Editing Anti-Russian sentiment (section)

=== German atrocities in World War II ===
{{See also|Generalplan Ost|Consequences of Nazism|German war crimes against Soviet civilians|World War II casualties of the Soviet Union}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B01718, Ausstellung "Planung und Aufbau im Osten".jpg|thumb|[[Rudolf Hess]], [[Heinrich Himmler]] and [[Reinhard Heydrich]] listening to [[Konrad Meyer]] at a ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' exhibition, 20 March 1941.]]

[[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party]] regarded [[Slavic people]]s (especially Poles and [[East Slavs]]) as non-Aryan ''[[Untermenschen]]'' (subhumans).<ref>{{cite book|last=Longerich|first=Peter|title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |url=https://archive.org/details/holocaustnaziper00long | url-access = limited|year=2010|isbn=978-0-19-280436-5|publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford; New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/holocaustnaziper00long/page/n255 241]}}</ref> As early as 1925, Hitler suggested in ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' that the German people needed ''[[Lebensraum]]'' ("living space") to achieve German expansion eastwards (''[[Drang nach Osten]]'') at the expense of the inferior Slavs. Hitler believed that "the organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacity of the German element in an inferior race."<ref>Adolf Hitler, ''Mein Kampf'', 1925</ref>

After the [[invasion of the Soviet Union]], Hitler expressed his plans for the Slavs:

{{blockquote|As for the ridiculous hundred million Slavs, we will mold the best of them as we see fit, and we will isolate the rest of them in their pig-styes; and anyone who talks about cherishing the local inhabitants and civilizing them, goes straight off into a concentration camp!<ref>{{cite book|author1=H. R. Trevor-Roper|author2=Gerhard L. Weinberg|title=Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944: Secret Conversations|date=2013|publisher=Enigma Books|isbn=978-1-936274-93-2|page=466}}</ref>}}

Plans to eliminate Russians and other Slavs from Soviet territory to allow German settlement included starvation. American historian [[Timothy D. Snyder]] maintains that there were 4.2 million victims of the German [[Hunger Plan]] in the Soviet Union, "largely Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians," including 3.1 million [[Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs|Soviet POWs]] and 1.0 million civilian deaths in the [[Siege of Leningrad]].<ref name="Snyder 2010 p. 411">Snyder (2010), ''Bloodlands,''p. 411. Snyder states "4.2 million Soviet citizens starved by the German occupiers"</ref> According to Snyder, Hitler intended eventually to exterminate up to 45 million Slavs by planned famine as part of ''[[Generalplan Ost]]''.<ref>Snyder (2010), ''Bloodlands,'' p. 160</ref>

Influenced by the guidelines, in a directive sent out to the troops under his command, General [[Erich Hoepner]] of the [[4th Panzer Army]] stated:
{{blockquote|The war against Russia is an important chapter in the German nation's struggle for existence. It is the old battle of the Germanic against the Slavic people, of the defense of European culture against Muscovite-Asiatic inundation and the repulse of [[Jewish Bolshevism]]. The objective of this battle must be the demolition of present-day Russia and must, therefore, be conducted with unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron resolution to exterminate the enemy remorselessly and totally. In particular, no adherents of the contemporary Russian Bolshevik system are to be spared.<ref>{{cite book|last=Burleigh|first=Michael|title=The Third Reich: A New History|year=2001|publisher=Pan Macmillan|isbn=978-0-330-48757-3|page=521}}</ref>}}