English Translation

On the other hand, in many cases the economic positions could only be held by clever restraint. Therefore, under the pressure of conditions, the more economically advantageous positions of the people, such as landowners, merchants, craftsmen, etc. with all internal preservation of their Germandom, a special emergence which would have been connected with a threat to their economic existence and, if it had included further circles, would have led to a threat of the German-aspired goal. On the other hand, strong pressure has often been exerted on the workers and other economically dependent circles, especially on the civil servants, on the Polish side, which has made it impossible for them to actively engage in their Germandom if they did not want to lose their existence. These persons are to be entered, in spite of the restraint which they maintain in the struggle for ethnicity, into Volksdeutsche und in Abteilung 2 of the German People's List. Prerequisite for their registration in Division 2, however, is that they have not entered into ties to the Polishdom, which exclude the assumption that they had preserved their Germandom. According to the situation of the relations, such ties cannot easily be seen in the mere membership of one or the other Polish organization. Membership of Polish economic organizations was sometimes unavoidable; membership of cultural organizations was not infrequently enforced by superiors among members of the public service; in these cases, the assumption that Germanism had not been preserved is therefore not justified without further evidence. The situation is different with regard to the participation of Polish political organizations. Not only in the membership of the insurgent association, the Vestmarkenverein, an optant association or similar strongly anti-German 06477 organizations,