soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Daniel Titley" wrote in message
news:e6cf8a5e-51d0-4e21-af29-a2b1491e55d8@k10g2000prm.googlegroups.com...

> As I understand it; had the Germans won the war they planned to
> permanently occupy Poland and the western USSR, and incorporate this
> territory into Germany.
>
> But what did they plan to do with France, Belgium, Holland,
> Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway?

Well, we have a record of about four years of occupation
of those countries without any ground fighting. Occupation
policies were:
1: coloured by Nazi race theory. Races perceived as Aryan
or nearly Aryan got better treatment than others.
2: economic, viz. the Reich government appropriated the
produce and industrial goods it wanted. Terms of the armistice
with France required French economic collaboration in the
"New Order in Europe" and could be enforced by Germany's
holding large numbers of French PoWs. In other countries,
Germany unilaterally controlled the rate of exchange of
Reichsmarks and local currencies, i.e. could fix "payment"
on favourable terms. Later in the war Germany also conscripted
civilian labour in occupied countries, starting with those nearest,
viz. France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
3: enforced where possible by collaborators, e.g. Laval in
France and Quisling in Norway, willing to serve German
interests while holding office in the French and Norwegian
governments. Notoriously, most of the French Jews and
labour conscripts sent east under German orders were
actually rounded up by French policemen, and similarly
in other occupied countries.

German occupation practices seem more to have been improvised
than long incubated in the German Foreign Ministry or party HQ.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)