"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (218 page)

3.
Cf. observations made by Frank, “Diensttagebuch 1943,” vol. 2, May 26, 1943: “To begin with we treated this country as a mere object of plunder…. The first success was … the dismantling of all economic functions in the territory within a matter of months. But a short time [later] … we had to recognize that this course of action would lead to a complete impasse; the German Reich would suffer most as a consequence…. Thus, in January—February 1940, what I should like to call the Governor General’s Plan was launched, a plan whose object is to harness the area economically to the greatest possible benefit of the German Reich.”

4.
Memorandum from the OKW, October 20, 1939 (Nuremberg doc., PS-864), no. 6, in which is added: “The ‘Polish economy’ must be made to flourish.”

5.
Ibid., no. 3.

6.
Concerning legislative work up to 1940, cf. the very detailed synopsis in Adami, “Die Gesetzgebungsarbeit im GG” (1940), 604–17; for more details, see Weh, “Das Recht des GG,”
DR
(1940) (A): 1393 ff., 1601 ff.; a complete collection of the laws is given in A. Weh,
Übersicht über das Recht des Generalgouvernements
(loose-leaf collection), 1940 ff., with additional material.

7.
Roesner, “Der neue Ostraum Großdeutschlands,”
DJ
2 (1940): 857 f.; according to this, the population totaled 10.565 million (not counting Galicia). See also
Die Ostgebiete des Deutschen Reiches und des Generalgouvernements
(Berlin-Dahlem, 1940) (ZS), Bl. 9.

8.
“Legal security” (
Rechtssicherheit
) in the sense of legal clarity but without elements of justice, i.e., ethical elements.

9.
RGBl.
I 2077.

10.
Exceptions: Legislative competence was vested in the Führer and Reichskanzler; morever, in addition to the governor general, the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich and the plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan also had the right to make law by decree (sec. 5 of the Führer decree of October 12, 1939, (
RGBl
. I 2077); list of Führer decrees and ordinances—concerning less important areas—of the cited authorities in
Doc. Occ
. 6:51 f.

11.
All decrees issued by the governor general were published in the Official Gazette, the
Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement (VBl.GG)
; similarly, police orders for the whole territory of the General Government (sec. 3 of the Decree on Security and Public Order in the General Government [GG] of October 26, 1939,
VBl.GG
[1939]: 5). See also the Decree on the Publication of Proclamations in the General Government of July 23, 1940 (
VBl.GG
[1940]: 223), according to which all proclamations required by law or agreement were to be published in the
Krakauer (Warschauer) Zeitung
in German and Polish, insofar as this was not at divergence with the decrees of the governor general. Instructions, proclamations, appeals, etc., issued by the local authorities at district (
Kreis
) level were usually made public by means of bilingual posters.

12.
By means of a Decree Governing the Provisional Regulation of Administrative Jurisdiction in the General Government of July 23, 1940 (
VBl.GG
[1940]: 222); contestation of decisions of the administrative authorities was, with retroactive effect from October 16, 1939, declared inadmissible “until further notice.”

13.
The governor general alone had the authority to make law by decree; the heads of the (main) departments in his office merely issued implementing orders; also, like other authorities, they could issue administrative instructions when expressly authorized to do so by the government of the General Government. Apart from the governor general, then, no authority had the right to issue decrees; attempts by district governors to make laws by decree were energetically rejected by Frank; cf. letter from the Reich Ministry of Justice to the Reich Minister and Head of the Reich Chancellery, February 13, 1941, and further correspondence (Nuremberg doc., NG-342). The HSSPF of the General Government issued instructions to implement decrees when empowered to do so in decrees issued by the governor general. The right to issue police orders had been granted to the HSSPF by the governor general in sec. 3 of the Decree on Security and Public Order in the General Government of October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 5); list of relevant decrees in
Doc. Occ
. 6:87 n. 3). Even without the necessary authority, the HSPPF delegated the right, in certain cases, to issue decrees to the SSPF or the commander of the Security Police (BdS).

14.
Cf. report, Dr. F. Siebert, “Zur Frage der Gesetzgebung,” of April 22, 1959 (BA Ostdok. 13 GG VII a/1), which reflected the view of many former administrators in the General Government, namely that the legislative process, though tailored to conditions in the Reich, was too unwieldy and time-consuming for the General Government (out of touch, an avalanche of paper from the top). It is said to have taken months to get the administration in Kraków up and running. With the establishment of the government, “legislative fecundity” had grown. This had led to the formation of a top-heavy bureaucracy; more and more departments were spawned. A “Legislature” Department was established within the office of the governor general in January 1940 to initiate, supervise, and centralize the legislative process in the different administrative areas. The department was headed by the “straight A” law graduate OLG-
Rat
(Councillor of the State Superior Court) Albert Weh. It also published the
Gazette of Decrees
and the government section of the
Official Gazette for the General Government
. In keeping with the Reich Statute Book, Weh was also editor of the complete loose-leaf Statute Book of the General Government, “Das Recht des GG,”
DR
(1940) with supplements in 1940 and subsequent years. According to the statistics in Weh, “2 Jahre Gesetzgebungsarbeit,” 30, the office of the governor general was responsible for a total of 99 acts of legislation in 1939, 446 in 1940, and 289 in 1941, as of September 30; up to October 10, 1941, the government of the General Government alone had promulgated 1,115 draft laws, of which 834 had been put into force. Cf. letter from Governor General Frank to the Reich Minister of Finance, July 9, 1942, which contains Frank’s staffing schedule for the Legislature Department, BA R 2/5049, 133 ff. For further details, see Du Prel,
Das GG
(1942), 155; a particular feature of the plan was the circulation and hearing procedure, which was very time-consuming. A further delaying factor was—as F. Siebert (“Zur Frage der Gesetzgebung,” April 22, 1959, BA Ostdok. 13 GG VII a/1) says—the way draft legislation was not discussed in depth centrally in cabinet meetings but only at meetings between Frank the relevant departmental head.

15.
The position of the Party in the General Government (for a contemporary view, see von Medeazza, “Die Partei im GG” [1941], who gives an overview, though naturally this skirts round the tensions between Party and Civil Service) was always weak, because Frank would not tolerate Party organizations, with the exception of the Hitler Youth, founded as late as 1942 by special decree (Decree on the Hitler Youth in the General Government of April 22, 1942,
VBl.GG
[1942]: 217; cf. Euller, “Die Hitler-Jugend im GG” [1940], University Library, Warsaw, 011248, no. 2, 24). Frank, the fanatical proponent of the Unified Administration, underlined that the Party in the General Government was a unit and needed no secondary organizations (meeting of department heads on April 12, 1940, “Diensttagebuch,” 1:134 ff., 136). The unity would be best preserved in the form of social gatherings.

16.
For example, the Decree on Administration of Criminal Justice Affecting Poles and Jews, December 4, 1941 (
RGBl
. I 759); secs. 4, 5 of the Decree on Administration of Civil Law in the Annexed Eastern Territories, September 25, 1941 (“Ostrechtspflegeverordnung”),
RGBl
. I 597 ff.

Part One. Section 3. C. I. The Cultural Sector

1.
Sec. 3, the Führer decree of October 12, 1939 (
RGBl
. I 2077), in conjunction with secs. 5, 6 of the Decree on the Occupied Polish Territories, October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 3).

2.
For details on the cultural administration, see the sources cited in
Doc. Occ
. 6:406 ff. and the introduction of K. M. Pospieszalski (ibid., 391 ff.); Madajczyk,
Polityka
, 2:120 ff.;
Nazi Culture in Poland
(1970) (no author); for an account of cultural policy in the General Government (GG), see Clemen, “Kunstdenkmäler und Denkmalsschutz im Generalgouvernement,” BA Br. II/46, and the “Report on the Development of the Administration in the General Government,” July 1, 1940, Bl. 113 ff., BA R 52/247. For details on the economic administration, see
Doc. Occ
. 6:243 ff.; and the regulations reproduced in Weh,
Übersicht über das Recht des Generalgouvernements
, sec. E. Regarding the labor administration, see also
Doc. Occ
. 6:306 ff.; Weh,
Übersicht über das Recht des Generalgouvernements
, 2:F; and Melies,
Das Arbeitsrecht des GG
(1943).

3.
For a detailed account, see C. Kleßmann,
Die Selbstbehauptung einer Nation, Nationalsozialistische Kulturpolitik und polnische Widerstandsbewegung im GG 1939–1945
(1971); Stamati, “Zur ‘Kulturpolitik’ des Ostministeriums” (1958), 78 ff.

4.
In the office of the governor general, all areas of importance for propaganda purposes (propaganda, the press, radio, film, print, music, theater, visual arts, the Department for Tourism, and trade fairs and exhibitions) were subordinated to the (Central) Department of Propaganda, in keeping with the arrangements in the Reich. The head of the Press Department was simultaneously the chief press spokesman for the government of the General Government; in view of his desire to build up an independent press office, this led (as also in the Reich between the Reich Press Office and the Ministry of Propaganda) to a running feud with the head of the Central Department of Propaganda (press conference, April 14, 1942, “Diensttagebuch 1942,” 1:297; also in
Doc. Occ
. 6:437 ff.; also discussion between the latter and Frank on January 10, 1941). This Central Department, which was chiefly concerned with the underpinning of the Geman hegemony claims in the Weichsel (Wisła) area (
Krakauer Zeitung
, October 26, 1940), appears to have been largely incompetent in terms of personnel and conduct of business. The president, Nebing, was accused of “unparalleled economic corruption”; moral standards were said to be such that, “under this leadership, no decent man” would be able to work in the department (report by the
Referent
for Education of the People and Propaganda to Governor General Frank at the meeting of January 10, 1941). Frank responded by setting up an inquiry (“Diensttagebuch 1941”); the outcome was the replacement of the president of the department.

5.
The Central Department of Propaganda was very active: already by the spring of 1940 it had built up an “ethnic German cultural organization” with 34 local groups, its own German publishing companies (three up to December 1941), turned Polish theaters into German-language theaters and provided subsidies for them (in Kraków, Warsaw, and Lublin); up to the end of 1941 it had arranged more than 20 state ceremonial occasions and 170 concerts by visiting musicians from the Reich (cf. “Diary of Events of the General Government for the period from May 16 to 31, 1942,” ZS, Versch. 341, 449); it produced its own weekly newsreels and film reports for showing in Polish cinemas; a Tourist Board was set up in Kraków, with its own branch office in Berlin to advertise the General Government as a “holiday destination” (Jaenicke, “Propaganda und Kulturarbeit” [1941], 3 ff., 5 ff.). In 1943, at Frank’s instigation, a
Baedeker
for the General Government was published (IfZ). The confiscated Polish sports fields and tennis courts, water sports centers, swimming pools, athletic stadia, and arts facilities were reserved solely for the use of Germans; German bookstores were established, German restaurants, NSDAP adult education centers, and in every town a
Deutsches Haus
(“German House”) where social events were held for the German population. October—November 1940 saw the first Warsaw Cultural Festival (Grundmann, “Deutsches Kulturleben in Warsaw” [1941]).

6.
Already in 1940 the governor general appointed a special commissioner to oversee sporting activities for Germans; under him were four district commissioners and 30
Kreis
sports leaders. As early as June of that year, the Warsaw District held its own athletic championships; in 1940 the first tennis championships were held in the General Government. By 1940 Warsaw already had 25 sports clubs with 6,000 members and two SS-
Führerheime
(social clubs for SS leaders) (Grundmann, “Deutsches Kulturleben in Warsaw”; University Library, Warsaw, Sign. 011248). In 1940 8
Land
championships were held in a range of sports, and 200 sports centers, gymnasiums, etc. were reestablished; in Kraków the Deutsche Kampfbahn sports and leisure center (athletic stadium, football field, swimming pool, open-air theater, tennis courts) was opened in 1941; by 1941 there were 99 German gymnastics and sports clubs in the General Government; for further details see G. Niffka,
Das Generalgouvernement
(March 1941), Folge 6, 15 ff. (University Library, Warsaw, Sign. 011248). (The author was the governor general’s special commissioner for sports).

7.
Cf. Du Prel,
Das Generalgouvernement
(1942), 186 ff. One result of these efforts was the establishment of the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (Institute for German Development in the East) in Kraków (decree issued on April 19, 1940,
VBl.GG
1 [1940]: 149 f.), which was conceived as a replacement for the closed University of Kraków, having “in a certain sense” sections that corresponded to faculties (Prehistory; History; History of Art; Ethnology, including Jewish studies; Slavonic Philology; Law; Economy; Geography; Agriculture; Horticulture; Forestry). According to sec. 3 of the decree, the institute’s objective was “fundamental scientific research into all aspects of the Eastern lands”; in other words, to prove that the General Government had been an area of German settlement since time immemorial; for further details, see Du Prel,
Das Generalgouvernement;
according to a report in the
Krakauer Zeitung
, April 21, 1942, the institute had—by 1942—become the largest institute of Eastern studies with branches in Warsaw and Lemberg (L’vov), in which 100 staff were employed. Along the same lines, the office of the commissioner appointed by Frank in 1942 to oversee the security of art treasures was changed into an Office for the Preservation of Historical Art Treasures (decree, July 27, 1942,
VBl.GG
[1942]: 419); however, the office was closed a year later because of mismanagement by the head, Kajetan Mühlmann (discussion on July 13, 1943, between Mühlmann and the head of the Legislative Office, Weh [“Diensttagebuch,” 3:678]).