assembly area, a headquarters for the Gauleiter, a bell tower, and an avenue alone which would be situated a theatre, opera house, hotel, and administrative buildings. These Party forums would be the political, administrative, and cultural centres of every city and the bell tower would become the new church steeple of the empire.
Without yet examining the unimaginable grandeur of the Berlin building plans, it is easy to see that even in lesser cities Hitler still wanted the largest and best of everything. The size of his construction projects would resemble the size of his empire and demonstrate to the world the power of the German people. Their designs betray their use as propaganda and for dramatic effect rather than practicality.

The Fate of the Jews in the Nazi Empire

The historical fate of the Jews is one of the great tragedies of human history and it is quite likely that had the Nazi Empire been created the Jewish people would have been completely eradicated from the continent. However, as late as 1941 there was much discussion about an alternative fate for the Jews, and this was emigration out of the continent. It was very seriously considered and so will be examined as one of the possibilities within the Nazi Empire, though unlikely.
Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, had hoped previous to the Final Solution that “the concept of Jews will be completely extinguished through the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony.” Even Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that he and Hitler “want later to transport the Jews to Madagascar.” This idea of transporting the Jews to Madagascar was very seriously considered and in addition to demonstrating an alternative fate for the Jews, it demonstrates that at this period the Nazis considered non-German territory as their own. Madagascar was under the administration of Vichy France at the time but Hitler believed that Germany would soon be able to acquire territory throughout the globe. The official responsible for Jewish affairs at the German Foreign Ministry, Franz Rademacher, had written a memorandum “envisaging the deportation of 4 million Jews from Europe and their resettlement in Madagascar, once the island was transferred from French to German control...they would supposedly enjoy nominal self-government in the administration of the law courts, culture, and economic life but would ultimately be under the ‘expert’ control of the SS.” Madagascar would have thus become a German colony populated by self-administering Jews under the supervision of the SS. Or in other words, Madagascar would have become a glorified ghetto-island. But there was not agreement on the form of governance in Madagascar. Adolf Eichmann also had plans for the Jews in Madagascar. But his plan “envisaged no semblance of Jewish autonomous administration. The Jews would exist under strict SS control.” In this situation Madagascar would have been instead a concentration camp-island. In any case, there is some indication that had the Final Solution not occurred, the Nazi Empire could have included a German protectorate over the island of Madagascar inhabited by Jews in more or less self-administration. It is quite clear, however, that in either case there would have been no Jews within the European Nazi Empire.

