The Ruhr area of the East - the Nazi planning for Upper Silesia, the Oder-Danube Canal and the Pomeranian commercial interests

In December 1939 the Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess performed the ground-breaking ceremony for the Oder-Danube Canal. Besides connecting the Oder and the Danube, resulting in a nonstop waterway from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, spatial planning authorities, saw the canal as a fundamental addition for Upper Silesia. The outcome of this connection would have been a widely expanded trade between northern and southern Europe. Due to the development of the war the work on the canal was discontinued in 1940. One of the main profiteers of the canal would have been the Stettin (Szczecin) seaport, located at the intersection of the Oder to the Baltic Sea. Under the lead management of the economic chamber of Pomerania in connection with the University of Greifswald, a think tank called 'Oder-Donau-Institut' was founded to deliver scientific arguments to reinstate the work on the canal. The Director of the institute was Peter-Heinz Seraphim, professor for political economy at Greifswald and one of the most professional and intellectual 'Jew Experts' in Nazi Germany. Under his leadership, the well-financed institute worked not only to further the economic interests of the economic chamber but also for the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Abstract printed by permission of Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany