MATEUSZ GNIAZDOWSKI Losses Inflicted on Poland by Germany during World War II. Assessments and Estimates—an Outline * Already in the first weeks of World War II, it became obvious that to assess the losses inflicted on Poland by the German aggressor would be an extremely complicated task. This assumption results from way the Third Reich carried out the war. From 1 September 1939, the German armed forces engaged in comprehensive destruction, the scale of which was unprecedented in the history of wars. Barbarian tactics of total war, the ultimate objective of which was not only to break the resistance of the Polish Army, but also to terrorize the civilian population, resulted in extremely extensive losses of lives and property. Of key importance for the assessment of losses suffered by Poland in the course of World War II are not military actions, but over five years of German occupation. The occupation violated standards of the international law of war, or even standards of internal German legal codes. The purpose was, next to the exploitation of the country’s resources, to destroy the nation, its culture, monuments of its history, and push Poles into the role of state slaves with no political rights whatsoever. The programme of destroying the Polish statehood and sweeping Germanization was a component of a broader series of actions by the German state, intended to implement the ideological vision of the Lebensraum (living space) for the German nation in Central and Eastern Europe. The meaning of Germanization for Hitler was not so much to Germanize Slavic nations, but rather to colonize their areas by Germans. 1 94 The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, 2007, no. 1 * The starting point for this work is the report: A. Eberhardt, M. Gniazdowski, T. Jasku³owski, M. Krzysztofowicz, “Szkody wyrz¹dzone Polsce podczas II wojny œwiatowej przez agresora niemieckiego. Historia dociekañ i szacunków,” in: W.M. Góralski (ed.), Problem reparacji, odszkodowañ i œwiadczeñ w stosunkach polsko-niemieckich 1944–2004, vol. 1: Studia, War- szawa, 2004, pp. 11–54. The author would like to thank W³odzimierz Borodziej, Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, Bogdan Musia³, Wanda Jarz¹bek and Dariusz Stola for their valuable comments. 1 B. Musia³, “Niemiecka polityka narodowoœciowa w okupowanej Polsce w latach 1939–1945,” Pamiêæ i Sprawiedliwoœæ 2004, no. 2, pp. 13–15.