"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (164 page)

22.
Gruchmann, “Nationalsozialistische Großraumpolitik,” 74 f., 98 ff.

23.
Rauschning,
Die Revolution des Nihilismus
(1938), 465 f.; see also Krausnick, “Zu Hitlers Ostpolitik im Sommer 1943” (1954); and an excerpt from the Führer’s speech to the military group leaders on the evening of July 1, 1943 (309 ff.).

24.
Broszat, “Soziale Motivation und Führerbindung des Nationalsozialismus,” 406.

25.
See also Rauschning,
Die Revolution des Nihilismus
, 466 f.

26.
For details, see ibid., 473 f., 468 f.: Germany “had an adventurous youth,” just waiting “for the doors to a hard but colorful and exciting colonial life to open for them.”

27.
For more details, see ibid., 468 ff.; Rauschning states that National Socialism had itself not recognized its “long-term aims” and intentions, which certainly extended beyond Europe; they “might include a colonial empire as easily as the great Vlissingen-Vladivostok Line, a colonial empire in South America as easily as a South Sea–Oceania empire.”

28.
See ibid., 467, 473.

29.
The theory put forward by Broszat, “Soziale Motivation und Führerbindung des Nationalsozialismus,” 407, that there was no planned discussion and preparation for the conquest of the Eastern Territories, including the fate of Poland, must be doubted in the light of the extremely precise statements by Hitler on Poland quoted in Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
. More likely is the thesis that the plan to conquer Poland was basically irrational but was carried out in a rational and determined manner.

30.
In particular see Fest,
Hitler
, 375 ff., 582 ff.

31.
An example of such shrewdness will be found in Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 465 ff.

32.
Ibid.; Rauschning already in 1938 drew the “logical conclusion” that if “Germany’s brother Austria” were treated in this manner, how much more severe would be the occupation of the Slav countries.

33.
Ibid., 473.

34.
Thus titles such as
Chef der Zivilverwaltung
(head of the civil administration) or
Generalgouverneur
(governor general) used at the time of the military administration or the civil administration of occupied Poland dated from World War I (for more details see Geiss,
Der polnische Grenzstreifen
[1960], 160 ff.). The concept of “protective nationality” originating in the colonial administration was introduced in the Annexed Eastern Territories (Decree on the German Ethnic Classification List of March 4, 1941,
RGBl.
I, 118; more details in Ludwig, “Ethische Grundzüge” [1937], 503; Decree on Protective Citizenship of the German Reich of April 25, 1943,
RGBl.
I, 271). During discussions on the introduction of civil rights in the Annexed Eastern Territories, the cautious Reich Chancellery noted that the political leadership (the Party Chancellery) wanted to treat the Poles like “natives of a colony” (Reich Chancellery note of September 11, 1940, BA R 43 II/1520). Administrative regulations and emergency legislation for “alien peoples” in the Annexed Eastern Territories, but also in the General Government and the Occupied Eastern Territories, were similar in many respects to the colonial legislation, down to the use of the same terms, prepared at the Foreign Office for future occupations overseas (see the references cited in notes 8 and 9).

35.
Cf. Höhn and Seydel, “Der Kampf um die Wiedergewinnung des Deutschen Ostens” (1941), 61 ff., 64: Poles had “always been incapable of creating and maintaining a state”; similarly, Lasch, “Die deutsche Aufgabe im Osten” (1940).

36.
Full details also in Ludwig, “Ethische Grundzüge,” 499 ff.

37.
Cf. Hitler at a discussion on July 17, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. L-221); a note dated October 25, 1942, on statements by E. Koch, the
Reichskommissar
for the Ukraine (Nuremberg doc. PS-294). Hitler in conversation at table on February 3, 1942, quoted by Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 72; with regard to the occupied Soviet Russian territory, cf. for example the Führer’s decree of June 29, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. NG-1280); see also the RSHA communication (in
Mitteilungsblatt des RSHA
, no. 6, July 10, 1942, BA R 58/225, 75 f.), according to which the Occupied Eastern Territories were “exploited along colonial principles and with colonial methods”; the requirements of the war economy were regarded as the first law of economic action. See too the interesting description of the Eastern administrative policy by Fritz Markull (who in his time was active in the Rosenberg administration). Here he took a position with respect to a letter of July 23, 1942, from Bormann to Rosenberg regarding the treatment of the Ukrainians (both to be found in Ilnytzkyj,
Deutschland und die Ukraine
, 2:293 ff.). For example, Markull quotes such everyday statements in the Ukraine civil administration as “When it comes to it, we are among niggers here” (discussion in the Cultural Department of the Reich Commissariat for the Ukraine, April 1942 [297 ff.]).

