96-611: Warsaw District was one of the first four Nazi districts of the General Governorate region of German-occupied Poland during World War II, along with Lublin District , Radom District , and Kraków District . It was bordered on the north by Regierungsbezirk Zichenau (part of East Prussia ) and Bezirk Bialystok . The region contained more than 60 Nazi ghettos including the Warsaw Ghetto . This Polish history –related article
192-561: A German-dominated Europe. According to the Nazi government the Polish state had effectively ceased to exist, in spite of the existence of a Polish government-in-exile . The General Government had the character of a type of colonial state . It was not a Polish puppet government , as there were no Polish representatives above the local administration. The government seat of the General Government
288-451: A fee for the right to leave her lord, and in compensation for her lost labour. Often there were arbitrary tests to judge the worthiness of their tax payments. A chicken, for example, might be required to be able to jump over a fence of a given height to be considered old enough or well enough to be valued for tax purposes. The restraints of serfdom on personal and economic choice were enforced through various forms of manorial customary law and
384-410: A few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case, he could strike a bargain with a lord of a manor. In exchange for gaining protection, his service was required: in labour, produce, or cash, or a combination of all. These bargains became formalised in a ceremony known as "bondage", in which a serf placed his head in the lord's hands, akin to
480-519: A full complement of labour to the lord, often forcing them to rent out their services to other serfs to make up for this hardship. Villeinage was not a purely uni-directional exploitative relationship. In the Middle Ages, land within a lord's manor provided sustenance and survival, and being a villein guaranteed access to land, and crops secure from theft by marauding robbers. Landlords, even were legally entitled to do so, rarely evicted villeins because of
576-694: A grave danger for the non-Jewish Poles who attempted to help ghettoised Jews in the cities, as in the Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto among numerous others, because Christian Poles were executed under the charge of aiding Jews. A Forest Protection Service also existed, responsible for policing wooded areas in the General Government. A Bahnpolizei policed railroads. The Germans used pre-war Polish prisons and organised new ones, like in Jan Chrystian Schuch Avenue police quarter in Warsaw and Under
672-515: A knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all"; thus everyone had a place (see Estates of the realm ). The serf was the worst fed and rewarded however, although unlike slaves had certain rights in land and property. A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves. On the other hand, if he chose to dispose of a parcel of land, the serfs associated with that land stayed with it to serve their new lord; simply speaking, they were implicitly sold in mass and as
768-467: A man was a primary issue in determining a person's rights and obligations in many of the manorial court -cases of the period. Also, runaway slaves could be beaten if caught. The usual serf (not including slaves or cottars) paid his fees and taxes in the form of seasonally appropriate labour. Usually, a portion of the week was devoted to ploughing his lord's fields held in demesne , harvesting crops, digging ditches, repairing fences, and often working in
864-551: A number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from the freeman. Within his constraints, a serf had some freedoms. Though the common wisdom is that a serf owned "only his belly" – even his clothes were the property, in law, of his lord – a serf might still accumulate personal property and wealth, and some serfs became wealthier than their free neighbours, although this happened rarely. A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom. A serf could grow what crop he saw fit on his lands, although
960-429: A part of a lot. This unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, nor did he possess a saleable title in them. A freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners into dependency. Often
1056-568: A patch of land. As part of the contract with the landlord , the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit. Villeins were tied to their lord's land and could not leave it without his permission. Their lord also often decided whom they could marry. Like other types of serfs, villeins had to provide other services, possibly in addition to paying rent of money or produce. Villeins could not move away without their lord's consent and
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#17328523962931152-455: A serf's taxes often had to be paid in wheat. The surplus he would sell at market . The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without legal cause and was supposed to protect them from the depredations of robbers or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of famine . Many such rights were enforceable by the serf in the manorial court. Forms of serfdom varied greatly through time and regions. In some places, serfdom