The Vassalisation of Europe

Hitler wanted hegemony in Europe, but he was not planning to annex outright the entire continent. Part of Europe he would add to the Reich and the rest would remain either allied to him or subservient to him in a form of vassal state. No other military power would be tolerated in Europe as Hitler said that “if ever we allowed a country conquered by us to have its own army, that would be the end of our rights over that country.” As well, Europe would be made into one autarkic entity. Hitler believed “there is no country that can be to a larger extent autarkic than Europe will be.” Hitler would create an economic system under German domination integrating all areas of the continent. “The countries we invite to participate in our economic system,” he said, “should have their share in the natural riches of the Russian regions, and they should find an outlet there for their industrial production.” Countries allied to Germany would take part in the exploitation of the East and trade in the Nazi Empire would stay within its border. In some instances, it would be necessary to receive some goods such as coffee and tea from abroad but for the most part “we have everything else here in Europe.” Hitler’s empire was to be economically independent from the rest of the world, allowing it to survive self-sufficiently in war. Hitler had learned from the lessons of the Allied blockade in World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II.
Hitler had plans for each of the nations within his empire. Many of these plans were related to his autarkic ambitions. He wanted Romania, for example, to give up her industry and instead “direct the wealth of her soil, and especially her wheat, towards the German market.” Another example was Norway, which would become the “electrical centre of northern Europe.” He had specific economic plans for the East as well and that will be investigated later.
In addition to economic plans, Hitler had territorial plans for the re-shaping of Europe. He played with the borders with little regard to the reality of the situation in these territories. In the Mediterranean Hitler dismissed the idea of creating a German base on the island of Crete. If he did he said “I should have to keep a German fleet in the Mediterranean, and that would create a perpetual danger of conflict with Turkey.” From this statement it is clear that Hitler did not envisage direct German control of the Mediterranean and that Turkey would be an allied and independent power. The Mediterranean, including Egypt, “belongs properly to the Italian sphere of influence.” Italy too was to be an allied power but it would dominate the Mediterranean, giving Germany dominance over the rest of Europe. At the most, Hitler would maintain in Crete a “centre for our Strength Through Joy organisation.” Crete would become a German vacation spot.
Hitler had interesting plans in Norway as well. A new city near Trondheim named Nordstern and later Drondheim was to be created and was to have a German population of 250,000, three times larger than Trondheim was at the time. It would become a cultural centre with an opera, theatres, libraries, and an art gallery. Norway featured heavily in Hitler’s Germanic empire as home to a great naval base as well as suitable colonists for the East, as will be seen.
By 1941, formally German territory like Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, and Poland had been added to the Reich. But upon the creation of Hitler’s empire, more territory would join the Greater Germany. Among these territories were Wallonia in Belgium and northern France, which Hitler believed were “in reality German lands.” Hitler’s French territories would also be extended into Burgundy. The Netherlands and the remainder of Belgium, it was understood, would also join the Reich and be split into Reichsgaue.
Territories which could not legitimately be incorporated into the Reich were to become vassal states. Chief among these was France. Hitler’s disdain for democracy led him to believe that it was an effective tool for keeping his enemies weak. In France, he believed they “ought to retain their parties.” His plans become more formulated in 1942 when he said “in Paris, we’ll probably have a second French government...If we succeeded in forming a second French government in Paris, the opposition in Vichy would have only one wish, that we should stay.” Hitler’s policy in conquered states would be to encourage internal strife. France would be controlled by pitting Vichy against Paris and placing German soldiers in between. Undoubtedly this policy would be pursued in other vassal states like Greece and Serbia.
Territorially the Greater German Reich would stretch from the Seine to the Vistula. Outside of the Reich, Hitler planned to have military bases throughout the continent as well. Chief among these were to be naval bases along the French coast. He envisaged strong-points on the French Atlantic coast with Kriegsmarine bases at St. Nazaire, Lorient, and the British Channel Islands. Albert Speer called it Hitler’s “future naval base system.” The crown jewel of this naval base system was to be Trondheim in Norway, Hitler’s Gibraltar and Singapore.
Perhaps most strangely at all, though not surprising considering the Nazi worship of death, were to be the tombs for German soldiers. Called Totenbergen, they were to be “citadels for the dead.” These Totenbergen were to be situated throughout the empire wherever major battles had occurred, from Norway to Egypt and from France to the Caucasus. Plans were even drawn up for one of these huge structures situated on the Dniepr River. This is one of the clearest examples of how the Nazi Empire was to glorify military service and sacrifice.
Europe within Hitler’s empire would have been just that: his. His plans placed him in complete control of the continent and would have meant the economic and military domination by Germany of the richest and most powerful territory in the world. But the most valuable of Hitler’s territorial possession was not to be France or Norway. It was to be the East.

Hitler’s India: The German Domination of Eastern Europe

As early as Mein Kampf Hitler wrote about the need for German ‘living space’ in the East. In June 1941 the culmination of these plans occurred with the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler only occupied the Eastern Territories for a few short years but the Nazi policy within the country was quite clear: mass execution and little collaboration with natives. This policy would have been extended and enlarged with the formation of the Nazi Empire in the East.
The plans for the division of European Russia were quite clearly marked out. William Shirer wrote that “European Russia was to be divided into so-called Reich Commissariats. Russian Poland would become a German protectorate called Ostland...Caucasia...would be ruled by a German plenipotentiary, and the three Baltic States and White Russia annexed.” The entirety of Russia would fall under German domination. The “beauties of the Crimea”, as Hitler called them, “which we shall make accessible by means of an autobahn - for us Germans, that will be our Riviera.” Crimea, like Crete, would become a vacation spot. The Ukraine was very special within Hitler’s plans, and they would “take the southern part of the Ukraine...and make it an exclusively German colony.” The colonists of the Ukraine were to be “the soldier-peasant, and for that I’ll take professional soldiers.” In the Baltic States the colonist need not have been German, as the Nazis would be “able to accept as colonists some Dutch, some Norwegians - and even, by individual arrangement, some Swedes.” In the German-dominated Black Sea, “a sea whose wealth our fishermen will never exhaust,” Germany would find all the fish it would need as well as a thoroughfare between the Donetz Basin and the Danube. In the north, the “Kola Peninsula will be taken by Germany because of the large nickel mines there” and even the annexation of Finland as a “federated state” was considered. In all of this land-grabbing, the fate of the natives, henceforth referred to as Slavs, were placed in the hostile hands of the Nazis.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what the lives of the Slavs in the Eastern Territories would have been like, but a relatively clear picture can be formulated. In order to keep the various peoples divided and weak, Himmler relied on a mixture of “racial sifting, resettlement, and the splitting up of the different ethnic groups...into as many parts and fragments as possible.” It is difficult to see just how terrible their lives would have been as Hitler would at one time say “they must be allowed to live decently, of course, and that’s also to our interest” and at another “we shan’t settle in the Russian towns, and we’ll let them fall to pieces without intervening...we’re absolutely without obligations as fas as these people are concerned...We’ll confine ourselves, perhaps, to setting up a radio transmitter under our control.” It seems clear that Hitler wanted the Slavs in the East to live decently in order to not foment revolts, but what this level of decency would be is difficult to grasp. Their education, unsurprisingly, would be minimal. This was necessary in order to prevent any disruptions in German domination. Hitler said that “to teach the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Kirghiz to read and write will eventually be to our own disadvantage; education will give the more intelligent among them an opportunity to study history, to acquire an historical sense and hence to develop political ideas which cannot but be harmful to our interests.” The Slavs were to be kept dumb and politically unaware. That this could have been maintained without extraordinary challenges is quite unlikely. Himmler believed that the purpose of schooling the “subhuman people of the East must be to teach them simple arithmetic, the ability to write their own names, and the inclination to obey the Germans.” Speer later commented that the Slavs of the East were to be “made into helot peoples.” Not even their health would be looked after as “in the field of public health there is no need whatsoever to extend to the subject races the benefits of our own knowledge.” German doctors would vaccinate and treat only German patients. Whatever form their life would take, it seems clear that the Slavs would have little to aspire to in the Nazi Empire.
The life of the German in the Eastern Territories, however, would be quite different. Hitler wanted the entire region to be controlled by 250,000 men and good administrators, much like British India. The colonists were to come from the army. “For those [discharged soldiers] who are sons of peasants, the Reich will put at their disposal a completely equipped farm...These soldier-peasants will be given arms, so that at the slightest danger they can be at their posts.” Hitler expanded further on the way of life for Germans in the East. "The German colonist ought to live on handsome, spacious farms. The German services will be lodged in marvellous buildings, the governors in palaces...Around the city, to a depth of 30-40 kilometres, we shall have a belt of handsome villages connected by the best roads. What exists beyond that will be another world, in which we mean to let the Russians live as they like." The Eastern Territories were to be a German utopia for the peasant farmer constantly at war and were to be meticulously planned and organised. In this type of world, the Germans “will have to constitute amongst themselves a closed society, like a fortress. The last of our stable lads must be superior to any native.” German society would have been completed separated from the world around them and a state of permanent siege would have descended over the entirety of the Eastern Territories. The planning of these new German cities was offered to Speer but he turned it down “on the grounds that a central authority for city planning would eventually lead to a uniformity of pattern. I instead suggested that the great German cities each stand as sponsor for the construction of the new ones.” Thus in the East each German city would have its own look and design, though reminiscent of cities at home. This would make each of these German cities unique yet give the visitor or inhabitant the feel of home. The East was a very alien place to Germans, and Hitler wanted to “take away its character of an Asiatic steppe, we’ll Europeanise it. With this object we have undertaken the construction of roads that will lead to the southernmost part of the Crimea and to the Caucasus.”
The Eastern Territories were to be the most important part of the German Empire, filled with colonists who took it upon themselves to form the East Wall against their enemies on the other side of the Urals. The East was to feed the rest of the continent and keep the empire safe from the ‘Asiatic danger’. But would the Nazi Empire remain a continental empire? There are several indications that it would not, and the first is linked with the reconstruction of Berlin.

The World Empire and its Capital

Out of all the building plans for Hitler’s cities, none were greater or more favoured than those of Berlin. Berlin was to be completed re-constructed. In this new city, “the world would have seen an urban site not witnessed since the height of imperial Rome.” Among the new buildings would be “vast plazas, gigantic state buildings, great thoroughfares, columns, statues, reliefs, arches, baths, theatres, forums, temples, memorials, bridges, palaces, museums, stadiums, tombs, fountains, galleries, obelisks.” But these would have been only minor in comparison to the other planned structures in this world capital. Hitler felt that the Reich Chancellery in Berlin should leave one with “the feeling that one is visiting the master of the world...Let it be built on such a scale that St. Peter’s and its Square will seem like toys in comparison!” Berlin would be home to the largest airport, the largest railway station, and a plaza 2,300 feet long and 900 feet wide crowned with a “great arch of triumph...it would easily eclipse, at 386 feet high, its Parisian counterpart, a mere 164-foot equivalent.” This monument was to commemorate the fallen dead of the First World War and would have each of the 1.8 million Germans who died chiselled onto its surface. But the true crown jewel of Berlin was to be the Great Hall, big enough to house 180,000 people with a space in front of it large enough for 1 million. From this great edifice the leader of the German Empire would speak to huge crowds and, as Speer wrote, “the idea was that over the course of centuries, by tradition and venerability, it would acquire an importance similar to that St. Peter’s in Rome has for Catholic Christendom.” Berlin was to be the greatest city in the world it would rule.
There is many indication that Hitler was dreaming of a world empire. In 1941 he said that “Berlin will one day be the capital of the world.” At the top of the Great Hall a gilded eagle with the swastika in its claws was first envisaged. But Hitler later said that “that has to be changed. Instead of the swastika, the eagle must be perched over the globe.” Berlin was clearly being groomed to be the capital of the German-dominated globe. But as with everything with Hitler, there are some contradictions.
Hitler did not seem interested in colonies at all. He once said that “the only colony I’d like to have back would be our Cameroons - nothing else.” He later said that “our Mississippi must be the Volga, not the Niger.” But Germany need not have controlled the world territorially to dominate it. A world-event such as the Olympic Games, for example, would become perpetually held in Nuremburg. Hitler “would allow them to be held one more time- as scheduled in Tokyo in 1940...after that, as leader of a triumphant Reich, he would assert the right to convene them forever more in Nuremburg.” It is quite obvious that only a nation with complete dominance over all other nations in the world could claim such a right.

The Nazi Empire, had it been created, would have been far more repressive and terrible than the Nazi Regime that preceded it. Administration of the German Reich would have remained under the strict authority of the Nazi Party and Nazi organisations like the SS. But at the same time the cities within Germany would have been built up to become incredible and beautiful, if at times imposing, sites where Germans could live their lives peacefully and without hardship. No doubt poverty within Germany could have been all but wiped out but this would, of course, come at the expense of non-Germanic Europeans. The continent would have been Judenfrei and any ‘unwanted’ elements of society would be either out of sight or enslaved. France, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia, Greece and other states would be reduced to vassal status while nations like Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Poland, and the Soviet Union would cease to exist. The Eastern Territories would have been relentlessly exploited and the people there reduced to a cheap or perhaps even free labour force. Spain, Britain, Sweden, Turkey, and Finland would be dependent on Germany and would become close but undoubtedly uneasy allies, while the rest of the world would suffer under German economic, cultural, and political domination. This was certainly the dream of Adolf Hitler and other top Nazi officials and until 1942 and 1943 it was very close to becoming a reality. But it was only a dream. The creation of such an empire would have been extremely difficult to complete with the growing power of the United States and the Soviet Union and in such a case where it could be created it would have been extremely difficult to maintain. With the advent of the global community it would have been impossible to prevent education and knowledge from reaching the Eastern Territories and revolt after revolt would have plagued the empire. The Third Reich was supposed to last for a thousand years. It is a testament to the irrationality of this regime - one that began a World War it could not win and executed millions upon millions of human beings on the justification of an unprovable and scientifically dismissed racial doctrine - that this Nazi Empire was perceived to be in the realm of possibility.

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