Who was Aryan in Nazi Germany?

[clewder]

What were the true race laws enacted by the Nazis? Did Greeks, Italians and Slavs count as Aryan?

[Lamprecht]

Check out:
Did Hitler consider Slavs / Eastern Europeans to be "Subhuman" or racially inferior?
viewtopic.php?t=12690

A snippet:

Depiction of German Races 1 and 2: Nordic, Phalian, Western (Mediterranean), East-Baltic, Eastern (Alpine), and Dinaric.

Richard Rein (1936) Rasse und Kultur unserer Urväter. page 16:

These six races [listed above] are called Aryan according to our legislation. Aryans, therefore, are the people of Deutchland who belong to one of these six breeds, or who carry the genetic resources of these races mixed. (Not Aryans, on the other hand, are the Orientals and the Near Eastern, or crosses of these two with other races, as represented by the Jewish people.)

"Diese sechs Rassen werden nach unserer Gesetzgebung als arisch bezeichnet. Arier find also die menschen in Deutchland, die einer dieser sechs Rassen angehören oder die Gigenschasten dieser Rassen gemischt in sich tragen. (Nicht arier sind dagegen die Orientalen und Vorderasiatischen oder Kreuzungen dieser beiden mit anderen Rassen, wie sie das Jüdische Volk darstellt.)"

According to German Ahnenpaß law:

Aryan descent (German blooded) is thus a person who is free of foreign blood, as seen by the German people. The blood of Jews and Gypsies also living in Europe, that of the Asian and African races and the Aborigines of Australia and America (Indians), are considered as foreign. For example, if a Englishman or a Swede, a Frenchman or a Czech, a Pole or an Italian, is free of such foreign blood, he must be regarded as Aryan, whether he lives in his native country or in East Asia or in America or he may be a US citizen or a South American Free State.

"Arischer Abstammung (deutschblütig) ist demnach derjenige Mensch, der frei von einem, vom deutschen Volke aus gesehen, fremdrassigen Blutseinschlage ist. Als fremd gilt hier vor allem das Blut der auch im europäischen Siedlungsraume lebenden Juden und Zigeuner, das der asiatischen und afrikanischen Rassen und der Ureinwohner Australiens und Amerikas (Indianer), während z.B. ein Engländer oder Schwede, ein Franzose oder Tscheche, ein Pole oder Italiener, wenn er selbst frei von solchen, auch ihm fremden Blutseinschlägen ist, als verwandt, also als arisch gelten muß, mag er nun in seiner Heimat oder in Ostasien oder in Amerika wohnen oder mag er Bürger der U.S.A. oder eines südamerikanischen Freistaates sein."

[HistorySpeaks]

The Nazis were willing to be pragmatic when it came to the application of the Nuremberg laws, to avoid causing problems in foreign affairs.

For example Arabs* were effectively considered 'Aryan' (technically, persons of "kindred blood") under the Nuremberg Laws, even though Hitler and other top Nazis saw them as inferior. Same for Poles and Russians. Hitler made his view of them as racially inferior plain in Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch; yet they were not subject to discrimination under the Nuremberg laws.

However, after the outbreak of war, various Slavic populations were subject to racist legislation (and ethnic cleansing/genocide) by the Nazis. For example Polish forced laborers in Nazi Germany were subject to the so-called Polish decrees, which denied them any civil rights and freedom of movement while they were working in Germany.

The NSDAP actively propagandized against Slavs during the war. For example, they gave every German farmer who employed Poles an informational leaflet with the following message:

Maintain the purity of German blood! That applies to both men and women! Just as it is considered the greatest disgrace to become involved with a Jew, any German engaging in intimate relations with a Polish male or female is guilty of sinful behavior. Despise the bestial urges of this race! Be racially conscious and protect your children. Otherwise you will forfeit your greatest asset: your honor.

**

There were certainly Nazi racial theorists and bureaucrats who regarded Slavs as Aryan; Rosenberg comes to mind. But Hitler and Himmler regarded them as racially inferior. This is why Slavic nations that allied with the Nazis, namely the Croats and the Bulgarians, were retconned as Germanic and Turkic respectively (i.e. non-Slavic).

*See https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarter ... e-crescent

** See https://books.google.com/books?id=uifw3 ... 22&f=false

[Lamprecht]

For example Arabs* were effectively considered 'Aryan' (technically, persons of "kindred blood") under the Nuremberg Laws, even though Hitler and other top Nazis saw them as inferior. Same for Poles and Russians. Hitler made his view of them as racially inferior plain in Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch; yet they were not subject to discrimination under the Nuremberg laws.

*See https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarter ... e-crescent

It doesn't say that Arabs were considered Aryan at all. Applying other terms like "members of a high-grade race" is not the same as "Aryan."

However, after the outbreak of war, various Slavic populations were subject to racist legislation (and ethnic cleansing/genocide) by the Nazis. For example Polish forced laborers in Nazi Germany were subject to the so-called Polish decrees, which denied them any civil rights and freedom of movement while they were working in Germany.

Yes it is quite typical that there is legislation against certain groups when you're at war with them. This is not a factor of "Aryan" or not.

There were certainly Nazi racial theorists and bureaucrats who regarded Slavs as Aryan; Rosenberg comes to mind. But Hitler and Himmler regarded them as racially inferior. This is why Slavic nations that allied with the Nazis, namely the Croats and the Bulgarians, were retconned as Germanic and Turkic respectively (i.e. non-Slavic).

This is silly. Slavic is a language group, and it's an indo-European (or "Aryan") language. Slavs (except those with Mongoloid admixture) were always considered within the same Europid race as people in Germany.

You seem to be confused a bit. "Aryan" did not mean "better than everyone else" and "non-Aryan" did not mean "might as well just kill them."
If we were to define "Aryan" in modern concepts it would be "the Indo-European speaking peoples and their descendants" - the Caucasoid race at this time was mostly classified as Aryan (or Europid), Semitic, and Hamitic.

[HistorySpeaks]

For example Arabs* were effectively considered 'Aryan' (technically, persons of "kindred blood") under the Nuremberg Laws, even though Hitler and other top Nazis saw them as inferior. Same for Poles and Russians. Hitler made his view of them as racially inferior plain in Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch; yet they were not subject to discrimination under the Nuremberg laws.

*See https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarter ... e-crescent

It doesn't say that Arabs were considered Aryan at all. Applying other terms like "members of a high-grade race" is not the same as "Aryan."

However, after the outbreak of war, various Slavic populations were subject to racist legislation (and ethnic cleansing/genocide) by the Nazis. For example Polish forced laborers in Nazi Germany were subject to the so-called Polish decrees, which denied them any civil rights and freedom of movement while they were working in Germany.

Yes it is quite typical that there is legislation against certain groups when you're at war with them. This is not a factor of "Aryan" or not.

There were certainly Nazi racial theorists and bureaucrats who regarded Slavs as Aryan; Rosenberg comes to mind. But Hitler and Himmler regarded them as racially inferior. This is why Slavic nations that allied with the Nazis, namely the Croats and the Bulgarians, were retconned as Germanic and Turkic respectively (i.e. non-Slavic).

This is silly. Slavic is a language group, and it's an indo-European (or "Aryan") language. Slavs (except those with Mongoloid admixture) were always considered within the same Europid race as people in Germany.

You seem to be confused a bit. "Aryan" did not mean "better than everyone else" and "non-Aryan" did not mean "might as well just kill them."
If we were to define "Aryan" in modern concepts it would be "the Indo-European speaking peoples and their descendants" - the Caucasoid race at this time was mostly classified as Aryan (or Europid), Semitic, and Hamitic.

Your problem is that you are assuming that Nazi racial concepts must have been rational; but, like the rest of Nazi ideology, these concepts were half-baked.

There is endless documentary evidence showing Hitler saw Poles and Russians, among other Slavs, as racially inferior. Have you read Mein Kampf or Zweites Buch?

For example, in Mein Kampf Hitler rejects the idea of Germanizing Austrian Slavs on the grounds of their racial inferiority, and implicitly calls Slavs sub-humans.

Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that
the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian
Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people
did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out
only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization
was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But
it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think
that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned
the German language and is willing to speak German for the future, and
even to cast his vote for a German political party.

Here is another passage, where he condemns advocates of Germanizing Poles, saying such a policy would be "fatal" because the Poles, a "people of foreign race," were inferior.

[I]t was believed that the Polish people
could be Germanized by being compelled to use the German language. The
result would have been fatal. A people of foreign race would have had to
use the German language to express modes of thought that were foreign to
the German, thus compromising by its own inferiority the dignity and
nobility of our nation.

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt

In Zweites Buch he explicitly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Poles on the grounds of their racial inferiority (a policy that was carried out following the Nazi invasion of taht country).

[Lamprecht]

Calling someone "inferior" or not desirable for integration is not the same as calling them "non-Aryan" though. You keep acting as if the term "Aryan" is being used when it is not.

[Otium]

Your problem is that you are assuming that Nazi racial concepts must have been rational; but, like the rest of Nazi ideology, these concepts were half-baked.

No, they weren't "half-baked" or "irrational", you just don't understand them. And in fairness, they're hard to understand because one runs into many problems. For one thing, nobody EVER was able to truly define the various aspects of what made up a people, or related people, what the spiritual factors were or even the seemingly distinct regional factors. The worse "race" was used to describe so many different things, it practically didn't mean anything close to how we understand it today. When "races" are spoken of as having inferior qualities, this leads people to misunderstandings especially because of how vague and varied it was.

There is endless documentary evidence showing Hitler saw Poles and Russians, among other Slavs, as racially inferior. Have you read Mein Kampf or Zweites Buch?

For example, in Mein Kampf Hitler rejects the idea of Germanizing Austrian Slavs on the grounds of their racial inferiority, and implicitly calls Slavs sub-humans.

Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that
the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian
Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people
did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out
only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization
was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But
it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think
that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned
the German language and is willing to speak German for the future, and
even to cast his vote for a German political party.

No, this version is incorrect. Hitler isn't saying, or implying that such people who cannot be Germanized aren't "human". An essential piece of wording has been cut out of this version of the Murphy translation, which has altered the meaning. You should know better Cockerill.

Here is the original German, relevant words underlined (and image from the edition attached):

Es war in den letzten hundert Jahren ein wahrer Jammer, sehen zu müssen, wie in diesen Kreisen, manchmal im besten Glauben, mit dem Worte „Germanisieren“ gespielt wurde. Ich selbst erinnere mich noch daran, wie in meiner Jugend gerade diese Bezeichnung zu ganz unglaublich falschen Vorstellungen verleitete. Selbst in alldeutschen Kreisen konnte man damals die Meinung hören, daß dem österreichischen Deutschtum unter fördernder Mithilfe der Regierung sehr wohl eine Germanisation des österreichischen Slawentums gelingen könnte, wobei man sich nicht im geringsten darüber klar wurde, daß Germanisation nur am Boden vorgenommen werden kann und niemals an Menschen. Denn was man im allgemeinen unter diesem Wort verstand, war nur die erzwungene äußerliche Annahme der deutschen Sprache. Es ist aber ein kaum faßlicher Denkfehler, zu glauben, daß, sagen wir, aus einem Neger oder einem Chinesen ein Germane wird, weil er Deutsch lernt und bereit ist, künftighin die deutsche Sprache zu sprechen und etwa einer deutschen politischen Partei seine Stimme zu geben. Daß jede solche Germanisation in Wirklichkeit eine Entgermanisation ist, wurde unserer bürgerlichen nationalen Welt niemals klar. Denn wenn heute durch das Oktroyieren einer allgemeinen Sprache bisher sichtbar in die Augen springende Unterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Völkern überbrückt und endlich verwischt werden, so bedeutet dies den Beginn einer Bastardierung und damit in unserem Fall nicht eine Germanisierung, sondern eine Vernichtung germanischen Elementes. Es kommt in der Geschichte nur zu häufig vor, daß es den äußeren Machtmitteln eines Eroberervolkes zwar gelingt, den Unterdrückten ihre Sprache aufzuzwingen, daß aber nach tausend Jahren ihre Sprache von einem anderen Volk geredet wird und die Sieger dadurch zu den eigentlich Besiegten werden.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (München: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1936), p. 428.

The edition you're quoting from is the Murphy translation from 1942, which completely leaves out the mention of 'soil' (Boden) which is essential for Hitler's argument. It reads as you quoted it:

During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word ‘Germanization’ was frivolously played with, though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how in the days of my youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was the process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German langauge and is willing to speak German for the future, and even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a pro- cess of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all the outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1942), pp. 218 f.

If we look at the original, complete, James Murphy translation from 1939 the missing words are included:

During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word ‘Gcrmanization’ was frivolously played with, though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how in the days of my youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards territory but not as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was the process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German language and is willing to speak German for the future and even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all die outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1939), p. 326.

We can also see this in other versions published before 1942, that despite their differences, the meaning is correct in this relevant passage.

'Stalag' translation, derivative of the Murphy translation reads:

During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word ‘Germanization’ was frivolously played with, though often with the very best of intentions. I well remember how, in the days of my youth, this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the government were ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards territory and not as regards human beings. What was generally understood by this term was the enforced adoption of the German language, but it is almost inconceivable that people should imagine that a negro or a Chinaman, for example, can become German simply by learning the German language, by being willing to speak it for the rest of their lives and even to vote in favour of some German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization, for even if all the outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally eliminated by the use of a common language, this would give rise to a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization, but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by force in compelling the people whom they had subjected to speak their tongue, with the result that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

Adolf Hitler, My Struggle (Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1940), pp. 415 f.

Ralf Manheim translation:

In the last hundred years it has been a true misery to observe how these circles , sometimes in the best good faith, played with the word ‘Germanize.' I myself still remember how in my youth this very term led to incredibly false conceptions. Even in Pan-German circles the opinion could then be heard that the Austrian-Germans, with the promotion and aid of the government, might well succeed in a Germanization of the Austrian Slavs; these circles never even began to realize that Germanization can only be applied to soil and never to people. For what was generally understood under this word was only the forced outward acceptance of the German language. But it is a scarcely conceivable fallacy of thought to believe that a Negro or a Chinese, let us say, will turn into a German because be learns German and is willing to speak the German language in the future and perhaps even give his vote to a German political party. That any such Germanization is in reality a de-Germanization never became clear to our bourgeois national world. For if today, by forcing a universal language on them, obvious differences between different peoples are bridged over and finally effaced, this means the beginning of a bastardization, and hence in our case not a Germanization but a destruction of the Germanic element. Only too frequently does it occur in history that conquering people’s outward instruments of power succeed in forcing their language on oppressed peoples, but that after a thousand years their language is spoken by an- other people, and the victors thereby actually become the vanquished

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943), pp. 388 f.

