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Historians have been able to piece
together an outline of Nazi war aims.
Hitler wanted to create a great Empire in
the East (lands conquered in Russia) where Germany's eighty million could grow
to 250 million (Shirer, 83). Hitler
said, "The vast expanses of Russia literally cry out to be filled. I'm not worried about that. The German families who will live there in
our new towns and villages will receive big homes with many rooms, and soon
those rooms will be swarming with children.
In contrast to the English, we won't just exploit, we'll settle. We are not a nation of shopkeepers, but a
nation of peasants. First we'll practice
a systematic population policy. The
example of India
and China
shows how rapidly nations can multiply"(Speer, 51).
Initially, European Russia was to be
divided into Reich's Commissariats.
After initial ethnic cleansing and colonization by Aryans, the
Commissariats were to be annexed to the Greater German Reich. The great cities of the East, Moscow,
Leningrad and Warsaw, were to be erased.
Russian culture was to be stamped out and formal education denied all
Slavs. The industry of the Eastern
countries was to be dismantled and shipped to Germany. The people themselves were to be limited to
growing food for Germany, being allowed only a subsistence ration for
themselves (Shirer, 937).
The general pattern was to follow that
established in the 1941 pacification of Poland, "Farm workers of Polish
nationality no longer have the right to complain, and thus no complaints will
be accepted by an official agency. The
visit of churches is strictly prohibited.
Visits in theaters, motion pictures or other cultural entertainment is
strictly prohibited” (Shirer, 950). “Poland can only
be administered by utilizing the country through means of ruthless
exploitation, deportation of all supplies, raw materials, machines, factory
installations. Reduction of the entire
Polish economy to absolute minimum necessary to bare existence of the
population, closing of all educational institutions, especially technical
schools and colleges in order to prevent the growth of a new Polish
intelligentsia. Poland shall be
treated as a colony. The Poles shall be
the slaves of the Greater German Reich" (Shirer, 944).
Colonies of German settlers were to be established
in Poland and European Russia. Each
settlement was to be linked by a network of military roads and protected by
garrisons set up at key points, whose task was to ensure good order among the
native population. The native population
was to provide mandatory labor for German industry and agriculture and remain
in a status of inferiority, without rights or education (Bullock, 626).
Policing the conquered people was seen as
an ongoing problem. Armored cars were to
be used as was low level bombing and strafing (Shirer, 942).
New towns were to be established in the
vicinity of existing Russian towns.
Towns in Germany were to be painstakingly copied so that, even in
Russia, a feeling for the Homeland developed.
Buildings in the Ukraine, in White Russia, and as far east as the Urals
were to be identifiable as products of German culture (Speer, 171). One million Volkswagen automobiles were to be
built after the war. A German farmer
from Kiev or Odessa would be able to reach Berlin in about thirty hours on the
new Russian autobahns (Speer, 172). A
modern railroad system was also to be built.
Two east-west lines were to be built across all of Europe, one beginning
north at the Urals, the southern line beginning at the Caspian Sea (Speer,
173).
Bullock, Alan HITLER:
A STUDY IN TYRANNY
Harper & Row, New
York : 1953
Shirer, William
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH
Speer, Albert SPANDAU : THE SECRET DIARIES
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