Hunger plan

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The Hunger Plan or Backe Plan (after the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture , Herbert Backe ) is a National Socialist strategy developed in 1941 as part of the warfare against the Soviet Union . After that, the food produced in the areas occupied by the Wehrmacht should be delivered to the German occupation forces and to the German Reich . It was consciously taken into account that up to thirty million people in the Soviet Union will starve to death as a result of the withdrawal of food . This plan was worked out and is the responsibility of those parts of the National Socialist leadership of the German Reich that were decisive for the war economy .

Research has not finally clarified whether the hunger plan developed in Hermann Göring's four-year plan authority was a detailed planning of the official policy of the Nazi regime , its general ideological and political stance, or rather a calculation of the consequences of supplying the Wehrmacht traded in food “from the country”. Most historians see the famine plan as a deadly combination of racism and war economy . The National Socialist extermination policy in the form of a desired decimation of the Slavic population was therefore combined with an accepted and justified by the actors self-generated constraints of the ruthless war economy for the benefit of the Wehrmacht and the German Reich.

Planning of food supply and hunger

Herbert Backe (1942)

During the First World War , Germany had serious problems with the food supply . In World War II they were faced with a similar situation. Despite the costly " production battles " of German agriculture , the Reich's agricultural production was not sufficient for self-sufficiency (compare agriculture and agricultural policy in the German Reich (1933–1945) ). On February 14, 1940, Herbert Backe , State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture , declared that the "collapse of the food industry in the course of the second year of the war, as in 1918" was threatening.

Backe, who headed the nutrition business group in the four-year plan , was of the opinion that the German nutrition problem could be solved with the imminent attack on the Soviet Union. However, since calculations by the agricultural management showed that there were no major surpluses in the Soviet Union, a strategy for the treatment of the Soviet population was drawn up in order to press as much food out of the country as possible and at the same time to promote the National Socialist war of annihilation in the east. By separating the subsidy areas, especially the large industrial areas, from their nutritional base, "surpluses" of grain alone amounting to 8.7 million tons for German consumption should be achieved. According to the historian Christian Gerlach , the National Socialist economic management in the east was an instrument of mass extermination.

Minutes of the meeting of state secretaries, May 2, 1941

Evidence of the existence of such a strategy comes from a number of documents drawn from the planning staffs of state and party authorities and speeches at ministerial level. Seven weeks before the German attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941, a memo about a meeting of several state secretaries and leading officers of the Wehrmacht on May 2, 1941 on the economic consequences of the planned Operation Barbarossa for the war economy said:

“1.) The war can only be continued if the entire armed forces are fed from Russia in the third year of the war.
2.) There is no doubt that tens of millions of people will starve to death if we get what we need out of the country. "

The importance of this meeting of the state secretaries and especially Backes is reflected in the diary entries of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels . So Goebbels noted the day before the meeting:

“Backe tells me the state of our diet. Meat must be reduced by 100 grams per week from June 2nd. The Wehrmacht is too well off and consumes too much [...] In bread we can hope to get through if there is no harvest crisis [...] If we get a third year of war, then we consume the last reserves on the bread [...] by the way, his department is masterful . He does what is actually possible. "

A few days after the meeting, Goebbels saw the problems as solved:

"Backe explains the nutritional situation. As he reported to me a few days ago. Some additional information that justifies optimism. If only this year's harvest turns out well. And then we want to bump into our health in the east. "

In his 1999 study on German occupation policy in Belarus , Christian Gerlach pointed out that this document "had hardly been recognized in its full scope for the ensuing occupation policy in the Soviet Union [...]". In 2006, the background to the discussion was examined more closely by the British historian Alex J. Kay and placed in the context of economic planning for German occupation policy.

Since no list of participants was found for the meeting, Kay comes to the conclusion, after comparing various sources, including diaries, diaries and delivery of the minutes, that “Generals Thomas and Schubert as recipients of the minutes of the meeting and, on the one hand, a leading member of the management team Ost (Thomas) and on the other side of the Eastern Economic Staff (Schubert) attended the meeting on May 2nd. As State Secretaries (or Undersecretaries of State) and members of the Eastern Economic Management Staff, Körner (Goering's deputy), Backe, von Hanneken , Alpers and Syrup were most likely also present. Depending on whether Rosenberg's diary entries were correct, Rosenberg, Jodl , Meyer , Schlotterer and Riecke can be viewed as likely participants. "

Economic Policy Guidelines, Agriculture Group, May 23, 1941

The "Economic Policy Guidelines for Economic Organization East, Agriculture Group" of May 23, 1941 form the written version of the conclusions which the State Secretaries' meeting had come to three weeks earlier. In the introductory sentences, they show the planners' view that the Soviet Union's grain surpluses have declined sharply because the Soviet Union now has thirty million more people to feed, especially in the big cities, than it was during the Russian Empire . The guidelines state:

"Russia [...] delivered [...] annually on the average of the years 1909/13 approx. 11 million tons of grain […] Today Russia delivers only very small fractions of this export, and only grain, on average 1 to a maximum of 2 million tons per year […] The explanation for these contradictions can be found in the following: 1 .) The total population has increased from 140 million in 1914 to 170.5 million in 1939. In particular, the urban population of approx. 10% to approx. 30% of the total population increased. [...] This marks the most essential part of the problem. Russia's grain surpluses are not determined by the amount of the harvest, but by the amount of self-consumption. […] This fact is the key point on which our actions and our economic policies have to be built. Because: [...] Since Germany resp. Europe needs surpluses under all circumstances, so consumption must be reduced accordingly. […] In contrast to the previously occupied territories, this lowering of consumption is also feasible because the main surplus area is spatially sharply separated from the main subsidy area. [...] The excess areas are in the black earth area (ie in the south, southeast) and in the Caucasus. The subsidy areas are essentially in the forest zone in the north ( Podzolboden ). [...] The population of these areas, especially the population of the cities, will have to face the greatest famine . [...] Many tens of millions of people will become redundant in this area and will either die or have to emigrate to Siberia . "

Excerpt from Backe's “12 Commandments” of June 1, 1941, marked as a secret matter of command

While these economic policy guidelines were only circulated as internal paper and in the management positions of the Eastern Economic Staff, Backe informed the local agricultural commissioner about their most important content in his “district agricultural guide folder” dated June 1, 1941. This brochure, known in the literature as the “Yellow Folder”, contained the most important contents of the guidelines of May 23, 1941 in condensed form and was distributed to over 10,000 agricultural guides. Backe enclosed the 12 commandments for agricultural leaders that he himself had signed . In it, Göring's nutritionist stated that the goal was "to make the population [...] our tool", whereby the central question of every decision was: "What is the use of Germany?" So that no false scruples interfered in answering this question, he stated in the 11th commandment: “Russian people have endured poverty, hunger and frugality for centuries. His stomach is flexible, so no false pity. "

The Ukraine and the Caucasus were the Hauptüberschuss- and North and Central Russia, the main deficit areas. On June 20, 1941, two days before the attack on the Soviet Union, the Reich Minister- designate for the occupied Eastern Territories , Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg , declared in a "big, far-reaching speech" to representatives of the Wehrmacht, the state and the party:

“In these years, the German people's nutrition is undoubtedly at the forefront of German demands in the East, and here the southern regions and the North Caucasus will have to compensate for the German people's nutrition. We absolutely do not see the obligation to feed the Russian people from these surplus areas. We know this is a hard necessity that is outside of any feeling. A very extensive evacuation will undoubtedly be necessary and Russia will certainly face very difficult years. "

Göring's guidelines for the management of the economy (“Green Map”), June 1941

The economic policy guidelines also found their way into the guidelines for the management of the economy in the newly occupied Eastern Territories , the " Green Map ", which was published by Hermann on June 16, 1941 - immediately before the attack - as the official manual for the future economic administration in the occupied Soviet Union Goering was published. The first edition of the “Green Folder” was 1000 copies, the second a month later 2000. With regard to the size of the distribution list, the language used in the “Green Folder” was necessarily more cautious than in the Economic Policy Guidelines. Nevertheless, the content of the two documents is largely the same. They contained "in addition to the organizational regulations a precise implementation of the principles that had been laid down by the State Secretaries on May 2, 1941". The provisions of the “Green Portfolio” envisaged both the extensive de-industrialization of the occupied Soviet territories and the diversion of their food - away from supplying the Soviet cities to the needs of the Wehrmacht and the German population. On the part of the Wehrmacht leadership, the head of the Armed Forces and Armaments Office, General Georg Thomas, was responsible for the planning on behalf of Göring.

On the consequences of the economic exploitation for which he was responsible in the occupied Soviet territories, Göring told the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano in November 1941:

“This year between 20 and 30 million people will starve to death in Russia. And maybe that's a good thing, because certain peoples have to be decimated. "

The prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials held Hermann Göring, who was responsible for the economic plans in the occupied Soviet territories, the minutes of the state secretaries' meeting of May 2, 1941 and the “Green Map” of June 1941 which he had published. According to the text of the judgment, he was condemned to death, among other things, for his economic policy guidelines, both for “looting and destroying all industries in the food-poor areas” and for “diverting food from the surplus areas to satisfy German needs”.

Several pieces of evidence suggest that the famine plan was intended to kill 30 million people. As can be seen from the economic policy guidelines, the approach to nutrition issues had "the approval of the highest authorities", that is, Hitler , Göring and the Reichsführer SS and Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Volkstum Heinrich Himmler .

