View source for Generalplan Ost

{{Short description|Nazi plan for genocide in Eastern Europe}}
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{{Expand language|topic=|langcode=fr|otherarticle=Generalplan Ost|date=April 2023}}
{{Italic title}}{{Use American English|date=December 2018}}
{{Infobox
| title            = '''{{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}'''
| subheader        = '''''Master Plan for the East'''''
| image            = [[File:Generalplan Ost-en.svg|260px]]
| caption          = Plan of new German settlement colonies (marked with dots and diamonds), drawn up by the [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Friedrich Wilhelm University]] Institute of Agriculture in Berlin, 1942, covering the Baltic states, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.
| header1          = <hr/>
| label2           = Duration
| data2            = 1941–1945
| label3           = Location
| data3            = Territories controlled by Nazi Germany
| label4           = Type
| data4            = [[Genocide]], [[ethnic cleansing]], [[slave labour]] and [[Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany|kidnapping of children]]
| label5           = Cause
| data5            = [[Nazi racism]], [[Nazi racial policy]], Nazi bio-geo-political ''[[Weltanschauung]]'',<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last=Giaccaria |editor2-last=Minca |editor-first=Paolo |editor2-first=Claudio |location=Chicago, USA |pages=29, 30, 33, 34, 37, 110 |chapter=}}</ref>  [[Manifest destiny]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Masiuk |first=Tony |date=20 March 2019 |title=Hitler's Manifest Destiny: Nazi Genocide, Slavery, and Colonization in Slavic Eastern Europe |url=https://www.academia.edu/41303748 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314094100/https://www.academia.edu/41303748/Hitlers_Manifest_Destiny_Nazi_Genocide_Slavery_and_Colonization_in_Slavic_Eastern_Europe |archive-date=14 March 2022 |website=Academia.edu|quote=Hitler's vision was to recreate and remodel this kind of colonial process. In particular, he envisioned a colonization alike to America's Manifest Destiny, but instead occurring in Eastern Europe, whereby the Volga river would become the Mississippi, and the Slavs would become the Native Americans and “fight like Indians”.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| title= Lebensraum  | url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lebensraum#:~:text=In%20the%20Nazi%20state%2C%20Lebensraum,American%20expansion%20in%20the%20West | website= Holocaust Encyclopedia | publisher = United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | quote=For the Germans, eastern Europe represented their “Manifest Destiny.” Hitler and other Nazi thinkers drew direct comparisons to American expansion in the West. During one of his famous “table talks,” Hitler decreed that “there's only one duty: to Germanize this country [Russia] by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins.” |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614033921/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lebensraum |archive-date=14 June 2018}}</ref> [[Lebensraum]] and [[Heim ins Reich]]
| label6           = Patron(s)
| data6            = [[Adolf Hitler]]
| label7           = Objectives
| data7            = * [[Genocide]], [[ethnic cleansing]] and extermination of [[Slavs]], [[Eastern European Jews]], [[Romani people|Romani]] and other ethnic groups deemed ''[[untermensch]]'' in Nazi ideology
* Slaughter of more than sixty million Slavic, Jewish and Romani inhabitants of Eastern Europe<ref>{{Cite book |last=J. Barnes |first=Trevor |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last=Giaccaria |editor2-last=Minca |editor-first=Paolo |editor2-first=Claudio |location=Chicago, USA |pages= 213 |chapter=9: A Morality Tale of Two Location Theorists in Hitler’s Germany: Walter Christaller and August Lösch}}</ref>
* Advancing Nazi [[settler colonial]] project of [[Lebensraum]] 
* Establishment of [[Greater Germanic Reich]]
| data8            = * 11 million Slavs{{sfnp|Lens |2019}}
* 3–3.4 million Polish Jews{{sfn|Naimark|2023 |pp=367, 368 }}
| label8           = Deaths
| data9            = Nazi abandonment of GPO due to Axis defeat in the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]]
| label9           = Outcome
}}

The '''{{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}''' ({{IPA|de|ɡenəˈʁaːlˌplaːn ˈɔst}}; {{lit|Master Plan for the East}}), abbreviated '''GPO''', was Nazi Germany's plan for the settlement and "[[Germanization]]" of captured territory in Eastern Europe, involving the [[genocide]], [[Extermination (crime)|extermination]] and large-scale [[ethnic cleansing]] of [[Slavs]], [[Eastern European Jews]], and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe categorized as "''[[Untermenschen]]''" in [[Nazi ideology]].<ref>{{cite book|quote=As a matter of fact, Hitler wanted to commit Genocide against the Slavic peoples, in order to colonize the East |title=  Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History |editor-first= A. Dirk |editor-last=Moses |publisher= Berghahn Books |date= 2008 |page= 20}}</ref>{{sfnp|Lens|2019}} The campaign was a precursor to Nazi Germany's planned [[Settler colonialism|colonisation]] of [[Central and Eastern Europe]] by Germanic settlers, and it was carried out through systematic massacres, [[Hunger Plan|mass starvations]], [[Chattel labour in Nazi Germany|chattel labour]], [[Wartime sexual violence|mass rapes]], [[Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany|child abductions]], and [[German military brothels in World War II|sexual slavery]].<ref name="Masiuk">{{Cite web |last=Masiuk |first=Tony |date=20 March 2019 |title=Hitler's Manifest Destiny: Nazi Genocide, Slavery, and Colonization in Slavic Eastern Europe |url=https://www.academia.edu/41303748 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314094100/https://www.academia.edu/41303748/Hitlers_Manifest_Destiny_Nazi_Genocide_Slavery_and_Colonization_in_Slavic_Eastern_Europe |archive-date=14 March 2022 |website=Academia.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Barenberg |first=Alan |title=The Cambridge World History of Slavery |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-521-84069-9 |editor-last=Eltis |editor2-last=L. Engerman |editor3-last=Drescher |editor4-last=Richardson |editor-first=David |editor2-first=Stanley |editor3-first=Seymour |editor4-first=David |volume=4 |location=New York, NY |pages=640, 650 |chapter=27: Forced Labor in Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union |doi=10.1017/9781139046176.028}}</ref>

''Generalplan Ost'' was only partially implemented during the war in territories occupied by Germany on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] during [[World War II]], resulting indirectly and directly in the deaths of millions by shootings, starvation, disease, [[extermination through labour]], and [[genocide]]. However, its full implementation was not considered practicable during major military operations, and never materialised due to Germany's defeat.<ref>[https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/planung_1.html WISSENSCHAFT – PLANUNG – VERTREIBUNG.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726053612/https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/planung_1.html |date=2021-07-26 }} Der Generalplan Ost der Nationalsozialisten· Eine Ausstellung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft © 2006</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/167eichholtz.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160314101712/http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/167eichholtz.pdf |title= Dietrich Eichholtz»Generalplan Ost« zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker |type=PDF }}</ref><ref name="Vashem">{{Cite web|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206247.pdf|title=Generalplan Ost|last=Yad Vashem }}</ref> Under direct orders from [[Nazi leadership]], around 11 million [[Slavs]] were killed in systematic violence and [[state terrorism]] carried out as part of the GPO. In addition to [[genocide]], millions more were forced into [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|slave labour]] to serve the [[Economy of Nazi Germany#War: 1939–1945|German war economy]].{{sfnp|Lens |2019}}

The program's operational guidelines were based on the policy of ''[[Lebensraum]]'' proposed by [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party]] in fulfilment of the ''[[Drang nach Osten]]'' (drive to the East) ideology of German expansionism. As such, it was intended to be a part of the [[New Order (Nazism)|New Order]] in Europe.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lebensraum|title=Lebensraum|website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org|language=en|access-date=2019-06-23}}</ref> Approximately 3.3 million [[Soviet POWs in Nazi Germany|Soviet POWs]] captured by the [[Wehrmacht]] were killed as part of the GPO. The plan intended for the [[genocide]] of the majority of Slavic inhabitants by various means &ndash; mass killings, forced starvations, [[forced labor in Nazi concentration camps|slave labour]] and other occupation policies. The remaining populations were to be forcibly deported beyond the [[Urals]], paving the way for German settlers.{{sfn|Naimark|2023|pp=358–377}}

The plan was a work in progress. There are four known versions of it, developed as time went on. After the [[invasion of Poland]], the original blueprint for {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} was discussed by the [[RKFDV]] in mid-1940 during the [[Nazi–Soviet population transfers]]. The second known version of the GPO was procured by the [[RSHA]] from {{ill|Erhard Wetzel|de}} in April 1942. The third version was officially dated June 1942. The final version of the Master Plan for the East came from the RKFDV on October 29, 1942. However, after the German [[Battle of Stalingrad|defeat at Stalingrad]], resources allocated to colonization policies were diverted to Axis war efforts, and the program was gradually abandoned.{{r|WFF_1}} Had {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} been fully implemented, it is estimated that more than 60 million people would have perished.{{r|Berghahn99_15|p=105-115}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burleigh |first1=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/germanyturnseast0000burl/page/140 |title=Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich |date=1988 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0521351201 |location=Cambridge, New York |pages=140-150}}</ref>

== Background ==
[[File:Greater Germanic Reich.png|thumb|Boundaries of the planned [[Greater Germanic Reich]], in the scenario of Nazi victory and final completion of ''General Plan Ost'']]

