Already at the first stage of the war, it was planned to exterminate 30 million Slavs

On December 18, 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 21 on the preparation and implementation of Plan Barbarossa. The day before, the Fuhrer, in a conversation with the Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, Jodl, especially insisted that Germany must “solve all problems on the European continent in 1941.” This would make it possible, the Fuehrer added, to attack the United States in 1942.

Speaking to the leaders of the Wehrmacht on January 9, 1941, Hitler said that the conquest of Russia would make Germany invulnerable to any enemy. According to the Fuhrer, the military defeat of Soviet Russia is inevitable. This will allow, he emphasized, to transfer troops from defeated Russia by August and re-engage with England.

We can safely say that the development of the concept of a “war of annihilation” against Russia is the fruit of the intellectual efforts of Hitler himself. He probably became somewhat delighted when he began to talk about the “terrible nature of the coming war.” The Fuhrer was sure that it was important not only to conquer the territory of the Soviet Union, but also to clear it of all kinds of “racial garbage” for subsequent total Germanization.

Hitler was a staunch supporter of the "Nordic" theory. “The formation of the Russian state,” he wrote in “Mein Kampf,” “was not the result of the state-political abilities of the Slavs, but was to a greater extent a wonderful example of the state-forming activity of the German element in an inferior race.”

The Norman theory was interpreted in Nazi Germany in such a way that aggression against the Soviet Union looked like the conquest of territories that originally belonged to the “German element.”

From this thesis naturally flowed for the Germans the “right” to “Germanization,” or more precisely, the “re-Germanization” of the eastern territories, that is, the “right” to the physical destruction of the entire population in the occupied territories.

Talk about “helots” was only an ideological cover for these monstrous plans.

Reichsführer Himmler, who showed great interest in the eastern lands (probably also affected by his agricultural education), learned the lessons of his Fuhrer well. He formulated his thesis this way: “As long as man exists on earth, the struggle between humans and subhumans is a historical necessity.”

At another meeting, which was held before the attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler again emphasized the “special character” of the war in the East. This should be, in his opinion, an “ideological war” and a “war of destruction.”

Plans for the physical destruction of tens of millions of people living on the territory of the Soviet Union constituted the main “secret” of Hitler’s plan. This was the true meaning of his “chosenness.” He took upon himself this monstrous sin, as he believed, for the sake of the future happiness of the German nation. And only the German nation. When some “experts” hastily compare the Soviet Union and Germany, they should pay attention to this circumstance.

Hitler, of course, could not completely hide his plans. It is amazing how easily these plans were accepted by the Wehrmacht leadership and its generals.

It’s funny to say that the German military knew nothing and were simply doing their duty. An attempt to deliberately kill tens of millions of innocent people does not fit in with the concept of any kind of nobility.

Moscow received reports of an impending German attack on the Soviet Union from numerous sources. It is difficult to imagine that Stalin completely ignored them. We can agree that Stalin was afraid of breaking the treaty with Germany. And we already know that for Hitler, concluding an agreement with Soviet Russia was a forced step, and he was greatly relieved when Germany violated the terms of this agreement. Public statements at that moment were of little importance, but on June 13, 1941, a TASS report said that rumors regarding the impending war with Germany were completely unfounded. This message also stated that the concentration of German troops near the borders of the Soviet Union is due to the fact that Germany wants to remove them from the attack of Anglo-American aviation.

Western historians believe that Stalin showed Zhukov a letter from Hitler in June 1941, and on June 14 a TASS statement appeared, which presented exactly the same arguments that were contained in the Fuhrer’s letter to Stalin.

At this time, everyone in Berlin was delighted that they had managed to outwit the Kremlin ruler. “Moscow published an official denial,” Goebbels writes in his diary. “They know nothing about preparations for an attack by the Reich. The movements of our troops supposedly serve other purposes. In any case, Moscow is doing nothing to counter such intentions. It's amazing!".

It was widely believed that Hitler underestimated the capabilities and level of technical equipment of the Red Army. This is partly true, but at the same time, on June 14, the Fuhrer warned his generals against underestimating the potential of the Soviet armed forces. However, there is no doubt that both Hitler and his military were contemptuous of their future enemy. The Fuhrer himself considered Soviet Russia a “bastion of world Jewry” that was to be completely destroyed. Soviet Russia seemed to Hitler as a “creepy” country, reminding him of the mysterious ship from Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman. Another of the Fuhrer’s sayings is often quoted: “We know absolutely nothing about Russia.” Of course, we cannot take such things literally; we do not know the context, and rather, these kinds of phrases indicate a certain state of mind. And yet, one cannot but agree that he had access to data on the state of the Soviet armed forces.

If anything prevented the Fuhrer from objectively assessing the situation, it was due to racial theories.

A little earlier, on January 19, 1941, Hitler summoned the Italian Duce to his Alpine residence Berghof. The latter, as a person not lacking insight, noted that Hitler was “very anti-Russian.” This anti-Russian sentiment was also due to the fact that the Fuhrer believed that after Stalin’s death, power in the Soviet Union would be able to be seized again by the Jews. That is, there were more than enough reasons for hatred.

The physical destruction of the population of the Soviet Union was a major component of the "Enterprise" or Plan Barbarossa. Himmler and Heydrich in their department at the beginning of the year developed plans for the destruction of 30 million Slavs in the first stage of the war. And this is only at the first stage. The leaders of the SS turn to Brauchitsch on this issue, counting on help from the Wehrmacht in implementing the “project.”

General Georg Thomas, the chief economic specialist of the Wehrmacht, after a meeting with Goering on February 26, notes that the plan is for “the rapid physical destruction of all Soviet leaders.” The number of people to be destroyed has not yet been specified. This freedom leaves great room for interpretation. This is what actually happened.

Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces Halder writes in his diary after a meeting with Hitler: “The intelligentsia appointed by Stalin must be destroyed. The control apparatus of the Russian Empire must be broken. On the territory of Great Russia, violence must be used in the most brutal form.”

The Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht ground forces, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, did not stand aside. In a memorandum sent to the troops, he, in particular, emphasized: “The troops must be clear that the upcoming war is a struggle of one race against another, and here it is necessary to act with the necessary cruelty.”

On March 30, 1941, Hitler invited 200 senior Wehrmacht officers to his Reich Chancellery. He once again emphasized that the upcoming war with the Soviet Union is a war of ideologies with all the ensuing consequences. The physical destruction of the Soviet intelligentsia and Bolshevik commissars is “not a job for military courts,” that is, it is a common task for the SS and the Wehrmacht. Unit commanders must know how to act. “Commissars and employees of the GPU are criminals. - Hitler noted, “and they must be dealt with accordingly.”

Hitler especially insisted that Wehrmacht officers and soldiers should not experience any problems with their conscience when performing this task.

None of the generals - and this is typical - protested. After the war, Brauchitsch stated that after this speech, several indignant officers allegedly approached him. Be that as it may, that was all. This episode once again suggests that at least the senior officers understood the criminal goals of the war against the Soviet Union. Also, after the end of the war, General Warlimont argued that the Wehrmacht generals did not protest, since by this time Hitler was allegedly able to convince them that the “Soviet commissars” were not soldiers, but “criminals.” Warlimont added that everyone was confident that the supreme commander and head of state “cannot do anything illegal.” On May 12, all these instructions on the physical destruction of representatives of the state and party apparatus in Soviet Russia were officially enshrined in the form of a corresponding decree.

To implement the Barbarossa plan, the necessary military and legal grounds were prepared. In other words, Wehrmacht soldiers were exempt from responsibility for killing the local population in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. It was possible to shoot partisans, all kinds of dissenters and instigators without trial or investigation. It was allowed to take hostages and “deal with them on the spot” using weapons. All these developments were collected and set out in the so-called “law on commissioners”, which was promulgated on May 13, 1941.

The English historian Ian Kershaw calls all this preparation for a criminal war against the Soviet Union “deliberate barbarism.” It is difficult to disagree with this, and it inexorably follows that the punishment for this type of crime should be extremely severe.

It can be said with a fair degree of confidence that the criminal nature of the “Commissar Law” was obvious to the majority of Wehrmacht officers, as well as to many soldiers.

On April 2, 1941, Hitler summoned Reichsleiter Rosenberg to appear. “Your great hour has come, Rosenberg,” - with these words Hitler ended a two-hour conversation with his plenipotentiary for worldview. The conversation partly took place in the winter garden, where the Fuhrer outlined his intentions regarding Soviet Russia.

We can only guess what exactly the Fuhrer said that day. Here is what Rosenberg himself says about this in his diary: “Then the Fuhrer outlined in detail the likely course of events in the east, but I will not write about that today. But I can never forget it."

Many believe that Hitler then initiated Rosenberg into his plans for the physical destruction of the population of Soviet Russia.

Of course, Hitler planned to destroy the Jews living on the territory of the Soviet Union. But even if we take the working figures of the planned genocide, that is, 35-50 million, then this figure clearly exceeds the number of victims of the Holocaust.

50 million was a “working” preliminary figure, which was used at the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union by a variety of organizations of the Third Reich, not least the Office for Strengthening the German Nationality under the leadership of Reichsführer Himmler.

In his diary entry about the meeting, Rosenberg uses the word “millions” several times. Millions, he says, will curse the implementation of the Fuhrer’s plans, but “what do we care if the immediate future blesses us with a great Germany to come.” We can say that Rosenberg is trying to use this future to hide his mental turmoil, unconsciously repeating “millions ... millions.” The tasks before the armchair “ideologist” were now set to be completely different. With his direct participation, millions of people must be exterminated for the future happiness of the German people.

A very characteristic admission regarding the true nature of the plans for the resettlement of people in German-occupied territory was made by the head of the special department for racial policy in the Eastern Ministry, Erhard Wetzel. He openly stated that at the first stage of military operations against Soviet Russia, 31 million people from the “alien” population, including 5-6 million Jews, should be “destroyed through resettlement.”

The start of military operations in the eastern direction was planned for April. However, the Fuhrer was forced to postpone the start of the operation, which he informed Rosenberg about. He, in turn, said that the harvest begins in Ukraine on June 20. Therefore, Rosenberg reported, the offensive should begin either on June 20 or a few weeks after this date.

“From a practical point of view,” Rosenberg writes in his diary, “the Fuhrer places at my disposal the fate of such a large territory, which, in his own words, represents a “continent” with a population of 180 million inhabitants, of which about 100 million live directly in our area of ​​operations." It is not clear whether Rosenberg speaks with enthusiasm about the millions, or whether he is gradually realizing the task set before him. Rosenberg even opened the atlas of the Niedermayer publishing house in order to better imagine the true scale of the tasks assigned to him by the Fuhrer.

There were no protests from the military, just as there were none during punitive actions against the civilian population in Poland. In fact, the Wehrmacht has already become an accomplice in all these crimes.

General Hoepner understood well what was required of him. On May 2, 1941, he made the following entry in his diary: “The war against Russia is an inevitable consequence of the struggle for existence imposed on us. This is the old struggle of the Germans against the Slavs, the defense of European culture against the Muscovite invasion, the defense against Jewish Bolshevism.

The goal of this war must be the destruction of modern Russia, and therefore it will be waged with unheard-of cruelty. Every combat action... must be carried out ruthlessly and with an iron will with the goal of completely destroying the enemy.

Especially there should be no mercy for representatives of the modern Russian-Bolshevik system.” General Hepner has no doubts about Hitler's plans for Russia. His reputation in history cannot be saved by the fact that he would later be associated with the opposition and participants in the assassination attempt on Hitler.

Let us also recall that on May 13, 1941, a special decree was issued releasing Wehrmacht soldiers from legal liability for crimes committed on the territory of Soviet Russia. In addition, on June 6, 1941, the “Commissars Law”, shameful for Germany, came into force. Thus, the Wehrmacht was directly and openly involved in carrying out openly criminal actions on our territory.

Of course, special functions were also assigned to the special forces of the SS and the Security Service. They were, among other things, given the task of destroying Jewry as “biological carriers of Bolshevism.”

It cannot be said that absolutely all the Wehrmacht generals were ready to implement these terrible laws that cover the German armed forces with indelible shame. But these were only exceptional cases, and everything was limited to the manifestation of disagreement in private. The career German diplomat Ulrich von Hassell learned from Colonel General Beck about these decrees. "By obeying these orders from Hitler, Brauchitsch sacrifices the honor of the German army." It should be said that von Hassell would also become a participant in the conspiracy against Hitler and was arrested and hanged on September 8, 1944.

The attack on the Soviet Union by Germany was supposed to begin earlier, but this was prevented by the need to conduct a military operation in May 1941 against Serbia and Greece. Hitler did this in order to support his Italian friend the Duce. The German Fuhrer sent a letter to him on the night of June 21-22 and informed him of the decision to attack Soviet Russia. “After making this decision, I feel internally free again. Cooperation with the Soviet Union, with all the justice of the intentions aimed at achieving a detente, nevertheless weighed heavily on me, because, to some extent, it seemed to me a break with my entire past, with my views and my previous obligations.

It cannot be said that Hitler was completely confident in himself... “I have a feeling,” he admitted on the night before the attack on the Soviet Union, “as if I were opening a door leading to some dark, previously unknown space, and I didn’t I know what lurks behind that door.”

In general, concluding a non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia was an extremely unpleasant necessity for Hitler. He did not even hide his feelings from the people he met in those days. Thus, in a conversation with the famous Swiss diplomat and historian Karl Burckhardt, the Fuhrer, in particular, noted: “Everything I do is directed against Russia. If the West is too stupid or too blind to understand this, then I will be forced to make an agreement with the Russians, turn around and strike at the West, and after its defeat, turn around and, combining my capabilities, attack Russia. I also need Ukraine, and then no one will be able to force us to starve, as was the case during the last war.”

In August of the same year, Hitler once again met with Burkhard at his Alpine residence and once again emphasized in a conversation with him: “I don’t need anything from the West, neither today nor tomorrow... But I must have free hands in the East.”

Having received Directive No. 21, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Walter von Brauchitsch, could not believe his eyes. He even asked Adjutant Engel to clarify with the Fuhrer whether he was really planning an attack on the Soviet Union, or was it just a bluff? In response to this, it was brought to the attention of Brauchitsch that the Fuhrer had never taken treaties with Soviet Russia seriously, since “the ideological abyss separating us is too great.” The goals of the Barbarossa plan were not entirely clear to the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, Colonel General Franz Halder. He also asked the Fuhrer to provide him with the appropriate explanations.

After the military defeat of France, both Brauchitsch and Halder greatly reduced their ambitions. They resigned themselves to the role of “technical executors” of the will of the Fuhrer of the German nation. Therefore, they did not protest, but only humbly asked to be properly informed.

This arrangement, of course, completely suited Hitler himself. “I became a commander against my will; I am only involved in military issues because at the moment there is no person who could do it better than me. If I had Moltke today, I would give him freedom of action.”

From Hitler’s point of view, of the states occupied by Germany in the east, only Finland could remain conditionally independent for some time. The remaining “states” received the status of commissariats. To their number was added another commissariat - Russia itself. The main task for the first period for these territories was to provide a satisfying life for the population of Germany. “We understand,” Rosenberg emphasized, “that this is due to a severe necessity that is beyond the scope of any feeling. Undoubtedly, all this will inevitably lead to the need for large-scale evacuation, and, of course, the Russian nation has difficult years ahead.”

All these are euphemisms, but even this German “humanism” makes your hair stand on end. It should not be forgotten that everyone in Germany understood this party dialect well. In this dialect, the word "evacuation" meant physical destruction. How else can one imagine the resettlement of millions of people beyond the Urals!

Christian Gerlach was developing a plan at this time, called “Hunger”. According to this plan, everything that will be grown in the vastness of the former Soviet Union will be eaten by the Germans.

The Germans needed land for the German plow, they did not need people. This is “severe necessity”.

The German historian Ernst Pieper, discussing the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, rightly notes that during the First World War, the actions of the Germans towards Russia differed significantly from what happened during the occupation of other countries, including Poland. German-occupied Russian territories remained under military rather than civilian command.

Two days after the meeting with the military (June 16), Hitler summoned Goebbels. The Minister of Propaganda was received warmly. The Fuhrer expressed his satisfaction regarding the bad weather - this means that the grain in the fields of Ukraine has not yet ripened. This means that the Germans will be able to capture the entire harvest. We also talked about Napoleon. Hitler intended not to repeat his mistakes, to quickly and lightningly defeat the Red Army and seize the territories of the Soviet Union. However, the mention of Napoleon rather indicated a certain amount of uncertainty - the Fuhrer was afraid to repeat the sad experience of the Corsican. Hitler was even pleased with the fact that the Russians concentrated so many divisions on the border with Germany. He believed that he could easily break through the defenses of the Red Army, and then completely destroy it.

The Fuhrer believed that the operation would take about four months. Goebbels was even more optimistic and expressed the opinion that the Bolshevik empire would “collapse like a house of cards.”

“Whether we are right or wrong,” Hitler said at the end of the conversation, “we must win. We are not given anything else. This is necessary and morally right. When we achieve victory, who will ask us about methods? In any case, we have already done so much that we need to win, otherwise our entire people - and first of all, ourselves with everything that is so dear to us - will be swept away."

At 2:30 am on June 22, 1941, Hitler told Goebbels that he now wanted to sleep for a couple of hours. The Minister of Propaganda went to his place, but could not sleep. At 5:30 a.m., that is, about two hours after the start of the artillery shelling of the border Soviet territories, “Russian fanfares” by composer Franz Liszt sounded on the radio. Goebbels read out Hitler's previously written address.

In this address, the Fuhrer once again emphasized that he intended to put an end to the Jewish rulers “in their Moscow Bolshevik headquarters.” In a slightly modified form, this appeal was also read out to those Wehrmacht soldiers who had already entered the territory of the Soviet Union.

Sergey Drozhzhin

Special for the Centenary

Victory in the war against the USSR was supposed, according to the plans of the Nazis, to provide them with undivided dominance on the European continent and fully satisfy Germany’s needs for food, raw materials and labor. Plans for the exploitation of the territory of the USSR were outlined in general terms by the German fascists even before they came to power, in the 20s. During the preparations for the attack on the USSR and immediately after the start of the Soviet-German war, these plans were concretized.

On May 25, 1940, Reichsführer SS Himmler presented Hitler with written considerations regarding the treatment of the local population of the eastern regions. "Considerations" were approved by Hitler and approved by him as a directive. This strictly secret document was given for reading against signature to the narrowest circle of people directly related to the implementation of German policy in the occupied lands of Poland, as well as to several senior officials of the Reich, including Hess, Darre, Lammers and Bormann. As is clear from other documents of a later time, it was a question of a master plan for the Germanization of the population of Poland and the Soviet Union, the so-called “Plan Ost”. His cruelty was limitless. From the documents found it is clear that they were talking about the eviction of 31 million people from Poland and the Soviet Union over 30 years and the settlement of German colonists in their place.

At the end of 1940, the Department of Economics and Armaments of the High Command of the Armed Forces, headed by General Thomas, began intensive work to collect and summarize information regarding the national economy of the USSR. A special card index was compiled in which all the most important Soviet enterprises were registered. At the beginning of 1941, the special headquarters “Russia” created for this purpose began to summarize all kinds of data on the Soviet economy.

Since April 1941, all activities related to the preparation of measures to rob the Soviet Union took place under the leadership of Goering. On April 29, 1941, at a special meeting with the participation of representatives of the armed forces, it was decided, in order to ensure the most complete economic exploitation of the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, to establish the “Economic Headquarters of the East” with special economic inspections and teams in the largest cities of the European part of the Soviet Union. Team employees had to act in accordance with the “12 commandments” developed for them. These “commandments” ordered them to be cruel and merciless with the Soviet people, to use all the country’s resources extortionately.

One of these "commandments" read: "The more persistent you are, the more inventive your methods of achieving this goal can be. The choice of methods is left to the discretion of each of you..." "Only your will must be decisive, but this will can be directed to carry out big tasks. Only in this case will she be moral in her cruelty. Stay away from the Russians, they are not Germans, but Slavs,” was written in another “commandment.”

As one of the Soviet prosecutors, L.R. Sheinin, said at the Nuremberg trials, “...under the direct leadership of the defendant Goering, an entire army of robbers of all ranks and specialties was pre-arranged, prepared, trained and drilled for the organized theft and plunder of the national property of the USSR.”

Goering, as the Reich's authorized representative for the implementation of the four-year plan, drew up an extensive program for the economic exploitation of the territories of the Soviet Union and the peoples inhabiting it, which is recorded in the so-called “Green Folder” of Goering.

The “Green Folder” contained a carefully and detailed plan for the exploitation and plunder of the national economy of the USSR. Not a single sector of the Soviet economy escaped the attention of the Nazis. For each economic area, appropriate "recommendations" were made. All of them were imbued with one common thought: to rob more, to rob more efficiently, without regard for anyone or anything. To export as much food and oil as possible to Germany - this was the main economic task set by the Nazi leadership.

“It is completely inappropriate,” the document said, “that the occupied areas should be put in order as soon as possible, and their economy restored. On the contrary, the attitude towards individual parts of the country should be extremely varied. The restoration of order should be carried out only in those areas in which we can extract significant reserves of agricultural products and oil."

In accordance with Hitler's directive to inflict the greatest possible damage on Russia itself, measures were taken whose purpose was to destroy the productive forces, primarily industrial production in the main industrial regions of Russia, primarily in Moscow and Leningrad, as well as in the adjacent areas. At the same time, it was planned to cut off the supply of food and essential goods to the population of these regions, which meant starvation for tens of millions of people. The document cynically stated: “Many tens of millions of people in this area will find themselves redundant and will be forced to either die or go to Siberia. Any attempts to save the population from starvation by importing excess products from the black earth regions would come at the expense of exporting food to Europe. Such an export of products would reduce Germany's military power and undermine the strength of resistance to the blockade in Europe and Germany" (154).

On July 16, 1941, Keitel ordered all units of the German army to strictly implement these directives. Thus, the German army became a direct accomplice in fascist crimes.

Later, in August 1942, at a meeting of the Reich Commissioners of the occupied regions and representatives of the military command, Goering said with emphasized frankness: “Once upon a time this was called robbery. It corresponded to the formula of taking away what was won. Now the forms have become more humane. Despite this, I I intend to rob and rob effectively."

Hitler assigned one of the theorists of National Socialism, Rosenberg, to be in charge of the political problems of the future occupied territories of the Soviet Union. Back in 1933, the Baltic baron Alfred Rosenberg published the book “The Myth of the 20th Century,” which became the most important manual for fascist racists. In this book, Rosenberg, with a pretense of being scientific, analyzed the characteristic features of various civilizations and cultures and came to the conclusion that only the Aryan race retained the ability for further development. The fascist “theoretician” taught: “a dictatorship of people of a higher order must be established over people of a lower order.” Rosenberg included the “Nordic race”, primarily the Germans, among the former, and all other peoples, primarily the Slavs, among the latter.

Like Hitler, Rosenberg insisted that culture was brought to Russia by the Germans. “The Russians have always had a dormant desire for limitless expansion, an unbridled will to destroy all forms of life, felt only as a naked limitation. Mixed Mongolian blood, even greatly diluted, boiled over with every shock in Russian life and carried people away to deeds that were often incomprehensible even to oneself participant." These and similar primitive ideas about the Russian people were repeated by Nazi propaganda day after day. The idea was inculcated about the supposedly special purpose of the Germans “in this barbaric east.” Rosenberg demanded the expulsion of the Russian people from Europe, their displacement to Asia, because “there is no place for them in the West.” He was entrusted with the development of political plans regarding the Soviet territories that Germany intended to seize.

