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The Leaderless Emigration of German Farmers and Citizens to the East and the Planned Resettlement into Hitler’s Greater Germanic Reich

This map was created in January 1941 as a piece of Nazi propaganda. It is designed to contrast the "disorganized" historical migrations of ethnic Germans to Eastern Europe with the supposedly systematic and ideologically driven resettlement efforts carried out under Hitler’s regime.

That map notes that it was "Presented in cooperation with the Office for Training Circulars by Christof Silbermann, Munich. Supplement to the special publication: German Blood Returns Home.”  Published by The Reich Organization Leader - Main Education Office, Munich 33, Barerstrasse 15.

The map visually represents the Nazi regime’s claim to be correcting past disarray by bringing order and unity to the settlement of Germans in the east. This narrative aligns with Nazi policies of Lebensraum (living space) and the racial reordering of Eastern Europe, aiming to frame their aggressive territorial expansion and forced relocations as both necessary and historically justified.

The map prominently features black migration paths representing the earlier, chaotic waves of German settlers moving into Eastern Europe. These lines are depicted in various patterns to emphasize the fragmented and disorganized nature of these migrations, supporting the narrative that these movements lacked coherence and purpose. In contrast, bold red arrows indicate the planned resettlement operations between 1939 and 1941, underscoring the regime’s portrayal of its actions as orderly and decisive. These arrows show the movement of ethnic Germans from regions such as Romania, Poland, and the Soviet Union back into areas now controlled by Nazi Germany.

The scattered black dots represent dispersed German communities that were targeted for resettlement, reflecting the Nazi desire to bring these populations under centralized control. Additionally, dashed oval lines mark initial settlement areas designated for further expansion and secondary migration, signaling the regime’s ongoing ambitions to consolidate its control over Eastern Europe.

The red-hatched area on the map denotes the boundaries of the Greater Germanic Reich, including the General Government in occupied Poland, visually reinforcing the idea of consolidated power. Numbers printed in red indicate the estimated number of settlers moved from each region, adding an air of precision and methodical planning to the map’s presentation. This numeric detail, alongside the clearly delineated paths, serves to project an image of effective governance and successful large-scale operations. By comparing the perceived disorder of historical migrations with the regime’s alleged orderliness, the map functions as a visual argument for the legitimacy of Nazi territorial aggression and population transfers.

This map’s propaganda purpose is clear: to justify Nazi expansionism and resettlement policies by recasting them as the fulfillment of a historical mission to unite and reclaim scattered German communities under a unified racial state. The imagery and narrative appeal to notions of German identity, continuity, and destiny, framing the regime’s actions as both morally righteous and historically inevitable. Through this visual tool, the Nazi regime sought to craft a narrative of order, control, and racial purity, aligning their genocidal goals with a broader story of national rejuvenation and unity.

Translation

The text translates as follows:

The map shows in black the exact locations of the German settlements in the eastern region, whose inhabitants have been affected by the large resettlement of our time. The black emigration lines (drawn differently according to regions of origin) reveal the origins of the settlers from the German living space. The settlement areas were initially determined based on statistical records on a 3-centimeter map, then redrawn on larger scales, and finally combined into the current map image. This is likely the most accurate representation achieved to date.

The settlement of the Baltic region began in the 12th and 15th centuries from Lübeck. Merchants and craftsmen from Lübeck and Westphalian cities, later also from Holland, Pomerania, and Danzig, as well as knights from Lower Saxony and Westphalia, Holsteiners, Mecklenburgers, and Pomeranians settled in the Baltic region (Estonia and Latvia), spreading from Riga and Reval in a radial pattern to Lake Peipus and the Lithuanian border. The German farmer was almost entirely absent in the Middle Ages. Only between 1907 and 1914 did some Baltic estate owners bring German farmers from the rest of Russia, especially from Volhynia, into the land, numbering around 20,000 people.

German farmers had already moved to Lithuania in the Middle Ages from East Prussia, but always only sporadically. This infiltration of German blood continued until the 19th century and eventually reached a number of around 45,000 souls.

In the formerly Polish area, settlement is somewhat more complex. The Lowlanders, who immigrated from Lower Saxony, Holland, and Flanders into the region of the lower Vistula as early as the 13th century, had partially moved on to the middle Vistula and the Bug by 1600. By around 1850, they primarily settled in the Cholm and Lublin regions and Polesia.

Märker, Mecklenburgers, Pomeranians, West Prussians, Silesians, Palatines, and Swabians migrated to the central Polish region from the mid-18th century to 1800. On the map, this area is marked by a circle, which includes the cities of Poznań, Leszno, Kalisz, and Bydgoszcz, although it should technically extend to Łódź. From this region and from their original tribal areas, Silesian village laborers migrated around 1850 to the region near Białystok and continued into Polesia, weavers from Łódź moved to Białystok and its surroundings, Mecklenburg farmers moved to the Narev area, and Pomeranian farmers and Silesian village laborers moved to Volhynia.

Pomeranians, Mecklenburgers, Swabians, Palatines, and others migrated to Bessarabia between 1814 and 1817.

The Galician region was already densely populated by German farmers and citizens in the Middle Ages. However, from 1600 onwards, the German identity in this region was linguistically Polonized. Ethnically, the farmers (now known as "Forest Germans") have remained relatively pure to this day. The urban German population, however, was lost. Only because of this could the Polish language spread as far as the Lviv area. The existing Germans in Galicia immigrated when the land became part of Austria in 1772. Mostly farmers from the Palatinate and Rheinhessen arrived in 1782, along with Sudeten Germans starting in 1830. In 1863, part of the Palatines moved on to Volhynia, while another part of the Palatines and Sudeten Germans moved to Bukovina in 1793.

Zipser miners also migrated there in 1784, whose ancestors had settled in the High Tatras in 1158 during the large farmers' migration of the Mosel Franks, which led to Transylvania.

By 1782, "Swabians," primarily from Franconia, had already moved from the German-settled areas of the Banat to Bukovina.

Glassworkers from the Bohemian Forest began migrating there in 1795, along with Sudeten German farmers from the Egerland starting in 1835.

Swabians migrated to Bessarabia primarily via the Danube route using the so-called "Ulmer Schachteln" between 1814 and 1842.

Some of the Bessarabian Germans, along with Germans from the rest of the Black Sea region, later migrated further to Dobruja, the Caucasus, and especially America.

The number of 45,000 Germans given for Lithuania is an estimate. The resettlement has not yet been carried out.

Even today, these German settlers in the east are travelers who have faced harsh fates and have now returned to the Greater Germanic Reich of Adolf Hitler, having endured the greatest return migration movements of all time.