=== Ideological motivations ===
{{Further|Nazi racial theories}}{{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} was [[Nazi Germany]]'s plan for the [[Settler colonialism|colonization]] and [[Germanisation#World War II|Germanization]] of [[Central and Eastern Europe]] over a period of twenty-five years.{{r|DFG2006}}<ref>{{cite book|first=Alex J. |last=Kay | title=Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941 | location=Oxford, UK | publisher=Berghahn Books |year= 2006 | isbn= 1-84545-186-4 | pages=99–102}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last= Browning |first=Christopher R. |title=The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-923211-6 |editor1-last=Bloxham|editor1-first= Donald |editor2-first=A. Dirk|editor2-last=Moses |location=Oxford, UK |pages=418–420 |chapter=20: The Nazi Empire}}</ref> Implementing it would have necessitated [[genocide]]{{r|Eichholtz04_800}} and [[ethnic cleansing]] on a vast scale to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during [[World War II]]. It would have included the extermination and de-population of most [[Slavic peoples|Slavic people]] in Eastern Europe.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Snyder|first=Timothy|title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin|year=2011|isbn=9780099551799 |pages=160–163|publisher=Vintage Books|location=London, UK}}</ref>

The plan, prepared in the years 1939–1942, was part of [[Adolf Hitler]]'s and the [[Nazi Party|Nazi movement]]'s ''[[Lebensraum]]'' policy and a fulfilment of the ''[[Drang nach Osten]]'' ({{langx|en|Drive towards the East}}) ideology of German expansion to the east, both of them part of the larger plan to establish the [[New Order (Nazism)|New Order]]. More than economic calculations, ideological fanaticism and racism played a central role in Nazi regime's implementation of extermination programs such as the GPO.<ref name="Rein 2011 92">{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=92 |chapter=3: German Policies in Byelorussia (1941–1944)}}</ref> Hitler's doctrine of ''[[Lebensraum]]'' envisaged the mass-killings, enslavement and ethnic cleansing of Slavic inhabitants of Eastern Europe, followed by the colonization of these lands with Germanic settlers.{{sfn|Naimark|2023|pp=359}}

Although racist views against Slavs had precedent in German society before Hitler's rule, Nazi anti-Slavism was also based on the doctrines of [[scientific racism]]. The "[[Master race|Master Race]]" doctrine of Nazi ideology condemned Slavs to permanent domination by [[Germanic peoples]], since it viewed them as primitive people who lacked the ability to undertake autonomous activities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=138, 180 |chapter=4: Byelorussian “State-Building”: Political Collaboration in Byelorussia}}</ref> {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} evolved from these racist, [[imperialist]] ideas and was formulated by the Nazi regime as its official policy during the course of the [[Second World War]].{{sfn|Naimark|2023|pp=359}}

{{quote box
| title = Hitler's advocacy of German irredentism into Eastern Europe in the "''Mein Kampf''"|"... when we speak of new territory in Europe today we must principally think of [[Soviet Union|Russia]] and the border states subject to her. Destiny itself seems to wish to point out the way for us here. In delivering Russia over to [[Bolshevism]], fate robbed the [[Russian people]] of that intellectual class which had once created the Russian state and were the guarantee of its existence. For the Russian state was not organized by the constructive political talent of the [[Slavs|Slav]] element in Russia, but was much more a marvellous exemplification of the capacity for state-building possessed by the [[Germanic people|Germanic]] element in a race of inferior worth. ... This colossal empire in the East is ripe for dissolution. And the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. We are chosen by destiny to be the witnesses of a catastrophe which will afford the strongest confirmation of the [[Nazi racial theories|nationalist theory of race]]."
| author = — [[Adolf Hitler]]
| source = —  ("''[[Mein Kampf]]''", Volume 2, Chapter 14: "Germany's policy in Eastern Europe")<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hitler |first=Adolf |date=1939 |title=Mein Kampf |publisher=Hurst & Blackett Ltd.|chapter= XIV: Germany's policy in Eastern Europe|pages=500, 501}}</ref>
| align = right
| width = 25em
}}

=== Himmler's role ===
{{Further|Schutzstaffel|Reich Security Main Office}}
The body responsible for the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} was the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]]'s [[Reich Security Main Office]] (RSHA) under [[Heinrich Himmler]], which commissioned the work. The document was revised several times between June 1941 and spring 1942 as the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|war in the east]] progressed successfully. It was a confidential proposal whose content was known only to those at the top level of the Nazi hierarchy; it was circulated by RSHA to the [[Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories]] (''Ostministerium'') in early 1942.{{r|Browning07_240}}

Between 1940 and 1943, Himmler supervised the drafting of at least five variants of {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}. Four of these drafts were produced by the office of [[Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood]] (RKFDV) and one draft was produced by the RSHA. [[SS Race and Settlement Main Office]] (RuSHA) and ''Ostministerium'' were also involved in the formulating the GPO plans.<ref>{{cite web |year=2006 |title=Die Entwicklung des Generalplans Ost |trans-title=The development of the General Plan East |url=https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/planung_2.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613085112/https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/planung_2.html |archive-date=13 June 2021 |access-date= |website=Eine Ausstellung der [[Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft|Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft]] (DFG) |language=de}}</ref> According to testimony of [[SS-Standartenführer]] [[Hans Ehlich]] (one of the witnesses before the [[Subsequent Nuremberg Trials]]), the original version of the plan was drafted in 1940. As a high official in the RSHA, Ehlich was the man responsible for the drafting of {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} along with [[Konrad Meyer]], Chief of the Planning Office of Himmler's RFKDV. It had been preceded by the ''[[Ostforschung]]''.{{r|Browning07_240}}

The preliminary versions were discussed by Heinrich Himmler and his most trusted colleagues even before the outbreak of war. This was mentioned by SS-''[[Obergruppenführer]]'' [[Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski]] during his evidence as a prosecution witness in [[RuSHA trial|the trial of officials of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office]]. According to Bach-Zelewski, Himmler stated openly: "It is a question of existence, thus it will be a racial struggle of pitiless severity, in the course of which 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military actions and crises of food supply."{{r|Browning07_240}} A fundamental change in the plan was introduced on June 24, 1941 – two days after the start of [[Operation Barbarossa]] – when the [[Final Solution|'solution']] to the [[Jewish question]] ceased to be part of that particular framework gaining a lethal, autonomous priority.{{r|Browning07_240}}

=== Cost ===
The planning had included implementation cost estimates, which ranged from 40 to 67 billion Reichsmarks, the latter figure being close to Germany's entire GDP for 1941.{{sfn|Tooze|2007| p= 472}} A cost estimate of 45.7 billion Reichsmarks was included in the spring 1942 version of the plan, in which more than half the expenditure was to be allocated to land remediation, agricultural development, and transport infrastructure. This aspect of the funding was to be provided directly from state sources and the remainder, for urban and industrial development projects, was to be raised on commercial terms.{{sfn|Tooze|2007| p= 473}}

=== Scale of planned casualties ===
The main objective of {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} was to establish a community in Eastern Europe composed exclusively of individuals classified as [[Germanic peoples|German]] and [[Aryan race|Aryan]], who would serve as loyal subjects of the [[Greater Germanic Reich]]. Full implementation of the plan called for the forced deportation of hundreds of millions of Eastern European inhabitants beyond the Ural Mountains, as well as the killing of more than 60 million [[Slavs]], [[Romani people|Romanis]] and [[Jews]].<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last=Giaccaria |editor2-last=Minca |editor-first=Paolo |editor2-first=Claudio |location=Chicago, USA |pages=189, 213 |chapter=}}</ref> The plan included the policy known as the [[Hunger Plan]], which aimed to cause the deaths of more than 30 million Slavic inhabitants through deliberate starvation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barenberg |first=Alan |title=The Cambridge World History of Slavery |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-521-84069-9 |editor-last=Eltis |editor2-last=L. Engerman |editor3-last=Drescher |editor4-last=Richardson |editor-first=David |editor2-first=Stanley |editor3-first=Seymour |editor4-first=David |volume=4 |location=New York, NY |pages=640 |chapter=27: Forced Labor in Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union |doi=10.1017/9781139046176.028}}</ref><ref name="Masiuk"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Zimmerer |first=Jürgen |title=From Windhoek to Auschwitz?: Reflections on the Relationship between Colonialism and National Socialism |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |year=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-075420-9 |edition=English |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=141 |chapter=Colonialism and the Holocaust: Towards an Archaeology of Genocide |doi=10.1515/9783110754513 |issn=2941-3095 |lccn=2023940036}}</ref>

The plan also envisaged the removal of approximately 80 million [[Russians]] beyond the Urals, with estimates by Nazi planners suggesting that around 30 million would die during the process due to forced displacement and lack of resources.<ref name="Zimmerer 2023 314">{{Cite book |last=Zimmerer |first=Jürgen |title=From Windhoek to Auschwitz?: Reflections on the Relationship between Colonialism and National Socialism |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |year=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-075420-9 |edition=English |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=314 |doi=10.1515/9783110754513 |issn=2941-3095 |lccn=2023940036}}</ref> These measures formed part of a broader policy to reorganise the population structure of Eastern Europe by significantly reducing or eliminating existing populations and repopulating the territory with groups deemed suitable by Nazi ideological criteria.

