Let me remind you that 6 pages of the plan appeared in the Nuremberg materials, and the rest was discovered in 1991 and fully published in 2009. And this is not about a project, but about approved and endorsed by Hitler. So, questions and misconceptions.
1. What is the "General Plan Ost?"
2. What is the history of GPO? What documents are related to it?
3. What is the content of the GPO?
4. In fact, the GPO was developed by a petty official, should it be taken seriously?
5. The plan does not have the signature of Hitler or any other high official of the Reich, which means that it is not valid.
6. The GPO was a purely theoretical concept.
7. Implementing such a plan is unrealistic.
8. When were the Plan Ost documents discovered? Is there any possibility that they are fake?
9.What can I read more about GPO?
Short answers and details under the cut

1. What is the "General Plan Ost?"

Under the "General Plan Ost" (GPO), modern historians understand a set of plans, draft plans and memorandums devoted to the settlement of the so-called. "eastern territories" (Poland and the Soviet Union) in the event of a German victory in the war. The GPO concept was developed on the basis of the Nazi racial doctrine under the patronage of the Reichskommissariat for the Strengthening of German Statehood (RKF), headed by the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, and was supposed to serve as a theoretical foundation for the colonization and Germanization of the occupied territories.

A general overview of the documents is given in the following table:

	Name	the date	Volume	Who prepared	Original	Objects of colonization
1	Planungsgrundlagen (Fundamentals of planning)	February 1940	21 pages	RKF planning department	BA, R 49/157, S.1-21	Western regions of Poland
2	Materialien zum Vortrag "Siedlung" (materials for the report "Settlement")	December 1940	5 pages	RKF planning department	facsimile in G.Aly, S.Heim "Bevölkerungsstruktur und Massenmord" (c.29-32)	Poland
3		July 1941	?	RKF planning department	lost, dated according to cover letter	?
4	Gesamtplan Ost (cumulative plan Ost)	December 1941	?	planning group III B RSHA	lost; Dr. Wetzel's lengthy review (Stellungnahme und Gedanken zum Generalplan Ost des Reichsführers SS, 27.04.1942, NG-2325; abridged Russian translation) allows the content to be reconstructed	Baltic, Ingria; Poland, Belarus, Ukraine (strongholds); Crimea (?)
5	Generalplan Ost (general plan Ost)	May 1942	84 pages	Institute of Agriculture at the University of Berlin	BA, R 49/157a, facsimile	Baltic, Ingermanlandia, Gotengau; Poland, Belarus, Ukraine (strongholds)
6	Generalsiedlungsplan (general settlement plan)	October-December 1942	planned 200 pages, a general outline of the plan and key figures have been prepared	RKF planning department	BA, R 49/984	Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, Czech Republic, Lower Styria, Baltic States, Poland

Work on plans for the settlement of the eastern territories began almost immediately after the creation of the Reichskommissariat for the strengthening of German statehood in October 1939. Headed by prof. By Konrad Mayer, the RKF planning department presented the first plan for the settlement of the western regions of Poland annexed to the Reich as early as February 1940. It was under the direction of Mayer that five of the six documents listed above were prepared (The Institute of Agriculture, which appears in document 5, was led by the same Mayer ). It should be noted that the RKF was not the only agency that thought about the future of the eastern territories, similar work was carried out in the Rosenberg ministry and in the department responsible for the four-year plan, which was headed by Goering (the so-called "Green Folder"). It is precisely this competitive situation that explains, in particular, the criticality of the recall of the employee of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories, Wetzel, to the version of the plan Ost presented by the RSHA planning group (document 4). Nevertheless, Himmler, not least thanks to the success of the propaganda exhibition "Planning and Building a New Order in the East" in March 1941, gradually managed to achieve a dominant position. Document 5, for example, speaks of "the priority of the Reichskommissar for the strengthening of the German state in matters of settlement (of colonized territories) and planning."

To understand the logic of the development of the GPO, two reviews of Himmler on the plans presented by Mayer are important. In the first, dated 12.06.42 (BA, NS 19/1739, Russian translation), Himmler demands that the plan be expanded to include not only the "Eastern", but also other territories subject to Germanization (West Prussia, the Czech Republic, Alsace-Lorraine, etc.). etc.), shorten the time frame and set as the goal the complete Germanization of Estonia, Latvia and the entire Governor-General.
The consequence of this was the renaming of the GPO into the "master plan of settlement" (document 6), while, however, some of the territories present in document 5 fell out of the plan, to which Himmler immediately draws attention (letter to Mayer dated 12.01.1943, BA, NS 19 /1739): "The eastern territories for settlement should include Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ingermanland, as well as Crimea and Tavria [...] The named territories should be completely Germanized / completely populated."
Mayer never presented the next version of the plan: the course of the war made further work on it meaningless.

The following table uses the data systematized by M. Burchard:

	Territory of settlement	Number of migrants	Population to be evicted/not to be Germanized	Cost estimate.
1	87600 sq. km.	4.3 million	560,000 Jews, 3.4 million Poles in the first stage	-
2	130000 sq. km.	480,000 farms	-	-
3	?	?	?	?
4	700,000 sq. km.	1-2 million German families and 10 million foreigners with Aryan blood	31 million (80-85% Poles, 75% Belarusians, 65% Ukrainians, 50% Czechs)	-
5	364231 sq. km.	5.65 million	min. 25 million (99% Poles, 50% Estonians, more than 50% Latvians, 85% Lithuanians)	66.6 billion RM
6	330,000 sq. km.	12.21 million	30.8 million (95% Poles, 50% Estonians, 70% Latvians, 85% Lithuanians, 50% French, Czechs and Slovenes)	144 billion RM

