# Wagner group: what does the name refer to? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [June 25, 2023, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098 "2023-06-25T22:49:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/21 "2023-06-26T21:41:36Z")
As I understand it, the Nazis have largely been portrayed - by the current Russian government - as a group who was out for killing Russians and that the whole anti-Jewish thing is not important. While it’s true that the Russians did take the brunt of damage from the Germans, Hitler was positive towards the Czars and recruited/collaborated with ethnically Russian folks, and he explicitly stated that his enmity was towards the Jews and ethnic minorities who had lead to the Socialist movement and taken over Russia. In regards to the ethnic majority in Russia, I believe that he believed them to be as suitable of breeding stock as your average Frenchman. I think you’d also need to do some real number crunching to figure out how much of the death caused by the war was solidly on the side of the Germans, versus Stalin not caring about his people and throwing them to be slaughtered while he, himself, stayed comfortably somewhere else. If the Nazis could have taken over Russia without having to kill so many, I think they’d have gone for it - similar to how the approached France. They weren’t trying to kill a lot of Russians, Stalin just forced them to do it. (Likewise with Napoleon, the Russians suffered a lot to defeat him. It’s not clear that this should really be viewed as a victory of the Russian people, though, so much as a signal of the low regard for their health that the Czars held.) ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/22 "2023-06-26T21:44:16Z")
Please observe that the tatoos are all Nazi symbols: [![](https://mkaradjis.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/wagner-founder-nazi.jpg) ](https://mkaradjis.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/wagner-founder-nazi.jpg) compared with this SS-uniform: [![](https://www.emedals.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/0dc2d03fe217f8c83829496872af24a0/e/_/e_7671.jpg) ](https://www.emedals.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/0dc2d03fe217f8c83829496872af24a0/e/_/e_7671.jpg) The third one is the Reichsadler (Nazi eagle): [![](https://www.enlacejudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/jerseys-nazis.jpg) ](https://www.enlacejudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/jerseys-nazis.jpg) So much for Ukraine’s denazification. Sorry if this was obvious, but it bears pointing out explicitely. And the name of the infamous group refers to the name of Hitler’s favourite composer, of course. Hitler, the man whose ideology was centered around the extermination of “unworthy life forms” (_Lebensunwertes Leben_), which centered on the Jewish People, but included the Slavs just afterwards. Particularly the Russians. Sounds crazy? It almost seems like the RuZZians are trying to prove Hitler was right. Sick _and_ crazy. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/23 "2023-06-26T22:03:37Z")
All three branches of the Wehrmacht wore the eagle on their chest, like the one in the tattoo (though the Luftwaffe had their own design), but the SS wore it on their left arm: [![](https://medalbook.herokuapp.com/attachments/adef3708b19608e66c33bdbdc990c27e07a12fd4/store/fit/528/348/5a6afaf7d859fb77e14e92bcb86bbb6a88e85493e32db901075b3903ce3a/77.jpg) ](https://medalbook.herokuapp.com/attachments/adef3708b19608e66c33bdbdc990c27e07a12fd4/store/fit/528/348/5a6afaf7d859fb77e14e92bcb86bbb6a88e85493e32db901075b3903ce3a/77.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/24 "2023-06-26T22:32:31Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > As I understand it, the Nazis have largely been portrayed - by the current Russian government - as a group who was out for killing Russians and that the whole anti-Jewish thing is not important. The killing of Russians - or more specifically Slavs, which includes a lot more than just Russians - is 100% true, your understanding is seriously mistaken. Slavs were considered _Untermensch_ in Nazi ideology and were the second largest group of victims of the holocaust just after the Jews. The Nazi plan, which thankfully ‘only’ reached their initial stage of being carried out (murdering ~9 million people) was to exterminate most Slavic people, with the remainder to be reduced to illiterate chattel slavery under German colonists moving into their new _lebensraum_ in the east. > **[Generalplan Ost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost)** > > The Generalplan Ost (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}German pronunciation: \[ɡenəˈʁaːlˌplaːn ˈɔst\]; English: Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the large-scale ethnic cleansing, extermination and genocide of Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other ethnic groups categorized as "Untermensch" in Nazi... > The _Generalplan Ost_ proposal offered various percentages of the conquered or colonized people who were targeted for removal and physical destruction; the net effect of which would be to ensure that the conquered territories would become German. In ten years’ time, the plan effectively called for the extermination, expulsion, [Germanization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanization) or enslavement of most or all [East](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Slavs) and [West Slavs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Slavs) living behind the front lines of East-Central Europe. The “Small Plan” was to be put into practice as the Germans conquered the areas to the east of their pre-war borders.