The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression
Volume I Chapter XIII
Germanization & Spoliation
Poland
(Part 2 of 4)


(2) Deportation and Resettlement. The Academy of German Law in January 1940 prepared a secret report on plans for the mass migration of Poles and Jews from incorporated areas of Poland to the Government-General, and for the forcible deportation of able-bodied Poles to Germany. (The date of the report does not appear in the English translation, but it is clearly set forth on the cover Pg. of the original document, as January 1940.) It should be recalled that the decree of 11 July 1934 (Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 605, 11 July 1934) provided that the Academy of German Law would be a public corporation of the Reich under the supervision of the Reich Ministers of Justice and the Interior, and that its task would be:

"To promote the reconstruction of German legal life, and to realize, in constant close collaboration with the competent legislative organizations, the National Socialist program in the entire sphere of the law."

[Page 1027]

It should also be stated that Frank was the president of the Academy of German Law during the period when this secret report was made (2749-PS). The report stated:

"For the carrying out of costly and long term measures for the increase of agricultural production, the Government-General can at the most absorb 1 to 1.5 million resettlers, as it is already over-populated. *** By further absorption of 1.6 million resettlers, the 1925 Reich census figure of 133 inhabitants per square kilometer would be reached, which practically because of already existing rural over-population and lack of industry would result in a double over- population.

"This figure of 1.6 million will barely suffice to transfer from the Reich:

"The Jews from the liberated East (over 600,000), parts of the remaining Jews, preferably the younger age groups from Germany proper, Austria, Sudetengau and the Protectorate (altogether over 1 million). *** " (661-PS)

The report then goes on to say that the following groups of people should be deported:

"The Polish intelligentsia who have been politically active in the past, and potential political leaders; the leading economic personalities, comprising owners of large estates, industrialists and businessmen, etc.; the peasant population, so far as it has to be removed in order to carry out by strips of German settlements the encirclement of Polish territories in the

"In order to relieve the living space of the Poles in the Government-General as well as in the liberated East, one should remove cheap labor temporarily by the hundreds of thousands, employ them for a few years in the old Reich, and thereby hamper their native biological propagation. (Their assimilation into the old Reich must be prevented.) ***" (661-PS)

Finally, the report stated:

"Strictest care is to be taken that secret circulars, memoranda and official correspondence which contain instructions detrimental to the Poles are kept steadily under lock and key so that they will not some day fill the White Books printed in Paris or the USA." (661-PS)

Frank made the following entry in his diary:

"The Reichsfuehrer SS (Himmler) wishes that all Jews be evacuated from the newly gained Reich territories. Up to

[Page 1028]

February approximately 1,000,000 people are to be brought in this way into the Government-General. The families of good racial extraction present in the occupied Polish territory (approximately 4,000,000 people) should be transferred into the Reich and individually housed and thereby be uprooted as a people." (2233-G-PS)

The top secret minutes of a meeting held on 12 February 1940 on "questions concerning the East," at which Goering was chairman and Himmler and Frank were present, stated, among other things:

"By way of introduction, the General Field Marshal (Goering) explained that the strengthening of the war potential of the Reich must be the chief aim of all measures to be taken in the East. ***"

*******

"Agriculture:

"The task consists of obtaining the greatest possible agriculture production from the new Eastern Gaus disregarding questions of ownership. ***"

*******

"Special questions concerning the Government-General:

"The Government-General will have to receive the Jews who are ordered to emigrate from Germany, and the New Eastern Gaus."

"The following reported on the situation in the Eastern territories: "***

"2. Reichsstatthalter Gauleiter Forster: The population of the Danzig/West Prussia Gau (newly acquired territories) is 1.5 million, of whom 240,00 are Germans, 850,000 well-established Poles and 300,000 immigrant Poles, Jews and asocials (1,800 Jews). 87,000 persons have been evacuated, 40,000 of these from Gotenhafen. From there, also the numerous shirkers, who are now looked after by welfare, will have to be deported to the Government-General. Therefore, an evacuation of 20,000 further persons can be counted on for the current year. ***" (EC-305)

Comparable reports were made by other Gauleiters at this meeting. These figures, it may be noted, were only as of February 1940.

These forcible deportations did not involve merely ordering the victims to leave their homes, and to take up new residences elsewhere. These deportations were accomplished, according to plan,

[Page 1029]

in a brutal and inhuman manner. This is shown in a speech delivered by Himmler to officers of the SS on a day commemorating the presentation of the Nazi flag. The exact date of the speech does not appear in the document, but its contents plainly show that it was delivered sometime after Poland had been overrun. In this speech Himmler said:

"Very frequently the member of the Waffen-SS thinks about the deportation of this people here. These thoughts came to me today-when watching the very difficult work out there performed by the Security Police, supported by your men, who help them a great deal. Exactly the same thing happened in Poland in weather 40 degrees below zero, where we had to haul away thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands; where we had to have the toughness *** you should hear this but also forget it again -- to shoot thousands of leading Poles." (1918-PS)

Such Poles from the incorporated area as managed to survive the journey to the Government-General could look forward at best to extreme hardship, and exposure to degradation and brutality. For the Jews who were forcibly deported to the Government-General there was no hope. Frank, by his own admissions, had dedicated himself to their complete annihilation. In his diary Frank wrote:

"We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them, and wherever it is possible." (223-D-PS)

(3) Forcible Return of Racial Germans to the Reich. The conspirators had planned the forcible Germanization of persons in the incorporated area who were deemed to possess German blood. Such persons were given the choice of the concentration camp, or submission to Germanization. Himmler was the chief executioner of this program. In a secret decree signed by Hitler, Goering, and Keitel, dated 7 October 1939, Himmler was entrusted with the task of executing the conspirators' Germanization program. The decree provided, among other things:

"The Reichsfuehrer SS (Himmler) has the obligation in accordance with my directives:

"1. To bring back for final return into the Reich all German nationals, and racial Germans in the foreign countries.

"2. To eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population, which represent a danger to the Reich, and the German folk community.

"3. The forming of new German settlements by re- settling,

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and in particular by settling of the returning German citizens and racial Germans from abroad.

"The Reichsfuehrer SS is authorized to take all necessary general and administrative measures for the execution of this obligation." (686-PS)


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