[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] "Deutsche Volksliste"

[Richard Benert]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lonnie Scallen" <ndseagirl at hotmail.com>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 3:51 AM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] "Deutsche Volksliste"


> Could someone please explain to me in laymans terms what the "Deutsche
> Volksliste" is?  I looked it up on google and found the explanation
> confusing.  I had a Polish relative that had something to do with it.

Lonnie,

Thanks for asking about the deutsche Volkslist.  Preparing an answer for you
has helped clarify a few things in my own mind.  Thanks also to Oliver
Guenther and Gerhard Koenig for their contributions.  Let me try to explain
it as simply as I can.

When the Nazis took over Poland in 1939, they annexed the western portion
(basically the Gaus of Danzig/West Prussia, the Wartheland and Silesia), and
placed the rest of the country under the so-called "General Government of
Poland", which was essentially "Poland run by Germans".  The idea was to
"purify" the newly annexed regions in order to create a safely Germanized
eastern border against Polish/Slavic influence.  This meant deporting Poles
from this area, sending them to the General Government, and bringing in
ethnic Germans from various places along with Germans from Germany to settle
the area.  Determining who was a Pole and who was not was not easy in this
quite heavily Germanized region.  Many apparent Poles who didn't want to be
deported quickly pointed out their German ancestry and resisted.  Even
Himmler was impressed by this and said that such resistance must be evidence
of their Nordic qualities!  Furthermore, Nazi officials in charge of the
various localities didn't want to see too many economically valuable Poles
sent eastwards, so they, too, desired some form of sorting mechanism in
order to avoid deporting any skilled Poles with "German blood" in their
veins.  At worst, such Poles, deemed "Germanizeable", could be sent to the
Reich for re-education.

A welter of sorting schemes were produced, leading to confusion.  The
Deutsche Volksliste (DVL) was Himmler's answer--a uniform procedure for
everyone to follow.  (Actually, the Racial Office of the Nazi Party had
produced a registry called "Deutsche Volksliste" in 1939, but this was only
one of the precursors of Himmler's final version.)  Himmler had the plan
drawn up and then allowed it to be administered by the civilian Interior
Ministry (although his "Reich Commission for the Strengthening of
Germandom--RKFDV--was the final court of appeals).  This was in March, 1941,
a year and a half after such sorting of people had begun.

According to Robert Koehl, "RKFDV: German Resettlement and Population
Policy, 1939-1945", (Cambridge, 1957), p.87, "By the introduction of the
registration proocedure known as the German National List (DVL) some 900,000
more 'Germans' were discovered, most of them semi-Polish minorities such as
the Kassubians, the Masurians, and the local Upper Silesians whom the
Germans called 'Wasserpolen'.  A few thousand 'reGermanizeables"...had also
been shipped back to the Reich."

Briefly put, the DVL placed people into one of 4 categories.  Class I was
made up of Germans who had since 1919 actively fought to protect Germanism
in Poland.  Class II were more passive people who had, however, maintained
their Germanness.  These people got German citizenship easily.  Into Class
III were placed people whose ancestry was doubtful, and these made up the
majority of the difficult cases.  They were considered the "floating sector"
(schwebende Schicht), who buttered their bread on whichever side was
opportune at the moment (Koehl).  Many of them spoke both German and Polish.
If they passed whatever examinations were given (including racial and
psychological), they might be granted citizenship.  But since this meant
possibly being drafted, many people finally turned in their Class III cards
in a patriotic gesture.  The Gestapo didn't like this and decreed the death
penalty for so doing.   Class IV was comprised largely of people with German
ancestry who had actively fought against Germandom, and they typically wound
up in concentration camps.  It also included Polish spouses of Germans.

The total number of registrants for the DVL may have been three million,
with one million in classes I and II.  The remaining 2 million, according to
Koehl, were "(1) opportunists (2) members of borderline (Slavic) ethnic
groups in West Prussia and Upper Silesia, (3) Polish family members in mixed
marriages, (4) persons registered against their will, either anti-nazi
Germans or Poles with a German ancestor or relative."

Polish reaction was apparently mixed.  Being accepted into Class III could
mean keeping one's property, but it might also mean being sent to the Reich
and/or drafted.  Poles who preferred to stay with their friends and
relatives sometimes resisted Nazi pressures to apply for the DVL, opting for
deportation over "Germanization".

In case I haven't already imposed on you far more than you wanted to know,
there is a concise statement about the DVL in the records of the Nuremberg
trials at:

 http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/04a/NMT04-T0717.htm

You may have noticed in Gerhard Koenig's posting that the DVL was used after
1945 to help Germany decide who, among the refugees from the east, it could
give citizenship to.  In fact, I've learned, it continued to be so used for
decades thereafter, up to at least 1990.  I'll send out an on-line treatment
of this subject very soon.

I apologize for the length of this.  It's a very complicated subject, and I
have many questions about it myself--especially relating to the Nazis'
FORCING people to register for the DVL, when they were at the same time so
eager to rid the area of Polish "blood".  On the other hand, of course,
there was the principle that "not one drop of German blood should be lost."
I have found no good treatment of this subject.  Koehl's book is helpful,
but rather confusing.

Dick