Heim ins Reich
Encyclopedia
The Heim ins Reich initiative was a policy pursued by Adolf Hitler
starting in 1938 and was one of the factors leading to World War II
. The initiative attempted to convince people of German descent living outside of the German Reich that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into a Greater Germany. This includes both areas ceded after the Treaty of Versailles
, as well as other areas containing significant German populations such as the Sudetenland
.
Policy was managed by VOMI (Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle) (Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans). As a state agency of the NSDAP, it handled all Volksdeutsch issues. VOMI was under the control of the SS by 1941.
Prior to the Anchluss, a powerful transmitter in Munich
bombarded Austria
with propaganda of what Hitler had done for Germany, and what he could do for Austria.
The annexation of Austria was presented as "enter[ing] German land as representatives of a general German will to unity
, to establish brotherhood with the German people and soldiers there." Similarly, the last chapter of Eugen Hadamovsky
's World History on the March glorifies Hitler's obtaining Memel
from Lithuania
as "the latest stage in the progress of history
".
Concurrent with this were the beginnings of attempts to ethnically cleanse
non-Germans both from Germany and from the areas intended to be part of a "Greater Germany". Alternately, Hitler also made attempts to Germanize those who were considered ethnically or racially close enough to Germans to be "worth keeping" as part of a future German nation, such as the population of Luxembourg
(officially, Germany considered these populations to actually be German, but not part of the Greater German Reich, and were thus the targets of propaganda promoting this view in order to integrate them). These attempts were largely unpopular with the targets of the Germanization, and the citizens of Luxembourg voted in a referendum 97% against becoming citizens of Germany
.
Propaganda was also directed to Germans outside the Third Reich, to return as regions, or as individuals from other regions. Hitler hoped to make full use of the "German Diaspora."
As part of an effort to lure ethnic Germans back to Germany, folksy Heimatbriefe or "letters from the homeland" were sent to German immigrants to the United States
. The reaction to these was on the whole negative, particularly as they picked up. Goebbels also hoped to use German-Americans to keep America neutral during the war, but this actually produced great hostility to Nazi propagandists.
Newspapers in occupied Ukraine printed articles about antecedents of German rule over Ukraine, such as Catherine the Great and the Goths
.
Heim ins Reich in Nazi terminology and propaganda also referred to former territories of the Holy Roman Empire
. Joseph Goebbels
described in his diary
that Belgium
and the Holland
were Heim im Reich in 1940. Belgium was supposedly lost to France by the Austrian Empire in 1794 and Holland from the Holy Roman Empire in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia. Other such territories that were occupied and annexed by Germany during the 1940s were Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine (German
: Elsass-Lothringen), Slovenia, Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Poland. The policy for German Expansion was planned in Generalplan Ost
to continue farther eastwards into Poland, the Baltic states and the Soviet Union, thus creating a Greater Germany from the North Sea
to the Urals
.
) from some Eastern European countries, which had been there for hundreds of years
. The Nazi government determined which of these communities were not "viable", started propaganda among the local population, and then made arrangements and organized their transport. The use of scare tactics about the Soviet Union led to tens of thousands leaving. This included Germans from Bukovina
, Bessarabia
, Dobruja
and Yugoslavia
. For example, after the Soviets had assumed control of this territory, about 45,000 ethnic Germans had left Northern Bukovina by November 1940. (Stalin permitted this out of fear they would be loyal to Germany.)
In the Greater Poland
(Wielkopolska) region (joined together with the Lodz
district and dubbed "Wartheland" by the Germans), the Nazis' goal was the complete "Germanization", or political, cultural, social, and economic assimilation of the territory into the German Reich. In pursuit of this goal, the installed bureaucracy renamed streets and cities and seized tens of thousands of Polish enterprises, from large industrial firms to small shops, without payment to the owners. This area incorporated 350,000 such "ethnic Germans" and 1.7 million Poles deemed Germanizable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who had been taken from their parents (plus about 400,000 German settlers from the "Old Reich"). They were housed in farms left vacant by expulsion of the local Poles. Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans". Hitler Youth
and League of German Girls
sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed (particularly for the girls) assisting in Germanization efforts. They were harassed by Polish partisans (Armia Krajowa
) during the war. As Nazi Germany lost the war, they were expelled to remaining Germany
.
