Heim ins Reich

Heim ins Reich (German pronunciation:; meaning "back home to the Reich") was an irredentist foreign policy pursued by Nazi Germany from October 1936.

The aim of Hitler's initiative was to convince all Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) who were living outside Nazi Germany (e.g. in Austria, Czechoslovakia, the western districts of Poland) and oversea lands of immigration (Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf, and Smith, Arthur L.: The Nazi Party and the German Foreign Office, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, New York, 2007, pp.44-45; Vagts, Alfred.: Deutsch-amerikanische Rückwanderung: Probleme, Paänomene, Statistik, Politik, Soziologie, Biographie. Heidelberg 1960, pp.29-30) that they should strive to return "home" into Greater Germany, but also relocate from territories that were not under German control, following the conquest of Polish lands, in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet pact.

The Heim ins Reich manifesto targeted areas ceded in the Treaty of Versailles to the newly reborn state of Poland, various lands of immigration, as well as other areas that were inhabited by significant ethnic German populations, such as the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, Free City of Danzig, and other neighbouring regions after 6 October 1939.

Implementation of the policy was managed by VOMI (Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle or "Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans"). As a state agency of the NSDAP, it handled all Volksdeutsche issues. By 1941, the VOMI was under the control of the SS.