In one of the secret documents he prepared in early April 1941, Rosenberg proposed dividing the Soviet Union into a number of regions. He considered it necessary to apply the most stringent measures against Russia - “Great Russia with Moscow as the center,” which he intended to weaken as much as possible and turn into an area of ​​exile for undesirable elements, i.e. create a giant concentration camp on this territory. He wanted to separate the Baltic republics - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - from the USSR. They were supposed to be populated by representatives of the “Nordic race” - Scandinavians, Dutch, and later, after the inevitable, in the opinion of the Nazis, capitulation of England, and the British. “Independent” Ukraine and the “Don Region” and the Caucasus annexed to it formed the “Black Sea Union”, which was supposed to serve as a “living space” for the Germans, from which the people of the masters would draw food and raw materials. However, all these projects, outlined by Rosenberg in a memo dated April 2, 1941, were only a more detailed repetition of the old crazy ideas of the German fascists dating back to the 20s. But now all these plans suddenly took on a particularly ominous sound.

On April 20, Rosenberg was tasked with leading the effort to clarify German occupation policy in the east. In April-May 1941, from the depths of the departments subordinate to him, a series of instructions was issued to the imperial commissioners of the future occupied lands in the east. From these instructions it was clear that Germany intended to dismember the Soviet Union, bleed it, turn Soviet territories into German colonies, and enslave their population.

Three days before the attack on the USSR, Rosenberg told his closest collaborators: “The task of feeding the German people is first on the list of German demands in the east. The southern (Russian) territories will have to serve to feed the German people. We see absolutely no reason for commitment with our sides to also feed the Russian people with the products of this additional territory... The future has very difficult years in store for the Russians.”

The implementation of the program of enslavement of Soviet people began immediately after the attack on the USSR. On July 16, 1941, Hitler convened a meeting of senior officials of the “Third Reich”, at which he outlined a detailed program for the division of the USSR. The minutes of the meeting, compiled by Martin Bormann, one of the most influential persons of the fascist state, record that Hitler declared the goal of the war to be the seizure of USSR territories up to the Urals. It was planned to annex to Germany, i.e. turn into areas of the fascist empire, the Baltic states, Crimea with adjacent areas, and the Volga regions. The Baku region became a German concession, a “military colony”. Ukraine, Belarus and other regions of the Soviet Union were preparing to become colonies of the German Empire, despite the various forms of administrative structure that the German conquerors were going to give them.

It was planned to create a German protectorate headed by an imperial commissioner in the territories of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus. In these territories, “the Germanization of racially suitable elements, colonization by representatives of the Germanic race and the destruction of undesirable elements” were to be carried out. Thus, the Baltic peoples were also threatened with Germanization.

The country's largest centers, primarily Leningrad, were doomed to destruction. The document from the meeting on July 16 said: “The Fuhrer wants to raze Leningrad to the ground in order to then give it to the Finns.”

Hitler did not hide that the goal of the Nazi leaders was the permanent annexation of Soviet lands to Germany. “...We,” Hitler said at a meeting on July 16, 1941, “must be absolutely clear that we will never leave these countries.” Hitler proposed to be guided by the following principle: “No military force should ever be created west of the Urals, even if we have to wage war for another 100 years for this purpose. Any successor of the Fuhrer must know that the security of the Reich exists only if to the west there will be no foreign armies from the Urals. Germany itself will defend these areas from all possible dangers. Our iron principle boils down and will boil down to the following goals: we must not allow anyone other than the Germans to carry weapons.”

On March 13, 1941, the High Command of the German Armed Forces issued a secret order - an addition to Directive No. 21 (Plan Barbarossa) - on the activities to be carried out in the zones declared operational. Here the Reichsführer SS received special powers and, on his own responsibility, carried out measures to eliminate the political structure of these areas. But, the directive emphasized, the commander-in-chief of the troops in each region (there were three: Northern - Baltic, Central - Belarus, Southern - Ukraine) is the highest commander, and he must administer justice in close cooperation with the appointed Reich Commissioners of the occupied Soviet regions. Consequently, we were talking about close cooperation between the military command and the SS in implementing German policy in the occupied Soviet territories. The German generals who took part in this cooperation thus bear their share of responsibility for the atrocities committed.

Hitler's directive on attitude towards Soviet commissars and political workers

In March 1941, the high command convened a secret meeting of the heads of departments of military districts for prisoners of war affairs and officers of the main command. The head of the Prisoners of War Affairs Department, Lieutenant General Reinecke, said that in connection with the preparations for war against the USSR, it is necessary to take care of preparing camps for future prisoners. The camps were supposed to be open spaces surrounded by barbed wire. The meeting participants received direct instructions on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, “providing for execution without any warning if they attempt to escape.”

On March 30, the high command gathered senior officers who were to command troops in the war against the USSR. It was a meeting similar to those that Hitler convened on the eve of the war against Poland (August 22, 1939) and before the offensive on the Western Front (November 23, 1939). In a long speech, Hitler emphasized the peculiarity of the new war, which he had long dreamed of realizing - a war of two different worldviews. In this speech, Hitler announced special jurisdiction in the occupied regions, or rather, the elimination of all justice, the extermination of Soviet “commissars and functionaries.” Soviet party workers and political leaders of the Red Army were prohibited from being treated as prisoners of war. Once captured, they were to be immediately handed over to special detachments of the SD (Security Service), and if this was impossible, they were to be shot on the spot. Hitler justified in advance the violence and murder that German soldiers might commit in occupied territories, and insisted that military courts should not impose harsh punishments on soldiers in these cases. In practice, it was a call for the murder of Soviet citizens. Hitler said that in the war against the Soviet Union we must discard all soldier's ethics and laws of war and be merciless, because we are talking about defeating not only the Red Army, but also “eradicating communism for all time.”

On May 12, 1941, the high command of the German ground forces issued a directive on the attitude towards Soviet commissars and political workers who were captured by Germans. It proposed that prisoners of these categories be transferred to the security services and police for subsequent destruction.

Paragraph 3 of the directive read: “Political leaders in the troops are not considered prisoners and must be destroyed at the latest in transit camps. They are not evacuated to the rear.” Jodl made the following note to the draft directive: “The possibility of reprisals against German pilots must be taken into account. It is best, therefore, to present these measures as retribution.” This postscript best characterizes the treachery of the highest German generals, who deny their participation in the crimes of the Nazis. But also in relation to prisoners of war of other categories, a directive from the high command of the armed forces was in effect, which, in particular, stated that the use of weapons against Soviet prisoners of war was considered legal and relieved the guards of “the responsibility to understand the formalities.” The guards were ordered to open fire on prisoners trying to escape without warning. This document, published before the start of the war, contained an almost open call for the killing of prisoners of war. The murderers were freed from all responsibility in advance. It should be emphasized that the German high command, primarily its leaders Keitel, Jodl and Heusinger, bore direct responsibility for this order.

At the Nuremberg trials, the Soviet prosecutor General Rudenko asked Keitel:

“So you don’t deny that back in May, more than a month before the war, a document was already drafted on the extermination of Russian political and military workers. You don’t deny this?

Keitel: No, I do not deny this, this was the result of those orders that were brought to the attention and developed in writing by the generals and in this document."

The German fascists, together with their generals, with their characteristic pedantry, four weeks before the war with the USSR, also provided for the possibility of reprisals against civilians in the occupied territory without trial. The relevant directive stated that arrested suspicious persons should be immediately brought before an officer, who would immediately decide whether they should be shot. Complete arbitrariness of the military was established in relation to Soviet civilians.

The directives of the German military command, issued on the eve of the attack on the USSR, reflected the villainous plans that the political leadership had developed. In the further course of the war, the Nazis carried out a policy of genocide developed in detail: millions of people were killed, including 6 million Jews.

They already had sketches of what their new order should look like. If everything had gone according to Hitler's plan, the world would be different today. And in many ways, the new Nazi world order would not be what you might imagine it to be.

10. Returning American land to the indigenous people

The Nazis were rabid white supremacists, but when it came to Indians, they were surprisingly tolerant. The Nazis promised that after conquering America they would return all their lands to the Indians.

They collaborated with a group called the Federation of American Indians and turned them into fascist supporters. Some members of the group went far beyond sympathy and became outright rabid Nazis, such as Chief Red Cloud, who affixed swastikas to his clothing and made speeches calling Jews “children of Satan” and claiming that they were “controlling the Indian movement.”

The Nazis liked it. They publicly declared that the Native Americans were Aryans and secretly sent propaganda officers to America to persuade the Indians to overthrow the US government. In exchange, the Nazis vowed to return all their lands to the indigenous tribes.

