after World War I. Overview Hitler's National Socialist foreign policy contained four broad goals (racial unification, agricultural autarky, lebensraum in the East) culminating in a Eurasian land-based empire. Not justified by strategic or realpolitik considerations, Hitler's ideas stemmed almost exclusively from his conception of racial struggle and the natural consequences of the need for German expansion. The historical record shows that German geopoliticians, among them chiefly General Karl Haushofer, were in contact with and taught Nazi officials, including Hitler, Rudolf Hess and Konstantin von Neurath. Furthermore, Nazi leaders used the language of geopolitik, along with Haushofer's maps, and reasoning in their public propaganda. How receptive they were to the true intent of Haushofer's geopolitik and what that intent was exactly are unclear. The ideas of racial organic states, Lebensraum and autarky clearly found their way into Hitler's thinking, and pan-regions and the landpower-seapower dichotomy did not appear prominently, much less correctly, in National Socialist strategy. Examination of Germany's pre-World War I imperial aims demonstrates that many of the ideas which would later surface in Nazi thought were not novel but simply continuations of the same revisionist strategic aims. Racially motivated autarky, achieved by annexation, especially in the East, found its way into National Socialist policy as a continuous and coherent whole. However, Hitler, along with the geopoliticians, would drop the imperial focus on industry, trade and naval power. The practical outcomes of imperial, geostrategic, and Nazi foreign policy plans were all largely the same. See also Geojurisprudence Mitteleuropa Mittelafrika References Beukema, Col. Herman. "Introduction." The World of General Haushofer. Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., New York: 1984. Dorpalen, Andreas. The World of General Haushofer. Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., New York: 1984. Fischer, Fritz. Germany's Aims in the First World War. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York: 1967. Gilpin, Robert. War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge University Press, New York: 1981. Hitler, Adolf. ed. Gerhard Weinberg. trans. Krista Smith. Hitler's Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf. Enigma Books, New York: 2003. Knutsen, Torbjørn L. The Rise and Fall of World Orders. Manchester University Press, New York: 1999. Mackinder, Halford J. Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction. National Defense University Press, Washington, D.C.: 1942. Mattern, Johannes. Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire. The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore: 1942. Rasler Karen & William R. Thompson. The Great Powers and Global Struggle: 1490–1990. The University