Eberhardt cites estimates for the ethnic German
influx provided by Szobak, Łuczak, and a collective report, ranging from 404,612 (Szobak) to 631,500 (Łuczak). Anna Bramwell says 591,000 ethnic Germans moved into the annexed territories, and details the areas of colonists' origin as follows: 93,000 were from Bessarabia
, 21,000 from Dobruja
, 98,000 from Bukovina
, 68,000 from Volhynia
, 58,000 from Galicia
, 130,000 from the Baltic states
, 38,000 from eastern Poland
, 72,000 from the Sudetenland
, and 13,000 from Slovenia
. Durning "Heim ins Reich" Germans were settled in the homes of expelled Poles.
Additionally some 400,000 German officials, technical staff, and clerks were sent to those areas in order to administer them, according to "Atlas Ziem Polski" citing a joint Polish-German scholarly publication on the aspect of population changes during the war Eberhardt estimates that the total influx from the Altreich
was about 500,000 people. Duiker and Spielvogel note that up to two million Germans had been settled in pre-war Poland by 1942. Eberhardt gives a total of two million Germans present in the area of all pre-war Poland by the end of the war, 1.3 million of whom moved in during the war, adding to a pre-war population
of 700,000.
The increase of German population was most visible in the towns: in Poznań
, the German population increased from ~6,000 in 1939 to 93,589 in 1944; in Łódż, from ~60,000 to 140,721; and in Inowrocław, from 956 to 10,713. In Warthegau, where most Germans were settled, the share of the German population increased from 6.6% in 1939 to 21.2% in 1943.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
starting in 1938 and was one of the factors leading to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The initiative attempted to convince people of German descent living outside of the German Reich that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into a Greater Germany. This includes both areas ceded after the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, as well as other areas containing significant German populations such as the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
.
Policy was managed by VOMI (Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle) (Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans). As a state agency of the NSDAP, it handled all Volksdeutsch issues. VOMI was under the control of the SS by 1941.
History
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
bombarded Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
with propaganda of what Hitler had done for Germany, and what he could do for Austria.
The annexation of Austria was presented as "enter[ing] German land as representatives of a general German will to unity
Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify the German-speaking populations of Europe in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland , where "German-speaking" was taken to include the Low German, Frisian and Dutch-speaking populations of the Low...
, to establish brotherhood with the German people and soldiers there." Similarly, the last chapter of Eugen Hadamovsky
Eugen Hadamovsky
Eugen Hadamovsky was a radio production director for Nazi Germany.Hadamovsky was born in Berlin, Brandenburg. He was an early Nazi supporter, who helped organize Nazi radio listeners and handled the technical details at many of Hitler's mass rallies...
's World History on the March glorifies Hitler's obtaining Memel
1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania
1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania was an oral ultimatum presented to Juozas Urbšys, Foreign Minister of Lithuania, by Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany, on March 20, 1939...
from Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
as "the latest stage in the progress of history
Progress (history)
In historiography and the philosophy of history, progress is the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc...
".
Concurrent with this were the beginnings of attempts to ethnically cleanse
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
non-Germans both from Germany and from the areas intended to be part of a "Greater Germany". Alternately, Hitler also made attempts to Germanize those who were considered ethnically or racially close enough to Germans to be "worth keeping" as part of a future German nation, such as the population of Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
(officially, Germany considered these populations to actually be German, but not part of the Greater German Reich, and were thus the targets of propaganda promoting this view in order to integrate them). These attempts were largely unpopular with the targets of the Germanization, and the citizens of Luxembourg voted in a referendum 97% against becoming citizens of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Propaganda was also directed to Germans outside the Third Reich, to return as regions, or as individuals from other regions. Hitler hoped to make full use of the "German Diaspora."