[_[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)_] After the war, under the “Big Plan”, more people in Eastern Europe were to be affected. [[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost#cite_note-MisiunasT93_48-19)[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost#cite_note-GumkowskiL61-18)[[10]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost#cite_note-Schmuhl08_348-10) [[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost#cite_note-Gellately96-12) In their place up to 10 million [Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans) would be settled in an extended “living space” (_Lebensraum_ ). Because the number of Germans appeared to be insufficient to populate the vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, the peoples judged to lie racially between the Germans and the Russians (_Mittelschicht_ ), namely, Latvians and even Czechs, were also supposed to be resettled there.[[25]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost#cite_note-Connelly99_1-25) > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > While it’s true that the Russians did take the brunt of damage from the Germans, Hitler was positive towards the Czars and recruited/collaborated with ethnically Russian folks, and he explicitly stated that his enmity was towards the Jews and ethnic minorities who had lead to the Socialist movement and taken over Russia. In regards to the ethnic majority in Russia, I believe that he believed them to be as suitable of breeding stock as your average Frenchman. This is again 100% completely wrong. 3.3 million Soviet POWs were murdered by the Nazis, again this making them the second largest group of victims of the Holocaust. Note that this link is from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: [Nazi Persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-persecution-of-soviet-prisoners-of-war) > ## Soviets Viewed as Subhuman Enemies > > Yet for Nazi Germany this attack was not an “ordinary” military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a [racial war](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/narrative/10142/en) between German “Aryans” and subhuman Slavs and Jews. From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale. In part, German officials excused their ill treatment and murder of Soviet POWs by pointing out that the Soviet Union was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention and its soldiers did not warrant the protection that the convention extended to prisoners of war. In reality, their reasons were more complex. German authorities viewed Soviet POWs as a particular threat, regarding them not only as Slavic subhumans but as part of the “Bolshevik menace” linked in Nazi ideology to the concept of a “Jewish conspiracy.” > ## Second Largest Group of Nazi Victims > > The brutal treatment of Soviet POWs by the Germans violated every standard of warfare. Existing sources suggest that some 5.7 million Soviet army personnel fell into German hands during [World War II](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/narrative/6718/en). As of January 1945, the German army reported that only about 930,000 Soviet POWs remained in German custody. The German army released about one million Soviet POWs as auxiliaries of the German army and the SS. About half a million Soviet POWs had escaped German custody or had been liberated by the Soviet army as it advanced westward through eastern Europe into Germany. The remaining 3.3 million, or about 57 percent of those taken prisoner, were dead by the end of the war. Second only to the Jews, Soviet prisoners of war were the largest group of victims of [Nazi racial policy](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/narrative/10962/en). The [recruitment of Soviet prisoners into the Wehrmacht as auxiliaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiwi_(volunteer)) occurred behind Hitler’s back and against his express orders. The name given to them, _hiwis_, short for _Hilfswilliger_ or, in English, auxiliary volunteer is in itself a rather cruel joke. They were, for the most part, ‘volunteering’ because the other option was murder by starvation in Nazi POW camps. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/25 "2023-06-26T22:32:45Z")
