“The essence of the Nazi regime”: how Hitler planned to create a “master race.” "True Aryans

The first racial theories arose in antiquity. Famous philosophers of those times openly discussed the supposedly naturally determined evil inclinations and lack of courage among “barbarian” peoples.

However, the real surge of racism occurred much later - during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe against the backdrop of the Great Geographical Discoveries. Thus, Voltaire, without mincing words, criticized Christianity for its claims about the common origin of all races. The French philosopher called the “inhabitants of the shores of the South Sea” “abominable,” compared them to animals and did not believe that they could have common ancestors with Europeans. Racist theories provided the ideological basis for slavery and the genocidal policies that European colonialists carried out in Africa, America, Australia and Oceania.

Slavery in the British Empire, antique engraving

In the 19th century, the French sociologist Joseph Arthur de Gobineau formulated his racial theory. The subject of the historical process, in his opinion, was an ethnic group, which he called a race. According to Gobineau, races are not equal to each other, and among white peoples, Aryans occupy a priority position. Moreover, the main criterion is intelligence. Gobineau spoke disparagingly about the Slavs, considering them to be descendants of Aryans who had “degenerated” and mixed with “inferior” races. It was Gobineau’s theory that was largely adopted by the Nazis in the 20th century.

“The political culture of National Socialism is based on the foundation created in the 19th century by the Völkische movement, a highly romanticized view of Germany’s past. As a result, the special role of the Germans in world history and culture, the sacred past and great future of this nation, and its imminent conquest of world space were spoken of absolutely seriously. And in the same way, plans were made to create a state that would last at least a thousand years,” said German historian and writer Sergei Kormilitsyn in a conversation with RT.

Nazi racial policy

Written by Adolf Hitler in the mid-1920s, Mein Kampf is filled with racist and anti-Semitic ideas. The future Nazi Fuhrer contrasted Aryans with Jews and criticized the “Slavicization” of Austria.

In the early 1930s, the German anthropologist Hans Friedrich Karl Gunther met the leadership of the Nazi Party, who shortly before formulated the concept of Nordism, in which the Germans were extolled and the Semites were condemned. Gunther also opposed interracial marriage. The anthropologist's ideas were to the liking of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler and Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, who began to actively implement them.

The fact that these ideas took root so quickly in society was partly facilitated by historical circumstances, experts note. Sergei Kormilitsyn, in particular, recalled that during the First World War, German military propaganda worked excellently. The Germans were confident in the invincibility of their army, in their right to expand their living space: the German Empire, created by Otto von Bismarck, was a country that was “late to the party” - by that time, other European states had long divided their colonies among themselves.

“The Germans perceived defeat in the war as something impossible. Moreover, the troops on the fronts at the time of surrender had not lost their fighting spirit and were eager to fight. This gave rise to the notorious “legend of a stab in the back with a dagger” in the popular imagination.

Who called loudest for an end to the war at any cost, for sabotage of military supplies? Representatives of left parties. And they were the ones to blame. And since their most active representatives were not Germans, but foreigners, both the returning front-line soldiers and those who remained in the rear began to hate them,” Kormilitsyn said in an interview with RT.

Immediately after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, all Jews, with the exception of those who fought in the First World War, were dismissed from government service, and in churches, in order to find out the origins of every resident of the country, mass copying of birth records began, starting with those that were made in the 18th-19th centuries.

In 1934, Rudolf Hess, one of Hitler's closest associates, created a special department for the study of kinship under the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Later it received imperial status and became subordinate to the SS and the Ministry of Justice of the Third Reich.

A year later, the so-called Nuremberg racial laws were adopted, regulating issues of citizenship, personal rights and family life in Hitler's Germany - the Reich Citizen Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.

The fight for “blood purity”

“The Nazi state was originally built on the basis of racial theory. Race was declared to be the basis of his existence. The German population was divided into different categories based on race,” writer and historian Konstantin Zalessky said in an interview with RT.

