The German Mission in Africa and Poland: Women, expansion, and colonial training during the Third Reich

Abstract

The German Mission in Africa and Poland:Women, expansion, and colonial training during the Third Reich Rachel O'Sullivan In 1926, the Koloniale Frauenschule (Colonial Women's School) opened in Rendsburg in northern Germany and began training women for work in overseas colonies, although Germany had not possessed colonies since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.1 The school remained open for a further 19 years, operating during the entirety of the Third Reich (1933–45). Despite extensive promotion and planning by colonial enthusiasts and official Nazi institutions like the Kolonialpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy, KPA), founded in 1934 and lead by war veteran and Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of Bavaria Franz Ritter von Epp, Nazi Germany did not reclaim these overseas colonies. Instead, German expansion in Eastern Europe during the Second World War eclipsed the colonialists' efforts to promote the reacquisition of German territory in Africa. Apart from the colonial school's student cohort, German women also participated in similar types of training and tasks during the war, albeit for a geographical location within Europe. Various organisations, such as the Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend (Women's Youth Labour Service, RADwJ) the NS-Frauenschaft (National Socialist Women's League), Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, League of German Girls) and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft nationalsozialistischer Studentinnen (National Socialist Women Student Organisation) trained women in numerous domestic and agricultural tasks and assigned them work in annexed Poland. During such assignments, known as an Osteinsatz (Eastern Work Placement), German women helped with the resettlement and Germanisation of newly-arrived Volksdeutschen (ethnic Germans) throughout the war. The students' activities at the Koloniale Frauenschule and activities undertaken by German women in Poland both featured in two separate films released during the Third Reich. The documentary Die deutsche Frauenkolonialschule „Rendsburg" directed by Paul Lieberenz and released in 1937, featured the school and its students.2 Multiple locations in Germany screened the documentary, as did schools and clubhouses in Latin America and Africa.3 Mädel verlassen die Stadt (Girls Leave the City) was a Kulturfilm released in 1943 by Universum Film AG (UFA), a film production company under the control of the Propaganda Ministry.4 Although the two films are set in different locations, their release dates differ by six years and the women featured in each film were training for or working in different geographical areas, parts of the films are strikingly similar. The potential continuities or similarities between Nazi Germany's territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe and in overseas colonies in Africa have remained a subject of historical debate for more than a decade.5 Such research on the comparisons and contrasts of the Nazi regime to colonial models has thus far been largely dominated by the topic of violence and the Holocaust. Although historians have demonstrated that certain commonalities exist between the Nazi regime's methods of rule, domination, and violence, the extreme case of the attempted annihilation of the European Jews appears to break from patterns of colonial violence against Indigenous, colonised peoples.6 Mark Mazower and Shelly Baranowski have highlighted the interlinked nature of empire building and violence in regard to the similarities between Nazi Germany's expansion into Eastern Europe and European colonialism. However, traditionally colonial regimes often attempted to legitimise conquest and violence by using the notion of a developmental or "civilising" mission.7 Colonial intervention could be justified in the minds of the colonisers by the supposed benefits of colonisation for the colonised, like culture, education and healthcare. Mazower and Baranowski argue that Nazi Germany built and ran its version of empire without the pretence of any such civilizing mission.8 Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski have similarly argued that the Nazi regime did not initiate a developmental mission as evidenced by the treatment of European Jews and Poles.9 Conversely, my research has previously shown that certain facets of the Nazi regime's approach to the perception and treatment of ethnic German resettlers demonstrate Nazi Germany did perceive and promote some of its activity in Poland within a similar framework to colonial developmental missions.10 Additionally, the attempted assimilation of racially valuable Poles and Poles deemed loyal to Germany through the Deutsche Volksliste (German People's...