About the Nazi program of extermination of entire peoples

A truly cannibalistic document of Nazi Germany was the master plan "Ost" - a plan for the enslavement and destruction of the peoples of the USSR, the Jewish and Slavic population of the conquered territories.

The idea of ​​​​how the Nazi elite saw the conduct of a war of annihilation can already be formed from Hitler's speeches before the highest command staff Wehrmacht on January 9, March 17 and 30, 1941, the Fuhrer declared that the war against the USSR would be "the complete opposite of a normal war in the West and North of Europe", it provides for "total destruction", "the destruction of Russia as a state." Trying to bring an ideological base under these criminal plans, Hitler announced that the upcoming war against the USSR would be a "struggle of two ideologies" with the "use of the most brutal violence", that in this war not only the Red Army, but also the "control mechanism" of the USSR would be defeated, " destroy the commissars and the communist intelligentsia”, functionaries and in this way destroy the “ideological ties” of the Russian people.

On April 28, 1941, Brauchitsch issued a special order "Procedure for the use of the security police and the SD in the formations of the ground forces." According to him, the responsibility for future crimes in the occupied territory of the USSR was removed from the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht. They were ordered to be ruthless, to shoot on the spot, without trial or investigation, anyone who would show even the slightest resistance or show sympathy for the partisans.

Citizens were destined either for exile to Siberia without a livelihood, or the fate of the slaves of the Aryan masters. The rationale for these goals was the racist views of the Nazi leadership, contempt for the Slavs and other “subhuman” peoples, which prevent them from ensuring the “existence and reproduction of the superior race”, allegedly due to its catastrophic lack of “living space”.

The "racial theory" and the "theory of living space" originated in Germany long before the Nazis came to power, but only under them acquired the status of a state ideology that embraced broad sections of the population.

The war against the USSR was considered by the Nazi elite primarily as a war against the Slavic peoples. In a conversation with the President of the Senate of Danzig, H. Rauschning, Hitler explained: “One of the main tasks of the German state government is to forever prevent the development of the Slavic races by all possible means. The natural instincts of all living beings tell us not only to defeat our enemies, but also to destroy them.” Other bosses of Nazi Germany adhered to a similar attitude, first of all, one of Hitler's closest accomplices, Reichsfuehrer SS G. Himmler, who on October 7, 1939 simultaneously took the post of "Reich Commissioner for Strengthening the German Race." Hitler instructed him to deal with the "return" of the Imperial Germans and Volksdeutsche from other countries and the creation of new settlements as the German "living space in the East" expanded during the war. Himmler played a leading role in deciding the future that the population in Soviet territory up to the Urals would have to expect after the German victory.

Hitler, who throughout his political career advocated the dismemberment of the USSR, on July 16, at a meeting at his headquarters with the participation of Goering, Rosenberg, Lammers, Bormann and Keitel, defined the tasks of National Socialist policy in Russia: “The basic principle is that this pie divide it in the most convenient way so that we can: firstly, own it, secondly, manage it, and, thirdly, exploit it. At the same meeting, Hitler announced that after the defeat of the USSR, the territory of the Third Reich should be expanded in the east, at least to the Urals. He declared: “The entire Baltic should become an area of ​​the empire, the Crimea with adjacent regions, the Volga regions should become an area of ​​the empire in the same way as the Baku region.”

At a meeting of the Wehrmacht high command on July 31, 1940, devoted to preparing an attack on the USSR, Hitler again declared: “Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states are for us.” The north-western regions of Russia up to Arkhangelsk he was going to then transfer to Finland.

On May 25, 1940, Himmler prepared and presented to Hitler his "Some considerations on the treatment of the local population of the eastern regions." He wrote: "We are highly interested in in no way uniting the peoples of the eastern regions, but, on the contrary, breaking them up into the smallest possible branches and groups."

A secret document initiated by Himmler called the Ost master plan was presented to him on 15 July. The plan called for exterminating and deporting 80–85% of the population from Poland, 85% from Lithuania, 65% from Western Ukraine, 75% from Belarus, and 50% each from Latvia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic within 25–30 years.

45 million people lived in the area subject to German colonization. At least 31 million of those who would be declared “unwanted on racial grounds” were supposed to be evicted to Siberia, and immediately after the defeat of the USSR, up to 840 thousand Germans were to be resettled in the liberated territories. Over the next two to three decades, two more waves of settlers were planned, numbering 1.1 and 2.6 million people. In September 1941, Hitler declared that in the Soviet lands, which should become "provinces of the Reich", it is necessary to pursue a "planned racial policy", sending there and allocating lands not only to Germans, but also to "Norwegians, Swedes, related to them in language and blood , Danes and Dutch. “When settling the Russian space,” he said, “we must provide the imperial peasants with unusually luxurious housing. German institutions should be located in magnificent buildings - governor's palaces. Everything necessary for the life of the Germans will be grown around them. Around the cities within a radius of 30–40 km, German villages, striking in their beauty, will be spread, connected by the best roads. Another world will arise in which the Russians will be allowed to live as they please. But on one condition: we will be masters. In the event of a rebellion, it will be enough for us to drop a couple of bombs on their cities, and the job is done. And once a year we will lead a group of Kirghiz through the capital of the Reich, so that they are imbued with the consciousness of the power and grandeur of its architectural monuments. The Eastern spaces will become for us what India was for England. After the defeat near Moscow, Hitler consoled his interlocutors: “Losses will be restored in many times greater volume in the settlements for purebred Germans that I will create in the East ... The right to land, according to the eternal law of nature, belongs to the one who conquered it, based on the fact that old borders hold back population growth. And the fact that we have children who want to live justifies our claims to the newly conquered eastern territories. Continuing this thought, Hitler said: “In the East there is iron, coal, wheat, timber. We will build luxurious houses and roads, and those who grow up there will love their homeland and one day, like the Volga Germans, will forever link their fate with it.

The Nazis hatched special plans for the Russian people. One of the developers of the Ost master plan, Dr. E. Wetzel, a referent for racial issues in the Eastern Ministry of Rosenberg, prepared a document for Himmler stating that "without the complete destruction" or weakening by any means of the "biological strength of the Russian people" to establish "German dominance in Europe" will fail.

“We are talking not only about the defeat of the state with its center in Moscow,” he wrote. Achieving this historic goal would never mean a complete solution to the problem. The point is, most likely, to defeat the Russians as a people, to divide them.

Hitler's deep hostility to the Slavs is evidenced by the records of his table conversations, which from June 21, 1941 to July 1942, were conducted first by ministerial adviser G. Geim, and then by Dr. G. Picker; as well as notes on the goals and methods of the occupation policy on the territory of the USSR, made by the representative of the Eastern Ministry at Hitler’s headquarters, W. Koeppen, from September 6 to November 7, 1941. After Hitler’s trip to Ukraine in September 1941, Koeppen records conversations in the Headquarters: “In In Kyiv, a whole block burned down, but a fairly large number of people still live in the city. They make a very bad impression, outwardly resemble the proletarians, and therefore their number should be reduced by 80-90%. The Fuhrer immediately supported the proposal of the Reichsführer (G. Himmler) to confiscate the ancient Russian monastery located not far from Kiev, so that it would not turn into a center for the revival of the Orthodox faith and the national spirit. Both Russians, Ukrainians, and Slavs in general, according to Hitler, belonged to a race unworthy of humane treatment and the cost of education.

After a conversation with Hitler on July 8, 1941, Colonel-General F. Halder, Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, writes in his diary: “The Fuhrer’s decision to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground is unshakable in order to completely get rid of the population of these cities, which otherwise we forced to feed during the winter. The task of destroying these cities must be carried out by aviation. Tanks should not be used for this. It will be a national disaster that will deprive not only Bolshevism of centers, but also Muscovites (Russians) in general. The conversation between Halder and Hitler, dedicated to the destruction of the population of Leningrad, Koeppen concretizes as follows: "The city will only need to be encircled, subjected to artillery fire and starved out ...".

Assessing the situation at the front, on October 9, Koeppen writes: “The Führer gave an order forbidding German soldiers to enter the territory of Moscow. The city will be surrounded and wiped off the face of the earth." The corresponding order was signed on October 7 and confirmed by the high command of the ground forces in the "Instruction on the procedure for the capture of Moscow and the treatment of its population" dated October 12, 1941.

The instruction emphasized that "it would be completely irresponsible to risk the lives of German soldiers to save Russian cities from fires or to feed their population at the expense of Germany." German troops were ordered to apply similar tactics to all Soviet cities, while it was explained that “than more population Soviet cities rush into inner Russia, the more chaos will increase in Russia and the easier it will be to manage and use the occupied eastern regions. In an entry for October 17, Koeppen also notes that Hitler made it clear to the generals that after the victory he intended to save only a few Russian cities.

In an attempt to divide the population of the occupied territories in areas where Soviet authority was formed only in 1939-1940. (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, the Baltic States), the Nazis established close contacts with the nationalists.

To stimulate them, it was decided to allow "local self-government". However, the peoples of the Baltic States and Belarus were denied the restoration of their own statehood. When, following the entry of German troops into Lithuania, the nationalists, without the sanction of Berlin, created a government headed by Colonel K. Skirpa, the German leadership refused to recognize it, stating that the issue of forming a government in Vilna would be decided only after victory in the war. Berlin did not allow the idea of ​​restoring statehood in the Baltic republics and Belarus, resolutely rejecting the requests of "racially inferior" collaborators to create their own armed forces and other attributes of power. At the same time, the leadership of the Wehrmacht willingly used them to form volunteer foreign units, which, under the command of German officers participated in hostilities against partisans and at the front. They also served as burgomasters, village elders, in auxiliary police units, etc.

In the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine", from which a significant part of the territory was torn away, included in the Transnistria and the General Government in Poland, any attempts by the nationalists not only to revive statehood, but also to create "Ukrainian self-government in a politically expedient form" were suppressed.

