This map, drawn by Arnold Hillen-Ziegfeld and published in Germany in 1938, represents the idea of a German culture and people beyond the borders of Germany, promulgated by Albrecht Penck after the First World War.
The first version of this map was published in 1925, also by Arnold Hillen-Ziegfeld. Its first edition became very popular during the Weimar Republic and was included in numerous school atlases. At a meeting of the German Cartographers' Association in 1934, with Germany already under Nazi rule, it was requested that all school atlases include this map.
This second version of the map was published in 1938, featuring red in the print and containing a greater amount of data and ideas. The changes were made under the guidance of several members of the Nazi Party, such as Karl von Loesch and Friedrich Lange.
The propaganda objective of this map is to show the influence of German culture in Europe and how German citizens were scattered throughout the continent. This idea was used by the Nazi Party in the years leading up to the Second World War to justify the annexation of Austria (which already appears annexed on this map), the takeover of Bohemia and Moravia in early 1939, and finally the invasion of Poland in 1939.
The colour red is used very effectively on the map. Not only is it used to mark areas where there is a German population as such, but it also creates a red shadow over all countries except Italy and France. The aim is to convey the idea that German culture is present in all these countries and that Germany therefore had a right to claim all that land.
These pieces of propaganda were accompanied by lies and half-truths, through which the Nazis claimed that Germans were being persecuted in regions where they were a minority and that it was therefore legitimate self-defence to invade all those regions to protect their fellow citizens.
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