Editing Lebensraum (section)

===East–West frontier===
Concerning the geographic extent of the Greater Germanic {{lang|de|Reich}}, Adolf Hitler rejected the [[Ural Mountains]] as an adequate eastern border for Germany, arguing that such mid-sized mountains would not suffice as the boundary between the "European and Asiatic worlds", and that only a living wall of racially pure Aryans would suffice as a border. He also advocated that permanent war in the East would "preserve the vitality of the race":

{{Blockquote|The real frontier is the one that separates the Germanic world from the Slav world. It is our duty to place it where we want it to be. If anyone asks where we obtain the right to extend the Germanic space to the east, we reply that, for a nation, its awareness of what it represents carries this right with it. It is success that justifies everything. The reply to such questions can only be of an empirical nature. It is inconceivable that a higher people should painfully exist on a soil too narrow for it, while amorphous masses, which contribute nothing to civilization, occupy infinite tracts of a soil that is one of the richest in the world&nbsp;...

We must create conditions for our people that favour its multiplication, and we must, at the same time, build a dike against the Russian flood&nbsp;... Since there is no natural protection against such a flood, we must meet it with a living wall. A permanent war on the eastern front will help form a sound race of men, and will prevent us from relapsing into the softness of a Europe thrown back upon itself. It should be possible for us to control this region to the east with two hundred and fifty thousand men, plus a cadre of good administrators&nbsp;...

This space in Russia must always be dominated by Germans.<ref>Rich, Norman (1974). ''Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order'', pp. 327–329.</ref>}}

In 1941, the Reich decided that within two decades, by the year 1961, Poland would have been emptied of Poles and re-populated with ethnic-German colonists from [[Bukovina]], [[Eastern Galicia]], and [[Volhynia]].<ref>[[Volker R. Berghahn]] "Germans and Poles 1871–1945" in ''Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences'', Rodopi 1999.</ref> The ruthless Germanisation that Hitler enacted for {{lang|de|Lebensraum}} was attested in the reports of {{lang|de|[[Wehrbauer]]}} (soldier–peasant) colonists assigned to ethnically-cleansed Poland—of finding half-eaten meals on the table and unmade beds in the houses given them by the Nazis.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nicholas |first1=Lynn H. |author-link=Lynn H. Nicholas |title=Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web |date=2006 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York |isbn=0-679-77663-X |pages=213–214}}</ref> [[Baltic Germans]] from Estonia and Latvia were evaluated for racial purity; those classified to the highest category, {{lang|de|Ost-Falle}}, were resettled in the Eastern Wall.<ref>{{harvnb|Nicholas|2006|p=213}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" width="100%" style=text-align:right
|+ Area and population data in 1939 of [[Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany|Nazi German Gaue]] that included annexed territories of Poland: Estimates of 1947<ref>The
Western Review, Supp. Number for Abroad, July and August, 1947 p. 49.</ref> as cited by Stanisław Waszak, ''Demographic Picture of the German Occupation'' (1970)<ref>Czesław Madajczyk. Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce pp. 234–286 vol. 1, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1970</ref>
! Gau
! scope=col style="width: 12%;" | Total population
! scope=col style="width: 12%;" | Poles
! scope=col style="width: 12%;" | Germans
! scope=col style="width: 12%;" | Jews
! scope=col style="width: 12%;" | Ukrainians
! scope=col style="width: 12%;" | Others
|-
| {{align|left|{{lang|de|[[Wartheland]]}}}}
| 4,933,600
| 4,220,200
| 324,600
| 384,500
| {{align|right|–}}
| 4,300
|-
| {{align|left|[[Upper Silesia]]}}
| 2,632,630
| 2,404,670
| 98,204
| 124,877
| 1,202
| 3,677
|-
| {{align|left|[[Danzig-West Prussia]]}}
| 1,571,215
| 1,393,717
| 158,377
| 14,458
| 1,648
| 3,020
|-
| {{align|left|[[East Prussia]]}}
| 1,001,560
| 886,061
| 18,400
| 79,098
| 8,099
| 9,902
|-
| {{align|left|Total}}
| 10,139,005
| 8,904,648
| 599,576
| 602,953
| 10,949
| 20,899
|}

Moreover, the Germanisation of Russia which began with [[Operation Barbarossa]] (June–September 1941) meant to conquer and colonise [[European Russia]] as the granary of Germany.<ref>Madajczyk, Czesław. {{lang|de|"Die Besatzungssysteme der Achsenmächte. Versuch einer komparatistischen Analyse"}} in {{lang|la|Studia Historiae Oeconomicae}} vol. 14 (1980): pp. 105–122, quoted in [[Gerd R. Ueberschär]] and [[Rolf-Dieter Müller]], ''[[Hitler's War in the East 1941−1945|Hitler's War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment]]'' Berghahn Books, 2008 (review ed.). {{ISBN|1-84545-501-0}}.</ref> For those Slavic lands, the Nazi theorist and ideologue [[Alfred Rosenberg]] proposed administrative organisation by the {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat]]e}}—countries consolidated into colonial realms ruled by a commissar:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! {{lang|de|Reichskommisariat}} name
! Area included
|-
| {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat Ostland|Ostland]]}}
| The [[Baltic States]], [[Belarus]], and western Russia
|-
| {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat Ukraine|Ukraine]]}}
| [[Ukraine]] (minus [[East Galicia]] and the [[Romania in World War II|Romanian]]-controlled [[Transnistria Governorate]]), extended eastwards to the [[Volga river|River Volga]]
|-
| {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat Moskowien|Moskowien]]}}
| The Moscow metropolis and [[European Russia]], exclusive of [[Karelia]] and the [[Kola peninsula]], which the Nazis promised to Finland in 1941
|-
| {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat Kaukasien|Kaukasien]]}}
| The [[Caucasus]]
|}

In 1943, in the secret [[Posen speeches]], Heinrich Himmler spoke of the [[Ural Mountains]] as the eastern border of the Greater Germanic Reich.<ref name="himmler" /> He asserted that the Germanic race would gradually expand to that eastern border, so that, in several generations' time, the German {{lang|de|Herrenvolk}}, as the leading people of Europe, would be ready to "resume the battles of destiny against Asia", which were "sure to break out again"; and that the defeat of Europe would mean "the destruction of the creative power of the Earth".<ref name="himmler" /> Nonetheless, the Ural Mountains were a secondary objective of the secret {{lang|de|[[Generalplan Ost]]}} (Master Plan East) for the colonisation of Eastern Europe.<ref>Madajczyk, Czeslaw (1962). [http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/GPO/gpoarticle.HTM ''General Plan East: Hitler's Master Plan For Expansion'']. Polish Western Affairs, Vol. III, No. 2.</ref>

The never-established ''[[Reichskommissariat Turkestan]]'' would have been the closest territory to Imperial Japan's north-westernmost extents of its own [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]], as a "[[Ural Mountains in Nazi planning#"Living wall"|living wall]]" said to be defending the easternmost {{lang|de|Lebensraum}} lands. It also would have elevated higher-social-class Chinese and nearly all Japanese-ethnicity populations as "[[Nazism and race#Honorary Aryans|honorary Aryans]]", partly to Hitler's own stated respect in ''Mein Kampf'' towards those specific East Asian ethnicities.

The early stages of {{lang|de|Lebensraum im Osten}} ({{lang|de|Lebensraum}} in the East) featured the ethnic cleansing of Russians and other Slavs (Galicians, Karelians, Ukrainians, et al.) from their lands, and the consolidation of their countries into the {{lang|de|Reichskommissariat}} administration that extended to the Ural Mountains, the geographic frontier of Europe and Asia. To manage the ethnic, racial, and political populations of the USSR, the German Army promptly organized [[collaborationism|collaborationist]], anti-Communist, puppet governments in the {{lang|de|[[Reichskomissariat Ostland]]}} (1941–45) and the {{lang|de|[[Reichskommissariat Ukraine]]}} (1941–44). Nonetheless, despite the initial strategic successes of Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army's counterattack victories against the German Army at the [[Battle of Stalingrad]] (August 1942 – February 1943) and at the [[Battle of Kursk]] (July–August 1943) in Russia, plus the Allied [[Operation Husky]] (July–August 1943) in Sicily, thwarted the full implementation of Nazi {{lang|de|Lebensraum}} in Eastern Europe.