How to Catch Hitler by the Tongue
As is well known and probably does not need proof, Hitler often lied daringly. For him, lying was one of the most important tools in the implementation of his political and military plans.
Usually, this is the end of it. However, in my opinion, the analysis of lies, that is, finding out what exactly Hitler lied about, how, why and for what purpose, is a very important way of penetrating his plans, which the Fuhrer did not like to trust even with the most secret papers.
The method is, of course, purely analytical. But if we manage to comprehend Hitler's logic and the outline of his real plans, hatched in secret and in secret conversations, then many other events also receive a simple, logical, and often the only possible explanation. If this is so, then we have drawn the right conclusions. That is, this is not idle curiosity, but an important way of deepening knowledge and understanding in stories.
Hitler claimed that Germans did not have enough land
One of the topics on which Hitler lied, and lied systematically, was the lack of land in Germany to feed the population, from which his theory of "living space" flowed.
He addressed this issue many times, both in Mein Kampf and in numerous printed and oral speeches, usually without any specifics and without a more or less detailed analysis of the situation. For example, in the book, Hitler rejects the idea of restoring Germany's 1914 borders and makes a transparent hint that the National Socialists set themselves the goal of a significantly greater expansion of Germany.
Although the land question is always concrete and expressed in hectares or square kilometers, neither in the book nor in his numerous other public speeches did Hitler ever specify how much land he would like and why he considered Germany overpopulated.
Only in the manuscript of his second book, known after the war as the "Second Book" (Zweites Buch), did Hitler dare to approach this question more specifically. The manuscript, as far as can be judged, was attributed as belonging to Hitler, including by the former confidant of the Nazi publishing house Eher-Verlag, Josef Berg, and this conclusion was not disputed. Indeed, the "Second Book" is written in the style characteristic of Hitler. These are notes that this manuscript can be considered a source.
Strictly speaking, Hitler was a Malthusian in his views and said directly that the life of the people depended on the bread obtained from a certain territory. And in this unpublished manuscript he made a specific assessment, determining that 136 people per 1 square kilometer of area is an unhealthy ratio. That is, in essence, the German people with such a population density cannot feed themselves from their land.
When you read such statements, various geographical or statistical data are simultaneously sorted through in your head. A comparison occurs, which forms a certain suspicion that Hitler lied here.
People and bread
We have excellent German statistics at our disposal, for the late 1920s still very good and not spoiled by subsequent secrecy. So we can and should not take Hitler's word for it, but check it out.
In 1925, in Germany, which then had an area of 468 square kilometers, a census was conducted, counting 718 million people. The average density was 62,48 people per square kilometer. But the density varied greatly. For example, the largest urban agglomerations (or Ballungsgebiete) had simply monstrous population density. In Berlin – 133,1 people per square kilometer, in Hamburg – 4 people per square kilometer.
Hamburg from a bird's eye view
Hamburg also had such places – densely built-up, multi-story slums
In contrast, in many rural areas, such as the Free State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (formed in 1918 on the site of the duchy of the same name and abolished on 1 January 1934 by the unification with Mecklenburg-Schwerin into the state of Mecklenburg), the population density was very low – 37,64 people per square kilometre.
Mecklenburg. This is also Germany. But it is difficult to see people among the fields, forests and lakes.
This circumstance alone somewhat undermines Hitler's pathos. In the main agricultural regions of Germany, especially in the east, where grain was mainly grown, population density did not particularly hinder agricultural production.
In addition, there are detailed land and agricultural statistics. In 1928, of the 46,8 million hectares of total land area in Germany, 20,6 million hectares or 44,1% of the country's area were occupied by arable land. In principle, this can be taken as the average ratio of total land to arable land for Germany.
Further, the arable land was divided into certain crops, which is also detailed. 58,2% of arable land or 12 million hectares was sown with grain crops, including 4,7 million hectares of rye and 1,7 million hectares of wheat. 20,3% or 4,2 million hectares were sown with root crops, including 2,8 million hectares of potatoes. The rest was industrial crops.
The yield in Germany was quite high. For rye - 14,5 centners per hectare, for wheat - 18,8 centners per hectare and for potatoes - 134,1 centners per hectare. The harvest in 1927 was: rye - 6,8 million tons, wheat - 3,2 million tons, potatoes - 37,5 million tons.
Per capita, Germany consumed 108 kg of rye and 51 kg of wheat grain (or a total of 143,1 kg of baked bread) and 600 kg of potatoes. At the same time, Germany consumed an average of 113,6 kg of bread and 168,5 kg of potatoes.
