In WW2 Poland who was eligible to sign the Volksliste ?

As I tried to explain before: your ancestor was a so-called "Schutzangehoeriger" - a citizen of an annexed territory who was neither considered a foreigner nor a German. Such people were usually put in either category 3 or 4, unless they were Jewish. Since you've said that some of your ancestors considered themselves Prussian-Germans, my assumption is that a German female from that side of your family married a Polish man with the surname Mackowiak. If this is true, Thadeus should have been in Category III of the Volkliste. For details, see #24 above.

HTH

thanks for that :)

if you only had 1 German grandparent and 3 Polish grandparents could you be on the volkliste?

Well, he was listed as Schutzangehoeriger, so he was in the Volksliste, right? Maybe even in Category IV - Persons of Polish nationality considered "racially valuable", but who resisted Germanization (see #15).

yes thats true. i am thinking volkliste 3 because they volunteered.

I know for a fact his fathers mother was German.

I'm just trying to figure out what his mother was. Fully Polish or mixed Polish-German also.
All I know is she went to Germany with her kids. Both her first name and surname were also Polish.

Before, during or after the war? Before the war and the family might have been on the so-called Optantenliste of 1920/2 (a list of people wanting to leave Poland for Germany, and vice versa). During the war and she might have been a slave laborer who was considered "racially valuable" (Category IV of the Volksliste). After the war and she was probably expelled by the Poles because she had been on the Volksliste.

During the first couple of months of the war she was living a normal life on the farm with her (husbands) family in Warthegau.

When she found out her husband died on the Russian front (he was a lieutenant in the German army) she voluntarily left for Germany (Reich).

I'm not sure here, but I don't think it was possible for members of Volksliste Category 3 or 4 to move freely in the occupied territories or the Reich. Which means that they either allowed her to relocate because her children had a German father, or she herself had German ancestors. That's a wild guess, though.

I definitely know that her husband had a German mother.

Would having 1 German grandparent allow you to be on the volkliste ? or is more needed?

See post #34.

I am guessing she also has at least a German mother

because the most important thing is they all volunteered '' free will''

Why do you guess? Most relevant churchbooks of the Warthegau area should be available online either at the LDS or one of the Polish state archives, so you could easily check for yourself. Start with the marriage records and go from there.

I have no idea how to. I am not good with a computer and I can not read Polish

If you want to research your family tree, you'll have to learn...

familysearch.org/search/records/index#count=20&query=%2Bgivenn ame%3AThadeus~%20%2Bsurname%3AMackowiak~
wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra
poznan-project.psnc.pl

Good luck.

thank you.

Is this just for Americans? I am Australian

Try it... ;)

I was born in Poland in 1943 near Poznan. Father was ethnic German with German surname born in Poland. Mother was ethnic pole born in east end of Poland. Father was conscripted to serve in German army on western front. Following invasion of Poland in 1939, family signed on to the Volksliste. I am curious to know which classification they would have had. How can someone find any of these documents in the Polish archives?

I gather from the document that the nationality was 'Pole' and beruf/profession was a 'farmer/farming hand. Many people who lived in the Kaszuby region had German ancestry.

I had a Polish uncle who was conscripted to the German army because one of his grandmothers was ethnically German.....the rest of his grandparents were Polish.