¹ “Geopolitik ist eine Wissenschaft, die in den Bereich vieler Disziplinen eingreift.” (Geopolitics is a science intruding into the realm of many disciplians.) Editorial statement on cover-page of the Zeilschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 15, No. 12 (Dec., 1938).

² Among Hellpach's, numerous contributions to this field, the most significant is bis widely used textbook, Geopsyche (Berlin, 1935)Google Scholar, which went through five editions in four years. Enlarging the scope of his geo-psychological studies, Hellpach published in 1938 his Einführung in die Völkerpsychologie. Several shorter articles, such as “Kultur und Klima,” try to clarify the obscure and abstract principles of this “one-man” geopsychology. Cf. the collective work, Klima, Wetter, Menshen (Berlin, 1938).

³ “Wer politische Raumwissenschaft zu treiben sich vorsetzt und in dieseas some geopolitisch bemüht sein mochte, der … muss immer Erlebnisse der Menserfranature in Frage stellen—der Psychologie.” Hellpach, , “Vom Dimensionalinstinkt zur Raumwillensschöpfung, Ein raumpsychologischer Beitrag zur wissenschaftlichen Geopolitik,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 17, No. 12, p. 609 (Dec., 1940).Google Scholar Italics are the author's.

⁴ Hellpach's German terminology is much more expressive than its English translation. Discussing the subjective evaluations of space, or, rather, of the physiographic features of land, he writes: “Raumanspruch, Raumvorrecht, Raumzuteilung, Raumentziehung, Raumverfügung von den primitivsten bis zu den substilsten Erscheinungsformen haben einen wesentlichen Teil der zivilisatorischen Daeseinsgestaltung mitgeschaffen.” “Vom Dimensionalinstinkt zur Raumwillensschöpfung,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 17, No. 12, p. 604 (Dec., 1940).

⁵ The first veiled reference to these mysterious geopolitical laboratories is contained in a particularly violent article published in the Zeitschrift by the Heidelberg group of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Geopolitik. Arguing on the basis of “geopsychological experiments,” conducted at the University of Heidelberg, members of this work-group angrily announce the final and ultimate superiority of racial doctrines and Aryan purity as against certain false anthropological assumptions on the equality of all races. Popular psychology, and not the rigid and lifeless forces of surrounding nature, are going to determine a nation's future life, concludes this important statement. Cf. “Späne der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Geopolitik,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 63–64 (Jan., 1936).

The University of Heidelberg seems to have been completely mobilized for purposes of scientific and military research in geopolitics. The indications are manifold. Heidelberg is the actual publication center of the Zeitschrift, the residence of the powerful Kurt Vowinckel, who is not only co-editor and publisher of Haushofer's periodical but also an extreme Nazi and leading member of the party. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Geopolitik, the main study group of geopolitics under party auspices likewise has its national headquarters in Heidelberg, where its party leader, Dr. R. Wagner, resides. Wagner is the immediate subordinate of Alfred Rosenberg, and thus an important connecting link between the National Socialist party and the geo-politicians. Relations between the government and academic researchers, such as Professor Hellpach, seem to be closer and more “fruitful” in Heidelberg than in almost any other German city except Munich. For the very important official statement, signed by “A. Rosenberg” and dated May 31, 1938, cf. “Späne der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Geopolitik,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 15, No. 9, p. 743 (Sept., 1938).

⁶ Geo-medicai writers pay particular attention to psychological phenomena and aberrations, giving full credit to Hellpach for having systematically developed the field. Man's psychological processes are just as much conditioned by space as by the biology of his body. Both body and mind vary and change under the impact of natural environment, maintains Wilhelm Rimpau, the geo-medical expert of Haus hofer's Institut and of the Zeitschrift. “Geomedizin hat sich nicht nur mit den kausaler Forschung zugänglichen chemischphysikalisch ablaufenden Lebensvorgängen zu befassen, sondern auch mit dem Irrationalen im Menschen, dem Seelischen, Geistigen.” Rimpau, Wilhelm, “Geomedizin,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 15, No. 12, p. 1013 (Dec., 1938).Google Scholar

⁷ The mysterious Zeiss, H., whose “standard” book, Einführung in die Hygiene und Seuchenlehre (Stuttgart, 1936)Google Scholar, is frequently quoted by leading geopoliticians but apparently not available outside of Germany, gives a most revealing and char acteristic definition of the rôle of geo-medicine. “Geomedizin controls the health of the National Socialist state just as Geopolitik controls the state. Both are built upon the laws of blood and soil.” Quoted by Rimpau, , Zur Geschichte der Geoepidemologie (Berlin, 1937), p. 3.Google Scholar

⁸ “Geomedizin,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 15, No. 12, p. 1014 (Dec., 1938). Claus Schilling, director of the Robert Koch Tropical Institute in Berlin, reached the same important conclusion in an earlier article, “Seuchen und Geopolitik,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 13, No. 12, pp. 821–827 (Dec., 1936).

⁹ Rimpau, “Geomedizin,” ibid.; cf. also his “Entstehung von Pettenkofers Bodentheorie und die Münchner Choleraepidemie 1854,” Abhandlungen des Deutschen Medizin-Vereines, Bd. 44, H. 7 (July, 1925).

¹⁰ In Karl Haushofer's opinion, experts of geo-medicine did an outstanding job in preserving a high degree of “field hygiene” (Feldhygiene) throughout the Polish campaign of September, 1939. They prevented the outbreak of epidemics among the population of Warsaw and other big cities and were also instrumental in quickly removing all the remnants, ruins, and casualties of a “highly destructive (!)” lightning campaign waged by Germany. “Geopolitischer Neujahrs-Ausblick,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 17, No. 1, p. 3 (Jan., 1940).

¹¹ “Die Verbindung der Begriffe Blut und Boden ist … letzten Endes ein geo-medizinisches Problem,” “Geomedizin,” ibid., p. 1014.

¹² “Erst recht ist sich der Geopolitiker einer Tatsache bewusst, wenn er gleichfalls dem Staat jene Doppelnatur des Körperlich-Ideellen rückhaltlos zuerkennt, und auch die nicht wegzuleugnende Spannung, die zwischen Recht und Macht besteht.” Offe, Hans, “Geopolitik und Naturrecht,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 14, No. 3, p. 245 (Mar., 1937).Google Scholar

¹³ Wehberg, Hans, “Universales oder Europäisches Völkerrecht? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Professor Carl Schmitt,” Die Friedens-Warte, Vol. 41, No. 4, p. 149.Google Scholar In denying the existence of a universal law of nations and advocating a peculiar brand of “spatial particularism,” German jurists frequently contradict themselves. Carl Schmitt, for example, denies the universal character of international law, yet maintains that only a “bolshevist-nihilistic jurisprudence” can conceive of a law of nations which does not include every country. “We belong to the legal community of all European peoples,” he proudly claims, thus conceding at least the existence of a European international law. Nationalsozialismus und Völkerrecht (Berlin, 1934), p. 17. Italics are mine.

¹⁴ Adolf Grabowsky has given an excellent brief definition of Geojurisprudenz in declaring that it is nothing but a legal recognition of the relations between space and law (Raum und Recht). “Das Problem der Geopolitik,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 22, No. 12, p. 787 (Mar., 1933).

¹⁵ Writing in an ebullient mood shortly after the victory of the National Socialist Revolution, one of the earlier Nazi international lawyers declared that Nazi international law is embedded in the blood and soil of the people. The law of nations itself, rests on the right of a people to existence, this being a “natural right” (Lebens recht ist Naturrecht). In keeping with the dynamic expansionism of the Third Reich, the later writings of Nazi geo-jurists seem to have changed this fundamental “natural right” of peoples, or rather of the German people, from a right to live into a right to living space, their guiding principle being, in essence, that Lebensraumrecht ist Naturrecht. The racist principle of Blut und Boden seems to be pressed into the background and the concept of Raum, not merely of space but of an unlimited geo-graphic area, is now deified by obedient Nazi geo-jurists. Cf. Helmut Nicolai, Rasse und Recht (Berlin, 1933), p. 23 et seq.

¹⁶ Cf. Stammler, Rudolph, Die Lehre vom richtigen Recht (Berlin, 1902), p. 102.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Cf. Offe, Hans, “Geopolitik und Naturrecht,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 239–246 (Mar., 1937).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Between 1919 and 1933, international law had a period of short-lived renaissance extending, however, only to a development of procedural international law. The League of Nations, with all its committees and conferences, the various tribunals of arbitration, and, above all, the Permanent Court of International Justice, were the institutionalized instruments of a “procedurally revived” positive international law. This type of a legal structure, Schmitt mournfully concludes, inevitably led to a most undesirable extension and expansion of international legal norms, or to a Normeninflation. Cf. Schmitt, , Nationalsozialismus und Völkerrecht, p. 9Google Scholar et seq.

¹⁹ While Schmitt attacks the universal aspects of old-fashioned international law, Hans K. E. L. Keller, the other outstanding representative of Geojurisprudenz, criticizes the law of nations for its “internationalism.” However, when Nazi lawyers blame international law for its “internationalism,” they use the term as the equivalent of Western European imperialism and of a Continental balance of power, “Internationalism,” declares Keller, “is the propagandist form of a very definite state imperialism in foreign policy.” The obvious political objective consists here in a complete elimination of the former balance of power idea as the basis of international law and security. Cf. Keller, , “Einheit und Vielfalt im rechtlichen Weltbild,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 14, No. 3, p. 247 (Mar., 1937).Google Scholar

²⁰ Regarding the Great Powers “of the past,” Carl Schmitt declared in 1926 that England and France “were always ready to give up the aims and interests of smaller states but never their own.” Cf. Die Kernfrage des Völkerbundes (Berlin, 1926), Introduction, p. ii.

²¹ Again, Hans Keller states one of the fundamental principles of geo-jurisprudence when he declares that international treaties are mere scraps of paper, and adds emphatically, “Confronted by life, every contract is a scrap of paper.” “Völkerrecht von Morgen,” Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht, Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 366 et seq. (May, 1933). Italics are mine.

²² This is the new international legal order, or Grossraumordnung, as defined by Schmitt. According to Gerhart Niemeyer, modern German conceptions of international law tend to eliminate and transcend the national state, constructing new legal, political, and economic units, or regions. This “disruptive” influence rests on German historical traditions, explains Niemeyer. The disintegrated medieval régime of feudal lands, estates, corporations, and “quasi-military commercial unions, such as the Hansa,” embraced all international groups of common interests. These internationally recognized groups “everywhere disrupted and transcended the political enclosure of state territories.” Cf. “International Law and Social Structure,” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 34, No. 4, p. 393 et seq. (Oct., 1940).

²³ The idea of regionalism, based on power-zones or spheres of exclusive political interest, is not a new one in National Socialist international law. Ever since 1933, Nazi jurists have consistently and loudly argued that racially uniform groups of people ought to have legal systems of their own. Geo-jurists now merely substituted space for race, Raum for Rasse, and projected these demands for individualized systems of “international” law into the new dimension of the “large area” (Grossraum). The political motive underlying these racial and spatial theories is fairly obvious. Both aim at the elimination of any international legal organization and try to liberate the modern, totalitarian “racial” or “spatial” state from all internationally binding legal or moral commitments. Cf. Bristier, Eduard, Die Völkerrechtslehre des Nationalsozialismus (Zürich, 1938), pp. 121–122.Google Scholar

²⁴ Kruszewski, Charles, “Hegemony and International Law,” in this Review, Vol. 35, No. 6, p. 1143 (Dec., 1941).Google Scholar Even some of the geopolitical writers have noticed the convenient vagueness and startling indefiniteness of geo-jurisprudence. As early as May, 1935, Eugen Langen attempted to define the essence of Geojurisprudenz. The result of his efforts is surprisingly meager. “Geojurisprudenz,” maintains Langen, “is built on the recognition of the spatial purity of nations and advocates the legal control of certain areas.” “Zur juristischen Geopolitik Europas,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, Vol. 12, No. 5, p. 301 (May, 1935).

²⁵ Cf. Jessup, Philip C., “The Reality of International Law,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 2, p. 246 (Jan., 1940).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Quincy Wright uses even more expressive language; “The relation of totalitarianism to international law is one of incompatibility. If totalitarianism triumphs in the present war, international law will suffer a severe decline from which it may not recover.” Cf. his “International Law and the Totalitarian States,” in this Review, Vol. 35, No. 4, p. 743 (Aug., 1941).