The German Fifth Column in Poland (13 page)

It is not surprising that there should have been munificent rewards for the leaders who distinguished themselves in subversive activities and the practice of treachery and diversion. The
Essener National-Zeitung
for January 25, I940, announced that the same Wiesner who, by the way, fled from Poland a little before the outbreak of hostilities, spoke at a meeting in Stuttgart on “the sufferings and the liberation of the Germans in Poland.”  The
Deutsches Auslands-Institut
, already referred to previously as one of the most important centres for espionage, awarded Wiesner a silver medal for his “labours.”

B
ut the crowning glory for these persons came when the six leaders of the German minority in Poland were decorated by Hitler himself with gold insignia of honour. The six leaders were photographed at the time and the
Völkischer Beobachter
for October 22, 1939, identified each by name.

“
From left to right: Ludwig Wolff (Łódź), Dr. Ulitz (Kattowitz), Gauleiter Wagner (Breslau), Senator Wiesner (Bielitz), Obergruppenführer Lorenz, Senator Hasbach (Hermannshoff), Gero Freiherr von Gersdorff (representing Dr. Kohnert, Bromberg), and Weiss (Jarotchin).”

After the existing German organizations had been
“incorporated,” they were rapidly dissolved and automatically absorbed into the N.S.D.A.P. A meeting at Bydgoszcz on January 21, 1940, was devoted to the dissolution of the
Deutsche Vereinigung
, numbering 70,000 members and 260 sections. Taking the place of the president, Hans Kohnert, another minority leader, the S.S. Sturmbannführer, Dr. Gero von Gersdorff, made a speech. The
Völkischer Beobachter
for January 21, I940, describes the occasion in the following words:

“
The final demonstration of the members of the Deutsche Vereinigung was a demonstration of their fidelity to Adolf Hitler, to the Reich, and to the Fatherland, of which they have given proof over twenty years, facing death, the Polish terror of that valorous fidelity which in the future also they put at the Führer's disposition."

A large number of German newspapers (among others the
Frankfurter Zeitung
for January 30, 1940) published a report of a meeting of National-Socialist Party leaders at which Herr Greiser presided. The meeting was devoted to consideration of problems arising out of organizing the German minority. They discussed the
Volksdienst
(compulsory agricultural instruction for the youth), the
Landjahrlager
(the twelve-month rural camps for youth leaving school), the
Gauschulungsburg
(places for instruction in Nazi philosophy), the
Gaugrenzamt
(a department devoted to research on German minority questions), and other forms of organization in which the Germans of the
Warthegau
, i.e. the illegally annexed Western Poland, were to be systematically grouped, after the former minority organizations had been dissolved. It was stated,
inter alia
, that the
Hitler-Jugend
based its activities on the former organizations of German youth. The report declared that the organization of the party was already complete, so far as the higher authorities were concerned. Those who previously had been the leaders of the German minority were now represented in the
Gau
. Thirty-two out of a total of forty-two districts (including the province of Łódź) were provided with leaders, and among these the heads of the minority
Jungdeutsche Partei
and the
Deutscher Volksbund
had been appointed for the town of Łódź and the district of Łódź. Herr Greiser stated that he had had great difficulties with appointments to minor party posts, as he had only Germans of Poznańia (in other words, members of the German minority) at his disposition, and though these were very strong in regard to their convictions, they had only a poor acquaintance with political problems.

T
his long report calls for no comment. Only a few months after the “incorporation” all the German minority is being rapidly absorbed into the ranks of the Hitler organization as a compact and organized group, united in the one thought and the one sentiment.

I
n the report quoted an organization referred to by the name of
Selbstschutz
was mentioned. Under the Polish regime this consisted of formations of Nazi secret fighting units, which, after the “incorporation,” were transformed into an auxiliary paramilitary organization, composed solely of members of the former German minority intended for fighting the Poles. It appears from the report that the
Selbstschutz
will soon form sections of the S.A. and S.S.

I
n the
Völkischer Beobachter
for February 18, 1940, is a description of the nature of the
Selbstschutz
. It is a kind of auxiliary police composed of German minority elements from Poland. The party organ, with perfect cynicism, remarks of this auxiliary police composed of “loyal” Germans that their knowledge of Polish will enable them to discover the most secret refuges of the Poles, and in any case they have been the most reliable of informers. The police owes them a great deal. In other words, the German minority has directly contributed to the application of terrorism against the Poles.

T
he organ of the German occupation authorities, the
Ostdeutscher Beobachter
, also gives some characteristic details of the task which has been entrusted to the
Volksdeutsche
elements organized in special formations of the
Selbstschutz
. The newspaper recognizes that in the occupied territory the members of the German minority in Poland are the right hand of the police in the repressive measures applied to the Polish population.

T
he task of these secret agents of the Gestapo has been facilitated, says the
Ostdeutscher Beobachter
, by their profound knowledge of Poland and the Polish language.