==Phases of the plan and its implementation==
[[File:Planning Map for Ethnic German Settlement of Warthegau (annexed from Poland).png|thumb|Planning map for resettlement of ethnic Germans in [[Reichsgau Wartheland|Wartheland (Posen)]]]]
{{Further|Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|Wehrbauer|Special Prosecution Book-Poland}}

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style=border: none; text-align:left;"
|-
! Ethnic group /<br>Nationality targeted
! Percentage of ethnic group to be removed<br>by Nazi Germany from future settlement areas{{r|Eichholtz04_800|GumkowskiL61|MisiunasT93_48}}
|-
| [[Russians]]<ref>The Ashgate Research Companion to Imperial Germany
edited by Matthew Jefferies ''Colonialism and Genocide'' by Jurgent Zimmerer page 437 Routledge 2015 ''discussions about the Generalplan Ost – which foresaw up to 70 million Russians being deported to Siberia and left to perish''.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Zimmerer |first=Jürgen |title=From Windhoek to Auschwitz?: Reflections on the Relationship between Colonialism and National Socialism |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |year=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-075420-9 |edition=English |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=314 |doi=10.1515/9783110754513 |issn=2941-3095 |lccn=2023940036 |quote=Under this master plan, up to 80 million Russians were to be driven out of the newly established German colonial lands into the areas beyond the Urals, whereby the planners were well aware that several million (up to 30 million, to be more exact) would not survive this.}}</ref>|| align="right" |70–80 million
|-
| [[Estonians]]{{r|MisiunasT93_48|Smith01_35}} || align=right | almost 50%
|-
| [[Latvians]]{{r|MisiunasT93_48}} || align=right | 50%
|-
| [[Czechs]]{{r|GumkowskiL61}} || align=right | 50%
|-
| [[Ukrainians]]{{r|GumkowskiL61}}<ref>The Third Reich and Ukraine, Volodymyr Kosyk P. Lang, 1993 page 231</ref> || align=right | 65% to be deported from [[Western Ukraine]],<br>35% to be Germanized
|-
| [[Belarusians]]{{r|GumkowskiL61}} || align=right | 75%
|-
| [[Polish people|Poles]]{{r|GumkowskiL61}} || align=right | 20 million, or 80–85%
|-
| [[Lithuanians]]{{r|MisiunasT93_48}} || align=right | 85%
|-
|[[Latgalians (modern)|Latgalians]]{{r|MisiunasT93_48}} || align=right | 100%
|}
[[File:Generalplan Ost map.tiff|thumb|Europe, with pre-war borders, showing the extension of the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} master plan.<br />
LEGEND:<br />
Dark grey – Germany ({{Lang|de|Deutsches Reich}}).<br />
Dotted black line – the extension of a detailed plan of the "second phase of settlement" (''zweite Siedlungsphase'').<br />
Light grey – planned territorial scope of the {{Lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat]]}} administrative units; their names in blue are [[Reichskommissariat Ostland|Ostland]] (1941–1945), [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine|Ukraine]] (1941–1944), [[Reichskommissariat Moskowien|Moskowien]] (not realized), and [[Reichskommissariat Kaukasus|Kaukasien]] (not realized).]]

Widely varying policies were envisioned by the creators of {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}, and some of them were actually implemented by Germany in regards to the different Slavic territories and ethnic groups. For example, by August–September 1939 ([[Operation Tannenberg]] followed by the [[German AB-Aktion operation in Poland|A-B Aktion]] in 1940), ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' death squads and concentration camps had been employed to deal with the Polish elite, while the small number of Czech intelligentsia were allowed to emigrate overseas. [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany|Parts of Poland]] were annexed by Germany early in the war (leaving aside the rump German-controlled [[General Government]] and [[Kresy|the areas]] previously annexed by the [[Soviet Union]]), while the other territories were officially occupied by or allied to Germany (for example, the [[Slovaks|Slovak]] part of [[Czechoslovakia]] became a theoretically independent [[First Slovak Republic|puppet state]], while the ethnic-Czech parts of the [[Czech lands]] (so excluding the [[Sudetenland]]) became a "[[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia|protectorate]]"). The plan was partially attempted during the war, resulting indirectly and directly in millions of deaths of ethnic Slavs by starvation, disease, or [[extermination through labor]].<ref name="Vashem" /> The majority of [[Forced labor in Germany during World War II|Germany's 12 million forced laborers]] were abducted from Eastern Europe, mostly in the Soviet territories and Poland.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-08-24 |title=Forced Labor under the Third Reich – Part One |url=http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150824092603/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |archive-date=2015-08-24 |access-date=2019-08-08 |publisher=Nathan Associates Inc.}}</ref>

The final version of the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} proposal was divided into two parts; the "Small Plan" ('''''Kleine Planung'''''), which covered actions carried out in the course of the war; and the "Big Plan" ('''''Grosse Planung'''''), which described steps to be taken gradually over a period of 25 to 30 years after the war was won. Both plans entailed the policy of ethnic cleansing.{{r|Gellately96|Madajczyk80_105}} As of June 1941, the policy envisaged the deportation of 31 million Slavs to Siberia.{{r|Browning07_240}} 75% of [[Belarusians|Belorussians]] were regarded unfit for "[[Germanisation|Germanization]]" and targeted for extermination or expulsion.<ref name="Rein 2011 92"/>

{{quote box|"The treatment of the civilian population and the methods of [[Bandenbekämpfung|anti-partisan warfare]] in operational areas presented the highest political and military leaders with a welcome opportunity to carry out their plans, namely, the systematic extermination of [[Slavs|Slavism]] and [[Jewry]]."
| source = — Lt. General [[Adolf Heusinger]], Operations chief of the General staff of [[Oberkommando des Heeres|OKH]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=280 |chapter=4: Byelorussian “State-Building”: Political Collaboration in Byelorussia}}</ref>
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The {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} proposal offered various percentages of the conquered or colonized people who were targeted for removal and physical destruction; the net effect of which would be to ensure that the conquered territories would become German. In ten years' time, the plan effectively called for the extermination, expulsion, [[Germanization]] or enslavement of most or all [[East Slavs|East]] and [[West Slavs]] living behind the front lines of East-Central Europe. The "Small Plan" was to be put into practice as the Germans conquered the areas to the east of their pre-war borders.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} After the war, under the "Big Plan", more people in Eastern Europe were to be affected.{{r|MisiunasT93_48|GumkowskiL61}}{{r|Schmuhl08_348}}{{r|Gellately96}}

In their place, settlements of up to 10 million  [[Germans]] were planned to be established in an extended "living space" (''Lebensraum''), as part of the GPO plan. GPO envisaged the establishment of settlements and "village complexes", each capable of hosting around 300–400 Germanic settlers. Because the number of Germans appeared to be insufficient to populate the vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, the peoples which the Nazi theorists regarded as being capable of Germanisation and as racially intermediate between the Germans and the Russians (''Mittelschicht''), namely, Latvians and even Czechs, were also considered to be resettled there.{{r|Connelly99_1}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rössler |first=Mechtild |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last=Giaccaria |editor2-last=Minca |editor-first=Paolo |editor2-first=Claudio |location=Chicago, USA |pages=189, 190 |chapter=8: Applied Geography and Area Research in Nazi Society: Central Place Theory and Planning, 1933– 1945}}</ref> Several Nazi scientists, many of whom were members of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], were involved in the planning of GPO. The programme delineated various settler-colonial policies to be undertaken by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe over a period of 25 years; such as the establishment of new settlements, demographic engineering, construction of new centres, etc., after the planned [[Liquidation of Nazi Germany|liquidation]] of the native populations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mechtild |first=Rössler |title=Hitler's Geographies: The Spatialities of the Third Reich |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-27442-3 |editor-last=Giaccaria |editor2-last=Minca |editor-first=Paolo |editor2-first=Claudio |location=Chicago, USA |pages=189, 190 |chapter=8: Applied Geography and Area Research in Nazi Society: Central Place Theory and Planning, 1933– 1945}}</ref>

As early as the initial phase of [[Operation Barbarossa]], when ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' was advancing deep inside Soviet territories while facing little or no local insurrections, Adolf Hitler had contemplated the utility of [[Nazi security warfare|anti-insurgency]] campaigns in advancing his ''[[Lebensraum]]'' program:

{{Blockquote|text=a partisans’ war also has its advantage; it enables us to eradicate what is against us.|author=Adolf Hitler|title="''Aktenvermerk vom 16. Juli 1941 über eine Besprechung Hitlers mit Rosenberg, Lammers, Keitel und Göring''"|source=<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=280|chapter= 7: Collaboration in the Politics of Repression}}</ref>}}

