Editing Volksdeutsche (section)

==The Nazi era before World War II==
[[File:Volksdeutsche Gemeinschaft.jpg|thumb|upright|Entry to Volksdeutsche office in [[Kraków]], 1940]]

During the [[Nazism|Nazi]] years, the German Nazis used the term "Volksdeutsche", by which they meant racially German since they believed in a German 'race' or 'Volk', to refer to foreign nationals of some German [[ethnicity]] living in countries newly occupied by [[Nazi Germany#Territorial changes|Nazi Germany]] or the Soviet Union. Prior to [[World War II]], more than 10 million ethnic Germans lived in [[Central Europe|Central]] and Eastern Europe. They constituted an important minority far into [[Russia]]. Because of widespread assimilation some people whom the Nazis called Volksdeutsche could no longer speak German and in fact were culturally regionalized as Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, etc.

===Pre-war relations with the Nazis===
In 1931, prior to its rise to power, the Nazi party established the Auslandsorganisation der [[NSDAP/AO]] (Foreign Organisation of the Nazi Party), whose task it was to disseminate Nazi propaganda among the ethnic German minorities viewed as Volksdeutsche in Nazi ideology. In 1936, the government set up the ''Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle'' (Ethnic Germans' Liaison Office), commonly known as VoMi, under the jurisdiction of the [[SS]] as the liaison bureau. It was headed by SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz.

According to the historian Valdis Lumans,
:"[one of Himmler's goals was] centralising control over the myriad of groups and individuals inside the Reich promoting the Volksdeutsche cause. Himmler did not initiate the process but rather discovered it in progress and directed it to its conclusion and to his advantage. His principal instrument in this effort was an office from outside the SS, a Nazi party organ, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi), translated as the Ethnic German Liaison Office."<ref>Lumans Valdis, ''Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945'', Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North Carolina Press,</ref>

===Internal propaganda===
Nazi propaganda used the existence of ethnic Germans who they called {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} in foreign lands before and during the war, to help justify the aggression of Nazi Germany. The annexation of Poland was presented as necessary to protect the ethnic German minorities there.<ref>Cinzia Romani, ''Tainted Goddesses: Female Film Stars of the Third Reich'' p. 145 {{ISBN|0-9627613-1-1}}</ref> Massacres of ethnic Germans, such as [[Bloody Sunday (1939)|Bloody Sunday]], or alleged atrocities, were used in such propaganda, and the film ''[[Heimkehr]]'' drew on such putative events as the rescue of {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} by the arrival of German tanks.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p. 289 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref> ''Heimkehr'''s introduction explicitly states that hundreds of thousands of Poles of German ethnicity suffered as the characters in the film did.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'', p. 287 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref>

{{Main|Heimkehr}}

''[[Menschen im Sturm]]'' reprised "Heimkehr"'s effort to justify the invasion of [[Slavonia]], using many of the same atrocities.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' pp. 292–293 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref> In ''[[The Red Terror (film)|The Red Terror]]'', a [[Baltic German]] is able to avenge her family's deaths, but commits suicide after, unable to live with meaning in the Soviet Union.<ref>[[Erwin Leiser]], ''Nazi Cinema'' pp. 44–45 {{ISBN|0-02-570230-0}}</ref> ''[[Refugees (1933 film)|Flüchtlinge]]'' depicted the sufferings of [[Volga German]] refugees in Manchuria, and how a [[Führerprinzip|heroic blond leader]] saved them; it was the first movie to win the state prize.<ref>Erwin Leiser, ''Nazi Cinema'' pp. 29–30 {{ISBN|0-02-570230-0}}</ref> ''[[Frisians in Peril]]'' depicted the suffering of a village of Volga Germans in the Soviet Union;<ref>Erwin Leiser, ''Nazi Cinema'' pp. 39–40 {{ISBN|0-02-570230-0}}</ref> it also depicted the murder of a young woman for an affair with a Russian{{snd}}in accordance with Nazi principle of [[Rassenschande]]{{snd}}as an ancient German custom.<ref>[[Richard Grunberger]], ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 384, {{ISBN|0-03-076435-1}}</ref>

