Famine - Genocide in Ukraine 1932 - 1933

**Hors** · 06-02-2009, 06:07 AM

That didn't happen in any of the occupied territories.

How come ~20 million Soviet civilians died?

**Hors** · 06-02-2009, 06:09 AM

It is the established decision of the Fuhrer to erase Moscow and Leningrad in order to avoid that people stay in there who we will then have to feed in winter. The cities are to be destroyed by the air force. Tanks may not be used for this purpose. [...]

The northern theater of war is a good as cleaned up, even if you hear nothing about it. Now we first must let them fry in Petersburg, what are we to do with a city of 3 million that would only lie on our food supply wallet. Sentimentalities there will be none. [...]

[...] Today the decision of the Wehrmacht High Command arrived, according to which a capitulation may not be accepted. In a letter by the Army Group to the Army High Command it was thereupon asked if in such case the Russian troops cannot be lead into captivity. Should this not happen, the Russians will keep on fighting in desperation and this will lead to sacrifices on our side, probably heavy ones.[...]

Much more here:

http://rodohforum.yuku.com/topic/2458

**~~SwordoftheVistula~~** · 06-03-2009, 12:07 AM

Reading that whole thread, it is about the siege of Leningrad, and the Germans didn't want to waste troops in urban fighting taking the city, nor did they want to be stuck feeding the populace of the city.

**Hors** · 06-03-2009, 09:15 AM

nor did they want to be stuck feeding the populace of the city

in other words, they planned starvation of several millions inhabitants of Leningrad

**Hors** · 06-03-2009, 09:25 AM

Originally Posted by SwordoftheVistula

That didn't happen in any of the occupied territories. Once the fighting and insurgencies died down in France for example, most French people gave good reports of the German occupation. When given the chance, like the recent newsworthy character Ivan Demjanjuk, USSR residents often joined up with the Germans.

You're either incredulously ignorant or unbelievably stupid. Or, perhaps, both.

Subject: Future of the City of Petersburg
II. The Führer is determined to remove the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban area. Finland has likewise manifested no interest in the maintenance of the city immediately at its new border.
III. It is intended to encircle the city and level it to the ground by means of artillery bombardment using every caliber of weapon, and continual air bombardment.
IV. Requests for surrender resulting from the citys encirclement will be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, there can be no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of this large urban population. If necessary forcible removal to the eastern Russian area is to be carried out.

[]Hitler insisted that von Leeb draw the tightest kind of circle around Leningrad. Secretly, the Fhrer instructed von Leeb that the citys capitulation was not to be accepted. The population was to die with the doomed city. Random shelling of civilian objectives was authorized. If the populace tried to escape the iron ring, they were to be shot down.
No hint of this brutal decision was made public.[]

Thus the siege of Leningrad became the attempt to downright choke the city. Temporary considerations of the local commanders to deport the inhabitants behind the Soviet front quickly lost their meaning, as the German soldiers were not to be saddled with the heavy psychological burden resulting from the sight of such hunger march. The responsible in the army rear area were neither prepared, however, to take in and feed the people. Thus for the High Command of the 18th Army there remained only as last possibility the following: All must starve.
This decision for genocide apparently motivated by need or by food policy, however, was in complete consonance with the National Socialist Germanization policy. For Leningrad belonged to an area of the Soviet Union that in the future was to be settled by Germans under the name Ingermanland. The General Plan East, a gigantic resettlement program worked out under the supervision of Reichsfhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, still in 1942 foresaw that the urban population of that region would have sunk from 3.2 million in 1939 to 200,000 in postwar times. The difference of three million people who thus disappeared on paper corresponded to the number of Leningrads inhabitants at that time.
In the course of the autumn of 1941 the destruction of Leningrads population received priority before all military objectives. On 29 September 1941 Hitler made clear the following: Requests for surrender resulting from the situation of the city will be rejected, as the problem of housing and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for existence, there is no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of this large urban population. And on 7 October 1941 Hitler again emphasized, that a capitulation of Leningrad or later of Moscow is not to be accepted, even if it were offered by the other side. [] No German soldier must therefore set foot in these cities.

**~~SwordoftheVistula~~** · 06-03-2009, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by Hors

in other words, they planned starvation of several millions inhabitants of Leningrad

No more than the USSR and its allies were already engaging in the 'planned starvation' of most of continental Europe. Germany simply didn't have any food to give the inhabitants of Leningrad, and they were incapable of providing their own food. Stalin was responsible for this situation, for both refusing to evacuate the civilian population from the front, and ordering the mining of cities and the fight to the death.

According to that link, they offered to allow the USSR and/or its allies to feed the populace of the city, and if that failed, to allow the population to leave the city for areas of Russia which were safely far from the front:

From your link:

what are we to do with a city of 3 million that would only lie on our food supply wallet.

The following is suggested...Insofar as possible they will be pushed of to inner Russia, the rest will necessarily spread across the land...lead those still alive to inner Russia

I imagine the following solution: We declare that due to the blockade by England we are not in conditions to additionally feed the population of this giant city. This especially in a land the food basis of which is so deteriorated due to Bolshevik mismanagement. We allow the women, children and old men to leave at will. England and the U.S.A. may send ships to taken them to another part of the world at their choice. The men able to fight and to work will be taken into captivity.
If England / U.S.A. refuse this proposal, they bear the responsibility for the demise of these people before world opinion. If they accept, we are rid of the problem and they have to expend additional freight room.

The Führer has decided anew that a capitulation of Leningrad or later of Moscow is not to be accepted even if it were to be offered by the enemy.
The moral justification for this measure lies clear before all the world. Just like in Kiev explosions with time fuses caused the greatest dangers for the troops, the same must be counted on in Moscow and Leningrad to an even greater extent. The Soviet radio itself has informed that Leningrad is sewn with mines and will be defended to the last man.
A sever risk of epidemics is to be expected.
No German soldier may this set foot in these cities. Whoever wants to leave the city in the direction of our lines is to be rejected by fire. Smaller gaps not sealed which allow for a streaming out of the population to inner Russia are thus only to be welcomed. Also for the other cities the principle applies that prior to being taken they must be worn down by artillery fire and air attacks and the population is to be induced into fleeing them. It is not supportable to risk the lives of German soldiers for the salvation of Russian cities from the danger of fire or to feed their population at the expense of the German homeland.

He doubted, however, whether they would keep the nerve to shoot again and again on women and children and defenseless elder men in case of repeated breakouts. It is worth noticing his utterance that he was not afraid of the military situation on the whole, which especially at his wing near Uritzk is always tense, but that the situation in regard to the civilian population always caused fear. This, he said, was not the case only with him, but also down to troop level. The troops fully understood that the millions of people encircled in Leningrad could not be fed by us without this having a negative impact on the food situation in our own country.

The combat area, both at the encirclement ring of Leningrad and in the coastal area to the south of Kronstadt is currently being evacuated of the civilian population still living there. This is necessary because the civilian population can no longer be fed there. The removal is carried out by each army corps in such a way that the civilian population is taken to the army rear area and there spread throughout the peasant villages. Nevertheless a great part of the civilian population has departed for the south on its own in order to find new shelter and means of subsistence.

When the Red troops in the area around Leningrad and Kronstadt have surrendered, delivered their weapons and been led into captivity, the Supreme Commander see no more reason for keeping up the encirclement of the city.

**Hors** · 06-03-2009, 09:07 PM

Germany simply didn't have any food to give the inhabitants of Leningrad

Sure, as all the food Germany confiscated on the occupied territory of the USSR belonged to the Germanic Master Race.

Stalin was responsible for this situation, for both refusing to evacuate the civilian population from the front, and ordering the mining of cities and the fight to the death.

Inhabitants of Leningrad have been evacuated via the Ice road, which was constantly attacked by Luftwaffe.

According to that link, they offered to allow the USSR and/or its allies to feed the populace of the city, and if that failed, to allow the population to leave the city for areas of Russia which were safely far from the front:

Evident BS. Nothing of the kind was offered. It's just a figment of your imagination.

Hitler insisted that von Leeb draw the tightest kind of circle around Leningrad. Secretly, the Fhrer instructed von Leeb that the citys capitulation was not to be accepted. The population was to die with the doomed city. Random shelling of civilian objectives was authorized. If the populace tried to escape the iron ring, they were to be shot down.

**Hors** · 06-03-2009, 09:20 PM

http://journals.cambridge.org/downlo...a15cd526574854

In the months leading up to ‘Operation Barbarossa’, the economic experts in the Office of the Four-Year Plan were charged with preparing the economic exploitation of future occupied territories in the east.4 Their calculations included that, in order to feed the invading army and to extract agricultural resources for Germany, large areas of the Soviet Union would be subjected to famine and millions of Soviet citizens would starve to death.

...

In the eyes of the economic planners in the office of the Four-Year Plan, the
invasion of the Soviet Union and the acquisition of agricultural products would
solve the problem of limited food resources at home. In order to overcome initial
hesitations over how the war would actually affect agricultural production, a plan
needed to be drawn up with instructions as to how exploitation would proceed,
and over the ensuing months the state secretaries designed such a plan. The Soviet
Union was divided into two zones with regard to food production – the so-called
deficit zone (the forests of Belarus and northern and central Russia) and the surplus
zone (the Ukraine, southern Russia and the Caucasus region). In order to extract a
maximum of food, the deficit zone had to be sealed off and left to itself. According to
the Russia expert Backe, the Soviet population had grown too fast and the industrial
urban centres were unable to support themselves. Under German occupation, these
areas would be left to their own fate, while agricultural produce could be extracted
from the surplus zone to provide food for the Greater German Reich. Here lies
the foundation for what historians have labelled Backe’s Hungerpolitik or ‘starvation
policy’.

...

On 16 June a final document appeared to be distributed as the official guidelines
for the economic exploitation.88 It reiterated the provisioning of the German army off
the land, and the necessity of taking as much as possible of the agricultural produce
and sending it to Germany. The starvation plan had become official policy.

...

There is no question that economic exploitation was a crucial factor in the
war against the Soviet Union. Backe had formulated a policy that meant death
by starvation for millions of Soviets.

**Loki** · 06-03-2009, 09:39 PM

Hitler insisted that von Leeb draw the tightest kind of circle around Leningrad. Secretly, the Fhrer instructed von Leeb that the citys capitulation was not to be accepted. The population was to die with the doomed city. Random shelling of civilian objectives was authorized. If the populace tried to escape the iron ring, they were to be shot down.

What a sick bastard Hitler was.