Let us dwell in more detail on the fully preserved and most elaborated document 5: it is supposed to be implemented in stages within 25 years, Germanization quotas for various nationalities are introduced, it is proposed to prohibit the indigenous population from owning property in cities in order to force them into the countryside and use them in agriculture. To control territories with a non-predominant German population at first, a form of margraviate is introduced, the first three: Ingermanland (Leningrad region), Gotengau (Crimea, Kherson), and Memel-Narev (Lithuania - Bialystok). In Ingermanland, the population of towns must be reduced from 3 million to 200,000. In Poland, Belarus, the Baltic states, Ukraine, a network of strongholds is being formed, with a total of 36, providing effective communication between the margraviates with each other and with the metropolis (see reconstruction). In 25-30 years, the margraviates should be Germanized by 50%, and the strongholds by 25-30% (In the review already known to us, Himmler demanded that the period for implementing the plan be reduced to 20 years, to consider the complete Germanization of Estonia and Latvia and more active Germanization of Poland).
In conclusion, it is emphasized that the success of the settlement program will depend on the will and colonization strength of the Germans, and if it survives these tests, then the next generation will be able to close the northern and southern flanks of colonization (i.e., populate Ukraine and central Russia.)

It should be noted that documents 5 and 6 do not contain specific numbers of residents to be evicted, however, they are derived from the difference between the actual number of residents and the planned one (taking into account the German settlers and the local population suitable for Germanization). Document 4 names Western Siberia as the territories to which residents unsuitable for Germanization should be evicted. The leaders of the Reich have repeatedly spoken about the desire to Germanize the European territory of Russia up to the Urals.
From a racial point of view, the Russians were considered the least Germanized people, moreover, they were poisoned for 25 years by the poison of Judeo-Bolshevism. It is difficult to say unambiguously how the policy of decimation of the Slavic population would be carried out. According to one of the testimonies, Himmler, before the start of Operation Barbarossa, called the goal of the campaign against Russia "a decrease in the Slavic population by 30 million.". Wetzel wrote about measures to reduce the birth rate (encouragement of abortion, sterilization, refusal to fight infant mortality, etc.), Hitler himself expressed himself more directly: "Local residents? We will have to filter them. We will remove destructive Jews altogether. My impression of the Belarusian territory is better than that of the Ukrainian one. We will not go to Russian cities, they should completely die out. We should not torment ourselves with remorse. We we don’t need to get used to the role of a nanny, we don’t have any obligations to the local residents. Repair houses, catch lice, German teachers, newspapers? No! It’s better we open a radio station under our control, but otherwise it’s enough for them to know traffic signs so as not to get caught by us on the way! By freedom, these people mean the right to bathe only on holidays. If we come with shampoo, it will not arouse sympathy. There you need to retrain. There is only one task: to carry out Germanization by importing Germans, and the former inhabitants must be treated as Indians. "

Petty official prof. Konrad Mayer was not. As mentioned above, he headed the planning department of the RKF, as well as the land department of the same Reichskommissariat and the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Berlin. He was a Standartenführer, and later Oberführer (in the military table of ranks above colonel, but below major general) of the SS. By the way, another popular misconception is that the GPO was allegedly the product of the inflamed imagination of a crazy SS man. This is also not true: agrarians, economists, managers and other specialists from academia worked on the GPO. For example, in the cover letter to Document 5, Mayer writes about facilitating "my closest collaborators in the planning department and the main land office, as well as the financial expert, Dr. Besler (Jen)". Additional funding went through the German Research Society (DFG): for "scientific planning work to strengthen the German state" from 1941 to 1945. 510 thousand RM were allocated, of which Mayer spent 60-70 thousand a year on his working group, the rest went as grants to scientists who conducted research relevant to the RKF. For comparison, the maintenance of a scientist with a scientific degree cost about 6 thousand RM per year (data from the report of I. Heinemann.)

It is important to note that Mayer worked on the GPO on the initiative and on the instructions of the RKF chief Himmler and in close connection with him, while the correspondence was conducted both through the head of the RKF headquarters Greifelt and directly. Widely known photographs taken during the exhibition "Planning and building a new order in the East", in which Meyer speaks to Himmler, Hess, Heydrich and Todt.

The GPO actually did not advance beyond the design stage, which was largely facilitated by the course of hostilities - from 1943 the plan began to quickly lose relevance. Of course, the GPO was not signed by Hitler or anyone else, since it was a plan post-war settlements in the occupied regions. The very first sentence of Document 5 states this explicitly: Thanks to German weapons, the eastern territories, which were the object of disputes that had dragged on for many centuries, were finally annexed to the Reich.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to deduce from this the disinterest of Hitler and the leadership of the Reich in the GPO. As already shown above, work on the plan took place on the instructions and under the constant patronage of Himmler, who, in turn, I would like to convey this plan also to the Führer at a convenient time.(letter dated 06/12/1942)
Recall that already in "Mein Kampf" Hitler wrote: "We stop the eternal advance of the Germans to the south and west of Europe and direct our gaze to the eastern lands". The concept of "living space in the east" was repeatedly mentioned by the Fuhrer in the 30s (for example, immediately after coming to power, 02/03/1933, he, speaking to the generals of the Reichswehr, spoke about "the need to conquer the living space in the east and its decisive Germanization" ), after the start of the war, it acquired a clear outline. Here is a recording of one of Hitler's monologues dated 10/17/1941:
... the Fuhrer once again outlined his thoughts on the development of the eastern regions. The most important thing is the roads. He told Dr. Todt that the original plan prepared by him should be greatly expanded. In the next twenty years, three million prisoners will be at his disposal to solve this problem ... German cities should appear at large river crossings, in which the Wehrmacht, the police, the administrative apparatus and the party will be based.
German peasant farms will be established along the roads, and the plain Asian-looking steppe will soon take on a completely different look. In 10 years, 4 million Germans will move there, in 20 - 10 million Germans. They will come not only from the Reich, but also from America, as well as Scandinavia, Holland and Flanders. The rest of Europe can also take part in joining the Russian expanses. In Russian cities, those that will survive the war - Moscow and Leningrad should not survive it in any way - the foot of a German should not set foot. They must vegetate in their own shit away from the German roads. The Fuhrer again touched upon the topic that "contrary to the opinion of individual headquarters" neither the education of the local population nor the care of it should be dealt with ...
He, the Fuhrer, will introduce new management with an iron hand, what the Slavs will think about this does not touch him at all. Whoever eats German bread today does not give much thought to the fact that the fields east of the Elbe were reclaimed by the sword in the 12th century.