It is clear that the economic exploitation of the Soviet territories deprived millions of people of their food sources and that many civilians died of starvation as a result. Since the number of troops available to Germany was too small, there was no quick victory in the east contrary to German expectations and the military situation for Germany became increasingly unfavorable as a result, the plans of the Nazi bureaucracy could not be fully implemented, argued in 2006 Historian Alex J. Kay : Soon after the attack, it turned out that it would not be possible to cordon off entire areas and starve millions of people in this way. The hunger plan would therefore not have been implemented in practice as it was conceived.

Effects of hunger planning

Starved Soviet prisoners of war in Mauthausen concentration camp

In their final report "War Economy in the Operations Area of ​​the East in the Years 1941–1943", the planners of the Eastern Economic Staff calculated that grain production in the occupied territories fell from 23.2 million tons before the war to 11.7 million tons in 1942. Millions more tons of food for the Wehrmacht and German population were then pressed from this already halved grain volume. The Reich Statistical Office recorded that by the summer of 1943 the German occupying power had extracted the following quantities of food from the conquered parts of the Soviet Union: 4,372,339 tons of grain, 495,643 tons of meat, 723,450 tons of edible oils and fats, and 1,895,775 tons of potatoes. In addition, according to contemporary statisticians, to a lesser extent "the products directly won or captured by the troops" as well as "the supply of the German nationals deployed in the east" and the like. a. “Officials, followers of Eastern companies.” On this database, Götz Aly arrives at a nutritional value of a total of 106,268,262 grain units for stolen food . Since a person needs 2.5 grain units per year to survive, arithmetically 21.2 million people would have been deprived of their nutritional basis, which in the reality of the war meant a famine for many millions of people.

According to more recent information, 17 million Soviet civilians perished in the German-Soviet war, of which around seven million were mainly due to hunger and unbearable living conditions. Overall, "half of all Soviet civilians under German occupation starved," says Christian Hartmann , historian at the Institute for Contemporary History . The worst were the people in Leningrad , the Donets Basin , northeast Ukraine, the Crimea and in the cities in general. By the end of 1942, 14,000 people had starved to death in the city of Kharkov alone . Due to the early failure of the Blitzkrieg , the territorial policy of sealing off so-called surplus and subsidy areas had to be modified and turned into a selective and murderous hunger policy, especially against the Jewish population and the Soviet prisoners of war. Instead of the calculated 30 million starvation deaths, between four and seven million people were starved to death. The effects of food deprivation were also mitigated by the fact that the United States of America supplied large quantities of food sufficient to "provide every Soviet soldier with an estimated half a pound of concentrated food per day throughout the war." The Eastern European historian Timothy Snyder estimates the number of Soviet citizens who the German occupiers deliberately starved to death in the territories they occupied between 1941 and 1944 at 4.2 million.

In addition to the inhabitants of sealed-off cities, especially Leningrad with around one million starvation deaths, primarily people who were at the lower end of the food hierarchy because of their racial value according to Nazi ideology or considerations of usefulness in the war economy were victims of hunger planning: Soviet prisoners of war , Jews , Disabled and psychiatric patients . Of the 5.7 million Red Army soldiers in German captivity, around 3.1 million died; 2.6 million of them starved and died during the marches. These people, according to Timothy Snyder, “were either deliberately murdered or deliberately intended to starve them to death. If it had n't been for the Holocaust , it would be remembered as the worst war crime of modern times. "

Hunger plan or hunger policy - historical location

The Brazilian expert on world food problems Josué de Castro wrote as early as 1952, when he was chairman of the Executive Council of the UN World Food Organization , “the Third Reich [introduced] food discrimination [...] The hunger plan organized by the Third Reich had a scientific basis and a clear goal. It should be a powerful weapon of war that should be used fully and effectively as possible. "First the American historian used by history scientific side Alexander Dallin , mutatis mutandis, the hunger plan -term. In his occupation study German Rule in Russia , which was awarded the Wolfson Prize for History, in 1957 he defined the planned robbery of food from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union as the “geopolitics of hunger” and described this policy with the economic policy guidelines of May 23, 1941 as a “plan on which the economic staff and the Rosenberg Ministry agreed ”.

Adam Tooze , British historian and specialist in economic history under National Socialism, uses the term hunger plan and defines it as a " mass murder project [...] which openly involved the murder of millions upon millions of people within the first twelve months of the occupation." In the book Vordenker der Vernichtung , published in 1991, Götz Aly and Susanne Heim , like Gerlach, also speak of a plan .