When preparing an attack on the USSR, the Nazi elite attached paramount importance to the development of plans for using the Soviet economic potential in the interests of ensuring the conquest of world domination. At a meeting with the command of the Wehrmacht on January 9, 1941, Hitler said that if Germany "gets into its hands the incalculable wealth of vast Russian territories", then "in the future it will be able to fight against any continents."

In March 1941, for the exploitation of the occupied territory of the USSR in Berlin, a paramilitary state-monopoly organization was created - the Headquarters of the economic leadership "Vostok". It was headed by two old comrades-in-arms of Hitler: Deputy G. Goering, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Hermann Goering Concern, Secretary of State P. Kerner and Head of the Military Industry and Armament Department of the OKW, Lieutenant-General G. Thomas. In addition to the "leading group", which also dealt with the labor force, the headquarters included groups for industry, agriculture, enterprise organization and forestry. From the very beginning it was dominated by representatives of German concerns: Mansfeld, Krupp, Zeiss, Flick, I. G. Farben. On October 15, 1941, excluding economic teams in the Baltic states and relevant specialists in the army, the headquarters consisted of about 10, and by the end of the year - 11 thousand people.

Plans German leadership on the exploitation of Soviet industry were set out in the “Directives for the leadership in the newly occupied regions”, which received the name “Green folder” by Goering due to the color of the binding.

The directives provided for the organization in the USSR of the extraction and export to Germany of those types of raw materials that were important for the functioning of the German military economy, and the restoration of a number of factories in order to repair Wehrmacht equipment and produce certain types of weapons.

Most of the Soviet enterprises producing peaceful products were planned to be destroyed. Goering and representatives of the military-industrial concerns showed particular interest in the capture of Soviet oil-bearing regions. In March 1941, an oil company called Continental A.G. was founded, chaired by E. Fischer from the IG Farben concern and K. Blessing, a former director of the Reichsbank.

The general instructions of the Vostok organization dated May 23, 1941 on economic policy in the field of agriculture stated that the goal of the military campaign against the USSR was "to supply the German armed forces, as well as to provide food for the German civilian population for many years." It was planned to achieve this goal by “reducing Russia's own consumption” by cutting off the supply of products from the southern black earth regions to the northern non-chernozem zone, including to such industrial centers as Moscow and Leningrad. Those who prepared these instructions were well aware that this would lead to starvation of millions of Soviet citizens. At one of the meetings of the Vostok headquarters, it was said: "If we manage to pump out everything that we need from the country, then tens of millions of people will be doomed to starvation."

The headquarters of the economic leadership "Vostok" was subordinate to the economic inspectorates operating in the operational rear of the German troops on Eastern Front, economic departments in the rear of the armies, including technical battalions of specialists in the mining and oil industries, units engaged in the seizure of raw materials, agricultural products and production tools. Economic teams were created in divisions, economic groups - in field commandant's offices. In the units expropriating raw materials and controlling the work of the captured enterprises, specialists from German concerns were advisers. Commissioner for scrap metal captain B.-G. Shu and the inspector general for the seizure of raw materials V. Witting were ordered to hand over the trophies to the military concerns Flick and I. G. Farben.

Germany's satellites also counted on rich booty for complicity in aggression.

The ruling elite of Romania, headed by dictator I. Antonescu, intended not only to return Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which she had to cede to the USSR in the summer of 1940, but also to receive a significant part of the territory of Ukraine.

In Budapest, for participation in the attack on the USSR, they dreamed of getting the former Eastern Galicia, including the oil-bearing regions in Drohobych, as well as all of Transylvania.

In a keynote speech at a meeting of SS leaders on October 2, 1941, the head of the Imperial Security Main Directorate, R. Heydrich, stated that after the war Europe would be divided into a “German great space”, where the German population would live - Germans, Dutch, Flemings, Norwegians, Danes and the Swedes, and to the "eastern space", which will become the raw material base for the German state and where the "German upper stratum" will use the subjugated local population as "helots", that is, slaves. G. Himmler had a different opinion on this matter. He was not satisfied with the policy of Germanization of the population of the occupied territories pursued by Kaiser Germany. He considered the desire of the old authorities to force the conquered peoples to renounce only their native language, national culture, lead a German way of life and comply with German laws erroneous.

In the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Kor of August 20, 1942, in the article “Should we Germanize?”, Himmler wrote: “Our task is not to Germanize the East in the old sense of the word, that is, to instill in the population the German language and German laws, but to ensure that people of only truly German, German blood live in the East.

The achievement of this goal was served by the mass destruction of the civilian population and prisoners of war, which took place from the very beginning of the invasion of German troops into the territory of the USSR. Simultaneously with the Barbarossa plan, the OKH order of April 28, 1941, "Procedure for the use of the security police and SD in the formations of the ground forces," came into effect. In accordance with this order, the main role in the mass extermination of communists, Komsomol members, deputies of regional, city, district and village councils, Soviet intelligentsia and Jews in the occupied territory was played by four punitive units, the so-called Einsatzgruppen, designated by the letters of the Latin alphabet A, B, C, D. Einsatzgruppe A was attached to Army Group North and operated in the Baltic republics (led by SS Brigadeführer W. Stahlecker). Einsatzgruppe B in Belarus (headed by the head of the 5th Directorate of the RSHA, SS Gruppenführer A. Nebe) was attached to Army Group Center. Einsatzgruppe C (Ukraine, chief - SS Brigadeführer O. Rush, inspector of the Security Police and SD in Koenigsberg) "served" Army Group South. Einsatzgruppe D attached to the llth army operated in the southern part of Ukraine and in the Crimea. It was commanded by O. Ohlendorf, head of the 3rd Directorate of the RSHA (internal security service) and at the same time the chief affairs officer of the Imperial Group for Trade. In addition, in the operational rear of the German formations advancing on Moscow, there was a punitive team "Moscow" headed by SS Brigadeführer F.-A. Ziks, head of the 7th department of the RSHA (ideological research and their use). Each Einsatzgruppe consisted of 800 to 1200 personnel (SS, SD, criminal police, Gestapo and order police) under the jurisdiction of the SS. Following on the heels of the advancing German troops, by mid-November 1941, the Einsatzgruppen of the North, Center and South armies exterminated more than 300 thousand civilians in the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. They were engaged in mass killings and robbery until the end of 1942. According to the most conservative estimates, they accounted for over a million victims. Then the Einsatzgruppen were formally liquidated, becoming part of the rear troops.

In the development of the “Order on Commissars”, on July 16, 1941, the Wehrmacht High Command concluded an agreement with the Imperial Security Main Directorate, according to which special teams of the Security Police and the SD under the auspices of the head of the 4th Main Directorate of the Secret State Police (Gestapo) G. Müller were obliged to to identify among the Soviet prisoners of war delivered from the front to stationary camps "unacceptable" politically and racially "elements".

Not only party workers of all ranks were recognized as "unacceptable", but also "all representatives of the intelligentsia, all fanatical communists and all Jews."

It was emphasized that the use of weapons against Soviet prisoners of war is considered "generally legal." A similar phrase meant official permission to kill. In May 1942, the OKW was forced to cancel this order at the request of some high-ranking front-line soldiers, who reported that the publication of the facts of the execution of political officers led to a sharp increase in the rebuff force on the part of the Red Army. Henceforth, political officers began to be destroyed not immediately after the capture, but in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

After the defeat of the USSR, it was planned "within the shortest possible time" to create and populate three imperial districts: the district of Ingermanland (Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod regions), the Gotsky district (Crimea and Kherson region) and the district of Memel-Narev (Bialystok region and Western Lithuania). To ensure communication between Germany and the Ingermanland and Gotha districts, it was planned to build two highways, each up to 2 thousand km long. One would reach Leningrad, the other - to the Crimean peninsula. To secure the highways, it was planned to create 36 paramilitary German settlements (strongholds) along them: 14 in Poland, 8 in Ukraine and 14 in the Baltic states. It was proposed to declare the entire territory in the East, which would be captured by the Wehrmacht, state property, transferring power over it to the SS control apparatus headed by Himmler, who would personally resolve issues related to granting German settlers rights to own land. According to Nazi scientists, it would take 25 years and up to 66.6 billion Reichsmarks to build highways, accommodate 4.85 million Germans in three districts and equip them.

Having approved this project in principle, Himmler demanded that it provide for "total Germanization of Estonia, Latvia and the General Government": their settlement by Germans for about 20 years. In September 1942, when German troops came to Stalingrad and the foothills of the Caucasus, at a meeting with the commanders of the SS units in Zhitomir, Himmler announced that the network of German strongholds (military settlements) would be expanded to the Don and Volga.

The second "General Plan of Settlements", taking into account Himmler's wishes to finalize the April version, was ready on December 23, 1942. The main directions of colonization in it were named northern (East Prussia - the Baltic countries) and southern (Krakow - Lvov - Black Sea region). It was assumed that the territory of German settlements would be equal to 700 thousand square meters. km, of which 350 thousand are arable land (the entire territory of the Reich in 1938 was less than 600 thousand sq. km).

The "General Plan Ost" provided for the physical extermination of the entire Jewish population of Europe, the massacres of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Hungarians, the physical destruction of 25-30 million Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians.

L. Bezymensky, calling the “Ost” plan a “cannibal document”, “a plan for the elimination of the Slavs in Russia”, argued: “You should not be deceived by the term“ eviction ”: it was a designation familiar to the Nazis for killing people.”

The "General Plan Ost" belongs to history - the history of the forcible resettlement of individuals and entire nations, - said the report of the contemporary German researcher Dietrich Achholz at a joint meeting of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation and the Christian Peace Conference "Munich Accords - General Plan Ost - Benes Decrees. Causes of Flight and Forced Resettlement in Eastern Europe” in Berlin, May 15, 2004 – This story is as old as the history of mankind itself. But Plan Ost opened up a new dimension of fear. It was a carefully planned genocide of races and peoples, and this is in the industrialized era of the middle of the 20th century! This is not about the struggle for pastures and hunting grounds, for cattle and women, as in ancient times. Under the cover of a misanthropic, atavistic racial ideology, the Ost master plan was about profit for big capital, fertile land for large landowners, prosperous peasants and generals, and profit for countless petty Nazi criminals and slurps. “The killers themselves, who, as part of the SS operational groups, in countless units of the Wehrmacht and in key positions of the occupation bureaucracy, brought death and fires to the occupied territories, only a small part of them were punished for their deeds,” D. Achholz stated. “Tens of thousands of them “dissolved” and could, some time later, after the war, lead a “normal” life in West Germany or somewhere else, for the most part avoiding persecution or at least censure.”