1248-508: A small number would be "Germanized", and young Poles of desirable qualities would be kidnapped and raised in Germany . In the General Government, all secondary education was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed. In 1943, the government selected the Zamojskie area for further Germanization on account of its fertile black soil, and German colonial settlements were planned. Zamość
1344-458: A source of agricultural labour . Serfdom, indeed, was an institution that reflected a fairly common practice whereby great landlords were assured that others worked to feed them and were held down, legally and economically, while doing so. This arrangement provided most of the agricultural labour throughout the Middle Ages . Slavery persisted right through the Middle Ages, but it was rare. In
1440-476: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . General Governorate The General Government ( German : Generalgouvernement ; Polish : Generalne Gubernatorstwo ; Ukrainian : Генеральна губернія ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (German: Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete ), was a German zone of occupation established after
1536-566: Is a Polish reservation, a great Polish labor camp. — Note of Martin Bormann from the meeting of Dr. Hans Frank with Adolf Hitler , Berlin, 2 October 1940. German bureaucrats drew up various plans regarding the future of the original population. One called for the deportation of about 20 million Poles to western Siberia , and the Germanisation of 4 to 5 million; although deportation in reality meant many Poles were to be put to death,
1632-509: Is administered centrally. In the French and Dutch original, the 'General' in the name is a reference to the Estates-General , the central assembly which was given an authority to directly rule the territory. The Nazi designation of Generalgouvernement also gave a nod to the once existing Generalgouvernement Warschau , a civil entity created in the invaded Russian Empire territory by
1728-705: Is anticipated for Poland, but a complete German administration. (...) Leadership layer of the population in Poland should be as far as possible, disposed of. The other lower layers of the population will receive no special schools, but are to be oppressed in some form. — Excerpt from the minutes of the first conference of Heads of the main police officers and commanders of operational groups led by Heydrich's deputy, SS- Brigadefuhrer Dr. Werner Best , Berlin 7 September 1939 The General Government had no international recognition . The territories it administered were never either in whole or part intended as any future Polish state within
1824-507: Is first recorded in English in the late 15th century, and came to its current definition in the 17th century. Serfdom was coined in 1850. Serfs had a specific place in feudal society, as did barons and knights : in return for protection, a serf would reside upon and work a parcel of land within the manor of his lord . Thus, the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity. One rationale held that serfs and freemen "worked for all" while
1920-716: The Ordnungspolizei . The Polish educational system was similarly retained, but most higher institutions were closed. The Polish local administration was kept, subordinated to new German bosses. The Polish fiscal system, including the zloty currency, remained in use but with revenues going to the German state. A new bank was created; it issued new banknotes. The Germans sought to play Ukrainians and Poles off against each other. Within ethnic Ukrainian areas annexed by Germany, beginning in October 1939, Ukrainian Committees were established with
2016-572: The German Empire during World War I. This district existed from 1914 to 1918 together with an Austro-Hungarian -controlled Military Government of Lublin alongside the short-lived Kingdom of Poland of 1916–1918 , a similar rump state formed out of the then- Russian-controlled parts of Poland . The General Government area was also known colloquially as the Restpolen ('Remainder of Poland'). After Germany's attack on Poland , all areas occupied by
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#17328523962932112-622: The German army including the Free City of Danzig initially came under military rule . This area extended from the 1939 eastern border of Germany proper and of East Prussia up to the Bug River where the German armies had halted their advance and linked up with the Soviet Red Army in accordance with their secret pact against Poland. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939 had promised
2208-555: The Middle French serf and was derived from the Latin servus ("slave"). In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages, what are now called serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni . As slavery gradually disappeared and the legal status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni , the term changed meaning into the modern concept of "serf". The word "serf"
2304-568: The Rhineland ." By 1942 Hitler and Frank had agreed that the Kraków ("with its purely German capital") and Lublin districts would be the first areas for German colonists to re-populate. Hitler stated: "When these two weak points have been strengthened, it should be possible to slowly drive back the Poles." Peculiar about these statements is the circumstance that there were not enough German settlers to even make
2400-498: The Vandals ) in a speech he gave on 16 December 1941. When Frank unsuccessfully attempted to resign his position on 24 August 1942, Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann tried to advance a project to dissolve the General Government altogether and to partition its territory into a number of Reichsgaue , arguing that only this method could guarantee the territory's Germanization, while also claiming that Germany could economically exploit
2496-625: The Wartheland "as German as the Rhineland". According to notes from Martin Bormann German policy envisaged reducing lower-class Poles to the status of serfs , while deporting or otherwise eliminating the middle and upper classes and eventually replacing them with German colonists of the " master race ". The General Government is our work force reservoir for lowgrade work (brick plants, road building, etc.) ... Unconditionally, attention should be paid to
2592-715: The Wehrmacht forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 ( Operation Barbarossa ), the area of the General Government was enlarged by the inclusion of the Polish regions previously annexed to the USSR. Within days East Galicia was overrun and incorporated into the District of Galicia . Until 1945, the General Government comprised much of central, southern, and southeastern Poland within its prewar borders (and of modern-day Western Ukraine ), including
2688-454: The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany , Slovakia and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II . The newly occupied Second Polish Republic was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in the west, and Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. The territory was expanded substantially in 1941, after
2784-406: The manor house . The remainder of the serf's time was spent tending his own fields, crops and animals in order to provide for his family. Most manorial work was segregated by gender during the regular times of the year. During the harvest , the whole family was expected to work the fields. A major difficulty of a serf's life was that his work for his lord coincided with, and took precedence over,
2880-615: The "line Memel - Odessa ". In this context Zvanetti's study proposed a re-ordering of the "Eastern Gaue" into three geopolitical blocs: The General Government was administered by a General-Governor ( German : Generalgouverneur ) aided by the Office of the General-Governor ( German : Amt des Generalgouverneurs ; changed on December 9, 1940 to the Government of the General Government, German : Regierung des Generalgouvernements ). For
2976-668: The Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a practice similar to slavery. Social institutions similar to serfdom were known in ancient times . The status of the helots in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta resembled that of the medieval serfs. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire faced a labour shortage. Large Roman landowners increasingly relied on Roman freemen, acting as tenant farmers, instead of slaves to provide labour. These tenant farmers , eventually known as coloni , saw their condition steadily erode. Because
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3072-654: The Chinese Qing dynasty (1644–1912) as also maintaining a form of serfdom. Melvyn Goldstein described Tibet as having had serfdom until 1959, but whether or not the Tibetan form of peasant tenancy that qualified as serfdom was widespread is contested by other scholars. Bhutan is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as having officially abolished serfdom by 1959, but he believes that less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold situations. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on
3168-546: The Clock torture centre in Lublin . German administration constructed a terror system to control Polish people enforcing reports of any illegal activities, e.g. hiding Roma, POWs, guerilla fighters, Jews. Germans designated hostages, terrorised local leaders, applied collective responsibility. German police used sting operations to find and kill rescuers of the Germans' quarries. Through
3264-628: The French. Status-wise, the bordar or cottar ranked below a serf in the social hierarchy of a manor, holding a cottage , garden and just enough land to feed a family. In England, at the time of the Domesday Survey, this would have comprised between about 1 and 5 acres (0.4 and 2.0 hectares). Under an Elizabethan statute , the Erection of Cottages Act 1588 , the cottage had to be built with at least 4 acres (0.02 km ; 0.01 sq mi) of land. The later Enclosures Acts (1604 onwards) removed
3360-514: The General Government was composed entirely of German officials, with the intent that the area was to be colonized by Germanic settlers who would reduce the local Polish population to the level of serfs before their eventual genocide . The Nazi German rulers of the Generalgouvernement had no intention of sharing power with the locals throughout the war, regardless of their ethnicity and political orientation. The authorities rarely mentioned
3456-878: The German Invasion of the Soviet Union , to include the new District of Galicia . The area of the Generalgouvernement roughly corresponded with the Austrian part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The basis for the formation of the General Government was the "Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories". Announced by Hitler on October 8, 1939, it claimed that
3552-496: The German zone, in order to increase the Reich's Lebensraum . Germany organized most of these areas as two new Reichsgaue : Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland . The remaining three regions, the so-called areas of Zichenau, Eastern Upper Silesia and the Suwałki triangle, became attached to adjacent Gaue of Germany. Draconian measures were introduced by both RKF and HTO, to facilitate
3648-530: The German-Polish conflict (although they were unable to help Soviet POWs of Ukrainian ethnicity). After the war, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal declared that the government of the General Government was a criminal institution. Other than summary German military tribunals, no courts operated in Poland between the German invasion and early 1940. At that time, the Polish court system
3744-503: The Polish government had totally collapsed. This rationale was utilized by the German Supreme Court to reassign the identity of all Polish nationals as stateless subjects , with the exception of the ethnic Germans of interwar Poland—who, disregarding international law, were named the only rightful citizens of Nazi Germany . The General Government was run by Germany as a separate administrative unit for logistical purposes. When
3840-480: The Polish government reopened. By March 1941, there were 808 Ukrainian educational societies with 46,000 members. A Ukrainian publishing house and periodical press was set up in Cracow, which – despite having to struggle with German censors and paper shortages – succeeded in publishing school textbooks, classics of Ukrainian literature , and the works of dissident Ukrainian writers from the Soviet Union. Krakivs'ki Visti
3936-583: The Polish population. The official name chosen for the new entity was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories), then changed to the Generalgouvernement (General Government) by Frank's decree of July 31, 1940. However, this name did not imply anything about the actual nature of the administration. The German authorities never regarded these Polish lands (apart from
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4032-572: The Polish underground killed a German, 50–100 Poles were executed by German police as a punishment and as a warning to other Poles. Most of the Jews, perhaps as many as two million, had also been rounded up and murdered. Germans destroyed Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising . As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the General Government collapsed. American troops captured Hans Frank , who had governed
4128-644: The Prussian States in 1792 and finally abolished it in October 1807, in the wake of the Prussian Reform Movement . In Finland, Norway, and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist; in Denmark, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both stavn s (the stavnsbånd , from 1733 to 1788) and its vassal Iceland (the more restrictive vistarband , from 1490 until 1894). According to medievalist historian Joseph R. Strayer ,
4224-621: The acceptance of the lord to whose manor they proposed to migrate to. Villeins were generally able to hold their own property, unlike slaves. Villeinage, as opposed to other forms of serfdom, was most common in Continental European feudalism, where land ownership had developed from roots in Roman law . A variety of kinds of villeinage existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. Half-villeins received only half as many strips of land for their own use and owed
4320-491: The area more effectively, particularly as a source of food. He suggested separating the "more restful" population of the formerly Austrian territories (because this part of Poland had been under German-Austrian rule for a long period of time it was deemed more racially acceptable) from the rest of the Poles, and cordoning off the city of Warsaw as the center of "criminality" and underground resistance activity . Ludwig Fischer (governor of Warsaw from 1939 to 1945) opposed
4416-521: The area to the west of Kraków to the San river in the east. At this time Germany had not yet directly annexed the Łódź area, and Łódź (rather than Kraków) served as the capital of the General Government. In November 1940, Gauleiter Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland argued that the counties of Tomaschow Mazowiecki and Petrikau should be transferred from the General Government's Radom district to his Gau. Hitler agreed, but since Frank refused to surrender
4512-503: The area, be sold together with land. Actual slaves, such as the kholops in Russia, could, by contrast, be traded like regular slaves, could be abused with no rights over their own bodies, could not leave the land they were bound to, and could marry only with their lord 's permission. Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land. In return, they were entitled to protection, justice, and
4608-477: The attack and joined the invading force thereafter. However, after the 1941 Operation Barbarossa they included also the Soviet prisoners of war who volunteered for special training, such as the " Trawniki men " (German: Trawnikimänner ) deployed at all major killing sites of the " Final Solution ". A lot of those men did not know German and required translation by their native commanders. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police
4704-493: The ceremony of homage where a vassal placed his hands between those of his overlord . These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract and defined the terms of their agreement. Often these bargains were severe. A 7th-century Anglo Saxon "Oath of Fealty" states: By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to N. be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to
4800-631: The concept of feudalism can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia , ancient Mesopotamia , Egypt from the late Old Kingdom through the Middle Kingdom ( Sixth to Twelfth dynasty ), Islamic-ruled Northern and Central India , China ( Zhou dynasty and end of Han dynasty ) and Japan during the Shogunate . Wu Ta-k'un argued that the Shang-Zhou fengjian were kinship estates, quite distinct from feudalism. James Lee and Cameron Campbell describe
4896-594: The cottars' right to any land: "before the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer with land and after the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer without land". The bordars and cottars did not own their draught oxen or horses. The Domesday Book showed that England comprised 12% freeholders, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and bordars, and 9% slaves. Smerdy were a type of serfs above kholops in Medieval Poland and Kievan Rus' . Kholops were
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#17328523962934992-625: The counties, the resolution of the border question was postponed until after the final victory. Upon hearing of the German plans to create a " Gau of the Goths " ( Gotengau ) in the Crimea and the Southern Ukraine after the start (June 1941) of Operation Barbarossa , Frank himself expressed his intention to turn the district under his control into a German province called the Vandalengau (Gau of
5088-424: The duties of serfdom, people bound themselves and their progeny. The social class of the peasantry can be differentiated into smaller categories. These distinctions were often less clear than suggested by their different names. Most often, there were two types of peasants: Lower classes of peasants, known as cottars or bordars , generally comprising the younger sons of villeins; vagabonds; and slaves, made up
5184-517: The entire period of the General Government's existence there was only one General-Governor: Dr. Hans Frank. The NSDAP structure in General Government was Arbeitsbereich Generalgouvernement led by Frank. The Office was headed by Chief of the Government ( German : Regierung , lit. 'government'), Josef Bühler , who was also the State Secretary ( German : Staatssekretär ). From October 1939 to May 1940, Arthur Seyss-Inquart
5280-421: The fact that there can be no "Polish masters"; where there are Polish masters, and I do not care how hard this sounds, they must be killed. (...) The Führer must emphasize once again that for Poles there is only one master and he is a German, there can be no two masters beside each other and there is no consent to such, hence all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be killed ... The General Government
5376-582: The focus was on the better-known Einsatzgruppen ("Operational groups") who reported to RSHA led by Reinhard Heydrich . On 6 May 1940 Gauleiter Hans Frank, stationed in occupied Kraków , established the Sonderdienst , based on similar SS formations called Selbstschutz operating in the Warthegau district of German-annexed western part of Poland since 1939. Sonderdienst were made up of ethnic German Volksdeutsche who lived in Poland before
5472-424: The following year, at which time Lublin was to be declared a German city and given a German mayor. Nazi planners never definitively resolved the question of the exact territorial reorganization of the Polish provinces in the event of German victory in the east. Germany had already annexed large parts of western pre-war Poland (8 October 1939) before the establishment of the General Government (26 October 1939), and
5568-608: The former, and economically and socially in the latter. The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the widespread plague epidemic of the Black Death , which reached Europe in 1347 and caused massive fatalities, disrupting society. Conversely, serfdom grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europe , where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as " second serfdom "). In Eastern Europe,
5664-414: The immediate Germanization of the annexed territory, typically resulting in mass expulsions , especially in the Warthegau. The remaining parts of the former Poland were to become a German Nebenland ( March , borderland) as a frontier post of German rule in the east. A Führer's decree of October 12, 1939 established the General Government; the decree came into force on October 26, 1939. Hans Frank
5760-426: The institution persisted until the mid-19th century. In Russia, serfdom gradually evolved from the usual European form to become de facto slavery, though it continued to be called serfdom. In the Austrian Empire , serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent ; corvées continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861. Prussia declared serfdom unacceptable in its General State Laws for
5856-446: The later Middle Ages, serfdom began to disappear west of the Rhine even as it spread through eastern Europe. Serfdom reached Eastern Europe centuries later than Western Europe – it became dominant around the 15th century. In many of these countries serfdom was abolished during the Napoleonic invasions of the early 19th century, though in some it persisted until mid- or late- 19th century. The word serf originated from
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#17328523962935952-503: The laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will. To become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serf's life. The children born to serfs inherited their status, and were considered born into serfdom. By taking on
6048-471: The lower class of workers. The colonus system of the late Roman Empire can be considered the predecessor of Western European feudal serfdom. Freemen, or free tenants , held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land-tenure and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure and independence. In parts of 11th-century England freemen made up only 10% of
6144-496: The lowest class of serfs in the medieval and early modern Russia. They had status similar to slaves, and could be freely traded. The last type of serf was the slave. Slaves had the fewest rights and benefits from the manor. They owned no tenancy in land, worked for the lord exclusively and survived on donations from the landlord. It was always in the interest of the lord to prove that a servile arrangement existed, as this provided him with greater rights to fees and taxes. The status of
6240-407: The major Polish cities of Warsaw , Kraków , Lwów (now Lviv , renamed Lemberg ), Lublin (see Lublin Reservation ), Tarnopol (see history of Tarnopol Ghetto ), Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk , renamed Stanislau ; see Stanisławów Ghetto ), Drohobycz , and Sambor (see Drohobycz and Sambor Ghettos ) and others. Geographical locations were renamed in German. The administration of
6336-408: The manorial administration and court baron . It was also a matter of discussion whether serfs could be required by law in times of war or conflict to fight for their lord's land and property. In the case of their lord's defeat, their own fate might be uncertain, so the serf certainly had an interest in supporting his lord. Villeins had more rights and status than those held as slaves, but were under
6432-483: The name Poland in legal correspondence. The only exception to this was the General Government's Bank of Issue in Poland ( Polish : Bank Emisyjny w Polsce , German : Emissionbank in Polen ). The full title of the regime in Germany until July 1940 was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete , a name that is usually translated as "General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories". Governor Hans Frank , on Hitler's authority, shortened
6528-402: The name on 31 July 1940 to just Generalgouvernement . An accurate English translation of Generalgouvernement , which is a borrowing from French , is 'General Governorate', cognate with the Dutch Generaliteitslanden . A more accurate English translation of the French term gouvernement in this context is not 'government', but " governorate ", which is a type of a territory that
6624-585: The occupation Germany diverted a significant number of its military forces to keep control over Polish territories. (includes German forces only) The propaganda was directed by the Fachabteilung für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (FAVuP), since Spring 1941 Hauptabteilung Propaganda (HAP). Prasą kierował Dienststelle der Pressechef der Regierung des Generalgouvernements , a w Berlinie Der Bevollmächtige des Generalgouverneurs in Berlin . Thousands of anti-Semitic posters were distributed in Warsaw. Germans wanted Poles to obey orders. Serf Serfdom
6720-511: The peasant population, and in most of the rest of Europe their numbers were also small. Ministeriales were hereditary unfree knights tied to their lord, that formed the lowest rung of nobility in the Holy Roman Empire . A villein (or villain ) represented the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with
6816-413: The proposed administrative streamlining resulting from these discussions. Fischer prepared his own project in his Main Office for Spatial Ordering ( Hauptamt für Raumordnung ) located in Warsaw. He suggested the establishment of the three provinces Beskiden , Weichselland (" Vistula Land"), and Galizien ( Galicia and Chełm ) by dividing the Radom and Lublin districts between them. Weichselland
6912-468: The purpose of representing the Ukrainian community to the German authorities and assisting the approximately 30,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled from Soviet-controlled territories. These committees also undertook cultural and economic activities that had been banned by the previous Polish government. Schools, choirs, reading societies and theaters were opened, and twenty Ukrainian churches that had been closed by
7008-597: The region, in May 1945; he became one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials . During his trial he resumed his childhood practice of Catholicism and expressed repentance. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal; much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity . On October 1, 1946, he was sentenced to death by hanging . The sentence
7104-487: The remaining region was also intended to be directly incorporated into the German Reich at some future date. The Nazi leadership discussed numerous initiatives with this aim. The earliest such proposal (October/November 1939) called for the establishment of a separate Reichsgau Beskidenland which would encompass several southern sections of the Polish territories conquered in 1939 (around 18,000 km ), stretching from
7200-400: The right to cultivate certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence. Serfs were often required not only to work on the lord's fields, but also in his mines and forests and to labour to maintain roads. The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society, and the lord of the manor and the villeins , and to a certain extent the serfs, were bound legally: by taxation in the case of
7296-433: The right to gather deadwood – an essential source of fuel – from their lord's forests. In addition to service, a serf was required to pay certain taxes and fees. Taxes were based on the assessed value of his lands and holdings. Fees were usually paid in the form of agricultural produce rather than cash. The best ration of wheat from the serf's harvest often went to the landlord. Generally hunting and trapping of wild game by
7392-413: The serfs on the lord's property was prohibited. On Easter Sunday the peasant family perhaps might owe an extra dozen eggs, and at Christmas, a goose was perhaps required, too. When a family member died, extra taxes were paid to the lord as a form of feudal relief to enable the heir to keep the right to till what land he had. Any young woman who wished to marry a serf outside of her manor was forced to pay
7488-454: The short period of military administration during the actual invasion of Poland ) as an occupied territory . The Nazis considered the Polish state to have effectively ceased to exist with its defeat in the September campaign. Overall, 4 million of the 1939 population of the General Government area had lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces entered the area in late 1944. If
7584-471: The tax system implemented by Diocletian assessed taxes based on both land and the inhabitants of that land, it became administratively inconvenient for peasants to leave the land where they were counted in the census. Medieval serfdom really began with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire around the 10th century. During this period, powerful feudal lords encouraged the establishment of serfdom as
7680-422: The value of their labour. Villeinage was much preferable to being a vagabond, a slave, or an unlanded labourer. In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom by escaping from a manor to a city or borough and living there for more than a year; but this action involved the loss of land rights and agricultural livelihood, a prohibitive price unless the landlord was especially tyrannical or conditions in
7776-453: The vast territory between the Vistula and Bug rivers to the Soviet "sphere of influence" in divided Poland, while the two powers would have jointly ruled Warsaw. To settle the deviation from the original agreement, the German and Soviet representatives met again on September 28 to delineate a permanent border between the two countries. Under this revised version of the pact the territory concerned
7872-470: The village were unusually difficult. In medieval England, two types of villeins existed – villeins regardant that were tied to land and villeins in gross that could be traded separately from land. In England, the Domesday Book , of 1086, uses bordarii (bordar) and cottarii ( cottar ) as interchangeable terms, cottar deriving from the native Anglo-Saxon tongue whereas bordar derived from
7968-454: The work he had to perform on his own lands: when the lord's crops were ready to be harvested, so were his own. On the other hand, the serf of a benign lord could look forward to being well fed during his service; it was a lord without foresight who did not provide a substantial meal for his serfs during the harvest and planting times. In exchange for this work on the lord's demesne, the serfs had certain privileges and rights, including for example
8064-453: Was appointed as the governor-general of the General Government. German authorities made a sharp contrast between the new Reich territory and a supposedly occupied rump state that could serve as a bargaining chip with the Western powers. The Germans established a closed border between the two German zones to heighten the difficulty of cross-frontier communication between the different segments of
8160-485: Was carried out on October 16. The conversion of Warsaw into a "model city" was planned in 1940 and later, in similar ways like the conversion of Berlin was planned. In March 1941 Hans Frank informed his subordinates that Hitler had made the decision to "turn this region into a purely German area within 15–20 years". He explained: "Where 12 million Poles now live, is to be populated by 4 to 5 million Germans . The Generalgouvernement must become as German as
8256-455: Was exchanged for the inclusion in the Soviet sphere of Lithuania , which had originally fallen within the ambit of Germany. With the new agreement the entire central part of Poland, including the core ethnic area of the Poles, came under exclusively German control. Hitler decreed the direct annexation to the German Reich of large parts of the occupied Polish territory in the western half of
8352-621: Was formed in Distrikt Galizien in 1941, many policemen deserted in 1943 joining UPA. The former Polish policemen, with no high-ranking Polish officers (who were arrested or demoted), were drafted to the Blue Police and became subordinated to the local Ordnungspolizei . Some 3,000 men served with the Sonderdienst in the General Government, formally assigned to the head of the civil administration. The existence of Sonderdienst constituted
8448-421: Was headed by Frank until the end of World War II and had as editor Michael Chomiak . It was "the leading legal newspaper" of the General Government and "attracted more (and better) contributors among whom were the most prominent Ukrainian cultural figures of the (early) 20th century." Ukrainian organizations within the General Government were able to negotiate the release of 85,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war from
8544-407: Was initially renamed by the government to Himmlerstadt ( Himmler City), which was later changed to Pflugstadt ( Plough City), both names were not implemented. Most of the Polish population was expelled by the Nazi occupation authorities with documented brutality. Himmler intended the city of Lublin to have a German population of 20% to 25% by the beginning of 1944, and of 30% to 40% by
8640-420: Was introduced for, among other things: The police in the General Government was divided into: The most numerous OrPo battalions focused on traditional security roles as an occupying force. Some of them were directly involved in the pacification operations . In the immediate aftermath of World War II, this latter role was obscured both by the lack of court evidence and by deliberate obfuscation, while most of
8736-491: Was located in Kraków (German: Krakau ; English: Cracow ) rather than in Warsaw for security reasons. The official state language was German, although Polish continued in use by local government. Useful institutions of the old Polish state were retained for ease of administration. The Polish police, with no high-ranking Polish officers (they were arrested or demoted), was reorganised as the Blue Police and became subordinated to
8832-403: Was merged with or exchanged for various forms of taxation. The amount of labour required varied. In Poland, for example, it was commonly a few days per year per household in the 13th century, one day per week per household in the 14th century, four days per week per household in the 17th century, and six days per week per household in the 18th century. Early serfdom in Poland was mostly limited to
8928-434: Was reinstated and made decisions in cases not concerning German interests, for which a parallel German court-system was established. The German system was given priority in cases of overlapping jurisdiction. New laws were passed, discriminating against ethnic Poles and, in particular, the Jews. In 1941 a new criminal law was introduced, introducing many new crimes, and making the death penalty very common. The death penalty
9024-544: Was the Deputy General-Governor. After his departure, Bühler served as Frank's deputy through January 1945. Several other individuals had powers to issue legislative decrees in addition to the General-Governor, most notably the Higher SS and Police Leader of the General Government (SS- Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger ; from October 1943: SS- Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe ). No government protectorate
9120-530: Was the status of many peasants under feudalism , specifically relating to manorialism , and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery . It developed during late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century. Unlike slaves , serfs could not be bought, sold, or traded individually, though they could, depending on
9216-558: Was to have a "Polish character", Galizien a "Ukrainian" one, and the Beskiden -province to provide a German "admixture" (i.e. colonial settlement). Further territorial planning carried out by this Warsaw-based organization under Major Dr. Ernst Zvanetti in a May 1943 study to demarcate the eastern border of " Central Europe " (i.e. the Greater German Reich) with the " Eastern European landmass" proposed an eastern German border along
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