Of course, his subordinates also echoed him. For example, on October 2, 1941, Heydrich described the future colonization as follows:
Other lands - eastern lands, partly inhabited by Slavs, are lands where one must clearly understand that kindness will be perceived as a sign of weakness. These are lands where the Slav himself does not want to have equal rights with the master, where he is used to being in the service. These are the lands in the east that we will have to manage and hold. These are lands where, after the solution of the military question, German control should be introduced up to the Urals, and they should serve us as a source of minerals, labor, like helots, roughly speaking. These are lands to be treated, as in the construction of a dam and the draining of the coast: far to the east, a protective wall is being built, enclosing them from Asian storms, and from the west, the gradual annexation of these lands to the Reich begins. From this point of view it is necessary to consider what is happening in the east. The first step would be the creation of a protectorate from the provinces of Danzig-West Prussia and the Warthegau. A year ago, eight million more Poles lived in these provinces, as well as in East Prussia and the Silesian part. These are lands that will gradually be populated by Germans, the Polish element will be squeezed out step by step. These are lands that in due time will become completely German. And then further east, to the Baltic states, which will also become completely German in due time, although here it is necessary to consider what part of the blood of Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians is suitable for Germanization. The best in the racial sense here are Estonians, they have strong Swedish influences, then Latvians, and the worst are Lithuanians.
Then the turn of the rest of Poland will come, this is the next territory, which should be gradually settled by the Germans, and the Poles should be squeezed further to the east. Then Ukraine, which at first as an intermediate solution should be, with the use of, of course, the national idea still dormant in the subconscious, separated from the rest of Russia and used as a source of minerals and provisions under German control. Of course, not allowing the people to strengthen or strengthen there, raising their educational level, since this may later lead to the opposition, which, with the weakening of the central government, will strive for independence ...

A year later, on November 23, 1942, Himmler spoke of the same thing:
The main colony of our Reich lies in the east. Today - a colony, tomorrow - a settlement area, the day after tomorrow - a Reich! [...] If next year or next year Russia is likely to be defeated in a bitter struggle, we will still have a great task before us. After the victory of the Germanic peoples, the space for settlement in the east must be developed, settled and attached to European culture. Over the next 20 years - counting from the end of the war - I have set myself the task (and I hope I can solve it with your help) to move the German border about 500 km to the east. This means that we must resettle farm families there, the best carriers of German blood will begin to be resettled and the millions of Russian people will be ordered to our tasks ... 20 years of struggle for peace lie before us ... Then this east will be cleansed of foreign blood and our families will settle there as legal owners.

As you can see, all three quotations correlate perfectly with the main provisions of the GPO.

In a broad sense, this is true: there is no reason to implement a plan for the post-war settlement of the occupied territories until the war is over. This does not mean, however, that measures for the Germanization of individual regions were not carried out at all. First of all, it should be noted here the western regions of Poland (West Prussia and Warthegau) attached to the Reich, the settlement of which was mentioned in document 1. in the ghetto and extermination camps on their own territory: out of 435,000 Jews of the Warthegau, 12,000 survived) by March 1941. more than 280,000 people were deported from the Warthegau alone. The total number of Poles deported from West Prussia and the Warthegau to the General Government is estimated at 365,000. Their yards and apartments were occupied by German settlers, who by March 1942 in these two regions already numbered 287 thousand.

At the end of November 1942, on the initiative of Himmler, the so-called. "Aktion Zamość", the purpose of which was the Germanization of the district of Zamość, which was declared "the first area of ​​German settlement" in the General Government. By August 1943, 110,000 Poles were evicted: about half were deported, the rest fled on their own, many went to the partisans. To protect future settlers, it was decided to use the enmity between Poles and Ukrainians and create a defensive ring of Ukrainian villages around the settlement area. Due to the lack of forces to maintain order, the action was stopped in August 1943. By that time, only about 9,000 out of 60,000 planned settlers had moved to Zamość County.

Finally, in 1943, the German town of Hegewald was created not far from Himmler's headquarters in Zhytomyr: 10,000 Germans took the place of 15,000 Ukrainians expelled from their homes. At the same time, the first settlers went to the Crimea.
All these activities are also quite correlated with the GPO. It is interesting to note that Prof. Mayer visited Western Poland, and Zamosc, and Zhytomyr, and the Crimea during business trips, i.e. evaluated the feasibility of his concept on the ground.

Of course, one can only guess about the reality of the implementation of the GPO in the form in which it is described in the documents that have come down to us. We are talking about the resettlement of tens of millions (and, apparently, the extermination of millions) of people, the need for migrants is estimated at 5-10 million people. The discontent of the expelled population and, as a result, a new round of armed struggle against the occupiers are practically guaranteed. It is unlikely that the settlers would have rushed to the area where the guerrilla war continues.

On the other hand, we are talking not just about the idea-fix of the leadership of the Reich, but also about scientists (economists, planners, managers) who projected this idea-fix onto reality: no supernatural or impossible obligations were set, the task of Germanizing the Baltic states, Ingermanland, Crimea, Poland, parts of Ukraine and Belarus had to be solved in small steps over 20 years, along the way the details (for example, the percentage of suitability for Germanization) would be corrected and refined. As for the "unreality of the GPO" in terms of scale, we must not forget that, for example, the number of Germans expelled during and after the end of World War II from the territories in which they lived is also described by an eight-digit number. And it took not 20 years, but five times less.

