michael mills wrote:Roberto wrote, in the dim distant past:
As an off-topic note, you get to meet lots of Ukrainians and Russians in Portugal these days, mostly working at construction, in supermarkets or at gas stations.
From what I've seen, they are bright and amenable chaps who don't look "diseased" at all.
They have a notable talent for learning languages and often speak a lot of Portuguese (which is not an easy language) after a few months down here. There was even a program on Portuguese TV about this phenomenon recently.
And the few women among them are usually quite pretty.
One wonders what those Ukrainians and Russians be doing today if the Soviet Union had not won its war against Germany, but had instead collapsed in 1941, leaving Germany a free hand to restructure the entire European East.
Would they perhaps be working as "Ostarbeiter" somewhere in a Europe presided over by the superpower Germany, as they actually did during the war? Perhaps in a Portugal ruled by the heirs of Salazar?
Would they be working in construction, at supermarkets or at service stations?
Would the pretty women among them be working in the profession for which they have recently become famous? Or would the laws against "Rassenschande" have prevented that?
In short, what is the difference between the lives actually led by the ordinary people of Russia and Ukraine in our present day, and what they would have been today if Germany had crushed the Soviet Union 60 years ago?
An important detail that Mills is forgetting is that a great many of them would not have become the Germanic masters' source of cheap labor and amusement, but been killed, left to starve or displaced to Asiatic Russia.
From the judgement of Hans Frank at the Nuremberg Trial
[…]As for the Poles and Ukrainians, Frank's attitude was clear. They were to be permitted to work for the German economy as long as the war emergency continued. Once the war was won, he told the District Standortfuehrung and Political Leaders at a conference at Cracow on 14 January '1944 :
"* * * then, for all I care, mincemeat [Hackfleisch] can be made of the Poles and the Ukrainians and all the others who run around here-it does not matter what happens." (2233-BB-PS)[…]
Source of quote:
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Frank.htm
From the report of the Wirtschaftsstab Ost, Gruppe Landwirtschaft of 23.05.1941
[…]Eine Zerstörung der russischen Verarbeitungsindustrie in der Waldzone ist auch für die fernere Friedenszukunft Deutschlands eine unbedingte Notwendigkeit. […] Aus all dem folgt, daß die deutsche Verwaltung in diesen Gebieten sehr wohl bestrebt sein kann, die Folgen der zweifellos eintretenden Hungersnot zu mildern und den Naturalisierungsprozeß zu beschleunigen. Man kann bestrebt sein, diese Gebiete intensiver zu bewirtschaften im Sinne einer Ausdehnung der Kartoffelanbaufläche und anderer für den Konsum wichtiger, hohe Erträge gebender Früchte. Die Hungersnot ist dadurch nicht zu bannen. Viele 10 Millionen von Menschen werden in diesem Gebiet überflüssig und werden sterben oder nach Sibirien auswandern müssen.[…]
Source of quote:
Ernst Klee / Willi Dreßen,
”Gott mit uns”. Der deutsche Vernichtungskrieg im Osten 1939-1945, Frankfurt am Main 1989, page 23. Reference: Nuremberg Document 126-EC, IMT, official German text, Volume XXXVI
My translation:
[…]A destruction of the Russian manufacturing industry in the forest zone is an indispensable necessity also for the far-off peacetime future of Germany.[my emphasis] […] From this there results that the German administration in these areas may well endeavor to milder the consequences of the famine that will doubtlessly occur. It can be undertaken to cultivate these areas more intensively in the sense of extending the land for cultivating potatoes and other high output fruits important for consume. It will not be possible, however, to stop the famine thereby. Many tens of millions of people will become superfluous in this area and will die or have to emigrate to Siberia.[my emphasis[…]
Christian Gerlach ([i]Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord[/i], pages 29 and following) wrote:
[…]Beide Konzepte, der Hungerplan und die “Territoriallösung Sowjetunion”, waren utopisch und praktisch nicht zu verwirklichen. Man konnte weder Millionen Menschen einfach zum Verhungern zwingen, Städte und ganze Gebiete absperren [footnote] zumal mit schwachen Sicherungstruppen, noch was die Durchführung einer Deportation so vieler Millionen jüdischer Menschen in dünnbesiedelte, weit entfernte und verkehrstechnisch schlecht erschlossene Gebiete angesichts der voraussehbaren Transportprobleme in der westlichen Sowjetunion technisch durchführbar. In jedem Fall waren beides Nachkriegspläne. Es waren gewissermaßen noch destruktive Visionen, die erst bei ihrem Scheitern zur Suche nach realisierbaren Vernichtungplänen führten.[…]
