| Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi) | |
 | |
 Rudolf Hess andHeinrich Himmler visiting an exhibition of proposed rural German settlements within occupied Eastern Europe (March 1941). | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | c.1937 |
| Preceding agencies |
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| Dissolved | May 8, 1945 |
| Superseding agency |
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| Jurisdiction | Germany Occupied Europe |
| Headquarters | Unter den Linden 64,Berlin 52°31′1.03″N13°23′0.28″E / 52.5169528°N 13.3834111°E /52.5169528; 13.3834111 |
| Employees | 5,000c. January 1942 |
| Ministers responsible |
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| Agency executive |
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| Parent agency | NSDAP Allgemeine-SS |
InNazi Germany theVolksdeutsche Mittelstelle orVoMi (Coordination Center for Ethnic Germans[2]) was aNazi Party agency founded to manage the interests of theVolksdeutsche—the population of ethnic Germans living outside theThird Reich. Ultimately coming underAllgemeine-SS administration, it became responsible for orchestrating the implementation of NaziLebensraum (English:living-space) policies inEastern Europe duringWorld War II.
It was founded in 1937 under the command of SS-ObergruppenführerWerner Lorenz as a state office of theNazi Party. Its headquarters were onUnter den Linden,Berlin (this changed to Keithstraße in 1943 due toAllied Bombing). VoMi's primary task was the resettlement of German peoples outside Germany. Between 1939 and 1942, VoMi had resettled half a million ethnic Germans into the newly occupied territories of the Reich under the slogan "Heim ins Reich" (Home into the Empire). These territories included theReichsgaue of theGerman Reich; these includedWartheland (Posen) andDanzig-West Prussia (Danzig).[3]
On October 7, 1939, two days afterPoland had been overrun,Adolf Hitler appointed theReichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler to the new role ofReich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood(German:Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums—RKFDV). This position authorized the SS to plan, initiate, and control the pace ofGermanization,settlement andpopulation transfer projects inoccupied Poland, and later, after theinvasion of the Soviet Union, in occupied Russia.
In 1941 the VoMi was upgraded to an SS Main Office (Hauptamt) with control over all VoMi personnel and field offices. In June 1941 VOMI was absorbed into the office of theReich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood (RKFDV) run by Himmler. The RKFDV, as an SS-controlled organization, had the authority to say who was German, where ethnic Germans could live, and what populations should becleared or annihilated in order to make room for the German settlers. As RKFDV chief, Himmler authorized theSS-Einsatzgruppen (mobile death squads) and other SS police units to round up and killJews,Slavs andRoma.
In June 1942 Himmler put all VoMi personnel under the jurisdiction of theSS Police and Courts. With Hitler's blessing, Himmler now had complete control over VoMi,ethnic Germans outside Imperial Germany policy andliving space programs. Although VoMi remained technically an office of theNazi Party until the end of theSecond World War, it was under the control of the SS.
TheRKFDV-VOMi was organized into 11 departments (1942):[4]
("Headquarters")This department, unlike other VoMi Amts, contained only SS personnel. It containedSS legal officers and aWaffen-SS unit.
("Organization and Personnel")This was managed by anSD officer. It dealt with SS and non-SS personnel within theVolksdeutsche. In the later period of the war, Amt II's importance increased as it was responsible for allocatingVolksdeutsche to the Reich Labor Service.
("Finances, Economics and Administration")It was responsible for financing VoMi projects and distributing funds toVolksdeutsche. It was the only department that remained under complete control of theNazi State and not theAllgemeine SS.
("Information")This department documented and reported all VoMi activity and resettlement projects. It worked closely withJoseph Goebbels'Ministry of Information. Amt IV also published information journals for theGerman settlers.
("Germanness education")This provided cultural and educational services to helpVolksdeutsche assimilate toGerman ways.
("Office of ethnic Germans within the Reich")This office looked after the welfare of ethnic Germans that had been allowed to settle within the borders ofGermany. It also assessed potential candidates for settlement grading them on their ethnicity, politics and skills. However, Amt VI, although tasked with the welfare ofVolksdeutsche, worked closely with theGestapo and theSD of theRSHA.
("Office of ethnic Germans in the neweastern areas")It had a similar role as Amt VI but looked after the welfare ofethnic Germans in Eastern Europe, such as inoccupied Poland,Czechoslovakia andRussia. It had field offices inKraków,Riga andKiev.
("Culture and science")This section was engaged in collating and archiving the cultural history of resettledVolksdeutsche. The department also acted as acurator for artifacts, treasure and documents belonging to ethnic Germans.
("Political office of German ethnic groups")TheSS considered this to be the most important department within VoMi as it provided the political leadership for ethnic Germans within theThird Reich andoccupied Europe. Amt IX had several sub divisions, these included domestic affairs, relations between ethnic Germans and the Nazi Party, affairs between foreign states and theThird Reich regarding ethnic Germans and liaisons with theNazi Foreign Ministry.
("Office managing the economics of ethnic Germans")This office established agriculture, work projects, banking and credit for theVolksdeutsche. During theSecond World War its main role was the exploitation of theethnic Germans in the interest of theThird Reich.
("Resettlement")This department was primarily responsible for handling the massivegermanisation operation tosettleVolksdeutsche throughout Germany andOccupied Europe.
A VoMi unit,Sonderkommando R (Russland), institutional successor toEinsatzgruppe D in the Transnistria area, carried out numerous massacres of Jews during the first half of 1942. The victims were deportees from Rumanian-controlled territory, it being Marshal Ion Antonescu's policy to racially "cleanse" the Rumanian nation. His preferred technique was to expel them to German-controlled territory and have the responsible SS/ Police units exterminate them. Many of these Jews were passed back and forth for weeks before a mix of Sk-R units and ethnic GermanSelbstschutz militia killed them.
Most of these murders occurred in the county (Judetul) of Berezovca, where ethnic Germans, distributed among 40 or so villages, made up 40% of the population. Sk-R was commanded by SS-Standartenfuher Horst Hoffmeyer, a senior VoMi officer. His HQ was in Landau, located west of the River Bug. Apparently, the unit was divided into seven local offices, three of which were:
Liebl's unit was responsible for the massacre of 1,200 Jews at Suha Verba in early June 1942.
Slightly more detail on this can be found in Andrej Angrick's paper in Yad Vashem Studies XXVI (1998), pp 232–234. Perhaps oddly, Radu Ioanid'sThe Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 does not cover Sk-R, nor does Valdis O. Lumen's book dedicated to VoMi.
SS-ObergruppenführerAugust Frank was an official of theSS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office), which was responsible for the administration of theNazi concentration camps. Frank was responsible for taking the property from Jews murdered inAktion 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 inŁódź, 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 an example of the use of the Nazi euphemism "evacuation" for Jews that were being murdered inThe Holocaust.[5]
Notes
Für das Büro von Kursell hatte sich bereits seit März 1936 mehr und mehr der NameVolksdeutsche Mittelstelle eingerbürgert. Vielfach wurde Kursells Dienststelle aber weiterhin Büro von Kursell genannt. Eine verbindliche Sprachregelung war nicht festgelegt worden.
Further reading
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