During World War II, over 1.7 million Poles were forcibly resettled from the territories of German-occupied Poland, with the aim of their Germanization (see Lebensraum) between 1939 and 1944.
The German Government had plans for the extensive colonisation of territories of occupied Poland, which were annexed directly into Nazi Germany in 1939. Eventually these plans grew bigger to include parts of the General Government. The region was to become a "purely German area" within 15–20 years, as explained by Adolf Hitler in March 1941. By that time the General Government was to be cleared of 15 million Polish nationals, and resettled by 4–5 million ethnic Germans.
The operation was the culmination of the expulsion of Poles by Germany carried out since the 19th century, when Poland was partitioned among foreign powers including Germany.
Racial policies
Following the German invasion of the country, Nazi expansionist policies were enacted upon its Polish population on an unprecedented scale. In accordance with Nazi ideology the Poles were considered Untermenschen, deemed for slavery and their further extermination, in order to make room for the Germans re-settled from across Europe. Furthermore, Hitler intended to extensively colonize all territories lying to the east of the Third Reich. These were worked out by the RSHA department of the SS in Generalplan Ost (GPO, "[the] General Plan for the East"), which foresaw the deportation of 45 million "non-Germanizable" people from Central & Eastern Europe to West Siberia; of whom 31 million were "racially undesirable": including 100% of Jews, Poles (85%), Belarusians (75%) and Ukrainians (65%). Poland itself would have been cleared of all Polish people eventually, as 20 million or so were going to be expelled further east. The remaining 3 to 4 million Polish peasants believed to be the Polonized "descendants" of German colonists and migrants (Walddeutsche, Prussian settlers, etc.) – and therefore considered "racially valuable" – would be Germanized and dispersed among the ethnic German population living on formerly Polish soil.Janusz Gumkowski and Kazimierz Leszczynski, , 1961, in Poland under Nazi Occupation, Polonia Publishing House, Warsaw, pp. 7-33, 164-178. The Nazi leadership hoped that through expulsions to Siberia, famine, mass executions and slave labour, the Polish nation would eventually be completely destroyed.Wojciech Roszkowski, Historia Polski 1914–1997, Warsaw 1998 Experiments in mass sterilization in concentration camps may also have been intended for use on the populations.Gerhard L. Weinberg, Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders p 24
The World War II expulsions took place within two specific political entities established by the Nazis, divided from each other by a closed border: one area outright annexed to the Reich in 1939–1941, and another called the General Government, a precursor to the further expansion of the German administrative settlement area. Eventually, as Adolf Hitler explained in March 1941, the General Government would be cleared of all Poles and the region turned into a "purely German area" within 15–20 years, and in place of 15 million Poles, 4–5 million Germans would live there. The area was to become "as German as the Rhineland".
There was a special institution set up in November 1939 in German-occupied Poznań to coordinate the expulsion. Initially named the Special Staff for the Resettlement of Poles and Jews (Sonderstab für die Aussiedlung von Polen und Juden), it was soon renamed to Office for the Resettlement of Poles and Jews (Amt für Umsiedlung der Polen und Juden), and eventually renamed to Central Bureau for Resettlement (UWZ, Umwandererzentralstelle) in 1940. The main seats of the UWZ were located in Poznań and Gdynia, with an additional major branch located in Łódź and minor branches located in various other towns, including Kępno, Wieluń, Sieradz and Zamość.Wardzyńska, pp. 35–38 The UWZ also supervised the network of resettlement camps for Poles.Wardzyńska, p. 37 In the resettlement camps, Poles were subjected to brutal searches and racial selection, families were often broken up and children were taken from their parents.Wardzyńska, p. 38 Poor conditions, low food rations, lack of medical care and brutal treatment resulted in high mortality in the resettlement camps for Poles, which was in contrast to the conditions in the camps for German colonists, managed by Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, the main agency responsible for coordinating German settlement in occupied Poland.Wardzyńska, pp. 37–38 Poles were then deported to new destinations in overcrowded freight trains that lacked any sanitary facilities.
By 1945 one million German Volksdeutsche from several Eastern European countries and regions such as the Soviet Union, Bessarabia, Romania and the Baltic States had been successfully resettled into Poland during the action called "Heim ins Reich". The deportation orders specifically required that enough Poles be removed to provide for every settler—that, for instance, if twenty German "master bakers" were sent, twenty Polish bakeries had to have their owners removed.Michael Sontheimer, "When We Finish, Nobody Is Left Alive" 05/27/2011 Spiegel The expulsions of Poles were conducted by two German organisations: the Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the Resettlement Department of the "Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of Germandom" (RKFDV, Reichskomissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums), a title held by Heinrich Himmler. The new Germans were put in villages and towns already cleared of their native Polish inhabitants under the banner of Lebensraum.
Expulsions from Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany
The first lands that were subject to mass expulsions, Germanization and extermination (see Intelligenzaktion) were the regions annexed directly to Germany in 1939, i.e. Greater Poland, Kuyavia, Pomerania, western and northern Mazovia, Silesia and Dąbrowa Basin.Wardzyńska, p. 7 The expulsions were accompanied by economic exploitation, looting, and confiscation of Polish enterprises and farms covering millions of hectares.Wardzyńska, pp. 7–8 The houses and property were handed over to ethnic Germans, especially future members of the occupation administration, entrepreneurs, craftsmen, former Wehrmacht soldiers and colonists from Central and Eastern Europe, while Poles were mostly deported either to the General Government or to forced labour.Wardzyńska, p. 8
Germanization began with the classification of which people were "racially suitable", as defined by the Nazi Volksliste.Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p543 About 1.7 million Poles were deemed Germanizable, including between one and two hundred thousand Polish children who were taken away from their parents.Pierre Aycoberry, The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933-1945, p 228, For the remainder expulsion was carried out, often in cattle cars in freezing weather, causing the deaths of many, especially children.Richard C. Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust p18 They were carried out on short notice, often at night, and the people were allowed only a few belongings. Ethnic Germans being resettled there were often given Polish homes with half-eaten meals on tables, and unmade beds, where small children had been sleeping at the time of their evictions.Lynn H. Nicholas, Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web p. 213-4 Members of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were assigned the task of overseeing the evictions to ensure that the Poles left behind most of their belongings for the use of the settlers.Walter S. Zapotoczny, "Rulers of the World: The Hitler Youth " This could also mean the separation of entire families, with able-bodied adults being sent to work in Germany while the rest were sent to the General Government. The expulsion also affected tens of thousands of Polish Jews and Romani people.Wardzyńska, p. 15
Some villages were destroyed to make place for proving grounds of the German military and the Waffen-SS.Wardzyńska, p. 14 Poles expelled from those villages had nothing to return to after the war and had to settle in new locations.Wardzyńska, p. 15
Together with so-called "wild expulsions", in four years of Nazi occupation 923,000 Poles were ethnically cleansed from the territories annexed by Germany into the Reich.Zygmunt Mańkowski; Tadeusz Pieronek; Andrzej Friszke; Thomas Urban (panel discussion), "Polacy wypędzeni" , Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej IPN, 5 (40), May 2004 (Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance. Issue: 05/2004, page 628. According to research conducted by Czesław Łuczak, the Germans expelled the following numbers of Poles from areas annexed into the Reich as well as all others in the period of 1939–1944:Czesław Łuczak, "Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce" Wydawnictwo Poznańskie Poznań 1979
+ Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany 1939–1944Name of territoryNumber of displaced PolesWarthegau region (including Greater Poland and Łódź)280,606Jerzy Jan Lerski (1996), Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945 Greenwood Publishing, page 642. Silesia81,000Pomerelia124,000Białystok28,000Ciechanów (Northern Mazovia)25,000"Wild expulsions" of 1939 (Pomerelia mostly)30,000 – 40,000Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany (total)918,000 – 928,000Zamość region100,000 – 110,000General Government (proving grounds)171,000Warsaw (after the Warsaw Uprising)500,000Grand total on all occupied Polish territories1,689,000 – 1,709,000
Greater Poland Between 1939 and 1940, Nazi expulsions from German-occupied Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) affected 680,000 Poles.Witold Sienkiewicz, Grzegorz Hryciuk, "Zwangsumsiedlung, Flucht und Vertreibung 1939 - 1959: Atlas zur Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas", Bonn 2009, . From the city of Poznań in Reichsgau Wartheland alone, the Germans expelled 70,000 Poles to the General Government. The deportations conducted under the leadership of SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe, were supervised by SS-Standartenführer Ernst Damzog, who was also in charge of the daily operation of the Chełmno extermination camp. By 1945, half a million German Volksdeutsche from Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, Volhynia,Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. U of Nebraska Press, 2007, Bessarabia, Romania as well as the Baltic Germans, had been resettled into this area during the action called "Heim ins Reich".
Pomerelia From 1939 to 1940 in German-occupied Pomerelia (named Danzig-West Prussia by the Germans), the expulsions affected 121,765 Poles."Zwangsumsiedlung, Flucht und Vertreibung 1939 - 1959 : Atlas zur Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas", Witold Sienkiewicz, Grzegorz Hryciuk, Bonn 2009, A total of 130,000 Volksdeutsche were resettled there including 57,000 Germans from Eastern Europe, including Soviet Union, Bessarabia, Romania and the Baltic states.
Silesia
In Silesia, the Germans operated a network of forced labour camps for expelled Poles from the region, which were known as Polenlager.
In 1940 and 1941 the Germans evicted 17,000 Polish and Jewish residents from the western districts of the city of Oświęcim; from all places located directly adjacent to the Auschwitz concentration camp and also from the villages of Broszkowice, Babice, Brzezinka, Rajsko, Pławy, Harmęże, Bór, and Budy. The expulsion of Polish civilians was a step towards establishing the "Camp Interest Zone" meant to isolate the camp from the outside world, and to expand economic activity designed to meet the needs of the SS. Ethnic German and Volksdeutsche settlers were being shipped in instead.