requirement . . . the clear delimitation between Polishdom and Germandom,” and although he did mention the old border of 1914, he nonetheless argued for the border not to be extended further eastwards still, but on the contrary, to cede some former German territory by drawing it further west along what was called the “Plate Line” (“Plate’sche Linie”), which was a dividing line between German-speaking and Polish-speaking Prussians as established by the census of 1910.87 Of course, voicing such opinions was no way to win influence in the shaping of “Lebensraum” policy in the Nazi state. In any case, Hitler left both Vollert’s and Schieder’s position papers far behind in his Reichstag speech of October 6. As even Johannes Papritz, director of the Dahlem Publication Office, was forced to realize, the Nazi leadership did not need scholarly policy advice in order to arrive at radical decisions. A cover letter he had already prepared for Schieder’s position paper was now notated with the comment: “Not sent, because obsolete!”88
A day later, the territories were officially annexed: Hitler’s “decree on the subdivision and administration of the eastern territories,” dated October 8, 1939, reestablished the provinces of West Prussia and Posen (later renamed Danzig–West Prussia and the Wartheland), and appended the governmental regions of Kattowitz and Zichenau to Silesia and East Prussia respectively.89 And as demonstrated by the remaining squabbles over the exact course of the border, the Nazi leadership chose to ignore not only Vollert’s warnings in regard to Danzig–West Prussia, but also the similarly reasoned arguments against an expansionary solution in the border demarcation of Silesia and the Wartheland. Economically important areas from the former Russian partition were added to the province of Silesia against the will of its Oberpräsident Josef Wagner, while the industrial city of Lodsch (today Łódź) was added to the Wartheland in early November for the same reasons, even though both areas contained exclusively, or at least primarily, Polish-speaking populations.90
Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom
Despite what Hitler had claimed at the Reichstag on October 6, when he misled the world about Germany’s willingness to make peace, he not only subsequently ordered the annexation of western Poland and the establishment of a civilian administration, but he was also already raising the second pillar of the German occupation regime by entrusting Himmler with the “ordering of the entire Lebensraum according to nationalities” (as it had been described in his speech). His “decree on the strengthening of Germandom,” dated October 7, 1939, expanded on this passage and tasked Himmler with “the settling of ethnonational groups [Volksgruppen] in such a way that better boundaries between them can be achieved”—meaning that the concept of the “Germanization of the soil” was now to be put into political practice.91 That Germanization was to happen primarily at the expense of the ostensibly non-German populace was now a matter of course, as was the attendant recklessness that had been inconceivable to Vollert just a day earlier.
The idea of installing Himmler as a “settlement commissioner” was certainly not a new one but instead first arose in previously debated plans for resettling the ethnic Germans of South Tyrol. Italy’s significance as Germany’s most important ally had prompted Hitler, in advance of the Munich Agreement, to finally iron out a major stumbling block in their bilateral relationship, and so he promised Mussolini that these ethnic Germans would be transferred from Italy to the Reich. Ideological demands were once again subordinated to strategic considerations; in Hitler’s view, politics was ultimately not about “sentiments, but only hard-heartedness,” and here the “claptrap about South Tyrol” was harming Germany.92 Just as Berlin had duped the ethnic Germans in Poland by signing the German-Polish Non-aggression Pact, the ethnic Germans in South Tyrol now learned that when push came to shove, relying on the “protection” of Germany would cost them their existence.93
What made such pragmatism even easier for the Nazis was that not only political factors but also economic ones seemed to necessitate it. The boom generated by Germany’s rearmament had already led to the first labor shortages in the agricultural sector by 1933.94 In the following years, it gave rise to increasingly acute crises in the rest of the economy as well, ultimately provoking ever more direct control of the labor market.95 The intensified recruitment of foreign labor, particularly from Poland, was straining Germany’s foreign exchange balance and posed—at least in the opinion of the SS and police—great risks, which allegedly could be best resolved through the targeted engagement of ethnic Germans from abroad.
It was in early 1937, at this intersection of “security-related” and economic concerns, that Himmler established a Four-Year-Plan Office (Dienststelle Vierjahresplan) under SS Senior Leader Ulrich Greifelt, in order to stimulate, “primarily in the area of agricultural labor deployment, . . . measures for the increased acquisition of agricultural workers”; the office was placed under Himmler’s Personal Staff of the Reichsführer of the SS (Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS).96 Then, when Hitler entrusted Himmler with the resettlement of the “Volksdeutsche” from South Tyrol (at first informally), it was certainly not by accident that Himmler—after initially considering the Ethnic German Liaison Office (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, or VoMi)—passed the assignment down to Greifelt on July 23, 1939, especially since the war was imminent at that point, which meant that further shortfalls were to be expected in the labor market.97 In the ensuing tussle with the Reich Chancellery and the affected ministries, Himmler tried to translate Hitler’s assignment into the widest possible mandate; he ultimately achieved his designation as Reich commissioner in the final draft text of August 17, with the agreement of Hans Heinrich Lammers (head of the Reich Chancellery), as well as a great deal of latitude with the ministerial bureaucracy.98
The war delayed promulgation of this decree at first, only to catapult the resettlement of the South Tyroleans into an entirely new context. After the Nazi leadership had come to the decision that large parts of western Poland were to be annexed and “Germanized,” and—at around the same time, but initially without any causal relationship—Hitler had also decided to resettle the ethnic Germans from the Baltics, it was only a short leap to the realization that these undertakings complemented one another and thus needed to be coordinated. Much as the resettlement of the “Volksdeutsche” from Russia had already appeared in the memoranda of the Prussian Interior Ministry even before World War I, when the discussion had focused on increasing the number of “German” farmworkers while also boosting the “German” populace in Prussia’s eastern borderlands and then focused also on the “Germanization” of a “border strip” that was to be annexed in the future, this time too, the decision to annex the western Polish territories flowed seamlessly into deliberations about how they could be settled with “Germans,” which ultimately pointed to the ethnic Germans beyond the Reich’s borders. The South Tyroleans were now no longer to be settled in the Reich itself or perhaps somewhere like Moravia, but instead in a newly established “Beskidengau” (named after the Beskids, in the Carpathians) south of Kattowitz.99 Meanwhile, the Baltic Germans were destined for Danzig–West Prussia and the Wartheland.100
Thus, when Hitler signed the “decree on the strengthening of Germandom” on October 7, it was only logical that Himmler be commissioned with the task. Himmler had already set up an agency of his own that was handling the resettlement of the South Tyroleans under Greifelt, and he also possessed the necessary tools (including coercive ones) for the planned program of resettlement, expulsion, and mass murder. Although still unspecific at the start of the war, these measures were now concretely outlined in the decree: first, the “bringing back” of the “Germans” abroad who qualified for “homecoming” into the Reich; second, their settling in Poland and with this the “arranging of new German settlement areas”; and third, the “eliminating of the harmful influences of . . . population segments alien to the Volk.” Himmler was thereby authorized to issue any “general directives” needed to achieve these measures.101
The assignments that resulted from the authorization were delegated by Himmler to the SS apparatus. Greifelt’s Coordination Office for Immigration
