I certainly have not forgotten any such thing, kaprys!
However, the espionage operation to which you correctly refer represented a list of thousands of Poles already known to the Gestapo, those perceived by the Reich as potential "trouble makers", if you will, many of whom were in fact behind the Ruch Oporu not to mention the Polish Underground Movement, therefore scarcely random:-)
In the case of Europe's Jews, as you are also doubtless aware, the Jews were earmarked for extermination nearly as far back as when Hitler's autobiography had been published. the fate of the Sinti-Roma was the same. His goal was not merely to enslave the Jews, as were his designs on the Poles along with other Slavs, but rather total annihilation. The cruelest of cruel ironies was that even those loyal "Deutschjuden" who fought and were prepared to give their lives as Germans in WWI, all ended up in the same crematoria as those Shtettl Jews, the unwitting pawns in the Nazis' power struggle for European domination.
Neither fate is clearly "worse" than the other, only the means to such an end clearly differed, and in the case of those deemed "Volljuden" aka Jewish on both family lines, not even the most extreme toadying on their part could have saved their skins.
The list concerning the Intelligenzaktion was prepared before the war so no, they weren't involved in the underground movement. Before the end of 1939 about 40000 people from the list had been killed.
I would be most interested in learning about the identities of those four-thousand odd people. Wiki, for lack of anything more in-depth, seems to gloss over this fact, mentioning though more or less what you stated.
As I suspected, the operation which you spoke about concerns the clandestine tracking and eventual murder of thousands from the Polish INTELLIGENTSIA!!
Now common sense dictates that if you or I were Herr Hitler and wanted to eliminate the most "dangerous" opponents, one would obviously single out the intellectuals within society, since those would likely be the ones most of a threat to your megalomania, right?
Well then, what purpose could Hitler have had for going after the rank-in-file poor shtettl Jews, NOT merely the Rathenaus, Kurt Eiseners etc. other than to simply extirpate that particular group "root and branch" (mit Stumpf u. Stiel auszurotten), which is what the Nazis almost succeeded in accomplishing?
Again, neither "reason" or rationale is justifiable, but once more, questions of means, not just ends, must be explored as well.
All I'm getting at is that there are gradations in what was considered "justifiable" homicide by the Nazis vs. what makes any human life more valuable than another.
Incidentally, this was all brought out at the Nuremberg Trials, as the Holocaust represented an unprecedented "break" with any known incident of state-sponsored and sanctioned killing in recorded human history.
As any human life is considered sacrosanct according to every known philosophical teaching or religious doctrine of man, the Nazis were perhaps the first ever to decide that an entire ethnicity was deemed by them as unfit to live, playing a G-d-like role, once the province solely of mad scientists or alchemists.
Those thousand-plus Polish Christians who perished at the hands of the Germans are hardly being judged by a different yardstick than those six-million or so Jews murdered during the Shoah.
It was therefore the Nazis rather than I who sought to place a higher value on one certain group over another.
Thousands plus Poles. .. Or three million. .. and several other millions used as forced labourers.
As for your logical approach towards Polish Christians murdered by Nazis, I really sometimes wonder if you're Jewish as you claim or basically German with some sort of family history and views.
All I'm getting at is that there are gradations in what was considered "justifiable" homicide by the Nazis
You see, what I'm getting from you is that somehow The Germans murdering Poles was somehow more justified than their murder of Jews. You either need to change your stance or explain yourself better.
Then you clearly have misunderstood my posts, Milo, a bit embarrassing, I must say, as English is your first language. Nobody is saying here that the murder of Polish gentiles is somehow "less of an atrocity" than the murder of Polish Jews, least of all yours truly.
But I am saying that the Nazis didn't place Poles en masse as ideologically "inferior" to the Germans aka Aryans, as they did the
Sinti-Roma or the Jews.
While this might appear to some people purely academic, scholars continue to argue over the alleged uniqueness of the Shoah, at the same time realizing that all Slavs were seen fit by Hitler solely for enslavement. However, at least according to the documents I perused in the archives of the Villa Wannsee Museum in Berlin, ONLY the Jews, those known as "Volljuden", i.e. "Germans of non-Aryan blood" ("Artfremde") throughout the Nazi dragnet across Occupied Europe were automatically slated for total extermination. This one has on the authority of Raul Hillberg's "The Destruction of The European Jews", a renowned and respected historical reference work on the subject.
Indeed it is and although you have a superb command of this language also, you have absolutely failed to get your point across, assuming that you are not trying to say what I intimated in my earlier post.
But I am saying that the Nazis didn't place Poles en masse as ideologically "inferior" to the Germans
The Poles were murdered in the millions, yet had they set up the type of "puppet government" as had been the case in Horthy's and Szillasy's Hungary, Petain's France, Quisling's Norway etc., then the Nazis would have treated them quite differently!
The Poles though had guts, moral courage, and the gumption to stick to their guns, qualities unbecoming for one of The Fuehrer's select vassal states. As they refused to submit, the Poles suffered, yet not solely because they were Poles, but because they stood up for themselves.
For the umpteenth time, Milo, my posts are quoted from the documents of the Nazis themselves, many of which were only available in the original.
Pardon, you DID have me on one point, which I'll freely confess was my fault! I made a typo when I posted "ideologically inferior", I meant to say "biologically inferior". Indeed, you caught me on a technicality to which I admit I was mistaken:-)
You are an American and a descendant of the jews. I am an American and a descendant of the Poles. I can't call myself Polish just like you can't call yourself a jew. If you were a jew you would be a practicing jew which you are not I think you just want the notoriety of being a jew.
I call myself Jewish because that's what I am, both my parents, and, as nearly as I can tell, all members of my family!
I wasn't born in Israel, but in New York City, therefore have MORE right to call myself American than you do to call yourself Polish, unless of course you were born and or grew up there.
Both my parents are Polish so that makes us equal in that scenario of you calling yourself a jew or me calling myself Polish. I wasn't born in Poland therefore I have just as much right calling myself American as you do. You are no more a jew then I am Polish Lyzko.
This is where identity kicks in. Where you were born and brought up and live now matters. But the culture and traditions that you were brought up in matter too. Lyzko = American German Jew. Johnny = American Pole. Miloslaw = Anglo Pole.
