Status of German Minority
In accordance with Nazi racial theory, the Nazis set out to cull German blood out of the mixed population, if necessary by force. Heinrich Himmler declared that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind for an alien race.
This began with the Volksliste, the classification of people deemed of German blood into those Germans who had collaborated before the war; those still regarding themselves as German, but who had been neutral; partially Polonized but Germanizable; and those Germans who had been absorbed into Polish nationality. Any person classified as German who resisted was to be deported to a concentration camp. Himmler himself oversaw cases of obstinate Germans, and gave orders for concentration camps, or separation of families, or forced labor, in efforts to break down resistance.
Numerous cultural events were organized for German community. A network of public schools engaging in various forms of education was set up across the territories. Reich University of Posen was set up in Poznań replacing the former Polish one. At this university, studies of Eastern Europe were conducted, including theories on extermination of non-Germans and means to Germanize the region. Chairs for race policy and Jewish history were established Local Germans organized in Selbstschutz paramilitia units engaged in arresting Jews and Poles, the oversight of their expulsions, and murder.
Nazi Germany put the Germans in a position to economically exploit the Polish society, and provided them with privileges and a comparably high standard of living at the expense of the Poles, to ensure their loyalty. While certain conditions under Nazi rule were limiting the freedoms of Germans, such as the dissolution of various German religious and political associations, the Nazi regime provided for political, cultural, and material benefits. Germans received executive positions from which people classified as "Untermenschen" were removed. German was made the only official language. Germans received the right to enter any Polish home at will to perform revision and identification of people living there at any time, and could acquire possessions from Poles and Jews with little effort and mostly without payment or at a low price. For example, a German could easily request a Polish house or apartment from the government, even if Poles were still living there. As the overwhelming majority of Germans in annexed authorities supported Nazi authorities and their policies, this gave the Nazi politicians a degree of self-confidence based on popular support. In Warthegau alone out of 309,002 Germans, 180,000 served in various organizations that provided assistance and were vital to Nazi plans against Poles and Jews. They provided invaluable due to their knowledge of local conditions and society. Motives for cooperation ranged from ideological support for Nazism to material opportunism.
Polish diaries and memoirs from the era remember Volksdeutsche as particularly brutal and ruthless group. Pomerania was noted as a region with very strong pro-Nazi German society by Polish observers as well as Łódż. Support for German nationalism was especially evident in regards to young part of the population, which was strongly influenced by Nazis ideology. The mass conscription of young Germans in military by 1942 was greeted with relief by the Polish population. When trains with wounded and crippled German soldiers started returning from Eastern Front they were welcomed alongside train tracks by groups of celebrating Polish population. Local Germans were rewarded for their support in genocide of Jews and Poles and invasion of Poland by high positions in administration and increased their wealth by confiscations of Polish and Jewish property. The German colonists were of wide origin and their image varied. The ones from Bessarabia were considered the worst. In all however was noted an infinite support for Hitler and belief in German state's supremacy, Many were thankful for material benefits provided by German state. In time their attitude towards local Poles grew in harshness and ruthlessness. While some initially talked to Poles, in time as they soaked up Nazi ideology, this stopped, and some turned to violence against Poles. On farms the Poles were treated by Germans as farm animals, and some Germans treated their dogs more humanely than Polish slave labourers.
Read more about this topic: Polish Areas Annexed By Nazi Germany
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