The so-called “Germanisation” of Poles in the SS-run Hinzert concentration camp

“Ethnicity” – Race ideology of the National Socialists
 

Wherever the Nazis were able to set up an occupying regime in Europe during the Second World War, the removal of people to work as forced labourers followed, with the aim of keeping the war and the German wartime economy running. Poland was the first victim of the war and, as early as 1939, the Nazis in Poland began to set up their racist occupying regime, the ultimate goal of which was to annihilate. In total, around three million people were removed from Poland and taken to Germany as forced labourers during the war. In spring 1940, the numbers were already running into hundreds of thousands. In order to subject these exploited people to racial marginalization, even at work, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt [Reich Central Security Office] issued the “Polish decrees” on 8 March 1940, and they would later be followed by similar instructions relating to “Eastern labourers”. Their aim was to categorise the people from Poland and later from the Soviet Union as racially inferior and “different, to belittle them in all areas of life. Ten directives dictated a labelling requirement – a badge bearing the letter P which was to be acquired and worn by the Poles –, poor working conditions, special levies, a drastic restriction in the freedom of movement and draconian punishments for any social contact with the German population. Poles were directly under the control of the Secret State Police (Gestapo), not the criminal justice system. This meant that they could be deported to so-called labour education camps without due process and even without grounds. The forced labourers were to be sentenced to death for any intimate relations with Germans. Usually, Polish women were threatened with several months in a concentration camp and, in many cases, Polish men were sentenced to death by hanging.[1]

The process for automatically threatening and imposing these punishments had already been changed in July 1941 by Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS. Execution by hanging, euphemistically dressed up as “usual special treatment”, was to be preceded by a “racial assessment”. The aim was to determine the potential for “being able to be re-germanised”. The Nazis believed that this would preserve as much of the labour force as possible.[2] The overarching ideological racial goal was a “desired population growth” for the “German people” with the simultaneous removal of the corresponding “racially valuable families” from the elite of “Polish ethnicity”.[3] As early as September 1940, Himmler had already considered racially selecting Poles based on “their ability to be re-germanised” to be necessary and had earmarked an estimated one million people who this applied to.[4]

A “re-Germanisation process” was developed and implemented to put these racial concepts into practice. Felix Klormann, who researched the process in practice in relation to the Hinzert camp, summarized it as follows:

“The result: An insidious, two-tier system, which categorised Polish forced labourers, based on character and ‘racial’ tests, into either ‘Germanisable’ or ‘inferior’ people. If the person passed the first ‘racial inspection’, he would be taken to the ‘Altreich’ and sent to a concentration camp. If he was able to meet all the requirements, he was approved as a ‘desired population increment’ and released.”[5]

Between 1940 and 1944, at least 30,000 to 35,000 Poles were taken out of the regions that had been annexed into the Reich and were taken to the “Altreich”, which usually meant camps and forced labour. Similarly, thousands of Polish women were removed as “re-Germanisable” maids, some of whom had to work for higher-ranking members of the SS.[6]

The ones who did not pass this assessment, were sent to concentration camps indefinitely. However, if the re-Germanisation process was instigated because a man was accused of forbidden intimate contact, the accused was executed. Typically, all (Polish) forced labourers were transported to the site of the execution and had to witness it as a deterrent. Some were also forced to carry out the hanging.[7]

 

Racial inspection and arbitrariness: The “Re-Germanisation Process” for “E-Poles”
 

As Felix Klormann showed in a study on behalf of the Hinzert SS special camp/concentration camp memorial site, the intended processes and the actual practice of the “Re-Germanisation process” differed considerably. If a Pole was accused of “forbidden contact”, it was initially provided that for each inspection the responsible State Police office would check for “racial” prerequisites using the so-called race cards. If the outcome of this investigation was positive, he was admitted to the “re-Germanisation process” as a so-called E-Pole and transported to the Hinzert SS special camp/concentration camp.

In these first steps alone, many of the factors were completely arbitrary. It was not just the subjective assessment of a number of features, which were used in the pseudo-scientific determination of the “racial” features, that was often subjected to arbitrary assessments by individuals. The accusation of forbidden contact was also an arbitrary construct, as Klormann shows using the example of the story of Josef Krajewski:[8] Josef Krajewski was born in Warsaw in 1913. He was a locksmith by trade and married to Sarbina Krajewska, née Dopkowska. From 10 October 1941 if not before, he was a forced labourer working in agriculture in the southwest of Germany.[9] He was arrested on 10 June 1942 because, when driving a cart, he allegedly did not leave a local farmers’ leader enough space on a narrow path. In addition, there was a rumour that he had sexual relations with a German woman. After Krajewski had been arrested and interviewed, the woman accused of the relationship took her own life. This was taken as an admission of guilt and considered to corroborate the suspicion. The “racial screening” was actioned and because Josef Krajewski passed it, he was moved to the Hinzert SS special camp/concentration camp. This was followed by the next step in the “re-Germanisation process”, the so-called family screening. However, the process was not completed, and Krajewski, who had only been detained on the basis of rumours, was never freed.[10] On 13 October 1943, he died of severe pneumonia and pleurisy in Hermeskeil hospital, which was responsible for the prisoners from Hinzert.[11] He had contracted the illness whilst he was imprisoned in the concentration camp. Instead of aiding his recovery, the SS-Sturmbannführer Dr Theophil Hackethal, who was both the camp doctor and head of the hospital, ensured that he was graded “unfit” and had his prison sentence extended, which resulted in the death of Josef Krajewski.[12] He was initially buried in the Waldfriedhof Reinsfeld and later moved to the Hinzert memorial cemetery which had been set up by the French military administration in 1946.[13]

