"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (172 page)

19.
Note by
Ministerialrat
Dellbrügge, Reich Ministry of the Interior, of December 1939, BA R 32 II/647 (excerpts in Mommsen,
Beamtentum im Dritten Reich
, 224 f.)

20.
See Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
, 52 ff.; Mommsen,
Beamtentum im Dritten Reich
, 110 ff.; note by
Ministerialrat
Dellbrügge, Reich Ministry of the Interior, of December 1939 (224 f.); urgent memorandum of December 23, 1939, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the president of the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich and to the RMuChdRkzlei (BA R 32 II/647; quoted in Mommsen,
Beamtentum im Dritten Reich
, 223 f.). Letter dated January 2, 1940, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the RMuChdRkzlei (BA R 32 II/647; quoted in Mommsen,
Beamtentum im Dritten Reich
, 227 f.). Personal letter from
Reichsleiter
Bormann to Reich minister Lammers, March 1, 1941 (BA R 43 II/1136 b).

21.
Personal letter from Reich Ministry of the Interior to RMuChdRkzlei, May 26, 1941 (BA R 43 II/1136 b; quoted in Mommsen,
Beamtentum im Dritten Reich
, 233 ff.).

22.
Though at the level of the district presidents there was the Party office of the
Gau
inspector, which was run as a merged office with the district presidency, this was not an intermediate office between the Gauleiter and the
Kreisleiter
but dealt with the various special tasks of the Party (statements of the district president and
Gau
inspector of Posen, May 1, 1940,
Gauamtsblatt der NSDAP Gau Wartheland
, 1/40, Bl. 5).

23.
According to the Second Implementing Order of November 2, 1939, sec. 7 (
RGBl.
I 2133), to the decree of the Führer and
Reichskanzler
of October 8, 1939 (
RGBl.
I 2042), the office of the district president comprised the following departments only: General and Internal Affairs (Dept. 1), Education and Mass Education (Dept. 2), Economic Affairs (Dept. 3), Agriculture and Estates (Dept. 4). In the Altreich the Gestapo and the Forestry Administration had been withdrawn from the district presidents since 1933.

24.
More details in Diehl-Thiele,
Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich
, 120, 123 ff., where the tendency to elbow out the district presidents is traced to the dualism between Party and state. Letter of December 7, 1940, from the chief of the head office of the
Ordnungspolizei
, which reports on a discussion between the Reich governor and other departments in which the Reich minister of the interior presented plans to dissolve the offices of the district president and to transfer their duties to the
Landräte
(BA R 19/395).

25.
Frick, “Der Oberpräsident als Organ des Zentralgewalt des Reiches” (1941). Frick contests the “superfluous and damaging centralism” and argues in favor of maintaining the intermediate offices.

26.
Twelfth Decree of April 25, 1943, to the Reich Citizenship Law, sec. 5 (
RGBl.
I 268); Decree on Citizenship unless Countermanded of April 25, 1943, sec. 1 (
RGBl.
I 269); and Decree on Protective Citizenship of April 25, 1943, sec. 11 (
RGBl.
I 271).

27.
See Greifelt, “Festigung deutschen Volkstums in den Ostgebieten” (1940), for more details.

28.
Führer directive on the Eastern territories of October 8, 1939, sec. 3 (
RGBl.
I, 2042), in conjunction with the so-called Sudetengau Law of April 14, 1939 (
RGBl.
I, 780).

29.
Führer directive on the Organization and Administration of the Eastern Territories of October 8, 1939, sec. 3 (
RGBl.
I 2042), in conjunction with the Law on the Administrative Structure in the
Reichsgau
Sudetenland of April 14, 1939, sec. 3 (RGBl. I 780).

30.
For more details on the autonomy of the Reich governors, see Broszat,
Der Staat Hitlers
, 162 ff., 167 ff.

31.
The four-tiered administration structure included the Reich administration, the Reich governor, the district president, and the
Landrat
. The situation of the office of the Reich governor was never made completely clear. It was inserted between the Reich ministries and the middle- and lower-level authorities, but it not only served as an intermediary between the central and middle-level authorities, as had the
Land
governments or lord lieutenancies in the “Old Reich” but had numerous independent powers. See the order of November 2, 1939 (
RGBl.
I, 2133); organization chart of the office of the Reich governor of Posen (ZS, Polen film 55/773). An example of a regulation is the one dealing with the duty to report. The rule was for reports by the district president in Berlin, for example, to be transmitted via the office of the Reich governor. Since, however, there was no guarantee that the reports would be passed on to Berlin, some district presidents continued to send in their reports directly to the central office, with resulting continuous annoyance to the office of the Reich governor.

