Expulsion of Poles by Germany

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Poles led to the trains under German army escort, as part of the Nazi German ethnic cleansing of western Poland annexed to the Reich, following the invasion of 1939.
Poles led to the trains under German army escort, as part of the Nazi German ethnic cleansing of western Poland annexed to the Reich, following the invasion of 1939.

Following the partitions of Poland, which ended the existence of the sovereign Polish state in the 18th century, Poles became the subject of discrimination and expulsions from territories annexed by neighboring empires. The expulsions from Germany lasted throughout the 19th century until the end of the First World War and then again during World War II. Poles, due to their traditional homeland often having been fractured and divided up amongst neighboring states, were more likely to become victims of such foreign ethnic cleansing.

While ideas of expelling Poles can be found in German political discourse of the 19th century, these ideas matured into full-scale plans in the First World War, calling for the removal of Polish population from territories that were to be annexed by Germany from the Russian Empire.[1] After the First World War, German National Socialists were inspired by the plans created during that conflict and eventually adopted and changed them to a more racist ideology with more far-reaching goals, which in the end resulted in expulsion of millions of Poles during the Second World War from German occupied Poland.[1]

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[edit] Origins of the idea

Since the creation of a united German state in 1871, Poles constituted one of its largest minorities. This Polish presence in Germany was a result of expansion of Prussia, the very state that led to the unification of Germany.[1] Prussia had acquired Polish-inhabited territories by taking part in the Partitions of Poland as well as by obtaining parts of Silesia inhabited by Poles during Silesian Wars with Austria in the 18th century.

After the creation of Germany and rise of German nationalism, ideas such as pan-Germanism and Lebensraum began to develop. The first such idea demanded unification of all Germans in one state, including the German diaspora. Some pan-Germanists believed that Germans were ethnically superior to other peoples — including Slavs, whom they viewed as inferior to the German "race" and culture. Lebensraum in turn demanded "living space" for German people, claiming overpopulation of Germany and alleged negative traits of heavy urbanisation in contrast to agricultural settlement. The desired territories were to be taken in the East. Both pan-Germanism and Lebensraum theory viewed Poles as an obstacle to German hegemony and prosperity as well as future expansion of the German state.[1]

[edit] 19th century

German authorities, fearing that the possible rebirth of Poland would threaten German control over the territories annexed in her Partitions, sought to limit the number of Poles by forced Germanisation and by new wave of settlement by German colonists[1]. Harsh laws against Polish culture, religion (see: kulturkampf), language and property were passed. Expulsions of Poles became a part of the government policy and official ideology of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who saw Poles as a threat to the unity of Germany. Bismarck enacted several laws targeting the Polish minority, but also expelled Poles and Jews living in Germany in what is described now as the precursor to modern ethnic cleansing (Prussian deportations of 1885-1890)[2]. In 1887 Bernhard von Bülow, the future Chancellor of the German Empire, advocated expelling Poles by force from territories which were Polish-inhabited and slated to become part of Germany.[3]

[edit] 20th century

The German Empire not only enacted laws and made plans aimed at expelling Poles, but also carried out the expulsions. Such policy developed by the German Empire was implemented again by the Nazis and reached its pinnacle in the Second World War, combined with the racist ideology of Nazi Germany that viewed Poles as the sub-human Untermensch to be eliminated and replaced by the superior German "race" of Übermensch.

Already in 1908 Germany legalised eviction of Poles from their properties under pressure from pan-German nationalist groups who hoped this law would be used to reduce the number of Poles in the East by force.[1]

[edit] First World War

During the First World War Germany planned to annex about 30,000 km² from Congress Poland for German colonisation.[1] Most of the Polish population of those territories (about 2,000,000 people) was to be expelled into a greatly reduced Polish puppet state.[1] The remaining population was to be used as agricultural labour for German colonists.[1]

[edit] Second World War

Expulsion of Poles from villages in Zamość Region by SS in December 1942.
Expulsion of Poles from villages in Zamość Region by SS in December 1942.