Whether the Nazis spoke the truth or not, many listened to them. Chief Red Cloud claimed that he had an army of 750,000 Native Americans willing to fight for Hitler. He promised that as soon as the Germans entered American soil, the Indians would help them deal with the United States.

9. Giant space mirror

Undoubtedly, one of the most unusual plans of the Nazis was the project to create a giant space mirror - in the literal sense of the word. The Nazis planned to place a giant mirror with a diameter of 1.6 kilometers in orbit at an altitude of 35,900 kilometers - and if they had a little more time, they might have done it.

The idea was that the giant mirror would be like a boy holding a magnifying glass and using it to burn ants. Whenever someone angered the Nazis, they would tilt their mirror so that the reflected rays of the sun would fall on the cities of the offending party. It was assumed that the rays of the Sun would be so hot that they would ignite everything they touched.

The Nazis even planned to equip it as a full-fledged space station. They had plans to constantly keep a crew on duty near the mirror, which would be provided with everything necessary for life.

Today there is some doubt as to whether it could have worked. But the author of the project, scientist and engineer Hermann Oberth, was so confident in his idea that after the end of the war he tried to convince the Americans to build a mirror. If he had just a little more time, the Nazis probably could have carried out this project, and the world would have lived under a terrifying giant mirror in the sky.

8. Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

Japan, of course, had its own plans. In their offices, the Germans and Japanese have already cut up and divided all parts of the world. Japan, by mutual agreement, was to receive under its control all territories east of the 70th meridian, including most of India and everything beyond it.

The Japanese Empire was supposed to come to the region under the optimistic name of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. It would be an empire full of friendly-sounding words, the purpose of which was to hide everything that stood behind them. Among each of the conquered peoples, it was planned to “train” special leaders who would lead their country and become puppets of the Japanese government.

And they have already begun to put their plan into action. The Japanese presented it as independence from Western imperialism, fighting under the slogan “Asia for Asians.” But the peoples of Asia were forced to accept Japanese rule.

Japanese would become the official language of the entire eastern hemisphere, and there would be Japanese teachers in every school. They were to instill the “dominance of Japanese culture” into the young brains of the citizens of the Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Australia and New Zealand were also to come under Japanese control. Hitler believed that if the Nazis won the war, it would mean the end for every white person who lived there.

7. Great wall of kids

The Nazi line of defense against the new Japanese Empire had to start right at the 70th meridian east. The Germans were confident that over time, war between the two new rulers of the world would become inevitable, and they must prepare for its arrival.

The plan was to create a "living wall" of German colonists who would live along the border, reproducing as quickly as possible. Any decent man who served 12 years in the Nazi army would have been sent to the eastern border, where a farm, a gun and orders to have as many children as possible awaited him.

Men from the baby-making team of Nazi veterans had to marry local women; they could not bring German wives with them. They were supposed to spread the German gene pool along the border and create a new generation of half-German children. To achieve this, former Nazi soldiers were required to spend as much time as possible in the bedroom. Hitler demanded that for the sake of his country, every man on the eastern border had at least seven children.

6. Hopes for a war between America and England

Despite what Hitler told Chief Red Cloud in private, he publicly stated that he had no intention of invading the United States. The idea, he once told a Life magazine reporter, was “as fantastic as an invasion of the moon.” He blamed paranoia on "warmongers" who believe fear is "good for business."

But when the Americans didn't believe him, he started singing a different song. “My feeling for Americanism is one of hatred and deep disgust,” he once told his comrades. “Everything about the behavior of American society shows that half of it is Judaized and the other half is disillusioned.”

However, he did not think that he would have to invade America. Before America entered the war, he was sure that Britain would help him get rid of America. And even when America supported Britain, he insisted that it was just part of a long-term plan to crush the British.

Hitler believed that no matter how the war ended, the Americans would attack Britain. He believed that he would not need to invade the United States because the British would do everything for him. “England and America will someday wage war against each other, and it will be waged with the greatest hatred,” Hitler insisted. “One of the two countries will have to disappear.”

And only if England had not attacked America would he have done it himself. If the United States still existed after Europe was conquered by the Nazis, then, as Hitler promised, it would have to face a full-scale onslaught from the Third Reich.

5. Enslavement of Eastern Europe

The Nazis tried their best to eradicate all the Jews on the planet, but their plans for genocide did not end there. The Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe were declared the next "racially inferior" group to be exterminated. By the time the war ended, Hitler had already begun to put some of his plans into action.

There was a Master Plan "Ost", and it included a systematic effort to destroy the Slavs and erase their culture from the face of the planet. The leaders had to come first. Even before the war was over, the Nazis had already begun to “liquidate” the Soviet elite and those who had cultural influence. With the same speed, they rushed to destroy anyone who could encourage the inhabitants of Eastern Europe to be proud of their own culture.

But if the Nazis had conquered Russia, they would have started by deporting 31 million Slavs to Siberia, where they would be forced into slave labor in concentration camps. The rest were to be sold into slavery, modeled after the American Negroes. In their place, 10 million ethnic Germans were to arrive and create new, racially pure households.

Within 30 years, 50 million people were to be deported to concentration camps or killed. Almost all Eastern European countries were to be destroyed.

4. Gandhi's execution

In 1938, before the war began, Hitler gave the British Foreign Secretary some advice. “Shoot Gandhi,” he told him. “And if that’s not enough to force them into submission, shoot ten more leading members of Congress.”

According to Hitler, the British reacted too softly to the peaceful protests of Mahatma Gandhi. He considered Indians to be an "inferior race" who should submit to Aryan rule, and if he were to take over the world, he would take his own advice.

As the war spread, Hitler's contempt for India cost him more and more lost opportunities. At some point, a delegation from the resistance army led by Subhas Chandra Bose went to Berlin and offered to help the Germans help the Indians rebel against the British. Bose received thousands of signatures from men willing to fight alongside him, but Hitler's prejudices were so deep that he did not take up the Indians' offer.

As a result, Bose allied with the Japanese, and India was declared a territory included in the Co-Prosperity Sphere. But Hitler made it clear how Indian citizens would be treated if World War III broke out and the Nazis conquered Japan.

3. Enslavement of all British men

When the war began and the British refused to surrender, Hitler's feelings towards the British began to change. After a while, he would just like to ruin their lives, and he already had a plan for how he would do it.

If Britain had surrendered to the Nazis, new laws would have been introduced. Every able-bodied male between the ages of 17 and 45 was to be transported to continental Europe, where they would be forced to work as slaves.

Women and children could remain in their homes until boys turned 17. Everything they owned was to be looted, and anyone who tried to oppose Nazi rule was to be shot on the spot.

It was a terrible plan, but it wasn't the worst. Heinrich Himmler wanted to go even further. He planned to destroy 80 percent of the population as soon as England fell.

2. Giving Muslims power in the Middle East

Hitler was surprisingly pro-Muslim. Both he and Heinrich Himmler complained that Germany was a Christian country. Hitler said: “The Muslim religion would suit us much better than Christianity.”

At first he promised to give the Middle East to Italy, but as the war continued, he began to change his mind. He met his congenial Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who told him that they had the same enemies: “The British, the Jews and the Communists.”

Al-Husseini wanted to lead a fascist uprising against the British, but Hitler told him to wait until the war with the USSR was over. But they already had a pact, and they were already working together to send a death squad to Palestine that would kill every Jew living there.

When it became clear that the Nazis were losing the war, Hitler blamed the failure on his failure to work more closely with the Muslims, especially after Italy turned against him. “We could liberate Muslim countries,” Hitler said. “Think of how much we could do to help them!”

And if he had managed to change the course of the war and become the winner, he would have done exactly that. He would make the Middle East a land where fascism and Islam would reign.

1. Conversion of Eastern Europe to Jehovah's Witnesses

But not the entire Nazi empire was to become Muslim. If Heinrich Himmler had carried out his plan, Eastern Europe would have received a different religion: Jehovah's Witnesses.

The Nazis killed tens of thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses in concentration camps. But, despite the mass destruction of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Himmler had a strange respect for their religion. “If their fanaticism could be used for Germany,” he once said, “we would be much stronger than we are today!”

