German national community in Lorraine

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The German Volksgemeinschaft in Lorraine (DVG) was a subsidiary organization of the NSDAP in the French Moselle department , which existed from 1940 to 1945.

construction

Like the NSDAP, the organizational structure of the DVG followed the leader principle . At the top was Josef Bürckel , head of the German civil administration in Lorraine , as country manager , and his deputy was the French collaborator Eugène Foulé . This was followed by district and local group leaders down to the cell and block leaders. The DVG operated a total of 284 local groups in the entire department. The DVG's membership badge was modeled on that of the NSDAP and differed only in the inscription and the choice of color (red swastika in a black ring instead of the other way around).

Headquarters of the country management

The headquarters of the country management was in Metz in the prefecture building on Place de la Préfecture ( government square ). The state management published the newsletter of the German National Community in Lorraine at regular intervals .

Number of members

In September 1940 the number of members is said to have already reached 217,300. In 1942, 98% of the Lorraine people classified as ethnic Germans by the occupation authorities were supposed to have been organized in the DVG.

Finances

The DVG was under the financial sovereignty of the NSDAP treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz .

history

The DVG was created in August 1940 as a substitute and representative organization for the NSDAP in occupied Lorraine by ordinance of Bürckel, who himself took over the state management. According to the DVG's organizational plan of February 1, 1941, the district leaders were all delegated from the neighboring NSDAP Gau Saarpfalz; of the 17 full-time functionaries of the state management, 12 were Germans and only 5 were native Lorraine. Admission certificates were immediately distributed to all households in the department by the occupation authorities.

During the ethnic cleansing of French-speaking Lorraine residents that the German occupiers carried out in August / September 1940 and November 1940, DVG officials helped to select the groups of people to be expelled. In October 1940, the German secret service reported on the wave of entry into the DVG: “Those who are experts are of the opinion that part of the population would like to avoid a possible future evacuation in this way.” In 1942, members and their families were expressly excluded from expulsion and resettlement measures.

From August 1942, all members of the DVG including spouses and minor children had to accept German citizenship upon revocation in addition to French. The basis was an ordinance issued by the German Minister of the Interior , which was a very deliberate violation of international law and which was declared "null and void from the start" after the war .

After the German defeat in Stalingrad in 1943, the middle and lower class of officials in the DVG began to withdraw clearly, and the attempt to resign from office under pretexts. In March 1943, parallel to the DVG, the NSDAP was also founded in the Lorraine CdZ area and all DVG functionaries were also admitted to the NSDAP.

With the liberation of Lorraine by the US Army in August 1944 and the death of Josef Bürckel in September 1944, the activities of the DVG, whose apparatus was relocated to Germany, practically ended.

Criminal trials after liberation

The French judiciary dealt mildly with the traitors in the Moselle department. Between 1945 and 1947 the courts in Metz and Sarreguemines sentenced a total of only 910 collaborators, including numerous DVG officials. Eugène Foulé was sentenced to five years of forced labor on December 20, 1945 in Sarreguemines, and the DVG propaganda director, Joseph Bilger, to ten years of forced labor on July 8, 1947 in Metz.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pascal Ory : Les collaborateurs 1940-1945. Paris 1976, p. 184.
  2. ^ DVG Westmark (Lothr.) Instead of National Socialist DAP
  3. ^ Aloys Ruppel : Guide through Metz. Metz 1942, pp. 60 and 132.
  4. ↑ Josef Bürckel's speech in Metz on September 21, 1940, printed in the NSZ Rheinfront on September 22, 1940.
  5. ^ Fritz Hellwig : Lothringen. A common economics. Saarbrücken 1942, p. 14.
  6. ↑ Overview of the offices that are subject to the financial sovereignty of the RSM and over which it exercises financial sovereignty, as of November 1944. Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, BArch NS 1/154.
  7. ↑ Hans Schaefer: Bürckels Bauernsiedlung , Saarbrücken 1997, p. 40.
  8. ↑ a b Reports from the Reich (No. 135) of October 24, 1940. In: Heinz Boberach (Ed.): Reports from the Reich. Volume 5. Herrsching am Ammersee 1984, pp. 1704-1705.
  9. ↑ 24,210 displaced persons according to SD data, quoted in: Dieter Wolfanger: The National Socialist Politics in Lothringen 1940–1945 , Saarbrücken 1977, p. 146.
  10. ↑ 57,665 displaced persons according to Le Républicain lorrain , Nancy, of December 20, 1940.
  11. ^ Hans Schaefer: Bürckels Bauernsiedlung , Saarbrücken 1997, p. 66.
  12. ^ Ordinance on membership in the German National Community in Lorraine. No. 400 of 7 December 1942. In: Ordinance sheet for Lorraine 1942, p. 514.
  13. ^ First ordinance on citizenship in Lorraine. From August 29, 1942. In: Ordinance sheet for Lorraine 1942, p. 421.
  14. ^ Ordinance on acquiring citizenship in Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg. Dated August 23, 1942. In: Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1942, pp. 533-534.
  15. ↑ Hans Globke (representative of the Reich Ministry of the Interior) at the preparatory inter-ministerial meeting on June 5, 1942. Quoted in: Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik im Elsaß. Stuttgart 1973, pp. 235-236.
  16. ↑ Law No. 12 of the Allied High Commission of November 17, 1949. In: Official Journal of the Allied High Commission in Germany No. 4 of November 21, 1949, p. 36.
  17. ↑ Hans Schaefer: Bürckels Bauernsiedlung , Saarbrücken 1997, p. 40.
  18. ^ François Moulin: Lorraine années noires: de la collaboration à l'épuration. Strasbourg 2009, p. 279.