The ''Intelligenzaktion'' (), or the Intelligentsia mass shootings, was a series of

mass murder Mass murder is the violent crime of murder, killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more ...

s committed against the Polish

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

(teachers, priests, physicians, and other prominent members of Polish society) during the early years of the Second World War (1939–45) by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. The Germans conducted the operations in accordance with their plan to Germanize the western regions of

occupied Poland ' (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV 2 (Norway), TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. ...

, before their territorial annexation to the

German Reich German ''Reich'' (, from ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German ''Volk'' ("na ...

. The mass murder operations of the ''Intelligenzaktion'' resulted in the killing of 100,000 Polish people; by way of

forced disappearance An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a State (polity), state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the i ...

, the Germans imprisoned and killed select members of Polish society, identified as enemies of the Reich before the war; they were buried in mass graves which were dug in remote places. To facilitate the depopulation of occupied Poland, the Germans terrorised the general populace by carrying out public, summary executions of select intellectuals and community leaders, before they effected the expulsion of the general population from occupied Poland. The executioners of the ''

Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...

'' death squads and members of the local ''

Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz The ''Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz'' was an Selbstschutz, ethnic-German self-protection militia, a paramilitary organization comprising ethnic Germans (''Volksdeutsche'') mobilized from among the German minority in Poland. The ''Volksdeutsche ...

'', the German-minority militia, justified their actions by falsely stating that the purpose of their police-work was to remove politically dangerous people from Polish society. The ''Intelligenzaktion'' was a major step towards the implementation of '' Sonderaktion Tannenberg'' (Special Operation Tannenberg), the installation of Nazi policemen and functionaries — from the SiPo (composed of Kripo and

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

members), and members of the SD — to manage the occupation and facilitate the realization of '' Generalplan Ost'', the German colonization of Poland.Prof. Dietrich Eichholtz (2004)
»Generalplan Ost« zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker.
PDF file, direct download 74.5 KB. Among the 100,000 people who were killed in the ''Intelligenzaktion'' operations, approximately 61,000 of them were members of the Polish intelligenzia, people who the Germans considered political targets according to the Special Prosecution Book-Poland, a book which was compiled before the war began in September 1939.Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski
Holocaust of Non-Jewish Poles During WWII.
Polish American Congress, Washington. The ''Intelligenzaktion'' occurred soon after the German invasion of Poland (1 September 1939), and lasted from the autumn of 1939 until the spring of 1940; the mass murder of the Polish intellectuals continued with the operations of the AB-Aktion.Tadeusz Piotrowski,
Poland's Holocaust: ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947
', McFarland, 1998, p. 25.

Purpose

Adolf Hitler ordered the murder of the

and the social élites of Poland to prevent them from organising the Poles against their German masters, and thwart the occupation and colonisation of the country; the mass murder was to occur before the annexation of Poland to the Greater Germanic Reich:International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg,
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
', Office of the United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Nuremberg 1946

Nazi racialism considered the Polish élites as being most likely of German blood, because their style of dynamic leadership contrasted positively against the “Slavonic fatalism” of the Russian people;Richard C. Lukas,
Did the Children Cry? Hitler's War against Jewish and Polish Children
', 1939-1945. Hippocrene Books, New York, 2001. nonetheless, the extermination of such national leaders was necessary, because their patriotism (moral authority) would prevent the full-scale

Germanization 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 nati ...

of the enslaved populace of Poland.Northwestern University
Hitlers Plans for Eastern Europe
www.dac.neu.edu 2012. Moreover, by way of the ''Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP'' ( Nazi Party Office of Racial Policy), the racially valuable (Aryan-looking) children of the Polish intelligentsia were to be kidnapped to the Reich proper, for Germanization; Nazi ideology claimed that such non-Slavic acculturation would prevent the generational resurgence of the Polish intelligentsia, and thus prevent the resurgence of Polish nationalism in Germanised Poland.

Method

Upon controlling Poland, the Germans arrested, imprisoned, and killed approximately 61,000 people as enemies of the German Reich, all of whom were identified as the intelligentsia of each city, town, and village. Each man and woman was biographically listed in the '' Special Prosecution Book-Poland'' (''Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen''), which German citizens of Poland loyal to the Nazi party in the German Reich compiled before the war for the German police and security forces of the SiPo (Security Police) and the SD (Security Service). The ''Einsatzgruppen'' and the ''

'', the Ethnic Self-defence militia of the German minority in Poland, were to kill the intelligentsia identified in the Special Prosecution Book–Poland. Aware they would be killing unarmed civilians, the commanders of the paramilitary militias strengthened morale with ideological and racialist instructions to the soldier–policemen, that their political role in the

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

of Poland (executions,

counterinsurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN, or NATO spelling counter-insurgency) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the ac ...

