Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

[Cmyers1980]

What would have been the fate of European Russia and Poland if the Nazis won WW2? Would Generalplan Ost been implemented to its horrifyingly genocidal end?

"The final version of Generalplan Ost, essentially a grand plan for ethnic cleansing, was divided into two parts; the "Small Plan" (Kleine Planung), which covered actions which were to be taken during the war, and the "Big Plan" (Grosse Planung), which covered actions to be undertaken after the war was won, and to be implemented gradually over a period of 25 to 30 years.[7][10]

Percentages of ethnic groups targeted for elimination by Nazi Germany from future settlement areas[11][12]
Ethnic group Percentage subject to removal
Poles 80–85%
Russians 50–60% to be physically eliminated and another 15% to be sent to Western Siberia.
Belarusians 75%
Ukrainians 65%
Lithuanians 85%
Latvians 50%
Estonians 50%[13]
Czechs 50%
Latgalians 100%

Generalplan Ost envisaged differing percentages of the various conquered nations undergoing Germanization (for example, 50% of Czechs, 35% of Ukrainians and 25% of Belarusians), extermination, expulsion and other fates, the net effect of which would be to ensure that the conquered territories would be Germanized. In ten years' time, the plan effectively called for the extermination, expulsion, Germanization or enslavement of most or all East and West Slavs living behind the front lines in Europe. The "Small Plan" was to be put into practice as the Germans conquered the areas to the east of their pre-war borders. In this way the plan for Poland was drawn up at the end of November 1939 and is probably responsible for much of the World War II expulsion of Poles by Germany (first to colonial district of the General Government and, from 1942 also to Polenlager).[14] After the war, under the "Big Plan", Generalplan Ost foresaw the removal of 45 million non-Germanizable people from Central and Eastern Europe, of whom 31 million were "racially undesirable", 100% of Jews, Poles (85%), Belorussians (75%) and Ukrainians (65%), to West Siberia,[5] and about 14 millions were to remain, but were to be treated as slaves.[7] In their place, up to 8-10 million Germans would be settled in an extended "living space" (Lebensraum). Because the number of Germans appeared to be insufficient to populate the vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, the peoples judged to lie racially between the Germans and the Russians (Mittelschicht), namely, Latvians and even Czechs, were also supposed to be resettled there.[15]"

I've done the math on the percentages and they come to over 100 million people "removed." Anyone not killed is used as chattel slaves. So the majority of Slavs would be exterminated. How exactly would they have done this? Well gassing 100 million people isn't feasible. You can't shoot 100 million either. Though the plan calls for deportation to Siberia the idea of deporting tens of millions of people is a fantasy.

Considering Hitler also planned for the deconstruction of all major Slavic cities in Poland and European Russia (Warsaw, Moscow, Leningrad etc) by their own inhabitants brick by brick, millions dying from malnutrition, exhaustion, disease, and systemic brutality in the process of doing so, the most accurate guess would be "extermination through labor."

Simply put forcing people to work almost the whole day on starvation diets until they die from disease, exhaustion, industrial hazards, etc.

The plan was for 14-15 million Slavs and Poles to be left behind as permanent slaves while the vast majority would be worked to death in factories, mines, rebuilding German cities, working on the Atlantic Wall, building fortification belts in West Europe etc.

So the Jewish Holocaust would have been an afterthought in their butcher's bill if they had won and gained control of the USSR west of the Urals. It's far easier to starve and work people to death in the millions than it is to shoot or gas them all.

Stalin showed this in the Ukrainian famine of 1933. Mao demonstrated this in the Great Leap Forward. The Nazis demonstrated this to a limited degree when it came to slave laborers and those who they purposely allowed to starve their occupation of the Soviet territories. It is far more efficient to do it through brutal working conditions and lack of medicine or food than death squads or gas chambers.

What do you guys think?

How big of a body count would there have been if the Nazis had the opportunity to remake and Germanize the East in their horrific image? Could they have pulled Generalplan Ost off and depopulated each respective nation of their designated percentage in a 25-30 year period?

Would they really have carried these horrific plans out or would they abandon them half way through? Exactly how dark can a Nazi controlled Eastern Europe get?

[sarahgoodson]

Poles are Slavs.

