Which goals of Generalplan Ost would succeed?

[BlackDragon98]

Wouldn't it be pretty simple to starve out the partisans? Especially in a war of extermination?

The partisan will raid convoys and settlements for food, almost constantly.
Even if the Germans manage to drive the Soviets to the Urals as per their plan, all those weapons the Red Army left behind will be quickly utilized by the partisans.

My great-grandfather's Chinese partisan unit often raided Japanese convoys and supply bases for weapons, supplies, and medicine.
It was simply impossible to catch them because the Japanese could never anticipate where they would attack and when.
My grandfather told me that his father (my great-grandfather) would mark down the locations of Japanese supply lines and supply bases and then randomly point to a base when his guerillas were planning a raid.
It was just so random, the Japanese could never figure it out.
According to my great-grandfather's journal, they (the Japanese) were like the blind men in full daylight. They could never figure out his strategy because there was none. Just pure random attacks.

The Soviets will do the same thing to the Germans.
And it will be effective as hell.

 

[Sam R.]

The argument is that all Germans weren’t bloodthirsty fanatics and eventually the horror of Nazi plans for the East would cause them to refuse any part in it (those that aren’t true believers, sadists or psychopaths).

Chris Browning refuted this. Famously. The book was called Ordinary Men. Reserve police battalions were age average, slightly more petits bourgeois and slightly less KPD or SPD. When massacring Slav villagers means not fighting partisans for a day…

Wouldn't it be pretty simple to starve out the partisans? Especially in a war of extermination? Or I suppose not simple but doable with Nazi level brutality.

They attempted this with winter 41. It kinda worked on POW camps. It didn’t work in villages. They lacked the order troops to steal everyone’s food.

 

[Captain Marvel]

It kinda worked on POW camps. It didn’t work in villages. They lacked the order troops to steal everyone’s food.

Millions of Slavs (including those in Leningrad) did die of starvation by the time WW2 ended. The reason it wasn’t as successful as the Reich intended (the Hunger Plan called for the death of 30 million) was because millions of German and Axis troops were busy fighting the Red Army and the WAllies.

If the Reich defeats the USSR and the war ends then starving, enslaving, guarding and transporting defenseless people by the millions will be relatively easy in comparison.

By 1944 IOTL close to 10 million were working as slave laborers in Nazi Europe. In 1943 30,000 slave laborers were being shipped from the East every week. Plus the Holocaust only required less than 1% of German trains to transport millions of Jews. All of this taking place while the largest war in history was being fought by the Wehrmacht.

Imagine what they could do to the Slavic population if the Allies are out of the picture and there’s nothing stopping them from accomplishing their sick goals. The Reich (especially one that now controls almost all of Europe) had the logistical capability to pull it off plus millions of true believers who were willing to fulfill their part in the race war with exuberance and pride. IOTL there never was a lack of volunteers for the various atrocities and war crimes Germany committed every single day whether it be the death camps, concentration camps, use of slave labor, reprisals, fighting partisans and the Einsatzgruppen. The same would certainly apply if the Nazis won.

 

[Retro_Reaction]

IOTL Germany managed to kill around 20 million Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, POWs, leftists, homosexuals, disabled etc in less than 6 years without a detailed blueprint to start off with (mass gassing of Jews only began in the spring of 1942) and with virtually all their resources devoted to fighting the 3 most powerful countries on Earth at once.

I think that's the main issue. Nazi Germany received a lot of pushback on the T4 program, I believe that if the war is over, the German population couldn't be psychologically cajouled into accepting murder. If you read accounts of people who committed war crimes and genocides, Germans, Serbs or Rwandans, there's a common theme where they tend to believe in an existential threat to themselves and their in group real or not.

Without a war going on, there's going to be a much lower threshold for the type of acceptable behaviour shown towards other groups, especially if the standard of living in Germany has shot up within living memory. I'm not a psychologist, but I just don't see the War levels of murder being sustainable by a peacetime government, even a Nazi one.

 

[History Learner]

The partisan will raid convoys and settlements for food, almost constantly.
Even if the Germans manage to drive the Soviets to the Urals as per their plan, all those weapons the Red Army left behind will be quickly utilized by the partisans.

My great-grandfather's Chinese partisan unit often raided Japanese convoys and supply bases for weapons, supplies, and medicine.
It was simply impossible to catch them because the Japanese could never anticipate where they would attack and when.
My grandfather told me that his father (my great-grandfather) would mark down the locations of Japanese supply lines and supply bases and then randomly point to a base when his guerillas were planning a raid.
It was just so random, the Japanese could never figure it out.
According to my great-grandfather's journal, they (the Japanese) were like the blind men in full daylight. They could never figure out his strategy because there was none. Just pure random attacks.

The Soviets will do the same thing to the Germans.
And it will be effective as hell.

Despite occupying 40% of the Soviet population, the partisans at their height were only +300,000 plus, as compared to over 2 million Germans. This is included the RKKA forces deceptively referred to as partisans, but were actually regular units inserted behind the line via Moscow. Without central organization, resupply and said insertions, the partisan threat will quickly dissipate. Advancing up to the Urals places another 40% of the Soviet population in German hands, so if we're generous and assume a doubling of the partisans in-spite of their disadvantages in the scenario, that's +600,000 partisans against at least 1 million German soldiers; there just simply is not enough to offer any real challenge to the German occupation.

 

[Captain Marvel]

that's +600,000 partisans against at least 1 million German soldiers; there just simply is not enough to offer any real challenge to the German occupation.

Not only that but in this scenario the Red Army isn’t coming to save the day and the Reich reigns triumphant from France to the Urals so most people would have no hope of fighting back (and no fear of collaborating with German forces especially if it means they get better treatment).

After numerous vicious reprisals like Lidice people would stop supporting partisans and focus on merely living to the next day without being hanged or burning to death with their entire family in a barn.

Poorly armed, poorly supplied and poorly led bandits who have little support from the local population and don't know where their next meal is coming from vs the Heer, the Waffen SS and the Luftwaffe. Is there really any doubt who would win that fight?

Even in the largest uprising in Nazi Europe (Warsaw 1944) where the resistance benefited from various factors that wouldn’t exist in a Nazi victory and German forces were reeling from Operation Bagration (where hundreds of thousands of troops were killed/captured), less than 10,000 German soldiers (many of which were low quality) died in 63 days in comparison to over 200,000 resistance fighters and civilians with most of the city destroyed/razed during and after.

Not exactly a recipe for a successful guerrilla campaign.

 

[Popcorn]

Wouldn't it be pretty simple to starve out the partisans? Especially in a war of extermination? Or I suppose not simple but doable with Nazi level brutality.

As long as Germany is still at war with Britain, and with plenty of leftist sympathizers in the US, the partisans probably won't be starved out. They'll be well supplied with weapons they can use to raid for other supplies. Germany was bled white trying to defeat the SU, they'll be bled just as white trying to occupy it.

 

[RedSword12]

The partisan will raid convoys and settlements for food, almost constantly.
Even if the Germans manage to drive the Soviets to the Urals as per their plan, all those weapons the Red Army left behind will be quickly utilized by the partisans.

My great-grandfather's Chinese partisan unit often raided Japanese convoys and supply bases for weapons, supplies, and medicine.
It was simply impossible to catch them because the Japanese could never anticipate where they would attack and when.
My grandfather told me that his father (my great-grandfather) would mark down the locations of Japanese supply lines and supply bases and then randomly point to a base when his guerillas were planning a raid.
It was just so random, the Japanese could never figure it out.
According to my great-grandfather's journal, they (the Japanese) were like the blind men in full daylight. They could never figure out his strategy because there was none. Just pure random attacks.

The Soviets will do the same thing to the Germans.
And it will be effective as hell.

Partizans often relied on extorting food from the locals to feed themselves. So the obvious way to starve them out in a manner in line with GP Ost is by destroying all the food in the area and then leaving entirely for a year or so, with a cordon of troops to kill those trying to escape the death zone. Rinse and repeat throughout various rural regions, and the vast majority of partizans are killed, with those who manage to sneak out of the death zones being removed from turf they know well, so they're easier to mop up by the occupation authorities.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Partizans often relied on extorting food from the locals to feed themselves. So the obvious way to starve them out in a manner in line with GP Ost is by destroying all the food in the area and then leaving entirely for a year or so, with a cordon of troops to kill those trying to escape the death zone. Rinse and repeat throughout various rural regions, and the vast majority of partizans are killed, with those who manage to sneak out of the death zones being removed from turf they know well, so they're easier to mop up by the occupation authorities.

I suppose that would work.
Seems to me that the Japanese forces detailed to destroy my great-grandfather's guerilla unit were seriously incompetent.

 

[RedSword12]

I suppose that would work.
Seems to me that the Japanese forces detailed to destroy my great-grandfather's guerilla unit were seriously incompetent.

Well, you should keep in mind that this method would be destructive as hell, and would probably create more partizans. The Japanese weren't waging a war of extermination (although looking at their war crimes, you would think they were), so destroying the local population and food resources in order to smoke out partizans was off the table. However, to the Nazis, it would leave most of the basic infrastructure intact (not that there was much in the first place in the rural areas of the Soviet Union) and would kill much of the local population (which the Nazis would want to do anyway), which makes this method acceptable to them where in almost all situations it would not be. It would be easier to collaborate with the local population, but since the Nazis want them all dead or enslaved anyway, that would not work very well in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.

 

[The Galaxy]

All, if done better.

For example not massacring the people who welcomed the axis as liberators until a peace has been reach with Stalin in perhaps oct-nov 1941. When peace is signed Stalin would probably start mass purging the military and the rest of society again as to make sure he stays on top and that nobody blames him. The axis can then use the time from nov 1941 to may/june 1942 to resupply build up their forces, improve logistics and launch another attack on the newly purged USSR and achieve much better results than the OTL. Then once the USSR has retreated behind the A-A line, then the plan can be enacted.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

1: 12 million Aryan settlers in the East (80 people per square kilometer).

Willingly? No. But at the same time I'm not sure there'd be anything to stop the Nazis from simply uprooting and transplanting entire villages by decree if they decided to do so.

2: Extermination by forced labor and starvation and the deportation of 115+ million Slavs (50% of Estonians, 50% of Latvians, 85% of Poles, 65% of Ukrainians, 75% of Russians, 75% of Belarussians, 50% of Czechs and 85% of Lithuanians).

Heinous levels of death and suffering are guaranteed but I'm not sure they'd adhere to those exact numbers. Himmler had a talent for lawyering his way around or modifying his own racial directives when it suited him.

3: Broad gauge railway connecting all major German cities in Europe.

Never understood this one. Why would you want to convert to broad gauge, after having converted the Soviet broad gauge system to standard gauge during the invasion? Seems like a waste of effort and a total nightmare.

4: Razing of all Slavic cities (Moscow, Leningrad, Warsaw etc) and eradication of all Slavic culture.

All? Most will probably get renamed and ghettoized. When faced with an insurgency the last thing you want to do is empty the cities into the countryside.

The famous slavic cities? Yeah they'll be craters in no time flat.

5: Germanization of Slavs believed to have a sufficient amount of Aryan blood.

It'll take more than 30 years. But on a superficial level it'll be accomplished by then.

6: Millions of Slavs not eliminated or Germanized kept as serfs on Aryan farms and plantations (a significant percentage of which run by veterans following 12 years of service and members of the SS/Party encouraged to have large families including multiple wives if necessary).

Possible but uncertain.

 

[History Learner]

As long as Germany is still at war with Britain, and with plenty of leftist sympathizers in the US, the partisans probably won't be starved out. They'll be well supplied with weapons they can use to raid for other supplies. Germany was bled white trying to defeat the SU, they'll be bled just as white trying to occupy it.

How?

 

[Ficboy]

Let's honestly talk about the effects of Generalplan Ost after Nazi Germany does collapse in civil war/power struggle after Adolf Hitler's death (1950s-1960s) : By the time the Soviet Union even reclaims the non-Urals European and Caucasian portions of their territory not only would many citizens living there be dead, enslaved or Germanized but they would have the problem of German settlers on their boundaries. In short, the Soviet Union would face really big problems and thus many German settlers will have to be expelled as well as the de-Germanization of the previously conquered Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. Any collaborators in these areas such as the Trawinkis and Hilfswingers would be executed on sight by the Soviets and a long rebuilding will have to take place lasting for around 3-4 decades at least.

Poland would be even more messed up in a post-Nazi era Europe since most of their cities and pre-World War II culture have been destroyed as well as the German settlers in these areas having to be expelled.

 

[Frank Hart]

Poland would be even more messed up in a post-Nazi era Europe since most of their cities and pre-World War II culture have been destroyed as well as the German settlers in these areas having to be expelled.

There wouldn't be that many Poles left if Nazi Germany collapses in the 1960s. I could see forced Polonization being a likely way to deal with parts of the German population.

 

[thekingsguard]

Depending on how thorough Generalplan Ost ends up being, even a collapsed or reduced Germany may have a border much farther east... at the Vistula or Dnepir instead of the Oder or the Elbe.

Either way, the Third Reich may not last a thousand years but the damage done very well might.

 

[Ficboy]

There wouldn't be that many Poles left if Nazi Germany collapses in the 1960s. I could see forced Polonization being a likely way to deal with parts of the German population.

The Polish population would still try to resist (try is the key word) and I'd say Polonization would be used to get rid of the German settlers.