Stackpole translation:

In the last hundred years it has been a true calamity to watch the playing with the word “Germanize” in those circles, often in absolute good faith. I myself can still remember how in my youth this particular term led to quite incredibly mistaken notions. Even in Pan-German circles at that time one heard the opinion that Austrian Germanity with the assistance of the government might well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, they never realized for a moment that Germanization can be all plied only to the soil, never to people. What was generally understood by this word was a forced outward acceptance of the German language. But it is an almost inconceivable error to believe that, let us say, a negro or a Chinese becomes a Teuton because he learns German and is ready to speak the German language in the future, and perhaps to give his vote to a German political party. . .

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), p. 376.

What Hitler is saying is that you cannot Germanize people, but only Germanize soil in terms of peoples either expanding or receding across territory. When a territory gets taken over by a foreign people, even if they speak the language, it's no longer that people's territory. An example might be some countries in Africa that still speak French, they ain't French! They just speak the language. Similarly, if the French people were to be totally displaced by hordes of African and Middle Eastern migrants the French people would cease to exist.

In this case, Hitler's point here has nothing to do with determining racial inferiority, but of pointing out that a different people cannot pretend to be German by simply speaking the language, because eventually that which makes the Germans distinct, their genes, will be destroyed and lead to there being no Germans at all. This is a fundamental argument against civic-nationalists and imperialists which is as relevant today as it was back then.

Hitler didn't view other groups as not being 'Aryan', but being of a different character. To him (obviously) the Germans were the best as they had always been the conquerors. So logically, to concede land by "Germanizing" through language, groups which weren't as ambitious, or didn't have that quality for administration would be to lose out something essential in what makes a German, German. He's talking about racial quality, not racial distinction. Terms like "inferior" or "superior" don't mean the same thing to people of Hitler's generation as they do today. You putting your emotions into such words, which fundamentally alters how people like Hitler saw them, only distorts and colours your view of history because Hitler didn't see the words as meaning the same things as you. To him, this was clearly a simple observative and scientific distinction between the German ethnic group (or race) and non-German ethnic groups, not a recipe for anything sinister.

Hitler's views as expressed in Mein Kampf weren't heterodox or extreme for the time. To view these as anything other than run of the mill racial jargon of the mid to late 1920s would be putting too much stock in an old horse. It's complete nonsense which you use to make your argument for consistency and beliefs in 'racial inferiority' leading to unusually ill treatment as being more linear and consistent than it really was.

In Zweites Buch he explicitly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Poles on the grounds of their racial inferiority (a policy that was carried out following the Nazi invasion of taht country).

The fact that Hitler didn't have a favourable view of certain segments of the Polish population doesn't mean he justified their ethnic-cleansing (not Genocide) later in the war on the basis of their "racial inferiority"; this was rather incidental to the fact that the Poles had—from the German perspective—been a thorn in their side for millennia.

You're also just plain wrong, the plan devised by the Planungshauptabteilung des Reichsführer-SS (Main Planning Department of the Reichsführer-SS) in April-May of 1940 under the title Planungsgrundlagen für den Aufbau der Ostgebiete (Planning Principles for the Reconstruction of the Eastern Territories) envisioned a settlement of Germans under a limited scope which was to initially incorporate West Prussia and Posen back into the German Reich. The goal, explicitly stated in this plan, was to restore Germany's 1914 frontier which had been lost, and deport some 3.4 million Poles who had arrived after 1918 and had thus been apart of the ethnic cleansing of these areas against ethnic Germans; we read in part:

The new eastern territory annexed to the Reich has a total area of 87,000 sq. km. The population was about 9 1/2 million. The share of the Polish population in this area in 1939 was on average 82%, the German share about 11%. . .

. . . In the former Prussian provinces of Poznan and West Prussia, the German population at the outbreak of the World War was about 50%, i.e. it balanced out proportionally with the Polish population.

The first goal, achievable in the next few years, must be to restore at least this 1914 status. Once this goal is achieved, further Germanization will proceed in a steadily increasing manner through the participation of the biological and economic forces arising from the settlers and the new territory itself. The restoration of the status of 1914 would mean that the number of 1.1 million Germans now living in the area would be increased by 3.4 million, to 4.5 million, and that 3.4 million Poles would be deported step by step. In the former provinces of Posen and West Prussia, it is mainly those Poles who have settled here from the eastern regions after 1918 who have to leave the country.

Czeslaw Madajczyk (ed.), Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan (München: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1994), Doc. 1, p. 3.

We can see this more or less from this map taken from Christian Ingrao's book The Promise of the East:

This is perfectly in line with Hitler's thoughts at the tail end of 1939 and well into 1940. For example, Hitler told Rosenberg at 4 p.m. on September 29, 1939 that the "large task that awaited the German Volk" was the "creating of a German breadbasket, a community of sturdy farmers, and resettling of good Germans from all over the world" within the limited horizons of what Germany had gained from former Prussian territory (West Prussia/Posen) that had belonged to Germany before being given to Poland at the end of WW1:

He [Hitler] wants to divide the territory that has now been defined into three strips: 1. Between the Vistula and the Bug: all the Jews (also from the Reich), as well as all elements that are unreliable in some way. Along the Vistula, an impregnable eastern line of fortifications [Ostwall]—even stronger than in the West. 2. Along the former border, a broad belt of Germanization and colonization. Here a large task awaits the entire Volk: creating a German breadbasket, a community of sturdy farmers, and resettling good Germans from all over the world. 3. In between, a form of Polish “statehood” [Staatlichkeit].

Frank Bajohr & Jürgen Matthäus (eds.), Alfred Rosenberg: Die Tagebücher von 1934 bis 1944 (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2015), p. 292. English ed. The Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), p. 165.

Similarly we read from Goebbels' diary dated September 30, 1939:

The Führer now wants to divide the conquered [Polish] territory into 3 zones: 1. the old German territory: this will be completely Germanised again, with real German peasant families, capitulants from the Wehrmacht and ethnic Germans from the countries where we cannot conquer anything. These eastern provinces will become German core territory. There we create farms of up to 200 acres and place German military farmers on them.

2nd zone up to the Vistula. The good Polish element lives there. Protectorate with autonomy. On its border we build a new fortification line. This separates Germany from Russia once and for all.

3rd zone: the land on the other side of the Vistula. Also part of the protectorate. Into it we push the bad Polish elements and the Jews, including those from the Reich. Let them show whether they can build at all. Our settlement is proceeding according to plan and is calculated for the long term.

Elke Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part I: Vol. 7 (München: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1998), p. 130.

Thus we can see Hitler's comments to Rosenberg and Goebbels (others too) find some formation in the aforementioned plan.

Providing further details, we read from section C. of the plan, what the zone of colonization will be, and it is quite modest, herein lies (perhaps) the beginning of the settlement belt previously referred to by Hitler:

The following strategic aspects are decisive for the delimitation of areas to be settled with priority:

1. first, along the border of the Generalgouvernement, a rampart of German nationality in the form of a deeply staggered belt of Germanic farms must be erected. This border wall will definitively separate the Poles, who for the time being will remain in the territory of the Reich, from the hinterland.

2) The hinterland of the larger cities must be more densely populated with German peasants.

3) A wide German folk bridge must be built as an east-west axis connecting the border wall with the old Reich; in addition, another narrower bridge must be built through the former corridor across the districts of Zempelburg, Bromberg, Kulm and Graudenz. These folk bridges will then separate the remnants of the intervening Polish folk, creating Polish islands.

Madajczyk, op. cit., pp. 5-6.

