“Dealing with the military phase of Hitler’s expansion, Rich tells an absorbing story of Germany’s relentless drive in every direction and provides a vivid account of the relations between Hitler and his newly acquired subjects and satellites.” —Hans W. Gatzke, Political Science Quarterly

In this volume Norman Rich shows how Hitler's policies followed his blueprint of expansion, outlined in Mein Kampf and based mainly on racial ideology, until political and military necessities, real and imagined, drove him to war against nations that played no part in his ideological programme. After an introduction that places Hitler and the Nazi regime in the perspective of German history, Professor Rich relates Hitler's actual theories to the rise of the Nazi state and the development of a system of men and institutions dedicated to carrying out the Führer's orders. This system was to provide the machinery of expansion that becomes the focus of this study, as the spread of the Nazis is traced in detail from the annexation of Austria to Hitler's attack on Russia and declaration of war against the United States.