General Government

This article is about the German administration of occupied Poland during World War II. For the German administration of Belgium during World War I, see General Governorate of Belgium.
General Government
Generalgouvernement  (German)
Generalne Gubernatorstwo  (Polish)
Administratively autonomous component
of Nazi Germany[1]
←
1939–1945 →
 
→
Flag Insignia
The General Government in 1942.
Capital Łódź (12 Oct – 4 Nov 1939)
Kraków (4 Nov 1939 – 1945)
Languages German (official)
Polish
Ukrainian
Yiddish
Government Civil administration
Governor-General
 •  1939–1945 Hans Frank
Secretary for State
 • 1939–1941 Arthur Seyss-Inquart
 • 1941–1945 Josef Bühler
Historical era World War II
 •  Invasion of Poland October 12, 1939
 •  Vistula-Oder Offensive February 2, 1945
Area
 •  1939 95,000 km² (36,680 sq mi)
 •  1941 142,000 km² (54,827 sq mi)
Population
 •  1941 est. 12,000,000 
     Density 84.5 /km²  (218.9 /sq mi)
Currency Złoty
Reichsmark
Today part of  Poland
 Ukraine
 Slovakia

The General Government, sometimes also General Governorate (German: Generalgouvernement, Polish: Generalne Gubernatorstwo, Ukrainian: Генеральна губернія), was a territory in Poland and Ukraine carved out by Adolf Hitler at the onset of World War II after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The newly occupied Second Polish Republic was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in the west and Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in the east.[2]

The basis for the formation of General Government was a German claim of the total collapse of the Polish state, proclaimed unilaterally by the Führer on October 8, 1939 through the so-called Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories.[2] This rationale was utilized by the German Supreme Court to reassign the identity of all Polish nationals as stateless subjects, with exception of the ethnic Germans of interwar Poland, named the only rightful citizens of the Third Reich, in disregard of international law.[2]

The General Government was run by Nazi Germany as a separate administrative unit for logistical purposes, in contrast to the Soviet practice of directly annexing everything the Soviet Union captured.[3] When the Wehrmacht forces attacked the Soviet positions in Kresy in June 1941 during its initially successful Operation Barbarossa, the area of the General Government was enlarged by the inclusion of the regions of Poland occupied by the Red Army since 1939.[3] Within days, so-called Eastern Galicia was overrun and renamed Distrikt Galizien. Until 1945 the General Government comprised much of central and southern Poland (and of modern-day western Ukraine), including the major Polish cities of Warsaw, Kraków, Lwów, Lublin, Tarnopol and Stanisławów, among others.[2]

The Nazi German rulers of the Generalgouvernement territory had no intention of sharing power with the Poles or Ukrainians throughout the war, regardless of their political orientation. The authorities rarely even mentioned the name "Poland" in government correspondence. The only exception to this was the General Government's Bank of Issue in Poland (Polish: Bank Emisyjny w Polsce, German: Emissionbank in Polen). The government and administration of the General Government was composed entirely of Germans, with the intent that the area was to be colonized by German settlers who would exterminate most Poles and reduce the remaining population to the level of serfs before their final genocide.[4][5]

Name

The full title of the regime in German until July 1940 was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete, a name that is usually translated as the General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories. On 31 July 1940 governor Hans Frank, on Hitler's authority, shortened the name to just Generalgouvernement.[6] A more literal translation of Generalgouvernement, which is a borrowing from French, would be General Governorate. The correct translation of the term "Gouvernement" is not government but actually governorate, which is a type of administrative division or territory. The area was also known colloquially as the Restpolen ("Remainder of Poland").

The designation General Government was chosen in reference to the Government General of Warsaw, a civil entity created in the area by the German Empire during World War I. This district existed from 1914 to 1918 together with an Austro-Hungarian-controlled Military Government of Lublin alongside the short-lived Kingdom of Poland of 1916-1918, a similar rump state formed out of the then-Russian-controlled parts of Poland.[7]

History

Hans Frank, Gauleiter of occupied central Poland

After Germany's attack on Poland, all areas which the German army occupied including the Free City of Danzig came initially under the military rule. This area extended from the 1939 eastern border of Germany proper and of East Prussia up to the Bug River where the German armies had halted their advance and linked up with the Soviet Red Army in accordance with their secret pact against Poland.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939 had promised the vast territory between the Vistula and Bug rivers to the Soviet "sphere of influence" in divided Poland, while the two powers would have jointly ruled Warsaw. To settle the deviation from the original agreement, the German and Soviet representatives met again on September 28 to delineate a permanent border between the two countries. Under this revised version of the pact the territory concerned was exchanged for the inclusion in the Soviet sphere of Lithuania, which had originally fallen within the ambit of Germany. With the new agreement the entire central part of Poland, including the core ethnic area of the Poles, came under exclusively German control.

