The Expulsion of Poles by Germany was a prolonged
anti-Polish campaign of
ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
by violent and terror-inspiring means lasting nearly half a century. It began with the concept of
Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
developed in the early 19th century and culminated in the
racial policy of Nazi Germany
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
that asserted the superiority of the
Aryan race
The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...
. The removal of Poles by Germany stemmed from historic ideas of
expansionist nationalism. It was implemented at different levels and different stages by successive German governments. It ended with the
defeat of Nazi Germany
The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf H ...
in 1945.
Polska Akademia Nauk
The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...
(Polish Academy of Sciences), ''Historia Polski'', Vol. III 1850/1864-1918, Part 2 1850/1864-1900, edited by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
1967.
The
partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
had ended the existence of a sovereign Polish state in the 18th century. With the rise of
German nationalism
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one na ...
in mid 19th century,
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
faced
increasing discrimination on formerly Polish lands. The first mass
deportation of 30,000 Poles from territories controlled by the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
took place in 1885. While the ideas of expelling Poles can be found in German political discourse of the 19th century, these ideas matured into nascent plans advocated by German politicians during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, which called for the removal of the Polish population from Polish territories first annexed by the Russian Empire during partitions and then by Germany.
[Imannuel Geiss, ''Der polnische Grenzstreifen 1914-1918. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Kriegszielpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg'', Hamburg/Lübeck 1960] Before and after the 1939
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
exploited these ideas when creating their
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imperi ...
concept of territorial aggression.
Large-scale expulsions of Poles occurred during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
when Nazi Germany started the
Generalplan Ost
The ''Generalplan Ost'' (; en, Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was the Nazi German government's plan for the genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale, and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe by Germans. It was to be un ...
campaign of ethnic cleansing in all Polish areas occupied by, and
formally annexed to Nazi Germany. Although the Nazis were not able to fully implement Generalplan Ost due to the war's turn, up to 2 million Poles were affected by wartime expulsions with additional millions displaced or murdered.
Background
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
had constituted one of the largest minorities in the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
since its creation in 1871. This was a result of the earlier acquisitions made by
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
, the
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
that initiated the
Unification of Germany
The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federalism, federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with ad ...
. The Electorate of Brandenburg (later Kingdom of Prussia), with its capital in Berlin after 1451, acquired historic lands with significant Polish population in a series of military operations,
and, in the second half of the 18th century, had seized western territories of
the Polish Kingdom by taking part in the
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
and the
Silesian Wars
The Silesian Wars (german: Schlesische Kriege, links=no) were three wars fought in the mid-18th century between Prussia (under King Frederick the Great) and Habsburg Austria (under Archduchess Maria Theresa) for control of the Central European ...
with
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
.
![Plaque commemorating the expulsion of Gdynia citizens during the German war occupation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Plaque_commemorating_the_expulsion_of_Gdynia_citizens_during_the_German_war_occupation.jpg)
The idea of
pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
, demanding the unification of all Germans in one state, including the German diaspora east of the imperial border, grew out of
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...
. Some pan-Germanists believed that Germans were ethnically superior to other peoples — including
Slavs
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
, whom they viewed as inferior to the German "race" and culture. The
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
concept of ''
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imperi ...
'' in turn demanded "living space" for German people, claiming overpopulation of Germany and alleged negative traits of heavy urbanisation in contrast to agricultural settlement. The desired territories were to be taken particularly from Poland. Both pan-Germanism and ''Lebensraum'' theory viewed Poles as an obstacle to German hegemony and prosperity as well as future expansion of the German state.
German Empire
In the territories annexed during the Partitions of Poland, German authorities sought to limit the number of ethnic Poles by their forced
Germanisation
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, German people, people and German culture, culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationa ...
and by a new wave of
settlement by German colonists at their expense.
Beginning with the
Kulturkampf
(, 'culture struggle') was the conflict that took place from 1872 to 1878 between the Catholic Church led by Pope Pius IX and the government of Prussia led by Otto von Bismarck. The main issues were clerical control of education and ecclesiastic ...
, laws were enacted to restrict Polish culture, religion, language, and rights to property. Bismarck initiated the
Prussian deportations
The Prussian deportations, also known as the Prussian expulsions of Poles ( pl, rugi pruskie, german: Polenausweisungen), were the mass expulsions of Poles from the German-controlled Prussia between 1885 and 1890. More than 30,000 Poles from Aus ...
of 1885–1890, which affected some 30,000 Poles and
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
living in Germany who did not have German citizenship. This is described by E.J. Feuchtwanger as one of the precedents to modern policies of
ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
.
