Heim ins Reich
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The Heim ins Reich (Template:IPA; 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 and the western districts of Poland) that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into Greater Germany, but also relocate from territories that were not under German control, following the conquest of Poland, in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet pact.<ref name="Tesser"/>
The Heim ins Reich manifesto targeted areas ceded in the Treaty of Versailles to the newly reborn state of Poland, various lands of immigration,Template:What? 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.<ref name="Douglas">Template:Cite book</ref>
History
The end of World War I in Europe led to the emergence of new 'minority problems' in the areas of collapsing German and Austro-Hungarian empires. As a result of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, more than 9 million ethnic Germans found themselves living in newly organized Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia.<ref name="Tesser">Template:Cite journal</ref> Unlike the new sovereign states, Germany was not required to sign the Minority Treaties.<ref name="Sharp">Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link</ref>
Prior to the Anschluss in 1938, a powerful radio transmitter in Munich bombarded Austria with propaganda of what Hitler had already done for Germany, and what he could do for his native home country Austria.<ref>Anthony Rhodes (1976), Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II, Chelsea House Publishers, New York, p. 27.</ref> The annexation of Austria was presented by the press as the march of the German armed forces into purported German land: "as representatives of a general German will to unity, to establish brotherhood with the German people and soldiers there".<ref>Randall Bytwerk (1998), "Marching into Austria. Template:Webarchive" Die Wehrmacht biweekly reporting on 12 March 1938. German propaganda archive. Calvin College.</ref> In a similar manner, the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, leading to the annexation of Memel from the Republic, was glorified as Hitler's "latest stage in the progress of history".<ref>Eugen Hadamovsky (1939), World History on the March. The last chapter, pp. 342-350: "Memel District is Free! Template:Webarchive" German propaganda archive. Calvin College.</ref>
After the Anschluss with Austria, Germany popularized the "Back home to the Reich" slogan among Sudeten Germans. During the Czech crisis, Hitler visited the German Gymnastics and Sports Festival in Breslau. When the Sudeten team passed the VIP stand where Hitler was, they shouted "Back home to the Reich!" Josef Goebbels noted in his diary that "The people yelled, cheered and cried. The Führer [Hitler] was deeply moved."<ref>Ullrich, Volker (2017) Hitler: Ascent: 1889-1939. Translated by Jefferson Chase. New York: Vintage. p.731. Template:Isbn</ref>
On 7 October 1939, immediately after the end of the Germany's Polish Campaign, Hitler appointed Template:Lang Heinrich Himmler as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood (RKFDV).<ref> Template:Cite book </ref> Duties of the new position included furthering the "return" of Template:Lang and organising newly-conquered territory for German settlement.<ref> Template:Cite book </ref><ref> Template:Cite book </ref>
Concurrent with annexations were the beginnings of attempts to ethnically cleanse non-Germans both from Germany and from the areas intended to be part of a "Greater Germany". Alternately, Hitler also made attempts to Germanize those who were considered ethnically or racially close enough to Germans to be "worth keeping" as part of a future German nation, such as the population of Luxembourg. Germany officially considered these populations to be German, but not part of the Greater German Reich, and were thus the targets of propaganda promoting this view in order to integrate them. These attempts were largely unpopular with the targets of the Germanization. Up to 97 percent of Luxembourgers voted in a 1941 referendum against being recognized as German.<ref name="zug">Template:Cite web</ref>
Propaganda was also directed to Germans outside Nazi Germany to return as regions, or as individuals from other regions. Hitler hoped to make full use of the "German Diaspora".<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas (2011), Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, p. 194. Template:ISBN – via Google Books.</ref> As part of an effort to lure ethnic Germans back to Germany,<ref>Nicholas 2011, p. 195.</ref> folksy Heimatbriefe or "letters from the homeland" were sent to German immigrants to the United States.<ref>Nicholas 2011, p. 197.</ref> The reaction to these was on the whole negative, particularly as the letters increased in volume.<ref>Nicholas 2011, p. 199.</ref> Goebbels also hoped to use German-Americans to keep America neutral during the war, but his actions produced among them great hostility to Nazi propagandists.<ref>Rhodes, p. 147.</ref> Newspapers in occupied Ukraine printed articles about antecedents of German rule over Ukraine, such as Catherine the Great and the Goths.<ref name="harvest192">Karel C. Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule, p. 192. Template:ISBN </ref>
"Heim ins Reich" in occupied Poland 1939–1944
Template:Main Template:Multiple image The same motto (Heim ins Reich ) was also applied to a second, closely related policy initiative which entailed the displacement and relocation of ethnically German communities (Volksdeutsche ) from Central and Eastern European countries in the Soviet "sphere of influence", whose ancestors had settled there during the Ostsiedlung of earlier centuries. The Nazi government determined which of these communities were not "viable", started propaganda among the local population, and made arrangements and organized their transport of such communities. Its use of scare tactics about the Soviet Union resulted in tens of thousands of persons leaving.<ref name="Nic">Nicholas 2011, pp. 207–209.</ref> They included ethnic Germans from Bukovina, Bessarabia, Dobruja and Yugoslavia. For example, after the Soviets had assumed control of this territory, about 45,000 ethnic Germans left Northern Bukovina by November 1940.<ref>Leonid Ryaboshapko. Pravove stanovishche nationalinyh mensyn v Ukraini (1917–2000), p. 259. (in Ukrainian)</ref> (Stalin permitted this out of fear they would be loyal to Germany.)<ref>Nicholas 2011, p. 204.</ref>