Why would the Nazis not have implemented the Generalplan Ost?

We can see by the expulsion of Poles in the annexed territories and the way Slavs were treated during the war that the Nazis were as serious about the Generalplan Ost as they were with the Final Solution.

[michael mills]

The Generalplan-Ost is known from preserved German documents, none of which propose any physical extermination of any population group.

The plan proposed the "germanisation" of a number of specified areas in Eastern Europe, mostly in former Soviet territory, by assimilating a minority of the existing population and evacuating the majority to other parts of former Soviet territory, primarily West Siberia, and settling ethnic Germans in their place.

The areas specified for germanisation included the whole of Poland, Bohemia-Moravia, the region around Leningrad (Ingermanland), Lithuania and West Belarus, and certain parts of Ukraine (the Zhitomir and Berdichev regions, the Dnieper Bend, and Crimea). Thus, the greater part of European Russia was not scheduled for germanisation, and the existing population would remain there and be joined by those removed from the areas to be germanised.

The first draft of the Generalplan-Ost was prepared by the RSHA toward the end of 1941. It is not preserved, but its contents are known from a detailed critique written in April 1942 by Erhard Wetzel, a senior official of Rosenberg's Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Ostministerium).

The RSHA draft calculated that the non-germanisable population to be removed from the areas scheduled for germanisation would total 31 million, and the process of removal would take 25 years, ie an average of 1.24 million persons would have to be moved each year.

Wetzel criticised that estimate on the basis that it had failed to take account of population growth in the areas scheduled for germanisation over the 25-year period, and calculated that the number to be removed would total 45 million, making the whole task so much more difficult. In other words, the process of removal would have to be spread over a longer time period, or a greater number would have to be moved each year, which would be logistically very difficult.

The fact that Wetzel presumed an increase in the non-germanisable population to be removed over the 25-year time period of the removal process demonstrates conclusively that the germanisation plan did not include any element of physical extermination of the native population. Since Wetzel was a senior official of the German agency responsible for administering the conquered Soviet territories, he obviously knew what he was talking about.

Wetzel's critique also makes it clear that the RSHA draft of 1941 also included the Jewish population of the areas proposed for germanisation, some four million persons, in the total of 31 million to be moved out of those areas and resettled elsewhere. That shows that as of the end of 1941, the RSHA was still thinking in terms of expelling Jews rather than of killing them en masse.

As to the question of whether the Generalplan-Ost could ever have been implemented in its entirely as envisaged by Himmler, the answer must be in the negative, if only because there was insufficient ethnic German population to settle the identified regions in any effective way.

On one occasion, Himmler asked his experts whether there would be sufficient surplus German population to colonise the regions he had identified for germanisation. His experts answered that there would be, provided that post-war economic growth in Germany did not absorb all the surplus population, and indeed draw in non-Germans from outside the country. Since it was obvious that a German victory in the war would indeed result in that massive economic growth, the experts' answer was a roundabout way of telling Himmler that there would not be an surplus German population available to settle in the East.

And of course, what the planning experts predicted did happen in reality; the territorially reduced post-war Germany was able to absorb all the 10 million or so German expelled from Eastern Europe, and indeed had to bring in millions of "guest workers" to relieve the labour shortage.

It might have been possible to successfully implement a small part of the germanisation plan, namely the thorough germanisation of the western Polish provinces annexed by Germany (Danzig-Westpreussen, Wartheland, Ostoberschlesien) by assimilating part of the Polish population, expelling the rest, and concentrating in that area all the ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe, eg the ethnic Germans of Bessarabia, Volhynia, Transylvania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. However, that would have reduced the ethnic German presence elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

In summary, there is nothing in the preserved documentation of the Generalplan-Ost that suggests an intention to physically exterminate any part of the native population of Eastern Europe. Even the Jews of Eastern Europe were not originally scheduled for extermination, as is shown by the RSHA draft of 1941, where they included in the plan for resettlement in Western Siberia; in their case, physical extermination was resorted as a result of the failure to achieve victory over the Soviet Union.

Accordingly, theoretical exercises in trying to estimate a putative death-roll resulting from a German victory are entirely futile, since they are based on false premisses.

