Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia

The Prussian province West Prussia created from Polish territory annexed by Prussia in Partitions of Poland was dissolved in 1920, following the Treaty of Versailles. The bulk of it inhabited by Polish majority became part of the newly established Second Republic of Poland and was administered as Pomeranian Voivodship (Polish Corridor). The eastern remains of German West Prussia were attached to the Province of East Prussia as Regierungsbezirk West Prussia - a Regierungsbezirk ("government region") being a German administrative subunit of a province (Provinz) comprising several counties (Kreise). The western remains of German West Prussia were merged to the German remains of the former Province of Posen and made a new province, Posen-West Prussia.

After the Nazis came to power in Germany, they reformed the administrative system by transforming the former German provinces and states into their Gau system in 1935 as a part of their Gleichschaltung policy.

In 1938, German Posen-West Prussia was dissolved and its former West Prussian territory was attached to the German Pomeranian Gau. Also in 1938, the Polish Pomeranian Voivodship was expanded southward to comprise the Bydgoszcz region. The resulting enlarged Pomeranian voivodeship was called Greater Pomeranian Voivodship (Wielkopomorskie).

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, this Greater Pomeranian voivodship was first made the German military district "West Prussia",[2] and by a decree[3] of Adolf Hitler on 8 October merged with the Free City of Danzig and the East Prussian Regierungsbezirk West Prussia, to form the Reichsgau West Prussia.[4] The western remains remained outside and continued to be administered by the German Pomeranian Gau as Regierungsbezirk Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia according to the 1938 reform, while the Bromberg (Bydogoszcz) region stayed with Reichsgau West Prussia and was not attached to Reichsgau Posen, the later "Warthegau". The designation Reichsgau instead of just Gau indicates that the province primarily consisted of annexed territory. A Gauleiter of a Reichsgau was also titled Reichsstatthalter. Other Reichsgaue were e.g. Reichsgau Wartheland and Reichsgau Sudetenland.

The Free City of Danzig comprised the Nazi Party's Gau Danzig which had been established in March 1926. The Gauleiters of Gau Danzig were:[5]

Hans Albert Hohnfeldt (March 1926 - June 1928)

Walter Maass, Acting (August 1928 - March 1929)

Erich Koch, Acting (March 1929 - September 1930)

Arthur Greiser, Acting (October 1930), and

Albert Forster (from 15 October 1930)

On 1 September 1939 at the start of the war, Germany immediately annexed the Free City of Danzig. Following the establishment of the new Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia on 8 October, Forster was named Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of the expanded territory on 26 October.[6]

The Reichsgau was very heterogenous, like the territory, which comprised territory of the pre-war Danzig (completely), of Germany (West Prussia Government Region) and of Poland (roughly the Pomeranian Voivodeship), the population amounted to 2,179,000 altogether, with 1,494,000 Polish citizens of mostly Polish ethnicity, 408,000 Danzig citizens of mostly German ethnicity and 277,000 German citizens of mostly German ethnicity.[7] The German occupiers considered the Danzig and Polish citizenships as naught, due to the de facto abolition of these two states. Christian Danzigers and Christian Poles of German ethnicity were granted German citizenship, Jewish Danzigers, and Jewish Poles of which ethnicity so ever were denied the German citizenship. As to Christian Danzigers and Christian Poles of Polish ethnicity the acceptance as citizens was mostly denied, but under certain circumstances granted.

Extermination and expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews by Nazi Germany

Polish nationals rounded up during the ethnic cleansing of Gdynia, September 1939

Main articles: Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany and Holocaust

Nazi German policy aimed at extermination of Jewish and Polish population. Mass-murder sites in the region include:

• Stutthof concentration camp, where over 85,000 died (mostly Poles);
• Piaśnica, where some 12,000 local Polish-Kashub intelligentsia and others were murdered.[8]

Nazi policy to exterminate the Polish and Jewish populations was conducted in several phases; the first stage occurred in September 1939.[9] The main Nazi responsible for genocide conducted in the Pomeranian Voivodeship was Gauleiter Albert Forster, who was involved in the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Jews and ethnic Poles and enlisted to his program, often under threat of violence, Polish citizens—descendants of Germanic settlers—whom the Nazis saw as Germans. Forster declared that Poles must be eradicated: "We must exterminate this nation, starting from the cradle."[10][11][12]

