** Volsdeutsche World War II








Volksdeutsche: World War II


Figure 1.--The Volksdeutsche scattered accross Eastern Europe had very different experiences during the War, depending on where they lived and personal choices they made. Some were highly politicized and welcomed the NAZIs. Others were largely apolitical and suspicious of the NAZIs. These Ukranian Volksdeutsche are proceeeding back to the Reich under armed escort. The advancing German Wehrmacht at the onset of Barbarossa (June 1941) only managed to reach the Volksdeutsche in the Western Ukraine. The NKVD had time to deport the other Volksdeutsche, including the Volga Germans, east where many perished under primitive conditions.

When the NAZIs came to power in 1933, the Volksdeutsche changed from an colorful cultural phenmomenon, to a deadly serious international issue. The Volksdeutsche proved a useful political issue and a way of justifying German territorial ambitions. Estimates vary. There were more than 2 million ethnic Germans just in the Soviet Union. Volsdeutsche communities attempted to retain their language and customs, but were affected in many ways by the countries where they settled. Hitler assigned SS Reichführer the task of assimilating the Volsdeutsche returned to the Reich, an assignment he took eagerly. He was interested in adding new blood stock to the Greater German Reich. Anout 1.25 million ethnic Germams were eventually brought back to the Reich. Some were enthusiastic, but many were skeptical and had to be forced to leave their established homes where their ancestors had in many cases livd for centuries. The NAZIs used the Volksdeutche and other German communities extensively for political purposes even before the War. Most were pro-NAZI as the NAZIs offered the proscept of overthrowing the Versailles Treaty and annexation to the Reich. Not all The Volsdeutsch were pro-NAZI, but most in the Sudeytenland and Poland were. We are less sure about other countries. Germans in the Sudetenland were used by the NAZIs to stir up trouble before Munich which was useful for Goebbels's propaganda machine. After World War II began the NAZIs became usuing thev term to describe foreign-born Germans in occupied countries who applied for German citizenship. Not all of the Volksdeutsche wanted to be German citizens, many identified more with their adopted countries. There were, hoever, substantial advantage to getting placed on the Volksliste. The German occupation authorities used the ethnic Germans in the occupation. They were more familiar with local conditions and had needed language skills. The NAZIs also used them to form Selbstschutz (self-defense units). Selbstschutz units were formed in Czechoslovakia and Poland before the War and after the Germans occupied other countries. Some of these units were involved in terrible atrocities, especially actions against Jews in Poland.

Population

Some estimates suggest that the Volsdeutsche totaled about 15 million people at the advent of World War II. Estimates vary in part because many had married local people and become to different degrees assimilated into the local population. There were more than 2 million ethnic Germans just in the Soviet Union. Volsdeutsche communities attempted to retain their language and customs, but were affected in many ways by the countries where they settled.

Political Orientation

We do not know of a detailed political assessment of the political orientation of the Volkdeutsche and other German ethnic minorities in Eastern and Central Europe. And how this was affected by the rise of the NAZIs in Germany. The most highly politicized were those that had lived in the German or Austro-Hungarin Empire before World war I. They were acustomed to being a part of the ruling elite and thus found themseselves a minority and reduced in status. This included communities in western Poland, Czechoslovakia, and northern Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia). The German Sudentens were strongly politicized, but this seems to have been primarily a development after Hitler's seizire of power. And the sudeten Germans were unique in that they lived in a concentrated area along the German and Austrian border. German comminitie in other countries seem less politicized, but we note that ethnic Germans in the Baltics and notheastern Romania (Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina) complied with NAZI instructiins to Come Home to the Reich. Volkdeutsche in the Soviet Union seem apolitical, but we are not sure just how the arrival of German troops affected their political orientation. Stalin deported the Volga Germans east, but the German advance was so rapid that Germans located further West escaped deportation. This is a topic that we have not yet researched in detail, but hope to so as our website expands.

NAZI Interest

As the NAZI Party grew, Hitler began to take an increasing interest in the Volksdeutsche. This occurred even before Hitler and the NAZIs seized power. When the NAZIs came to power in 1933, the Volksdeutsche changed from an colorful cultural phenmomenon, to a deadly serious international issue. The Volksdeutsche proved a useful political issue and a way of justifying German territorial ambitions. The Party created the Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP (Foreign Organisation of the German National Socialist Workers Party) (1931). The group was ssigned the task of promoting NAZI propaganda among the ethnic German minorities residing outside the borders of the Reich. Hitler's seizure of power substantially increased the resources available to conduct this effort (1933). Hitler was calculating, however, and proceded cautiously. It primary concern at first was to consolidate his hold on Germany and avoid Allied intervention while Germany was still largely demilitarized. Thus he at first pursued a largely moderate foreign policy. It is impossible to know if his concern with the Volkdeutcsche was a sincere desire to aid what he saw as a repressed people or a cynical poliy to exploit the situation.

Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle--VoMI (1936)

Once the rearmament program had begun to change the military balance, Hitler began adopting a more asertive foreign policy and this included expanding attenion to the Volksdeutsche. Hitler established the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Ethnic German Welfare Office--VoMI) as a NAZI Party unit. The VoMI became the central NAZI office for Volksdeutsche affairs. SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz was placed in charge of VoMI even though VoMI was organizatioally a unit of the NAZI Party. The appoint of a SS commander, however, tied the VoMI to Himmler and the SS from the very beginning. Himmler had an obsessive interest in race questions, especially those connencted with as he would expressed it German blood. (1936).

Pre-War Use of the Volksdeutsche

The NAZIs used the Volksdeutche and other German communities extensively for political purposes even before the War. Most were pro-NAZI as the NAZIs offered the proscept of overthrowing the Versailles Treaty and annexation to the Reich. Not all The Volsdeutsch were pro-NAZI, but most in the Sudetenland and Poland were. We are less sure about other countries. Germans in the Sudetenland were used by the NAZIs to stir up trouble before Munich which was useful for Goebbels's propaganda machine.

Heim ins Reich (1939)

Hitler assigned SS Reichführer Himmler the task of assimilating the Volsdeutsche returned to the Reich, an assignment he took eagerly. Himmler was interested in adding new blood stock to the Greater German Reich. And after signinf the Non-Agression Pact with Stalin, Hutler and Himmler wanted to get as many of the Volksdutsche as possible out of Soviet hands because he agreed to substantial Soviet territirial acquisitiins in Eastern Europe. About 1.25 million ethnic Germams were eventually brought back to the Reich. Some were enthusiastic, but many were skeptical and had to be forced to leave their established homes where their ancestors had in many cases lived for centuries. And Himmler was concerned about the Volksdeutsche. Many had lived outide the Reich for cebturies. They were thus exposed to aange of un-Germanic infliences, most danherously intermarriage with non-Germans. He thus decided that tghey needed to be vtted before allowed to resettle and create the new Germany planned for the East.

Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums--RKFDV (1939)

After launching World War II in cooperation with Stalin and sezing Western POland, Hitler now had many non-Germans including Czechs, Poles and Jews under his control. To deal with this situation, Hitler created the Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums with Reichsführer-SS Himmler as Reichskommissar (Reichskommissariat for the Strengthening of German Nationhood--RKFDV) (October 7, 1939). The new post put Himmler and the SS in charge of planing, initiating, and controling the pace of the Germanisation, expulsion of non-Germans, and German settlement in the occupied areas of Poland. This responsibility after Barbarossa was extended to the Soviet Union, inclusing the Baltics. The horific Generalplan Ost was a product of the RKFDV planning, although undertaken by the SS Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Office--RSHA). Himmler moved to more closely integrate VoMI into the SS structure. Himmler upgraded the VoMI to an SS Main Office (Hauptamt) with control over all VoMi personnel and field offices (1941). And then in connction with Barbarossa was completely integrated into RKFDV. The RKFDV like other SS-units had enormous authority without any restriction of law. It was the RKFDV which determined who was German. They made room for the Volksdeutsche and what people should be expelled or actually murdered to make room for German settlement. In his position as RKFDV Reichkommissar Himmler authorized the selectio and training of new SS-Einsatzgruppen and other SS security units to round up and murder kill Jews in the wake of Barbarossa. SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich as chief of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and police was given the responsibility for overseeing this. Himmler placed all VoMi personnel under the jurisdiction of the SS Police and Courts (June 1942). The previous month, Czech and British operatived assainated Heydrich in Prague. This gave Hinnler total control over VoMi, meaning authority over the Volkssdeutsche and Lebensraum (living space) programs like Generalplan Ost, although VoMi remained organizationally an office of the NAZI Party. Fortunately for the people of Eastern Europe, the Whermacht had failed in its mission to destroy the Red Army. There was no quick, decisive summer campaign and with it the elimination of the Slavs and widespread German settlement. Hitler and his minions would, howver, turn the area into wht one historian calls the Bloodlands.