Hopes (expressed today, mainly by adherents of General Vlasov and other collaborators) that some part of the occupied territories would gain independence or at least self-government are not reflected in real Nazi plans (see, for example, Hitler in Bormann's notes, 07/16/41: ... we will again emphasize that we were forced to occupy this or that area, restore order in it and secure it. In the interests of the population, we are forced to take care of peace, food, means of communication, etc., so we introduce our own rules here. No one should recognize that in this way we introduce our orders forever! All the necessary measures - executions, evictions, etc., we, despite this, are implementing and can implement.
We, however, do not at all wish to prematurely turn anyone into our enemies. Therefore, for the time being, we will act as if this area is a mandated territory. But we ourselves must be perfectly clear that we will never leave it. [...]
Most basic:
The formation of a power capable of waging war to the west of the Urals must never be allowed, even if we have to fight for another hundred years. All the Fuhrer's successors must know: the Reich will be safe only if there is no foreign army to the west of the Urals, Germany takes upon itself the protection of this space from all possible threats.
The iron law should read: "No one but the Germans should ever be allowed to carry weapons!")
At the same time, it is pointless to compare the situation of 1941-42. with the situation in 1944, when the Nazis made promises much easier, since they were glad for almost any help: an active conscription began in the ROA, Bandera was released, etc. How did the Nazis treat allies who pursued goals that were not approved in Berlin, incl. who stood up for (albeit puppet) independence in 1941-42, the example of the same Bandera clearly shows.

Dr. Wetzel's response and a number of accompanying documents figured already at the Nuremberg trials, documents 5 and 6 were found in American archives and published by Czesław Madajczyk (Przeglad Zachodni Nr. 3 1961).
Theoretically, the possibility that a particular document is falsified always exists. In this case, however, it is important that we are dealing not with one or two, but with a whole range of documents, which includes not only the main ones discussed above, but also various accompanying notes, reviews, letters, protocols - in the classic C. Madajczyk's collection contains more than one hundred relevant documents. Therefore, it is absolutely not enough to call one document a falsification, taking it out of the context of the rest. If, for example, Document 6 is a falsification, then what does Himmler write to Maier in his response to it? Or, if Himmler's recall of 06/12/42 is a falsification, then why does document 6 embody the instructions contained in this recall? And most importantly, why do the GPO documents, if they are falsified, correlate so well with the statements of Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, etc.?
Those. here it is necessary to build a whole conspiracy theory, explaining by whose malicious intent the documents and speeches of Nazi bosses found at different times in different archives line up in a whole picture. And to question the reliability of individual documents (as some authors do, counting on the ignorance of the reading public) is rather pointless.

First of all, books in German:
- a collection of documents compiled by C. Madajczyk Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan, Saur, München 1994;
- Mechthild Rössler, Sabine Schleiermacher (Hrsg.): Der "Generalplan Ost". Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik, Akademie, Berlin 1993;
- Rolf-Dieter Müller: Hitlers Ostkrieg und die deutsche Siedlungspolitik, Frankfurt am Main 1991;
- Isabel Heinemann: Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut. Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas, Wallstein: Göttingen 2003 (partially available)
Lots of materials, incl. used above, on the thematic site of M. Burchard.

21 Mar

German Plan Ost

In this article you will learn:

In this article, you will learn briefly about the German General Plan Ost, which was developed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The most brutal political program in the 20th century is the Nazi "General Plan Ost". The initiator of the development of the "Plan Ost" was Heinrich Himmler, his main idea and the name itself appeared in 1940. The existence of the "General Plan Ost" during the war was not known, the first mention of it was made by Nazi criminals during the Nuremberg Tribunal. During the process, the prosecutors relied on the "Remarks and Suggestions" of E. Wetzel, who during the war years was an employee of the Ministry of Eastern Territories.

The full text of the "Plan Ost" was found only in the late eighties in the German Federal Archives, digitized and published only in 2009.

One of the variants of the "Plan Ost" was presented in the summer of 1942 by the Reich Security Headquarters for the integration of the people of Germany, SS Oberführer Meyer-Hetling read out.

Plan

The master plan consisted of three parts:

• Basic rules for future settlement.
• Economic review of the annexed territories and their organization.
• Delimitation of settlements in the occupied areas.

Goals

The “General Plan Ost” included a list of documents that dealt with the settlement of the “eastern territories”, which meant Poland and the USSR, after the victory of the Nazis in the war. It was not envisaged to preserve the statehood of any nation, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia and others would simply become part of the Greater German state.

It was based on two documents, which revealed a plan for the further colonization of the eastern territories of Europe by the Germans. Thus, the colonization of 87,600 km2 was envisaged, where about one hundred thousand settlement farms of 29 hectares each were to be created. It was envisaged to overpower here more than four million Germans. In parallel with this, it was planned to eliminate half a million Jews - all the Jews who inhabited these territories - and forty percent of the Poles.

The German peasants resettled in the eastern lands would receive land on certain conditions - at first for seven years, and in the event of a successful management, this land would become hereditary, and twenty years later it would become his property. Moreover, a certain payment to the state treasury was supposed for the land. The development and settlement of the eastern territories was to be personally controlled by Himmler. The resettlement of the urban population was also envisaged - the Germans would receive apartments with all their property.

Scales

Initially, the Ost plan extended only to Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and North-West Russia. The document drew attention to the fact that the possession of the eastern lands is the prerogative of the German nation and all the resources that would be needed to implement the ideas of the Germans had to be extracted from the occupied lands.