[Paul Lantos]

Even the Jews of Eastern Europe were not originally scheduled for extermination, as is shown by the RSHA draft of 1941, where they included in the plan for resettlement in Western Siberia; in their case, physical extermination was resorted as a result of the failure to achieve victory over the Soviet Union.

Do you not see the Madagascar plan, the Nisko plan, and the nebulous Siberia plans as fundamentally exterminatory? If not through gas chambers then through attrition. The Nisko plan was the only one of these to be partly implemented, and tens of thousands of Jews died as a result.

[michael mills]

Do you not see the Madagascar plan, the Nisko plan, and the nebulous Siberia plans as fundamentally exterminatory?

Absolutely not. Why should they be seen as exterminatory?

If Jews could settle and survive in a backward, malaria-ridden place like Palestine, I see no reason why they could not settle and survive in a backward, malaria-ridden place like Madagascar.

In the late 19th century, millions of Russian peasants settled in Siberia, and they did not all die.

[michael mills]

The Nisko plan was the only one of these to be partly implemented, and tens of thousands of Jews died as a result.

Did they?

My understanding is that the Nisko Plan was called off after a few weeks, and the Jews who had been sent there from Vienna and Morava Ostrava were sent back to their places of origin.

[Gorque]

From my notes on Browning's The Origin of the Final Solution regarding the Nisko Plan.

On October 9th Eichmann assembled his Prague staff – Rolf Günther, Theo Dannecker, and Anton Brünner – at Mährisch Ostrau and outlined his plans for his assigned task. Two Jewish transports, one from Katowice and the other from their present location, were to be assembled and sent to a region southeast of Lublin in order to construct a number of barracks that would serve as a “transit camp for all subsequent transports. These transports were to consist solely of male Jews capable of physical labor, especially engineers, carpenters, artisans of various kinds, and at least ten doctors.” (p. 39) The stated second purpose of the initial resettlement transports was for constructing an image of Jewish cooperation and willingness; “That is necessary in the interest of preserving a certain ‘voluntary character’ and also to obtain an unobtrusive as possible departure of the transport.” (Dannecker Vermerk, October, 11, 1939, on conference of October 9, 1939) In this vein, the Jews were to be involved in the decision-making process.

By October 10th, the initial stage of the Nisko plan had doubled in size to two 1,000 man transports departing from Katowice and Mährisch Ostrau and the number of Jews to be resettled from 70,000 to 80,000 from Upper East Silesia to 300,000 from the Old Reich and Austria as well. The Gauleiter of Vienna, Josel Bürckel, on being informed of the Nisko plan by Hans Günther, Eichmann’s deputy stationed there, planned on two transports per week leaving Vienna.

Although plans were being put in place to deport a large number of Jews, their destination hadn’t been determined as of yet. On October 12th, Eichmann and the Sipo-SD inspector of the Protectorate, Oberführer Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker, flew to Poland and on the 15th announced that the area for the Jewish resettlement was to be on the western border of the Lublin district, Nisko on the San.

On October 18th, a transport of 901 Jews left Mährisch Ostrau followed by a transport leaving on the 20th of 912 Jews from Vienna and 875 Jews from Katowice. When the Jews arrived in Nisko they had to sign a document stating that they were voluntarily attending a ‘retraining camp’. The site of the first camp was located on the other side of the San River, near the village of Zarzecze. The best workers from the transports were selected from the groups and put to work at constructing barracks. Those not chosen were marched eastwards and told never to return.

On the same day that the second and third transports departed, a telegram arrived in Katowice from Heinrich Müller ordering “that the resettlement and deportation of Poles and Jews in the territory of the future Polish state requires central coordination. Therefore permission from the offices here must first on principle be in hand.” (R. Günther Vermerk, October 21, 1939)

Following the Müller telegram, Eichmann traveled to Berlin to lobby for the plan and on October 24th telephoned Rolf Günther to convey the results of his efforts: The transport of October 27th of 1,000 Jews from Katowice was allowed to proceed as planned as well as the transport of 672 Jews from Vienna on October 26th, but the transport from Mährisch Ostrau was to be reduced to 400. These were to be the last resettlement transports that reached Nisko in 1939. The camp remained in existence until April 1940 when it was dissolved by HSSPF Krüger. The 501 Jewish camp workers were then returned to Austria and the Protectorate.