According to the expert, all races in the minds of the Nazis were built depending on their blood proximity to the Aryans, which, in addition to the Germans, included some Western European peoples. According to the Nazis, the Slavs were at the lowest level of development and did not have the ability to create, so they had to obey the Aryans.

As for the Jews and Gypsies, according to the historian, in the view of the Nazis they should have been. Based on these considerations, the aforementioned Nuremberg Laws were adopted, which represented the essence of the Nazi regime and were intended to preserve the “purity” of Aryan blood.

Laws of 1935 completely prohibited marriages and personal relations between Germans and Jews. Special government bodies monitored the origins of the bride and groom and did not give permission to create family unions that were objectionable to the Nazis. Previously existing “undesirable” marriages were not dissolved at first, and the Nazis treated Jews related to Germans more loyally than other representatives of this race.

Aftermath of Kristallnacht, Germany, November 10, 1938
Wikipedia

However, after the outbreak of World War II, the vast majority of them were sent anyway. Residents of Germany who violated the laws of 1935 faced imprisonment and forced labor for a period of one year. Separately, the laws stipulated the issue of citizenship: a Jew could not be a citizen of the Reich in principle.

“Although there were exceptions. Hitler’s comrade-in-arms, driver and bodyguard Emil Maurice, for example, was the holder of an “honorary Aryan” certificate, and Goering’s phrase “In my ministry, I myself decide who is a Jew and who is not” has become a joke,” noted Kormilitsyn.

“There was no global reaction from the German population to the Nuremberg Laws. This was considered a personal problem for everyone. True, it should be noted that among the German population who were not members of the Nazi Party, the level of anti-Semitism was initially even lower than in some other European states. Ordinary residents of Austria, for example, participated in Jewish pogroms much more actively than the Germans,” emphasized Konstantin Zalessky.

On June 7, 1938, the Nuremberg Laws officially extended to the territory of annexed Austria, which the Nazis called the Ostmark.

Soon, German women who had close relationships with Jews began to be sent to concentration camps.

"Thousand Year Reich"

“Hitler was going to build a “thousand-year Reich,” which was based on the idea that the “superior race,” the German people-master, should rule the world and have their own living space, which, by the way, was planned to include part of our country. And there should be many representatives of this “superior race,” Zalessky noted in a conversation with RT.

Adolf Gitler
globallookpress.com
Knorr + Hirth

The historian recalled that in the minds of the Nazis, the ideal German family should have had many children. It was hoped that thanks to this, the Aryans would occupy their living space, in which not a single Jew should have remained, as quickly as possible. The Slavs were assigned only the role of servants and laborers.

“German soldiers were allowed intimate relationships in the occupied territories only on the condition that children would not be born from these relationships. Hitler believed that all Eastern European peoples had a drop of Aryan blood in them. And the bearers of this blood, in his opinion, could then become the national elite and raise the local population to revolt against the Reich. Therefore, the Nazi leadership planned to assimilate all Slavic children who externally fit Aryan standards - blond and blue-eyed,” the expert said.

Lebensborn Children's Home
Scherl

In Germany, in 1935, the Lebensborn organization was founded, subordinate to the SS and providing assistance to German single mothers who gave birth to children from Aryans. Adoptions were also carried out through Lebensborn.

In particular, according to historians, through orphanages belonging to Lebensborn, several tens of thousands of children abducted in Eastern Europe, including the USSR, were transferred to childless German families. Some of them were only five days old at the time of removal from their families. Many remained in Germany, still not knowing about their true origin and considering themselves Germans by nationality.

“Every person in the Reich, in addition to basic documents, was also required to have a racial passport, filled out for several generations. If someone joined the SS, their ancestry was traced back to 1800. And if an SS man got married, his bride was checked in the same way. Therefore, for example, members of the SS were not recommended to marry German women who grew up in Russia - their origin was often impossible to trace,” said Zalessky.

At the same time, according to him, the Nazis treated Christian or even ordinary marriage morality without due reverence. The Nazis viewed extramarital affairs between Germans with loyalty.

