What did the German ost plan include? Master plan "ost"

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

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

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

Rosenberg Project

The master plan was preceded by a project developed by the Reich Ministry for Occupied Territories, headed by Alfred Rosenberg. On May 9, 1941, Rosenberg presented the Fuhrer with draft directives on policy issues in the territories that were to be occupied as a result of aggression against the USSR.

Rosenberg proposed creating five governorates on the territory of the USSR. Hitler opposed the autonomy of Ukraine and replaced the term “governorate” with “Reichskommissariat” for it. As a result, Rosenberg's ideas were accepted following forms incarnations.

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

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

Plan Description

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

Wetzel's comments and suggestions

A document known as “Comments and proposals of the “Eastern Ministry” on the “Ost” master plan” has become widespread among historians. The text of this document has often been presented as Plan Ost itself, although it has little in common with the text of the Plan published at the end of 2009.

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

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

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

Developed variants of the Ost plan

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

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

Document 2: Materials for the report “Colonization”, developed in December 1940 by the RKFDV planning service (volume 5 pages). Contents: Fundamental article to the “Requirement of territories for forced resettlement from the Old Reich” with a specific requirement for 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 new viable settlement farms of 25 hectares each, as well as in addition 40% of the territory for forest, for the needs of the army and reserve areas in Wartheland and Poland.

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

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

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

Document 5: “General Plan Ost”, created in May 1942 by the Institute of Agriculture and Politics of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Berlin (volume 68 pages).

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

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

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

Plan details

Implementation time:

1939 – 1944

Victims: Eastern European and USSR populations (mostly Slavic)

Place: Eastern Europe, occupied territory of the USSR

Character: racial-ethnic

Organizers and executors: the National Socialist Party of Germany, pro-fascist groups and collaborators in the occupied territories “Plan Ost” was a program of mass ethnic cleansing of the population of Eastern Europe and the USSR as part of a more global Nazi plan to “liberate living space” (the so-called Lebensraum) for the Germans and other “Germanic peoples” at the expense of the territories of “lower races” such as the Slavs.

The goal of the plan: Germanization of the lands" in Central and Eastern Europe, provided for the movement of populations in the de facto annexed regions of Western and Southern Europe (Alsace, Lorraine, Lower Styria, Upper Carniola) and from countries that were considered German (Holland, Norway, Denmark ).

Excerpt from the "General Plan Ost" Revision dated June 1942 Part C. Delimitation of settlement territories in the occupied eastern regions and principles of restoration: Penetration of German life into large areas The East confronts the Reich with the urgent need to find new forms of settlement in order to bring the size of the territory into line with the number of existing German persons. In the Ost General Plan of July 15, 1941, the delimitation of new territories was provided as the basis for development for 30 years.

Plan Description

Plan Ost was a plan of the German government of the Third Reich to “liberate living space” for Germans and other “Germanic peoples,” which included mass ethnic cleansing of the population of Eastern Europe. The plan was developed in 1941 by the Main Directorate of Reich Security and presented on May 28, 1942 by an employee of the Office of the Headquarters of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People, SS Oberführer Meyer-Hetling under the title “General Plan Ost - the foundations of the legal, economic and territorial structure of the East” .

The "Ost plan" was not preserved in the form of a completed plan. It was extremely secret, apparently existed in a few copies; at the Nuremberg trials, the only evidence of the existence of the plan was the "Comments and proposals of the Eastern Ministry" on the "Ost" master plan, according to prosecutors, written on April 27, 1942 by E. Wetzel, an employee of the Ministry of Eastern Territories, after familiarizing himself with the draft plan prepared by the RSHA. Most likely, it was deliberately destroyed.

According to Hitler’s own instructions, officials ordered that only a few copies of the Ost Plan be made for part of the Gauleiters, two ministers, the “Governor General” of Poland and two or three senior SS officials. The remaining SS Fuhrers of the RSHA had to familiarize themselves with the Ost Plan in the presence of the courier, sign that the document had been read, and return it. But history shows that it was never possible to destroy all traces of crimes on such a scale as those committed by the Nazis. Both in letters and in speeches of Hitler and other SS officers, references to the plan occur more than once. Two memos have also been preserved, from which it is clear that this plan existed and was discussed. From the notes we learn in some detail the contents of the plan.