I
n its issue for February 4, 1940, the
Kattowitzer Zeitung
announced that in the provinces of Silesia three battalions intended to act as auxiliary police, consisting of one thousand men aged between eighteen and thirty-five and recruited from among the German minority in Silesia, have recently been formed. The official organ of the occupation authorities ends its report on these police with the joyous realization that “soon now there will be police drawn from the local population in the streets of Silesia.”

B
ut that is not all. The Germans of Poland who gratefully endorse the doctrine of Hitlerism are at present taking all kinds of educational courses and training. In its issue for February 15, 1940, the
Völkischer Beobachter
refers to one such course. It was an S.A. course. Their chief, Lutze, himself spoke to the loyal Germans of Poland. Among those present must be mentioned the head of the
Warthe
group, Group Leader Ivers, and the head of the
Vistula group
, Brigade Leader Hacker.

U
nder the rod of the central authorities the German Press reports all these things without the least embarrassment, and, on the contrary, quite openly. With complete cynicism the
Schlesische Zeitung
declares that a large number of Germans, resident in Poland, and Polish citizens, gave incalculable aid to the German army during the war, through their service of espionage and advance posts. The same fact is frankly admitted in the propaganda publication
Unsere Flieger über Polen
,
[121]
issued in Berlin, which gives the story told by four officers. In it is a narrative called “
Männer und Taten
.”
[122]
In the introduction to this narrative we read:

“
That is why I want to tell you about the death of non-commissioned officer Steinbeiss and the heroic rescue of three soldiers achieved by a German peasant. At nightfall I saw a boat with two men in it coming down the river. I called to them in German, and they answered in German. They came nearer, and I saw that they were Polish soldiers. They had their weapons with them, and I was very frightened.

“
Perkun came and reported: ‘The group is ready for action, Herr Major.’ I had to go to my car. Reingraber happened to go by, and above the noise of the engine he shouted to me: ‘They were deserters, Herr Major, two deserters who want to come over to the Germans, and I have brought them along with me as prisoners.’”
[123]

The episode reported occurred in Pomorze, early in the war. German airmen were aided by two Germans of Polish citizenship, Stricke from Weitzenau, and Wruck. Every day Wruck brought the soldiers food and also precise information concerning the movements of the Polish troops. Warned by Wruck, the German airmen left their hiding-place, and “in the hills south of Jabłonowo came upon the German advanced posts, exactly as Wruck had said they would.”

F
rom articles, photographs, and descriptions given in the German Press only one conclusion can be drawn: the German element in Poland was an outpost organized by conquering Hitlerism. During the first few months of the German occupation this element was automatically integrated with the Nazi organization into which it was dissolved. The “minority organizations” all served only as camouflage for irredentist activity. That activity was carried on before and during the war on orders from Berlin, and the minority constituted an innumerable army of spies and diversionist agents which worked to weaken the Polish armed forces and to destroy the Polish State.

CHAPTER SIX - SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

POLAND was not the only country in which the German minority was called to fulfil a strictly defined task of espionage and diversionist activity. The same task was incumbent upon all the German minorities which in German literature are denominated
Grenzminderheiten
(frontier minorities). There were said to be some fifteen to twenty millions of them, scattered throughout all the States of Europe, not excluding the Germans in Italy, in the Scandinavian countries, above all in Denmark, and also the Germans resident in France, in other words, in a country which the Germans hated as much as they hated Poland, and which in Mein Kampf Hitler regarded as a foremost enemy of the Reich.

A
fter the 19I4-18 war these minorities were assigned the role of levers, with the aid of which the problem of a New European Order was to be resolved.

I
n addition to the minority Germans, other national minorities, living in the areas of the respective States, were to play an auxiliary role in the disintegration of internal order. Both the Governments of the Weimar Republic and that of the Third Reich organized intrigues and corruption, and lavishly subsidized all subversive and centrifugal movements in neighbouring countries.

A
fter Hitler came to power, yet another ally was utilized. This was the local political groups who accepted the National-Socialist or Fascist ideology, and who were so blinded that they were ready to endanger the independence of their countries in order to carry through their own internal political games. In their ranks were also a large number of common traitors and German spies.
[124]

These groups, on the lines of the Quisling organization in Norway, were undoubtedly of great service to Hitler's operations even though they represented only a small, and mainly quite insignificant, section of their national communities.

I
n September, 1939, the Germans in Poland constituted an army of conspirators and spies which was only awaiting the order from Berlin. Obeying orders, during the September campaign this army developed especially extensive activity. But Poland was not the only field in which it has operated.

T
he events which have followed in the course of military operations have in fact revealed that this army of conspirators and spies was spread in all the other countries of Europe. It has been demonstrated that the German diversionist agents took possession of Denmark, that in Norway those agents were everywhere, and that the famous attack made by the German airmen on Nyversum was organized with their aid. By means of wireless transmitters they furnished the German staff with information just as they did in Poland, informing them of the precise situation of King Haakon, the Norwegian authorities, and the diplomatic corps.