12th January
Police troops completed euthanizing operations that started on 7th December 1939 in the mental asylum in Dziekanka (Gniezno). 1,044 people were murdered in this operation.
14th and 15th January
Eviction of ca. 5000 people from Montwiłła Mireckiego housing estate in Łódź.
17th January
For organizational and food supply reasons, the German General Government administration “rejects further acceptance of Poles and Jews”. It proposed accepting 40,000 people at most, but Eichmann’s task already includes making place for 150,000 German “repatriates” [Ruecksiedler]. According to the assumption of the resettlement operation, to resettle one German, at least two Poles or Jews had to be expropriated and evicted.
23rd January
Prof. Konrad Meyer, head of the planning division of Reich Committee for Reinforcement of the German Nation submitted the so-called Generalplan Ost that assumed the eviction of 3.4 million Poles in a couple of years from land incorporated into the Reich, together with the immediate eviction of 560,000 Jews. This plan changed several times during the war, but it always assumed the eviction of Poles from lands incorporated into the Reich, and the eviction or murdering of the majority of Poles living in the remaining occupied areas. The German population was planned to increase by 4.5 million.
24th January
The Commissar for Reinforcement of the German organised a council in Poznań. The general goals for population policy in Warthegau were formulated: increasing the number of Germans to 4.5 million and evicting 3.4 million Poles.
25th January
Heinrich Himmler visited Przemyśl to ceremoniously welcome cars carrying Germans from Volhynia.
2nd February
Rationing of textiles, shoes, leather and soap.
8th February
Germans established the Łódź ghetto.
12th February
In lands incorporated into the Reich, German authorities ordered the confiscation of all farms and wood farms not owned by Germans.
14th February
German authorities decided that religious congregations in Warthegau would not be subordinate to the legislation of the old Reich, i.e. they would be excluded from the concordat concluded by and between Vatican and the Third Reich in 1933. As a consequence, the Polish church was almost completely delegalized and most priests were arrested. Odilo Globocnik, head of the police and SS in the Lublin district, presented his proposals for the treatment of resettled Poles and Jews: “Poles should feed themselves on the own and find support among their compatriots, the Jews have enough of everything. If this proves wrong, they shall starve to death” (protocol of District authorities meeting). Goetz, 85, after Dieter Pohl, Von der Judenpolitik zum Judenmord, Der Distrikt Lublin des GG, Frankfurt 1993, p.52).
28th February
By this day, the Germans had resettled about 100,000 Jews from Warthegau to the General Government.
3rd March
By this day, the German authorities had confiscated about 8,000 Polish buildings in Poznań, with almost 60,000 flats.
6th March
In Łódź Germans murdered several hundred Jews to create terror in the community and force people to move to the ghetto.
11th March
A ban was imposed on providing religious services in private flats without Gestapo consent.
15th March
Himmler held a speech for the commanders of concentration camps who gathered in Poznań. He said: “All Polish specialists will be used in our military industry. Then, all Poles will disappear from this world. It is necessary that the great German nation treats extermination of all the Poles as its major task.”
26th March
Directive of the president of the Poznań Regency on the education of Polish children: “The language of instruction shall be German. Proper conditions should be created for the children to acquire basic knowledge and speaking, reading, writing and counting skills. This is only for them to acquire enough skills to make it possible for the Germans to use their labour and for German employers not to need to use Polish”.
9th April
German invasion of Denmark and Norway.
11th April
Łódź has its name changed to Litzmannstadt.
30th April
Łódź ghetto closed. It was planned that all the inhabitants of the ghetto would be transported to the General Government by the autumn.
9th May
Himmler ordered the “re-Germanization” [Wiedereindeutschung] of the Polish population with Nordic features.
10th May
German aggression in France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The head of the police in Łódź ordered each Jew leaving the ghetto to be shot without warning.
19th May
1,169 people were evicted from the Gostyń district.
23rd May
Arthur Greiser made it obligatory for Poles to salute all uniform-wearing Germans.
25th May
Hitler accepted Heinrich Himmler’s memorandum “On the treatment of foreign tribes in the East”. Individual Polish families, after “racial screening”, could be resettled to the Reich and “incorporated into German life” once their names were changed. Poles in the General Government, together with Poles resettled from lands incorporated into the Reich and less-valuable inhabitants of the Reich (Lusatians, Serbians) would become “a working nation with no leadership” whose destiny was to construct “eternal structures” for the Third Reich, i.e. slavery. Himmler wrote the following about Jews: “I hope that the very notion of the Jew will be completely eradicated, thanks to opening the possibilities of massive migration of Jews to Africa or some other colony”.