[Footnote: Gemeint ist hier der Normalfall im Besatzungsgebiet. Die Aushungerung von Leningrad 1941 bis 1943, der mindestens 600 000 Menschen zum Opfer fielen, was eine Ausnahme; die deutsche Belagerung band wesentliche Teile zweier deutscher Armeen]
My translation:
[…]Both concepts, the Hunger Plan and the “Territorial Solution Soviet Union” were utopian and could not be carried out in practice. It was not possible to simply force millions of people to starve to death, seal of cities and whole regions [footnote], especially with the weak security troops, nor was it technically possible to carry out the deportation of so many millions of Jewish people to the thinly populated, far away areas with few transportation facilities. Both were in any case plans for the postwar period.[my emphasis] They were in a certain sense mere destructive visions, which only after their failure led to the search for extermination plans that could be implemented.[…]
[Footnote: This refers to the normal case in the occupation area. The starvation of Leningrad, from 1941 to 1943, which claimed at least 600 000 victims, was an exception; the German siege tied down most of two German armies]
Alan Bullock ([i]Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives[/i] 1993 Fontana Press, London, pages 756-758) wrote:[…]Beyond satisfying the immediate needs of Germany during the war, there remained to be decided the long-term future of an area which, assuming the objectives of a line from Archangel to Astrakhan was achieved, contained over a hundred million people. Hitler had never thought of the invasion of Russia ending with a conventional peace treaty; it was to be a war of conquest, the purpose of which was not only to overthrow the Bolshevik regime but to prevent the emergence of a successor Russian state. But what was to replace it?
An unusual insight into Hitler’s mind I 1941-2 is provided by his Table Talk, records of the monologues to which his guests and entourage were subjected after meals at Hitler’s HQ, either the permanent installation in East Prussia which Hitler called ‘Wolfsschanze’ (Fort Wolf) , or his temporary HQ at Vinnitza in the Ukraine which he called ‘Werwolf’. Hitler would not allow a tape-recorder to be used, but he agreed to Bormann’s suggestion that a party official might be admitted to his meals who would sit in a corner and take notices unobtrusively. These were later corrected and approved by Bormann, as a record of the Führer’s genius.
The months from March to the end of October 1941 were a period in which Hitler felt more convinced than ever of his genius, the highpoint of the fantastic career in which he saw himself as the peer of Napoleon, Bismarck and Frederick the Great – characters to whom he referred in familiar terms – pursuing ‘the Cyclopean task which the building of an empire means for a single man.
The character of that empire was a subject which fired his imagination and constantly recurred in his talk. After the evening meal on 27 July he defined its limits as a line 200 – 300 kilometres east of the Urals; the Germans must hold this line in perpetuity and never allow any other military power to establish itself to the
west of it.
It should be possible for us to control this region in the East, with 250,000 men plus a cadre of good administrators. Let’s learn from the English, who, with 250,000 men in all, including 50,000 soldiers, govern 400 million Indians. This space in Russia must always be dominated by Germans.
Nothing would be a worse mistake on our part than to seek to educate the masses there …[my emphasis]
We’ll take the southern part of Ukraine, especially the Crimea, and make it an exclusively German colony. There’ll be no harm in pushing out the population that’s there now.[my emphasis] The German colonist will be the soldier – peasant, and for that I’ll take professional soldiers … For those of them who are sons of peasants, the Reich will provide a completely-equipped farm. The soil costs us nothing, we have only the farm to build … These soldier peasants will be given arms, so that at the slightest danger they can be at their posts when we summon them.
Hitler returned to the subject on the evening of 17 October, when Todt and Gauleiter Sauckel (who was responsible for conscripting foreign workers) provided and appreciative audience:
The Russian desert, we shall populate it … We’ll take away its character of an Asian steppe, we’ll Europeanise it. With this object we have undertaken the construction of road that will lead to the southernmost part of the Crimea and to the Caucasus. These road will be studded along their whole length with German towns and around these towns our colonists will settle.