38.
See the letter from the head of the Four Year Plan, Göring, of October 19, 1939: “Factories not absolutely necessary to maintain the bare necessities of the population must be transferred to Germany” (Nuremberg doc. EC-410, quoted by Seeber,
Zwangsarbeiter in der faschistischen Kriegswirtschaft
, 104).

39.
In this connection belong the general obligation to work (forced labor), extremely long working hours, etc., as well as conscription to defend the country without military service, justified on “moral grounds,” since the natives shared in the “successful cultural effort of the white people,” with the result that it was “immoral” for them not to participate (Ludwig, “Ethische Grundzüge,” 503).

40.
As Reich minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Rosenberg, for example, was in favor of autonomy for the Ukraine in order to guarantee the supply of food and raw materials (Nuremberg doc. PS-1028) but was unable to prevail against Hitler and the
Reichskommissar
for the Ukraine, Erich Koch.

41.
From a discussion at table on April 11, 1942, quoted by Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 72; with regard to the occupied Polish territories, see the proclamation by the governor general, Hans Frank, of October 26, 1939 (
VBl. GG
[1939]: 1), and his speech in Kraków on August 15, 1940, according to which autonomous statehood for Poland was forever ruled out (Six, ed.,
Dokumente der deutschen Politik und Geschichte
, 8 II, 598); at best “a form of self-administration at the lowest levels” would be granted (H. Frank at the Reich Defense Commission, March 2, 1940 [Nuremberg doc. PS-2233]).

42.
Discussion between Hitler, Koch, and Rosenberg on May 19, 1943, transcribed by Bormann (BA R 58/1005, 3 ff.); regarding the harsh administrative regime in the Ukraine, see, variously, the record of Hitler’s discussion with Koch and others on July 17, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. L-221), the note of October 25, 1942, of Koch’s statements on the Reich Commissariat for the Ukraine (Nuremberg doc. PS-294), and Koch’s memorandum to Rosenberg of March 16, 1943 (Nuremberg doc. PS-192).

43.
Cf., for example, Hitler’s statement at the working supper on July 22, 1942: agreeing with Jodl, who had objected to a notice in the Occupied Eastern Territories whereby it was forbidden to cross the railway lines, “What does it matter to us if one more native gets himself knocked down?” (quoted in Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 146 ff., 248).

44.
Cf. Hitler’s statement at the working supper on July 9, 1942: “By leaving the natives completely to their own devices, we would not antagonize them unnecessarily in their way of life…. The easiest way to stop fraternization with the indigenous population would be to prevent them from taking over our way of life and thus looking like part of us” (ibid., 233). Elsewhere in
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, Hitler names the Romans as a model for racial segregation, quoting them as a precedent; discussion at table, evening of July 22, 1942 (246 ff.).

45.
Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 38, who quotes the statements from Darré’s staff, expressly approved by Hitler, about a “planned population and depopulation policy” in the East. “Slav fertility” was the “great menace to the Nordic race,” since “Alpine-Slavic [
ostisch-slawisch
] people … like everything inferior, replace the quality they lack by quantity; the import of the struggle was thus to push back the Slav smallholder, make a landless worker of him, and thus reduce his fertility.”

