Manifest Destiny - German Lebensraum

German Lebensraum

German geographer Friedrich Ratzel visited North America beginning in 1873 and saw the effects of American manifest destiny. Ratzel sympathized with the results of "manifest destiny", but he never used the term. Instead he relied on the Frontier Thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner. Ratzel promoted overseas colonies for Germany in Asia and Africa, but not an expansion into Slavic lands. Later German publicists misinterpreted Ratzel to argue for the right of the German race to expand within Europe; that notion was later incorporated into Nazi ideology, as Lebensraum. Harriet Wanklyn, (1961) argues that Ratzel's theory was designed to advance science, and that politicians distorted it for political goals.