Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

Hitler thought the Russian people fit for nothing but hard work under coercion.⁵³ ‘The Slavs,’ he declared, ‘were a rabbit-family (Kaninchenfamilie) who would never proceed beyond the family association if not forced to do so by a ruling class. Their natural and desired condition was one of general disorganization.’⁵⁴ ‘The Ukrainians,’ he remarked on another occasion, ‘were every bit as idle, disorganized, and nihilistically asiatic as the Greater Russians.’ To speak of any sort of work ethic was pointless. All they understood was ‘the whip’. He admired Stalin’s brutality. The Soviet dictator, he thought, was ‘one of the greatest living human beings since, if only through the harshest compulsion, he had succeeded in welding a state out of this Slavic rabbit-family’.⁵⁵ He described ‘the sly Caucasian’ as ‘one of the most extraordinary figures of world history’, who scarcely ever left his office but could rule from there through a subservient bureaucracy.⁵⁶

Hitler’s model for domination and exploitation remained the British Empire. His inspiration for the future rule of his master-race was the Raj. He voiced his admiration on many occasions for the way such a small country as Great Britain had been able to establish its rule throughout the world in a huge colonial empire. British rule in India in particular showed what Germany could do in Russia. It must be possible to control the eastern territory with a quarter of a million men, he stated. With that number the British ruled 400 million Indians. Russia would always be dominated by German rulers. They must see to it that the masses were educated to do no more than read road signs, though a reasonable living standard for them was in the German interest.⁵⁷ The south of the Ukraine, in particular the Crimea, would be settled by German farmer-soldiers. He would have no worries at all about deporting the existing population somewhere or other to make room for them. The vision was of a latter-day feudal type of settlement: there would be a standing army of 1½-2 million men, providing some 30–40,000 every year for use each year when their twelve-year service was completed. If they were sons of farmers, they would be given a farmstead, fully equipped, by the Reich in return for their twelve years of military service. They would also be provided with weapons. The only condition was that they must marry country-not town-girls.⁵⁸ German peasants would live in beautiful settlements, linked by good roads to the nearest town. Beyond this would be ‘the other world’ where the Russians lived under German subjugation. Should there be a revolution, ‘all we need to do is drop a few bombs on their cities and the business will be over’.⁵⁹ After ten years, he foresaw, there would be a German élite, to be counted on when there were new tasks to be undertaken. ‘A new type of man will come to the fore, real master-types, who of course can’t be used in the west: viceroys.’⁶⁰ German administrators would be housed in splendid buildings; the governors would live in ‘palaces’.⁶¹

His musings on the prospect of a German equivalent of India continued on three successive days and nights from 8–11 August. India had given the English pride. The vast spaces had obliged them to rule millions with only a few men. ‘What India was for England, the eastern territory will be for us,’ he declared.⁶²

For Hitler, India was the heart of an empire that had brought Britain not only power, but prosperity. Ruthless economic exploitation had always been central to his dream of the German empire in the east. Now, it seemed, that dream would soon become reality. ‘The Ukraine and then the Volga basin will one day be the granaries of Europe,’ he foresaw. ‘And we’ll also provide Europe with iron. If Sweden won’t supply it one of these days, good, then we’ll take it from the east.⁶³ Belgian industry can exchange its products — cheap consumer wares — for corn from these areas. From Thuringia and the Harz mountains, for example, we can remove our poor working-class families to give them big stretches of land (große Räume).’⁶⁴ ‘We’ll be an exporter of corn for all in Europe who need it,’ he went on, a month later. ‘In the Crimea we will have citrus fruits, rubber plants (with 40,000 hectares we’ll make ourselves independent), and cotton. The Pripet marches will give us reeds. We will deliver to the Ukrainians head-scarves, glass chains as jewellery, and whatever else colonial peoples like. We Germans — that’s the main thing — must form a closed community like a fortress. The lowest stable-lad must be superior to any of the natives…’⁶⁵