Generalplan Ost

The SS Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Office--RSHA) was the German agency which drafted Generalplan Ost (General Plan East). This was the NAZI blueprint for the most horrendous crime ever envisioned in human history. The Holocaust directed at Europe's 11 million Jews was just one part of Generalplan Ost. The basic outline for Generalplan Ost was sketched out by Hitler in Mein Kampf. The invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia gave the NAZIs the first slice of eastern territory to begin their transformation of eastern Europe (March 1939). But the NAZIs considered the Czechs to be the most advanced Slavs. And they needed Czech industry for arms production. So the Czechs were left with a puppet government and Germinization was put off least it disrupt arms production. Poland was the next slice of the East. It was much bigger slice and the Poles were Slavs that Hitler despised. Himmler launched into the Germinization process in the Wartergau, but Frank protested with Himmler began dumping Jews and Poles in the General Government. So again Germinization and whole-scale deportations had to be delayed. Himmler and NAZI Party officials argued about Eastern policy. Himmler wanted to settle Germans in the East and to carefully select the existing populations for German blood. Some NAZI Party officials wanted to pursue a less biologically oriented policy and to accept large numbers of the existing population which was anti-Bolshevik. The debate over Eastern policy raged in NAZI circles for 2 years. With the stunning success of Operation Barbarossa (June 1941), Hitler finally decided. He essentially accepted Himmler's approach and SS planners began preparing Generalplan Ost. It was developed in secret. The principal area covered was the Soviet Union (including the Baltics), but Poland and Czechoslovakia was also included. Himmler and Heydrich was anxious to put it into operation. The major impediment to carrying it out was the Red Army.

Change in German Policy


World War II Usage of the Volksdeutsche

After World War II began the NAZIs became usuing thev term to describe foreign-born Germans in occupied countries who applied for German citizenship. Not all of the Volksdeutsche wanted to be German citizens, many identified more with their adopted countries. There were, however, substantial advantage to getting placed on the Volksliste. The German occupation authorities used the ethnic Germans in the occupation. They were more familiar with local conditions and had needed language skills. The NAZIs also used them to form Selbstschutz (self-defense units). Selbstschutz units were formed in Czechoslovakia and Poland before the War and after the Germans occupied other countries. Some of these units were involved in terrible attrocities, especially actions against Jews in Poland.

Volksliste

The Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List) was the VoMI/RKFDV mechanism for classification the people the occupied territories into categories of desirability. The system was personally developed by Himmler himself. The ideas behind it had been percolating in his mind for years. It was with World War II and the German seizure and occuption of western Poland (September 1939) that Himmler finally had the opportunity to put his ideas into reality. Similar systems were subsequently put into operation in the Soviet Union and tge Baltics with Barbarossa (June 1941). And as ahint of what would have occurred in France after the Germans won theWar, in France as well. The Volkliste was especially importan in Poland and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The Volksdeutsche did not hold Reich (German) citizenship, the strengthening and development of their communities throughout eastern and central Europe was an integral part of the NAZI vision for post-War Großdeutschland (Greater Germany). The Volksdeutsche were to be a critical component in the resettlement of the occupied East after the Jews ere anialated and the Balts and Slavs as part of Gneralplan OSt has been murdered, expelled, or enslaved. The Volksliste was Himmler's four class system for categorizing the Volksdeutche as to their ethnic purity and political reliability.

Expulsion of the Volksdeutsche

The fate of the Volksdeutche is one of the many depressing stories of World War II. The irony is that while NAZIs who set out to ethnically clense newly acquired areas of the Reich, it was the Germans that were ethnically clensed from Eastern Europe. Those Germans expelled are today referred to in Germany as " Vertriebenen " (expelled ones). Nearly all lived in countries invaded and occupied by NAZI Germany. Many but not all participated in NAZI genocidal or explotive programs to colonize the occupied East. As a result, both the Russian Army and partisans targetted them as the Wehrmacht was forced to retreat. Many wisely fled with the Wehrmacht. Others were reluctant to leave the farms and towns where their families had lived for generations. After the Wehrmacht withdrew and after the end of the War, millions of these ethnic Germans were murdered, deported or otherwise ethnically cleansed. Many first hand accounts describe the violence directed at those of German ancestry. A great deal of documentation was gathered by the German Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau. (Yes, the Wehrmacht was collecting evidence of war crimes.) There are many incidents of unimagined savegery. There were women crucified in Nemmersdorf and the wholesale murder of children. [De Zayas and Barber]

Country Trends


Sources

De Zayas, Alfred-Maurice and Charles M. Barber. A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950.







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Created: 4:59 AM 4/30/2010
Last updated: 3:51 AM 3/3/2015