According to some sources, the "Ost Plan" was divided into two - "Small Plan" and "Big Plan". The Small Plan was to be carried out during the war. The German government wanted to focus on the Big Plan after the war. The plan provided for different percentages of Germanization for different conquered Slavic and other peoples. The “non-Germanized" were to be deported to Western Siberia. The implementation of the plan was to ensure that the conquered territories would acquire an irrevocably German character.

According to the plan, the Slavs living in the countries of Eastern Europe and the European part of the USSR were to be partially Germanized, and partially deported beyond the Urals or destroyed. It was intended to leave a small percentage of the local population to be used as free work force for German colonists.

According to the calculations of Nazi officials, 50 years after the war, the number of Germans living in these territories was supposed to reach 250 million. The plan applied to all peoples living in the territories subject to colonization: it also spoke about the peoples of the Baltic states, which were also supposed to be partially assimilated , and partially deported (for example, Latvians were considered more suitable for assimilation, unlike Lithuanians, among whom, according to the Nazis, there were too many “Slavic impurities”). As can be assumed from the comments to the plan preserved in some documents, the fate of the Jews living in the territories to be colonized was almost not mentioned in the plan, mainly because at that time the project of the “final solution of the Jewish question” had already been launched, according to which the Jews were subject to total destruction. The plan for the colonization of the eastern territories was, in fact, the development of Hitler’s plans regarding the already occupied territories of the USSR - plans that were especially clearly formulated in his statement of July 16, 1941 and then were further developed in his table conversations. He then announced the settlement of 4 million Germans on the colonized lands within 10 years and at least 10 million Germans and representatives of other “Germanic” peoples within 20 years. Colonization should have been preceded by the construction - by prisoners of war - of large transport highways. German cities were to appear near river ports, and peasant settlements along the rivers. In the conquered Slavic territories, the policy of genocide was envisaged in its most extreme forms.

Methods for implementing the GPO plan:

1) physical extermination large masses people;

2) population reduction through deliberate organization of famine;

3) population decline as a result of an organized decline in the birth rate and the elimination of medical and sanitary services;

4) extermination of the intelligentsia - the bearer and successor of scientific and technical knowledge and skills of the cultural traditions of each people and the reduction of education to the lowest level;

5) disunity, fragmentation of individual peoples into small ethnic groups;

6) resettlement of masses of the population to Siberia, Africa, South America and other regions of the Earth;

7) agrarianization of the captured Slavic territories and deprivation of the Slavic peoples of their own industry.”

The fate of the Slavs and Jews according to Wetzel's comments and suggestions

German historians believe that the plan included:

· Destruction or expulsion of 80-85% of Poles. Only approximately 3-4 million people were to remain on Polish territory.

· Destruction or expulsion of 50-75% of Czechs (about 3.5 million people). The rest were subject to Germanization.

· Destruction of 50-60% of Russians in the European part Soviet Union, another 15-25% were subject to deportation beyond the Urals.

· Destruction of 25% of Ukrainians and Belarusians, another 30-50% of Ukrainians and Belarusians were to be used as labor

According to Wetzel's proposals, the Russian people were to be subjected to measures such as assimilation ("Germanization") and population reduction through a reduction in the birth rate - such actions are defined as genocide.

From A. Hitler’s directive to the Minister for Eastern Affairs A. Rosenberg on the implementation of the General Plan “Ost” (July 23, 1942)

The Slavs must work for us, and if we no longer need them, let them die. Vaccinations and health protection are unnecessary for them. Slavic fertility is undesirable... education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count to one hundred... Every educated person is our future enemy. All sentimental objections should be abandoned. We must rule this people with iron determination... Military speaking, we must kill three to four million Russians a year.

After the end of the war, out of approximately 40 million dead Slavic peoples (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, etc.), the Soviet Union lost more than 30 million, more than 6 million Poles died and over 2 million inhabitants of Yugoslavia. “Generalplan Ost”, as should be understood, also meant the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” (German: Endlösung der Judenfrage), according to which the Jews were subject to total extermination. In the Baltics, Latvians were considered more suitable for "Germanization", but Lithuanians and Latgalians were not, since there were too many "Slavic admixtures" among them. Although the plan was supposed to be launched at full capacity only after the end of the war, within its framework, nevertheless, about 3 million Soviet prisoners of war were destroyed, the population of Belarus, Ukraine and Poland was systematically exterminated and sent to forced labor. In particular, in Belarus alone the Nazis organized 260 death camps and 170 ghettos. According to modern data, during the years of German occupation the losses of the civilian population of Belarus amounted to about 2.5 million people, that is, about 25% of the population of the republic.

