"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (60 page)

After the liquidation of the ruling classes by the
Einsatzgruppen
of the SIPO or their transportation to concentration camps in fall 1939, key economic groups, criminals, and other undesirable individuals were resettled in the General Government, and those that remained were exploited as menial labor. For this reason, all “undesirable” Poles, such as the elderly, the sick, members of the propertied classes, and the intelligentsia were deported to the General Government on a massive scale.
⁵⁷
The elimination of freedom of movement and the alleged need for a complete “registration of all persons” were, of course, closely linked to this, because they opened up optimum possibilities of registration, surveillance, and control of all individuals involved, measures that every totalitarian regime dreams of, and were thus the indispensable condition or consequence of all resettlement measures.

VIII. Restrictions on Communication and Information Exchange among “Non-Germans” and the Confiscation of Cultural Goods.

Another consequence of the restrictions on the personal freedom of movement of the “non-Germans” was that almost all opportunities for communication were severed for the local population. This applied in the first instance to daily contacts, which were heavily restricted or even made impossible by the numerous curfews. It was compounded by the isolation from practically all information and news media.

The intensity of the special legislative measures differed in the various parts of the Annexed Eastern Territories, but it is certainly beyond doubt that all Jews were required to surrender radios and that early on in the occupation, radios were confiscated from Poles on a large scale to prevent their listening to Polish and foreign, in particular Allied, transmissions. Documents exist showing that “non-Germans” were required to register radios in upper Silesia, Danzig (Gda
sk)–West Prussia, and the Warthegau and that those belonging to Poles were normally subject to confiscation.
¹
More details are available for the Warthegau, where the head of the civil administration had issued a corresponding directive as early as October 2, 1939,
²
after the local authorities in Posen (Pozna
) had acted independently as soon as the city had been occupied.
³

The confiscation of the radios was usually implemented by a duty to surrender these devices but also in part by raids (“surprise house searches”).
⁴
Even before the Polish capitulation at the beginning of October 1939, however, the head of the civil administration in the office of the Posen military commandant and later
Reichsstatthalter
Greiser ordered the return of the radios because “it appears desirable to influence the Polish population … toward the Germans.” Only a few days later, however, Greiser had changed his mind. It can be assumed that the radios confiscated on the basis of Greiser’s original directive of October 2, 1939, and then returned were confiscated once again, as intended by Greiser;
⁵
an order of the day issued by the commander of the regular police in Posen shows that according to a directive by the Führer, all radios held by Poles and Jews were to be confiscated for good, including those previously registered but not confiscated.
⁶
This again was no temporary measure but expropriation, as the confiscated radios were released to the relevant agencies for distribution to
Volksgenossen
(
Volk
comrades).
⁷
Despite this, there must have been means to receive radio transmissions (in particular for those Poles working as ancillary labor in German offices or who had German landlords or tenants), as demonstrated by the complaints of administrative authorities or the harsh sentences passed by special courts against Poles for listening to foreign broadcasts.
⁸

There were also special legislative restrictions on postal and telegraph communications. Local authorities had issued arbitrary prohibitions during the first weeks of the occupation (no handling of mail written in Polish),
⁹
but regulations issued by central authorities—at least in the Warthegau—are documented only from 1942 on. For instance, Poles were generally forbidden to send telegrams, with exemptions only with special police permission in “urgent cases” (deaths and severe illness).
¹⁰
Telegraph services were completely banned for Poles after April 1943; the reasons stated for “urgent cases” were no longer recognized.
¹¹
Only Polish physicians providing medical care to the German population were exempt.
¹²
Shortly before, Poles in the Warthegau had also been prohibited from using public telephones, and even if they were allowed to telephone in exceptional cases with special permission, they were required to speak in German when they made the call.
¹³
However, even the
Reichsstatthalter
opposed the total telephone ban desired by radicals: because of the large number of Polish auxiliary personnel in the administration and the economy, this would be impossible, so exceptions must be permitted for urgent official or economic reasons;
¹⁴
more far-reaching restrictions than those measures already decreed were impossible because of the lack of sufficient surveillance facilities.
¹⁵
The receipt of mail was also restricted or monitored. As in the Reich territory, all mail to and from Poles was subject to censorship or confiscation by the Gestapo.
¹⁶
On the basis of a secret decree of the Reich Security Main Office of February 22, 1943, all packets and parcels from Portugal and Sweden addressed to Poles in the Reich and the General Government were confiscated, because the “headquarters of the Polish resistance movement” were located in these countries.
¹⁷

The special legislative treatment of “non-Germans” also included the restriction and confiscation of everyday goods relating to one’s quality of life and important for relaxation and leisure activities. There could, of course, be no further talk of continued “permitted retention” of these goods by Poles and Jews, to whom the function of mere slave laborers had now been accorded.

