For the Nazis deportation was an important aspect of resettlement, particularly in occupied eastern Europe. This first became evident in November 1938 when around 30,000Jews holding Polish passports were expelled from Germany, and deposited in the no man's land on the German-Polish border.
Following the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, thousands of Poles and Polish Jews were forcibly deported from areas of Poland annexed by Germany. Nazi resettlement policy in the east envisaged the Germanization of whole occupied provinces. The Jewish population was to be killed, either by executions or deportation to death camps, while the rest of the population was to be removed to make way for incoming German settlers,Jewish parts of the policy were given priority.
Nazi security policy frequently resorted to deportation as a means to control troublesome areas, selected groups and individuals were often expelled or deported to concentration camps. At points of maximum tension as in the Warsaw uprising in 1944, the SS resorted to random arrests and mass deportations as a means of terrorising the population.
Mass deportations by the Soviets took place before,during, and after WW2, they were standard features of the Great Terror and the purges, as was the Soviet policy towards the population of all territories under Red Army occupation.In1939-41 during the period of the Nazi-Soviet pact, massive deportations took place from eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Moldavia, NKVD officials arrived in these countries with detailed lists drawn up in advance in Moscow, orders were taken to apply not only to the persons named, but to all family members as well.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the population of the industrial cities in the Ukraine were forcibly evacuated to the Urals and western Siberia in circumstances barely distinguishable from deportation.
The Germans showed sympathy in particular for the national aspirations of the north Caucasian ,Crimean, and Kalmyk peoples, during the two and a half years of German occupation the Crimean Tatars were able to reopen Mosques, and establish Islamic committees, and Tatar units were used against Soviet partisans in the Crimea, also in various other areas.
In November 1941, the German Labour front created a volunteer work programme for men and women living in the occupied Eastern territories. It promised high wages, additional food rations and better housing in exchange for a six month stay in Germany. Posters, newspaper ads, and leaflets calling for able-bodied men and women between the ages of 16 and 50 to volunteer were distributed throughout cities towns and villages, Nazi authorities also encouraged church leaders to publicise the volunteer work programme during church services.
At first this volunteer programme was extremely successful with the number of volunteers exceeding German expectations, the Polish city of Krakow reported thousands of young men and women signing contracts to work in Germany for six months. There were a number of factors that influenced those who decided to leave their home and work in Germany, better economic opportunities, the chance to learn a skilled trade, and effective Nazi propaganda. This enthusiastic response to volunteer, quickly diminished, when letters sent to family members back home, reported poor housing conditions, long working hours, lower wages than promised, and physical and emotional abuse, but those who wanted to return home after their six months stay, were not allowed to do so.
So what began as a volunteer programme, transformed into a forced labour initiative throughout Eastern Europe, backed up by intimidation, physical force, destruction of homes, and the occasional destruction of entire villages.
After the rapid capture of the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the spring and summer of 1940, mainly POW's from Belgium [65,000] and France [1.3 million] were allocated to the German defence industry and agriculture. While the Commissioner of the Reich for the Netherlands kept tightening compulsory measures concerning deployment of workers to Germany from February 1941 until autumn 1944, whilst the occupying forces in Belgium and France were mainly relying on willing workers volunteering for work. In June 1940 it was agreed with Belgium authorities that Belgians were not to be forced to work in Germany, and those who volunteered were not to be deployed in the defence industry, an agreement which was only adhered until 1942, thereafter, the obligation to work was introduced. The number of Belgians working in Germany during WW2 was around 375,000, total for Dutch citizens was 475,000.
In France initially the Germans mainly relied on volunteers, in the spring of 1942 845,000 Frenchmen were working for Organisation Todt [German civil and military engineering] the German armed forces, and the defence industry within France. In September 1942 work became obligatory for all men and women, subsequently 390,000 French civil workers, some skilled, entered Germany until 1943, part of an agreed exchange for the return of French POW's. The total number of French workers assisting the German war effort throughout WW2 was slightly more than one million.
The Western Europeans compared with Poles Czechs and Soviets [many were slave labourers], were better accommodated and fed, they were better paid, and had to adhere to less harsh regulations. Dutch,Belgians and the French, were considered, in accordance wit Nazi racial ideology to be of a higher rank, but as the war progressed, their conditions deteriorated.
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