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At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed directly under German civil administration, while the rest of Nazi occupied Poland was named as General Government. The annexation was part of the "fourth" partition of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, outlined months before the invasion, in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.〔Maly Rocznik Statystyczny (wrzesien 1939 – czerwiec 1941), Ministerstwo Informacji i Documentacji, London 1941, p.5, as cited in Piotr Eberhardt, Political Migrations in Poland, 1939–1948, Warsaw 2006, p.4 ()〕 Some smaller territories were incorporated directly into the already existing Gaue East Prussia and Silesia, while the bulk of the land was used to create new Reichsgaue Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland. Of those, Reichsgau Wartheland was the largest and the only one comprising solely the annexed territory.〔Czesław Łuczak, "Położenie ludności polskiej w Kraju Warty 1939–1945. Dokumenty niemieckie", Poznań 1987, pages V-XIII〕 The official term used by the Nazi authorities for these areas was the "incorporated Eastern territories" (German: ''Eingegliederte Ostgebiete'').〔The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume 1 Chapter XIII – Germanization and Spoliation''. Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. (Avalon Project : Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression – Volume 1 Chapter XIII – Germanization and Spoliation )〕 They planned for a complete Germanization of the annexed territories, considering them part of their lebensraum.〔"(Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era )"〕 The local Jewish population was forced to live in ghettos, and was gradually deported to concentration and extermination camps, the most infamous of which, Auschwitz, was located in annexed East Upper Silesia. The local Polish population was to be gradually enslaved, exterminated and eventually replaced by German settlers. The Polish elite especially became subject to mass murder,〔 and an estimated 780,000 Poles were subject to expulsion, either to the General Government or to the Altreich for forced labour. The remaining Polish population was strictly segregated from the German population and subject to a variety of repressive measures. These included forced labour and their exclusion from all political and many cultural aspects of society. At the same time, the local German minority was granted several privileges, and their number was steadily raised by the settlement of ethnic Germans, including those displaced by the Nazi-Soviet population transfers. After Vistula-Oder offensive in early 1945, the Soviet Union took control over the territories. The ethnic German population either fled the Red Army or were later expelled and the territories became part of the People's Republic of Poland. ==Background== Already in the fall of 1933 Adolf Hitler revealed to his closest associates his intentions to annex western Poland into an envisioned Greater Germany.〔"Non-Germans" under the Third Reich Diemut Majer page 188 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2003〕 After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Third Reich, in October annexed an area of 92,500 km²〔 (23.7%〔 of pre-war Poland) with a population of about 10,000,000 people (30%〔 of the pre-war Polish population).〔Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe Warszawa 2004 page 149 volume 6〕〔 The remainder of the Polish territory was either annexed by the Soviet Union (201,000 km²〔 or 51.6%〔 of pre-war Poland as per the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone (95,500 km²〔 or 24.5%〔 of pre-war Poland). A tiny portion of pre-war Poland (700 km²〔) was annexed by Nazi Slovakia. Since 1935, Nazi Germany was divided into provinces (''Gaue'') which had replaced the former German states and Prussian provinces. Of the territories annexed, some were attached to the already existing ''Gaue'' East Prussia and Silesia (later Upper Silesia), while from others new ''Reichsgaue'' Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland were constituted. Wartheland was the only Gau constituted solely from annexed territory,〔 Danzig-West Prussia comprised also former German areas and the former Free City of Danzig. The occupied General Government remained outside the Third Reich. The annexation violated international law (in particular, the Hague Convention IV 1907).〔(Hague IV ) SECTION III MILITARY AUTHORITY OVER THE TERRITORY OF THE HOSTILE STATE (Art. 42. and later)〕〔Andreas Toppe, Militär und Kriegsvölkerrecht: Rechtsnorm, Fachdiskurs und Kriegspraxis in Deutschland 1899–1940, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2008, p.409, ISBN 978-3-486-58206-2〕 Nazi Germany's officials discussed the convention and tried to circumvent it by declaring the war against Poland over prior to the annexation, which in their view made the convention non-applicable.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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