[E.J. Feuchtwanger, "Bismarck", Routledge 2002] In 1887
Bernhard von Bülow
Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (german: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of t ...
, the future
Chancellor of the German Empire
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the G ...
, advocated expelling Poles by force from territories which were Polish-inhabited and slated to become part of Germany.
[Herbert Arthur Strauss, "Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism 1870-1933-39 Germany - Great Britain-France", Walter de Gruyter 1993]
In 1908, Germany legalized the eviction of Poles from their properties under pressure from pan-
German nationalist
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one nat ...
groups who hoped this law would be used to reduce the number of Poles in the East.
World War I
In August 1914 the German imperial army
bombed and burned down the city of
Kalisz
(The oldest city of Poland)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town
, image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg ...
, chasing out tens of thousands of its Polish citizens. However, during World War I, Germany had a frantic need for extra manpower in the East and hoped to tap into the reservoir of military volunteers among the Poles by making promises of a future independent Polish state. This initiative (led by Bethmann) failed, producing only "a dribble of volunteers" in 1916, but it was a commitment very hard to retract. There were numerous mistakes made, such as the
Oath Crisis
The Oath crisis ( pl, Kryzys przysięgowy) was a World War I political conflict between the Imperial German Army command and the Józef Piłsudski-led Polish Legions.
Initially supporting the Central Powers against Imperial Russia, Piłsudski ...
, caused by poor wording of the oath of the Polish soldiers, which caused consternation among many Polish volunteers. In general, opinions of the German occupiers were mixed, between those who hoped that the Germans would set up a new Polish state, and those who feared German domination. In any case, successful attacks by the Russian army, such as the 'Brusilov offensive', forced Germany to consider a quasi independent buffer state between the two empires, hopefully set up only in the former Russian Poland and linked to Germany by its own military means.
[ ''Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy'' By David Stevenson. Page 108](_blank)
Accessed 14 March 2011. The idea of reconstituting Congress Poland for the Poles after the war, was a cynical ploy which stemmed from a desire to push Russia's frontiers further East with the least amount of German effort.
[ ''Germany and Eastern Europe'' edited by Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles, Walter Pape. Page 28](_blank)
Accessed 14 March 2011. In reality, Germany planned to annex about 30,000 km
2 from former
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
for German colonisation.
Most of the Polish population of those territories (about 2,000,000 people) was to be expelled into a small Polish puppet state.
The remaining population was to be used as agricultural labour for new German colonists.
World War II
![Bundesarchiv R 49 Bild-0137, Polen, Wartheland, Aussiedlung von Polen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Bundesarchiv_R_49_Bild-0137%2C_Polen%2C_Wartheland%2C_Aussiedlung_von_Polen.jpg)
With the occupation of Poland following the German invasion of the country, Nazi policies were enacted upon its Polish population on an unprecedented scale. According to Nazi ideology Poles, as
Untermenschen
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
, were seen as fit only for
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and for further elimination in order to make room for the Germans.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
had plans for extensive colonisation of territories in the east of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. Poland, itself, would – according to well documented German plans – have been cleared of Polish people altogether, as 20 million or so would have been expelled eventually. Up to 3 or 4 million Polish citizens (all peasants) believed to be descendants of German colonists and migrants and therefore considered "racially valuable" would be Germanised and dispersed among the German population.
[Janusz Gumkowski and Kazimierz Leszczynski]
"Hitler's War; Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe"
1961, (in) ''Poland under Nazi Occupation'', Polonia Publishing House, Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, pp. 7-33, 164-178. Nazi leadership hoped that through expulsions to
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
,
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
, mass
executions
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, and slave labour of any survivors, the Polish nation would be eventually completely destroyed.
[Wojciech Roszkowski, Historia Polski 1914–1997, Warsaw 1998]
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
expulsions took place within two specific territories: one area annexed to Reich in 1939 and 1941, and another, the
General Government
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...
, precursor to further expansion of German administrative settlement area. Eventually, as
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
explained in March 1941, the General Government would be cleared of Poles, the region would be turned into a "purely German area" within 15–20 years and in place of 15 million Poles, 4–5 million Germans would live there, and the area would become "as German as the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
.
Expulsions from Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany
The Nazi plan to ethnically cleanse the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II, was called the
Generalplan Ost
The ''Generalplan Ost'' (; en, Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was the Nazi German government's plan for the genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale, and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe by Germans. It was to be un ...
(GPO).
Germanisation
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, German people, people and German culture, culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationa ...
began with the classification of people suitable as defined on the Nazi
Volksliste
The Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List), a Nazi Party institution, aimed to classify inhabitants of Nazi-occupied territories (1939-1945) into categories of desirability according to criteria systematised by ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich H ...