The order to halt the deportations under the Nisko plan originated from Himmler as evidenced by his November 9th missive to the Viennese Gauleiter Bürkel. For Himmler the more urgent matter of the time was the resettlement of ethnic Germans, over whom he had recently been granted jurisdiction on October 7th, from the Soviet Union. The ethnic Germans from the Baltic States first began arriving on October 15th in Danzig. In order for Himmler to accomplish the task of finding suitable space in the Warthegau and West Prussia for the arriving Volksdeutsche through the deportation of Poles to the General Government, the simultaneous deportation of Jews to the Lublin area was required to cease until such time as space for the displaced Poles could be found.

[Paul Lantos]

Absolutely not. Why should they be seen as exterminatory?

Well, some highly esteemed academic historians of Nazi policy seem to think so, including Peter Longerich and Christopher Browning.

It was out of this conjuncture of factors that the Madagascar Plan was born, offering the prospect of a final solution to the Jewish question in Europe through the total removal of the continent's entire Jewish population. It was a heady and intoxicating vision to those who had experienced the bottlenecks of demographic engineering in eastern Europe over the past nine months and thus rekindled the flames of Nazi determination and fanaticism in this regard. However fantastical in retrospect, the Madagascar Plan was an important psychological step on the road to the Final Solution.

...

It is clear that had the Nazis carried out the plan as they intended, it would have been a murderous operation. Whatever the illusions of the naive and dilletantish Rademacher, the Nazi demographic engineers in east Europe had already deminstrated that "decimation" of the uprooted was not only no deterrence but even an added attraction to their population policies. This was not yet the Final Solution -- a compulsive and comprehensive program to murder every last Jew that the Nazis could lay their hands on -- but it was nonetheless genocidal in its implications.

On 3 July [1940] Rademacher presented a draft for the Madagascar project. ..."the part of the island that has no military importance would be placed under the administration of a German police governor who would report to the office of the Reichsfuhrer SS..." Another document by Rademacher, dated 2 July, contains further information about his intentions. "From a German perspective, the Madagascar solution means the creation of a huge ghetto. Only the security police have the necessary experience in this field; they have the means to prevent a break-out from the island. In addition, they have experience of carrying out in an appropriate manner such punishment measures as become necessary as a result of hostile actions against Germany by Jews in the USA."

Whilst Rademacher was obtaining expert opinion on the feasibility of his project, the Reich Security Head Office was putting together its own version of the Madagascar Plan. It contained the suggestion that a 'police state' be set up for the four million Jews who would be on the island at that point under German rule.

In a later note, dated 30 August, Rademacher explicitly supported a suggestion that had in the meantime been made by Victor Brack, who was based in the Chancellery and responsible for overseeing the 'euthanasia programme.' [suggestion regards transport systems for Jews to Madagascar] The mention of Brack and the fact that another key figure responsible for the 'euthanasia programme', Philipp Bouhler, was being considered for the role of Governor in Madagascar, taken together cast the Madagascar Project in a very dark light.

Rademacher's document shows that the estimate of the number of Jews that were to be settled on Madagascar had by then reached 6.5 million, wich suggests that the Jews from the south-east European states and the northern French colonies were now being included in the plans for deportation.

Fantastic though the Madagascar Plan now seems, it cannot simply be dismissed as merely distraction tactics for a Judenpolitik that had reached a dead-end. It is precisely the lack of feasibility in this plan that points out the cynical, calculating nature of German Judenpolitik: the idea that millions of European Jews would be deported to Madagascar for years and years, and the fact that -- without even considering the 'punishment measures' that Rademacher envisaged -- a large proportion of the transported Jews would presumably die there relatively quickly as victims of the hostile living conditions they would meet, all this makes it perfectly clear that behind this project lay the intention of bringing about the physical annihilation of the Jews under German rule... Inspired by the intention to annihilate the Jews under German rule, Hitler was to keep coming back to the Madagascar Project time and again until 1942, by which time the idea of 'anywhere' had been replaced by that of 'nowhere'.

