Untermensch
Sign in to savethumb|upright=0.95|Cover of the Nazi propaganda brochure "Der Untermensch" ("The Subhuman"), 1942. The SS booklet depicted the natives of Eastern Europe as "subhumans". Untermensch (; plural: Untermenschen) is a German language word literally meaning 'underman', 'sub-man', or 'subhuman', which was extensively used by Germany's Nazi Party to refer to their opponents and non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior. It was mainly used against "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and Serbs).
Article
9 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Nazi propaganda
- Spanish Falangism
- Policies of Nazi Germany
- Eastern Europe
- Sub-human types
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|upright=0.95|Cover of the Nazi propaganda brochure "Der Untermensch" ("The Subhuman"), 1942. The SS booklet depicted the natives of Eastern Europe as "subhumans". Untermensch (; plural: Untermenschen) is a German language word literally meaning 'underman', 'sub-man', or 'subhuman', which was extensively used by Germany's Nazi Party to refer to their opponents and non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior. It was mainly used against "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and Serbs).
The term was also applied to "Mischling" (persons of mixed "Aryan" and non-Aryan ancestry) and black people. The physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, transsexuals, political dissidents and - on rare instances - POWs from Western Allied armies, were also considered Untermenschen who were to be exterminated in the Holocaust. According to the Generalplan Ost, the Slavic population of East-Central Europe was to be reduced in part through mass murder in the Holocaust for Lebensraum, with a significant amount expelled further east to Siberia and used as forced labour in the Reich. These concepts were an important part of the Nazi racial policy.