Editing General Government

{{short description|German-occupied zone in Poland in World War II}}
{{About|the German administration of occupied Poland during World War II|the German administration of Belgium during World War I|General Governorate of Belgium|the national-accounting practice|Central government|the German General Government of Warsaw during World War I|Government General of Warsaw}}
{{pp-extended|small=yes}}
{{Infobox country
| native_name            = {{native name|de|Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete}}
| conventional_long_name = General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region
| common_name            = General Government
| status                 = Client
| empire                 = Nazi Germany
| status_text            = {{nowrap|Administratively<br>autonomous component<br>of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]<ref name="Diemut">Diemut 2003, [https://books.google.com/books?id=J_BCNrHG9K8C&pg=PA268 page 268.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317081153/https://books.google.com/books?id=J_BCNrHG9K8C&pg=PA268 |date=2023-03-17 }}</ref>}}
| era                    = {{nowrap|[[Occupation of Poland]]}}<br />in [[World War II]]
| government_type        = [[Civil administration]]
| title_leader           = Governor-General
| leader1                = [[Hans Frank]]
| year_leader1           = 1939–1945
| title_deputy           = Secretary for State
| deputy1                = [[Arthur Seyss-Inquart]]
| year_deputy1           = 1939–1940
| deputy2                = [[Josef Bühler]]
| year_deputy2           = 1940–1945
| event_pre              = [[Invasion of Poland]]
| date_pre               = 1 September 1939
| event_start            = Establishment
| year_start             = 1939
| date_start             = 26 October
| event1                 = [[District of Galicia|Galicia]] added
| date_event1            = 1 August 1941
| event2                 = {{nowrap|[[Polish Committee of National Liberation|Poland declared restored]]}}
| date_event2            = 22 July 1944
| event3                 = {{nowrap|[[Vistula-Oder Offensive|USSR captures Warsaw]]}}
| date_event3            = 17 January 1945 
| event_end              = Disintegration
| date_end               = 19 January
| year_end               = 1945
| p1                     = Military Administration in Poland{{!}}'''1939:'''<br />Military Administration in Poland
| flag_p1                = War Ensign of Germany (1938–1945).svg
| p2                     = Ukrainian SSR{{!}}'''1941:'''<br />Ukrainian SSR
| flag_p2                = Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1937–1949).svg
| s1                     = Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland{{!}}Provisional Government of Poland
| flag_s1                = Flag of Poland (1928-1980).svg
| s2                     = Ukrainian SSR
| flag_s2                = Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1937–1949).svg
| image_flag             = Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg
| flag                   = Flag of Germany#Nazi Germany
| image_coat             = Reichsadler.svg{{!}}class=skin-invert
| coa_size               = 100px
| symbol_type            = Emblem
| symbol                 = Coat of arms of Germany#Nazi Germany
| image_map              = General Government (1942).svg
| image_map_caption      = The General Government in 1942
| capital                = {{nowrap|[[Łódź|Litzmannstadt]]<br /><small>(12 October – 4 November 1939)</small><br />[[Kraków|Krakau]]<br /><small>(4 November 1939 – 19 January 1945)</small>}}
| common_languages       = [[German language|German]] <small>(official)</small><br />[[Polish language|Polish]], [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]], [[Yiddish]]
| currency               = [[Polish zloty#General Government|Zloty]]<br />[[Reichsmark]]
| today                  = [[Poland]]<br />[[Ukraine]]
}}
The '''General Government''' ({{langx|de|Generalgouvernement}}, {{IPA|de|ɡenəˈʁaːlɡuvɛʁnəˌmã|IPA|audio=De-Generalgouvernement.ogg}}; {{langx|pl|Generalne Gubernatorstwo}}; {{langx|uk|Генеральна губернія}}), formally the '''General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region''' ({{langx|de|Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete|links=no}}), was a German zone of occupation established after the [[invasion of Poland]] by [[Nazi Germany]], [[Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|Slovakia]] and the [[Soviet Union]] in 1939 at the onset of [[World War&nbsp;II]]. The newly occupied [[Second Polish Republic]] was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany]] in the west, and [[territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union]] in the east. The territory was expanded substantially in 1941, after the German [[Operation Barbarossa|Invasion of the Soviet Union]], to include the new [[District of Galicia]].<ref name="Diemut2003"/> The area of the ''Generalgouvernement'' roughly corresponded with the Austrian part of the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] after the [[Third Partition of Poland]] in 1795.

The basis for the formation of the General Government was the "Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories". Announced by Hitler on October 8, 1939, it claimed that the Polish government had totally collapsed. This rationale was utilized by the [[German Supreme Court]] to reassign the identity of all Polish nationals as [[statelessness|stateless subjects]], with the exception of the [[German diaspora|ethnic Germans]] of interwar Poland—who, disregarding international law, were named the only rightful citizens of [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="Diemut2003">{{cite book |author=Diemut Majer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J_BCNrHG9K8C&q=%22Point+of+Departure%3A+Statelessness%22 |title="Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939–1945 |publisher=JHU Press |year=2003 |isbn=0801864933 |pages=236–246 |access-date=2020-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317071103/https://books.google.com/books?id=J_BCNrHG9K8C&q=%22Point+of+Departure%3A+Statelessness%22 |archive-date=2023-03-17 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The General Government was run by Germany as a separate administrative unit for logistical purposes. When the [[Wehrmacht]] forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 ([[Operation Barbarossa]]), the area of the General Government was enlarged by the inclusion of the Polish regions previously annexed to the USSR.<ref name="eber">{{cite book |author=Piotr Eberhardt, Jan Owsinski |title=Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jLfX1q3kJzgC&q=%22first+part+of+World+War+II%22 |pages=216 |isbn=9780765606655 |access-date=2020-10-31 |archive-date=2023-03-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317071053/https://books.google.com/books?id=jLfX1q3kJzgC&q=%22first+part+of+World+War+II%22 |url-status=live }}</ref> Within days [[East Galicia]] was overrun and incorporated into the [[District of Galicia]]. Until 1945, the General Government comprised much of central, southern, and southeastern Poland within its prewar borders (and of modern-day [[Western Ukraine]]), including the major Polish cities of [[Warsaw]], [[Kraków]], Lwów (now [[Lviv]], renamed {{lang|de|Lemberg}}), [[Lublin]] (see [[Lublin Reservation]]), [[Tarnopol]] (see history of [[Tarnopol Ghetto]]), Stanisławów (now [[Ivano-Frankivsk]], renamed {{lang|de|Stanislau}}; see [[Stanisławów Ghetto]]), [[Drohobycz]], and [[Sambir|Sambor]] (see [[Drohobycz Ghetto|Drohobycz]] and [[Sambor Ghetto]]s) and others. Geographical locations were renamed in German.<ref name="Diemut2003"/>