German-Soviet border drawn-out in the aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, signed in Moscow by Stalin and Ribbentrop during the Second Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact known as the Frontier Treaty of September 28, 1939

Hitler decreed the direct annexation to the German Reich of large parts of the occupied Polish territory in the western half of the German zone, in order to increase the Reich's Lebensraum.[8] Germany organized most of these areas as two new Reichsgaue: Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland. The remaining three regions, the so-called areas of Zichenau, Eastern Upper Silesia and the Suwałki triangle, became attached to adjacent Gaue of Germany. Draconian measures were introduced by both RKF and HTO,[a] to facilitate the immediate Germanization of the annexed territory, typically resulting in mass expulsions, especially in the Warthegau. The remaining parts of the former Poland were to become a German Nebenland (March, borderland) as a frontier post of German rule in the east. A Führer's decree of October 12, 1939 established the General Government; the decree came into force on October 26, 1939.[2]

Hans Frank was appointed as the Governor-General of the General Government. German authorities made a sharp contrast between the new Reich territory and a supposedly occupied rump state that could serve both as a bargaining chip with the Western powers as well as a reservoir of slave labor. The Germans established a closed border between the two German zones to heighten the difficulty of cross-frontier communication between the different segments of the Polish population.

The official name chosen for the new entity was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories), then changed to the Generalgouvernement (General Government) by Frank's decree of July 31, 1940. However, this name did not imply anything about the actual nature of the administration. The German authorities never regarded these Polish lands (apart from the short period of military administration during the actual invasion of Poland) as an occupied territory.[9] The Nazis considered the Polish state to have effectively ceased to exist with its defeat in the September campaign.

Overall, 4 million of the 1939 population of the General Government area had lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces entered the area in late 1944. If the Polish underground killed a German, 50–100 Poles were executed as a punishment and as a warning to other Poles.[10] As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the General Government collapsed. American troops captured Hans Frank, who had governed the region, in May 1945; he became one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials. During his trial he resumed his childhood practice of Catholicism and expressed repentance. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal and much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. On October 1, 1946 he was sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on October 16.

German intentions regarding the region

Further information: Generalplan Ost, Lebensraum and Wehrbauer

In March 1941 Hans Frank informed his subordinates that Hitler had made the decision to "turn this region into a purely German area within 15–20 years". He explained: "Where 12 million Poles now live, is to be populated by 4 to 5 million Germans. The Generalgouvernement must become as German as the Rhineland."[4] By 1942 Hitler and Frank had agreed that the Kraków ("with its purely German capital") and Lublin districts would be the first areas for German colonists to re-populate.[11] Hitler stated: "When these two weak points have been strengthened, it should be possible to slowly drive back the Poles."[11] Subsequently, German policy envisaged reducing lower-class Poles to the status of serfs, while deporting or otherwise eliminating the middle and upper classes and eventually replacing them with German colonists of the "master race".

The General Gouvernment is our work force reservoir for lowgrade work (brick plants, road building, etc.) ... Unconditionally, attention should be paid to the fact that there can be no "Polish masters"; where there are Polish masters, and I do not care how hard this sounds, they must be killed. (...) The Führer must emphazize once again that for Poles there is only one master and he is a German, there can be no two masters beside each other and there is no consent to such, hence all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be killed ... The General Gouvernment is a Polish reservation, a great Polish labor camp. — Note of Martin Bormann from the meeting of Dr. Hans Frank with Adolf Hitler, Berlin, 2 October 1940.[12]

German bureaucrats drew up various plans regarding the future of the original population. One called for the deportation of about 20 million Poles to Western Siberia, and the Germanisation of 4 to 5 million; although deportation in reality meant many Poles were to be put to death, a small number would be "Germanized", and young Poles of desirable qualities would be kidnapped and raised in Germany.[13] In the General Government, all secondary education was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed.

