All of Hitler's activities were subordinated to the racial idea. He considered the Germanic race to be the highest on earth and fought for its dominance. He offered other peoples submission or death. One can fully agree with the opinion of the Estonian historians A. Adamson and S. Valdmaa: “Of course, the goals of all the great powers in the war were selfish, but this is especially true for the goals of Germany: if the Bolsheviks (International Socialists) fought in the name of what they considered happiness for all mankind, then the German National Socialists fought in the name of the domination of one race - the fair-haired Germans, the "Aryans" - and were ready to wipe out from the face of the earth all races that in their eyes seemed "inferior" or "inferior". Most Estonians fought in World War II in German uniforms, thus ending up on the side of those who lost the war... and this determines our opinions and feelings. We had to suffer a lot under half a century of Soviet occupation. However, the victory of Hitler would be a more terrible misfortune for mankind than the victory of Stalin.

To implement the essentially irrational racial doctrine, quite rational means were used in the form of a first-class army and the military-industrial complex. And to justify it, the Fuhrer pretty much “tweaked” the cultural history of mankind.

In the book “My Struggle”, he asserted the “Aryan priority” in all major areas of culture: “All human culture, all the achievements of art, science and technology, which we are witnessing today, are almost exclusively the fruits of Aryan creativity. This fact alone quite reasonably confirms the conclusion that it was the Aryan who was the founder of higher humanism, and, consequently, the prototype of everything that we understand by the word “man”. He is the Prometheus of mankind, from whose bright brow sparks of genius flew at all times, always rekindling the fire of knowledge, illuminating the darkness of gloomy ignorance, which allowed man to rise above all other creatures of the Earth ... It was he who laid the foundations and erected the walls of all the great structures of human culture".

Paying attention to German culture, Hitler, with the outbreak of World War II, made sure that people of art were not drafted into the army. Of course, only those who expressed in their work the “truly German spirit”, and not “decadent corrupters”. Many of the latter, however, by that time had already managed to leave the territory of the Reich.

"Aryan superiority", according to the Fuhrer, was especially pronounced in the military sphere. But Hitler believed that not everything was fine in the German army during the First World War, otherwise the catastrophe of 1918 would not have erupted. He associated it with the "betrayal" of the Social Democrats, among whom, according to the Fuhrer, the leading role was played by the Jews.

The main goal of the foreign and domestic policy of the National Socialist state was proclaimed to achieve world domination and obtain "living space" in the East - in Poland and Russia for the chosen German people. Racial motifs permeated the entire life of the Third Reich. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: “Our state will first of all strive to establish a healthy, natural living proportion between the size of our population and the rate of its growth, on the one hand, and the quantity and quality of our territories, on the other. Only in this way can our foreign policy properly ensure the fate of our race, united in our state.

We can consider as a healthy proportion only such a ratio between these two quantities, which completely and completely ensures the subsistence of the people with the products of our own land. Any other state of affairs, if it lasts even for centuries and millennia, is abnormal and unhealthy. Sooner or later, such a situation will bring the greatest harm to the people and may lead to its complete destruction.

In order for a people to be able to secure a genuine freedom of existence, it needs a sufficiently large territory.

"Racially inferior" elements were to be mercilessly exterminated or driven out of the habitation of the German people. Among the Germans themselves, the terminally ill and the mentally ill were subject to extermination. On September 1, 1939, the day the Second World War began, Hitler issued a secret order "to expand the powers of a certain circle of doctors in such a way that they can ensure a merciful death to the terminally ill after a critical examination of their health." As part of this “merciful action”, more than 50 thousand people were killed in Germany alone. The terminally ill and weak-minded were also subject to destruction in the occupied territories.

Hitler called Russia the main object of the future German colonization: “We, the National Socialists, quite consciously put an end to the entire German foreign policy of the pre-war period. We want to return to the point where our old development stopped 600 years ago. We want to stop the eternal German drive to the south and west of Europe and turn our gaze towards the territories located in the east. We are finally breaking with the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war period and are consciously moving on to a policy of conquering new lands in Europe.

When we talk about the conquest of new lands in Europe, we can, of course, have in mind primarily only Russia and those border states that are subordinate to it.

Fate itself points to us with a finger. By delivering Russia into the hands of Bolshevism, fate deprived the Russian people of that intelligentsia on which its state existence had up to now rested and which alone served as a guarantee of a certain stability of the state. It was not the state gifts of the Slavs that gave strength and strength to the Russian state. All this Russia was indebted to the German elements - the most excellent example of the enormous state role that the German elements are capable of playing, acting within the lower race. This is how many powerful states on earth were created. More than once in history we have seen how peoples of lower culture, led by the Germans as organizers, turned into powerful states and then stood firmly on their feet as long as the racial core of the Germans remained. For centuries, Russia lived precisely at the expense of the German core in its upper strata of the population. Now this nucleus has been completely and completely exterminated. The place of the Germans was taken by the Jews. But just as the Russians cannot throw off the yoke of the Jews on their own, so the Jews alone are not able to keep this vast state under their control for a long time. The Jews themselves are by no means an element of organization, but rather an enzyme of disorganization. This gigantic eastern state is inevitably doomed to destruction. All the prerequisites are already ripe for this. The end of Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. Fate destined us to be witnesses of such a catastrophe, which, better than anything else, will confirm the unconditional correctness of our racial theory.