The Reichsgau was the site of the Stutthof concentration camp and its sub camps where over 85,000 people were executed or died of illness, starvation or mistreatment. Of the 52,000 Jews who were sent to the camp only around 3,000 would survive.[13]

During the Winter of 1939/40 between 12,000 and 16,000 people were murdered at Piaśnica by Einsatzkommando 16, units of the 36th Regiment of SS, and members of the Selbstschutz, a militia force made up of Poles of German ethnicity. The local Selbstschutz, under the command of Ludolf von Alvensleben, numbered 17,667 and before their disbandment in October 1939 had killed 4,247 people.

Commander of the Selbstschutz Ludolf von Alvensleben told his men on 16 October 1939:

You are now the master race here. Nothing was yet built up through softness and weakness... That’s why I expect, just as our Führer Adolf Hitler expects from you, that you are disciplined, but stand together hard as Krupp steel. Don’t be soft, be merciless, and clear out everything that is not German and could hinder us in the work of construction.[14]

Jews did not figure prominently among the victims in West Prussia, as the area's Jewish population was small and most had fled before the Germans arrived. However, in places where they were present, they were expelled and murdered in what was classified as "other measures" which simply meant murder.[15] In areas where Jewish families or individuals remained, a "shameful situation" was proclaimed, and Nazi authorities expected the Selbstschutz to remedy it through "direct action".[16] In August 1943 around 500 Jews from a camp in the Pomeranian Voivodeship were sent to Auschwitz, out of which 434 were immediately killed upon arrival [17]

It is estimated that, by war's end, up to 60,000 people had been murdered in the region,[18] and up to 170,000 expelled.[19] though other estimates place the figure at around 35,000.[20] Forster himself reported that, by February 1940, 87,000 people had been "evacuated" from the region.[21]

Counties (Regierungsbezirk) and districts (Kreis), 1944

Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia on the map of the Second Polish Republic

Danzig-West Prussia was divided into three government regions (Regierungsbezirk), with the name-giving capital cities of Bromberg, Danzig and Marienwerder.[4]

In 1939 the Free City of Danzig was annexed to Germany. After a brief transitional period, its territory became part of the restored Regierungsbezirk Danzig in the Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen (the restored Prussian Province of West Prussia) and was divided into nine districts (Kreise):

• Kreis Berent
• Danzig-Land (Rural)
• Danzig-Stadt City
• Dirschau
• Elbing-Land (Rural)
• Grosses Werder
• Karthaus
• Neustadt
• Zoppot City County (detached from Neustadt)

Regierungsbezirk Danzig Governing Presidents/Regierungspräsidenten:

• 1940–1943 – Fritz Hermann
• 1943–1945 – Albert Forster

The NSDAP gauleiter of Danzig, Albert Forster, became leader of Civil Administration in Danzig in 1939, as well as Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of the Reichsgau. He remained the most powerful politician throughout the war, until the area was overrun by the Soviet forces in March 1945.

The Wehrmacht established there the Wehrkreis XX, based at Danzig, under the command of

• General der Artillerie Walter Heitz (11 Sep 1939 - 23 Oct 1939) (as Befehlshaber Danzig-Westpreußen)
• General der Infanterie Max Bock (23 Oct 1939 - 30 Apr 1943)
• General der Infanterie Bodewin Keitel (30 Apr 1943 - 30 Nov 1944)
• General der Infanterie Karl-Wilhelm Specht (1 Dec 1944 - ? Jan 1945)[22]

In March 1945, the region was reclaimed by Poland, and the Nazi governor, Albert Forster, was later sentenced to death and executed for crimes against humanity. The German population (including wartime settlers, Nazis, and military officials) either fled or was expelled.

• World War II evacuation and expulsion
• Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany

• (in German) Shoa.de - List of Gaue and Gauleiter
• (in German) Die NS Gaue at the Deutsches Historisches Museum website.
• (in German) Die Gaue der NSDAP