If Jews could settle and survive in a backward, malaria-ridden place like Palestine, I see no reason why they could not settle and survive in a backward, malaria-ridden place like Madagascar.

The comparison is ridiculous if you know anything about the biology and epidemiology of malaria, or about tropical infectious diseases more broadly. Plasmodium vivax, which is nasty but rarely lethal, is the predominant malaria species in the Mediterranean basin; compared with Africa transmission levels are low and seasonal because of the aridity and the vectorial capacity of the mosquito populations. By contrast P. falciparum is malignant and kills 25% of untreated immunologically naive patients, and it is the predominant species of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. In much of Madagascar it is holoendemic -- that is widespread year-round intense transmission. But I digress...

Anyway, the Nazi demographers essentially divided the number of Jews to be deported over the land area of the proposed Madagascar ghetto and assumed that the Jews would have a population density low enough to just live off the land. In other words there was no plan to provide ANY sort of provisioning, not even local agriculture, and there was no realistic research into whether the available land in Madagascar could in fact support that number of deportees. So the intention was to dump the Jews into conditions where no provisions had actually been made for their survival.

[Paul Lantos]

Many of the deportees to Nisko were from within Poland. The numbers differ in different sources I've read. FWIW the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust estimates 95,000:

[Gorque]

Hi Paul:

I think were discussing two different occurrences that took place within the same area but at different times, with the Nisko Plan running from mid to the end of October while the event that you are describing originated with Himmler on October 30. 1939. Himmler, through the RKFDV, issued the following guidelines for expulsion activities to the General Government to be completed within four months; i.e. by the end of February 1940.

1. All Jews from the incorporated territories, estimated by Rudolf Creutz, RKDFV deputy, at 550,000.

2. All Congress Poles from Danzig-West Prussia (those Poles who had resettled in the province after 1919).

3. An unspecified number of Poles from the Warthegau, East Upper Silesia and Southeast Prussia deemed anti-German.

The population transfers were to be coordinated by the respective HSSPF’s of the incorporated territories and the HSSPF of the General Government, Wilhelm Krüger. Krüger was responsible for determining the destination of the expellees within his domain with the caveat that the expelled Jews were to be relocated in the area between the Bug and Vistula Rivers. The local Polish authorities were to be responsible for the care of the expellees. The total to be expelled and resettled within the General Government in four months’ time was estimated by the Sipo-SD inspector of the General Government, Bruno Streckenbach, at one million.

The leading Nazis were well aware of the effects of so large a population transfer in so short a time-frame in the middle of winter would have upon the expellees. Athur Seyß-Inquart, Frank’s deputy in the General Government stated in late November: “This territory [Lublin] with its extreme marshy nature can, in the view of the district governor Schmidt, serve as a Jewish reservation,” which “could induce a severe decimation of the Jews. (Seyß-Inquart report on trip to Poland, November 17-22, 1939)

The number of people to be expelled was reduced by Heydrich on November 28th through the Nahplan and Fernplan. The Nahplan concerned only the Warthegau, as this was the sole destination of the Baltic Germans and required “enough Poles and Jews are to be deported that the incoming Baltic Germans can be housed.” (Heydrich to HSSPF Krakau, Breslau, Posen, Danzig, November 28, 1939) As 40,000 Baltic Germans were expected, 80,000 Poles and Jews were to be deported in less than three weeks’ time, by December 16th.

Following considerable difficulties with transportation and the composition of the expellees, the 2.Nahplan was issued on December 21st. The 2.Nahplan plan ordered “the complete seizure of all Jews without regard to age or gender in the German Ostgauen and their deportation into the General Government.” (2.Nahplan, December 21, 1939) At the time of Himmler’s order of October 30, 1939, the status of whether or not the 2 largest concentrations of Jews – Lodz and Sosnowiec-Bedzin in East Upper Silesia – would be inside the incorporated territories or within the General Government hadn’t been decided. This was a significant difference in the number of people involved in deporting; 550,000 in the former versus 170,000 for the latter. This plan called for deportations to commence sometime after January 15, 1940 and was to result with the territories becoming “totally cleared of Jews” by the end of April 1940. The deportations were to start in the north and west with an expected daily deportation rate of 5,000.