While various [[Wehrmacht]] commanders wanted to portray Germans as "liberators" of Eastern Europe and incite anti-communist dissidents to foment a pro-Axis partisan warfare against Soviet Union, Nazi ruling elites sought outright suppression of what they regarded as Slavic "''untermenschen''". Hardliners like [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] were averse to initiating agreements with Slavic natives. Hitler was strongly opposed to the entry of Slavic volunteers into the German army and issued orders to disarm the natives.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beever |first=Antony |title=Stalingrad |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-14-192610-0 |location=New York, New York|pages=185}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=326, 360 |chapter=}}</ref> The initial assessment of Hitler and Wehrmacht generals was that [[Operation Barbarossa]] could be completed within months without any outside support. During a speech in 16 July 1941, Hitler proclaimed: <blockquote>"No one but the Germans should ever be allowed to bear arms ... Only a German should bear arms: not a Slav, a [[Czechs|Czech]], a [[Cossacks|Cossack]] or a [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]]."<ref name="Rein 2011 326">{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=326 |chapter=}}</ref></blockquote>
[[File:P_20221107_205156_vHDR_Auto_(1).jpg|thumb|Germanic [[colonization]] of Eastern European regions envisaged in a [[Nazi Propaganda|Nazi-era propaganda]] map published in 1943.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kartenskizze eines zukünftigen Europa unter deutscher Herrschaft |trans-title=Sketch map of a future Europe under German rule |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/d2a24325 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170614003327/https://www.dhm.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/d2a24325 |archive-date=14 June 2017 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum}}</ref>]]

German implementation of Nazi racial principles, combined with the severity of the war in the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]], resulted in German-occupation forces inflicting  brutal measures during its anti-insurgency campaigns. The [[Schutzstaffel]] military apparatus, packed with militants ideologically indoctrinated to view Slavs as subhumans, fanatically implemented "''Herrenvolk vs. Untermensch''" racist criteria in their dealings with natives. Military leadership issued orders to inflict collective punishment against native inhabitants. However, as [[Axis powers|Axis]] advances gave way to a [[war of attrition]] and as German losses mounted, some [[Wehrmacht]] officers began proposing collaborationist policies with the natives, with the purpose of advancing German economic and geo-strategic interests.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=326, 360, 393, 394 |chapter=}}</ref> Even as deteriorating conditions in the front brought around a change in military strategy,<ref name="Rein 2011 326"/> speeches of various Wehrmacht generals continued to explicitly and implicitly designate German fighters as "the last bulwark of European civilisation against Slav hordes".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sergeant |first=Maggie |title=Kitsch & Kunst: Presentations of a Lost War |publisher=Peter Lang |year=2005 |isbn=3-03910-512-4 |location=Bern, Switzerland |pages=47}}</ref>

Exploiting anti-semitic sentiments which had persisted since the [[Tsarist Russian Empire|Tsarist period]] in occupied territories, collaborationism was also incited amongst the native inhabitants to assist Nazi Germany in implementing [[the Holocaust]]. The collaborationist bodies were viewed with suspicion due to the hardline anti-Slavic policy of German occupiers, and their Nazi sponsors largely used these groups as [[cannon fodder]] for German war efforts. As a consequence of the ideological constraints of National Socialism and [[Wehrmacht]]'s rising casualties across the Eastern Front, German units faced shortages of personnel in carrying out the "[[Final Solution]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=257, 258, 395 |chapter=}}</ref> As anti-fascist partisan warfare intensified across  the German-occupied territories of Eastern Europe, Poland, and Yugoslavia, Hitler stated on 6 August 1942: “We shall absorb or eject a ridiculous hundred million [[Slavs]]. Whoever talks about caring for them should at once be put into a [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camp]]”.<ref>{{cite book |last=W. Borejsza |first=Jerzy |title=A ridiculous hundred million Slavs : Concerning Adolf Hitler's world-view |publisher=Instytut Historii PAN |year=2017 |isbn=978-83-63352-88-2 |location=Warsaw, Poland |pages=25, 139, 140 |translator-last=French |translator-first=David}}</ref>

[[File:Krychów forced labour camp 1940 (Krowie Bagno).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Prisoners of the [[Krychów]] [[Forced labor under German rule during World War II|forced labor camp]] dig irrigation ditches for the new German [[Latifundium|latifundia]] of the General Plan East in 1940. Most of them, [[Polish Jews]] and some [[Romani people|Roma people]], were sent to [[Sobibór extermination camp]] afterwards.{{r|HańskInfo}}]]

According to Nazi intentions, attempts at Germanization were to be undertaken only in the case of those foreign nationals in Central and Eastern Europe who could be considered a desirable element for the future Reich from the point of view of its racial theories. The plan stipulated that there were to be different methods of treating particular nations and even particular groups within them. Attempts were even made to establish the basic criteria to be used in determining whether a given group lent itself to Germanization. These criteria were to be applied more liberally in the case of nations whose racial material (''rassische Substanz'') and level of cultural development made them more suitable than others for Germanization. The plan considered that there were a large number of such elements among the Baltic states. Erhard Wetzel felt that thought should be given to a possible Germanization of the whole of the Estonian nation and a sizable proportion of the Latvians. On the other hand, the Lithuanians seemed less desirable since "they contained too great an admixture of Slav blood." Himmler's view was that "almost the whole of the Lithuanian nation would have to be deported to the East".{{r|GumkowskiL61}} Himmler is described as having had a positive attitude towards Germanising the populations of border areas of [[Slovenia]] ([[Upper Carniola]] and Southern [[Styria]]) and [[Bohemia]]-[[Moravia]], but not [[Lithuania]], claiming its population to be of "inferior race".{{r|Heinemann99_370}}

Himmler's notorious policies included the weaponization of schooling system in occupied territories to [[Germanisation|Germanize]] children and indoctrinate them with Nazi doctrines. Special institutes for children in occupied territories were operated to separate children who were categorised by Nazi authorities as "racially suitable" from the local inhabitants, wherein they were indoctrinated to be transferred to families in Germany.<ref name="Rein 2011 244">{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=244 |chapter=}}</ref> Despite the obstruction of German war efforts by the colonization policies and scorched earth tactics unleashed against native populations, Himmler dogmatically pursued the implementation of GPO programme and proposed the further expansion of [[Konrad Meyer]]'s plan.{{sfn|Fritz|2011|pp=256–257}} GPO policies hindered the German military from efficiently exploiting the resources from occupied territories during 1942, a decisive phase of the war during which [[Axis forces]] had the capability to potentially win in the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]], before the Red Army could amass more strength.{{sfn|Fritz|2011|pp=260, 261}}

After the German defeat at the [[Battle of Stalingrad]] and other Axis setbacks in the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]], Nazi planners were forced to practically abandon the extermination campaigns of the GPO by mid-1943.{{sfn|Fritz|2011|pp=259–261, 334}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rozett |first1=Robert |last2=Spector |first2=Shmuel |title=Encyclopedia of the Holocaust |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-57958-307-1 |location=New York |page=233 |entry=Generalplan Ost |quote=}}</ref> From spring 1943, [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] adopted the "''[[Vernichtung durch Arbeit]]''" (trans: "Extermination through labour") policy, which focused on exploiting natives in occupied territories as [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|forced labor]] to aid German economy and military industry. By late 1943, millions of captives were employed in [[Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps|slave labour camps]] across German-occupied territories.{{sfn|Fritz|2011|p=334}}

== GPO implementation by region ==
{{Further|Vernichtungskrieg}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1974-079-57, Berlin, Ausstellung "Planung und Aufbau im Osten".jpg|thumb|upright|[[Rudolf Hess|Hess]] and [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] visit a [[VoMi]] display of proposed rural German settlements in the East, March 1941.]]
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany launched forced starvations and advanced a "war of annihilation" (''[[Vernichtungskrieg]]'') in the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] to implement the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}. The ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' implemented [[Scorched earth|scorched-earth tactics]] throughout the region and forcibly expelled natives en masse to the east. Nazi officials then charted out buffer zones intended to serve as future Nordic settlements. [[Hunger Plan]] was Nazi Germany's strategy to forcibly starve around 31 to 45 million Eastern Europeans by capturing food stocks and redirecting them to German forces.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zimmerer |first=Jürgen |title=From Windhoek to Auschwitz?: Reflections on the Relationship between Colonialism and National Socialism |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |year=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-075420-9 |edition=English |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=141, 151 |doi=10.1515/9783110754513 |issn=2941-3095 |lccn=2023940036}}</ref><ref name="Masiuk"/>

Nazi Germany conducted its warfare in the Eastern Front as a colonialist campaign of plunder and slaughter, involving the unhinged looting of resources and wholesale [[terrorism]] against native populations. German occupation policies in Eastern Europe were characterized by [[genocide]] through "war of annihilation", and were ideologically driven by the [[Nazi racial theories|Nazi racist doctrines]] and [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] policy of ''[[Lebensraum]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zimmerer |first=Jürgen |title=From Windhoek to Auschwitz?: Reflections on the Relationship between Colonialism and National Socialism |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |year=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-075420-9 |edition=English |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=31, 131, 171, 172, 184, 237, 238, 297, 298, 300 |doi=10.1515/9783110754513 |issn=2941-3095 |lccn=2023940036}}</ref>

=== Baltic region ===
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were to be deprived of their statehood, while their territories were to be included in the area of German settlement. This meant that Latvia and especially Lithuania would be covered by the deportation plans, though in a somewhat milder form than the expulsion of [[Slavs]] to western Siberia. While the Estonians would be spared repressions and physical liquidation (that the Jews and the Poles were experiencing), in the long term the Nazi planners did not foresee their existence as independent entities and they would ultimately be deported as well, with eventual denationalisation; initial designs were for Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to be Germanised within 25 years; Heinrich Himmler revised them to 20 years.{{r|Raun02_161}}