The scale of Hitler's territorial "appetite" can be judged from the surviving memorandum to Minister Rosenberg, which included comments and additions to the Ost plan. So the document talked about the resettlement of Germans in the occupied, as a result of the war, eastern territories. It was planned to do this gradually over thirty years, and on the territory of the former USSR by that time it was planned to leave no more than fourteen million inhabitants who were used as cheap labor and would control the Germans resettled here. The rest of the population was to be evicted to Western Siberia, and the Jews who lived here were to be liquidated during the war. However, this point was doubtful by the author himself, since, in his opinion, it is better not to resettle some of the Soviet nationalities, but to Germanize them. To such he attributed the peoples of the Baltic states. Rosenberg proposed to deport the Ukrainian and Belarusian population to Siberia, of which 35% of Ukrainians and 25% of Belarusians were proposed to be Germanized. Thus, the remaining indigenous population would become farm laborers for the "German masters".

The next point of the document discussed the issue with Poland. In Germany, the Poles were considered the most dangerous people who fiercely hate Germany, so they were asked to be resettled in South America. Fifty percent of the Czech population was also supposed to be deported, and the other fifty percent to be Germanized.

A whole sub-item was set aside for the Russian population, since it was considered the cornerstone of the entire “Eastern problem”. This people, it was originally proposed to completely destroy, or in extreme cases to Germanize those Russians who have obvious Nordic signs. But already in the notes to the Ost plan, it was said that this was impossible, so it was proposed to simply gradually weaken the Russian people, reduce their birth rate, and also proposed to separate the population of Siberia from the other Russian population.

Judging by other German documents that were related to the Ost plan, the Germans planned to increase the number of Germans living in the conquered territories to two hundred and fifty million in fifty years. Moreover, in the eastern lands, it was planned to completely repeat the German order - “the creation of a new Germany” where the environment, roads, agricultural and communal services, industry would be exactly copied from the German model, so that the Germans resettled here would live comfortably.

Timing

The implementation of this plan was planned not earlier than the end of the war, but the prerequisites for this were laid during the war, when the Germans destroyed about three million prisoners of war, millions of people from Ukraine, Poland and Belarus were taken to forced labor and concentration camps. Also, do not forget about the more than six million Jews who died during the Holocaust.

Outcome

In fact, if Nazi Germany and its allies had won the Second World War, then the previously carried out genocide of the Jews would have been the first step towards the destruction of tens of millions of Eastern Europeans.

Categories:// from 03/21/2017

The art of war is a science in which nothing succeeds except what has been calculated and thought out.

Napoleon

The Barbarossa plan is a plan for Germany's attack on the USSR, based on the principle of lightning war, blitzkrieg. The plan began to be developed in the summer of 1940, and on December 18, 1940, Hitler approved a plan according to which the war was to be ended by November 1941 at the latest.

Plan Barbarossa was named after Frederick Barbarossa, a 12th century emperor who became famous for his conquests. This traced elements of symbolism, to which Hitler himself and his entourage paid so much attention. The plan received its name on January 31, 1941.

Number of troops to implement the plan

Germany prepared 190 divisions for war and 24 divisions as a reserve. For the war, 19 tank and 14 motorized divisions were allocated. The total number of the contingent that Germany sent to the USSR, according to various estimates, ranges from 5 to 5.5 million people.

The apparent superiority in the technology of the USSR should not be taken into account, since by the beginning of the wars, German technical tanks and aircraft were superior to Soviet ones, and the army itself was much more trained. Suffice it to recall the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, where the Red Army demonstrated weakness in literally everything.

Direction of the main attack

The Barbarossa plan defined 3 main directions for the strike:

• Army Group South. A blow to Moldova, Ukraine, Crimea and access to the Caucasus. Further movement to the line Astrakhan - Stalingrad (Volgograd).
• Army Group Center. Line "Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow". Advance to Nizhny Novgorod, leveling the line "Wave - Northern Dvina".
• Army Group North. Attack on the Baltic states, Leningrad and further advance towards Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. At the same time, the army "Norway" was to fight in the north together with the Finnish army.

Table - offensive goals according to the Barbarossa plan

	SOUTH	CENTRE	NORTH
Target	Ukraine, Crimea, access to the Caucasus	Minsk, Smolensk, Moscow	Baltic States, Leningrad, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk
population	57 divisions and 13 brigades	50 divisions and 2 brigades	29 division + army "Norway"
Commanding	Field Marshal von Rundstedt	Field Marshal von Bock	Field Marshal von Leeb
common goal	Get on line: Arkhangelsk - Volga - Astrakhan (Northern Dvina)

Approximately by the end of October 1941, the German command planned to reach the Volga-Northern Dvina line, thereby capturing the entire European part of the USSR. This was the plan of the blitzkrieg. After the blitzkrieg, the lands beyond the Urals should have remained, which, without the support of the center, would quickly surrender to the winner.

Until about mid-August 1941, the Germans believed that the war was going according to plan, but in September there were already entries in the diaries of officers that the Barbarossa plan had failed and the war would be lost. The best proof that Germany in August 1941 believed that only a few weeks were left before the end of the war with the USSR is the speech of Goebbels. The Minister of Propaganda suggested that the Germans additionally collect warm clothes for the needs of the army. The government decided that this step was not necessary, since there would be no war in the winter.

Implementation of the plan

The first three weeks of the war assured Hitler that everything was going according to plan. The army advanced rapidly, winning victories, the Soviet army suffered huge losses:

• 28 divisions out of 170 disabled.
• 70 divisions lost about 50% of their personnel.
• 72 divisions remained combat-ready (43% of those available at the start of the war).

During the same 3 weeks, the average rate of advance of German troops inland was 30 km per day.

By July 11, the army group "North" occupied almost the entire territory of the Baltic states, providing access to Leningrad, the army group "Center" reached Smolensk, the army group "South" went to Kyiv. These were the last achievements that fully corresponded to the plan of the German command. After that, failures began (still local, but already indicative). Nevertheless, the initiative in the war until the end of 1941 was on the side of Germany.

