Heim ins Reich
| "Back home to the Reich" | |
Nazi Germany in 1939 (dark grey) after the conquest of Poland; with pockets of German colonists brought into the annexed territories of Poland from the Soviet "sphere of influence". – Nazi propaganda poster superimposed with the red outline of Poland missing entirely from the original print. | |
| Duration | 1936–1944 |
|---|---|
| Type | Irredentism, ethnic cleansing and population transfer |
| Cause | Lebensraum, Pan-Germanism, Generalplan Ost |
| Patron(s) | Adolf Hitler |
Heim ins Reich (German pronunciation: [ˈhaɪm ʔɪns ˈʁaɪç] ⓘ; meaning "back home to the Reich") was an irredentist foreign policy pursued by Nazi Germany from October 1936.
The aim of Hitler's initiative was to convince all Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) who were living outside Nazi Germany (e.g. in Austria, Czechoslovakia and the western districts of Poland) that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into Greater Germany, but also relocate from territories that were not under German control, following the conquest of Poland, in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet pact.
The Heim ins Reich manifesto targeted areas ceded in the Treaty of Versailles to the newly reborn state of Poland, various lands of immigration, as well as other areas that were inhabited by significant ethnic German populations, such as the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, Free City of Danzig, and other neighbouring regions after 6 October 1939.
Implementation of the policy was managed by VOMI (Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle or "Main Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans"). As a state agency of the NSDAP, it handled all Volksdeutsche issues. By 1941, the VOMI was under the control of the SS.