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Abstract
For the United States in the nineteenth century, and Nazi Germany in the twentieth, a belief in a special national destiny and the inferiority of neighboring peoples convinced the Americans and the Germans to pursue expansionist policies. In the United States, this policy coalesced into the term, “Manifest Destiny,” in Germany, “Lebensraum.” This thesis will attempt to show that there are common themes in the rhetoric of the leadership and the intellectual elite of the United States and Nazi Germany while both nations pursued these policies. This rhetoric includes a special emphasis on the superiority of the nation that seeks space and the underdevelopment of the land by the people currently occupying the desired land. The focus will be primarily on the American expansion into Cherokee lands in Georgia during the 1830s and the Nazi invasion of Poland and subsequent emigration during the 1930s.
