Despite the limited extent of the Nazis’ ‘internal colonization’ efforts, they quickly became viewed as a preliminary stage for much more ambitious colonization projects abroad.19 In contrast to the social realities of life in the Third Reich, particularly the widening gap between the incomes of farmers and industrial workers and the subsequent decline in the popularity of agricultural labour,20 the official discourse on settlements was one of blood and soil. According to Nazi propaganda, it was the SA, together with the Reichsnährstand, the statutory corporation of farmers in the Third Reich, that would stop rural flight and preserve the peasantry. Because of their willingness, ideological training, and combat strength, the SA men were supposedly ideally suited to serve as ‘innovators of the German peasantry’. Already early in the Third Reich the regime regarded the population transfer of loyal party Activists as one tool to achieve a politically coherent national community. Even if this population transfer was initially limited to Germans in the Old Reich and only put into practice on a modest scale, it demonstrated that the ideology of creating and reorganizing existing Lebensraum, or ‘space to live’, long before the beginning of the Second World War, informed the course of Nazi politics. What Nazi propagandists usually did not openly address was that German agriculture suffered from severe lack of a workforce in the late 1930s. The often poorly qualified SA men were therefore talked into farming jobs also for purely practical reasons.21 Instead, high-ranking Nazi officials like the Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture, Richard Walther Darré, emphasized in a guest article for the magazine Der SA-Führer in 1938 that the peasantry and (political) soldiers were expected to join hands in the ‘Germanic-Teutonic people’s struggle for survival’.22
Such statements did not only constitute a remarkable departure from the common image of the SA man as urban street fighter, an image still omnipresent in the Nazi propaganda during these years. Whereas the quintessential stormtrooper of the Kampfzeit had been an aggressive and determined young man and ‘comrade’,23 disciplined at the party’s command but more than willing to react with his fists at all provocations when let loose, the ‘SA peasant’ was presented as a man in his prime, still physically strong, but in the first place a responsible family man and as such a defender of the German race. The former hotheads of the urban jungle had matured into hardworking and self-reliant individuals, exemplary German men who valued and cultivated the German soil, held firm to the regime’s values and ideas, and were at the same time actively involved in fighting what the Nazis perceived as white-collar effeminacy.
This new rhetoric also built on the idea that fascinated at least parts of the Supreme SA High Command from 1936: reintroducing the SA back into the political game by promoting the settlement of individual SA men as farmers and agricultural labourers in the European east, perceived as Lebensraum for battle-tested National Socialists. Historical research so far has stressed that the internal colonization movement in Nazi Germany lost its importance with the establishment of the Wehrmacht in 1935, which called not farmers but soldiers to protect the German borders.24 However, I will demonstrate that these early National Socialist settlement plans remained politically important throughout the second half of the 1930s as a preliminary stage in the redevelopment of the soon-to-be captured Lebensraum. A closer look at the plans of the Commissioner of the SA Chief of Staff for the Placement of New Farmers and his successors between 1938 and 1943 will make this plain.