Almost 1 million Poles and 2 million Ukrainians were - most of them not of their own free will - sent to forced labor in Germany. Another 2 million Poles from the annexed regions of the country were forcibly Germanized. Residents who were declared “racially undesirable” were subject to resettlement to Western Siberia; Some of them were supposed to be used as auxiliary personnel in the management of the regions of enslaved Russia. Fortunately, the plan could not be fully realized, otherwise we would not be here anymore.

Rosenberg's predecessor project

Rosenberg proposed creating five governorates on the territory of the USSR. Hitler opposed the autonomy of Ukraine and replaced the term “governorate” with “Reichskommissariat” for it. As a result, Rosenberg’s ideas took the following forms of implementation.

· The first - Reichskommissariat Ostland - was supposed to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus. Ostland, where, according to Rosenberg, a population with Aryan blood lived, was subject to complete Germanization within two generations.

· The second governorate - Reichskommissariat Ukraine - included Eastern Galicia (known in fascist terminology as District Galicia), Crimea, a number of territories along the Don and Volga, as well as the lands of the abolished Soviet Autonomous Republic of Volga Germans. According to Rosenberg's idea, the governorate was supposed to gain autonomy and become the support of the Third Reich in the East.

· The third governorate was called the Reichskommissariat Caucasus, and separated Russia from the Black Sea.

· Fourth - Russia to the Urals.

· The fifth governorate was to become Turkestan.

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

Maxim Khrustalev

Master plan "Ost"

“We must kill from 3 to 4 million Russians a year...”

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

“The Slavs must work for us, and if we no longer need them, let them die. Vaccinations and health protection are unnecessary for them. Slavic fertility is undesirable... education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count to one hundred... Every educated person is our future enemy. All sentimental objections should be abandoned. We must rule this people with iron determination... Military speaking, we must kill three to four million Russians a year.”

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

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

On the other hand, some revisionists could argue that this document was just a draft drawn up by a minor official in one of the ministries, and it had nothing to do with real politics. However, at the end of the 80s, the final text of the Ost plan, approved by Hitler, was found in the federal archives, and individual documents from there were presented at an exhibition in 1991. However, it was only in November-December 2009 that the “General Plan “Ost” - the foundations of the legal, economic and territorial structure of the East” was completely digitized and published. This is reported on the website of the Historical Memory Foundation.

As a matter of fact, the German government’s plan to “free up living space” for Germans and other “Germanic peoples,” which included the “Germanization” of the East and mass ethnic cleansing of the local population, did not arise spontaneously, and not out of nowhere. The German scientific community began to carry out the first developments in this direction even under Kaiser Wilhelm II, when no one had heard of National Socialism, and Hitler himself was just a skinny rural boy. As a group of German historians (Isabelle Heinemann, Willy Oberkrome, Sabine Schleiermacher, Patrick Wagner) elaborates in the study “Planning, Expulsion: “The Ost General Plan” of the National Socialists”:

“Since 1900, racial anthropology and eugenics, or racial hygiene, can be spoken of as a specific direction in the development of science at the national and international levels. Under National Socialism, these sciences achieved the position of leading disciplines, providing the regime with methods and principles to justify racial policies. There was no precise and uniform definition of "race". Conducted racial studies raised the question of the relationship between “race” and “living space”.

Fourth – Russia to the Urals.

The fifth governorate was to be Turkestan.

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

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

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

“In order to avoid an increase in population that is undesirable for us in the eastern regions... we must consciously pursue a policy to reduce the population. By means of propaganda, especially through the press, radio, cinema, leaflets, short brochures, reports, etc., we must constantly instill in the population the idea that it is harmful to have many children. It is necessary to show how much money it costs, and what could be purchased with these funds. It is necessary to talk about the great danger to a woman’s health that she is exposed to when giving birth to children, etc. Along with this, the broadest propaganda of contraceptives must be launched. It is necessary to establish widespread production of these products. The distribution of these drugs and abortions should not be restricted in any way. We should do everything we can to expand the network of abortion clinics... The better quality abortions are performed, the more confidence the population will have in them. It is clear that doctors must also be authorized to perform abortions. And this should not be considered a violation of medical ethics..."