Hitler sincerely believed that only the German racial element in the form of the first Norman princely dynasty of Rurikovich and the Norman squad, later vaccinated in the form of the Baltic German nobility, ensured the thousand-year existence of the Russian state. During the revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War, the descendants of the Rurikovichs, as well as other nobles of Varangian (Norman) origin, as well as the Baltic barons, were either exterminated or forced to emigrate. Therefore, the Fuhrer was convinced that, morally and organizationally, Soviet Russia had become much weaker than the former Russian Empire and could not be considered a serious military adversary. The failure of the Red Army in the Finnish war and the "purge" of the senior command staff of 1937-1938 seemed to confirm Hitler's theory. Fortunately, she turned out to be wrong. But about the fact that the Jews will not be able to stay in the Soviet power structures for a long time, Hitler was not mistaken. By the end of the 1920s, after Stalin overcame the internal party opposition, there were almost no Jews left in the top party leadership. During the 30s they lost their positions in the NKVD and the Red Army (as well as other foreigners who had ties with foreign states - Poles and immigrants from the Baltic states, and in the 40s, during the campaign against cosmopolitanism, Jews were also purged from middle-level nomenklatura posts.

The widespread colonization of the eastern lands by the Germans and "Germanic peoples", such as the Dutch or Norwegians, was conceived by the Nazis only after the victorious end of the war. In wartime, several trial actions of this kind were made, in particular in the area of ​​​​Hitler's headquarters near Vinnitsa, but they all ended in vain.

Hitler did not conceive of any other structure of the Great German Reich, except on the basis of the unconditional submission of all conquered or "voluntarily joined" countries to the dictate from Berlin. Actually, the German lands, and even more so the occupied territories, were not supposed to have either autonomy or any elements of state independence. If there was talk about some kind of equality of the "German peoples" in the Greater German Reich, then only for propaganda purposes.

Plans were developed for the "Germanization" of the Aryan peoples, as well as the Slavs, among whom, with the help of anthropometry, they sought to identify individuals with an increased proportion of "Germanic blood". Although in reality, for example, the same Slavs and Germans, I note, have not only linguistic, but also physical and anthropological kinship and cannot, in principle, be divided according to these characteristics. Reichsführer Himmler on April 5, 1942 at Hitler's headquarters stated that “the best way to solve the French problem is to annually select people of German blood among the French population. It is necessary to try to place their children at a very early age in German boarding schools, to make them forget that by chance they were considered French, suggesting that German blood flows in them, and emphasizing their belonging to the great German people. Hitler, however, was very cautious about the idea of ​​Germanizing the French: “All attempts at Germanizing do not particularly inspire me, unless they are supported by worldview. In the case of France, it should be remembered that its military glory is based not on the ideological position of the majority of the population, but on the fact that the French skillfully used the ratio of military forces on the continent that was favorable for them a couple of times (for example, by entering the Thirty Years' War). But where they were opposed by the Germans, endowed with national self-consciousness, they always received a good thrashing, for example from Frederick the Great in 1740, etc. And it does not matter that the Corsican Napoleon, this unique military genius, led her to victories world historical significance. Most of the French are philistine-minded, and therefore it will be a heavy blow for France if her ruling stratum is deprived of replenishment with persons of German blood.

Hitler explained to Himmler, who was obsessed with the ideas of Germanizing not only the French, but even the Poles and Czechs (the latter were even considered the “German people”): “Did I, with a light heart, divide my homeland Austria into several small Gaus in order to rid it of separatist tendencies and facilitate it? joining the German Reich. Austria, after all, has its own half-thousand-year history, in which there have been many truly great events.

But when discussing this problem with the Dutch and Norwegians (according to the racial theory of the National Socialists, who belonged to the "Germanic peoples." - B.S.) should be very careful. It must always be remembered that Bavaria in 1871 also never once expressed its intention to join Prussia; Bismarck only persuaded her to join a powerful union close to her by blood called Germany. In 1938 I also did not tell the Austrians that I wanted to annex them to Germany; on the contrary, I have always emphasized that I intend to unite them with Germany and create a Greater German Reich (that is, a supposedly new state where Austria will be almost equal in rights with Germany. Of course, this was only a propaganda slogan. - B.S.). The Germans of the Northwest and the North (i.e., the Dutch, Flemings and Scandinavian peoples. - B.S.) it is necessary to constantly inspire that we are talking only about the German Reich, only about the Reich, the ideological and military support of which is Germany ...

I am skeptical about the participation of foreign legions in hostilities on the Eastern Front. It must never be forgotten that any of these legionnaires, unless he is imbued with the consciousness of his blood connection with the German Empire as the basis of a new European unity, will feel like a traitor to his people.

How dangerous this is is clearly demonstrated by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was also believed here that they would be able to attract other peoples to their side, for example, Poles, Czechs, etc., if they were given the opportunity to undergo military training in the ranks of the Austrian army. At the decisive moment, it turned out that it was these people who raised the banner of struggle against her. Therefore, it is a question of trying to recreate the German Reich under the German banner. It was impossible in 1871 to force Bavaria to join the German Empire under the banner of Prussia, just as it is impossible now to unite the German peoples under the black-white-red (Kaiser) banner of the former Reich. Therefore, from the very beginning, I introduced for the NSDAP, which is the bearer of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bunifying all Germans, a new symbol, which will also become a symbol of all Germans - a banner with a swastika (repeating the colors of the Kaiser flag. - B.S.)».