As part of an effort to lure ethnic Germans back to Germany, folksy Heimatbriefe or "letters from the homeland" were sent to German immigrants to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The reaction to these was on the whole negative, particularly as they picked up. Goebbels also hoped to use German-Americans to keep America neutral during the war, but this actually produced great hostility to Nazi propagandists.
Newspapers in occupied Ukraine printed articles about antecedents of German rule over Ukraine, such as Catherine the Great and the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
.
Heim ins Reich in Nazi terminology and propaganda also referred to former territories of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
. Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
described in his diary
Goebbels Diaries
Joseph Goebbels, a leading member of the German National Socialist Party and Propaganda Minister in Adolf Hitler's government from 1933 to 1945, kept a diary from 1923, when he was an unemployed ex-student with no interest in politics, until shortly before his death by suicide in Berlin on 1 May 1945...
that Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Holland
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
were Heim im Reich in 1940. Belgium was supposedly lost to France by the Austrian Empire in 1794 and Holland from the Holy Roman Empire in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia. Other such territories that were occupied and annexed by Germany during the 1940s were Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine (German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Elsass-Lothringen), Slovenia, Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Poland. The policy for German Expansion was planned in Generalplan Ost
Generalplan Ost
Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...
to continue farther eastwards into Poland, the Baltic states and the Soviet Union, thus creating a Greater Germany from the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
to the Urals
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
.
"Heim ins Reich" in occupied Poland 1939-1944
The same motto (Heim ins Reich) was also applied to a different, but somewhat related policy: the uprooting and relocation of ethnically German communities (VolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
) from some Eastern European countries, which had been there for hundreds of years
Ostsiedlung
Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...
. The Nazi government determined which of these communities were not "viable", started propaganda among the local population, and then made arrangements and organized their transport. The use of scare tactics about the Soviet Union led to tens of thousands leaving. This included Germans from Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
and Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. For example, after the Soviets had assumed control of this territory, about 45,000 ethnic Germans had left Northern Bukovina by November 1940. (Stalin permitted this out of fear they would be loyal to Germany.)
| Territory of origin | Year | Number of resettled Volksdeutsches |
|---|---|---|
| South Tyrol South Tyrol South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants... (see South Tyrol Option Agreement South Tyrol Option Agreement The South Tyrol Option Agreement refers to the period between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin speaking people in South Tyrol and three communes in the province of Belluno were given the "option" of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy and... ) |
1939–1940 | 83 000 |
| Latvia Latvia Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden... and Estonia Estonia Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies... |
1939–1941 | 69 000 |
| Lithuania Lithuania Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark... |
1941 | 54 000 |
| Volhynia Volhynia Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come... , Galicia, Nerewdeutschland |
1939–1940 | 128 000 |
| General Government General Government The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945... |
1940 | 33 000 |
| North Bukovina and Bessarabia Bessarabia Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west.... |
1940 | 137 000 |
| Romania Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea... (South Bukovina and North Dobruja) |
1940 | 77 000 |
| Jugoslavia | 1941–1942 | 36 000 |
| USSR (pre-1939 borders) | 1939–1944 | 250 000 |
| Summary | 1939–1944 | 867 000 |
In the Greater Poland
Greater Poland
Greater Poland or Great Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief city is Poznań.The boundaries of Greater Poland have varied somewhat throughout history...
(Wielkopolska) region (joined together with the Lodz
Lódz
Łódź is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, it had a population of 742,387 in December 2009. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is approximately south-west of Warsaw...
district and dubbed "Wartheland" by the Germans), the Nazis' goal was the complete "Germanization", or political, cultural, social, and economic assimilation of the territory into the German Reich. In pursuit of this goal, the installed bureaucracy renamed streets and cities and seized tens of thousands of Polish enterprises, from large industrial firms to small shops, without payment to the owners. This area incorporated 350,000 such "ethnic Germans" and 1.7 million Poles deemed Germanizable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who had been taken from their parents (plus about 400,000 German settlers from the "Old Reich"). They were housed in farms left vacant by expulsion of the local Poles. Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans". Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
and League of German Girls
League of German Girls
The League of German Girls or League of German Maidens , was the girl's wing of the overall Nazi party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only female youth organization in Nazi Germany....
sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed (particularly for the girls) assisting in Germanization efforts. They were harassed by Polish partisans (Armia Krajowa
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
) during the war. As Nazi Germany lost the war, they were expelled to remaining Germany
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
.