As for the two or three million men whom we need to accomplish this task, we’ll find them quicker than we think. They’ll come from Germany, Scandinavia, the Western countries, and America. I shall no longer be here to see all that, but in twenty years, the Ukraine will already be a home for twenty million inhabitants, besides the natives …
We shan’t settle in the Russian towns, and we’ll let them go to pieces without intervening. And, above all, no remorse on this subject! We’re absolutely without obligations as far as these people are concerned.[my emphasis, see comment below *] To struggle against the hovels, chase away the fleas, provide German teachers, bring out newspapers – very little of that for us! We’ll confine ourselves, perhaps, to setting up a radio transmitter, under our control. For the rest, let them know just enough to understand our highway signs, so that they won’t get themselves run over by our vehicles.[my emphasis]
For them the word ‘liberty’ means the right to wash on feast days … There’s only one duty: to Germanize this country by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins[my emphasis] … In this business I shall go straight ahead, cold-bloodedly.[…]
Source of quote: Alan Bullock,
Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives 1993 Fontana Press, London, pages 756-758.
* Comment: Bullock’s translation of this passage is a rather benevolent one. Hitler’s words were actually the following:
In die russischen Städte gehen wir nicht hinein. Sie müssen vollständig ersterben. Wir brauchen uns da keine Gewissensbisse zu machen […] wir haben überhaupt keine Verpflichtungen den Leuten gegenüber.
Source of quote:
Christian Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde, page 801
My translation:
Into the Russian cities we shall not go. They must die away completely.[my emphasis] We need to have no remorse in this respect […] we have no obligations whatsoever towards these people.
As to the situation of those fortunate enough to become the New Order's helots, it would also not be exactly comparable to that of today's emigrants earning a living abroad, who have a chance of advancement like all those driven to emigrate by their country's economic plight, be it the Irish in the 19th century or the Portuguese in the 20th. Beside Hitler’s above quoted tirades about keeping the Slav “Redskins” dumb and primitive, consider these instructive statements:
[…]As part of wider efforts to destroy Polish culture, the Germans closed or destroyed universities, schools, museums, libraries, and scientific laboratories. They demolished hundreds of monuments to national heroes. To prevent the birth of a new generation of educated Poles, German officials decreed that Polish children's schooling end after a few years of elementary education. "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. . . . I do not think that reading is desirable," Himmler wrote in his May 1940 memorandum.[my emphasis][…]
Source of quote:
http://www.ushmm.com/education/resource/poles/poles.pdf
(page 10)
File note by Martin Bormann about a conversation with Hitler
Geheim!
Berlin, den 2.10.1940
Bo-An.
Aktenvermerk
[…] Am 2.10.1940 entspann sich nach Tisch in der Wohnung des Führers eine Unterhaltung über den Charakter des Gouvernements, über die Behandlung der Polen […]
Der Führer nahm nun grundsätzlich zu dem Gesamtproblem in folgender Weise Stellung:
Die Menschen des Generalgouvernements, die Polen also, seien nun nicht qualifizierte Arbeiter wie unsere deutschen Volksgenossen und sollen es auch gar nicht sein; sie müßten, um leben zu können, ihre eigene Arbeitskraft, d.h. sozusagen sich selbst exportieren. Die Polen müßten also nach dem Reich kommen und dort Arbeit in der Landwirtschaft, an Straßen und sonstigen niederen Arbeiten leisten, um sich dadurch ihren Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen; ihr Wohnsitz bleibe aber Polen, denn wir wollten sie ja gar nicht in Deutschland haben und wollten gar keine Blutvermischung mit unseren deutschen Volksgenossen.
Der Führer betonte weiter, der Pole sei, im Gegensatz zum deutschen Arbeiter, geradezu zu niedriger Arbeit geboren; unserem deutschen Arbeiter müßten wir aber all Aufstiegsmöglichkeiten gewähren, für den Polen komme dies keinesfalls in Frage. Das Lebensniveau in Polen müsse sogar niedrig sein bzw. gehalten werden. Das Generalgouvernement solle nun keinesfalls ein abgeschlossenes und einheitliches Wirtschaftsgebiet werden, das seine notwendigen Industrieprodukte ganz oder zum Teil selbst erzeuge, sondern das Generalgouvernement sei unser Reservoir an Arbeitskräften für niedrige Arbeiten (Ziegeleien, Straßenbau usw. usw.). Man könnte, betonte der Führer, in den Slawen nichts anderes hineinlegen, als was er von Natur aus sei. Während unser deutscher Arbeiter von Natur aus im allgemeinen strebsam und fleißig sei, sei der Pole von Natur aus faul und müsse zur Arbeit angetrieben werden. Im übrigen fehlten die Voraussetzungen dafür, daß das Generalgouvernement ein eigenes Wirtschaftsgebiet werden könne, es fehlten die Bodenschätze, und selbst wenn diese vorhanden wären, seien die Polen zur Ausnützung dieser Bodenschätze unfähig.
