Hitler`s War Aims – Ideology the Nazi State and the Course of Expansion: 1

In this volume Norman Rich shows how Hitlers policies followed his blueprint of expansion outlined in Mein Kampf and based mainly on racial ideology until political and military necessities real and imagined drove him to war against nations that played no part in his ideological programme. After an introduction that places Hitler and the Nazi regime in the perspective of German history Professor Rich relates Hitlers actual theories to the rise of the Nazi state and the development of a system of men and institutions dedicated to carrying out the Führers orders. This system was to provide the machinery of expansion that becomes the focus of this study as the spread of the Nazis is traced in detail from the annexation of Austria to Hitlers attack on Russia and declaration of war against the United States.