Did Germany have a plan mapped out for the territory they wanted to take prior to war with the allies began.

by bumblingbagel8

As far as I recall Germany got the Sudetenland with the begrudging allowance of the world. Next up was Poland which the UK (and maybe France?) had made a promise to protect. Then after Poland was taken on the German side within a month there were a few months of unease and then the global portion of the war began (not including the Winter War, Japan in China and maybe Korea by then, and Italy in Ethiopia). I assume that Germany expected it was likely that Britain and France might engage them in war, but I'm curious if there was a written out or spoken plan to take more territory after Poland, especially if France and Britain didn't retaliate.

panzerkampfwagen

Hitler had been talking since the 1920s about invading the USSR for Lebensraum (living space). Hitler seems to have had a dream of the German people owning huge tracts of farming land. After taking these territories the Germans planned to work and starve the local inhabitants to death. One of these plans put into action during the war was the Hunger Plan which involved the Germans using food grown in captured regions of the USSR to support the German people (Germany did not produce enough food for its own population). This left the Soviets in those areas with not enough for themselves. Plans such as the Hunger Plan were seen as having the benefit of not having to shoot the people, send them to camps, etc such as what was being done with the Jewish population.

The gearing up for war during the 1930s after the NSDAP gained power was not to create jobs, not to boost the economy, but to prepare Germany for what Hitler saw as the inevitable clash with the Soviet Union.

A good book that discusses these issues, and Hitler's life itself, is "Hitler" by Ian Kershaw.