German failures in the North

The army "North" occupied the Baltic states without problems, especially since there was practically no partisan movement there. The next strategic point to be captured was Leningrad. It turned out that the Wehrmacht was not capable of this task. The city did not capitulate to the enemy, and until the end of the war, despite all efforts, Germany failed to capture it.

Failures of the Army Center

The "Center" army reached Smolensk without any problems, but got stuck under the city until September 10. Smolensk resisted for almost a month. The German command demanded a decisive victory and the advance of the troops, since such a delay under the city, which was planned to be taken without heavy losses, was unacceptable and cast doubt on the implementation of the Barbarossa plan. As a result, the Germans took Smolensk, but their troops were pretty battered.

Historians today evaluate the battle for Smolensk as a tactical victory for Germany, but a strategic victory for Russia, as they managed to stop the advance of troops on Moscow, which allowed the capital to prepare for defense.

Complicated the advance of the German army deep into the country partisan movement of Belarus.

Failures of the Army of the South

The "South" army reached Kyiv in 3.5 weeks and, like the "Center" army near Smolensk, got stuck in battles. In the end, it was possible to take the city in view of the clear superiority of the army, but Kyiv held out almost until the end of September, which also made it difficult for the German army to advance, and made a significant contribution to the disruption of the Barbarossa plan.

Map of the advance plan of the German troops

Above is a map showing the plan of the German command for the offensive. The map shows: in green - the borders of the USSR, in red - the border to which Germany planned to reach, in blue - the deployment and the plan to advance the German forces.

General state of affairs

• In the North, it was not possible to capture Leningrad and Murmansk. The advance of the troops stopped.
• In the Center, with great difficulty, we managed to get to Moscow. At the time the German army entered the Soviet capital, it was clear that no blitzkrieg had happened.
• In the South, they failed to take Odessa and capture the Caucasus. By the end of September, the Nazi troops had only captured Kyiv and launched an offensive against Kharkov and the Donbass.

Why did the blitzkrieg fail in Germany?

Germany failed the blitzkrieg because the Wehrmacht was preparing the Barbarossa plan, as it later turned out, on false intelligence. Hitler admitted this by the end of 1941, saying that if he had known the real state of affairs in the USSR, he would not have started the war on June 22.

The lightning war tactics were based on the fact that the country has one line of defense on the western border, all large army units are located on the western border, and aviation is located on the border. Since Hitler was sure that all Soviet troops were located on the border, this formed the basis of the blitzkrieg - to destroy the enemy army in the first weeks of the war, and then rapidly move inland without encountering serious resistance.

In fact, there were several lines of defense, the army was not located with all its forces on the western border, there were reserves. Germany did not expect this, and by August 1941 it became clear that the lightning war had failed, and Germany could not win the war. The fact that World War II lasted until 1945 only proves that the Germans fought very organized and brave. Due to the fact that they had the economy of the whole of Europe behind them (speaking of the war between Germany and the USSR, many for some reason forget that the German army included units from almost all European countries) they managed to fight successfully.

Did Barbarossa's plan fail?

I propose to evaluate the Barbarossa plan according to 2 criteria: global and local. Global(landmark - the Great Patriotic War) - the plan was thwarted, because the lightning war did not work, the German troops were bogged down in battles. Local(landmark - intelligence data) - the plan was implemented. The German command drew up the Barbarossa plan on the basis that the USSR had 170 divisions on the country's border, there were no additional defense echelons. There are no reserves and reinforcements. The army was preparing for this. In 3 weeks, 28 Soviet divisions were completely destroyed, and in 70, approximately 50% of the personnel and equipment were disabled. At this stage, the blitzkrieg worked and, in the absence of reinforcements from the USSR, gave the desired results. But it turned out that the Soviet command has reserves, not all troops are located on the border, mobilization brings quality soldiers into the army, there are additional lines of defense, the “charm” of which Germany felt near Smolensk and Kyiv.

Therefore, the disruption of the Barbarossa plan must be regarded as a huge strategic mistake of German intelligence, led by Wilhelm Canaris. Today, some historians associate this person with the agents of England, but there is no evidence for this. But if we assume that this is indeed the case, then it becomes clear why Canaris slipped an absolute “linden” to Hitler that the USSR was not ready for war and all the troops were located on the border.

in General Plan "Ost" translated into Russian

On the picture: At the opening of the exhibition "Planning and building a new order in the East" on March 20, 1941, Konrad Mayer (right) addressed the leading functionaries of the Reich (from left to right): Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsleiter Buhler, Reichsminister Todt and chief of the chief Heydrich's Imperial Security Office. Let me remind you that at the end of 2009 in Germany it was declassified and for the first time in wide access - the text of Hitler's "Plan Ost" - a project for the Germanization of Eastern Europe, that is, the mass destruction and resettlement of Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, was posted.

Considered lost for a long time, the text of the plan was found back in the 80s. But only now anyone can get acquainted with it on the website of the Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture of the Humboldt University of Berlin.

The publication of documents from the state archive was accompanied by an apology. The Council of the Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture of the Humboldt University said that it regrets that one of the former directors of the educational institution, SS member Professor Konrad Mayer, did so much to create the "General Plan East".

Now this most secret document, which only the top leaders of the Reich knew about, is available to everyone. “German weapons have conquered the eastern regions, for which there has been a struggle for centuries. The Reich sees it as its most important task to turn them into imperial territories as soon as possible, ”the document says. For a long time the text was considered lost. For the Nuremberg trials, only a six-page extract from it was obtained.

The plan was drawn up by the Imperial Security Main Office, and other versions of the plan, along with other important documents, were burned by the Nazis in 1945.

The “General Plan Vostok” with German thoroughness shows what the USSR would have expected if the Germans had won that war. And it becomes clear why the plan was kept a strict secret. “At the forefront of the front of the German people against Asiaticism, areas of particular importance for the Reich are designated. In order to ensure the vital interests of the Reich in these areas, it is necessary to use not only force and organization, it is precisely there that the German population is needed. In a completely hostile environment, it should be firmly rooted in these areas, ”the text recommends.

Evgeny Kulkov, senior researcher at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “They were going to deport the Lithuanians beyond the Urals and to Siberia, or kill them. It's practically the same. 85 percent of Lithuanians, 75 percent of Belarusians, 65 percent of Western Ukrainians, residents of Western Ukraine, 50 percent each from the Baltic states.”

Comparing the sources, the scientists found out that the Nazis wanted to resettle 10 million Germans in the eastern lands, and from there to evict 30 million people to Siberia. Leningrad from a city of three million was to turn into a German settlement for 200,000 inhabitants. Millions of people were to die of starvation and disease.

Hitler planned to finally destroy Russia by dividing it into many isolated parts. Based on the instructions of the Reichsführer SS, one should proceed from the settlement primarily of the following areas: Ingermanlandia (Petersburg region); Gotengau (Crimea and Kherson region, former Tavria), Memelnrav region (Bialystok region and western Lithuania). The Germanization of this area is already proceeding through the return of the Volksdeutsche.”

It is curious that the lands beyond the Urals seemed to the Nazis such a disastrous territory that they were not even considered as a matter of priority. But, fearing that the Poles exiled there would be able to form their own state, the Nazis nevertheless decided to send them to Siberia in small groups.

In this plan, it is calculated not only how many cities will have to be cleared for future colonizers, but also how much it will cost and who will bear the costs. After the war, the drafter of the document, Konrad Mayer, was acquitted by the Nuremberg Tribunal and continued to teach at German universities.

By publishing the original of this sinister plan on the Internet, German scientists express the opinion that society has not yet repented sufficiently before the victims of Nazism.

Today

The Nazi plan "Ost" is a story of forced resettlement not only of individuals, but of entire nations. This idea is not new, it is as old as humanity itself. But Hitler's program became a new dimension of fear, because it was a thoroughly planned genocide of peoples and entire races, and this was not even in the Middle Ages, but in an era of rapid development of industry and science!

Pursued goals

It is worth noting that the Ost plan does not look like a simple struggle for hunting grounds or vast pastures, as in ancient times. It cannot be compared with the arbitrariness of the Spaniards in relation to the natives of South and Central America, as well as with the extermination of the Indians in the northern part of this mainland. This document dealt with a special misanthropic racial ideology, which was designed to provide super-profits for owners of big capital, even more fertile land for respectable landowners, generals and wealthy peasants.

The essence of the Ost plan and the main goals pursued by the fascist regime and its ruling elite were as follows:

● political and military power over the occupied territories with subsequent eviction, forced assimilation or mass destruction of people who previously lived on it;

● the social-imperialist idea, which consists in consolidating its social base on the conquered lands by resettling economically strong German large landowners, but dependent on the ruling regime, wealthy peasants and representatives of the middle urban strata;

● the maximum influence of solid capital in the annexed territories in the field of exploitation of the raw material base (metal, oil, ore, cotton, etc.) on the huge markets for the sale of goods and the export of capital, investment opportunities and military construction, German settlements and the acquisition of inexpensive labor.

background

“The Ost General Plan is truly German and imperialist. We can say that the history of its creation began during the First World War. Then the Germans in the “Memorandum on the Aims of the War” in September 1914 put forward such an idea as the expulsion of the local population from the Russian and Polish lands and the settlement of German peasants instead. Also, the unions of entrepreneurs in Germany stood up for ensuring the growth of their own people, which thereby guaranteed the strengthening of military power. There were several more memorandums that spoke of the need for the Germans to oust the so-called East European barbarians.

So, it becomes clear that Hitler's plan has its roots in 1914, but on the eve of World War II, the previous intentions of German capitalism and imperialism began to sound in a new way. These reactionary tendencies for the first time began to unite not only with anti-Semitism, but with truly barbaric racism. It was an officially declared genocide, since the destruction of peoples and entire races was supposed. The Ost plan can be briefly described as a radically racist version of German expansion to the East.

The Holocaust in Hitler's program

This fascist document traces the intention to destroy not only millions of Slavs. It also refers to the creation of an experimental space for the murder of Jews throughout Europe, by creating an unlimited number of ghettos and concentration camps of death. Plan "Ost" provided for the broadest program of measures aimed at direct expansion and robbery.

Justification of genocide

Reinhard Heydrich, who in Nazi Germany held the post of head of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security, justified the military seizure of the eastern territories by the "Bolshevik threat", as well as the need to expand the living space for the German nation. He clearly voiced this deadly ideology, which was quite openly discussed in certain circles: what is needed can only be obtained through military action and violence. From this ideology follows the conclusion that the Germans will receive new territories only if they destroy everyone who lives on it.

Heinrich Himmler, one of the organizers of the Holocaust, admitted during the Nuremberg trials that already at the beginning of 1941 he brought to the attention of the leaders of the SS groups subordinate to him the following information: the goal of the military campaign against the Soviet Union was the destruction of 30 million people. He also stated that the brutal repression against the partisans was only a pretext for the extermination of as many Jewish and Slavic populations as possible.

Historians' assessment

When it became known that there was a certain plan "Ost", many dismissed it as a project that was not carried out and had significance only in the fantasies of Himmler, Heydrich and Hitler. By such behavior, historians showed their biased attitude, but due to deeper research of this document, they came to the conclusion that their view of this problem was completely outdated.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the German plan "Ost" could give work not to hundreds, but to thousands of criminals from among politicians and scientists, soldiers and officers, bureaucrats and SS officials, as well as ordinary murderers. In addition, it led not only to the expulsion, but also to the death of hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even millions of Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Czechs and Jews.