The administration of the General Government was composed entirely of German officials, with the intent that the area was to be colonized by Germanic settlers who would reduce the local Polish population to the level of [[serf]]s before their eventual [[genocide]].<ref>Ewelina Żebrowaka-Żolinas Polityka eksterminacyjna okupanta hitlerowskiego na Zamojszczyźnie Studia Iuridica Lublinensia 17, 213-229</ref> The Nazi German rulers of the {{lang|de|Generalgouvernement}} had no intention of sharing power with the locals throughout the war, regardless of their ethnicity and political orientation. The authorities rarely mentioned the name ''Poland'' in legal correspondence. The only exception to this was the General Government's [[Bank of Issue in Poland]] ({{langx|pl|Bank Emisyjny w Polsce}}, {{langx|de|Emissionbank in Polen}}).<ref name="Germany">{{cite book |title=Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences |author1=Keith Bullivant |author2=Geoffrey J. Giles |author3=Walter Pape |publisher=Rodopi |year=1999 |page=32}}</ref><ref name="Rotfeld">{{cite book |trans-title=Białe plamy–czarne plamy: sprawy trudne w polsko-rosyjskich stosunkach 1918–2008 |title=White spots–black spots: difficult issues in Polish–Russian relations 1918–2008 |publisher=Polsko-Rosyjska Grupa do Spraw Trudnych, Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych |page=378 |author1=Adam D. Rotfeld |author2=Anatolij W. Torkunow |year=2010 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7awh6IfB_HsC |language=pl |isbn=9788362453009 |access-date=2020-09-19 |archive-date=2023-03-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317071116/https://books.google.com/books?id=7awh6IfB_HsC |url-status=live }}.</ref>

==Name==
The full title of the regime in Germany until July 1940 was the {{lang|de|Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete}}, a name that is usually translated as "General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories". Governor [[Hans Frank]], on Hitler's authority, shortened the name on 31 July 1940 to just {{lang|de|Generalgouvernement}}.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0FgNAAAAIAAJ&q=%2231+july+1940%22+%22General+Government+of+Occupied+Polish+Territories%22|title=Hans Frank's Diary|first=Stanisław|last=Piotrowski|date=October 23, 1961|publisher=Państwowe Wydawn. Naukowe|via=Google Books}}</ref>

An accurate English translation of {{lang|de|Generalgouvernement}}, which is a borrowing from [[French language|French]], is 'General Governorate', cognate with the Dutch {{lang|nl|[[Generaliteitslanden]]}}. A more accurate English translation of the French term {{lang|de|gouvernement}} in this context is not 'government', but "[[governorate]]", which is a type of a territory that is administered centrally. In the French and Dutch original, the 'General' in the name is a reference to the [[Estates General (France)|Estates-General]], the central assembly which was given an authority to directly rule the territory.

The Nazi designation of {{lang|de|Generalgouvernement}} also gave a nod to the once existing {{lang|de|[[Government General of Warsaw|Generalgouvernement Warschau]]}}, a civil entity created in the invaded [[Russian Empire]] territory by the [[German Empire]] during World War I. This district existed from 1914 to 1918 together with an [[Austro-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]]-controlled [[Military Government of Lublin]] alongside the short-lived [[Kingdom of Poland (1916-1918)|Kingdom of Poland of 1916–1918]], a similar rump state formed out of the then-[[Russian Empire|Russian-controlled]] [[congress Poland|parts of Poland]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Liulevicius |first=Vejas G. |year=2000 |title=War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, Identity, and German Occupation in World War I |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=54 |isbn=9781139426640 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tlrez-ylNUkC&dq=general+government+of+warsaw+ober+ost&pg=PA54 |access-date=2022-03-14 |archive-date=2023-03-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317071118/https://books.google.com/books?id=tlrez-ylNUkC&dq=general+government+of+warsaw+ober+ost&pg=PA54 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The General Government area was also known colloquially as the {{lang|de|Restpolen}} ('Remainder of Poland').

==History==
[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 121-0270, Polen, Krakau, Polizeiparade, Hans Frank.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Hans Frank]], head of the General Government, at a police parade in [[Kraków]] during the German occupation of [[Poland]]]]

After Germany's [[Invasion of Poland|attack on Poland]], all areas occupied by the [[German Army (Wehrmacht)|German army]] including the [[Free City of Danzig]] initially came under [[Military occupation|military rule]]. This area extended from the 1939 eastern border of Germany proper and of [[East Prussia]] up to the [[Bug River]] where the German armies had halted their advance and linked up with the Soviet [[Red Army]] in accordance with their secret pact against Poland.

The [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] signed on 23 August 1939 had promised the vast territory between the Vistula and Bug rivers to the Soviet "sphere of influence" in divided Poland, while the two powers would have jointly ruled Warsaw. To settle the deviation from the original agreement, the German and Soviet representatives met again on September 28 to delineate a permanent border between the two countries. Under [[German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation|this revised version]] of the pact the territory concerned was exchanged for the inclusion in the Soviet sphere of [[Lithuania]], which had originally fallen within the ambit of Germany. With the new agreement the entire central part of Poland, including the core ethnic area of the Poles, came under exclusively German control.
[[File:Mapa 2 paktu Ribbentrop-Mołotow.gif|thumb|German-Soviet border drawn in the aftermath of the [[Invasion of Poland|Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland]], signed in Moscow by [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop|Ribbentrop]] during the Second [[Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact]] known as the [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty|Frontier Treaty]] of September 28, 1939]]

Hitler decreed the direct annexation to the [[German Reich]] of [[Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany|large parts]] of the occupied Polish territory in the western half of the German zone, in order to increase the Reich's [[Lebensraum]].<ref>''"Erlaß des Führers und Reichskanzlers über die Gliederung und Verwaltung der Ostgebiete"''</ref> Germany organized most of these areas as two new [[Reichsgau]]e: [[Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia|Danzig-West Prussia]] and [[Reichsgau Wartheland|Wartheland]]. The remaining three regions, the so-called areas of Zichenau, Eastern [[Upper Silesia]] and the [[Suwałki]] triangle, became attached to adjacent [[Gau (country subdivision)|Gaue]] of Germany. Draconian measures were introduced by both RKF and HTO,{{Ref|a-RKF|[a]}} to facilitate the immediate [[Germanization]] of the annexed territory, typically resulting in [[Forced resettlement|mass expulsions]], especially in the Warthegau. The remaining parts of the former Poland were to become a German ''{{lang|de|Nebenland}}'' ([[March (territory)|March]], borderland) as a frontier post of German rule in the east. A Führer's decree of October 12, 1939 established the General Government; the decree came into force on October 26, 1939.<ref name="Diemut2003"/>

[[Hans Frank]] was appointed as the [[governor-general]] of the General Government. German authorities made a sharp contrast between the new Reich territory and a supposedly occupied [[rump state]] that could serve as a bargaining chip with the Western powers. The Germans established a closed border between the two German zones to heighten the difficulty of cross-frontier communication between the different segments of the Polish population.

