In view of the slow results, in the middle of 1940 Himmler ordered the
Race and Settlement Main Office to look for re-Germanizable families also
among the Polish agricultural workers who had come to the Reich after the
outbreak of war and whom Himmler had been obliged to let in ‘un-
screened’ because of the shortage of time.
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The aim was to select several
thousand who would be able to live in Germany over the long term.
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As far as the introduction of the Ethnic German List was concerned,
Reich Governor Arthur Greiser had already begun the process in 1939 by
introducing a list in the Warthegau, for which, however, the decisive
criteria were political and cultural, a line that was clearly contrary to the
racial policy of the SS.
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On 12 September 1940 Himmler issued his own
guidelines for an ethnic German list in the annexed Polish territories based
on the principle that any ‘attempt at a general Germanization of the eastern
provinces that is not based on racial principles will, in the end, lead to failure
and to the loss of the eastern provinces’.
Once again Himmler envisaged four categories: groups I and II would
include those who were clearly categorized as Germans; these people would
be given German citizenship. Group III was intended for those who, ‘over
the years, had established links with the Poles’ but nevertheless had the
‘racial potential’ to become ‘full members of the German national commu-
nity’. This group would receive German citizenship, but without the
privilege of being a ‘Reich citizen’. However, this had little practical
importance since the status of Reich Citizen, which had been introduced
by the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935, was never precisely defined and in
practice never materialized. Ethnic Germans who had ‘thrown in their lot
with the Poles politically’ belonged to group IV and received German
citizenship only on a provisional basis. Members of groups III and IV
were obliged to move to the Old Reich.
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As usual, Himmler had very detailed ideas as to how the process of ‘racial
assessment’ should proceed: ‘1. The most important principle is that the
racial assessment should be disguised as a medical examination [ . . . ] 2. The
rooms used must be such that, at the end of the assessment, the person who
is to be assessed returns to the dressing-room. 3. A shower facility for the
purpose of personal hygiene is an essential precondition for the assessment
procedure.’ Himmler also laid down that assistant assessors should be em-
ployed, that coloured boards should be used, that cheekbones, eyelids, and
body hair should be examined, as well as other details of the physical
examination, and, in addition, required that there should be a ‘proper
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