Immigrant Central Office

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The Central Immigration Office (EWZ) was a National Socialist “collection office” set up in Gotenhafen (Gdynia) in mid-October 1939 , which regulated the naturalization and settlement of up to 1,000,000 “ ethnic German resettlers ”. The selection was based on allegedly racial and political criteria.

background

In connection with the Steel Pact , Heinrich Himmler presented a memorandum in May 1939 on the resettlement of around 200,000 South Tyroleans ( optants) and later commissioned Ulrich Greifelt with the organization. The basics of the later resettlement policy were already in place: it was about the settlement of "good-bred ethnic Germans" in the east, an accelerated granting of German citizenship and the transport through the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Vomi).

After the German-Soviet non-aggression pact and its form in the German-Soviet border and friendship treaty of September 28, 1939, all Bessarabian , Baltic and Bukovina Germans could be resettled. On October 6, 1939, Adolf Hitler gave a speech in the Reichstag in which he named the destruction of the Polish state and the “new order of ethnographic conditions” as goals. On the following day Heinrich Himmler was entrusted with the "consolidation of German nationality" by Führer decree , who in turn instructed Reinhard Heydrich on October 8, 1939 , to create an office with which to record and naturalize the Germans to be resettled. The first " population revolutions " concerned the incorporated eastern areas, namely the Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia . Many of the 70,000 Baltic Germans were initially resettled there.

organization

Naturalization of resettlers on the EWZ special train (1941)

The central office for immigrants was first set up in Gotenhafen (Gdynia) and was initially under the direction of Martin Sandberger . As early as November 1939 she was relocated to Posen , then to Berlin in spring 1940 and to Litzmannstadt (Łódź) in autumn 1940 . She had a liaison staff in Berlin. There were branches in Gotenhafen, Stettin and temporarily in Schneidemühl . Subsidiaries were in Krakow and Paris . In addition, since mid-1940, flying commissions were formed that traveled to the various camps and carried out the naturalizations there.

The Central Immigration Office (EWZ) began its work in Gotenhafen as early as October 19, 1939. The resettlers from Estonia and Latvia had to report to the EWZ, they were registered, their health examined and recorded for transport to the place of settlement; Citizenship issues and asset equalization were clarified and labor was regulated. A final decision on the naturalization application should be issued two days later. In order to make room for the Baltic Germans, the EWZ, in cooperation with Einsatzgruppe III , also ensured the expulsion of Poles from Danzig-West Prussia by February 1940 .

During a reorganization, the Umwandererzentralstelle (UWZ) was set up in April 1940 to organize the deportations. This began the development of the EWZ into the “selection authority” of the Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of the German nationality . The EWZ was responsible for the “hereditary” recording. For this purpose, a selection process called “pass-through” according to “racial and racial hygiene” principles by (SS) doctors from the EWS was part of the naturalization process.

Internal structure

The EWZ was a "collection office" with a staff consisting mainly of Heydrich's employees. It also included seconded participants from all authorities and departments that were involved in the naturalization process. That included

  1. a registration and identification office for the regulatory and security police,
  2. a health center, supervised by the Reich Health Offices
  3. an office of the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuS -stelle)
  4. an asset center with the cooperation of the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Reichsbank
  5. a job placement, supervised by the Reich Ministry of Labor
  6. a citizenship office (Reich Ministry of the Interior, Dept. I)

The collecting authority was subordinate to the leader Hans Ehlich , who held office III B in the Reich Main Security Office . Under his supervision, the EWZ acted largely independently, but not autonomously.

criteria

Naturalization certificate from the then central office for immigrants north-east in Lodz

Whether a resettler family was naturalized or sent back was decided after a thorough examination and depended on an initial decision . So-called A cases were settled in the Altreich, O cases in the east; rejected applicants were eliminated as S cases . Resettlers in categories O and A were given the hoped-for new farms in the east in the most favorable case, or were relegated to the Altreich as factory workers . Five criteria were decisive here: anthropological “race assessment”, positive hereditary biological examination, professional qualification, cultural characteristics and political reliability.