The official name chosen for the new entity was the ''{{lang|de|Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete}}'' (General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories), then changed to the ''Generalgouvernement'' (General Government) by Frank's decree of July 31, 1940. However, this name did not imply anything about the actual nature of the administration. The German authorities never regarded these Polish lands (apart from the short period of [[German military administration in occupied Poland|military administration]] during the actual [[invasion of Poland]]) as an [[Military occupation|occupied territory]].<ref name="Majer265">Majer (2003), p. 265.</ref> The Nazis considered the Polish state to have effectively ceased to exist with its defeat in the September campaign.

Overall, 4&nbsp;million of the 1939 population of the General Government area had lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces entered the area in late 1944. If the Polish underground killed a German, 50–100 Poles were executed by German police as a punishment and as a warning to other Poles.<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206246.pdf Generalgouvernement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210831062732/https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206246.pdf |date=2021-08-31 }} Shoah Resource Center</ref> Most of the Jews, perhaps as many as two million, had also been rounded up and murdered. Germans destroyed Warsaw after the [[Warsaw Uprising]]. As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the General Government collapsed. American troops captured [[Hans Frank]], who had governed the region, in May 1945; he became one of the defendants at the [[Nuremberg Trials]]. During his trial he resumed his childhood practice of Catholicism and expressed repentance. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal; much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was found guilty of [[war crime]]s and [[crimes against humanity]]. On October 1, 1946, he was [[capital punishment|sentenced to death]] by [[hanging]]. The sentence was carried out on October 16.

==German intentions regarding the region==
{{Further|Generalplan Ost|Lebensraum|Wehrbauer}}
[[File:Generalgouvernement_with_2nd_Polish_Republic%2C_"Lebensraum_im_Osten"%2C_and_current_borders.jpg|thumb|Map of Generalgouvernement (yellow) in comparison to Second Polish Republic (dark grey), today's borders (white), 1918 German-Polish border (black), and areas annexed by Nazi Germany (blue)]]
[[File:Partitions of Poland.png|thumb|right|Orange and yellow areas of former Austrian part after Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Union in 1795 roughly correspond with Generalgouvernement]]
The conversion of Warsaw into a "model city" was [[Pabst Plan|planned]] in 1940 and later, in similar ways like the [[Germania (city)|conversion of Berlin]] was planned. In March 1941 Hans Frank informed his subordinates that [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] had made the decision to "turn this region into a purely German area within 15–20 years". He explained: "Where 12&nbsp;million [[Polish people|Poles]] now live, is to be populated by 4 to 5&nbsp;million [[Germans]]. The ''Generalgouvernement'' must become as German as the [[Rhineland]]."<ref name="Germany"/> By 1942 Hitler and Frank had agreed that the Kraków ("with its purely German capital") and Lublin districts would be the first areas for German colonists to re-populate.<ref name="talk">Hitler, Adolf (2000). Bormann, Martin. ed. ''Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944'', 5 April 1942. trans. Cameron, Norman; Stevens, R.H. (3rd ed.). Enigma Books. {{ISBN|1-929631-05-7}}.</ref> Hitler stated: "When these two weak points have been strengthened, it should be possible to slowly drive back the Poles."<ref name="talk"/> Peculiar about these statements is the circumstance that there were not enough German settlers to even make the [[Wartheland]] "as German as the Rhineland". According to notes from Martin Bormann German policy envisaged reducing lower-class Poles to the status of [[serf]]s, while deporting or otherwise eliminating the middle and upper classes and eventually replacing them with German colonists of the "[[master race]]".

{{blockquote|The General Government is our work force reservoir for lowgrade work (brick plants, road building, etc.) ... Unconditionally, attention should be paid to the fact that there can be no "Polish masters"; where there are Polish masters, and I do not care how hard this sounds, they must be killed. (...) The Führer must emphasize once again that for Poles there is only one master and he is a German, there can be no two masters beside each other and there is no consent to such, hence all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be killed ... The General Government is a Polish reservation, a great Polish labor camp. — <small>Note of [[Martin Bormann]] from the meeting of Dr. [[Hans Frank]] with [[Adolf Hitler]], Berlin, 2 October 1940.</small><ref>"Man to man...", Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa, Warsaw 2011, p. 11. English version.</ref>}}

German bureaucrats drew up various plans regarding the future of the original population. One called for the deportation of about 20&nbsp;million Poles to western [[Siberia]], and the Germanisation of 4 to 5&nbsp;million; although deportation in reality meant many Poles were to be put to death, a small number would be "Germanized", and [[Kidnapping of children for forced Germanization by Nazi Germany|young Poles of desirable qualities would be kidnapped and raised in Germany]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm|title=Hitler's War; Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe|date=May 27, 2012|website=archive.ph|access-date=November 7, 2021|archive-date=May 27, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120527021449/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> In the General Government, all [[secondary education]] was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed.{{Citation needed|date=February 2022}}

In 1943, the government selected the [[Zamojskie]] area for further Germanization on account of its fertile black soil, and German colonial settlements were planned. Zamość was initially renamed by the government to ''{{lang|de|Himmlerstadt}}'' ([[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] City), which was later changed to ''{{lang|de|Pflugstadt}}'' ([[Plough]] City), both names were not implemented. Most of the Polish population was expelled by the Nazi occupation authorities with documented brutality. Himmler intended the city of [[Lublin]] to have a German population of 20% to 25% by the beginning of 1944, and of 30% to 40% by the following year, at which time Lublin was to be declared a German city and given a German mayor.<ref>Rich, Norman (1974). Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order, p. 99. W. W. Norton & Company Inc., New York.</ref>

===Territorial dissection===
[[File:General Government Poster 1939 - 1 (de+pl).jpg|thumb|Official proclamation of the General-Government in Poland by Germany, October 1939]]

Nazi planners never definitively resolved the question of the exact territorial reorganization of the Polish provinces in the event of German victory in the east. Germany had [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany|already annexed]] large parts of western pre-war Poland (8 October 1939) before the establishment of the General Government (26 October 1939), and the remaining region was also intended to be directly incorporated into the German Reich at some future date. The Nazi leadership discussed numerous initiatives with this aim.

The earliest such proposal (October/November 1939) called for the establishment of a separate ''Reichsgau [[Beskids|Beskidenland]]'' which would encompass several southern sections of the Polish territories conquered in 1939 (around 18,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>), stretching from the area to the west of [[Kraków]] to the [[San (river)|San river]] in the east.<ref>{{cite news |last=Burleigh |first=Michael |year=1988 |title=Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=142 |isbn=9780521351201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yVM4AAAAIAAJ&dq=reichsgau+beskidenland&pg=PA159 |access-date=2022-03-14 |archive-date=2023-03-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317071114/https://books.google.com/books?id=yVM4AAAAIAAJ&dq=reichsgau+beskidenland&pg=PA159 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Madajczyk, Czesław (1988). ''Die okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939-1945'', p. 31 (in German). Akademie-Verlag Berlin.</ref> At this time Germany had not yet directly annexed the [[Łódź]] area, and Łódź (rather than Kraków) served as the capital of the General Government. This was due to the fact that western border was not precisely established, the main subject of the dispute was Łódź. [[Hans Frank]] intended to make it the capital of the General Government and therefore installed his offices in the city.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rukowiecki|first1=Andrzej|title=Łódź 1939-1945. Kronika okupacji|year=2011|publisher=Księży Młyn Dom Wydawniczy|isbn=978-83-7729-069-9|language=pl|page=24}}</ref> In November 1940, Gauleiter [[Arthur Greiser]] of Reichsgau Wartheland argued that the counties of [[Tomaszów County, Łódź Voivodeship|Tomaszów]] and Petrikau should be transferred from the General Government's Radom district to his Gau. Hitler agreed, but since Frank refused to surrender the counties, the resolution of the border question was postponed until after the final victory.<ref>Catherine Epstein (2012), ''Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland'', Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0199646538}}, p. 139</ref>

Upon hearing of the German plans to create a "[[Gau (country subdivision)|Gau]] of the [[Goths]]" (''{{lang|de|Gotengau}}'') in the [[Crimea]] and the Southern [[Ukraine]] after the start (June 1941) of [[Operation Barbarossa]], Frank himself expressed his intention to turn the district under his control into a German province called the ''{{lang|de|Vandalengau}}'' (Gau of the [[Vandals]]) in a speech he gave on 16 December 1941.<ref>Rich, p. 89.</ref><ref>NS-Archiv: Dokumente zum Nationalsozialismus. ''Diensttagebuch Hans Frank: 16.12.1941 - Regierungssitzung'' (in German). Retrieved 12 May 2011. [http://www.ns-archiv.de/personen/frank/16-12-1941.php] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023337/http://www.ns-archiv.de/personen/frank/16-12-1941.php|date=2016-03-04}}</ref>

When Frank unsuccessfully attempted to resign his position on 24 August 1942, [[Nazi Party Chancellery|Nazi Party Secretary]] [[Martin Bormann]] tried to advance a project to dissolve the General Government altogether and to partition its territory into a number of [[Reichsgaue]], arguing that only this method could guarantee the territory's Germanization, while also claiming that Germany could economically exploit the area more effectively, particularly as a source of food.<ref name="Okkupation">Madajczyk, pp. 102-103.</ref> He suggested separating the "more restful" population of the [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria|formerly Austrian territories]] (because this part of Poland had been under [[Austrian Empire|German-Austrian rule]] for a long period of time it was deemed more racially acceptable) from the rest of the Poles, and cordoning off the city of [[Warsaw]] as the center of "criminality" and [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|underground resistance activity]].<ref name="Okkupation"/>
[[File:Kundt, Fischer, Frank, Wächter, Zörner, Wendler.jpg|thumb|Hans Frank with district administrators in 1942 – from left: Ernst Kundt, [[Ludwig Fischer]], [[Hans Frank]], [[Otto Wächter]], Ernst Zörner, [[Richard Wendler]]]]

[[Ludwig Fischer (Nazi)|Ludwig Fischer]] (governor of Warsaw from 1939 to 1945) opposed the proposed administrative streamlining resulting from these discussions. Fischer prepared his own project in his Main Office for Spatial Ordering (''{{lang|de|Hauptamt für Raumordnung}}'') located in Warsaw.<ref name="Okkupation"/> He suggested{{when|date=November 2017}} the establishment of the three provinces ''Beskiden'', ''Weichselland'' ("[[Vistula]] Land"), and ''Galizien'' ([[Galicia (Central Europe)|Galicia]] and [[Chełm]]) by dividing the Radom and Lublin districts between them. ''Weichselland'' was to have a "Polish character", ''Galizien'' a "Ukrainian" one, and the ''Beskiden''-province to provide a German "admixture" (i.e. colonial settlement).<ref name="Okkupation"/> Further territorial planning carried out by this Warsaw-based organization under [[Sturmbannführer|Major]] Dr. Ernst Zvanetti in a May 1943 study to demarcate the eastern border of "[[Central Europe]]" (i.e. the Greater German Reich) with the "[[Eastern Europe]]an landmass" proposed an eastern German border along the "line [[Klaipėda|Memel]]-[[Odessa]]".<ref name="Wasser">
Wasser, Bruno (1993). ''Himmler's Raumplanung im Osten'', pp. 82-83. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel.
</ref>

In this context Zvanetti's study proposed a re-ordering of the "Eastern Gaue" into three geopolitical blocs:<ref name="Wasser"/>

*a western group comprising the ''Gaue'' ''[[Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia|Danzig-Westpreußen]]'', ''[[Reichsgau Wartheland|Wartheland]]'', and ''Schlesien'' ([[Silesia]])
*a central group with the ''Gaue'' ''Ostpreußen'' ([[East Prussia]]), ''Südpreußen'' ([[South Prussia]]), ''Litzmannstadt'' ([[Łódź]]), and ''Beskidenland''
*the eastern group with the ''Gau Südostpreußen'' (South-East Prussia) and including ''Wolhynien'' ([[Volhynia]] and the Lublin district), ''Galizien'', and ''Podolien'' ([[Podolia]]).

