Mass Expulsion of the Yugoslav Population during the Second World War and the Failed Plan of Settling Slovenes in Poland

Abstract

The mass expulsions of Yugoslav populations by the occupying powers during the Second World War belong among the least studied chapters in the history of Nazi deportation policy. In particular, the second phase of the program - the planned resettlement of Slovenian deportees deemed suitable for Germanization in the Lublin District - has received barely any attention in the historiographical literature, despite considerable archival material surviving.
This article analyzes, first, the mass expulsion of the Yugoslav population by all occupiers and puppet regimes (Germany, Italy, Hungary, the Ustasha regime) through a comparative account of their denationalization policies and forced expulsion measures; and, second, the failed plan of the RKFDV to settle Slovenian deportees deemed 'Germanizable' in the Lublin District (Zamość).
The study draws on archival materials of the RKFDV Staff Main Office, the Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) in Łódź, and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi), as well as Yugoslav and Slovenian archival fonds and the author's own earlier monographs on the German and Italian occupation of Slovenia and Yugoslavia.
The first part shows that every occupier pursued a systematic denationalization policy; the German occupier practiced the most brutal forced expulsions in Slovenia - over 500,000 people were deported from occupied Yugoslav territories in total. The second part documents that the plan to settle 12,000 Germanizable Slovenians in the Lublin District failed owing to two factors: the active resistance of the Slovenian deportees themselves (80% refused resettlement) and the resistance of the Polish and Ukrainian population in the Zamość region. Himmler's decision of 12 May 1943 stipulated that the Slovenians remain in the Reich but not be settled in the Danube and Alpine Gaue. By October 1943, 42,798 Slovenians were registered among the RKFDV deportees.