Despite German opposition to their attempts of state-formation, Baltic natives were classified as "superior" to Slavs in the Nazi racial hierarchy. Therefore, German authorities implemented a deeper scale of collaborationist policy in the Baltic society. Nazi collaborationists amongst the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian natives were given senior posts in the administrative bodies of the German occupation. In [[German-occupied Lithuania]], a civilian administration which controlled its internal security was tolerated. This semi-autonomous entity existed within the [[Reichskommissariat Ostland]]. Such concessions were non-existent in [[Poland]], [[Ukraine]] and [[Belarus]]sia, where the Germanic occupation policy was characterised by full-blown [[colonization]], exploitation of resources, state-terrorism and forcing natives into [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|slave labour]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=25, 26, 32 |chapter=1: Collaboration in Occupied Europe: Theoretical Overview}}</ref>

=== Belarussia ===
[[RSHA]]'s GPO program had categorised 75% of [[Belarusians|Belarussians]] as "''Eindeutschungsunfähig"'' (trans: "ineligible for Germanization"); targeting them for [[ethnic cleansing]] or violent eradication. After forcibly expelling or exterminating an estimated 5–6 million of its native inhabitants, these lands were then supposed to be handed over to Germanic settlers for implementing the ''[[Lebensraum]]'' agenda.<ref name="Rein 2011 244"/> Child indoctrination institutions which hosted numerous Belarussian children forcibly were also opened, wherein kids categorised as "racially suitable" were prepared to be transferred to Germany. The first of these centres in Belarus was set up in [[Babruysk|Bobruysk]].<ref name="Rein 2011 244"/>

[[Nazi security warfare|Nazi anti-insurgency warfare]] conducted across occupied Eastern Europe was also used as an opportunity by German authorities to advance the objectives of GPO and ''Lebensraum'' [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] agenda. In Belarussia, divisions of [[Wehrmacht]] and [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] committed numerous massacres and unleashed [[State terrorism|state-terror]] indiscriminately against the native populations, in operations labelled "anti-partisan undertakings".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=300 |chapter=}}</ref>

=== Czech lands ===
{{Seealso|Final Solution of the Czech Question}}
In 1940, Hitler agreed that around half of the [[Czechs|Czech]] population were suitable for Germanization, including the [[Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany|kidnapping of thousands of Czech children to be brought up as Germans]], while the others deemed not "racially valuable" (i.e. "''Untermensch''") and the Czech intelligentsia were not to be Germanized and were instead to be “deprived of [their] power, eliminated, and shipped out of the country by all sorts of methods.”<ref>{{cite book|first=Anton Weiss|last=Wendt|title=Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe|page=71}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Weikart|title=Hitler's Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress|page=67}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Chad Carl|last=Bryant|year=2007|title=Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism|page=126}}</ref> Under {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}, the Nazis had intended to displace the un-Germanizable population to [[Siberia]]. However, due to the war effort's need for labor, this plan was never implemented.<ref name="Gumkowski">{{cite book|url=http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110409034704/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm|archive-date=9 April 2011|title=Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe|first1=Janusz|last1=Gumkowski|first2=Kazimierz|last2=Leszczynski|translator-first1=Edward|translator-last1=Robert|format=Paperback|publisher=Polonia Pub. House|edition=First|year=1961|asin=B0006BXJZ6}}</ref>

=== Poland ===
[[File:Die_'großzügigste_Umsiedlungsaktion'_with_Poland_superimposed,_1939.jpg|thumb|Nazi propaganda poster from 1939 (dark grey) after the [[Invasion of Poland|conquest of Poland]]. It depicts pockets of German colonists resettling into [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany]] from Soviet-controlled territories during the ''[[Heim ins Reich]]'' action. The outline of Poland (here superimposed in red) was missing from the original poster.{{r|Nicholas11_194}}]]
In 1941, the German leadership decided to destroy the [[Polish people|Polish nation]] completely, and in 15–20 years the Polish state under German occupation was to be fully cleared of any ethnic Poles and settled by German colonists.{{r|Berghahn99_15|p=32}} A majority of them, now [[Intelligenzaktion|deprived of their leaders and most of their intelligentsia]] (through mass murder, [[Cultural genocide|destruction of culture]], banning education above the absolutely basic level, and [[Kidnapping of children for forced Germanization by Nazi Germany|kidnapping of children]] for [[Germanization]]), would have to be deported to regions in the East and scattered over as wide an area of Western Siberia as possible. According to the plan, this would result in their [[Cultural assimilation|assimilation]] by the local populations, which would cause the Poles to vanish as a nation.{{r|Connelly99_1}}

Approximately two million ethnic Poles were subjected to a forced [[Germanisation in Poland (1939–1945)|Germanization]] campaign as part of the GPO. According to the plan, by 1952 only about 3–4 million 'non-Germanized' Poles (all of them peasants) were to be left residing in the former Poland. Those of them who would still not Germanize were to be forbidden to marry, the existing ban on any medical help to Poles in Germany would be extended, and eventually Poles would cease to exist. Experiments in mass sterilization in concentration camps may also have been intended for use on the populations.{{r|Weinberg05_24}}  The ''[[Wehrbauer]]'', or soldier-peasants, would be settled in a fortified line to prevent civilization reanimating beyond the [[Ural Mountains]] and threatening Germany.{{r|Cecil72_19}}  "[[Blood and soil|Tough peasant races]]" would serve as a bulwark against attack{{r|Spiegel20110527}}{{snd}}however, it was not very far east of the "frontier" that the [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere#Projected territorial extent|westernmost reaches within continental Asia]] of the Nazi Germany's major Axis partner, the [[Empire of Japan]]'s own [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]] would have existed, had a complete defeat of the Soviet Union occurred.

=== Russia ===
Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a [[war of annihilation|campaign of annihilation]], intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944 |publisher=Enigma Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-929631-66-7 |editor-last=Trevor-Roper |editor-first=H.R. |edition=New Updated |location=New York, USA |translator-last=Cameron |translator2-last=Stevens |translator-first=Norman |translator2-first=R.H. |pages= xxviii, xxix | chapter= The Mind of Adolf Hitler}}</ref>{{sfn|Fritz|2011|p=93}} On 21 July 1940, Hitler ordered German army commander-in-chief [[Walther von Brauchitsch]] to prepare a war-plan to eliminate what he described as the "Russian problem". In a meeting before ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' military commanders on 31 July 1940, Hitler announced his "final decision" to "finish off" Russia through the initiation of a large military invasion in the spring of 1941.<ref>{{cite book| title=Prisoners of War: Europe: 1939–1956 |last= Moore |first= Bob |chapter=8: War of Annihilation: Russian Prisoners of War on the Eastern Front 1941‒1942 |year=2022 |publisher= Oxford University Press | location=Oxford, UK | pages=206, 207}}</ref> 

During [[Operation Barbarossa]], German soldiers ruthlessly perpetrated [[Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war|mass-slaughter of Russian captives]] as part of the GPO.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Snyder|first=Timothy|title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin|year=2011|isbn=9780099551799|pages=251|publisher=Vintage Books|location=London, UK}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Nazi persecution of Soviet prisoners of war |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-persecution-of-soviet-prisoners-of-war |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240309223926/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-persecution-of-soviet-prisoners-of-war |archive-date=9 March 2024 |website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title=Encyclopedia of the Holocaust | year= 2013 |last1= Rozett |first1=Robert |last2=Spector |first2=Shmuel| publisher=Routledge | entry=Generalplan Ost | page=233 | location =New York |isbn=978-1-57958-307-1 | quote= "During the war, many of Nazis' activities were carried out with ''Generalplan Ost'' in mind. They massacred millions of Jews in Eastern Europe, in addition to millions to Soviet prisoners of war."}}</ref> Out of the 3.2 million Soviet prisoners captured by German forces by December 1941, approximately 2 million had been killed by February 1942, mostly through forced starvation, [[Death march|death marches]] and [[Mass shooting|mass shootings]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=World War II: The Essential Reference Guide |publisher=ABC-CLIO, LLC |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-61069-101-7 |editor-last=Roberts |editor-first=Priscilla |location=California, USA |pages=208, 209}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher R.|title=The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-923211-6 |editor1-last=Bloxham|editor1-first=Donald|editor2-first= A. Dirk|editor2-last=Moses |location=Oxford, UK |pages=420 |chapter=20: The Nazi Empire}}</ref>

As part of the implementation of the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}, the Nazi regime intended to organize the rounding up of approximately 80 million Russians and expel them beyond the [[Urals]]. Nazi bureaucrats estimated that nearly 30 million Russians would have died during the planned [[death march]]es to regions beyond the Urals, such as [[Siberia]].<ref name="Zimmerer 2023 314"/>

