The conception of politics in political geography and geopolitics in Germany until 1945

The history of German geography ascribes the aberrations of the discipline from 1900–1945, especially during the National Socialist period, mainly to the negative influence of geopolitics. The example of the political concepts of political geography and geopolitics, however, shows that the lack of theoretical foundations and ideological one-sidedness are responsible for this development. Accordingly, geopolitics was not an innovation but only reinforces patterns of thinking which have been a component of the German geography since the end of the 19th century and only made possible the rise of geopolitics.