In Hitler's people's state , Aly prefers the term “hunger policy”. This term is also used by Alex J. Kay. Rolf-Dieter Müller uses this term to characterize the current state of research: “Newer research supports the key role of hunger policy for the Nazi occupation and extermination policy.” The Eastern European historian Hans-Heinrich Nolte sums up 2009 on the same conceptual basis: “That Third Reich developed a conscious hunger policy with the aim of starving 'tens of millions' of Eastern Europeans in order to feed their own army from the occupied territories of the USSR, to make profits for the finances of the Reich and also to depopulate for settlements in the long term. About six million Soviet citizens fell victim to this policy. "

A starvation victim suffering from marasmus in besieged Leningrad

The Eastern European historian Jörg Ganzenmüller locates the Leningrad blockade from 1941 to 1944, in which around one million people perished, “in the concept of German hunger policy”, which “was closely related to the genocide of the Leningraders”. According to Ganzenmüller, this concept envisaged the extensive de-industrialization and destruction of the major Soviet cities. This is the context in which Adolf Hitler's statement, noted in his diary on July 8, 1941, by the Chief of Staff Franz Halder stands :

"The Fuehrer's firm decision is to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground in order to prevent people from staying in them, whom we would then have to feed in winter."

According to Dieter Pohl's study of the rule of the Wehrmacht, the inhabitants of the Soviet Union were seen as "second class people". “The decisive factor in Backe's hunger plan [was] the calculation that a considerable part of the Soviet population would starve to death or would have to flee to the east [...] The fact that these gigantic crime plans were seriously discussed with the Wehrmacht is shown by the level of international law in German war planning from spring 1941 ".

According to the Canadian Holocaust researcher Robert Gellately , the "Hunger Plan", which received "Hitler's blessing," "took shape that foreseen the greatest deliberate famine in human history."

For the Yale historian Timothy Snyder, the “Hunger Plan” is one of the four largest crime projects of the Nazi leadership, which it intended to implement in utopian proportions from the summer of 1941:

“A blitzkrieg that would destroy the Soviet Union within a few weeks; a starvation plan that would kill 30 million people from starvation in a few months; a final solution by which Europe's Jews should disappear after the war; and a General Plan East , which would make the west of the Soviet Union a German colony. "

Criticism and positions of research

The extent to which the planning was a dedicated hunger plan that was to be implemented at all levels has not been conclusively clarified in the research. Most historians assume a connection between the National Socialist extermination policy in the form of a desired decimation of the Slavic population with the needs of the German war economy and its self-created constraints. The forecasted millions of starvation deaths of the Soviet population were accepted and justified as an apparently inevitable consequence of these war economic guidelines:

“Neither the OKW nor the agricultural management gave much thought to the foreseeable starvation of many millions of Soviet citizens . On the contrary, this prognosis led to a radicalization of the measures, because it had to be prevented that the people sentenced to starvation became a security problem and endangered economic management. Apart from such apparent practical constraints, the ideological blindness in the leading circles of the Third Reich was not suitable in this case to encourage any scruples about the hunger strategy. "

The military historian Rolf-Dieter Müller , however, doubts that one “can start from a downright 'hunger plan' that stringently linked the various considerations and activities of various departments.” Müller is of the opinion that the Wehrmacht as an institution is deeply involved in mass murder through the food issue and holocaust is involved. It was not just a question of the will to put one's own needs first when exploiting the East.

"The fact that the hunger policy towards the Soviet civilian population and the prisoners of war was linked to a concrete intention to exterminate, at least for the political leadership of the Third Reich."

The American Holocaust researcher Christopher Browning and his German colleague Jürgen Matthäus, head of the research department at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , see no contradiction, but rather a connection between ideologically motivated extermination intentions to decimate the Slavic population and war economic objectives, which they based on the protocol of the State Secretaries - Explain the meeting of May 2, 1941:

“From the very beginning, the economic plans for 'Operation Barbarossa' envisaged immense population losses. They were prepared not only to passively accept civilian victims, but also to bring them about actively [...]. The way of thinking of the planners of the German occupation policy in the Soviet Union emerges clearly from this protocol. The decision in favor of the deliberate death of a large part of the local population disguised the writing as a logical, almost inevitable consequence of the events, in order to then quickly move on to practical questions. This seemingly sterile, factual attitude resulted from a thoroughly racist way of thinking, to which any concern for human life was alien as long as it was not about those chosen ones who were considered to be members of the German people. "

The historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler emphasized in 2009 that even “General Georg Thomas, the cool technocratic head of the Armed Forces Office, declared the war to be feasible in May 1941 only if the entire army was fed from Russia, and he accepted as a result Combat strategy that at least tens of millions of people will starve there. "

In 2004, Klaus Jochen Arnold, on the role of the Wehrmacht in the occupation policy in "Operation Barbarossa", took the view that there was no question of targeted mass extermination through economic exploitation, i.e. a hunger plan . Before the start of the war, “there was no general 'hunger plan' laid down in accordance with orders”, so Arnold, “but Hitler and Herbert Backe's intentions to starve millions”, but the actual hunger situation was primarily the result of mutually radicalizing warfare. The historian Gert C. Lübbers criticized in 2010 that the Hunger Plan was not an essential part of the conduct of the war, but should only be implemented after its successful conclusion, primarily in the post-war period, similar to the General Plan East. According to Lübbers and Arnold, the importance of the meeting of the state secretaries on May 2, 1941, was overestimated. Your minutes reflect statements from a working session, not resolutions. In addition, the designated East Minister Rosenberg did not take part in the meeting. In 2012, the editors of a volume of documents on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in German custody criticized that the sources submitted by Christian Gerlach and other sources did not substantiate a hunger plan for the murder of captured Red Army soldiers. Rather, the sources show “that their food was deliberately drastically restricted” and, with regard to the mass death, indicates “accepting acceptance, and in specific decision-making cases also conscious calculations that are linked to contextual factors”, which the authors understand primarily as the failed Blitzkrieg .

