The plan for the second world war. General plan "Ost. What is the plan "Ost"

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

The plan called 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 were in control of the rest of the native population. The planning for the colonization of eastern Europe stemmed from the Nazi strategy outlined by Hitler in Mein Kampf. Hitler believed that the Germans should receive " living space»In the east of 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, "cleansing" a part of Poland from Poles, Jews, Roma and their partial destruction and oppression on the territory of the General Government. Since 1940, H. Himmler's subordinates have begun to develop more specific plans for the reorganization of eastern Europe. Planning was carried out in the General Directorate of Reich Security (in the Security Service) and in the General Staff of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People. It is possible that the work on the plan was carried out in the General Directorate of the SS for Race and Settlement. By the end of 1941, the plan was largely completed. Its text has not survived, but references to it are in other documents. The plan was discussed at a meeting on "Questions of Germanization" on February 4, 1942, criticized by the Reich Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories.

Corpus of documents

It is known about a number of plan documents prepared by the planning group III B of the planning service of the General Staff Directorate of the Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of the German people.

1. "Fundamentals of Planning" (May 1940) dealt with colonization in Poland (West Prussia and Wartheland). On the territory of 87,600 km² with 59,000 km² of agricultural land, about 100,000 farms of 29 hectares were to be organized. Here 3.15 million Germans were to be resettled, and another 1.15 million in 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", substantiating the need to allocate 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 farms of 25 hectares.

3. " General plan Ost "(July 1941), which defined the boundaries of specific areas of colonization on the territory of the former USSR.

4. " Overall plan Ost "(December 1941), which determined the scale and boundaries of the colonization areas in the former USSR and Poland. According to the plan, it was planned to evict about 65% of Ukrainians and 75% of Belarusians, and the rest are Germanized. For Czechs, this proportion was planned 50% to 50%.

5. "General plan of colonization" (Generalsiedlungsplan) (September 1942), 200 pages, including 25 maps and tables. Here, as in the previous versions, the scale of colonization and the boundaries of individual areas of settlement were determined. The plan defined their territory at 330,000 km², the number of settlements at 360,100, the number of settlers at 12.21 million, of which 2.859 million were to be employed in forestry. It was necessary to evict 30.8 million people. The cost of implementing the plan was estimated at 144 billion Reichsmarks.

Comments and suggestions on the General plan "Ost" of the Reichsfuehrer of the SS troops

On April 27, 1942, the head of the colonization department of the 1st Main Political Directorate of the Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories E. Wetzel prepared "Comments and proposals on the General Plan" Ost "of the Reichsfuehrer of the SS forces". E. Wetzel's note is addressed to A. Rosenberg and is devoted to the analysis of the December 1941 plan. It consists of four sections: 1) "General remarks on the general plan Ost"; 2) "General remarks on the issue of Germanization, especially on the future attitude towards the inhabitants of the former Baltic states"; 3) "Towards the solution of the Polish question"; 4) "On the question of the future treatment of the Russian population." In accordance with E. Wetzel's remarks, the resettlement of the Germans and the eviction of the local population were planned to be carried out within 30 years after the end of the war. In the colonization zone, 14 million Slavs were to remain, who were supposed to serve the Germans. 4.55 million Germans were to be resettled in the former Poland, the Baltic states, Ingermanlandia, the Bialystok region, Belarus and Ukraine (primarily in the Zhitomir, Kamenets-Podolsk and Vinnitsa regions). In the future, they were supposed to multiply up to 10 million people. Jews were to be exterminated. The rest of the surviving population was to be deported to Siberia. The plan estimated the number of people being evicted at 31 million, but according to E. Wenzel's calculations, this number would amount to more than 51 million. E. Wetzel was skeptical about the feasibility of plans for the eviction of 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 with the fact that in the plan “the same approach was established for all peoples without taking into account whether and to what extent the Germanization of the respective peoples is envisaged, whether it 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 treated Estonians and Latvians more favorably, while he considered the "racial data" of the Lithuanians much worse and believed that they should be given territories for colonization to the east by removing them from the territory of Lithuania. "Friendly peoples" could be used to replenish the staff of managers in the colonized territory, thus clearing their own places of 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, the resettlement will need to involve 700-800 trains per year. Also, to develop the raw materials of Siberia, it was necessary to send technically literate Europeans, such as Czechs, Hungarians, etc. Wetzel suggested encouraging a reduction in the birth rate of non-German peoples. Even with the creation of an imperial commissariat in Moscow, the northern regions of Russia, the Urals and Siberia should be separated from the Moscow administrative entity. Moreover, "the Russian from the Gorky General Secretariat should be instilled with the feeling that he is somehow different from the Russian from the Tula General Secretariat." The language of interethnic communication was to be German.