In 1943 the government selected the Zamojskie area for further Germanization on account of its fertile black soil, and German colonial settlements were planned. Zamość was initially renamed to Himmlerstadt (Himmler City), but this was later changed to Pflugstadt (Plough City). The Polish population was expelled with great brutality, but few Germans settled in the area before 1944. Himmler intended the city of Lublin to have a German population of 20% to 25% by the beginning of 1944, and of 30% to 40% by the following year, at which time Lublin was to be declared a German city and given a German mayor.[14]

Territorial dissection

Official proclamation of the General-Government in Poland by Germany, October 1939

The exact territorial reorganization of the Polish provinces in the event of German victory in the east was never definitively resolved. Large parts of western pre-war Poland had already been annexed upon the establishment of the General Government, and the remaining region was also intended to be directly incorporated into the German Reich at some future date. The Nazi leadership discussed numerous initiatives with this aim.

The earliest such proposal (October/November 1939) called for the establishment of a separate Reichsgau Beskidenland which would encompass several southern sections of the Polish territories conquered in 1939 (around 18,000 km2), stretching from the area to the west of Kraków to the San river in the east.[15][16] At this time Germany had not yet been directly annexed the Łódź area, and Łódź (rather than Kraków) served as the capital of the General Government .

In November 1940 Gauleiter Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland argued that the counties of Tomaschow Mazowiecki and Petrikau should be transferred from the General Government's Radom district to his Gau. Hitler agreed, but since Frank refused to surrender the counties, the resolution of the border question was postponed until after the final victory.[17]

Upon hearing of the German plans to create a "Gau of the Goths" (Gotengau) in the Crimea and the Southern Ukraine after the start of Operation Barbarossa, Frank himself expressed his intention to turn the district under his control into a German province called the Vandalengau (Gau of the Vandals) in a speech he gave on 16 December 1941.[18][19]

When Frank unsuccessfully attempted to resign his position on 24 August 1942, Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann tried to advance a project to dissolve the General Government altogether and to partition its territory into a number of Reichsgaue, arguing that only this method could guarantee the territory's Germanization, while also claiming that the area could also be economically exploited more effectively, particularly as a source of food.[20] He suggested separating the "more restful" population of the formerly Austrian territories (because this part of Poland had been under German-Austrian rule for a long period of time it was deemed more racially acceptable) from the rest of the Poles and cordoning off the city of Warsaw, as the center of "criminality" and underground activity.[20]

Ludwig Fischer (governor of Warsaw) opposed the proposed administrative streamlining resulting from these discussions. Fischer prepared his own project in his Main Office for Spatial Ordering (Hauptamt für Raumordnung) located in Warsaw.[20] He suggested the creation of the three provinces Beskiden, Weichselland ("Vistula Land"), and Galizien (Galicia and Chelm) by dividing the Radom and Lublin districts between them. Weichselland was to have a "Polish character", Galizien a "Ukrainian" one, and the Beskiden-province to provide a German "admixture" (i.e. colonial settlement).[20] Further territorial planning carried out by this Warsaw-based organization under Major Dr. Ernst Zvanetti in a May 1943 study to demarcate the eastern border of "Central Europe" (i.e. the Greater German Reich) with the "Eastern European landmass" proposed an eastern German border along the "line Memel-Odessa".[21]

In this context this study propagated a re-ordering of the "Eastern Gaue" into three geopolitical blocks:[21] a western group with the "Gaue" i.e. Danzig-Westpreußen, Wartheland, and Schlesien (Silesia); a central group with the "Gaue Ostpreußen" (East Prussia), i.e. Südpreußen (South Prussia), Litzmannstadt (Łódź), and Beskidenland; and the eastern group with the "Gaue Südostpreußen" (South-East Prussia) including Wolhynien (Volhynia and the Lublin district), Galizien, and Podolien (Podolia).

