Lebensraum is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901,
The German geographer and ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) coined the word Lebensraum (1901) as a term of human geography, which the Nazis adopted as a by-word for the aggressive territorial expansion of Germany into the Greater Germanic Reich.
The Swedish political scientist Johan Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922) interpreted Friedrich Ratzel's ethnogeographic term, Lebensraum, as a geopolitical term, which the Nazis applied to justify German warfare.
Poster from the Wochenspruch der NSDAP series, 17 December 1939. Hitler's quote reads: "We are fighting for the security of our people and for our living space."
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Chancellor of Germany from 1909 until 1917, was a proponent of German Lebensraum as a natural right of Imperial Germany.
Spazio vitale was the territorial expansionist concept of Italian fascism. It was defined in universal terms as "that part of the globe over which extends either the vital requirements or expansionary
Lebensraum
…destiny, and attempted to replicate it in occupied Europe. Nazi Germany also supported other Axis powers' expansionist ideologies such as Fascist Italy's spazio vitale and the Empire of Japan's hakkō ichiu. In the 19th century, the term Lebensraum was used by the German geographer and biologist Oscar Peschel in his…
According to the Italian Fascist ideologist Giuseppe Bottai (pictured), spazio vitale justified Italian colonialism in Europe and Africa.