32.
Law on the Administrative Structure in Austria of April 14, 1939 (
RGBl.
I, 777). Law on the Administrative Structure in the
Reichsgau
Sudetenland of April 14, 1939 (RGBl. I, 780).

33.
Regarding the question of the
Gauräte
, see full details in Teppe, “NSDAP und Ministerialbürokratie” (1976), esp. 372 ff.

34.
Broszat,
Der Staat Hitlers
(1969), 171.

35.
In fact, orders from above were that only qualified personnel should be sent to the Eastern Territories; a possibility considered was to commit all young officials who wanted promotion to go to the Annexed Eastern Territories for a few years once peace had been achieved (letter of July 21, 1939, from the Reich minister of the interior to the highest authorities of the Reich; letter from the chief of staff of the deputy Führer’s office of November 2, 1940, to the RMuChdRkzlei; memorandum of November 13, 1941, from the Reich Chancellery, and draft of a letter to the Reich Ministry of the Interior of November 14, 1940; letters of January 4 and February 13, 1941, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the RMuChdRkzlei [all in BA R 43 II/423]).

Actual practice was in complete contradiction with this official version. The home authorities, which released their staff only with extreme reluctance, in the first instance ordered those who appeared to be the least capable to the Eastern Territories. For this reason, and on account of the unfavorable living conditions, transfer to the Eastern Territories was regarded as a punishment, except by those who had voluntarily committed themselves to service there. Reports from the SD and administrative authorities are filled with descriptions and complaints about these difficulties and the employment of “inferior” officials, misdeeds and criminal acts of all types on the part of German officials, the general dissatisfaction in the Civil Service, and their poor living conditions; cf.
Meldungen aus dem Reich
of April 3, June 24, October 10, September 12, November 21, 1940; February 24, June 9, and December 10, 1941 (BA R 58/149, 151, 154, 155, 156, 157, 161); reports of the district presidents of Posen of January 29, 1940, for the period December 16, 1939, to January 15, 1940; and of February 21, 1941, for the period January 16 to February 15, 1941 (State Archive Pozna
, Reichsstatthalter, hereafter R-sta 922, Bl. 15–16, and 854, Bl. 8); report from the district president of Kalisch (Kalisz) for the period February 16 to March 15, 1940 (R-sta 1830, Bl. 10–14; and R-sta 922, Bl. 26); report from the district president of Łód
(previously Kalisch) for the period March 21 to June 20, 1941 (R-sta 1830, Bl. 45–46); reports from the district president of Hohensalza of February 21, 1940 (R-sta 922, Bl. 17), of July 8, 1941 (R-sta 856, Bl. 10), and of September 10, 1943 (R-sta 65, Bl. 1); letter of May 9, 1940, from the RFSS/RKF to the Reich minister for science, education, and culture (R-sta 992, Bl. 29); secret report, no. 6, of November 15, 1941, from the Reich governor of Posen—economic directorate to the head of the Four Year Plan (R-sta 855, Bl. 12); letter of January 13, 1942, from the Reich governor of Posen—food office—to Dept. 5 (internal) (ibid., Bl. 41).

Regarding the technical and personal inadequacies of the members of the German administration and of Party members in the Annexed Eastern Territories, see also the correspondence between the Reich minister of the interior and the Reich governor of Posen dated January 29, May 4, and May 20, 1940 (BA R 18/462), regarding the Oberbürgermeister of Łód
; memorandum of the deputy Reich governor of Posen (District President Jäger) of May 14, 1940 (State Archive Pozna
, R-sta 1023, Bl. 6), regarding the private sale of the jewelry of executed Poles by the
Landrat
of Schrimm; the result of a disciplinary action against the
Landrat
was thought to be questionable because the sale of such goods often occurred among officials and the sale “did not occur while the impression of the … execution was still fresh”; report from the district president of Hohensalza of September 18, 1940 (Bl. 8–9) (Posen University Library). Letter from the chief of the SIPO and SD to HSSPF, Posen, on “unprofessional behavior of senior officials in Posen” (Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
). For criminal acts on the part of police officials (attacks against Poles, acts while drunk), see the letter of September 18, 1941, from the
Kreisleiter
of Loben to the Kattowitz (Katowice)
Gauleitung
(ZS, Poland, film 63, 76–78); report of January 8, 1940, from the State Superior Court president, Hamburg (BA R 22/3366): “The officials of my office stationed in Poland express reservations both by word of mouth and in writing about the too ‘rigorous’ methods of our police force. I pass this on.”