Christian Ingrao - The Promise of the East: Nazi Hopes and Genocide, 1939–43

For Balian, son of Tumult and Fantasy

In memory of Vincent Laporte

Christian Ingrao

Translated by Andrew Brown

polity

First published in French as La Promesse de LEst. Esprance nazie et gnocide, 19391943 ditions du Seuil, 2016

This English edition Polity Press, 2019

Maps 1-3. Drawn up by ditions du Seuil after Karl Heinz Roth and Claus Carsten in Mechtild Rssler, Sabine Schleiermacher (ed.), Der Generalplan Ost. Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik, (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993) pp. 6265.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2778-6

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ingrao, Christian, author.
Title: The promise of the East : Nazi hopes and genocide, 1939-43 / Christian Ingrao.
Other titles: Promesse de lEst. English
Description: Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009174 (print) | LCCN 2018011045 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509527786 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509527755 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939-1945--Europe, Eastern. | National socialism--Europe, Eastern. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Europe, Eastern. | Europe, Eastern--History--1918-1945. | Genocide--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century. | Massacres--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century. | World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities. | Soviet Union--History--1917-1936. | Germany--History--1933-1945.
Classification: LCC D802.E92 (ebook) | LCC D802.E92 I5313 2018 (print) | DDC 940.53/18--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009174

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It is always a little intimidating, after writing a book, to embark on the recognition of the countless debts contracted over the course of its slow gestation. But are they not a kind of bond, do they not form an inextricable network, like the cradle of this book?

This book was built a little obscurely, after a long period of wandering in the desert, a time when history could not involve the writing of a book. It started in 2002 after a summer in America when, with Christian Delage, I dreamed up a first version of this project. Life, painful and hazardous, meant that it was only eleven years later that I could pick up the traces.

Around me then gathered my attentive mentors, Stphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Gerd Krumeich, Henry Rousso and Nicolas Werth; my fellow historians, Ludivine Bantigny, Nicolas Beaupr, Romain Bertrand, Olivier Bouquet, Bruno Cabanes, Quentin Deluermoz, Roman Huret, Anne Kerlan, Roman Krakovsky, Vincent Lemire, Benot Majerus, Herv Mazurel, Manon Pignot, Malika Rahal, Mathieu Rey, Anne Rolland, Jehanne Roul, Emmanuel Saint-Uscien and Giusto Traina. Some of them, such as Elisa Claverie, Catherine Hass and Vronique Nahoum-Grappe, are not historians and I am thankful to them for this as I am to my friends of forever and never, Vincent Liaboeuf, David Ortola and Christophe Raoux.

This book also benefited from readings, encouragement, advice and information and photocopies, photos and books from Johann Chapoutot, a sure friend and a constant reader, but also from Nicolas Patin, Maciej Hamela, lise Petit, Jean-Yves Potel, David Silberklang and Harrie Teunissen. It grew from the granitic fidelity of the Grand Elder, Olivier Buttner, the discreet and thwarted support of Sophie Hoog, a caring family and the unfailing support of parents, sisters and nieces, the Army of Those who Dream and, I hope I would never forget, the sagacity of Samuel Castro, who politely but firmly told me one day in September 2012 that I should address myself to his office, which would respond to my importunity.

But let us leave such sibylline remarks there, even if they are the reality: it remains to me to thank a poet, Michal Batalla, who, sometimes a little silently and involuntarily, works in depth on the writing of what animates me; a journalist, Johan Hufnagel, the gruff companion of my uncertainties and my emotions; a publisher, Sverine Nikel, who found a home at Seuil for this book; and a dozen wonderful teenagers who, during Sunday rhetoric sessions, have given a new meaning to what was becoming obscure. I can assure them that the bonds between us will endure.

And Esteban, Nathan, Gaia and Balian.

At last.

Paris, 21 June 2016

Map 1 First Generalplan Ost (1940)

Map 2 Second Generalplan Ost (summer 1941)

Map 3 Territories to be colonized at the height of Nazi hopes

On 30 March 2010, in a small two-room apartment in a home for the elderly in Stuttgart, a ninety-year-old man by the name of Martin Sandberger passed away.

In a previous study, I focused in depth on Martin Sandberger and a cohort of his peers in an attempt to explain the connections that might link levels of academic achievement with ideological radicalization and the perpetration of genocidal acts. Sandbergers operation seemed to point to the existence of a Nazi racially based humanitarian programme heralding the establishment of a German colonial system in the conquered territories. Did this mean, then, that something betokening the fulfilment of the promised future was now coming into being? Did it suggest that the future implicitly promised in terms of