46.
In a romantic glorification of the eastern colonization of the Middle Ages, the whole of the East should be settled by Germans who were “secondary heirs” under the terms of law of entail (according to the Reich Law of Entail of September 29, 1933, secs. 19 and 24, farming property passed
integrally
to the principal heir) and would therefore be forced to go east to become important landowners (Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 39). In the mind of Hitler and his settlement policy advisers, ethnic Germans, soldiers, the war wounded, and deserving functionaries should be given priority to settle. Details were set out in relevant administrative instructions (RFSS Order no. 14/IV, dated August 10, 1942, with implementing regulations, reproduced in
Verfügungen
, 2:206, 209 ff.). The native population, insofar as it was regarded as racially inferior, should be pushed back eastward “to Siberia or the Volhynian regions,” whereas such expulsion was not necessary for that part of the population which was “close” to the German race, for example in the Baltic states (Hitler, quoted by Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 42 f.). For a summary of the policy of Germanization, see the memorandum by the Race Policy Office of the NSDAP of November 15, 1939 (Nuremberg doc. NO-3732); the secret report of January 1940 from the German Law Academy on the “establishment of German Polish policy according to racial-political principles” (Nuremberg doc. PS-661); the general plan for the Eastern Territories drawn up by the RSHA in April 1942 (see
VjhZ
[1958]: 281 ff.). Regarding the settlement of the General Government and the Ukraine, see the confidential settlement plans of March 27, 1942, and the confidential report on the plans developed by Himmler in Kraków (Nuremberg doc. PS-910); Hitler spoke of the Ukraine as the “new German Austria (
Ostmark
)” (working lunch of May 8, 1942, quoted by Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 8). With regard to the settlement plans for the Ukraine, see further the note by SS-Obergruppenführer Berger on a discussion between Hitler and the
Reichskommissar
for the Ukraine, Erich Koch, and others at the Führer’s headquarters in the summer of 1942 (Nuremberg doc. NO-2703). See also Hitler’s remarks at table on April 5, 1942 (quoted by Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 69).

47.
Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 39.

48.
Full details on this in Fest,
Hitler
, 933 ff.

49.
Hitler, quoted by Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 39: “Without the establishment of a certain modern form of subordination, or slavery if you like, the culture of man cannot be further developed…. The German agricultural worker would simply become a peasant or find a job in industry as a qualified worker.”

50.
More details and references in Ludwig, “Ethische Grundzüge,” 502, with further references.

51.
Cf. the considerations developed in the early work of O. R. Tannenberg (nom de plume of H. Riesler), who described himself as a Pan-German; see his
Großdeutschland
, concerning the construction of an “alien” school system for the Baltic states once they were occupied by Germany. For the period dealt with here, see the letter of November 26, 1942, from the Reich minister for the occupied territories (Rosenberg) to the Reich commissars for Ostland and the Ukraine, in which he proposes removal of Poles from all high posts, the reduction of Polish schooling to elementary school only, etc., claiming that the Poles were the most dangerous enemies of Germanness. It was unnecessary for them to learn German (Nuremberg doc. EC-336). In line with Himmler’s ideas about “the treatment of aliens in the East” (
VjhZ
[1957]: 197 ff.), it was enough if the Poles understood German orders; see also Hitler, quoted by Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 248.

52.
Statements by Darré, expressly approved by Hitler, quoted by Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 40.

53.
F. Markull describes the National Socialist education policy as follows: “Education is dangerous; it is enough if they can count up to a hundred. At most an education that gives us usable manual workers is permitted. Every educated person is a potential enemy” (quoted in Ilnytzkyj,
Deutschland und die Ukraine
, 2:297). See also Hitler’s comments at table on the evening of July 22, 1942: unfortunately German work automatically created a higher standard of living, i.e., “excessive welfare”; such a rise in the standard of living should be avoided (Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 246 ff.).

54.
Cf. Hitler’s comments at supper on July 9, 1942: For the “newly acquired Eastern Territories, it is not a matter of wanting to groom the subject population or raise them to the German level of hygiene. Whether or not they sweep out … their houses every day is of no concern to us. For our function is not to act as a supervisory organ but exclusively to secure our interests” (Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 233); see also F. Markull, in Ilnytzkyj,
Deutschland und die Ukraine
, 2:297 ff., who describes the hygiene policy of the NS leadership in the Occupied Eastern Territories in the following terms: “As long as we don’t need them, they might as well die…. Compulsory vaccinations and German medical care are therefore superfluous…. In any case the people are just dirty and lazy.” A typical everyday statement among the civil administration of the Occupied Eastern Territories was “The best thing the superfluous sections of the population can do is starve to death.”