In Himmler's eyes, Jehovah's Witnesses had the perfect combination of a fanatical work ethic and pacifism, which would encourage hard work and a lack of violent resistance to the fascist regime. He even gave specific instructions to one of his officers, Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, on how the religion should be introduced into Eastern Europe.

The reality under a global Nazi regime would be very strange. There would be slavery, genocide and weapons of mass destruction, but there would also be many Jehovah's Witnesses.

A special site for readers of my blog - based on an article from listverse.com- translated by Dmitry Oskin

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Is this what you were looking for? Perhaps this is something you couldn’t find for so long?

Among all the alternative history scenarios, the one most often discussed is: what if Hitler had won? What if the Nazis had defeated the Allied forces? What fate would they have prepared for the enslaved peoples?

Today, May 9, is the most suitable day to remember what “alternative future” our great-grandfathers saved us from in 1941-1945.

Very specific documents and evidence have survived to this day, allowing us to get an idea of ​​what plans Hitler and his entourage had for the transformation of the defeated states and the Reich itself. These are the projects of Heinrich Himmler and the plans of Adolf Hitler, set out in their letters and speeches, fragments of the Ost plan in different editions and the notes of Alfred Rosenberg.

Based on these materials, we will try to reconstruct the image of the future that threatened the world in the event of a Nazi victory. And then we’ll talk about how science fiction writers imagined it.

Real projects of the Nazis

Project of a memorial to those who fell on the Eastern Front, which the Nazis intended to erect on the banks of the Dnieper

According to the Barbarossa plan, the war with Soviet Russia was supposed to end two months after it began with the entry of advanced German units to the AA line (Astrakhan-Arkhangelsk). Since it was believed that the Soviet army would still have some amount of manpower and military equipment, a defensive rampart should have been erected on the “A-A” line, which over time would turn into a powerful defensive line.

Geographic map of the aggressor: Hitler’s plan for the occupation and dismemberment of the USSR

The national republics and some regions that were part of the Soviet Union were separated from occupied European Russia, after which the Nazi leadership intended to unite them into four Reichskommissariats.

At the expense of the former Soviet territories, a project of phased colonization of the “eastern lands” was also carried out in order to expand the “living space” of the Germans. Within 30 years, 8 to 10 million purebred Germans from Germany and the Volga region should settle in the territories allocated for colonization. At the same time, the local population was supposed to be reduced to 14 million people, destroying the Jews and other “inferior” people, including the majority of the Slavs, even before the start of colonization.

But nothing good awaited that part of the Soviet citizens that would have escaped destruction. More than 30 million Slavs were to be evicted from the European part of the USSR to Siberia. Hitler planned to turn those who remained into slaves, prohibit them from receiving education and deprive them of their culture.

The victory over the USSR led to the transformation of Europe. First of all, the Nazis were going to rebuild Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. Munich became the museum of the National Socialist movement, Berlin became the capital of the Thousand-Year Empire, which subjugated the whole world, and Hamburg was to become a single shopping center, a city of skyscrapers, similar to New York.

Model of the new building of the Wagner Opera House. After the war, Hitler intended to completely redesign the Wagner concert hall in Bayreuth

The occupied countries of Europe also expected the most extensive “reforms”. The regions of France, which ceased to exist as a single state, faced different fates. Some of them went to Germany’s allies: fascist Italy and Franco’s Spain. And the entire southwest was to turn into a completely new country - the Burgundian Free State, which was supposed to be an “advertising showcase” for the Reich. The official languages ​​in this state would be German and French. The social structure of Burgundy was planned in such a way as to completely eliminate the contradictions between classes, which “are used by Marxists to foment revolutions.”

Some peoples of Europe faced complete resettlement. Most of the Poles, half of the Czechs and three-quarters of the Belarusians were planned to be evicted to Western Siberia, laying the foundation for centuries of confrontation between them and the Siberians. On the other hand, all the Dutch were going to be transported to Eastern Poland.

“Vatican” of the Nazis, a model of the architectural complex that was planned to be built around Wewelsburg Castle

Finland, as a loyal ally of the Reich, became Greater Finland after the war, receiving the northern half of Sweden and areas with a Finnish population. The central and southern territories of Sweden were part of the Great Reich. Norway was losing its independence and, thanks to a developed system of hydroelectric power stations, was becoming a source of cheap energy for Northern Europe

Next in line is England. The Nazis believed that, having lost their last hope for help from the Continent, England would make concessions, conclude an honorable peace with Germany and, sooner or later, join the Greater Reich. If this did not happen and the British continued to fight, preparations for the invasion of the British Isles should have been resumed, ending this threat before the beginning of 1944.

In addition, Hitler was going to establish full Reich control over Gibraltar. If dictator Franco tried to prevent this intention, then he should have occupied Spain and Portugal within 10 days, regardless of their status as “allies” in the Axis.

The Nazis suffered from gigantomania: sculptor J. Thorak is working on a monument to the autobahn builders. The original statue was supposed to be three times larger

After the final victory in Europe, Hitler was going to sign a friendship treaty with Turkey, based on the fact that it would be entrusted with the defense of the Dardanelles. Turkey was also offered participation in the creation of a single European economy.

Having conquered Europe and Russia, Hitler intended to move into the colonial possessions of Britain. The headquarters planned the capture and long-term occupation of Egypt and the Suez Canal, Syria and Palestine, Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan and Western India. After establishing control over North Africa and the Middle East, Chancellor Bismarck's dream of building the Berlin-Baghdad-Basra railway was to come true. The Nazis were not going to abandon the idea of ​​​​returning the African colonies that belonged to Germany before the First World War. Moreover, there was talk of creating the core of a future colonial empire on the “dark continent”. In the Pacific Ocean, it was planned to capture New Guinea with its oil fields and the island of Nauru.

Fascist plans to conquer Africa and America

The United States of America was considered by the leaders of the Third Reich as “the last stronghold of world Jewry,” and they had to be “pressed” in several directions at once. First of all, an economic blockade would be declared on the United States. Secondly, a fortified military area was being built in North-West Africa, from where long-range seaplane bombers and A-9/A-10 intercontinental missiles were to launch to strike America.

Thirdly, the Third Reich had to conclude long-term trade agreements with Latin American countries, supplying them with weapons and pitting them against their northern neighbor. If the United States did not surrender to the mercy of the winner, then Iceland and the Azores should have been captured as springboards for the future landing of European (German and English) troops on US territory.

Das ist fantastic!

In the Third Reich, science fiction existed as a genre, although, of course, German science fiction writers of that time could not compete in popularity with the authors of historical and military prose. Nevertheless, Nazi science fiction writers found their readers, and some of their opuses were published in millions of copies.

The most famous was Hans Dominik, the author of “novels about the future.” In his books, the German engineer triumphed, constructing fantastic superweapons or coming into contact with alien beings - “uranids”. In addition, Dominic was an ardent supporter of racial theory, and many of his works are a direct illustration of the theses about the superiority of some races over others.

Another popular science fiction writer, Edmund Kiss, devoted his work to describing ancient peoples and civilizations. From his novels, the German reader could learn about the lost continents of Thule and Atlantis, on the territory of which the ancestors of the Aryan race allegedly lived.

This is what representatives of the “master race” - “true Aryans” - should have looked like

Alternative history from science fiction writers

An alternative version of history, in which Germany defeated the Allies, has been described by science fiction writers many times. The overwhelming majority of authors believe that the Nazis would have brought the world totalitarianism of the worst type - they would have destroyed entire nations and built a society where there is no place for kindness and compassion.

The first work on this topic - “Night of the Swastika” by Catherine Burdekin - was published in Britain before the Second World War. This is not an alternative history, but rather a warning novel. An English writer, publishing under the pseudonym Murray Constantine, tried to look seven hundred years into the future - into the future built by the Nazis.

Even then she predicted that the Nazis would not bring anything good to the world. After victory in the Twenty Years' War, the Third Reich rules the world. Large cities were destroyed, and medieval castles were erected on their ruins. The Jews were exterminated without exception. Christians are banned and gather in caves. The cult of Saint Adolphus is being established. Women are considered second-class creatures, animals without a soul - they spend their entire lives in cages, subjected to continuous violence.

During World War II, the dark theme developed. Apart from dozens of stories about what will happen to Europe after the Nazi victory, we can recall at least two major works: the novels “If We Lose” by Marion West and “Illusory Victory” by Erwin Lessner. The second is especially interesting - it examines a version of post-war history, where Germany achieved a truce on the Western Front and, after a respite, gathered its forces and started a new war.

The first alternative fantasy reconstruction depicting the world of victorious Nazism appeared in 1952. In the novel The Sound of the Hunting Horn, the English writer John Wall, writing under the pseudonym Sarban, showed Britain transformed by the Nazis into a huge hunting reserve. Guests from the continent, dressed in costumes of Wagnerian characters, hunt here for racially inferior people and genetically modified monsters.

Cyril Kornblatt’s story “Two Fates” is also considered a classic. The famous science fiction writer showed America defeated in 1955 and divided into occupation zones by two powers: Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The peoples of the United States are subjugated, deprived of the right to education, partially destroyed and driven into “labor camps.” Progress is stopped, science is prohibited and complete feudalism is being imposed.

A similar picture was painted by Philip K. Dick in his novel The Man in the High Castle. Europe is conquered by the Nazis, the United States is divided and given to Japan, the Jews are exterminated, and a new global war is brewing in the Pacific region. However, unlike his predecessors, Dick did not believe that Hitler's victory would lead to the degradation of humanity. On the contrary, his Third Reich stimulates scientific and technological progress and prepares for the colonization of the planets of the solar system. At the same time, the cruelty and treachery of the Nazis is the norm in this alternative world, and therefore the Japanese will soon face the fate of the perished Jews.

American Nazis from the film adaptation of The Man in the High Castle

A unique version of the history of the Third Reich was considered by Sever Gansovsky in the story “The Demon of History.” In his alternative world, there is no Adolf Hitler, but there is a charismatic leader, Jurgen Aster - and he, too, starts a war in Europe in order to throw the conquered world at the feet of the Germans. The Soviet writer illustrated the Marxist thesis about the predetermination of the historical process: an individual does not decide anything, the atrocities of World War II are a consequence of the laws of history.

The German writer Otto Basil, in his novel If the Fuhrer Knew It, arms Hitler with an atomic bomb. And Frederick Mullaly in his novel “Hitler Wins” describes how the Wehrmacht conquers the Vatican. The famous collection of English-language authors, “Hitler the Victorious,” presents the most incredible outcomes of the war: in one story, the Third Reich and the USSR divide Europe after defeating democratic countries, in another, the Third Reich loses its victory due to a gypsy curse.

The most ambitious work about another war was created by Harry Turtledove. In the “World War” tetralogy and the “Colonization” trilogy, he describes how, in the midst of the battle for Moscow, invaders arrive on our planet - lizard-like aliens who have more advanced technologies than earthlings. The war against aliens forces the warring parties to unite and ultimately leads to a scientific and technological breakthrough. In the final novel, the first spaceship built by humans launches into space.

However, the topic is not limited to discussing the results of the war in alternative realities. Many authors use a related idea: what if the Nazis or their opponents learned to travel through time and decided to use future technologies to achieve victory? This twist on the old plot was played out in James Hogan’s novel “Operation Proteus” and in Dean Koontz’s novel “Lightning.”

Poster for the film “It Happened Here”

Cinema did not remain indifferent to the alternative Reich. In a rare pseudo-documentary style for science fiction, the film “It Happened Here” by English directors Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo tells about the consequences of the Nazi occupation of the British Isles. The plot with a time machine and the theft of technology is played out in Stephen Cornwell's action film The Philadelphia Experiment 2. A classic alternative history is presented in the thriller “Fatherland” by Christopher Menall, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Harris.

For example, we can cite Sergei Abramov’s story “A Quiet Angel Flew” and Andrei Lazarchuk’s novel “Another Sky.” In the first case, the Nazis, for no apparent reason, establish European-style democracy in the conquered Soviet Union, after which we suddenly have order and abundance. In Lazarchuk’s novel, the Third Reich also provides fairly comfortable conditions for the conquered peoples, but comes to stagnation and is defeated by the dynamically developing Siberian Republic.

Such ideas are not only harmful, but also dangerous. They contribute to the illusion that the enemy should not have been resisted, that submission to the invaders could change the world for the better. It should be remembered: the Nazi regime carried a colossal charge of hatred, and therefore war with it was inevitable. Even if the Third Reich had won in Europe and Russia, the war would not have stopped, but continued.

Fortunately, most Russian science fiction writers do not believe that the Nazis could have brought peace and democracy to the USSR. In response to novels that portrayed the Third Reich as harmless, works appeared that gave it a sober assessment. Thus, in Sergei Sinyakin’s story “Half-Blood” all the known plans of the top of the Reich to transform Europe and the world are reconstructed. The writer recalls that the basis of Nazi ideology was the division of peoples into full-fledged and inferior, and no reforms could change the Reich’s movement towards the destruction and enslavement of hundreds of millions of people.

Dmitry Kazakov sums up this topic in his novel “The Highest Race.” A detachment of Soviet front-line intelligence officers encounters a group of Aryan “supermen” created in occult laboratories. And our people emerge victorious from the bloody battle.

* * *

Let's remember that in reality, our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers defeated Hitler's “superman”. And it would be the greatest disrespect for their memory and for the truth itself to claim that they did it in vain...

But this is the real story. Not alternative

“When we talk today about new lands and territories in Europe, we turn our attention primarily to Russia,- Hitler wrote. — This huge state in the East is ripe for destruction... We have been chosen by fate to witness a catastrophe that will be the strongest confirmation of the racial theory.” ("Mein Kampf")

The Soviet Union must “cease to be a subject of international law and European politics and become an object of foreign (German) politics” . (Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Regions (on the very eve of the attack on the USSR).

“These peoples (of the Soviet Union) have one and only justification for their existence - to be useful to us economically.”(Hitler after the attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941).

“The coming campaign is more than just an armed struggle; This is a conflict between two worldviews. Given the size of Russian space, to end this war it will not be enough to defeat the enemy’s armed forces. The entire territory of Russia needs to be divided into a number of states with their own governments, ready to conclude peace treaties with us. The creation of these governments will require very great political skill and well-thought-out general principles... The replacement of Bolshevik Russia by a nationalist state must be avoided under all circumstances. The lessons of history teach that such a state will again become an enemy of Germany.” ( Hitler’s instructions after the report to him on March 3, 1941 of the plan for the attack on the USSR “Barborossa”)

On the territory of the Soviet Union, according to Hitler’s plans, the following were created:

a) Great Russia with its center in Moscow,

b) Belarus with its center in Minsk or Smolensk,

c) Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,

d) Ukraine and Crimea with the center in Kyiv,

e) Don (Cossack) region with its center in Rostov,

f) Caucasus region,

g) Former Russian Central Asia (Turkestan).

The territory of Russian settlement as the core of Russian statehood was considered as the main object for exerting a destructive impact on the USSR.

“When acting against the USSR, we should set ourselves the political goal of systematically shaking this core of Russia (Russian people. E.K.) in order to provide the opportunity for development to other areas”(Rosenberg) To this end:

To destroy the public administration of Russia without the subsequent organization of a new effective state apparatus;

Take deep and widespread measures to deindustrialize, disrupt and liquidate the economy by removing all stocks, dismantling equipment, confiscating vehicles, etc.;

Transfer a significant part of the indigenous Russian lands to the competence of the newly formed territorial units - Ukraine, Don region, Belarus;

-Use “Muscovite Russia” as a place to dump undesirable elements from other regions of the former USSR to increase the crime rate, aggravate food problems and destabilize it as a whole.