“During the war, due to the mass death of men at the front, the Third Reich even arose a project to legalize polygamy. It was developed by the people of Bormann and Himmler. The first proposed making this a general German practice and even wanted to introduce the position of domina, senior wife, in every family. The second demanded that only war heroes be allowed to have several wives. As we see, the morality of the Nazis was very far from Christian. However, all these plans were not destined to become a reality, since the “thousand-year Reich” did not take place,” the historian concluded.

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 completely 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, the German National Socialists fought for the dominance 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 were considered “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, Hitler’s victory would be a more terrible misfortune for humanity than Stalin’s victory.”

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

In the book “My Struggle,” he asserted “Aryan priority” in all major spheres of culture: “All human culture, all the achievements of art, science and technology that we witness today are almost exclusively the fruits of the creativity of the Aryans. This fact alone quite reasonably confirms the conclusion that it is the Aryan who is the founder of higher humanism, and therefore the prototype of everything that we understand by the word “man.” He is the Prometheus of humanity, from whose bright brow sparks of genius have flown 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 mankind 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 the “truly German spirit” in their work, and not “decadent molesters.” Many of the latter, however, had already managed to leave the territory of the Reich by that time.

“Aryan superiority,” according to the Fuhrer, was especially evident in the military sphere. But Hitler believed that not all was well in the German army during the First World War, otherwise the disaster of 1918 would not have erupted. He associated it with the “betrayal” of the Social Democrats, among whom, as the Fuhrer believed, Jews played the leading role.

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 motives permeated the entire life of the Third Reich. Hitler wrote in the book “My Struggle”: “Our state will first of all strive to establish a healthy, natural vital proportion between the number 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 thus can our foreign policy adequately secure the destinies of our race united in our State.

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

In order for a people to ensure true freedom of existence, they need a sufficiently large territory.”

“Racially inferior” elements had to be mercilessly exterminated or expelled from the habitat of the German people. Among the Germans themselves, those who were terminally ill and mentally ill were subject to extermination. On September 1, 1939, the day the Second World War began, Hitler gave a secret order “to extend the powers of a certain circle of doctors so that they can ensure a merciful death for 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 mentally retarded were also subject to extermination in the occupied territories.

Hitler named Russia as the main object of future German colonization: “We, National Socialists, are quite consciously putting an end to the entire German foreign policy of the pre-war period. We want to return to the point where our old development was interrupted 600 years ago. We want to stop the eternal German desire 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 trade policies of the pre-war era and are consciously moving towards a policy of conquering new lands in Europe.

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

Fate itself points its finger at us. Having delivered Russia into the hands of Bolshevism, fate deprived the Russian people of that intelligentsia on which its state existence had hitherto rested and which alone served as a guarantee of a certain strength of the state. It was not the state talents of the Slavs that gave strength and strength to the Russian state. Russia owed all this to the Germanic elements - a most excellent example of the enormous state role that the Germanic elements are capable of playing when acting within a lower race. This is how many powerful states on earth were created. More than once in history we have seen how peoples of a lower culture, led by the Germans as organizers, turned into powerful states and then remained firmly on their feet while 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 core has been completely destroyed. Jews took the place of the Germans. 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 huge state under their control for long. The Jews themselves are by no means an element of organization, but rather a ferment of disorganization. This giant eastern state is inevitably doomed to destruction. All the prerequisites for this have already matured. The end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. Fate has destined us to witness such a catastrophe that, 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, which later received an inoculation 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 senior command personnel in 1937–1938 would seem to confirm Hitler’s theory. Fortunately, it turned out to be wrong. But Hitler was not mistaken about the fact that Jews would not be able to stay in the Soviet power structures for long. By the end of the 20s, after Stalin defeated the internal party opposition, there were almost no Jews left in the top party leadership. Throughout the 30s, they lost their positions in the NKVD and in the Red Army (as well as other foreigners who had connections with foreign states - Poles and people from the Baltic states, and in the 40s, during the campaign against cosmopolitanism, Jews were also purged from mid-level nomenklatura positions.

