Werner Lorenz

Werner Lorenz
Born	(1891-10-02)October 2, 1891
Died	13 March 1974(1974-03-13) (aged 82)
Place of birth	Grünhof, near Stolp, Pomerania
Place of death	Hamburg
Allegiance	Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany (1933-1945)
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel Waffen-SS
Years of service	1914-1945
Rank	SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS und Polizei.
Unit	Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt
Commands held	VOMI
Battles/wars	World War I
Awards	1914 Iron Cross, second and first class Cross of Honour 1914-1918 Combatants Brunswick Rally Badge Golden Nazi Party Badge War Merit Cross Second Class and First Class with swords NSDAP Long Service Award SS Honor Ring SS Honor Sword
Other work	Convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison (later reduced) for crimes against humanity committed in Poland during World War II

Werner Lorenz (October 2, 1891 – March 13, 1974) was SS head of the Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (English: Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans) (VOMI) an organization charged with settling ethnic Germans in the German Reich from other parts of Europe.

Early life

He was born Grünhof (now in Gmina Postomino, Sławno County) near Stolp, Pomerania. His father was a forest warden. In 1909 Lorenz went to Military school. He served in World War I first as a cavalry officer then as a pilot in the Luftstreitkräfte. After the war he worked as a border guard and as farmer. He later acquired land and industrial property in Danzig. Through his daughter Rosemarie, Lorenz would become Axel Springer's father-in-law.

Nazi career

In 1929 Lorenz joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1931. Two years later he had an active political role as a member of the Landtag in the Free State of Prussia, a member of the Reichstag and worked at the Hamburg State Council. In November 1933 Lorenz was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and lead the SS Upper Division North from 1934 until 1937. In January 1937, was promoted to head the NSDAP agency Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI) that was initially responsible for the welfare of Germanic peoples (Volksdeutsche) living beyond the pre-war borders of Nazi Germany. However when the Second World War began VOMI took charge of the resettlement of ethnic Germans on captured territory but also the "Germanization" of foreign children such as Poles and Slovenes.

Ethnic cleansing in World War II

Main article: Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany (1939–1944)

Poles being forced out of their homes and lands to make room for Volksdeutsche in 1939.

Following the invasion of Poland, Lorenz was the chief executive responsible for allocating confiscated land, property and managing the affairs of the Volksdeutsch in all other areas of occupied Eastern Europe. VOMI, which was an office of the Nazi Party, would take control of a district once the native populations had been driven from their homes and lands. Ethnic German settlers were then given the land to work under the direction of VOMI officials. In respect to his international work, Lorenz was plenipotentiary for foreign relations for Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

In June 1941 VOMI was absorbed into the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Ethnic Stock (RKFDV) run by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The RKFDV, as an SS-controlled organization, had the authority to say who was German, where ethnic Germans could live, and what populations should be cleared or annihilated in order to make room for the German settlers from the east Europe during action "Heim ins Reich". As RKFDV chief, Himmler authorized the SS-Einsatzgruppen and other SS police units to round up and kill Jews, Slavs and Roma. Lorenz remained in charge of Volksdeutsch settlements in these ethnically cleansed areas. He also was responsible for VOMI officials who handled the personal property seized from Jews killed during Operation Reinhard in the General Government during 1942-1943.

In late 1942 Lorenz was seriously injured in a vehicle accident in Bosnia while overseeing the VOMI evacuation of ethnic Germans from the region. He was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer in 1943.

Post-war

SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz with a Chetnik officer in Bosnia, autumn 1942.

Volksdeutches decorated Golden Party Badge by Adolf Hitler in Berlin after Invasion of Poland in 1939. From left: Ludwig Wolff from Łódź, Otto Ulitz from Katowice, Gauleiter Josef Wagner, Mayor Rudolf Wiesner from Bielsko-Biała, Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz, Senator Erwin Hasbach from Ciechocinek, Baron Gero von Gersdorff from Wielkopolska, Weiss from Jarocin.

At the end of World War II, Lorenz was captured and held in an internment camp in England. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the RuSHA Trial at Nuremberg on 10 March 1948. Later, his sentence was reduced to 15 years in 1951. Lorenz was released early in 1955.

Death

Lorenz died in Hamburg in 1974.

Service record

Dates of rank

• SS-Sturmbannführer: March 31, 1931
• SS-Standartenführer: July 7, 1931
• SS-Oberführer: November 9, 1931
• SS-Brigadeführer: July 1, 1933
• SS-Gruppenführer: November 1, 1933
• SS-Obergruppenführer: November 9, 1936
• SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei: August 15, 1942
• SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS: November 9, 1944

Bibliography

• Koehl, Robert Lewis (1957). RKFDV: German Resettlement and Population Policy, 1939-1945: A History of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom. Harvard University Press. 
• Paikert, G. C. (1967). The Danube Swabians: German Populations in Hungary, Rumania and Yugoslavia and Hitler's Impact on their Patterns. Martinus Nijhoff. 
• Spring, Thomas E. (1999). The Nazi Resettlement Bureaucracy and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 
• Reitlinger, Gerald (1960). The House Built on Sand: The Conflicts of German Policy in Russia, 1939-1945. Viking Press.