Siegfried Kasche and the SA’s Intensified Settlement Plans
The man of central importance to the SA’s ‘Germanization’ plans during this period was SA-Obergruppenführer Siegfried Kasche.25 Born on 18 June 1903, he belonged to the so-called ‘war youth generation’, like so many committed Nazi activists. He received his training at the prestigious cadet school in Berlin-Lichterfelde during the First World War and while still a very young man fought with Freikorps units in Berlin and the Baltic region. In the early 1920s, Kasche joined a ‘Joint Work Service’ (Arbeitsgemeinschaftsdienst) in Pomerania and later also worked in the banking sector, the glass industry, and the textile trade. He became a member of the NSDAP in 1926 and began what was to be a stellar career in the SA. In 1928, at the age of only twenty-five, he was appointed to the position of deputy Gauleiter of the Ostmark, based in Frankfurt/Oder. Two years later he won a seat in the Reichstag. Kasche narrowly survived the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ in 1934 and was promoted to SA-Gruppenführer in Lower Saxony on 9 November 1936. One year later, SA Chief of Staff Victor Lutze appointed him leader of the SA-Gruppe Hansa, headquartered in Hamburg. Finally, as SA-Obergruppenführer, Kasche became the first German envoy to Agram/Zagreb in Croatia on 17 April 1941.26
According to his own account, Kasche and Darré began talks about possible farming settlements as early as 1936. Two years later, in September 1938, an agreement between the SA, the Reichsernährungsministerium, and the Reichsnährstand was reached,27 and Lutze officially appointed Kasche to the position of ‘Commissioner of the SA Chief of Staff for the Placement of New Farmers and for Matters of Ethnicity’. In this role Kasche replaced SA-Gruppenführer Georg Mappes, who as SA-Reichskassenverwalter, or SA Reich Treasurer, had been responsible for the organization’s settlement affairs.28 The new commissioner took his new task very seriously, as several lengthy and detailed guidelines and reports penned by Kasche make clear. The first of these important documents was the ‘Guidelines for the SA’s Participation in the New Formation of the German Peasantry’ from 8 September 1938. This document specified that farmers selected for the new settlements in the Third Reich, to be located largely in Silesia, Pomerania, and in the eastern parts of Prussia, should be chosen according to both their qualifications and their ‘hereditary value’ (blutsmäßigem Wert). It is important to emphasize, however, that these guidelines were still intended to apply exclusively to settlements within the existing borders of the Reich. The SA was expected to furnish up to 30 per cent of all new peasant settlers in order to guarantee the ‘political-ideological firmness’ of the new rural communities. Kasche requested that the sixteen existing SA groups in the Reich maintain close contact with the ‘settlement agencies’ (Siedlungsunternehmen) operating in their respective regions and identify potential settlers from within their ranks. The groups were asked to keep lists in special ‘red books’ of all those interested in the settlement project.29 However, only those SA men who possessed the Neubauernschein, a certificate from the Reichsnährstand attesting to the potential settler’s (and his family’s) racial, mental, and physiological qualities, could be considered for participation in the settlements. Only men who were at least twenty-five years of age, married, and of ‘Aryan descent’ were permitted to apply.30 Once these criteria had been met, the SA-Standarten in charge were ordered to provide a judgement on the applicant based on his service in the SA, his personal and professional circumstances, and his physical fitness, character, and intellectual capacities and accomplishments. In the end, an overall mark was attributed to each candidate, ranging from grade one (‘very well suited for placement’) to grade four (‘poorly qualified’).31 Surviving lists of applicants from the year 1941 show that only rarely was a very good mark given. Most applicants were ranked as group two (‘well suited’) or three (‘suited’). For the acquisition of a new farm, Kasche estimated that an SA settler would need about 9,000 reichsmark, with more than half of that money financed by the Dankopfer der Nation.32
In the tradition of the modern Prussian borderland settlements established since the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, such settlements were planned as German bulwarks against the neighbouring Slavic peoples, whom many German Grenzland ideologues perceived as being at a lower level of cultural development.33 Shortly before the German attack on Poland in 1939, SA-Oberführer Udo von Alvensleben, who dealt with settlement questions for the OSAF on Kasche’s behalf, claimed that a ‘peasantry on guard’ (wehrhaftes Bauerntum) had been responsible for securing German influence over eastern Europe ever since