As an example, the researcher cited the fate of the leading SS scientist and expert Himmler, who developed the most important versions of the Ost master plan. He stood out among those dozens, even hundreds of scientists - Earth explorers of various specializations, territorial and population planners, racial ideologues and eugenicists, ethnologists and anthropologists, biologists and physicians, economists and historians - who supplied data to the killers of entire nations for their bloody work. “Just this “general plan Ost” dated May 28, 1942 was one of the high-class products of such killers at desks,” the speaker notes. It really was, as the Czech historian Miroslav Karni wrote, a plan "in which scholarship, advanced technical methods were invested scientific work, the ingenuity and vanity of the leading scientists of Nazi Germany", a plan "that turned the criminal phantasmagoria of Hitler and Himmler into a fully developed system, thought out to the smallest detail, calculated to the last mark."

The author responsible for this plan, professor in tenure and head of the Institute of Agronomy and Agrarian Policy at the University of Berlin, Konrad Meyer, called Meyer-Hetling, was an exemplary specimen of such a scientist. Himmler made him the head of the "main headquarters service for planning and land holdings" in his "Imperial Commissariat for Strengthening the Spirit of the German Nation" and first as a Standarten, and later as Oberfuehrer of the SS (corresponding to the rank of colonel). In addition, as the leading land planner in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, recognized by the Reichsführer for Agriculture and the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions, in 1942 Meyer was promoted to the position of chief planner for the development of all areas subject to Germany.

Meyer, from the beginning of the war, knew in full detail about all the planned abominations; moreover, he himself composed decisive conclusions and plans for this. In the annexed Polish regions, as he officially announced already in 1940, it was assumed “that the entire Jewish population of this region numbering 560 thousand people had already been evacuated and, accordingly, would leave the region during this winter” (that is, they would be imprisoned in concentration camps, where subject to planned destruction).

In order to populate the annexed regions with at least 4.5 million Germans (until now 1.1 million people permanently lived there), it was necessary to “expel further 3.4 million Poles train by train.”

Meyer died peacefully in 1973 at the age of 72 as a retired West German professor. The scandal around this Nazi assassin began after the war with his participation in the Nuremberg trials of war criminals. He was indicted along with other SS officials in the case of the so-called General Directorate of Race and Resettlement, sentenced by a United States court to a minor sentence only for membership in the SS, and released in 1948. Although in the verdict the American judges agreed that he, as the highest SS officer and a person who worked closely with Himmler, should have “knew” about the criminal activities of the SS, they confirmed that “nothing aggravating” according to the “master plan Ost” to him it cannot be shown that he “did not know anything about evacuations and other radical measures”, and that this plan was “never put into practice” anyway. “The representative of the prosecution really could not then present indisputable evidence, since the sources, especially the “master plan” from 1942, had not yet been discovered,” D. Achholz notes bitterly.

And the court already then made decisions in the spirit of the Cold War, which meant the release of “honest” Nazi criminals and likely future allies, and did not at all think about bringing Polish and Soviet experts as witnesses.”

As for the extent to which the master plan "Ost" was implemented or not, the example of Belarus clearly shows. emergency state commission on solving the crimes of the invaders determined that only the direct losses of this republic during the war years amounted to 75 billion rubles. in 1941 prices. The most painful and difficult loss for Belarus was the destruction of over 2.2 million people. Hundreds of villages and villages were empty, the number of urban population sharply decreased. By the time of liberation, less than 40% of the inhabitants remained in Minsk, only 35% of the urban population in the Mogilev region, 29% in the Polesie region, 27% in the Vitebsk region, and 18% in the Gomel region. The invaders burned and destroyed 209 out of 270 cities and district centers, 9,200 villages and hamlets. 100,465 enterprises were destroyed, more than 6,000 km of railways, 10,000 collective farms, 92 state farms and MTS were plundered, 420,996 houses of collective farmers and almost all power plants were destroyed. 90% of machine and technical equipment, about 96% of energy capacities, about 18.5 thousand cars, more than 9 thousand tractors and tractors, thousands of cubic meters of wood, lumber were exported to Germany, hundreds of hectares of forests, gardens, etc. were cut down. By the summer of 1944, only 39% of the pre-war number of horses, 31% of cattle, 11% of pigs, 22% of sheep and goats remained in Belarus. The enemy destroyed thousands of institutions of education, health care, science and culture, including 8825 schools, the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, 219 libraries, 5425 museums, theaters and clubs, 2187 hospitals and outpatient clinics, 2651 children's institutions.

Thus, the cannibalistic plan for the extermination of millions of people, the destruction of all the material and spiritual potential of the conquered Slavic states, which in fact was the general plan "Ost", was carried out by the Nazis consistently and stubbornly. And the more majestic, grandiose is the immortal feat of the fighters and commanders of the Red Army, partisans and underground fighters, who did not spare their lives for the sake of delivering Europe and the world from the brown plague.

Especially for "Century"

The article was published as part of a socially significant project implemented with state support allocated as a grant in accordance with the order of the President Russian Federation No. 11-rp dated 01/17/2014 and on the basis of a competition held by the All-Russian public organization Society "Knowledge" of Russia.

Maxim Khrustalev

General plan "Ost"

“We have to kill 3 to 4 million Russians a year…”

From the directive of A. Hitler to A. Rosenberg on the introduction of the General Plan "Ost" (July 23, 1942):

“The Slavs must work for us, and if we no longer need them, let them die. and health care for them are unnecessary. Slavic fertility is undesirable... education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up to a hundred... Every educated person is our future enemy. All sentimental objections should be discarded. We need to rule these people with iron determination ... Speaking in military terms, we must kill three to four million Russians a year.

Many have probably heard about the “Ost Master Plan”, according to which Nazi Germany was going to "develop" the lands conquered by her in the East. However, this document was classified by the top leadership, many of its components and applications were destroyed at the end of the war. And only now, in December 2009, this ominous document is finally published. Only a six-page excerpt from this plan appeared at the Nuremberg trials. It is known in the historical and scientific community as "Remarks and proposals of the Eastern Ministry on the" General Plan "Ost"".

As was established at the Nuremberg trials, these "remarks and suggestions" were drawn up on April 27, 1942 by E. Wetzel, an employee of the Ministry of Eastern Territories, after reviewing the draft plan prepared by the RSHA. As a matter of fact, it was on this document until very recently that all research on the Nazi plans for the enslavement of the "eastern territories" was based.

On the other hand, some revisionists could argue that this document was just a draft drawn up by a minor official of one of the ministries, and had nothing to do with real politics. However, at the end of the 80s, the final and approved by Hitler text of the Ost plan was found in the federal archives, some documents from there were presented at the exhibition in 1991. However, it was only in November-December 2009 that the "Ost Master Plan - the Basis for the Legal, Economic and Territorial Structure of the East" was fully digitized and published. This is reported by the website of the Historical Memory Foundation.

As a matter of fact, the plan of the German government to "liberate living space" for the Germans and other "Germanic peoples", which provided for the "Germanization" of Eastern Europe and mass ethnic cleansing of the local population, did not arise spontaneously, and not from scratch. The first developments in this direction The German scientific community began to lead even under Kaiser Wilhelm II, when no one had heard of National Socialism, and he himself was just a thin country boy. As a group of German historians (Isabelle Heinemann, Willy Oberkromé, Sabine Schleiermacher, Patrick Wagner) elaborate in their study Science, Planning, Exile: The National Socialists’ “Ost” Masterplan:

“Since 1900, racial anthropology and eugenics, or racial hygiene, can be spoken of as a certain direction in the development of science at the national and international levels. Under National Socialism, these reached the position of leading disciplines, supplying the regime with methods and principles to justify racial politics. There was no exact and unified definition of "race". Conducted racial studies raised the question of the relationship between "race" and "living space".

At the same time, “the political culture of Germany, already in the Kaiser’s empire, was open to thinking in nationalist concepts. The rapid dynamics of modernization in the early twentieth century. greatly changed the way of life, everyday habits and values ​​and caused concern about the "degeneration" of the "German essence". The "salvation" from this irritating experience of a turning-point epoch lay, it seemed, in a renewed awareness of the "eternal" values ​​of the peasant "nationality." However, the way in which German society set out to return to these "eternal peasant values" was chosen in a very peculiar way - the seizure of land from other peoples, mainly to the East from Germany.

Fourth - Russia to the Urals.

Turkestan was to become the fifth governorate.

However, this plan seemed to Hitler "half-hearted", and he demanded more radical solutions. In the context of German military successes, he was replaced by the "General Plan" Ost ", which generally suited Hitler. According to this plan, the Nazis wanted to resettle 10 million Germans to the "eastern lands", and from there to evict 30 million people to Siberia, and not only Russians. Many of those who glorify Hitler's accomplices as freedom fighters, in the event of Hitler's victory, would also be subject to deportation. Beyond the Urals, it was supposed to evict 85% of Lithuanians, 75% of Belarusians, 65% of Western Ukrainians, 75% of the inhabitants of the rest of Ukraine, and 50% of Latvians and Estonians each.

By the way, oh Crimean Tatars ah, about which our liberal intelligentsia so loved to lament, and whose leaders continue to pump rights to this day. In the event of a victory, which most of their ancestors so faithfully served, they would still have to be deported from the Crimea. Crimea was to become a "purely Aryan" territory called Gotengau. The Fuhrer wanted to resettle his beloved Tyroleans there.

The plans of Hitler and his associates, as is well known, thanks to the courage and colossal sacrifices of the Soviet people, failed. However, it is worth reading the following paragraphs of the above-mentioned "remarks" to the "Ost" plan - and to see that some of his "creative heritage" continues to be realized, moreover, without any participation of the Nazis.

