Niemiecka polityka wysiedlania Polaków oraz osadnictwa Niemców w latach 1939-1945 w Okręgu Gdańsk-Prusy Zachodnie, powiat świecki
German Policy of the Displacement of Poles and German Settlement in the Years 1939-1945 in the Area of Gau Danzig-Westpreussen, Świecko County

Summary/Abstract: The article tackles the theme of displacements of Polish families (as a matter of fact they should be defined as expulsions) from farms and other rural and urban real estates confiscated without any compensation by the German occupant. The study has been narrowed down to the county of Swiecko in order to show as if under a microscope the structure of the activities of the German administration: from government guidelines through local police and administration on the level of Gau Danzig-Westpruessen down to concrete instances of displacement. In this way we obtain a clear and coherent picture showing the implementation of the German plans of displacements (expulsions) of Poles from territories annexed to the Reich. Whole families were expelled to the so-called displacement camps (Umsiedlungslager) which were then sealed and within a short time transformed into concentration camps with forced labor, like e.g. the Potulice camp (Umsiedlungslager Lebrechtsdorf) – it was built at the turn of 1940/1941 and since 1942 already functioned as a branch of the penitentiary concentration camp Stutthof. The homes of the expulsed Polish families were settled by German migrants from the Baltic states, Bessarabia (Moldova, Romania) and Volhynia or passed into the hands of the local Germans. The campaign of expulsion and settlement was personally supervised by H. Himmler by means of security forces and police as well as central and lower level institutions for displacement (in Pomerania – the Central Office for Displacements in Gdansk).

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