Generalplan Ost

Generalplan Ost (GPO) or "Master Plan for the East", was a plan formulated by the Greater Germanic Reich for the genocide, extermination and large scale ethnic-cleansing of indigenous populations in Central and Eastern Europe. This included Eastern European Jews, Slavs and races deemed "sub-human" or "Untermensch".

This campaign of extermination preceded Nazi colonization of its Eastern holdings by Germanic settlers under the theory of Lebensraum or "Living Space", allowing the Germanisation of Nazi colonies and holdings in Central and Eastern Europe, such as the Reichskommissariats of Moskowien, Ostland, Ukraine and Kaukasien.

Most of the implementation of this barbaric plan for the fate of the indigenous populations was conducted by the Schutzstaffel (SS), through the Reich Security Office (RSHA) under Heinrich Himmler, which commissioned the work, oversaw the revisions and implementation of it across the occupied territories, that was conducted by Einsatzgruppen units.

Development and Phases

The plan, prepared in the years 1939–1942, was part of Adolf Hitler's and the Nazi movement's Lebensraum policy and a fulfilment of the Drang nach Osten (English: Drive towards the East) ideology of German expansion to the east, both of them part of the larger plan to establish the 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. 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.

Although racist views against Slavs had precedence in German society before Hitler's rule, Nazi anti-Slavism was also based on the doctrines of scientific racism. The "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. Generalplan Ost then evolved from these racist, imperialist ideas, eventually formulated by the Nazi regime as its official policy during the course of the Second World War.

Planning

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 in Europe.

Soviet POWs captured by the Wehrmacht were killed as part of the GPO. The plan also intended for the genocide of the majority of Slavic inhabitants by various means - mass killings, forced starvations, slave labour and other occupation policies. The remaining populations were to be forcibly deported beyond the Urals, paving the way for German settlers.

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 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 Erhard Wetzel 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.

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. 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.

Phases and Implementation

Widely varying policies were envisioned by the creators of Generalplan Ost, and most of them were actually implemented by Germany in regards to the different Slavic territories and ethnic groups.

By August–September 1939 (Operation Tannenberg followed by the A-B Aktion in 1940), Einsatzgruppen death squads and concentration camps had been employed to deal with the Polish elite, whilst some parts of Poland were annexed by Germany early in the war outside the borders of the rump German-controlled General Government and the areas previously annexed by the Soviet Union before Operation Barbarossa

With the former Czechoslovakia, a small number of Czech intelligentsia were allowed to emigrate overseas, while the other territories were officially occupied by or Germany or her client states such as the Slovak State, which was a theoretically independent puppet state, while the ethnic-Czech parts of the Czech lands (excluding the Sudetenland) became a "protectorate"

The GPO was partially attempted during the Second World War, resulting indirectly and directly in millions of deaths of ethnic Slavs by starvation, disease, or extermination through labor. The majority of Germany's 12 million forced laborers were abducted from Eastern Europe, mostly in the occupied Soviet territories and Poland.

The final version of the 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. As of June 1941, the policy envisaged the deportation of 31 million Slavs to Siberia.

The Generalplan Ost proposal offered various percentages of the conquered or colonized people who were targeted for removal and physical destruction, with 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 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. After the war, under the "Big Plan", more people in Eastern Europe were to be affected.

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.

The 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. Several Nazi scientists, many of whom were members of the 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 the native populations.