In his history of the economy of National Socialism , Adam Tooze classified the minutes of the state secretaries' meeting of May 2, 1941 as "one of the most extraordinary administrative documents in the history of the 'Third Reich'" - ​​in particular the phrase "this will undoubtedly starve tens of millions of people" , stand for a language that was "many times more blunt [...] than when dealing with the 'Jewish question'."

Alex J. Kay shared Gerlach's views with regard to approval within the Nazi and military leadership and the great importance of the procedure for German politics in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that the planning was not well thought out to be described as a plan that could be operationalized in detail. Kay recognized a starvation concept with rough, but inadequate detailed planning. There was no clear idea among the economic planners exactly where and, above all, how this lockdown strategy was to be implemented.

Christopher Browning and Jürgen Matthäus refer in their standard work The Origins of the Final Solution in the relevant chapter "Economic and demographic preparations for 'Operation Barbarossa'" mainly to Christian Gerlach's research, the results of which they largely adopt. They leave no doubt that, when viewed as a whole, the plans corresponded to the ideas of the Nazi leadership. However, in a footnote specifically to Gerlach's presentation of the “Economic Policy Guidelines of 23 May” 1941, you criticize that in his otherwise “excellent case study on Belarus” in this document he overlooks “how vague the reference to 'highest positions' is” and that Gerlach tends to overestimate the “consequences of the pre-war plans for the living conditions of the local population”. For Timothy Snyder it is very clear that Hitler himself fully supported the guidelines of May 23, 1941. In contrast to the famine in the Ukraine ( Holodomor ) caused by Josef Stalin through forced collectivization and deculakization , which was brought about "first as an unwanted result of inefficiency and excessive grain sales quotas, then as a deliberate consequence of vengeful requisitions in late 1932 and early 1933", applied to the German Hunger Plan 1941: "Hitler, on the other hand , planned the starvation of the unwanted Soviet population in advance ." The 1941 Hunger Plan was official German policy; he "envisaged the restoration of a pre-industrial Soviet Union with far fewer inhabitants, little industry and no large cities".

Johannes Hürter finally came to the conclusion that one should speak of a hunger calculus, because “that such a radical economic plundering would destroy the livelihoods of the local population and result in the starvation of 'tens of millions' Russians was not firmly programmed, but it was With the exception of the Leningrad blockade , hunger was not used as a weapon or a means to exploit the occupied country, but was seen as an “inevitable consequence of an economic improvement in one's own troops and homeland”. Such results would certainly not put into perspective the consequences of this “haphazard acceptance of hunger”, the criminal consequences of this policy, in which military-strategic and economic calculations were combined with the National Socialist ideology of race and living space . Christian Hartmann, Hürter's colleague at the Institute for Contemporary History, interprets the “stupendous equanimity” with which the planners “counted the starvation of tens of millions of people [...] before the campaign began” as a connection between “economic and genocidal planning”.

The military historians Michael Epkenhans and John Zimmermann summed up in 2019 that the "starvation of millions of Soviet civilians was already factored in before the attack" and that in the course of the war "an estimated seven million Soviet civilians fell victim to the catastrophic living conditions, but above all to starvation". - “It was only gradually”, according to Epkenhans and Zimmermann, “that the correct classification prevailed that hunger policy was intended to play a key role in the war of extermination”.

literature

  • Götz Aly, Susanne Heim: thought leaders of annihilation. Auschwitz and the German plans for a new European order. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-455-08366-8 .
  • Wigbert Benz: Calculus and Ideology - The hunger project in the "Operation Barbarossa" 1941. In: Klaus Kremb (Hrsg.): Weltordnungskonzepte. Hopes and Disappointments of the 20th Century. Wochenschau, Schwalbach am Taunus 2010, ISBN 978-3-89974-543-6 , pp. 19–37 ( excerpt ).
  • Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941. wvb, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86573-613-0 .
  • Alexander Dallin: German rule in Russia 1941–1945. A Study of Occupation Policy . Königstein 1981 (unchanged reprint of the 1958 edition by Droste Verlag. Title of the American original edition German Rule in Russia 1941–1945. A Study of Occupation Policies . New York 1957), ISBN 3-7610-7242-2 .
  • Jörg Ganzenmüller: The besieged Leningrad 1941 to 1944. The city in the strategies of attackers and defenders (= war in history. Vol. 22. Ed. By Stig Förster, Bernhard R. Kroener , Bernd Wegner with the support of the Military History Research Office Potsdam ) , 2nd edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-506-72889-0 .
  • Christian Gerlach: War, Food, Genocide. Research on German extermination policy in World War II . Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-930908-39-5 .
  • Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and annihilation policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-930908-54-9 .
  • Christian Hartmann: Company Barbarossa. The German War in the East 1941–1945. CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61226-8 .
  • Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Army Leader: The German Commanders-in-Chief in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57982-7 (sources and representations on contemporary history, volume 66).
  • Alex J. Kay: Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder. Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. Berghahn Books, New York / Oxford 2006, ISBN 1-84545-186-4 (= Studies on War and Genocide 10).
  • Alex J. Kay: Starving as a Strategy for Mass Murder. The meeting of the German State Secretaries on May 2, 1941 . In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 11, 2010, Issue 1, pp. 81-105 (translated and revised version by: Alex J. Kay: Germany's State Secretaries, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941. In: Journal of Contemporary History 41, 2006, No. 4, pp. 685-700).
  • Gert C. Lübbers: Wehrmacht and economic planning for the company "Barbarossa". German policy of exploitation in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union during the Second World War . Dissertation, University of Münster 2010. PDF ( Memento from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  • Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . In: The German Reich and the Second World War . Edited by Military History Research Office. Vol. 4. The attack on the Soviet Union . German publishing company. Stuttgart 1983. ISBN 3-421-06098-3 , pp. 98-189.
  • Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 11, p. 174-199 and. P. 419, ISBN 978-3-406-62184-0 ; English language edition: Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin . The Bodley Head, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-224-08141-2 , pp. Xiv, 162-188 and others. P. 411.
  • Christian Streit: No comrades: The Wehrmacht and the Soviet prisoners of war 1941–1945 . Bonn 1997 (new edition). ISBN 978-3-8012-5023-2 .
  • Adam Tooze: Economics of Destruction. The history of the economy under National Socialism. Translated from the English by Yvonne Badal. Siedler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1 (new edition Pantheon, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-570-55056-7 ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . In: The German Reich and the Second World War. Volume 4. Stuttgart 1983, ed. from the Military History Research Office, p. 103.
  2. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation , p. 148.
  3. ^ Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1999, passim.
  4. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 (hereinafter: IMG), Vol. 31, Nuremberg 1948, p. 84, Doc. 2718-PS, memo on the result of the Meeting today with the State Secretaries about Barbarossa , May 2, 1941.
  5. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels . On behalf of the Institute for Contemporary History, ed. by Elke Fröhlich. Part I: Records 1923-1941. Volume 9: December 1940 to July 1941. Saur, Munich 1998, p. 283 f. (Diary entry from May 1, 1941).
  6. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels . On behalf of the Institute for Contemporary History, ed. by Elke Fröhlich. Part I: Records 1923-1941. Volume 9: December 1940 to July 1941. Saur, Munich 1998, p. 293 f. (Diary entry from May 6, 1941); Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, p. 34.
  7. ^ Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944 , Hamburg 1999, p. 46.
  8. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Germany's State Secretaries, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of May 2, 1941 . In: Journal of Contemporary History 41, 2006, No. 4, pp. 685-700; German, revised version: Starving as a strategy of mass murder. The meeting of the German State Secretaries on May 2, 1941 . In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 11, 2010, Issue 1, pp. 81-105.
  9. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Starving as a Strategy for Mass Murder. The meeting of the German State Secretaries on May 2, 1941 . In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 11, 2010, issue 1, pp. 81-105, here: p. 95.
  10. ↑ IMG, Vol. 36, Nuremberg 1949, pp. 135–157, Doc. 126-EC: Economic Policy Guidelines for Economic Organization East, Agriculture Group , 23 May 1941, here: pp. 135, 136, 138, 141, 145.
  11. ^ Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, p. 40.
  12. ^ Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, p. 40; for figures Rolf-Dieter Müller: Hitler's Eastern War and the German settlement policy. The cooperation between the armed forces, business and the SS . Frankfurt a. M. 1991, p. 99.