“In order to avoid an increase in population in the eastern regions, which is undesirable for us ... we must consciously pursue a policy of reducing the population. By means of propaganda, especially through the press, radio, cinema, leaflets, short pamphlets, reports, etc., we must constantly instill in the population the idea that it is harmful to have many children. It is necessary to show how much money it costs, and what could be purchased with these funds. It is necessary to talk about the great danger to the health of a woman, which she is exposed to when giving birth to children, etc. Along with this, the widest propaganda of contraceptives should be launched. It is necessary to establish a wide production of these funds. The distribution of these drugs and abortion should not be restricted in any way. It is necessary to promote in every possible way the expansion of the network of abortion clinics... The better abortions are performed, the more confidence the population will have in them. Understandably, doctors also need to have permission to perform abortions. And this should not be considered a violation of medical ethics ... "

It is very reminiscent of what began to happen in our country with the beginning of "market reforms".

Source - "Counselor" - a guide to good books.

General plan "Ost"(German Generalplan Ost) - a secret plan of the German government of the Third Reich to carry out ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe and its German colonization after the victory over the USSR.

A version of the plan was developed in 1941 by the Main Directorate of Imperial Security and presented on May 28, 1942 by an employee of the Office of the Headquarters of the Imperial Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People, SS Oberführer Meyer-Hetling under the name "General Plan Ost - the basis of the legal, economic and territorial structure of the East." The text of this document was found in the German Federal Archives in the late 1980s, some documents from there were presented at an exhibition in 1991, but it was completely digitized and published only in November-December 2009.

At the Nuremberg trials, the only evidence for the existence of the plan was the “Remarks and proposals of the “Eastern Ministry” on the general plan“ Ost ”, according to prosecutors, written on April 27, 1942 by an employee of the Ministry of Eastern Territories E. Wetzel after reading the draft plan prepared by the RSHA.

Rosenberg project

The master plan was preceded by a project developed by the Reichsministry of the Occupied Territories, which was headed by Alfred Rosenberg. On May 9, 1941, Rosenberg submitted to the Fuhrer a draft policy directive on the territories to be occupied as a result of the aggression against the USSR.

Rosenberg proposed the creation of five governorships on the territory of the USSR. Hitler opposed the autonomy of Ukraine and replaced the term “governorship” with “Reich Commissariat” for it. As a result, Rosenberg's ideas took the following forms of embodiment.

• Ostland - was to include Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Ostland, where, according to Rosenberg, lived a population with Aryan blood, was subject to complete Germanization within two generations.
• Ukraine - would include the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, Crimea, a number of territories along the Don and Volga, as well as the lands of the abolished Soviet Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans. According to Rosenberg's idea, the governorate was to receive autonomy and become the backbone of the Third Reich in the East.
• Caucasus - would include the republics of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia and would separate Russia from the Black Sea.
• Muscovy - Russia to the Urals.
• Turkestan was to become the fifth governorate.

The success of the German campaign in the summer-autumn of 1941 led to a revision and toughening of the German plans for the eastern lands, and as a result, the Ost plan was born.

Description of the plan

According to some reports, the "Plan" Ost "" was divided into two - "Small Plan" (German. Kleine Planung) and "Big Plan" (German. Grosse Planung). The small plan was to be carried out during the war. The German government wanted to focus on the Grand Plan after the war. The plan provided for a different percentage of Germanization for various conquered Slavic and other peoples. "Non-Germanized" were to be deported to Western Siberia or subjected to physical destruction. The execution of the plan was to ensure that the conquered territories would acquire an irrevocably German character.

Wetzel's remarks and suggestions

Among historians, a document known as "Remarks and proposals of the Eastern Ministry on the general plan" Ost "" has been circulated. The text of this document has often been presented as Plan Ost itself, although it bears little resemblance to the text of the Plan published at the end of 2009.

Wetzel assumed the expulsion of tens of millions of Slavs beyond the Urals. The Poles, according to Wetzel, "were the most hostile to the Germans, the largest and therefore the most dangerous people."

"Generalplan Ost", as it should be understood, also meant the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (German. Endlösung der Judenfrage), according to which the Jews were subject to total destruction:

In the Baltics, the Latvians were considered more suitable for "Germanization", while the Lithuanians and Latgalians were not, as there were too many "Slavic admixtures" among them. According to Wetzel's proposals, the Russian people had to be subjected to measures such as assimilation ("Germanization") and reduction in numbers through a reduction in the birth rate - such actions are defined as genocide.

Developed variants of the "Ost" plan

The following documents were developed by the planning team Gr. lll B planned service of the Main Staff Directorate of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People Heinrich Himmler (Reichskommissar für die Festigung Deutschen Volkstums (RKFDV) and the Institute of Agrarian Policy of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin:

• Document 1: Fundamentals of Planning, created in February 1940 by the planning service of the RKFDV (volume: 21 pages). Contents: Description of the extent of the planned eastern colonization in West Prussia and Wartheland. The colonization area was to be 87,600 km², of which 59,000 km² was agricultural land. About 100,000 settlement farms of 29 hectares each were to be created on this territory. It was planned to resettle in this territory about 4.3 million Germans; of these, 3.15 million in rural areas and 1.15 million in cities. At the same time, 560,000 Jews (100% of the population of the region of this nationality) and 3.4 million Poles (44% of the population of the region of this nationality) were to be gradually eliminated. The costs of implementing these plans have not been estimated.

• Document 2: Materials for the report "Colonization", developed in December 1940 by the planning service of the RKFDV (volume 5 pages). Contents: Founding article to "Requirement of Territories for Forced Resettlement from the Old Reich" with a specific requirement for 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 new viable settlement farms of 25 hectares each, plus an additional 40% of the territory for forestry, for the needs of the army and reserve areas in Wartheland and Poland.

Documents created after the attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941

• Document 3 (disappeared, exact content unknown): "General Plan Ost", created in July 1941 by the planning service of the RKFDV. Contents: Description of the extent of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR, with the boundaries of specific areas of colonization.

• Document 4 (disappeared, exact contents unknown): " Overall plan Ost", created in December 1941 by the planning group Gr. lll B RSHA. Contents: Description of the scale of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR and the Governor-General with the specific boundaries of individual areas of settlement.

• Document 5: "General Plan Ost", created in May 1942 by the Institute for Agriculture and Politics of the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin (volume 68 pages).

Contents: Description of the scale of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR with the specific boundaries of individual areas of settlement. The area of ​​colonization was to cover 364,231 km², including 36 strongholds and three administrative districts in the region of Leningrad, the Kherson-Crimean region and in the region of Bialystok. At the same time, settlement farms with an area of ​​40-100 hectares, as well as large agricultural enterprises with an area of ​​at least 250 hectares, were supposed to appear. The required number of migrants was estimated at 5.65 million. The areas planned for settlement were to be cleared of approximately 25 million people. The cost of implementing the plan was estimated at 66.6 billion Reichsmarks.

• Document 6: "Master Plan of Colonization" (German. Generalsiedlungsplan), created in September 1942 by the planning service of the RKF (volume: 200 pages, including 25 maps and tables).

Content: Description of the scale of the planned colonization of all areas provided for this with specific boundaries of individual areas of settlement. The region was to cover an area of ​​330,000 km² with 360,100 farms. The required number of migrants was estimated at 12.21 million people (of which 2.859 million were peasants and those employed in forestry). The area planned for settlement was to be cleared of approximately 30.8 million people. The cost of implementing the plan was estimated at 144 billion Reichsmarks.

General plan of the East.
(Generalplan East)
Part 1

Foreword which may not be read.
Of course, to be precise, the German phrase "Generalplan Ost" should be translated as "General Plan East". Well, or "General plan" East ". But the phrase" General plan "Ost" has become commonly used in historical circulation.
So that the reader does not hurt the eyes of an unusual name, we will use what everyone is used to. Those. "Plan Ost".

There is no consensus among historians regarding this German plan.
Historians of an anti-Nazi orientation in their works refer to this plan as the most convincing evidence that Hitler's leadership It was intended to carry out in the occupied territory of our country an unprecedented genocide in terms of its scale against the Slavic nations, Jews, and at the same time part of the non-Slavic nationalities. And in the territories liberated in this way, resettle the German colonists.
However, these historians usually operate in their statements not with the Ost plan itself, but with some letters, notes, reflections on this plan that came from the highest Nazi officials (H. Himmler, M. Bormann), and although Himmler in his remarks directly refers to the plan Ost, nevertheless, this is no longer the text of the plan itself.

Yes, these remarks appeared at the Nuremberg trials as proof that the Nazis intended to destroy a significant part of the non-Germans, but it would still be preferable to publish the text of the Ost plan itself.

However, for a long time the text of this plan itself was not in historical documentary circulation.

It is believed that the Allies could not find the Ost plan during the preparation and during the Nuremberg trials.

And this greatly undermined the positions of anti-Nazi historians and gave the doubters grounds to put the question like this - "Couldn't find it or didn't want to find it?".
Maybe in the plan itself everything is much different and there are no atrocious intentions there. Like, yes, Germany wanted to conquer Russia and wanted to colonize these lands. And perhaps this would only benefit the peoples who inhabited the "eastern territories". So to speak, "liberate the peoples from the totalitarian brutal Stalinist regime" and give them the opportunity to live happily and satisfyingly under the shadow of the German eagle.
And, they say, Himmler, a well-known extremist, a super-radical, turned everything upside down in his notes. So, they say, after all, this is just a personal opinion of one of the leaders of Germany, with which others, including Hitler, might not agree.

But the question arises - if this is so, then why did not the defendants' lawyers then try to find this very plan, which would largely whitewash the head of the Nazi regime? Also "could not find or did not want to find?".

Anti-Soviet historians have a much richer arsenal of statements regarding the Ost plan.

