Translation of Document No-1880, Prosecution Exhibit 1314.
[This memorandum is undated, but the time of Himmler's handing it to Hitler and others is noted in the next document reproduced herein.]
[Handwritten] Dr. Gross of the Racial Policy Office has been informed 28 November 1940. Wolff.
For the files
[stamp] Top Secret.
Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East:
Concerning the treatment of peoples of alien races in the East we have to see to it that we acknowledge and cultivate as many individual ethnic groups as possible, that is, outside of the Poles and the Jews, also the Ukrainians, the White Russians, the Gorals [Goralen], the Lemcos [Lemken] and the Cashubos [Kaschuben]. If other small and isolated national groups can be found in other places, they should be treated the same way.
What I want to say is that we are not only most interested in not unifying the population of the East, but, on the contrary, in splitting them up into as many parts and fragments as possible.
But even within the ethnic groups themselves we have one interest in leading these to unity and greatness, or perhaps arouse in them gradually a national consciousness and national culture, but we want to dissolve them into innumerable small fragments and particles.
We naturally want to use the members of all these ethnic groups, especially of the small ones, in positions of police officials and mayors. Only the mayors and local police authorities will be allowed to head those ethnic groups. As far as the Gorals are concerned the individual chieftains and elders of the tribes, who live in continuous feud with each other anyhow, should fill these positions. There must be no centralization toward the top, because only by dissolving this whole conglomeration of peoples of the Government General, amounting to 15 million, and of the 8 million of the eastern provinces, will it be possible for us to carry out the racial sifting which must be the basis for our considerations: namely selecting out of this conglomeration the racially valuable and bringing them to Germany and assimilating them there.
Within a very few years--I should think about 4 to 5 years the name of the Cashubes, for instance, must be unknown, because at that time there won't be a Cashubian people any more (this also goes especially for the West Prussians). I hope that the concepts of Jews will be completely extinguished through the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony. Within a somewhat longer period, it should also be possible to make the ethnic concepts of Ukrainians, Gorals and Lemcos disappear in our area. What has been said for those fragments of peoples is also meant on a correspondingly larger scale for the Poles.
A basic issue in the solution of all these problems is the question of schooling and thus the question of sifting and selecting the young. For the non-German population of the East there must be no higher school than the four-grade elementary school. The sole goal of this school is to be--
Simply arithmetic up to 500 at the most; writing of one's name; the doctrine that it is a divine law to obey the Germans and to be honest, industrious, and good. I don't think that reading is necessary.
Apart from this school there are to be no schools at all in the East. Parents, who from the beginning want to give their children better schooling in the elementary school as well as later on in a higher school, must take an application to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. The first consideration in dealing with this application will be whether the child is racially perfect and conforming to our conditions. If we acknowledge such a child to be as of our blood, the parents will be notified that the child will be sent to a school in Germany and that it will permanently remain in Germany.
Cruel and tragic as every individual case may be, this method is still the mildest and best one if, out of inner conviction, one rejects as un-German and impossible the Bolshevist method of physical extermination of a people.
The parents of such children of good blood will be given the choice to either give away their child; they will then probably produce no more children so that the danger of this subhuman people of the East [Untermenschenvolk des Ostens] obtaining class of leaders which, since it would be equal to us, would also be dangerous for us, will disappear--or else the parents pledge themselves to go to Germany and to become loyal citizens there. The love toward their child, whose future and education depends on the loyalty of the parents, will be a strong weapon in dealing with them.
Apart from examining the applications made by parents for better schooling of their children, there will be an annual sifting of all children of the Government General between the ages of 6 to 10 years in order to separate the racially valuable and non-valuable ones. The ones considered racially valuable will be treated in the same way as the children who are admitted on the basis of the approved application of their parents.
