Das Umsiedlerlager für Litauendeutsche in Flatow

ENRacial, national and Germanization policies of the Third Reich, as well as resettlement activities are well described in the literature, but mainly in terms of general statistics. However, there is no detailed information on the camps themselves. Archival material constituting documentation of camp activities has not survived in most cases, but research opportunities are provided by the surviving parish register entries in register offices, which are gradually becoming available to researchers. Out of 26 camps in the Pomeranian province (Gau Pommern), the camp in Złotów (German Flatow) has been selected for the purpose of analysing the surviving parish register entries: births, marriages and deaths at the local register office. The entries included the names of 191 persons who stayed in the Złotów camp (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle-Lager "Generalfeldmarschall Graf von Roon" Flatow). These sources revealed several aspects of living inside the camp and showed problems that the Lithuanian resettlers faced, usually without sufficient knowledge of the German language. These included complete isolation, restriction of their life space to the camp area, lack of clearly defined prospects, and a radical change in the German resettlement policy, which for the camp residents meant returning to Lithuania, yet not to their former homes, but to areas indicated by the German occupation administration. Keywords: World War II, Third Reich, German racial-national resettlement policy, resettlement camps, Lithuanian Germans, Złotów. [From the publication]

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