UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 7th Annual International Postgraduate Conference
Inclusion Exclusion
Saturday 18 February 12:00 – 1:30: Panel J2: Inclusion and Exclusion During World War II
Alexa Stiller (University of Hannover): ‘Defining the boundaries of Germaness: The „German People List“ in Occupied Poland, 1939-1945.’
The population and resettlement policy with the extensive deportation of local population for the purpose of the "Germanization" of areas conquered by the Wehrmacht during World War II was based on Hitler's instruction to transform the newly acquired "Lebensraum" into purely "German provinces." The Reich governors of the occupied territories competed with Heinrich Himmler, who had been appointed by Hitler as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom (Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums, RKF), for the fastest and most thorough achievement of this target. For the local non-German population in the areas of Western Poland (the Wartheland, Danzig-West Prussia, as well as the districts Upper Silesia and Cichanów) the execution of the Volkstumspolitik meant racial segregation by the system of the so called "German people list," loss of civil rights, expropriation, forced labor, and deportation. The treatment of Jews was the most extreme as they were locked up in Ghettos and finally mass-murdered.
Basically, there were two kinds of expulsion practices that were carried out by the Germans: First of all, there were the so called cleansing actions, considered as security-measures, which were executed from the very beginning by the secret police (Sicherheitspolizei) and aimed at the Polish "intelligenzia" (i.e. reputed carriers of Polish national consciousness and therefore a potential danger to the German occupation) and the Polish Jews. Secondly, the Germans intended a large-scale ethnic cleansing ("Völkische Flurbereinigung") to create new and pure living space for ethnic Germans mostly from Eastern Europe.
With the Germanization programme the National Socialists tried to select ethnic Germans – including persons only with German grandparents – and also "racial valuable" Poles from the rest of the population. The "German people list" was invented and was most consistently applied in the Wartheland. Ethnic Germans were divided into four groups: 1. So-called Volksdeutsche with a national political backround, 2. unpolitical "Volksdeutsche", 3. ethnic Germans with German ancestors as well as Polish minorities (Kaschuben, Masuren, Slonzaken) and 4. political opponents of the National Socialism but ethnic Germans. The second part of the Germanization programme was called re-germanization and meant a part-time integration of Poles based on racial criteria. Only very few people were taken into this programme, approximately 15.000. They were brought to Germany and forced to work but they received better conditions as the majority of the Polish forced laborers.
In my paper I will focus on the process of inclusion and exclusion of the population in Western Poland and answer following questions: Which were the criteria of the selection and did the theoretical concept fit with the reality of an ethnically mixed society created by the changing history of this part of Europe?
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