Germany’s War for Race and Space – Part 3

German victories expanded the Nazi empire and imported anti-Jewish policies into every newly occupied zone.
- Restrictions on employment, residence, clothing (e.g.
  obligatory armbands) and access to public space were imposed immediately.
- Violence was both state-directed and locally instigated.
The conquests massively enlarged the Jewish population under Nazi control:
- $3{,}000{,}000$ additional Jews (Poland, late $1939$ ).
- $5{,}000{,}000$ more (USSR territories, $1941$ ).
- >!500{,}000 in Western Europe (by $1940$ ).
Grandiose demographic vision: Hitler spoke of resettling $500{,}000{,}000$ “Aryan” Germans into an agrarian utopia stretching across Eastern Europe, served by a permanently subjugated Slavic population and no Jews at all.
Kidnapping & “Aryanisation”: Czech and Belarusian children deemed racially valuable were seized to augment the German “stock.”

Ghettos (first created $1939$ , systematised $1940$ ):
- Goals:
- Centralise Jews for tighter control and easier exploitation.
- Plunder Jewish property & labour for the Reich/war effort.
- Serve as an intermediate step toward an undefined future removal / annihilation.
- Debated Nazi aims:
- Maintain a permanent, exploitable work force vs. deliberately allow mass death through starvation, disease and overcrowding.
Rejected “super-ghetto” schemes:
- Nisko “reservation” in Eastern Poland—too costly in infrastructure.
- Madagascar Plan (*French colony, $1940$ ): rendered impractical by British naval power.
- Historians debate whether such proposals were genuine or rhetorical placeholders until a more radical solution appeared feasible.

Enforced moves of urban & rural Jews into walled districts; local Polish police often guarded perimeters.
Daily life run by Judenräte (Jewish Councils).
- Received German orders, allocated labour, distributed rations, organised deportation lists when ordered.
- Historiographical controversy:
- Contextualists: councils tried to save “as many as possible” under duress.
- Critics: collaboration that eased Nazi goals, suppressed resistance, and facilitated murder.

Created $1939$ , sealed April $1940$ ; ultimately liquidated $1944$ .
Population peaks: $200{,}000$ people in space meant for $23{,}000$ ; avg. $7$ persons/room.
Judenrat head Mordechai Rumkowski:
- Established $96$ factories, employing $78{,}000$ —made the ghetto “self-supporting.”
- Also opened $45$ schools, soup kitchens, cultural centres, orphanages.
- Ethical quandary:
- $1942$ —agreed to deport $\approx20{,}000$ (mainly children) instead of $24{,}000$ demanded, believing partial compliance would save adults.
Death toll: $\approx43{,}000$ by disease/starvation; $75{,}000$ deported to Chełmno by $1942$ .

Established Nov $1940$ .
Pre-war Jewish population $\approx350{,}000$ ; ghetto held $450{,}000$ in $\approx1.3$ square miles.
- Density ≈ $9$ persons/room.
Calorie rations (*1941 figures):
- Germans: $2{,}600\ \text{cal}$ /day.
- Poles: $700\ \text{cal}$ /day.
- Jews: $184\ \text{cal}$ /day.
Estimated deaths inside: $\approx100{,}000$ .

Roughly $500{,}000$ European Jews died within ghettos (starvation, disease, executions).
Contemporary diary voices:
- “We are doomed to death by starvation.”
- “There are no words to express our desire to live, but evidently that is not to be.”

Launched $22/06/1941$ .
- Axis forces: $3{,}300{,}000$ soldiers, $3{,}600$ tanks, $2{,}500$ aircraft.
- Allied contingents: >!1{,}000{,}000 (Hungary, Romania, later Italy & Finland).
Rapid early success: up to $50$ miles on day 1; >!500{,}000 Soviet POWs by mid-July.
Nazi worldview: Slavs and “Judeo-Bolsheviks” inherently weak; expected victory by Sept $1941$ .
Hitler’s October $1941$ vision:
- “In $20$ years Ukraine will house $20{,}000{,}000$ Germans; in $300$ years it will be a garden.”
Soviet response (Stalin): “If they want a war of extermination, they shall have it.”

Mandate: eliminate political enemies & entire Jewish communities behind the front lines.
Manpower escalation clue to genocidal policy shift:
- June $1941$ : $3{,}000$ men.
- + $10{,}000$ in weeks, + $6{,}000$ later summer.
- End $1941$ : $31{,}000$ .
Killings by end $1941$ : $\approx800{,}000$ Jews.
Total victims of mobile shootings 1941$–1944 $:$ 1.3\text{–}1.5\,\text{million} $.</li><li>Signature massacre: Babi Yar (Kyiv, Sept$ 1941 $)—$ 34{,}000 $murdered in$ 2 days.
Typical procedure: round-up → march to forest/ravine → victims forced to lie face-down → simultaneous point-blank shooting → mass graves.

Reserve Police Battalions (e.g. Battalion 101 $):<ul><li>$ 500 $“ordinary” middle-aged Germans, not Nazi zealots.</li><li>Participated in killing$ >!80{,}000 Jews.
Notably, first action: commander allowed volunteers to step aside—only a “handful” refused.

Collaborationist militias in Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, etc.

Motivations: antisemitism, desire to curry favour, retaliation for Soviet rule, personal vengeance.

SS leader Himmler observed moral fatigue among shooters—concern for killers’ mental health & long-term feasibility.
Recognition that shooting every Jew in Europe (≈11{,}000{,}000) was impractical → search for more “efficient” methods (foreshadows the extermination camps & gas chambers).

German soldiers’ letters: Jews & Slavs portrayed as “beasts” whose defeat prevents atrocities “the world has never seen.”
Himmler’s Posen speech (Oct 1943 $):<ul><li>Boasted of the SS’s ability to watch “$ 100 $,$ 500 $,$ 1{,}000 bodies” without losing “decency.”
Mass murder presented as a “page of glory” and an act of love for the German people.

Core belief: One can annihilate millions yet remain “decent” if the victims are de-humanised.

Structural vs. Intentionalist explanation:
- Was genocide pre-planned from the start or did policy radicalise through logistical pressures & battlefield developments?
Victim choices: the Judenrat dilemma epitomises coercive decision-making under annihilatory rule.
Perpetrator agency: studies like Browning’s Ordinary Men reveal the ease with which “average” individuals can commit atrocities within conformist, authoritative settings.
Collaboration & complicity reflect wider social dynamics—local hatreds, opportunism, and the moral collapse of occupied societies.
Racial utopianism: Nazi vision fused agrarian romanticism with genocidal brutality, turning Eastern Europe into a laboratory for radical social engineering.