  13. ↑ 12 Commandments for the Conduct of the Germans in the East and the Treatment of the Russians , June 1, 1941. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär u. Wolfram Wette (Ed.): "Operation Barbarossa". The German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. Reports, analyzes, documents . Schöningh, Paderborn 1984, p. 380 ff. (= Document 37)
  14. ^ Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist . Blessing, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89667-148-0 , p. 520 f.
  15. ↑ IMG, Vol. 26, Nuremberg 1947, pp. 610–627, Doc. 1058-PS: Speech by Reichsleiter A. Rosenberg to those most closely involved in the Eastern Problem on June 20, 1941 , here: p. 622.
  16. ^ Robert Gibbons: General guidelines for the political and economic administration of the occupied eastern territories . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , vol. 25, 1977, issue 2, pp. 252–261, for distribution on June 16, 1941 see p. 254. ( PDF )
  17. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder. Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. Berghahn Books, New York / Oxford 2006, p. 164 (for the 1st edition in June 1941) and P. 175 note 39 (on the 2nd edition in July 1941).
  18. ↑ IMG, Vol. 28, Nuremberg 1948, pp. 3–26, Doc. 1743-PS: Guidelines for the management of the economy in the newly occupied eastern areas ("Green Map"), Part I: Tasks and organization of the economy. Berlin, June 1941 , here p. 3 f.
  19. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . In: The German Reich and the Second World War. Vol. 4. The attack on the Soviet Union , pp. 98–189, here p. 147.
  20. ^ Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, pp. 40–44.
  21. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Germany's State Secretaries, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of May 2, 1941 . In: Journal of Contemporary History 41, 2006, No. 4, pp. 685-700.
  22. ^ Czesław Madajczyk: The Occupation Policy of Nazi Germany in Poland 1939-1945 . Berlin 1987, p. 92.
  23. ↑ IMG, Vol. 1, Nuremberg 1947, p. 316 ff., Quotation p. 317; Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, p. 53 ff.
  24. ↑ See Alex J. Kay: Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder. Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. Berghahn Books, New York / Oxford 2006, ISBN 1-84545-186-4 (Studies on War and Genocide 10), pp. 162-163; Adam Tooze: Economics of Destruction. The history of the economy under National Socialism , p. 553 f .; Peter Longerich : Politics of Annihilation. An overall presentation of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews . Munich 1998, p. 298.
  25. ↑ IMG, Vol. 36, p. 140; Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1999, p. 49 ff.
  26. ↑ Cf. Alex J. Kay: Germany's State Secretaries, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941 . In: Journal of Contemporary History 41, 2006, No. 4, pp 685-700, here: p 699 f.
  27. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller (ed.): German economic policy in the occupied Soviet territories 1941–1943. The final report of the East Economic Staff and notes from a member of the Kiev Economic Command . Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1991, p. 444.
  28. ↑ RFM (= Reich Ministry of Finance ): Significance of the occupied eastern territories according to the German import and export statistics (Ostbilanz) , July 30, 1943. In: BA (=  Federal Archives ), signature R 2/30675, according to Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism . Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 203.
  29. ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism , p. 203.
  30. ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism , pp. 203–205.
  31. ↑ Hans-Heinrich Nolte: Small history of Russia . Stuttgart 1998, p. 259 f.
  32. ^ Christian Hartmann: Operation Barbarossa. The German War in the East 1941–1945 . Munich 2011, p. 77.
  33. ^ Christian Hartmann: Operation Barbarossa. The German War in the East 1941–1945 . Munich 2011, p. 77 f.
  34. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann: The failure of the hunger plan and the practice of selective hunger policy in the German war against the Soviet Union . In: Christoph Dieckmann / Babette Quinkert, Babette (Ed.): Warfare and Hunger 1939–1945. On the relationship between military, economic and political interests . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1492-4 , pp. 88–122, here p. 120.
  35. ^ Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, p. 63.
  36. ↑ Richard Overy : Russian War 1941-1945 . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2003, p. 303 f.
  37. ↑ Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 419.
  38. ^ Wigbert Benz: The hunger plan in "Operation Barbarossa" 1941 . Berlin 2011, p. 67 ff.
  39. ↑ Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt a. M. 2005, p. 351 f.
  40. ↑ Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 196.
  41. ↑ Timothy Snyder: “ The Holocaust. The hidden reality ( memento of the original from October 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ". In: Eurozine , February 18, 2010, printed in: Transit , Heft 38, 2009, pp. 6–19, quoted on p. 9. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eurozine.com
  42. ^ Josué de Castro: Geopolitics of Hunger . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1973, p. 329 f.
  43. ↑ Alexander Dallin: German rule in Russia 1941-1945. A Study of Occupation Policy . Königstein 1981 (unchanged reprint of the 1958 edition by Droste Verlag. Title of the American original edition German Rule in Russia 1941–1945. A Study of Occupation Policies . New York 1957), pp. 322–325.
  44. ↑ Adam Tooze: Economy of Destruction. The history of the economy under National Socialism . Siedler Verlag, Munich 2006, p. 550.
  45. ↑ Götz Aly, Susanne Heim: Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz and the German plans for a new European order . Hamburg 1991, pp. 366-376.
  46. ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism . Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 195-206.
  47. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller: The Second World War 1939-1945 . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2004 (Gebhardt. Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte , edited by Wolfgang Benz , Vol. 21), p. 128.
  48. ↑ Hans-Heinrich Nolte: World history of the 20th century . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2009, p. 314.
  49. ↑ Jörg Ganzenmüller: The besieged Leningrad 1941 to 1944. The city in the strategies of attackers and defenders (= War in History. Vol. 22. Ed. By Stig Förster , Bernhard R. Kroener , Bernd Wegner with the support of the Military History Research Office Potsdam ), Schöningh, Paderborn, 2nd, through. Edition 2007, pp. 41–53, quotation, p. 49.
  50. ↑ Jörg Ganzenmüller: The besieged Leningrad 1941 to 1944. The city in the strategies of attackers and defenders , p. 33.
  51. ↑ Dieter Pohl: The Rule of the Wehrmacht: German Military Occupation and Local Population in the Soviet Union 1941–1944. Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-486-58065-5 , p. 65 f.
  52. ^ Robert Gellately: Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. Three dictators who led Europe into the abyss . Translated from the English by Heike Schlatterer and Norbert Juraschitz. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-7857-2349-4 , p. 575 f.
  53. ↑ Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 199.
  54. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . P. 149f.
  55. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller: The last German war 1939-1945 . Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-608-94133-9 , p. 93.
  56. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller: The 'Operation Barbarossa' as an economic predatory war . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär , Wolfram Wette (ed.): "Operation Barbarossa": The German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. Reports, analyzes, documents. Paderborn 1984, p. 186.
  57. ^ Christopher Browning: The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942 . With contributions by Jürgen Matthäus. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem 2004, p. 235; The unleashing of the "final solution". National Socialist Jewish Policy 1939–1942 . (with a contribution by Jürgen Matthäus) Propylaen, Berlin 2006, p. 348 (quoted afterwards); the relevant chapter 6.3 “Economic and demographic preparations [for the war of extermination]”, pp. 347–359, was written jointly by Christopher Browning and Jürgen Matthäus.
  58. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: The National Socialism. Movement, leadership, crime 1919–1945. CH Beck, Munich 2009, p. 182.
  59. ^ Klaus Jochen Arnold: The Wehrmacht and the Occupation Policy in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union. Warfare and radicalization in "Operation Barbarossa" . Berlin 2004 (Contemporary History Research 23); see. also the corresponding review in H-Soz-u-Kult ; see also Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Lübbers: The Meeting of the Staatssekretäre on May 2, 1941 and the Wehrmacht: A Document up for Discussion . In: Journal of Contemporary History 42 (October 2007), Issue 4, pp. 613–626.
  60. ^ Klaus Jochen Arnold: The Wehrmacht and the Occupation Policy in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union. Warfare and radicalization in "Operation Barbarossa" . Berlin 2004, pp. 92-101, pp. 321-325 and P. 535 f. (Quote).
  61. ^ Gert C. Lübbers: Wehrmacht and economic planning for the company "Barbarossa". German policy of exploitation in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union during the Second World War . Dissertation, University of Münster 2010, p. 11 ff. And P. 526 ff. PDF ( Memento from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  62. ^ Gert C. Lübbers: Wehrmacht and economic planning for the company "Barbarossa". German policy of exploitation in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union during the Second World War , pp. 177–186; see also Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Lübbers: The Meeting of the Staatssekretäre on May 2, 1941 and the Wehrmacht: A Document up for Discussion . In: Journal of Contemporary History 42 (October 2007), No. 4, pp. 613–626 and the answer by Alex J. Kay : Revisiting the Meeting of the State Secretaries on May 2, 1941: A Response to Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Luebbers . In: Journal of Contemporary History 43 (January 2008), pp. 93-104.
  63. ↑ Rüdiger Overmans , Andreas Hilger u. Pavel Polian : Red Army soldiers in German hands. Documents on the captivity, repatriation and rehabilitation of Soviet soldiers of the Second World War . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76545-1 , p. 31 f.
  64. ↑ Adam Tooze: Economy of Destruction. The history of the economy under National Socialism , p. 552.
  65. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder. Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. Berghahn Books, New York / Oxford 2006 (= Studies on War and Genocide 10), pp. 206–207.
  66. ^ Christopher Browning: The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942 . With contributions by Jürgen Matthäus, pp. 234–243; The unleashing of the "final solution". National Socialist Jewish Policy 1939–1942 (with a contribution by Jürgen Matthäus) Propylaen, Berlin 2006, pp. 347–359.
  67. ^ Christopher Browning: The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942 . With contributions by Jürgen Matthäus, p. 487, fn. 120; The unleashing of the "final solution". National Socialist Jewish Policy 1939–1942 . (with a contribution by Jürgen Matthäus), p. 694 f, fn. 107 (cited afterwards).
  68. ↑ Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 175 (emphasis in italics there).
  69. ↑ Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 176 f.
  70. ^ A b Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Army Leader: The German Commanders-in-Chief in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57982-7 (sources and representations on contemporary history, volume 66), p. 491.
  71. ^ Christian Hartmann: Operation Barbarossa. The German War in the East 1941–1945 . Munich 2011, p. 76.
  72. ↑ Michael Epkenhans / John Zimmermann: The Wehrmacht - War and Crime . Reclam, Ditzingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-15-011238-0 , pp. 68f.
  73. ↑ Cf. the short version Alex J. Kay: " The sure death ". In: Friday No. 29, July 22, 2010, p. 12.
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