I consider it as a matter of course from an emotional as well as from a rational viewpoint that the moment children and parents come to Germany they are not treated like lepers in the schools and in everyday life, but, after having changed their names, they should, in full confidence, be incorporated into the German life, although attention and vigilance must be exercised with regard to them. It must not happen that the children be made to feel as outcasts, because, after all, we believe in this, our own blood, which, through the errors of German history has flowed into an alien nationality and we are convinced that our ideology and our ideals will strike a chord of resonance in the racially equal soul of these children. Here teachers and Hitler Youth leaders especially must do an out-and-out job, and the mistake that has been made in the past with the people from Alsace Lorraine must never be repeated; namely, that on one side one wants to win the people as Germans, and on the other side one constantly hurts and repudiates their human value, their pride and honor through distrust and insults. Insults like "Polack" and "Ukrainian" or something like that must be made impossible.
The children will have to be educated in an elementary school and after those four grades it can be decided whether the children should continue to go to the German grammar school or should be transferred to a national political institution of education.
The population of the Government General during the next 10 years, by necessity and after a consistent carrying out of these measures, will be composed of the remaining inferior population supplemented by the population of the eastern provinces deported there, and of all those parts of the German Reich which have the same racial and human qualities for instance, parts of the Sorbs [Sorben] and Wends [Wenden].
This population will, as a people of laborers without leaders, be at our disposal and will furnish Germany annually with migrant workers and with workers for special tasks (roads, quarries, buildings): they themselves will have more to eat and more to live on than under the Polish regime; and, though they have no culture of their own, they will, under the strict, consistent, and just leadership of the German people, be called upon to help work on its everlasting cultural tasks and its buildings and perhaps, as far as the amount of heavy work is concerned, will be the ones who make the realization of these tasks possible.
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File Note of Himmler, 28 May 1940, concerning the handling and distributing of his memorandum on the treatment of Alien Races in the East, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 13: United States of America v. Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al. (Case 11: 'Ministries Case'). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1952. pp. 150-151.
Translation of Document No-1881, Prosecution Exhibit 1313.
The Reich Leader SS,
Special Train,
28 May 1940,
Top Secret.
On Saturday, 25 May 1940, I handed my memorandum on the treatment of peoples of alien race in the East to the Fuehrer.[document No-1880, Prosecution Exhibit 1314, reproduced immediately above.] The Fuehrer read the six pages and considered them very good and correct. He directed, however, that only very few copies should be issued; that there should be no large edition, and that the report is to be treated with utmost secrecy. Minister Lammers was likewise present. The Fuehrer wanted me to ask Governor General Frank to come to Berlin in order to show him this report and to tell him that the Fuehrer considered it to be correct.
I suggested to the Fuehrer that Minister Lammers, who had received one copy from me, be ordered to present this report to the four Gauleiters of the eastern Gaue: Koch, Forster, Greiser, he Oberpraesident of Silesia, the Governor General Frank, as well as to Reich Minister Darre, and to inform them that the Fuehrer acknowledged and sanctioned this report as a directive.
Then a short file note should be made concerning the notification of the persons named as to the contents of the report. The Fuehrer agreed and gave the order to Minister Lammers.
Reich Leader Bormann received another copy for notification of the deputy of the Fuehrer.
One copy was given to the chief of my office, SS Brigadier General Greifelt in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. I shall give him the order to inform in turn all Chiefs of the Main Offices as well as the first five concerned Higher SS and Police Leaders East, North East, Vistula, Warta, and South East and to have a report made on this subject in the same manner. The notification to the Chiefs of the Main Offices shall be effected by an SS Leader who will have to wait until the chief concerned of the Main Office has read the report and has acknowledged it by his signature. At the same time everyone has to confirm that he has been informed of the fact that this is to be considered as a directive, but that it shall never be laid down in an order of one of the Main Offices either in form of a mere excerpt or from memory.
Moreover SS Brigadier General Greifelt is authorized to bring the contents of the report to the attention of Mayor Winckler and his own main collaborators; the latter he shall suggest to me.
Furthermore, I will personally give one copy to the Chief of the Security Police with the order to notify his main coworkers in the above described manner and without making any copies.
He has to suggest to me the circle of coworkers who are to be informed of the report.
[Handwritten by Himmler] The same applies to the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office.
The Reich Leader SS.