Ideology and the Rationality of Domination: Nazi Germanization Policies in Poland

Following the brutal invasion and occupation of Poland, the Nazis moved swiftly to realize one of their key ideological aims, the expansion of German living space: deport Jews, bring in German settlers and subjugate the rest of the population to a selection process to separate Poles from ethnic Germans. As simple as this might have seemed initially, the various parts of the German occupation machinery soon found themselves embroiled in a bitter fight about the essence of Germanness and how to identify a German. Gerhard Wolf reveals an astonishing development in which a more inclusivist understanding of Germanness based on a more traditional notion of Volk eventually won out against one that was based on Rasse and much more exclusivist. This had important implications, as Wolf can show, as it paved the way for turning around three million Poles into German citizens. Parallel to the mass deportation and mass murder of Christian Poles and the genocide of Jewish Poles, the Nazis paradoxically thus also presided over the largest (forced) assimilation program in German history. Students and scholars of the Polish occupation, the Holocaust, and Nazism will find new analysis of German imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in this important book.

Table of Contents:
Preface to the English Edition Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The German Quest for Polish Land 2. War: Projecting the "Lebensraum" Dystopia onto Poland 3. Consolidating Power: Reinforcing the German Occupation Regime through Population Policy 4. "Lebensraum": Population Policy in the Tug of War Between Racial Hubris and the Rational Demands of Power 5. Labor Deployment: Population Policy as a Tool of Exploitation and Assimilation Conclusion Glossary Bibliography Index of persons Index

About the Author :
Gerhard Wolf is senior lecturer in history at the University of Sussex.

Review :
Gerhard Wolf's excellent study illustrates how much National Socialist "ethnic politics" was shaped by traditional notions of belonging and exclusion. In the implementation of Nazi ideology, Wolf shows that politics could be both practical and principled. Here it becomes clear how a dynamic understanding of borders, which separated those who belonged from others who did not, could become a decisive instrument for the consolidation of German rule. This rule was legitimized and shaped by what we now call false nationalization. Donald Bloxham, author of The Final Solution: A Genocide Gerhard Wolf's real contribution is to pick apart the highly conflictual and polycratic process by which Nazi policies were formed, tracking both the long-running turf war between the Reich Interior Ministry and the SS Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. Well-researched, clear, convincing, with real intellectual verve. Nicholas Stargardt, author of The German War: A Nation under Arms, 1939-1945 The annexed areas in Poland became the scene of many machinations in which experts of the "race state" and representative of a traditional Germanization policy confronted each other. Gerhard Wolf pursues the tortuous and inconsistent implementation of National Socialist politics down to the local level, thereby giving much needed clarity to the complex debate about the significant of ideology of National Socialist rule. Geoff Eley, author of Nazism as Fascism