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Description
As the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the German Reich neared, Führer von Schirach ordered his bureaucrats to produce a number of memoranda to evaluate the success and progress of various Nazi policies. Most of these memoranda produced conclusions that were satisfactory to the Führer. Von Schirach was particularly pleased by the degree to which the German Nuclear Weapons program had accelerated production, and by the degree to which the Nazi state was able to maintain a trade surplus. However, the 56-year-old Führer was said to be visibly disappointed after reading the memorandum on the "status of the colonization of the eastern territories".

In 1941, Hans Frank (the first head of the General Government) had boasted to Führer Göring that "the valley of the Vistula will be as German as the valley of the Rhine within twenty years." Those twenty years had since come and gone, and the memorandum on colonization in the east made it clear to everyone in the Nazi government that the Lebensraum project had failed expectations miserably.

The formerly Polish territories that Nazi Germany had annexed in 1939 (Reichsgaue Danzig–Westpreußen and Wartheland, as well as minor additions to gaue Ostpreußen and Schlesien) had achieved a bare German majority by 1963, but the memorandum noted that this development was only possible because millions of Poles had been deported to the General Government territory, and noted that the majority of the German population in these territories were Volksdeutche (and their descendants) who had been relocated during the population exchanges organized with the Soviet Union and Bulgaria in 1940. The total population of these territories, which had been 9 million in 1939, was now only 3.5 million. Additionally, the bulk of the Germans population lived in cities, rather than in rural areas as had been hoped. Although many Volksdeutsche had been given farmland parcels, a very large percentage (the supermajority, in fact) of these intended farmers had abandoned their plots to relocate to the cities, and ownership of farmland had become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer large-scale commercial farmers.

In the General Government proper (where the SS had taken charge of colonization), settlement efforts fared little better. While there were small successes in the Lublin-Pflugstadt District (where the rich black soil was of a higher quality than almost anywhere else in Germany), and in the vicinity of Krakau, even the fanatical SS had difficulties finding willing colonists to settle the east. Owing to the high mortality rate, particularly among the still-ghettoized Jews, the population of the General Government was roughly stagnant to where it had been in 1939 (about 11 million) despite the deportations of millions of Poles into the territory. However, the German population was only a paltry 5% of the total of the General Government.

Von Schirach came to the realization that a new policy in the East would be needed. First, the Führer issued a decree for German administrators in the General Government to find all of those deemed to be "racially valuable" so they could be assimilated into the German volk. Führer Göring had ordered a similar undertaking in Bohemia and Moravia back in the 1940s, but until this decree, the Nazi administrators in the East had presumed that the entire Polish population would be liquidated in time. Depending on the district and the administrator in charge, anywhere from 10-20% of the Poles were deemed "Aryan" and were assimilated as Germans. Given the hellish conditions in the General Government for non-Germans (between the forced labor, collective punishments, and barely adequate rations - to say nothing of the consequences for publicly defying the Nazi state), nearly every Pole offered the chance to assimilate did. There were a number of recorded cases where wealthy Polish individuals were able to bribe local Nazi officials for certificates of Aryan blood, and many Nazi hardliners presently allege that there presently exists a large "crypto-Polish" population in the East - but the Polish who were deemed "racially valuable" in the 1960s are today largely indistinguishable from other Germans.

Secondly, the Führer began organizing a population exchange that would rival the 1940 population exchanges (or indeed, any population exchange that had occurred up until this point): the complete repatriation of all of the Volksdeutsche living in Anti-Comintern pact states. Millions of ethnic Germans who had lived for centuries in what was presently Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia were to be relocated into the newly created Reichsgaue Weichselland and Beskidenland (with the exception of Germans that lived on the German-Slovak and German-Hungarian border in places like Sopron and Bratislava, which were allowed to stay). While the ethnic Germans had generally been loyal and productive citizens, the Romanian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Slovakian governments all agreed to the transfer - believing that by removing the ethnic German population, they could protect against future German irredentism (despite the official stance of Führer von Schirach that the borders of Southeastern Europe were "to be set in place for a thousand years or more" - these governments were worried by the proclamations of many high up Nazi officials who laid claim to portions of their countries from time to time in speeches).

Finally, a few additional measures were imposed to curtail the non-valuable Polish population. Within the former General Government, a "one-child" policy was imposed on non-Germans, and a mechanism was introduced to allow some Polish to emigrate, to a select few nations friendly with Germany. Various tax incentives and subsidies were further introduced to encourage settlement into the former General Government.

Starting in 1963, and lasting nearly a decade, the "Heim ins Reich" policy of Führer von Schirach would see the demographics of the former General Government transformed as nearly 3.2 million ethnic Germans from Southeastern Europe relocated within the borders of the German Reich. These Germans would form the nucleus of a German community which has steadily grown while the total number of ethnic Polish has begun to decline. With ethnic Poles now no longer a majority within their former country, hopes among Polish nationalists for a restoration of an independent Poland seem to be growing fainter with each passing year. As such, Baldur von Schirach is a name which is cursed by Polish nationalists even more than that of Adolf Hitler or Hermann Göring.

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Also, not that I'd think anyone would hold copyright anymore, but this map is heavily modeled off of a map produced by the "Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle" that depicts the settlement of Volksdeutsche in Wartheland.

Description
As the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the German Reich neared, Führer von Schirach ordered his bureaucrats to produce a number of memoranda to evaluate the success and progress of various Nazi policies. Most of these memoranda produced conclusions that were satisfactory to the Führer. Von Schirach was particularly pleased by the degree to which the German Nuclear Weapons program had accelerated production, and by the degree to which the Nazi state was able to maintain a trade surplus. However, the 56-year-old Führer was said to be visibly disappointed after reading the memorandum on the "status of the colonization of the eastern territories".

In 1941, Hans Frank (the first head of the General Government) had boasted to Führer Göring that "the valley of the Vistula will be as German as the valley of the Rhine within twenty years." Those twenty years had since come and gone, and the memorandum on colonization in the east made it clear to everyone in the Nazi government that the Lebensraum project had failed expectations miserably.

The formerly Polish territories that Nazi Germany had annexed in 1939 (Reichsgaue Danzig–Westpreußen and Wartheland, as well as minor additions to gaue Ostpreußen and Schlesien) had achieved a bare German majority by 1963, but the memorandum noted that this development was only possible because millions of Poles had been deported to the General Government territory, and noted that the majority of the German population in these territories were Volksdeutche (and their descendants) who had been relocated during the population exchanges organized with the Soviet Union and Bulgaria in 1940. The total population of these territories, which had been 9 million in 1939, was now only 3.5 million. Additionally, the bulk of the Germans population lived in cities, rather than in rural areas as had been hoped. Although many Volksdeutsche had been given farmland parcels, a very large percentage (the supermajority, in fact) of these intended farmers had abandoned their plots to relocate to the cities, and ownership of farmland had become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer large-scale commercial farmers.

In the General Government proper (where the SS had taken charge of colonization), settlement efforts fared little better. While there were small successes in the Lublin-Pflugstadt District (where the rich black soil was of a higher quality than almost anywhere else in Germany), and in the vicinity of Krakau, even the fanatical SS had difficulties finding willing colonists to settle the east. Owing to the high mortality rate, particularly among the still-ghettoized Jews, the population of the General Government was roughly stagnant to where it had been in 1939 (about 11 million) despite the deportations of millions of Poles into the territory. However, the German population was only a paltry 5% of the total of the General Government.

Von Schirach came to the realization that a new policy in the East would be needed. First, the Führer issued a decree for German administrators in the General Government to find all of those deemed to be "racially valuable" so they could be assimilated into the German volk. Führer Göring had ordered a similar undertaking in Bohemia and Moravia back in the 1940s, but until this decree, the Nazi administrators in the East had presumed that the entire Polish population would be liquidated in time. Depending on the district and the administrator in charge, anywhere from 10-20% of the Poles were deemed "Aryan" and were assimilated as Germans. Given the hellish conditions in the General Government for non-Germans (between the forced labor, collective punishments, and barely adequate rations - to say nothing of the consequences for publicly defying the Nazi state), nearly every Pole offered the chance to assimilate did. There were a number of recorded cases where wealthy Polish individuals were able to bribe local Nazi officials for certificates of Aryan blood, and many Nazi hardliners presently allege that there presently exists a large "crypto-Polish" population in the East - but the Polish who were deemed "racially valuable" in the 1960s are today largely indistinguishable from other Germans.

Secondly, the Führer began organizing a population exchange that would rival the 1940 population exchanges (or indeed, any population exchange that had occurred up until this point): the complete repatriation of all of the Volksdeutsche living in Anti-Comintern pact states. Millions of ethnic Germans who had lived for centuries in what was presently Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia were to be relocated into the newly created Reichsgaue Weichselland and Beskidenland (with the exception of Germans that lived on the German-Slovak and German-Hungarian border in places like Sopron and Bratislava, which were allowed to stay). While the ethnic Germans had generally been loyal and productive citizens, the Romanian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Slovakian governments all agreed to the transfer - believing that by removing the ethnic German population, they could protect against future German irredentism (despite the official stance of Führer von Schirach that the borders of Southeastern Europe were "to be set in place for a thousand years or more" - these governments were worried by the proclamations of many high up Nazi officials who laid claim to portions of their countries from time to time in speeches).

Finally, a few additional measures were imposed to curtail the non-valuable Polish population. Within the former General Government, a "one-child" policy was imposed on non-Germans, and a mechanism was introduced to allow some Polish to emigrate, to a select few nations friendly with Germany. Various tax incentives and subsidies were further introduced to encourage settlement into the former General Government.

Starting in 1963, and lasting nearly a decade, the "Heim ins Reich" policy of Führer von Schirach would see the demographics of the former General Government transformed as nearly 3.2 million ethnic Germans from Southeastern Europe relocated within the borders of the German Reich. These Germans would form the nucleus of a German community which has steadily grown while the total number of ethnic Polish has begun to decline. With ethnic Poles now no longer a majority within their former country, hopes among Polish nationalists for a restoration of an independent Poland seem to be growing fainter with each passing year. As such, Baldur von Schirach is a name which is cursed by Polish nationalists even more than that of Adolf Hitler or Hermann Göring.

---

Also, not that I'd think anyone would hold copyright anymore, but this map is heavily modeled off of a map produced by the "Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle" that depicts the settlement of Volksdeutsche in Wartheland.