Der Führer erläuterte, wir brauchten im Reich den Großgrundbesitz, damit wir unsere Großstädte ernähren könnten; der Großgrundbesitz wie die übrigen landwirtschaftlichen Betriebe brauchten zur Bestellung und zur Ernte Arbeitskräfte, und zwar billige Arbeitskräfte. Sowie die Ernte vorbei sei, könnten die Arbeitskräfte nach Polen zurück. Wenn die Arbeiter in der Landwirtschaft das ganze Jahr tätig wären, würden sie einen großen Teil dessen, was geerntet würde, selber wieder essen, deswegen sei es durchaus richtig, wenn aus Polen zur Bestellung und Ernte Saison-Arbeiter kämen. – Wir hätten auf der einen Seite überbesiedelte Industriegebiete, auf der anderen Seite Mangel an Arbeitskräften in der Landwirtschaft usw. Hierfür würden die polnischen Arbeiter gebraucht. Es sei also durchaus richtig, wenn im Gouvernement eine starke Übersetzung an Arbeitskräften vorhanden sei, damit von dort aus wirklich alljährlich die notwendigen Arbeiter in das Reich kämen. – Unbedingt zu beachten sei, daß es keine „polnischen Herren“ geben dürfe; wo polnische Herren vorhanden seien, sollten sie, so hart das klingen möge, umgebracht werden.
Blutlich dürften wir uns natürlich nicht mit den Polen vermischen; auch daher sei es richtig, wenn neben den polnischen Schnittern auch polnische Schnitterinnen ins Reich kämmen. Was diese Polen dann untereinander in ihren Lagern trieben, könne uns gänzlich gleichgültig sein, kein protestantischer Eiferer solle in diese Dinge seine Nase stecken.
Noch einmal müsse der Führer betonen, daß es für die Polen nur einen Herren geben dürfe und das sei der Deutsche; zwei Herren nebeneinander könne es nicht geben und dürfe es nicht geben, daher seien alle Vertreter der polnischen Intelligenz umzubringen. Dies klinge hart, aber es sei nun einmal das Lebensgesetz.
Das Generalgouvernement sei eine polnische Reservation, ein großes polnisches Arbeitslager. Auch die Polen profitierten davon, denn wir hielten sie gesund, sorgten dafür, daß sie nicht verhungern usw.; nie dürften wir sie aber auf eine höhere Stufe erheben, denn sonst würden sie lediglich zu Anarchisten und Kommunisten. Für die Polen sei es auch daher durchaus richtig, wenn sie ihren Katholizismus behielten; die polnischen Pfarrer bekämen von uns ihre Nahrung, und dafür hätten sie dann ihre Schäfchen in der von uns gewünschten Weise zu dirigieren. Die Pfarrer würden von uns bezahlt, und dafür hätten sie zu predigen, wie wir es wünschten. Wenn ein Pfarrer dagegen handle, sei ihm kurzer Prozeß zu machen. Die Pfarrer müßten die Polen also ruhig dumm und blöd halten, dies läge durchaus in unserem Interesse; würden die Polen auf eine höhere Intelligenzstufe gehoben, dann seien sie nicht mehr die Arbeitskräfte, die wir benötigen. Im übrigen genüge es, wenn der Pole im Generalgouvernement einen kleinen Garten besitze, eine große Landwirtschaft sei gar nicht notwendig; das Geld, das der Pole zum Leben benötige, müsse er sich durch Arbeit in Deutschland verdienen. Diese billigen Arbeitskräfte benötigen wir nun einmal, ihre Billigkeit käme jedem Deutschen, auch jedem deutschen Arbeiter zugute. […]
Source of quote: Ernst Klee / Willi Dreßen,
“Gott mit uns.“ Der deutsche Venichtungskrieg im Osten 1939-1945, Frankfurt 1989, pages 18/19.
Reference: Nuremberg Document 172-USSR, IMT, Volume XXXIX
My translation:
Secret!
