Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz
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The Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz was an ethnic-German self-protection militia, a paramilitary organization comprising ethnic Germans mobilized from among the German minority in Poland.
Selbstschutz leaders in Bydgoszcz at the time of the Bydgoszcz massacres of both Jewish and non-Jewish Poles (from left to right): SS-Standartenführer Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Spaarmann, SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Kölzow, and SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Schnug
Nazi Mayor of Bromberg Werner Kampe with Josef Meier and Ludolf von Alvensleben, leader of Selbstschutz in Pomerania, during inspection of Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz in 1939
Ludolf von Alvensleben as leader of Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz in West Prussia, 1939
Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz from Łobżenica
During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, both German citizens and ethnic Germans from outside the German state fled and were ethnically cleansed through expulsion from various
Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz
…Polish citizenship that engaged in widespread massacres of Poles and helped in the German attack on Poland later served as one of the reasons for the expulsion of Germans after the war. According to German researcher Dieter Schenk, some 1,701 former members of Selbstschutz who committed mass atrocities were identified in postwar…
German expellees, 1946
German refugees moving westwards in 1945
Karl Hermann Frank, Secretary of State and Higher SS and Police Leader in Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (right) was born in Carlsbad, Austria-Hungary (present-day Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic).
Adolf Hitler being welcomed by a crowd in Sudetenland, where the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party gained 88% of ethnic-German votes in May 1938