Administrative division of Polish territories during World War II



Administrative division of Polish territories during World War II can be divided into several phases, when territories of the Second Polish Republic were administered first by Nazi Germany (in the west) and Soviet Union (in the east), then (following German invasion of the Soviet Union) in their entirety by Nazi Germany and finally (following Soviet push westwards) by the Soviet Union again. Starting with the reform of 1946, the administrative division was returned to Poland (see Administrative division of People's Republic of Poland).

After Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland in 1939, following their invasion, most of the ethnically Polish territory ended up under German control while the areas annexed by the Soviet union was ethnically diverse peoples with the territory being divided into several areas some of which had a significant non-Polish majority (Ukrainians in the south and Belarusians in the north) many of whom felt alienated in the nationalist interwar Poland and welcomed the Soviets. Nonetheless Poles comprised the largest single ethnic group on the territories annexed by the Soviets, too.

Soviet zone (1939-1941)
By the end of the Polish Defensive War the Soviet Union had taken over 52.1% of the territory of Poland (circa 200,000 km²), with over 13,700,000 people. The estimates vary; Elżbieta Trela-Mazur gives the following numbers in regards to the ethnic composition of these areas: 38% Poles (ca. 5.1 million people), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees from areas occupied by Germany, most of them Jews (198,000). Areas occupied by the USSR were annexed to Soviet territory, with the exception of area of Wilno, which was transferred to Lithuania, although soon attached to USSR, when Lithuania became a Soviet republic.

Under the terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, adjusted by agreement on 28 September 1939, the Soviet Union, annexed all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Bug and San, except for the area around Wilno (Vilnius), which was given to Lithuania, and the Suwałki region, which was annexed by Germany. These territories were largely inhabited by Ukrainians and Belarusians, with minorities of Poles and Jews (see exact numbers in Curzon line). The total area, including the area given to Lithuania, was 201,000 square kilometres, with a population of 13.5 million. A small strip of land that was part of Hungary before 1914, was also given to Slovakia.

German annexation of Polish territories
Under the terms of two decrees by Hitler (8 October and 12 October 1939), large areas of western Poland were annexed to Germany. These included all the territories taken by Prussia in Partitions of Poland which Germany subsequently lost under the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, including the Polish Corridor, Wielkopolska, as well as territories divided after plebiscites such as Upper Silesia, as well as a large area east of these territories, including the city of Łódź.

The area of these annexed territories was 94,000 square kilometres and the population was about 10 million, the great majority of whom were Poles. The annexed parts were controlled by a German administration ruled by a Gauleiter, a system similar in practice to that of the Reich itself. Nearly 1 million Poles were expelled from this German ruled area, while 600,000 Germans from eastern Europe and 400,000 from the German Reich were settled there.

General Government


The remaining block of territory was placed under a German administration called the General Government (in German Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete), with its capital at Kraków. The General Government was subdivided into four districts, Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, and Kraków (Distrikt Krakau).

A German lawyer and prominent Nazi, Hans Frank, was appointed "Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories" on 26 October 1939. Frank oversaw the segregation of the Jews into ghettos in the larger cities, particularly Warsaw, and the use of Polish civilians as forced and compulsory labour in German war industries.

German attack on the Soviet Union
After Operation Barbarossa, the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Polish territories previously occupied by the Soviets were organized as follows:
 * Bezirk Bialystok (district of Białystok), which included the Białystok, Bielsk Podlaski, Grajewo, Łomża, Sokółka, Volkovysk, and Grodno counties, which was "attached to" (but not incorporated into) East Prussia;
 * Generalbezirk Litauen – the Vilna Province was incorporated into Lithuania, itself incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ostland;
 * Generalbezirk Weißruthenien – the Polish part of "White Ruthenia" (the western section of modern-day Belarus) was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ostland;
 * Generalbezirk Wolhynien und Podolien – the Polish province of Volhynia, which was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ukraine; and
 * East Galicia, which was incorporated into the General-Government and became its fifth district, the Galician District (Distrikt Galizien).

Return of Soviet administration (1944-1945)
Soviet forces returned to former Polish territories following their offensive against Germany in 1944 (Operation Bagration, Lublin-Brest Offensive).

Starting with the reform of 1946, the administrative division was returned to Poland (see Administrative division of People's Republic of Poland).

Polish Underground State
Poland had a unique underground administration, the Polish Underground State. For regional divisions of the Polish underground army, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army), see here.