Abstract

What did Hitler really want to achieve: world domination. In the early twenties, Hitler was working on this plan and from 1933 on, was working to make it a reality. During 1940 and 1941, he believed he was close to winning the war. This book not only examines Nazi imperial architecture, armament, and plans to regain colonies but also reveals what Hitler said in moments of truth. The author presents many new sources and information, including Hitler’s little known intention to attack New York City with long-range bombers in the days of Pearl Harbor.

Jochen Thies, born in 1944 in Rauschen/East Prussia, received his PhD in modern history from Freiburg University in 1975. He was a Fellow of the German Historical Institute in London and worked for more than 30 years as a journalist and speech-writer for Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. He has published numerous books and articles in international foreign policy journals.

“…an interesting and innovative work that remains relevant to any scholars interested in Hitler’s ideology and the nature of Nazi imperialism.” · Journal of Modern History

“Jochen Thies’s classic [1967] book on Hitler’s plans for world domination is available for the first time in English translation. Despite the huge and burgeoning literature on the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and the Second World War, there is relatively little written on Hitler’s ultimate goals or about the counterfactual: What would have happened if the Wehrmacht had won the campaign against the Soviet Union in the early fall of 1941?...[This] and other questions regarding Hitler’s plans cannot be answered definitely by Thies’s book, but he has given historians a very sound place to start.” · The Historian

“It is high time that this extremely important, well researched, and soundly argued book on the real goals of Adolf Hitler be made accessible to the English-speaking public. At a time when one can still see foolish assertions about his wanting to revise the 1919 peace settlement, it will be especially useful for Americans to read about his concept of world domination and plans to implement it.” · Gerhard Weinberg, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill