"NEW ORDER"
A coherent, coherent description of the “new order” never existed, but from captured documents and real events shows how Hitler imagined him.
This is Nazi-ruled Europe, whose resources are at stake.
service to Germany and whose peoples were enslaved Germanic race gentlemen, and
"undesirable elements", primarily Jews, as well as most Slavs
in the East, especially their intelligentsia, were exterminated.
Jews and Slavic peoples presented themselves to Hitler
"untermenschen" anthropoids. The Fuhrer believed that they had no right to
existence, with the exception, perhaps, of some Slavs who could
needed on farms, fields and in mines as draft animals.
It was supposed to be wiped off the face of the earth (So, on September 18, 1941, Hitler gave
order to “wipe Leningrad off the face of the earth.” After being encircled, "level the city to
ground" through bombing and shelling, and the population (three million
people) to destroy along with the city. - Approx. ed.) not only the largest
cities in the East - Moscow, Leningrad, Warsaw, but also destroy culture
Russians, Poles and other Slavic peoples, completely block their access to
education. The equipment of thriving industries was subject to
dismantling and export to Germany. The population had to deal
exclusively agricultural work to produce
food for the Germans, and leave for yourself as much as necessary,
so as not to die of hunger. The Nazi leaders intended to destroy Europe itself
"get rid of the Jews."
"I'm not in the least interested in what happens to the Russians.
or the Czechs,” said Heinrich Himmler on October 4, 1943 in a secret
address to SS officers in Poznan. By this time, Himmler, being chief of the SS
and the entire police apparatus of the Third Reich, inferior in position
only to Hitler, retaining the right to control not only life and death
more than 80 million Germans, but also the life and death of even more
inhabitants of enslaved countries.
"Whatever other nations can offer us as pure blood,
like ours,” continued Himmler, “we will accept.” If necessary we will
this is by kidnapping their children and raising them in our midst. Do nations prosper?
or die by starvation, like cattle, I am only interested in
insofar as we use them as slaves for our culture. IN
otherwise they are of no interest to me. Will die from
exhaustion of 10 thousand Russian women while digging anti-tank ditches or not,
interests me only in the sense of whether they will open these ditches for Germany or
No..."
Nazi leaders outlined their ideals and plans for the enslavement of peoples
East long before Himmler's speech in Poznan in 1943,
which we will return to later as it outlines other aspects of the "new
order."
By October 15, 1940, Hitler had already decided the fate of the Czechs - the first
the people he conquered. Half of the Czechs were supposed to be assimilated
mainly through resettlement in Germany as a forced laborer
strength. The other half, especially the "intellectuals", were subject to "liquidation"
as stated in secret report.
Two weeks earlier, on October 2, the Fuhrer explained his plans
regarding the Poles - the second people doomed to enslavement.
His faithful secretary Martin Bormann compiled an extensive memo about
Nazi plans that Hitler outlined to Hans Frank, the Governor General
enslaved Poland and other persons from his circle.
“The Poles,” the Fuhrer emphasized, “are destined from birth for black
work... There can be no question of their national development. In Poland
needs to be supported low level life without allowing it to rise...
Poles are lazy, so to get them to work you have to resort to
coercion... The General Government (Polish) should only be used
as a source of unskilled labor... Annually required
the quantity of labor for the Reich must be supplied from here."
As for the Polish priests, the Fuhrer predicted:
"...They will preach what we want. If any of them
priests will begin to act differently, we will quickly deal with him. Duty
priest to ensure that the Poles show calmness, stupidity and
stupidity".
There were two more classes of Poles whose fate was to be decided, and
the Nazi dictator did not fail to mention them.
"Of course, it should be remembered that Polish nobility must disappear
No matter how cruel it may sound, it must be destroyed everywhere...
For both Poles and Germans there is only one master. Two gentlemen,
standing side by side cannot and should not exist. Therefore, all representatives
Polish intelligentsia are subject to destruction. It sounds cruel, but it's true
law of life."
The German obsession with the idea that they alone are the dominant race, and
the Slavic peoples as their slaves, was especially destructive for Russia. Erich Koch,
Reichskommissar of Ukraine, expressed this idea in his speech delivered on March 5
1943 in Kyiv: “We are a race of masters and must rule harshly, but
fair... I will squeeze every last drop out of this country... I have come
not here for charity... The local population must work,
work and work again... We did not come here to
shower them with manna from heaven. We came here to lay the foundations for victory.
We are a master race and must remember that the last German worker in
racially and biologically represents a thousand times greater
value than the local population."
About a year earlier, on July 23, 1942, when German armies V
Russia was approaching the Volga and the oil fields of the Caucasus, Martin Bormann,
secretary of Hitler's party and right hand Fuhrer, sent a lengthy
letter to Rosenberg, outlining the Fuehrer's views on this issue. Content
The letter was succinctly summarized by an official from Rosenberg's ministry:
"The Slavs are called to work for us. When will we stop working for them?
need, they can die in peace. Therefore, mandatory vaccinations
The German healthcare system is redundant for them. Reproduction of the Slavs
undesirable. They may use contraception or
have abortions. More the better. Education is dangerous. Quite enough
if they can count to 100...Everyone educated person- this is the future
enemy. We can leave religion to them as a means of distraction. Regarding
food, then they should not receive anything more than is absolutely necessary
to maintain life. We are gentlemen. We are above everything."
When German troops entered Russia, in a number of places the population
which experienced the terror of Stalin's tyranny, welcomed them as
liberators. At first, there was also a mass desertion of Soviet
soldiers, especially in the Baltic states and Ukraine. Some in Berlin believed that
if Hitler had played his game more cunningly, paying attention to the needs of the population
and promising assistance in liberation from Bolshevik rule (by providing
religious and economic freedoms and creating cooperatives instead of collective farms),
and in the future self-government, then the Russians could be attracted to their
side. And they would not only cooperate with the Germans in the occupied
areas, but they could also rise up to fight against Stalin’s cruel
rule in unoccupied territories. It was argued that if
If all this had been done, the Bolshevik regime would have collapsed on its own, and
The Red Army would collapse like tsarist armies in 1917. But
cruelty Nazi occupation and openly proclaimed goals of the German
conquerors - robbery of Russian lands, enslavement of the population and
colonization of the East by the Germans - quickly excluded the possibility of such a development
events.
No one described this disastrous policy and, as a consequence,
lost opportunities are better than Dr. Otto Brautigam, professional
diplomat and deputy head of the political department again
Rosenberg's Ministry of the Occupied eastern territories. IN
bitter confidential report to his superiors on October 25
1942, Bräutigam dared to point out the mistakes of the Nazis in Russia:
"Having entered the territory of the Soviet Union, we met a population
tired of Bolshevism and languidly awaiting new slogans that promised
a better future for him. And it was Germany's duty to put forward these slogans, but
this was not done. The population greeted us with joy as liberators and
put herself at our disposal."
In fact, such a slogan was proclaimed, but the Russians soon
lost faith in him.
"Possessing the instinct inherent in eastern peoples, ordinary people soon
discovered that for Germany the slogan “Liberation from Bolshevism” is in fact
was just a pretext for conquest eastern peoples German methods...
Workers and peasants quickly realized that Germany did not regard them as
equal partners, but considers them only an object of his political and
economic goals... With unprecedented arrogance we abandoned
political experience and... we treat the peoples of the occupied eastern
territories as with “second-class” whites, to whom providence has assigned the role
serving Germany as her slaves..."
Two other events occurred, Breutigam said, that set up
Russians against the Germans: the barbaric treatment of Soviet prisoners of war and
turning Russian men and women into slaves.
“From now on it is no secret either to friends or enemies that hundreds
thousands of Russian prisoners of war died of hunger and cold in our camps...
Nowadays a paradoxical situation has arisen when we are forced to recruit
millions of workers from the occupied European countries after
they allowed prisoners of war to starve to death like flies...
Continuing to treat the Slavs with boundless cruelty, we
employed labor recruitment methods that probably originated in
the darkest periods of the slave trade. Real hunting began to be practiced
people. Regardless of health status or age, their masses
sent to Germany..." (Neither the extermination of Soviet prisoners of war, nor
The exploitation of Russian forced labor was no secret to the Kremlin.
Back in November 1941, Molotov made an official diplomatic protest
against the extermination of Russian prisoners of war, and in April next year stated
another protest against Germany's forced labor program
labor. - Approx. auto)
The German policy in Russia caused, according to this official,
"colossal resistance of the eastern peoples."
"Our policy forced both the Bolsheviks and Russian nationalists
present a united front against us. Today the Russians are fighting with
exceptional courage and self-sacrifice in the name of recognition of one's
human dignity, no more and no less."
Ending his 13-page memo on a positive note, Dr.
Bräutigam asked for a radical change in policy. “To the Russian people,” asserted
he, - it is necessary to say something more definite about him
future."
But it was a voice crying in the Nazi wilderness. Hitler, as is known,
had already outlined (even before the invasion) his directives regarding the future of Russia and
Russians, and there was not a single German who could convince him to change
these directives are at least one iota.
On July 16, 1941, less than a month after the start of the Russian campaign,
when it became obvious that most of the Soviet Union would soon be
captured, Hitler summoned Goering, Keitel,
Rosenberg, Bormann and Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery, to remind them of
their plans for the newly conquered lands. Finally got it
the goals so openly stated in Mein Kampf are to conquer vast
living spaces for Germans in Russia were close to being realized, and
this was clear from the secret memorandum drawn up
after this meeting Bormann and the one who surfaced on Nuremberg trials. And Hitler
I wanted his associates to have a clear idea of how he was going to
use this space, but he warned that his intentions were not
should be made public.
“This is not necessary,” said Hitler. “The main thing is that we know
what we want. No one should recognize that this is where the final begins
solution to the problem. At the same time, this should not prevent us from applying everything
the necessary measures are execution, displacement of persons, etc., and we will apply them. - AND
further continued: - ...We are now faced with the need to cut the pie in
according to our needs, to be able, firstly,
dominate this living space, secondly, manage it and,
thirdly, exploit it." He stated that it was not important to him that
the Russians gave the order to conduct guerrilla warfare behind German lines.
This, in his opinion, will make it possible to eliminate anyone who provides
resistance.
In general, Hitler explained, Germany will dominate Russian
territories up to the Urals. And no one except the Germans will be allowed
walk around these vast spaces with weapons. Hitler then stated that
will be specifically done with each piece of “Russian pie”.
"The Baltic states must be included in Germany. Crimea will be
completely evacuated (“no foreigners”) and settled only by Germans, becoming
territory of the Reich. Kola Peninsula, replete with nickel deposits, will go away
to Germany. The annexation of Finland, which is annexed on the basis of a federation, must
be prepared with caution. The Fuhrer will raze Leningrad to the ground, and
then he will transfer his territory to the Finns."
Oil fields Baku, by order of Hitler, will become German
concession, and the territories of German settlements on the Volga will immediately
annexed.
When it came to discussing which of the Nazi leaders should control
new territories, a squabble began.
Rosenberg stated that he intended to use Captain von for this purpose.
Petersdorf due to his special merits(everyone is amazed; the candidacy is unanimous
reject); the Fuhrer and the Reichsmarshal (Göring) emphasized that there are no
there is no doubt that von Petersdorff is insane.
There was also a dispute about best practices policy regarding
conquered Russian people. Hitler proposed that the German police should be
equipped with armored cars. Goering expressed doubt about the need for this. His
the planes, he declared, were capable of bombing the recalcitrant.
Naturally, Goering added, that the gigantic space should be
pacified as soon as possible. The best solution- shoot everyone
who looks away.
Goering, as the head of the 4-year plan, was also entrusted with
economic exploitation of Russia (Directive of the Goering Economic Headquarters
for the East on May 23, 1941, the destruction of Russian industrial
districts. The workers of these areas and their families were doomed to starvation. Any attempt
save the population from starvation by bringing food from
black earth zone (Russia) was prohibited in accordance with the directive. - Approx.
author), that is, robbery, to use a more precise word, as explained
Goering in a speech given on August 6, 1942 to the Nazi
commissioners in the occupied territories. "Usually it's called robbery,
- he said. “But today circumstances have become more humane. However
despite this, I intend to rob and will do it with all diligence."
In this case, he at least kept his word, and not only in Russia,
but throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Because it was part
"new order".
During the first period of the war, the fascist states established their dominance over almost all of capitalist Europe by force of arms. In addition to the peoples of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania, who became victims of aggression even before the start of the Second World War, under the yoke fascist occupation by the summer of 1941, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, a significant part of France, Greece and Yugoslavia turned out to be. At the same time, the Asian ally of Germany and Italy, militaristic Japan, occupied vast areas of the Central and South China, and then Indochina.
In the occupied countries, the fascists established the so-called “ new order", embodying the main goals of states fascist bloc in the Second World War - territorial redistribution of the world, enslavement independent states, extermination of entire nations, establishment of world domination.
By creating the “new order,” the Axis powers sought to mobilize the resources of the occupied and vassal countries so that, having destroyed the socialist state, Soviet Union, restore the undivided dominance of the capitalist system throughout the world, defeat the revolutionary workers and national liberation movement, and with it all the forces of democracy and progress. That is why the “new order”, based on bayonets fascist troops, was supported by the most reactionary representatives of the ruling classes of the occupied countries, who pursued a policy of collaboration. He also had supporters in other imperialist countries, for example, pro-fascist organizations in the USA, the O. Mosley clique in England, etc. The “New Order” meant, first of all, the territorial redistribution of the world in favor of the fascist powers. In an effort to undermine as much as possible the viability of the captured countries, the German fascists redrew the map of Europe. Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, Silesia and western regions Poland (Pomerania, Poznan, Lodz, North Mazovia), the Belgian districts of Eupen and Malmedy, Luxembourg, the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. WITH political map Entire states in Europe disappeared. Some of them were annexed, others were dismembered into parts and ceased to exist as a historically established whole. Even before the war, a puppet Slovak state was created under the auspices of fascist Germany, and the Czech Republic and Moravia were turned into a German “protectorate”.
The non-annexed territory of Poland began to be called the “Governorship General,” in which all power was in the hands of Hitler’s governor. France was divided into occupied northern zone, the most industrially developed (the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais were administratively subordinate to the commander of the occupation forces in Belgium), and the unoccupied one - the south, with its center in the city of Vichy. In Yugoslavia, “independent” Croatia and Serbia were formed. Montenegro became the prey of Italy, Macedonia was given to Bulgaria, Vojvodina to Hungary, and Slovenia was divided between Italy and Germany.
In artificially created states, the Nazis imposed totalitarian military dictatorships submissive to them, such as the regime of A. Pavelic in Croatia, M. Nedic in Serbia, I. Tissot in Slovakia.
In countries subject to full or partial occupation, the invaders, as a rule, sought to form puppet governments from collaborationist elements - representatives of the large monopoly bourgeoisie and landowners who betrayed the national interests of the people. The “governments” of Petain in France and Gahi in the Czech Republic were obedient executors of the will of the winner. Above them usually stood an “imperial commissioner,” “governor,” or “protector,” who held all power in his hands, controlling the actions of the puppets.
But it was not possible to create puppet governments everywhere. In Belgium and Holland, the agents of the German fascists (L. Degrelle, A. Mussert) turned out to be too weak and unpopular. In Denmark there was no need for such a government at all, since after the surrender the Stauning government obediently carried out the will of the German invaders.
The “New Order” thus meant the enslavement of European countries in various forms- from open annexation and occupation to the establishment of “allied”, and actually vassal (for example, in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania) relations with Germany.
Those implanted by Germany in the enslaved countries were not the same. political regimes. Some of them were openly military dictatorial, others, following the example German Reich, disguised their reactionary essence social demagoguery. For example, Quisling in Norway declared himself a defender of the country's national interests. The Vichy puppets in France did not hesitate to shout about " national revolution", "the fight against trusts" and "the abolition class struggle", while openly collaborating with the occupiers.
Finally, there was some difference in the nature of the occupation policy German fascists in relation to different countries. Thus, in Poland and a number of other countries of Eastern and Southeast Europe the fascist “order” immediately revealed itself in all its anti-human essence, since the Polish and others Slavic peoples was destined for the fate of slaves of the German nation. In Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Norway, the Nazis at first acted as “Nordic blood brothers”, they sought to win over certain sections of the population and social groups these countries. In France, the occupiers initially pursued a policy of gradually drawing the country into their orbit of influence and turning it into their satellite.
However, in their own circle the leaders German fascism They did not hide that such a policy was temporary and dictated only by tactical considerations. Hitler's elite believed that "the unification of Europe can be achieved... only with the help of armed violence." Hitler intended to speak to the Vichy government in a different language as soon as the “Russian operation” was over and he freed up his rear.
With the establishment of the “new order,” the entire European economy was subordinated to German state-monopoly capitalism. From the occupied countries it was exported to Germany huge amount equipment, raw materials and food. National industry European countries was turned into an appendage of the fascist German war machine. Millions of people were driven from occupied countries to Germany, where they were forced to work for German capitalists and landowners.
The establishment of the rule of German and Italian fascists in the enslaved countries was accompanied by brutal terror and massacres.
Following the example of Germany, the occupied countries began to be covered with a network of fascist concentration camps. In May 1940, a monstrous death factory began operating on Polish territory in Auschwitz, which gradually turned into a whole concern of 39 camps. Here, the German monopolies IG Farbenindustry, Krupp, and Siemens soon built their enterprises in order, using free labor, to finally receive the profits once promised by Hitler, which “history has never known.” According to prisoners, the life expectancy of prisoners who worked at the Bunaverk plant (IG Farbenindustri) did not exceed two months: every two to three weeks a selection was made and all those who were weakened were sent to the ovens of Auschwitz. The exploitation of foreign labor here has turned into “destruction through work” of all people objectionable to fascism.
Among the population of occupied Europe, fascist propaganda intensively instilled anti-communism, racism and anti-Semitism. All media were placed under the control of the German occupation authorities.
The “New Order” in Europe meant brutal national oppression of the peoples of the occupied countries. Approving racial superiority German nation, the Nazis provided the German minorities (“Volksdeutsche”) living in puppet states, such as the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia, with special exploitative rights and privileges. The Nazis resettled Germans from other countries to lands annexed to the Reich, which were gradually “cleared” of local population. From western regions 700 thousand were evicted from Poland, about 124 thousand people were evicted from Alsace and Lorraine by February 15, 1941. The eviction of indigenous people was carried out from Slovenia and the Sudetenland.
The Nazis in every possible way incited national hatred between the peoples of the occupied and dependent countries: Croats and Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks, Hungarians and Romanians, Flemings and Walloons, etc.
The fascist occupiers treated the working classes, industrial workers, with particular cruelty, seeing in them a force capable of resistance. The Nazis wanted to turn Poles, Czechs and other Slavs into slaves and undermine the fundamental foundations of their national vitality. “From now on,” said the Polish Governor-General G. Frank, political role Polish people finished. It is declared as a labor force, nothing else... We will ensure that the very concept of “Poland” is erased forever. A policy of extermination was pursued against entire nations and peoples.
In the Polish lands annexed to Germany, along with the expulsion of local residents, a policy was carried out to artificially limit population growth through castration of people, and the mass removal of children to raise them in the German spirit. Poles were even forbidden to be called Poles; they were given old tribal names - “Kashubs”, “Masurians”, etc. The systematic extermination of the Polish population, especially the intelligentsia, was carried out on the territory of the “Government General”. For example, in the spring and summer of 1940, the occupation authorities carried out the so-called “Action AB” (“extraordinary pacification action”) here, during which they killed about 3,500 Polish figures of science, culture and art, and also closed not only higher education institutions, but also secondary educational institutions.
A savage, misanthropic policy was also carried out in dismembered Yugoslavia. In Slovenia, the Nazis destroyed hearths national culture, exterminated the intelligentsia, clergy, public figures. In Serbia for everyone German soldier, killed by partisans, hundreds of civilians were subject to “merciless destruction.”
The Czech people were doomed to national degeneration and destruction. “You closed our universities,” wrote national hero Czechoslovakia J. Fucik in 1940 open letter Goebbels, - you are Germanizing our schools, you robbed and occupied the best school buildings, turned the theater into barracks, concert halls and art salons, you rob scientific institutions, stop scientific work, you want to turn journalists into thought-killing automata, you kill thousands of cultural workers, you destroy the foundations of all culture, everything that the intelligentsia creates.”
Thus, already in the first period of the war, the racist theories of fascism turned into a monstrous policy of national oppression, destruction and extermination (genocide), carried out in relation to many peoples of Europe. Smoking chimneys of the crematoria of Auschwitz, Majdanek and other camps mass destruction people testified that the savage racial and political nonsense of fascism was being carried out in practice.
The social policy of fascism was extremely reactionary. In New Order Europe, the working masses, and above all the working class, were subjected to the most severe persecution and exploitation. Reduction wages and a sharp increase in the working day, the abolition of social security rights won in a long struggle, the prohibition of strikes, meetings and demonstrations, the liquidation of trade unions under the guise of their “unification”, the prohibition of political organizations of the working class and all workers, in the first place communist parties, for whom the Nazis had a brutal hatred - this is what fascism brought with it to the peoples of Europe. The “New Order” meant an attempt by German state-monopoly capital and its allies to crush their class opponents with the hands of fascists, destroy their political and trade union organizations, eradicate the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, all democratic, even liberal views, implanting the misanthropic fascist ideology of racism, national and class. domination and subordination. In savagery, fanaticism, and obscurantism, fascism surpassed the horrors of the Middle Ages. He was an outright cynical denial of all the progressive, humane and moral values that civilization has developed over its thousand-year history. He imposed a system of surveillance, denunciations, arrests, torture, and created a monstrous apparatus of repression and violence against peoples.
Accept this or take the path of anti-fascist resistance and decisive struggle for national independence, democracy and social progress- this was the alternative that confronted the people of the occupied countries.
The peoples have made their choice. They rose up to fight against the brown plague - fascism. The main burden of this struggle was courageously borne by the working masses, primarily the working class.
The system created by the Nazis in the countries they captured was called "new order". This was a German-ruled Europe whose resources were put at the service of the Reich and whose peoples were enslaved." Aryan race gentlemen." “Undesirable elements,” primarily Jews and Slavs, were subject to extermination or expulsion from European countries.
Occupied Europe was subjected to complete plunder. The enslaved states paid Germany 104 billion marks in indemnity. During the years of occupation, 75% of the rice harvest, 74% of the steel produced, and 80% of the oil produced were exported from France alone.
It was much more difficult for the occupiers to “manage” the war-ravaged Soviet territories. But from there, in 1943, 9 million tons of grain, 3 million tons of potatoes, 662 thousand tons of meat, 12 million pigs, 13 million sheep were exported to Germany. The total value of the loot in Russia, according to the Germans themselves, amounted to 4 billion marks. It is clear why the population of Germany until 1945 did not experience such material deprivation as during the First World War.
When Germany had already captured almost all European continent, it had not yet been determined how the Nazi empire would be structured. It was only clear that the center should be the German Reich itself, which directly included Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, the part of Belgium inhabited by the Flemings, and the “returned” Polish lands along with Silesia. From the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, half of the Czechs were supposed to be evicted to the Urals, and the other half to be recognized as suitable for Germanization. Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and the Walloon-inhabited part of Belgium were to “dissolve” in the new German Reich, and it remained unclear whether they would become imperial areas or retain remnants state independence. France, whose population Hitler had great distrust, was supposed to be turned into a German colony. Sweden and Switzerland were also to be annexed to the future empire, since they “did not have the right” to independent existence. The Fuhrer was not particularly interested in the Balkans, but his future empire was to include Crimea (called Gotenland), populated by people from South Tyrol. Picture of a new one great empire supplemented by the allies and satellites of the Third Reich, located within to varying degrees dependencies, starting from Italy with its own empire and ending with the puppet states of Slovakia and Croatia.
Life of people in occupied Western Europe was heavy. But it could not be compared with what befell the inhabitants of Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Acted in the East master plan"Ost", which probably arose at the turn of 1941 - 1942. That was the plan colonization of Eastern Europe, where 45 million people lived. Approximately 30 million people declared “racially undesirable” (85% from Poland, 75% from Belarus, 64% from Western Ukraine) were subject to relocation to Western Siberia. The project was supposed to be implemented within 25-30 years. The territory of future German settlements was to occupy 700 thousand square kilometers (while in 1938 the entire area of the Reich was 583 thousand square kilometers). The main directions of colonization were considered northern: East Prussia– Baltic and southern: Krakow – Lviv – Black Sea region.
Long before the start of the war, Hitler did not hide his plans to establish a “new order,” which provided for the territorial redivision of the world, the enslavement of independent states, the extermination of entire nations, and the establishment of world domination.
In addition to the peoples of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania, who became victims of aggression even before the start of the war, in the summer of 1941 the Nazis occupied Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, a significant part of France, Greece and Yugoslavia. Germany gained control of a huge geopolitical space. Hitler's Asian ally, militaristic Japan, occupied some areas of China and Indochina.
The “New Order,” which relied on bayonets, was also supported by pro-fascist elements of the occupied countries—collaborators.
The Reich included Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, Silesia and the western regions of Poland, the Belgian districts of Eupen and Malmedy, Luxembourg, and the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Slovenia and Styria were transferred from Yugoslavia to the Reich. Even before the war, a puppet Slovak state was created under the auspices of fascist Germany, and the Czech Republic and Moravia were turned into a fascist protectorate.
Hitler's allies also received significant territories: Italy - Albania, part of France, Greece, Yugoslavia; Bulgaria controlled Dobruja, Thrace; Lands from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Yugoslavia were transferred to Hungary.
As a rule, puppet governments were formed from collaborationist elements in the occupied countries. However, it was not possible to create such governments everywhere. Thus, in Belgium and Holland, the agents of the German fascists were weak enough to form such governments. After the surrender of Denmark, its government obediently carried out the will of the occupiers. Virtually vassal relations were established with some “allied” states (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania). They sold their agricultural products and raw materials to Germany for next to nothing in exchange for expensive industrial products.
IN further state fascist bloc intended to change the then distribution colonial possessions: Germany sought to regain the British, Belgian and French colonies, which it lost after defeat in the First World War, Italy - to take possession of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and Japan - to establish control over the entire Southeast Asia and China.
The most inhumane fascist “order” was established in the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, since the Slavic peoples were expected to participate in the slaves of the German nation. According to imperial policy Most of the work, which is simple, minor, primitive, should not be performed by the Germans, but exclusively by persons who were the so-called auxiliary peoples (for example, the Slavs). Guided by this principle, the Nazis exported thousands of people to Germany for slave labor. As of May 1940, there were 1.2 million foreign workers in Germany, in 1941 - 3.1 million, in 1943 - 4.6 million.
Since the summer of 1942, the Nazis in all occupied countries moved to the massive and systematic extermination of Jews. People of Jewish nationality were required to wear identification marks- a yellow star, they were denied access to theaters, museums, restaurants and cafes, they were subject to arrest and sent to death camps.
Nazism as an ideology was an outright, cynical denial of all the progressive values that humanity has developed over its history. He imposed a system of espionage, denunciations, arrests, torture, and created a monstrous apparatus of repression and violence against peoples. Either come to terms with this “new order” in Europe, or take the path of struggle for national independence, democracy and social progress - such was the alternative facing the people of the occupied countries.
During the first period of the war, the fascist states established their dominance over almost all of capitalist Europe by force of arms. In addition to the peoples of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania, who became victims of aggression even before the start of the Second World War, by the summer of 1941 Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, a significant part of France, Greece and Yugoslavia found themselves under the yoke of fascist occupation. At the same time, the Asian ally of Germany and Italy, militaristic Japan, occupied vast areas of Central and Southern China, and then Indochina.
In the occupied countries, the fascists established the so-called “new order”, which embodied the main goals of the states of the fascist bloc in the Second World War - the territorial redivision of the world, the enslavement of independent states, the extermination of entire nations, and the establishment of world domination.
Creating a “new order”, the Axis powers sought to mobilize the resources of the occupied and vassal countries in order to, by destroying the socialist state - the Soviet Union, restore the undivided dominance of the capitalist system throughout the world, defeat the revolutionary workers and national liberation movement, and with it all forces of democracy and progress. That is why the “new order,” based on the bayonets of fascist troops, was supported by the most reactionary representatives of the ruling classes of the occupied countries, who pursued a policy of collaboration. He also had supporters in other imperialist countries, for example, pro-fascist organizations in the USA, the O. Mosley clique in England, etc. The “New Order” meant, first of all, the territorial redistribution of the world in favor of the fascist powers. In an effort to undermine as much as possible the viability of the captured countries, the German fascists redrew the map of Europe. Hitler's Reich included Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, Silesia and the western regions of Poland (Pomerania, Poznan, Lodz, North Mazovia), the Belgian districts of Eupen and Malmedy, Luxembourg, and the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Entire states disappeared from the political map of Europe. Some of them were annexed, others were dismembered into parts and ceased to exist as a historically established whole. Even before the war, a puppet Slovak state was created under the auspices of Nazi Germany, and the Czech Republic and Moravia were turned into a German “protectorate”.
The non-annexed territory of Poland began to be called the “Governorship General,” in which all power was in the hands of Hitler’s governor. France was divided into an occupied northern zone, the most industrially developed (with the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais administratively subordinate to the commander of the occupation forces in Belgium), and an unoccupied southern zone, centered in the city of Vichy. In Yugoslavia, “independent” Croatia and Serbia were formed. Montenegro became the prey of Italy, Macedonia was given to Bulgaria, Vojvodina to Hungary, and Slovenia was divided between Italy and Germany.
In artificially created states, the Nazis imposed totalitarian military dictatorships submissive to them, such as the regime of A. Pavelic in Croatia, M. Nedic in Serbia, I. Tissot in Slovakia.
In countries subject to full or partial occupation, the invaders, as a rule, sought to form puppet governments from collaborationist elements - representatives of the large monopoly bourgeoisie and landowners who betrayed the national interests of the people. The “governments” of Petain in France and Gahi in the Czech Republic were obedient executors of the will of the winner. Above them usually stood an “imperial commissioner,” “governor,” or “protector,” who held all power in his hands, controlling the actions of the puppets.
But it was not possible to create puppet governments everywhere. In Belgium and Holland, the agents of the German fascists (L. Degrelle, A. Mussert) turned out to be too weak and unpopular. In Denmark there was no need for such a government at all, since after the surrender the Stauning government obediently carried out the will of the German invaders.
The “New Order” thus meant the enslavement of European countries in various forms - from open annexation and occupation to the establishment of “allied”, and in fact vassal (for example, in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania) relations with Germany.
The political regimes implanted by Germany in the enslaved countries were not the same. Some of them were openly military dictatorial, others, following the example of the German Reich, masked their reactionary essence with social demagoguery. For example, Quisling in Norway declared himself a defender of the country's national interests. The Vichy puppets in France did not hesitate to shout about “national revolution”, “the fight against trusts” and “the abolition of the class struggle”, while at the same time openly collaborating with the occupiers.
Finally, there were some differences in the nature of the occupation policy of the German fascists in relation to different countries. Thus, in Poland and a number of other countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the fascist “order” immediately revealed itself in all its anti-human essence, since the Polish and other Slavic peoples were destined for the fate of slaves of the German nation. In Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Norway, the Nazis at first acted as “Nordic blood brothers” and sought to win over certain segments of the population and social groups of these countries to their side. In France, the occupiers initially pursued a policy of gradually drawing the country into their orbit of influence and turning it into their satellite.
However, in their own circle, the leaders of German fascism did not hide the fact that such a policy was temporary and dictated only by tactical considerations. Hitler's elite believed that "the unification of Europe can be achieved... only with the help of armed violence." Hitler intended to speak to the Vichy government in a different language as soon as the “Russian operation” was over and he freed up his rear.
With the establishment of the “new order,” the entire European economy was subordinated to German state-monopoly capitalism. A huge amount of equipment, raw materials and food were exported from the occupied countries to Germany. The national industry of European states was turned into an appendage of the Nazi war machine. Millions of people were driven from occupied countries to Germany, where they were forced to work for German capitalists and landowners.
The establishment of the rule of German and Italian fascists in the enslaved countries was accompanied by brutal terror and massacres.
Following the example of Germany, the occupied countries began to be covered with a network of fascist concentration camps. In May 1940, a monstrous death factory began operating on Polish territory in Auschwitz, which gradually turned into a whole concern of 39 camps. Here, the German monopolies IG Farbenindustry, Krupp, and Siemens soon built their enterprises in order, using free labor, to finally receive the profits once promised by Hitler, which “history has never known.” According to prisoners, the life expectancy of prisoners who worked at the Bunaverk plant (IG Farbenindustri) did not exceed two months: every two to three weeks a selection was made and all those who were weakened were sent to the ovens of Auschwitz. The exploitation of foreign labor here has turned into “destruction through work” of all people objectionable to fascism.
Among the population of occupied Europe, fascist propaganda intensively instilled anti-communism, racism and anti-Semitism. All media were placed under the control of the German occupation authorities.
The “New Order” in Europe meant brutal national oppression of the peoples of the occupied countries. By asserting the racial superiority of the German nation, the Nazis provided German minorities (“Volksdeutsche”) living in puppet states, such as the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia, with special exploitative rights and privileges. The Nazis resettled Germans from other countries to lands annexed to the Reich, which were gradually “cleared” of the local population. 700 thousand were evicted from the western regions of Poland, and about 124 thousand people from Alsace and Lorraine by February 15, 1941. The eviction of indigenous people was carried out from Slovenia and the Sudetenland.
The Nazis in every possible way incited national hatred between the peoples of the occupied and dependent countries: Croats and Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks, Hungarians and Romanians, Flemings and Walloons, etc.
The fascist occupiers treated the working classes, industrial workers, with particular cruelty, seeing in them a force capable of resistance. The Nazis wanted to turn Poles, Czechs and other Slavs into slaves and undermine the fundamental foundations of their national vitality. “From now on,” said Polish Governor-General G. Frank, “the political role of the Polish people is over. It is declared as a labor force, nothing else... We will ensure that the very concept of “Poland” is erased forever. A policy of extermination was pursued against entire nations and peoples.
In the Polish lands annexed to Germany, along with the expulsion of local residents, a policy was carried out to artificially limit population growth through castration of people, and the mass removal of children to raise them in the German spirit. Poles were even forbidden to be called Poles; they were given old tribal names - “Kashubs”, “Masurians”, etc. The systematic extermination of the Polish population, especially the intelligentsia, was carried out on the territory of the “Government General”. For example, in the spring and summer of 1940, the occupation authorities carried out the so-called “Action AB” (“extraordinary pacification action”) here, during which they killed about 3,500 Polish figures of science, culture and art, and also closed not only higher education institutions, but also secondary educational institutions.
A savage, misanthropic policy was also carried out in dismembered Yugoslavia. In Slovenia, the Nazis destroyed centers of national culture, exterminated the intelligentsia, clergy, and public figures. In Serbia, for every German soldier killed by partisans, hundreds of civilians were subject to “merciless extermination.”
The Czech people were doomed to national degeneration and destruction. “You have closed our universities,” wrote the national hero of Czechoslovakia J. Fucik in 1940 in an open letter to Goebbels, “you are Germanizing our schools, you have robbed and occupied the best school buildings, turned the theater, concert halls and art salons into barracks, you are robbing scientific institutions, you stop scientific work, you want to turn journalists into thought-killing automata, you kill thousands of cultural workers, you destroy the foundations of all culture, everything that the intelligentsia creates.”
Thus, already in the first period of the war, the racist theories of fascism turned into a monstrous policy of national oppression, destruction and extermination (genocide), carried out in relation to many peoples of Europe. The smoking chimneys of the crematoria of Auschwitz, Majdanek and other mass extermination camps testified that the savage racial and political nonsense of fascism was being carried out in practice.
The social policy of fascism was extremely reactionary. In New Order Europe, the working masses, and above all the working class, were subjected to the most severe persecution and exploitation. Reduced wages and a sharp increase in working hours, the abolition of social security rights won in a long struggle, the prohibition of strikes, meetings and demonstrations, the liquidation of trade unions under the guise of their “unification”, the prohibition of political organizations of the working class and all workers, primarily communist parties, for whom the Nazis had a brutal hatred - this is what fascism brought with it to the peoples of Europe. The “New Order” meant an attempt by German state-monopoly capital and its allies to crush their class opponents with the hands of fascists, destroy their political and trade union organizations, eradicate the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, all democratic, even liberal views, implanting the misanthropic fascist ideology of racism, national and class domination and subordination. In savagery, fanaticism, and obscurantism, fascism surpassed the horrors of the Middle Ages. He was an outright cynical denial of all the progressive, humane and moral values that civilization has developed over its thousand-year history. He imposed a system of surveillance, denunciations, arrests, torture, and created a monstrous apparatus of repression and violence against peoples.
To come to terms with this or to take the path of anti-fascist resistance and a decisive struggle for national independence, democracy and social progress - this was the alternative that faced the people of the occupied countries.
The peoples have made their choice. They rose up to fight against the brown plague - fascism. The main burden of this struggle was courageously borne by the working masses, primarily the working class.
