by Prit Buttar
As the Nazis rose to power, Rosenberg became increasingly interested in racial theory, particularly where it concerned Jews. He was strongly anti-Bolshevik, following his family’s flight from Russia, and also an implacable anti-Semite. Indeed, he was one of the first to formulate the concept of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’, which came to dominate so much of German thinking about the Soviet Union, and it is likely that he was influential in Hitler’s adoption of this term. It was inevitable that in the chaotic world of Nazi ideology, his views would have a major impact upon the development of German plans.
The historic desire to expand German culture to the east pre-dated the unification of Germany itself, with the settlement of large numbers of Germans in the Baltic States and beyond as part of the Drang nach Osten (‘drive to the east’), a recurrent theme for centuries. Friedrich Ratzel coined the phrase Lebensraum at the beginning of the 20th century, and the concept was then developed by others, almost always with the view that the logical place for Germany to seek its new ‘living space’ was in Eastern Europe. Whilst almost all of these proposals were hostile to Poland and identified this as the first and easiest area for Germany to seize, there was a clear intention to proceed further east, even beyond the historic lands of the Teutonic and Livonian Knights. Despite the failure to establish Mitteleuropa in and after the First World War, German theorists continued to talk about possible future expansion eastward, and Hitler made clear in Mein Kampf that he regarded such a policy as an essential part of securing Lebensraum for Germany:
Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.2
This was in keeping with a widely held view in Germany that it was ‘natural’ in terms of social Darwinism for strong nations and civilisations to expand, while weaker ones faded away. Hitler was determined that Germany should be in the former group. It was typical of the selective and muddled thinking of the National Socialists that while they accepted the concept of social Darwinism, they – like Stalin – believed that their own society represented the ultimate peak of social evolution, and would not in turn be replaced by other societies.
It seems that several studies were undertaken during the 1930s about possible rearrangements of territory in Eastern Europe; during the Nuremberg Trials, Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski testified that Heinrich Himmler had overseen these discussions. In 1940, more detailed planning began, resulting in the creation of a set of documents that made up Generalplan Ost. It is difficult to determine the exact chain of events that led to the creation of Generalplan Ost, because many documents relating to the plan were deliberately destroyed in the final days of the war. Standartenführer Hans Ehlich stated at Nuremberg that he was responsible for drawing up the plan, and using his testimony and fragmentary documentation and letters, it has been possible to recreate most of the plan, though no copies of it survived the war.3 In particular, a document entitled Stellungnahme und Gedanken zum Generalplan Ost des Reichsführers-SS (‘Opinion and Ideas Regarding the General Plan for the East of the Reichsführer-SS’) by Dr Erich Wetzel has proved vital. This critique of Generalplan Ost includes a great deal of information about the contents of the plan.
Rosenberg’s personal thoughts played a large part in the development of the plan. He proposed that the former Czarist Empire be broken into several components, each of which would form a Reichskommissariat: Ostland, consisting of the Baltic States; Moskowien, stretching from Moscow to the Urals and the Barents Sea; Ukraine; and Caucasus. He also wished to create a fifth region, broadly stretching along the southern Soviet Union close to the borders with Iran and Afghanistan, but Hitler ordered him to abandon this in order to concentrate on the four regions in the western part of the Soviet Union. In many respects, Rosenberg was significantly past the peak of his influence by this stage. He had written a book in the early 1930s entitled Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the 20th Century), a lengthy exposition on racial theory, particularly with regard to the ‘Jewish Question’, but although the book sold well, few senior National Socialists could say that they had read the entire work, or regarded it as a useful contribution to their beliefs; Hitler dismissed it as ‘stuff nobody can understand’.4 In 1941, as plans for the German invasion of the Soviet Union reached a detailed level, Rosenberg was appointed chief of the newly created Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete (‘Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories’, often abbreviated to Ostministerium). The quality of its personnel was varied, to say the least:
When ministries were summoned to supply their quotas of civil servants for the new Führerkorps Ost … [they saw] in this call a welcome opportunity to rid themselves of personal enemies, obnoxious meddlers and incompetent chair-warmers … [resulting in] a colourful and accidental conglomeration of Gauleiters, Kreisleiters, Labour Front officials, and a great number of SA [Sturmabteilung or ‘Storm Detachment’, the para-military wing of the Nazi Party before the war] leaders of all ranks, who assumed high positions in the civil administration after listening to a few introductory lectures delivered by Rosenberg’s staff.5
Rosenberg’s authority over this body was further weakened by the fact that many members of the Ostministerium remained loyal to their former patrons, and sought to undermine Rosenberg so that other senior members of the National Socialist movement – particularly Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, Martin Bormann (Party Minister of the National Socialist Party, Chief of the Party Chancellery, and later Hitler’s personal secretary), and Erich Koch (Gauleiter of East Prussia) – could develop their own empires. Rosenberg protested to Hitler about being obstructed by these and other figures on several occasions, but was unable to prevent what he regarded as interference in his jurisdiction. This was a recurring theme in German administration during the war, as Hitler actively encouraged his subordinates to compete for power, believing that this would allow the strongest and best to rise to the top. The chaos and dislocation this policy caused was far greater than any benefits.
