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HEAVILY ILLUSTRATED NAZI BOOK ABOUT THE HISTORIC RESETTLEMENT IN GERMANY OF ETHNIC GERMANS FROM THE EAST

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Der Führer ruft (The Führer Calls) is a very well-made and interesting Nazi book containing experiences from the days of the great resettlement of Volksdeutschen or ethnic Germans living in the eastern countries which began immediately after German victory in Poland in October 1939.

An agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (BOTH invaders of Poland in September 1939) allowed ethnic Germans from the Baltics and provinces such as Wolhynia, Galicia and Narewdeutschen (between the expanded German Reich and the Soviet Union, mostly in Ukraine) to apply to renew their German citizenship.

The people in question were ethnic Germans who during the 1700s and 1800s settled in Ukraine, Poland, Bessarabia, different areas in the Baltic and Russia and had kept their German traditions alive and preserved their pure German blood. Before these Volksdeutschen could return to Nazi Germany, an official Einbürgerungsurkunde had to be issued, an certificate for each family or person declaring they were ethnic Germans, when they left Germany, where they settled, etc.

On 7 October 1939 Adolf Hitler appointed Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler as the Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (State Commissioner for the Repatriation of Germans from Abroad) and ordered him to start the repatriation and resettlement of ethnic Germans who wished, and qualified, to return to the German Homeland. By December, special Nazi administrative teams had set up shop in these areas to start registering Volksdeutschen. The process was handled in a very businesslike manner ONLY by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Nazi State Security Service) of the SS at official entry points into the Greater German Reich in Graz, Belgrade and Trecks by Przemysl, for example. At these official entry points each and every Heimkehrer or returnee was processed, logged, identified and passed making sure that only ethnic Germans were permitted to resettle in Germany.

The wagon train of ethnic Germns waiting to head west from present day Ukraine. Note the Nazi police officials in both pictures and the visa documents hanging around the neck of the man on the right in the lower picture.

Der Führer ruft was published in 1941 by Zeitgeschichte Verlag in Berlin. This 6-¾ x 9-½ inch hardcover example has 288 pages plus 30 unnumbered glossy photo pages as well as its its original dust jacket. The title is embossed in gold on the brick-red linen front cover and spine. This fascinating 83 year old Nazi book is in very nice condition (looks unread) and has no odor.

The historical material in Der Führer ruft was compiled by Heinrich Bosse who stated that around 200,000 Volksdeutschen came across the border to “help the Führer in his bitter battle for the existence of the German Reich.”

The book is divided into chapters on the different areas in the east where the Heimkehrer, as the migrants were called, originated as well as the logistics of their transportation (from the KdF ship Sierra Cordoba to trains, to horse and wagons), registration, resettlement camps and finding new homes, starting new farms, etc. There are examples of letters containing firsthand experiences, an interview with a 13 year old boy, dairy entries, poems and songs, even a report of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler’s visit on 4 May 1940 to the Dombrowka settlement in south-western Poland near the border with the Generalgouvernement. Several maps show the movement of the Volksdeutschen.

The book is fully indexed, as are the photos of resettlement announcement posters and newspapers, people and horses waiting in the harbor of Riga for their ship to leave Latvia, border officials checking documents and luggage for contraband, KdF busses waiting to transport new arrivals in Posen, a German bakery in Posen set up by a former resident of Riga, a horse and wagon trains from Galicia and Wolhynia heading west in winter, the historic bridge built over the Bug river at Hrubieszow in south-eastern Poland (now Vinnytsia in Ukraine) to facilitate the movement west of ethnic German men, women and children, German Red Cross nurses caring for young children, etc.

Above, a picture of a "Riga Bakery" established by an enthnic German after arrival in Posen.