the military conquests of the Teutonic Knights in the Middle Ages. Accordingly, he concluded: ‘What we have won by the sword needs to be defended and secured by the plough.’34 Such arguments were by no means an invention of the National Socialists. As the historian Christoph Dieckmann has demonstrated, expansionist German plans developed during the First World War had called for the expulsion of the Polish, Russian, and Jewish populations from Lithuania and demanded the establishment of German Wehrbauern, groups of peasants who would serve as a defensive bulwark, throughout the Baltic states.35 For German experts in spatial planning, eastern Europe during the First World War served as an experimental arena in which they could test their increasingly radical settlement plans and colonial fantasies. Two decades later, National Socialist politicians and experts happily built on such exploratory work.36
However, the SA settlement plans from 1938 also contained a disciplinary component that was supposed to have an internal effect on the local populations in these new settlements. The high proportion of SA men among the new settlers was intended to ensure political homogeneity and guarantee the preeminence of the NSDAP and its ideology within these new settlements. The active recruitment of stormtroopers to settle in the border regions of the Reich began with a number of talks that Kasche and his contributors delivered to SA leaders in March 1939. These efforts culminated in a four-day-long work session in Berlin and Frankfurt/Oder and a field trip to the Upper Silesian village of Schlochau in early May. In addition to representatives of the SA High Command, participants included the regional representatives of the ‘peasantry settlements’ (Neubauernsiedlung) of every SA group.37
The SA settlement initiatives enjoyed a new lease of life with the Wehrmacht’s military victory over Poland in the autumn of 1939, even if the recruitment of settlers suffered from the fact that many of the previous SA recruiters had been drafted into the military. Despite such practical difficulties, Kasche regarded the war as an opportunity to expand the SA settlement plans eastward. As early as 8 November 1938 he informed Lutze and SA leaders in a confidential letter that the placement of new SA farmers had gained greater importance because of the newly acquired territories. In defiance of the appointment of Heinrich Himmler as ‘Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom’ on 7 October 1939,38 Kasche insisted that an ‘extensive involvement’ by the SA in the ‘Germanization’ project continued to be highly desirable. Therefore, he urged his fellow SA leaders to identify even more potential farmers from the ranks of the SA with the aim of placing them in these new territories, despite ‘all possible inhibitions and ties to their homelands’.39
A circular from 8 December 1939 specified the next steps in the settlement initiative, indicating that the new SA settlements should initially be concentrated in those areas of Upper Silesia that had been integrated into the German Gau Silesia. In cooperation with the governor of Silesia and the Schlesische Landgesellschaft based in Breslau, farmland in the annexed parts of Upper Silesia was released for ‘immediate settlement’.40 Previously Polish-owned farms, usually about 20 acres in size, were to be expropriated. Several of these small Polish estates could then be merged to create between 3,000 and 4,000 larger farms of at least 80 acres. If these figures were correct, this means that the number of farms in the previously Polish parts of Upper Silesia that the Germans seized after their military victory was approximately 15,000. In contrast to the course taken in 1938, the SA leadership now informed potential settlers that personal capital was no longer needed for the move eastward: ‘The farms will be handed over with inventory.’ However, a two-year-long probationary period during which the new German peasant had to demonstrate his ability to run such a farm was to precede the final transfer of ownership.41 As the majority of stormtroopers had by this time been drafted into the Wehrmacht, the SA leadership repeatedly stressed that the men who had taken up arms would in no way suffer a disadvantage in the settlement process because of their inability to obtain a placement immediately. The Polish settlement area, they reminded the men, was large enough to host all aspirants, during and after the war.42
Despite such assurances, isolated farmers from the ranks of the SA at the beginning of the war began to contact the Reichsnährstand directly to be considered as administrators of former Polish estates. That these individuals initially bypassed the SA frustrated Kasche, and he warned his fellow storm-troopers that this had to be taken as proof of the SA’s organizational weakness.43 Nevertheless, such problems continued. Two years later, in 1941, Kasche claimed to have contacted the Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, literally the ‘Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans’, to ensure that the approximately 700 SA men working for this organization were being cared for. In the previous two years the OSAF had no direct influence on these stormtroopers.44 Despite these shortcomings, the surviving archival documents demonstrate that the SA persistently tried to secure a decisive influence over settlement matters, not least to create a reliable power base for the organization’s future growth.45 This became all the more important as the build-up of regular SA units in the newly occupied territories beginning in the autumn of 1939 took place in a limited way. The new SA units were initially not incorporated into the Reich SA; furthermore, the OSAF did not supply those SA groups bordering these new regions, in other words the SA-Gruppen Ostmark, Ostland, Silesia, and Sudeten, with additional financial means in order to expand their areas of operation.46
In practical terms, the SA intended that at least 5,000 new SA settlers would be ready to move into the settlements at the end of the war. The candidates were to be selected according to political and racial criteria established by a joint effort of the SA with Darré’s Reichsnährstand, and they were to be educated in three specially designed SA settlement schools (Siedlerschulen) located on SA estates that were to be established within the ‘incorporated Eastern territories’.47 In 1941, Kasche claimed that he had met with Himmler and his representatives several times to discuss the necessary transfer of ownership of suitable estates. He also asserted that he had held talks with the office of the Generalverwalter für die öffentliche Landbewirtschaftung in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten, literally the ‘General Authority for Public Land Management within the Incorporated Eastern Territories’, located in Litzmannstadt (Łódź).48 The provisional outcome of these talks, Kasche noted, was an agreement that the SA would receive a fifteen-year lease on the ‘Estate Krośniewice’ at the end of the war. Gauleiter Arthur Greiser had made this decision by the summer of 1940 or even earlier, but he had informed the SA that the final transfer of property into the hands of the NSDAP could only happen after the war, allegedly for legal reasons.49 Located near the city of Kutno in the Reichsgau Wartheland, some 100 kilometres west of Warsaw, Krośniewice had previously been owned by a Polish noble family. With the transfer of the estate, the SA would also become the proprietor of Błonie Castle, built on its grounds.50 Kasche at this time also demonstrated considerable interest in the Gut Freihufen, a county estate of considerable size in the rural district of Rawitsch/Rawicz.51
Plans for the new SA training schools to be established stated that the SA was to offer two-week-long courses for new settlers and SA leaders that aimed to ‘prepare them for their particular ethnic tasks [volkspolitische Aufgaben]’: ‘To fight foreign and inferior influences, we have to inculcate every fellow German with the awareness of his hereditary value [stolzes Blutbewußtsein] [. . .] Even the individual man needs to know that this is not his private affair, but a matter that concerns the vital question of his people’s survival. The SA is requested to attach absolute importance to the observation of such issues.’ In this way the SA farmers in the new settlements were conceived not only as exemplary cultivators of land, but also as a kind of vice squad for the regime.52
Despite Kasche’s repeated orders that the new SA peasants contribute to the historical task of ‘making the regained territories German again for all time’,53 the actual number of men willing to leave the German heartland for newly acquire
d territory in the European east was most disappointing. In contrast to the estimated number of 50,000 SA men from the rank and file who had the practical experience necessary for farming, only a mere 1,045 men had signed up for the settlement project by the deadline of 20 June 1940.54 Admittedly, this number had doubled to 2,150 by 30 April 1941, but this figure still remained far below the expectations of the SA leadership.55 Kasche, however, attributed this low number exclusively to practical, war-related problems. In 1941 he was still claiming that the SA would easily furnish the 45,000 men needed for settlement – without drawing on the repatriated ethnic Germans, who had been moving to Reich territory in large numbers since the beginning of the war.56 This remark was a swipe at Himmler, for whom Kasche had maintained a firm distaste ever since the ‘Night of the Long Knives’. Himmler likewise disliked his rival. The two men’s relationship remained poor even after Kasche was appointed German envoy to Croatia and left the field of ‘applied’ SA settlement policies.57
A closer examination of the geographical distribution of potential SA settlers, as determined from Kasche’s report and several monthly registers from the second half of 1941, indicates that the vast majority of those interested in such a transfer lived in the north and east of the German Reich, in borderland regions where the idea of a ‘defensive peasantry’ built on a tradition going back to the nineteenth century and even further. The Pomeranian and Silesian SA groups had the most success with recruiting, producing more than 300 candidates for relocation each, followed by the SA Gruppe Nordmark (from Schleswig-Holstein), with 240 candidates. The SA groups from Hesse, Bayerische Ostmark, and Alpenland, by contrast, produced only twelve, seven, and three candidates respectively.58 When faced with these numbers, it is hard not to qualify Kasche’s assertive remarks as a calculated optimism that was out of touch with the realities of German society at war.
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