The shortest argument is "Such a plan never existed, and Himmler's notes are fake." Well, God knows what we can agree on. Anything can be refuted with this argument. Even the Bible. Or Koran.
I ask those who think so, do not read below. It is simply pointless to argue with people who hold such an opinion, since everything will be reduced to bickering like "you shaved me, and I cut your hair." And not a step further.

A more common argument - Yes, there was such a plan, but it cannot be considered a document of state planning. Like, there is no signature (visa, resolution) of Hitler on it, no state seal and no documents developed and brought to the attention of the executors as part of the implementation of the plan, or at least there are no plans for specific events. These are simply their own reflections and proposals of individual Nazis, standing on the lower rungs of the party hierarchy.

Well, what is the answer to this.
First, the time when this plan appeared. Summer 1942. The Wehrmacht has just recovered from the cuffs received from the Red Army near Moscow, Leningrad, Rostov. The summer offensive has not yet begun. Those. there is still no complete and final victory over the USSR. And without it, specific planning for the development of "eastern lands" is simply impossible. Neither in terms of localities, nor in terms of timing, nor in terms of finances. Only advance forward planning is possible.

Secondly, Hitler did not personally sign anything at all. For example, under the plan "Barbarossa" his signature is not. Under the directive "On special jurisdiction in the Barbarossa region" too.
In Germany, the highest officials of the state rarely bothered to pick up a pen and affix a visa. As a rule, under the documents is "On behalf of ................ Reinecke".

On the other hand, a certain professor, Dr. K. Mayer, who had the rank of SS Oberführer, drew up a plan. It is hard to believe that this paper is simply the fruit of personal reflections and initiatives far from the highest rank in the hierarchy of the then Germany. SS-Oberführer is a rank above a colonel, but below a major general. However, this is a highly qualified specialist (professor, doctor). All this gives reason to believe that Meyer drew up a plan on behalf of his superiors. Himmler in particular. Or, in any case, proposals that have found full support and approval. Hence the interest of the Reichsführer SS in the plan and such extensive notes on it.

So by the summer of 1942 it was possible to draw up only a framework, so to speak, draft plan. Well, or a long-term plan. A kind of tentative outline of what and how will be done in the East after the victorious end of the war.

So let each reader decide for himself to what extent the East plan is a working plan, and to what extent it is a declaration of intent. The intentions of this plan are ominous.

And let the reader take into account the following lines from Hitler's book "My Struggle":

	“We National Socialists are picking up where we left off six centuries ago. We are stopping the eternal German expansion into the south and west of Europe and turning our gaze to the countries in the east. Finally, we are breaking with the colonial and commercial politics of the pre-war era and moving on to the land politics of the future. If we think about the lands, then today in Europe again we must bear in mind first of all only Russia and the border states subject to it."
	"Wir Nationalsozialisten setzen dort an, wo man vor sechs Jahrhunderten endete. Wir stoppen den ewigen Germanenzug nach dem Suden und Westen Europas und weisen den Blick nach dem Land im Osten. Wir schlie?en endlich ab mit der Colonial- und Handelspolitik der Vorkriegszeit und gehen ueber zur Bodenpolitik der Zukunft Wenn wir aber heute in Europa von neuem Grund und Boden reden, konnen wir in erster Line nur an Russland und die ihm Untertanen Randstaaten denken."

This, perhaps, can be called a declaration of intent. And the Ost plan is already concrete planning. After all, it indicates the terms of colonization, the required costs, the number of participants subject to colonization of the area.

From the author. And what is curious is that anti-Soviet historians are shaking with might and main with the notorious Soviet military plan of attacking Germany "Thunder", as the most convincing and indisputable proof of Stalin's aggressive intentions, his plans to attack dear good Germany, and then take over the whole old Europe. But these few pages, sketched out by the Deputy Chief of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff, Major General Vasilevsky on the very eve of the war (May 15, 1941), were not even read by any of the Soviet top military leaders.

The Thunder plan does not in any way draw on equality with the Ost plan, but go ahead, they consider it an argument.

Whatever it was, but the Bundesarchiv published the text of the Ost plan and everyone can read it - http://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2566853 .

I should not post the text of the plan in German here in this article. Who needs it, let him go through the link and download it. This is done very simply.

I do not dare to post here the translation of the plan into Russian. I am not the best translator, and I just do not want everything in the criticism of this article to be reduced to petty nit-picking about the interpretation of a particular phrase. However, if one of the readers really needs this translation of mine, but he has no other options for translating, please contact me. I'll help.

So, let's get acquainted with the Ost plan and see what it really was. It is difficult to read this plan, since the Germans scanned the third or fourth typewritten copy. Translating into Russian is even more difficult, since some terms and phrases are used that either do not have analogues in Russian, or they are simply incomprehensible to us. How many translators, so many translation options, although the deep essence of this plan is unchanged.

And before proceeding to the consideration and analysis of the plan, which was published in June 1942, we note that in its text there are references indicating that before the development of this version there were at least three documents concerning the development of "eastern regions". This is

"Submission dated 8/30/1940",
"General plan Ost from 15.07.1941" and
"General Order of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Nation No. 7/11 dated 11/6/40".

So the 1942 Ost Plan was not the only document considering aspects of Hitler's Eastern policy. And it wasn't the first plan. Most likely, the plan for 42 years was created on the basis of previous outlines and the plan for 41 years. This should be kept in mind.

End of preface.

So, Plan Ost 1942.

In total it has 100 pages and one map (unfortunately it is not attached to the plan). Organizationally, the plan is divided into three parts.

Part A. Requirements for the future organization of settlement.
Part B. Overview of expenses for the development of the annexed eastern regions and their structure.
Part C. Demarcation settlements in the occupied eastern regions and common features development.

Compiled by SS-Oberführer Prof. Dr. Konrad Mayer and submitted in June 1942.

Part A.

In general, in the initial section "A", which sets out general principles land development in the East, nothing of the sort brutal is imperceptible. The principles of the development of new lands are simply stated. In rural areas, it is proposed to give German peasants with land in the "eastern regions" in the form of a fief. Those. the German peasant seems to own the land, but on certain conditions. First, he is given land for 7 years (temporary flax), then, subject to successful management, flax becomes hereditary, and finally, after 20 years, this land becomes his property. At the same time, the peasant pays certain amounts to the state for the received flax. Something like a state loan in the form of a land plot, for which he gradually pays off

Even somewhat similar to the development in the USSR in the sixties and seventies of its Far East. The willing citizens were allocated land, a house, livestock, inventory. ( V.Yu.G. The similarity of names is funny - there is the East and here the East).

Only a few phrases in this section are alarming:

The first is that the development and settlement of new lands in the East should initially be led by the Reichsfuehrer SS G. Himmler, who at the same time acts as the "Reichskommissar for the strengthening of the German people" (Reichkommissar fuer die festigung deutsche Volkstume).
But it's still, let's say, "not a crime." You never know who the government can entrust a purely economic task.

But here is a phrase from the very beginning of the text: "German weapons finally won for the country the eastern regions, eternally disputed for centuries."

I don’t know how anyone, but I understand this phrase like this - there can be no talk of any statehood within Poland and the USSR. In any case, in the territories of the USSR west of Moscow. A kind of wild territory that the German people must master for their needs.

I’ll make a reservation right away that the Ost plan of 1942 practically does not affect the territories belonging to the RSFSR, with the exception of the North-West of the RSFSR (Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod and Kalinin regions). All attention is focused on the eastern regions of Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Retreat
When Germany occupied France, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, these countries retained their statehood. They received the status of occupied states. All state structures were preserved there, from municipalities to governments and presidents. Of course, loyal to Germany. The former administrative division of the countries was preserved, as were all other public authorities, including the court, the prosecutor's office and the police. Those. Germany did not encroach on their national territory (with the exception of certain regions).
But Czechoslovakia and Poland have lost the right to be states. Poland was turned into a so-called. "General-Governorship" (General-Gouvernement), Czechoslovakia was torn into two parts. One part became the state of Slovakia, the second became the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" (Protektorat Boehmen und Maehren).

Somewhat looking ahead (III. Creation administrative division. Page 17) I note that the Ost plan did not intend to preserve Russian statehood in any form and in any variant. There is not a single word about it at all.
All, I emphasize, all Western territories former USSR, including the Baltic states and the territories of Poland that went to the USSR after September 1939, were either to be turned into regions of the Greater German state (the so-called "Gau"), or to be split into separate regions headed by the German civil administration. Like all of Poland.

From the author. That's it! All the leaflets, proclamations, newspapers that were published in abundance during the war years by Vlasov and KONR (Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia), and which wrote that the Vlasov army and Germany are allies who are fighting together for the liberation of Russia from the Bolsheviks - it's just arrogant and shameless lies. The Germans did not intend to create any Russian allied state of Germany either during the war or after it. This clearly and unequivocally sets out the plan of Ost.
Vlasov's subtle hints that, let the Germans help us liberate Russia from the Bolsheviks, and only there we ......, can only convince fools and deeply naive people.
It was not for this that Hitler destroyed the precious lives of German soldiers in battles, so that later on a silver platter to present to the Russians "a free democratic state without Bolsheviks and Jews." No, Hitler fought for "living space for the German people."

End of retreat.

And here is the phrase:

Pay attention to what I have underlined in the above quotation. It turns out that only exclusively Germans can own land in the occupied eastern lands.

And one more sentence:

And this phrase can be interpreted in any way. And even in a positive way for the Nazis. Well, it seems like a requirement to develop new lands at the expense of local resources.
But after all, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians live on these lands. The Balts, finally. They feed from this land. And there is no excess of it in the same Ukraine, in the Baltic states. This is not for you Far East, where even at the beginning of the 21st century, hundreds of square kilometers of fertile land are empty.

And now it turns out that only the Germans have the right to own land in these areas. And how and what will those who lived here for centuries feed on? In the first sections of Plan Ost, these questions are not covered in any way. As if these are completely free territories. But with a "mass of value" that came from nowhere.

All of the above applies to rural areas and agricultural land.