Administration

Announcement of the execution of 60 Polish hostages and a list of 40 new hostages taken by Nazi authorities in Poland, 1943

The General Government was administered by a General-Governor (German: Generalgouverneur) aided by the Office of the General-Governor (Amt des Generalgouverneurs), changed on December 9, 1940 to the Government of the General Government (Regierung des Generalgouvernements). For the entire period of its wartime history, there was only one General-Governor: Dr. Hans Frank. The Office was headed by Chief of the Government (Regierung, title translated also as the State Secretary or Deputy Governor) Josef Bühler. Several other individuals had powers to issue legislative decrees in addition to the General Governor, most notably the Higher SS and Police Leader of General Government (Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, later Wilhelm Koppe).

"No government protectorate is anticipated for Poland, but a complete German administration. (...) Leadership layer of the population in Poland should be as far as possible, disposed of. The other lower layers of the population will receive no special schools, but are to be oppressed in some form". - The excerpts of the minute of the first conference of Heads of the main police officers and commanders of operational groups led by Heydrich's deputy, SS-Brigadefuhrer Dr. Werner Best, Berlin 7 September 1939.[22]

The General Government had no international recognition. The territories it administered were never either in whole or part intended as any future Polish state within a German-dominated Europe. According to the Nazi government the Polish state had effectively ceased to exist, in spite of the existence of a Polish government-in-exile.[9] Its character was a type of colonial state. It was not a Polish puppet government, as there were no Polish representatives above the local administration.

The government seat of the General Government was located in Kraków (German: Krakau) rather than Warsaw for security reasons. The official state language was German, although Polish continued to be used by local government. Useful institutions of the old Polish state were retained for ease of administration. The Polish police, with no high-ranking Polish officers (who were arrested or demoted), was reorganised as the Blue Police and became subordinated to the Ordnungspolizei. The Polish educational system was similarly kept, but most higher institutions were closed. The Polish local administration was kept, subordinated to new German bosses. The Polish fiscal system, including the złoty currency, was kept, but with revenues now going to the German state. A new bank was created and issued new banknotes.

The Germans sought to play Ukrainians and Poles off against each other. Within ethnic Ukrainian areas annexed by Germany, beginning in October 1939, Ukrainian Committees were established with the purpose of representing the Ukrainian community to the German authorities and assisting the approximately 30,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled from Soviet-controlled territories. These committees also undertook cultural and economic activities that had been banned by the previous Polish government. Schools, choirs, reading societies and theaters were opened, and twenty Ukrainian churches that had been closed by the Polish government were reopened. A Ukrainian publishing house was created in Cracow, which despite having to struggle with German censors and paper shortages was able to publish school textbooks, classics of Ukrainian literature, and the works of dissident Ukrainian writers from the Soviet Union. By March 1941 there were 808 Ukrainian educational societies with 46,000 members. Ukrainian organizations within the General Government were able to negotiate the release of 85,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war from the German-Polish conflict (although they were unable to help Soviet POWs of Ukrainian ethnicity).[23]

After the war, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal declared that the government of the General Government was a criminal institution.

Judicial system

Part of Hans Frank’s ordinance from 31st October 1939 on "counteracting the acts of violence in General Government"

Other than summary German military tribunals, no courts operated in Poland between the German invasion and early 1940. At that time, the Polish court system was reinstated and made decisions in cases not concerning German interests, for which a parallel German court system was created. The German system was given priority in cases of overlapping jurisdiction.

New laws were passed, discriminating against ethnic Poles and, in particular, the Jews. In 1941 a new criminal law was introduced, introducing many new crimes, and making the death penalty very common. A death penalty was introduced for, among other things:

Policing

The police in the General Government was divided into: Ordnungspolizei (OrPo) (native German), the Blue Police (Polish under German control), and Sicherheitspolizei (native German) composed of Kriminalpolizei (German) and Gestapo (German). The most numerous OrPo battalions were focused on traditional security roles as an occupying force. Some of them were directly involved in the pacification operations.[24] In the immediate aftermath of World War II, this latter role was obscured both by the lack of court evidence and by deliberate obfuscation, while most of the focus was on the better-known Einsatzgruppen ("Operational groups") who reported to RSHA led by Reinhard Heydrich.[25] On 6 May 1940 Gauleiter Hans Frank who stationed in occupied Kraków created Sonderdienst, based on similar SS formations called Selbstschutz operating in the Warthegau district of German-annexed western part of Poland since 1939.[26] Sonderdienst were made up of ethnic German Volksdeutsche who lived in Poland before the attack and joined the invading force thereafter. However, after the 1941 Operation Barbarossa they included also the Soviet prisoners of war who volunteered for special training, such as the "Trawniki men" (German: Trawnikimänner) deployed at all major killing sites of the "Final Solution". A lot of those men did not know German and required translation by their native commanders.[27][28]:366 Ukrainian Auxiliary Police was formed in Distrikt Galizien in 1941, many policemen deserted in 1943 joining UPA.