==Administration==
{{Main|General Government administration}}
The General Government was administered by a General-Governor ({{langx|de|Generalgouverneur}}) aided by the Office of the General-Governor ({{langx|de|Amt des Generalgouverneurs}}; changed on December 9, 1940, to the Government of the General Government, {{langx|de|Regierung des Generalgouvernements}}). For the entire period of the General Government's existence there was only one General-Governor: Dr. Hans Frank. The [[NSDAP]] structure in General Government was ''Arbeitsbereich Generalgouvernement'' led by Frank.

The Office was headed by Chief of the Government ({{langx|de|Regierung |translation=government}}), [[Josef Bühler]], who was also the [[State Secretary]] ({{langx|de|Staatssekretär}}). From October 1939 to May 1940, [[Arthur Seyss-Inquart]] was the Deputy General-Governor. After his departure, Bühler served as Frank's deputy through January 1945. Several other individuals had powers to issue legislative decrees in addition to the General-Governor, most notably the Higher [[SS and Police Leader]] of the General Government (SS-''[[Obergruppenführer]]'' [[Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger]]; from October 1943: SS-''Obergruppenführer'' [[Wilhelm Koppe]]).

[[File:Announcement of death of 100 of Polish hostages shot by Nazi-German authority in Poland 1941.jpg|thumb|upright|Announcement of the execution of 60 Polish hostages and a list of 40 new hostages taken by Nazi authorities in Poland, 1943]]
{{blockquote|No government protectorate is anticipated for Poland, but a complete German administration. (...) Leadership layer of the population in Poland should be as far as possible, disposed of. The other lower layers of the population will receive no special schools, but are to be oppressed in some form. — Excerpt from the minutes of the first conference of Heads of the main police officers and commanders of operational groups led by Heydrich's deputy, SS-''[[Brigadefuhrer]]'' Dr. [[Werner Best]], Berlin 7 September 1939<ref>"Man to man...", Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa, Warsaw 2011, English version</ref>}}

The General Government had no [[Diplomatic recognition|international recognition]]. The territories it administered were never either in whole or part intended as any future Polish state within a German-dominated Europe. According to the Nazi government the Polish state had effectively ceased to exist, in spite of the existence of a [[Polish government-in-exile]].<ref name="Majer2"/> The General Government had the character of a type of [[colony|colonial state]]. It was not a Polish [[puppet government]], as there were no Polish representatives above the local administration.

The government seat of the General Government was located in Kraków (German: ''{{lang|de|Krakau}}''; {{langx|en|Cracow}}) rather than in [[Warsaw]] for security reasons. The official state language was German, although Polish continued in use by local government. Useful institutions of the old Polish state were retained for ease of administration. The Polish police, with no high-ranking Polish officers (they were arrested or demoted), was reorganised as the [[Blue Police]] and became subordinated to the ''[[Ordnungspolizei]]''. The Polish educational system was similarly retained, but most higher institutions were closed. The Polish local administration was kept, subordinated to new German bosses. The Polish fiscal system, including the [[Polish zloty|zloty]] currency, remained in use but with revenues going to the German state. A new bank was created; it issued new banknotes.

The Germans sought to play [[Ukrainian people|Ukrainians]] and Poles off against each other. Within ethnic Ukrainian areas annexed by Germany, beginning in October 1939, Ukrainian Committees were established with the purpose of representing the Ukrainian community to the German authorities and assisting the approximately 30,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled from Soviet-controlled territories. These committees also undertook cultural and economic activities that had been banned by the previous Polish government. Schools, choirs, reading societies and theaters were opened, and twenty Ukrainian churches that had been closed by the Polish government reopened. By March 1941, there were 808 Ukrainian educational societies with 46,000 members.

A Ukrainian publishing house and periodical press was set up in Cracow,<ref name="himka98">{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41036740 |jstor=41036740 |title="Krakivs'ki visti": An Overview |last1=Himka |first1=John-Paul |journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies |year=1998 |volume=22 |pages=251–261 |access-date=2022-05-29 |archive-date=2022-05-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220529172523/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41036740 |url-status=live }}</ref> which – despite having to struggle with German censors and paper shortages – succeeded in publishing school textbooks, classics of [[Ukrainian literature]], and the works of dissident Ukrainian writers from the Soviet Union. ''[[Krakivs'ki Visti]]'' was headed by Frank until the end of World War II and had as editor [[Michael Chomiak]]. It was "the leading legal newspaper" of the General Government and "attracted more (and better) contributors among whom were the most prominent Ukrainian cultural figures of the (early) 20th century."<ref name="gyidel19">{{cite journal |last1=Gyidel |first1=Ernest |year=2019 |title=The Ukrainian Legal Press of the General Government: The Case of Krakivski Visti, 1940-1944 |journal=The Ukrainian Legal Press of the General Government |doi=10.7939/r3-7x8g-9w02}}</ref>

Ukrainian organizations within the General Government were able to negotiate the release of 85,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war from the German-Polish conflict (although they were unable to help Soviet POWs of Ukrainian ethnicity).<ref>Myroslav Yurkevich. (1986). Galician Ukrainians in German Military Formations and in the German Administration. In: ''Ukraine during World War II: history and its aftermath : a symposium'' (Yuri Boshyk, Roman Waschuk, Andriy Wynnyckyj, Eds.). Edmonton: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press pp. 73-74</ref>

After the war, the Polish [[Supreme National Tribunal]] declared that the government of the General Government was a [[crime|criminal]] institution.

===Judicial system===
[[File:Hans Frank’s ordinance on counteracting the acts of violence in Generalgouvernement 01.jpg|thumb|upright|Part of Hans Frank's ordinance from 31 October 1939 on ''"counteracting the acts of violence in the General Government"'']]

Other than summary German military tribunals, no courts operated in Poland between the German invasion and early 1940. At that time, the Polish court system was reinstated and made decisions in cases not concerning German interests, for which a parallel German court-system was established. The German system was given priority in cases of overlapping jurisdiction.