In the same section "A" we are talking about cities in the "eastern regions". In the very first sentence of subsection "II. Urban settlement" we come across the term "Germanization" (Eindeutschung), which is not yet very clear and which can be interpreted very broadly. From understanding as a complete replacement of the local population of cities by Germans, to a synonym for "inculcating German culture."
As well as the phrase "Aufbau der Staedte des Ostens" can be translated as "building cities in the East", "restoration ...", "device ...", structuring ...", "perestroika .... Well, and more with five options. So far, it is only clear that the population of Soviet cities is waiting for the most serious changes.

From the author. Those who wish to interpret the text of the plan in favor of the Nazis have every opportunity to do so. Especially if we proceed from the legal principle "presumption of innocence". That is, if guilt is not proven, then the accused is innocent.
And yet it is clear that before you settle some, you need to do something with others. Move out, relocate, condense. Finally destroy. Or maybe vice versa. Let's say, build new exemplary neighborhoods nearby, showing how cozy, comfortable, clean, and cultured a city can be. Yes, and give money to local residents in construction.
And what actually happened in the occupied territories of our country can be attributed simply to the inevitable cruelties of war.

However, here is the clarification of the German policy of settling cities. It is unequivocally stated: "Persons of alien nationalities in cities cannot be landowners." (II. Urban Settlement, Special Definitions, point 2 on page 14).

From the author. It would be interesting to know the reaction to this point of the Ost plan of those Latvians who today applaud the former Latvian SS men. After all, they fought to ensure that the Ost plan was carried out. Including in the Baltics. Looking ahead, I will say that the Nazis intended to Germanize part of the Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians (that is, deprive them of their nationality and turn them into Germans), and evict part of them.

Don't believe me, gentlemen? Did I translate incorrectly? Well, here's the paragraph in German:

But after all, all real estate (industrial and public buildings, residential buildings, etc.) in cities belongs to someone. Some people live and work there. But what about the "sacred right of private property" so zealously proclaimed and actually observed at all times in European countries, including Germany?

It seems that the Germans were not going to apply this principle to the "eastern territories" in relation to the local population.

Note that when the Germans settled in Soviet cities, it was supposed to give them real estate for free. At whose expense? Throwing out into the street those who lived and worked there before the arrival of the Wehrmacht? Or will the German state still pay the former owners of real estate, and then distribute it to its citizens for free? We will return to this issue later.

In general, this subsection (Urban settlement) does not stand out with anything interesting. Basically, the methods of attracting Germans to populate cities in the East are outlined. Mainly by creating favorable conditions for German voluntary immigrants, both in terms of providing housing and household plots, and creating conditions for handicraft activities, work at enterprises. Due to what and whom it is not deciphered.

More interesting in part A is the subsection "III. Settlement and management".

I have already mentioned above that the Ost plan did not envisage preserving Russian statehood in any form and in any variant. All the western territories of the former USSR, including the Baltic states and the territories of Poland that were ceded to the USSR after September 1939, must either be turned into regions of the Greater German state (the so-called "Gau"), or be divided into separate regions headed by the German civil administration. This is clearly stated at the very beginning of this subsection.

One can draw the first conclusion from the plan Ost -

It is not supposed to preserve any independent state or states in the "eastern regions".

Simply put, there will be no independent Ukraine with a sovereign hetman, no Lithuania with a Sejm, no Latvia with a president, no Estonia, no Belarusian state, much less small Russian states such as the Pskov Republic, the Novgorod Principality, the Tula Governor General, the Tambov Protectorate ,.....
And there will be German hows. Or just small areas under the supervision of German administrators.

The German administration of the eastern regions of the Ost plan sets the main tasks of "Germanization and security."

From the author. It is curious that some concern is immediately expressed in the Ost plan.
According to the plan, the general administrative management of the "eastern regions" will be entrusted to the Reichsstathalters (governors, chief presidents, heads of civil administration), for whom the main thing is to ensure peace and order in the controlled territories.
At the same time, the so-called "Reichskommissars for the strengthening of the German people" will operate in these same territories, whose main task is to "Germanize" these territories. Those. creation of the most favorable conditions for the Germans moving to the "eastern regions" in order to develop them. This "may objectively require certain sacrifices." And interaction between both types of administration is required.
It is easy to guess what the author of the plan means. It is unlikely that the local population will meekly cede to the settlers the land, houses, enterprises that they will receive through the Reichskommissars. There may be riots.

I have already said above that the Ost plan did not envisage the preservation, or, if you like, the restoration of the statehood not only of Russians, but also of Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars. And also the Balts. Don't believe?

Well, here's a quote from page 18:

The underscores are not mine. So in the original text. What follows from this passage? And above all, the fact that the Germans settled in Gotengau, Ingermanland and Memel-Narev are already considered the local population, and the Russians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Tatars and Ukrainians surrounding them are considered as a completely alien environment. And here there are few conventional means of state influence. The plan requires the active participation of all Germans settled in these territories.
We also note that the phrase "to ensure its biological composition for a long time" indicates that the Germans should not mix with the nations inhabiting these areas.

Reference.

Gotengau. The Germans included the entire Crimea and the southern regions of Ukraine, including Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions, to this region. The Gotengau area is shown on the map on the right.

Ingria. The Germans attributed the entire north-west of Russia to this region. From Leningrad to the south, almost to Moscow itself. The region of Ingria is shown on the map on the left.
Memel-Narew Region. An area that includes almost all of Lithuania, Latvia and part of Estonia, part of Belarus and even a piece of Poland. This area is shown on the map on the right.

Here, on pages 18-19, it is emphasized that the main tasks of managing these areas are the Germanization of territories, the resettlement of Germans on it and the provision of border security. All other administrative tasks are secondary.

This is the main idea of ​​the Ost plan. In the future, it is planned to develop German settlements into entire Germanized regions.

In the same subsection III, it is proposed that the functions of the "Reichskommissar for the strengthening of the German people" be assigned to the Reichsfuehrer SS (G. Himmler) during the settlement and Germanization of the eastern regions. These areas are withdrawn from the former administrative-territorial composition and are completely subject to the jurisdiction of the Reichsführer SS, including the issuance of special laws for the Germanized areas, the judicial and executive power in them.

From the author. It is well known in what ways and methods the SS solved the tasks assigned to them. And it is no coincidence that the SS, as an organization by the Nuremberg Tribunal, was recognized as criminal, and membership in it itself was a criminal offense. But maybe many years of massive anti-German propaganda dominates me?
May be. Although, there are too many bloody traces left from the activities of the SS in the form of a huge number of documents, indisputable facts and objective material evidence.
Again, perhaps the SS did mischief in other areas, but here it simply performed administrative and economic functions without any atrocity?
May be. And therefore, we read the plan Ost further.

And only after the tasks of Germanization and settlement by Germans in one or another "eastern region" are fully completed, is it possible to join the German state and the effect of all-German laws on this territory.

Why, during the development of the territory, some special rules and norms established by the Reichsführer SS, and not German laws, should act on it, remains unanswered.

In the office of the Reichsfuhrer SS, a Reichskommissariat should be created, which will deal with all issues of development of the "eastern regions".

The Commissariat was to consist of the following departments
1.) Settlement and planning policies.
2.) Selection of settlers and use of settlers.
3.) Carrying out the settlement.
4.) Administration and financing.

Each settlement administrative-territorial formation is led by a Markhauptmann, who reports directly to the Reichsführer SS.

From the author. In German texts concerning the Ost general plan, the term "Marka" is used as a generic name for large territories that will be Germanized, which has many translations into Russian - from "postage stamp" to "Ostmark" (Austria). In most translations, this term is either not translated at all, but simply written in Russian as "mark", or the completely ridiculous name "margraviate" is used.

Based on the many studied German texts, the author believes that the German word "Mark" in this context should be understood as some kind of administrative-territorial formation of a fairly large size. Approximately, like our autonomous republic, region. But the Germans use the word Mark to designate such administrative-territorial formations that they cannot yet or do not consider it necessary to name definitely.

For example, Austria, which before joining Germany was called in German "Oesterreich", after the Anschluss became known as Ostmark. Not "Gau", as the regions have always been part of Germany, namely "Mark".

Therefore, when I encounter the word Mark in the text, I translate, in my opinion, more correctly - "administrative-territorial formation", although longer.

Markhauptmann carries out its activities through the Office, which is headed by Amtsmann.

The administrative-territorial formation is subdivided into districts (kreis). The Kreis is ruled by the Kreisshauptmann, who is subordinate to the Markhauptmann.

Further in the text of the plan, it is briefly described what each department of the commissariat and departments of administrative-territorial formations and territories should be engaged in. These are all purely organizational and managerial activities that are not of significant interest.

Only the paragraph describing the tasks of the Administration and Finance Departments is curious. Let's quote:

The emphasis in bold is by the author. It follows that the peoples who for centuries inhabited the "eastern regions" of the Ost plan are considered only as a foreign labor force. If we take into account the previously cited lines from the Ost plan that only Germans have the exclusive right to own land, then the fate of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Balts, Crimean Tatars is drawn. t.

A second conclusion can be drawn from the Ost plan -

The peoples living in the "eastern regions" are assigned the role of farm laborers on lands that henceforth belong exclusively to persons of German nationality.

For the administration of justice in the settlement administrative-territorial formations (that is, regions) krais (that is, districts), courts are created. The President of the Court, respectively, Markhauptmann, Kreisshauptmann or Amtsmann. Members of the court from among the German settlers living in the area. There is no question that at least one of the members of the court should be a lawyer. Whom such courts have the right to judge, either exclusively settlers, or everyone who is on the territory, is not mentioned.
But the phrase "The courts make decisions based on the basic laws of the SS and the law in force for administrative-territorial formations" is alarming.
Unfortunately, the author does not have documents setting out the "basic laws of the SS" at the disposal of the author. Therefore, we confine ourselves to this short remark. Let the reader decide for himself what this means, based on his knowledge and beliefs.

These provisions end with Part A.

Part B

Part B begins with a statement of the requirement of the Reichsführer SS to determine how much the program for the development of the "eastern regions" can do without financial and other material support from the state, since other tasks facing Germany are very large and require huge expenses.

