German Expansionism Imperial Liberalism and the United States 1776-1945

This book traces the importance of the United States for German colonialism from the late eighteenth century to 1945 focusing on American westward expansion and racial politics. Jens-Uwe Guettel argues that from the late eighteenth century onward ideas of colonial expansion played a very important role in liberal enlightened and progressive circles in Germany which in turn looked across the Atlantic to the liberal-democratic United States for inspiration and concrete examples. Yet following a pre-1914 peak of liberal political influence on the administration and governance of Germany''s colonies the expansionist ideas embraced by Germany''s far-right after the country''s defeat in the First World War had little or no connection with the German Empire''s liberal imperialist tradition - for example Nazi plans for the settlement of conquered Eastern European territories were not directly linked to pre-1914 transatlantic exchanges concerning race and expansionism.