my Polish Grandfather in Hitler Youth? HOW?

Maybe mother was German and father Polish ? But then he would be rather classified as German... The strangest fact is that they put Polish nationality into HJ documents... really unusual case.

There is a good chance that your grandfather came from Pomerania, or he could have been a Kashubian. Prior to WW2 these people were as much German as they were Polish. My Mother came from Turin and attended a German school. She spoke fluent German along with her Polish. They made sure that she knew all about the Kaiser.

Also as the war progressed, a lot of other countries fell under the German rule and were drafted into the Wehrmacht. During the end of WW2 we Americans captured a lot of Polish soldiers fighting for Germany

They had no intent to die for Hitler. Our POW cages were filled with foreign conscripts

Christ on a bike. Harry, do you really need to throw the trolls red meat with that awful Rhodes quote?

I have no idea...

I found another card.\

does anyone know about the Pink Colored Personalausweis card ?

Unusual, because the regular "Kennkarte" of Nazi Germany was grey and its equivalent for the so-called Volksdeutsche was blue. Can you attach a scan?

how do i attach it?

You upload to a server of your liking and provide the link.

if someone who has knowledge about these documents messages me there email ill email u a photo of the documents

That's exactly what I expected. Nowhere it says anything about nationality. And that's fine: any German or any Polish national born in Gniezno would have the same entries (translated from above):

Citizenship: Poland
Place of birth: Gniezno / Poland

Right! My uncle from Upper Silesian was one of those POWs. He used to brag that he once visited the US - as a POW in Oklahoma! lol

So an ethnic German (or some Polish German mix) being pre-WW2 Polish citizen, who hasn't acquired German citizenship yet when the document was issued ? What would that indicate ? Vloksliste class 3 ?

I do not know off hand. I'll check it out tomorrow. But since the scans are not coming we will have to speculate.

It could be that you're not very German and because of what they measured in racial tests they thought your ancestors were more German than they were but they never examined the records like they did with some people. They may have put Polish because that was the nationality of his ancestors for a long time, but assumed he had German pheasant blood because of his appearance.

A lot of times when there wasn't enough information to prove someone they were Germanizing was Aryan (like gaps in the family tree), they would simply do racial tests (face measurements) and base someone's acceptability on that. You technically did have to have pure German ancestry to be considered aryan like the other member said, but if you passed a racial test you were assumed to be. There were loopholes in that. This may be the reason it says "Polen" instead of Polish on his hitler youth card. I don't think you should feel affected by what you found out about your ancestors, because chances are, they maybe had some little connection to Germany and were just doing what was mandatory to survive.

tried to upload the docments it says the files are too big and im not that good with a computer, if you want to see them send me your email address in a message and ill be happy to email them to you :)

thank you

However, I find it very strange to put such an inscription in 1943!!! If Gniezno was indeed in Poland at the birth of the person, his citizenship in 1943 couldn't be "Poland" even if he lived in Gniezno or Krotoszyn, or was it his citizenship at birth?

I think that's the case, but I will check it later, as we are here at the middle of the night and I should get some sleep.

But consider this for example:


My great grandfather had this written in his internal password:
Place of birth: Tarnopol, Soviet Union
Citizen: Soviet Union

My grandfather was born in 1929 in Gniezno in the Second Polish Republic. So his Citizenship was Polish.

But the question is how much German ancestry did you need to have to be considered ethnic German and to be in the Hilter Youth ?

So I wish you a good night! Here in Poland we are in the middle of a very brigt, very sunny and a very hot morning.


I can undersatand your reluctance not to publish a scan with a name of your GP on a public forum. You've said somewhere that you've been shocked to discover that your grandfather was member of the Hitlerjugend. In a way your case reminds me of the widely publicized case of the present Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who was accused by one of his political opponents from the opposition party PiS (the name means "Law and Justice" in English), Jacek Kurski, that the PM's grandpa, a Kashubian man, had volontarily joined the German Wehrmacht during the WWII. As it subsequently turned out, the man was actually recruited into the army by the German authorities and later on he even managed to escape from the Wehrmacht, but a great injustice was done to the prime minister by this false accusation by a member of a party which proudly bears the word Justice in its name.

Nevertheless, the case apty shows how complicated the political and familial reality in the Germany-occupied Poland was.


That may be interesting, but quite irrelevant to the case. This question of yours, in turn, reminds me of a story in which Herr Hitler who had been told that one of his most talented generals cannot be considered purely Aryan since he had a Jewish grandmother. Hitler got very angry at this news and immediately started shouting: It is me who decides who is or who is not Jewish in Germany !!!

The Nazi authorities also formed special camps for children where they were separated from their parents and sent to work or subjected to Germanization if they met Nazi racial criteria. Depending on the age, they were placed in German foster families, German fatherland schools, German families from rural areas, in the establishments of Hitlerjugend (boys) and Bund Deutcher Mädel (girls), "people's educational centers" in Germany and the centers of Germanization in Warta Country.

After the war, the Polish authorities made ​​attempts to reclaim Germanized children from Germany. Until 1947, nearly 30 thousand Polish young Poles were returned, out of 200 thousand children Germanized during the World War II.

