Untermensch (,
underman,
sub-man,
subhuman; plural:
Untermenschen) is a term that became infamous when the
Nazis used it to describe "inferior people" often referred to as "the masses from the East," that is
Jews,
Roma, and
Slavs (mainly ethnic
Poles,
Serbs, and later also
Russians). The term was also applied to most
Blacks, and
persons of color, with some particular exceptions. Jewish people were to be
exterminated in the
Holocaust, while, according to the
Generalplan Ost, the Slavs of
East-Central Europe were to be mostly deported to Asia, or exterminated and partially
Germanized. These concepts were an important part of the
Nazi racial policy. While the Nazis were inconsistent in the implementation of their policy, its genocidal death toll was in tens of millions of victims.