Untermensch (German pronunciation:[ˈʔʊntɐˌmɛnʃ]ⓘ;plural:Untermenschen) is aGerman language word literally meaning 'underman', 'sub-man', or 'subhuman', which was extensively used by Germany'sNazi Party to refer to their opponents and non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior. It was mainly used against "the masses from the East", that isJews,Roma, andSlavs (mainly ethnicPoles,Belarusians,Czechs,Ukrainians,Russians andSerbs).[2][3]
The term was also applied to "Mischling" (persons ofmixed "Aryan" and non-Aryan ancestry) andblack people.[4] Jewish, Slavic, and Romani people, along with thephysically andmentally disabled, as well ashomosexuals andpolitical dissidents, and, on rare instances,POWs from WesternAllied armies, were consideredUntermenschen who were to beexterminated[5] inthe Holocaust.[6][7] According to theGeneralplan Ost, the Slavic population ofEast-Central Europe was to be reduced in part throughmass murder in the Holocaust forLebensraum, with a significant amount expelled further east toSiberia and used asforced labour in the Reich. These concepts were an important part of theNazi racial policy.[8]
The term "under man" was introduced by the American author andKu Klux Klan memberLothrop Stoddard in his 1922 bookThe Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man.[9] Stoddard applies the term to those who he considers unable to flourish incivilization due to their inferior heredity ("The word inferior has, however, been so often employed as a synonym for degenerate that it tends to produce confusion of thought, and to avoid this I have coined a term which seems to describe collectively all those kinds of persons whom I have just discussed. This term is The Under-Man – theman who measures under the standards of capacity and adaptability imposed by the social order in which he lives". (p. 23)). Therefore, the term has no racial connotations. Indeed, in his book Stoddard maintains that without eugenics any and all civilizations - irrespective of race, time and geography - have been, are and inevitably will be prone to gradual degradation. The Nazi Party later used the term in propaganda, possibly influenced in part from the title of the book's German editionDer Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen (1925).[10]
The German wordUntermensch had been used in earlier periods, but it had not been used in a racial sense, for example, it was used in the 1899 novelDer Stechlin byTheodor Fontane. Since most writers who employed the term did not address the question of when and how the word entered the German language, into English,Untermensch is usually translated as "subhuman". The leading Nazi who attributed the concept of theEast-European "under man" to Stoddard wasAlfred Rosenberg who, referring to communists of the Soviet Russia, wrote in hisDer Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (1930) that "this is the kind of human being that Lothrop Stoddard has called the 'under man.'" ["...den Lothrop Stoddard als 'Untermenschen' bezeichnete."][12] It needs to be mentioned though that despite Nazi official support forThe Myth of the Twentieth Century and Rosenberg's prominent role in promoting Nazi ideologyAdolf Hitler declared that it was not to be considered official ideology of theNazi Party[13] and he privately described the book as "mysticism" and "nonsense".[14]Albert Speer claimed that Goebbels mocked Alfred Rosenberg.[15] Goebbels also called the book a "philosophical belch".[16][17][18]
It is possible that Stoddard constructed his "under man" as an opposite ofFriedrich Nietzsche'sÜbermensch (superman) concept. Stoddard does not explicitly say this, but he critically refers to the "superman" idea at the end of his book (p. 262).[9] Wordplays with Nietzsche's term seem to have been used repeatedly as early as the 19th century and, due to the German linguistic trait of being able to combineprefixes androots almost at will in order to create new words, this development can be considered logical. For instance, German authorTheodor Fontane contrasts theÜbermensch/Untermensch word pair in chapter 33 of his novelDer Stechlin.[19] Nietzsche usedUntermensch at least once in contrast toÜbermensch inDie fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882).[20] Earlier examples ofUntermensch include RomanticistJean Paul using the term in his novelHesperus (1795) in reference to anOrangutan (Chapter "8. Hundposttag").[21]