Taken from the exhibition of the Institure of National Remembrance
ipn.gov.pl/portal/pl/396/3670

See also "The fate of Gostyń children during German occupation", in Polish
muzeum.gostyn.pl/i/dg/428.pdf

Some fragments translated here:

Nazis introduced a so-called Janissaries idea, an extremely ugly method of stealing children and educating them in hostility towards their biological parents. The authorities were assisted by children clinics, day nurseries, kindergartens, shelters, and various children's homes, working in the Reich. Children were just stolen under various guises. According to the decree of Himmler's they were hidden away and provided with falsified personal information. Transitional facilities in Warta Country were set in Bruczkowo in Gostyń district, and later in Kalisz, Ludwikowo, Puszczykowo near Poznań and in Poznań.

...
The action began with a racial selection of Polish children's. They stayed in these places in average six weeks. During this time, children were taught German language, Nazi songs and Nazi greetings. They were forbidden to use Polish language and contact their families.

...
The Bruczkowo palace was the site of dramatic events. The Nazis first established a transit camp there for the clergy - 56 Polish priests and 12 monks. 58 of them were deported to the concentration camp at Buchenwald.

In 1942 15 children rebelled. They were taken away to near Poznań, on orders of Arthur Greiser, the governor of Reich, and shot.
...
In December 1, 1942 a penal labour camp for Polish children and youth was established in £ódź, Warta Country. The camp was no different than any other concentration camps for adults. Terror, hard work and terrible conditions qualified that place as death camp. It was named by Nazis as "place of protection of Polish children and youth unaccompanying by adults (Jugendschutzlager)". The camp was located on the Brzezińska Street in several brick buildings and two wooden one. Here there were several thousand of Polish children, mostly from 2 to 16 years old. The exact number cannot be estimated. The working day started at. 6 a.m., and ended around 6 p.m. However, each day was extended by a continuous, endless roll calls. Children, older than 8 years, had to work hard to earn quota set by the Germans.

...

Ok so I spoke to a distant relative of mine and apparently my grandfather's father had a German mother.They also told me that its possible that my grandfathers mother also had a German mother. So if that is a fact why would it say on his German Identification Card, Ethnicity : Assumed Polish ??? I am still very confused

So either of his parents was half-Polish, half-German. Then by blood he was half-Polish and half-German himself. As you cannot cannot declare Polono-German as ethnicity, you have to chose between one or the other. Since he was born in Poland, in the part of the country which until 1793 had always been Polish, and which again returned to Poland in 1918, and which later on was invaded by the Germans in 1939, both himself and his parents may have been choosing to declare themselves Polish. What's so special about that ?

When the war started my grandfather along with his mother and younger sister fled to Germany (I think voluntary) so if that's the case on his German Identity card why wouldn't it say

Ethnicity : German NOT Polish?

I guess I have to find someone who has knowledge in this field to take a look at the documents.

If anyone has knowledge about WW2 German identification Cards and is willing to help me please message me your email address on here and i shall email copies of the documents :)

Thanks for everyone's help !

If they were in Germany in 1943, and they were people of mixed ethnicity, I still find it possible that they could be declaring themselves Polish. If it is not the case since those people would have been too frightened to do that (and it is very likely), you might have perhaps assumed that the German authorities while examining their ethnicity would certainly choose "German", once they were of mixed ethnicity. But the case could have well been the other way round: in a strictly German environment to which they fled in Germany, those people could have been perceived as Polish rather than German since they were half Polish and have arrived from Poland. That's my another possible explanation.

I think that examining the documents will not reveal anything new in regard to this matter.

My mother who is Austrian born 1929 was in the Hitler youth aged 14 the Germans invaded her village in Austria , She had to learn German in school forced into these I have a photo of my mum in her Hitler Youth uniform . After the war she moved to UK 1949 . My father is Polish he spoke perfect German as they lived in Northern Poland by the Gdansk Polish corridor where German families settled to live in Poland when war broke out in 1929 my father was 19 for what ever reason survival or conscription against theair will he and his brothers were enlisted into the German army he was a German soldier up un till 1944 where he was captured by the British forces and then swapped sides to fight for the British as a Polish Soldier at the end of the war because of the Communist occupation of Poland the Polish soldiers could not return home for persicution so my father came to the Uk to live . So my point being your story could be a number of factors survival being priority . My father never talked of the war even my mother did not know of my father being a German soldier I only found out because of the Web and applying for his war papers what a fascinating read they were . By the way both my parents are dead and I was born and raised in UK My mother also said her cousin in Austria became a Nazi SS Oficer . Also my Polish father had a German Army idetification card

When did the Germans settle in Posen/Poznan/Gnesen/Gniezno area and from where in Germany did they come from?

Hello,

If you are white, and have 3 or more german ancestors,
then you are Kindred. The classification is Kindred.

so you had to have at least 3 German grand parents to be German? in Nazi Germany times

First in the Middle Ages (at least in Poznan), when German settlers built the part which is now the old town of the city. These people came mostly from neighbouring German territories. The next influx was during the Austrian counter-reformation in Silesia. And the last was when Prussia took over this part of Poland. The settlers from the Middle Ages and the 17th century were assimilated, the Prussian settlers were not (with a few exceptions).

The Germans would capture the Polish youth and utilize them in their army. The Germans would invade homes, kill everyone or torture them and then force the Polish young men to become Nazis. This way many, many Polish young men were fighting against their own country.

I know this because this happened to my ancestors, and heard this from many survivors. Your grandfather was Polish but forced into the German army.

So according to Nazi Germany how much German ancestry would one need to be considered German? or an ethnic German?