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We know that Nazi ideology explicitly singled out Jews as the main reason for all Germany's problems, and planned to exterminate all of them. Nazis also persecuted gypsies, Polish people, and POWs. Did the Nazis plan to exterminate other races/ethnicities? Were there any indications of this in their writings, propaganda, letters, secret documents? For example, anything against black people? Arabs? Asians? etc?

Tea Drinker
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The Byzantine
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    It was Anne Applebaum, I believe, who defined totalitarian regime by the following characteristic loop: pick a minority from your population based on whatever factor, classify them as non-humans, persecute, repeat for another minority. That factor in this case was ethnicity, would be, for her, purely accidental. Next factor could be "people who owned cats". – kubanczyk Jan 21 '13 at 09:56
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    @kubanczyk, even in totalitarian theory, which in fact is an agenda rather than a proper theory, much more reasonable criteria has been proposed (and proven useless). The politics of the nazi party adapted pre-existing antisemitism, which was constitutive of german identity decades before the nsdap was founded. Eliminatory antisemitism had been the motivation to found parties even in the end of the 19th century. Declaring the nazi movement could have picked any other group apart from the jewish, like "people who owned cats", is just irresponsibly wrong. – J. Katzwinkel Jan 21 '13 at 17:13
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    @J.Katzwinkel its remarkable then the rapidity with which general German racialism assimilated anti-Slavic exterminationalist racialism between 1939 (when mass executions of ethnic Poles was atypical) and 1941 (when mass executions of people of Slavic ethnicities became typical). I'll agree that there are performative elements of anti-semitism that differ from anti-slavic racialism—torturing the imaginary Slav with pointless work-to-death didn't occur (to my memory). But anti-slavic extermination policies sprang up across administrative boundaries within the German state rapidly. – Samuel Russell Jan 21 '13 at 21:16
  • @J. Katzwinkel OK, I retract "purely accidental". I've really meant: the ethnicity wasn't a criterion of Anne's definition at all. Also, I've misused the quotes for cats - cats are my own paraphrase. – kubanczyk Jan 21 '13 at 22:08
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    @Histophile You are too hard, imo, on Samuel. He may often speak in a dense jargon (which most people, including me, don't fully understand) and take extreme positions but he is a serious scholar, as far as I can tell. – Felix Goldberg Jul 23 '13 at 07:12
  • @FelixGoldberg - many of the Nazis themselves were 'serious scholars'. You can spend your whole life being a 'serious scholar' of nonsense. Many have. And "Therefore, the idea of a coherent plan of racial extermination needs to be done away with" is not dense jargon but an outright falsehood. (And I did manage to pry apart his jargon and found it quite vapid...) Be that as it may, I have removed this comment to which you refer, on your recommendation alone. I will not interfere with the OP's question and the various answers. I have put up an answer and objected to Samuel Russell in place. –  Jul 23 '13 at 08:01
  • @FelixGoldberg - Call it a 'school'? That's actually about all I need to know... "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education" - Mark Twain (he wasn't Jewish...) I don't have much schooling - but I have an excellent education... –  Jul 23 '13 at 10:05
  • @Histophile Can you please re-send me the link to the chat room? I can't access it now.. – Felix Goldberg Jul 23 '13 at 11:50
  • @Histophile Now you have to give me talk privileges there, or something like that... :) – Felix Goldberg Jul 23 '13 at 15:35
  • @FelixGoldberg - OK - I saw your remarks and posted a reply. Watch that room. I am deleting the links. –  Jul 23 '13 at 19:49
  • Hitler was not a highly logical and systematical person. More like a small-time con man who manages to swindle people into electing him emperor and he bungles it so badly he gets himself killed. Among other things he liked to have his subordinates' areas of responsibility overlapping (divide et impera, yes even among his own team). A large-scale master plan for decades would not be his style. – Censored to protect the guilty Dec 05 '17 at 19:53
  • @Censoredtoprotecttheguilty : I've never heard that one before. "He was so grossly incompetent that he couldn't have possibly had a plan" :-) – jjack Dec 06 '17 at 00:37
  • Plans yes. Clever plans maybe. Years-to-decades long plans? No. It's not only incompetence as a leader, it is also lack of moral fibre. – Censored to protect the guilty Dec 06 '17 at 18:08

7 Answers7

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For the Eastern Europe the Nazis had the Genaralplan Ost - the General Plan "East". According to this plan the large areas of Eastern Europe should be gradually Germanized, with the native inhabitants reduced in number, resettled and/or assimilated.

According to the plan,

Ethnic group    Percentage subject to removal
Poles           80-85%
Russians        50-60% to be physically eliminated and another 15% to be sent to Western Siberia.
Belorusians     75%
Ukrainians      65%
Lithuanians     85%
Latvians        50%
Estonians       50%
Czechs          50%
Latgalians      100%

You can notice that the Latgalians, a Baltic ethnic group in Latvia were especially disliked by the Nazis due to their historically pro-Russian attitude. The Nazis even undertook special efforts to prove their racial impurity and inferiority

As to the further plans, you should note that Hitler's attitude towards the Blacks, Asians and other peoples was much better than that towards the Slavs, the Jews and other Eastern Europeans.

In general it seems the Reich would consider it their natural right to genocide any nationalities when the area is needed for Germans.

Judging from the pattern which the Nazis established in their dealings with different ethnic groups, it is reasonable to assume that the Nazis would attempt

  • To divide large peoples into smaller ethnic groups and by other criteria (religion, language dialect, region etc)

  • To put a "fuehrer" or "elder" in head of each ethnic group, personally responsible for carrying out the Nazi orders.

  • To allow a considerable autonomy of each ethnic group in their internal affairs as long as German orders are carried out.

  • To give expressly different rights in small and in large things to different groups, even closely related so to create envy, hubris and competition for Germans' favor.

  • To restrict movement of each group to their native homeland. Thus the steppe nomadic peoples would be put in steppe reservations, the mountaineers restricted to their home mountains etc. Only Germans would be allowed the right for free movement.

Anixx
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    Thanks. But could you please back your numbers and points with solid references? – The Byzantine Feb 01 '13 at 14:06
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    @TheByzantine Translated PDF of the General Plan East. – Danny Beckett May 02 '15 at 22:39
  • Do you have any ideas, why Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians were targeted? –  Aug 26 '18 at 17:45
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    @FranzDrollig that would be better as it's own question, rather than a comment on a 5 year old answer. – user32121 Aug 27 '18 at 01:21
  • Re you should note that Hitler's attitude towards the Blacks, Asians and other peoples was much better than that towards the Slavs, the Jews and other Eastern Europeans., Hitler's attitude towards others changed on what he wanted. When he needed Slavic Croats, Nazis accepted accepted the nonsense that Croats were descendants of Goths. Whereas on the other hand, Hitler wasn't very fond of the Indo-Aryan people and preferred them to remain subjugated by Britain (Although he again supported defectors from BIA when he needed to do so). – NSNoob Aug 27 '18 at 08:05
  • I read somewhere that, supposing a german victory in the East in 41-42 (not necessarily the end of the war, but a favorable situation where immediate military needs are not so paramount and famine is avoidable), there were plans to deliberately and systematically starve Ukrainians and Russians already in 1943-44. But the soviets reached ukraine in 43-44. Do you know anything about this? This referenced plan appears too long term. I do not mean the germans were nice, but famine at least partially due to war is different to totally deliberate and avoidable famine. – Luiz Aug 27 '18 at 21:27
  • @Luiz: Make no mistake, this whole thing was the plan for after the war was won. This has nothing to do with war-related hardships, it's the evolution of the whole Lebensraum idea that set WWII in motion in the first place. – DevSolar Mar 25 '19 at 14:53
  • According to the Wiki article, Latgalians formed the core of modern Latvians <= 16th century. It's strange that they are listed separately from Latvians in this table. –  Nov 12 '19 at 16:10
  • Does resettlement mean resettlement or "resettlement" in Bełżec/Majdanek/Auschwitz? – gerrit Feb 18 '20 at 14:10
  • One notes that the areas were targeted for Germanization programs for people whom they deemed of German blood -- "We have faith above all in this our own blood, which has flowed into a foreign nationality through the vicissitudes of German history. We are convinced that our own philosophy and ideals will reverberate in the spirit of these children who racially belong to us." -- so some percentage of the survivors would be "German" rather than that nation. – Mary Nov 03 '21 at 01:01
  • @Luiz The Hunger Plan, on the other hand, was definitely implemented during the war. – Mary Nov 03 '21 at 01:03
  • @Mary in part at least unintentionally. E.g. the famines in POW camps for Brits and Americans were caused mostly by the collapsing logistics in the core Reich in 1944/45 which left even the German civilian population short on food. Camp commanders were left with the unenviable choice to decide whether to feed the prisoners or give the food they had to the local civilian population and tended to choose the latter (I think most of us would do the same, the locals being friends and family rather than foreign strangers). – jwenting Nov 03 '21 at 10:21
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"Intentionalism"—the view that Hitler was responsible for German racial policy (as supposed by this question's very title, "did Hitler had a final solution plan")—is not favoured amongst scholars. Therefore, the idea of a coherent plan of racial extermination needs to be done away with. German racial extermination policy evolved situationally and in response to local conditions. German bureaucratic schisms encouraged such creativity. However, repeated refrains of racialist and exterminationist policy appear again and again. This answer considers the Slavic example.

German and NSDAP racial policy was generally quite local in nature, though following similar themes. The Commissar order of 1941 was used as part of a generalised extermination programme relating to Slavic civillians, enacted as part of the pogrom and action programmes of 1941.

Additionally, some of the occupying authorities considered the winter 1941 food problems of Slavic civillians as not needing to be addressed due to the plan to generally starve Slavs to death West of the stop lines. The actual food extraction policies of this period did produce significant starvation as a side effect, however, the idea of extracting the planned levels of food was ludicrous and unachievable. (These plans were based on the idea that German standards of living ought rightly to be maintained at or near pre-war levels through mass starvation of other "racial" groups.)

Much of this culminated in the POW situation in 1941, where encamped soldiers—predominantly Slavic—were systematically neglected in a manner not undertaken in the West by the German Army.

We can be reasonably confident that with more puissance, German racial policies would have resulted in a fuller attempted genocide of people identified by Germans as Slavic.

Samuel Russell
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    Firstly, I have said nothing of Hitler being responsible of German racial policy. The anti-semtic feelings and hate for the Jews began before there was a Nazi Party. In fact, the DAP party, well before Hitler joined it and converted it into the Nazi party, already perpetuated anti-semtic feelings and hate of Jews. This was also shared by many Germans and other parties too in the 1920's. Secondly, are you suggesting that the extermination process arose while there was need for it? Like to solve food shortages allow people to die? – The Byzantine Jan 21 '13 at 02:59
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    "Aside from the Jews, did Hitler had a final solution plan for other ethnicities / races in the Third Reich?" Regarding points other than intentionalism, I've expanded my answer. – Samuel Russell Jan 21 '13 at 03:03
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    True. Though the anti-semtic feelings were prevalent before and during Nazism, yet no extermination plans were in anyone's agenda. Only Hitler openly spoke of extermination. I meant, Hitler is not responsible for the racial hatred, he endorsed it as many other Germans at the time, and took it to higher levels with extermination agenda. – The Byzantine Jan 21 '13 at 03:07
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    Interesting. I have just been reading "The Third Reich: The rise and fall of the Nazis". It quotes Hitler saying that the Jews must be exterminated even well before the NSDAP was in power. – The Byzantine Jan 21 '13 at 03:10
  • I strongly suggest you read about the Intentionalist / Functionalist debates in the historiography of the holocaust. – Samuel Russell Jan 21 '13 at 06:39
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    @SamuelRussell: -1 "German and NSDAP racial policy ...local in nature." Flies directly in the face of the well documented history of concentration camps, which contained thousands and thousands of prisoners collected systematically by the Nazis. Document clearly your sources for such contentions. "Read blah blah blah..." is not enough to counter the eyewitness account of General Eisenhower: "I made the visit... in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.” –  Jul 22 '13 at 21:37
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    @SamuelRussell"German and NSDAP racial policy ...local in nature."?! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann: Otto Adolf Eichmann[1][2] (19 March 1906 – 31 May 1962)[3] was a German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. Because of his organizational talents and ideological reliability, Eichmann was charged by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with the task of facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe. –  Jul 22 '13 at 21:39
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    @SamuelRussell"German and NSDAP racial policy ...local in nature?! See Concentration and Death Camps Map: http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/D/6/EasternEurope3.JPG. This does not appear to be a local operation: –  Jul 22 '13 at 21:43
  • @Histophile read some of the police battalion, einsatzgruppen and Jew hunting sources before you jump off the edge. Local control very clearly indicates universal culpability by the way. – Samuel Russell Jul 22 '13 at 22:29
  • @SamuelRussell - obviously, implementation of the 'dirty details' will be local. But you're claiming: "Therefore, the idea of a coherent plan of racial extermination needs to be done away with." . That notion is clearly nonsense as has been well documented as such - what I cited is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg. That you advocate such a position nullifies any claim you have to pontificate about History. If you do have reliable sources, cite them, not more of your vague references 'see this, read that...'. "He who lies, speaks of things far away" - Talmud –  Jul 22 '13 at 22:46
  • The idea of a coherent plan of racial extermination does need to be done away with. All Germans and many central and eastern europeans participated in their own plans of local or universal extermination which happened to coincide with a variety of plans within different German ministeries for local or universal extermination. Subsuming "local initiative" under one State plan, which was regularly ignored if favour of lesser, greater, or more torturous behaviour by local administrators is Führer princip fallacy: Germany wasn't totalised, the State, Market, Army and Population each bear guilt – Samuel Russell Jul 23 '13 at 01:32
  • Browning (1992) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Your citations, by the way, are decontextualised garbage with no connection to the historiography. – Samuel Russell Jul 23 '13 at 01:32
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    @SamuelRussell - you are muddling the issue. Germany is a large, complex country. Obviously at the local level there were variations. It's that way in every large country that relies on local bureaucrats to implement their policy. But we have very clear and compelling evidence of a master plan and we know the time-lines: When the Nazis took over Germany and then invaded other places, that's when exterminations began. I refer you to here: Statements by Hitler and Senior NazisConcerning Jews and Judaism: http://ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/statements.htm - a well documented academic source. –  Jul 23 '13 at 02:57
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    @SamuelRussell - if you mean to say that Hitler and his minions did not act alone, but were helped at the local level by the various bureaucracies and police agencies, that is obvious and I have no beef with you. But if you mean to say that the fundamental idea did not come 'from the top', you are a holocaust denier and refuted by endless historical evidence which no one needs to me to cite. –  Jul 23 '13 at 03:02
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    @Histophile I think you got Samuel wrong. There is a real and valid historiographical debate between so-called "Functionalists" and so-called "Intentionalists". You (and me) come down at the side of the Intentionalists; Samuel is a rather opinionated Functionalist, as far as I can tell. That certainly does not make him a denier. I really urge you to revise that remark, which I am sure was made in the heat of the debate - I must confess my initial reaction half a year ago was quite similar to yours but I took the time to google the terms and to find out – Felix Goldberg Jul 23 '13 at 07:24
  • @Histophile that there is a real scholarly debate going on. I had heard before of Mommsen's work but did not realize before reading Samuel's answer that there was a fully-fledged Functionalist school and that the Functionalist camp includes people such as Browning and Hillberg - surely not deniers. – Felix Goldberg Jul 23 '13 at 07:25
  • @FelixGoldberg - OK. Under your advisement, I will put this issue on hold until I do some more research. That is only reason, because I really don't care how many 'schools' there are: You can have an entire 'school' built on lies and fantasies - that's how it works in academia, I know, believe me. My point is as soon as you deny central planning that is essentially holocaust denial. –  Jul 23 '13 at 07:44
  • @FelixGoldberg - I have removed the two most flamboyant remarks. But I want him to bring sources, not 'read this, read that' or 'out of context' bs. The references I brought in my answer to this question and in my comment above are legit - direct quotations. Saying that it was some sort of disjointed idea that just conveniently fell together is absurd. If they are saying more than that, I'll have to see. And it's not because I'm some sort of gung-ho JDL guy - I'm not. It's a point of history: there are mounds of hard, physical evidence and eye witness testimony that there was a plan. –  Jul 23 '13 at 07:50
  • all none Germanic people and even non Germans would have been removed , in some atrocious manner of course from europe not only slavs – Bak1139 Sep 01 '14 at 11:55
  • Of course there was a plan. See the "Wannsee Conference" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference. – jjack Dec 05 '17 at 19:50
  • The Hunger Plan was more based on the belief that the belief that WWI had been lost by the "stab in the back," the "stab" had been induced by civilian suffering, and therefore the great need was to prevent civilian suffering, than on the extermination of non-Germans. Though it was not regarded as that bad a side-effect. – Mary Nov 03 '21 at 01:35
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Hitler's Plans for North America

"Hitler actually held the American society in contempt, stating that the United States (which he consistently referred to as the "American Union") was "half Judaized, and the other half Negrified"[78] and that "in so far as there are any decent people in America, they are all of German origin"

"England and America will one day have a war with one another which will be waged with the greatest hatred imaginable. One of the two countries will have to disappear."[86] and "I shall no longer be there to see it, but I rejoice on behalf of the German people at the idea that one day we will see England and Germany marching together against America"."

For an extensive discussion of this entire subject - Hitler's plans for the entire world - replete with references and direct quotations, see: New Order - Nazism

I read about this many years ago - your question jolted my memory a bit so I poked around and found these references.

Luke_0
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    -1 to "North America" featuring in an answer to this question. hitler delivered an awful lot of incoherent visionary "table talk" and sure, he ranted from time to time about America. whereas, for the Jews, the disabled and Slavs (for example) there were documents and blueprints. see Anixx's answer and the "General Plan for the East" – Tea Drinker Jul 23 '13 at 12:24
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    there's a historically important difference between what hitler said at table about black people and and what the nazi regime, with its army of civil servants, planned, prepared for and in most cases carried out in terms of extermination of Jews, the disabled and Slavs. to ignore that distinction is "not useful" in my opinion. "Not useful" is the guideline for judging whether or not to downvote. – Tea Drinker Jul 23 '13 at 16:14
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    @hawbsl The question states "For example, anything against black people?" and Hitler's NA vision, as quoted, mentions them specifically: "...the other half Negrified" and that is one of the reasons he is happy about "England and Germany marching together against America". The question continues: "Were there any indications for that in their writings, propaganda, letters, secret documents? " not just a clear, formal, organized plan. My answer certainly sheds light on the question. Besides, my reference is a study of Hitler's vision for world conquest, not simply what 'he said at the table'. –  Jul 23 '13 at 16:51
  • happy to see our comments turning friendlier. can you help me understand the wikipedia referencing format then. it says for your quote [78] Hitler (2000) p. 188 and [79] Hitler (2000) p. 282. What do those refer to? i assumed they were from Hitler's famously boring ranty Tischgespräche but i could be wrong – Tea Drinker Jul 23 '13 at 17:32
  • @hawbsl-OK. Let us establish a 'cease fire agreement' :-) I cannot go into this now - maybe later. As per my profile, I am not a professional historian or academic -I was a professional researcher for many years. I am trained in finding pertinent references quickly, using either books or the internet. But I cannot always give in-depth analysis of all the material I cite except for the American legal system;biblical tradition;the French Revolution. I am no expert on Hitler, although I was born in the early post war period and saw and heard many first hand accounts in the USA and overseas. –  Jul 23 '13 at 17:56
  • Really important to understand that Hitler was actually more or less a dope. He was very much convinced he was a bright guy, a sure sign of being a dope. I don't mean below average or even average -- probably someone who might have done okay as an accountant or indeed painter if he had managed to get an education; I think he proved his skills as a leader pretty clearly. – releseabe Mar 26 '19 at 17:23
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Establishment of a greater German Reich with all German population and wide Germanization were to be implemented after final victory; Europe was to become utterly Germanic; We know from a reported discussion between general Eduard Wagner and Himmler that the latter suggested extermination of 80% of the French and English populations after said victory, the remainder were to be terrorized, and the murder was to be carried out by the SS Einsatzkommando...not difficult to imagine this strategy being implemented to all other people of Europe at a later time...

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_%28Nazism%29#Conquest_of_Lebensraum_in_Eastern_Europe

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_%28Nazism%29#Military_campaigns_in_Poland_and_Western_Europe

in particular note in the last link:

In late February 1943 Otto Bräutigam of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories claimed he had the opportunity to read a personal report by General Eduard Wagner about a discussion with Heinrich Himmler, in which Himmler had expressed the intention to kill about 80% of the populations of France and England by special forces (einsatzgruppen) of the SS after the German victory.

`

Papawalrus
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    @LangLangC what Hitler wanted to do is a big secret. He himself said there were secrets that he shared only with inner circle, there were secrets that he kept only to himself, and there were secrets that he did not formulate even for himself yet. – Anixx Nov 06 '17 at 23:48
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One must remember that blacks, Asians and other races were a non-issue for Hitler and the Nazis since they were practically non-existent and very few in Europe at the time. I grew up in Europe and never saw a single black person in all my life before the 60s. The only black persons we saw were American sailors with the US Navy when ships stopped in our ports.

Also looking at the statistics of how many people like Gypsies, Slavs and political opponents were in concentration camps we can see how we have been misled by the propaganda that concentration camps were all or mostly Jews when facts and common sense says that this was not so.

Whole groups, probably amounting to millions, like gypsies, homosexuals, and other ethnicities, as also communists which was a big Party in Germany at the time were also put in concentration camps. But this is scarcely ever mentioned with the whole emphasis being on just the Jews.

Histonius
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Apart from Jews only Sinti and Roma have suffered worst from the Holocaust (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinti). I can't think of any other ethnic group which endured anything similar under the Nazis. The holocaust was extended to include them.

There was a plan for the Holocaust at least starting with the Wannsee-Conference in 1942 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference). One can argue that it had always been Hitler's intention.

jjack
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    Why the downvote? Info no good, not suitable, expected a different answer? – jjack Dec 28 '17 at 20:18
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    the downvote is probably because you don't even attempt to answer the question as to what plans existed for after the "Jewish problem" had been resolved. – jwenting Mar 11 '19 at 07:34
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Hitler was trying to eradicate anyone who was not of the Aryan race, but he mostly focused on Jews, homosexuals, and people with physical or mental deformities or issues. He may have turned on other religions or ethnicities if they did not agree with or fit his narrow beliefs.

user27796
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