But Hitler set more ambitious goals. On May 15, 1942, he described the goal of his eastern policy as follows: “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 the Germans to the East million after million with iron stubbornness. He said that no later than ten years later he was awaiting a report on the colonization of the eastern regions already included by that time in Germany or occupied by our troops by at least twenty million Germans. ”

General plan Ost - legal, economic and territorial foundations of construction in the East

May 28, 1942 SS Oberfuehrer, head of the planning department of the headquarters of the imperial commissioner for strengthening the German race, concurrently director of the Institute agrarian policy University of Berlin K. Meyer-Hetling signed the document "General plan East - legal, economic and territorial foundations of construction in the East", drawn up on the instructions of G. Himmler by the Institute for Agrarian Policy of the University of Berlin. He substantiated the scale of the upcoming colonization in the former USSR, the optimal boundaries of individual areas of settlement. It was assumed that colonization would be carried out on the territory of 364,231 km² in the St. Petersburg region, in the Crimea and the Kherson region and in the Bialystok region. It was planned that 36 strong points and three administrative districts will be created. The farms were supposed to have an area of 40-100 hectares. Also, large agricultural enterprises with an area of more than 250 hectares were to be created. It was necessary to resettle here 5.65 million Germans and evict about 31 million local residents. The costs of the operation were calculated, which amounted to 66.6 billion Reichsmarks.

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

General plan "Ost"(it. 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.

A version of the plan was developed in 1941 by the General Directorate of Imperial Security and presented on May 28, 1942 by an employee of the Office of the Staff of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German People, SS Oberfuehrer Meyer-Hetling under the name "General Plan Ost - the foundations of the legal, economic and territorial structure of the East." The text of this document was found in the federal archives of Germany 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 plan's existence 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 reviewing the draft plan prepared by the RSHA.

Rosenberg project

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

Rosenberg proposed to create five governorates on the territory of the USSR. Hitler opposed the autonomy of Ukraine and replaced the term "governorship" for it with "Reichskommissariat". As a result, Rosenberg's ideas took the following forms of embodiment.

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 governorship was to receive autonomy and become the mainstay of the Third Reich in the East.
Caucasus - would include the republics North Caucasus and Transcaucasia and would separate Russia from the Black Sea.
Muscovy - Russia to the Urals.
Turkestan was to become the fifth governorate.

The success of the German campaign in the summer and autumn of 1941 led to a revision and toughening of the plans of the Germans in relation to the eastern lands, and as a result, the "Ost" plan was born.

Description of the plan

According to some reports, the "Plan" Ost "" was divided into two - "Small plan" (German. Kleine planung) and "Big Plan" (it. Große Planung). A 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 foreseen varying percentage Germanization for various conquered Slavic and other peoples. The "non-Germanized" were to be evicted 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 remarks and suggestions

Among historians, a document known as "Remarks and Proposals of the" Eastern Ministry "on the general plan" Ost "has become widespread. Text of this document often referred to as Plan Ost itself, although it has little to do with the Plan's text published in late 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 large and therefore the most dangerous people."

"Generalplan Ost", 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 annihilation:

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

The developed variants of the plan "Ost"

The following documents were developed by the planning team Gr. lll B Planning Service of the General Headquarters of the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of the German People, Heinrich Himmler (Reichskommissar für die Festigung Deutschen Volkstums (RKFDV) and the Institute for Agrarian Policy of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin:

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

Document 2: Materials for the Colonization Report, developed in December 1940 by the RKFDV Planning Service (5 pages). Content: Fundamental article to "The need for territories for forced resettlement from the Old Reich" with a specific requirement for 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 new viable settlements 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 (disappeared, the exact content is unknown): "Ost Master Plan", created in July 1941 by the planning service of the RKFDV. Contents: Description of the size of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR with the boundaries of specific areas of colonization.

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

Document 5: "Master Plan Ost", created in May 1942 by the Institute Agriculture and the politics of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin (68 pages).