With the occupation of Poland following the German invasion of the country, Nazi policies were enacted upon its Polish population on an unprecedented scale. According to Nazi ideology Poles, as Untermensch, were seen as fit only for slavery and for further elimination in order to make room for the Germans. Adolf Hitler had plans for extensive colonisation of territories in the east of the Third Reich. Poland, itself, would – according to well documented German plans – have been cleared of Polish people altogether, as 20 million or so would have been expelled eventually. Up to 3 or 4 million Polish citizens (all peasants) believed to come from German colonists and migrants and therefore be "racially valuable" would be Germanised and dispersed among the German population.[4] Nazi leadership hoped that through expulsions to Siberia, famine, mass executions, and slave labour of any survivors Polish nation would be eventually completely destroyed.[5]

World War II expulsions took place within two specific territories: one area annexed to Reich in 1939 and 1941, and another, the General Gouvernment, precursor to further expansion of German administrative settlement area. Eventually, as Adolf Hitler explained in March 1941, the General Gouvernment would be cleared of Poles, the region would be turned into a "purely German area" within 15–20 years and in place of 15 million Poles, 4–5 million Germans would live there, and the area would become "as German as the Rhineland.[6]

[edit] Expulsions from Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany

See also: Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany

Generalplan Ost (GPO) was a Nazi plan to ethnically cleanse the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II. According to research of professor Łuczak, Germans expelled the following numbers of Poles from territories annexed to the Reich in the period of 1939-1944:

Combined with "wild expulsions", in four years 923,000 Poles were ethnically cleansed from territories Germany annexed into the Reich[7].

[edit] Expulsions from General Government

On the territories of the German protoctorate called General Government there were two main areas of expulsions committed by the German state. The protectorate itself was seen as temporary measure, and served as a concentration camp for Poles to perform hard labour furthering German industry and war effort. Eventually it was to be cleared of Poles also.

[edit] Zamość

116,000 Poles were expelled from Zamojszczyzna region as part of Nazi plans for establishment of German colonies in the conquered territories. Zamość itself was to be renamed Himmlerstadt, later changed to Pflugstadt (Plow City), that was to symbolise the German "Plow" that was to "plough" the East. Additionally almost 30,000 children were kidnapped by German authorities from their parents for potential Germanisation[7]. This led to massive resistance (see Zamość Uprising).

[edit] Warsaw

In October 1940, 115 thousand Poles were expelled from their homes in central Warsaw to make room for the Jewish Ghetto, constructed there by German authorities.

After the failure of the Warsaw Uprising 500,000 people were expelled from the city alone as punishment by German authorities[7].

[edit] Aftermath

It is estimated that between 1.6 and 2 million people [8] were expelled from their homes during the German occupation of Poland. Only the German organized expulsions affected directly 1,710,000 Poles.[7] Additionally, 2.5 to 3 million Poles were taken from Poland as slave labourers to Germany to support the Nazi war effort.[5] These numbers do not include people arrested by the Germans and sent to Nazi concentration camps.[8]

In many instances, Poles were given between 15 minutes and 1 hour to collect their personal belongings (usually no more than 15 kilograms per person) before they were thrown out of their homes and transported east (see: deportations) On top of that about 5 million Poles were sent to German concentration camps. Further 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war. All these actions resulted in significant changes in Polish demographics at the end of the war.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Imannuel Geiss, Der polnische Grenzstreifen 1914-1918. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Kriegszielpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg, Hamburg/Lübeck 1960
  2. ^ E.J. Feuchtwanger, "Bismarck", Routledge 2002
  3. ^ Herbert Arthur Strauss, "Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism 1870-1933-39 Germany - Great Britain-France", Walter de Gruyter 1993
  4. ^ Hitler’s Plans.
  5. ^ a b Wojciech Roszkowski, Historia Polski 1914–1997, Warsaw 1998
  6. ^ Volker R. Berghahn "Germans and Poles 1871–1945" in "Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences",Rodopi 1999
  7. ^ a b c d "Polacy wypędzeni", IPN Bulletin, nr5(40) May 2004
  8. ^ a b "Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era" at US Holocaust Memorial Museum