Geopolitik is a branch of 19th-century German statecraft, foreign policy and geostrategy. It developed from the writings of various German philosophers, geographers and thinkers, including Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859), Karl Ritter (1779-1859), Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), the Swede Rudolf Kjellén (1864-1922), and Karl Haushofer (1869-1946). The ideology of Adolf Hitler adapted, and eventually incorporated some of its tenets. The defining characteristic of Geopolitik is the inclusion of organic state theory, informed by social Darwinism. It was characterized by clash of civilizations-style theorizing. It is perhaps the closest of any school of geostrategy to a purely nationalistic conception of geostrategy, which ended up masking other more universal elements. Germany acted as a revisionist state within the international system during both World Wars by attempting to overthrow British domination, and to counter what it saw as rising US and Russian hegemony. As a latecomer to nationhood proper, lacking colonies or reserved markets for industrial output but also experiencing rapid population growth, Germany desired a more equitable distribution of wealth and territory within the international system. Some modern scholars have begun to treat the two World Wars, participated in by Germany, as a single war (1914-1945) in which the revisionist Germany attempted to bid for hegemonic control with which to reorder the international system. German foreign policy was largely consistent in both wars. The foreign policy of Nazi Germany (1933-1945) was unique insofar as it learned from what it saw as past imperial mistakes but essentially followed the very same designs laid out by German Geopolitik in the historical record of the Second Reich. Geopolitik rises German geopolitik contributed to Nazi foreign policy chiefly in the strategy and justifications for Lebensraum. It contributed five ideas to German foreign policy in the interwar period: the organic state; lebensraum; autarky; pan-regions and the land power/sea power dichotomy. Geostrategy as a political science is both descriptive and analytical like political geography but adds a normative element in its strategic prescriptions for national policy. While it stems from earlier US and British geostrategy, German geopolitik adopts an essentialist outlook toward the national interest, oversimplifying issues and representing itself as a panacea. As a new and essentialist ideology, geopolitik found itself in a position to prey upon the post–World War I insecurity of the populace. In 1919, General Karl Haushofer would become professor of geography at the University of Munich. That would serve as a platform for