. Several people floated extreme ideas including Ludendorff that were not sanctioned by the civilian government.
Not sanctioned by civilian government?
Already by early December 1914 Chancellor Bethmann Holwegg favoured ethnic cleansing and German colonization of a strip of Poland bordering Prussia, and he appears to have arrived at this idea himself.
Absolute destruction: military culture and the practices of war in Imperial Germany Isabel V. Hull
page 233
Last I saw, Chancellor was the leader of civilian government? Correct?
In fact Ludendorff even mentions that most of the ideas came from Reichs chancellery.
Were the 1347 people that signed petition demanding annexation of territories in the East(including 353 professors, 158 German teachers, 145 higher administrative officials, mayors, city council-men, 148 judges, 40 German MPs, 182 business leaders, 252 artists) part of military or civilian life?
Also the Socialists, the largest party in the Reichstag, were dead set against it.
Is that why Socialist concentrated around the newspaper Socialistische Monatshefte and Glocke didn't oppose annexations in the East and in fact encouraged annexation of Courland by Germany ?
Anyhow members of SPD were against annexations in the West, didn't oppose annexations in the East.
Certain individuals were for it, but the majority of policy makers were against the notion
Actually in the only full detailed study on the subject by Geiss he mentions clearly that majority of policy makers were for it.
By 1918 the plan was to set up a client state in Poland without a 'sanitized' border area that Ludendorff wanted.
It's the first time I heard this amazing information. According to all available knowledge, Germans demanded the border area up to 19th September 1918 when last demand of such nature was issued. That is barely less than a month before they surrendered.
One spontaneous event initiated by a junior officer and suddenly it means policy?
No it just means that ethnic cleansing would be quite efficient if Germans would win and enact their war plans. And I still struggle to understand why ethnically cleansed population would care if 100.000 rather than 200.000 Germans would move into their lands?
The Russians burned a number of towns in East Prussia and Galicia, kidnapping over 100,000 German and Polish civilians as hostages and moving them into Russia. That was policy from STAVKA
And how this(if true) changes German ethnic cleansing plans in WW1?
did that mean Russian was going to ethnically cleanse East Prussia and Galicia?
I am unaware of any Russian Empire's ethnic cleansing plans in WW1.
The ethnic cleansing plans of Kaiserreich on the other hand are very well known,sourced by numerous historians and their publications.