A German 'Garden of Eden' in the East

16th July 1941: Hitler sets out his plans for the Eastern territories - 'a harsh necessity, bare of any feelings'

A Nazi image of Russian women harvesting the fields in June 1941. They would now work to feed the German people. It was “a harsh necessity” that many, if not most, of the Soviet civilian population should die of starvation.

In principle we have now to face the task of cutting up the giant cake according to our needs, in order to be able: first, to dominate it; second, to administer it; and third, to exploit it …

On the 20th June 1941, just before the invasion of the USSR, the leading Nazi theorist, Alfred Rosenberg, had made a speech stating that the lands that the Nazis would occupy in the East would be used for ‘feeding the German people’:¹

We see absolutely no reason for any obligation on our part to feed also the Russian people with the products of that surplus territory. We know that this is a harsh necessity, bare of any feelings.

That aspiration now became official Nazi policy. Hitler was growing ever more confident that the swift victory over Russia that he had planned was being achieved. The progress of his armies on the map and the great numbers of Soviet casualties and prisoners suggested that he could soon wind down the war in Russia and turn his attention back to the west.

He had already ordered that Moscow and Leningrad be bombed into rubble - so that the Germans would not have to feed their residents over the winter.