The third option refers, of course, to the concept of Lebensraum:
The acquisition of new soil for the settlement of the excess population possesses an infinite number of advantages, particularly if we turn from the present to the future. … We must … coolly and objectively adopt the standpoint that it can certainly not be the intention of Heaven to give one people fifty times as much land and soil in this world as another. In this case we must not let political boundaries obscure for us the boundaries of eternal justice. If this earth really has room for all to live in, let us be given the soil we need for our livelihood.
True, they will not willingly do this. But then the law of self-preservation goes into effect; and what is refused to amicable methods, it is up to the fist to take. (66)
The fourth option, which relied on German interdependence with other nations through international commerce, Hitler rejected on the grounds that the survival of the Aryan race would necessarily depend on the activities of other nation states:
If … Germany took this road, she should at least have clearly recognised that this development would some day … end in struggle. Only children could have thought that they could get their bananas in the ‘peaceful contest of nations’, by friendly and moral conduct and constant emphasis on their peaceful intentions, as they so high-soundingly and unctuously babbled; in other words, without ever having to take up arms. (67)
Having made the interesting but rather tenuous connection between Hitler’s alternatives and the possible options stated in Alternative 3 (the former referring to Hitler’s perception of the problems facing the German people; the latter referring to the problems facing humanity as a whole), Keith then quotes a passage from Mein Kampf in which Hitler writes:
[T]he folkish philosophy finds the importance of mankind in its basic racial elements. In the state it sees on principle only a means to an end and construes its end as the preservation of the racial existence of man. … And so the folkish philosophy of life corresponds to the innermost will of Nature, since it restores that free play of forces which must lead to a continuous mutual higher breeding, until at last the best of humanity, having achieved possession of this earth, will have a free path for activity in domains which will he partly above it and partly outside it. (68) [Keith’s emphasis.]
Keith considers it highly significant that Hitler should have mentioned domains lying above and outside the Earth, in view of the events following the defeat of the Third Reich. He continues:
Summing up ideas that seem to add up to … Alternative 3, we are familiar with the advanced disk aircraft designs perfected by the Nazis during World War II, and also know that the American space program was run by prominent Nazis, or at least ex-Nazis. Nazi interests have also been entwined, since the emergence of the philosophy, with other totalitarian control mechanisms of the world, with the intelligence, police, and psychiatric establishments, with eugenics and genetic research, as well as with the plans of monied elites whose philosophies might better be defined in parapolitical, rather than political terms. (69)
We have already examined the theory of German flying discs in Chapter Eight, and noted at the beginning of this chapter that many prominent Nazis were transferred to the United States at the end of the war, under Project PAPERCLIP — including Wernher von Braun, who designed much of the hardware for NASA’s Apollo programme. With regard to the continuation of Nazi objectives in the postwar years, mentioned earlier in this chapter, Keith offers the following quote from the Research and Analysis branch of the OSS from 1945:
The Nazi regime in Germany has developed well-arranged plans for the perpetuation of Nazi doctrines after the war. Some of these plans have already been put into operation and others are ready to be launched on a widespread scale immediately upon termination of hostilities in Europe … Nazi party members, German industrialists and the German military, realizing that victory can no longer be attained, are now developing postwar commercial projects, endeavouring to renew and cement friendships in foreign commercial circles and planning for renewals of pre-war cartel agreements. German technicians, cultural experts and undercover agents have well-laid plans to infiltrate into foreign countries with the object of developing economic, cultural and political ties. German technicians and scientific research experts will be made available at low cost to industrial firms and technical schools in foreign countries. German capital and plans for the construction of ultra-modern technical schools and research laboratories will be offered at extremely favorable terms since they will afford the Germans an excellent opportunity to design and perfect new weapons. (70)
For conspiratologists such as Keith, the fabric of Alternative 3 can be unwoven to reveal its component strands, all of which seem to be supported by evidence of varying quality. As Keith himself states: ‘One of the difficulties in researching Alternative 3 was that the evidence kept leading me in a direction I wasn’t particularly happy to go in: toward the Nazis. … A possibility, which I admit is wild speculation, yet at the same time comprises a startling alignment of facts, is that Alternative 3 is an expression of Nazi occult doctrine and that there is a long term elitist program to abandon Earth and to implement another step in Hitler’s “Final Solution”.’ (71)
The component strands of Keith’s vision of Alternative 3 can be summarised as follows: Towards the end of the Second World War, the Nazis developed radical aircraft designs, including the Foo Fighters and larger, manned flying discs. The plans for these machines, along with a number of components and scientific personnel, were transferred to a hidden colony in Neu Schwabenland, Antarctica in the closing stages of the war. The two operations known as ‘Eagle Flight’ and ‘Paperclip’ ensured that Nazi financial interests and espionage respectively were maintained after the war’s end. Given that colonies of Nazis continue to exist in Antarctica and South America, it is probable that their own aerospace research has continued unabated, to the point where they have made manned spaceflight safe and routine. The discovery that life on Earth is doomed as a result of pollution and overpopulation led to the formulation of Alternative 3, whereby the monied elites of the world would effectively jump ship and establish a human colony on Mars. Far from being mortal enemies, the United States and the Soviet Union were actually the closest of allies: the Cold War was a monumental con on the rest of humanity, which unwittingly supplied the slave labour required for the gigantic construction projects. The Nazi survivors, one of the main players in this scenario of secret world history, saw this as a perfect opportunity to continue with the creation of a master race, with their Lebensraum relocated to Mars. Keith continues:
My belief is that the Nazis have been major, but far from the only players in the game of world domination since the end of World War II: one among many heads of the Hydra. Influential Nazis (possibly including Hitler) have been behind the scenes since the end of the war, creating and implementing schemes for the ultimate triumph of Die Neuordnung [New Order]. Almost all of Hitler’s cohorts survived Nuremberg and may have been involved in manipulations including international terrorism and the establishment of drug and arms markets, as well as in collaboration with other more ‘respectable’ networks of world influence.