Christian Gerlach

The economics of separation, expropriation, crowding and removal

The impact of settlement policies Settling Germans throughout large parts of eastern Europe was an important long-term aim for some Nazi racial ideologists, including Hitler. This conflicted with the exploitative or economic imperialism also pursued by some of the same ideologists (see Chapter 7). Some historians have argued that the settlement policy determined the German policies of violence in eastern Europe; they view the displacement of populations and large-scale mass murder against Jews and Slavs as fairly straightforward implementations of an ideological blueprint of Germanization. Given the ideological contradiction just mentioned, German settlement schemes and their effects require evaluation. This matter is often discussed under the headline ‘ Generalplan Ost .’ Scholars understand the Generalplan Ost as a number of interconnected plans drawn up by a variety of SS authorities, namely the Planning Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom (RKF) – the planning authority in charge – and the Head Office of Reich Security (RSHA). Other authorities such as the German Labor Front and some civil administrations also produced less detailed or less comprehensive plans. A first RKF draft from June 1941 referred to occupied Poland. A later version produced by the RSHA in late 1941 provided for the eastward displacement of 31 million– plus all of the Jews – of the 45 million inhabitants of Poland, the Baltic area, Belarus and northwestern Ukraine to be replaced over thirty years by 4.5 million Germans who would later proliferate. According to an RKF scheme from May 1942, 5.5 million Germanic settlers (including about 700,000 Germanized locals, especially from the Baltic countries) were to settle within twenty to twenty-five years in western Poland, large parts of central Poland, two strings of a total of twenty-two small settlement areas in the Baltic and Ukraine, and larger settlement regions in and north of the Crimea as well as around Leningrad. An enhanced RKF “general settlement plan” of December 1942 covered Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, parts of Slovenia and settlements in the Baltic countries. The non-German population was to be reduced by about 25 million to 11 million people within 30 years and replaced, excluding the Baltic area, by 12 million Germanic settlers. All of these plans anticipated the assimilation of various percentages of non-Germans in the settlement areas.

From enforced emigration to territorial schemes: 1933–41

From the onset of Nazi rule, Jews were the targets of hostile propaganda in the German media, on posters and banners, and in mass gatherings. The central government under Hitler desired this atmosphere. However, there was no single authority in charge of the persecution of Jews. Rather, different state and Nazi Party agencies – central, regional and local – pursued their own anti-Jewish policies. These policies were related to other political areas, for no authority and virtually no single official in the government or Party was responsible for Jews alone. There was no consistent, undisputed, overall strategy. Accordingly, this chapter tries to sketch anti-Jewish policies in Germany, the relevant agents from 1933 through mid 1941 on different levels, legislation and centralized action, popular violence, communal policies and Jewish behavior. The chapter also covers the first years of German anti-Jewish policies in annexed and occupied countries until mid 1941, before the systematic massacres started. The Nazi Party was handed power on January 30, 1933, at the low point of the Great Depression. Within months, it erected a dictatorship, introduced press censorship, took control of radio broadcasting, outlawed all other political parties and suppressed leftist opposition through mass arrests and detention, partially in improvised camps. In the general elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis, despite their intimidation, did not win an absolute majority. In the months afterwards, however, they gained the often-enthusiastic sympathy of the vast majority of Germans who often flocked to Nazism of their own accord. This mass support was consolidated by an economic recovery stronger than in many other countries, a recovery that was built in no small degree on dirigiste measures – and especially on a massive rearmament effort – and accompanied by the rhetoric of class compromise that in reality gave entrepreneurs a free hand. By 1938, Germany enjoyed full employment. The social crisis seemed to be overcome. Nazi organizations and their propaganda permeated the everyday, but at the same time the regime integrated most of the traditional elites and the middle classes into its politics. The Partys relationship with parts of the Protestant and Catholic Church remained conflicted, incomes were modest, and there was repeated grumbling over scarce consumer goods and too much empty Nazi propaganda. Currency problems restricted foreign trade. Still, birth rates rebounded – indicating increasing confidence.