Zwangsmigration als Instrument deutscher und sowjetischer Besatzungs- und Annexionspolitik in Polen 1939–1941/45

Abstract

From 1939 to 1945, Poles were forced to live under two regimes of occupation which both turned to mass expulsion in exercising political control. Still, however, there were significant differences between Soviet and German rule. Stalin was suspicious of Poles and Jews, but he did not plan to change the ethnonational structure of the newly annexed territories. After the liquidation of unwanted social strata a reeducation of the remaining population, no matter of which ethnic or religious background, into ‘class-conscious’ Soviet citizens was planned. The German occupation regime on the other hand aimed from the very beginning at radically changing the occupied and annexed part of Poland. Here, ethnicity determined the relationship between occupiers and occupied and, in particular, the latter’s living condition and thus their chances for survival.