This racialization allowed the Wehrmacht to treat Soviet POWs with unprecedented brutality: of 5.7 million captured, 3.3 million died in captivity—a mortality rate of 58%, almost entirely justified by the Untermensch doctrine.
The term "Untermensch" did not originate with the Nazis, but they drastically repurposed it. Friedrich Nietzsche had popularized the concept of the Übermensch —an individual who rises above conventional morality to create their own values. untermench