General Government


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The General Government (in German Generalgouvernement fŸr die besetzten
polnischen Gebiete) was the name given by Nazi Germany to the governing
authority in Poland after its occupation by the Wehrmacht in September and
October 1939. The term is also applied, though not strictly correctly, to
the territory administered by the General Government.

Creation of the General Government

Hans Frank was appointed Governor-General of the occupied territories on 26
October 1939. Two decrees by Hitler (8 October and 12 October 1939) provided
for the division of the annexed areas of Poland into the following
administrative units:

   * Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen), which included the
     entire Poznan voivodship, most of the Lodz voivodship, five couties of
     the Pomeranian voivodship, and one county of the Warsaw voivodship;
   * the remaining area of Pomeranian voivodship, which was incorporated
     into the Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen (initially Reichsgau
     Westpreussen);
   * Ciechanow District (Regierungsbezirk Zichenau) consisting of the five
     northern counties of Warsaw voivodship (Plock, Plonsk, Sterpe,
     Ciechanow and Mlawa), which became a part of East Prussia;
   * Katowice District (Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz) or unofficially
     Ost-Oberschlesien (East Upper Silesia); which included Sosnowiec,
     B?dzin, Chryzanow, and Zawiercie counties and parts of Olkusz and
     Zywiec counties.

The area of these territories was 94,000 square kilometres and the
population was about 10 million.

The remaining block of territory was placed under a German administration
called the General Government (in German Generalgouvernement fŸr die
besetzten polnischen Gebiete), with its capital at Cracow was subdivided
into four districts, Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, and Cracow.

Territorial development

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Polish
territories previously occupied by the Russians were organized as follows:

   * Bezirk Bialystok (district of Bialystok), which included the Bialystok,
     Bielsk Podlaski, Grajewo, Lomza, Sokolka, Volkovysk, and Grodno
     counties and was "attached" to (but not incorporated into) East
     Prussia;
   * Bezirke Litauen und Weissrussland ? the Polish part of White Russia
     (today western Belarus), including the Vilna province (Vilnius, which
     was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ostland;
   * Bezirk Wolhynien-Podolien ? the Polish province of Volhynia, which was
     incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ukraine; and
   * East Galicia, which was incorporated into the General Government and
     became its fifth district.

Population

The population in the General Government's territory was initially about 12
million, but this increased as about 860,000 Poles and Jews were expelled
from the Germany-annexed areas and "resettled" in the Government General.
Offsetting this was the German campaign of extermination of the Polish
intelligentsia and other elements thought likely to resist. From 1941
disease and hunger also began to reduce the population. Poles were also
deported in large numbers to work as forced labour in Germany: eventually
about a million were deported, of whom many died in Germany.

The apartheid policies of Nazis in GG included following categories of people:

   * Germans (4 categories) (see Volksdeutsche),
   * Poles,
   * Jews,
   * Ukrainians,
   * Highlanders.

Genocide policies

During Wannsee conference on January 20, 1942, Dr. Josef Buhler pushed
Heydrich to take off the final solution in the General Government. As far as
he was concerned, the main problem of General Government was overdeveloped
black market that desorganise the work of the authorities. He saw a remedy
in solving the Jewish question in the country as fast as possible. An
additional point in favour was, that there were no transportation problems
here.

In 1942 the Germans began the systematic extermination of the Jewish
population. The Government General was the location of four of the six
extermination camps in which the most extreme measures of the Holocaust, the
genocide by gassing of undesired "races," chiefly millions of Jews from
Poland and other countries, was carried out between 1942 and 1944.

Overall 4 million of the 1939 population of the Government General area had
lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces liberated the area in
late 1944.

It was German policy that the (non-Jewish) Poles, like other Slavic peoples,
were to be reduced to the status of serfs, and eventually replaced by German
colonists of "master race." In the Government General, all secondary
education was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed. In
1943, the government selected the Zamojskie area for further German
colonisation. German settlements were plannned, and the Polish population
expelled amid great brutality, but few Germans were settled in the area
before 1944.

Resistance

Resistance to the German occupation began almost at once, although there is
little terrain in Poland suitable for guerilla operations. The Home Army (in
Polish: Armia Krajowa or AK), loyal to the Polish government in exile in
London, was formed from a number of smaller anti-Socialist groups in 1942.
From 1943 the AK was in competition with the People's Army (Armia Ludowa or
AL), backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by the Polish Communist
Party. By 1944 the AK had some 200,000 men, although few arms. During the
occupation, the AK killed about 150,000 German troops. The AL was smaller
and less significant.

In April 1943 the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from the Warsaw
Ghetto, provoking the Warsaw Ghetto Rising, April 19 to May 16. That was the
first armed uprising against the Germans in Poland. In August 1944, as the
Soviet armed forces approached Warsaw, the government in exile called for an
uprising in the city, so that they could return to a liberated Warsaw and
try to prevent a Communist take-over. The AK, led by Tadeusz B--r-Komorowski,
launched the Warsaw Rising. The support from the Allies turned out to be
insignificant. After 63 days of fighting the rising was crushed by the
Wehrmacht, with a loss of 20,000 Home Army soldiers and 180,000 civilians.

The end

As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the Government General
collapsed. Frank was captured by American troops in May 1945 and was one of
the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials. During his trial he converted to
Catholicism. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal
and much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was
found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and on October 1,
1946, he was sentenced to death by hanging.

   * Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
   * Polish areas annexed by Soviet Union