Generalplan Ost
As part of "Generalplan Ost", the political purpose of the "Intelligenzaktion" was extermination of the élites of Polish society, which the Nazis broadly defined as the "Szlachta" (Polish nobles), the intelligentsia, teachers, social workers, judges, military veterans, priests and businessmen; any Polish man and woman who had attended secondary school, and so could provide nationalist leadership to resist the Nazi occupation of Poland.