[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Propaganda

[Richard Benert]

Since the 1939-40 resettlement has emerged once again, may I remind anyone 
interested who may have missed my earlier mentions of this book, the work by 
Wilhelm Fielitz, "Das Stereotyp des wolhyniendeutschen Umsiedlers", 
(Marburg, 2000).  In it, Fielitz discusses the interest that some "scholars" 
took in Volhynian Germans from the 1920s into the 1930s, showing how certain 
stereotypes developed into the full-blown propaganda of 1939-40.  He devotes 
a full chapter to the Buch vom grossen Trek (which I haven't read).

In addition, the latest newsletter of the Historischer Verein Wolhynien 
mentions a new work by Waldemar Litke, "Die Umsiedlung der 
Wolhyniendeutschen, 1939 1940."  It's apparently a thesis at the University 
of Zielona Gora and written in Polish, but will be translated into German.

The newsletter also announces that the dissertation by Michail Kostiuk 
(Univ. of Lutsk) has also been translated into German as "Die deutschen 
Kolonien in Wolhynien."  It's available from the HVW for a mere 15 Euros.

Dick Benert
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Perry1121 at aol.com>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Propaganda


> I, too, have had access to books published by the Nazi propaganda wing
> between 1940 and 1943 like "Der Treck Der Volksdeutschen aus Wolhynien, 
> Galizien
> und Dem Narew-Gebiet" (published 1943) and "135,000 Gewannen das 
> Vaterland"
> (1940). They published an entire series of these books showing  how 
> wonderful it
> was for the Volksdeutsche to return at last to the Fatherland.  The photos
> showing the people and the context of their lives in 1940 is  certainly
> interesting, but they are quite obviously propaganda. Another very 
> interesting one I
> read was the account by an author and literature teacher who  had been
> designated as one of the EWZ officials to arrange for resettlement,  first 
> in the
> Ukraine and then around Lublin (also in old German script);  it held a
> fascinating description of the life of the German people in these  rural 
> areas for most
> of the book, and even described some of the resettlement  camps and the 
> trek
> out in the winter, but the author frequently lapsed into  open 
> glorification of
> National Socialism in such a completely different style  that I was 
> certain
> the passages were required. I thought of translating some of  the more
> interesting sections which were not openly propagandistic, but the book 
> was written
> on such poor quality paper during the war that it is now too fragile  to
> photocopy even a few pages. I work in a special collections university 
> library and
> we hold some of these publications.
>
> Sigrid Pohl Perry
>
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