Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums

Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums
Name	Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums
Native name	Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums
Formation	1939
Dissolution	1945
Type	Nazi administrative office
Headquarters	Berlin
Leader title	Reichskommissar
Leader name	Heinrich Himmler
Parent organization	Schutzstaffel

Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums The Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums was a Nazi-era administrative office created to coordinate population policy, settlement, and ethnic engineering during the period of German expansion associated with World War II and the Holocaust. Established under Nationalsozialistische Führungsgremien, it operated alongside organizations such as the Schutzstaffel, Reichsführer-SS, and the NSDAP apparatus to implement resettlement, Germanization, and demographic control in annexed and occupied territories.

Overview and establishment

The office was established in the aftermath of the invasion of Poland and during the occupation of territories following the campaigns of the Wehrmacht, including operations after the September Campaign and the Fall of France. Its creation reflected policy debates involving Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann Göring, and Konstantin von Neurath about racial policy, Anschluss precedents, and the ideological aims articulated in Mein Kampf and the Nuremberg Laws. The Reichskommissariat model echoed earlier structures such as the Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine while interfacing with institutions like the RSHA, Gestapo, and the SS-Einsatzgruppen.

Organizational structure and leadership

Leadership centered on Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler with deputies and advisors drawn from SS leadership, including Odilo Globocnik, Arthur Nebe, and Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski in various operational roles, while coordination involved officials from the NSDAP Zentralamt, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and the Ostministerium. The office maintained liaison relationships with the Wehrmacht High Command, OKW, and the Wehrkreis administrations, and worked with civil administrators such as Reichskommissars like Hinrich Lohse and Josef Terboven in occupied zones. Bureaucratic units paralleled departments in the SD, Gestapo, and the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) and used personnel from the Allgemeine-SS, Waffen-SS, Ordnungspolizei, and the Kriminalpolizei.

Policies and objectives

The stated objectives included demographic consolidation, German settlement, and removal of populations deemed "undesirable" according to racial doctrines rooted in the NSDAP ideology, SS racial science, and pseudoscientific eugenics promoted by figures like Alfred Rosenberg, Hans F. K. Günther, and Eugen Fischer. Policy instruments drew on precedents such as the Generalplan Ost, the Nuremberg Laws, and Reich Citizenship legislation, aiming to implement resettlement schemes, Heim ins Reich initiatives, and Volksliste classifications. Targets included populations in Poland, the Baltic states, the annexed Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine, and territories under the General Government; the office coordinated with agencies involved in Arbeitseinsatz, food provisioning, and forced labor allocation.

Implementation and activities

Implementation involved selection and transfer of ethnic Germans, administration of Heimkehrer processes, confiscation of property, and supervision of German colonization projects using SS-Bauleitung, Landdeputation authorities, and Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle mechanisms. Operational activities included cooperating with the Einsatzgruppen, conducting population registries, running Lebensborn programs, and overseeing child abductions and resettlement that connected to institutions such as Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Chelmno in the context of deportations. The office worked with ministries like the Reichskanzlei, the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and the Reich Finance Ministry to requisition land, enforce expropriation decrees, and establish German-language schooling and cultural institutions in occupied cities like Kraków, Warsaw, Riga, Vilnius, and Königsberg.

Relationship with Nazi administration and other agencies

The Reichskommissar maintained formal and informal links with central Nazi institutions including the RSHA, RSHA Amt III and Amt IV, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA), and civilian agencies such as the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Alfred Rosenberg. It coordinated with military organs including Heeresgruppe commanders, the Wehrmacht Feldkommandanturen, and the Military Administration in occupied territories, while also interfacing with local collaborationist structures like the Lithuanian Activist Front, Ukrainian nationalist formations, the Slovak State apparatus, and Vichy officials in France.

Impact on occupied territories and populations

Actions overseen by the office resulted in forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and demographic transformation in regions affected by Generalplan Ost and other resettlement schemes, contributing to famine conditions, increased mortality, and disruption of civic life in towns and rural districts such as Lublin, Galicia, Pomerania, Silesia, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Populations targeted included Poles, Jews, Roma, and other groups identified under racial criteria; these measures intersected with mass murder perpetrated by Einsatzgruppen, the camps system, and mass deportations to extermination centers. The long-term effects included altered borders post-1945, population transfers involving the Potsdam Conference decisions, expulsions of Germans from Eastern territories, and demographic legacies visible in postwar Poland, the Baltic states, and Czechoslovakia.

Legal framework and postwar accountability

The legal basis invoked administrative decrees, emergency orders, and racial legislation codified by the Reichstag and promulgated via the Reichsgesetzblatt, while operational authorization came from directives within the Führer Headquarters and SS command channels. After 1945, accountability was pursued through Allied investigations, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, subsequent trials such as the RuSHA Trial, and prosecution by tribunals in Nuremberg, Kraków, and other national courts addressing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws of war. Individuals connected to policies and actions overseen by the office were defendants in proceedings alongside figures like Hermann Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Julius Streicher, and Hans Frank, with convictions, sentences, and varying degrees of postwar denazification and legal reckoning.

Category:Nazi Germany organizations