Contents: Description of the scale of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR with the 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 were to appear, as well as large agricultural enterprises with an area of at least 250 hectares. Required amount immigrants 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: "General Plan of Colonization" (German. Generalsiedlungsplan), created in September 1942 by the planning service of the RKF (volume: 200 pages, including 25 maps and tables).

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

Rosenberg project

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 governorship was to receive autonomy and become the mainstay 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.
Turkestan was to become the fifth governorate.

Description of the plan

According to some reports, the "Plan" Ost "" was divided into two - "Small plan" (German. Kleine planung) and "Big Plan" (it. Große Planung). A 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 a different percentage of Germanization for various conquered Slavic and other peoples. The "non-Germanized" were to be evicted 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 remarks and suggestions

Among historians, a document known as "Remarks and Proposals of the" Eastern Ministry "on the general plan" Ost "has become widespread. 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.

The developed variants of the plan "Ost"

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

Document 2: Materials for the Colonization Report, developed in December 1940 by the RKFDV Planning Service (5 pages). Content: Fundamental article to "The need for territories for forced resettlement from the Old Reich" with a specific requirement for 130,000 km² of land for 480,000 new viable settlements 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 (disappeared, the exact content is unknown): "Ost Master Plan", created in July 1941 by the planning service of the RKFDV. Contents: Description of the size of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR with the boundaries of specific areas of colonization.

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

Document 5: "Master Plan Ost", created in May 1942 by the Institute for Agriculture and Politics, Friedrich-Wilhelm University Berlin (volume 68 pages).

Contents: Description of the scale of the planned eastern colonization in the USSR with the 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 were to appear, as well as large agricultural enterprises with an area of at least 250 hectares. The required number of settlers 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: "General Plan of Colonization" (German. Generalsiedlungsplan), created in September 1942 by the planning service of the RKF (volume: 200 pages, including 25 maps and tables).

dear comrades, the finished Russian translation of the "General Plan Ost" is posted ----- >> in pdf.
translations were made by the Essence of Time Club and posted on InoForum. Recently, NTV once again drew public attention to the topic of the Ost master plan, announcing that for the first time a text has been published in the public domain ... which has colossal historical value. In fact, the text of the document under discussion had long been “widely available” on the same site, it was simply added to its facsimile from the Bundesarchive (however, this is not the only inaccuracy in this short reportage). After participating in a couple of regular discussions on the topic of GPO, I realized that I was tired of repeating the same thing over and over again, and I decided to systematize the main questions and answers to them. Of course, this text is a “working” version and does not pretend to be a final closure of the topic of the “master plan”.

The following questions are most often encountered:

2. What is the history of the occurrence of GPO? What documents relate to it?
3. What is the content of the GPO?
5. On the plan there is no signature of Hitler or any other high official of the Reich, which means that it is invalid.

8. When were the documents for the Ost plan discovered? Is there a possibility that they are falsified?
9. What can you read more about GPO?

1. What is the "General Plan Ost?"

Under the "General Plan Ost" (GPO) modern historians understand a set of plans, draft plans and memorandums devoted to the settlement of the so-called. "Eastern territories" (Poland and the Soviet Union) in the event of a German victory in the war. The concept of the GPO was developed on the basis of the Nazi racial doctrine under the patronage of the Reichskommissariat for Strengthening German Statehood (RKF), which was headed by SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler, and was supposed to serve as the theoretical foundation for the colonization and Germanization of the occupied territories.

2. What is the history of the occurrence of GPO? What documents relate to it?

A general overview of the documents is given in the following table (with links to the materials posted on the web):

	Name	date	Volume	Prepared by	Original	Colonization objects
1	Planungsgrundlagen (Planning Basics)	February 1940	21 pages	RKF planning department	BA, R 49/157, S.1-21	Western regions of Poland
2	Materialien zum Vortrag "Siedlung" (materials for the report "Settlement")	December 1940	5 p.	RKF planning department	facsimile in G. Aly, S. Heim "Bevölkerungsstruktur und Massenmord" (pp. 29-32)	Poland
3		July 1941	?	RKF planning department	lost, dating by cover letter	?
4	Gesamtplan Ost (cumulative plan Ost)	December 1941	?	planning group III B RSHA	lost; lengthy review of Dr. Wetzel (Stellungnahme und Gedanken zum Generalplan Ost des Reichsführers SS, 04/27/1942, NG-2325; an abbreviated Russian translation allows to reconstruct the content	The Baltic States, Ingermanlandia; Poland, Belarus, Ukraine (strong points); Crimea (?)
5	Generalplan Ost (master plan Ost)	May 1942	Chapter 84	Institute for Agriculture at the University of Berlin BA, R 49 / 157a, facsimile	BA, R 49 / 157a, facsimile	The Baltic States, Ingermanlandia, Gotengau; Poland, Belarus, Ukraine (strong points)
6	Generalsiedlungsplan (master settlement plan)	October-December 1942	planned 200 pages, prepared a general outline of the plan and the main digital indicators	RKF planning department	BA, R 49/984	Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, Czech Republic, Styria, Baltic, Poland

