Deutsche Volksliste

The Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List), a Nazi Party institution, aimed to classify inhabitants of Nazi-occupied territories (1939–1945) into categories of desirability according to criteria systematised by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.

[1]When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it annexed the western part of the country (taking East Upper Silesia, creating the new entities of the Reichsgaue of Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland, the Zichenau Region (or South East Prussia), and the General Government, the latter for the administration of the rest of its own occupied part of the country.

The plan for Poland, as set forth in Generalplan Ost, was to "purify" the newly annexed regions in order to create a Germanised buffer against Polish and Slavic influence.

Registrants were given better food, apartments, farms, workshops, furniture, and clothing—much of it having been confiscated from Jews and Poles who were deported or sent to Nazi concentration camps.

Furthermore, Nazi officials in charge of the various annexed territories from Poland did not want to see too many economically valuable local nationals sent eastwards, so they, too, desired some form of criteria that would allow them to avoid deporting any skilled Poles with German ancestry.

The Racial Office of the Nazi Party had produced a registry called the Deutsche Volksliste in 1939, but this was only one of the precursors of Himmler's final version.

The Deutsche Volksliste was mandated in March 1941 by decrees of the Minister of the Interior of the Reich (Frick) and of Heinrich Himmler in his function as Kommissar für die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums (Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanhood).

On 3 April 1941 it was expanded to all western Polish areas (Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, East Upper Silesia, and the Zichenau Region.

Apparently, Gauleiter Josef Wagner, as well as his successor, Fritz Bracht, saw the necessity to exclude Silesian people from qualification made only on the basis of race criteria which were emphasised by Heinrich Himmler when he was a Reich commissar for strengthening the Germanhood.

Poles who preferred to stay with their friends and relatives sometimes resisted Nazi pressures to apply for the DVL, opting for deportation to the General Government over Germanisation.

"[14] Ethnic Poles from German-occupied Polish Silesia were also subject to pressure from Nazi authorities to sign category III or IV.

These Volksdeutsche played an important role in the intelligence activities of the Polish resistance and were at times the primary source of information for the Allies.

However, in the eyes of the postwar Communist government, having aided the non-Communist Polish resistance was not considered a mitigating factor; therefore, many of these double-agent Volksdeutsche were prosecuted after the war.

[16] Deutsche Volksliste, late 1942[17] After Germany occupied Yugoslavia, they partitioned it into various parts including Croatia and Serbia, where ethnic Germans became legalised members of the ruling nationality groups, and so they introduced the 'Volksliste' there.

At the end of the war, the files of the Deutsche Volksliste were generally found extant in the service registration departments of the respective local authorities.