13th June
The Reich Lieutenant delegalized angling among Poles.
15th June
Between 15th and 17th June the Soviets took over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. This was yet another stage in the implementation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.
17th June
In Poznań, two Poles gave sweets to escorted French prisoners of war. They were arrested.
22th June
A resolution on the confiscation of all bikes owned by Poles without authorisation was issued.
23rd June
Introduction of two vegetarian days and one single-pot (Eintopfgericht) day in all restaurants.
8th July
Hitler promised Frank, the General Governor, to finally withhold transports of Jews to the General Government. There is systematic resistance of the General Government administration to the resettlement of Jews from incorporated lands to the General Government area and against plans to create a separate territory (reserve) for Jews. This resistance accelerated decisions concerning the creation of ghettos and the further extermination of Jews in Warthegau. Joseph Paech, a German Canon, apostolic administrator for German Catholics in Warthegau, filed a complaint with the Gestapo about the mass destruction of religious figures in the Leszno district.
10th July
The underground Chwaliszewo sports club was created in Poznań.
12th July
Hitler signed a decree on the urban reconstruction of Poznań.
11th August
17 Poles were arrested in Poznań for travelling without a permit.
15th August
Eichman presented a paper with a detailed plan for the deportation of four million European Jews to Madagascar. This was agreed on with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other parties. The goal was formulated in the official language of the Reich Committee as “avoiding constant contact of Jews with other nations” through “an oversea solution with island character”.
16th August
A transport of about 80 priests from Wielkopolska left Fort VII in Poznań for Buchenwald concentration camp.
29th August
The Gestapo transported 179 priests from a transition camp in Szczeglino (near Mogilno) to concentration camps in the Reich.
6th September
Poznań authorities approved a plan for the Germanisation of Polish children in orphanages that met the racial criteria.
14th September
During a training session for the NSDAP, Arthur Greiser said in Poznań: “the Führer has sent me here not to stroke a few Catholic and Evangelical priests, but to exterminate the Polish nation, so that the German nation can live. I can assure you that this is my life’s goal”.
20th September
President of the regional postal division in Poznań that owned bus lines, ordered Poles to give seats to Germans on buses.
23rd September
Resettlements of ethnic Germans from Bessarabia started. By the end of 1940 they involved nearly 140,000 people.
25th September
Another issue of an underground magazine, Polska Narodowa (National Poland), was printed on the night of the 24/25th September in a run of 2,550 copies.
29th September
The Gestapo arrested a group of 7 sabotage organisers that had shredded a couple of hundred meters of uniform fabric in the Military Clothing Factory, had set a store of uniforms in warehouses on fire and had planned explosions of materials deposited in a church.
21st October
The Association for the Cremation of Corpses in Wartheland was established in Poznań (Feuerbestattungsverein Wartheland). Its goal was to re-establish the old Germanic tradition of burning corpses.
23rd October
Another issue of Polska Narodowa magazine was printed. The following words could be read there: “It’s not about a fight destined to be lost, about desperate responses, but about planned, wise and organised action, well secured, that will keep us vigilant all the time. So let us act, just as they do, as a whole nation. Totally.”
7th November
A symphonic concert took place in the University Hall in Poznań during which Arthur Greiser’s wife Maria performed as a pianist. Organisers donated the profit for winter aid.
10th November
The beginning of an eviction operation in Mława. By the end of 1940 it involved more than 20,000 people.
15th November
By this day, the German authorities had deported 234,620 Poles from Wartheland to the General Government. The Warsaw ghetto was closed.
16th November
In Poznań, members of the Hitlerjugend severely beat a couple of Polish children playing in a public yard.
5th December
Antoni Wolniewicz, president of the National Party in Poznań, was arrested during his stay in Warsaw. This marked the beginning of a wave of arrests and repressions towards the National Militant Organization, an underground organisation with many branches active in Wielkopolska.
10th December
Himmler’s lecture on “Settlers” before NSDAP Gauleiters. One of the successes about which Himmler bragged was that countries from which settlers came to the Third Reich would have to pay 3 billion, 315 million German marks in damages for the property the Germans left behind. The Reich only paid 65 million marks in damages as the remainder, by means of “natural restitution” was given to resettle Germans from property confiscated from Poles and Jews.
18th December
In almost all the cities and towns of Wartheland travelling and walking Poles were checked by police searching for illegally purchased articles intended for sale on the black market.
29th December
In Poznań, police arrested a drunken Polish man singing the following song to the tune of the Polish national anthem:
March, march against Hitler,
Let’s hope that he gets cholera,
Let’s hope he’s struck by lightning,
Let’s hope his life is ending.