If we calculate the average square kilometer of German land, where out of 100 hectares 25,6 hectares were occupied by grain (i.e. including rye, wheat, barley and oats) and 5,9 hectares by potatoes, then the following comes out. With an average grain yield of 15,6 centners per hectare and potatoes of 134,1 centners per hectare, the yield per square kilometer was 399,3 centners of grain and 791,1 centners of potatoes.
This works out to approximately 273 kg of bread and 594,8 kg of potatoes per capita per average German square kilometre.
Hence the conclusion that Germany could feed from its fields approximately twice as many people as lived in the country at that time. This, we note, with the agricultural technology of the 1920s!
German agriculture at the time was dominated by manual labour and the draft horse. Potato harvesting near Arsten, southeast of Bremen
For comparison: in 2020, the wheat yield in Germany was 78,8 centners per hectare. Agricultural technology, fertilizers, and selection have yielded very solid results.
The plausibility of lies
So, Hitler lied.
However, one must at least lie plausibly, so that the statements do not diverge too much from some observed reality. Otherwise, the speaker will be booed.
The question arises: where did the idea that Germany does not have enough land come from?
In my opinion, from the extremely uneven distribution of land between farms.
In Germany there were 5 thousand farms, the majority of which – 096,5 thousand or 3% – owned small and very small plots, from 027,4 hectares (59,4 acres) to 0,05 hectares.
For comparison: there were 20 thousand rich peasants with plots of 100 to 199,9 hectares, and 18,6 thousand large landowners. But these two categories, which make up 4,2% of all farms, owned 46,6% of the land.
Around the large cities, the smallest landownership completely dominated. For example, in Berlin there were 47,9 thousand small farms, which owned 7 hectares of land or an average of 178 acres each, and only 14 rich peasants and 135 large landowners. A similar picture was in almost all large cities in Germany, which was partly due to the fact that industrial firms often helped their workers acquire the smallest plots of land as subsidiary farms.
Then yes, if the average person sees how masses of people are crowded together on an endless sea of small and tiny plots of land, then he will be inclined to take Hitler at his word that the Germans do not have enough land.
Understanding that this was not the case required a certain knowledge of economic geography and agriculture.
How much land would Hitler like?
The most interesting thing is that the Nazi party initially included people who had such knowledge. These were Heinrich Himmler and Richard Darre, both certified agronomists.
It would have been easy for them to take a statistical reference book, make roughly the same calculations as above, and then tell Hitler something like this: “Dear Party Comrade, you are talking nonsense.” But they did not do this, and, moreover, they were among the most ardent supporters of Hitler precisely on the agrarian question.
So what's the matter?
In general, when speaking about the lack of land, Hitler should at least somehow hint at how much land, from his point of view, needs to be seized in order to resolve this issue.
It seems like there is a moment like that in Book Two.
After many digressions and discussions about the First World War, Hitler spoke about the goals of the war that should then be achieved: to conquer 100 thousand square kilometers of territory, which would be given to the front-line soldiers as property or intended for German colonization.
Surprisingly modest plans. In 1914, Germany occupied 540,8 thousand square kilometers of territory, and the increase of 100 thousand square kilometers was only 18,5%. But this was still 1928, when Hitler did not yet have power, and was not yet a citizen of Germany, and was considered a dreamer.
However, since his party grew despite the ban, there is nevertheless a much more concrete plan behind these arguments: 100 thousand square kilometers or 10 million hectares. Of this, approximately 68% or 6,8 million hectares are agricultural land, including 4,5 million hectares of arable land.
If these 6,8 million hectares are divided into allotments of 25 hectares, then we get 272 thousand average peasant farms. If 50 hectares or more, then about 100 thousand rich peasant farms. At that time, the Nazi Party had about 100 thousand members, and it turns out that Hitler could promise them allotments of 50 hectares.
What kind of promise this was can be shown by the following fact of property inequality in Weimar Germany. According to data for 1931, 6,4% of the population of Germany owned 60% of the national property and income. The remaining 40% was divided between 93,6% of Germans. The rich owned property on average worth 378,9 thousand Reichsmarks, and ordinary people – worth 934 Reichsmarks.
When Hitler, in a whisper, privately promised his supporters trophy land in a solid allotment, it fired up many people, especially the poor front-line soldiers. They were not afraid of war, but there were no other ways to get rich at that time.
Thus, Hitler’s statements about the lack of land in Germany, on which the theory of “living space” was based, were, on the one hand, lies, quite easily refuted with a statistical reference book in hand.
But, on the other hand, it was a kind of password, the exact meaning of which was probably explained orally in the party. The Nazis heard something completely different in Hitler's speeches than all the other Germans and foreigners. If we were to identify these passwords and try to reconstruct their meaning, we would be able to understand the real content of Hitler's speeches.
Actually, all this, as already said, is not idle curiosity. This is a methodology and its development.
We still have to understand how and why Ukrainians became enemies.
Information