Notes from a Land of the Dead

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Roberto
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Notes from a Land of the Dead

#1

Post by Roberto » 29 Aug 2002, 13:51

What follows is my translation of an article by Robert Jungk that appeared in November 1945 in the Zurich “Weltwoche”.

This first report of the world press about expulsion crimes against Germans caused great sensation at the time and was even read in the British House of Commons.
Notes from a Land of the Dead

There is not just one iron curtain in Europe these days. There are two. The second iron curtain, about which no one talks and very little is known, separates the Russian occupation zone in Germany from those former German territories which at the Potsdam Conference were turned over to the Poles and are not subject to the Allied administration of Germany. Whoever crosses this frontier, which leans on the Oder-Neiße line, will confirm that control is much tighter there than on the border separating the Allied and Russian occupation zones. There’s a good reason for this. No visits from the outside are desired here. For behind the Oder-Neiße line begins the land without security, the land without law, the land of the free-for-all, the land of the dead. While in the Russian occupation zone there is a certain order these days and injustice occurs casually rather than according to plan, the wide areas between the former German-Polish border and the Oder are ruled by arbitrariness and violence. When this area was accorded to the Poles by the Potsdam agreements, the local German population at first thought that it would get along with the Poles no worse or even better than with the Russians. Today, however, it is so that all inhabitants turn to the small Russian detachments passing the country or stationed to secure supplies here and there in order to obtain protection from the aggressions of the Poles. Who has left the Polish zone and reaches Russian-occupied territory literally takes a breath of relief. Behind him there are cities sacked empty, villages ravaged by epidemics, concentration camps, barren untended fields and streets strewn with corpses where hoodlums lurk and rob refugees of their last possessions.
All this and all that will be described in the following lines is unfortunately true. One shouldn’t take the easy way out of putting it away as “atrocity propaganda”. Too often in the past years people refused to believe the unimaginably horrible, too often those to whom revelations were inconvenient dismissed them as “lies” or “propaganda”. It is true that in the village of G. girls, women and old women were raped in public by members of the Polish militia. It is true that at the station of S. all refugee trains are regularly robbed in such a way that the passengers have to continue their journey west naked. It is true that in wide areas of Silesia not a single child under one year is alive anymore because they all starved or were beaten to death. It is true that in Upper Silesia women infected with syphilis simply receive a shot in the head as “treatment”. And it is true that a veritable wave of suicides is going through the land. In some places one out of every twelve, in others one out of every ten or even one out of every five have committed suicide. It is true that in the so-called work camps S. and C. inmates have to stand to their necks in ice-cold water for nights on end and that they are beaten until they lose consciousness.
And why does all this happen? Well, it is terrible enough: this wave of barbaric mistreatment was let loose by the efforts of the “big three” to ease the lot of the Germans in the East. Yes, to ease! The reports which at that time had reached world public opinion about the misery caused by the forced evacuation had led the big powers to recommend to the Polish and Czech governments that they stop the overhasty forced evacuations. The Czechs complied with this appeal, and the resettlement of Germans from Czechoslovakia to Germany and Austria is now taking place in an orderly, where possible humane fashion. Not so the Poles. They also at first stopped the evacuations. But at the same time they did everything to cause the German population they wanted to be rid of to leave the new Polish territory “voluntarily”. The relatively mildest means employed by the newly nominated Polish voivods and mayors is hunger. In the town of S. only 7,000 bread ration cards are issued for the 15,000 German inhabitants. The 8,000 to whom no ration cards are issued can get something for a time by selling their belongings on the black market, then they have the choice between death by starvation and “voluntary” emigration to the West.
Things are still worse in Breslau. There no general rationing system exists at all. Since the German capitulation there has been neither fat nor meat in Breslau. The inhabitants make expeditions for food to the hinterlands of the city. If they are fortunate enough to gather a few carrots and potatoes, these are usually taken away from them by Polish militia soldiers already in the suburbs. That the mortality under these conditions is enormous can hardly surprise. Polish officials, who by the way have not received any payments for months due to the reorganization of the Breslau city administration, openly admit that they hope this decimation by hunger of the German population will until Christmas achieve the same goal that was to be achieved by the deportations.
At least as grievously as the hunger the Germans still living in this zone experience the lack of security and law. There are no instances to which a peasant who was attacked by plunderers may turn, there is no police to protect him, no judge to give him justice. Everyone must hourly and daily expect attacks on his possessions and his life, without being given a chance to defend himself. The fact that such robbery expeditions victimize especially such Germans who lost their closest relatives in the fight against the Nazis, that Jews who managed to hide in quiet areas are killed by the Poles now that they thought themselves saved, casts especially dark shadows on a picture that is bleak anyway. On top of it all there are diseases and epidemics. The further you go east from Berlin, the more frequently you see huge placards at the entrances of villages with a warning word written in latin and cyrillic characters: TYPHUS. The emaciated bodies of the starving favor the implantation of the bacillus, and the epidemic develops with the speed of a forest fire in the whole area east of the Oder-Neiße line. But it’s a “forest fire” that no firemen stand up against. The reports from the epidemic areas are shocking to read: “In St. 80 people out of a population of 400 fell sick with typhus. No medication in the village. No doctor on the right bank of the Oder. The secretary of Caritas in Str. reports that also his medications are running out. As we are isolated by the epidemic, nobody wants to bring us food. We cannot help the sick. All we can do is to isolate them. About all villages along the Breslau-Frankenstein railway line are infected by typhus.”
The “solution” in many cases now is that infected villages are isolated like the plague cities in the middle ages. Of course an absolute control is not possible, and thus the typhus keeps being carried on. “Something must be done.” This is the first reaction of anybody who sees the situation in the parts of Germany under Polish occupation develop into an ever more terrible catastrophe. Unfortunately nothing can be done, however, if this area is not at least subjected to a control of the four powers like the other occupied territories of Germany. As long as all German territory beyond the Oder remains under Polish control, as it has been so far, probably not much will change. For, as this territory can only be definitely recognized as Polish by the coming peace conference, the Poles are doing everything to de-germanize their “zone” as quickly and ruthlessly as possible in view of the final drawing of the borders.
Those who flee from hunger, disease, mistreatment and plundering in the regions occupied by Poland must sign a paper before leaving the Polish zone wherein they declare that, of course, they left on their own free will. Nobody should be able to say later at the green table that the procedure war not correct!
If something can be done for the “land of the dead” beyond the Oder, such must firstly and primarily come from the Russian side. The signs are increasing that the Russians are by no means in agreement with the occupation policy pursued by the Poles and are considering to take the part of East Germany occupied by Poland under their control. For the Russians cannot afford to have their supplies from the East endangered by the chaotic conditions in the Polish zone. They are furthermore of the opinion that the greater part of criticism against the currently so much criticized policy in the German eastern areas should be addressed to the Poles rather than to them. Whether it will be possible without difficulties to make the machine run backwards, however, is another question. “White” and “red” Poles, who otherwise so intensely intrigue against each other, are however in agreement that the newly occupied German areas should remain Polish.
The Polish-Russian tensions that have been going on for weeks and even led to armed clashes in East Prussia would be critically enhanced by a conflict about the question of the administration in the German eastern regions.

