Nazi leadership preferred depopulating territory over conquering alien peoples.

Evidence

Hitler, therefore, speaking to members of the General Staff (Blomberg, Fritsch, Raeder) and high-ranking civilians (Neurath, Göring) in November, 1937, could permit himself to state openly that he heeded depopulated space and reject the idea of conquering alien peoples. That this would automatically result in a policy of exterminating such peoples was evidently not realized by any one of his listeners. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2768

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later Islamophobia/Orientalism readings on colonial population logic and the imagined emptiness of land to be settled.