Another of Hitler’s main aims in foreign policy was that of uniting all the German speaking people into one greater Reich. Hitler had different ways of achieving this. In January 1935, a plebiscite was held in the Saarland over whether the region should return to German control, stay under League of Nations jurisdiction or be transferred to French control. The vote was legitimate under the terms of the treaty of Versailles and was carried out by the League of Nations. The electors of the region responded with a 90% “yes” vote in favour of Germany. On 1 March the Saarland was formally reabsorbed into the German Reich. Up until this point, Hitler had been wary of upsetting Britain and France. However with the plebiscite won, it opened the possibility of further territorial gain. The Polish Corridor, an area lost from Germany after the WW1 had three and a half million Germans living in it. In 1933, the Nazis in Danzig won 39 seats out of 72 in the senate that ran the port. Two years later, in 1935 they won 43 seats. Encouraged by Hitler, the Danzig Nazis slowly undermined their opponents and, as the influence of the League of Nations declined, so their ability to restrain the Danzig Nazis disappeared. By 1938, 70 seats in the senate were held by Nazis and to all intents and purposes, the city had become part of the German Reich, a clear destruction of the treaty of Versailles and the fulfilment of part of another aim of uniting all the German speaking people into a greater Reich. However this was just the beginning of Hitler’s pursuit in what AJP Taylor refers to as “fantasies behind bars”. Hitler wanted to go further in uniting the German people and so intended to create Anshluss, the union of Germany and Austria, something which had never historically occurred as Austria had always been an independent state. Although this goal was damaged in 1934 with the attempt of Anchluss which was stopped by Mussolini, this did not reoccur in 1938 due to the Rome-Berlin Axis and so Hitler achieved Anchluss before 1939 enabling him move one step closer to the creation of a greater Reich.
An additional foreign policy goal was that of Lebensraum or living space. This was the notion that Germany needed to expand its geographical area to the east to achieve living space for the volksgameinshaft and to conquer valuable natural resources. This could only be found in the east and the people in this land who were deemed as an inferior race would work as slaves or servants for the volksgameinshaft. The ultimate in Lebensraum was seen to be expansion into the Soviet Union. By 1939 Hitler had conquered Czechoslovakia and Poland as part of Lebensraum, however to achieve this he had to neutralise the Soviet Union. To attain this Hitler had proposed the German – soviet pact. This pact would allow Hitler to achieve a form of Lebensraum in Poland without Soviet intervention and also gave Stalin time to build up his armaments industry. However according to the four year plan, Hitler had hoped to achieve expansion into the Soviet Union before 1939. Yet the pact he had made did not allow him to do so. From this it can be seen that Hitler could not achieve Lebensraum in the Soviet Union before 1939 and as a result one of his foreign policy goals was not realised.
Hitler’s last foreign policy aim was that of Nazi expansion. This was the notion of spreading Nazism throughout Europe. A clear example of this can be seen in the creation of a puppet state in Slovakia by 1939. This idea tied in closely with that of Lebensraum and uniting all the German speaking people into a greater Reich. It would appear that Hitler did go some way towards achieving this, however Nazi expansion did not fully occur until after this date and once again did not spread as far east as the Soviet Union before 1939.
It could be seen that Hitler achieved three out of his four main goals in Nazi foreign policy. Although he had managed by 1939 to unite all the German speaking people into a greater Reich and had destroyed the treaty of Versailles, Hitler had not managed to fully create Lebensraum and Nazi expansion had only just begun to occur. This would illustrate that by 1939 Hitler had made good progress in his attempt to fulfil the plans laid out in his foreign policy.