=== Ukraine ===
{{Further|Holocaust in Ukraine}}
Between 1941 and 1945, approximately three million [[Ukrainians]] and other non-Jews were mass-murdered as part of Nazi extermination policies implemented across the regions of [[Ukraine]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Magocsi|first=Paul Robert|title=A History of Ukraine|year=1996|publisher=University of Toronto Press|page=633|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t124cP06gg0C|isbn=978-0-8020-7820-9}}</ref><ref name=Dawidowicz>{{cite book|first=Lucy|last=Dawidowicz |author-link=Lucy Dawidowicz|title=The War Against the Jews|url=https://archive.org/details/waragainstjews00lucy |url-access=limited|isbn=0-553-34302-5|publisher=Bantam Books|location=New York|year=1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/waragainstjews00lucy/page/403 403]}}</ref> In addition, between 850,000<ref>{{Cite web |title=Civil Wars in the Soviet Union |author=Alfred J. Rieber |pages=133, 145–147 |url=http://www.spranceana.com/uploads/2012/12/4.1rieber.pdf |year=2003 |access-date=8 June 2022 |archive-date=30 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030005123/http://www.spranceana.com/uploads/2012/12/4.1rieber.pdf |url-status=dead }} Slavica Publishers.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Magocsi|first=Paul Robert|title=A History of Ukraine|year=1996|publisher=University of Toronto Press|page=679|isbn=978-0802078209 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t124cP06gg0C&q=A+History+of+Ukraine}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Dawidowicz, Lucy S.|title=The war against the Jews, 1933–1945|publisher=Bantam Books|location=New York|year=1986|page=403|isbn=0-553-34302-5|oclc=|doi=|accessdate=}}</ref>–1,600,000 Jews were killed by Nazi forces in Ukraine during this period, with the assistance of local collaborators.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://holocaust-ukraine.net/res/custom/files/scientific_literature/3_4_Kruglov_Hronika.pdf |title=ХРОНИКА ХОЛОКОСТА В УКРАИНЕ 1941–1944 гг. |website=holocaust-ukraine.net |last=Kruglov |first=Alexander Iosifovich |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809195958/http://holocaust-ukraine.net/res/custom/files/scientific_literature/3_4_Kruglov_Hronika.pdf |archive-date=2014-08-09 |url-status=usurped |quote=To this number of victims should be added Jews who died in captivity, as well as Jews who were exterminated on the territory of Russia (mainly in the North Caucasus), where they evacuated in 1941 and where they were caught by the Germans in 1942. Number of Jews who perished can be estimated at 1.6 million.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Stalin and Europe: Imitation and Domination, 1928–1953 |last1=D. Snyder|first1=Timothy |last2=Brandon |first2=Ray|date=30 May 2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-939259-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ht7HAwAAQBAJ&dq=%22approximately+1.5+million+of+the+approximately%22&pg=PT203 |quote=Approximately 1.5 million of the approximately 5.7 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust came from within the borders of what is today Ukraine – Dieter Pohl|author-link=Timothy D. Snyder}}</ref> 

Original Nazi plans advocated the extermination of 65 percent of  23.2&nbsp;million Ukrainians,<ref>Hans-Walter Schmuhl. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927–1945: crossing boundaries. Volume 259 of Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Coutts MyiLibrary. SpringerLink Humanities, Social Science & LawAuthor. Springer, 2008. {{ISBN|9781402065996}}, p.&nbsp;348–349</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/ussr_nac_26.php?reg=4|title=Демоскоп Weekly – Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей|publisher=Demoscope.ru |access-date=2015-09-27}}</ref> with the survivors treated as chattel slaves.<ref>Robert Gellately. Reviewed works: Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan by Czeslaw Madajczyk. Der "Generalplan Ost." Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik by [[Mechtild Rössler]]; Sabine Schleiermacher. ''Central European History'', Vol. 29, No. 2 (1996), pp.&nbsp;270–274</ref> Over 2,300,000 Ukrainians were deported to Germany and forced into Nazi slave labor.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.aim.org/special-report/russias-war-on-ukraine/ | title=Russia's War on Ukraine | date=5 March 2014 | access-date=14 March 2014 | archive-date=16 July 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716092709/http://www.aim.org/special-report/russias-war-on-ukraine/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Nazi seizure of food supplies in Ukraine just like [[Holodomor|Soviets did in 1932–33]] brought about starvation, as it was intended to do to depopulate that region for German settlement.{{sfnp|Berkhoff|2004|p=45}} Soldiers were told to steel their hearts against starving women and children, because every bit of food given to them was stolen from the German people, endangering their nourishment.{{sfnp|Berkhoff|2004|p=166}}

=== Yugoslavia ===
After [[Invasion of Yugoslavia|conquering Yugoslavia]] in April 1941, Nazi Germany partitioned the country and installed puppet dictatorships in [[Government of National Salvation|Serbia]] and [[Independent State of Croatia|Croatia]]. Many of the [[Yugoslavia]]n territories were annexed by Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria.<ref name="slavorothertargets2">{{cite news |title=Axis Invasion Of Yugoslavia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/axis-invasion-of-yugoslavia#:~:text=The%20Germans%20and%20their%20Axis,or%20by%20joining%20the%20partisans. |accessdate=November 7, 2022}}</ref> Despite the vast population of Slavs in Yugoslavia, Nazi Germany mainly focused on targeting the nation's Jewish and [[Romani people|Roma]] population.<ref name="slavorothertargets2" />

== Destruction of documents, post-war reconstruction ==
[[File:Piaśnica before execution.jpg|thumb|Massacre of Polish intellectuals during the [[Massacres in Piaśnica|mass murders in Piaśnica]]]]
Nearly all the wartime documentation on {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} was deliberately destroyed shortly before Germany's defeat in May 1945,{{r|Schmuhl08_348|Poprzeczny04_186}} and the full proposal has never been found, though several documents refer to it or supplement it. Nonetheless, most of the plan's essential elements have been reconstructed from related [[memorandum|memos]], [[abstract (summary)|abstract]]s and other documents.{{r|Gellately96}} Following the war, two out of the three primary records associated with the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} were lost. These included the document drafted by [[Konrad Meyer]]; in addition to an investigative report of [[RSHA]]'s 3rd office.<ref name="Rein 2011 121">{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=121 |chapter=3: German Policies in Byelorussia (1941–1944)}}</ref>

A major document which enabled historians to accurately reconstruct the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} was a memorandum released on April 27, 1943, by {{ill|Erhard Wetzel|de}}, director of the [[NSDAP Office of Racial Policy]], entitled "Opinion and thoughts on the master plan for the East of the Reichsführer SS".{{sfnp|Wetzel|1942|}} Wetzel's memorandum was a broad elaboration of the {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} proposal.{{r|WeissW10_69|Gellately96}} It came to light only in 1957.{{sfnp|Madajczyk|1962|}} Wetzel's report has enabled attempts to re-construct the document on GPO prepared by RSHA's 3rd office.<ref name="Rein 2011 121"/>

The extermination document for the Slavic people of Eastern Europe did survive the war and was quoted by [[Yale University|Yale]] historian [[Timothy D. Snyder|Timothy Snyder]] in 2010. It shows that ethnic Poles, Ukrainians and Czechs were primary targets of {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}}.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Snyder|first=Timothy|title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin|publisher=Basic Books|year=2010|page=160}}</ref> [[Belarusians|Belorussians]] were also a major target. According to the book "''Kalkulierte Morde''" ("''Calculated Massacres''") published by Swiss historian [[Christian Gerlach|Hans Christian Gerlach]] in 1999, Nazi Germany sought to exterminate the entire urban populace (approximately 2 million) and half the rural population (nearly 4.3 million) of Belorussia alone, through mass-starvations. These estimates were calculated by citing the notes of an anonymous author, whom Gerlach postulates to be [[:de:Waldemar von Poletika|Waldemar von Poletika]], an [[agricultural scientist]] at Berlin University.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rein |first=Leonid |title=The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84545-776-1 |location=New York, USA |pages=91, 92 |chapter=3: German Policies in Byelorussia (1941–1944)}}</ref>

== Aftermath ==
One of the [[indictment]] charges at the trial of [[Adolf Eichmann]], the [[S.S.]] officer responsible for the transportation aspects of the [[Final Solution]], was that he was responsible for the deportation of 500,000 Poles. Eichmann was convicted on all 15 counts.{{r|Korbonski81_120}} Poland's [[Supreme National Tribunal]] stated that "the wholesale extermination was first directed at Jews and also at Poles and had all the characteristics of genocide in the biological meaning of this term."<ref>''Law-Reports of Trials of War Criminals, The United Nations War Crimes Commission'', volume VII, London, [[His Majesty's Stationery Office]], 1948, Case no. 37: The Trial of Hauptsturmführer Amon Leopold Goeth, p. 9: "The Tribunal accepted these contentions and in its Judgment against Amon Goeth stated the following: 'His criminal activities originated from general directives that guided the criminal Fascist-Hitlerite organization, which under the leadership of Adolf Hitler aimed at the conquest of the world and at the extermination of those nations, which stood in the way of the consolidation of its power.... The policy of extermination was in the first place directed against the Jewish and Polish nations.... This criminal organization did not reject any means of furthering their aim of destroying the Jewish nation. The wholesale extermination of Jews and also of Poles had all the characteristics of genocide in the biological meaning of this term.'"</ref>

Nazi savagery against Soviet prisoners of war, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 3.3 million captured Soviet detainees, was denounced by the [[Nuremberg tribunal]] as a "crime against humanity".{{sfn|Naimark|2023|pp=377}} According to historian [[Norman Naimark]]:

{{Blockquote|text="If the awful counterfactual of a Nazi victory had come to pass, not just Soviet soldiers, but Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians would surely have shared the fate of the Poles and been eliminated culturally and ethnically as distinct peoples and nations. Genocidal actions against those peoples would have been completed."|title=The Cambridge World History of Genocide, Volume 3 (2023)|source={{sfn|Naimark |2023 |pp=377}}}}

