A Slav is a member of one of the many ethnic and linguistic groups which reside chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe. They are commonly divided into three groups: the eastern Slavs who make up most of the populations of Russia, the Ukraine, and Belorussia; the west Slavs of Poland and Czechoslovakia; and the south Slavs of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria. In Nazi racial ideology, Slavs were viewed as inferior to the “Aryan” races of Germany and northern Europe.
The Nazis considered Polish and Soviet Slavs to be “subhuman.” In the Nazi “New Order,” which the German leadership intended to create throughout Europe after military victory, these people were to be reduced to the status of slave laborers, and their cities and cultures were to be destroyed. The fate of Czechs and Slovenians, on the other hand, was unclear, because many of the people within these groups were regarded as having German blood. The Slavic groups whose governments allied themselves with the Axis, including Slovakians, Croatians, and Bulgarians, were to be granted a limited amount of independence after German victory.
