"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (65 page)

The strongest basis for the Unified Administration was to be above all the rural and urban
Kreise,
because the governor general had rightly realized that this from of administration could function and attract sufficient managerial staff only if the lower administrative levels had sufficient freedom of action and were not choked by a superbureaucracy at the center. In this respect, the governor general, sometimes even in opposition to his own administration, adhered to the principle of giving the medium and lower-level authorities as many powers “as could be tolerated” (and approved autonomous action by the lower-level authorities), because decentralization “helped develop personality” and was the basis of the “colonial administration of the East.”
³⁰

The second characteristic of the principle of Unified Administration in the General Government consisted of the “politicization” of the administration in the sense that the administrative leadership was also the Party leadership;
³¹
thus the dualism of Party and state was abolished. This new function of the administration, one of the most important concerns of the governor general, whose relationship to the Party had been worse than poor from the start,
³²
was to be a demonstration against the loss of authority
³³
and standing by the administration in the Reich and in the occupied territories. It represented an attempt to harmonize the
political
aspirations of the Party with the
total administrative aspirations
of the administrative leadership, to simplify the administrative organization, and to increase its efficiency. This synthesis of politics and administration was to be supported by the ideal of every administration, the “antibureaucratic” chief administrator, in whom training and knowledge were less important than personality and the ability to get things done.
³⁴
Above all at
Kreis
level as a
Kreishauptmann
or a
Stadthauptmann
—titles consciously linked to the models of the earlier Austrian administration (in Galicia)—he was to control a loose-knit administration, be flexible and no “desk man,” be capable of acting independently and of enforcing his will, indeed of being “a real man”
³⁵
in this “non-German region.” This was the image of the administrative leader in the “typical colonial style” (according to Frank), with whom “German order” was to be established in the East.

This new definition of chief administrator certainly achieved its purpose. It appealed to the initiative and self-reliance of the individual, qualities that had no chance in the conventional administration. As a result, it initially attracted individuals who were offered opportunities for development that would never have been possible in the Reich. These individuals, from whom the team of
Kreishauptleute
and their offices were in part chosen, were dynamic forces from the economy, the Party, and the administration who were weary of the rigid bureaucracy of the Reich and the arrogance of the specialist administrations and came to the East to “experience something” but also to be “pioneers”; for the regime, they therefore represented a welcome pool of active, young executive personnel (government officials, lawyers, economic experts, graduates of NSDAP cadre schools, etc.).
³⁶
However, this pool was by no means sufficient, especially for the specialist administration, whereas in the centralized authorities, the monopoly of legal specialists was tenaciously defended.
³⁷
In contrast, the
top posts
were allocated to Party functionaries (mostly nonspecialists), some of them old friends of the governor general whom he had brought with him from the Reich judicial service, the Reich law office of the NSDAP, and the Academy of German Law.
³⁸

However, it was not possible to preserve the Unified Administration in the long term. It failed because of the political, administrative, and personnel situation and the inconsistency of its own administrative leadership. The principle of Unified Administration was not implemented at crucial points in the organizational field, which ultimately led to its downfall.

The police service led its own life separate from the civil administration with its own administrative structure and chain of command,
³⁹
and from 1942 on, it wrested all police administration duties from the internal administration, delegating them to its own administration.
⁴⁰
The “subordination” of the higher SS and police leader (HSSPF) to the governor general, and of the local SS and police leaders to the district chiefs set out in the governor general’s decrees,
⁴¹
was meaningless, because the senior administrators had no authority to instruct these agencies and the “subordination” did not bring with it any disciplinary powers. Berlin continued to supervise and issue direct orders to the police, opening the door wide to arbitrary and despotic police acts.
⁴²
Whether the local police chiefs obeyed instructions of the district chiefs or the
Kreishauptleute
depended on their personal relationship with the administration head involved and on their own policies.
⁴³
Unified Administration was therefore doomed to failure because the administration had no means to enforce its instruction to the enforcement authorities.

The classic special administrations were not, as would have been necessary, incorporated into the unified authorities of the general administration; they led largely autonomous lives,
⁴⁴
which gave rise to endless disputes because the administration heads (
Kreishauptleute
and
Stadthauptleute
) should, in theory, have been the “political leaders” of all branches of the administration, but they did not possess
ultimate authority;
that is, they were not the superior authority over the
special
administrations.
⁴⁵
Particularly at the lower levels, this resulted in a good deal of administrative and jurisdictional chaos. The
Kreishauptmann
spent much of his time preventing turf wars between the various departments, which acted on the instructions of their own headquarters (the district administration or the central administration in Kraków) without notifying the
Kreishauptmann.
⁴⁶
Even within the departments reporting to the
Kreishauptmann,
tendencies to act as special administrations were soon evident.
⁴⁷

This all saw the concept of Unified Administration diluted and undermined. As time went by, the situation increasingly tended to emulate conditions reigning in the Reich: the independence of the specialist administrations and the existence of direct channels of decision from higher to lower
specialist authorities
(bypassing the medium-level authority, the district administration).
⁴⁸
Relations between the various administrative levels (central and district) were also burdened by rivalries and tension.
⁴⁹

The district administrations jealously defended their independence from the central authorities in Kraków; they felt themselves to be the “Gauleiter of the General Government,” advocated autonomous tendencies,
⁵⁰
and complained bitterly about the arrogant ordering-around of the government of the General Government in totally irrelevant matters, whereas the districts were able to make their own decisions in major issues.
⁵¹
In turn, the central authorities tended toward expansion and started to dominate all lower-level authorities,
⁵²
the worst consequences of which were overbureaucratization and “an unnecessary and senseless” jurisdictional chaos;
⁵³
for instance, eighteen different agencies were responsible for trade permits in the General Government.
⁵⁴

Only at the beginning, when no regulations had been issued for many areas and the General Government was ruled by general instructions, was there relatively large scope for the much-hailed Unified Administration and the initiative of the administration.
⁵⁵
This room for maneuver lasted until no later than fall 1940. After that, the reports by the administrative authorities in the districts and
Kreise
are full of complaints about friction with the special authorities (police), breaches of Unified Administration,
⁵⁶
the “big-headed” central authorities, the red tape from the top,
⁵⁷
the central authorities’ administrative perfectionism
⁵⁸
and unworldliness, and their inability or unwillingness to take account of the actual situation in the country
⁵⁹
(although the lower-level authorities still had greater latitude than in the Reich territory).
⁶⁰
The specialists at lower levels were completely tied up with blocking unnecessary or damaging directives from above and coping with the situation as it was.
⁶¹
Quite sensible proposals to achieve greater practical knowledge in the central authorities by exchanging staff
⁶²
failed because of the reluctance and ponderous structure of the machinery.

It was therefore evident at an early stage that the (political) demand for “loose-knit” administrative leadership on the one hand, and the ambition of the German administration to supervise and control all areas on the other were totally incompatible. The heads of department in the central authorities and the districts wanted to rule, implement, control, and supervise everything and everyone themselves, imposing considerable strains and chaos on official business processes.
⁶³
The office of the governor general administered but did not rule. As is normally the case with misgovernment, each department blamed another and passed responsibility down the line. But this did not have any effect on the appalling state of affairs. The governor general himself saw the chaos but did nothing to remedy it because he vacillated and was himself unable to pursue a consistent policy. He started to lose control, burying his head in the sand and agreeing with whoever last had his ear, for instance fighting against departmental autonomy (i.e., in favor of centralizing the administration) but still not disposed to tolerate the efforts by the general administrative authorities (district
Gouverneure
) to achieve independence.
⁶⁴
It was an open secret throughout the entire administration that the principle of Unified Administration had been undermined, indeed abandoned, and was nothing more than a “pretty facade.”
⁶⁵

IV. Actual Development: The Lack of Personnel and the Failure of the German Administration

Personnel problems also doomed the principle of Unified Administration to failure; the ideal of the chief administrator could not be realized because there were insufficient personnel, and in particular insufficient management personnel. As in the case of all staff employed in the East, the average number and quality of administrative staff in the General Government were well below those encountered in the Reich administration, blatantly contradicting the demands of the leadership that administrative officials “willing to make political decisions” should be brought to the General Government. Not “tired, shopworn fileshifters, comrades in bureaucracy” should work in the General Government but those “cast in the mold of true efficiency,” “warriors totally dedicated to the liquidation of the Poles.”
¹
In practice, however, such “warriors” were almost totally lacking or proved to be failures whose characters were not up to the demands of the “life of luxury” in the East.

Because most civil servants had been drafted into the Wehrmacht, the Reich administration could only supply staff for individual specialist administrations in insufficient number, so that staff shortages became an everyday phenomenon.
²
Interest in the central authorities in Kraków and the districts, as well as for top positions in the urban
Kreise,
still remained relatively large because of the social and cultural attractions.
³
These levels thus received a disproportionately high number of personnel,
⁴
while the rural
Kreis
administrations suffered from permanent staff shortages and poor quality, which were even more noticeable given the high staff turnover
⁵
(apart from drafts to the Wehrmacht, there were also reassignments to the Reich and voluntary return because of the poor living conditions),
⁶
making any continuity in the administration impossible. The demands by the leadership that only the best people should be sent to the East contrasted with the ceaseless complaints about the poor professional and personal quality of the personnel, because—as seen by the administration of the General Government—the Reich administration was of the opinion that “anything was good enough for the East.”
⁷
Feelings were particularly bitter that “elements” that had become “unpopular” in the Reich were to be employed in the General Government; “unpopular” in this context meant unpopular with the National Socialists. It was noted, for instance, that a civil servant was appointed vice governor in Lublin who had earlier been a Social Democrat.
⁸