To Haushofer, [[war]] was a “struggle for elbow room,” which was “the last great test of a [[nation]]’s right to exist” and the “ultimate arbiter” of relations between nations (Herwig 2016, 100). The Lebensraum concept was “a critical component in the [[Nazi]] worldview that drove both its [[military]] conquests and [[racial]] policy” (Holocaust Museum 2022). The 1939 invasion of [[Poland]], which formally began WWII, was the result of a direct application of this Lebensraum belief (Piotrowski 1997). Then, in 1941, the [[Operation Barbarossa|invasion of Russia]] was one of the more tragic applications of this ideology in terms of lives lost. | To Haushofer, [[war]] was a “struggle for elbow room,” which was “the last great test of a [[nation]]’s right to exist” and the “ultimate arbiter” of relations between nations (Herwig 2016, 100). The Lebensraum concept was “a critical component in the [[Nazi]] worldview that drove both its [[military]] conquests and [[racial]] policy” (Holocaust Museum 2022). The 1939 invasion of [[Poland]], which formally began WWII, was the result of a direct application of this Lebensraum belief (Piotrowski 1997). Then, in 1941, the [[Operation Barbarossa|invasion of Russia]] was one of the more tragic applications of this ideology in terms of lives lost. |