Convinced before the onset of Operation "Barbarossa" in June 1941 of both the ease, with which the Red Army would be defeated and the likelihood that the Soviet Union would collapse, the Nazi regime envisaged a radical and far-reaching occupation policy which would result in the political, economic and racial reorganization of the occupied Soviet territories and bring about the deaths of 'x million people' through a conscious policy of starvation. This study traces the step-by-step development of high-level planning for the occupation policy in the Soviet territories over a twelve-month period and establishes the extent to which the various political and economic plans were compatible.

Alex J. Kay graduated from the Universities of Huddersfield and Sheffield in the UK and received his PhD from Humboldt University, Berlin, in 2005. The following year he received theJournal of Contemporary History's George L. Mosse Prize. Since 2014 he has been Senior Academic Project Coordinator at the Institute of Contemporary History MunichBerlin. Dr Kay is author ofThe Making of an SS Killer: The Life of Colonel Alfred Filbert, 19051990 (2016), and co-editor ofNazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization (2012).

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Chapter 1. Introduction
Organized Chaos: the German Occupation, 1941-1944
The State of Existing Scholarship
Aims of the Study
The Importance of Economic Considerations
Structure and Additional Parameters of the Study
Source Material

Chapter 2. The Central Planning Organizations
TheVierjahresplanbehörde: Görings Umbrella Organization
TheDienststelle Rosenberg: the Eastern Experts of the NSDAP

Chapter 3. The Decision to Invade the Soviet Union: the Primacy of Economics by the End of 1940
Overview: a Combination of Long- and Short-term Factors
July 1940: Military Proposals against Britains Last Remaining Potential Ally on the Continent
July-August: Long-term Strategic and Economic Gain for Germany in the East
September-October: Alternatives and Objections to an Eastern Campaign
November: Before and After Molotovs Visit to Berlin
November-December: the Increasing Relevance of Food Supplies and the Public Mood in Germany in View of the Need to Fight a Longer War

Chapter 4. Laying the Foundations for theHungerpolitik
Backes Presentations to the Supreme Leadership
Working around Potential Difficulties
Soviet Awareness of German Intentions
Thomass Study of Mid-February 1941
Setting Up an Economic Organization

Chapter 5. Planning a Civil Administration
Envisaging a Civil Administration
Selecting an Administrative Chief
Rosenberg as Administrative Chief: no better man for the Job
Personnel and Tasks

Chapter 6. Population Policy
Germanic Resettlement
The Fate of the Soviet Jews: Pre-invasion Order for Genocide?
A Territorial Solution to the Jewish Question

Chapter 7. Radicalizing Plans to Exploit Soviet Resources
Calculated Economic Considerations and Nazi Ideology
2 May 1941: the Meeting of theStaatssekretäre
Wide-ranging Agreement
TheHungerpolitik in Writing
Soviet Labour: Deployment in the Reich?
The Special Status of the Ukraine

Chapter 8. Expectations and Official Policy on the Eve of the Invasion
Counting on a Swift Victory
Economic and Agricultural Guidelines
The Standpoint of the Political Planners

Chapter 9. Post-invasion Decisions
16 July 1941: the Conference at FHQ
Ordering the Destruction of Leningrad and Moscow
The Concept of a Territorial Ministry in the East

Chapter 10. Conclusions

Appendices
Glossary
Bibliography
Index