Referring to the tabular data and calculations given below in the plan, the author of the plan believes that the economic condition of the annexed eastern regions will not allow these areas to be populated by the German population and developed without the help of the state. It is impossible to rely fully or mainly on local economic resources.

From the author. Naturally. Do not forget that Germany from the second half of XIX century has become one of the most developed economically, technically, scientifically and culturally in Europe. Soviet Union lagged far behind in all respects. But this was not the fault of the Bolsheviks. Russia until 1914 was predominantly an agrarian country with a very poorly developed (in comparison with Germany) industry, a very low level of education of the population. Let's add here 10 years of continuous wars that have swept through the most populated regions of the country, social upheavals, alteration of borders, destruction of a single economic and financial space.
Therefore, the economic and industrial power of Germany by 1941 far exceeded the USSR. A lot was done in our country from 1924 to 1941 in industry, in education, in the economy, and in science. But in 17 years it is simply unrealistic and impossible to make up for the almost century-long lag. And I don't think you win civil war Democrats, not Bolsheviks, Russia would have come to 1941 in a better condition.
And there is no doubt that Hitler would have attacked Russia under any Russian political system. His main idea was to seize "living space for the Germans" and specifically in Russia. And the Bolshevik government has nothing to do with it. He writes about this clearly and unambiguously in his book Mein Kampf.

In this part of the plan, a very remarkable phrase is found (p. 32), which can be interpreted in different ways. Here is this phrase in both Russian and German (so that I can avoid accusations of mistranslation):

From the author. Something like Lomonosov's phrase "The power of Russia will grow with Siberia." But what fate does this plan prepare for the Russians, Ukrainians, and Balts? So far, the Ost plan has passed over this question in silence, except for slipping phrases such as the one that says directly that only the Germans can own land in the East.
However, it is possible that in this regard we will not find anything about the fate of local peoples. Personally, I have enough information that the development of the eastern regions was entrusted to the Reichsführer SS. And I believe that Himmler's instructions on how to deal with the indigenous population can be set out in completely different documents.
But after all, this article is intended to highlight the content of the Ost plan, and not to convince readers of the brutal intentions of the Nazis. Let the reader draw his own conclusions. Of course, I am not a dispassionate and detached researcher. But the reader can simply not read my comments.

Table I.1 (page 34 of the plan) given in this part of the Ost plan shows that the infrastructure (speaking modern language) "eastern regions" was supposed to spend a lot of money. So huge that not only national, but also regional, municipal and private funds must be attracted for this.
It makes no sense to give here the figures of monetary costs, since they do not tell the modern reader anything. Today, the scale of prices and incomes is completely different. Let us only note that large expenditures were envisaged for the creation of a road network, the development of railways, water supply and sewerage, electrification, the creation of a network of cultural institutions, the development of cities and industry.

It turns out that for a certain number of years, the so-called. the "eastern regions" were to be radically transformed and developed.
But so far the question remains open - for whom all these benefits will be created at the expense of the German state. Exclusively for the Germans or for everyone who lived before the war and will live (and will it?) Ingermanland, Gotengau and the Memel-Narev region.

True, there is a curious phrase:

From the author. Those. in the "eastern regions" a new Germany should be created, where everything, starting with environment, including roads, agriculture, public utilities, industry should be on the German model and create complete comfort for the Germans who moved here.

And what does the Ost plan say about those who lived in these parts before the beginning of Germanization? But nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a word about their fate. There is no talk of national relations, of interaction. What will be their status, what they will be entitled to, what duties they will have to Germany. As if it is a completely empty, neglected and unexploited land. And that doesn't happen. There is an assumption that by the time the colonization of the "eastern regions" begins, no one from the former population will really live there.

The interesting term "Altreich" is also beginning to appear, that is, the "Old State", or, if you like, the "Old Reich".

According to the Ost plan, a road network and a railway network should be created in the developed areas, not inferior in density to the road network of East Prussia (obviously, in this region of Germany, the road network was exemplary).

The same with shipping.

But in the paragraph where it is said about the creation of waterways (navigation) in the "eastern regions", it refers exclusively to the rivers Vistula, Warta, the canals of the Oder-Warta, Brache-Nitz. And nothing about the Dnieper and other rivers on the territory of the USSR. Consequently, parts of the territory of Poland are also subject to Germanization.

Quote from page 35:

	The settlement of areas previously given to Poland means an almost complete re-creation, settlement and settlement of areas belonging to the German state before 1918 and a deep reconstruction, which concerns at least half of the territory. The purpose of the settlement was set by the General Order of the Reichskommissar for the strengthening of the German nationality No. 7/11 of 11/6/40. "
The same quote in German:
	"Die Besiedlung der frueher kongresspolnischen Gebiete bedeutet einen fast vollstandigen Neuaufbau, die Besiedlung und Bereinigung der bis 1918 zum deutschen Reich gehorigen Gebiete einen tiefgehenden Umbau, der zumindest die Halfte des Bestehenine beruhrt. 11 vom 26.11.40 des Reichskommissars fur Festigung deutschen Volkstume gegeben".

From the author. Thus, Poland, as a state, albeit a puppet like Slovakia, is not envisaged by the Ost plan at all. Territories that before the First World War belonged to Germany and Austria, and as a result of it were given to the revived Poland, this plan is subject to a deep reconstruction with the complete reconstruction of the German infrastructure and settlement by the Germans.
There is no place for Poles in Poland! But hatred of Russia clouded the Polish mind so much that they agreed to disappear from the face of the Earth, but not to have a Polish state loyal to Russia. Apparently their national pride is offended by the fact that the Poles as a nation now exist only thanks to the Soviet Union, and the state of Poland exists only thanks to the Russian Bolsheviks. Lenin and Stalin in particular.
Do you think that the Germans resigned themselves to the loss of lands east of the Oder and Neisse? Here is part of the map from the modern German edition. Gray shading on the map shows the "German territories" that today are "under Polish control" and "under Russian control". You can be sure, Poles and Germans will show you their bill, as they already did once (in 1939).
Do you think that the French and the British will defend your independence and integrity? In 1939 they simply betrayed you.

The Ost plan assumes full electrification of the developed eastern regions. For this, power plants of all types will be built, from wind turbines to hydroelectric power plants. The coverage of territories with electricity supply should reach the level of the Brandenburg-Pomeranian region.

Rural development involves:
a) creation and equipment of agricultural production,
b) creation of enterprises and institutions of consumer services for the population,
c) creation of production for the processing of agricultural products,
d) establishment of rural cultural institutions,
e) ensuring that other rural housing needs are met.

But all this is exclusively for the Germans, who must build a young Germany here.

With a very careful and detailed description of the development of agriculture and the creation of infrastructure for it, the development of industry in the eastern regions is given only one paragraph, which briefly states that this will require an additional 650 thousand workers, while the creation of one job will cost 6- 10 thousand marks.

It can be assumed that the Germans did not plan to seriously develop industry in the East. Even for your own benefit. Actually, this is understandable - agrarian areas are always in strong and direct dependence on industrialized areas. Obviously, the new Germany in the East was to become an agrarian appendage to the old Germany.

According to the plan, the cities in the east are supposed to be used only as centers of education (institutes, technical schools), cultural institutions (theaters, concert halls, large hospitals), consumer services (again, the rural population), but not as centers of large-scale industry.
Moreover, educational establishments and institutions are invited to build and organize by the German settlers themselves as needed. The old state will allocate funds only for the most necessary facilities.
It is easy to guess that educational institutions (exclusively for Germans) in the eastern regions will train mainly agricultural specialists (agronomists, veterinarians).

Finally, the planners catch on (p. 40). The transformations of the eastern regions are so grandiose that the Bolsheviks with their five-year plans are far behind them. In twenty years it is supposed to do what the Soviet leaders, having mobilized the entire Soviet people for socialist transformations, hoped to do in half a century, or even in a whole century.
Where to get so many workers to create a new Germany? In addition, the east will require huge capacities for the production of building materials (brick, concrete, asphalt, roofing materials, etc.). And it will require urgent development of the railway network, both normal gauge and narrow gauge, in order to be able to transport building materials from factories to construction sites.
And all the people involved in construction must somehow be organized, trained, fed, supplied, and provided with lodging for the night.

In a word, in order for the German peasants to move to the eastern regions and begin to engage in agricultural production, it is first necessary to create an infrastructure for them, in modern terms.

From the author. Let me remind you that the industry of building materials in the USSR at that time was not yet sufficiently developed. For example, the entire Soviet Union produced cement by 1941 only 14% of the German production. So the authors of the Ost plan did not have to rely on captured Soviet cement plants.

But so far the plan does not provide answers to these questions. It only indicates issues that need to be addressed.

1. Financing within the framework of the regular state budget.
2. Financing through emergency budget amounts.
3. Use of indemnities or reparations from defeated countries.

From the author. And what a convenient source of funding. Hitler acted quite wisely, preserving the statehood of European countries. Like, you, gentlemen, solve your problems of life inside the country yourself, live as best you can. And collect money for us yourself, take funds from your own citizens, your own entrepreneurs. And we will only suck the juices out of you and keep an eye on you.

However, if you look a little lower in the comments on sources of funding, it turns out that the Ost plan (p. 47 "Zu 3.") is primarily intended to use not money, inventory or materials from the defeated countries of Europe, but human labor. And specifically - prisoners of war, civilian prisoners and even persons arrested by the police in an administrative manner. I do not think that such labor can be called anything other than slave labor.
Another option is envisaged (in the same paragraph) for using cheap labor from European countries in the East - "Universal labor service in exchange for the abolition of martial law."

From the author. That is, we will somewhat loosen the noose of the occupation regime on your neck, and you, European citizens (each of you), please be kind enough to work in the "eastern regions" for some time for nothing in the interests of great Germany. If we proceed from the Hitlerite system of labor service, which existed in Germany itself for the Germans, then this is about 6-12 months.

A third conclusion can be drawn from the Ost plan -

For the Germanization of the "eastern regions" it was supposed to use the forced labor of prisoners of war, civilian prisoners and other citizens from the occupied countries of Europe.

From the author. But what about the observance of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of 1929? Germany ratified this convention already under Hitler. The Nazi leadership did not make any statements that they would not apply it to prisoners from European countries. Under this convention, prisoners must be released and returned home as soon as possible after the end of the war with a particular country.
It turns out that Germany interpreted this convention as it wanted and did not care too much about its observance even in relation to "civilized countries".

4. Financing at the expense of income or the values ​​themselves of the occupied eastern regions.

This method of financing stands out in particular. Therefore, I will quote the source again as on German, and translated into Russian:

In other words, all material and financial values ​​in the territory of the eastern regions, which the Germans wish to take for themselves, become the property of the German state and are used as one of the sources of financing for the program for the development of the East.

What does Plan Ost mean by "special property" in the eastern regions?
a) All land and forest that can be profitably exploited.
b) All other real estate.
c) Proceeds from the sale of real estate.
d) Other property, especially industrial plants.
(V.Yu.G. Literal translation! Point c) on page 48).
e) Proper income from real estate (renting, letting, profits).
f) Deposits and depreciation of settlers.
g) Businesses and estates outside of populated areas that are needed for development.
(V.Yu.G. That is, from those areas that were "unfortunate" to become areas of Germanization, robbed
the property that will be required for inhabited areas).
h) Income from the use of the labor force of foreign peoples and other available labor
(V.Yu.G. Simply put, forced laborers will not be paid, and this money goes to the income of Germany and
used as a source of further funding).

Points c, e, f concern German settlers, to whom the state does not give possession of real estate and movables for free, but sells, leases, gives as fief possession, and for which the settlers must gradually pay the government. And the government uses the budget revenues from these operations for the further development of the eastern regions.

But paragraphs a, b, d, g, h are just an open appropriation by Germany of someone else's property and funds. In the language of the criminal code, "robbery, i.e. open theft of someone else's property."

A fourth conclusion can be drawn from the Ost plan -

All material and financial values ​​in the "Eastern regions" that Germany desires become the property of the German state and are used in the interests of the German settlers.

From the author. This is the huge difference between the occupation of Western countries, and the occupation of the USSR and Poland. In the West, Germany preserves the statehood of these countries and does not encroach on their state and private property entirely, limiting itself to reparations. In the East, statehood is completely eliminated, all, well, or almost all property passes into the hands of the Germans and is used purely in their interests. A robbery that history has not known since the Middle Ages. And robbery at the state level. No wonder G. Goering once said: "I intend to rob, and rob effectively." But these were just words, albeit one of the top leaders of the country. This is documented here as well. The Nazis brought down german state to the level of a criminal.

5. Financing by attracting private financial capital under the guarantees of the special property of the "eastern regions".

From the author. Simply put, the state takes loans from private German banks secured by property stolen in the East. Thus, the Nazis also wanted to make the German bankers accomplices in the eastern robbery.

6. Financing of some particularly attractive objects, especially in the field of cultural construction, by some organizations and institutions of the old state.

This probably means that, for example, the creation of sports grounds, stadiums, etc. can take over the society "Strength through joy", and the financing of concert halls, theaters, respectively, artistic associations and societies.

7. Lending to the created "eastern regions" by the state or German Gau (regions).

Again, on the security of "acquired property and valuables" in the eastern regions.

The table of distribution of funding published in the plan is replete with figures that are hardly worth citing here. Let us only note that, in general, 45.7 billion marks are supposed to be spent on the development of the "eastern space".
Of these, for the development of forestry and in general for the cultivation of the area, 3.3 billion.
On the roads railways, electrification, creation of water and sewer networks 7.8 billion.
13.5 billion marks for the development of agriculture.

But for the entire industry, only 5.2 billion marks. Moreover, here we have in mind, first of all, enterprises for the processing of agricultural products, factories for the production of building materials, enterprises for the extraction of minerals. The development of heavy industry, science-intensive industries is not envisaged at all. This once again confirms that the development of the "eastern space" set the main goal of becoming an agrarian appendage of old Germany.

From the author. You can't deny Hitler's foresight here. New Germany, being completely and completely dependent industrially on Old Germany, will never, under any circumstances, strive to become independent state. Hitler did not want to repeat the mistakes made in his time by Great Britain. I mean the separation from the British Empire of its overseas colony, which we now know as the United States. English settlers at the end of the 18th century, having become economically and industrially independent of the mother country, decided that they could live independently and not be subject to the English crown.

15.4 billion magrok is provided for the development of the urban economy. This is more than agriculture. However, the role of cities in the "eastern regions" is reduced only to the role of administrative centers and consumer service centers, again for the rural population. It's just that the cost of events is higher, and profits from cities are not expected.

These are all general tabular figures. Much more curious comments to the table. That is, an explanation of what and how will be done for each item. And here it turns out that the creators of the plan understand the term "financing" somewhat differently than ordinary economists.

For example, under the "Forestry" section, financing refers to the free labor of prisoners of war and cheap foreign labor, which we wrote about above. Those. not billions of marks will be spent on afforestation, logging and timber processing, but simply slave labor is measured in billions of marks.

But for work on the cultivation of the area (liquidation of ravines, drainage, drainage of swamps, construction of ponds, dams, watering of arid places, etc.), not only the use of prisoners of war and foreign labor (within the framework of indemnities and labor conscription), but also involvement in these activities and German settlers. First of all, in the form of horse-drawn duty (provide horses and carts for transporting materials), and, if necessary, personal labor participation.

From the author. I ask again - what about the observance of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of 1929? It demands that after the end of the war, the prisoners should be immediately returned home. But the Ost plan is designed for 20-30 years. The conclusion suggests itself that here, too, Germany did not intend to adhere to the convention regarding prisoners of war from European countries.

The fact that prisoners of war are supposed to be used for a long time is indicated by the point of financing cultural construction (theaters, concert halls, sports facilities, etc.). The commentary on the plan indicates that cultural construction expenditures are not a priority, but they will take a long time. At the same time, it was again said that the labor of prisoners of war would be used here.

All road construction is financed by using the free labor of prisoners of war, and, if necessary, the labor of low-paid foreign workers.

The construction of highways of national importance (known as autobahns, which the Germans are proud of today) and in the eastern regions had to be entirely financed from the state budget. Apparently, the German road construction firms with the German labor force should have been engaged in the construction itself.

With regard to the industry of the eastern regions, the plan proposes that the industrial firms of old Germany, proceeding from their own interests and with their own money, set up subsidiaries, which can become independent only in the distant future.

It is easy to guess that the industrial giants of old Germany needed only raw materials and products of primary processing (iron and steel, coke, round wood, cement, non-ferrous metal castings, vegetable fiber, etc.). The manufacture of final products (machines, devices, inventory, fabrics, clothing, furniture, etc.) they will surely leave behind, since only the final product of production brings the greatest profit. Once again it is confirmed that the eastern regions, even when inhabited by Germans, will remain an agrarian appendage of the old Reich and a supplier of fuel and raw materials. Of course, in terms of everyday life and conveniences for the life of the Germans, the standard of living in the west and in the east should not differ.

The fact that Germany, in the development of the "eastern regions", will primarily rely on forced labor of foreign labor is more and more clearly manifested as the Ost plan is read.

Here is page 61, paragraph 2

As I said above, the program of "development of the eastern regions" should be completed in 25-30 years. It is curious that the drafters of the plan use the Soviet method of long-term planning. Drawing up a calendar schedule for the creation of "special regions" on the territory of our country, they also plan activities for five-year plans. Those. every five years, certain tasks in each area must be completed in stages (cultivation of the area, road construction, creation of a transport system and an electricity supply system, agricultural development, urban and industrial development, cultural construction, etc.).

And if we abstract from the one for whom all this is intended, it turns out that in 30 years the territory of the western regions of the USSR in terms of living standards will almost in no way be inferior to the old Germany. It would seem that these areas are destined for unprecedented development and prosperity, if not for some alarming moments, which I have already written about above. The destinies of those peoples who have lived on these lands for centuries are completely ignored. As if these areas are generally deserted and deserted. And it is only briefly mentioned (but clearly, unambiguously and specifically) that all land and real estate in the "eastern regions" can only belong to the Germans. And also the fact that in the development of areas the labor of prisoners of war (Kriegsgefanden) and cheap foreign labor (billige fremdvoelkische Arbeitkraefte) will be widely used.

In general, the implementation of the program for the development of the eastern territories will require:
* in the first and second five-year plans 450 thousand workers,
*in the third five-year plan 300 thousand workers,
* in the fourth five-year plan 150 thousand workers,
* In the fifth five-year plan, 90,000 workers.

If we turn to the Ost plan regarding the sources of labor, it turns out that German workers will be used only for the construction of a network of state highways (autobahns), and German settlers to a small extent for the work of cultivating the area (reclamation, draining swamps, watering arid lands and etc.). Consequently, most of these tens of thousands of workers are prisoners of war and cheap foreign labor (like the labor service of the population of the occupied European countries). I already wrote about this above.
Thus, the welfare of the new German lands will be created by someone else's hands.

This concludes the first part of the article. In the second part of the article, we will consider whose hands the "eastern space" will be transformed according to the plan of the creators of the Ost plan and what fates they prepared for those who lived for centuries east of the Vistula, in the Baltic, on the Dnieper, in the Crimea.

Sources and literature.

1. Generalpan Ost. Juni 1942. Kopie aus dem Bundesarchiv. Berlin Licherfelde. 2009
2. Site rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2566853.
3. Wikipedia site (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezirk_Bialystok).
4. Small atlas of the world. Federal Service of Geodesy and Cartography of Russia. Moscow. 2002
5.G.Beddeker. Woe to the vanquished. Refugees of the III Reich 1944-1945. Eksmo. Moscow. 2006
6. "Military History Journal" No. 1-1965, pp. 82-83.
7. B. Lee Davis. Uniform of the Third Reich. AST. Moscow. 2000
8.A.Hitler. My struggle. T-OKO. Moscow. 1992