Work on plans to settle the eastern territories began almost immediately after the creation of the Reichskommissariat to strengthen German statehood in October 1939, headed by prof. Konrad Mayer, the planning department of the RKF presented the first plan for the settlement of the western regions of Poland annexed to the Reich already in February 1940. It was under the leadership of Mayer that five of the six above documents were prepared (the Institute of Agriculture, which appears in document 5, was directed by the same Mayer ). It should be noted that the RKF was not the only agency that thought about the future of the eastern territories, similar work was carried out in the Rosenberg ministry and in the department responsible for the four-year plan, which was headed by Goering (the so-called Green Folder). It is this competitive situation that explains, in particular, the criticality of the recall of the employee of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories Wetzel on the version of the Ost plan presented by the RSHA planning group (document 4). Nevertheless, Himmler, not least thanks to the success of the propaganda exhibition "Planning and Building a New Order in the East" in March 1941, managed to gradually achieve dominance. Document 5, for example, speaks of "the priority of the Reich Commissioner for strengthening German statehood in matters of settlement (colonized territories) and planning."

To understand the logic of the development of the GPO, two comments of Himmler on the plans presented by Mayer are important. In the first, from 12.06.42 (BA, NS 19/1739, Russian translation), Himmler demands to expand the plan to include not only the "eastern", but also other territories subject to Germanization (West Prussia, Czech Republic, Alsace-Lorraine, etc.). to shorten the time frame and set the goal of complete Germanization of Estonia, Latvia and the entire governorship general.

The consequence of this was the renaming of the GPO into a "general settlement plan" (document 6), while, however, some territories that were present in the document 5 dropped out of the plan, to which Himmler immediately draws attention (letter to Mayer dated 01/12/1943, BA, NS 19 / 1739): "The eastern territories for settlement should include Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ingermanlandia, as well as Crimea and Tavria [...] The named territories should be fully Germanized / fully populated."

Mayer never presented the next version of the plan: the course of the war made further work on it pointless.

The following table uses the data systematized by M. Burchard:

	Territory of settlement	Number of immigrants	Population subject to eviction / not subject to Germanization	Cost estimation
1.	87,600 sq. Km.	4.3 million	560,000 Jews, 3.4 million Poles in the first stage	-
2.	130,000 sq. Km.	480,000 farms	-	-
3.	?	?	?	?
4.	700,000 sq. Km	1-2 million German families and 10 million foreigners with Aryan blood	31 million (80-85% Poles, 75% Belarusians, 65% Ukrainians, 50% Czechs)	—
5.	364,231 sq. Km	5.65 million	min. 25 million (90% Poles, 50% Estonians, more than 50% Latvians, 85% Lithuanians)	66 billion RM
6.	330,000 sq. Km	12.21 million	30.8 million (95% Poles, 50% Estonians, 70% Latvians, 85% Lithuanians, 50% French, Czechs and Slovenes)	144 billion RM

Let us dwell in more detail on the fully preserved and most elaborated document 5: its phased implementation is supposed to be implemented within 25 years, quotas of Germanization are introduced for various nationalities, it is proposed to prohibit the indigenous population from owning property in cities in order to displace it into countryside and use in agriculture. To control territories with an initially predominant German population, a form of margrave is introduced, the first three: Ingermanlandia (Leningrad Oblast), Gotengau (Crimea, Kherson), and Memel-Narev (Lithuania - Bialystok). In Ingermanland, the population of cities should be reduced from 3 million to 200 thousand. In Poland, Belarus, the Baltic States, Ukraine, a network of 36 strong points is being formed, providing effective communication between the margraves and the metropolis (see reconstruction). In 25-30 years, the margraves should be Germanized by 50%, and the strongholds by 25-30% (In the already known review, Himmler demanded to reduce the implementation period of the plan to 20 years, to think over the complete Germanization of Estonia and Latvia and more active Germanization of Poland).

