One of Hitler's ambitions at the start of the war was to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all Slavs. "All Poles," Heinrich Himmler swore, "will disappear from the world." The German leadership decided that the Polish nations was to be completely destroyed and that in 10 to 20 years time the Polish state under German occupation was to be fully cleared of ethnic Poles and settled by German colonists.[42] Of the Poles, by 1952 only about 3-4 million of them were supposed to be left residing in the former Poland, and then only to serve as slaves for German settlers. They were to be forbidden to marry, the existing ban on any medical help to Poles in Germany would be extended, and eventually Poles (believed by the Nazis to be Untermenschen, that is "sub-people") would cease to exist. This is why on August 22, 1939, about one week before the onset of the war, Hitler "prepared, for the moment only in the East, my "Death's Head" formations with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need."[43]
Some three million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war, over two million of whom were ethnic Poles with the remaining million being mainly ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians. The vast majority of those killed were civilians, mostly massacred during special-action operations of Nazi Germany.[