Some 3,000 men served with the Sonderdienst in the General Government, formally assigned to the head of the civil administration.[27] The existence of Sonderdienst constituted a grave danger for the non-Jewish Poles who attempted to help ghettoised Jews in the cities, as in the Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto among numerous others, because Christian Poles were executed under the charge of aiding Jews.[26]

Military occupation forces

Through the occupation Germany diverted a significant number of its military forces to keep control over Polish territories.

Number of Wehrmacht and police formations stationed in General government[29]
Timeperiod Wehrmacht army Police and SS

(includes German forces only)

 Total
October 1939 550,000 80,000 630,000
April 1940 400,000 70,000 470,000
June 1941 2,000,000 (high number due to imminent attack on Soviet positions) 50,000 2,050,000
February 1942 300,000 50,000 350,000
April 1943 450,000 60,000 510,000
November 1943 550,000 70,000 620,000
April 1944 500,000 70,000 570,000
September 1944 1,000,000 80,000 1,080,000

Administrative districts

For administrative purposes the General Government was subdivided into four districts (Distrikte). These were the Distrikt Warschau, the Distrikt Lublin, the Distrikt Radom, and the Distrikt Krakau. After the Operation Barbarossa against the Soviets in June 1941, East Galicia (part of Poland, annected by Ukrainian SSR on the basis of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact), was incorporated into the General Government and became its fifth district: Distrikt Galizien. The new German administrative units were much larger than those organized by the Polish government, reflecting the German lack of sufficient administrative personnel to staff smaller units.[30]

The five districts were further sub-divided into urban counties (Stadtkreise) and rural counties (Kreishauptmannschaften). Following a decree on September 15, 1941, the names of most of the major cities (and their respective counties) were renamed based on historical German data or given germanified versions of their Polish and Soviet names if none existed. At times the previous names remained the same as well (i.e. Radom). The districts and counties were as follows:

Administrative map of the General Government, July 1940 (before Barbarossa)
Administrative map of the General Government, January 1944
Distrikt Warschau
Stadtkreise Warschau (Warsaw)
Kreishauptmannschaften Garwolin, Grojec (Grójec), Lowitsch (Lowicz), Minsk (Mińsk Mazowiecki), Ostrau (Ostrów Mazowiecka), Siedlce, Skierniewice2, Sochaczew, Sokolow-Wengrow (Sokołów Podlaski-Węgrów), Warschau-Land
Distrikt Krakau
Stadtkreise Krakau (Kraków)
Kreishauptmannschaften    Dembitz (Dębica), Jaroslau (Jarosław), Jassel (Jaslo), Krakau-Land, Krosno1, Meekow (Miechow), Neumarkt (Nowy Targ), Neu-Sandez (Nowy Sącz), Przemyśl1, Reichshof (Rzeszow), Sanok, Tarnau (Tarnów)
Distrikt Lublin
Stadtkreise Lublin
Kreishauptmannschaften Biala-Podlaska (Biała Podlaska), Bilgoraj, Cholm (Chelm), Grubeschow (Hrubieszow), Janow Lubelski, Krasnystaw, Lublin-Land, Pulawy, Rehden (Radzyn), Zamosch/Himmlerstadt/Pflugstadt (Zamość)
Distrikt Radom
Stadtkreise Kielce, Radom, Tschenstochau (Częstochowa)
Kreishauptmannschaften Busko (Busko-Zdrój), Jedrzejow, Kielce-Land, Konskie (Końskie), Opatau (Opatów), Petrikau (Piotrków Trybunalski), Radom-Land, Radomsko, Starachowitz (Starachowice), Tomaschow Mazowiecki (Tomaszów Mazowiecki)
Distrikt Galizien
Stadtkreise Lemberg (Lviv/Lwów)
Kreishauptmannschaften Breschan (Brzeżany), Tschortkau (Czortków), Drohobycz, Kamionka-Strumilowa (Kamianka-Buzka), Kolomea (Kolomyia), Lemberg-Land, Rawa-Ruska (Rava-Ruska), Stanislau (Ivano-Frankivsk), Sambor (Sambir) Stryj, Tarnopol, Solotschiw (Zolochiv), Kallusch (Kalush)
1, added after 1941. 2), removed after 1941.

