On October 8, 1939, a little over a month after the start of the German invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler signs a decree that includes large parts of the western and northern parts of the country in the Third Reich. The Free City of Danzig, today's Gdańsk, is also annexed to Germany.
The document is entitled “Decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor for the Organization and Administration of the Eastern Territories“. It states:
„Within the new organization of the eastern territories, the Reichsgaus of West Prussia and Posen are created.“The decree was signed in Berlin by Hitler, Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Frick, Rudolf Hess and Hans Lammers. It came into force on 1 November 1939.
New German administrative regions
The new Reichsgau of West Prussia included the districts of Danzig, Marienwerder and Bromberg, while the Reichsgau of Posen included Hohensalzburg, Posen and Kalisz. As part of the same administrative reorganization, the Katowice district in Upper Silesia was included in the German province of Silesia, and the Zichenau district was annexed to East Prussia. In November, West Prussia was renamed Danzig-West Prussia, and in January 1940, Posen became Wartheland.
The annexed area covered approximately 92,000 square kilometers and had a population of about 10 million. Among the cities included were Poznań, Gdańsk, Łódź, and Katowice. The majority of the population was Polish, which made the territorial annexation the basis for a large-scale policy of forced Germanization. Historical documents from the post-war period indicate that in 1939, the annexed lands, excluding Danzig, had a population of about 10 million, of whom approximately 680,000 were Germans.
Poland is divided between Germany and the USSR
The decree was a consequence of the German victory in the Polish campaign and of the agreements between Berlin and Moscow. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and on 17 September the Red Army entered from the east. The division of Polish territory was stipulated in the secret protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed on 23 August, and amended by the German–Soviet agreement of 28 September.
The rest of the German occupation zone was not directly incorporated into the Reich. On 12 October Hitler issued a separate decree establishing the General Government, which began operating on 26 October with its headquarters in Kraków and headed by Hans Frank. Thus Poland was divided between German annexed territories, a German occupation administration and areas placed under Soviet control.
The incorporation into the Third Reich was followed by confiscations of property, the deportation of Poles, the settlement of Germans and the persecution of Jews and the Polish political, cultural and social elite. The annexed lands remained under German rule until the retreat of Nazi troops in 1945.
Sources: history.com, dw.com