Sexual contact between what the Nazis viewed as different 'races' followed by remorse and guilt was also featured in ''[[Die goldene Stadt]]'', where the [[Sudeten German]] heroine faces not persecution but the allure of the big city;<ref>Cinzia Romani, ''Tainted Goddesses: Female Film Stars of the Third Reich'' p. 86 {{ISBN|0-9627613-1-1}}</ref> when she succumbs, in defiance of [[blood and soil]], she is seduced and abandoned by a Czech, and such a relationship leads to her drowning herself.<ref name="rhodes20">Anthony Rhodes, ''Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II'', p. 20, 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York</ref>

===Collaboration with the Nazis===
{{Main|Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz}}
[[File:Inspection of Selbstschutz unit in Bydgoszcz.jpg|thumb|left|290px|[[Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz]] in [[Bydgoszcz]] (Bromberg), 1939]]
Before and during [[World War II]], some ethnic Germans gathered around local Nazi organizations (sponsored financially by the [[Federal Foreign Office|German Foreign Office]]),<ref name="law.yale">{{cite web | url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/blbk52.asp | title=The British War Bluebook | publisher=2008 Lillian Goldman Law Library | date=August 24, 1939 | access-date=11 September 2014 | author= H. Kennard to Viscount Halifax}}</ref><ref name="Uruszczak">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C4OLAgAAQBAJ&q=%22Jungdeutsche+Partei%22 |title=Krakowskie Studia z Historii Państwa i Prawa Vol. 5 |publisher=Wydawnictwo UJ |author=Wacław Uruszczak |year=2012 |isbn=978-8323388685 |page=339}}</ref> actively supported the Nazis in countries such as Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia. During the social and economic tensions of the [[Great Depression]], some had begun to feel aggrieved with their minority status. They participated in espionage, sabotage and other [[fifth column]] means in their countries of origin, trained and commanded by [[Abwehr]].<ref name="wo-inf">{{cite journal |url=http://socjocybernetyka.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/totalna-wojna-informacyjna.pdf |title=II Oddział Sztabu Głównego II RP (Chapter 3.3) |publisher=Wydział Zarządzania i Administracji Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej im. J. Kochanowskiego w Kielcach |journal=Totalna Wojna Informacyjna XX Wieku a II RP |location=Kielce |date=1997 |author=Józef Kossecki |page=102 |via=direct download, 808 KB}}</ref> In November 1938 Nazi Germany organized German paramilitary units made out German minority members in Polish Pomerania that were to engage in diversion, sabotage as well as political murder and ethnic cleansing upon German invasion of Poland.<ref>{{cite book |title=Stutthof: hitlerowski obóz koncentracyjny |author=Konrad Ciechanowski |publisher=Wydawnictwo Interpress |year=1988 |page=13}}</ref>

Reich intelligence actively recruited ethnic Germans, and the Nazi secret service "''[[Sicherheitsdienst|SicherheitsDienst]]''" (SD) formed them as early as October 1938 into armed unit that were to serve Nazi Germany.<ref>Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 Valdis O. Lumans p. 98</ref>

Historian Matthias Fiedler typified ethnic German collaborationists as former "nobodies" whose major occupation was the expropriation of Jewish property.<ref>Wittmann, A.M., "Mutiny in the Balkans: Croat Volksdeutsche, the Waffen-SS and Motherhood", ''East European Quarterly'' XXXVI No. 3 (2002), p. 257</ref> [[Heinrich Himmler]] remarked that whatever objections ethnic Germans might have against serving in the Waffen-SS, they would be conscripted in any case.<ref>Wittmann, A.M., "Mutiny in the Balkans: Croat Volksdeutsche, the Waffen-SS and Motherhood", ''East European Quarterly'' XXXVI No. 3 (2002), p. 258</ref> According to head of recruitment for the Waffen SS, [[Gottlob Berger]], no one in Germany or elsewhere cared for what happened to the ethnic Germans anyway, which made recruitment easy forced upon ethnic German communities.<ref>Wittmann, A.M., "Mutiny in the Balkans: Croat Volksdeutsche, the Waffen-SS and Motherhood", ''East European Quarterly'' XXXVI No. 3 (2002), p. 259</ref>

Among the indigenous populations in the Nazi-occupied lands, {{Lang|de|Volksdeutsche}} became a term of ignominy.

During the early years of the Second World War, before the US entered the war, a small number of Americans of German origin returned to Germany; generally they were immigrants or children of immigrants, rather than descendants of migrations more distant in time. Some of these enlisted and fought in the German army. {{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}