In conclusion, it is emphasized that the success of the settlement program will depend on the will and colonization power of the Germans, and if it withstands these tests, then the next generation will be able to close the northern and southern flanks of colonization (i.e., populate Ukraine and central Russia.)

It should be noted that in documents 5 and 6 there are no specific numbers of residents to be evicted, they are, however, derived from the difference between the actual number of residents and the planned one (taking into account the German settlers and the local population suitable for Germanization). In document 4, Western Siberia is called as the territories to which residents who are not suitable for Germanization should be resettled. The leaders of the Reich have repeatedly spoken about the desire to Germanize the European territory of Russia to the Urals.

From a racial point of view, Russians were considered the least Germanici

by the people, who were also poisoned for 25 years by the poison of “Judo-Bolshevism”. How the policy of decimation of the Slavic population would have been carried out is difficult to say unequivocally. According to one of the testimonies, Himmler, before the start of Operation Barbarossa, called the goal of the campaign against Russia "to reduce the Slavic population by 30 million." Wetzel wrote about measures to reduce the birth rate (encouraging abortion, sterilization, refusal to combat child mortality, etc.), Hitler himself expressed himself more directly: “Local residents? We'll have to do some filtering. We will remove destructive Jews altogether. So far, my impression of the Belarusian territory is better than that of the Ukrainian one. We will not go to Russian cities, they must completely die out. We must not torment ourselves with remorse. We do not need to get used to the role of a nanny, we have no obligations to the local residents. Repairing houses, catching lice, German teachers, newspapers? No! We'd better open a radio station under our control, but otherwise they just need to know the signs road traffic so as not to get in our way! By freedom, these people understand the right to wash only on holidays. If we come with shampoo, it will not arouse sympathy. You need to retrain there. There is only one task: to carry out Germanization by bringing in Germans, and the former inhabitants must be regarded as Indians. "

4. In fact, the GPO was developed by a petty official, is it worth taking it seriously?

Petty official prof. Konrad Mayer was not. As mentioned above, he headed the planning department of the RKF, as well as the land department of the same Reichskommissariat and the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Berlin. He was the Standartenführer, and later Oberführer (in the military table of ranks above Colonel, but below Major General) of the SS. By the way, another popular misconception is that the GPO was allegedly a figment of the inflamed imagination of one insane SS man. This is also not true: agrarians, economists, managers and other specialists from academia worked on the GPO. For example, in the cover letter for document 5 Mayer write

and the assistance of "my closest associates in the planning department and the general land office, as well as the financial expert Dr. Besler (Jena)." Additional funding went through the German Research Society (DFG): from 1941 to 1945, 510 thousand RM were allocated for "scientific and planning work to strengthen German statehood", of which 60-70 thousand were spent by Mayer on his working group, the rest went as grants to scientists who conducted research relevant to RKF. For comparison, the maintenance of a scientist with a scientific degree cost about 6 thousand RM per year (data from the report of I. Heinemann.)

It is important to note that Mayer worked on the GPO on the initiative and on the instructions of the RKF chief Himmler and in close connection with him, while the correspondence was carried out both through the head of the RKF headquarters Greifelt, and directly. The photographs taken during the exhibition "Planning and Building a New Order in the East", in which Mayer speaks to Himmler, Hess, Heydrich and Todt, are widely known.

5. The plan does not have the signature of Hitler or any other Nazi leader, which means that it is invalid.

The GPO actually did not advance beyond the design stage, which was in no small measure facilitated by the course of hostilities - from 1943 the plan began to quickly lose relevance. Of course, the GPO was not signed by either Hitler or anyone else, since it was a plan for the post-war settlement of the occupied regions. In the very first sentence of document 5, this is stated directly: "Thanks to German weapons, the eastern territories, which have been the object of disputes that have been dragging on for many centuries, are finally annexed to the Reich."

