19. Stone, “Beyond the Auschwitz syndrome,” 454.
20. Peukert, “Genesis der Endlösung,” 25.
21. Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State. This book restricts its investigations to the inside of the Reich itself, without making any assertions about Nazi population policy in occupied Eastern Europe.
22. Röhr, Faschismus und Rassismus, 64. In the present investigation, I will use the word “racial” to denote those exclusionary practices that, from the perspective of the relevant actors, were the direct products of a—however internally coherent—“race theory.” This applies particularly to the proponents of racial anthropology, which presumed that primarily somatic and biometric markers can be used to divide humanity into distinct groups, while also defining them, attributing immutable characteristics to them, and establishing a hierarchy for them. Thereby, I also intend to establish a certain distance from the otherwise commonly used term “racist,” because this has acquired a considerably wider meaning not only in common parlance, but also increasingly among scholars as well: in this view, “racist” is basically every argumentation or behavior that discriminates against targeted groups by attributing such “immutable” personal traits—even when these are argued at least formally in cultural terms. For this expanded usage, see those studies that particularly emerged in response to the rapid rise in antimigrant attacks seen in many Western countries during the “crisis decades” (Hobsbawm) that followed the 1973 oil crisis. For example, see Taguieff, “From Race to Culture,” highlighting the central role played by New Right thinkers (especially Alain de Benoist) in France. Similarly, for the UK, see Martin Barker, The New Racism. In both cases, the conceptual thrust was clearly the same: through the biologization of divergent social practices, one could justify not only expulsions, but also assaults and lethal attacks. This inclusion of cultural differences, be they alleged or real, makes such an expanded definition of “racism” largely unusable for my investigation, because it excessively blurs the distinctiveness of another social differentiation practice that took as its reference point not “race” but “Volk” (folk here meaning ethnonation).
In a similar vein, the term “völkisch” (folkish, meaning ethnonationalist) describes in-group selection practices that, from the perspective of the relevant actors, derive from a theory, however coherent, that revolves around “Volk” as its central reference point, framing it as a historical subject and as a community of both descent and destiny, one united by shared traits and a shared language, as well as an awareness of being carriers of a historical “mission.” Although such an invocation of a community of descent clearly has essentialist elements and therefore overlaps with racial ideologies, nonetheless, as Manfred Hettling recently asserted: “Descent is not to be equated with race.” Instead, from the viewpoint of a völkisch population policy (and key to the present investigation), the Germanization of Poland was not only possible, it was virtually demanded—and not only during the German Empire period, but also the Nazi one.
23. Actions serving the rational (or functional) needs of power are here understood as actions in the political sphere that are calculated to not only secure the continued existence of the relevant institution or political regime, but also, if possible, increase its power.
24. Raphael, “Nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung,” 31.
25. Essner, “Im Irrgarten der Rassenlogik,” 90–91. Furthermore, Merkenschlager was not alone in his critique, with similarly oriented ones also expressed by other scholars, especially those from southern Germany and Austria (certainly not by chance, as southerners were often deemed racially inferior to northerners), see ibid., 88–89; also Weisenburger, “Rassepapst,” 170–71 and 179.
26. Günther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, 39–73, 171–78, and 230–45. Günther relied particularly on the research of Eugen Fischer, Erwin Baur, and Fritz Lenz, with their 1921 work Grundriss der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (see Essner, “Im Irrgarten der Rassenlogik,” 82–83). But Günther certainly took a few liberties in interpreting this research, as seen in his hierarchical ranking of the races allegedly existing in the German populace. This seemed not to disturb the original authors, with at least Eugen Fischer (who would later support Günther) commenting benevolently: “The poet always resonates within him” (cited in Weisenburger, “Rassepapst,” 173). For a more detailed overview of Günther’s “research results,” see Hutton, Race, 35–55; on Fischer’s relationship with Günther, see Massin, “Rasse und Vererbung,” 190–94.
27. Essner, “Im Irrgarten der Rassenlogik,” 88–97; Essner, Nürnberger Gesetze, 62–63; Weisenburger, “Rassepapst,” 175–79; Hutton, Race, 113–29. Writing later on the corrosive effect of racism, see also Arendt, Elemente und Ursprünge, 271, who drew a critical response in Moses, “Hannah Arendt, Imperialism, and the Holocaust.”
28. Essner, “Im Irrgarten der Rassenlogik,” 92–97; Essner, Nürnberger Gesetze, 63–64. For a more detailed look at the confrontation between völkisch and racial ideologues, see Breuer, Völkischen in Deutschland, 113–25; Breuer, Radikale Rechte, 234–44.
29. Essner, “Im Irrgarten der Rassenlogik,” 92–97.
30. Directive from Hofmann giving instructions for suitability assessment of returnees (Rückwanderer), confidential, October 14, 1939, SMR 1372–6/26, 16–19.
31. Gąsiorowski, “Niemiecka lista narodowa.”
32. Polish Ministry of Information, The Quest for German Blood, 8. See also other ministry publications: German Invasion; Black Book; German New Order.
33. This refers not only to the Nuremberg trials, but also the Eichmann trial and especially those conducted in Poland.
34. Trials of War Criminals, 5:129.
35. Ibid., 5:132.
36. Ibid., 4:624.
37. Koehl, RKFDV, 3. On the re-Germanization program, see ibid., 123. His accounts of the DVL and the UWZs were quite cursory, see ibid., 104–7, 119–21, and 139–41. The book drew on several of his earlier articles, for example, Koehl, “Colonialism inside Germany,” “Politics of Resettlement,” and “Deutsche Volksliste in Poland.” Here also Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 86–90 and 95–96. Two years later, Broszat embedded this study in a broader outline of modern German-Polish relations, Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik.
38. A good example of this is Broszat’s accounts of the DVL, which always become fuzzy in its concrete activities on the ground (such as his account of the DVL’s founding in the Wartheland, which he wrongly attributed to the local Sicherheitsdienst) and Broszat also gives no details of its selection practices (Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 115).
39. See the multivolume Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa (Documentation of the expulsion of Germans from east central Europe), published by West Germany’s Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons (under Minister Theodor Oberländer), and compiled by a commission that included Werner Conze, Theodor Schieder, and Hans Rothfels. This documentation project brought together people who knew each other when they used their scholarly arguments first to justify German supremacy in Eastern Europe and then during wartime to offer direct support to Nazi population policy (with the exception of Rothfels, who was forced into exile), even—as in the case of Oberländer—helping to impose it with gun in hand. On the various individuals, see Haar and Fahlbusch, Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften.
40. See, for example, Frensing, Umsiedlung der Gottscheer Deutschen; Loeber, Diktierte Option; von Hehn, Umsiedlung der baltischen Deutschen; Jachomowski, Umsiedlung der Bessarabien-, Bukowina- und Dobrudschadeutschen; Stossun, Umsiedlung der Deutschen aus Litauen;