Berlin, 2.10.1940
Bo-An.
File note
[…] On 2.10.1940 there was a conversation about the character of the General Government and the treatment of the Poles at the Führer’s place after the meal[…]
The Führer now took the following fundamental position in regard to the overall problem:
The people of the General Government, i.e. the Poles, are not qualified workers like our German fellow citizens and are not meant to be either; in order to live, they will have to export their labor force, i.e. themselves, so to say. The Poles thus must come to the Reich and there carry out work in agriculture, street building and other low jobs in order to earn a living; their domicile will, however, remain Poland, because we don’t want them in Germany let alone a mixture of blood with our German fellow citizens.
The Führer pointed out that, contrary to the German worker, the Pole is well-neigh born for low jobs; our German worker must be granted all possibilities of advancement, but for the Pole this is out of the question. The living standard in Poland must even be or be kept low. The General Government shall by no means become a closed and uniform economic region producing all or a part of its industrial products itself. The General Government is our reservoir of labor force for low jobs (brick factories, street building etc. etc.). One cannot, the Führer emphasized, put more into the Slav than what he is by nature. While our German worker is by nature generally ambitious and hard-working, the Pole is by nature lazy and must thus be propelled to work. Furthermore the conditions are lacking for the General Government to become an economic region of its own, because it has no mineral resources and even if such were available the Poles would not be able to exploit them. The Führer explained that in the Reich we need large-landed property so that we can feed our major cities; large-landed property like all other agricultural enterprises needs labor for sowing and harvesting, and cheap labor. When the harvest is over, the laborers can go back to Poland. If they were to work in agriculture during the whole year, they would themselves eat a great part of what they had harvested, thus it is right that seasonal workers for the sowing and the harvest come from Poland. We have on the one hand over-populated industrial areas, on the other side a lack of agricultural hands etc. For this the Polish workers are needed. It is thus completely right if in the Government there is a large excess of labor force so that indeed the necessary workers come into the Reich every year. – Under all circumstances it must be observed that there must be no “Polish masters”; where the are Polish masters, as harsh as this may sound, they must be bumped off.
Of course we must not mix our blood with that of the Poles, for which reason it is also right that beside the Polish male harvesters female harvesters come to the Reich. What these Poles then do among each other in their camps can be completely indifferent to us; no eager protestant should stick his nose into such things.
Again the Führer must point out that for the Poles there may be only one master, and that is the German; two master alongside each other there may not be and thus all representatives of the Polish intelligence are to be bumped off. This sounds harsh, but it is the law of life.
The General Government is a Polish reservation, a huge Polish labor camp. The Poles are also profiting from this, because we keep them healthy, see to it that they don’t starve etc.; never though must we raise them to a higher level, for then they would only become anarchists and communists. For the Poles it is therefore also quite right that they keep to Catholicism; the Polish priests will be fed by us, and in return they have to direct their sheep as we want them to. The priests are paid by us and in return they must preach as we wish. If a priest acts against this, short shrift is to be made of him. It’s all right that the priests keep the Poles dumb and stupid; this is certainly in our interest, for if the Poles rose to a higher level of intelligence, they would no longer be the workers that we need. For the rest it is enough if the Pole in the General Government possesses a little garden. A huge agriculture is not necessary; the money that the Pole needs to live he must earn by working in Germany. It is a fact that we need these cheap laborers, and their cheapness benefits every German, also every German worker.[…]
From Himmler’s speech in Posen on 4 October 1943, as translated by “Revisionist” Carlos Porter (he didn’t mess with that part, relax; his only concern were the passages concerning the bloody Jews):
[…]For the SS Man, one principle must apply absolutely: we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood, and to no one else. What happens to the Russians, the Czechs, is totally indifferent to me. Whatever is available to us in good blood of our type, we will take for ourselves, that is, we will steal their children and bring them up with us, if necessary. Whether other races live well or die of hunger is only of interest to me insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise that doesn't interest me. Whether 10,000 Russian women fall down <umfallen> from exhaustion in building a tank ditch is of interest to me only insofar as the tank ditches are finished for Germany.
We will never be hard and heartless when it is not necessary; that is clear. We Germans, the only ones in the world with a decent attitude towards animals, will also adopt a decent attitude with regards to these human animals; but it is a sin against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals, so that our sons and grandchildren will have a harder time with them.[…]
Source of quote:
http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconhh.html