While the common memory of planet War II focuses on the most tragic aspects of occupation, specified as Holocaust and war crimes, prof. Edward Reid recalls 1 of the little discussed chapters of German business policy in Poland — the mass displacement of the Polish population.
In his Facebook entry The prof. describes a paper entitled “Exitation of Poles”, dating from the war, which reveals bureaucratic scenes of this operation.
An Forgotten mechanics of Administrative Violence
According to the study that Reid recalls, the displacement policy was part of a broader plan to transform the cultural scenery of east Central Europe. This plan was implemented by the administrative apparatus of the 3rd Reich, and its main nonsubjective was to supply “lifespace” for German settlers at the expense of Polish residents.
Professor Reid quotes fragments of German records from the Berlin conference of 8 January 1941, during which details of the resettlement plan were discussed:
"More than 831,000 people from east areas incorporated into the Reich were destined for relocation, alongside another 180 000 already in the General Government. The goal was to remove more than 1 million people.”
These displacements were not accidental or spontaneous. They were organized and their scale was enormous. They came straight from the assumptions of the General Plan East (Generalplan Ost), developed by the German racial authorities. This plan provided for the resettlement of 80-85% of the Polish population to Siberia or another areas outside the future German settlement area.
High-ranking SS officials specified as Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger and Josef Bühler played a key function in implementing these activities. As the historian says:
"Krüger expressed doubts about the Reich's ability to absorb specified large movements of the population, pointing to problems with food distribution, accommodation and security. Despite this, he advocated the precedence settlement of cultural Germans, while forced removal of Poles.”
Krüger said that Poles must be removed to make area for German settlers. This policy was not limited to the general population. peculiar repressions have affected Jews, the mediocre and politically suspected persons:
"Those considered to be a burden – especially Jews, mediocre people and politically suspicious people – were to be first directed to concentration camps, and if they survived, then utilized as a forced labour force in Germany."
The paper cited by Reid besides describes details of operations in Zamość region, where half of the Polish population has already been displaced. According to politician Ernst Zörner, massive displacements caused serious social and political problems, including an increase in opposition from the Polish underground.
“The region required strong police and military presence to keep control.”
By 1942, about 110 1000 Poles were displaced from Zamość, which was part of a wider action known as Aktion Zamość. However, the operation did not proceed as planned by the Germans, mainly due to the armed opposition of the National Army and another conspiracy organizations known as the Zamość uprising.
The quoted study besides shows that the displacement policy was not deprived of any negative consequences for the Germans themselves. Bühler explicitly admitted:
"Deportations have caused serious disruptions in food production and local stability. alternatively of securing the territory, the displacements deepened the crisis and revealed the fragility of German colonization plans.”
Reid emphasizes that despite the scale of the phenomenon, the subject of mass displacements of Poles seldom appears in wider publications on planet War II. He notes:
"There were millions of destroyed lives, broken communities and families torn from homes behind statistic and planning conferences."
Displacement mechanics — from explanation to practice
The mass displacement of Poles began practically from the first days of the German business in 1939. Their first form was alleged "wild" displacement, organised by local business authorities without the approval of central offices. They consisted of the abrupt removal of people from their homes, frequently within 24 hours, with the property at the disposal of the Germans. According to historical data, by the end of 1939 about 87,000 people were displaced, mainly from Wielkopolska and Pomerania. In subsequent years, the scale of the operation increased. By 1940, the number of displaced persons reached 250,000 people only from the Warta Country.
Displacement from Gdynia was peculiarly severe. The memorial plates in the city remind of thousands of people forced to leave their homes in utmost conditions. Transports were frequently made in winter, in cattle wagons without heating. As acknowledged by Governor-General Hans Frank himself:
"Day after day, freight trains loaded with people arrived at the General Government. any of the wagons were filled with dead bodies.”
This was the applicable implementation of the plan, which was to be a logically ordered demographic operation on paper. In fact, it meant death, suffering, separation and demolition of full communities. Reid notes that the mechanics had not only a physical but besides an ideological aspect. Germans besides tried to Germanize any Poles, forcing them to sign the volkslist. In particular, in Pomerania, the gauleiter Albert Forster tried to "absorb" Poles into German society alternatively of displacement.
Eventually, however, hundreds of thousands of people were affected by displacement. According to various estimates, between 6 and 7 million people could be removed from the lands of the Reich itself. In place of Poles and Jews Germans from the Baltic countries, Volyn, Galicia or Besarab, as well as Romania and another parts of east Europe were imported.
Professor Reid emphasizes that behind this full policy was cold administrative calculations, not emotions:
"This was not spontaneous brutality, but an component of the planned imagination of the long-term Germanization of the region through social engineering."
Why is reminding about this chapter of past so important? As the historian says:
"These pages are a grim testimony, keeping the words of those who carried out these policies, and callback the tremendous suffering of the Polish people during the war. They call not only for memory, but besides for knowing how the mechanisms of cruelty can be recorded, justified and incarnate in mass life."
In times erstwhile it is easy to be simplified in the perception of history, reminding about the destiny of hundreds of thousands of displaced Poles serves not only as a tribute to their memory, but besides as a informing against bureaucraticly planned evil.