. About 1.7 million Poles were deemed Germanizable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who were taken from their parents. For the rest, expulsion was carried out.
These expulsions were carried out so abruptly that ethnic Germans being resettled there were given homes with half-eaten meals on tables and unmade beds where small children had been sleeping at the time of expulsion.
Lynn H. Nicholas
Lynn H. Nicholas is the author of '' The Rape of Europa'', an account of Nazi plunder of looted art treasures from occupied countries. Her honors and awards include the Légion d'Honneur by France, Amicus Poloniae by Poland, and the National Book ...
, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 213-4 Members of
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
and the
League of German Girls
The League of German Girls or the Band of German Maidens (german: Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany. ...
were assigned the task of overseeing such evictions to ensure that the Poles left behind most of their belongings for the use of the settlers.
[Walter S. Zapotoczny,]
Rulers of the World: The Hitler Youth
According to
Czesław Łuczak
Czesław Łuczak (born 19 February 1922 in Kruszwica – 10 August 2002 in Poznań) was a Polish historian focusing on World War II. He served as Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań from 1965 to 1972; and, from 1969 to 1981 and from ...
, Germans expelled the following numbers of Poles from territories annexed to the Reich in the period of 1939–1944:
![Nakaz wysiedlenia z Sosnowca 1942](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Nakaz_wysiedlenia_z_Sosnowca_1942.JPG)
Combined with "wild expulsions", in four years 923,000 Poles were ethnically cleansed from territories Germany annexed into the Reich.
[Zygmunt Mańkowski; Tadeusz Pieronek; ]Andrzej Friszke
Andrzej Friszke (born 29 August 1956 in Olsztyn) is a Polish historian and lecturer. He specializes in the history of communist Poland and the democratic opposition to the communist regime.
Friszke graduated in 1979 from the Department of Histor ...
; Thomas Urban (panel discussion), "Polacy wypędzeni", Biuletyn IPN, nr5 (40) May 2004 / Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
(Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej), issue: 05 /
2004, pages: 628
Expulsions from General Government
Within the territories of the German protectorate called General Government there were two main areas of expulsions committed by the German state. The protectorate itself was seen as temporary measure, and served as a
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
for Poles to perform hard labour furthering German industry and war effort. Eventually it was to be cleared of Poles also.
Zamość
Some 116,000 Poles were expelled from the
Zamość
Zamość (; yi, זאמאשטש, Zamoshtsh; la, Zamoscia) is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021.
...
region as part of Nazi plans for establishment of German colonies in the conquered territories. Zamość itself was to be renamed Himmlerstadt, later changed to Pflugstadt (Plough City), which was to symbolise the German "Plow" that was to "plough" the East. Additionally, almost 30,000 children were kidnapped by German authorities from their parents for potential Germanisation.
This led to massive resistance (see
Zamość Uprising
The Zamość uprising comprised World War II partisan operations, 1942–1944, by the Polish resistance (primarily the Home Army and Peasant Battalions) against Germany's '' Generalplan-Ost'' forced expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region ...
).
Warsaw
In October 1940, 115,000 Poles were expelled from their homes in central Warsaw to make room for the Jewish Ghetto, constructed there by German authorities. (Jews were then expelled from their homes elsewhere and forced to move into the Ghetto.) When the
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occ ...
failed, 500,000 people were expelled from the city alone as punishment by German authorities.
Demographic estimates
It is estimated that between 1.6 and 2 million people
["Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era"](_blank)
at US Holocaust Memorial Museum were expelled from their homes during the German occupation of Poland. The Nazi German organized expulsions—by themselves—affected 1,710,000 Poles directly.
New estimates by Polish historians give the number of 2.478 million people expelled.
[Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2004, pages 811-812 (volume 8), s. 709 (volume 6). .] Additionally, 2.5 to 3 million Poles were taken from Poland to Germany as slave labourers to support the Nazi war effort.
These numbers do not include people arrested by the Germans and sent to Nazi concentration camps.
In many instances, Poles were given between 15 minutes and 1 hour to collect their personal belongings (usually no more than 15 kilograms per person) before they were removed from their homes and transported east (''see:
deportations
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...
'') On top of that about 5 million Poles were sent to
German labor and concentration camps.
A total of about 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war, of which approximately half were Jews or of Jewish descent.
