Racial discrimination and persecution in occupied Europe
By the summer of 1941 of the 350,000 Reich Jews only 15,000 had been deported. By the same date of the 550,000 living in incorporated eastern territories the figure was about 110,000. Hitler sought a new ‘ethnographic order’. The policy was to include not just the removal of Jews and other unwholesome peoples from the Greater Reich but also to bring in those deemed to be ‘ethnic Germans’ who were found in the nations and lands of Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Authority was given to Heinrich Himmler for the organisation and implementation of the ‘ethnic new order’ and as such was his title became, the ‘Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood’…
posted by Benjamin Nakizo at 5:43 AM
1 Comments:
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and ethnic minorities:
The pact was signed on the 23rd August 1939. Yet on September 28th a ‘secret protocol’ was signed: “The agreement provided for, on the one hand, the ‘resettlement’ of the ethnic German population from the Soviet sphere of influence, including the Baltic Republics, where were still formally independent, and in return, the ‘corresponding’ resettlement of ‘persons of Ukrainian and White Russian descent’ from East Prussia and the German-occupied part of Poland”. It was seen simply as a ‘minority exchange’ but this “veiled the signatories’ true intentions”.
It was not always so clear cut. For example when drawing the boundary certain places, such as the city of Lodz which had 500,000 Poles and 200,000 Jews was included within the Greater Reich and not in the Nazis general government - despite its ethnic make up. Similarly the cities of Sosnowiec, Bedzin, and Dabrowa were became part of the German Reich because despite their non-German make up they had rich coalmining districts.
The various German authorities caused bureaucratic nightmares and confusion. For example Heydrich was assuming he would have 170,000 Poles within the enlarged Greater Reich whom he would have to deport eastwards to the general government. Instead after the economic interests were added into the equation and the extra regions he had to deal with 550,000. Following the invasion the first few months were pretty hectic as Poles and Jews within the Greater Reich had to be removed from their homes and jobs. The Polish elite, around 3% of the whole, were to be detained in concentration camps. The rest were to be moved into Ghettos and ‘reserves’. In part to purge the region and partly to make way for all the ethnic Germans destined to ‘return’ to the Greater Reich.
The organisation mess was not helped because of the mesh of competing authorities involved in the bid. On 2nd August 1939 Hitler had given Himmler what was in effect an edict passing into his hands all authority regarding the ‘South Tyroleon’ Germans near Italy and their resettlement within the Reich. It gave him authority over all existing authorities but also restricted him to dealing with the Italians only in co-operation with the Foreign Minister and in cases of dispute he was to defer to the chief of the Reich Chancellery. It would be the wonderfully bizarre and intricate overlaps of authority such as this that provided Hitler with an establishment continuously fighting within itself for authority and Hitler’s personal support.
These limited notes were taken from ‘Final Solution: Nazi population policy and the murder of the European Jews” by Götz Ally. Page 18 onwards.
Post a Comment
<< Home