Bormann, who has just returned from a tour of inspection of the
Kolkhoz in the vicinity of General Headquarters, gave his impressions:
"When one looks at the children, it is difficult to realise that sooner
or later they, too, will acquire the flat, Slav faces of their parents. Like
the inhabitants of the Baltic States, they are fair, with blue eyes, bonny
and chubby-faced. In comparison, our children look like tottering little
chicks. It really is curious to think that these children will become
Ukrainian adults, with their vulgar, inexpressive Jaces. I was much
struck by the fact that in these huge open spaces one saw so many children
and so few men. Such prolific breeding may one day give us a knotty
problem to solve, for as a race they are much hardier by nature than we
are. The men have admirable teeth, and rarely does one see a man wearing
glasses. They are well fed and bursting with good health at all ages.
The difficult conditions under which these men have lived for centuries
have brought into being a merciless process of selection. If one of us
drinks a drop of their water, he all but dies. They on the other hand live
in the dirt, drink the muddy stagnant water of their ponds and thrive on
it. We fill ourselves with quinine as a safeguard against malaria, while
the Ukrainians are so immune, not only to malaria but to scarlet fever
as well, that they can live with impunity in surroundings teeming with
fleas and ticks.
" If these people are allowed, under German supervision—that is, under
greatly improved conditions—to multiply too quickly, it will be against
our interests, for the racial pressures which these damned Ukrainians will
exercise will constitute a real danger. Our interests demand just the reverse—
namely, that these territories, hitherto Russian, should in time be
populated by a larger number of German colonists than local inhabitants"
Hitler commented:
I recently read an article from the pen of some Herr Doktor
advocating the prohibition of the sale in the occupied territories
of contraceptives. If any criminal lunatic should really try to
introduce this measure I'd soon have his head off! In view of
the extraordinary fertility of the local inhabitants, we should be
only too pleased to encourage the women and the girls to
practise the arts of contraception at all times. Far from prohibiting
the sale of contraceptives, therefore, we should do our
utmost to encourage it. We should call on the Jews for help !
With their unrivalled sense of commerce, they are the very
people for the job!
In all seriousness, however, there is a very real danger that
these local inhabitants will increase too rapidly under our care
and domination. Their conditions of life will inevitably improve
under our jurisdiction, and we must take all the measures
necessary to ensure that the non-German population does not
increase at an excessive rate. In these circumstances, it would
be sheer folly to place at their disposal a health service such as
we know it in Germany; and so—no inoculations and other
preventative measures for the natives! We must even try to
stifle any desire for such things, by persuading them that
vaccination and the like are really most dangerous !
It is, furthermore, essential to avoid doing anything which
might give rise to a feeling of superiority or of racial pride
among the natives. This is of the utmost importance, for it is
only by the creation of the very reverse state of mind that we
shall be able to prepare the ground for the accomplishment of
our plans.
For these reasons, the local population must be given no
facilities for higher education. A failure on our part in this
respect would simply plant the seeds of future opposition to our
rule. Schools, of course, they must have—and they must pay
for their tuition. But there is no need to teach them much more
than, say, the meaning of the various road-signs. Instruction in
geography can be restricted to one single sentence : The Capital
of the Reich is Berlin, a city which everyone should try to visit
once in his lifetime. Finally, elementary instruction in reading
and writing in German will complete the course. Mathematics
and such like are quite unnecessary.
In setting up the educational system, the same principles
apply to both Eastern territories and any other colonies. We
do not want any of this enlightenment nonsense propagated
by an advance guard of parsons ! What is the use of talking
about progress to people like that? Jodl is quite right when he
says that notices in the Ukrainian language "Beware of the
Trains" are superfluous; what on earth does it matter if one or
two more locals get run over by the trains?
I am in favour of teaching a little German in the schools
simply because this will facilitate our administration. Otherwise
every time some German instruction is disobeyed, the local
inhabitant will come along with the excuse that he "didn't
understand". For the same reason, the Russian script must be
replaced by the Latin. The greatest possible mistake we could
make would be to take the local population too much under the
wing of the State ; and to avoid all danger of our own people
becoming too soft-hearted and too humane towards them, we
must keep the German colonies strictly separated from the local
inhabitants.
Germans will in no circumstances live in a Ukrainian town.
If essential, it will be better to put Germans in barracks outside
a town than to allow them to live inside it. Otherwise, sooner
or later, the process of cleaning up and improving the town will
inevitably start; and Russian and Ukrainian towns are not in
any circumstances to be improved or made more habitable. It
is not our mission to lead the local inhabitants to a higher
standard of life; and our ultimate object must be to build towns
and villages exclusively for Germans and absolutely separate
from Russian or Ukrainian towns. The houses to be constructed
for the Germans must in no respect resemble those of the
Russians, and lime-plaster and thatched roofs will not be used.