Widespread colonization of the eastern lands by the Germans and “Germanic peoples”, such as the Dutch or Norwegians, was envisioned by the Nazis only after the victorious end of the war. During wartime, several trial actions of this kind were carried out, in particular in the area of Hitler's headquarters near Vinnitsa, but they all ended in vain.

Hitler did not imagine any other structure for the Greater German Reich except on the basis of the unconditional subordination of all conquered or “voluntarily joined” countries to the dictates of Berlin. The German lands themselves, and especially the occupied territories, were not supposed to have autonomy or any elements of state independence. If there was any talk about some kind of equality of “German peoples” within the Greater German Reich, it was only for propaganda purposes.

Plans were developed for the “Germanization” of the Aryan peoples, as well as the Slavs, among whom, using 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, declared that “the best way to solve the French problem is to conduct an annual selection of persons of German blood from the population of France. We need 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, instilling in them 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 Germanization do not particularly inspire me, unless they are supported ideologically. 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 favorable balance of military forces on the continent a couple of times (for example, by entering the Thirty Years' War). But where they were opposed by Germans endowed with national identity, they always received a good thrashing, for example from Frederick the Great in 1740, etc. And it does not matter at all that the Corsican Napoleon, this unique military genius, led her to victories world-historical significance. The majority of the French are inclined towards philistinism, and therefore it will be a heavy blow for France if its ruling stratum is deprived of the replenishment of persons of German blood.”

Hitler explained to Himmler, who was obsessed with the ideas of Germanization not only of the French, but even of 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 Gau in order to rid it of separatist tendencies and make it easier joining the German Reich. Austria, after all, has its own half-thousand-year history, in which there were 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 “German peoples.” - B.S.) you should be very careful. It must always be remembered that Bavaria in 1871 also never expressed any intention of joining 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 (i.e., a supposedly new state where Austria will have almost equal rights with Germany. Of course, this was only a propaganda slogan. - B.S.). To the Germans of the North-West and North (i.e. the Dutch, Flemings and Scandinavian peoples. - B.S.) it is necessary to constantly impress upon us 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 should never be forgotten that any of these legionnaires, unless he was imbued with the consciousness of his blood connection with the German Empire as the basis of a new European unity, would feel like a traitor to his people.

How dangerous this is is clearly demonstrated by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They also believed 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 became clear that it was these people who raised the banner of struggle against her. Therefore, we are talking about 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 unifying 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’s flag. - B.S.)».

Hitler also warned against too extensive 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 that 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 a political position among the Germans that, with the support of political Catholicism, became a decisive factor in German domestic politics.

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

No less caution should be exercised in relation 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 during my youth wandered idly around Vienna, very quickly mastering the Viennese dialect, and then deftly made their way to the highest positions in the state, took 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 a German victory and did not achieve Polish reconciliation.” He denied the possibility of “Germanization” of the Poles by introducing the German language into the Polish lands: “The Polish people would remain Polish people, only expressing their own alien ideas in a foreign language. Such a people, alien to our race, with their lower level of development would only compromise the dignity and height of development of our own people.” The Nazi racial doctrine doomed the Poles to either extermination or deportation. Only those Poles whom Nazi anthropologists would consider close to the German race were subject to “Germanization.”

Deportations began in the very first days of the occupation by the Wehrmacht. Already on October 20, 1939, the head of the 16th SD operational team, SS Sturmbannführer Franz Raeder, reported to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA): “By the will of the Fuhrer, German West Prussia should emerge from Pomerania populated by Poles in the shortest possible time. To achieve these objectives, the following measures are necessary, in the agreed opinion of all competent authorities:

Physical liquidation of all Polish elements who:

a) have 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 racially and otherwise valuable Poles to the center of the old Reich, since we are talking about the fading German lineage, and inclusion in the German national body should occur unhindered. These measures were carried out from the first day.”

