Friedrich Ratzel

Friedrich Ratzel was born on 30 August 1844 in Germany and trained as both a geographer and ethnographer. He introduced the concept of Lebensraum — "living space" — as a geographic idea, describing the relationship between peoples and the territory they required. The term circulated quietly in academic circles during his lifetime. Ratzel died on 9 August 1904, forty years before the National Socialists seized the word and twisted it into the justification for conquest and genocide across Europe.