Figure 1.--. |
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The SD before the War organized Selbstschutz (Self Defence) Units in Poland among the ethnic Germans. Members were trained at secret sites in the Reich. When the Germans invaded Poland, the Selbstschutz units coducted a range of activities to disrupt the Polish defense. This included sabatoge and attacks on Polish positions and rail lines as well as attacks on Polish civilians. SS officers oversaw the operations. Gustav Berger was the overall commander. As the Wehrmacht advanced district commanders appointed in West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Warthegau--all areas to be annexed. Individual Selbstschutz Units remained under the control of local ethnic Germans who both obeyed orders from head quarters as well as conducted actions on their own initiative. The Selbstschutz set up concentration camps for Poles. Some of their camps were set up independently. Others were set up where the Wehrmacht or German police commands were setting up camps. The Selbstschutz camps included: Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Brodnica (Strasburg), Chełmno (Kulm), Dorposz Szlachecki, Kamień Krajeński, Karolewo, Lipno (Lippe), Łobżenica, Nakło (Nakel), Nowy Wiec (near Skarszew), Nowe (over Vistula), Piastoszyn, Płutowo, Sępolno, Krajeńskie, Solec Kujawski (Schulitz), Tuchola (Tuchel), Wąbrzeźno (Briesen), Wolental (near Skórcza), Wyrzysk (Wirsitz). The great majority of the Poles arrested and detained in these camps were murdered within weeks. But few survived the War. The Poles targeted by the Selbstschutz were Polish intellectuals (writers, journalists, artists, composers, university professors, teachers, etc.), nationalists, priests, Jews, Roma, and even Catholic Germans, ethnic Germans married to Poles, and Poles denounced for personal reasons). In addition to their on actions, the Selbstschutz worked closely with the newly formed SS Einsatzgruppen--mobile killing units.
The Polish kings invited German merchants, artists and craftsmen to live and work in Poland since the Middle Ages. Poland during the 17th and 18th centuries was dismembered by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. A new Polish state was created in the Versailles Peace Treaty (1919). Thus Germans who had once lived in Germany proper or Austrai-Hungary found themselves a minority in a new Polish state. Hostilities betwen the Poles and the new Soviet Red Army after World war I drove the border of Poland well into the east, bring many non-Poles including additional Volksdeutch, Ukranians, and other that had been rulled by the Tsar within the new Polish state. Germans in Poland included ethnic Germans whose families had lived in Poland for centuries and had well established roots and attachmebnts to Poland. Other Germans found themselves in the new Polish state created by the Versailles Treaty They often had few ties to Poland and welcomed the NAZI invasion.
The new Polish Republic was organized in the aftermath of Wotld War I. The borders were disputed by the Siciets. Lithuanians, Czechs and Germans. The Allies in the Treaty of Versailles established some of the border with Germany. Other sections was left to referendums. AT this time Polish authorities attemped to seize areas, especially in Silesia. Germans in these areas formed Selbstschutz units to resist the Poles. These were comparable in many ways to the Freikorps organized in Germany after the war. One particularly memorable battle was fought between the Polish army and Selbstschutz/Freikorps at the Annaberg (May 1921). [Citino, pp. 247-248.]
The World War II Selbstschutz (Self Defence) Units were organized at the instigation of the SD before the War among the ethnic Germans. Members were trained at secret sites in the Reich. At the time of the German invasio, there were an estimated 82,000 Selbstschutz members.
When the Germans invaded Poland, the Selbstschutz units coducted a range of activities to disrupt the Polish defense. This included sabatoge and attacks on Polish positions and rail lines as well as attacks on Polish civilians. The German military did not prove to need the assistance of the Selbstschutz. The Polish defense was conducted with great bravery, but was illconceived. German armies smashed into Poland from three ditections using the Blitzkrieg tactics that they would later turn on the West. The Poles were outgunned and outnumbered. They were basically defeated even before the Soviets invaded from the East. What the Selbstschutz offered to the NAZIs was an awareness of local conditions and a knowledge of Polish individuals who should be eliminated as part of the process of destroying the Polish nation.
SS officers oversaw the operations. Gustav Berger was the overall commander. As the Wehrmacht advanced district commanders appointed in West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Warthegau--all areas to be annexed. Individual Selbstschutz Units remained under the control of local ethnic Germans who both obeyed orders from head quarters as well as conducted actions on their own initiative.
The Selbstschutz set up concentration camps for Poles. Some of their camps were set up independently. Others were set up where the Wehrmacht or German police commands were setting up camps. The Selbstschutz camps included: Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Brodnica (Strasburg), Chełmno (Kulm), Dorposz Szlachecki, Kamień Krajeński, Karolewo, Lipno (Lippe), Łobżenica, Nakło (Nakel), Nowy Wiec (near Skarszew), Nowe (over Vistula), Piastoszyn, Płutowo, Sępolno, Krajeńskie, Solec Kujawski (Schulitz), Tuchola (Tuchel), Wąbrzeźno (Briesen), Wolental (near Skórcza), Wyrzysk (Wirsitz).
The great majority of the Poles arrested and detained in these camps were murdered within weeks. But few survived the War. The Poles targeted by the Selbstschutz were Polish intellectuals (writers, journalists, artists, composers, university professors, teachers, etc.), nationalists, priests, Jews, Roma, and even Catholic Germans, ethnic Germans married to Poles, and Poles denounced for personal reasons).
In addition to their on actions, the Selbstschutz worked closely with the newly formed SS Einsatzgruppen--mobile killing units. These were units set up under SD Commander Reinhard Heydrich's supervisions. They provided needed individuals with local knowledge. The Einsatzgruppen were responsible for terrible attrocities. Poland proved, however, proved to be only a training ground for the Einsatzgruppen that followed in the rear of the Wehrmacht units that would plunge into the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa.
Large numbers of Polish civilians were killed during the German invasion. Some were caught in the fighting and others were killed by the Luftwaffe raids, especially the bombing of Warsaw which was also shelled by artillery.
Polish historians put the number of civilan deaths at about 50,000 people. Many were not, however, the unintended victims of military action, but of the Selbstschutz seeking out civilians to kill. There is no precise accounting of the numbers killed. Some Polish historians believe that most of the civilians killed were murdered by the ethnic German Selbstschutz. [Kampania Wrześniowa 1939]
NAZI authorities ordered the Selbstschutz to disolve (November 26, 1939). This did not occur immediately. Some units continued to operate for a few months. As the were locally based groups, NAZI authorities found them difficult to control. The NAZIs cited "disorderly behavior". There were conflicts with the NAZI administrative authorities who found the Selbstschutz difficult to control. It is unlikely that the NAZIs were all that concerned about excessive violence against Poles. But some of the NAZI administrators were attempting to Aranize some of the Poles and the Selbstschutz were disrupting this process. One charge against the Selbstschutz was corruption. This meant essentialy stealing the property of Poles they arrested or killed. This mean that this was propery that the NAZI officials themselves could not seize.
The Poles after the War expelled ethnic Germans from the ore-War Polish territories as well as the areas of eastern Germany assigned to them. Many Germans fled with the retreating Wehrmacht during the war. The Poles expelled those that attempted to remin. This included ,any acts of brutality. Those assessing what the Poles did need to include the actions of the Selbstschutz and other NAZI actions during the War.
Browning, Christopher R. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (University of Nebraska Press, 2007).
Citino, Robert M. The German Way of War (University Press of Kansas: Lawrebce, 2005).
Kampania Wrześniowa 1939 website. (Polish language website.)
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