168 J.-A. PEMBERTON
population.’^281 The issue of over-population was mentioned in the quo-
tations from the so-called Lyons wireless of 1918 and from the afore-
mentioned House article which he reproduced in his Foreign Affairs
piece. However, Schacht himself did not claim in his Foreign Affairs arti-
cle that Germany was over-populated. Schacht directly addressed demo-
graphic questions on three occasions in the article, albeit briefly and in
general terms: he noted on two occasions that the immigration policies
of those countries which had welcomed immigrants before the war had
become much stricter since the war’s end and on one occasion remarked
on the contrast between the situation of the great national economic
domains and that of countries with large populations but inadequate
land resources.^282
Observers writing not long after the publication of Schacht’s Foreign
Affairs article thought that the absence from it of an argument linking
Germany’s demand for colonies to Germany’s demographic situation
suggested that partly for doctrinal reasons Germany’s colonial propa-
gandists had decided to put to one side the contention that Germany
needed colonies because it was suffering from population pressure.^283 As
suggested earlier, the National Socialists were at first indifferent to and
even hostile towards Germany’s old colonial policy as it conflicted with
key elements of National Socialist doctrine and policy. The idea of mass
emigration to colonies conflicted with the general policy of ‘the union of
men on their soil.’^284 In addition to this, according to Maroger, through
‘its character as world politics,’ colonial policy was seen by the National
Socialists as potentially a ‘source of weakness’: to pursue a colonial pol-
icy was to risk dissipating the energies of the German people within the
framework in of a battle of conflicting interests in the world.^285 In addi-
tion National Socialism was opposed to mass emigration to colonies on
the ground that ‘colonisation may lead to a diminution in the “racial”
value of emigrated populations.’^286 Finally, the Third Reich’s policy of
autarchy in the agricultural and industrial fields, the end and effect of
(^281) Chalmers Wright, Population and Peace, 50. See also. Schacht, ‘Germany’s Colonial
Demands,’ 334.
(^282) Chalmers Wright, Population and Peace, 50.
(^283) Ibid., 51.
(^284) Maroger, La question des matières premières et les revendications coloniales, 27.
(^285) Ibid., 28.
(^286) Ibid.