Table Of ContentSECRET NAZI
PL}~NS
EASTERN EUR()PE
for
A Study of Lebensraum Policies
by
Ihor -Kamenetsky
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BOOKMAN ASSOCIATES :: New Yo1rk
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Copyright © by lhor Kamenetsky
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Library of Congress Cattalog Card Number 61-9850
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY
UNITED PRINT.lNG SERVICES, INC.
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TO MY PARENTS
Preface
The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed the climax
of imperialistic competition in Europe among the Great Pow
ers. Entrenched in two opposing camps, they glared at each
other over mountainous stockpiles of weapons gathered in
feverish armament races. In the one camp was situated the
Triple Entente, in the other the Triple Alliance of the Central
Powers under Germany's leadership. The final and tragic re
sult of this rivalry was World War I, during which Germany
attempted to realize her imperialistic conception of M itteleuropa
with the Berlin-Baghdad-Basra railway project to the Near East.
Thus there would have been established a transcontinental
highway for German industrial and commercial expansion
through the Persian· Gulf to the Asian market. The security
of this highway required that the pressure of Russian imperi
alism on the Middle East be eliminated by the fragmentation
of the Russian colonial empire into its ethnic components.
Germany·planned the formation of a belt of buffer states ( asso
ciated with the Central Powers and Turkey) from Finland,
Beloruthenia (Belorussia), Lithuania, Poland to Ukraine, the
Caucasus, and even to Turkestan.
The outbreak and nature of the Russian Revolution in 1917
offered an opportunity for Imperial Germany to realize this
· plan. The emergence of the buffer states on ethnically non
Russian territories was becoming a reality. They were partly
legalized by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which was inspired
by the Central Powers. But the Imperial German Government
was either unable or unwilling to grasp and utilize the issues
and motives of the Revolution. Germany"s new order in Eastern
Europe completely lacked a social message, and her principle
of national self-determination was confused and inconsistent.
Consequently, following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Germany's
position in Eastern Europe was based mainly on her military
strength, since her political and moral contributions were either
negligible or nonexistent. When German armies left Eastern
Europe after the defeat in the West, their plans for a new inter
national system in Eastern Europe represented no more than
a vacuum.
There was still hope that the victorious Allies would succeed
where Germany had failed. Wilson's Fourteen Points contained
a potential promise, not only as an ideological challenge to
Bolshevist slogans, but also as a basis for political, social, and
national reconstruction in Eastern Europe, according to the
Western pattern. Unfortunately, the Allies never treated Wil
son's Fourteen Points very seriously, and the forces which they
supported in the fight against Bolshevism had not very much
to offer toward the solution of problems brought to the surface
by the Revolution within the Tsarist Empire. The victory of
Lenin, who proved to be more skillful in riding the waves of
the Revolution, was a severe blow to the hope for democrati
zation of Eastern Europe.· Unfortunately, the effect of the
Bolshevist seizure of power extended beyond the boundaries
of Russia proper and later of the Soviet Union.
Aggressive Soviet Russian imperialism under the banner of
world revolution inaugurated the era of dictatorships in Europe
which partly justified their existence by posing as a defense
against this new international menace: Mussolini's Fascism and
Hitler's Nazism were also imitated in Hungary, Bulgaria, Al
bania, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Persia and China.
How, we can ask, could this terrible anti-Christian ideology
of Nazism arise in Germany among the "Volk der Dichter und
Denker"? There are deep roots for this Weltanschauung in
Fichte, Hegel and Treitschke, in Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and
Wagner. The traditions of militarism under Frederick II, the
"blood and iron" Realpolitik of Bismarck, and the fear of Rus
sia's Pan-Slavism were also important factors.
But one must also take into consideration the Frenchman
Gobineau, who proclaimed the Teutons a superior race among
all men; the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a fore
runner of racism in Germany; the geopolitics of the Swede
Kjellen; and the influences of the anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic
Russian Dostoevsky, who strongly influenced the Russian-edu
cated Rosenberg. Also to be considered here are Hitler's Vienna
background; Lueger's anti-Semitisut; and the contempt and hate
of von Schoenerer's Pan-Germanism for all Slavs with the tra
ditions of the First Pan-Slav Congress in Prague in 1848, for
all the Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Croats, Slovaks and
Serbs who endangered German supremacy in Austria-Hungary.
All these factors also contributed to Hitler's emotional attitudes.
Another fact which should not be overlooked is that soon
after World War I the Germans felt they had been deprived
by the West of the promised right to self-determination during
the disintegration of the Hapsburg Empire. It should also be
understood that the treatment of the Republic with its Socialist
government, especially in econornic matters, was not always
wise. To complete the background, the League of Nations, as a
protector of European minorities and as the new authority for
peace, soon lost any power it might have had. On the rising
wave of German national resentinent of alleged discrimination,
Hitler came to power.
The inability of the Western democracies to grant German
democracy equality and to organize the cooperation of demo
cratic powers against Russian Cmnmunism and Italian Fascism
became the springboard for Hitler's demagoguery. Let me say
frankly, as one who had the opportunity as an accredited min
ister and envoy of his country to observe Germany in the early
postwar years, that if the Western democracies had granted
Ebert's Germany the same conces:sions they were forced to give
Nazi Germany, then, in my opinion, Hitler never would have
risen to power.
The Hitler movement, in the decade preceding its full as
cension to power in 1933, had time to elaborate fully its ide
ology encouraged by the new aggressive imperialism of Soviet
Russia (against the non-Russian peoples within her domain) ,
of Italy (in Ethiopia), and Japan~ (in Manchukuo). Influenced
by the previous great designs of World War I, the Nazi ideology
now claimed a German Lebensraum in Eastern Europe up to
the Urals. In this plan, the Jews would be liquidated, and the
Slavic nations numerically reduced, partially resettled to the
East, and partially converted to an ethnographic mass repre·
senting a manpower reservoir. The Third Reich had to rise on
those territories .in' order to realize Hitler's conception of the
new German nation into whic:h would be integrated _all the
Teutonic nations: the Dutch, the Flemings, the Danes, Swedes,
Norwegians, and the Swiss Germans. The realization of the
Berlin-Baghdad-Basra plan would then be only a min~r detail
for the Third Reich-which as a. world power, based on a totali
tarian imperialism, would abolish all the traditional values of
Christian ·European culture and civilization.
The crux of Hitler's reasoning was · contained in one sim
ple observation. Since the democracies had for so
W~estem
long tolerated the abolition of :all values of Christian European
culture and civilization by Stalin in the Soviet Union, they
would also tolerate Germany's attempt to do the same. After
all, Hitler reasoned further, Stalin was the master of terror and
genocide with his "resettlements" and concentration camps,
therefore a German genocide policy of "resettlements," terror
and concentration camps for Jews and Slavs would be viewed
with the same tolerant W esten1 eye.
Hitler's conceptions challenged not only any balance of
power in Europe but would also have upset it in the whole
world. Thus, World War II was the consequence, and the
Western democracies were forced to fight.
The work of Dr. Ihor Kamenetsky on the German Lebens
raum policy in Eastern Europe-. during World War II is a
great contribution to .t he history of that struggle, in which
Hitler, through his conceptions:, made an attempt on the very
life of Germany's Slavic neighbors, in fact on all Slavdom.
He thus gave Stalin the opportunity to start the Russian
Communist neo-Pan-Slavism in defense of Slavdom during
World War II.
German-Slavic relations were and are of the ubnost im
portance for European politics .. Therefore the Slavic Institute
of Marquette University intended to include this well-docu
mented study, based on primary sources, in its "Marquette
!!!II II
Slavic Studies Series." Lack of funds made this impossible,
and we cordially welcome its publication by Bookman As-
sociates.
RoMAN SMAL-STOCKI
Slavic Institute
Marquette University
February, 1960
