Germany’s War for Race and Space – Part II (Comprehensive Study Notes)

Invasion of Poland and the Immediate Outbreak of War

• Date & pretext
  • Germany invades Poland on 09\/01\/1939 (European dating; Sept 1, $1939$).
  • Months-long propaganda preparations: staged “attack” on the Gleiwitz radio station just across the border.
  • SS dress concentration-camp inmates in Polish uniforms, murder them, and leave the bodies as “proof” of Polish aggression.
• Diplomatic chain reaction
  • Britain and France declare war on Germany on 09\/03\/1939.
  • The USSR invades its allotted Polish territories (per the 08\/23\/1939 Nazi–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact) later in the month.
  • Result: Poland experiences a double invasion.

Partition of Conquered Polish Territory

• Two administrative zones
  • Western slices annexed “into the Reich proper” (often territory Germany lost in $1919$).
  • Remainder organized as the “General Government” (GG): a German-occupied colony that will host many “Final Solution” sites.

Military Dimension: Blitzkrieg

• Rapid defeat (matter of weeks).
• Coordinated use of infantry, armor, artillery, and air power → showcased the Blitzkrieg doctrine.

Ideological Dimension: Race & Space

• Hitler to the generals (Aug $1939$):

“The aim of the war lies not in reaching particular lines, but in the physical annihilation of our enemy. Poland will be depopulated and settled with Germans.”

• Alfred Rosenberg speech (Frankfurt, 03\/1941) at opening of the Institute for the Research of the Jewish Question:
  • Frames the war as a centuries-decisive racial struggle.
  • Calls the Nuremberg Laws “revolutionary.”
  • States the Jewish question “will only be solved when the last Jew has left the European continent.”

Nazi Occupation Policies Toward Poles

• Racial ranking: Slavs viewed as inferior.
• Himmler estimate: perhaps only $3\%$ of Poles could be “Aryanized.”
• Regulations
  • Ban on sexual relations between Germans & Poles.
  • Poles forbidden from giving the “Heil Hitler” salute.
• Leadership decapitation
  • SS murder campaign (“Intelligenzaktion”): ≈ $50\,000$ Polish elites dead, incl. $1\,500$ Catholic priests.
  • Vatican remains largely silent.
• Forced population movements
  • By 12\/1940: $325\,000$ Poles expelled from annexed areas to the GG.
  • By 12\/1943: cumulative expulsions reach $480\,000$.
  • Vacated land repopulated with hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans (“Volksdeutsche”) from Baltic, Polish, and Soviet regions—marketed as “Heim ins Reich” (home-into-Reich).

Anti-Jewish Policy Escalation in Poland (Fall $1939–1940$)

• Economic & symbolic measures
  • Sept $1939$: caps on Jewish withdrawals/holdings.
  • Fall $1940$: wholesale confiscation of property.
  • Nov $1939$: compulsory Star of David armband; similar signage for Jewish shops.
• Early violence example (unnamed small town)
  • All Jewish men $16–60$ ordered to schoolyard; crowd threatened with collective reprisal.
  • When dismissed, Germans open fire—reports vary $21–300$ killed.
• Cultural humiliation imagery: SS cutting beards of observant Jews (photo referenced).

Einsatzgruppen & Systematic Violence

• Einsatzgruppen = mobile SS death squads.
• Reinhard Heydrich orders:
  • Secret long-term goal; short-term = push rural Jews into large urban centers.
• Photograph: Einsatzgruppe execution of Polish prisoners, $1939$.

