Karl Haushofer e l’IsMEO

The collaboration between the German geopolitician Karl Haushofer (1869–1946) and the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East (IsMEO), from the mid–1930s to the early 1940s, has received scant attention in the extant historiography. So far, scholars have mainly focused on the two conferences that Haushofer held in 1937 and 1941 at IsMEO, claiming them as evidence of a common Eurasianist vision shared by both Haushofer and Giuseppe Tucci (1894–1984). By reconstructing the development of Haushofer’s relations with IsMEO from 1934 onwards, this essay interprets the collaboration in a different light by highlighting the role of the National Socialist leadership in promoting Haushofer’s cultural–political activities abroad, the impact of geopolitical theories on IsMEO’s view of Japanese foreign policy, and the existence of a German–Italian Japanological network.