Lebensraum

Meanings

1. Territories considered appropriate for German habitation, regarded as vital for the natural flourishing of the German race:
2. an empire in the form of overseas colonies, in imitation of contemporary powers such as Britain and France.
3. a Großdeutschland obtained through Endoeuropean expansion, usually with a focus upon Drang nach Osten, and varying in its scope from the comparatively modest annexation of the Polish Border Strip to overlordship of the European continent by the conquest of Russian lands as far as the Urals.

1. Hitherto unoccupied “living space” claimed as one’s rightful domain.

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from German Lebensraum (literally “living space”).