New Order (Nazism)
Adolf Hitler first proclaimed a European New Order in a speech on the 30th of January 1941. This declaration marked the public articulation of plans that had been developing since before World War II began. The concept relied heavily on pseudo-scientific racial theories to justify German dominance over Europe. At the top of this hierarchy sat the Aryan race, specifically the Nordic branch, which Nazis viewed as the sole creators and maintainers of Western civilization. Other groups were labeled Untermenschen or subhuman, including Jews, Romani people, and most Slavic peoples like Poles and Russians. These classifications were not merely social prejudices but formed the basis for state policy and military strategy. Nazi bio-politics demanded strict adherence to these beliefs, creating a system where survival depended entirely on one's perceived racial value. The goal was absolute continental hegemony for Germany following any potential war victory. This vision extended beyond simple territorial gain to include the total restructuring of human society along racial lines. Geopolitical strategies were designed to secure the Eurasian heartland, ensuring Germany could function as a global power indefinitely. Karl Haushofer, a mentor to Hitler during his imprisonment in 1924, influenced these ideas about eastward expansion. Haushofer argued that controlling the heartland was essential for permanent security against other powers. Italy and Japan were seen as strategic allies who would shield Germany from naval threats while they focused on land conquest. Hitler proclaimed in a 1930 speech at Erlangen University that no people held a greater right to seize control of the globe than Germans. He believed world peace could only exist under the rule of the racially best power. Lower races would be forced to restrict themselves accordingly to allow this supremacy. Rudolf Hess wrote a letter in 1927 paraphrasing this vision, stating that the lower races must yield living space to the Aryan master race. These ideological foundations justified every subsequent act of aggression and occupation.
The Anschluss of Austria in 1938 empowered Austrian Nazis against rival Austro-fascists and realized the Pan-Germanist cause. This move encircled Czechoslovakia for future expansionist movements against Slavic states. The resulting partition led to the annexation of the Sudetenland by the Reich and the establishment of a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia became a German puppet state while Hungary and Poland were drawn into the German sphere through territorial concessions in the First Vienna Award. Ostpolitik originally involved developing a barrier of client states from Finland to Romania to contain Soviet expansionism. This cooperative front aimed to facilitate conspiracy and sabotage against the Soviet sphere of influence. Unresolved designs included total or partial secession of Soviet Ukraine, conflicting with Polish ambitions toward the Black Sea. The Nazi-Soviet agreement tacitly sought to restore former spheres of influence stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. It included the partitioning of Poland-Lithuania with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Lithuania recognized as projected puppet states. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia were temporarily ceded to the Soviet sphere. Shortly afterward, Lithuania was transferred to Soviet control in exchange for Germany gaining Lublin and Lesser Poland. The initial phase of establishing the New Order began with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on the 23rd of August 1939. This pact secured the new eastern border with the Soviet Union before the invasion of Poland. It prevented the emergence of a two-front war and circumvented shortages of raw materials due to an expected British naval blockade. Blitzkrieg attacks followed in Northern and Western Europe under Operation Weserübung and the Battle of France. These campaigns neutralized opposition from the West by conquering Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. All these territories fell under German rule by early summer 1940. Had Britain been defeated, political re-ordering of Western Europe would have been accomplished without a post-war general peace conference. Instead, bilateral negotiations between Germany and her defeated enemies would define the future landscape.
Hitler gave instructions to Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, in late May 1940 to make proposals for a new western border. A memorandum written on the 14th of June 1940 analyzed the annexation of certain territories in Eastern France that had been part of the historic Holy Roman Empire. This concluded in control of the Westraum region for the Reich. Short-term plans included integrating Inner Rhineland border areas and the Ruhr with annexed Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmedy, Saarland, and Luxembourg. Long-term goals extended to Switzerland, Burgundy, Savoy, and the establishment of an annexation of the Westland to Nazi Germany in Gau Westmark. Germany first occupied Greater Netherlands to impede France from using the Low Countries as a buffer state or the Rhine as natural frontiers. Plans included including Northern France, modern Nord and Pas-de-Calais, followed by re-annexed Alsace, Moselle, and Lorraine. The Zone interdite in Somme, Aisne, and Ardenas was targeted for colonization to establish a Germanic Thiois country known as Project Burgund. The Armistice of the 22nd of June 1940 established conditions for economic domination of France while developing the collaborationist regime of Vichy France. An Occupation Zone was constructed to build the Atlantic Wall against British naval supremacy. Hitler hoped to marginalize France to prevent further continental challenges to Germany's hegemony. Evidence suggests the monarchy might survive, but proposals existed to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. Some members of the Scottish National Party expressed varying degrees of support for similar ideas regarding independence. Ultimately none of these proposals came to fruition since neither Britain nor Ireland were actually invaded. Adolf Hitler supposedly considered creating a Burgundian Free State in the Low Countries and Eastern France in 1943. This hypothetical state would have been governed by the SS under the leadership of Leon Degrelle. It would have consisted of former possessions of the Kingdom of Arles and the Duchy of Burgundy when subjects of the Holy Roman Empire. Regions included Artois, Hainault, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Franche-Comte, Burgundy proper, Dauphine, Provence, Picardy, and Champagne. Hitler reportedly considered making either Rheims or Troyes the capital of this state. Himmler planned to make Burgundy the model state of the Führer's dreams. The long-term Nazi goal was not local collaborationist regimes but complete annexation of the Dietsland into the German Reich.
Implementation of the long-term plan for the New Order began on the 22nd of June 1941 with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The goal was not merely destruction of the Soviet regime but racial reorganization of European Russia outlined in the Generalplan Ost. Alfred Rosenberg served as Minister for the Eastern Territories while Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, implemented the Master Plan for the East. This detailed the enslavement, expulsion, and extermination of Baltic peoples and Slavic peoples. Hitler hoped to turn Germany into a total blockade-proof autarky by exploiting vast resources lying in Soviet territories. Ukraine was to provide grain, vegetable oil, fodder, iron ore, nickel, manganese, coal, and molybdenum. Crimea offered natural rubber, citrus fruit, cotton, and the Black Sea provided fish. By 1942 quasi-colonial regimes called the General Government in Poland, Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltic states and Belarus, and Reichskommissariat Ukraine in Ukraine had been established. Three more administrative divisions were envisaged: Reichskommissariat Moskowien including majority of European Russia, Reichskommissariat Kaukasien in the Caucasus, and Reichskommissariat Turkestan in Soviet Central Asia. Each SS soldier peasant was expected to father at least seven children on estates granted after conquest. German women were encouraged to have as many children as possible to populate newly acquired Eastern territories. The Lebensborn program was expanded and the Gold Honor Cross of the German Mother instituted for those bearing eight children. Martin Bormann and Himmler introduced new marriage legislation allowing decorated war heroes to marry additional wives. Himmler envisaged a German population of 300,000,000 by 2000. Rosenberg viewed political goals as reversing Russian dynamism toward Siberia and freeing the Reich from eastern nightmares. White Ruthenia and Ukraine were deemed dangerously large and needed dissolution. A top-secret memorandum in 1940 from Himmler expressed that Germans must splinter ethnic groups in occupied Europe. This included Ukrainians, White Russians, Gorals, Lemkos, and Kashubians to find racially valuable people for assimilation. Erhard Wetzel wrote an April 1942 memo detailing splitting up Reichskommissariat Moskowien into loosely tied Generalkommissariats. The objective was undermining national cohesion by promoting regional identification. In July 1944 Himmler ordered Ernst Kaltenbrunner to begin exporting faith of Jehovah's Witnesses to the occupied east.
By 1942 Hitler's empire encompassed much of Europe but territories annexed lacked population desired by Nazis. From their point of view Germany had acquired Lebensraum yet needed to populate these lands according to racial principles. Initial steps began on the 7th of October 1939 when Himmler was named Reich Commissar for Consolidation of Germandom. His jurisdiction authorized repatriating ethnic Germans living abroad to occupied Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Poles and French living in these lands were transferred across borders to make room for German settlers. At end of 1942 a total of 629,000 Volksdeutsche had been re-settled while preparations for transfer of 393,000 others were underway. Long-term goal of VoMi involved resettlement of further 5.4 million Volksdeutsche mainly from Transylvania, Banat, France, Hungary, and Romania. Immigrants classified as racially or politically unreliable settled in Altreich while high quality ones went to annexed eastern territories. Himmler encountered considerable difficulties with Volksdeutsche of France and Luxembourg who often wished to retain citizenship status. Help came from other Germanic peoples like Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch, and British collaborators. An example was the Dutch East Company sending Dutch settlers to Pskov to help in Germanic re-settlement of Lebensraum. Settlement figures on the 1st of June 1944 showed Estonia and Latvia contributed 76,895 originators with 57,249 resettled in annexed eastern territories. Lithuania provided 51,076 originators with 30,315 resettled. Volhynia, Galicia, and Narew supplied 136,958 originators though specific resettlement numbers varied. The process aimed to erase all traces of national rather than racial consciousness even if native languages remained. Nazi anthropologists considered Baltic peoples mostly assimilable in long term through future Germanization inspired by Ostsiedlung. Originally Reichskommissariat Ostland planned to be called Baltenland to secure support of native Baltics but inclusion of West Belarus made this inappropriate. During occupation Nazis disarmed nationalist groups like Lithuanian Activist Front, Latvian Pērkonkrusts, or Estonian Defence League. They influenced dismantling attempts to develop own political structures as pro-German states such as Provisional Government of Lithuania or Jüri Uluots's Estonian cabinet. Finally divided into four Generalbezirke ruled by German civil administrators that repressed both Soviet partisans and Baltic independentists.
Some priorities for Hitler in conquest of Lebensraum included conquering the Caucasus region due to economic importance of oil refineries especially on Baku. This would help economy of Nazi Germany lacking prime resources while depriving Soviet Union of vital one like oil. Strategic territory allowed seizure of domain of Southern Russia and establishing German presence in Greater Middle East. Plans included future Nazi intervention of Middle East and Central Asia to reach British Raj and Japanese Allies. Nazi Germany open to give concessions to non-slavic Untermensch nations such as Chechens, Daghestani, or Azerbaijanis who were anti-Russian. Concessions involved creation of sub-national entities as autonomous units in German Reich unlike rest of Reichskommissariats. Maybe restoration of South Caucasus states under German Protectorate avoiding intimidation to Iran and Turkey. Armenian nationalists highly supported Germans due to Anti-Sovietism seeing them as liberators against Bolsheviks. Nazis made vague promises to restore Greater Armenia but attracted to establish pro-Axis Armenian puppet state against Russian resistance. Hitler preferred supporting Kemalist Turkish nationalists even defending Armenian genocide over weak Christian nation surrounded by Muslims. After noticing Germans another oppressor having dislike toward fascism since start excepting some superficial resemblances with Tseghakronism, Armenian support started declining after Battle of Stalingrad. Settled that Armenians would be main commissariats of comparably little importance in Reichskommissariat Kaukasien. Most interested in Georgian nationalism was Fascist Italy wanting turn restored Georgian Monarchy into Italian Protectorate like Albanian one. Part of plan to establish Sphere of Influence there to restore Italian power of Maritime republics in Black Sea linking it to Mediterranean Sea geopolitics. Nazi Germany also gave them influence on Nazi cabinet as Tbilisi capital of Reichskommissariat though intentions to convince Germans for Caucasia dominated by Georgians not effective. Hitler personally wanted give Azerbaijan and Dagestan to Pahlavi Iran but with Extraterritorial rights maintaining economic control of Baku's Oil. Most Nazi leaders wanted fully conquer it and be jewel of Lebensraum expelling Turkic peoples to Central Asia or Iranian Azerbaijan. Proposals to develop National Committee of Azerbaijan rejected and Nazi Germany against any Azerbaijani national state in New Order.
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Common questions
When did Adolf Hitler first proclaim a European New Order?
Adolf Hitler first proclaimed a European New Order in a speech on the 30th of January 1941. This declaration marked the public articulation of plans that had been developing since before World War II began.
What racial theories formed the basis for Nazi Germany's political order?
The concept relied heavily on pseudo-scientific racial theories to justify German dominance over Europe with the Aryan race at the top of the hierarchy. Other groups were labeled Untermenschen or subhuman including Jews, Romani people, and most Slavic peoples like Poles and Russians.
Which territories were targeted for annexation into the Reich under the New Order plan?
Short-term plans included integrating Inner Rhineland border areas and the Ruhr with annexed Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmedy, Saarland, and Luxembourg. Long-term goals extended to Switzerland, Burgundy, Savoy, and the establishment of an annexation of the Westland to Nazi Germany in Gau Westmark.
How was Operation Barbarossa connected to the implementation of the Generalplan Ost?
Implementation of the long-term plan for the New Order began on the 22nd of June 1941 with Operation Barbarossa the invasion of the Soviet Union. The goal was not merely destruction of the Soviet regime but racial reorganization of European Russia outlined in the Generalplan Ost.
What demographic strategies did Heinrich Himmler implement to populate conquered Eastern territories?
Himmler encountered considerable difficulties with Volksdeutsche of France and Luxembourg who often wished to retain citizenship status while hundreds of thousands of Poles and French living in these lands were transferred across borders. At end of 1942 a total of 629,000 Volksdeutsche had been re-settled while preparations for transfer of 393,000 others were underway.