A change in the administrative structure was desired by Finance Minister Lutz von Krosigk, who for financial reasons wanted to see the five existing districts (Warsaw, Kraków, Radom, Lublin, and Galicia) reduced to three.[20] In March 1943 he announced the merger of the Kraków and Galicia districts, and the split of the Warsaw district between the Radom district and the Lublin district.[20] (The latter acquired a special status of "Germandom district", Deutschtumsdistrikt, as a "test run" of the Germanization according to the Generalplan Ost.[31]) The restructuring further involved the changing of Warsaw and Kraków into separate city-districts (Stadtdistrikte), with Warsaw under the direct control of the General Government. This decree was to go into effect on 1 April 1943 and was nominally accepted by Heinrich Himmler, but Martin Bormann opposed the move, as he simply wanted to see the region turned into Reichsgaue (Germany proper). Wilhelm Frick and Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger were also skeptic about the usefulness of this reorganization, resulting in its abolition after subsequent discussions between Himmler and Frank.[20]

Demographics

Nur für Deutsche on the tram number 8 in occupied Kraków.

The General Government was inhabited by 11.4 million people in December 1939. A year later the population increased to 12.1 million. Of these, 83.3% were Poles 11.2% - Jews, 4.4% - Ukrainians and Belarusians, 0.9% - Germans, 0.2% - others.[32]

About 860,000 Poles and Jews were expelled from the Germany-annexed areas and resettled in the General Government. Offsetting this was the German campaign of liquidation of the Polish intelligentsia and other elements considered likely to resist. From 1941 disease and hunger also began to reduce the population.

Distribution of food in General Government as of December, 1941[33]
Nationality Daily food energy intake
Germans 2,310 calories (9,700 kJ)
Foreigners 1,790 calories (7,500 kJ)
Ukrainians 930 calories (3,900 kJ)
Poles 654 calories (2,740 kJ)
Jews 184 calories (770 kJ)

Poles were also deported in large numbers to work as forced labor in Germany: eventually about a million were deported, of whom many died in Germany. In 1940 the population was divided into different groups. Each group had different rights, food rations, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Listed from the most privileged, to the least:

  1. Germans from Germany (Reichdeutsche),
  2. Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, Volksliste category 1 and 2 (see Volksdeutsche).
  3. Germans from outside, passive Germans and members of families (this group also included some ethnic Poles), Volksliste category 3 and 4,
  4. Ukrainians,
  5. Highlanders (Goralenvolk) – an attempt to split the Polish nation by using local collaborators
  6. Poles (partially exterminated),
  7. Gypsies (eventually largely exterminated as a category),
  8. Jews (eventually largely exterminated as a category).

Economics

Young Polish girl wearing Letter "P" patch.
German announcement of the execution of 9 Polish peasants for unfurnished contingents (quotas). Signed by governor of Lublin district 25 November 1941

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, Jews over the age of 12 and Poles over the age of 14 living in the General Government were subject to forced labor.[9] Poles from other regions of Poland conquered by Germany were expelled to the General Government and the area was used as a slave labour pool from which men and women taken by force to work as laborers in factories and farms in Germany.[4] In 1942, all non-Germans living in the General Government were subject to forced labor.[9]

Former Polish state property was confiscated by the General Government (or the Third Reich on the annexed territories). Notable property of Polish individuals (ex. factories and large land estates) was often confiscated as well. Farmers were required to provide large food contingents for the Germans, and there were plans for nationalization of all but the smallest estates. Currency was managed by the newly created Bank Emisyjny w Polsce.

