Foreign Policy of Nazi Germany

Foreign Policy of Nazi Germany
Name	Foreign Policy of Nazi Germany
Native name	Außenpolitik des Deutschen Reiches (1933–1945)
Period	1933–1945
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Ideology	Nazism, Lebensraum
Capital	Berlin
Key events	Reichstag Fire, Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, Anschluss of Austria, Munich Agreement, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Invasion of Poland, Operation Barbarossa

Foreign Policy of Nazi Germany was the set of international strategies, decisions, and actions undertaken by the Nazi Party leadership under Adolf Hitler between 1933 and 1945. It combined expansionist Lebensraum aims, racial doctrines from Mein Kampf, and realpolitik maneuvers interacting with states such as United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union, United States, Italy, and Japan. The policy produced a sequence of crises, agreements, and wars—culminating in the Second World War and reshaping the League of Nations, United Nations precursors, and postwar diplomacy.

Background and Ideological Foundations

Nazi foreign policy drew directly from Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the racial theories promoted by figures like Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, and Alfred Rosenberg, emphasizing Lebensraum, anti-Communism and anti-Versailles Treaty resentment. Influences included revisionist currents stemming from the Treaty of Versailles settlement, the diplomatic milieu of the Weimar Republic, and nationalist currents embodied by groups such as the Freikorps and conservative elites like Franz von Papen and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s legacy. Doctrine fused radical goals with instruments developed by Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and diplomatic personnel drawn from the Auswärtiges Amt, while competing power centers—Schutzstaffel, Wehrmacht, and Nazi Party apparatus—shaped implementation.

Diplomatic Objectives and Grand Strategy

Key objectives included overturning the Treaty of Versailles, securing Anschluss of Austria, reclaiming Saarland, attaining control over Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, and obtaining Lebensraum in Eastern Europe—especially targeting Poland, Soviet Union territories, and Ukraine’s resources. Strategy blended short-term rapprochement with states like United Kingdom and Italy to isolate opponents, and long-term plans for continental hegemony articulated in staff work by OKW and OKH planners. Diplomatic instruments relied on treaties such as the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, secret protocols like those of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and appeals to ethnic Germans in Sudetenland and Danzig to justify intervention.

Key Diplomatic Actions and Treaties

Nazi diplomacy engineered notable agreements and crises: the withdrawal from the League of Nations, the remilitarization of the Rhineland violating the Treaty of Versailles, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement recalibrating naval limits with United Kingdom, the Anschluss of Austria through pressure on the Austrian Chancellor and coup elements, and the Munich Agreement brokered with Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier that ceded the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union included secret spheres of influence and precipitated the Invasion of Poland, provoking declarations of war by France and United Kingdom. Subsequent diplomatic moves involved the Pact of Steel with Kingdom of Italy and negotiations with Japan leading to the Tripartite Pact, while occupying powers issued administrative edicts in places like Norway and Belgium.

Militarization and Use of Coercion

Diplomacy was backed by rearmament programs within the Reichswehr reformed into the Wehrmacht and naval expansion via the Kriegsmarine. Coercive measures included orchestrated referendums, political pressure, blackmail, and military interventions such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland and invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and the Low Countries. Paramilitary organizations—Sturmabteilung, Schutzstaffel, and Gestapo—conducted extralegal operations, while occupation policies enforced labor requisitioning and population transfers in line with directives from RSHA and Reichskommissariat projects. Strategic bombing campaigns and combined-arms invasions under leaders such as Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian complemented diplomatic coercion.

Relations with Major Powers

Relations with United Kingdom vacillated between negotiation (e.g., Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement) and confrontation culminating in the Battle of Britain. Franco-German ties shifted from antagonism with Édouard Daladier’s France to wartime confrontation after 1939. The Soviet Union experienced tactical alignment via Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact then catastrophic rupture in Operation Barbarossa. The United States maintained neutrality early, influenced by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies and later entered the war after Attack on Pearl Harbor and escalating Atlantic conflict. The alliance with Kingdom of Italy under Benito Mussolini and coordination with Empire of Japan framed the Axis bloc, while relations with states like Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland were managed through treaties, client regimes, and military pacts.

Policies in Occupied and Puppet States

Occupied territories saw creation of puppet regimes such as the Vichy France apparatus under Philippe Pétain, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and German-sponsored administrations in General Government for Poland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Collaborationist entities included Quisling’s government in Norway and the Independent State of Croatia led by the Ustaše. Policies combined economic exploitation, population displacement, Final Solution implementations overseen by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, and attempts at Germanization via organizations like the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and settler plans. Resistance movements such as the Polish Home Army, French Resistance, and Yugoslav Partisans complicated occupation governance.

Impact and Legacy on International Order

Nazi foreign policy dismantled interwar diplomatic frameworks, directly triggered the Second World War, and produced the Holocaust’s genocidal consequences that reshaped international law via the Nuremberg Trials and the creation of the United Nations. Postwar settlements at Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference redrew borders, spurred the Cold War between United States and Soviet Union, and prompted creation of human-rights instruments reacting to crimes committed under Nazi directives. The legacy influenced decolonization, European integration initiatives like the Marshall Plan and institutions evolving into the European Union, and sustained debates in historiography involving scholars such as Ian Kershaw, Richard J. Evans, and Christopher Browning.

Category:Foreign relations of Germany