Reichsgau Wartheland

Reichsgau Wartheland Warthegau
Reichsgau of Nazi Germany
1939–1945
Flag Coat of arms
Gaue and Reichsgaue) with Warthegau area (bright yellow, right). Reichsgau Wartheland (burgundy) on the map of occupied Poland
Capital	Posen
Government
Gauleiter
• 1939–1945	Arthur Greiser
History
• Establishment	8 October 1939
• Disestablishment	1 August 1945
Preceded by Succeeded by Second Polish Republic Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland
Today part of	Poland

The Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen, also Warthegau) was a

During the Partitions of Poland from 1793, the bulk of the area had been annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia until 1807 as South Prussia. From 1815 to 1849, the territory was within the autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen, which was the Province of Posen until Poland was re-established in 1918–1919 following World War I. The area is currently the Greater Poland Voivodeship.

Invasion and occupation of Poland

After the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland in September 1939, the German Reich occupied the whole of the Greater Poland area - the erstwhile Polish Poznań Voivodeship - and split the territory between four Reichsgaue and the General Government area (further east). The Militärbezirk Posen was created in September 1939; in accordance with a decree of 8 October 1939, Germany annexed it on 26 October 1939 as the Reichsgau Posen.^[1]

.

The territory of the Reichsgau was inhabited predominantly by ethnic Poles, by Germans (a minority of 16.7% in 1921), and by Polish Jews. Most of the Jewish residents were eventually imprisoned at the Łódź Ghetto (officially established in December 1939) and exterminated at Chełmno extermination camp (German: Vernichtungslager Kulmhof, operational from December 1941 onwards).^[3]

Characteristics

The Gauleiter and

Polish territories annexed by Germany

at about the same time. Both Poles and Jews had their property confiscated.^[9]

By the end of 1940, some 325,000 Poles and Jews from the Wartheland and the

gas vans, at first spasmodically and experimentally.^[11] Reichsgau Wartheland had the population: 4,693,700 by 1941. Greiser wrote in November 1942: "I myself do not believe that the Führer needs to be asked again in this matter, especially since at our last discussion with regard to the Jews he told me that I could proceed with these according to my own judgement."^[12]

End of war

By 1945 nearly half a million Germanic

areas annexed by Germany while the Soviet forces began to push the retreating German forces back through the Polish lands. Most German residents along with over a million colonists fled westward. Some did not, due to restrictions by Germany's own government and the quickly advancing Red Army. An estimated 50,000 refugees died from the severe winter conditions, others as war atrocities committed by the Soviet military.^{[citation needed]} The remaining ethnically German population was expelled to new Germany after the war ended.^[14]

See also

• History of Poland (1939–1945)
• World War II atrocities in Poland
• Special Prosecution Book-Poland
• Intelligenzaktion
• Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz

Notes

1. ^ Neuburger, Otto (1944) [1943]. "Gazettes of the Länder and Reichsgaue". Official Publications of Present-day Germany: Government, Corporate Organizations and National Socialist Party, with an Outline of the Governmental Structure of Germany. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 82. Retrieved 5 April 2024. Reincorporated into Germany on October 26, 1939 as Reichsgau Posen by decree of October 8, 1939 (RGBl,I, p 2041).
2. ISBN 978-1-932970-21-0
   .
3. RSHA
   .
4. ISBN 978-0-14-190959-2
   .
5. ^ "Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
6. ISBN 0-679-77663-X
   .
7. ^ "Special treatment" (Sonderbehandlung)". The Holocaust History Project. Archived from the original on 2013-05-28.
8. Polish Government in Exile
   ."
9. ^ Agency for the East that oversaw the registration, administration and eventual sale of all property confiscated from Poles and Jews (virtually all Polish and Jewish property was confiscated)Heimat, Region, and Empire: Spatial Identities under National Socialism Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann, Maiken Umbach
10. ISBN 0-679-77663-X
    .
11. ^ Max Hastings, "The Most Evil Emperor," NYRB October 23, 2008, p. 48.
12. ^ Ian Kershaw, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution (Yale University Press, 2008), p. 75.
13. ISBN 978-0-300-18376-4
    . In a keynote address to the Reichstag to mark the end of the 'Polish campaign', on October 6, 1939, Hitler announced the Heim ins Reich (Back to the Reich) program. The prospect of being uprooted from their homes to face an uncertain future not even in Germany proper, but in the considerably less salubrious environment of western Poland, was greeted with a deep sense of betrayal.
14. ISBN 0674784057
    .

Sources

• Shoa.de - List of Gaue and Gauleiter (in German)
• Die NS Gaue at the
  Deutsches Historisches Museum
  website (in German)
• Die Gaue der NSDAP (in German)

Further reading

• Huener, Jonathan (
  S2CID 145194931. - DOI 10.1017/S0008938914000648
  , online publication on 15 May 2014

52°24′00″N 16°55′00″E / 52.400000°N 16.916667°E / 52.400000; 16.916667