Generalplan Ost

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (April 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,629 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Generalplan Ost]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Generalplan Ost}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Generalplan Ost

Master Plan for the East
Plan of new German settlement colonies (marked with dots and diamonds), drawn up by the Friedrich Wilhelm University Institute of Agriculture in Berlin, 1942, covering the Baltic states, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia
Duration	1941–1945
Location	Territories controlled by Nazi Germany
Type	Genocide, ethnic cleansing, slave labour and kidnapping of children
Cause	Nazi racism, Nazi racial policy, Nazi bio-geo-political Weltanschauung,[1] Manifest destiny,[2][3] Lebensraum and Heim ins Reich
Patron(s)	Adolf Hitler
Objectives	Genocide, ethnic cleansing and extermination of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, Romani and other ethnic groups deemed untermensch in Nazi ideology Slaughter of more than sixty million Slavic, Jewish and Romani inhabitants of Eastern Europe[4] Advancing Nazi settler colonial project of Lebensraum Establishment of Greater Germanic Reich
Deaths	11 million Slavs[5] 3-3.4 million Polish Jews[6]
Outcome	Nazi abandonment of GPO due to Axis defeat in the Eastern Front

The Generalplan Ost (German pronunciation: [ɡenəˈʁaːlˌplaːn ˈɔst]; English: Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe categorized as "Untermenschen" in Nazi ideology.^[7][5] The campaign was a precursor to Nazi Germany's planned colonisation of Central and Eastern Europe by Germanic settlers, and it was carried out through systematic massacres, mass starvations, chattel labour, mass rapes, child abductions, and sexual slavery.^[8][9]

Generalplan Ost was only partially implemented during the war in territories occupied by Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II, resulting indirectly and directly in the deaths of millions by shootings, starvation, disease, extermination through labour, and genocide. However, its full implementation was not considered practicable during major military operations, and never materialised due to Germany's defeat.^[10][11][12] Under direct orders from Nazi leadership, around 11 million Slavs were killed in systematic violence and state terrorism carried out as part of the GPO. In addition to genocide, millions more were forced into slave labour to serve the German war economy.^[5]

The program's operational guidelines were based on the policy of Lebensraum proposed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in fulfilment of the Drang nach Osten (drive to the East) ideology of German expansionism. As such, it was intended to be a part of the New Order in Europe.^[13] Approximately 3.3 million Soviet POWs captured by the Wehrmacht were killed as part of the GPO. The plan intended for the genocide of the majority of Slavic inhabitants by various means – mass killings, forced starvations, slave labour and other occupation policies. The remaining populations were to be forcibly deported beyond the Urals, paving the way for German settlers.^[14]

The plan was a work in progress. There are four known versions of it, developed as time went on. After the invasion of Poland, the original blueprint for Generalplan Ost was discussed by the RKFDV in mid-1940 during the Nazi–Soviet population transfers. The second known version of the GPO was procured by the RSHA from Erhard Wetzel [de] in April 1942. The third version was officially dated June 1942. The final version of the Master Plan for the East came from the RKFDV on October 29, 1942. However, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, resources allocated to colonization policies were diverted to Axis war efforts, and the program was gradually abandoned.^[15]