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to deduce from this the disinterest of Hitler and the Reich leadership in the GPO. As already shown above, the work on the plan took place on the instructions and under the constant patronage of Himmler, who, in turn, “would like to convenient time transfer this plan also to the Fuehrer "(letter of 12.06.1942)

Let us recall that already in Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote: "We stop the eternal advance of the Germans to the south and west of Europe and direct our gaze to the eastern lands." The concept of "living space in the east" was repeatedly mentioned by the Fuhrer in the 30s (for example, immediately after coming to power, 02/03/1933, he, speaking to the generals of the Reichswehr, spoke of "the need to conquer living space in the east and its decisive Germanization" ), after the outbreak of the war, it acquired a clear outline. Here is a recording of one of Hitler's monologues from 10/17/1941:

Fuhrer once again in general outline outlined his thoughts on the development of the eastern regions. The most important thing is the roads. He told Dr. Todt that the original plan he had prepared needed to be greatly expanded. In the next twenty years, he will have three million prisoners at his disposal to solve this problem ... At large river crossings, German cities should arise in which the Wehrmacht, police, administrative apparatus and the party will be based.
Along the roads, German peasant farms and the monochromatic Asian-looking steppe will soon take on a completely different look. In 10 years 4 million Germans will move there, in 20 - 10 million Germans. They will come not only from the Reich, but also from America, as well as Scandinavia, Holland and Flanders. The rest of Europe can also take part in the annexation of the Russian expanses. In Russian cities, those that will survive the war - Moscow and Leningrad should not survive it at any time - the foot of a German should not step. They have to vegetate in their own shit off the German roads. The Fuehrer again raised the topic that "contrary to the opinion of individual headquarters" neither the education of the local population, nor the care of it should be engaged ...
He, the Fuhrer, will introduce new management with an iron fist, what the Slavs will think of this does not touch him at all. Anyone who eats German bread today does not think too much about the fact that the fields east of the Elbe were conquered by sword in the 12th century.

Of course, his subordinates also echoed him. For example, on October 2, 1941, Heydrich described the future colonization as follows:

Other lands are eastern lands, partly inhabited by Slavs, these are lands on which it is necessary to clearly understand that kindness will be perceived as a manifestation of weakness. These are the lands where the Slav himself does not want to have equal rights with the master, where he used to be in the service. These are lands in the east that we will have to manage and hold. These are the lands where, after the solution of the military question to the Urals itself, German control should be introduced, and they should serve us as a source of minerals, labor, like helots, roughly speaking. These are lands that must be treated as when building a dam and draining the coast: a protective wall is being built far to the east, enclosing them from Asian storms, and from the west, the gradual annexation of these lands to the Reich begins. From this point of view, it is necessary to consider what is happening in the east. The first step will be the creation of a protectorate from the provinces of Danzig-West Prussia and Warthegau. A year ago, another eight million Poles lived in these provinces, as well as in East Prussia and the Silesian part. These are lands that will gradually be populated by the Germans, the Polish element will be squeezed out step by step. These are lands that in due time will become completely German. And then further east, to the Baltic States, which will also in due time become completely German, although here you need to consider what part of the blood of Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians is suitable for Germanization. The best in the racial sense are Estonians, they have strong Swedish influences, then Latvians, and the worst are Lithuanians.
Then it will be the turn of the rest of Poland, this is the next territory, which should be gradually populated by the Germans, and the Poles should be squeezed further east. Then Ukraine, which at first as an intermediate solution should be using, of course, still dormant in the subconscious national idea, separated from the rest of Russia and used as a source of minerals and food under German control. Of course, not allowing the people to gain a foothold there or to strengthen, increasing their educational level, as from this later opposition may grow, which, with the weakening of the central government, will strive for independence ...

A year later, on 11/23/1942, Himmler said the same thing:

The main colony of our Reich lies in the east. Today - the colony, tomorrow - the settlement area, the day after tomorrow - the Reich! [...] If Russia is likely to be defeated in a bitter struggle next year or a year from now, we still have a great task ahead of us. After the victory of the Germanic peoples, the settlement space in the east must be reclaimed, populated and incorporated into European culture. Over the next 20 years - counting from the end of the war - I set myself the task (and I hope that I can solve it with your help) to move the German border about 500 km to the east. This means that we must resettle farm families there, the resettlement of the best bearers of German blood will begin and the ordering of the million Russian people for our tasks ... 20 years of struggle to achieve peace lie before us ... Then this east will be cleansed of foreign blood and our families will settle there as legal owners.

As you can easily see, all three quotes perfectly correlate with the main provisions of the GPO.

