Haushofer Karl Haushofer (Haushofer)

Haushofer, Karl (Haushofer), Haushofer (1869-1946), German statesman and scholar, head of Germany's geopolitical school. Born August 27, 1869 in Munich. From 1887 served in various diplomatic assignments in South-East Asia, 1908-1910 - in Japan. During the 1-st World War was a brigadier general. In 1921 he became a professor of Geography, University of Munich, where he founded the Institute of Geopolitics. Was a teacher and a friend of Rudolf Hess, later introducing him to Hitler. Haushofer was the founder and editor (in 1924-44) Journal Tsaytshrift fц?r geopolitical "(" Zeitschrift f? R Geopolitik ").
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. Haushofer was the largest representative of the geo-political science - the modern version of political geography or antropogeografii
. The idea of merging the geography and politics was not new. Even Herodotus and Thucydides recognized the dependence of the political events of the characteristics of the geographical location of the nation. The concept of the state as a factor in social transformation, as a biological organism seeking to expand, interest in Montesquieu, Swedish Pan-Germanist P. Kjellen (offered during the 1-st World War, the term "geopolitics"), German geographer F. Ratzel, English geographer X. Mackinder, the American admiral A. Mahan and many. Haushofer based on previous theories developed its own principles of geopolitics recent history, promoting the idea of revenge and aggression. He gave the geopolitics of the kind in which it became part of the official doctrine of the Third Reich. In his works eclectically combined geographical determinism, racial theory and social Darwinism.
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. For example, Haushofer believed that the British empire is about to decline, and world leadership should gradually move to the mainland states and especially to Germany
. Need for more "living space" for Germans inevitably pushes Germany for territorial expansion, mainly in the East. However, Haushofer warned that the British Empire should still remain the focus of Germany's foreign policy.
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. In Nazi Germany, Geopolitics Haushofer became extremely fashionable, and gained a mystical sound
. Haushofer himself the reputation of "man, standing behind Hitler". Fuhrer has used the theoretical aspects of geopolitics as a rationalist explanation of Nazi expansion. It borrowed from Haushofer his favorite expression: "space as a factor of force."
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. When May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess made his flight to Scotland, . he claimed, . that the idea of this flight belongs Haushofer, . who allegedly appeared the figure of Hess, . step over the walls decorated with tapestries English castles, . and endowed with a mission to persuade the two Nordic nations merge into one.,
. Abroad Haushofer considered a forerunner of Nazism and one of the pillars of Nazi ideology
. But the zeal with which the Nazis began to put into practice his theory of geopolitical, have very Haushofer confused. After the failure of the July 1944 conspiracy, which was implicated by his son, Haushofer was arrested by the authorities. After the shooting of his son and completely bereft of illusions about Nazism, Haushofer committed suicide March 13, 1946 at Pele, near Veylheyma.