Available source documentation does not permit any consistent analysis of the individual procedures applied in the Annexed Eastern Territories, but there is evidence for the Wartheland that possession of such goods was regarded as completely superfluous for Poles (for Jews this was, of course, self-evident), even dangerous, and therefore prohibited. Apart from the general duty of surrender of certain goods important to the war effort,
¹⁸
the purchase by Poles of record players and accessories had been prohibited since 1941 in the Posen administrative district,
¹⁹
and probably in the other two administrative districts as well, and possession of phonographs and Polish records was generally prohibited for all. Such devices were confiscated and were supposed to be surrendered to the local police authorities.
²⁰
In addition, all “Poles, enemy aliens, and stateless persons” (including Jews) were prohibited from possessing cameras and binoculars, which were also to be surrendered.
²¹
Such regulations were also in force in the Kattowitz (Katowice) administrative district from early 1942, which also banned all sales of film, cameras, and binoculars to Poles.
²²
Overzealous authorities in the Wartheland also wanted to confiscate furs from the Poles during the Winter Relief Fund (
Winterhilfswerk
) collections for the Wehrmacht, in the same way that Germans had to surrender their furs; however, the
Reichsstatthalter
had made no generally binding decision in this matter because he feared that it would cause unrest among the Polish population, leaving it to the “tact and sensitivity,” the “prudent discretion” of the
Landräte
to decide “which Polish furs they … believed they could take.”
²³

IX. Food Supply

The deprivation of all means of communication and cultural goods would have been bearable in terms of sheer survival, but special legislative treatment of “non-Germans” ultimately assaulted the very basis of existence, the area of provisions and nutrition, where the parallels with anti-Jewish laws again cannot be ignored. In the Annexed Eastern Territories, the intensity of the implementation of these measures differed somewhat, as both the political and economic conditions and the political line adopted by the local administrative bosses (
Landräte
and district presidents) varied considerably. However, a fundamental feature was that Poles and Jews were almost invariably worse off than Germans; furthermore, “borrowings” from the special anti-Jewish legislation in the Altreich are evident. For instance, the segregation of shopping by Germans and Jews was strictly enforced, and food allowances for Jews were heavily reduced. A police regulation dated November 23, 1940, has survived from the Kattowitz (Katowice) administration district
¹
(it was subsequently replaced by an identically worded police regulation dated December 20, 1942),
²
under which Jews were not permitted to make purchases at German and Polish retailers but only in specially marked Jewish shops, which were in turn prohibited for other “non-Germans.”

Of course efforts were also made to segregate the Poles. One of the key principles was that—as in all other areas—the Germans, as the ruling class, were to receive preferential service; specially marked German shops were established, to which only Germans enjoyed access.

In particular in the Warthegau (or Wartheland), numerous regulations concerning shopping and opening hours for Poles were issued. In Posen (pozna
), for instance, special opening hours in shops and markets were established at the beginning of 1940 for Poles and Germans, and these were strictly enforced by the police;
³
the corresponding regulations allocated the most inconvenient times to the “non-Germans” (after 10:00 A.M. in the summer; after 11:00 A.M. or in the afternoon in the winter) and the best shopping hours (early morning) to the Germans; this was of crucial importance when shopping for scarce goods
(Mangelwaren).
⁴
During the shopping hours for Germans, Poles were even prohibited from entering the grocery stores, butchers’ shops, and weekly markets under a Posen police decree dated November 8, 1940.
⁵
Because of the differing situation in the individual districts of the city of Posen (population density, population mix, customers, etc.), however, these regulations were “treated flexibly” from shop to shop, as long as the fundamental principle of the regulation—preferential service for German customers—was observed.
⁶