New laws were passed, discriminating against ethnic Poles and, in particular, the Jews. In 1941 a new [[criminal law]] was introduced, introducing many new crimes, and making the [[death penalty]] very common. The death penalty was introduced for, among other things:
*on October 31, 1939, for any acts against the German government
*on January 21, 1940, for economic speculation
*on February 20, 1940, for spreading [[sexually-transmitted disease]]s
*on July 31, 1940, for any Polish officers who did not register immediately with the German administration (to be taken to [[prisoner of war]] camps)
*on November 10, 1941, for giving any assistance to Jews
*on July 11, 1942, for farmers who failed to provide requested crops
*on July 24, 1943, for not joining the forced labor battalions ([[Baudienst]]) when requested
*on October 2, 1943, for impeding the [[German Reconstruction Plan]]

===Policing===
The police in the General Government was divided into:

*''[[Ordnungspolizei]]'' (OrPo) (native German)
*the [[Blue Police]] (Polish under German control)
*''[[Sicherheitspolizei]]'' (native German) composed of:
**''[[Kriminalpolizei]]'' (German)
**[[Gestapo]] (German)

The most numerous [[Ordnungspolizei#Police Battalions|OrPo battalions]] focused on traditional security roles as an occupying force. Some of them were directly involved in [[Pacification actions in German-occupied Poland|the pacification operations]].<ref name="Browning2007">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jHQdRHNdK44C&q=%22Bloody+Sunday%22 |title=The Origins of the Final Solution |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |date=1 May 2007 |access-date=4 December 2014 |author=Christopher R. Browning |pages=349, 361 |isbn=978-0803203921 |id=Google eBook |author-link=Christopher R. Browning}}</ref> In the immediate aftermath of World War II, this latter role was obscured both by the lack of court evidence and by deliberate obfuscation, while most of the focus was on the better-known ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' ("Operational groups") who reported to [[Reichssicherheitshauptamt|RSHA]] led by [[Reinhard Heydrich]].<ref>Hillberg, Raul, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=HinIpmliz2MC The Destruction of the European Jews]'', Holmes & Meir: NY, NY, 1985, pp 100–106.</ref> On 6&nbsp;May 1940 ''Gauleiter'' Hans Frank, stationed in occupied [[Kraków]], established the ''[[Sonderdienst]]'', based on similar ''[[SS]]'' formations called ''[[Selbstschutz]]'' operating in the [[Reichsgau Wartheland|''Warthegau'']] district of German-annexed western part of Poland since 1939.<ref name="Yad Vashem">{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JcDXaeukt4sC&q=Sonderdienst |title=Yad Vashem Studies |publisher=Wallstein Verlag |year=2001 |access-date= 12 May 2014 |author=The Erwin and Riva Baker Memorial Collection |journal=Yad Washem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance |pages=57–58 |issn=0084-3296}}</ref> ''Sonderdienst'' were made up of ethnic German ''[[Volksdeutsche]]'' who lived in Poland before the attack and joined the invading force thereafter. However, after the 1941 [[Operation Barbarossa]] they included also the Soviet [[prisoners of war]] who volunteered for special training, such as the "[[Trawniki men]]" (German: ''Trawnikimänner'') deployed at all major killing sites of the "[[Final Solution]]". A lot of those men did not know German and required translation by their native commanders.<ref name="Browning">{{cite web |url=http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |orig-year=1992 |year=1998 |title=Arrival in Poland |publisher=Penguin Books |work=Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland |access-date=May 1, 2013 |pages=51, 98, 109, 124 |format=PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete|archive-date=October 19, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019043400/http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Black">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M7KbsHLnbwgC&q=Hamburg%2C++Karl++Streibel&pg=PA331 |title=Police Auxiliaries for Operation Reinhard ''by'' Peter R. Black |publisher=Enigma Books |work=Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust |year=2006 |access-date=2013-06-02 |editor=David Bankir |pages=331–348 |isbn=192963160X |format=Google Books |archive-date=2023-03-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317071120/https://books.google.com/books?id=M7KbsHLnbwgC&q=Hamburg%2C++Karl++Streibel&pg=PA331 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|366}} [[Ukrainian Auxiliary Police]] was formed in Distrikt Galizien in 1941, many policemen deserted in 1943 joining UPA.

The former Polish policemen, with no high-ranking Polish officers (who were arrested or demoted), were drafted to the [[Blue Police]] and became subordinated to the local [[Ordnungspolizei]].

Some 3,000 men served with the ''Sonderdienst'' in the General Government, formally assigned to the head of the civil administration.<ref name="Browning"/> The existence of ''Sonderdienst'' constituted a grave danger for the non-Jewish Poles who [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|attempted to help ghettoised Jews]] in the cities, as in the [[Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto]] among numerous others, because Christian Poles were executed under the charge of aiding Jews.<ref name="Yad Vashem"/>

A [[Forest Protection Service]] also existed, responsible for policing wooded areas in the General Government.<ref name="benz">{{cite book |last1=Benz |first1=Wolfgang |title=Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus |date=1997 |publisher=Klett-Cotta |isbn=3423330074}}</ref>

A Bahnpolizei policed railroads.

The Germans used pre-war Polish prisons and organised new ones, like in Jan Chrystian Schuch Avenue police quarter in Warsaw and [[Under the Clock]] torture centre in [[Lublin]].

German administration constructed a terror system to control Polish people enforcing reports of any illegal activities, e.g. hiding Roma, POWs, guerilla fighters, Jews. Germans designated hostages, terrorised local leaders, applied collective responsibility. German police used [[sting operations]] to find and kill rescuers of the Germans' quarries.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/37783353 |first=Tomasz |last=Frydel |chapter=''Judenjagd'': Reassessing the Role of Ordinary Poles as Perpetrators in the Holocaust |editor-first=Timothy |editor-last=Williams |editor2-first=Susanne |editor2-last=Buckley-Zistel |title=Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence: Action, Motivations and Dynamics |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=2018 |pages=187–203 |access-date=2019-05-15 |archive-date=2022-03-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314132350/https://www.academia.edu/37783353 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Military occupation forces===
Through the occupation Germany diverted a significant number of its military forces to keep control over Polish territories.
{| class="wikitable" width="98%"
|+ Number of ''Wehrmacht'' and police formations stationed in General government<ref>Czesław Madajczyk. Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce p.242 volume 1, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1970</ref>
! Time period
! [[Wehrmacht]] army
! Police and SS
(includes German forces only)
! Total
|-
| October 1939
| 550,000
| 80,000
| 630,000
|-
| April 1940
| 400,000
| 70,000
| 470,000
|-
| June 1941
| 2,000,000 (high number due to imminent [[Operation Barbarossa|attack on Soviet positions]])
| 50,000
| 2,050,000
|-
| February 1942
| 300,000
| 50,000
| 350,000
|-
| April 1943
| 450,000
| 60,000
| 510,000
|-
| November 1943
| 550,000
| 70,000
| 620,000
|-
| April 1944
| 500,000
| 70,000
| 570,000
|-
| September 1944
| 1,000,000 (A small percentage took part in the suppression of the [[Warsaw Uprising]])
| 80,000
| 1,080,000
|}

===Nazi propaganda===
The propaganda was directed by the ''Fachabteilung für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda'' (FAVuP), since Spring 1941 ''Hauptabteilung Propaganda'' (HAP). Prasą kierował ''Dienststelle der Pressechef der Regierung des Generalgouvernements'', a w Berlinie ''Der Bevollmächtige des Generalgouverneurs in Berlin''.

