Living Space - Themes

Themes

The story's name, "Living Space" is a direct translation of the German "Lebensraum", a key concept of Nazi ideology used to justify conquest and expansion of the "Aryan Race" at the expanse of "Inferior Races". In the context of the story, there is a far more innocuous way, unlimited "Living Space" available with no need to fight or conquer anybody, and is utilized not only by the people of Rimbro's timeline, but also by those of the Nazi-victorious timeline. And though mass horrors must have been perpetrated in the aftermath of the Nazi victory, for the people of that timeline - in whose calendar this year is thousands of years "After Hitler" - these are events of the distant past and the ones encountered in the story seem quite civilized. Once finding that the Earth on which Rimbro lives is already claimed, they accept this prior claim and go away (why fight when there is a literally infinite number of other worlds just as good?).

Also for Rimbro's people, Hitler and Nazism are a piece of quite ancient history. ("Hitler was a sort of tribal chief in ancient times. He led the German tribe in one of the wars of the twentieth century, just about the time the Atomic Age started and true history began.") The horrors of Nazi Germany seem to be forgotten - except, perhaps, by professional historians (which none of the characters are).