Areas annexed by Nazi Germany

German-occupied Europe at the height of the Axis conquests in 1942

There were many areas annexed by Nazi Germany both immediately before and throughout the course of World War II.

Fully annexed territories

Gaue, Reichsgaue and other administrative divisions of Germany proper in May 1944

The territories listed below are those that were fully annexed into Germany proper.

German stamp of 1940, commemorating the annexation of Eupen-Malmédy into Germany

Partially incorporated territories

A hypothetical extent of the Greater Germanic Reich.

The territories listed below are those that were partially incorporated into the Greater German Reich.

Planned annexations

In the coming Nazi New Order, other lands were considered for annexation sooner or later, for instance North Schleswig, German-speaking Switzerland, and the zone of intended German settlement in north-eastern France, where a Gau or a Reichskommissariat centred on Burgundy was intended for creation, and that Heinrich Himmler had ambitions for it to be his SS's very own fiefdom. The goal was to unite all or as many as possible ethnic Germans and Germanic peoples, including non-Germanic speaking ones considered "Aryans", in a Greater Germanic Reich.

The eastern Reichskommissariats in the vast stretches of Ukraine and Russia were also intended for future integration into that Reich, with plans for them stretching to the Volga or even beyond the Urals, where the potential westernmost reaches of Imperial Japanese influence would have existed, following an Axis victory in World War II. They were deemed of vital interest for the survival of the German nation, as it was a core tenet of national-socialist ideology that it needed "living space" (Lebensraum), creating a "pull towards the East" (Drang nach Osten) where that could be found and colonized.

North-East Italy was also eventually to be annexed, including both Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral and Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills, but also Venice region.[3][4] Goebbels went as far as to suggest taking control of Lombardy too:

Whatever was once an Austrian possession we must get back into our own hands. The Italians by their infidelity and treachery have lost any claim to a national state of the modern type.
Joseph Goebbels, September 1943, [5]

The annexation of the entire North Italy was also suggested in the long run.[6]

See also

Notes

  1. Arnauld, Andreas von (2012). Völkerrecht. Heidelberg: C. F. Winter. p. 34. ISBN 978-3-8114-9761-0.
  2. Michael Wedekind (2005). "The Sword of Science". In Ingo Haar; Michael Fahlbusch. German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919-1945. Berghahn Books. pp. 111–123. ISBN 9781571814357.
  3. Petacco 2005, p. 50.
  4. Santi Corvaja, Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings, p. 269
  5. Rich 1974, pp. 320, 325
  6. Kersten 1947, p. 186.
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