====Anti-semitic propaganda====
[[File:German_antisemitic_poster,_1942.jpg|thumb|180x180px|Nazi anti-semitic propaganda poster]]
Thousands of anti-Semitic posters were distributed in Warsaw.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007819 |title=Defining Enemy, Holocaust Encyclopedia |access-date=2018-05-24 |archive-date=2018-05-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180524222815/https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007819 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.zagladazydow.org/index.php?show=541&strona=548 |title=Grabowski, Antisemitic propaganda |access-date=2018-05-24 |archive-date=2018-05-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180524221934/https://www.zagladazydow.org/index.php?show=541&strona=548 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Political propaganda====
[[File:Chodźmy na roboty rolne do Niemiec.jpg|right|thumb|German [[Polish language|Polish-language]] recruitment poster: "'Let's do farm work in Germany!' See your ''[[Vogt#Poland|wójt]]'' at once."]]
Germans wanted Poles to obey orders.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://martyrologiawsipolskich.pl/mwp/wirtualne-mauzoleum/modul-iii-eksploatacja/fotogaleria/2514,Eksploatacja-wsi-1939-1945-fotogaleria.html |title=Eksploatacja wsi 1939-1945 - fotogaleria - Fotogaleria - Martyrologia Wsi Polskich |access-date=2018-06-18 |archive-date=2018-06-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180618175319/http://martyrologiawsipolskich.pl/mwp/wirtualne-mauzoleum/modul-iii-eksploatacja/fotogaleria/2514,Eksploatacja-wsi-1939-1945-fotogaleria.html |url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Polish language newspapers====
*''[[Nowy Kurier Warszawski]]''
*''[[Kurier Częstochowski]]''
*''[[Goniec Krakowski (1939–1945)|Goniec Krakowski]]''
*''[[Dziennik Radomski]]''
*''[[Goniec Codzienny]]''
*''[[Ilustrowany Kurier Polski (1939-1945)|Ilustrowany Kurier Polski]]''
*''[[Gazeta Lwowska (1941-1944)|Gazeta Lwowska]]''
*''[[Fala (monthly)|Fala]]''

====Cinemas====
Propaganda [[newsreel]]s of ''[[Die Deutsche Wochenschau]]'' (The German Weekly Review) preceded feature-film showings. Some feature films likewise contained Nazi propaganda. The Polish underground discouraged Poles from attending movies, advising them, in the words of the rhymed couplet, ''"Tylko świnie / siedzą w kinie"'' ("Only swine go to the movies").<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.questia.com/library/120072433/polish-national-cinema |title=Polish National Cinema |author=[[Marek Haltof]] |access-date=2018-05-24 |archive-date=2018-05-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180524221751/https://www.questia.com/library/120072433/polish-national-cinema |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In occupied Poland, there was no Polish film industry. However, a few Poles collaborated with the Germans in making films such as the 1941 [[Anti-Polish sentiment|anti-Polish]] [[propaganda film]] ''[[Heimkehr]]'' (''Homecoming''). In that film, casting for minor parts played by Jewish and Polish actors was done by [[Igo Sym]], who during the filming was shot in his [[Warsaw]] apartment by the Polish [[Union of Armed Struggle]] resistance movement; after the war, the Polish performers were sentenced for [[collaboration]] in an anti-Polish propaganda undertaking, with punishments ranging from official reprimand to imprisonment.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ipn.gov.pl/download/1/89951/IPNkinoiteatrpodokupacja2017170911maly.pdf |title=Kino i teatr pod okupacją. Polskie środowisko filmowe i teatralne w czasie II wojny światowej |access-date=14 March 2022 |first=Bartosz |last=Januszewski |language=pl |date=13 September 2017 |archive-date=16 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816061350/https://ipn.gov.pl/download/1/89951/IPNkinoiteatrpodokupacja2017170911maly.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Theaters====
All Polish theaters were disbanded. A German theater ''Theater der Stadt Warschau'' was formed in Warsaw together with a German controlled Polish one ''Teatr Miasta Warszawy''. There existed also one comedy theater ''Teatr Komedia'' and 14 small ones. The [[Juliusz Słowacki Theatre]] in Cracow was used by Germans.

====Audio propaganda====
Poles were not allowed to use radio sets. Any set was to be handed over to local administration by 25 January 1940. Ethnic Germans were obliged to register their sets.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Radiofonia w okupowanej Polsce 1939 - 1945 |trans-title=Radio broadcasting in occupied Poland 1939 - 1945 |url=http://www.historiaradia.neostrada.pl/Okupacja%201939-44.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180803231328/http://www.historiaradia.neostrada.pl/Okupacja%201939-44.html |archive-date=2018-08-03 |website=historiaradia.neostrada.pl |language=pl}}</ref>

German authorities installed megaphones for propaganda purposes, called by Poles ''szczekaczki'' (from [[Polish language|pol.]] ''szczekać'' "to bark").<ref>{{Cite web |last=Czocher |first=Anna |title="GADZINÓWKI" I "SZCZEKACZKI" |trans-title="Propaganda Newspapers" and "Megaphones" |url=http://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/gadzinowki-i-szczekaczki.-,5383.pdf |website=polska1918-89.pl |publisher=IPN Krakow |language=pl}}</ref>

===Public executions===
[[File:Tablica_Tchorka_Al._Ujazdowskie_21_Warszawa.JPG|thumb|[[Ujazdów Avenue]] Public execution memorial table, Warsaw]]
Germans killed thousands of Poles, many of them civilian hostages, in Warsaw streets and locations around Warsaw (Warsaw ring), to terrorize the population{{snd}}they shot or hanged them.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.inyourpocket.com/warsaw/execution-sites_18396v |title=Execution Sites |access-date=2018-06-28 |archive-date=2018-06-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180628124819/https://www.inyourpocket.com/warsaw/execution-sites_18396v |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/02/11/1944-twenty-two-or-more-poles/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180628100621/http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/02/11/1944-twenty-two-or-more-poles/|url-status=dead|title=1944: Twenty-two or more Poles &#124; Executed Today|date=February 11, 2009|archivedate=June 28, 2018}}</ref> The executions were ordered mainly by Austrian Nazi [[Franz Kutschera]], [[SS and Police Leader|''SS'' and Police Leader]], from September 1943 until January 1944.