In April 1940, Rosenberg described in detail his vision of the development of the new territories of the east:
The aim of our policy, therefore, appears to lie in this direction: to resume in an intelligent manner and sure of our aim, the aspirations to liberation of all these peoples and to give them shape in certain forms of states … and to build them up against Moscow, so as to free the German Reich of the eastern nightmare for centuries to come.6
In other words, it was Rosenberg’s intention to create a series of buffer states between Germany and the ‘barbaric east’. This was at odds with Hitler’s own vision of a German Herrenvolk supported by the remnants of the local population who had been reduced to slave status. Opposed to the creation of any form of buffer state, Hitler argued that any attempt to introduce self-government would inevitably start a nation down the road to full independence.7 Rosenberg found himself in a very small minority with his views. Ironically, the only major National Socialist figure to think along similar lines – Joachim von Ribbentrop in the Foreign Ministry – was often at loggerheads with Rosenberg on other issues, as he perceived the latter as developing a sphere of influence that overlapped too much with his own, preventing them from making common cause. The input of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (‘Reich Main Security Administration’ or RSHA, a section of the SS) into Generalplan Ost took a very different approach from Rosenberg to the four regions. There would be no room for any semi-independent states in the former Soviet Union, and all of the regions would remain tightly under Berlin’s control. As has been discussed, German policy towards colonies was very different from that of Britain and France, and the whole concept of Lebensraum was to create areas populated mainly by Germans. Hitler consciously modelled his approach on the settlement of North America. As he told his followers, ‘We eat
Canadian wheat and don’t think about the Indians.’8 In keeping with this attitude, the plan called for the removal of all elements of the population who could not be ‘Germanised’.
With so much of German manpower mobilised for war, there was a pressing need for agricultural imports into Germany to keep the nation fed. With memories of near-starvation as a result of the British naval blockade of the First World War, it was inevitable that Hitler would turn to the east as a source of these food supplies. In particular, the Ukraine, with its historically fertile land, was seen as the source of both industrial and agricultural resources that would allow Germany to avoid forever the threat of blockade.9 During the years since the First World War, the Soviet urban population had grown by about 25 million. The elimination of these Soviet citizens would allow for the Ukrainian ‘surplus’ to be sent west.10
The alteration in the population of the four new territories was to be achieved by a variety of means, depending on the people involved. There was a clear intention from the start that Jewish communities would not be tolerated, and would simply be exterminated. German plans relating to the Jews went through several distinct phases. Initially, the intention was to establish a Jewish ‘colony’ in the conquered parts of Poland, but this proved to be impractical for several reasons. Firstly, there was a feeling that the proposed colony in and around Lublin was still too close to Germany. Secondly, after the conquest of Poland, it proved almost impossible to transfer Jews from Germany and the west to Poland, because the authorities in occupied Poland simply couldn’t cope with the numbers involved. A second proposed solution to the ‘Jewish Question’ was to establish a Jewish colony on a distant island such as Madagascar. Although France, the European power that currently controlled Madagascar, had fallen to Germany, British domination of the oceans made any such plan impossible to execute. Instead, Germany attempted to persuade Stalin to accept several million Jews into the Soviet Union, where they could be settled in some remote part of Siberia or Soviet Central Asia; Stalin refused. Now, with planning for a German conquest of the Soviet Union at an advanced stage, a new solution arose, namely that the Jews would simply be worked to death, building new roads across the conquered territories of Russia. The Final Solution of mass extermination only became a formal policy when the rapid conquest of Russia failed to occur.
Other populations in the territories that would be conquered, such as Roma, would also have been treated the same way. Slavs were to be deprived of access to medical care, and their food supplies would be reduced, resulting in deaths through starvation. There were also proposals for mass sterilisation, to ensure that the current generation of ‘undesirables’ would be the last in the occupied territories. Others, including the bulk of the Soviet urban populations, would be driven east out of the new territories, into Western Siberia. Although the plans were not explicit about what would happen to them, it must have been clear that pushing so many people into an undeveloped wilderness would result in the swift deaths of most. Indeed, although the decollectivisation of Ukrainian agriculture might have had political advantages, by addressing one of the greatest resentments of the rural Ukrainian population, the Germans intended to preserve the collectivised system, as it would be easier for them to ensure that agricultural output went to their chosen destinations, thus ensuring the starvation of tens of millions of Soviet city dwellers. This was made explicit in a document known as the Hunger Plan, which was finalised during March 1941.11
Hitler made his views on the measures to be used abundantly clear in a conference in July 1940: ‘While German goals and methods must be concealed from the world at large, all the necessary measures – shooting, exiling, etc. – we shall take and we can take anyway. The order of the day is: first, conquer; second, rule; third, exploit.’12
The numbers of people intended for removal from Eastern Europe were staggering. Only 15 per cent of Poles would be allowed to remain in Poland, while the figures for Belarus, the Ukraine, and Russia were 25 per cent, 35 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. Those who were allowed to stay would include a small number deemed worthy of Germanisation; the rest would be treated as slave labour. It was anticipated that over 45 million persons would be deported into Siberia. For the Baltic States, the deportations were intended to reduce the ‘native’ population of Estonia and Latvia by about 50 per cent, and that of Lithuania – which was ‘contaminated’ by its historical links with Poland – by 85 per cent. The suggestion that Stalin’s purges would eventually have removed perhaps a quarter of the population of the Baltic States should be measured against these planned German deportations. Generalplan Ost originally intended for the Baltic States to become Germanised in about 25 years; Himmler altered this target to 20 years.13
Generalplan Ost would be implemented in two distinct phases. The first phase, known as the Kleine Planung (‘small plan’) would take place as soon as the relevant territory was overrun. The second phase, or Grosse Planung (‘large plan’) would then be put into effect over about 20 to 30 years. It was anticipated that the major expulsions would come during this phase. However, the diversion of food from ‘undesirable’ populations would occur as part of the Kleine Planung, and if this resulted in mass deaths through starvation, as was intended for the first winter following the expected German victory, it would reduce the amount of work required in the Grosse Planung.
The hostility of Germany towards the citizens of the Baltic States is worth closer examination. Attitudes towards Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in Germany between the wars were influenced by two main factors. Firstly, there were significant numbers of former Baltic Germans, such as Rosenberg himself, who had left their homelands in difficult circumstances. The relationship between the Baltic Germans and the Baltic nationals had frequently been a prickly one; most of the aristocracy and landowners of Latvia and Estonia had been German, and, as has been discussed, these communities had been extensively involved in the wars of independence in attempts to prevent the nationalists from coming to power, particularly in Latvia. At the very least, the Baltic Germans were determined that any government of an independent Latvia would be a close ally of Germany, and their own interests as the major landowners would be protected. Secondly, those wars of independence had involved large numbers of German soldiers serving in the Freikorps. These volunteers had been made promises of large rewards for their service, including grants of land in the Baltic States, but by the end of the liberation wars, the Freikorps were fighting against the nationalist governments in a final attempt to establish pro-German puppet states, and few men received what they regarded as their fair rewards. Both these factors, against a historic background of long-term attempts by Germans to establish control over the area, led to a sense of entitlement to the Baltic coast as a German area. In the league tables of races in terms of which the National Socialists viewed the world, the Baltic peoples fell somewhere between the German Herrenvolk and the Slav Untermensch. There were even distinctions between the different nationalities. Estonians were perceived as being above the others, as they had strong historic (and therefore ethnic) links with the Finns and Swedes, who were seen as Aryans. The Lithuanians were regarded as the lowest, due to their historic association with the hated Poles.
The experiences of the Baltic people during the Soviet occupation shifted public opinion in the three states, at least amongst the non-Jewish and non-Russian sections, in favour of Germany. There was widespread hope and expectation that a war between the Soviet Union and Germany was coming, and as part of this war the Germans would restore Baltic independence. There would be a price to pay, but most Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were so traumatised by the experience of Soviet rule, particularly the deportations and mass arrests, that they were quite prepared to become allies of Germany. But in May 1941, Rosenberg issued a document to his staff entitled ‘Instructions for a Reichskommissar in Ostland’. It made clear that whatever the future held for the Baltic States, there was no prospect of Germany restoring independence to the regi
on:
The objective of a Reichskommissariat for Estonia, Latvia and Weissruthenien [the western and northern parts of Belarus] must be to strive for a form of German protectorate, and then through Germanisation of racially acceptable elements, colonisation by German people, and deportation of unwanted elements, to turn this region into a part of the Greater German Reich.14
In addition to those elements deemed ‘unwanted’ due to ethnicity, the Germans drew on their experiences in Poland. The intellectual elite of the three countries was to be deported, in an attempt to eliminate any residual spark of nationalism. Rosenberg anticipated that in Latvia alone this would add up to 40,000 to the number to be deported. But whilst there was general agreement within the German hierarchy about these policies, their implementation looked problematic. Himmler published detailed criteria that people in the occupied lands would have to satisfy to be deemed worthy of Germanisation, but some of his subordinates protested, pointing out that large portions of the population of Germany itself would not be able to satisfy these criteria. In view of this, many within the SS and the various bodies competing for the right to control the occupied territories favoured a model based on ancient Sparta: the Germans would be in the position of the Spartans, the Slavs would be reduced to slave Helots, and there would be room for a third category, the Perioikoi, free people without full citizen status, who would serve the Reich as loyal allies – in other words, much in line with Rosenberg’s original proposals. The people of the Baltic States in particular were seen to be fit to play the role of Perioikoi. Rosenberg himself also saw such a role for the people of the Ukraine, whom he had rightly identified as being largely hostile to the Soviets. Hitler, though, rejected this out of hand. The Ukrainians were Slavs, and would be treated appropriately.