There will doubtlessly be more concern about the situation in the “land of the dead” as soon as more reports like the present, which to our knowledge makes public the conditions in Polish-occupied Germany for the first time, have aroused the attention of world opinion. For the issue here is much more than “just” the lives of a few million Germans, it is the moral purity and strength of the anti-fascist movement in the world.
If all those who fought Hitler and Mussolini under great sacrifices in order to build a better world now allow their fight to be soiled and taken advantage of by rowdies and chauvinists, then we see no great hope for the future. The Germans have been correctly blamed for having closed their eyes to the atrocities of the Nazis so long due to their faith in the mission of their Fatherland. Shall the paladins of democracy once have to accept the same blame? We all will also be “co-responsible” if we don’t uncover every day and every hour the shameful deeds that are being committed in the name of democracy these days. None other is the pretension of these first lines from the land of the free for all, the land of the dead beyond the Oder.
Last edited by Roberto on 30 Aug 2002, 16:22, edited 1 time in total.

atkif
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Re: Notes from a Land of the Dead

#2

Post by atkif » 30 Aug 2002, 05:38

Who has left the Polish zone and reaches Russian-occupied territory literally takes a breath of relief.
Not too bad for the Russian "barbarians" .
Could be useful to some racist mongers on this forum.
For example to the mister who wrote this crap -

Dan wrote :
Who do you mean by "normal people". Surely you can't mean Russians? Communists are normal? Don't you recognise that Russians are poor, diseased, despised and dying out? Haven't you realized that you lost WW2? The Germans bled you, and you never recovered. Your system was totally inferior to anything in civilized Europe, Germany, England, etc..., and it led to the greatest misery in modern history. What is your salary in Canada? What would it be in Russia?
http://thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/viewt ... c&start=75
Quite in line with the guidelines and instructions:
No revisionism (ie. denying the Holocaust) or racism is tolerated


michael mills
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#3

Post by michael mills » 01 Sep 2002, 07:58

The one thing wrong with the Weltwoche article is that it attributes the depredations against the German inhabitants of the area east of the Oder-Neisse Line to "Poles", as it there was a Polish population in that area that had risen up against its German neighbours.

