Deutsche Volksliste

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. 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. According to the testimony of Kuno Wirsich: The aim of the German People's List was that those people who were of German descent and of German ethnic descent were to be ascertained and were to be Germanised. 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.