of the South Tyroleans and subordinated to Himmler’s Personal Staff, was designated as the coordinating authority, which was then transformed on October 17 into the Agency of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom (Dienststelle des Reichskommissars für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums, hereafter the Agency of the RKFDV]), which functioned as the RKFDV headquarters.102 Although this Reich Commissioner title was not mentioned in Hitler’s decree, it did appear in the draft decree on the resettlement of the South Tyroleans, which was apparently justification enough for Himmler to now bestow it on himself and probably also the reason behind the lack of protest from other Reich bodies. Based in Berlin, the Agency of the RKFDV originally saw the establishment of three departments, namely, Planning (Planung), Land Office (Bodenamt), and Immigrant Allocation (Einwandererverteilung), but the last was soon renamed Human Deployment (Menscheneinsatz), which again underlines the importance that Himmler ascribed to the exploitation of labor. Himmler delegated the practical implementation of population policy to VoMi, which at this point was not yet exclusively in the SS orbit, but instead stood at least formally under Rudolf Hess, and delegated as well to the Race and Settlement Main Office (Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt, or RuSHA) and the Reich Security Main Office, both of the SS. Heydrich had already established on October 11, 1939, the EWZ for the Northeast (Einwandererzentralstelle Nordost, or Central Immigration Office for the Northeast), which, at the behest of Himmler as the RKFDV, was to conduct the systematic selection of “Volksdeutsche” to be resettled from the Baltics.103 In order to ensure optimal cooperation with the other SS bodies, and also to establish a regional contact person for this area of responsibility, Himmler additionally named the Higher SS and Police Leaders (Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer, or HSSPF) to be his RKFDV appointees, each of whom soon established multiple branch offices that were structured similarly to the RKFDV headquarters in Berlin.104
The decree of October 7 would decisively bolster Himmler’s power and become a key gateway for the expansion of SS influence. Himmler soon ignored one of the decree’s most important restrictions, namely the prohibition against establishing his own agencies, but he also used it to justify his issuing of general directives to offices that were not part of the SS complex, but whose activities—at least in his opinion—touched on the “strengthening of Germandom.” In annexed Poland, there was hardly any area that could have been excluded from the strengthening of Germandom.
Establishing the Civilian Administration
By the time the military administration was replaced by a civilian one on October 26, 1939, several important factors had already been established that would later allow for the intensifying of repressive measures in order to “Germanize” the occupied territories as quickly as possible. But the structure and responsibilities of the civil administration organs were still unclear. Due to the haste of this changeover, the Reich Interior Ministry was only able to furnish the civil administration with the necessary provisions after it had already been established.
The Reich Interior Ministry was primarily interested in significantly strengthening its own administration heads (i.e., Reichsstatthalters and Oberpräsidents) and in fact argued for keeping the CdZ structure, but without the military commander on top. As early as February 14, 1935, in the first regulations issued to a CdZ by the Reichswehr (later renamed the Wehrmacht), the entire civil administration was subordinated to the head of the administration, including—unlike the administration heads in the Reich, for example—the offices of specialized ministerial authorities such as finance and justice. Instructions from Berlin’s central ministries had to be issued through him, and he could also issue his own direct orders to the various local offices in his territory.105
In this, the Reich Interior Ministry was colliding with other ministries that were affected: they demanded the emulation of ordinary Reich conditions after the departure of the military—as had happened in the Sudetenland—meaning direct control of their own regional offices. For the Reich Interior Ministry, however, this collision was simply one more reason to hold fast to its own vision. In fact, according to its plans, the proposed centralization of administration was also to serve as a test case, preparing the way for later changes in the Reich itself. With the support of the Nazi Party, the Reich Interior Ministry was ultimately able to win this confrontation.106
More than a week went by before Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick was able to sign the implementing provision “for the subdivision and administration of the eastern territories” on November 2, 1939, thereby filling in the details of Hitler’s decree of October 8. Here, the Reich Interior Ministry’s strategic goal was very clear, namely, to strengthen the Reichsstatthalters specifically and the heads of general administration more broadly. Besides placing the Reichsstatthalters directly under Hitler (an innovation introduced with the annexation of the Sudetenland), the offices of specialized ministerial authorities on the provincial and county levels were placed directly under the administrative heads and not under the relevant ministries as was otherwise customary in the Reich. Furthermore, each Reichsstatthalter and his subordinated Regierungspräsidents (governmental region presidents) was given more control over the respective administrative levels assigned to them.107
But the support of the Nazi Party came at a price. As Hess let Stuckart know, “political leadership and political administration are to be conducted in personal union [by the same person].”108 The party was of the same mind, wanting to implement in the annexed eastern territories the structural changes that did not yet seem achievable in the Reich itself, so that they might ultimately be applied there as well. The achievement of this goal did in fact promise great potential: if every state office were linked to a corresponding party office, then the party would secure the direct right to propose and veto candidates for every administration post, thus completing its seizure of power at every level. Working in tandem with each Gauleiter, who was simultaneously the local head of administration, namely the Reichsstatthalter or Oberpräsident, the party launched a running battle over the appointment of each Landrat (rural councilor, the head of a rural county), during which the Reich Interior Ministry soon realized how very much the strengthening of the Reichsstatthalters—which it had itself pursued—was ultimately diminishing its own control over such affairs. In order to strengthen their grip on the state administration, the Gauleiters, in their role as administration heads, systematically torpedoed the Reich Interior Ministry’s nominations and installed trusted allies instead. In the Wartheland, around half the Landrat posts were filled with candidates from the party apparatus, while in Danzig–West Prussia the figure reached 88 percent, and in many counties the same person held both offices, that of Landrat and that of Kreisleiter (county leader, the head of a Nazi Party county-level branch).109
This considerable strengthening of the “frontier Gauleiters” (“Grenzgauleiter”)—to borrow a contemporary term—happened largely at the expense of the Reich-level ministries in Berlin, along with their subordinated offices and other self-administering bodies (i.e., communal-level administrations) in the provinces.110 On the other hand, it was highly symptomatic of the envisaged policy that the thereby strengthened Reichsstatthalters and Oberpräsidents nonetheless had to accept diminishment in one particular area, in comparison with the situation in the Reich itself, namely in their relationship to the policing apparatus and the entire SS complex. With the rampages of the Einsatzgruppen, Himmler had created a power base that reached into every village through the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, which soon included, for example, 80 percent of the male “Volksdeutsche” populace in Danzig–West Prussia.111 Himmler’s position was further strengthened with his installation as RKFDV, for it allowed him to extend his activities beyond the security sphere and to even make use of other agencies.
The massive presence of the various SS formations had led, even before the establishment of the military administration, to the expansion of the SS administrative structure, especially with the appointment of HSSPFs: these were “Himmler’s regional representatives,” to whom were subordinated Inspectors of the Security Police (Inspekteur der Sicherheitspolizei, or IdS) and Inspectors of the Order Police (Inspekteur der Ordnungspolizei, the regional representatives of the SS Reich Security Main
