Yup, dead Nazis. That’s the subject of my weekend column for RealClearHistory. An excerpt:

8. Karl Haushofer (died 1946). While it is perhaps unfair to include Haushofer in this list (he denied being a Nazi and his wife and son were, under Nazi law, considered to be “half-Jews”), his ideas about the world and how he went about promoting them are too important to leave out of the Nazi story. Haushofer became a geopolitical theorist after World War I and is credited with introducing to the German public (including the Nazis) the idea of “Lebensraum,” or “living space.” According to Haushofer, Germany could only compete with the Western powers if it had control over areas of Europe stretching from Norway to the Caspian Sea. Once the German military controlled this geographic space, the Nazis could begin exterminating the indigenous people there to make room for German colonists. Haushofer also viewed Japan as a natural ally of Germany and was instrumental in convincing the Nazis to partner up with Tokyo. One of Haushofer’s former students, Rudolf Hess, was one of Hitler’s closest confidants, and it’s unlikely that Haushofer, bitter about the terms of peace imposed on Germany by France and the U.K. after World War I, did not exploit his former student’s position as Deputy Führer. He and his wife committed suicide together in 1946. Their son had been murdered by the S.S. in April of 1945.

Please, read the rest (if you haven’t already!).