This is a rather tricky question. Poland was absorbed into "Greater Germany" after the Wehrmacht conquered it, but I was wondering if the Germans themselves viewed it as truly part of Germany or not. Did they build their own structures there? Or did they take over certain buildings like they would with any occupied territory? I long wondered about this.

There is no easy and short way to explain this subject.

The whole idea of expansion to the east and the LEBENSRAUM idea did not happen over night. It was an evolutionary process and it evolved slowly.

Sure Germans took over the local infrastructure, but they also build new infrastucture. They mainly build roads and railroad. The gauge difference between German and Russian rail system presented great problems and it influenced the whole campaign in the east.

But with time Germans resettled into east (new Lebensraum - living space) and they considered that part to be their territory.

And you can go deeper than that. In the turbolent histoy of Europe the territory of Poland was often disputed. Perhaps a Polish comrade can elaborate on this one.

But to go back to your question you can read a few good books on this topic to get a broader picture.
Some titles are: Hammer or Anvil from Herwig, The Hitler myth from Kershaw, Voices from the Third Reich, an oral history, Frontsoldaten from Fritz or perhaps a book titled Ordinary men from Browning can expand the idea of gradual transition. It talks about the police units that eventually commited genocide.

These books are all history books and have nothing to do with the ideological perspective.

Hope this might help

While Poland became part of the German Reich, or empire, I don't believe that all of Poland was absorbed into Grossdeutschland, or Greater Germany, which was supposed to be a superstate comprising all of the German-speaking parts of Europe (except for Liechtenstein and the German speaking parts of Switzerland). Germany had already absorbed Austria in the Anschluss before the war. France was forced to cede Alsace Lorraine after the debacle of 1940, and the Sudetenland was taken from Czechoslovakia, but the rest of these states remained separately administered entities within the German Reich. Thus, the part of Prussia which had been lost after World War One to create the Polish corridor and give Poland a Baltic seaport (Danzig/Gdansk) was reabsorbed into the German state, but I believe the Polish-speaking regions were administered separately.
In the longer term, the Nazis did intend to colonize the Slavic parts of Europe with ethnic Germans, but their defeat made this a moot point.

During the war the greater part of Poland was called the "General Government" It was adminstered by Governor General Hans Frank. It was considered an occupied territory. If the Germans had won the war this would have been incorporated into the Reich and German settlers would have been given the land and the Poles would have been forced to resettle farther east or work the land as serfs. Hence...Lebensraum...the nazi view that Germany needed room for the expansion of the Aryan race.

If you want to know more about this just search the web for Hans Frank or General Government ( I believe the Germans spelled it General Gouvernement).

I don't believe the Germans had a plan to eradicate all Polish achitecture. They would most certainly have rebuilt parts of the country that were destroyed during the war..but polish buildings reamained.

The Wikipedia search for "General Government" tuned up the entire history of this region in WWII!

I actually have, somewhere, a letter envelope that was mailed from a soldier in the General Government to his family in Germany.



Hope this helps.

Jeff

Hey, thanks a lot.

But when I travelled on a tour through Germany and Eastern Europe years ago, I noticed that the architecture on the old buildings was not all that dissimilar, as least not on the more ordinary buildings. The "Polish Building" could also be seen, say, in eastern Germany or the Soviet Union or other eastern European nations, if my understanding is correct.

Hi,
I dont think Germans built much of the buildings you saw in the times of WWII, at least in Poland and Russia They mostly took over what was already built. The similarities may be due to the fact the countries are quite close geographically. Or for the really old buildings due to the Poland being occupated and assimilated into Germany, Austria and Russia for many years, until the end of WW I.

Cheers
Greg

They generally viewed it as land to use for their own resourses, and eventually for Germans to colonize for themselves. The resources incluede using Poles(non-jews) as slave labor(my grandparents were interned in Germany as Polish slave labor). I have read accounts that eventually the Germans were going to liquidate many of the slavs in the same way as the jews and use their lands for the Germans only.


More speciafically to your question, the buildings were mostly the ones that had been there for years before the war started. The Germans really didn't have time to build new structures in Poland as they needed resources for their war effort, so public works projects for Poland would be low on the list, with the exception of buildings or roads specifically for the German war effort in the east.

Sean

Actually, I was talking about buildings built over the centuries, not during WW2. Of course this may be getting out of the scope of this forum, so I'll leave it at that.