In point of fact, there were few ethnic Poles in the areas annexed by Poland after the war, except for the Polish minority in east Upper Silesai and in south East Prussia. Furthermore, by November 1945, very few ethnic Poles had moved into the area from which Germans were being expelled.

The atrocities against the German inhabitants were being committed by the Communist Government of Poland, not by "Poles" per se. Furthermore, the Communist Government of Poland in 1945 was disproportionately Jewish in ethnicity, consisting of members of the Polish Communist Party who had returned from exile in the Soviet Union. Not only that, the officer corps of the Polish security forces that were carrying out the rough treatment of the German population was also disproportionately of Jewish origin. Some of the Jewish security men were survivors of the German occupation, and understandably were seeking revenge; others were among the hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews returning from refuge in the Soviet Union.

Paradoxically, when the German population was expelled from Pomerania and Silesia, the depopulated area was first settled by Polish Jews returning from the Soviet Union. The Communist Government of Poland wished to rebuild a large Jewish community in the coutry, settled in a solid mass on the German frontier. Thus it was that cities like Breslau and Stettin in 1946 had a Jewish majority population.

However, the intention of the Jewish members of the Polish Government was overruled by Stalin, who wanted to send the remnants of Polish Jewry to Palestine to fight the Arabs and thereby challenge British hegemony in the Middle East. Thus it was that after a year or so, most of the Jews emigrated from Silesia and Pomerania, leaving the area depopulated once more.

It was at that point that the annexed territories were resettled with ethnic Ukrainians brought by the Polish Government from the Carpathian region in the south-east, under Operation Vistula. Thus the Poles inhabiting Silesia today are actually polonised Ukrainians (or to be more precise, former members of Ruthenian tribes such as the Hutsuli, Lemki and Gorali).

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Roberto
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#4

Post by Roberto » 02 Sep 2002, 11:33

michael mills wrote:Furthermore, the Communist Government of Poland in 1945 was disproportionately Jewish in ethnicity, consisting of members of the Polish Communist Party who had returned from exile in the Soviet Union.
I see.

The Jews, always the bloody Jews.

Looks like someone is suffering from a morbid obsession and in urgent need of psychiatric assistance.

I wonder how Mr. Mills marries the following passage of Jungk's article with his contention that Communist Jews were in control of everything that happened to the ethnic Germans:
The fact that such robbery expeditions victimize especially such Germans who lost their closest relatives in the fight against the Nazis, that Jews who managed to hide in quiet areas are killed by the Poles now that they thought themselves saved, casts especially dark shadows on a picture that is bleak anyway.

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#5

Post by Davey Boy » 02 Sep 2002, 12:32

It was at that point that the annexed territories were resettled with ethnic Ukrainians brought by the Polish Government from the Carpathian region in the south-east, under Operation Vistula. Thus the Poles inhabiting Silesia today are actually polonised Ukrainians (or to be more precise, former members of Ruthenian tribes such as the Hutsuli, Lemki and Gorali).
Nah, sorry, that's wrong. Most of the people who settled in Silesia from the east came from Lwow (now Lviv). And they were ethnic Poles. Here they joined the Polish Silesians and the few ethnic Germans who remained.

The Ruthenians from the mountains in the south east were mostly re-settled in Pomerania.

The Gorale were never re-settled anywhere. They still live in the Carpathians, and their place in Polish culture is so iconic that if anyone attempted to harm them in any way, there'd be a revolution.

In respect to the Polish communists, yes, many of them were of Jewish descent. And many were victimized by the Germans during the war, so that, when they finally got a chance to get back at their tormentors, things turned ugly.

I should really stress that it's no secret that Polish governments since WWII had a very big proportion of Jews. In fact, many Polish government offcials today are of Jewish descent. The most famous is Aleksander Kwasniewski, our president. He's half Jewish.
Adam Michnik, the editor of Poland's largest daily Gazeta Wyborcza is also Jewish.

