Ethnic Cleansing in World War II
Following the invasion of Poland, Lorenz was the chief executive responsible for allocating confiscated land, property and managing the affairs of the Volksdeutsch in all other areas of occupied Eastern Europe. VOMI, which was an office of the Nazi Party, would take control of a district once the native populations had been driven from their homes and lands. Ethnic German settlers were then given the land to work under the direction of VOMI officials. In respect to his international work, Lorenz was plenipotentiary for foreign relations for Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.
In June 1941 VOMI was absorbed into the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Ethnic Stock (RKFDV) run by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The RKFDV, as an SS-controlled organization, had the authority to say who was German, where ethnic Germans could live, and what populations should be cleared or annihilated in order to make room for the German settlers from the east Europe during action "Heim ins Reich". As RKFDV chief, Himmler authorized the SS-Einsatzgruppen and other SS police units to round up and kill Jews, Slavs and Roma. Lorenz remained in charge of Volksdeutsch settlements in these ethnically cleansed areas. He also was responsible for VOMI officials who handled the personal property seized from Jews killed during Operation Reinhard in the General Government during 1942-1943.
In late 1942 Lorenz was seriously injured in a vehicle accident in Bosnia while overseeing the VOMI evacuation of ethnic Germans from the region. He was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer in 1943.
Read more about this topic: Werner Lorenz
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