Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany

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This article deals with territories annexed into Nazi Germany. For territories occupied in 1939 but not annexed, see General Government.

Territorial changes of Germany
in the 20th Century
Post World War I

World War II

Post World War II

Areas

Adjacent Countries


Territorial changes of Poland
in the 20th Century
Post World War I

World War II

Post World War II

Areas

Demarcation Lines

Adjacent Countries

At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter[1] of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed under German civil administration. The annexation was part of the "fourth" partition of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, outlined months before in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Some smaller territories were annexed directly into the already existing Gaue East Prussia and Silesia, while the bulk of the land was used to create new Reichsgaue Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland. Of those, Reichsgau Wartheland was the largest and the only one comprising solely annexed territory.[2]

The Nazi authorities planned a complete Germanization of the annexed territories, considering them part of their lebensraum. The local Jewish population was forced to live in ghettos, and was gradually deported to concentration and extermination camps, the most infamous of which, Auschwitz, was located in annexed East Upper Silesia. Only a few Jews survived the Holocaust. The local Polish population was to be gradually replaced by German settlers. The Polish elite especially became subject to mass murder, and an estimated 780,000 Poles were subject to expulsion, either to the Generalgouvernement or to the Altreich for forced labour. The remaining Polish population was strictly segregated from the German population and subject to a variety of repressive measures. These included forced labour and their exclusion from all political and many cultural aspects of society. At the same time, the local German minority was granted several privileges, and their number was steadily raised by the settlement of ethnic Germans, including those displaced by the Nazi-Soviet population transfers.

After Vistula-Oder offensive in early 1945, the Soviet Union took control over the territories. The ethnic German population either fled the Red Army or were later expelled and the territories became part of the People's Republic of Poland.

Background

Already in the fall of 1933 Adolf Hitler revealed to his closest associates his intentions to annex western Poland into an envisioned Greater Germany.[3] After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Third Reich in October annexed an area of 92,500 km²[1] (23.7%[1] of pre-war Poland) with a population of about 10,000,000 people (30%[1] of the pre-war Polish population).[4][5]. The remainder of the Polish territory was either annexed by the Soviet Union (201,000 km²[1] or 51.6%[1] of pre-war Poland as per the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone (95,500 km²[1] or 24.5%[1] of pre-war Poland). A tiny portion of pre-war Poland (700 km²[1]) was annexed by Nazi Slovakia.

Since 1935, Nazi Germany was divided into provinces (Gaue) which had replaced the former German states and Prussian provinces. Of the territories annexed, some were attached to the already existing Gaue East Prussia and Silesia (later Upper Silesia), while from others new Reichsgaue Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland were constituted. Wartheland was the only Gau constituted solely from annexed territory,[2] Danzig-West Prussia comprised also former German areas and the former Free City of Danzig. The occupied Generalgouvernement remained outside the Third Reich.

The annexation violated international law (in particular, the Hague Convention IV 1907).[6][7] Nazi Germany's officials discussed the convention and tried to circumvent it by declaring the war against Poland over prior to the annexation, which in their view made the convention non-applicable.[7]

Administration