[Paul Lantos]

Perhaps you're right, but the point anyway is that this is probably a reasonable model for exactly how nurtured the Jews would have been under SS guard in Madagascar or Siberia.

[Gorque]

Perhaps you're right, but the point anyway is that this is probably a reasonable model for exactly how nurtured the Jews would have been under SS guard in Madagascar or Siberia.

Hi Paul:

Considering the hatred most members of the NSDAP had for the Jews, to use a euphemism, it wasn't going to be paradise in any area sans housing and infrastructure and, especially under the administration of the RSHA.

[Paul Lantos]

And that's exactly why the Madagascar plan needs to be seen as exterminatory in the sense that massive death by attrition, neglect, and abuse was inseparable from the plan. Even if the Nazis didn't articulate it to themselves as an extermination plan it was only because they were so delusional and callous about it.

[michael mills]

With regard to the Madagascar Plan, it was predicated on a successful conclusion to the war with Britain. Thus, it would only have been initiated after an end to that war, with the transportation of Jews to Madagascar occurring under peacetime conditions.

Under the terms of final peace treaties with both France and Britain, France would be required to hand Madagascar over to Germany for Jewish settlement, while Britain would be required to provide the shipping. It was envisaged that both countries would be required to provide logistical support for the Jewish settlers, eg food and other necessities.

Furthermore, Jewish organisations in the United States had been for decades providing substantial aid to their impoverished brethren in Eastern Europe, and there is no reason why that sort of aid could not have continued to be provided to Jewish settlers in Madagascar.

With regard to malaria, I do not think it is the species of parasite that is decisive, but rather the efficacy of mosquito eradication measures. Malaria was in fact a big problem in Palestine, and rendered permanent settlement in much of the lowlands and coastal region impossible. A lot of Jewish settlers at Hadera, for example, were killed by malaria, until financial aid from Baron Edmond de Rothschild enabled drainage works to be carried out, which eliminated the mosquitoes and the malaria problem.

The highlands of Madagascar have a mild climate suitable for European settlement; in that area malaria exists in pockets of lower-lying land with poor drainage, and could no doubt be eliminated with an effective eradication program. In that respect, those regions are very similar to the highlands of Kenya, where European settlement was quite possible without mass mortality from disease.

Finally, the population of Madagascar has increased from an estimated four million in 1940 to 22 million now, showing that it is perfectly possible to live in that country, particularly in the highlands.

[Paul Lantos]

It was envisaged that both countries would be required to provide logistical support for the Jewish settlers, eg food and other necessities.

The documentation cited by Longerich and Browning suggests that the Jews were expected to live off the land.

Furthermore, Jewish organisations in the United States had been for decades providing substantial aid to their impoverished brethren in Eastern Europe

How much aid was reaching Jews in Eastern Europe in 1939 onward, the years we're talking about? And you think that aid could have indefinitely provisioned 6.5 million people?

With regard to malaria, I do not think it is the species of parasite that is decisive, but rather the efficacy of mosquito eradication measures.

Sorry, you're wrong. More than 90% of all global mortality from malaria is by P. falciparum in sub-Saharan Africa -- despite the fact that there are fewer people in Africa than in India alone -- and virtually all global mortality from malaria is by P. falciparum. There is the rare published case report of mortality from P. vivax or P. ovale. I don't mean to take us on a big digression here, but I'm an infectious disease physician, I spent the first several years of my career in malaria research, and I've both treated and studied malaria on 3 continents.

Malaria was in fact a big problem in Palestine, and rendered permanent settlement in much of the lowlands and coastal region impossible.

It was a problem in many places, but is NOTHING like sub-Saharan Africa where it has exerted such a profound mortality effect that in the last 10,000 years it's left multiple resistance mutations on the human genome. The sickle cell gene alone has independently arisen 5 times in the last 10,000 years in Africa thanks to the selective effect of malaria on African children.

Finally, the population of Madagascar has increased from an estimated four million in 1940 to 22 million now, showing that it is perfectly possible to live in that country, particularly in the highlands.

Are they living in a ghetto guarded by the SS?

No one said Madagascar is uninhabitable. But the Jews weren't just going to Madagascar -- they were going to SS internment in Madagascar with no plan for provisioning them.