Hitler also warned against too much Germanization of Czechs and Poles. He emphasized that “any manifestation of tolerance towards the Poles is inappropriate. Otherwise, we will again have to face the same phenomena that are already known to history and which have always occurred after the partitions of Poland. The Poles survived because they could not help but take the Russians seriously as their overlords, and also because they managed, by resorting to all sorts of tricks, to achieve from the Germans a political position that, with the support of political Catholicism, became a decisive factor in German domestic politics.

First of all, it is necessary to ensure that there are no cases of copulation between Germans and Poles, otherwise fresh German blood will constantly flow into the veins of the Polish ruling stratum ...

No less caution must be exercised with regard to the Czechs, who have five hundred years of experience in how best to pose as loyal subjects without arousing distrust in anyone. How many Czechs in the days of my youth wandered around Vienna idly, quickly mastering the Viennese dialect, and then deftly made their way to the highest posts in the state, occupied leading positions in the economy, etc.!

Hitler reproached the authorities of the Second Empire for being “half-hearted” in the Polish question: “The Poles were teased, but they never dealt a serious blow. As a result, we did not get the victory of the Germans and did not achieve the pacification of the Poles. He denied the possibility of “Germanization” of the Poles by introducing the German language in the Polish lands: “The Polish people would remain the Polish people, only expressing their own ideas alien to us in a foreign language. Such a people, alien to our race, by its lower stage of development would only compromise the dignity and height of development of our own people. The racial doctrine of the Nazis doomed the Poles to either extermination or deportation. Only those Poles who Nazi anthropologists would consider close to the Germanic race were subject to "Germanization".

The deportations began in the very first days of the occupation by the Wehrmacht. Already on October 20, 1939, the head of the 16th operational command of the SD, SS Sturmbannführer Franz Raeder, reported to the Reich Security Headquarters (RSHA): “By the will of the Fuhrer, German West Prussia should emerge from Pomerania populated by Poles as soon as possible. For the implementation of these tasks, in the agreed opinion of all competent authorities, the following measures are necessary:

Physical liquidation of all Polish elements that:

a) played a leading role on the Polish side in the past, or b) may become participants in the Polish resistance in the future.

Eviction or resettlement of all "native Poles" and "congressors" (settlers from the Kingdom of Poland) from West Prussia.

The resettlement of Poles valuable in racial and other respects to the center of the old Reich, since we are talking about a fading German lineage, and inclusion in the German national body should occur without hindrance. These measures were carried out from the first day.

Also, the imperial protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, speaking to the officials of the occupation administration in February 1942, stated that from 40 to 60 percent of the Czechs should merge with the Germans into a single nation, and the Czechs who are not subject to Germanization should go to develop the "living space" in the East . For the same purpose, it was supposed to use a part of the Dutch that was not completely racially complete. Both those and other representatives of the "Germanic peoples" were supposed to be made "taskers" over the local East Slavic population.

From the "racially inferior" peoples in the future, Hitler was going to train servants for the Germans. In May 1940, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler drew up a memorandum "On the treatment of foreigners in the East" (meaning the Polish General Government). There, in particular, it was stated: “For the non-German population of the East, there should be no education for more than a four-year folk school. There they should teach only simple counting up to five hundred, writing your name and the fact that the Lord God requires you to obey the Germans and be honest, diligent and decent. The ability to read, I think, is superfluous for them. There should be no other schools in the East at all.” Hitler, in March 1942, stated in his headquarters: “First of all, we should not send German teachers to the eastern territories (meaning both Poland and the occupied Soviet territories. - B.S.). Otherwise, we will lose both children and parents. We will lose the whole people, because the knowledge hammered into their heads will not go for the future. It would be best if these people learned only sign language to communicate with the Germans. On the radio, it would be most useful to transmit music in unlimited quantities. Only they should not be accustomed to mental work. Do not allow any printed publications ... These people will feel the happiest if they are left alone if possible. Otherwise, we will grow our worst enemies there! But of course, if we act in the interests of our teachers, then the first thing to do would be to open a university in Kyiv.”

In practice, such programs were unrealizable utopias, which could theoretically be implemented only after the end of the war and the acquisition of world domination by Germany. In reality, both in Poland and in the occupied Soviet territories, newspapers were still published, and in schools they were taught not only to sign and count to five hundred, although, of course, they did not open universities.

Hitler and other leaders of Germany, starting the war against the USSR, looked at the Soviet territory as a place for the creation of new German settlements and a source of almost free raw materials and energy. The population was seen as a cheap labor force serving the needs of the Reich and the German colonists in the East. At the same time, Jews and Gypsies were to be destroyed, and the Slavic and Lithuanian population was to be significantly reduced due to malnutrition and repression for the actions of the partisans. SS Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, former commissioner for combating partisans in the East, testified as a witness before the Nuremberg Tribunal that Himmler, in a speech delivered in 1941 in Weselsburg, on the eve of the campaign against Russia, called for a reduction in the total number of the Slavic population in Poland and the occupied territories of the USSR by 30 million people. This goal, in particular, was served by punitive operations against partisans and the execution of hostages, as well as all those who were suspected of having links with the partisans. On December 16, 1942, Hitler issued an inhuman order to fight partisans (“gangs”) in Russia, Poland and the Balkans: “The enemy uses fanatical and well-trained fighters who are not afraid of any violence in the gang struggle. It's about being or not being. This struggle has nothing to do with the soldier's chivalry and with the provisions of the Geneva Convention. If the fight against the gangs is not carried out with enough brutal methods, then in the foreseeable future we will not have the strength to contain this plague.

Therefore, the troops have the right and duty to use in this struggle, without any restrictions, any means leading to success, including against women and children. Indulgences of every kind are crimes against soldiers who are being attacked by bandits. There can be no leniency towards bandits and their accomplices.

No member of the armed forces participating in the fight against gangs and their accomplices can be brought to justice or disciplinary responsibility for their actions.”

Characteristically, the victims of this order were to be primarily the Slavs, who, from Hitler's point of view, were a racially inferior element. At the end of 1942, it was already clear to the Fuhrer that Germany could not win the war. But he still sought to exterminate as many Jews and Slavs as possible, whom he considered the main enemies of the German people.

However, sometimes the Fuhrer himself was ready to reconsider his views on the racial inferiority of certain peoples. So, on June 2, 1942, summing up at headquarters the impressions of a trip to Poltava, to the headquarters of Army Group South, Hitler admitted that visiting Ukraine “made me somewhat reconsider my previous racial views. In Poltava, I saw so many blue-eyed and fair-haired women that I even thought - remembering the photographs of Norwegians or even Dutch women presented to him along with requests for marriage - should we not, instead of talking about the problem of the "distribution of the northern type", raise the question about the need to "spread the southern type" in our northern European states.

Hitler imagined the solution of the national question in the Greater German Reich only through the Germanization of all non-Germans suitable for this purpose and the destruction or expulsion from the territory of the Reich of all "racially inferior" elements. But he attributed the "final solution" of the national problem to the distant future, when only a nationally homogeneous mass of Germanic peoples speaking the German language would remain in the Reich. Thus, on January 22, 1942, the Fuhrer declared in his Wolfschanze headquarters: “It is possible that with consistent leadership we will solve the national problem in two hundred years. To a certain extent, this was already achieved by the Thirty Years' War.

In the forties of the last century, any Czech was ashamed to speak Czech. He was proud that he spoke German, and was especially proud if he was mistaken for a crown. The introduction of universal, equal, and secret suffrage dealt a crushing blow to the Germans in Austria. The Social Democracy took the side of the Czechs in principle, as did the higher nobility.

For the aristocracy, the Germans are generally too cultured people. She prefers the small peoples of the outskirts. The Czechs were better than the Hungarians, Romanians and Poles. They already formed a stratum of petty bourgeois, distinguished by diligence and knowing their place. Nowadays, they look at us with malice, but also with immense admiration: “We Bohemians are not allowed to rule!”

Only by dominating other peoples can one learn to govern. The Czechs would have got rid of their inferiority complex long ago if, over time, they realized their superiority over the rest of the outlying peoples of Austria ...

For several centuries, we have closed exclusively on ourselves and now we must learn to actively attack. This will last 50-100 years. We knew how to dominate others. The best example of this is Austria. If the Habsburgs had not made an alliance with hostile forces, then nine million Germans would have coped with the remaining fifty million! ..

Lower Saxony is, of course, the birthplace of rulers. The English ruling stratum is from there! It is there that the SS, using its methods, conducts a recruitment of leading personnel, with the help of which in 100 years it will be possible to manage all the territories without racking their brains over who to appoint where.

The idea of ​​recruiting "rulers" on the Lower Rhine was never realized, of course. And Hitler's statements about the Germans of the Middle East look absolutely fantastic: “We lost the Germans, who were called Berbers in North Africa, and Kurds in Asia Minor. One of them was Kemal Atatürk, a blue-eyed man who had nothing to do with the Turks.”

Hitler, in Mein Kampf, dismissed the possibility of Nazi solidarity with the national liberation movements of the peoples of the British Empire, stating: “We Germans seem to have seen enough for ourselves how difficult it is to deal with England. And besides everything else, I will say about myself that, as a German, I would still always prefer to see India under the dominion of England than under any other power.

But here the Fuhrer turned out to be a bad prophet. During the Second World War, Germany, Italy and Japan, willy-nilly, had to seek an alliance with the national liberation movements in India, Burma, and the Arab countries. And hopes for a compromise with England on the basis of "German racial solidarity" crumbled to dust within a decade or so after the publication of Mein Kampf.

The racial doctrine of National Socialism left no place on earth for "small peoples" deprived of their homeland-soil - Jews and gypsies, subject to total extermination. Next in the "scale of harmfulness" were the Poles - the "hereditary enemies" of the Germans, whose number had to be limited as much as possible, and statehood should be liquidated, not allowing any forms of self-government. However, the Nazis did not provide for the total extermination of the Polish nation.

After the Poles, the Russians and Belarusians went up the scale of racial preferences, the same as the Poles, “subhuman”, Die Untermenschen, but at least they enjoyed an advantage over the Poles when they were appointed to posts in local government in the occupied territories. After Belarusians and Russians, Lithuanians and Ukrainians occupied a higher rung of the "racial pyramid". The Lithuanians, who until recently had their own state, had the advantage of self-government, like the other two Baltic peoples - Latvians and Estonians. However, due to the long existence in the same territory and the supposed "racial mixing" with the Poles by the Nazis, neither Lithuanians nor Ukrainians were considered "Aryan peoples".

The next on the scale were the "Aryan peoples" proper. Only Estonians, Latvians, Cossacks, Tatars of the Crimea and the Volga region, Kalmyks, Ossetians, Ingush, Chechens and a number of other peoples of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia received this honor from the population of the USSR. In the future, they were subject to Germanization and were supposed to form a single community with the German people.

Outside the USSR, the "Aryan peoples" included the French, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Hungarians, Greeks, Romanians, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Slovenes, Turks and some others. At the same time, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Croats and Bulgarians were considered special, “allied peoples”, which increased their status from the point of view of racial theory.

Further, closer to the top of the racial pyramid, followed “Germanic peoples: Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, Flemings, Walloons, Czechs, English, Irish, Swedes, Finns. They were supposed to be used primarily for the colonization of the "eastern territories".

In 1943, when the defeat of Germany had already become obvious to the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, the racial policy of the National Socialists underwent forced changes. The term "subhuman" was withdrawn from use, and Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Russians and even Poles were now officially recognized as "Aryan peoples" and accepted into the service of the Wehrmacht and the SS. Goebbels officially stated about these "Eastern peoples": "You cannot portray these people hoping to win liberation with our hands, animals, barbarians and the like, and at the same time expect that they will passionately desire the victory of the Germans."

By that time, racial theory had already lost all meaning both from the point of view of propaganda and from the point of view of practical politics. Germany was defeated on all fronts, and not only from the "Germanic peoples", the British and Americans, which seemed to be not so offensive, but also from the Russians, who were called "subhuman" yesterday. Now it was no longer about the conquest of new lands in the East and West, but about the very existence of the Reich. In this struggle, the Nazis were looking for any allies among the inhabitants of the occupied territories, so any replication of the concept of "subhuman" was stopped. Now the enemies - Americans, British and Russians were "lowered" only due to propaganda theses about their allegedly closest relations with the Jews, and at the same time they tried to divide the same Russians into "good" and "bad", depending on their connection: with German authorities or with the Bolsheviks. The Germans themselves were no longer reminded that they were "superhumans", but called to protect their homeland, home and family from the invasion of enemies. Of course, at the same time, the question was delicately avoided: who started the war and managed to conquer half the world before being stopped?

Disputes about the status of Crimea, which flared up with renewed vigor after the annexation of the peninsula to Russia, have not really subsided since the Great Greek colonization. “Historically justified” claims to the territory of Crimea were once put forward even by the Third Reich, whose rulers considered the peninsula to be “original German territory”. Moreover, Nazi Germany tried to confirm its position on the Crimea in a very original way.

• Changing the political status of the Soviet republics was the main goal of Germany in the war against the USSR. None of the leaders of the Third Reich doubted that this status would be changed. However, in practice, the post-war future in the occupied territories caused the most controversy among the Nazi military-political elite. If the military regime could only be temporary, then the civil administration, on the contrary, was to become a transitional form on the way to the future political structure of the entire “eastern space”.
• What will it be like after the victory of Germany? This question should have been answered as quickly as possible, and with as much political clarity as possible. Projects for "organization" were available for all the republics of the Soviet Union. As for the Crimea, the Nazis, for all the importance of this peninsula, did not finally decide its fate. But administrative plans were only one side of the future status of Crimea. It is no secret that this is a multinational region. And therefore, no matter what plans the Nazis built, in their calculations they could not ignore interethnic relations on the peninsula. What should be done with the peoples inhabiting the Crimea? We have to admit that in general, with all the radicalism of the Nazi national policy, the solution to this issue also remained at the level of theories.
• ALFRED ROSENBERG'S PLAN
• Alfred Frauenfeld in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden.
• The tasks of Germany in the war against the USSR were finally formulated on March 30, 1941 at a meeting of the top Nazi military-political leadership. From a military point of view, it was planned to defeat the Red Army and reach the line Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan, and on the political plane, it was necessary to make sure that, as Hitler said, "no organized force could resist the Germans on this side of the Urals." Concluding his speech, he expressed himself more specifically: "Our tasks in relation to Russia are to defeat its armed forces, to destroy the state." And to manage the occupied Soviet territories, the Fuhrer proposed the creation of "protectorates": in the Baltic states, in Ukraine and in Belarus. The word "protectorate" is deliberately put in quotation marks here. Of course, these were not supposed to be protectorates like in Bohemia and Moravia. Rather, it was only a political screen and nothing more. This March meeting is also significant because at it all issues of future administrative and political planning in the "eastern territories x" were transferred to the jurisdiction of Alfred Rosenberg - the main Nazi theorist, and concurrently - an expert on interethnic relations.
• Already on April 2, 1941, Rosenberg presented the first memorandum, which reflected his views on the political future of the Soviet Union after its defeat. In general, he proposed to divide it into seven regions: Great Russia with the center in Moscow; Belarus with Minsk or Smolensk as capital; Baltenland (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania); Ukraine and Crimea with the center in Kyiv; Don Oblast with Rostov-on-Don as its capital; Caucasian region; Turkestan (Soviet Central Asia).
• According to the concept set forth in this document, Russia (or, rather, what was left of it) was to be cut off from the rest of the world by a ring of non-Russian states. However, the "reforms" did not end there: according to Rosenberg's plan. she lost a number of territories with a Russian population in favor of state-territorial formations that were created in the neighborhood. So, Smolensk retreated to Belarus, Kursk, Voronezh and Crimea - to Ukraine, and Rostov-on-Don and the lower Volga - to the Don region. In the future Great Russia, it was necessary to "completely destroy the Jewish-Bolshevik administration", and she herself had to "subject to intensive economic exploitation" by Germany. In addition, this territorial entity received a status even much lower than that of its surrounding neighbors, and turned, in fact, into a "receiver for all undesirable elements from their territories."
• This plan provoked significant comments from Hitler, who believed that the future administrative units in the "eastern lands" should not be made so fractional and artificial. For example, the creation of a separate Don region, in his opinion, was not conditioned either politically or economically, or even from the point of view of national politics. The same applied to Belarus. The Führer believed that it could be united with the Baltic States - this would be more convenient from an administrative point of view. And similar remarks were made on almost all points of the Rosenberg memorandum. However, it should be recognized that they almost did not touch upon the general line of the document.
• 
• On June 20, 1941, a regular meeting of the top military-political leadership of the Third Reich took place in Berlin, at which Rosenberg presented Hitler with another memorandum on the future arrangement of what was to remain from the USSR. According to the new plan, it was supposed to create five administrative units - the Reichskommissariats: "Muscovy" (central regions of Russia), "Ostland" (Baltic states and Belarus), "Ukraine" (most of Ukraine and Crimea), "Caucasus" (North Caucasus, Transcaucasia and Kalmykia ) and "Turkestan" (Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Volga region and Bashkiria). These administrative units were to arise as the Wehrmacht moved east. And after the pacification of these regions, the military administration in them could be replaced by a civilian one - as the first step in determining the future political status of the "eastern lands".
• GENERAL DISTRICT "TAVRIA" BETWEEN MILITARY AND CIVIL
• AUTHORITIES
• Hitler accepted the second Rosenberg plan almost without comment, and already on July 17, 1941, he signed a decree on the introduction of civilian administration in the occupied Soviet territories. According to this document, the Miniature of the Occupied Eastern Regions was created - the main governing body for the above administrative entities. As you might guess, Alfred Rosenberg, the author of all these plans, was placed at the head of the ministry. However, due to the failure of the "blitzkrieg", only two Reichskommissariats were created - "Oaland" and "Ukraine". They began to function on September 1, 1941.
• In their final form, their territories took shape only three months later. According to Rozenberg's calculations, Crimea, along with the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, was included in the Tavria general district, with a total area of ​​22,900 square meters. km and a population of 662 thousand people (as of September 1, 1941). Melitopol was chosen as the center of the district. In turn, the general district "Tavria" was an integral part of the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine". The supreme body of the civil occupation administration in "Tavria" was to be the general commissariat, headed by a veteran of the Nazi party Alfred Frauenfeld. However, due to various circumstances, primarily of a military nature, Frauenfeld was able to start his duties only on September 1
• 1942
• This date includes the final drawing up of the boundaries of the Tavria general district, as it was seen in the Rosenberg ministry. However, one caveat remained. The territory of Crimea never came under the jurisdiction of Frauenfeld. Until July 1942, hostilities took place here. Therefore, it was considered reasonable to leave the peninsula under dual control: civilian (nominally) and military (actually). That is, no one seized Crimea from the composition of the general district, but civil officials had no rights here. The real power on the peninsula belonged to the local commander of the Wehrmacht units.
• At the head of the military administration apparatus was the commander of the Wehrmacht troops in the Crimea, who was vertically subordinate to the commander of Army Group A (since April 1944 - Army Group South Ukraine). Usually such a position was usually introduced in those occupied territories, where the supreme chief of the Wehrmacht had to not only carry out security service, but also deal with their administrative support. Throughout the entire period of the occupation of Crimea, this position was occupied by five people, the most famous of which was the commander of the 17th German army, Colonel-General Erwin Jeneke - under him, the liberation of the peninsula by the Red Army troops began.
• GERMAN GIBRALTAR OR ARyan GOTHENLAND?
• Crimea was supposed to become the "German Gibraltar". Being located here, the German army and navy could completely control the Black Sea. Peninsula
• it was planned to clear all strangers and populate with Germans
• Such an administrative system existed in the Crimea until May 1944. And it went on unchanged. What can not be said, for example, about the German plans to resolve the national question. In this case, the controversy around them unfolded as follows. We have already discussed above how Rosenberg planned to divide the USSR.
• ALFRED FRAUENFELD IN THE NIKITSKY BOTANICAL GARDEN One of the points of this plan was called "Ukraine with the Crimea." His subsequent memorandum also implied that the handwritten notes on this document indicate that the formulation of this nominal point was given to Rosenberg with difficulty. He, with all his love for Ukrainian nationalists, clearly understood that Crimea could only be attributed to Ukraine with a big stretch, since the number of Ukrainians living there was negligible (in order to somehow solve this problem, Rosenberg proposed to evict all Russians from the peninsula, Jews and Tatars).
• But this is not the only paradox of the plan. At the same time, Rosenberg insisted that the Crimea be under the direct control of the government of the Third Reich. To explain this incident, he strongly emphasized the "German influence" on the peninsula. So, the main Nazi ideologue argued that before the First World War, German colonists owned significant territories here. Thus, it turned out that "Tavria" only "technically" joined Ukraine. It was supposed to be managed from Berlin. Rosenberg's plans may seem completely contradictory. Nevertheless, they were only a reflection of Hitler's arguments, with which he substantiated the reasons for the future Germanization of the peninsula. Firstly, as the Fuhrer believed, the Crimea was to become the "German Gibraltar." Being located here, the German army and navy could completely control the Black Sea. Secondly, the peninsula could become attractive to the Germans because the head of the German Labor Front, Robert Ley, dreamed of turning it into "one huge German resort."
• Hitler spoke more specifically about the fate of the Crimea at a meeting on July 16, 1941. In his speech, he specifically singled it out from a number of other occupied Soviet territories and said that the peninsula "must be cleared of all strangers and populated by Germans." In particular, the Russians were supposed to be evicted to Russia. According to the memoirs of one of those present, the Fuhrer expressed himself as follows: "She is big enough for this."
• As the documents testify, the "Crimean issue" and the fate of the population of the peninsula occupied Hitler in the following months. When Rosenberg visited him in December 1941, the Fuhrer repeated to him once again that "Crimea must be completely cleared of the non-German population." This meeting is also interesting because it touched upon the problem of the so-called Gothic heritage. As you know, in the middle of the 3rd century, the Germanic tribes of the Goths invaded the territory of the Northern Black Sea region. They created their own "power" in this region, which did not last long - at the end of the 4th century it was defeated by the Huns. Crimea was also part of this state entity. The bulk of the Goths went to the West along with the new conquerors -However, some of them should be left on the peninsula
• and they lived here still quite for a long time - some historians claim that until the 16th century. By and large, the contribution of the Goths to the history of Crimea was not the most significant. Moreover, it cannot be said that they left some kind of legacy here. However, Hitler thought otherwise. Concluding his conversation with Rosenberg, the Fuhrer expressed his desire that after the end of the war and the settlement of the issue with the population, the Crimea would be called "Gotenland".
• Rosenberg said that he was already thinking about it, and proposed to rename Simferopol to Gothenburg, and Sevastopol to Theodorichshafen. The continuation of the "Gothic plans" of Hitler and Rosenberg was an archaeological expedition organized by General Commissar Frauenfeld in July 1942.
• The head of the police of the general district "Tavria" Ludolf von Alvensleben was appointed the immediate head of this event. During the expedition, Nazi archaeologists examined the settlement of Mangup, the former capital of the Principality of Theodoro, which was defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1475. As a result, they came to the conclusion that this fortress is a typical example of ancient German fortification. Alushta, Gurzuf and Inkerman were also recognized as Gothic by origin. Subsequently, these and other "discoveries" appeared in the book "Goths in the Crimea", which was written by one of the members of the expedition, Colonel Werner Bapumelburg.
• PLUS GERMANIZATION OF THE WHOLE PENINSULA...
• Fantasies about "Gotenland" remained fantasies, but plans for the resettlement of Germans in the Crimea were repeatedly submitted to Hitler for consideration by various authorities of the Third Reich. There were three such attempts in total. Firstly, the SS leadership proposed to resettle here 140,000 ethnic Germans from the so-called Transnistria - the territory of the USSR between the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers, which was under Romanian occupation.
• This plan was on the agenda until the very liberation of the Crimea by the Soviet troops, but the Germans never approached it. Secondly, in the summer of 1942, Commissar General Frauenfeld prepared a special memorandum, copies of which he then sent to various German authorities. In it, this official proposed to resettle the inhabitants of South Tyrol in the Crimea in order to settle the old Italo-German dispute once and for all. It is known that Hitler reacted to this plan with great enthusiasm.
• So, at one of the meetings, he literally said the following: “I think this is a great idea. In addition, I also believe that the Crimea is both climatically and geographically suitable for the Tyroleans, and compared to their homeland, it really is a land where rivers of milk and honey flow. Their resettlement in the Crimea
• 2 thousand Germans from Palestine. Interestingly, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, who was in charge of all matters of "strengthening the German race," did not object to an outside intrusion into his sphere of competence. The Germanization of the Crimea was recognized as so important that he was going to cede the Tyroleans to Frauenfeld, even though he had previously planned to settle them in "Burgundy" - a state where, after the end of the war, "German blood" was to be concentrated.
• True, Frauenfeld left out of the equation how this could have been done under the conditions of the British occupation of the region. Moreover, this plan already clearly bordered on projecting. Therefore, even the official chief Germanizer Himmler ordered to postpone it until better times. Finally, the protests of those bodies of the Wehrmacht that were responsible for the war economy put an end to all fantasies and efforts to resettle.
• In mid-August 1943, the head of the Wehrmacht High Command, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, strongly opposed any population movements during the war. Not without reason, he noted that the "evacuation" of Russians and Ukrainians - 4/5 of the entire population of Crimea - completely paralyzes the economic life of the peninsula. Three weeks later, Hitler took the side of the military and spoke in the sense that any movement is possible only after the end of the war. Himmler agreed with this point of view. He, of course, believed that the resettlement of the Germans must be planned and carried out, but it was extremely premature to do this in a military situation. By the way, it should be said that Himmler most resolutely opposed the plans to evict the Tatars from the Crimea.
• True, this ban extended only to the war period. According to him, this would be a catastrophic mistake. “We must keep in the Crimea at least part of the population that looks in our direction and believes in us,” the Reichsfuehrer emphasized. In principle, this can be put an end to, since in the fall of 1943 the Nazis were not up to solving administrative issues and discussions about national problems. Crimea was blockaded by units of the Red Army and turned into a "besieged fortress". Completely different tasks became on the agenda of the Nazi military-political leadership.

