Anti-Polonism in the Ideology of National Socialism
Anti-Polonism in the Ideology of National Socialism

Summary/Abstract: Hanna Arendt in her opus magnum observed that National Socialism divided nations into ones that were to be exterminated forthwith, such as the Jews, those that could expect to be annihilated in the foreseeable future, such as the Poles, Russians and Ukrainians, and ones for which no “final solution” was planned (the French and the Belgians). However, the extermination of the Polish civilian populace began as early as 1939. First, the Wehrmacht committed war crimes against Polish prisoners of war and civilians – the alleged partisans, while later Einsatzgruppen units started killing “radical Poles”; finally, members of the organization Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz murdered tens of thousands of Polish citizens. It was not a total genocide, as in the case of the Jews, but the first partial genocide committed during World War II – a method of pacification of a community combined with declassing and an alteration of its identity

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