Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia

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Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia
Reichsgau of Nazi Germany
1939–1945
Flag of Danzig-West Prussia
Flag
Coat of arms of Danzig-West Prussia
Coat of arms
Danzig
Government
Gauleiter 
• 1939–1945
Albert Forster
History 
8 October 1939
1 August 1945
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Pomeranian Voivodeship
Free City of Danzig
Marienwerder
Gau East Prussia
Gdańsk Voivodeship
Masurian District
Today part ofPoland

Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (

Gau East Prussia
.

Before 2 November 1939, the Reichsgau was called Reichsgau West Prussia.[1] Though the name resembled that of the pre-1920 Prussian province of West Prussia, the territory was not identical. Unlike the former Prussian province, the Reichsgau included the Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) region in the south and lacked the Deutsch-Krone (Wałcz) region in the west.

The province's capital was Danzig (Gdańsk), and its population without the city was (in 1939) 1,487,452. The province's area was 26,056 km2, 21,237 km2 of which was annexed Danzig and Pomeranian territory.[1] During the Reichsgau's short existence, Poles and Jews in that area were subjected by Nazi Germany to extermination as "subhumans".

History

Further information: History of Pomerania (1933–1945)

The

Posen-West Prussia
.

After the

Gau system in 1935 as a part of their Gleichschaltung
policy.

In 1938, German

Greater Pomeranian Voivodship
(Wielkopomorskie).

When

Gau indicates that the province primarily consisted of annexed territory. A Gauleiter of a Reichsgau was also titled Reichsstatthalter. Other Reichsgaue were e.g. Reichsgau Wartheland and Reichsgau Sudetenland
.

The Free City of Danzig comprised the Nazi Party's Gau Danzig which had been established in March 1926. The Gauleiters of Gau Danzig were:[5]

Hans Albert Hohnfeldt (March 1926 - June 1928)

Walter Maass, Acting (August 1928 - March 1929)

Erich Koch, Acting (March 1929 - September 1930)

Arthur Greiser, Acting (October 1930), and

Albert Forster (from 15 October 1930)

On 1 September 1939 at the start of the war, Germany immediately annexed the Free City of Danzig. Following the establishment of the new Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia on 8 October, Forster was named Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of the expanded territory on 26 October.[6]

Population

The Reichsgau was very heterogenous, like the territory, which comprised territory of the pre-war Danzig (completely), of Germany (West Prussia Government Region) and of Poland (roughly the Pomeranian Voivodeship), the population amounted to 2,179,000 altogether, with 1,494,000 Polish citizens of mostly Polish ethnicity, 408,000 Danzig citizens of mostly German ethnicity and 277,000 German citizens of mostly German ethnicity.[7] The German occupiers considered the Danzig and Polish citizenships as naught, due to the de facto abolition of these two states. Christian Danzigers and Christian Poles of German ethnicity were granted German citizenship, Jewish Danzigers, and Jewish Poles of which ethnicity so ever were denied the German citizenship. As to Christian Danzigers and Christian Poles of Polish ethnicity the acceptance as citizens was mostly denied, but under certain circumstances granted.

Extermination and expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews by Nazi Germany

Polish nationals rounded up during the ethnic cleansing of Gdynia, September 1939
Main articles:
Holocaust

Nazi German policy aimed at extermination of Jewish and Polish population. Mass-murder sites in the region include:

Nazi policy to exterminate the Polish and Jewish populations was conducted in several phases; the first stage occurred in September 1939.[9] The main Nazi responsible for genocide conducted in the Pomeranian Voivodeship was Gauleiter Albert Forster, who was involved in the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Jews and ethnic Poles and enlisted to his program, often under threat of violence, Polish citizens—descendants of Germanic settlers—whom the Nazis saw as Germans. Forster declared that Poles must be eradicated: "We must exterminate this nation, starting from the cradle."[10][11][12]

The Reichsgau was the site of the Stutthof concentration camp and its sub camps where over 85,000 people were executed or died of illness, starvation or mistreatment. Of the 52,000 Jews who were sent to the camp only around 3,000 would survive.[13]

During the Winter of 1939/40 between 12,000 and 16,000 people were

murdered at Piaśnica by Einsatzkommando 16, units of the 36th Regiment of SS, and members of the Selbstschutz, a militia force made up of Poles of German ethnicity. The local Selbstschutz, under the command of Ludolf von Alvensleben
, numbered 17,667 and before their disbandment in October 1939 had killed 4,247 people.

