Guestworkers in the German Reich: A Polish Community in Wilhelmian Germany

The Sonderdienst (Special Service) was an enforcement agency developed by German SS and Police authorities, specifically in the Lublin District of the so called Government General (central and southeastern German-occupied Poland) to assist in enforcing German occupation ordinances in the cities and particularly in the countryside, where lack of police personnel, ignorance of local conditions, and perceived fear of partisan attack discouraged a direct German police presence. After February 1941, the SS and Police relinquished control over the Sonderdienst to the German civilian occupation authorities. Under civilian authority, the Sonderdienst was deployed at the Kreis level, under command of the so-called German Stadt- and Kreishauptmänner in detachments of approximately 30 men to carry out administrative enforcement activities when the civilian authorities were unable to count or SS and police support. This article examines how the Sonderdienst highlights the dependence of German administration in the Government General on locally recruited auxiliaries, particularly in the countryside. The Sonderdienst was conceived, developed, expanded, and deployed within the context of a bitter battle between German civilian authorities and the SS/police apparatus over control of local executive police power. This is hardly new; yet the Government General is unusual in that the German civilian authorities were able to fight the SS to a draw on this issue. Since its formation followed the recruitment of the “ethnic” and ideological “cream” of the ethnic German population of occupied Poland into agencies such as the Selbstschutz, and the Waffen SS, the Sonderdienst represents an early effort of the National Socialist authorities to fashion an ethnically conscious and ideologically committed corps from young men of questionable, even dubious, German ancestry and heritage. Finally, this study reveals not only the complicity of the civilian authorities in Nazi crimes, but the link in German-occupied Poland between “routine” administrative duties, such as collecting fines for ordinance violations, and the brutal persecution and annihilation of groups targeted as enemies of the German Reich, such as the Polish Jews. Civilian administrators and SS and police authorities shared the “National Socialist consensus” in occupied Poland. They wanted to annihilate the Jews and the Polish intelligentsia, to exploit the labor potential of the Polish masses, and to turn the Government General into a region of German settlement. As a part of this vision, the Sonderdienst was to serve not only as a police executive, but as a political and cultural steppingstone to full acceptance into the German “racial community.” There is no question that, even in “routine” duties, the Sonderdienst participated, more or less willingly, in the implementation of the most evil racist policies of the National Socialist regime.

Download Full-text

Dyskusja na temat odpowiedzialności odszkodowawczej państwa za szkody wyrządzone przez bezprawne działania urzędników na Kongresie Prawników Niemieckich w Kilonii w 1906 roku

Opolskie Studia Administracyjno-Prawne ◽

10.25167/osap.1276 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 131-146

Author(s):

Andrzej Adamczyk

Keyword(s):

19Th Century ◽

Legal Regulations ◽

Legal Problems ◽

Legal Questions ◽

German States ◽

Illegal Acts ◽

State Liability ◽

German Reich ◽

The 19Th Century ◽

German Association

One of the most important legal problems discussed in the 19th century by German lawyers was that of state liability due to damages resulting from illegal acts of its officials. An influential forum of exchange of ideas was the German Association of German Jurists which organized all-German congresses to solve legal questions in order to promote German unity. Although the problem of state responsibility was discussed at some of the Association congresses in the 19th century, the most interesting was that held in Kiel in 1905. It was due to the fact that many German states had at that time legal regulations concerning state liability, but they were quite different. That generated many complications, making realization of a legal unity within the German Reich difficult. Two proposals for solving this situation were presented at the Congress in Kiel by Otto von Gierke and Rudolf von Herrnritt. Their ideas constituted bases for the discussion which followed. The paper presents the discussion on the state liability, which took place at the Congress in Kiel.

Download Full-text

The Great Auto Theft

The Journal of Transport History ◽

10.7227/tjth.34.2.4 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 140-161

Author(s):

Christian Klösch

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Jewish Population ◽

Local Population ◽

The State ◽

Nazi Party ◽

Online Database ◽

World War ◽

Auto Theft ◽

National Socialists ◽

German Reich

In March 1938 the National Socialists seized power in Austria. One of their first measures against the Jewish population was to confiscate their vehicles. In Vienna alone, a fifth of all cars were stolen from their legal owners, the greatest auto theft in Austrian history. Many benefited from the confiscations: the local population, the Nazi Party, the state and the army. Car confiscation was the first step to the ban on mobility for Jews in the German Reich. Some vehicles that survived World War II were given back to the families of the original owners. The research uses a new online database on Nazi vehicle seizures.

Download Full-text

Separatism in the Eastern Provinces of the German Reich at the End of the First World War

Journal of Contemporary History ◽

10.1177/002200949402900205 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 305-324 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ralph Schattkowsky

Keyword(s):

First World War ◽

World War ◽

The First World War ◽

German Reich ◽

First World

Download Full-text

East Central Europe in the First Globalization (1850-1914)

Studia Historiae Oeconomicae ◽

10.2478/sho-2018-0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 71-90

Author(s):

Uwe Müller

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Economic History ◽

Habsburg Monarchy ◽

East Central Europe ◽

East Central ◽

Positioning Strategy ◽

Economic Elites ◽

The Russian Empire ◽

European Economies ◽

German Reich

Summary The article analyzes the position and the positioning strategy of East Central Europe in the so-called “first globalization (1850-1914)”. The focus is on foreign trade and the transfer of the two most important production factors, i.e. capital and labor. East Central Europe included in this period the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Kingdom of Poland as a part of the Russian Empire, and the eastern provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia which were from 1871 onwards part of the German Reich. The article combines the theories and methods of economic history and transnational history. It sees itself as a contribution to a trans-regional history of East Central Europe by analyzing first the main “flows” and then the influence of “controls”. The article analyzes to what extent and in what way East Central Europe was involved in the globalization processes of the late 19th century. It discusses whether East Central Europe was only the object of global developments or even shaped them. In this context it asks about the role of the empires (Habsburg monarchy, German Reich, Russia) for the position of East Central European economies in the world economy. It shows that the economic elites in the centers but also on the edges of the empires developed different strategies for how to respond to the challenges of globalization.

Download Full-text