Resistance

Resistance to the German occupation began almost at once, although there is little terrain in Poland suitable for guerrilla operations. The main resistance force was the Home Army (in Polish: Armia Krajowa or AK), loyal to the Polish government in exile in London. It was formed mainly of the surviving remnants of the pre-War Polish Army, together with many volunteers. Other forces existed side-by-side, such as the communist People's Army (Armia Ludowa or AL), backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by the Polish Communist Party. By 1944 the AK had some 380,000 men, although few arms. During the occupation, the various Polish resistance organizations killed about 150,000 Axis soldiers. The AL was about 15% of the size of the AK.

In April 1943 the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, provoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 19 to May. 16 That was the first armed uprising against the Germans in Poland, and prefigured the larger and longer Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

In July 1944, as the Soviet armed forces approached Warsaw, the government in exile called for an uprising in the city, so that they could return to a liberated Warsaw and try to prevent a Communist take-over. The AK, led by Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, launched the Warsaw Rising on August 1 in response both to their government and to Soviet and Allied promises of help. However Soviet help was never forthcoming, despite the Soviet army being only 18 miles (30 km) away, and Soviet denial of their airbases to British and American planes prevented any effective resupply or air support of the insurgents by the Western allies. After 63 days of fighting the leaders of the rising agreed a conditional surrender with the Wehrmacht. The 15,000 remaining Home Army soldiers were granted POW status (prior to the agreement, captured rebels were shot), and the remaining civilian population of 180,000 expelled.

The Holocaust in the General Government

Nazi extermination camps in occupied Poland, marked with black and white skulls. General Government in beige. Death camp at Auschwitz (lower left) in the neighbouring new Nazi Provinz Oberschlesien

During the Wannsee conference on January 20, 1942, the State Secretary of the General Government, SS-Brigadeführer Josef Bühler encouraged Heydrich to implement the "Final Solution" in the General Government. From his own point of view as the General Government official, the main problem there was an overdeveloped black market that disorganised the work of the German occupational authorities. He endorsed a remedy in solving the "Jewish question" in the country as fast as possible. An additional point in favor of setting up the extermination facilities in his governorate was that there were no transportation problems there,[34] with all assets of the disbanded Polish National Railways (PKP) managed by Deutsche Reichsbahn branch of GEDOB in Kraków, making a network of death trains readily available to the SS-Totenkopfverbände.[35]

Main article: Operation Reinhard

The newly drafted Operation Reinhard would be a major step in the systematic liquidation of the Jews in occupied Europe, beginning with those in the General Government. Within months, three top-secret camps were built and equipped with stationary gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, based on Action T4, solely to efficiently kill thousands of people each day. The Germans began the elimination of the Jewish population under the guise of "resettlement" in spring of 1942. The three Reinhard camps including Treblinka (the deadliest of them all) had transferable SS staff and almost identical design. The General Government was the location of four of the seven extermination camps of World War II in which the most extreme measures of the Holocaust were carried out, including closely located Majdanek concentration camp, Sobibor extermination camp and Belzec extermination camp. The genocide of undesired "races", chiefly millions of Jews from Poland and other countries, was carried out by gassing between 1942 and 1944.[36]

Images

See also

Notes

    a. ^ The RKF (also RKFDV) stands for the Reichskommissar für die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums, or the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, an office in Nazi Germany held by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Meanwhile, the HTO stands for Haupttreuhandstelle Ost, or the Main Trustee Office for the East, a Nazi German predatory institution responsible for liquidating Polish and Jewish businesses across occupied Poland; and selling them off for profit mainly to the SS, or the German Volksdeutsche and war-profiteers if interested. The HTO was created and headed by Nazi potentate Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.[37]

