Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle

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VoMi Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle
VoMi was a Nazi party agency under the administration of the SS.
In March 1941 Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess and SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler visit an exhibition of proposed rural German settlements within occupied Eastern Europe.
Agency overview
Formed	c.1937
Preceding agency	Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi)
Dissolved	May 8, 1945
Superseding agency	Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (RKFDV)
Jurisdiction	Germany Occupied Europe
Headquarters	Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, Unter den Linden 64, Berlin 52°31′1.03″N 13°23′0.28″E / 52.5169528°N 13.3834111°E / 52.5169528; 13.3834111
Employees	5,000 c.January 1942
Ministers responsible	NSDAP Reichsschatzmeister Franz Xaver Schwarz, (1937-1939)   Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, (1939-1945)
Agency executive	SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz, Chef fur Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (1937-1945)
Parent agency	NSDAP Allgemeine-SS

The Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (English: Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans) (VoMi) was an NSDAP agency founded to manage the interests of the Volksdeutsche (English: Ethnic Germans) who lived outside the borders of Nazi Germany.

It would later, under Allgemeine-SS administration, became responsible for orchestrating the Nazi ideology of Lebensraum (English: Living space) in Eastern Europe.

[edit] Formation

It was founded in 1937 under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz as a state office of the Nazi Party. Its headquarters were on Unter den Linden, Berlin (this changed to Keithstraße in 1943 due to Allied Bombing). VoMi's primary task was the resettlement of German peoples outside Germany. This work took place between 1939 and 1940 under the slogan "Heim ins Reich" (English: Home in the Empire).

By 1940, VoMi had settled one million ethnic Germans in the Reichsgaus of the German Reich, these included Wartheland (Posen) and Danzig-West Prussia (Danzig).

[edit] RKFDV

On October 7, 1939, ten days after Poland surrendered, Adolf Hitler appointed Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (English: Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Ethnic Stock) (RKFDV). This position authorized the SS to plan, initiate, and control the pace of germanisation, settlement and population transfer projects in occupied Poland; this was later expanded to occupied Russia.

In 1941 the RKFDV was upgraded to an SS Main Office (German: Hauptamt) with control over all VoMi personnel and field offices. The RKFDV, as an SS-contolled organization, had the authority to say who was German, where ethnic Germans could live, and what populations should be cleared or annihilated in order to make room for the German settlers. As RKFDV chief, Himmler authorized the SS-Einsatzgruppen and other SS police units to round up and kill Jews, Slavs and Roma.

In June 1942 Himmler put all VoMi personnel under the jurisdiction of the SS Police and Courts. With Hitler's blessing, Himmler now had complete control over VoMi, Volksdeutsche policy and Lebensraum programs. Although VoMi remained technically an office of the Nazi Party until the end of the Second World War, it was under the control of the SS.

[edit] Organization

The Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle had 11 departments (German: Ämter or Amtsgruppe): ^[1]:

[edit] Amt I : Führungsamt

• (English: Headquarters)

This department, unlike other VoMi Amts, contained only SS personnel. It contained SS legal officers and a Waffen-SS unit.

German settlers are shown around their Nazi-appropriated farmhouse in occupied Poland in November 1939.

[edit] Amt II : Organisation und Personal

• (English: Organisation und Personnel)

This was managed by an SD officer. It dealt with SS and non-SS personnel within the Volksdeutsche. In the later period of the war, Amt II's importance increased as it was responsible for allocating Volksdeutsche to the Reich Labor Service.

[edit] Amt III : Finanzen, Wirtschaft und Vermoegensverwaltung

• (English: Finances, Economics and Administration)

It was responsible for financing VoMi projects and distributing funds to Volksdeutsche. It was the only department that remained under complete control of the Nazi State and not the Allgemeine SS.

[edit] Amt IV : Informationen

• (English: Propaganda)

This department documented and reported all VoMi activity and resettlement projects. It worked closely with Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Information. Amt IV also published information journals for the German settlers.

Volksdeutsche that had been resettled in the Wartheland by VoMi receive agriculture training in 1940.

[edit] Amt V : Deutschtumserziehung

• (English: Cultural and Educational services)

This provided cultural and educational services to help Volksdeutsche assimilate to German ways.

[edit] Amt VI : Sicherung Deutschen Volkstums im Reich

• (English: Office of ethnic Germans within Germany)

This office looked after the welfare of ethnic Germans that had been allowed to settle within the borders of Germany. It also assessed potential candidates for settlement grading them on their ethnicity, politics and skills. However Amt VI, although tasked with the welfare of Volksdeutsche, worked closely with the Gestapo and the SD of the RSHA.

[edit] Amt VII : Sicherung Deutschen Volkstums in den neuen Ostgebieten

• (English: Office of ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe)

It had a similar role as Amt VI but looked after the welfare of ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe, such as in occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia. It had field offices in Krakow, Riga and Kiev.

[edit] Amt VIII : Kultur und Wissenschaft

• (English: Archive and Records of ethnic German culture)

This section was engaged in collating and archiving the cultural history of resettled Volksdeutsche. The department also acted as a curator for artefacts, treasure and documents belonging to ethnic Germans.

[edit] Amt IX : Politische Führung Deutscher Volksgruppen

• (English: Political office of German ethnic groups )

The SS considered this to be the most important department within VoMi as it provided the political leadership for ethnic Germans within the Third Reich and occupied Europe. Amt IX had several sub divisions, these included domestic affairs, relations between ethnic Germans and the Nazi Party, affairs between foreign states and the Third Reich regarding ethnic Germans and liaisons with the Nazi Foreign Ministry.

The SS Ethnic Germans Welfare Office in Lodz, Poland, occupied Poland in 1940.
On September 26, 1942, August Frank, an official of the SS concentration camp administration department directed that all property of the Jews murdered in Aktion Reinhard be sent to this office.^[2]

[edit] Amt X : Führung der Wirtschaft in den Deutschen Volksgruppen

• (English: Office managing the economics of ethnic Germans)

This office established agriculture, work projects, banking and credit for the Volksdeutsche. During the Second World War its main role was the exploitation of the ethnic Germans in the interest of the Third Reich.

[edit] Amt XI : Umsiedlung

• (English: Resettlement)

This department was primarily responsible for handling the massive germanisation operation to settle Volksdeutsche throughout Germany and Occupied Europe.

[edit] Role in The Holocaust

SS-Obergruppenfuhrer August Frank was an official of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (English: Main SS Economic Administration Office of the Nazi ) who was responsible for the administration of the Nazi concentration camps.

Frank was responsible for taking the property from Jews murdered in Aktion Reinhard in 1942. After the war, a memorandum prepared by Frank on September 26, 1942 detailed instructions on dealing with this ill-gotten wealth; which even included collecting the underwear of victims. It ordered that the property should be sent to the VoMi offices in Lodz, Poland.

The memorandum, refuted claims that organizations like VoMi, had no knowledge that Jews were being murdered en masse in the extermination camps. The note is also an example of the use of the Nazi euphemism "evacuation" for Jews that were being murdered in The Holocaust. ^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

• Lumans, Valdis. Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945 335 pgs. University of North Carolina Press. Chapel Hill, NC. 1993

[edit] Further reading

• Zaffiri Gabriel, Ahnenerbe, the Academy of sciences of the SS , Nicholas Calabria Publisher, Pacts (ME), 2004 ISBN 978-8888-010458-101

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