Everything about Polish Areas Annexed By Nazi Germany totally explained
At the beginning of
World War II, significant
Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany.
Invading Poland in 1939, the
Third Reich annexed the lands the
German Empire had ceded to a reconstituted
Poland in 1919–1922 by the
Treaty of Versailles, including the "
Polish Corridor",
West Prussia, the
Province of Posen, and parts of eastern
Upper Silesia. The council of the
Free City of Danzig voted to become a part of Germany again, although
Poles and
Jews were deprived of their voting rights and all non-
Nazi political parties were banned. Parts of Poland that hadn't been part of German Empire were also incorporated into the Third Reich.
Two decrees by
Adolf Hitler (
October 8 and
October 12,
1939) provided for the division of the annexed areas of Poland into the following administrative units:
- Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen), which included the entire Poznań Voivodeship, most of the Łódź Voivodeship, five counties of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, and one county of the Warszawa Voivodeship;
- Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (initially Reichsgau West Prussia), which consisted of the remaining area of the Pomeranian Voivodeship and the Free City of Danzig;
- Ciechanów District (Regierungsbezirk Zichenau), consisting of the five northern counties of Warszawa Voivodeship (Płock, Płońsk, Sierpc, Ciechanów, and Mława), which became a part of East Prussia;
- Katowice District (Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz), or unofficially East Upper Silesia (Ost-Oberschlesien), which included Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship, Sosnowiec, Będzin, Chrzanów, and Zawiercie Counties, and parts of Olkusz and Żywiec Counties.
These territories had an area of 94,000 km² and a population of 10,000,000 people. The remainder of the Polish territory was annexed by the
Soviet Union (see
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) or made into the German-controlled
General Government occupation zone.
About 860,000
Poles were quickly expelled from the annexed territories to the General Government, while the Soviet Union began to evacuate Germans from the
Baltic,
Galicia, and
Bessarabia according to the
Nazi-Soviet population transfers. 400,000
Germans settled down in the re-annexed lands. Poles living on the annexed territories faced severe persecution, including humiliation,
slave labor, torture, and murder. They were treated according to the official policy of the German state at the time, which defined Poles as
sub-human.
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After the
German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the
district of Białystok, which included the
Białystok,
Bielsk Podlaski,
Grajewo,
Łomża,
Sokółka,
Volkovysk, and
Grodno Counties, was "attached to" (not incorporated into)
East Prussia. Other Polish territories, first annexed by Soviet Union and then by Germany, was incorporated into
Reichskommissariat Ostland (in the north),
Reichskommissariat Ukraine (in the south) and
Distrikt Galizien (in the utmost south).
None of these territorial changes were recognized by the
Allies of World War II and as announced in the
Potsdam Agreement of
August 2, 1945 the Allies made large territorial changes to the region, with all the previously internationally recognised German territories, (as well as those annexed by the Third Reich), that were east of the
Oder-Neisse Line being handed over to jurisdiction of the Soviet Union and Poland pending a "peace settlement".
After
World War II, as agreed in the Potsdam Agreement, Germans living east of the
Oder-Neisse Line were
expelled to Germany, but any Nazi collaborators who were former Polish citizens faced trial (see
Pursuit of Nazi collaborators).
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