[ Poland's World War II casualties.](_blank)
/ref>["Holocaust: Five Million Forgotten: Non Jewish Victims of the Shoah,"](_blank)
see also: ''The Forgotten Holocaust'', by Richard C. Lukas, University Press of Kentucky; and ''The Jews and the Poles in World War II'' by Stefan Korbonski, Hippocrene Books. All these actions resulted in significant changes in Polish demographics at the end of the war.
See also
*Drang nach Osten
(; 'Drive to the East',Ulrich Best''Transgression as a Rule: German–Polish cross-border cooperation, border discourse and EU-enlargement'' 2008, p. 58, , Edmund Jan Osmańczyk, Anthony Mango, ''Encyclopedia of the United Nations and Interna ...
(''Drive towards the East'')
*Expulsion of Germans after World War II
Expulsion or expelled may refer to:
General
* Deportation
* Ejection (sports)
* Eviction
* Exile
* Expeller pressing
* Expulsion (education)
* Expulsion from the United States Congress
* Extradition
* Forced migration
* Ostracism
* Person ...
*Generalplan Ost
The ''Generalplan Ost'' (; en, Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was the Nazi German government's plan for the genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale, and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe by Germans. It was to be un ...
, Hitler's "new order of ethnographical relations"
*Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imperi ...
(''Living space''), the primary political concept used by the Nazis to "justify" the conquest of territory in Poland and Eastern Europe
*Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation o ...
*Pacification operations in German-occupied Poland
The pacification actions in German-occupied Poland during World War II were one of many punitive measures designed to inflict terror on the civilian population of local villages and towns with the use of military and police force. They were an int ...
*Prussian deportations
The Prussian deportations, also known as the Prussian expulsions of Poles ( pl, rugi pruskie, german: Polenausweisungen), were the mass expulsions of Poles from the German-controlled Prussia between 1885 and 1890. More than 30,000 Poles from Aus ...
of Poles and Jews in 1885-1890
*Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946) Repatriation of Poles can refer to:
* Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946)
* Repatriation of Poles (1955–1959)
See also
* Expulsion of Poles (disambiguation)
{{Disambiguation ...
*World War II evacuation and expulsion
Mass evacuation, forced displacement, expulsion, and deportation of millions of people took place across most countries involved in World War II. A number of these phenomena were categorised as violations of fundamental human values and norms by ...
*Chronicles of Terror
Chronicles of Terror is a digital internet archive established by the in August 2016. Initially, it provided access to the depositions of Polish citizens who after World War II were interviewed as witnesses before the Main Commission for the Inve ...
Notes and references
Bibliography
# Maria Rutowska, "Wysiedlenia ludności polskiej z Kraju Warty do Generalnego Gubernatorstwa 1939-1941" Instytut Zachodni, Poznań 2003,
# Czesław Łuczak
Czesław Łuczak (born 19 February 1922 in Kruszwica – 10 August 2002 in Poznań) was a Polish historian focusing on World War II. He served as Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań from 1965 to 1972; and, from 1969 to 1981 and from ...
, ''Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce'', Wyd. Poznańskie, Poznań 1979 {{ISBN, 83-210-0010-X
# Czesław Łuczak, ''"Położenie ludności polskiej w Kraju Warty 1939 - 1945"'', Wydawnictwo Poznańskie 1987
# Czesław Madajczyk
Czesław Madajczyk (27 May 1921 – 15 February 2008) was a Polish historian. His studies on the German occupation of Europe after 1938, and in particular on the occupation of Poland and on World War II Polish culture, are considered particularl ...
, ''Generalny Plan Wschodni: Zbiór dokumentów'', Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, 1990
# Czesław Madajczyk, ''Generalna Gubernia w planach hitlerowskich. Studia'', PWN
Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance. ...
, Warsaw. 1961
# Czesław Madajczyk, ''Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce'', Warsaw, 1970
# Andrzej Leszek Szcześniak, ''Plan Zagłady Słowian. Generalplan Ost'', Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne, Radom, 2001
# Piotr Szubarczyk (IPN Gdańsk), ''"Umacnianie niemczyzny" na polskim Pomorzu'', Nasz Dziennik, 03.09.2009
# L. Chrzanowski, "Wypędzenia z Pomorza," Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej”, 2004, nr 5 (40), ss. 34 – 48.
# W. Jastrzębski, ''Potulice. Hitlerowski obóz przesiedleńczy i pracy,'' Bydgoszcz 1967.
External links
Testimonies concerning expulsions of Poles during WWII in 'Chronicles of Terror' collection
Ethnic cleansing in Europe
Forced migrations in Europe
Germany–Poland relations
Nazi war crimes in Poland
Persecution by Nazi Germany
Expulsion of Poles
Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe