-28-                            
 
 
of Germany's former colonies - a thing unheard of a year ago.
 
 
In view of the fact that most of the former German colonies were in
Africa, we have here an instance in which circumstances, subsequently
developed, have occasioned a deviation from Hitler's original MEIN
KAMPF attitude* - which disapproves tropical or semi-tropical colonies
as unsuited to satisfy the main object of the colonial expansion he
envisaged as providing an outlet for surplus population. Such colonies
to be of maximum use must be in temperate zones, as near to Germany as
possible, and offer an opening for peasants, the back-bone of the
nation.**
 
 
Hitler definitely considered expansion to the fertile districts of
Eastern Europe a form of colonization which would best permit of
organization and administration along the same lines of peasant
development he has introduced so extensively in the Reich itself under
the slogan "Blut und Boden" (Blood And Soil). Eastward expansion would
seem to be the natural corollary to the long-standing and recently
stressed anti-Soviet policy.
 
 
Certain passages in MEIN KAMPF are so definite on this point as to
justify quotation.  Thus, as a
 
 
* MEIN KAMPF: page 153
** "    "   : pages 153, 154 and 728