"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (221 page)

28.
“News from the Reich,” February 4, 1941, BA R 58/157.

29.
For further details, see Du Prel,
Das GG
, 150.

30.
Decree on Cultural Activities in the General Government, March 8, 1940 (
VBl.GG
1 [1940]: 103), with First, Second, and Third Implementing Regulations issued on July 5, 1940 (
VBl.GG
2 [1940]: 399); August 18, 1940 (424) (official authorization was compulsory for all cultural activities, in particular musicians, composers, painters, sculptors, graphic artists, art dealers, actors, singers, directors, artistes, writers, journalists, publishers, booksellers, and photographers); and November 4, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 699; authorizations valid for one year only).

31.
A decree of March 31, 1941 (
VBl.GG
[1941]: 171), covered public music performances. Decree on the Publishing Industry in the General Government, October 31, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 19); and Second Decree of March 21, 1940 (
VBl.GG
1 [1940]: 19). Decree on the Publishing of Printed Matter, October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 7), with First and Second Implementing Regulations issued on March 20, 1940 (
VBl.GG
2 [1940]: 186—making it compulsory to obtain official authorization for the operation of printing shops); and September 5, 1940 (
VBl.GG
2 [1940]: 487—making it compulsory to obtain official authorization for
planning
to publish printed matter). Third Implementing Regulation of October 24, 1940 (
VBl.GG
2 [1940]: 514) to the Decree on the Publishing of Printed Matter of October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 7). First Implementing Regulation of October 24, 1940 (
VBl.GG
2 [1940]: 513), to the Decree on the Publishing Industry of October 31, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 19); this was intended above all to prevent the growth of a Polish underground press. Introduction of paper rationing through a decree issued on July 23, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 415 ff.); introduction of compulsory authorization for the production of printed matter by directive no. 2 of the Rationing Office issued on October 24, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 688), for the Poles effectively a ban; ban on the manufacture of all paper products (cardboard, paperboard, packaging, cards, exercise books, etc.) by means of directive no. 3 issued by the Rationing Office on April 1, 1943 (
VBl.GG
[1943]: 168 f.). Fourth Implementing Regulation of October 24, 1940 (
VBl.GG
2 [1940]: 515), to the Decree on the Publishing of Printed Matter of October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 7).

32.
Responsibility for supervising cultural activities was vested in the district chief, in accordance with instructions from the head of the Department for Education of the People and Propaganda (sec. 1 of the Decree on Cultural Activity in the General Government, March 8, 1940,
VBl.GG
1 [1940]: 103).

33.
Cf., for example, sec. 2 of the Decree on the Publishing of Printed Matter of October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 8).

34.
Guidelines issued by the head of the Department of Cultural Affairs in the office of the governor general, January 10, 1940 (Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc. I-727).

35.
Decree on the Division along Ethnic Lines of the Membership of the Evangelical Church in the General Government, issued on March 16, 1941 (
VBl.GG
[1941]: 100).

Part One. Section 3. C. II. The Economic and Commercial Sector

1.
Cf. “Report on the Development of the General Government” of July 1, 1940, BA R 52 II/249, 145 ff., according to which, from the outset, the General Government was a
Land
with insufficient energy resources and raw materials and an inadequate transport infrastructure; it did not produce enough consumer goods, nor could it produce enough to feed itself by its own efforts. According to Frank’s Four Year Plan for the General Government of January 25, 1940, agricultural production was to be intensified, “superfluous industrial plants” shut down, and the mineral resources and some 700,000 farm workers were to be transported to the Reich (Nuremberg doc., NO-EC-1). According to a report on the armaments industry for the period from March 27 to May 14, 1940 (by Lieutenant General von Backhausen, IfZ, Ma-679/1, 1000), the General Government was a subsidy zone, both agriculturally and industrially. In 1940 the ratio of exports to imports was 1:4; in 1941 the subsidies from the Reich were very low. However, according to figures quoted by the president of the Central Department of Finance, Spindler, at a meeting of department heads on March 25, 1941 (“Diensttagebuch”) the General Government must have almost balanced its budget in 1941 (spending and income totaled some 1 billion złoty, the deficit approx. 60 million złoty). But it is unclear whether this takes into account the exports to the Reich. The
Land
had only one significant asset: cheap labor; the economic policy was therefore “colonial in character”—see also the following note.

2.
Meeting of department heads on January 19, 1940, “Diensttagebuch 1940,” 1:60 ff. Among other comments, Frank said the General Government had so far been seen as a country “ripe for plunder.” The task now was to rebuild production “in the service of the Reich”; it was necessary “to extract whatever could be extracted from the country.” See also the report on the armaments industry for the period from March 27 to May 14, 1940 (IfZ, Ma-679/1, 1000); from 1941 on, everything possible had been squeezed out of the General Government; and to cap it all, it was expected to be in a position to feed itself.

3.
A communication from the deputy Führer dated November 1939 reports—among other things—that Hitler had approved Frank’s decision that neither Warsaw nor Polish industry was to be rebuilt (Nuremberg doc., EC-411). [The comments by Frank quoted in the previous note evidently refer to an industry given over entirely to war production—Author.]

4.
A decree issued by Frank on July 31, 1940 (
VBl.GG
1 [1940]: 233 f.; Weh,
Übersicht über das Recht des Generalgouvernements
[1943], A 140), established the Economic Council for the General Government as the supreme organ of economic policy. It was made up of the heads of department in the office of the governor general and worked under his chairmanship, though he had only advisory status. At Frank’s insistence, this Economic Council superseded the existing Office for the Four Year Plan in the General Government (decree of July 31, 1940; Weh,
Übersicht über das Recht des Generalgouvernements
, E 100); in other words, it supplanted the competent Reich offices, thereby widening the governor general’s scope of responsibility and allowing him a free hand to pursue his own plans. A notable development was that, in the face of objections by Frank, the Reich-controlled trust company for the “management” of assets seized from Poles and Jews was never established (cf. meeting on November 1, 1939, “Diensttagebuch,” and Frank’s comments at a meeting with
Kreishauptleute
and
Stadthauptleute
in Lublin on March 4, 1940, and with department heads on March 8, 1940, in Kraków, ibid., 1940); instead the General Government’s own trustee administration was established as part of the Department of Economics (cf. Frank in conference with Göring on December 4, 1939, in Berlin, ibid.). It should be noted that the General Government had its own unwieldy, centralized economic structure, which brought together all branches of the economy in a single chamber (the Central Chamber of Industry and Commerce; at district level, the District Chamber of Industry and Commerce) in the form of corporations under public law (decree of March 3, 1941,
VBl.GG
[1941]: 87 ff.; the personnel were largely synonymous with the specialist officials of the state authorities and combined both offices in one person), whose object was to “consolidate” the “economic self-management” of “non-Germans” (Kundt, “Entstehung, Probleme, Grundsätze und Form der Verwaltung des Generalgouvernements” [1944], 65 f., University Library Warsaw, Sign. 011249). These chambers—unlike their equivalents in the Reich—had no sovereign powers but were merely executive organs of the corresponding (Central) Departments of the state administration (
Krakauer Zeitung
, December 5, 1941). They did not, therefore, serve as agencies of self-management; rather, they acted as intermediaries between the state and businesses (
Krakauer Zeitung
, February 4, 1942; Governor Kundt, at a meeting on May 30, 1942, “Diensttagebuch”). “For the purpose of eliminating Jewish commerce,” the authorities did not apply sectoral categories but worked on a regional principle, establishing a trading company for each of the 40
Kreis
districts of the General Government (consolidated in a single GmbH—stock corporation; it was the task of these companies to supply Polish wholesalers and the public, as well as to purchase farm produce (
Warschauer Zeitung
, November 12, 1940, IfZ). For more on the economic and administrative rules, see Bühler, “Das GG und seine Wirtschaft” (BA D IV c/102); “Report on the Development of the General Government,” July 1, 1940, 2:167 (BA R 22/249).

5.
On the one hand, the desire was for an “administration with wide-ranging powers”; on the other, all vestiges of Polish autonomy had been destroyed (report 39/45 from the Warsaw District, spring 1945, Ostdok. 13 GG IX a/5, 25). As a result, there was much activity by Poles—particularly members of the Polish resistance movement—on the lower echelons (cooperatives), beyond the control of the German authorities (monthly report, February 1941,
Kreishauptmann
Sochaczew-Blonie, March 4, 1941, IfZ, microfilm Ma-158/3, Fasz. 27/52).

6.
The economic was administered by the Central Department of Economics in the office of the governor general, with subordinate authorities on district and
Kreis
level. Of the numerous special administrative departments, it was above all the economic and agricultural administration that expanded at the cost of the general Civil Service, with a proliferation of new central and district offices and suboffices, etc.

7.
This applied above all to the numerous monopolies operating in the General Government. Before 1939 the monopolies (tobacco, brandy, salt, matches, and the lottery) brought in about 30% of public revenue. The German administration added mineral oil and sugar monopolies. The proportion of state revenues subsequently rose to about 60% of the income of the financial administration (
Warschauer Zeitung
, November 5, 1940); cf. also “Report on the Monopolies in the General Government,”
Frankfurter Zeitung
, February 27, 1940, quoted from BA R 2/5076.

8.
According to the Decree on the Elimination of Bolshevist Economic Systems of July 27, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 418), private companies were permitted in Galicia, though not in the General Government; cf. Dresler, “Die Reprivatisierung in Galizien” (1942), 347 ff.; Losacker, “Aufbau der Verwaltung im neuen Distrikt Galizien” (1942). An earlier decree, issued on August 1, 1941 (
VBl.GG
[1941]: 447), had already specified that the Decree on the Seizure of Private Property in the General Government (
VBl.GG
1 [1940]: 27 f.) also applied in Galicia. The Decree on the Elimination of Bolshevist Economic Systems of July 27, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 418), ordered the reprivatization of craft businesses and retail stores, albeit “only in cases where their continuance was in the national economic interest”; under the terms of a further decree issued on July 27, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 418), it did not extend to the reprivatization of land in public ownership, and any “cession” (
Überlassung
) of land to farmers was for the purpose of “management and exploitation only,” whereas the first decree mentioned above spoke of “transfer of title” (
Übertragung
). Farmland thus remained the property of the German administration. The SS also opposed reprivatization, arguing that this would place “tremendous obstacles in the way of our [i.e., SS] settlement efforts in the area and the Eastern lands as a whole” (telegram from SS-
Gruppenführer
Gottlob Berger, Central Settlement Office of the SS to
Reichsführer
-SS, August 7, 1942; Nuremberg doc., NO-5943). For his part, Himmler planned to restrict transfer of property rights to those farmers who had fulfilled their harvest quotas “faultlessly and in exemplary fashion” since 1941 (letter from Himmler to the Lemberg District governor, Otto Gustav Wächter, March 28, 1943; IfZ, Bestand RFSS/Pers. Stab, MA-305, 2484 f.). Wächter and the HSSPF in the General Government, in contrast, were in favor of unconditional reprivatization. Himmler remained firm (correspondence [2494–2512]). Nor was there a
general
reprivatization of business enterprises, since this would also have meant restoring to Poles property placed in public ownership by the Soviet administration—something that neither the German administration nor the SS wanted.