==See also==
{{Div col}}
* [[World War II casualties of the Soviet Union]]
* [[World War II casualties of Poland]]
* [[A–A line]], military goal of Operation Barbarossa
* [[Areas annexed by Nazi Germany]]
* [[Barbarossa decree]]
* [[Chronicles of Terror]]
* ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]''
* [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany]]
* [[Holocaust victims]]
* [[Hunger Plan]] to seize food from the Soviet Union
* [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation]]
* [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany]]
* [[Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs]]
* [[Nazism and race]]
* [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany]]
* [[World War II evacuation and expulsion]]
* [[Forced labor under German rule during World War II]]
* [[Bibliography of the Holocaust#Primary sources|Bibliography of the Holocaust § Primary Sources]]
{{div col end}}

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|25em|refs=
<ref name=Eichholtz04_800>
{{cite journal |last=Eichholtz |first=Dietrich |title="Generalplan Ost" zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker |trans-title=Generalplan Ost for the enslavement of East European peoples |journal=Utopie Kreativ |volume=167 |date=September 2004 |via=[[Rosa Luxemburg Foundation|Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung]] |pages=800–8 |format=downloadable PDF |language=de |url=https://www.rosalux.de/publikation/id/3303/utopie-kreativ-167/}}
</ref>
<ref name=DFG2006>{{cite web |year=2006 |title=Wissenschaft, Planung, Vertreibung – Der Generalplan Ost der Nationalsozialisten |website=Eine Ausstellung der [[Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft|Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft]] (DFG) |language=de |url=https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/planung_1.html |access-date=2020-06-04 |archive-date=2021-07-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726053612/https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/planung_1.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<!--  <ref name=Stephenson06_113>
{{cite book |author=Stephenson, Jill |year=2006 |title=Hitler's Home Front: Wurttemberg Under the Nazis |publisher=Hambledon Continuum |isbn=1-85285-442-1 |page=113 |quote=Other non-'Aryans' included Slavs, Blacks and Roma and Sinti (Romanies), although some of these last were classed as 'racially pure'. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rn6rr3bjG3EC&pg=PA113}}
</ref>-->
<ref name=WFF_1>
{{cite web |title=Generalplan Ost (General Plan East). The Nazi evolution in German foreign policy. Documentary sources |website=World Future Fund |url=http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/GPO/gpo%20sources.htm}}
</ref>
<ref name=Browning07_240>
{{harvp|Browning|2007|pp=240–1}}
</ref>
<ref name=Schmuhl08_348>
{{cite book |last=Schmuhl |first=Hans-Walter |year=2008 |title=The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927–1945. Crossing boundaries |series=Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science |volume=259 |publisher=Springer Netherlands |isbn=978-90-481-7678-6 |pages=348–9 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Poprzeczny04_186>
{{cite book |last=Poprzeczny |first=Joseph |year=2004 |title=Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East |publisher=McFarland |isbn=0-7864-1625-4 |page=186 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gjOO6ui8SIkC&pg=PA186 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Gellately96>
{{cite journal |author=Gellately, Robert |year=1996 |title=Reviewed Works: Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan by Czeslaw Madajczyk; Der 'Generalplan Ost'. Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik by [[Mechtild Rössler]], Sabine Schleiermacher |journal=Central European History |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=270–274 |jstor=4546609 |doi=10.1017/S0008938900013170 | issn=0008-9389}} References: {{harvp|Madajczyk|1994|}}; {{harvp|Rössler|Scheiermacher|1993|}}.
</ref>
<ref name=WeissW10_69>
{{cite book |author=Weiss-Wendt, Anton |author-link = Anton Weiss-Wendt|year=2010 |title=Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1443824491 |page=69 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wGknBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69}}
</ref>
<!--  <ref name=StreeterEtAl09_181>
{{cite book |author1=Streeter, Stephen M. |author2=Weaver, John C. |author3=Coleman, William D. |year=2009 |title=Empires and Autonomy: Moments in the History of Globalization |publisher=UBC Press |isbn=978-077481600-7 |page=181 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0QWQRG0xJjQC&pg=PA181}}
</ref>
<ref name=Churchill97_52>
{{cite book |last=Churchill |first=Ward |year=1997 |title=A little matter of genocide: holocaust and denial in the Americas, 1492 to the present |location=San Francisco |publisher=City Lights Books |isbn=978-087286323-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/littlematterofge00chur/page/52 52] |url=https://archive.org/details/littlematterofge00chur/page/52 }}
</ref>-->
<ref name=GumkowskiL61>
{{cite book |author1=Gumkowski, Janusz |author2=Leszczynski, Kazimierz |year=1961 |title=Poland under Nazi Occupation |location=Warsaw |publisher=Polonia Publishing House |oclc=456349 }} See excerpts in {{cite web |title=Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe |website=Holocaust Awareness Committee – History Department, [[Northeastern University]] |url=http://www.atsweb.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125231946/http://www.atsweb.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm |archive-date=2011-11-25 }}
</ref>
<ref name=MisiunasT93_48>
{{harvp|Misiunas|Taagepera|1993|p=[https://archive.org/details/balticstatesyear00misi/page/48 48–9] }}
</ref>
<!--  <ref name=Pinfield15_173>
{{cite book |last=Pinfield |first=Nick |editor1=Fordham, Michael |year=2015 |editor2=Smith, David |title=Democracy and Nazism: Germany, 1918–1945 |publisher=Student Book |isbn=978-110757316-1 |page=173 }}
</ref>-->
<ref name=Smith01_35>
{{cite book |last=Smith |first=David J. |year=2001 |title=Estonia: Independence and European Integration |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-041526728-1 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lx-UmTnLJv0C&pg=PA35}}
</ref>
<ref name=Madajczyk80_105>
{{cite journal |last1=Madajczyk |first1=Czesław |title=Die Besatzungssysteme der Achsenmächte. Versuch einer komparatistischen Analyse |trans-title=Occupation modalities of the Axis powers. A possible comparative analysis |journal=Studia Historiae Oeconomicae |volume=14 |year=1980 |pages=105–22 |doi=10.14746/sho.1979.14.1.008 |url=http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/sho/article/view/44218 |doi-access=free }} See also {{cite book |editor1=Müller, Rolf-Dieter |editor2=Ueberschär, Gerd R. |editor1-link=Rolf-Dieter Müller |editor2-link=Gerd R. Ueberschär |year=2008 |title=Hitler's War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment |title-link=Hitler's War in the East 1941–1945 |publisher=Berghahn |isbn=978-1-84545-501-9 |id=[https://books.google.com/books?id=IfHaDYVfGlgC&pg=PA289 Google Books] }}
</ref>
<!--  <ref name=TomaszewskiW10_10>
{{cite book |author1=Tomaszewski, Irene |author2=Werbowski, Tecia |year=2010 |title=Code Name Żegota: Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942–1945 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-38391-5 |page=10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYQvRapO7rcC&pg=PA10 |access-date=May 11, 2012 }}
</ref>-->
<ref name=Connelly99_1>
{{cite journal |last=Connelly |first=J. |year=1999 |title=Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice |journal=Central European History |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=1–33 |jstor=4546842 |doi=10.1017/S0008938900020628 |pmid=20077627 |s2cid=41052845 }}
</ref>
<ref name="HańskInfo">{{cite web |title=Obozy pracy na terenie Gminy Hańsk |trans-title=Labor camps in Gmina Hańsk |publisher=hansk.info |language=pl |url=http://www.hansk.info/index.php?id=114&id2=102 |access-date=29 September 2014 |archive-date=27 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210227124310/https://www.hansk.info/index.php?id=114&id2=102 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name=Raun02_161>
{{cite book |author=Raun, Toivo U. |year=2002 |title=Estonia and the Estonians |edition=2nd updated  |location=Stanford CA |publisher=Hoover Institution Press |isbn=0817928537 |pages=160–4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YQ1NRJlUrwkC&q=Lebensraum }}
</ref>
<ref name=Nicholas11_194>
{{cite book |last=Nicholas |first=Lynn H. |author-link=Lynn H. Nicholas |year=2011 |title=Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web |publisher=Knopf Doubleday |page=194 |isbn=978-0307793829 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Berghahn99_15>
{{cite book |last=Berghahn |first=Volker R. |year=1999 |chapter=Germans and Poles 1871–1945 |editor1=Bullivant, K. |editor2=Giles, G.J. |editor3=Pape, W. |title=Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=9042006889 |pages=15–34 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j6VCNno2DVMC&pg=PA15 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Weinberg05_24>
{{cite book |last=Weinberg |first=Gerhard L. |author-link=Gerhard Weinberg |year=2005 |title=Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders |publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press |isbn=978-052185254-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/visionsofvictory00wein/page/24 24] |url=https://archive.org/details/visionsofvictory00wein/page/24 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Cecil72_19>
{{cite book |last=Cecil |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Cecil (British diplomat) |year=1972 |title=The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology |location=New York City |publisher=Dodd, Mead & Co |isbn=0-396-06577-5 |page=19 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Spiegel20110527>
{{cite news |author=Sontheimer, Michael |date=27 May 2011 |title=When We Finish, Nobody Is Left Alive |newspaper=Spiegel Online |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,759095,00.html }}
</ref>
<ref name=Korbonski81_120>
{{cite book |last=Korbonski |first=Stefan |year=1981 |title= The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground, 1939–1945 |publisher=Hippocrene Books |isbn=978-088254517-2 |pages=120, 137–8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x0vzAAAAMAAJ&q=Eichmann }}
</ref>