Everyone knows that according to the racial theory, taken by Hitler as the basis of the ideology of National Socialism, there are racially valuable and racially inferior people. Everyone who watched films about the Great Patriotic War and read books about this page of history is familiar with the expressions “untermensch”, “true Aryan”, “Nordic race”.

It is clear that the “untermenschi”, that is, “subhuman”, are we, the Slavs, as well as Jews, gypsies, blacks, Mongoloids, and so on. But who, in this case, are the "true Aryans", in other words, "ubermenshi" - "supermen"? Who, besides themselves, did the German fascists consider racially valuable?

Günther's racial theory

First you need to figure out where these fabrications about “true Aryans” came from. The idea belongs to the German theorist Günther, who in 1925 developed the theory of the unequal value of races, their ability to develop, work, and, conversely, their tendency to degrade. He divided people according to anthropological characteristics: the shape and size of the skull, the color of hair, skin and eyes, attributing to each type, in addition to purely external characteristics, mental and mental qualities. It was he who singled out the "Nordic type" ("Nordic race") in the Caucasoid race. These people are characterized by high stature, a narrow long face, fair skin, hair pigmentation from light to light brown. In terms of mental endowment, Gunther put representatives of the Nordic type in the first place. Representatives of the Nordic type live in northern Germany, Holland, Latvia, Scandinavia, eastern England, along the entire Baltic coast.

"True Aryans"

Ideas of this kind were very much in vogue at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe and the USA. Racism was not then a forbidden theory, its clear signs can be found, for example, in some of the works of Jack London. Hitler also liked this theory very much. It must be said that such ideas often become popular in countries whose inhabitants consider themselves disadvantaged at the present time. They draw hope for a glorious future from myths about a glorious past. In itself, this is commendable until the "bearers of glorious traditions" begin to consider themselves exceptional, and representatives of other peoples - "subhuman." This is exactly what happened in Germany, which survived the defeat in the First World War and was in a state of deep crisis by the time Hitler came to power. Not surprisingly, Hitler's ideas of "Nordic conquerors" and "true Aryans" were very much to the liking of most of the German public. The researchers called Aryans the ancient peoples who spoke languages ​​belonging to the eastern branch of the Indo-European family and belonged to the northern racial type. The word "aire" is of Celtic origin and means "leader", "to know". According to the creators of the racial theory, the modern heirs of the ancient Aryans should be tall, blond and blue-eyed. However, it is enough to look at Hitler and his closest associates to see how little this ideal portrait corresponds to the external appearance of the leaders of the Third Reich. Clearly understanding this, the ideologists of National Socialism paid more attention not to appearance, but to the “Nordic spirit”, which, in their opinion, was characteristic not only of the representatives of the German peoples, but even, in part, of the Japanese.

Ubermenshi - who are they?

Who, from the point of view of Hitler's ideologists, could be considered "racially full-fledged", "true Aryan", "bearer of the Nordic spirit"? We are talking, of course, about the representatives of the Germanic peoples. But even here it is not so simple. The "purity of the blood" was of decisive importance. The most "pure blood" was among the Germans. Next came the Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Dutch, whom Hitler considered, although Aryans, but still not quite "ubermens". Why the blue-eyed and fair-haired Scandinavians did not please him is not entirely clear. Hitler strongly disliked the inhabitants of the more southern regions of Europe, various French and Spaniards, considering them "mestizos with an admixture of Negroid blood." However, the Italians still considered the bearers of the "Nordic spirit", thanks to the ideological closeness to Mussolini. According to the ideologists of racial theory, the “true Aryans” and other “bearers of the Nordic spirit” should take great care of the purity of their blood, not allowing it to mix with the blood of lower races, and especially with Jewish blood. This is important because, according to the ideologists of fascism, only the "Nordic race" is capable of creativity, development, only representatives of the "Nordic race" created all the great civilizations and cultural achievements. For this reason, the duty of the "true Aryans" and "bearers of the Nordic spirit" is also the preservation of physical health, because the "true Aryan" is not only creative abilities, but also a powerful body. For the same reason, by the way, purebred Germans who suffered from mental illness, epilepsy, etc. were declared "Untermensch" and subject to destruction. The blatant scientific groundlessness of this theory did not prevent it from spreading widely and finding followers not only among the Germans, but also among the representatives of those peoples whom Hitler declared "racially inferior", including among the Russians. And this is a very disturbing fact.