Polish Germans 1939–1945. The Attitudes and Situation of Polish Citizens of German Ethnic Nationality In Lands Incorporated Into the Third Reich and in the General Government - Instytut Pileckiego

The subject of the research undertaken is the situation and attitudes of Polish citizens of German origin during the Second World War.

The research is to cover the lands incorporated into the Reich and the General Government, and will focus on the official situation and actual position of Polish Germans. Analyses will center on the various approaches taken towards the realities of the occupation, the German authorities, Germans from the Reich, ethnic Germans from the East, Poles included in the third or second group of the German National List, the pre-war Polish state, and Poles.

Research interests will also focus on the consequences of the presented attitudes and choices made. The goal of the planned research is to arrive at an as broad a source base as possible, which will allow us to reconstruct the situation and attitudes of ethnic Polish Germans during the German occupation, and to study this issue in a comprehensive and comparative manner. The basic research problems defining the objectives and scope of the project undertaken ensue from three fundamental questions: 1) what were the actual attitudes of pre-war Polish citizens of German origin in the wartime reality?; 2) what did they result from?; and 3) what were the most important factors shaping the position of Polish Germans in the years 1939–1945?

Research is intended to provide answers to the following questions: how great was the percentage of negative attitudes, which manifested themselves in the hostile attitude of Volksdeutschers towards Poles (approval of or participation in crimes)? Was the mass participation of local Germans in crimes against Poles in Pomerania something unique? Polish Germans also displayed positive behavior towards their Polish neighbors. Was this true only for individuals – people who did not persecute and murder Poles, who maintained a stance of neutrality, and who sometimes tried to help the Polish population? Did the price which they had to pay for such an exceptional stance consist in being put beyond the pale of the National Socialist community, and perhaps, at times, in condemning oneself to severe repression? What motivated these attitudes of the “other Germans”?

The project provides for the conduct of archival research and library studies both in Poland and abroad. The basic methodological premise is to secure the maximum number of sources of different origin and compare them with each other.

The anticipated result of the project will be the elaboration – utilizing the source material gathered – of a scholarly monograph that will at once fill the void existing in historiography and verify the current perception of these issues. This planned, exhaustive monograph devoted to the topic at hand is expected to be of considerable significance for both historiography and present-day historical discussions in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. The partial results of the project will be assessed through scholarly articles published in professional journals.

Research Team:

Associate Professor Tomasz Chinciński (Center for Totalitarian Studies at the Pilecki Institute, Project Manager) – a Polish historian who conducts research into the attitudes of the German minority in inter-war Poland and during the Second World War, and also into German crimes committed in occupied Poland. He has published, among others, the following works: Bydgoszcz 3–4 września 1939. Studia i dokumenty (ed. together with P. Machcewicz, 2008); Forpoczta Hitlera. Niemiecka dywersja w Polsce w 1939 roku (2010), Polish Germans in the Stutthof Concentration Camp (“Totalitarian and 20th Century Studies”, 2022).

Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek (Institute of History of the University of Silesia in Katowice) – a Polish historian whose research interests focus on the history of Poland, Silesia and Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is also the Deputy Director for the Institute of Regional Research of the Silesian Library. He has published, among others, the following works: Górny Śląsk podczas II wojny światowej. Między utopią “niemieckiej wspólnoty narodowej” a rzeczywistością okupacji na terenach wcielonych do Trzeciej Rzeszy (2006), Polen in der Wehrmacht (2017), Poles in Kaiser’s Army On the Front of the First World War (2020).

Professor Piotr Madajczyk (Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw) – a Polish historian and political scientist whose research interests include issues of national minorities in Poland, Polish‑German relations in the 20th century, and forced migrations in Central and Eastern Europe post-1945. He has published, among others, the following works: Marzenie o narodzie doskonałym. Między biopolityką a etnopolityką (2017), Pomorze pod okupacją niemiecką. Jesień 1939 (ed., 2021), The Biographical Landscapes of Raphael Lemkin (2023).

Associate Professor Grzegorz Bębnik (Historical Research Office of the Institute of National Remembrance, Katowice Branch) – a Polish historian and political scientist whose research interests focus on the history of Upper Silesia in the 20th century. His publications include the following: Katowice we wrześniu ‘39 (2006), Sokoły kapitana Ebbinghausa. Sonderformation Ebbinghaus w działaniach wojennych na Górnym Śląsku w 1939 r. (2017), Proskrypcja w nowej odsłonie. Niemieckie listy gończe w przededniu i początkach II wojny światowej (2020).

Dr. Monika Napora (Institute of History at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin) – a Polish historian specializing in the history of German propaganda and the collaborationist press in occupied Poland, and also in the methodology of history. She has published, among others, the following works: Gadzinowe narracje. Mechanizmy i strategie kreowania propagandowego obrazu świata w Dzienniku Radomskim 1940–1945 (2017), O potrzebie dalszych badań nad prasą gadzinową. Stan obecny i perspektywy badawcze (“Dzieje Najnowsze”, 2021).

Dr. Katarzyna Wójcik (Department of German Studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin) – a Polish Germanist who conducts research into the history of ethnic Germans in the Lublin region. She has published, among others, the following works: Volksdeutsche w dystrykcie lubelskim w ramach interpretacyjnych “Krakauer Zeitung” w latach 1939–1944 (Acta Neophilologica, 2020), Die Anwendung der Inhaltsanalyse in den historischen Pressetexten. Facetten des Neben- und Miteinanders in Sprache, Kultur und Literatur. Germanische Werkstatt (co-author, 2020).

Dr. Michal Turski (Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin) – a Polish historian who authored a doctoral dissertation on the issue of the German National List and the German minority in the Łódź region in the years 1914–1970 (2023). He has published, among others, the following works: Niemiecka Lista Narodowościowa w regionie łódzkim w trakcie drugiej wojny światowej (“Przegląd Zachodni”, 2021), Vom Gestapo-Übersetzer Zum Polnischen Nachrichtendienstagenten. Die wechselvolle Biografie des Willi Zukriegel (“Journal für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa”, 2022).

Dr. Tomasz Rabant (Gdańsk) – a Polish historian who authored a doctoral dissertation on German consulates in Poland in the inter-war period, as well as writings devoted to the situation and attitudes of the German minority in the Second Polish Republic. He has published, among others, the following works: Migracje przymusowe w przekazie muzealnym. Wysiedlenia, przesiedlenia i deportacje i deportacje w przestrzeni wystawienniczej Muzeum II Wojny Światowej w Gdańsku (together with T. Chinciński, “Studia Historica Gedanensia”, 2014), Die deutsche Besatzung im kollektiven Gedächtnis der Polen (together with T. Chinciński, “Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte”, 2014).

Project Partners

Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) in Germany, with offices in Bayreuth, Berlin, Freiburg im Breisgau, Koblenz and Ludwigsburg

State archives in Poland

Department of German Studies of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw

Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin

Institute of Regional Research of the Silesian Library in Katowice

Department of German Studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin

Project Financing

The project is co-financed from state budget funds granted by the Minister of Education and Science under the “National Program for the Development of the Humanities”, “National Heritage” module, in the years 2024–2029, project number NPRH/DN/SN/0105/2023/12, amount of financing: 1,314,966.00 Polish zlotys.