Generalplan Ost

Generalplan Ost
Master Plan for the East
Plan of new German settlement colonies (marked with dots and diamonds), drawn up by the Friedrich Wilhelm University Institute of Agriculture in Berlin, 1942, covering the Baltic states, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia
Duration1941–1945
LocationTerritories controlled by Nazi Germany
TypeGenocide, ethnic cleansing, slave labour and kidnapping of children
CauseNazi racism, Nazi racial policy, Nazi bio-geo-political Weltanschauung,[1] Manifest destiny,[2][3] Lebensraum and Heim ins Reich
Patron(s)Adolf Hitler
Objectives
Deaths
  • 11 million Slavs[5]
  • 3-3.4 million Polish Jews[6]
OutcomeNazi abandonment of GPO due to Axis defeat in the Eastern Front

The Generalplan Ost (German pronunciation: [ɡenəˈʁaːlˌplaːn ˈɔst]; English: Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe categorized as "Untermenschen" in Nazi ideology.[7][5] The campaign was a precursor to Nazi Germany's planned colonisation of Central and Eastern Europe by Germanic settlers, and it was carried out through systematic massacres, mass starvations, chattel labour, mass rapes, child abductions, and sexual slavery.[8][9]

Generalplan Ost was only partially implemented during the war in territories occupied by Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II, resulting indirectly and directly in the deaths of millions by shootings, starvation, disease, extermination through labour, and genocide. However, its full implementation was not considered practicable during major military operations, and never materialised due to Germany's defeat.[10][11][12] Under direct orders from Nazi leadership, around 11 million Slavs were killed in systematic violence and state terrorism carried out as part of the GPO. In addition to genocide, millions more were forced into slave labour to serve the German war economy.[5]

The program's operational guidelines were based on the policy of Lebensraum proposed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in fulfilment of the Drang nach Osten (drive to the East) ideology of German expansionism. As such, it was intended to be a part of the New Order in Europe.[13] Approximately 3.3 million Soviet POWs captured by the Wehrmacht were killed as part of the GPO. The plan intended for the genocide of the majority of Slavic inhabitants by various means – mass killings, forced starvations, slave labour and other occupation policies. The remaining populations were to be forcibly deported beyond the Urals, paving the way for German settlers.[14]

The plan was a work in progress. There are four known versions of it, developed as time went on. After the invasion of Poland, the original blueprint for Generalplan Ost was discussed by the RKFDV in mid-1940 during the Nazi–Soviet population transfers. The second known version of the GPO was procured by the RSHA from Erhard Wetzel [de] in April 1942. The third version was officially dated June 1942. The final version of the Master Plan for the East came from the RKFDV on October 29, 1942. However, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, resources allocated to colonization policies were diverted to Axis war efforts, and the program was gradually abandoned.[15]

  1. ^ Giaccaria, Paolo; Minca, Claudio, eds. (2016). Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich. Chicago, USA: The University of Chicago Press. pp. 29, 30, 33, 34, 37, 110. ISBN 978-0-226-27442-3.
  2. ^ Masiuk, Tony (20 March 2019). "Hitler's Manifest Destiny: Nazi Genocide, Slavery, and Colonization in Slavic Eastern Europe". Academia.edu. Archived from the original on 14 March 2022. Hitler's vision was to recreate and remodel this kind of colonial process. In particular, he envisioned a colonization alike to America's Manifest Destiny, but instead occurring in Eastern Europe, whereby the Volga river would become the Mississippi, and the Slavs would become the Native Americans and "fight like Indians".
  3. ^ "Lebensraum". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 14 June 2018. For the Germans, eastern Europe represented their "Manifest Destiny." Hitler and other Nazi thinkers drew direct comparisons to American expansion in the West. During one of his famous "table talks," Hitler decreed that "there's only one duty: to Germanize this country [Russia] by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins."
  4. ^ J. Barnes, Trevor (2016). "9: A Morality Tale of Two Location Theorists in Hitler's Germany: Walter Christaller and August Lösch". In Giaccaria, Paolo; Minca, Claudio (eds.). Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich. Chicago, USA: The University of Chicago Press. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-226-27442-3.
  5. ^ a b c Lens (2019).
  6. ^ Naimark 2023, pp. 367, 368.
  7. ^ Moses, A. Dirk, ed. (2008). Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books. p. 20. As a matter of fact, Hitler wanted to commit Genocide against the Slavic peoples, in order to colonize the East
  8. ^ Masiuk, Tony (20 March 2019). "Hitler's Manifest Destiny: Nazi Genocide, Slavery, and Colonization in Slavic Eastern Europe". Academia.edu. Archived from the original on 14 March 2022.
  9. ^ Barenberg, Alan (2017). "27: Forced Labor in Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union". In Eltis, David; L. Engerman, Stanley; Drescher, Seymour; Richardson, David (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 4. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 640, 650. doi:10.1017/9781139046176.028. ISBN 978-0-521-84069-9.
  10. ^ WISSENSCHAFT - PLANUNG - VERTREIBUNG. Archived 2021-07-26 at the Wayback Machine Der Generalplan Ost der Nationalsozialisten· Eine Ausstellung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft © 2006
  11. ^ "Dietrich Eichholtz»Generalplan Ost« zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker" (PDF) (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-14.
  12. ^ Yad Vashem. "Generalplan Ost" (PDF).
  13. ^ "Lebensraum". encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2019-06-23.
  14. ^ Naimark 2023, pp. 358–377.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference WFF_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).