GUIDES TO GERMAN RECORDS ... - Sturmpanzer.com

PREFACEThis guide is one of a series of finding aids describing those declassified seized German records deposited at the World War II RecordsDivision, National Archives, that have been microfilmed by the Microfilming Project of the Committee for the Study of War Documents of theAmerican Historical Association, The Guide contains the text of data sheets identitying records filmed. A copy of the data sheets has beenfilmed as a target sheet at the beginning of each roll of film*The present Guide covers 66 rolls of microfilm copies of records on resettlement kept or collected by the Deutsches Ausland-Institut(DAI), Stuttgart* The records were segregated from the rest of the DAI records and given numbers prefaced by "Vomi" (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle,an agency charged with resettling ethnic Germans) to indicate that they deal with resettlement. Actually this collection comprisesinainly records of other organizations engaged in resettlement. Practically all"Vomi"folders were filmed; the only exceptions are a fewfolders of very poor photostats and some totally unrelated material. For further documentation of resettlement reference should be madeto Guide Ho. 2, Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom and a forthcoming Guide to other DAI records* Somedocuments listed in the present Guide appear as "uncatalogued HKFDV documents" in Robert L.Koehl, German Resettlement and Population Policy1939 - 19^3* A History of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom, Cambridge, 1957.The records described in this Guide were kept by a department of the DAI which was responsible for the documentation of resettlement*It accessioned and made copies of records received from organizations engaged in resettlement. Mainly these were agencies under Himinler inhis capacities as Reichskommissar fflr die Festigung deutschen Volkstun and ReichsfiUhrer SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei. They included:the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, the Stabshauptamt of the RKFD? (Reichskommissar f&r die Festigung Deutschen Volkstums), the Einwandererzentralstelle(SWZ) of the Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, the SS-Ansiedlungsstab, the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptaint (RuSIIA), andothers. But the collection also includes material from other agencies of Party and State concerned with the "integration" of resettlers,such as Gauleitungen, the MS Volkswohlfahrt, the Reichsstudentenbund, and the Reichsministerium f#r VoIksaufklfining und Propaganda*The attribution of provenance presents a particular problem with these records. Many of them are unheaded, undated, or unsigneddocuments, and obvious copies not designated as such* Where possible, the original, i. e. > pre-DAI> provenance is indicated in the descriptions,but for much of the collection it is uncertain or unknown* Nonetheless this collection is most valuable in documenting the implementationand modification of National Socialist race doctrine* Included are records of resettlement negotiations and agreements withthe Russians, Rumanians, and Italians and records describing the treatment and attitudes of all kinds of resettlers. In addition the collectionthrows light on the conflict between diverse SS agencies as well as between the SS and other agencies of Party and State. In factit documents nearly all aspects of resettlement, riot least through the untranslatable language in which this project in demographic engineeringwas conducted*The files of the DAI, when originally accessioned by the World War II Records Division, were placed in Record Group 1035, "Records ofthe National Socialist German Labor Party." This record group comprises not only the records of the NSDAP proper and its subordinate formations,but also records of unofficially affiliated as v.-ell as closely related organizations. Tne entire record group includingthe DAI documents was filmed under the National Archives microcopy designation," M T-81".V