| Territory of origin | Year | Number of resettled Volksdeutsche |
|---|---|---|
| South Tyrol (see South Tyrol Option Agreement) | 1939–1940 | 83,000 |
| Latvia and Estonia | 1939–1941 | 69,000 |
| Lithuania | 1941 | 54,000 |
| Volhynia, Galicia, Nerewdeutschland | 1939–1940 | 128,000 |
| General Government | 1940 | 33,000 |
| North Bukovina and Bessarabia | 1940 | 137,000 |
| Romania (South Bukovina and North Dobruja) | 1940 | 77,000 |
| Yugoslavia | 1941–1942 | 36,000 |
| USSR (pre-1939 borders) | 1939–1944 | 250,000 |
| Summary | 1939–1944 | 867,000 |
In the Greater Poland (Wielkopolska ) region (joined together with the Łódź district and dubbed "Wartheland" by the Germans), the Nazis' goal was complete Germanization, or political, cultural, social, and economic assimilation of the territory into the German Reich. In pursuit of this goal, the installed bureaucracy renamed streets and cities and seized tens of thousands of Polish enterprises, from large industrial firms to small shops, without payment to the owners. This area incorporated 350,000 such "ethnic Germans" and 1.7 million Poles deemed Germanizable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who had been taken from their parents (plus about 400,000 German settlers from the "Old Reich").<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945. p. 228. Template:ISBN</ref> They were housed in farms left vacant by expulsion of the local Poles.<ref>Nicholas 2011, pp. 213–214</ref> Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans".<ref>Aycoberry, p. 255.</ref> Hitler Youth and League of German Girls sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed (particularly for the girls) assisting in Germanization efforts.<ref>Nicholas 2011, p. 215.</ref> They were harassed by Polish partisans (Armia Krajowa) during the war. As Nazi Germany lost the war, these ethnic Germans were expelled to remaining Germany.
Eberhardt cites estimates for the ethnic German influx provided by Szobak, Łuczak, and a collective report, ranging from 404,612 (Szobak) to 631,500 (Łuczak).<ref name="Eberhardt24">Template:Cite book</ref> Anna Bramwell says 591,000 ethnic Germans moved into the annexed territories, and details the areas of colonists' origin as follows: 93,000 were from Bessarabia, 21,000 from Dobruja, 98,000 from Bukovina, 68,000 from Volhynia, 58,000 from Galicia, 130,000 from the Baltic states, 38,000 from eastern Poland, 72,000 from the Sudetenland, and 13,000 from Slovenia.<ref name=bramwell123>Anna Bramwell citing the ILO study, Refugees in the age of total war. Routledge. 1988. p. 123. Template:ISBN</ref>
Additionally some 400,000 German officials, technical staff, and clerks were sent to those areas in order to administer them, according to "Atlas Ziem Polski" citing a joint Polish–German scholarly publication on the aspect of population changes during the war<ref>Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki 1939–1959: atlas ziem Polski: Polacy, Żydzi, Niemcy, Ukraińcy. Warszawa Demart 2008</ref> Eberhardt estimates that the total influx from the Altreich was about 500,000 people.<ref name=Eberhardt22>Eberhardt, p. 22.</ref> Duiker and Spielvogel note that up to two million Germans had been settled in pre-war Poland by 1942.<ref>William J. Duiker, Jackson J. Spielvogel, World History, 1997: By 1942, two million ethnic Germans had been settled in Poland. p. 794.</ref> Eberhardt gives a total of two million Germans present in the area of all pre-war Poland by the end of the war, 1.3 million of whom moved in during the war, adding to a pre-war population of 700,000.<ref name=Eberhardt22/>
| Territory (region) | Number of German colonists |
|---|---|
| Warthegau | 536,951 |
| Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia | 50,204 |
| East Upper Silesia | 36,870 |
| Regierungsbezirk Zichenau | 7,460 |
| Template:Small<ref name=Eberhardt25>Eberhardt. p. 25.</ref> | |
The increase of German population was most visible in the urban centres: in Poznań, the German population increased from around 6,000 in 1939 to 93,589 in 1944; in Łódź, from around 60,000 to 140,721; and in Inowrocław, from 956 to 10,713.<ref>Eberhardt. p. 26. Eberhardt refers to Polska Zachodnia... 1961. p. 294.</ref> In Warthegau, where most Germans were settled, the share of the German population increased from 6.6% in 1939 to 21.2% in 1943.<ref name=Eberhardt26>Eberhardt. p. 26.</ref>
See also
- Areas annexed by Nazi Germany
- Baltic Germans
- Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany
- Ethnic nationalism
- Irredentism
- Lebensraum
- Generalplan Ost
- Volga Germans
- Volksdeutsche
- South Tyrol Option Agreement
- Final solution
- Holocaust
- Nazism
- Flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II
- Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle
References
Notes Template:Reflist
Further reading Coming Home to the Third Reich
- Grams, Grant W.(2025) The Nazi ‘Heim ins Reich’ program from Lands of Oversea Migration and German deportees from Canada and the United States, in Thomas Geisen (ed.) Journal of International Migration and Integration,
- Grams, Grant W.(2021). Return Migration of German Nationals from the United States and Canada, 1933–1941, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland Publications.
- Koehl, R. L. (1957). RKFDV: German Resettlement and Population Policy 1939–1945. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
- Komjathy, Anthony and Stockwell, Rebecca (1980). German Minorities and the Third Reich: Ethnic Germans of East Central Europe between the Wars London: Holmes & Meier Template:Isbn
- Lumans, Valdis O. (1993). Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press Template:Isbn
- Template:Cite book