Affairs, Freiherr Von Neurath; Oberst Hossbach" (the adjutant who took the minutes).

"The Führer stated initially that the subject matter of today's conference was of such high importance that its detailed discussion would certainly in other states take place before the Cabinet in full session. However, he, the Führer, had decided not to discuss this matter in the larger circle of the Reich Cabinet, because of its importance. His subsequent statements were the result of detailed deliberations and of the experiences of his 4 1/2 years in government; he desired to explain to those present his fundamental ideas on the possibilities and necessities of expanding our foreign policy, and in the interests of a far-sighted policy he requested that his statements be looked upon, in the case of his death, as his last will and testament.

"The Führer then stated The aim of German policy is the security and the preservation of the nation and its propagation.` This is consequently a problem of space. The Germannation comprises 85 million people, which, because of the number of individuals and the compactness of habitation, form a homogeneous European racial body, the like of which cannot be found in any other country. On the other hand it justifies the demand for larger living space more than for any other nation. If there have been no political consequences to meet the demands of this racial body for living space, then that is the result of historical development spread over several centuries and should this political condition continue to exist, it will represent the greatest danger to the preservation of the German nation"-The German word used there, is not "nation"; it is "Volkstum"-"at its present high level. An arrest of the decrease of the German element in Austria and in Czechoslovakia is just as little possible as the preservation of the present state in Germany itself."

"Instead of growth, sterility will be introduced, and as a consequence, tensions of a social nature will appear after a number of years, because political and philosophical ideas are of a permanent nature only as long as they are able to produce the basis for the realization of the actual claim of the existence of a nation. The German future is therefore dependent exclusively on the solution of the need for living space. Such a solution can be sought naturally only for a limited period, about one to three generations.