So there's a few things to think about for those of you out there fond of conspiracy theories.

Having said that, there's a saying in Poland: "shake the family tree of a Pole, and at least one Jew will fall out".

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Roberto
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Re: Notes from a Land of the Dead

#6

Post by Roberto » 03 Sep 2002, 20:04

atkif wrote:
Who has left the Polish zone and reaches Russian-occupied territory literally takes a breath of relief.
Not too bad for the Russian "barbarians" .
Could be useful to some racist mongers on this forum.
For example to the mister who wrote this crap -

Dan wrote :
Who do you mean by "normal people". Surely you can't mean Russians? Communists are normal? Don't you recognise that Russians are poor, diseased, despised and dying out? Haven't you realized that you lost WW2? The Germans bled you, and you never recovered. Your system was totally inferior to anything in civilized Europe, Germany, England, etc..., and it led to the greatest misery in modern history. What is your salary in Canada? What would it be in Russia?
http://thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/viewt ... c&start=75
Quite in line with the guidelines and instructions:
No revisionism (ie. denying the Holocaust) or racism is tolerated
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.

atkif
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#7

Post by atkif » 03 Sep 2002, 22:05

Thank you Roberto.
People who think of others to be worse "inferior" are usually quite defected themselves.
This is their only consolation to look at somebody as being worse or
"inferior''.That is not to say this sort of thinking is only charachteristic for Germans.
In nowdays there are the Russian skinheads who chase the Blacks and others.
Probably they forgot how our own nation was treated by the Nazi bigots
several decades ago.
I heard that there has been some Black supermacist movement as well.
So unfortunetely this idiocy is international.
Cheers.

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Roberto
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#8

Post by Roberto » 17 Mar 2003, 19:03

I have “revived” this thread for Mr. Somosierra.

I would like to know what Somosierra has to say about the events described in the article by Robert Jungk I translated for this thread.

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#9

Post by michael mills » 18 Mar 2003, 03:41

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?

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#10

Post by witness » 18 Mar 2003, 04:47

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?
Well for mills freedom of independent nations' choice means nothing.
Russians are responsible for their own dictators but they would not tolerate the foreing rule of the "superior" imbeciles.
Have you been in Russian mills ?
Do you think that the Russians and Ukarainians are all beggers living in the miserable conditions ?
What about Australians - have they always lived in prosperity ?
Russia endured the Bloody Communist Regime plus the bloody, Nazi invasion and still was able to launch the first space expeditions. ( Australia ..eh? )
People go abroad to seek better chances that's true.
Again -what about Australians are not they decendants of those Europeans who were seeking better fortunes.
As for your slurring the Russian women then I can tell you that majority of Austalians as a matter of fact are the decendants of the British and Irish criminals - and significant number of British and Irish whores of course being among them.
Like it ?
I hope you do. :D
Last edited by witness on 18 Mar 2003, 05:22, edited 2 times in total.

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#11

Post by Scott Smith » 18 Mar 2003, 04:57

Witness, you sound like a superpatriot ex-patriated Russian that went by the name of atkif a while ago and got himself banned. Perhaps it is time to take responsbility for the fact that if Russia is/was screwed-up they have only themselves to blame. Everyone needs to look in the mirror every now and then. I do it regarding American policies and it doesn't win me any friends for sure but somebody has to. No need to be so touchy, Tolstoy.
:)

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#12

Post by witness » 18 Mar 2003, 05:11

Scott Smith wrote:Witness, you sound like a superpatriot ex-patriated Russian that went by the name of atkif a while ago and got himself banned. Perhaps it is time to take responsbility for the fact that if Russia is/was screwed-up they have only themselves to blame. Everyone needs to look in the mirror every now and then. I do it regarding American policies and it doesn't win me any friends for sure but somebody has to. No need to be so touchy, Tolstoy.
:)
Are you blind Scott ?
I wrote "Russians are responsible for their own dictators but they would not tolerate the foreing rule of the "superior" imbeciles''
Try at least read the posts before jumping in

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#13

Post by Scott Smith » 18 Mar 2003, 06:44

Then why so touchy? Lighten up. Nobody here hates Russians.
:)

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Roberto
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#14

Post by Roberto » 18 Mar 2003, 14:16

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

David Thompson
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#15

Post by David Thompson » 18 Mar 2003, 15:49

Ethnic slurs are not permitted here. Please avoid them.

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