The Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List), a Nazi Party institution, aimed to classify inhabitants of Nazi-occupied territories (1939-1945) into categories of desirability according to criteria systematised by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The institution originated in occupied western Poland (occupied 1939-1945). Similar schemes were subsequently developed in Occupied France (1940-1944) and in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (1941-1944).
Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) topped the list as a category. They comprised people without German citizenship but of German ancestry living outside Germany (unlike German expatriates). Though Volksdeutsche did not hold German citizenship, the strengthening and development of ethnic German communities throughout east-central Europe formed an integral part of the Nazi vision for the creation of Greater Germany (Großdeutschland). In some areas, such as Romania, Croatia, and Yugoslavia/Serbia, ethnic Germans were legally recognised in legislation as privileged groups.
Pre-war Nazi contact with ethnic Germans
In 1931, prior to its rise to power, the Nazi Party established the Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP (Foreign Organisation of the German National Socialist Workers Party), whose task was to disseminate Nazi propaganda among the German minorities living outside Germany. In 1936, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Ethnic German Welfare Office), commonly known as VoMi, was set up under the direction of Himmler as RKFDV of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) as the liaison bureau for ethnic Germans and was headed by SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz.
Motivation for creating the list
Germanisation
According to the testimony of Kuno Wirsich:
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it annexed the western part of the country (taking East Upper Silesia, creating the new entities of the Reichsgaue of Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland, the Zichenau Region (or South East Prussia), and the General Government, the latter for the administration of the rest of its own occupied part of the country.
The plan for Poland, as set forth in Generalplan Ost, was to "purify" the newly annexed regions in order to create a Germanised buffer against Polish and Slavic influence. This entailed deporting Poles from these westernmost areas to those under General Government control, and settling the region with ethnic Germans from other places including from the General Government area, from within the pre-war German borders and from various areas that came under the control of Soviet Russia (Baltic States, eastern Polish territories, Volhynia, Galicia, Bukovina, Bessarabia and Dobrudscha).
To further its objective of Germanisation, Nazi Germany endeavoured to increase the number of 'Volksdeutsche' in the conquered territories by a policy of Germanising certain classes of the conquered people, mainly those among the Czechs, Poles, and Slovenes who had German ancestors. Thus, the Nazis encouraged the Polish offspring of Germans, or Poles who had family connections with Germans, to join the 'Volksliste', often applying pressure to compel registration. Those who joined enjoyed a privileged status and received special benefits. Registrants were given better food, apartments, farms, workshops, furniture, and clothing—much of it having been confiscated from Jews and Poles who were deported or sent to Nazi concentration camps.
Determining who was an ethnic German was not easy in regions that had Poles, ethnic Germans, and individuals of German ancestry who had been Polonised. There were many in western Poland who claimed German ancestry and resisted deportation to the General Government on the basis of it. Similar ambiguities occurred in all other eastern areas, such as Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, and Serbia. Even Himmler was impressed by this and said that such resistance must be evidence of their Nordic qualities. Furthermore, Nazi officials in charge of the various annexed territories from Poland did not want to see too many economically valuable local nationals sent eastwards, so they, too, desired some form of criteria that would allow them to avoid deporting any skilled Poles with German ancestry. Poles who were considered to be suitable for Germanisation were sent to the Reich as labourers. A "racial assessment" was also performed with regard to the ethnic German returnee with often disappointing results.
In 2006, German historian Götz Aly said the Nazi policy was based on French Republic selection criteria that were used after the First World War to expel ethnic Germans from Alsace.