Karl Haushofer: biography, photo, theory, main works

The famous and inglorious father of German geopolitics Karl Haushofer was the central figure of this new discipline since its formal appearance in 1924 until 1945. His connection with the Hitler regime was the result of unilateral and partially incorrect assessments of his work and the role he played. This situation persisted throughout the postwar period. And only in the last decade a number of authors have developed a more balanced perspective, not rehabilitating, however, his or his pseudoscience.

Karl Haushofer (photo presented in the article) was born August 27, 1869 in Munich in a Bavarian aristocratic family and combined scientific, artistic and creative talents. His grandfather, Max Haushofer (1811-1866), was a landscape professor at the Prague Academy of Arts. His uncle, Karl von Haushofer (1839-1895), after whom he was named, was an artist, the author of scientific works, a professor of mineralogy and director of the Munich Technical University.

Karl Haushofer: biography

Karl was the only son of Max (1840-1907) and Adelheid (1844-1872) Haushoferov. His father worked as a professor of political economy at the same university. Such a stimulating environment could not but affect Karl, who had many hobbies.

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1887, he entered the military service in regiment Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria. Karl became an officer in 1889 and looked at the war as a higher test of the dignity of man and the nation.

A great role was played by his marriage in August 1896 on Martha Mayer-Doss (1877-1946). A strong-willed strong-willed woman had a great influence on the professional and personal life of her husband. She encouraged his appeal to an academic career and helped him in his work. The fact that her father was a Jew would create problems for Haushofer during the reign of the Nazis.

In the years 1895-1897. Karl led a series of courses at the Bavarian Military Academy, where in 1894 he began to teach modern military history. However, soon after the first publication with an analysis of the military maneuver that criticized one of his commanders, in 1907 Haushofer was transferred to the 3rd Division in Landau.

Travels

Karl jumped at the first opportunity to escape from there, having accepted the proposal of the Bavarian War Minister on his post in Japan. Stay in East Asia became decisive in his career as a geographer and geopolitician. From October 19 to February 18, 1909, he traveled with his wife through Ceylon, India and Burma to Japan. Here Haushofer was seconded to the German embassy, and then to the 16th Division in Kyoto. He twice met with Emperor Mutsushito, who, like other local aristocrats, made a strong impression on him. From Japan Haushofer made a three-week trip to Korea and China. In June 1910, he returned to Munich on the Trans-Siberian Railway. This unique visit to the Land of the Rising Sun and a meeting with the aristocracy contributed to the formation of his idealized and eventually obsolete opinion of Japan.

First book

Seriously ill while traveling, Haushofer did not spend much time at the Bavarian Military Academy before taking unpaid leave in 1912-1913. Marta inspired him to create their first book, "Dai Nihon. Analysis of the military power of Great Japan in the future "(1913). In less than 4 months, Marta dictated 400 pages of text. This productive cooperation will only improve in a variety of subsequent publications.

Career of a scientist

The first concrete step towards the academic career of Haushofer was the arrival of the 44-year-old major in April 1913 at Munich University as a doctoral student under the guidance of Professor Erich von Drygalski. After 7 months, he received his doctorate in geography, geology and history, defending his thesis entitled "German participation in the geographical development of Japan and sub-Japanese space. Its stimulation by the influence of war and military policy "(1914).

His work was interrupted by service during the First World War, mainly on the Western Front, which he completed in the rank of commander of the division. Immediately after his return to Munich in December 1918, he began to work under his former leadership on the thesis "The Main Directions of the Geographic Development of the Japanese Empire" (1919), which he completed in 4 months. In July 1919, the defense followed a lecture on the Japanese inner seas and nomination for privat-docents (after 1921 - honorary title) in geography. In October 1919 Karl Haushofer at the age of 50 years retired in the rank of major general and began his first course of lectures on the "Anthropogeography of East Asia."

Acquaintance with Hess

In 1919, Haushofer met Rudolf Hess and Oscar Ritter von Niedermayer. In 1920, Hess became his student and graduate student and joined the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany. Rudolph was imprisoned with Hitler in Landsberg after an unsuccessful coup attempt of 1924. Haushofer visited his student there 8 times and on occasion met with the future Fuhrer. After coming to power in 1933, Hess, Hitler's deputy, became the patron of the geopolitics, his defender and the link with the Nazi regime.

In 1919 von Niedermayer - doctoral student of Dryganski, captain of the German army and later professor of military sciences at the University of Berlin - drew Haushofer to develop Germany's policy towards Japan. In 1921, he persuaded him to prepare secret reports on East Asian affairs for the German Ministry of Defense. This became the reason for Carl's participation in secret tripartite negotiations between Germany, Japan and the USSR in December 1923 and growing recognition in political circles as the best German expert in Japan.

Karl Haushofer: geopolitics

The beginning of the publication of his concepts was marked by the publication in 1924 of the book "Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean". In the same year, the publication of the journal Geopolitics began, with the editor of which was Karl Haushofer. The main works of the scientist concerned the role of borders (1927), the pan-idea (1931) and attempts to establish the foundations of defense geopolitics (1932). But the magazine has always remained its main tool.

It was in some way a family enterprise, since two of his gifted synovs, Albrecht and Heinz, especially the latter, were active participants in this. Both received a doctorate in 1028, became teachers in 1930 and under Hitler held high government posts: Albrecht in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Heinz in the Ministry of Agriculture.

Until 1931 Karl Haushofer published "Geopolitics" in collaboration with young geographers Hermann Lautensach, Otto Maullem and Erich Obst. During the heyday of the newspaper in the late 1920s, they published a general introduction to the science of "Components of geopolitics" (1928). In this book, the authors considered geopolitics an applied science relevant to modern politics, which is engaged in the search for the laws of political processes in their connection with the space for making political forecasts. Three years later, however, disagreements over how their "scientific" journal should assess contemporary politics led to the departure of junior editors. Haushofer remained the only editor from 1932 until the publication of the publication in 1944

Career

After Hitler came to power in January 1933, the geopolitical career and its role began to grow because of close relations with Rudolf Hess. In a short time a number of measures were taken to improve his academic status. Initially, his habilitation was changed to "Germanism abroad, border and defense geography". In July 1933, at the request of the representative of Hitler in Bavaria Franz Javier Ritter von Epp, a friend of Haushofer for school and army, he was given the title and privileges, but not the post and the salary of the professor. In parallel, various representatives of the University of Munich and the Ministry of Culture of Bavaria nominated him for the post of university rector - a step taken to use connections with Hitler's right hand to protect the institution from Nazi manipulation. Karl urged Hess to stop these attempts. On the other hand, Hess advocated the creation for Haushofer of the Department of Defense Geography or Geopolitics, but the Minister of Culture of Bavaria denied him this. Haushofer remained a peripheral member of the Munich Geographical Administration, although his status has greatly increased in the public eye.

German world

During the reign of the Nazis, he held executive positions in three organizations engaged in the propaganda of German culture and Germans abroad. He did not join the Nazi Party, because he found many practices and programs unacceptable. On the contrary, he tried to play the role of a mediator between party and non-party elements, albeit unsuccessfully, due to the growing pressure of the Nazis and the confusion of politics and internal struggle that reigned in the party and government in the early years of the Nazi regime.

In 1933, Hess, engaged in the ethnic affairs of Germany, established the Council of Ethnic Germans, whose head became Haushofer. The Council had the authority to conduct policy towards ethnic Germans abroad. The main task of Haushofer was to maintain contact with Hess and other Nazi organizations. Conflict of interest with party organs led to the dissolution of the Council in 1936.

Also in 1933, the Academy, fearing the Nazis, suggested that Haushofer take a more important post. Member of the Academy since 1925, he was elected vice-president in 1933 and president in 1934. Although Karl left office because of conflict with the leadership, he remained a member of the internal council as a permanent representative of Hess until 1941.

The third important organization, which for some time was headed by a scientist, was the People's Union for Germans and German culture abroad. At the initiative of Hess, Haushofer became its chairman in December 1938 and held this position until September 1942, playing the role of a nominal figure, since once an independent union became an instrument of propaganda for the idea of the great German Reich.

Ideas and theories

The coming of the Nazis to power left a trace in the works of the scientist, although more in form than in content. This is particularly evident in his short monograph The National Socialist Idea in the World Perspective (1933), which was the series of the New Reich of the Academy. In it, National Socialism was portrayed as a worldwide movement of national renewal, with a special spatial dynamism of poor societies, to which the author counted Germany, Italy and Japan. In 1934 the widely spread "Modern World Politics" (1934) was followed - a popular digest of previously published ideas that supported the principles of Nazi foreign policy, which until 1938 roughly coincided with the aspirations of Haushofer. Among the many books on Japan, Middle Europe and international affairs published after 1933, "Oceans and world powers" (1937) played a special role. It united the geopolitical theories of Karl Haushofer, according to which the naval power of the state is of paramount importance.

The rapid loss of influence and growing frustration in the regime characterize the last years of life of geopolitics after his departure from the university. In the same year, he was humiliated and demonstrated the lack of political influence by banning the second edition of the book "Borders" (1927) after the Italian government's protest concerning his interpretation of the German ethnic issue in South Tyrol. Moreover, after fulfilling the duties of an adviser at the Munich conference in September 1938, which led to the annexation of the Sudetenland, Carl acknowledged that his advice to Hitler to refrain from further expansion was ignored in the dictator's desire for a world war.

The theory of the continental block of Karl Haushofer has become one of its most important concepts. It was based on a pact between Berlin, Moscow and Tokyo. The project was implemented from August 1939 to December 1940, until he was buried by Germany's war with the USSR. The theory concerned the future confrontation between the maritime and continental superpowers.

Karl Haushofer, the author of the theory of the continental bloc, was critical and highly hostile to Poland, which resulted in his ardent support for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that liquidated this country.

Crash

Since the end of 1940, Karl and Albrecht, together with Hess, have explored the possibilities of peace with Britain. This resulted in the flight of Hess to Scotland on 10 May 1941, where he addressed threats that little resembled the plan for achieving peace, compiled by Albrecht. As a result, the Haushoferes lost not only their defender, which was important given the Jewish origin of Martha, but also aroused suspicions and special attention to themselves. Charles was interrogated by the secret police, and Albrecht was imprisoned for 8 weeks. Haushofer's resignation from all political positions held with voluntary isolation followed in September 1942 in his Bavarian manor. His situation worsened after the assassination of Hitler on July 20, 1944, as Albrecht participated in the movement that organized him. Carla was placed in Dachau for 4 weeks, and his sons were arrested in Berlin. There, Albrecht was killed by the SS on April 23, 1945. Heinz survived the war and became a famous agronomist and custodian of family archives.

At the end of the war, the American administration questioned Haushofer about his work and political activities, but did not involve him in the Nuremberg Tribunal, as his role in the war was difficult to prove. He was forced to draft a document that was to save future generations from German geopolitics. After the short work "Protection of German geopolitics" (1946) was written, in which he explained and justified his works more than he apologized for them, on March 10, 1946, Karl Haushofer and his wife committed suicide.