The Nazi concept of "Germanization" seems so anathema to the rest of their ideology, yet it's extremely prominent in their plans. Can someone help me make sense of how this fits in their worldview?

by Vortigern

Nazi plans for eastern europe in particular, poland, and other locations make mention of "germanization" wherein native slavic populations of Poles, belorussians, ukrainians, etc would be germanized, adopting the cultural, linguistic, and social trappings of german society.

Nazi education and racial theory placed so much emphasis on blood purity and how race is the determining factor of civilization, only to turn around and be content with having large swaths of their newly conquered populations be inducted into the aryan gene pool. There seems to be some missing factor I'm not aware of that would allow them to

  1. Believe that pure german blood and the dominance of the german people (distinguished by their blood) is worth waging war for and

  2. Being content with having the populations of the people they conquered be integrated into their "pure" german society.

I know nazi propaganda and racial theories changed based on their political goals, so this may just be a matter of it being impractical to deport the entirety of a conquered population. Still, it seems an out of place quirk in the nazi machine, and I'm interested to see if it reveals anything worthwhile about their thought process.

matts2

Nazi plans for eastern europe in particular, poland, and other locations make mention of "germanization" wherein native slavic populations of Poles, belorussians, ukrainians, etc would be germanized, adopting the cultural, linguistic, and social trappings of german society.

You have that wrong. They would be slowly eliminated as the German population grew.

ManicMuffin

I believe you are misunderstanding what the plan of Germanization is. When you are thinking of poles, Belorussians, Ukrainians etc. Those are all Volksdeutsche or Germans that did not live in Germany proper. They would be used to colonize places like Poland and the Ukraine while the original slavic population would be brutally exterminated.

Solenstaarop

Your idea of nazi philosofi and the germanisation plans are a bit to simplified. It is true that the nazis had an idea of a master race, but it was not germans, but Aryans. The Aryans where sepperated into five distinct sub-groups the Nordic, Mediterranean, Dinaric, Alpine, and Baltic. Within these five groups there where also a hierarchy and the Nordic Aryans where seen as the best. It was recognised that the german people included all five sub groups, but that the Nordic influence was very strong. Countries in eastern europe was seen as mostly slavic - a subhuman race with heavy jewish and arabic influence - but they also included other races, most importently Aryans and it was these who could be germanised.

Different countries had different racial make-up and as such different percentage of it could potentialy be germanised. Those who could not be germanised in eastern europe would be killed or deported. To give some numbers the nazis expected that about 10% of the poles could be germanised and about 50% of the Czechs. The rest would either be used as slaves or ethnic cleansed.

confused_druze

They didn't change their attitude towards the slavs since the annexation of Bohemia in 1938. They claimed that the German slavs, who formed a large part of the Prussian nobility and, therefore, of the Wehrmacht, were "aryan" while the slavs in Eastern Europe were proclaimed to be the descendants of their slaves. The science of it was the "Rassenanthropologie der Altslawen" written by an Anthropologist from Mainz. It pinned down the difference between "Osteuropeid race" and "Nordic race" to the breadth of the cranium. If you had a broad face your chances to become a German citizen were dim even if you had a German-speaking grandparent. Moreover they have abducted the children identified as having a "Nordic" face to raise them as Germans. The "Osteuropeid" slavs were not ought to be "Germanized" but exterminated and enslaved.