Unfortunately, the lack of adequate sources and scholarly studies makes it difficult to reconstruct the worldview of the East Germans, including their attitude towards the Third Reich and the war it waged, even before the resettlement. These people, previously living on the territory of the Second Polish Republic (then temporarily in the Ukrainian SSR), must have had some knowledge of the National Socialist-ruled state at the time of their decision to go to Germany...
The majority of Germans living in the eastern areas of the Second Republic were inhabitants of small towns and villages, mainly craftsmen, farmers and forestry workers. It is obvious that the representatives of these professional groups did not show much interest in political issues...it is more difficult to assess whether, for example, they had knowledge of the repressive measures taken against Jews and Poles...during the German-Polish war of 1939 and the first months of the occupation. In doing so, it is worth taking into account that the future resettlers were at that time in the Soviet occupation zone, where at most they could have encountered the actions of the NKVD.
The first opportunity to come into contact with the German administration was the activity of the mixed Soviet-German commissions responsible for preparing the Volksdeutsche to leave their previous places of residence. One can only guess how keen the German authorities were at the time to make the best possible impression on potential resettlers. Both patriotic and economic tones were struck, and malcontents and contesters were even threatened and isolated. Nazi propaganda condemned any form of ignoring the ‘Führer's appeal to his compatriots’. The influence of the fear factor of living under the Soviet yoke (horror sovieticus) and the socialist reforms implemented by the USSR, especially the collectivisation of agriculture, entailing expropriation, cannot be overestimated. These fears stemmed not only from forecasts, but also from the already accumulated experience of the period of the First World War and the Soviet Revolution, when some Russian Germans were deported to the East.
The resettlers must have been positively impressed by the fairly good...organisation...., as well as the euphoric atmosphere of ‘return to the Reich’ (Heim ins Reich) fostered by propaganda specialists. It should also be remembered that the resettlement of Germans from eastern Galicia and Volhynia took place just after the undisputed triumfietriumph of the Wehrmacht in the war against Poland...
According to the German-Soviet agreement, each family (Herdstelle) that travelled to the border of the Reich (GG) in a so-called trek, i.e. a horse-drawn carriage, was allowed to take one double-drawn (two-horse) carriage along with their private belongings. Displaced persons who did not travel by trek but by truck or rail were allowed to take - in addition to their hand luggage - only luggage weighing up to about 50 kg, and accompanying family members up to about 25 kg. It was forbidden to export money, securities, gold, silver, works of art and antiquarian items, as well as cars and motorbikes. The property thus left behind was to become the property of the Soviet state, which in turn would make an appropriate settlement with the Reich...The land was to be nationalised and the Soviets refused to pay compensation for it.
Generally, men travelled by trek, while women and children were loaded into trains or trucks beforehand...
Between 21 December 1939 and 3 February 1940, a total of around 135,000 people were deported from the territory of the USSR to the Reich (of whom around 7,000 were subsequently recognised as foreign nationals and deported back to the USSR), including around 57,000 from eastern Galicia, 67,000 from Volhynia (the pre-war Volhynia and Polesie voivodeships) and 11,000 from the Narva area (the pre-war Novogrudok, Vilnius and Białystok voivodeships). Kiekie voivodeships). According to the Kattowitzer Zeitung, the resettlers who had crossed the Reich border by 31 January 1940 alone (118,000 people) brought 22,000 horses, 1,500 cattle and 12,000 carts with them...In total, 80% of the displaced persons arrived by Russian rail...The remaining 20% of people arrived on horseback or in horse-drawn vehicles...The greater disproportion between displaced persons travelling by trek and those travelling by train was due to the larger than initially estimated number of children...
...Women and children predominated in the transports arriving in Bogumin and Cieszyn, as the men still remained in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia to complete all the formalities for the transfer of movable property to the Reich...
By the late spring of 1940, 21 resettlement camps were in operation in the Silesian province, with more than 8,000 Germans from East Galicia living in them. Since their establishment at the beginning of 1940, these camps were subjected to a five-month quarantine, which must have entailed significant restrictions on the freedom of movement of their inhabitants. The VoMi authorities' decision to isolate the camps was influenced by the high percentage of children suffering from scarlet fever, diphtheria and measles...Initially, it was mainly women and children who were sent to the camps in Upper Silesia, while men (mainly from those families who had travelled by trek) were housed until March 1940 in camps in the Lodz area...