Why is that weird? Everybody knows that Putin’s invasion is purely a land grab, and he tried to claim to the world that he was fighting Nazis simply because who could possibly have a problem with fighting Nazis? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/26 "2023-06-26T22:54:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > I now wonder if the Russians pronounce “Wagner” more or less as an English speaker would, as a German speaker would, or on some other interesting way? > > I would imagine as in German, as I don’t think there’s a “w” (as in English) sound in Russian. Ensign Chekov would like to have a word with you: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/MdSJFrhb-HM/hqdefault.jpg "The Nuclear Wessels?") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSJFrhb-HM) > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Russians care nothing about the actual definition of Nazism. To them, “Nazi” means “anyone opposing us.” Many Russian soldiers & gangsters proudly wear Nazi tattoos, regalia, etc. I think this is really the point. “Nazi” in _Wagner’s_ use of the term is simply extreme racial/nationalism in favor of Us and against all other Thems. We are the superior race; They are not. It’s no deeper than that. Oh yeah, and the glorification of conquest and destruction and blind obedience to a leader aiming for military glory and nothing else matters. Your generic Russian skinhead or 1-striper in their infantry thinks similarly. As do the quasi-Nazi skinheads in the USA. “Nazi” is just shorthand for “extreme racial-military chauvinism”. With really cool symbols & badges which scare the Them. Who somehow always know who they are. Now as to _Putin_ blaming gathering Nazis in Ukraine for his invasion, that’s more like this: > [@Dissonance](#): > > The killing of Russians - or more specifically Slavs, which includes a lot more than just Russians - is 100% true, your understanding is seriously mistaken. Slavs were considered _Untermensch_ in Nazi ideology and were the second largest group of victims of the holocaust just after the Jews. > … Which is meant by Putin to foment existential dread on the part of Ivan and Irena AverageRussian. Nazi’s are to be feared and reviled; they are after you, Mr. ordinary Russian civilian. Only I the Great Putin can save you. And unlike in 1941, this time we’ll fight them on their land before they get strong, not on ours after they’ve gotten strong. With a side order of: > [@cmkeller](#): > > … Putin’s invasion is purely a land grab, and he tried to claim to the world that he was fighting Nazis simply because who could possibly have a problem with fighting Nazis? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/27 "2023-06-26T23:37:21Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > While it’s true that the Russians did take the brunt of damage from the Germans, Hitler was positive towards the Czars and recruited/collaborated with ethnically Russian folks, and he explicitly stated that his enmity was towards the Jews and ethnic minorities who had lead to the Socialist movement and taken over Russia. In regards to the ethnic majority in Russia, I believe that he believed them to be as suitable of breeding stock as your average Frenchman. > [@Dissonance](#): > > This is again 100% completely wrong. 3.3 million Soviet POWs were murdered by the Nazis, again this making them the second largest group of victims of the Holocaust. These statements aren’t in conflict. Here is, also, a statement from the Holocaust Museum: > [@](#): > > During the autumn and winter of 1941-1942, German military authorities and the German Security Police collaborated on a racist policy of mass murder of [Soviet prisoners of war](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/narrative/10135/en): Jews, persons with **“Asiatic features,”** and top political and military leaders were selected out and shot. (Bolding added) [Holocaust Museum](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/mosaic-of-victims-in-depth) The Soviet Union was about 50% Caucasian and 50% Jewish or Asiatic. Of about 6m Soviet POWs captured by the Germans, about 3m were killed. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/28 "2023-06-27T00:03:45Z")
Also cites. From Mein Kampf: > [@](#): > > Never forget that the rulers of present-day Russia are common blood-stained criminals; that they are the scum of humanity which, favored by circumstances, overran **a great state** in a tragic hour, slaughtered and wiped out thousands of **her leading intelligentsia** in wild blood lust, and now for almost ten years have been carrying on the most cruel and tyrannical régime of all time. (Bolding added) And, of course, there were a variety of collaborationist organizations amongst the Russians, with the Nazis: > **[Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Liberation_of_the_Peoples_of_Russia)** > > The Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Russian: Комитет освобождения народов России, Komitet osvobozhdeniya narodov Rossii, abbreviated as Russian: КОНР, KONR) was a committee composed of military and civilian Nazi collaborators from territories of the Soviet Union (most being Russians). It was founded by Nazi Germany on 14 November 1944, in Prague, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (purposely chosen because it was a Slavic city that was still under Axis control). > The goa... And ethnically Russian POWs would be freed into collaborationist groups, sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/29 "2023-06-27T00:07:35Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > During the autumn and winter of 1941-1942, German military authorities and the German Security Police collaborated on a racist policy of mass murder of [Soviet prisoners of war](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/narrative/10135/en): Jews, persons with **“Asiatic features,”** and top political and military leaders were selected out and shot. I wonder if they used the same chart as the Soviet police: [https://twitter.com/aflashbak/status/1419315380611272706](https://twitter.com/aflashbak/status/1419315380611272706) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/30 "2023-06-27T00:09:30Z")