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

Source – “Advisor” – a guide to good books.

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

Rosenberg Project

Rosenberg proposed creating five governorates on the territory of the USSR. Hitler opposed the autonomy of Ukraine and replaced the term “governorate” with “Reichskommissariat” for it. As a result, Rosenberg’s ideas took the following forms of implementation.

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

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

Plan Description

Wetzel's comments and suggestions

Developed variants of the Ost plan

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

Document 2: Materials for the report “Colonization”, developed in December 1940 by the RKFDV planning service (volume 5 pages). Contents: Fundamental article to the “Requirement of territories for forced resettlement from the Old Reich” with a specific requirement for 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 new viable settlement farms of 25 hectares each, as well as in addition 40% of the territory for forest, for the needs of the army and reserve areas in Wartheland and Poland.

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

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

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

Document 5: “General Plan Ost”, created in May 1942 by the Institute of Agriculture and Politics of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Berlin (volume 68 pages).

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

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

A group of documents developed in Nazi Germany, which was supposed to determine the development of Eastern Europe in the context of Germany's victory in World War II.

The plan provided for the eviction of most of the population from Poland and the European part of the former USSR and the colonization of these territories by the Germans, who controlled the remaining part of the native population. Planning for the colonization of eastern Europe stemmed from the Nazi strategy defined by Hitler in Mein Kampf. Hitler believed that the Germans should gain “living space” in eastern Europe and dominate the peoples inhabiting it. After the occupation of Poland by Germany in 1939, during the German-Polish War of 1939, a policy of genocide began, the “cleansing” of part of Poland from Poles, Jews, Gypsies and their partial destruction and oppression on the territory of the General Government. Since 1940, G. Himmler's subordinates began to develop more specific plans for the reorganization of eastern Europe. Planning was carried out at the Reich Security Main Office (Security Service) and at the General Headquarters of the Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People. It is possible that work on the plan was carried out in the SS General Directorate for Race and Settlements. By the end of 1941 the plan was largely prepared. Its text has not survived, but there are references to it in other documents. The plan was discussed at a meeting on “Questions of Germanization” on February 4, 1942, and was criticized by the Reich Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories.

Corpus of documents

We know of a number of plan documents prepared by the planning group III B of the planning service of the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People.

1. "Fundamentals of Planning" (May 1940) was devoted to colonization in Poland (West Prussia and Wartheland). On an area of 87,600 km² with 59,000 km² of agricultural land, about 100,000 farms of 29 hectares were to be organized. 3.15 million Germans were to be resettled here, and another 1.15 million in the cities. All 560,000 Jews living here and 44% of Poles (3.4 million people) were to be eliminated from the region.

2. Materials for the report “Colonization”, justifying the need to allocate 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 farms of 25 hectares.

3. “General Plan Ost” (July 1941), which determined the boundaries of specific areas of colonization in the territory of the former USSR.

4. “General Plan Ost” (December 1941), which determined the scale and boundaries of the areas of colonization in the former USSR and Poland. In accordance with the plan, it was planned to evict about 65% of Ukrainians and 75% of Belarusians, and the rest were Germanized. For the Czechs this proportion was planned to be 50% to 50%.

5. “General Plan for Colonization” (Generalsiedlungsplan) (September 1942) volume of 200 pages, including 25 maps and tables. Here, as in previous versions, the scale of colonization and the boundaries of individual areas of settlement were determined. The plan determined their territory at 330,000 km², the number of settlements at 360,100, the number of settlers at 12.21 million people, of whom 2.859 million were to be employed in forestry. 30.8 million people had to be evicted. The costs of implementing the plan were estimated at 144 billion Reichsmarks.