Ethnic German
Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...
influx provided by Szobak, Łuczak, and a collective report, ranging from 404,612 (Szobak) to 631,500 (Łuczak). Anna Bramwell says 591,000 ethnic Germans moved into the annexed territories, and details the areas of colonists' origin as follows: 93,000 were from Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, 21,000 from Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
, 98,000 from Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, 68,000 from Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
, 58,000 from Galicia
District Galicia
The District of Galicia was an administrative unit of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Ukraine from 1941 to 1944 centered in Lemberg ....
, 130,000 from the Baltic states
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
, 38,000 from eastern Poland
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
, 72,000 from the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
, and 13,000 from Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. Durning "Heim ins Reich" Germans were settled in the homes of expelled Poles.
Additionally some 400,000 German officials, technical staff, and clerks were sent to those areas in order to administer them, according to "Atlas Ziem Polski" citing a joint Polish-German scholarly publication on the aspect of population changes during the war Eberhardt estimates that the total influx from the Altreich
Altreich
Altreich or Altes Reich is a German term that may refer to:* A synonym for the medieval Kingdom of Germany in prior German historiography, i.e. the territory of the German stem duchies excluding the Saxon and Bavarian eastern marches....
was about 500,000 people. Duiker and Spielvogel note that up to two million Germans had been settled in pre-war Poland by 1942. Eberhardt gives a total of two million Germans present in the area of all pre-war Poland by the end of the war, 1.3 million of whom moved in during the war, adding to a pre-war population
German minority in Poland
The registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people, according to a 2002 census.The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodeship , where most of the minority resides...
of 700,000.
| Area | Number of German colonists |
|---|---|
| Warthegau | 536,951 |
| Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia The Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was a Nazi German province created on 8 October 1939 from the territory of the annexed Free City of Danzig, the annexed Polish province Greater Pomeranian Voivodship , and the Nazi German Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia. Before 2 November 1939,... |
50,204 |
| East Upper Silesia East Upper Silesia East Upper Silesia is a term denoting the easternmost extremity of Silesia, that is the eastern part of the Upper Silesian region with the city of Katowice . The term is used primarily to denote those areas that became part of the Second Polish Republic on 20 June 1922, as a consequence of the... |
36,870 |
| Regierungsbezirk Zichenau | 7,460 |
The increase of German population was most visible in the towns: in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, the German population increased from ~6,000 in 1939 to 93,589 in 1944; in Łódż, from ~60,000 to 140,721; and in Inowrocław, from 956 to 10,713. In Warthegau, where most Germans were settled, the share of the German population increased from 6.6% in 1939 to 21.2% in 1943.
See also
- Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany (1939-1944)
- Ethnic nationalismEthnic nationalismEthnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
- LebensraumLebensraumwas one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
- Generalplan OstGeneralplan OstGeneralplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...
- VolksdeutscheVolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
- Final solutionFinal SolutionThe Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
- Holocaust
- NazismNazismNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
- German exodus from Eastern EuropeGerman exodus from Eastern EuropeThe German exodus from Eastern Europe describes the dramatic reduction of ethnic German populations in lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. The exodus began in the aftermath of World War I and was implicated in the rise of Nazism. It culminated in expulsions of Germans from...
- Expulsion of Germans after World War IIExpulsion of Germans after World War IIThe later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
- VOMI
Further reading
- R.L. Koehl RKFDV: German Resettlement and Population Policy 1939-1945 (Cambridge MA, 1957).
- Anthony Komjathy and Rebecca Stockwell German Minorities and the Third Reich: Ethnic Germans of East Central Europe between the Wars (New York and London, 1980).
- Valdis O. Lumans Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945 (Chapel Hill NC and London, 1993).