Did Hitler consider Slavs / Eastern Europeans to be "Subhuman" or racially inferior?

[Hektor]

Madonna:
....
As we all know, anti-German propaganda was massive, including endless examples of false, contrived "translations".
You need to do better.
Please show us the originals.
....

Always the same issue. No remotely verifiable sources. Snipets, conflated with other stuff, opinion and interpretations into the text or facts. Also ignoring evidence to the contrary is common in that matter.

When most of your fighting age man are at the front, it's obviously why extramarital relationships would be punished. Got nothing to do with "racial reasons".

Also, collecting usable snippets from the contemporary literature is also not proof. One will always have a spectrum of opinions on any subject.
What counts are actual policy statements - speeches, opinions would only be circumstantial. Depends also on who said it.

I got no doubt that there were bad vibes against Poles, given their treatment of ethnic Germans as long as they had occupied the corridor and Eastern Silesia. Some of the Eastern European population were also quite troublesome, unreliable and even showing some propensity to cruelty. No surprise given that they had to live under Bolshevism for more than 20 years. It had been an onslaught on their culture as well.

Fact is that Slovaks, Croats, Ukrainians, etc. have been allied with the Axis. That's an indicator that they were considered "racially acceptable". As for Russians the Tartar admixture may have been seen as problematic. But nations aren't necessarily a homogenous mass. I noticed that with populations that are more diverse, there is also a diversity over socio-economic and behavioural indicators.

[Merlin300]

Madonna:
You've have been challenged to present the German originals for someone's text that you posted. You have not. Instead you posted more of the same sort of unverified text which also included topics not part of this thread. That post was removed due to your lack of responsiveness.
Please review our simple guidelines that you agreed to when you registered, viewforum.php?f=4

Please present those originals, if you can, and stay on topic. BTW, you are welcomed to start new threads on any "H" related topic you wish.
We also have a WWII Forum.

I remind you that this forum has a higher standard of debate than what you typically see elsewhere. Here, when challenged, as in formal debates, it is incumbent upon those being challenged to respond or leave the thread / the discussion underway. That prevents a lot of unverified, false claims, etc. I'm sure you can appreciate that.
Thanks, M1

With all due respect Madonna, I agree with Moderator. There is so much baseless garbage thrown out by Believer propagandists that it is important to provide as much real evidence as possible. It is the basis of Revisionism.

Last night BBC and German Television DW replayed a panegyric to the Nuremberg Show Trial. There was the disgraceful US Prosecutor Thomas Dodd pulling of the cover off a shrunken head which he presented without any supporting evidence as a Pole sentenced to death and hanged for daring to have sex with a German woman.
Evidence = Revisionism.

[Otium]

A very interesting revelation from the Latvian SS General Arthur Silgalis, which documents a change in attitude by Heinrich Himmler himself in regards to the Slavic peoples of Europe - as before it was mentioned in this thread that Himmler was rather hostile and suspicious of Slavs, and did not hold much confidence in their ability to protect Europe from threats like Bolshevism, seeing as they themselves were the first people to succumb to it.

It appears that his view had shifted somewhat, perhaps after experiencing the unified spirit of many European ethnicities in the SS taking up arms for the sake of Europe, and her indigenous people.

Oberführer of the SS Latvian Legions, Arthur Silgalis

“He [Himmler] then singled out those nations which he regarded as belonging to the German family of nations and they were: the Germans, the Dutch, the Flemish, the Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians and the Baltic people. ‘To combine all of these nations into one big family is the most important task at the present time’ [Himmler said]. ‘This unification has to take place on the principle of equality and at that same time has to secure the identity of each nation and its economical independence.

After the unification of all the German nations into one family, this family has to take over the mission to include, in the family, all the Roman nations whose living space is favored by nature with a milder climate. I am convinced that after the unification, the Roman nations will be able to persevere as well as the Germans.

This enlarged family of the White race will then have the mission to include the Slavic nations into the family also because they too are of the White race. It is only with such a unification of the White race that the Western culture could be saved from the Asiatic race.

At the present time, the Waffen-SS is leading in this respect because its organization is based on the principle of equality. The Waffen-SS comprises not only German, Roman and Slavic, but even Islamic units and at the same time has proven that every unit has maintained its national identity while fighting in close togetherness. I know quite well my Germans. The German always likes to think himself better but I would like to avert this. It is important that every Waffen-SS officer obeys the order of another officer of another nationality, as the officer of the other nationality obeys the order of the German officer.”

Heinrich Himmler quoted in a conversation with Artur Silgailis, General of the Latvian Legion-SS // Source: Arthur Silgalis, Latvian Legion (R. James Bender Publishing, San Jose,1986), Pp. 348-349, also cited in: Jonathan Trigg, Hitler's Gauls (Spellmount, 2006), Pp. 49.

Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler

This quote, and some further commentary was provided by Norman Davies in his book 'Europe A History'. I will quote the relevant section and attach a scan I made of the full page for further context.

LATVIANS had no special love for Germany. [...] Yet such was the effect of the massacres and deportations of Soviet rule in 1940–1 that the arrival of the Wehrmacht promised blessed relief.

The Germans encountered little opposition, therefore, when they started to raise Latvian military formations as soon as they entered Riga on 1 July 1941. At first, ex-Latvian army and police units and ex-Soviet Army deserters were reorganized under German command. ‘Auxiliary Security Police’, later renamed Schutzmannschaft or ‘Schuma’, were used for front-line service, for guard, labour, and fire-fighting duties, and for ‘special operations’. [...] In 1942 a conscription decree greatly increased the numbers, whilst facilitating the formation both of low-grade Hilfswillige or ‘Hiwi’ units and of a regular ‘Latvian Legion’. From 1943, swelled by volunteers, the Legion was to feed the main recruitment drive for three Latvian divisions of the Waffen-SS (see Appendix III, pp. 1326–7). The men swore an oath ‘to struggle against Bolshevism’ and ‘to obey the commander-in-chief of the German armed forces, Adolf Hitler’. Their language of command was Latvian, and they wore arm-shields bearing the name Latvija, They fought at Leningrad, and in the German retreat all the way to Berlin.

At a meeting with the Reichsfuhrer-SS in 1944, the chief of staff of the Latvian Legion recorded Himmler’s updated vision of the Nazi Order:

The present demands that every SS-offlcer, regardless of nationality …must look to the whole living space of the family of German nations. [He then singled out those nations which he regarded as belonging to the German family: the Germans, the Dutch, the Flemish, the AngloSaxons, the Scandinavians, and the Baltic peoples.] To combine all those nations into one big family is the most important task at present. It is natural in this process that the German nation, as the largest and strongest, must assume the leading role. [But] this unification has to take place on the principle of equality… [Later] this family … has to take on the mission to include all Roman nations, and then the Slavic nations, because they, too, are of the white race. It is only through unification of the white race that Western culture could be saved from the danger of the yellow race.

At the present time, the Waffen-SS is leading in this respect because its organisation is based on equality. The Waffen-SS comprises not only German, Roman and Slavic but even Islamic units … fighting in close togetherness. Therefore it is of great importance that every Waffen-SS officer gets his training at the same military college… .

Nazi internationalism only came to the fore in the final phase of the war when Germany was standing on the brink of defeat. It does not feature prominently in accounts of Fascist ideology. Nor do the reasons why so many Europeans fought for it. One forgets that the Nazis published a journal called Nation Europa.

Norman Davies, Europe A History (Pimlico, Random House, 1997), Pp. 1017

Davies makes a good point, the National Socialists, and other Fascists may not have extolled a kind of Pan-Europeanism that is common today, but they nevertheless practised it. The SS is a perfect example of this, and the same cannot be said for any of Germany's adversaries, who were largely made up of traditionally national formations representing a single country. That the National Socialists published material like 'Nation Europa' and other declarations on race that very clearly included other European nationalities (as seen in this thread already) we can perhaps gain a more nuanced perspective on the ethnic issues that were coming to a boil in Europe at that time, whether we today agree with various statements or not. I think it's clear that there was nevertheless a pan-European seed that needed watering and time to grow.

The later stages of the SS and the Third Reich was the budding force of European brotherhood that if given enough time, could've blossomed into something beautiful. The Third Reich was an early innovator of this European idea.

[Hektor]

“He [Himmler] then singled out those nations which he regarded as belonging to the German family of nations and they were: the Germans, the Dutch, the Flemish, the Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians and the Baltic people. ‘To combine all of these nations into one big family is the most important task at the present time’ [Himmler said]. ‘This unification has to take place on the principle of equality and at that same time has to secure the identity of each nation and its economical independence.

The Baltic people do not belong to the Germanic family of people, at least not linguistically. In fact there is the Balts proper as in Lithuanian and Latvian and then there are the Estonians. Who linguistically are more similar to the Finns and the Hungarians. Linguistic relation implies a genealogical relation. But that is not always the case. If a ruling or cultural class speaks a specific language among a different people, this will often trickle down into the larger population. This is what may have happened especially in central Eastern Europe with the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, etc.

The Balts are of cause Indogermanic, but so are the Slavs and Latin people. Culturally the Balts are heavily influenced by the Swedes and Germans as well. I presuppose a stronger genetic relationship as well. As for Eastern Europe NS/SS didn't have much of a plan prior to Barbarossa. This fact refutes the whole "aggressive war" thesis as promulgated in the Nuremberg trials. With Barbarossa there came however a need to reorganise Eastern Europe politically. This is why there are so many proposals, which often contradict each other. We are however shown stuff like "Generalplan Ost" or the "Hunger Plan", the later being probably only a worst case scenario, given the logistical and resource problems the Axis was facing at the time.

The Axis essentially thought to realise late 19th century ideas of nation states with a weberian type of bureaucracies and a regulated economy based on the private ownership of means of production. This was a synthesis of several ideological streams of the time. It off-sets from Bolshevism as well as from the liberal democracies in the West who did not impair the forms of accumulation through banking and capital concentrations.
Internally the Axis countries were more ideologically diverse as the West at the time stretching from parliamentary democracies to authoritarian one party rule seeking to run different approaches as well.

[Otium]

Majer was using the Henry Picker German Edition (Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche, 1968) so perhaps that edition contains some phrase not in the English version? Who knows? if that were the case it would definitely cast poor light on the Table Talks which aren't the most trustworthy source to begin with.

An update on this. I've checked a German version of Picker's and Heim's Table Talk's, and the entries don't differ in content from that in the English edition I used to check his source.

See this version. From pages 87-88. Or page 183 of this version.

[Otium]

Just a quick correction. In my above posts I quoted Walter Gross, but incorrectly cited the source based on faulty information. I'm going to quote it again with the correct source:

We appreciate the fact that those of another race are different from us. This scientific truth is the basis, the justification and, at the same time, the obligation of every racial policy without which a restoration of Europe in our day is no longer practicable. Whether that other race is “better” or “worse” is not possible for us to judge. For this would demand that we transcend our own racial limitations for the duration of the verdict and take on a superhuman, even divine, attitude from which alone an "impersonal” verdict could be formed on the value or lack of such of the many living forms of inexhaustible Nature.

Walter Gross, "National Socialist Racial Thought", Germany Speaks by 21 Leading Members of Party and State (London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd, 1938), p. 73.

However, there is just a good a quote from the original source I cited:

German:

German Was konnten wir gegenüber dieser Tendenz, in dem deutschen Rassengedanken eine grundſätzliche Diffamierung der andersrassigen Menschen zu jeben, tun? Wir konnten nichts tun, als eben mit Ruhe und Überlegenheit immer wieder den deutschen Rassengedanken in seiner eigentlichen Form binzuftellen und den LWenſchen klarzumachen, daß das Wesen der rassischen Erkenntnis nicht die Bewertung oder gar die Abwertung anderer Menschengruppen auf dieser Welt ist, sondern nichts weiter als die kühle, je, ih möchte fast sagen naturwissenschaftliche, Feststellung, daß es verschiedene Menschengruppen auf dieser Welt gibt und daß dabei von einer Bewertung primär überhaupt nicht die Rede ist, daß die Feststellung: Ihr seid andersrassig uns gegenüber -- zunächst nicht mehr und nicht weniger Werturteil enthält als die sachliche Beobachtung eines Menschen, der durch den Wald geht und sagt: „Es sind nicht nur Bäume im Wald, sondern diese Bäume dort sind Fichten und Riefern, diese Bäume sind Birken, und das dort ist ein Eichbaum.“ -- Das ist auch keine Beschimpfung und kein Werturteil. Es kann keiner von den Bäumen sagen, das sei eine Herabsetzung den anderen Bäumen gegenüber, sondern es ist die Feststellung von Tatsachen genau so wie die Seststellung, daß beſtimmte Völker und Völkergruppen auf diefer Welt uns rassisch verwandt und andere uns rassisch völlig fremd sind. Es ist eben einfach eine Beschreibung, eine Seftftellung ohne den Charakter des Angriffs oder der Bewertung.

English:

German What could we do against this tendency to create in the German racial thought a fundamental defamation of people of other races? We could do nothing but, with calmness and superiority, again and again, to put the German idea of race in its true form and to make it clear to the people that the essence of racial knowledge is not the evaluation or even the devaluation of other groups of people in this world, but nothing more than the cool, ever, I would almost like to say scientific, statement that there are different groups of people in this world and that there is primarily no question of an evaluation at all, that the statement: You are different from us -- contains first of all no more and no less value judgment than the objective observation of a person who walks through the forest and says: "There are not only trees in the forest, but these trees there are spruces and pines, these trees are birches, and that one there is an oak tree." -- That is also not a name-calling or a value judgment. No one can say of the trees that this is a disparagement of the other trees, but it is the statement of facts just like the statement that certain peoples and groups of peoples in the world are racially related to us and others are racially completely foreign to us. It is simply a description, a statement of fact without the character of attack or evaluation.

Walter Gross, Der deutsche Rassengedanke und die Welt (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1939), pp. 26-27.