. NMT04-T0715
Volume IV · Page 715
| similar organizations, at an early stage
recognized the necessity for the people of German descent residing in those
territories, the so-called ethnic Germans, to be furnished adequate
identification papers. For the time being there was no uniform settlement for
the entire territory, due to the lack of uncontrolled issue of such ethnic
German identification papers on the part of the various agencies, there arose a
certain confusion. For that reason a decree was enacted by Himmler in September
1940, which according to my knowledge was drafted in the Staff Main Office;
certain basic principles were set up so that the examination and checking up of
ethnic Germans in the western Polish territories would be brought into a
uniform routine. This decree of September 1940, whether explicitly or by its
meaning, I don't know, was addressed to the Reich Minister of the Interior and
was the cause for the decree on the German People's List which was published in
early March 1941, in the Reich Law Gazette. By this decree and a very extensive
subsequent decree of the Minister of the Interior, dated 13 March 1941, the
proceedings for the Germanization and selection of ethnic Germans were
regulated in detail. Q. Witness, can you give us a short description of the four classes of the DVL? A. According to this decree on the German People's List, the applicants for German citizenship were to be subdivided into four classes. Class I was to comprise such Polish nationals who during the time of 1919 to 1939, that is, as was said at the time, had been under Polish government and yet had actively worked for Germany, that is, who had belonged to German societies or unions in Poland during that period. Class II of the German list comprised those people of German racial descent who could prove that they had maintained their German characteristics; for example, who had uninterruptedly, during the Polish regime, maintained their German tongue. In Class III of the German People's List, various groups of people were to be registered; first of all, such people of German racial descent who in cultural or other respects had certain contacts with Poland. Moreover, such Germans who were living in a so-called mixed marriage, with a Polish man or woman, finally, the children of such racial marriages. In Class III there were to be registered certain racially valuable parts of the large mixed population of Upper Silesia and Danzig and West Prussia, who having been a part of Prussia for 150 years, had strong German characteristics, but nevertheless had never yet entirely lost their original contact with Poland. Therefore, a group of people in connection with whom it was not possible to say clearly whether they belonged to this or that nation. Class IV of the German People's List was the registry of |
