98. Ibid., 1: 249–50.
99. Unsigned memo on meeting at office of HSSPF Southeast Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, November 27, 1939, Nuremberg NO 5055, reprinted in Długoborski, Polozenie ludności, 139; see also Aly, Endlösung, 64; Umbreit, “Auf dem Weg,” 125; Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, 434–37.
100. Himmler to Lorenz, Heydrich, Forster, Greiser, et al., October 11, 1939, Nuremberg NO 4613.
101. Decree on the strengthening of Germandom, signed by Hitler, Göring, Lammers, and Keitel, October 7, 1939, BArch R 43 II/1412, 575–77. Reprinted in Pospieszalski, Hitlerowskie “prawo” okupacyjne, 176–78; Moll, Führer-Erlasse, 100–102.
102. Himmler’s first directive as RKFDV, undated (probably signed on October 17, 1939), Nuremberg NO 3078. On this dating, see Koehl, RKFDV, 56. See also Stuhlpfarrer, Umsiedlung Südtirol, 1: 251.
103. Chief of the Security Police and the SD to top-level Reich authorities, BArch R 43 II/1412, 55; Heydrich to top-level Reich authorities, October 13, 1939, BArch R 3001/20043, 1. See also Koehl, RKFDV, 54; Koehl, Black Corps, 187–88; Lumans, Himmler’s Auxiliaries, 189–92; Leniger, Nationalsozialistische Volkstumsarbeit, 148–51. On the RKFDV, see Stiller, “Reichskommissar.” On the EWZ, see Strippel, NS-Volkstumspolitik.
104. Himmler’s first directive as RKFDV, undated (probably signed on October 17, 1939), Nuremberg NO 3078.
105. Umbreit, “Auf dem Weg,” 6. Umbreit does not explore the remarkable parallels between this instituting of the CdZ (which did not significantly change thereafter) and the Reich Interior Ministry’s plans for the future structuring of the occupation administration in Poland.
106. See Hess to Lammers, October 25, 1939, quoted in Stelbrink, Preußischer Landrat, 167.
107. Here, see particularly Frick’s “second directive for implementing the decree of the Führer and Chancellor on the subdivision and administration of the eastern territories,” November 2, 1939, reprinted in Pospieszalski, Hitlerowskie “prawo” okupacyjne, 89–92; also Frick’s decree of December 27, 1939, reprinted in ibid., 92–95. Exceptions were made for the territories annexed to the provinces of Silesia and East Prussia. See also the legislation on the structuring of the administration in the Reichsgau of the Sudetenland, April 14, 1939, reprinted in Pospieszalski, Hitlerowskie “prawo” okupacyjne, 84–86.
108. Sommer to Stuckart, October 11, 1939, BArch R 1501/5401, 73.
109. Stelbrink, Preußischer Landrat, 103–11; also Pohl, “Reichsgaue Danzig-Westpreußen und Wartheland,” 4–5. Pohl also explores the claim, repeatedly found in the relevant research, that a large proportion of the personnel were shunted to Poland for disciplinary actions or other transgressions, or else were particularly motivated by ideology, and he highlights this especially for the Wartheland, see ibid., 7. On this topic in the General Government, see Lehnstaedt, “‘Ostnieten’ oder ‘Vernichtungsexperten.’”
110. Kaczmarek, “Zwischen Altreich und Besatzungsgebiet,” 351; on their enhanced standing, see 351–55.
111. Jansen and Weckbecker, Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, 61 and 67.
112. Witte et al., Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers, 49.
113. Frick’s “second directive for implementing the decree of the Führer and Chancellor on the subdivision and administration of the eastern territories,” November 2, 1939, reprinted in Pospieszalski, Hitlerowskie “prawo” okupacyjne, 89–92. See also the appointments of HSSPFs within the Reich itself on August 25, 1939, in Birn, Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer, 13.
114. Himmler’s decree on the organization of the Gestapo in the eastern territories, November 7, 1939, reprinted in Pospieszalski, Hitlerowskie “prawo” okupacyjne, 101–3.
Reinforcing the German Occupation Regime through Population Policy
The Expulsion and Killing of Potential Opponents
The total defeat of Poland, alongside the agreement with the Soviet Union, gave the Nazis free rein on its side of the demarcation line, but also limited it to this.1 Although this dependency on the Soviet Union was conceived from the outset as only a temporary arrangement, it nonetheless helped accelerate the projection of the “Lebensraum” dystopia onto Poland: if this central promise of Nazi ideology was not to be postponed even further, meaning to the time after the “final victory” in the west and the subsequent annihilation of the Soviet Union, then the only opportunity was in Poland.
The “Lebensraum” concept, although previously seen as a utopian daydream even by many Nazis, now became a driving force in conceiving occupation policy. Its political practicability seemed to face no obstacles, at least none that could not be overcome through the massive use of violence. Where a policy of ethnic cleansing had already begun during the war, the ethnocrats in Berlin and the occupied territories soon went a step further and prepared for a systematic selection process to be applied to the entire populace. The decision was who in the new “German east” was to be granted multitiered rights to residency as “Germans” or as members of the “intermediate class” (“Zwischenschicht”), which was a contemporary term for those who eluded ethnic classification; and denying those rights and even the right to life itself to the rest as “Fremdvölkische” (the “ethnonationally foreign”). These ideas were put into action with an unconditional readiness and radicalness that typified them as elements of a genuinely Nazi project. In essence, however, they can be traced back to intentions that had already been discussed at length in imperial Prussia and also in the debates over the “border strip,” that is, the annexation plans entertained by the German government during the First World War.
Unsuccessful Prelude: The Nisko Campaign
In the first weeks after the German invasion, the main locations for the “ethnic cleansing of the soil” were Danzig–West Prussia and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the Wartheland. It was in the territories annexed to Silesia, however, that the ethnocrats undertook the first steps on the path toward a broader “Lebensraum” policy guided by the ideological premises of the Nazis.2
After his successes as the head of Vienna’s Central Agency for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung), Adolf Eichmann was tasked in July 1939 with bringing the same model to Prague. The outbreak of war had led to disruptions, however, forcing the relevant agencies to seek new strategies. Eichmann thought he had found his answer when he received an order from Reinhardt Heydrich on September 7, which mandated the arrest, dispossession, and expulsion of Polish Jews living within the Reich.3 But then, after Eichmann collaborated with Dr. Franz Stahlecker, Prague’s Commander of the Security Police and the Sicherheitsdienst (Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, or BdS), an alternative solution was put forward on September 10: instead of forced emigration, there would be state-organized deportation to a territory under German control.4 This was the birth of the Nisko Plan. Since Stahlecker’s idea also passed through Heydrich to reach Himmler, Claudia Steur may very well be correct in her interpretation of a remark made by Heydrich during a meeting on September 14, 1939.5 At the meeting, he told his departmental heads that Himmler was submitting proposals to Hitler “that only the Führer could decide, because they would also be of major consequence in policy terms.”6 It is very probable that he was referring to this radicalization of policy, shifting from forced emigration to guided deportation.
If the Nisko campaign did in fact represent a major turning point, one must still ask: In what way? Miroslav Kárný’s skeptical assessment from thirty years ago, that there are still “many unsettled questions in the history of Nisko,” has not lost its validity.7