In a speech which he delivered to the Bavarian regional parliament in 1927, the Nazi Party propagandistJulius Streicher, publisher ofDer Stürmer, used the termUntermensch referring to thecommunists of the GermanBavarian Soviet Republic:
It happened at the time of the [Bavarian] Soviet Republic: When the unleashed subhumans rambled murdering through the streets, the deputies hid behind a chimney in the Bavarian parliament.[22]
The Nazi party and thereafter also theregime (1933—1945) repeatedly used the termUntermensch in writings and speeches which they directed against the Jews. In the pamphlet "The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization", published in 1936, Himmler wrote:
We shall take care that never again in Germany, the heart of Europe, will theJewish-Bolshevik revolution of subhumans be able to be kindled either from within or through emissaries from without.[23][24][25]
In his speech "Weltgefahr des Bolschewismus" ("World danger of Bolshevism") in 1936,Joseph Goebbels said that "subhumans exist in every people as aleavening agent".[26] At the 1935 Nazi party congress rally at Nuremberg, Goebbels also declared that, “Bolshevism is the declaration of war by Jewish-led international subhumans against culture itself."[27]
The most notorious example of the usage of the termUntermensch by the Nazis is aSchutzstaffel (SS) brochure entitled "Der Untermensch [de]", distributed by theReich Security Main Office under the directives ofHeinrich Himmler.[28] Published in 1942 after the start ofOperation Barbarossa, it is around 50 pages long and consists, for the most part, of photos portraying the natives ofEastern Europe in an extremely negative way. Nearly four million copies of the pamphlet were printed in the German language and distributed across German-occupied territories. The contents of the "Der Untermensch" brochure extensively emphasized Himmler's racist demonization ofRussians as "bestialuntermenschen" and Jews as "the decisive leader ofuntermenschen".[29] It was translated into Greek, French, Dutch, Danish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech and seven other languages. It gives the following definition of anUntermensch:
The subhuman is a biological creature, crafted by nature, which has hands, legs, eyes and mouth, even the semblance of a brain. Nevertheless, this terrible creature is only a partial human being. Although it has features similar to a human, the subhuman is lower on the spiritual and psychological scale than any animal. Inside this being is a cruel chaos of wild, unrestrained passions, nameless desire for destruction, the most primitive desires, the most naked meanness.[clarification needed]
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InSpain, in addition to the termunderman, the terms subhuman and degenerate are frequent in speeches and articles, especially from the 1930s. These are words used naturally in the newspapers, without explanations of the specific meaning, so it can be deduced that they were general knowledge. They are terms that increase in intensity during theOctober Events,[30][31] and during thecivil war.[32]
As thecivil war approaches or takes place, there is a divergence in the meaning of subhuman, on therebel side it acquires a racial/eugenic meaning,[33][34][35] beside ideologic,[36] while on therepublican side it is more of a cultural type.[32]
Once the war was won by the rebel side, Francoism, similar to Nazi Germany (and Soviet Russia as well[37][38]), promoted the idea of creating anew man,[32][39] which led to thebrutal repression of the Spanish population.[40]Gonzalo de Aguilera, the press officer for the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War, made the followingclassicidal statements to journalistJohn T. Whitaker:[41]
"We have to kill, kill, you know? They are like animals, you know, and we cannot expect them to get rid of the virus of Bolshevism. After all, rats and lice are the carriers of the plague. Now I hope you understand what we mean by the regeneration of Spain... Our programme consists... of exterminating one third of the male population of Spain. That would cleanse the country and get rid of the proletariat. And it is also economically convenient. There will be no more unemployment in Spain, do you understand?"
When faced with increasing military manpower shortages, the Nazi regime used soldiers from some Slavic countries, firstly from the Reich's alliesCroatia andSlovakia[42] as well as within occupied territories.[43] The concept of the Slavs in particular beingUntermenschen served the Nazis' political goals; it was used to justify their expansionist policy and especially their aggression againstPoland and theSoviet Union in order to achieveLebensraum, particularly inUkraine. Early plans of the Nazi officials (summarized asGeneralplan Ost) envisioned theethnic cleansing and extermination of no fewer than 50 million people, who were not considered fit forGermanization, from territories it wanted to conquer in Europe. Nazi planners considered Ukraine'schernozem ("black earth") soil as a particularly desirable zone for colonization.[8]
During the war, Nazi propaganda instructed Wehrmacht officers to tell their soldiers to target people whom they considered "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans". In addition, Nazi Germany conducted its warfare against the Soviet Union as aracial war targeting Jews,Romanis,Slavs, and various indigenous inhabitants of Eastern Europe who were categorized as "untermenschen" in the Nazi ideology.[44] Nazis viewedRussians as animalistic sub-humans who were incapable of mounting any form of collective resistance against a German invasion. Nazi anti-Slavism was also tied to theJudeo-Bolshevik conspiracy theory; which claimed that Slavs were inferior people controlled by Jews as pawns in their plots against Aryans.[45]
Prior to the launch ofOperation Barbarossa, theWehrmacht'sHigh Command began issuing orders to enable German soldiers to indiscriminately target the inhabitants of Eastern Europe and unleash systematic violence against entire populations.German Army was instructed to grant carte blanche to the anti-Jewish massacres carried out by theEinsatzgruppen death squads in German-occupied territories.[46] “Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia” issued by the German High Command in 19 May 1941, ordered German troops to target Jews, partisans, Bolsheviks, etc. and described the war in Eastern Europe as a "historic task to liberate the German people once forever from the Asiatic-Jewish danger".[46][47] In 1943 Himmler issued a secret order for the destruction of theWarsaw Ghetto in order to eliminate the "living space" of 500,000Untermenschen, unsuitable for the Germans.[48][49][50][51]
The Nazis divided the people who they considered the sub-humans into different types; they placed priority on the extermination of the Jews, and the exploitation of others as slaves.[52]
HistorianRobert Jan van Pelt writes that for the Nazis, "it was only a small step to a rhetoric pitting the European Mensch against the SovietUntermensch, which had come to mean a Russian in the clutches ofJudeo-Bolshevism."[53]
TheUntermensch concept included Jews, Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), and Slavic peoples such as Poles, Ukrainians, and Russians.[8] Slavs were regarded asUntermenschen, barely fit for exploitation as slaves.[54][55] Hitler and Goebbels compared them to the "rabbit family" or to "stolid animals" that were "idle" and "disorganized" and spread like a "wave of filth".[56] However, some among the Slavs who happened to haveNordic racial features were deemed to have distant Germanic descent which meant partially "Aryan" origin, and if under 10 years old, they were to beGermanized (see:kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany).
The Nazis were utterly contemptuous of theSlavs, as even prior to World War II, Slavs – particularly the Poles – were deemed to be inferior to Germans and other Aryans. AfterAdolf Hitler gained political power in Germany, the concept of non-Aryan "sub-human slave-material" was developed and started to be used also towards other Slavic peoples.[57]Poles were at the bottom of the Slavic "racial hierarchy" established by the Nazis. Soon after theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact expired,Russians also started to be seen as "subhumans". Similarly,Belarusians,Czechs,Slovaks, andUkrainians were considered to be inferior.[58] Nonetheless, there were Slavs such asBosniaks,Bulgarians, andCroats whocollaborated with Nazi Germany that were still being perceived as not racially "pure" enough to reach the status ofGermanic peoples, yet they were eventually considered ethnically better than other Slavs, mostly due to theories about these nations having a minimal amount of Slavic genes and considerable admixtures of Germanic and Turkic blood.[3][59]
In order to forge a strategic alliance with theIndependent State of Croatia – apuppet state created after theinvasion of Yugoslavia and theKingdom of Bulgaria, the Nazis deviated from a strict interpretation of their racial ideology, and Croats were officially described as "more Germanic than Slav", a notion supported by Croatia's fascist (Ustashe) dictatorAnte Pavelić who maintained that the "Croats were descendants of the ancientGoths" and "had thePanslav idea forced upon them as something artificial".[60][61] Hitler also deemed the Bulgarians to be "Turkoman" in origin.[61]
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While the Nazis were inconsistent in the implementation of their policy – for instance, mostly implementing theFinal Solution while also implementingGeneralplan Ost – thedemocidal death toll was in the range of tens of millions of victims.[62][63] It is related to the concept of "life unworthy of life", a more specific term which originally referred to the severely disabled who wereinvoluntarily euthanised inAktion T4, and was eventually applied to the extermination of the Jews. That policy of euthanasia started officially on 1 September 1939 when Hitler signed an edict to the effect, andcarbon monoxide was first used to murder disabled patients. The same gas was used in thedeath camps such asTreblinka, although they used engine exhaust gases to achieve the same end. In directive No. 1306 byReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 24 October 1939, the term "Untermensch" is used in reference to Polish ethnicity and culture, as follows:
It must become clear to everybody in Germany, even to the last milkmaid, that Polishness is equal to subhumanity. Poles, Jews and Gypsies are on the same inferior level. This must be clearly outlined [...] until every citizen of Germany has it encoded in his subconsciousness that every Pole, whether a farm worker or intellectual, should be treated like vermin.[64][65]
Biology classes in Nazi-era Germany schools taught about differences between the race of Nordic German "Übermenschen" and "ignoble" Jewish and Slavic "subhumans".[66] The view that Slavs were subhuman was widespread among the German masses, and chiefly applied to the Poles. It continued to find support after the war.[67]
Notes
The category of sub-human (Untermensch) included Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, Serbs, etc.) Gypsies and Jews.
Anti-Serb propaganda postcards on sale in the Austrian capital depicted Serbs as backward "Untermenschen" or "Sub humans" – a term later used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to describe Jews and Slavs. Some advocated that Serbs should be boiled alive in cauldrons or stuck on forks and eaten.
As he told a circle of confidants, 'What nonsense! Here we have at last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind, and now he wants to start that all over again. To think that I may some day be turned into an SS saint! [...]'
ReferenceA was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Eatwell, 1995, p. 119 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Goebbels was characteristically succinct, describing the book as an 'ideological belch.'
Jetzt hat man statt des wirklichen Menschen den sogenannten Übermenschen etabliert; eigentlich gibt es aber bloß noch Untermenschen, und mitunter sind es gerade die, die man durchaus zu einem ›Über‹ machen will. (Now one has established instead of the real human the so-called superhuman; but actually only subhumans are left, and sometimes they are the very ones that are tried to be declared as 'super'.)
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Die Erfindung von Göttern, Heroen und Übermenschen aller Art, sowie von Neben- und Untermenschen, von Zwergen, Feen, Zentauren, Satyrn, Dämonen und Teufeln war die unschätzbare Vorübung zur Rechtfertigung der Selbstsucht und Selbstherrlichkeit des einzelnen [...]. (The invention of gods, heroes, and overmen of all kinds, as well as near-men and undermen, of dwarfs, fairies, centaurs, satyrs, demons and devils was the inestimable preliminary exercise for the justification of the egoism and sovereignty of the individual [...]) [From the translation by Walter Kaufmann]
Obgleich Leute aus der großen und größten Welt, wie der Unter-Mensch, der Urangutang, im 25sten Jahre ausgelebt und ausgestorben haben – vielleicht sind deswegen die Könige in manchen Ländern schon im 14ten Jahre mündig –, so hatte doch Jenner sein Leben nicht so weit zurückdatiert und war wirklich älter als mancher Jüngling. (Although people from the great world and the greatest have, like the sub-man, the orang-outang, lived out and died out in their twenty-fifth year, — for which reason, perhaps, in many countries kings are placed under guardianship as early as their fourteenth, — nevertheless January had not ante-dated his life so far, and was really older than many a youth.) [From the translation by Charles T. Brooks]
Wir werden dafür sorgen, daß niemals mehr in Deutschland, dem Herzen Europas, von innen oder durch Emissäre von außen her die jüdisch-bolschewistische Revolution des Untermenschen entfacht werden kann.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Many wars include instances of brutality and inhumanity, especially when they involve irregulars, but this is rarely cither premeditated or systemic. The German campaign in the Soviet Union was both. As a final reckoning between two antagonistic dictatorships, and a biologistic campaign against Bolsheviks, Jews, Gypsies and Slavic 'Untermenschen', the war in the East had a fundamentally different register from that in the West.
The Nazis considered any human being in the "east", usually the Slavs, as "sub-human", only fit for slavery to the Germans.
Being Slavs the Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Serbs were only slightly above the Jews in the racial hierarchy.
We are the Master Race and must govern hard but just ... I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come to spread bliss ... The population must work, work, and work again [...] We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population [of the Ukraine]. (emphasis added)
Further reading
