I'll just add that all the above is quite separate from the so called 'hunger plan'. The need to feed the Wermacht and the German home population meant that millions would die elsewhere.
On 2nd May 1941 the State Secretaries representing all the major Ministries met with General Thomas to discuss the forthcoming occupation. Point two of the final minutes actually dwarfs even the conclusions of the Wannsee Conference.
"2. If we take what we need out of the country, there can be no doubt that many millions will die of starvation."
How many millions is not listed, but Herbert Backe put the 'excess population' of the Soviet Union as between 20 and 30 million. This is similar to the figure used by Himmler, who addressed a group of SS Gruppenfuehrer about the forthcoming 'Volkstumskampf' (race war) a week before Barbarossa was launched.
"...through military actions and the food problems 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will die."
Unlike other aspects of German planning, like Generalplan Ost, this was not secret in any sense of the word. The hunger plan was agreed between the Wermacht, all key civilian Ministries and the Nazi political leadership. It was referred to in official instructions and instructions issued about its implementation to thousands of subordinates. No effort was made to hide the wider rationale of the individual acts of brutality required to carry it out. The soldiers of the Wermacht, taking horses, vegetables, barrels of apples and grain supplies, burning farmsteads,leaving the civilian population with literally nothing were as complicit in the plan as the men who made it.
Again the roots of this can be traced to WW1. The necessity of securing the food supply of the German population was as obvious to Corporal Schmidt as it was to Adolph Hitler. If this was to be at the expense of the population of the Soviet Union, then so be it. It too lay at the root of Germany's racial war.
Sometimes even writing about the Nazi regime leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Steve
On 2nd May 1941 the State Secretaries representing all the major Ministries met with General Thomas to discuss the forthcoming occupation. Point two of the final minutes actually dwarfs even the conclusions of the Wannsee Conference.
"2. If we take what we need out of the country, there can be no doubt that many millions will die of starvation."
How many millions is not listed, but Herbert Backe put the 'excess population' of the Soviet Union as between 20 and 30 million. This is similar to the figure used by Himmler, who addressed a group of SS Gruppenfuehrer about the forthcoming 'Volkstumskampf' (race war) a week before Barbarossa was launched.
"...through military actions and the food problems 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will die."
Unlike other aspects of German planning, like Generalplan Ost, this was not secret in any sense of the word. The hunger plan was agreed between the Wermacht, all key civilian Ministries and the Nazi political leadership. It was referred to in official instructions and instructions issued about its implementation to thousands of subordinates. No effort was made to hide the wider rationale of the individual acts of brutality required to carry it out. The soldiers of the Wermacht, taking horses, vegetables, barrels of apples and grain supplies, burning farmsteads,leaving the civilian population with literally nothing were as complicit in the plan as the men who made it.
Again the roots of this can be traced to WW1. The necessity of securing the food supply of the German population was as obvious to Corporal Schmidt as it was to Adolph Hitler. If this was to be at the expense of the population of the Soviet Union, then so be it. It too lay at the root of Germany's racial war.
Sometimes even writing about the Nazi regime leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Steve