    Citations

    1. ↑ Diemut 2003, page 268.
    2. 1 2 3 4 5 Prof. Diemut Majer, University of Bern (2003). "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939–1945. With contribution from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (JHU Press). pp. 236–246. ISBN 0801864933. Retrieved 14 May 2015. Völkisch Inequality in Public Law.
    3. 1 2 Piotr Eberhardt, Jan Owsinski (2003). Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis. M.E. Sharpe. p. 216. ISBN 9780765606655.
    4. 1 2 3 "Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences" by Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey J. Giles, Walter Pape, Rodopi 1999, page 32
    5. ↑ Białe plamy-czarne plamy: sprawy trudne w polsko-rosyjskich stosunkach 1918-2008, Polsko-Rosyjska Grupa do Spraw Trudnych, page 378.
    6. ↑ Hans Frank's Diary
    7. ↑ Liulevicius, Vejas G. (2000). War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, Identity, and German Occupation in World War I. Cambridge University Press, p. 54.
    8. ↑ "Erlaß des Führers und Reichskanzlers über die Gliederung und Verwaltung der Ostgebiete"
    9. 1 2 3 4 Majer (2003), p. 265.
    10. ↑ Generalgouvernement Shoah Resource Center
    11. 1 2 Hitler, Adolf (2000). Bormann, Martin. ed. Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944, 5 April 1942. trans. Cameron, Norman; Stevens, R.H. (3rd ed.). Enigma Books. ISBN 1-929631-05-7.
    12. ↑ "Man to man...", Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa, Warsaw 2011, p. 11. English version.
    13. ↑ Hitler's plans for Eastern Europe
    14. ↑ Rich, Norman (1974). Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order, p. 99. W. W. Norton & Company Inc., New York.
    15. ↑ Burleigh, Michael (1988). Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press, p. 142.
    16. ↑ Madajczyk, Czesław (1988). Die okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939-1945, p. 31 (in German). Akademie-Verlag Berlin.
    17. ↑ Catherine Epstein (2012), Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199646538, p. 139
    18. ↑ Rich, p. 89.
    19. ↑ NS-Archiv: Dokumente zum Nationalsozialismus. Diensttagebuch Hans Frank: 16.12.1941 - Regierungssitzung (in German). Retrieved 12 May 2011.
    20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Madajczyk, pp. 102-103.
    21. 1 2 Wasser, Bruno (1993). Himmler's Raumplanung im Osten, pp. 82-83. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel.
    22. ↑ "Man to man...", Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa, Warsaw 2011, english version
    23. ↑ Myroslav Yurkevich. (1986). Galician Ukrainians in German Military Formations and in the German Administration. In Ukraine during World War II: history and its aftermath : a symposium (Yuri Boshyk, Roman Waschuk, Andriy Wynnyckyj, Eds.). Edmonton: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press pp. 73-74
    24. ↑ Christopher R. Browning (1 May 2007). The Origins of the Final Solution. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 349, 361. ISBN 0803203926. Google eBook. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
    25. ↑ Hillberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews, Holmes & Meir: NY, NY, 1985, pp 100–106.
    26. 1 2 The Erwin and Riva Baker Memorial Collection (2001). Yad Vashem Studies. Wallstein Verlag. pp. 57–58. ISSN 0084-3296. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
    27. 1 2 Browning, Christopher R. (1998) [1992]. "Arrival in Poland" (PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete). Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Penguin Books. pp. 51, 98, 109, 124. Retrieved May 1, 2013. Also: PDF cache archived by WebCite.
    28. ↑ David Bankir, ed (2006). "Police Auxiliaries for Operation Reinhard by Peter R. Black" (Google Books). Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust. Enigma Books. pp. 331–348. ISBN 192963160X. Retrieved 2013-06-02.
    29. ↑ Czesław Madajczyk. Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce p.242 volume 1 , Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1970
    30. ↑ Rich (1974), p. 86.
    31. ↑ Frank Uekötter, "The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany", 2006, ISBN 0521612772, pp. 158-159
    32. ↑ Włodzimierz Bonusiak. Polska podczas II wojny światowej (Poland during II World War). Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego. 2003. p.68.
    33. ↑ Madajczyk 1970, p.226 volume 2
    34. ↑ Adolf Eichmann, Dan Rogers (translator). "The Wannsee Conference Protocol". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
    35. ↑ Jerzy Wasilewski (2014). "25 września. Wcielenie kolei polskich na Śląsku, w Wielkopolsce i na Pomorzu do niemieckich kolei państwowych Deutsche Reichsbahn.". Polskie Koleje Państwowe PKP. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
    36. ↑ Arad, Yitzhak (1999) [1987]. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana University Press. p. 37. ISBN 0253213053. ASIN 0253213053 – via Google Books.
    37. ↑ Mirosław Sikora (16 September 2009), “Aktion Saybusch” na Żywiecczyźnie. Regional branch of the Institute of National Remembrance IPN Katowice. Reprint. Retrieved 24 August 2015.

    References

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