6. GPO was a purely theoretical concept.

V broad sense this is indeed the case: there is no reason to implement the plan for the post-war settlement of the occupied territories until the war is over. This does not mean, however, that measures for the Germanization of individual regions were not carried out at all. First of all, it should be noted here the western regions of Poland (West Prussia and Warthegau) annexed to the Reich, the settlement of which was mentioned in document 1. During the multi-stage measures for the deportation of the Jewish and Polish in ghettos and extermination camps on their own territory: of the 435,000 Jews in Warthegau, 12,000 survived) by March 1941. more than 280 thousand people were taken out from Warthegau alone. The total number of Poles deported from West Prussia and Warthegau to the General Government is estimated at 365 thousand people. Their yards and apartments were occupied by German settlers, of whom, as of March 1942, there were already 287 thousand in these two regions.

At the end of November 1942, on the initiative of Himmler, the so-called. "Akzia Zamosc", the aim of which was the Germanization of the Zamosc district, which was declared the "first area of German settlement" in the General Government. By August 1943, 110 thousand Poles were evicted: about half were deported, the rest fled on their own, many went to the partisans. To protect future settlers, it was decided to use the enmity between Poles and Ukrainians and create a defensive ring of Ukrainian villages around the settlement area. Due to a lack of forces to maintain order, the action was stopped in August 1943. By that time, only about 9,000 of the 60,000 planned displaced persons had moved to the Zamosc district.

Finally, in 1943, the German town of Hegewald was created near Himmler's headquarters in Zhitomir: 10,000 Germans took the place of 15,000 Ukrainians expelled from their homes. At the same time, the first settlers went to Crimea.
All these activities are also quite correlated with GPO. It is interesting to note that prof. Mayer visited during business trips and Western Poland, and Zamos, and Zhitomir, and Crimea, that is, he assessed the feasibility of his concept on the ground.

7. Implementing such a plan is unrealistic.

Of course, one can only guess about the reality of the implementation of the GPO in the form in which it is described in the documents that have come down to us. We are talking about the resettlement of tens of millions (and, most likely, the extermination of millions) of people, the need for resettlers is estimated at 5-10 million people. The discontent of the expelled population and, as a result, a new round of armed struggle against the invaders are practically guaranteed. It is unlikely that the settlers would have rushed to the area where the partisan war continues.

On the other hand, we are talking not just about the fixed idea of the Reich leadership, but also about scientists (economists, planners, managers) who projected this fixed idea onto reality: no supernatural or impracticable obligations were set, the task of Germanizing the Baltic, Ingermanland, Crimea, Poland, parts of Ukraine and Belarus had to be solved in small steps for 20 years, along the way, details (for example, the percentage of suitability for Germanization) would be adjusted and clarified. As for the "unreality of the GPO" in terms of scale, we must not forget that, for example, the number of Germans expelled during and after the end of World War II from the territories in which they lived is also described by an eight-digit number. And it took not 20 years, but five times less.

The hopes (expressed today, mainly by the followers of General Vlasov and other collaborators) that some part of the occupied territories would gain independence or at least self-government, are not reflected in real Nazi plans (see, for example, Hitler in Bormann's notes, 07.16.41:

We will again emphasize that we were forced to occupy this or that area, to establish order in it and to secure it. In the interests of the population, we are forced to take care of peace, food, communication routes, etc., so we are introducing our own rules here. No one should recognize that in this way we are introducing our own rules forever! All the necessary measures - executions, evictions, etc., we, in spite of this, carry out and can carry out.
However, we do not want to prematurely turn anyone into our enemies. Therefore, for now, we will act as if this area is a mandated territory. But we ourselves should be perfectly clear that we will never leave it. [...]
The most basic:
Formations to the west of the Urals of a power capable of waging war should never be allowed, even if we will have to fight for another hundred years. All successors to the Fuhrer must know: the Reich will only be safe if there is no foreign army to the west of the Urals, Germany takes upon itself the protection of this space from all possible threats.
The iron law should read: "Nobody except Germans should ever be allowed to carry weapons!"

At the same time, it makes no sense to compare the situation in 1941-42 with the situation in 1944, when the Nazis made promises much easier, since they were glad of almost any help: an active conscription began in the ROA, Bandera was released, etc. Like the Nazis belonged to the allies who pursued goals not approved in Berlin, including those who stood up for (albeit puppet) independence in 1941-42, clearly shows the example of the same Bandera.

