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Abstract

In studying the genesis of 'Generalplan Ost' one can elucidate the alliance of academic research and military expansion in Nazi Germany in a unique way. By 'Generalplan Ost' we understand the total German planning effort in transforming the territories of Poland, the Baltic republics and Soviet Union, which were occupied since the beginning of World War II. In this scientists were not only provided with ample opportunities for research by the National Socialist government, but the Nazi policy of occupation created the preconditions necessary for putting theoretical models into practice. this was done in complete disregard of pre-existing structures in population, settlement, society, economy, and patterns of traffic. The principal aim consisted in the total transformation of the envisaged Eastern European sphere and the implantation of a new National Socialist social order style in Eastern Europe. Scientific planning not only implied a declaration of war against the very people living in the geographic sphere covered by the plan, but presupposed the existence of war in order to put the plan into practice. In a rare mixture of social science, geography and biology, instruments of science made possible and provoked the social selection and deportation of human beings as well as attempts at 'Germanization' and 'Umvolkung'. It is a well known fact, that deportation and extermination became a brutal reality as an intrinsic ingredient of these planning efforts.