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FSB reveals Wehrmacht general’s testimony on how Hitler perceived enslaving Russia

The FSB published the testimony by former commandant of the Mogilev fortified area Major General Gottfried von Erdmannsdorff who had surrendered to Soviet troops

MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) published for the first time a Wehrmacht general’s testimony on how Third Reich Head Adolf Hitler perceived the future of Russia after Nazi Germany’s victory over the Soviet Union.

The FSB published the testimony by former commandant of the Mogilev fortified area Major General Gottfried von Erdmannsdorff who had surrendered to Soviet troops during the Red Army’s largest offensive operation in Byelorussia in the Soviet Union’s 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. The FSB uploaded the German general’s testimony on its website timed for the 80th anniversary of the start of Operation Bagration.

During his questioning in Minsk on December 24, 1945, Erdmannsdorff said that the Fuehrer’s plans were disclosed to German burgomasters by SS Head Heinrich Himmler, the creator of concentration camps and death squads (‘einsatzgruppen’) for the mass murder of civilians on the occupied territories of Eastern Europe and the USSR.

"According to the Stuttgart burgomaster, Himmler spoke about Hitler’s plans at political classes of burgomasters he held in 1943, which envisaged enslaving Russia up to the Urals, with fortresses to be built for German masters enjoying the rights of feudal lords on the territory of Russia to keep the Soviet people in obedience while the Russian population would work for these masters as slaves deprived of the opportunity to study," Erdmannsdorff said during his questioning in Minsk.

Erdmannsdorff himself implemented another idea by Hitler - the creation of city fortresses on the way of the Soviet Army’s advance. In mid-March 1944, Hitler signed order No. 11, demanding building or turning a whole number of cities into fortresses. Mogilev in Byelorussia was intended to become one of such fortresses. Erdmannsdorff who became commandant of the Mogilev fortified area was even allowed to demolish a part of the city to bolster the defense capability. However, when Red Army units entered the center of Mogilev on June 28, 1944, Erdmannsdorff who had been ordered to hold Mogilev to the bitter end made a decision to surrender.