Comments and suggestions on the General Plan "Ost" of the Reichsfuhrer-SS

On April 27, 1942, the head of the colonization department of the 1st Main Political Directorate of the Ministry of Eastern Occupied Territories, E. Wetzel, prepared “Comments and proposals on the General Plan “Ost” of the Reichsführer of the SS Troops.” E. Wetzel's note is addressed to A. Rosenberg and is devoted to the analysis of the plan of December 1941. It consists of four sections: 1) “General comments on the Ost master plan”; 2) “General remarks on the issue of Germanization, especially on the future attitude towards the inhabitants of the former Baltic states”; 3) “Towards a solution to the Polish question”; 4) “On the question of future treatment of the Russian population.” In accordance with the comments of E. Wetzel, the resettlement of Germans and the eviction of the local population were planned to be carried out within 30 years after the end of the war. 14 million Slavs were supposed to remain in the colonization zone, who were supposed to serve the Germans. 4.55 million Germans were to be resettled in the former Poland, the Baltic states, Ingermanland, the Bialystok region, Belarus and Ukraine (primarily in the Zhitomir, Kamenets-Podolsk and Vinnitsa regions). In the future, they were supposed to multiply to 10 million people. The Jews were subject to extermination. The rest of the surviving population was to be deported to Siberia. The plan estimated the number of evicted people at 31 million people, but according to E. Wenzel’s calculations, this number would have been more than 51 million people. E. Wetzel was skeptical about the feasibility of plans to evict such masses of Slavs and proposed to more actively Germanize them. Moreover, according to his calculations, the reproduction of Germans will give a figure of 8 million people. Also, in accordance with the position of A. Rosenberg, Wetzel did not agree that the plan “establishes the same approach to all peoples without taking into account whether and to what extent the Germanization of the relevant peoples is envisaged, whether this concerns those who are friendly or hostile to the Germans peoples... It goes without saying that the policy of Germanization is applicable only to those peoples that we consider racially complete.” E. Wetzel was more favorable towards the Estonians and Latvians, but considered the “racial characteristics” of the Lithuanians to be much worse and believed that they should be given territories for colonization to the east, removing them from the territory of Lithuania. “Friendly peoples” could be used to replenish the cadres of managers in the colonized territory, thus clearing their own places permanent residence for the Germans. But Wetzel considered it necessary to evict the surviving Poles to South America and Siberia. According to E. Wetzel's calculations, 700-800 trains per year will need to be used for resettlement. Also, to develop the raw materials of Siberia, technically competent Europeans, such as Czechs, Hungarians, etc., should have been sent there. Wetzel proposed encouraging a reduction in the birth rate of non-German peoples. Even if an imperial commissariat is created in Moscow, northern regions Russia, the Urals and Siberia should be separated from the Moscow administrative entity. Moreover, “a Russian from the Gorky General Secretariat should be instilled with the feeling that he is somehow different from a Russian from the Tula General Secretariat.” Tongue interethnic communication should have become German.

But Hitler set more ambitious goals. On May 15, 1942, he described his goal as follows: eastern policy: “the creation in the eastern space of a territory for the settlement of approximately one hundred million representatives of the Germanic race. He considers it necessary to make every effort to resettle Germans million by million to the East with iron tenacity. He stated that no later than ten years later he expected a report on the colonization of the eastern regions already included in Germany or occupied by our troops by at least twenty million Germans.”

Master Plan Ost - legal, economic and territorial basis for construction in the East

On May 28, 1942, SS Oberführer, head of the planning department of the headquarters of the Imperial Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Race, and concurrently director of the Institute of Agrarian Policy of the University of Berlin, K. Meyer-Hetling, signed the document “General Plan of Ost - drawn up on the instructions of G. Himmler by the Institute of Agrarian Policy of the University of Berlin legal, economic and territorial foundations of construction in the East.” He justified the scale of the upcoming colonization in former USSR, optimal boundaries of individual settlement areas. It was assumed that colonization would be carried out on an area of 364,231 km² in the St. Petersburg region, in Crimea and the Kherson region and in the Bialystok region. It was planned that 36 strong points and three administrative districts would be created. Farms had to have an area of 40-100 hectares. Large agricultural enterprises with an area of more than 250 hectares were also to be created. It was necessary to resettle 5.65 million Germans here and evict about 31 million local residents. The costs of the operation were calculated and amounted to 66.6 billion Reichsmarks.

After the counter-offensive Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943 and defeat in Battle of Kursk In 1943, development of the plan did not continue.