Reichsführer SS Himmler supplemented the master plan for the enslavement of Russia “Ost” with the following proposal:

“We must defeat the Russians as a people and divide them”. For this:

a) divide the territories inhabited by Russians into various political units with their own governing bodies in order to ensure separate national development in each of them. The people of these regions must be taught that under no circumstances should they be oriented towards Moscow;

b) establish a special imperial commissariat in the Urals, work out the option of separating Northern Russia, and in Central Russia pursue a policy of division and isolation if possible

its constituent parts;

c) carry out systematic genocide of the Russian people, that is, their “racial weakening”, “undermining their biological strength”;

d) to ensure that “on Russian territory the population for the most part consists of people of the primitive semi-European type.” This mass of “racially inferior stupid people” should not have given much trouble to the German leadership in managing crowds of obedient and cheap slaves.

In execution of the Ost plan, the following orders of the Fuhrer were issued:

The order “on the execution of commissars”, which provided from the moment the Nazis entered the territory of the USSR “to destroy the bearers of the state political idea and political leaders (commissars)”:

Destroy the entire elite of the Russian people, and not only fight Bolshevism,

Organize the exploitation of the Russian people under German control and the hands of Russian “subhumans”, while simultaneously ensuring the conditions for the systematic extinction of the Russian population and squeezing it out of the Urals. “This year in Russia between 20 and 30 million people will die of hunger. Maybe it’s even good that this will happen: after all, some nations need to be reduced.” (Goering, November 1941).

The economic plans of the Nazi leadership regarding the USSR are concentrated in the so-called “Green Folder” of Goering. Here are some pearls from there: “Many millions will become redundant in this territory, they will have to die or move to Siberia. Attempts to save the population there from starvation can only be made to the detriment of the supply of Europe. They will undermine Germany's resilience in the war and the ability of Germany and Europe to withstand the blockade." A particularly terrible fate awaited the population of the non-black earth regions of Russia. They were going to be turned into a zone "great famine"

Memo to the agricultural Fuehrers on the requisition of food in occupied territory:

“Russian people have been experiencing hunger and need for centuries and are accustomed to unpretentiousness. Therefore, no false compassion. Don’t try to take the German standard of living as a scale and change the Russian way of life.”

From the decisions made at the meeting of the economic headquarters “Vostok” on May 2, 1941 :“It will be possible to continue the war only if all German armed forces in the third year of the war are supplied with food at the expense of Russia. At the same time, there is no doubt: if we manage to pump everything we need out of the country, then tens of millions of people will be doomed to starvation.”

The question of preserving Russia as a cash cow was discussed by the fascist leadership. The Soviet Union was called a “pie” that had to be “expertly” cut into pieces and eaten.

There were plans to appropriate and use everything we had, from coal mines to museum treasures. Even the corpses of those killed and those who died at the hands of the Nazis were used. From the hair of women destroyed in concentration camps, the Nazis wove high-quality ropes, gold fillings and dentures were used to cast ingots that were shipped to Swiss banks, road surfaces were made from the ashes of burnt bodies, women's handbags and lampshades were made from human skin, and human fat was used to make fragrant soap...

The six million exterminated Jews were nothing more than an easy warm-up. The Nazis intended to take full advantage of their efforts in the Soviet Union, in the European part of which no more than 15 million people were supposed to remain in 20-30 years.

What was the “Great Thousand Year Reich” going to do to achieve this goal? First of all, sharply reduce the birth rate among Russians. “In these areas,- Himmler instructed his henchmen, — We must consciously pursue a policy of population reduction. By means of propaganda, especially through the press, radio, cinema, leaflets, short brochures, reports, etc., we must constantly instill in the population the idea that it is harmful to have many children. It is necessary to show how much money it costs to raise children, and what could be purchased with these funds. We need to talk about the great danger to a woman’s health that she is exposed to when giving birth to children... Expand the broadest propaganda of contraceptives. Establish their widespread production. The distribution of these drugs and abortions should not be restricted in any way. Contribute in every possible way to expanding the network of abortion clinics.

Organize special retraining for midwives and paramedics and train them in performing abortions. Doctors must also be authorized to perform abortions, and this should not be considered a violation of medical ethics.

Voluntary sterilization should also be promoted, efforts to reduce infant mortality should not be allowed, and mothers should not be allowed to learn how to care for infants and preventive measures against childhood diseases. Reduce the training of Russian doctors in these specialties to a minimum, and do not provide any support to kindergartens and other similar institutions. There should be no obstacles to divorce.

Do not provide assistance to illegitimate children. We should not allow any tax privileges for people with many children, and we should not provide them with financial assistance in the form of salary supplements.”

In a word, in the East it was prescribed to avoid all measures that were used to increase the birth rate and improve the health of the German nation. As Himmler said, it was important for the Germans to weaken the Russian people to such an extent that they “would no longer be able to prevent the establishment of German domination in Europe.”

The gradually decreasing population of cheap Russian slaves had to be kept at an appropriate intellectual and cultural level. And there was a carefully thought-out program of action in this regard.

“According to the Fuhrer,- wrote the head of the party chancellery Borman to Rosenberg on July 23, 1942, - it is quite enough to teach the local population only reading and writing”. Instead of the current Cyrillic alphabet, they planned to introduce a Latin script in our schools.

Hitler spoke on the topic of measures to ensure the cultural and moral degradation of Russians at one of the dinners with the Nazi leadership.

“Note to yourself, gentlemen, that with the help of democracy it is impossible to retain what was once taken by force. The peoples we have conquered must first of all serve our economic interests. The Slavs were created to work for the Germans, and for nothing else. Our goal is to settle one hundred million Germans in their current places of residence. German authorities should be located in the best buildings, and governors should live in palaces. Around the provincial centers within a radius of 30-40 kilometers there will be belts of beautiful German villages connected to the center by good roads. There will be another world on the other side of this belt. Let the Russians live there as they are used to. We will take for ourselves only the best of their lands. Let the Slavic aborigines poke around in the swamps. It would be best for us if they could be explained in words at all. But, unfortunately, this is impossible. Therefore, limit everything as much as possible! No printed publications. The simplest radio broadcasts. We need to wean them from thinking. No compulsory schooling. We must understand that the literacy of Russians, Ukrainians and all sorts of others only causes harm. There will always be a couple of bright minds who will find ways to study their history, then come to political conclusions that, in the end, will be directed against us. Therefore, gentlemen, do not even think about organizing any radio broadcasts on historical topics in the occupied areas. No! Each village has a loudspeaker in the square to report news and entertain listeners.

Yes, to entertain and distract from attempts to acquire political, scientific and generally any knowledge. The radio should broadcast as much simple, rhythmic and cheerful music as possible. It invigorates and increases productivity”. It is a pity that the Fuhrer did not have time to speak out on the issues of television in the East.

And, finally, about the economy and social sphere in enslaved Russia, as its new masters thought of it. Here, perhaps, it is most appropriate to quote from the secret memorandum of the labor institute of the “German Labor Front” dated November 17, 1941:

“The future economy of Russia must not only be completely economically dependent on the powerful economy of the West, not only not have any military industry, but also undergo a deep structural restructuring so that, based on quite obvious political considerations, the people of Russia will never exceed a certain standard of living.

In Russia, only enterprises whose products require only low and medium qualifications should be allowed to operate. Close industrial enterprises that place high demands on the teams working for them, such as factories producing optics, aircraft, and locomotives.

There is no need to demand skilled labor from Russians in order to keep their well-being on this basis at the lowest level. Russians should be used only in the extraction of raw materials, in agriculture and forestry, in repair and construction enterprises, and in no case in machine-tool factories and shipyards, in the production of instruments and aircraft. Russia's enormous natural wealth makes it possible to preserve the natural wealth of Germany and Europe intact. The vast expanses of Russia also make it possible to relieve our country of hazardous industries. We will be able, in particular, to close part of the German metallurgical plants, transferring the burden of metallurgical production to the East. The same applies to the curtailment of coal production due to the import of cheap coal from the former USSR.”

In a concentrated form, the entire program for the acquisition and development of “living space” in the East and the destruction of the Slavs was set out in the so-called “Ost” general plan and in a number of documents accompanying the plan, primarily from the extensive “Comments and proposals on the “Ost” general plan” of the Reichsführer SS ”, signed on April 27, 1942.

(The material regarding fascist plans was prepared on the basis of the publication of the former USSR Ambassador to Germany in 1986 - 1990, member of the Communist Party faction in the State Duma of the Russian Federation Yu. Kvitsinsky).