Obviously, at the most basic, he: -Wanted to 'bring Germany back to her former glory' and avenge Germany of the humiliation and degradation he and many other Germans felt they had borne with the Treaty of Versailles. -Wanted to establish a Third, Lasting Reich. -Wanted to rid Germany of all Jews. But what were his larger goals? How did conquering Poland and the other countries he conquered achieve the goal of avenging Germany? What did the Nazi Empire, as he envisioned it, look like--Where would he have stopped, what borders would his Third Reich have had? What I mean is, if there had not been a WWII (as in, Britain declaring war on Germany and so on) and his domination of European countries been allowed to continue, where would he have stopped--What did his ideal Third Reich look like in terms of the countries it'd contain? Did he simply want to dominate the world as some claim? Did he want to conquer Britain? If not for Britain, the US and the USSR being engaged in war with him, do you think the alliance between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan would've endured--or would they have eventually fought each other--Were each of those three nations' goals conflicting in any long term way? I've heard Hitler had a great respect for Britain and that he actually never wanted to go to war with them, that he wanted to be allied with them ideally to eventually fight against the USSR--Is this true, if so, why didn't Britain (who were also anti-Communist) ever consider allying with Germany to take on the USSR? And how did he view the US prior to us entering WWII?
The problem is is that he sorta went insane, and crazy people normally aren't too good at long-term planning for the long-term future of a continental empire. Who knows what his original goals were before he went bonkers.
Living space. Kill the Jews/many other minorities that were hated Establish people he saw as 'noble' as a 'ruling race'. This isn't just the Aryan germans as he saw them, but IIRC English people as well.
No, it wasn't kill all Jews, it was "remove all immigrants taking our jobs and wealth", combined with "unite Europe against USSR". He went batshit insane after taking cocaine.
If you've ever had the chance to read 'Mein Kampf', one of the key geopolitical points Hitler makes is how Germany needed to encompass continental Europe to be a major global power, otherwise the US, Russia and China would be the dominant players globally.
The above. He actually did pretty decently at first (no one wants to hear that) but yeah, somewhere along the line he went pants-on-head retarded and un-did all of his work. You don't win a war with starving troops, nor can you effectively hold occupied space if said space is three times as large as you are logistically capable of.
Try and read between the lines. The EU is an economic block with some (and a growing number of) common rules and laws. Ment to transform Europe from a bunch of low population physicaly small states into a economic force able to stand even with the super powers. Basicly a way to make Europe into a global power.
The Germans were successful in the early part of the war partially do to good planning and partially due to insane amounts of luck.
At it's heart, Hitler's ideology was race-based. He viewed the history of the world as a racial struggle for dominance. Since he's German, he pushes for the dominance of the German race over "inferior" races, especially Slavs and Jews. Conquering lands, especially in the east, was a way for Germany to achieve the sort of economic self-sufficiency enjoyed by Britain (via its colonies) and United States (through its own history of (loosely speaking) genocide and forced relocation) that would allow Germany to compete against them, a sort of self-sufficiency Germans could not achieve within the (relatively) poor and cramped boundaries of pre-war Germany. Hitler envisioned an alliance with Britain in Mein Kampf to defeat communist Russia, but that was largely theoretical, and he eventually concluded Britain (and especially the U.S. Roosevelt was considered a Jewish puppet) were too heavily dominated by Jewish interests to work with him, and so attacked them. His brief alliance with Stalin was pure opportunism. Hitler liked to make big, bold gambles. After 1938, he saw Britain and France moving to stop him, so he struck first. The alliance with Japan was largely one of convenience. Hitler had more pressing concerns than to worry about some eventual conflict with Japan for world dominance. As for Italy, Hitler greatly admired Mussolini. Beyond his personal feelings, I can't say his opinions regarding Italians. But if it came down to a contest between Germans and Italians or Japanese for dominance in the world, Hitler wouldn't have hesitated to fight them.
Here's what the wiki says about his geopolitics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitik#Hitler.27s_geostrategy And then this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ural_mountains_in_Nazi_planning And then this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost And then everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism) So, basically, nuts.
More like a crazy uncle you don't like to talk about too much because he might decide you are being controlled by the spiders and thus need to burn.
Variously called, the Roman Empire, the French Empire, The Holy Roman Empire, etc. I think I can sum Hitler's goals up as this 1. Take over Germany 2. Conquer more land 3. ??? 4. ??? 5. 1000 year Reich.
This. And he had somehow a hard on for conquering land in the east and his 'Lebensraum' stupidity. The other things like expelling (later killing) all the Jews and other people he didn't like, getting rid of all the political opposition, etc were just made up along the way or were logical consequences of being a not so well liked dictator.
It was a rehash of WW1, which was a bunch of european latecomers realizing that England and France had staked out all the cool colonies on the planet.
Pulp, seriously? I suggest you read Ian Kershaw's Hitler biography for further in depth information on this issue.
There is also the part about turning the Slavs into a slave race. Hitler was so adamant that they are an inferior race that he opened a second front with the USSR. Even when Germany had a good deal with Russia on trade. The idea of glory for Hitler, Mussolini and Imperial Japan was stealing everybody else stuff and stepping on them as a stepping stone.
Well yeah, basically it was Hitler looking at the exploitation of the Imperial 19th century and going 'holy fuck, that is AWESOME, we missed out!"