, policing) would be more difficult than fighting in battle against soldiers; as noted by

Martin Bormann Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, and a war criminal. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler ...

, in a meeting (2 October 1940) between Hitler and Hans Frank: As part of '' Generalplan Ost'', the political purpose of the ''Intelligenzaktion'' was extermination of the élites of Polish society, which the Nazis broadly defined as the ''

Szlachta The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...

'' (Polish nobles), the intelligentsia, teachers, social workers, judges, military veterans, priests and businessmen; any Polish man and woman who had attended secondary school, and so could provide nationalist leadership to resist the German occupation of Poland.

Regional operations

# '' Intelligenzaktion Pommern'', a regional mass murder operation in the

Pomeranian Voivodeship Pomeranian Voivodeship ( ; ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship, or province, in northwestern Poland. The provincial capital is Gdańsk. The voivodeship was established on January 1, 1999, out of the former voivodeships of Gdańsk Voivo ...

; 23,000 Poles were arrested, imprisoned, and killed soon after identification and arrest. To terrorise the general populace, the Germans then selected prominent citizens, from the arrested people, and publicly executed them, leaving the corpses on display, as formal warning against resistance to German occupation. # ''Intelligenzaktion Posen'', the mass murder of 2,000 victims from

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

. # ''Intelligenzaktion Masovien'', regional mass murder in the

Masovian Voivodeship Masovian Voivodeship or Mazowieckie Province (, ) and any variation thereof, is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, containing Poland's capital Warsaw. Masovian Voivodeship has an area of and had a 2019 po ...

, 1939–40, 6,700 people killed, from Ostrołęka, Wyszków, Ciechanów,

Wysokie Mazowieckie Wysokie Mazowieckie (; ) is a town in north-eastern Poland, in Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Wysokie Mazowieckie County. Population is 10,034 . History Wysokie was founded by Polish people, Polish settlers from nearby Mazovia in t ...

, and Giełczyn, near

Łomża Łomża () is a city in north-eastern Poland, approximately to the north-east of Warsaw and west of Białystok. It is situated alongside the Narew river as part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Łomża County and has been the se ...

. # ''Intelligenzaktion Schlesien'', regional mass murder in the

Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship ( ) is an administrative province in southern Poland. With over 4.2 million residents and an area of 12,300 square kilometers, it is the second-most populous, and the most-densely populated and most-urbanized region of Poland ...

in 1940; 2,000 Poles killed. # ''Intelligenzaktion Litzmannstadt'', regional mass murder in

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

, 1939; 1,500 people killed. # ''

Sonderaktion Krakau ''Sonderaktion Krakau'' was a German operation against professors and academics of the Jagiellonian University and other universities in German-occupied Kraków, Poland, at the beginning of World War II. It was carried out as part of the much bro ...

'', mass arrest of intelligentsia, 183 professors from

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

, whom the Germans deported to

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

. # ''Zweite Sonderaktion Krakau'' # ''Sonderaktion Tschenstochau'' in

Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...

# ''Sonderaktion Lublin'', regional mass murder in

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

; 2,000 people killed, most were priests of the Roman Catholic Church. # ''Sonderaktion Bürgerbräukeller'' in the

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland. The province is named after its capital and largest city, Łódź, pronounced . Łódź Voivodeship is bordered by six other voivodeships: Masovian Voivodeship ...

# ''Professorenmord'', mass murder of the intelligentsia in the Stanisławów, the Kresy region, Czarny Las Massacre; 250–300 Polish academics killed.

Notes

References

* * * * Maria Wardzyńska, ''"Intelligenzaktion" na Warmii, Mazurach oraz Północnym Mazowszu''. Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu. Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr. 12/1, 2003/2004, ss. 38-42
ceeol.com
*

External links

*Elżbieta Grot, ''Ludobójstwo w Piaśnicy z uwzględnieniem losów mieszkańców powiatu wejherowskiego'' ("Genocide in Piaśnica with a discussion of the fate of the inhabitants of Wejherow county"), Public Library of Wejherowo

*Tadeusz Piotrowski, ''Poland's holocaust: ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947'', McFarland, 1998, p. 25

, Encyklopedia WIEM
''Intelligenzaktion''
Encyklopedia PWN
Testimonies concerning genocide of Polish elites during WWII in 'Chronicles of Terror' collection
{{Einsatzgruppen Nazi war crimes in Poland 1939 in Poland 1940 in Poland Germany–Poland relations Germanization Persecution by Nazi Germany Persecution of Poles Persecution of Jews Generalplan Ost Anti-Polish sentiment Anti-Slavic sentiment