Katana VentraIP

Untermensch

Untermensch (German pronunciation: [ˈʔʊntɐˌmɛnʃ] ⓘ; plural: Untermenschen) is a German language word literally meaning 'underman', 'sub-man', or 'subhuman', that was extensively used by Germany's Nazi Party to refer to non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior. It was mainly used against "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Belarusians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Serbs, and Russians).[2][3]

The term was also applied to "Mischling" (persons of mixed "Aryan" and non-Aryan, such as Jewish, ancestry) and black people.[4] Jewish, Slavic, and Romani people, along with the physically and mentally disabled, as well as homosexuals and political dissidents, and on rare instances, POWs from Western Allied armies, were to be exterminated[5] in the Holocaust.[6][7] According to the Generalplan Ost, the Slavic population of East-Central Europe was to be reduced in part through mass murder in the Holocaust for Lebensraum, with a significant amount expelled further east to Siberia and used as forced labour in the Reich. These concepts were an important part of the Nazi racial policy.[8]

(1986). The Forgotten Holocaust: Poles Under Nazi Occupation 1939-1944. New York: University of Kentucky Press/Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-7818-0901-0.

Lukas, Dr. Richard

Notes


Further reading

Archived 11 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine propaganda poster published by the SS.

Der Untermensch

at archive.today (archived 2012-05-27)

Hitler's plans for Eastern Europe

This is an example of the term "Untermensch" being used in the context of the Nazi eugenics programme. The table suggests that "inferior" people (unmarried and married criminals, parents whose children have learning disabilities) have more children than "superior" people (ordinary Germans, academics). Note that the heading is the subtitle of the German version of Lothrop Stoddard's book.

"Die Drohung des Untermenschen"