The main objective of Generalplan Ost was to establish a pure “German and Aryan” community in Eastern Europe, composed of individuals who would be loyal subjects of the Greater Germanic Reich.

It was Nazi Germany’s plan for the settlement and “Germanization” of captured territory in Central- & Eastern- Europe, involving genocide, extermination & large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Jews, and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe, categorized as “Untermenschen” [see blog post] in Nazi ideology - a precusor was a series of systematic massacres, mass starvations, chattel labour, mass rapes, child abductions, & sexual slavery. Under direct orders from Nazi leadership, around 11-million Slavs were killed in systematic violence & terrorism carried out as part of the Generalplan Ost. In addition to genocide, millions more were forced into slave labour to serve the German war economy; In partial fulfilment of the “Drang nach Osten” (drive to the East) ideology of German expansionism. Intended for the genocide were 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 [considered the Eastern extend of “Lebensraum,” [see blog post] paving the way for German settlers.

The Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums, RKF, RKFDV(Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood) was the office in Nazi Germany, directed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler,[see blog post] directly responsible for developing and implementing the Generalplan Ost which gave Himmler direct control of the Reichbahn (German railways) and the railways of occupied territories for population transfers and forced transportation to mass murder centers in Operation Reinhard.

Tis Racist plan, prepared in the years 1939–1942, was part of Lebensraum policy [see blog post and a fulfilment of the Drang nach Osten (Drive towards the East) ideology of German expansion to the east, both of them part of the larger plan Generalplan Ost. Economic calculations, negated by scorched-earth policies of the Wehrmacht on the Easter Front. The ideological fanaticism & 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. The Master Race doctrine [see blog post] condemned Slavs to permanent domination by Germanic peoples, since it viewed Slavs as primitive people who lacked the ability to undertake autonomous activities.

”… when we speak of new territory in Europe today we must principally think of Russia and the border states subject to her. Destiny itself seems to wish to point out the way for us here. … For the Russian state was not organized by the constructive political talent of the Slav element in Russia, but was much more a marvelous exemplification of the capacity for state-building possessed by the 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 nationalist theory of race.” — Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Germanization campaign for Poland, as part of the Generalplan Ost, by 1952 called for 3–4 million ‘non-Germanized’ Poles (all of them peasants) were to be left residing in the former Poland.

  • Generalplan Ost for new German settlement colonies (marked with dots and diamonds), drawn up by the Friedrich Wilhelm University Institute of Agriculture in Berlin, 1942.svg