Generalplan Ost

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Generalplan Ost
Master Plan for the East
Patron(s)Adolf Hitler
Objectives
Deaths
  • 11 million Slavs[5]
  • 3-3.4 million Polish Jews[6]
OutcomeNazi abandonment of GPO due to Axis defeat in the Eastern Front

The Generalplan Ost (German pronunciation:

Generalplan Ost was only partially implemented during the war in territories occupied by Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II, resulting indirectly and directly in the deaths of millions by shootings, starvation, disease, extermination through labour, and genocide. However, its full implementation was not considered practicable during major military operations, and never materialised due to Germany's defeat.[10][11][12] Under direct orders from Nazi leadership, around 11 million Slavs were killed in systemic violence and state terrorism carried out as part of the GPO. In addition to genocide, millions more were forced into slave labour to serve the German war economy.[5]

The program's operational guidelines were based on the policy of

Soviet POWs captured by the Wehrmacht were killed as part of the GPO. The plan intended for the genocide of the majority of Slavic inhabitants by various means - mass killings, forced starvations, slave labour and other occupation policies. The remaining populations were to be forcibly deported beyond the Urals, paving the way for German settlers.[14]

The plan was a work in progress. There are four known versions of it, developed as time went on. After the

RSHA from Erhard Wetzel [de] in April 1942. The third version was officially dated June 1942. The final version of the Master Plan for the East came from the RKFDV on October 29, 1942. However, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, planning of the colonization in the East was suspended, and the program was gradually abandoned.[15]

The planning had included implementation cost estimates, which ranged from 40 to 67 billion Reichsmarks, the latter figure being close to Germany's entire GDP for 1941.[16] A cost estimate of 45.7 billion Reichsmarks was included in the spring 1942 version of the plan, in which more than half the expenditure was to be allocated to land remediation, agricultural development, and transport infrastructure. This aspect of the funding was to be provided directly from state sources and the remainder, for urban and industrial development projects, was to be raised on commercial terms.[17]

Development and reconstruction of the plan

Boundaries of the planned Greater Germanic Reich, in the scenario of Nazi victory and final completion of General Plan Ost

Ideological motivations