This was the 'limited vision of 1940' referred to by Mark Mazower in his book Hitler's Empire (pg. 205). Hitler had repeatedly expounded upon his desire to have little to nothing to do with the Poles and what was to be their nominally independent general government (eg. to Ciano on October 3, 1939 and to Mussolini on March 8, 1940) which was strictly controlled during the war, until the war ended; if that happened Hitler said "we ourselves have only the greatest interest in ridding ourselves of this ballast of administration and responsibility—provided, however, that every further threat to the eastern boundary of the Reich is precluded" (DGFP, D, VIII, Doc. 663, pp. 878 f.). When it turned out this couldn't be done, that the war would go on and peace couldn't be made with the West, and the threat of Russia emerged from the East and Barbarossa was launched, only then was this all abandoned; quite against Hitler's initial vision. The new plan constructed in the summerof 1941 would extend settlements further towards the Bug river. But even then the "transformation zone" was still to the West of Lublin, Zamosc and Lviv.

What you refer to in Hitler's Zweites Buch, is I believe the following:

The völkisch state, on the other hand, could under no circumstances annex Poles with the intention of one day making Germans out of them. On the contrary, it had to make the decision either to encapsulate these racially alien elements in order not to let the blood of its own people decompose again and again, or it had to remove them without further ado and transfer the land thus freed to its own people.

Institut für Zeitgeschichte (ed.), Hitlers Zweites Buch: Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961), p. 81.

Yet this is entirely reasonable, and not out of line with the principles Hitler pursued along the lines of the former German territory. He speaks of a decision needing to be made and outlines two possibilities, he doesn't advocate, as you would have us believe, one or the other, he merely states what must be done to preserve the 'völkisch state'. We can also observe that this irritation at the Poles comes from their antagonism, not form some bizarre and irrational "racial hatred". Hitler states that "the Poles systematically destroy everything that even reminds them of the German name" (pg. 201) and "the fact that the Poles slaughtered more than 17,000 Germans, some of them in almost bestial circumstances, is no cause for excitement; the fact that they drove tens of thousands of them from their homes and farms and drove them across the border, barely clothed in their shirts, are all things that our bourgeois and paternalist protectorate swindlers are not able to get worked up about." (pgs. 201-202) This is no doubt a cause for irritation and friction between the two peoples, which cannot but emphasise any perceived differences.

The only other thing Hitler says that you could be referring to regarding the Poles, is that he doesn't think they can be Germanized. Yet he says nothing 'racial inferiority'. Only that they cannot be Germanized due to simply not being German and different in their own way, which presumably Hitler didn't view as capable of meshing with what was Germanic:

The National Socialist movement, on the contrary, will always let its foreign policy be determined by the necessity to secure the space necessary to the life of our people. It knows no Germanizing or Teutonizing, as in the case of the national bourgeoisie, but only the spread of its own people. It will never see in the subjugated, so-called Germanized, Czechs or Poles as a national, let alone Völkisch, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of our people. For its national conception is not determined by earlier patriotic ideas of government, but rather by Völkisch, racial insights. Thus the point of departure of its think

Ibid., pp. 78 f.

The fact is that there's really nothing to support your claim that Hitler justifies anything in his Zweites Buch on the basis of 'racial inferiority', which if anything is purely incidental with no necessary causality. But we know you like to conflate so it's not a surprise that you came to this erroneous conclusion.

Using books like Mein Kampf or Zweites Buch do not tell us very much about what events would turn out to be. In Mein Kampf Hitler disputes the Germanization efforts of the Hapsburgs to make the Czechs into Germans, yet we know Hitler later had a more favourable view of the Czechs (see the thread Lamprecht referenced above). Rather than resisting Germanization, Hitler had no problem allowing it to happen when the right elements were chosen:

Facing the prospect that the whole resettlement programme would end up depopulating the Reich's new eastern borderlands by getting rid of Poles before enough Germans had been found to come in, the local authorities in the Warthegau moved back towards an assimilation policy and sought to introduce new citizenship guidlines in order to work out whom to give German ID papers to. Less dogmatic than Himmler, Hitler himself understood the problem and once he clarified that he tolerate some degree of assimilation the guidlines were finalized.

Mark Mazower, Hitler's Empire Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (Penguin Books, 2008), pp. 74-75

The Poles received harsher treatment, less because of their ethnicity, and more so because of their antagonistic and unruly behaviour towards the Germans. Their dislike of whom was much more pronounced than in other "Slavic" groups:

The Poles’ treatment of the ethnic Germans played an important part in fueling ‘the war of the peoples’. Worried about Nazi-funded underground organizations and ‘self-defence’ militias, they had closed down many German cultural and religious institutions after the invasion of Poland began, police arrested 10-15,000 members of the minority on the basis of prepared lists and marched them away from the front lines. Attacked by Polish bystandards and soldiers, between 1,778 and 2,200 Germans died, some of exhaustion and maltreatment, others through mass shootings.

When they uncovered evidence of these deaths, the invading Germans were provoked into an even more violent response. In Bydgoszcz – the most notorious case – hundreds of local Germans had been killed because of rumours that snipers were firing on Polish troops. The death toll amounted to 700-1,000 people, and some of the bodies were horrifically mutilated

Ibid., p. 68

And

Everyone knew how, after 1918, their [ethnic Germans’] land had been confiscated or surrounded with subsidized clusters of new settlements. Hostile officials had discouraged them from speaking German or declaring themselves as Germans in censuses and even the landscape itself had been de-Germanized through changes to the names of families, streets and entire towns. In many areas Germans had been deliberately expelled; in others they had sold up and left, or bowed to the pressure to change their nationality. The Nazi regime saw reversing the effect of these decades as a priority. “Make this land German for me again!” Hitler had ordered an official after the conquest of northern Yugoslavia in 1941. His message to those he appointed to the Reich’s other borderlands was basically the same.

[...]

This dire fate. however, faced the Poles in particular rather than the Slavs as a whole. Despite the Nazis' rhetoric, in theory, and increasingly in practice, racial scientists and policy advisors distinguished between groups of Slavs. The Slovaks were allowed to govern themselves, and even in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia the Germans ruled through a Czech bureaucracy and a figurehead Czech president - something denied to the Poles. The principles applied to the Bohemian-Moravian space could not be applied to the Polish space owing to the unbridled Polish character, which was sharply revealed during the Polish campaign as an element which requires a different method of domination,' explained a German journalist in Poland later on . . .

Ibid., pp. 180, 194.

Mazower points out that by 1944 30 percent of Western Poland were eligible for German citizenship (pg. 196) and that in the General Government itself, Hans Frank thought the Poles could be assimilated because they were biologically compatible:

I speak openly of Germanization. How often have we not seen with astonishment some blond, blue-eyed child speaking Polish. To which I say: ‘If this child learned German, it would be a pretty German girl’.

Ibid., p. 193.

All this is to say that reducing what Hitler thought, and what later occurred to these two books is nonsense. Even when we consider Hitler's attitude in the spring of 1939 in his directive to Brauchitsch, we read nowhere about "racial inferiority" being the reason for this. Rather, the stemming of Polish antagonism to Germany and influence in her foreign policy. The contingency for solving the 'Polish question' in case it became necessary was to ensure she was "so beaten down that, during the next few decades, she need not be taken into account as a political factor" and that this solution also envisaged "extending from the eastern border of East Prussia to the eastern tip of Silesia" while "the questions of evacuation and resettlement still remain open." (DGFP, D, VI, Doc. 99, p. 117) Nothing about racial inferiority, merely the geo-political necessity (in case it became necessary, which it did) to stop Poland as a knife in the German rear; again accompanied by a limited vision.

If we jump forward in time to the 10/11 December of 1942 (this more on topic) we read from SS-Standartenführer Dr. Hans Ehlich's speech Die Behandlung des fremden Volkstums (The Treatment of Foreign Nationality) to the RSHA that the Czech, Poles, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians are all considered 'kindrid-non-tribal blood', which is still Aryan, and defined as including "the blood of all non-Germanic European peoples", and that "in today's Czech, Polish and Magyar peoples, we can find significant proportions of German-blooded hereditary material". The entire force of this document lays behind the explicit denunciation of Genocide or murder of any kind! Instead the focus is on possible Germanization efforts in line with "new findings in the field of ethnic and racial politics as well as the changed political conditions in the entire European area". The problem with the Poles, Ehlich states, is not that they're 'racially inferior' but that "we have seen how the Poles, who were believed by the German people. . . to have become essentially German, let their Polishness emerge again in its full extent at the moment when the German people were doing extremely badly politically" thus "no real repopulation had occurred, but rather, by various means, only an adaptation to the German people had been achieved". He goes on to provide an example of how this kind of Germanization failed in Prussian elementary schools and concludes that it just wouldn't be right to forcibly Germanize people who cannot become Germans (who could disagree?) "we can be convinced of the Poles that we will not make them good Germans by forcing the German language on them." Ehlich states that only those who are of high quality are suitable to become Germans, and that this is determined (rather arbitrarily) "by their historical development up to now, the decisive factor here being above all the question of how strong the German influence has been in each individual case in the course of the past". Thus, the determining of who among the Polish people, and the other 'related non-kindrid' groups who could make good Germans had to be discovered through a long arduous process taking decades.

Thus to speak of any uniform and all encompassing simple decision is doing a disservice to the complexity of the situation, and the amount of discussion which went on. None of which is based on Mein Kampf or Hitlers Zweites Buch.

[HistorySpeaks]

Your problem is that you are assuming that Nazi racial concepts must have been rational; but, like the rest of Nazi ideology, these concepts were half-baked.

No, they weren't "half-baked" or "irrational", you just don't understand them. And in fairness, they're hard to understand because one runs into many problems. For one thing, nobody EVER was able to truly define the various aspects of what made up a people, or related people, what the spiritual factors were or even the seemingly distinct regional factors. The worse "race" was used to describe so many different things, it practically didn't mean anything close to how we understand it today. When "races" are spoken of as having inferior qualities, this leads people to misunderstandings especially because of how vague and varied it was.

There is endless documentary evidence showing Hitler saw Poles and Russians, among other Slavs, as racially inferior. Have you read Mein Kampf or Zweites Buch?

For example, in Mein Kampf Hitler rejects the idea of Germanizing Austrian Slavs on the grounds of their racial inferiority, and implicitly calls Slavs sub-humans.

Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that
the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian
Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people
did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out
only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization
was a process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But
it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think
that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned
the German language and is willing to speak German for the future, and
even to cast his vote for a German political party.

No, this version is incorrect. Hitler isn't saying, or implying that such people who cannot be Germanized aren't "human". An essential piece of wording has been cut out of this version of the Murphy translation, which has altered the meaning. You should know better Cockerill.

Here is the original German, relevant words underlined (and image from the edition attached):

Es war in den letzten hundert Jahren ein wahrer Jammer, sehen zu müssen, wie in diesen Kreisen, manchmal im besten Glauben, mit dem Worte „Germanisieren“ gespielt wurde. Ich selbst erinnere mich noch daran, wie in meiner Jugend gerade diese Bezeichnung zu ganz unglaublich falschen Vorstellungen verleitete. Selbst in alldeutschen Kreisen konnte man damals die Meinung hören, daß dem österreichischen Deutschtum unter fördernder Mithilfe der Regierung sehr wohl eine Germanisation des österreichischen Slawentums gelingen könnte, wobei man sich nicht im geringsten darüber klar wurde, daß Germanisation nur am Boden vorgenommen werden kann und niemals an Menschen. Denn was man im allgemeinen unter diesem Wort verstand, war nur die erzwungene äußerliche Annahme der deutschen Sprache. Es ist aber ein kaum faßlicher Denkfehler, zu glauben, daß, sagen wir, aus einem Neger oder einem Chinesen ein Germane wird, weil er Deutsch lernt und bereit ist, künftighin die deutsche Sprache zu sprechen und etwa einer deutschen politischen Partei seine Stimme zu geben. Daß jede solche Germanisation in Wirklichkeit eine Entgermanisation ist, wurde unserer bürgerlichen nationalen Welt niemals klar. Denn wenn heute durch das Oktroyieren einer allgemeinen Sprache bisher sichtbar in die Augen springende Unterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Völkern überbrückt und endlich verwischt werden, so bedeutet dies den Beginn einer Bastardierung und damit in unserem Fall nicht eine Germanisierung, sondern eine Vernichtung germanischen Elementes. Es kommt in der Geschichte nur zu häufig vor, daß es den äußeren Machtmitteln eines Eroberervolkes zwar gelingt, den Unterdrückten ihre Sprache aufzuzwingen, daß aber nach tausend Jahren ihre Sprache von einem anderen Volk geredet wird und die Sieger dadurch zu den eigentlich Besiegten werden.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (München: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1936), p. 428.
MK German pg 428.PNG

The edition you're quoting from is the Murphy translation from 1942, which completely leaves out the mention of 'soil' (Boden) which is essential for Hitler's argument. It reads as you quoted it:

During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word ‘Germanization’ was frivolously played with, though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how in the days of my youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was the process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German langauge and is willing to speak German for the future, and even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a pro- cess of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all the outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1942), pp. 218 f.

If we look at the original, complete, James Murphy translation from 1939 the missing words are included:

During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word ‘Gcrmanization’ was frivolously played with, though the practice was often well intended. I well remember how in the days of my youth this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the Government would be ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards territory but not as regards human beings. What they mostly meant by Germanization was the process of forcing other people to speak the German language. But it is almost inconceivable how such a mistake could be made as to think that a Nigger or a Chinaman will become a German because he has learned the German language and is willing to speak German for the future and even to cast his vote for a German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization; for even if all die outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally wiped out by the use of a common language, that would produce a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by external force in compelling the people whom they subjected to speak the tongue of the conqueror and that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and that thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1939), p. 326.

We can also see this in other versions published before 1942, that despite their differences, the meaning is correct in this relevant passage.

'Stalag' translation, derivative of the Murphy translation reads:

During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just mentioned the word ‘Germanization’ was frivolously played with, though often with the very best of intentions. I well remember how, in the days of my youth, this very term used to give rise to notions which were false to an incredible degree. Even in Pan-German circles one heard the opinion expressed that the Austrian Germans might very well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, if only the government were ready to co-operate. Those people did not understand that a policy of Germanization can be carried out only as regards territory and not as regards human beings. What was generally understood by this term was the enforced adoption of the German language, but it is almost inconceivable that people should imagine that a negro or a Chinaman, for example, can become German simply by learning the German language, by being willing to speak it for the rest of their lives and even to vote in favour of some German political party. Our bourgeois nationalists could never clearly see that such a process of Germanization is in reality de-Germanization, for even if all the outstanding and visible differences between the various peoples could be bridged over and finally eliminated by the use of a common language, this would give rise to a process of bastardization which in this case would not signify Germanization, but the annihilation of the German element. In the course of history it has happened only too often that a conquering race succeeded by force in compelling the people whom they had subjected to speak their tongue, with the result that after a thousand years their language was spoken by another people and thus the conqueror finally turned out to be the conquered.

Adolf Hitler, My Struggle (Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1940), pp. 415 f.

Ralf Manheim translation:

In the last hundred years it has been a true misery to observe how these circles , sometimes in the best good faith, played with the word ‘Germanize.' I myself still remember how in my youth this very term led to incredibly false conceptions. Even in Pan-German circles the opinion could then be heard that the Austrian-Germans, with the promotion and aid of the government, might well succeed in a Germanization of the Austrian Slavs; these circles never even began to realize that Germanization can only be applied to soil and never to people. For what was generally understood under this word was only the forced outward acceptance of the German language. But it is a scarcely conceivable fallacy of thought to believe that a Negro or a Chinese, let us say, will turn into a German because be learns German and is willing to speak the German language in the future and perhaps even give his vote to a German political party. That any such Germanization is in reality a de-Germanization never became clear to our bourgeois national world. For if today, by forcing a universal language on them, obvious differences between different peoples are bridged over and finally effaced, this means the beginning of a bastardization, and hence in our case not a Germanization but a destruction of the Germanic element. Only too frequently does it occur in history that conquering people’s outward instruments of power succeed in forcing their language on oppressed peoples, but that after a thousand years their language is spoken by an- other people, and the victors thereby actually become the vanquished

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943), pp. 388 f.

Stackpole translation:

In the last hundred years it has been a true calamity to watch the playing with the word “Germanize” in those circles, often in absolute good faith. I myself can still remember how in my youth this particular term led to quite incredibly mistaken notions. Even in Pan-German circles at that time one heard the opinion that Austrian Germanity with the assistance of the government might well succeed in Germanizing the Austrian Slavs, they never realized for a moment that Germanization can be all plied only to the soil, never to people. What was generally understood by this word was a forced outward acceptance of the German language. But it is an almost inconceivable error to believe that, let us say, a negro or a Chinese becomes a Teuton because he learns German and is ready to speak the German language in the future, and perhaps to give his vote to a German political party. . .

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), p. 376.

What Hitler is saying is that you cannot Germanize people, but only Germanize soil in terms of peoples either expanding or receding across territory. When a territory gets taken over by a foreign people, even if they speak the language, it's no longer that people's territory. An example might be some countries in Africa that still speak French, they ain't French! They just speak the language. Similarly, if the French people were to be totally displaced by hordes of African and Middle Eastern migrants the French people would cease to exist.

In this case, Hitler's point here has nothing to do with determining racial inferiority, but of pointing out that a different people cannot pretend to be German by simply speaking the language, because eventually that which makes the Germans distinct, their genes, will be destroyed and lead to there being no Germans at all. This is a fundamental argument against civic-nationalists and imperialists which is as relevant today as it was back then.

Hitler didn't view other groups as not being 'Aryan', but being of a different character. To him (obviously) the Germans were the best as they had always been the conquerors. So logically, to concede land by "Germanizing" through language, groups which weren't as ambitious, or didn't have that quality for administration would be to lose out something essential in what makes a German, German. He's talking about racial quality, not racial distinction. Terms like "inferior" or "superior" don't mean the same thing to people of Hitler's generation as they do today. You putting your emotions into such words, which fundamentally alters how people like Hitler saw them, only distorts and colours your view of history because Hitler didn't see the words as meaning the same things as you. To him, this was clearly a simple observative and scientific distinction between the German ethnic group (or race) and non-German ethnic groups, not a recipe for anything sinister.

Hitler's views as expressed in Mein Kampf weren't heterodox or extreme for the time. To view these as anything other than run of the mill racial jargon of the mid to late 1920s would be putting too much stock in an old horse. It's complete nonsense which you use to make your argument for consistency and beliefs in 'racial inferiority' leading to unusually ill treatment as being more linear and consistent than it really was.

In Zweites Buch he explicitly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Poles on the grounds of their racial inferiority (a policy that was carried out following the Nazi invasion of taht country).

The fact that Hitler didn't have a favourable view of certain segments of the Polish population doesn't mean he justified their ethnic-cleansing (not Genocide) later in the war on the basis of their "racial inferiority"; this was rather incidental to the fact that the Poles had—from the German perspective—been a thorn in their side for millennia.

You're also just plain wrong, the plan devised by the Planungshauptabteilung des Reichsführer-SS (Main Planning Department of the Reichsführer-SS) in April-May of 1940 under the title Planungsgrundlagen für den Aufbau der Ostgebiete (Planning Principles for the Reconstruction of the Eastern Territories) envisioned a settlement of Germans under a limited scope which was to initially incorporate West Prussia back into the German Reich. The goal, explicitly stated in this plan, was to restore Germany's 1914 frontier which had been lost, and deport some 3.4 million Poles who had arrived after 1918 and had thus been apart of the ethnic cleansing of these areas against ethnic Germans; we read in part:

The new eastern territory annexed to the Reich has a total area of 87,000 sq. km. The population was about 9 1/2 million. The share of the Polish population in this area in 1939 was on average 82%, the German share about 11%. . .

. . . In the former Prussian provinces of Poznan and West Prussia, the German population at the outbreak of the World War was about 50%, i.e. it balanced out proportionally with the Polish population.

The first goal, achievable in the next few years, must be to restore at least this 1914 status. Once this goal is achieved, further Germanization will proceed in a steadily increasing manner through the participation of the biological and economic forces arising from the settlers and the new territory itself. The restoration of the status of 1914 would mean that the number of 1.1 million Germans now living in the area would be increased by 3.4 million, to 4.5 million, and that 3.4 million Poles would be deported step by step. In the former provinces of Posen and West Prussia, it is mainly those Poles who have settled here from the eastern regions after 1918 who have to leave the country.

Czeslaw Madajczyk (ed.), Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan (München: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1994), Doc. 1, p. 3.

We can see this more or less from this map taken from Christian Ingrao's book The Promise of the East:

GPO Map 1 - 1940.jpg
This is perfectly in line with Hitler's thoughts at the tail end of 1939 and well into 1940. For example, Hitler told Rosenberg at 4 p.m. on September 29, 1939 that the "large task that awaited the German Volk" was the "creating of a German breadbasket, a community of sturdy farmers, and resettling of good Germans from all over the world" within the limited horizons of what Germany had gained from former West Prussian territory that had belonged to Germany before being given to Poland:

He [Hitler] wants to divide the territory that has now been defined into three strips: 1. Between the Vistula and the Bug: all the Jews (also from the Reich), as well as all elements that are unreliable in some way. Along the Vistula, an impregnable eastern line of fortifications [Ostwall]—even stronger than in the West. 2. Along the former border, a broad belt of Germanization and colonization. Here a large task awaits the entire Volk: creating a German breadbasket, a community of sturdy farmers, and resettling good Germans from all over the world. 3. In between, a form of Polish “statehood” [Staatlichkeit].

Frank Bajohr & Jürgen Matthäus (eds.), Alfred Rosenberg: Die Tagebücher von 1934 bis 1944 (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2015), p. 292. English ed. The Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), p. 165.

Similarly we read from Goebbels' diary dated September 30, 1939:

The Führer now wants to divide the conquered [Polish] territory into 3 zones: 1. the old German territory: this will be completely Germanised again, with real German peasant families, capitulants from the Wehrmacht and ethnic Germans from the countries where we cannot conquer anything. These eastern provinces will become German core territory. There we create farms of up to 200 acres and place German military farmers on them.

2nd zone up to the Vistula. The good Polish element lives there. Protectorate with autonomy. On its border we build a new fortification line. This separates Germany from Russia once and for all.

3rd zone: the land on the other side of the Vistula. Also part of the protectorate. Into it we push the bad Polish elements and the Jews, including those from the Reich. Let them show whether they can build at all. Our settlement is proceeding according to plan and is calculated for the long term.

Elke Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part I: Vol. 7 (München: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1998), p. 130.

Thus we can see Hitler's comments to Rosenberg and Goebbels (others too) find some formation in the aforementioned plan.

Providing further details, we read from section C. of the plan, what the zone of colonization will be, and it is quite modest, herein lies (perhaps) the beginning of the settlement belt previously referred to by Hitler:

The following strategic aspects are decisive for the delimitation of areas to be settled with priority:

1. first, along the border of the Generalgouvernement, a rampart of German nationality in the form of a deeply staggered belt of Germanic farms must be erected. This border wall will definitively separate the Poles, who for the time being will remain in the territory of the Reich, from the hinterland.

2) The hinterland of the larger cities must be more densely populated with German peasants.

3) A wide German folk bridge must be built as an east-west axis connecting the border wall with the old Reich; in addition, another narrower bridge must be built through the former corridor across the districts of Zempelburg, Bromberg, Kulm and Graudenz. These folk bridges will then separate the remnants of the intervening Polish folk, creating Polish islands.

Madajczyk, op. cit., pp. 5-6.

This was the 'limited vision of 1940' referred to by Mark Mazower in his book Hitler's Empire (pg. 205). Hitler had repeatedly expounded upon his desire to have little to nothing to do with the Poles and what was to be their nominally independent general government (eg. to Ciano on October 3, 1939 and to Mussolini on March 8, 1940) which was strictly controlled during the war, until the war ended; if that happened Hitler said "we ourselves have only the greatest interest in ridding ourselves of this ballast of administration and responsibility—provided, however, that every further threat to the eastern boundary of the Reich is precluded" (DGFP, D, VIII, Doc. 663, pp. 878 f.). When it turned out this couldn't be done, that the war would go on and peace couldn't be made with the West, and the threat of Russia emerged from the East and Barbarossa was launched, only then was this all abandoned; quite against Hitler's initial vision. The new plan constructed in the summerof 1941 would extend settlements further towards the Bug river. But even then the "transformation zone" was still to the West of Lublin, Zamosc and Lviv.

What you refer to in Hitler's Zweites Buch, is I believe the following:

The völkisch state, on the other hand, could under no circumstances annex Poles with the intention of one day making Germans out of them. On the contrary, it had to make the decision either to encapsulate these racially alien elements in order not to let the blood of its own people decompose again and again, or it had to remove them without further ado and transfer the land thus freed to its own people.

Institut für Zeitgeschichte (ed.), Hitlers Zweites Buch: Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961), p. 81.

Yet this is entirely reasonable, and not out of line with the principles Hitler pursued along the lines of the former German territory. He speaks of a decision needing to be made and outlines two possibilities, he doesn't advocate, as you would have us believe, one or the other, he merely states what must be done to preserve the 'völkisch state'. We can also observe that this irritation at the Poles comes from their antagonism, not form some bizarre and irrational "racial hatred". Hitler states that "the Poles systematically destroy everything that even reminds them of the German name" (pg. 201) and "the fact that the Poles slaughtered more than 17,000 Germans, some of them in almost bestial circumstances, is no cause for excitement; the fact that they drove tens of thousands of them from their homes and farms and drove them across the border, barely clothed in their shirts, are all things that our bourgeois and paternalist protectorate swindlers are not able to get worked up about." (pgs. 201-202) This is no doubt a cause for irritation and friction between the two peoples, which cannot but emphasise any perceived differences.

The only other thing Hitler says that you could be referring to regarding the Poles, is that he doesn't think they can be Germanized. Yet he says nothing 'racial inferiority'. Only that they cannot be Germanized due to simply not being German and different in their own way, which presumably Hitler didn't view as capable of meshing with what was Germanic:

The National Socialist movement, on the contrary, will always let its foreign policy be determined by the necessity to secure the space necessary to the life of our people. It knows no Germanizing or Teutonizing, as in the case of the national bourgeoisie, but only the spread of its own people. It will never see in the subjugated, so-called Germanized, Czechs or Poles as a national, let alone Völkisch, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of our people. For its national conception is not determined by earlier patriotic ideas of government, but rather by Völkisch, racial insights. Thus the point of departure of its think

Ibid., pp. 78 f.

The fact is that there's really nothing to support your claim that Hitler justifies anything in his Zweites Buch on the basis of 'racial inferiority', which if anything is purely incidental with no necessary causality. But we know you like to conflate so it's not a surprise that you came to this erroneous conclusion.

Using books like Mein Kampf or Zweites Buch do not tell us very much about what events would turn out to be. In Mein Kampf Hitler disputes the Germanization efforts of the Hapsburgs to make the Czechs into Germans, yet we know Hitler later had a more favourable view of the Czechs (see the thread Lamprecht referenced above). Rather than resisting Germanization, Hitler had no problem allowing it to happen when the right elements were chosen:

Facing the prospect that the whole resettlement programme would end up depopulating the Reich's new eastern borderlands by getting rid of Poles before enough Germans had been found to come in, the local authorities in the Warthegau moved back towards an assimilation policy and sought to introduce new citizenship guidlines in order to work out whom to give German ID papers to. Less dogmatic than Himmler, Hitler himself understood the problem and once he clarified that he tolerate some degree of assimilation the guidlines were finalized.

Mark Mazower, Hitler's Empire Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (Penguin Books, 2008), pp. 74-75

The Poles received harsher treatment, less because of their ethnicity, and more so because of their antagonistic and unruly behaviour towards the Germans. Their dislike of whom was much more pronounced than in other "Slavic" groups:

The Poles’ treatment of the ethnic Germans played an important part in fueling ‘the war of the peoples’. Worried about Nazi-funded underground organizations and ‘self-defence’ militias, they had closed down many German cultural and religious institutions after the invasion of Poland began, police arrested 10-15,000 members of the minority on the basis of prepared lists and marched them away from the front lines. Attacked by Polish bystandards and soldiers, between 1,778 and 2,200 Germans died, some of exhaustion and maltreatment, others through mass shootings.

When they uncovered evidence of these deaths, the invading Germans were provoked into an even more violent response. In Bydgoszcz – the most notorious case – hundreds of local Germans had been killed because of rumours that snipers were firing on Polish troops. The death toll amounted to 700-1,000 people, and some of the bodies were horrifically mutilated

Ibid., p. 68

And

Everyone knew how, after 1918, their [ethnic Germans’] land had been confiscated or surrounded with subsidized clusters of new settlements. Hostile officials had discouraged them from speaking German or declaring themselves as Germans in censuses and even the landscape itself had been de-Germanized through changes to the names of families, streets and entire towns. In many areas Germans had been deliberately expelled; in others they had sold up and left, or bowed to the pressure to change their nationality. The Nazi regime saw reversing the effect of these decades as a priority. “Make this land German for me again!” Hitler had ordered an official after the conquest of northern Yugoslavia in 1941. His message to those he appointed to the Reich’s other borderlands was basically the same.

[...]

This dire fate. however, faced the Poles in particular rather than the Slavs as a whole. Despite the Nazis' rhetoric, in theory, and increasingly in practice, racial scientists and policy advisors distinguished between groups of Slavs. The Slovaks were allowed to govern themselves, and even in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia the Germans ruled through a Czech bureaucracy and a figurehead Czech president - something denied to the Poles. The principles applied to the Bohemian-Moravian space could not be applied to the Polish space owing to the unbridled Polish character, which was sharply revealed during the Polish campaign as an element which requires a different method of domination,' explained a German journalist in Poland later on . . .

Ibid., pp. 180, 194.

Mazower points out that by 1944 30 percent of Western Poland were eligible for German citizenship (pg. 196) and that in the General Government itself, Hans Frank thought the Poles could be assimilated because they were biologically compatible:

I speak openly of Germanization. How often have we not seen with astonishment some blond, blue-eyed child speaking Polish. To which I say: ‘If this child learned German, it would be a pretty German girl’.

Ibid., p. 193.

All this is to say that reducing what Hitler thought, and what later occurred to these two books is nonsense. Even when we consider Hitler's attitude in the spring of 1939 in his directive to Brauchitsch, we read nowhere about "racial inferiority" being the reason for this. Rather, the stemming of Polish antagonism to Germany and influence in her foreign policy. The contingency for solving the 'Polish question' in case it became necessary was to ensure she was "so beaten down that, during the next few decades, she need not be taken into account as a political factor" and that this solution also envisaged "extending from the eastern border of East Prussia to the eastern tip of Silesia" while "the questions of evacuation and resettlement still remain open." (DGFP, D, VI, Doc. 99, p. 117) Nothing about racial inferiority, merely the geo-political necessity (in case it became necessary, which it did) to stop Poland as a knife in the German rear; again accompanied by a limited vision.

If we jump forward in time to the 10/11 December of 1942 (this more on topic) we read from SS-Standartenführer Dr. Hans Ehlich's speech Die Behandlung des fremden Volkstums (The Treatment of Foreign Nationality) to the RSHA that the Czech, Poles, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians are all considered 'kindrid-non-tribal blood', which is still Aryan, and defined as including "the blood of all non-Germanic European peoples", and that "in today's Czech, Polish and Magyar peoples, we can find significant proportions of German-blooded hereditary material". The entire force of this document lays behind the explicit denunciation of Genocide or murder of any kind! Instead the focus is on possible Germanization efforts in line with "new findings in the field of ethnic and racial politics as well as the changed political conditions in the entire European area". The problem with the Poles, Ehlich states, is not that they're 'racially inferior' but that "we have seen how the Poles, who were believed by the German people. . . to have become essentially German, let their Polishness emerge again in its full extent at the moment when the German people were doing extremely badly politically" thus "no real repopulation had occurred, but rather, by various means, only an adaptation to the German people had been achieved". He goes on to provide an example of how this kind of Germanization failed in Prussian elementary schools and concludes that it just wouldn't be right to forcibly Germanize people who cannot become Germans (who could disagree?) "we can be convinced of the Poles that we will not make them good Germans by forcing the German language on them." Ehlich states that only those who are of high quality are suitable to become Germans, and that this is determined (rather arbitrarily) "by their historical development up to now, the decisive factor here being above all the question of how strong the German influence has been in each individual case in the course of the past". Thus, the determining of who among the Polish people, and the other 'related non-kindrid' groups who could make good Germans had to be discovered through a long arduous process taking decades.

Thus to speak of any uniform and all encompassing simple decision is doing a disservice to the complexity of the situation, and the amount of discussion which went on. None of which is based on Mein Kampf or Hitlers Zweites Buch.

I am obliged to say that you are correct to point out that the translation of Mein Kampf from which I was quoting, namely the Murphy translation, mistranslates this passage. However, I do not find the rest of your analysis compelling; the passages I referenced from Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch (including the passage with the translation error) clearly show that Hitler regarded Poles and other Slavs as racially inferior, opposed Germanizing them because of their racial inferiority, and (as the Zweites Book passage indicates) sought to ethnically cleanse them.

[HistorySpeaks]

You are quite wrong to suggest that the Nazis' planned ethnic cleansing of Poles was limited to West Prussia. Zamosc for example was not part of West Prussia, yet the Poles were ethnically cleansed from their anyway, to make room for 'racially-superior' German settlers.

[HistorySpeaks]

Your own quotation from the Mazower book proves my point. As he says, "Despite the Nazis' rhetoric, in theory, and increasingly in practice, racial scientists and policy advisors distinguished between groups of Slavs." In other words, Nazi "racial scientists" were making racial distinctions between groups of Slavs, marking (for example) Poles as racially inferior to Czechs.

[Otium]

the passages I referenced from Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch (including the passage with the translation error) clearly show that Hitler regarded Poles and other Slavs as racially inferior, opposed Germanizing them because of their racial inferiority, and (as the Zweites Book passage indicates) sought to ethnically cleanse them.

Yes. Hitler, at the time, didn't think they could be Germanized and changed his views later on, which is clearly observed by the policy of assimilating assimilable elements. And yes, he did consider Poles and a variety of other ethnic groups to be different (in various ways) from Germans, and in many cases "inferior" (in what ways, and to what degrees is left vague), yet still related. Where we differ is the import you put into the word "inferior" which is really just the denotation of negative differences observed from Hitler's perspective, one which, as I said, wasn't unique to him and thus not necessarily indicative of anything really. However, what I quoted from Zweites Buch and the quotation from Mein Kampf does literally nothing to show Hitler "sought to ethnically cleanse them". This is your own unfounded inference. I have already explained that Hitler made no such determinations, except to point out two options (in the case of Zweites Buch). Regardless, this has nothing to do with what later occurred, because, as I've shown, the initial intention was not to do any of this until Barbarossa made it advantageous to capitalise on the territory which could be gained.

You are quite wrong to suggest that the Nazis' planned ethnic cleansing of Poles was limited to West Prussia. Zamosc for example was not part of West Prussia, yet the Poles were ethnically cleansed from their anyway, to make room for 'racially-superior' German settlers

Not my claim or suggestion at all. My point, quite clearly, was that it the plan initially limited German settlements to West Prussia in the former German territories (as the documents unequivocally show) until the onslaught of Barbarossa, after which the settlement line was moved further east. The transformation zone in the summer of 1941 was still to the West of Lublin, Zamosc and Lviv. These territories were the "theoretical colonization wall", but probably would've been cleansed, not killed, but either assimilated or deported had the Germans won the war. I do not deny this. My problem with your claim was that you said it was a "a policy that was carried out following the Nazi invasion of that country" which is not true. There was no plan or intention to ethnically cleanse the Poles from any land that wasn't already German in 1918 prior to Barbarossa.

Your own quotation from the Mazower book proves my point. As he says, "Despite the Nazis' rhetoric, in theory, and increasingly in practice, racial scientists and policy advisors distinguished between groups of Slavs." In other words, Nazi "racial scientists" were making racial distinctions between groups of Slavs, marking (for example) Poles as racially inferior to Czechs.

Except I don't disagree with this. I don't think, nor have I ever said, that "the Nazis" had a uniform opinion of all groups of people and didn't make distinctions. That would be contrary to my position. I emphasised the nuance of the matter, which is not only about evaluations of different groups, but also between the people who made such differentiations. In any case, these evaluations have no political consequence today among Nationalsocialists. Politics doesn't demand uniformity with history, the followers of Marx know that better than anyone.

[HistorySpeaks]

There also were, without question, different views on non-Jewish victim groups among the Nazis: Rosenberg and even Hans Frank were more sympathetic to Poles than Hitler was. But Hitler and Himmler were virulently anti-Pole/anti-Russian; the latter prejudice may well have cost Hitler the war, given how reluctant he was to arm Vlasov's crew (which he refused to do until September 1944), and how Nazi atrocities against Russians decimated Russian sympathy for Germany and Vlasov.