The Memory in Things from KL Stutthof: The Fight Against Polishness in Gdańsk Pomerania: The Main Objective of Albert Forster’s Nationality Policy

Abstract

In Danzig‑Pomerania, the main objective of the Reich Governor of the Danzig District of West Prussia, Albert Forster, was the rapid Germanisation of the Pomeranian population. From the outbreak of the war, this was carried out in several stages: by arresting the Polish leadership stratum, shooting them in mass executions in autumn 1939, incarcerating them initially in transit camps and then in the Zivilgefangenenlager Stutthof concentration camp. The next stage was the deportation from Pomerania of the population originating from central Poland, the introduction of forced labour and the German Nationality List (Deutsche Volksliste), and the introduction of the prohibition of the Polish language. One of the most important elements was the fight against the Polish Catholic Church, which in Gdańsk Pomerania, still under Prussian rule, had aroused the national feelings of the Poles. It was also intended to restrict the birth of Polish children and to subject racially “valuable” children to Germanisation. The most important testimony to the occupant’s policy is, above all, the camp documentation, supplemented by materials in the possession of the families of the victims, but also the items left behind by the camp authorities and the inmates of the Stutthof camp – camp objects, prisoners’ clothes, small objects made illegally by the inmates in the camp, as well as the accounts given by former inmates. It is only through the combination of all these elements that a comprehensive picture of camp life emerges.