The Class System in 1939-1945

The Class System in 1939-1945

During World War II Poland suffered greatly under five years of German

occupation. Nazi ideology viewed "Poles"--the predominantly Roman

Catholic ethnic majority--as "subhumans" occupying lands vital to

Germany. As part of the policy to destroy the Polish resistance, the

Germans killed many of the nation's political, religious, and

intellectual leaders. They also kidnapped children judged racially

suitable for adoption by Germans and confined Poles in dozens of

prisons and concentration and forced labour camps, where many

perished.

German forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Polish troops

fought valiantly in the face of vastly better-equipped forces, with

fierce engagements around Warsaw. Exhausted of food and water, the

besieged capital surrendered on September 27, and fighting by regular

Polish army units ended in early October.

Hitler's pretext for military expansion eastward was the "need" for

more Lebensraum," living space," for the German nation. On the eve of

the invasion he reportedly stated in a meeting of high officials:

I have issued the command--and I'll have anybody who utters but one

word of criticism executed by firing squad--that our war aim does not

consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of

the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in

readiness--for the present only in the East--with orders to send to

death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of

Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living

space that we need.

In 1939 Germany directly annexed bordering western and northern

...

... middle of paper ...

...erless, less educated majority of peasants and workers as

unskilled labourers in agriculture and industry.

The Nazis believed the Jews were responsible for what they regarded as

the degeneracy of modern society. Hitler viewed modern ideologies that

stressed equality and emancipation as a revolt of inferior classes and

peoples led by the Jews. The Nazis viewed Bolshevism as the most

radical recent form of the ancient Jewish conspiracy that would lead

to national dissolution and disintegration. For Hitler, Nazism was

thus a doctrine of world salvation to redeem humanity from the

Jewish-Bolshevik doctrine. He believed that the German race had to

acquire and maintain total supremacy through total war against the

Jews. Such a war would be a fight in which the only alternatives, for

either side, were victory or extinction.