<ref name=Heinemann99_370>
{{cite book |author=Heinemann, Isabel |author-link=Isabel Heinemann |year=1999 |title=Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut. Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas |publisher=Wallstein Verlag |page=370 |isbn=3892446237}}
</ref>

}}

==References==
* {{cite book |last1=Aly |first1=Götz |author-link1=Götz Aly |last2=Heim |first2=Susanne |author-link2=Susanne Heim |title=Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction |publisher=Phoenix |year=2003 |at=The General Plan for the East |isbn=1-84212-670-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=38CDCgAAQBAJ&q=General+Plan+East |via=[[Google Books]]}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Berenbaum |editor-first=Michael |editor-link=Michael Berenbaum |year=1990 |title=A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis |publisher=[[New York University Press|NYUP]] |isbn=1-85043-251-1}}
* {{cite book |last=Berkhoff |first=Karel C. |author-link=Karel C. Berkhoff |year=2004 |title=Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule |publisher=Belknap Press |isbn=0-674-01313-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/harvestofdespair0000berk }}
* {{cite book |last1=Browning |first1=Christopher R. |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942 |at=Generalplan Ost: The Search for a Final Solution through Expulsion |author-link1=Christopher Browning |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Generalplan+Ost |year=2007 |isbn=978-0803203921}}
* {{cite book |last1=Fritz |first1=Stephen G. |title=Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gxGxGgzxKHsC&q=Generalplan+Ost |at=Generalplan Ost (General plan for the east) |year=2011 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |via=Google Books |isbn=978-0813140506}}
* {{cite book |last1=Koehl |first1=Robert L. |year=1957 |title=Rkfdv: German Resettlement and Population Policy 1939–1945: A History of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom |publisher=Harvard University Press |oclc=906064851}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Madajczyk |first1=Czesław |author-link1=Czesław Madajczyk |year=1962 |title=General Plan East. Hitler's Master Plan for expansion |journal=Polish Western Affairs |volume=III |issue=2 |publisher=World Future Fund |id=Resources: {{harvp|Wetzel|1942|}}; {{harvp|Meyer-Hetling|1942|}}. Note: After World War II, it was thought, that the memorandum itself had been lost. The first information of its content was given in {{harvp|Koehl|1957|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-gUSAAAAIAAJ&q=%22General+plan+east%22 72]}}. |url=http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/GPO/gpoarticle.HTM}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Madajczyk |editor-first=Czesław |year=1994 |title=Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan: Dokumente |publisher=de Gruyter |isbn=978-3598232244 |language=de}}
* {{cite book |editor-last1=Rössler |editor-first1=Mechtild |editor-last2=Scheiermacher |editor-first2=Sabine |year=1993 |title=Der 'Generalplan Ost': Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Plaungs-und Vernichtungspolitik |publisher=Akademie-Verlag |isbn=978-3050024455 |language=de}}
* {{cite book |author=Russian Academy of Science |year=1995 |title=Liudskie poteri SSSR v period vtoroi mirovoi voiny:sbornik statei |trans-title=Human losses of the USSR in the period of WWII: collection of articles. |location=Sankt-Petersburg  |publisher=Institut Rossiiskoi istorii RAN |isbn=5-86789-023-6 |language=Ru |ref=CITEREFRussian Academy1995}}
* {{cite book |last1=Snyder |first1=Timothy |author-link1=Timothy Snyder |title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin |publisher=Basic Books |at=Generalplan Ost |year=2012 |isbn=978-0465002399 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ks0WBQAAQBAJ&q=Generalplan+Ost}}
* {{cite book |last1=Wildt |first1=Michael |year=2008 |title=Generation of the unbound: the leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oXmkfjiGcKQC&q=Weltanschauung |publisher=Wallstein Verlag |at=Weltanschauung |isbn=978-3835302907 |via=Google Books}}
*{{Cite book |last=Naimark |first=Norman |editor1=Kiernan, Ben |editor2= Lower, Wendy |editor3= Naimark Norman |editor4= Straus, Scott |title=The Cambridge World History of Genocide |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-108-48707-8 |volume=3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020 |location=Cambridge |pages=359, 377 |chapter=15: The Nazis and the Slavs - Poles and Soviet Prisoners of War |doi=10.1017/9781108767118}}
*{{cite book   | last = Tooze   | first = Adam |author-link =Adam Tooze  | orig-date = 2006 |date=2007
  | title = The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy  | location = London   | publisher = Penguin | isbn = 978-0-141-00348-1   | title-link = The Wages of Destruction  }}  
*{{Cite thesis |degree=BA |last=Lens |first=Lennart|date=2019 |title=The Forgotten Holocaust: The systematic genocide on the Slavic people by the Nazis during the Second World War |url=https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/75106 |journal= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625154049/https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/75106 |archive-date=25 June 2021 |via=Leiden University}}
*{{cite book |last1=Misiunas |first1=Romuald J. |last2=Taagepera |first2= Rein |orig-date=1983 |date=1993 |edition=Expanded and updated |title=The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–80 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-052008228-1 |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive  |url=https://archive.org/details/balticstatesyear00misi/page/48 }}

===Primary sources===
* {{cite book |last1=Meyer-Hetling |first1=Konrad |author-link=Konrad Meyer |others=Under supervision of Heinrich Himmler |date=June 1942 |title='Generalplan Ost'. Rechtliche, wirtschaftliche und räumliche Grundlagen des Ostaufbaues |language=de |url=https://archive.org/details/GeneralplanOst}}
* {{cite report |last=Wetzel |first=Erhard |date=27 April 1942 |title=Stellungnahme und Gedanken zum Generalplan Ost des Reichsführers S.S. |trans-title=Opinion and thoughts on the master plan for the East of the Reichsführer SS |pages=297–324 |type=Memorandum}} In {{cite journal |title=Dokumentation – Der Generalplan Ost |journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |publisher=[[Institute of Contemporary History (Munich)|Institut für Zeitgeschichte]] |volume=6 |issue=3 |year=1958 |pages=281–325 |url=http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1958_3.pdf}}

==Further reading==
* Bakoubayi Billy, Jonas: ''Musterkolonie des Rassenstaats: Togo in der kolonialpolitischen Propaganda und Planung Deutschlands 1919–1943'', J.H.Röll-Verlag, Dettelbach 2011, {{ISBN|978-3-89754-377-5}}. {{in lang|de}}
* Eichholtz, Dietrich. "Der Generalplan Ost." Über eine Ausgeburt imperialistischer Denkart und Politik, ''Jahrbuch für Geschichte'', Volume 26, 1982. {{in lang|de}}
* Heiber, Helmut. "Der Generalplan Ost." ''Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte'', Volume 3, 1958. {{in lang|de}}
* {{cite book |last=Kamenetsky |first=Ihor |year=1961 |title=Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe: A Study of Lebensraum Policies |location=New York City |publisher=Bookman Associates |url=https://archive.org/details/SecretNaziPlansForEasternEuropeAStudyOfLebensraumPolicies_201609 }}
* Madajczyk, Czesław. ''Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945'', Cologne, 1988. {{OCLC|473808120}} {{in lang|de}}
* Madajczyk, Czesław. ''Generalny Plan Wschodni: Zbiór dokumentów'', Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Warszawa, 1990. {{OCLC|24945260}} {{in lang|pl}}
* Roth, Karl-Heinz, "Erster Generalplan Ost." (April/May 1940) von Konrad Meyer, ''Dokumentationsstelle zur NS-Sozialpolitik, Mittelungen'', Volume 1, 1985. {{in lang|de}}
* Szcześniak, Andrzej Leszek. ''Plan Zagłady Słowian. Generalplan Ost'', Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne, Radom, 2001. {{ISBN|8388822039}} {{OCLC|54611513}} {{in lang|pl}}
* Wildt, Michael. "[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14690760500317685 The Spirit of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).]" ''Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions'' (2005) 6#3 pp.&nbsp;333–349. ''Full article available with purchase.''

==External links==
* Berlin-Dahlem (May 28, 1942). [http://gplanost.x-berg.de/gplanost.html Full text of the original German {{Lang|de|Generalplan Ost}} document.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719114610/http://gplanost.x-berg.de/gplanost.html |date=2011-07-19 }} "Legal, economic and spatial foundations of the East." Digitized copy of the 100-page version from the [[Bundesarchiv]] Berlin-Licherfelde. {{in lang|de}}
* [http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/GPO/gpo%20sources.htm Worldfuturefund.org: Documentary sources regarding Generalplan Ost]
* [https://archive.today/20120527021449/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm Dac.neu.edu: Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe]
* [https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/  Der Generalplan Ost der Nationalsozialisten.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613085710/https://www.dfg.de/pub/generalplan/ |date=2021-06-13 }} {{in lang|de}}
* Deutsches Historisches Museum (2009), Berlin, [http://www.dhm.de/archiv/ausstellungen/deutsche-polen/en/popups/popup_0678.html Übersichtskarte: Planungsszenarien zur "völkischen Flurbereinigung" in Osteuropa.]

{{The Holocaust}}
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