 

If an “E-Pole” who was imprisoned by the Gestapo met all the requirements of the “racial screening”, he was handed over to the “Special Department for Re-Germanisable Persons” in the Hinzert SS special camp/concentration camp. During his time in detention, which lasted many months, he then had to undergo a “character examination”, the outcome of which would put the camp leadership in a position to make a conclusive decision about “his ability to be re-Germanised”. At the same time, the family was subjected to a “family screening” relating to alleged racial features. If the family screening came back negative, re-Germanisation failed and the detainee would be deported to a larger concentration camp. If both screenings were positive, “re-Germanisation was deemed to have been concluded and the prisoner was supposed to be released. In practice, the process often deviated from these guidelines, as illustrated by Felix Klormann. The most common deviation consisted of delaying all the individual steps: There was a considerable delay before investigations were started, documents required for a family screening were not requested or provided by the authorities at all at first and then with a considerable delay. Even if results were already available, they were sometimes not actioned, releases were delayed, as were deportations to larger concentration camps; there was sometimes a lack of clarity regarding the jurisdiction. The family screening held more weight that the “character examination”, i.e., greater value was placed on the family to be “Germanised” in the broad sense than on the individual. Sometimes, “E-Poles”, whose assessment in Hinzert had a negative outcome, due to physical infirmity for example, got a second chance if their family screening came back positive. Yet, this examination was difficult to carry out and became more difficult as the war went on because family members might also have been removed to do forced labour, had fled or were no longer in the same place for other reasons, or the original place of residence was no longer within the sphere of influence of the German authorities.[14] A deviation from the intended process also affected Feliks Błaszczyk, who was born near Poznań in 1915. He ended up as a German prisoner of war, and was probably released on 10 March 1941 to be deployed as a forced labourer on a farm in Harxheim in Zellertal (today Rhineland-Palatinate). He was accused of forbidden contact with a German and was taken into “protective custody” on 6 May 1942. The accused woman was arrested on 11 May 1942 and in November 1942 she was sentenced to two years in prison; she stayed in prison until May 1944. Feliks Błaszczyk was not sent to Hinzert until ten months later on 1 March 1943. During the “Germanisation process”, the “racial screening” came back positive. But on 20 September 1943, the result was revised for reasons unknown. Once the positive report had been revoked, he was transported to Natzweiler concentration camp. He was obviously released from there because he married Helena Justynowna, who was born in Raków near Lodz in 1924, in Lebach (Saarlouis district) on 22 September 1945. She had been a forced labourer at the Dillinger Hüttenwerke in Saarbrücken from 1 February 1943 to 1 November 1944. Feliks Błaszczyk died in 1984, Helena Błaszczyk in 2001.[15]

For the “E-Poles”, imprisonment in Hinzert meant many hardships and danger to life and limb. There was nowhere near enough food. Everyday life was marked by work in tyrannical and intentionally very hard conditions and excessive and senseless violence. If anyone became ill, medical assistance was completely inadequate or was not provided at all. Under these conditions, the imprisoned Poles were supposed to prove their manpower as well as their “moral leadership” – by tasks being assigned as functionary prisoners, which were often difficult to do, compulsorily engaged them in the functioning of the camp system and placed then in a moral dilemma.[16]

The number of proven deaths in Hinzert, which has been able to be determined so far, is 321, although various sources suggest that it was actually more and not all mortal remains have been able to be found.[17] It is still not clear just how many Poles were included in this number. In 1946, the French military administration established a memorial cemetery on the land of the former guard camp, in which 217 of the dead who had been buried in the surroundings were reinterred. After decades, in which the memories of the Hinzert SS special camp/concentration camp had faded in the public consciousness, and because of the commitment shown by individuals and small groups who had worked hard since the 1980s, a documentation and meeting centre, which belongs to the Rhineland-Palatinate Regional Centre for Political Education and also houses a permanent exhibition, was finally able to be opened in 2005.[18]

 

Julia Röttjer, May 2022