The T4 “Euthanasia” Program (Prototype for Industrial Killing)

• Chronology
  • Pilot phase targets children (<$3$ yrs) even before war starts (spring–summer $1939$).
  • Doctors & midwives must report “idiocy,” Down syndrome, severe deformities, paralysis.
  • Scope widens to older children, then adults (order signed Oct $1939$, back-dated to 09\/01\/1939).
• Administrative hub: Tiergartenstrasse 4 (“T4”), Berlin.
• Methods
  • Starvation & lethal medication for children.
  • Gas chambers & gas vans developed for adults—technological precursor to later extermination camps.
• Target figure set by medical leadership: $65–70\,000$; ultimately ≈ $75–80\,000$ murdered within Germany proper.
  • Empire-wide total (incl. annexed/occupied zones): ≈ $275\,000$ dead.
• Deception & cover-up
  • Families receive falsified transfer letters, death notices with invented causes, urns of ashes.
  • Data-management: tracking pins on maps to avoid suspicious geographic clustering.
• Public backlash
  • Rumors proliferate (crematoria smoke, children joking about the “vans”).
  • Catholic resistance: Bishop Clemens August von Galen (Münster) sermons, Aug $1941$—labels killings “murder” under §$211$ German Penal Code.
• Official suspension Aug $1941$ (due to unrest & having met quotas), but killings persist semi-covertly.
• Personnel transfer: Many T4 staff later serve in Aktion Reinhard death camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka).

The Western Campaign (Spring–Summer $1940$)

• Strategic sequence
  1. Scandinavia
  • 04\/09\/1940: attacks Denmark (surrenders in hours) & Norway (falls after weeks; Kriegsmarine heavy losses).
  • Aim: secure naval bases & Swedish iron-ore routes.
  1. Low Countries & France
  • 05\/10\/1940: invasion of Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg.
    • Luxembourg crumbles in hours.
    • Netherlands surrenders 05\/15\/1940.
    • Belgium capitulates 05\/28\/1940.
  • France: Wehrmacht bypasses Maginot Line via Ardennes; France signs armistice 06\/22\/1940.
  • Occupation structure: German-occupied north & west; collaborationist Vichy regime in south.
• Comparative brutality
  • War in the West less genocidal than in the East; Western Europeans ranked higher in Nazi racial hierarchy.
  • POW treatment relatively better—except colonial soldiers.

Battle of Britain (Summer–Autumn $1940$)

• Objective: win air superiority to enable “Operation Sealion” (amphibious invasion).
• Intense Luftwaffe bombing (“Blitz”) vs RAF Fighter Command.
• British victory → Hitler shelves invasion by mid-Sept $1940$; Britain remains a lone belligerent on the continent’s edge.

Jewish & Racial Policy in Western Europe

• Early occupation policy more cautious than in Poland/USSR.
• Degree of assimilation, fear of public backlash, and differing local politics produced a slower, incremental rollout of anti-Jewish measures (detailed in future lecture).

Balkan Campaign & Axis Consolidation ($1940–1941$)

• Italian fiasco
  • Mussolini’s failed attack on Greece (Oct $1940$) forces German intervention.
• Sequence
  • Germany invades Yugoslavia & Greece (April $1941$).
  • Yugoslav coup (March $1941$) against pro-Axis gov’t triggers assault.
  • Axis co-belligerents: Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria.
  • Most of Greece conquered by April $1941$; Crete via airborne assault by June.
• Partisan warfare emerges; Wehrmacht reprisals are severe.
• Axis membership timeline
  • Hungary, Slovakia, Romania → join Nov $1940$.
  • Bulgaria → March $1941$.
  • Independent State of Croatia (carved from Yugoslavia) → June $1941$.

Strategic Situation by Mid-$1941$

• Continental Europe from Spanish frontier to USSR’s border dominated by Germany & partners.
• Britain isolated; US still neutral (Lend-Lease only).
• Next Nazi objective: Operation Barbarossa (invasion of the Soviet Union) slated for 06\/22\/1941 (subject of next lecture).

Linkage of Military Conquest & Racial Engineering

• Military victories create laboratories for racial policy experimentation: expulsions, resettlement, ghettoization, euthanasia, and—soon—genocide.
• First systematic, empire-wide step toward the “Final Solution” now ready: creation of Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland & beyond (topic of next session).