In addition to the medical examination by doctors, so-called “suitability testers”, employees of the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS (RuSHA), examined the “breed characteristics”. If the doctors found indications of possible hereditary diseases , psychological disorders or other abnormal behavior (“anti-social behavior”, “instinctual”) during the “transit” , this had the effect of canceling the “transit” for such persons, possibly also for their relatives Episode. There were Sterilisationsmaßnamen under the " Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring " launched July 14, 1933 that were not possible without the consent of the resettled, or admission to psychiatric facilities. These admissions often meant permanent inclusion in the Nazi psychiatry system for those resettled as “hereditary diseases”, especially for their children with “hereditary health problems”, which represented an increased risk to life and limb ( Nazi murders , campaign T4 , TBC- Vaccination attempts, "death to unworthy life", " euthanasia ").

Large resettlement campaigns took place between 1939 and 1941. After that, the weighting of the assessment criteria changed: instead of the originally strong emphasis on German origin (ethnicity), the aspect of racial anthropological classification gained importance and more emphasis was placed on economic factors. From 1943/1944 onwards, the EWZ selected larger groups of “ethnic Germans” in order to send them to the Wehrmacht or military economy. The “race” category made it possible to record more people and deliver supplies to soldiers.

The term resettler suggests that it was always a voluntary decision. Until 1941 there were options so that one cannot generally speak of coercion. The resettlement of the Ukrainian Germans, however, was “a mixture of coercion and evacuation”, which those affected participated in because of their involvement with the National Socialist occupiers or which was carried out against their will.

Dissolution and further effect

By the end of January 1945, the EWZ had selected more than a million people according to its own information. The EWZ's work had been affected by the course of the war since the summer of 1944. When the Red Army approached , the command staff fled from Litzmannstadt to Zwickau in January 1945 , then to Bad Wörishofen . The staff of around 900 people were "temporarily" dismissed from the RSHA or taken up in SD units.

None of the SD officers involved was convicted of their work in the EWZ. During investigations by the Ludwigsburg Central Office , those who were heard as witnesses stated that the EWZ was merely a naturalization authority and had nothing to do with ethnic cleansing and the central office for immigrants.

After the war, the EWZ files were partially used to decide on the citizenship of so-called “ethnic German resettlers”. National Socialist criteria were thus adopted. This led to a generous recognition practice. After 1989 the criteria were changed and the number of recognized applications fell sharply.

literature

  • Maria Fiebrandt: Selection for the Settler Society: The Inclusion of Ethnic Germans in National Socialist Hereditary Health Policy in the Context of Resettlements 1939–1945. Göttingen 2014 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , ISBN 978-3-525-36967-8 . (not viewed)
  • Andreas Strippel: NS-Volkstumsppolitik and the reorganization of Europe: race-political selection of the immigrant central office of the chief of the security police and the SD (1939-1945), Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. Quoted from: Max Domarus: Hitler - Reden und Proklamationen, Würzburg 1963, Vol. 2, p. 1383 / Hitler's speech before the Reichstag, 4th session, October 6, 1939
  2. ^ Decree of October 7, 1939, printed as document PS-686 in IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, vol. 26, ISBN 3-7735-2521-4 , pp. 255-257.
  3. Andreas Strippel: NS-Volkstumsppolitik and the reorganization of Europe - Race-political selection of the central office for immigrants of the chief of the security police and the SD (1939-1945), Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 74.
  4. Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule . In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Vol. 1, Munich 1967, p. 195 / The repatriation of the Baltic Germans was briefly the task of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle , p. 194.
  5. Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule . In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Bd. 1, München 1967, p. 196 / Elsewhere it is stated that the headquarters had been in Łódź since January 1940 . = Klaus-Peter Friedrich (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (source collection) Volume 4: Poland - September 1939-July 1941 , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58525- 4 , pp. 34-35.
  6. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 75.
  7. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , pp. 80 and 82.
  8. Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule . In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Vol. 1, Munich 1967, p. 196.
  9. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 333.
  10. Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule . In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Vol. 1, Munich 1967, p. 196.
  11. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 129.
  12. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 334.
  13. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 32.
  14. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 298.
  15. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 336.
  16. ^ Andreas Strippel: National Socialist Politics and the Reorganization of Europe, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77170-4 , p. 335.