What are the most absurd territorial claims ever made?In the 1930s, the Nazi regime in Germany sent an expedition to Antarctica and claimed a large portion of the continent as part of the German Reich. The expedition was led by Captain Alfred Ritscher and consisted of two ships, the Schwabenland and the Polarstern.
The team established a base on the continent, which they named New Swabia, and conducted a number of scientific and exploratory missions in the area.
The Nazi Antarctic claim was seen as part of Hitler's broader ambitions for German expansion and his desire to establish a dominant presence in the Southern Hemisphere. The Germans believed that Antarctica was a strategically important region, with potential for future resource exploitation and as a base for military operations.
Hitler put Hermann Göring in charge, and then he developed a “German Fat Plan” to enable Germany to improve the efficiency of its domestic consumption of butter, milk, cream, lard, cheese, bacon, margarine, salad oils, detergents, candles, linoleum, and paints. The idea was to find substitutes for these oil- and fat-based products in case imported sources were cut off. At the time, whale oil was one of the main ingredients for margarine, and Germans ate a lot of margarine.
However, the Nazi Antarctic claim was never recognized by any other nation and was nullified after World War II. In 1947, the United States led an expedition to the region that established a permanent research base on the continent. The following year, the United States, along with other nations, signed the Antarctic Treaty, which established the continent as a scientific preserve and prohibited any territorial claims.