Are you serious? You really think your entirely 100% completely, absolutely no room for argument wrong statement that > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > While it’s true that the Russians did take the brunt of damage from the Germans, Hitler was positive towards the Czars and recruited/collaborated with ethnically Russian folks, and he explicitly stated that his enmity was towards the Jews and ethnic minorities who had lead to the Socialist movement and taken over Russia. In regards to the ethnic majority in Russia, I believe that he believed them to be as suitable of breeding stock as your average Frenchman. Isn’t in any sort of conflict because the Germans ‘only’ murdered 3,300,000 Soviet prisoners of war? Just because the _Einsatzgruppen_ happened to shoot the Soviet POWs who were _also_ Jewish rather than leaving them to die of starvation alongside their other 3,300,000 compatriots? That has got to be one of the most absurd, utterly tone-deaf statements I have read in all my years at the SDMB. Hey, did you know the first 600 victims murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz by gassing weren’t Jewish but were [Soviet POWs](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-treatment-of-soviet-pows-starvation-disease-and-shootings-june-1941january-1942)? Does this mean that by your logic an entirely absurd and offensive statement like “Hitler didn’t have any problem with the Jews, he considered them to be as suitable of breeding stock as your average Frenchman” wouldn’t be in any sort of conflict with the facts? > It was when dealing with Soviet POWs at Auschwitz that camp commandant Rudolf Hoess and his assistants experimented with the means of killing that has since become the symbol of Nazi [genocide](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/narrative/9275/en): Zyklon B. _View This Term in the Glossary_ In early September 1941, 600 Soviet POWs were selected for execution. Hoess decided to gas them with Zyklon B, also known as hydrogen cyanide, in the Auschwitz I gas chamber. The experimental gassing here also included 250 inmates who had been designated unfit for work. The Nazis had already experimented with gassing as the means to kill people they considered disabled beginning in October 1939. A method was thereby found that would kill millions of people with minimal effort. Those lessons were subsequently applied first to Soviet POWs and then to Jews. By February 1942, 2,000,000 of the 3,300,000 Soviet soldiers in German custody up to that point had died from starvation, exposure, disease, or shooting. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/31 "2023-06-27T00:30:52Z")
I’m saying that **Soviet** and **Ethnically Russian** are different words. That’s not minimizing the murders. It’s just pointing out that the Nazis were racist, the USSR was a multi-ethnic state, and the Bolshevik uprising was in some part an outcome of the mistreatment of ethnic minorities by the Czars. If I recall correctly, about 2/3rds of the first Soviet Congress was composed of minorities. I don’t doubt that the Nazis practiced hypocrisy - there’s nothing to separate out the Poles from the rest of the Slavic peoples, and yet the Nazis treated them as a separate race, and nothing to bring the Japanese into the alliance while otherwise singling out people from central Asia. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if they executed a wide variety of white, blond Russians with no Asiatic features, just out of anger and spite from their being tough opponents on the battlefield or because they were high up in the Soviet command chain. As said, the Nazis were clearly willing to be hypocrites. But their motivation for attacking the USSR wasn’t targeted towards killing the ethnic majority of the Soviet Union. It was targeted towards the Bolsheviks and the ethnic minorities of the USSR. Or, alternately, it was targeted towards the threat of Communism. (Or both.) That is Hitler’s stated objective and the numbers align with what we’d expect if he was killing Soviet POWs on a largely racial line. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/32 "2023-06-27T00:41:30Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > But their motivation for attacking the USSR wasn’t targeted towards killing the ethnic majority of the Soviet Union. Yes, it was. The entire purpose of WWII for Hitler was to secure _lebensraum_ in the east for the German people by exterminating the _Untermensch_ who happened to be living there. Give the link on _Generalplan Ost_ a read. You are frankly engaging in Holocaust denial which is, to my knowledge a forbidden topic at the SDMB; I’m done interacting with you. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/33 "2023-06-27T00:42:29Z")
Who knew? Charles Manson was Tadjik! ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/34 "2023-06-27T00:45:43Z")
And I thought Pedro Pascal was Chilean, but according to that chart he’s a “Gypsy”. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/35 "2023-06-27T00:58:40Z")
Tatar - “And so we meet again Dr. Quest!” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/36 "2023-06-27T01:02:29Z")
