The Life and Times of Karl Haushofer
Karl Haushofer was born in Munich, Germany on August 27, 1869. He belonged to a family of artists and scholars, and for a while considered living a life of academia himself, but instead worked as an instructor for the Bavarian Army, and fought in World War I. He retired from the Bavarian army in 1919 at the age of 50 with the rank of major general.
He had visited Japan in 1908 on a military mission, and had done other traveling in Asia as well. Thus in 1911, Haushofer received a PhD from Mucich University for a thesis on Japan.
Upon his retirement from the army, Haushofer became a geopolitician, joining the staff of Munich University in 1921. As a major-general/professor-doctor, he quickly became a respected figure at the university. His views were influential under the Hitler regime in Germany from 1933 to 1945.
In 1924, Haushofer was able to found the Zeitschrift fnr Geopolitik, a geopolitical organization comprised mostly of young geographers and social scientists, giving Germans what they had truly been seeking for so long: a Weltanschauungùa living faith through which to view the world. His work appealed to the heroic Germanic virtues of obedience and discipline, and believed that the army could be the abiding power in Germany.
From 1933 on, his attitude toward Nazi domination was cautious. He wanted to see a German-Soviet alliance, as he believed that the Sobviet Union was more powerful than the United States. In Haushofer's view, the days of France and England were finished, and the future lay with the resurgent nations, Germany, Italy, and Japan. His views are expressed in numerous books and articles, including:
Geopolitik des Pazifischen Ozeans (1925),
Bausteine zur Geopolitik (1928), and
Though Haushofer was an ardent and influential adviser to Hitler, during his later years, his relationship with the Nazi paryty fizzled som
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