In a memorandum sent to Rosenberg in March 1942, Nazi anthropologist Otto Reche argued for the disappearance of 'Russia' both as an ethnic and political concept, and the promotion of a new plethora of ethnicities based on medieval Slavic tribes such as the Vyatichs and Severians. Even White Ruthenia, and in particular the Ukraine ("in its present extent") he deemed to be dangerously large. Heinrich Himmler had already advocated for such a general policy towards Eastern Europe in 1940. A top-secret memorandum in 1940 from Himmler entitled "Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Peoples in the East" expressed that the Germans must splinter as many ethnic splinter groups in German-occupied Europe as possible, including Ukrainians, "White Russians" (Belarusians), Gorals (see Goralenvolk), Lemkos, and Kashubians and to find all "racially valuable" people and assimilate them in Germany. The Eastern Ministry responded that Reche's emphasis on the plurality of ethnic groups in the Soviet Union was correct "in itself", but was skeptical about his proposal to resurrect obscure and extinct nationalities. He defended his proposal by arguing that "[sic] in the area of ethnicity much has already been successfully brought back to life!", but inquired as to whether names connected with the main towns in each area might serve this role instead. A memo date written by Erhard Wetzel from the NSDAP Office of Racial Policy administration, on April 1942 details the splitting up of Reichskommissariat Moskowien into very loosely tied Generalkommissariats. The objective was to undermine the national cohesion of the Russians by promoting regional identification; a Russian from the Gorki Generalkommissariat was to feel that he was different from a Russian in the Tula Generalkommissariat. Also, a source of discussion in the Nazi circles was the replacement of the Cyrillic letters with the German alphabet. In July 1944, Himmler ordered Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the RSHA, to begin the exporting of the faith of the Jehovah's Witnesses to the occupied east. Himmler considered the Jehovah's Witnesses of being frugal, hard-working, honest and fanatic in their pacifism, and that these traits were extremely desirable for the suppressed nations in the east — despite some 2,500 and 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses becoming victims of the Holocaust.
A series of "semantic guidelines" published by the Reich Interior Ministry in 1942 declared that it was permissible to use the word 'Russia' only in a reference to the "Petersburg empire" of Peter the Great and its follow-ups until the revolution of 1917. The period from 1300 to Peter the Great (the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Tsardom of Russia) was to be called the "Muscovite state", while post-1917 Russia was not to be referred to as an empire or a state at all; the preferred terms for this period were "bolshevik chaos" or "communist elements".Furthermore, historic expressions such as Little Russia (Ukraine), White Russia (Belarus/White Ruthenia), Russian Sea (for the Black Sea), and Russian Asia (for Siberia and Central Asia) were to be absolutely avoided as terminology of the "Muscovite imperialism". "Tatars" was described as a pejorative Russian term for the Volga, Crimean, and Azerbaijan Turks which was preferably to be avoided, and respectively replaced with the concepts "Idel (Volga)-Uralian", "Crimean Turks", and Azerbaijanis.