8. When were the documents for the Ost plan discovered? Is there a possibility that they are falsified?

Dr. Wetzel's recall and a number of accompanying documents appeared already at the Nuremberg trials, documents 5 and 6 were discovered in American archives and published by Czeslaw Madayczyk (Przeglad Zachodni Nr. 3 1961).
Theoretically, the possibility that this or that document is falsified always exists. In this case, however, it is important that we are dealing not with one or two, but with a whole complex of documents, which includes not only the main ones discussed above, but also various accompanying notes, reviews, letters, minutes - in the classic Ch. Madaychik's collection contains more than one hundred relevant documents. Therefore, it is absolutely not enough to call one document a falsification, taking it out of the context of the rest. If, for example, document 6 is falsification, then what does Himmler write to Mayer in his response to it? Or, if Himmler's review of 06/12/42 is a falsification, then why document 6 embodies the instructions contained in this review? And most importantly, why do the documents of the GPO, if they are falsified, correlate so well with the statements of Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, etc.?

Those. here you need to build a whole conspiracy theory, explaining by whose malicious intent the documents and speeches of Nazi bosses found at different times in different archives are built into a whole picture. And to question the veracity individual documents(as some authors do, counting on the ignorance of the reading public) is quite meaningless.

First of all, books in German:

Collection of documents compiled by C. Madayczyk Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan, Saur, München 1994;

- Mechthild Rössler, Sabine Schleiermacher (Hrsg.): Der "Generalplan Ost". Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik, Akademie, Berlin 1993;

- Rolf-Dieter Müller: Hitlers Ostkrieg und die deutsche Siedlungspolitik, Frankfurt am Main 1991;

Isabel Heinemann: Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut. Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas, Wallstein: Göttingen 2003 (partially available)

The draft general layout "East" (Ost) on the instructions of SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler was prepared by SS Oberfuehrer Konrad Meyer. The final version of the document on the enslavement and destruction of the peoples of the USSR is dated May 28, 1942. Even before the attack on Soviet Union in early 1941, Hitler spoke in his speech to the command of the Wehrmacht about the need for "total destruction of the USSR." In April of the same year, the commander ground forces Of the Third Reich, V. Brauchitsch issued an order for the immediate elimination of anyone who would put up any resistance in the territory occupied by the Germans.
"Rechkommissar for the Strengthening of the German Race" Heinrich Himmler was instructed by Hitler to create new settlements, which should appear as Nazi Germany expands its living space in the east. In July 1940, before the high command of the Wehrmacht, Hitler outlined his concept of dividing the territories of the USSR: Germany keeps Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, and the north-west of Russia, including the Arkhangelsk region, goes to the Finns.
The Ost plan prepared by Himmler's services envisaged the deportation or extermination of over 80% of the population of Lithuania, more than 60% of the inhabitants of Western Ukraine, 75% of Belarusians, half of the Latvians and Estonians. The Nazis were going to raze Moscow and Leningrad to the ground, and completely destroy the entire population of these cities. Part of the plan was to disunite the peoples of the occupied territories, so in Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and the Baltic states, the Nazis in every possible way encouraged nationalist sentiments.
In March 1941, a special structure was created in Germany to control the exploited population of the USSR. It received a name similar to the Ost plan. One of the main tasks of this "headquarters of economic leadership" was the development of a scheme according to which the USSR in as soon as possible turned into a raw material appendage of the Third Reich.
The Nazis' accomplices were promised certain territorial concessions: Romania could lay claim to the lands of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, the Hungarians were promised the former Eastern Galicia (the territory of Western Ukraine).
Going to colonize the Soviet Union, the Nazis, according to the general plan of Ost, intended to populate over 700 square kilometers of the USSR with "true Aryans". They divided the farmland in advance, mapped out administrative districts(districts of Leningrad, Crimea and Bialystok). The Leningrad District was called Ingerlandia, the Crimean District - the Gotsky District, and the Bialystok District was named Memel-Narev. These territories were supposed to be "cleared" of more than 30 million people - the indigenous inhabitants of these areas.
Basically, the "racially inferior" Hitlerites intended to move to Western Siberia, with the exception of the Jews - the Nazis planned to destroy them. According to the Second General Plan of Settlements, ready by December 1942, only the Baltic peoples were suitable for "Germanization", according to the Nazis. From Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, the Nazis wanted to make bosses over the rest of the slaves.
Some projectors of the Ost plan, in particular, Wolfgang Abel, spoke out for the complete destruction of the Russians on the territory of the occupied USSR. Opponents objected: they say it is politically and economically impractical.

It might be helpful to read: