Wehrbauer

Wehrbauer (German pronun­cia­tion: [ˈveːɐ̯ˌbaʊ.ɐ], soldier peasant) was a concept used by the Schutzstaffel (SS) of the Nazi Party to refer to soldiers designated as settlers for the lands conquered during the German invasions of the Soviet Union and Poland.

The concept predated the Nazis, with the Artaman League sending urban children to the countryside not only for the experience, but as a core of Wehrbauern.

The Nazi goal of colonizing the conquered East in accordance with Hitler's Lebensraum ideology was to be achieved through these soldier peasants, who were planned to act both as colonists and also as soldiers defending the new German colonies from the surrounding Slavic population in the cases of insurgency. They would be charged with not extending civilization but preventing it arising outside their settlements; any civilization, being non-German, would challenge Germany. A historical comparison was drawn to the Ordensburgen of the medieval German military orders, which were established to fortify territory against the pagan Baltic natives.

Beginning in 1938 the SS intensified the ideological indoctrination of the Hitler Youth Land Service (HJ-Landdienst). It promulgated its ideal of the German Wehrbauer. Special high schools were created under SS control to form a Nazi agrarian elite that was trained according to the principle of "blood and soil."

The SS plan for genocide and colonization of the territories of the Soviet Union was titled Generalplan Ost (English: Master Plan East). This plan projected the settlement of 10 million racially valuable "Germanics" (Germans, Dutch, Flemish, Scandinavians and English) in these territories in a span of 30 years, while circa 30 million Slavs and Balts were either to be assimilated or forcefully transferred to Siberia to make room for the newcomers. Volksdeutsche, such as the Volga Germans would also be transplanted. The German Foreign Ministry however suggested that the racially unwanted population should be instead moved to Madagascar and Central Africa as soon as Germany had recovered its colonies lost in the Treaty of Versailles.

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