Commander of the Selbstschutz Ludolf von Alvensleben told his men on 16 October 1939:

You are now the master race here. Nothing was yet built up through softness and weakness... That’s why I expect, just as our Führer Adolf Hitler expects from you, that you are disciplined, but stand together hard as Krupp steel. Don’t be soft, be merciless, and clear out everything that is not German and could hinder us in the work of construction.[14]

Jews did not figure prominently among the victims in West Prussia, as the area's Jewish population was small and most had fled before the Germans arrived. However, in places where they were present, they were expelled and murdered in what was classified as "other measures" which simply meant murder.[15] In areas where Jewish families or individuals remained, a "shameful situation" was proclaimed, and Nazi authorities expected the Selbstschutz to remedy it through "direct action".[16] In August 1943 around 500 Jews from a camp in the Pomeranian Voivodeship were sent to Auschwitz, out of which 434 were immediately killed upon arrival [17]

It is estimated that, by war's end, up to 60,000 people had been murdered in the region,[18] and up to 170,000 expelled.[19] though other estimates place the figure at around 35,000.[20] Forster himself reported that, by February 1940, 87,000 people had been "evacuated" from the region.[21]

Counties (Regierungsbezirk) and districts (Kreis), 1944
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia on the map of the Second Polish Republic

Administration

Danzig-West Prussia was divided into three government regions (

Marienwerder.[4]

In 1939 the

Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen (the restored Prussian Province of West Prussia
) and was divided into nine districts (Kreise):

  • Kreis Berent
  • Danzig-Land (Rural)
  • Danzig-Stadt City
  • Dirschau
  • Elbing-Land (Rural)
  • Grosses Werder
  • Karthaus
  • Neustadt
  • Zoppot City County (detached from Neustadt)

Regierungsbezirk Danzig Governing Presidents/Regierungspräsidenten:

The

NSDAP gauleiter of Danzig, Albert Forster, became leader of Civil Administration in Danzig in 1939, as well as Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter
of the Reichsgau. He remained the most powerful politician throughout the war, until the area was overrun by the Soviet forces in March 1945.

The Wehrmacht established there the Wehrkreis XX, based at Danzig, under the command of

Post-war

In March 1945, the region was reclaimed by Poland, and the Nazi governor, Albert Forster, was later sentenced to death and executed for crimes against humanity. The German population (including wartime settlers, Nazis, and military officials) either fled or was expelled.

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 0-7656-0665-8
  2. ISBN 3-486-58206-2
  3. ^ "Erlaß des Führers und Reichskanzlers über die Gliederung und Verwaltung der Ostgebiete"
  4. ^
    ISBN 3-486-58206-2
  5. ISBN 978-1932970210
    .
  6. ISBN 978-1932970210
    .
  7. ISBN 3-412-04100-9
    .
  8. ^ Elżbieta Maria Grot, custodian of Stutthof State Museum, "Ludobójstwo w Piaśnicy jesienią 1939 r. ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem losu mieszkańców Gdyni" ("Mass Murder in Piaśnica in Autumn 1939, with Particular Reference to the Fates of Residents of Gdynia") [1]
  9. Pomorze: Stages of Extermination"), Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance
    ), 2004, no. 5.
  10. Auschwitz), Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek (published by the Sisters of Loreto
    ), 1 January 2003, p. 14.
  11. ^ "Szczególny niepokój wywołała wśród mieszkańców jego wyraźna zapowiedź akcji zagłady Polaków, streszcząjąca się choćby w tym jednym zdaniu: 'Musimy ten naród wytępić od kołyski począwszy.'" ("Particular concern was evoked among inhabitants by his clear declaration of his intent to exterminate Poles, summarized in his statement: 'We must exterminate this nation, starting from the cradle.'") Barbara Bojarska, Piaśnica, miejsce martyrologii i pamięci: z badań nad zbrodniami hilerowskimi na Pomorzu (Piaśnica, Place of Martyrdom and Remembrance: Investigations into Nazi Crimes in Pomorze), 1989, p. 20.
  12. Danzig Proconsul: Nazi Crimes in Gdańsk and East Prussia
    ), Gdańsk, POLNORD, 2002, p. 388.
  13. ^ Gilbert, M (2012), The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust, Routledge, p. 252.
  14. ISBN 978-0-14-192581-3
    .
  15. ^ The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy.. By Christopher R. Browning, page 34.
  16. ^ The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy.. By Christopher R. Browning, page 35.
  17. ^ Jewish Forced Labor Under the Nazis: Economic Needs and Racial Aims, 1938-1944. - Page 211. Wolf Gruner, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - 2006 - "On August 21, 1943, a transport with 500 Jews from the Pomeranian Autobahn camp pulled into Auschwitz. Only sixty-six men were selected for the camp; the rest were immediately murdered."
  18. ^ Paweł Kosiński, Barbara Polak, "Nie zamierzam podejmować żadnej polemiki – wywiad z prof. Witoldem Kuleszą" ("'I'm Not Getting into Any Polemics': An Interview with Prof. Witold Kulesza"), Biuletyn IPN (Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance), no. 12-1 (35-36), grudzień-styczeń (December–January) 2003-2004, pp. 4-23.
  19. Biuletyn IPN (Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance
    ), no. 5/2004 (maj [May] 2004).
  20. ^ Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989, p.27.
  21. ^ Browning, p. 33.
  22. ^ Axis History

Sources

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