In early October 1939, Hitler issued a decree "On the Strengthening of the German Nation" and ordered Heinrich Himmler to take over all the powers to implement it. the latter was immediately given the title of "Reich Commissioner", and later he was considered the chief of planning to seize the territories of Eastern Europe. He quickly created additional special institutions and provided jobs for all employees in the SS.

What is the plan "Ost"

It should be noted right away that this program was by no means a separate document. It consisted of a whole chain of successively interconnected plans that were created in the period from 1939 to 1943. as the German troops advanced to the East. The term now includes not only documents drawn up by Himmler's numerous offices, but also papers drawn up in a similar spirit belonging to various Nazi institutions, such as the territorial planning and land management authorities, as well as the German Labor Front.

Start of resettlement

The first documents that were part of the Ost plan date back to 1939-1940. They concerned directly the Polish lands, especially the eastern part of Upper Silesia and West Prussia. The first victims of fascism in these lands were Jews and Poles. According to SS reports, more than 550,000 Jews were "evacuated" and sent abroad to the territory of the General Government. Some of them reached only the city of Lodz, where people were settled in the ghetto or distributed to death camps. According to the plan, 50% of the Poles were to be expelled, and this is about 3.5 million people, and also placed in the general government in order to make room for visiting German townspeople and peasants.

Documents relating to the USSR

“The General Plan “Ost” was thoroughly supplemented with new provisions simultaneously with the attack on the Soviet Union. In 1941, a large number of developments appeared, which were given out in a race either by the headquarters service of the Reichskommissar Heinrich Himmler, or by the Main Directorate of Imperial Security.

According to the works of a professor at the University of Berlin and concurrently holding one of the highest positions in the SS, Konrad Meyer-Hetling, the fascist plan "Ost" was supposed to kill, starve or expel at least 35-40 million Slavs, as well as Jews, Gypsies and Jews in the occupied territories of the USSR. , of course, the Bolsheviks, whatever nationality they may be. After that, the German colonization of huge land areas was to take place - from Leningrad to the Volga and the Caucasus, as well as to Ukraine, the Donetsk and Kuban regions, and the Crimea. In the future, the Nazis dreamed of reaching the Urals and Lake Baikal.

Main Events

● The murder of Jews (and this is about half a million people), the commissars of the Red Army, all the leaders of the Communist Party and the state apparatus of the USSR, as well as the destruction of any person who will be suspected of resistance. This point of the plan began to be put into practice from the first days of the fascist occupation.

● Termination of the supply of food to the regions located in the "non-chernozem zones", which meant that the northern part of Russia and its middle zone, as well as the whole of Belarus, would be deprived of food supplies.

● Ruthless looting of all areas located in fertile agricultural areas. On this occasion, Hermann Göring, at the beginning of May 1941, calmly suggested that with such a policy, millions of people would die of starvation if all the food needed for Germany's needs was removed from the country.

● Mass "resettlement" of the lower races in favor of large German businessmen and landowners in the territories to be colonized, in special strongholds. So they acted on the territory of annexed Poland, in many areas of occupied Ukraine and Lithuania.

● The complete destruction of large cities of the USSR and, first of all, Stalingrad and Leningrad, which were considered "hotbeds of Bolshevism." This point of the fascist plan, by and large, failed. But still, these cities lost hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants, who died of starvation and numerous bombardments.

Hunting for children

The Ost plan also had another barbaric idea. It consisted in hunting for children "suitable for Germanization." They were literally caught and removed from their families in the conquered eastern lands, and then tested for so-called racial purity. According to the results of the examination, they were placed either in shelters and camps, or taken to Germany. There they were nazified and “Germanized” under the Lebesborn program, which means “Source of Life”, and then given to Nazi families for education. Those who did not pass the test were sent to work in military factories.

Experiments of German doctors

Millions of Polish, Czech and Soviet people became victims of this inhuman Nazi plan. German government officials and population planners in the occupied territories carried out large-scale experiments in forced abortions and sterilizations, while not respecting basic health standards.

Later, these events began to be carried out in relation to the German Germans. Thus, for sexual contacts with workers driven from Eastern Europe, a death sentence was passed or other terrorist measures were used.

Volksdeutsche

At the end of 1942, the SS Reichskommissar Heinrich Himmler, who was engaged in the program of "strengthening the German nation", announced the existence of 629 thousand settlers belonging to the ethnic Germans - "Volksdeutsche", who arrived from Belarus, Yugoslavia, the Baltic States, Romania. He also reported that another 400 thousand people recruited in Ukraine and South Tyrol (Italy) were on their way to Germany. This means that during the Second World War there was a grandiose migration of peoples, during which millions of people moved from place to place, most of them against their will. Presumably, when they left, they left valuables and other property worth approximately 4.5 billion Reichsmarks, since they could take very little luggage with them. Later, all their property partially passed into the hands of German military officials, and the rest was exported to Germany.

The main executors of the plan

How, after the end of the war, were the true culprits and executors of the barbaric Ost plan punished? All the killers who were part of numerous Wehrmacht units and SS task forces, as well as holding key positions in the occupation bureaucracy, brought death and destruction with them to the occupied territories. But, despite this, many of them never suffered any punishment. Thousands of them seemed to "disappear", and then, some time after the war, appeared and began to lead a normal life either in West Germany or in other countries. For the most part, they escaped not only prosecution for their crimes, but even public censure.

The main ideologist of the Ost plan, Professor Konrad Meyer-Hetling, was present at the Nuremberg trials along with the rest of the war criminals. He was charged and sentenced by a US court to ... minor punishment. He was released in 1948. From 1956 he was a professor at the Technical University in Hannover, where he worked until his retirement. Meyer died in West Germany in 1973. He was 72 years old.