Also, the Imperial Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, speaking to the ranks of the occupation administration in February 1942, stated that from 40 to 60 percent of Czechs should merge with the Germans into a single people, and Czechs who are not subject to Germanization should go to develop “living space” in the East . For the same purpose it was supposed to use part of the Dutch who were not quite full-fledged in racial terms. Both those and other representatives of the “Germanic peoples” were supposed to be made “overseers” over the local East Slavic population.

In the future, Hitler was going to train servants for the Germans from “racially inferior” peoples. In May 1940, Reichsführer SS 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 beyond a four-year public school. There they should only teach simple counting to five hundred, writing your name and that the Lord God requires you to obey the Germans and be honest, diligent and decent. I consider the ability to read unnecessary for them. There shouldn’t be any other schools in the East at all.” Hitler, in March 1942, stated at his headquarters: “First of all, we must 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 entire people, since the knowledge hammered into their heads will not be of any use. The best thing would be if these people mastered only sign language to communicate with the Germans. On the radio, it would be most useful to transmit music in unlimited quantities. They should not be accustomed to mental work alone. Do not allow any printed publications... These people will feel happiest if they are left alone as much as possible. Otherwise we will raise our worst enemies there! But of course, if we act in the interests of our teachers, then the first thing we should do is open a university in Kyiv.”

In practice, such programs were unrealistic utopias, the implementation of which could theoretically be started only after the end of the war and Germany had gained world dominance. In reality, both in Poland and in the occupied Soviet territories, newspapers were still published, and in schools they taught not only how to sign and count to five hundred, although, of course, no universities were opened.

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

Therefore, troops have the right and obligation to use in this fight, without any restrictions, any means leading to success, including against women and children. All kinds of indulgences are crimes against soldiers subjected to bandit attacks. There can be no leniency towards bandits and their accomplices.

No military personnel participating in the fight against gangs and their associates may be subject to judicial or disciplinary responsibility for their actions.”

It is characteristic that the victims of this order were primarily to be 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 his impressions of a trip to Poltava, to the headquarters of Army Group South, Hitler admitted that visiting Ukraine “forced me to 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 Norwegian or even Dutch women presented to him along with applications for marriage - whether, instead of talking about the problem of the “spread of the northern type,” I should raise the question about the need to “spread the southern type” in our northern European states.”

Hitler envisioned a solution to 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” to the national problem to the distant future, when in the Reich there would remain only a nationally homogeneous mass of Germanic peoples speaking the German language. Thus, on January 22, 1942, the Fuhrer said at 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 taken for a crown. The introduction of universal, equal, secret suffrage dealt a crushing blow to the Germans in Austria. Social democracy took the side of the Czechs on principle, as did the highest 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 had already formed a layer of petty bourgeois, distinguished by their hard work and who knew their place. Nowadays, they look at us angrily, but also with immense admiration: “We, Bohemians, are not given to rule!”

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

For several centuries we have focused 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 entered into an alliance with hostile forces, then nine million Germans would have coped with the remaining fifty million!..

Lower Saxony is certainly the home of the rulers. The English ruling class comes from there! It is there that the SS, using its own methods, recruits leadership personnel, with the help of which in 100 years it will be possible to manage all territories without racking your brains over who to appoint where.”

The idea of recruiting “lords” on the Lower Rhine was, of course, never realized. 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 Ataturk, a blue-eyed man who had nothing in common with the Turks.”

Hitler, in his book “My Struggle,” rejected the possibility of Nazi solidarity with the national liberation movements of the peoples of the British Empire, saying: “We Germans, it seems, could see for ourselves how difficult it is to cope with England. And besides everything else, I will say about myself that I, as a German, would still always prefer to see India under the rule 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 Arab countries. And hopes for a compromise with England on the basis of “German racial solidarity” crumbled to dust just a decade after the publication of “My Struggle.”

The racial doctrine of National Socialism left no place on earth for “small peoples” deprived of their homeland and soil - Jews and Gypsies, subject to total extermination. Further on the “scale of harmfulness” were the Poles - the “hereditary enemies” of the Germans, whose numbers had to be limited as much as possible and their statehood eliminated, not allowing any forms of self-government. However, the Nazis did not envisage the total extermination of the Polish nation.

Next up after the Poles on the scale of racial preferences were Russians and Belarusians, the same as the Poles, “subhumans,” Die Untermenschen, but at least enjoying an advantage over the Poles when appointed to posts in local self-government in the occupied territories. After Belarusians and Russians, the higher rung of the “racial pyramid” was occupied by Lithuanians and Ukrainians. 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 their long existence in the same territory and the Nazis' supposed "racial mixing" with the Poles, neither Lithuanians nor Ukrainians were considered "Aryan peoples".

Next on the scale were the “Aryan peoples” themselves. Among the population of the USSR, 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. In the future, they were subject to Germanization and were 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 the “Germanic peoples: Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, Flemings, Walloons, Czechs, English, Irish, Swedes, Finns. They were supposed to be primarily used 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 dropped from use, and Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Russians and even Poles were now officially recognized as “Aryan peoples” and accepted into service in the Wehrmacht and SS. Goebbels officially stated about these “eastern peoples”: “It is impossible to portray these people as 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 suffered defeat on all fronts, not only from the “German peoples,” the British and Americans, which seemed to be not so offensive, but also from the Russians, who just yesterday were called “subhumans.” 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 looked for any allies among the inhabitants of the occupied territories, so any replication of the concept of “subhuman” was stopped. Now the enemies - the Americans, the British and the Russians - were “lowered” only through propaganda theses about their supposedly 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 by the German authorities or with the Bolsheviks. The Germans themselves were no longer reminded that they were “superman”, but were called upon to protect their homeland, home and family from the invasion of enemies. Of course, the question was delicately handled: who started the war and managed to conquer half the world before being stopped?

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 has watched films about the Great Patriotic War and read books about this page of history has heard the expressions “Untermensch”, “true Aryan”, “Nordic race”.

It is clear that the “Untermensch”, that is, “subhumans”, are us, the Slavs, as well as Jews, gypsies, blacks, Mongoloids, and so on. But who, in this case, are the “true Aryans”, in other words “Ubermensch” - “supermans”? Who, besides themselves, did the German fascists consider to be racially valuable?

Gunther's racial theory

First, you need to figure out where these fabrications about “true Aryans” came from. The idea belongs to the German theorist Gunther, who in 1925 developed a theory of the unequal value of races, their ability to develop, work and, conversely, their tendency to degradation.

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 identified the “Nordic type” (“Nordic race”) in the Caucasian race.

These people are characterized by tall stature, a narrow long face, fair skin, and hair pigmentation ranging from light to brown. In terms of mental talent, Gunther put representatives of the Nordic type in first place. Representatives of the Nordic type live in northern Germany, Holland, Latvia, Scandinavia, eastern England, and along the entire Baltic coast.

"True Aryans"

Ideas of this kind were very fashionable at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe and the USA. Racism was not a prohibited theory then; its clear signs can be found, for example, in some of the works of Jack London. Hitler also really liked this theory.

It must be said that such ideas often become popular in countries whose residents consider themselves disadvantaged at the present time. They draw hope for a glorious future from myths about the glorious past. This in itself is commendable until the “bearers of glorious traditions” begin to consider themselves exceptional, and representatives of other nations as “subhuman”.

This is exactly what happened in Germany, which suffered defeat in the First World War and was in a state of deep crisis when Hitler came to power. It is not surprising that Hitler's ideas about “Nordic conquerors” and “true Aryans” were very much to the liking of most of the German public.

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 "chief", "to know".

According to the creators of racial theory, 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 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 a “racially valuable”, “true Aryan”, “carrier of the Nordic spirit”? We are, of course, talking about representatives of the Germanic peoples. But even here, not everything is so simple. “Purity of blood” was of decisive importance.

Hitler strongly disliked the inhabitants of the more southern regions of Europe, various French and Spaniards, considering them “mestizo with an admixture of Negroid blood.” However, he still considered the Italians to be carriers of the “Nordic spirit”, thanks to their ideological closeness to Mussolini.

“True Aryans” and other “bearers of the Nordic spirit,” according to the ideologists of racial theory, should have taken 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 and development, only representatives of the “Nordic race” created all the great civilizations and cultural achievements.

For this reason, the responsibility of “true Aryans” and “carriers of the Nordic spirit” is to maintain physical health, because a “true Aryan” is not only creative abilities, but also a powerful body. For this 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 representatives of those peoples whom Hitler declared “racially inferior,” including among the Russians. And this is a very disturbing fact.

On June 7, 1938, Nazi laws on the “protection of German blood” came into force in Austria. The population of the annexed country was prohibited from marrying non-Aryans. In Germany, similar rules have been in place for almost three years. Historians note that the strict regulation of personal life was explained by Hitler’s desire to build a “thousand-year Reich” based on the dominant race.

However, the matter was not limited to marriage bans. The Nazis kidnapped children from occupied countries who fit the Aryan standard of appearance, and were even going to introduce polygamy. About the racial policy of the Third Reich - in the RT material.

At the origins of racism

Slavery in the British Empire, antique engraving

Nazi racial policy

“The Germans perceived defeat in the war as something impossible. Moreover, the troops at the fronts at the time of surrender had not lost their fighting spirit and were eager to go into battle. This gave rise to the notorious “legend of a stab in the back with a dagger” in the popular imagination.

The fight for “blood purity”

“The Nazi state was originally built on the basis of racial theory. Race was declared to be the basis of his existence. The population of Germany was divided into different categories based on race,” writer and historian Konstantin Zalessky said in an interview with RT.

As for the Jews and Gypsies, according to the historian, in the view of the Nazis they should have completely disappeared from public life. Based on these considerations, the aforementioned Nuremberg Laws were adopted, which represented the essence of the Nazi regime and were intended to preserve the “purity” of Aryan blood.

However, after the outbreak of World War II, the vast majority of them were still sent to death camps. Residents of Germany who violated the laws of 1935 faced imprisonment and forced labor for a period of one year. Separately, the laws stipulated the issue of citizenship: a Jew could not be a citizen of the Reich in principle.

“Although there were exceptions. Hitler’s comrade-in-arms, driver and bodyguard Emil Maurice, for example, was the holder of an “honorary Aryan” certificate, and Goering’s phrase “In my ministry, I myself decide who is a Jew and who is not” has become a joke,” noted Kormilitsyn.

“There was no global reaction from the German population to the Nuremberg Laws. This was considered a personal problem for everyone. True, it should be noted that among the German population who were not members of the Nazi Party, the level of anti-Semitism was initially even lower than in some other European countries. Ordinary residents of the same Austria participated in the Jewish pogroms during Kristallnacht much more actively than the Germans,” emphasized Konstantin Zalessky.

On June 7, 1938, the Nuremberg Laws officially extended to the territory of annexed Austria, which the Nazis called the Ostmark.

Soon, German women who had close relationships with Jews began to be sent to concentration camps.

"Thousand Year Reich"

“German soldiers were allowed intimate relationships in the occupied territories only on the condition that children would not be born from these relationships. Hitler believed that all Eastern European peoples had a drop of Aryan blood in them. And the bearers of this blood, in his opinion, could then become the national elite and raise the local population to revolt against the Reich. Therefore, the Nazi leadership planned to assimilate all Slavic children who outwardly fit Aryan standards - blond and blue-eyed,” the expert said.

“Every person in the Reich, in addition to basic documents, was also required to have a racial passport, filled out for several generations. If someone joined the SS, their ancestry was traced back to 1800. And if an SS man got married, his bride was checked in the same way. Therefore, for example, SS members were not recommended to marry German women who grew up in Russia - their origin was often impossible to trace,” said Zalessky.

At the same time, according to him, the Nazis treated Christian or even ordinary marriage morality without due reverence. The Nazis viewed extramarital affairs between Germans with loyalty.