The Untermensch concept included Jews, Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), and Slavic peoples such as Croats, Poles, Serbs and Russians.[7] The Slavs were regarded as Untermenschen, barely fit for exploitation as slaves.[22][23] Hitler and Goebbels compared them to the "rabbit family" or to "stolid animals" that were "idle" and "disorganized" and spread like a "wave of filth".[24] However, some among the Slavs who happened to have Nordic racial features were deemed to have distant Germanic descent which meant partially "Aryan" origin, and if under 10 years old, they were to be Germanized (see: kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany).
The Nazi views on the Slavs were explicitly contemptuous, as even prior to the World War II, Slavs, particularly the Poles, were deemed as being inferior to Germans. After Adolf Hitler gained political power in Germany, the concept of Non-Aryan "sub-human slave-material" was developed and started to be used also towards other Slavic peoples.[25] Poles, Croats, Montenegrians, Macedonians and Serbs were at the bottom of the Slavic "racial hierarchy" established by the Nazis.[citation needed] Soon after MolotovโRibbentrop Pact expired, also Russians started to be seen as part of the "subhuman" race. Similarly, also Belarusians, Czechs, Slovaks, and Ukrainians were considered to be inferior, despite some collaborative groups were found among these nations. Nonetheless, there were Slavs such as Bosniaks, Bulgarians, and Croats who collaborated with Nazi Germany that were still being perceived as not racially "pure" enough to reach the status of Germanic peoples, yet they were eventually considered ethnically better than all other Slavs, mostly due to pseudoscientific theories about these nations having a minimal amount of Slavic genes and considerable admixtures of Germanic and Turkic blood.[2][26]
