Below is a translation of a short and concise article on the Nazi German plans regarding the occupied territories of the USSR – in the first place, those of Ukraine, Belorussia, Russia. They didn’t wait for the victory, but started implementing this plan right away as they occupied new lands, so they German actions spoke louder, than any documents – surviving or not.
It is worth mentioning here two quotes from the Danish press, which are reprints of the German publications of the time:
2nd of September 1941.
–––work is now being done to save the harvest on the conquered territory. A German army commander has issued a proclamation to the rural population, in which they are held responsible for ensuring that the crops are not destroyed.
30th of November 1941.
From the German side, as is also evident from the wording of the army report, they make no secret of the fact that the war of extermination, which they now intend to unleash against Rostov, is directly aimed at the city’s civilian population.
And then re-reading the following article: The Great Patriotic War in Ukraine. A historical retrospective by Rostislav Ischenko, in which the author tells of the Nazi German occupation of Ukraine, quoting what his grandmother told him of that time.
As further reading, there is a more detailed article (in Russian) General Plan “Ost”: What awaited the Peoples of the USSR after the Victory of the Nazis?
Now, to the grand Nazi German plan at hand, a plan that, thankfully was stopped in its tracks by the Soviet Union.
What the Third Reich planned to do with the Soviet population in case of a victory
February 3, 2021
Long before the invasion of the USSR, the leadership of the Third Reich knew what it would do with the occupied territories and their population. Hitler had a grandiose goal – to forever turn Germany into the strongest country in the world. The resources captured in the USSR were to serve this purpose: minerals, fertile lands and free labour.
Hitler and his strategists planned, as a result of the blitzkrieg, to reach the “A-A” line (“Arhangelsk – Astrahan”) in the autumn, to establish and strengthen the new border of the Reich on it (mainly along the Volga line). In subsequent years, they wanted to advance it to the Urals.
Leave 25% of the Slavic population as a labour force
In the occupied territories, they planned to suppress the remnants of armed resistance and build a “new order” by creating 5 administrative-territorial units – Reich commissariats. The first 2 were founded already in July 1941: “Ostland” with the centre in Riga and “Ukraine” with the centre in Rivne. The next step was the creation of the Reich commissariats of “Muscovy”, “Don Volga” and “Caucasus”.
The indigenous population of all these regions was planned to be reduced to 14-30 million people, getting rid of or expelling 3-4 million people to the other side of the Volga every year. It was planned to Germanize the European part of the USSR over the next 30 years (that is, by the first half of the 1970s) by 25-50 percent.
The planned border of the Reich on the map.
“The main task is the Germanization of the Slavic territories through the settlement of the new Reich commissariats by the settlers. The former inhabitants should be treated as Indians.”
From among the “Indians”, the Nazis wanted to leave only healthy, physically strong workers living in small villages. Those from among the collaborators were planned to be used to forcibly maintain the “new order”. (translator note: like the Banderite OUN-UPA in Ukraine)
To settle 5.65 million Germans on the East European Plain
It was planned to relocate 5.65 million Germans to the European lands of the USSR, and in the future – 8 more million Germans. They were to be allocated land and workforce from the conquered population. In total, the required number of migrants was estimated at 12.21 million people.
Hitler understood that there would not be enough Aryans to settle and Germanize the occupied territories. Those who were suitable for “Germanization” or racial “renewal” (Umvolkung) in accordance with the criteria of the “Nordic type” (Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians) were also few.
Therefore, the Fuhrer and his strategists planned to allow German men to enter into relationships with those women of the conquered territories who “have obvious Nordic signs” in appearance. And their children were to be brought up as true Aryans who do not know the language of their mothers.
The layout of the settlement of German settlers in the East. Exhibition “Planning and Construction in the East”, March 1941, Berlin.
Hitler noted: “the conquered population does not need education and medicine. Former Soviet people shouldn’t know much. It is enough to be able to read and write in German, as well as count to one hundred. They don’t need medicine: let only physically strong, healthy workers survive. Let them either work for us or die,” the Fuhrer believed.
For the effective management of the annexed territories, it was planned to establish dozens of land-counties and strongholds, constantly connected both with each other and with the metropolis.
General Plan “Ost”
These intentions were set out in the General Plan “Ost” (“East”), an extensive program for consolidating German domination in the annexed Soviet territories. It was developed in 1940-1941 by the General Directorate of Imperial Security. This is a set of documents, mathematical calculations, graphs – an economic management plan, in which the repression of millions of Soviet people was inscribed as one of the economic points.
Prominent scientists and managers of the Third Reich, analysts, economists and business executives worked on the General Plan “Ost”, and more than 500,000 Reichsmarks were spent on its development.
The texts of the Ost plan has been lost, but its content is reflected in detail in the surviving “Critical Remarks of the Imperial Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories according to the General Plan Ost” (dated 27.04.1942, signed by the head of the Racial and Political Department of the Eastern Ministry, Dr. Erhard Wetzel) and in the memorandum of SS Oberfuhrer, Professor Konrad Meyer “The General Plan Ost – legal, economic and territorial foundations of construction in the East” dated May 28, 1942. The last document is kept in the Federal Archive of Germany and is fully published on the website of the Humboldt University of Berlin.