I think you’re reading me as disagreeing with something that you’ve said. Here is the Wikipedia ([Nazi Racial Theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories)), saying the same thing as I have said: > [@](#): > > Günther, who greatly influenced Hitler and Nazi ideology, studied and wrote about the supposed racial origins of the Slavs. He concluded that Slavs were originally Nordic, but after mixing with other races over the centuries they eventually came to be predominantly of the East Baltic race.[[112]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories#cite_note-FOOTNOTEG%C3%BCnther1927171%E2%80%93172-113) **However, some Poles and other Slavs were considered to have enough Nordic admixture to be Germanized,** because they were supposedly descended from the Nordic ruling class of the [early Slavs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Slavs). He wrote that the further East the more the “Inner Asiatic” racial ancestry was prominent.[[112]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories#cite_note-FOOTNOTEG%C3%BCnther1927171%E2%80%93172-113)[[113]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories#cite_note-FOOTNOTEG%C3%BCnther192774-114) He wrote that of the Poles and other Slavs who were predominantly of the East Baltic race that they were mentally slow, dirty and incapable of long term planning.[[114]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories#cite_note-FOOTNOTEG%C3%BCnther192741-115) He also claimed that the East Baltic race was the reason why some German districts had “a heavy proportion of crime”.[[115]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories#cite_note-FOOTNOTEG%C3%BCnther192740-116) > > […] > > To justify their acquisition of _Lebensraum_ (living space) for Germans, the Nazis later classified Slavs as a racially inferior “Asiatic-Bolshevik” horde.[[120]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories#cite_note-FOOTNOTEKershaw2008150-121) (Bolding added) Generalplan Ost was developed 15 years later than when Hitler came up with his original set of ideas, in Mein Kampf, after they’d already started to see some success in taking things over, and had their relationship with Stalin. They let their original objectives go by the wayside and invented new ones, that widened the scope of murder past what they’d originally planned. That came to include the Slavs in totality, but originally didn’t seem to. And as Generplan Ost says, they were planning to do things like kill 50% of people, not 100%. My understanding - and I am quite fine to have it demonstrated as incorrect - is that they planned to choose which 50% to keep, based on subjective measurements of how “fit” that person was. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/37 "2023-06-27T02:04:23Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I think you’d also need to do some real number crunching to figure out how much of the death caused by the war was solidly on the side of the Germans, versus Stalin not caring about his people and throwing them to be slaughtered while he, himself, stayed comfortably somewhere else. If the Nazis could have taken over Russia without having to kill so many, I think they’d have gone for it - similar to how the approached France. They weren’t trying to kill a lot of Russians, Stalin just forced them to do it. No, that’s going too far in the other direction. Hitler and the Nazis didn’t plan on a complete eradication of the Slavs, the way they did for the Jews. But they did plan on a major population reduction of the Slavs. The goal was to eliminate most of the Slavs in Eastern Europe and reduce the population. Then they would send in Germans and maybe other Western European settlers as colonists to repopulate. A few Slavs would be allowed to live in order to work as peasant labor on German owned plantations. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/38 "2023-06-27T02:12:59Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > But their motivation for attacking the USSR wasn’t targeted towards killing the ethnic majority of the Soviet Union. It was targeted towards the Bolsheviks and the ethnic minorities of the USSR. Or, alternately, it was targeted towards the threat of Communism. (Or both.) No, the Nazis were targeting Slavs, which includes Russians, along with Belarusians, Czechs, Poles, Serbs, Slovaks, and Ukrainians. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/39 "2023-06-27T05:59:16Z")
“Round up the usual suspects”? Strange how much the Tatar looks like Lenin. And it’s the Azerbaijanian who looks more like Stalin than the Georgian does. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2023, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098/40 "2023-06-27T06:21:10Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I now wonder if the Russians pronounce “Wagner” more or less as an English speaker would, as a German speaker would, or on some other interesting way? > > Heck, I suppose RP English and American Standard English would differ on a broad “a” or short “a” sound. In pictures of the logo that I’ve seen, the name begins with a cyrillic “B”, which makes a “V” sound, so I assume it’s pronounced “Vogner.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wagner-group-what-does-the-name-refer-to/986098.md?page=3)