Generalplan Ost

Generalplan Ost (GPO) was a Nazi plan to ethnically cleanse the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II. It was prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942. The plan was part of Hitler's own Lebensraum plan and a fulfilment of the Drang nach Osten ("Drive towards the East") state ideology.

Development
The body responsible for the drafting of this plan was the Reich Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - RSHA). The RSHA was tasked with combating all enemies of Nazism and Nazi Germany. It was a strictly confidential document, and its contents were known only to those in the topmost level of the Nazi hierarchy.

According the testimony of Hans Ehlich, the final version of the Plan was drafted in 1940. It had been preceded by the Ostforschung, a number of studies and research projects carried out over several years by various academic centres to provide the necessary facts and figures. The preliminary versions were discussed by 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 the trial of officials of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt).

Reconstruction
Unfortunately no copies of the plan were found after the war among the documents in German archives. Nevertheless, the fact that such a document was created and used by Nazi officials is beyond doubt. The existence of the plan was confirmed by SS-Standartenführer Dr. Hans Ehlich, one of the witnesses in Case VIII before the U.S Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. As a high official in the RSHA, Ehlich was the man responsible for the drafting of Generalplan Ost.

Apart from Ehlich's testimony, there are several documents which refer to this plan or are supplements to it. Although no copies of the actual document have survived, much of the essential elements of the plan have been reconstructed from related memos, abstracts and other ancillary documents. The principal document which makes it possible to recreate with a great deal of accuracy the contents of Generalplan Ost is a memorandum of April 27, 1942 entitled: Stellungnahme und Gedanken zum Generalplan Ost des Reichsführers SS (Opinion and Ideas Regarding the General Plan for the East of the Reichsführer SS). Its author was Dr. Erich Wetzel, the director of the Central Advisory Office on Questions of Racial Policy at the National Socialist Party (Leiter der Hauptstelle Beratungsstelle des Rassenpolitischen Amtes der NSDAP). This memorandum is an elaboration of Generalplan Ost.

Short-range and long-term plan
The final version of Generalplan Ost, essentially a grand plan for ethnic cleansing, was divided into two parts; the Kleine Planung ("Small Plan"), which covered actions which were to be taken during the war, and the Grosse Planung ("Big Plan"), which covered actions to be undertaken after the war was won (to be carried into effect gradually over a period of 25-30 years).

The Small Plan was to be put into practice as the Germans conquered the areas to the east of their pre-war borders. The individual stages of this plan would then be worked out in greater detail. In this way the plan for Poland was drawn up at the end of November, 1939. The plan envisaged differing percentages of the various conquered nations undergoing Germanisation, expulsion into the depths of Russia, and other fates, the net effect of which would be to ensure that the conquered territories would be Germanized.

In ten years' time, the plan called for the extermination, expulsion, enslavement of most or all Poles and East Slavs living behind the front lines in Europe. (With some small amounts being Germanised) Instead, 250 million Germans would live in an extended Lebensraum ("living space") of the 1000-Year Reich (Tausendjähriges Reich). Fifty years after the war, under the Große Planung, Generalplan Ost foresaw the eventual expulsion and extermination of more than 50 million Slavs beyond the Ural Mountains.

Of the Poles, by 1952 only about 3-4 million people were supposed to be left residing in the former Poland, and then only to serve as slaves for German settlers. They were to be forbidden to marry, the existing ban on any medical help to Poles in Germany would be extended, and eventually Poles (believed by the Nazis to be Untermenschen, that is "sub-people") would cease to exist. The majority of Poles should perish in the Pripjet swamps areas according to Hitler's statements during his "Tischgespräche".

Ethnic cleansing
The plan was primarily the brainchild of Heinrich Himmler. During the war the Nazis started to realise the plan by carrying out expulsions in Poland and Ukraine, and by resettling Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) from further east on previously Polish-owned properties. In 1943, the Zamość County, due to its fertile black soil, was selected for further German colonisation in the Generalgouvernement (General Government) as part of Generalplan Ost. Polish farmers were expropriated and forcibly removed from their farms, the Polish population expelled amid great brutality, and the farms were then handed over to German settlers, but few Germans actually settled in the area before 1944.

Germanisation
In Poland during World War II, Polish citizens of German ancestry, who often identified themselves with the Polish nation, were confronted with the dilemma of whether to sign the Volksliste, the list of Germans living in Poland. This included ethnic Germans whose families had lived in Poland proper for centuries. Often the choice was either to sign and be regarded as a traitor by the Polish, or not to sign and be treated by the Nazi occupation as a "traitor of the Germanic race" - while some ethnic Poles had signed the Volksliste for different reasons. Many of the Volksdeutsche later died on the front.

A certain number of Polish children were also forcibly separated from their parents and, after undergoing scrutiny to ensure that they were of appropriately "Nordic" racial stock, were sent to Germany to be raised in German families. Only a very small number of the children who were taken were ever returned to their parents.

Mass murder of Polish elites
Activities such as September 1939 Operation Tannenberg (Unternehmen Tannenberg) and various Intelligenzaktionen entailing elimination of Polish activists and intelligentsia, like November 1939 Operation Sonderaktion Krakau, were also carried out in conformity with the early drafts of Generalplan Ost; tens of thousands of government officials, clergy, and members of the intelligentsia were either murdered in mass executions or sent to prisons and concentration camps (even before the war, the Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen list identified by name more than 61,000 Poles who were to be interned or shot ).

The operations targeting the Polish elite and the general population continued through the entire war, culminating with destruction of the Polish capital Warsaw in 1944 (about 1.8 million ethnic Polish civilians were killed by the Germans during the occupation).

In Belarus
At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were destroyed by the Nazis and some or all their inhabitants killed. Altogether, 2,230,000 people were killed in Belarus within the three years of German occupation.