===Urban planning and transportation network===
Warsaw was to be reconstructed according to [[Pabst Plan]]. The governmental quarter was situated around the [[Piłsudski Square]].

The capital of GG Kraków was reconstructed according to ''Generalbebauungsplan von Krakau'' by Hubert Ritter. Hans Frank rebuild his residence [[Wawel Castle]]. <<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://niemieckikrakowblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/hans-frank-przebudowuje-wawel/ |title=Hans Frank przebudowuje Wawel |date=2019-04-17 |access-date=2019-05-15 |archive-date=2019-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190515060328/https://niemieckikrakowblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/hans-frank-przebudowuje-wawel/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Dębniki (Kraków)]] was the planned Nazi administrative quarter.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.infoarchitekta.pl/artykuly:8-spotkania:4618-hitlerowskie-wizje-krakowa.html |title=Hitlerowskie wizje Krakowa |access-date=2019-05-14 |archive-date=2019-05-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514124548/https://www.infoarchitekta.pl/artykuly:8-spotkania:4618-hitlerowskie-wizje-krakowa.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://krakow.wyborcza.pl/krakow/1,44425,3021101.html |title=Wyborcza.pl |access-date=2019-05-14 |archive-date=2019-05-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514124547/http://krakow.wyborcza.pl/krakow/1,44425,3021101.html |url-status=live }}</ref> German-only residential area was constructed near [[Park Krakowski]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://niemieckikrakowblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/niemieckie-osiedle-mieszkaniowe-kolo-parku-krakowskiego/ |title=Niemieckie osiedle mieszkaniowe koło Parku Krakowskiego |date=2017-04-13 |access-date=2019-05-14 |archive-date=2019-05-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514130152/https://niemieckikrakowblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/niemieckie-osiedle-mieszkaniowe-kolo-parku-krakowskiego/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Germans constructed railroad line Łódź-Radom (partially in GG) and engine house in Radom.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.radom24.pl/artykul/czytaj/7252 |title=Poniemiecka parowozownia na sprzedaż. Jednak jeszcze nie teraz :: Radom24.pl :: Portal Radomia i regionu |access-date=2019-05-15 |archive-date=2019-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190515094008/http://www.radom24.pl/artykul/czytaj/7252 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Administrative districts==
{{see also|Administrative division of Polish territories during World War II}}
For administrative purposes the General Government was subdivided into four districts (''Distrikte''). These were the ''Distrikt [[Warsaw|Warschau]]'', the ''Distrikt [[Lublin]]'', the ''Distrikt [[Radom]]'', and the ''Distrikt [[Kraków|Krakau]]''. After the [[Operation Barbarossa]] against the Soviets in June 1941, East [[Galicia (Central Europe)|Galicia]] (part of Poland, annexed by the [[Ukrainian SSR]] on the basis of the [[Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact]]), was incorporated into the General Government and became its fifth district: [[District of Galicia|''Distrikt Galizien'']]. The new German administrative units were much larger than those organized by the Polish government, reflecting the German lack of sufficient administrative personnel to staff smaller units.<ref>Rich (1974), p. 86.</ref>

The five districts were further sub-divided into urban counties (''Stadtkreise'') and rural counties (''Kreishauptmannschaften''). Following a decree on September 15, 1941, the names of most of the major cities (and their respective counties) were renamed based on historical German data or given germanified versions of their Polish and Soviet names if none existed. At times the previous names remained the same as well (i.e. Radom). The districts and counties were as follows:

[[File:GeneralGovernment1940Map.png|thumb|upright=1.3|Administrative map of the General Government, July 1940 (before [[Operation Barbarossa|Barbarossa]])]]
[[File:General Government for the occupied Polish territories (1941).png|thumb|upright=1.3|Administrative map of the General Government, July 1941 – January 1944 following Barbarossa]]
{| border=0
|-
||'''''Distrikt Warschau'''''
|-
| ''Stadtkreise''
| Warschau ([[Warsaw]])
|-
| ''Kreishauptmannschaften''
| [[Garwolin]], Grojec ([[Grójec]]), Lowitsch ([[Lowicz]]), Minsk ([[Mińsk Mazowiecki]]), Ostrau ([[Ostrów Mazowiecka]]), [[Siedlce]], [[Skierniewice]]<sup>2</sup>, [[Sochaczew]], Sokolow-Wengrow ([[Sokołów Podlaski]]-[[Węgrów]]), Warschau-Land
|-
||'''''[[Distrikt Krakau]]'''''
|-
| ''Stadtkreis''/<br />''kreisfreie Stadt'' <small>(since 1940)</small>
| Krakau ([[Kraków]])
|-
| {{nowrap|''Kreishauptmannschaften''{{space|3}}}}
| Dembitz ([[Dębica]]), Jaroslau ([[Jarosław]]), Jassel ([[Jaslo]]), Krakau-Land, [[Krosno]]<sup>1</sup>, Meekow ([[Miechów]]), Neumarkt ([[Nowy Targ]]), Neu-Sandez ([[Nowy Sącz]]), [[Przemyśl]]<sup>1</sup>, Reichshof ([[Rzeszow]]), [[Sanok]], Tarnau ([[Tarnów]])
|-
||'''''[[Distrikt Lublin]]'''''
|-
| ''Stadtkreise''
| [[Lublin]]
|-
| ''Kreishauptmannschaften''
| Biala-Podlaska ([[Biała Podlaska]]), [[Bilgoraj]], Cholm ([[Chelm]]), Grubeschow ([[Hrubieszow]]), [[Janow Lubelski]], [[Krasnystaw]], Lublin-Land, [[Pulawy]], Rehden ([[Radzyń Podlaski|Radzyn]]), Zamosch/Himmlerstadt/Pflugstadt ([[Zamość]])
|-
||'''''Distrikt Radom'''''
|-
| ''Stadtkreise''
| [[Kielce]], [[Radom]], Tschenstochau ([[Częstochowa]])
|-
| ''Kreishauptmannschaften''
| Busko ([[Busko-Zdrój]]), [[Jedrzejow]], Kielce-Land, Konskie ([[Końskie]]), Opatau ([[Opatów]]), Petrikau ([[Piotrków Trybunalski]]), Radom-Land, [[Radomsko]], Starachowitz ([[Starachowice]]), Tomaschow Mazowiecki ([[Tomaszów Mazowiecki]])
|-
||'''''[[District of Galicia|Distrikt Galizien]]'''''
|-
| ''Stadtkreise''
| Lemberg ([[Lviv|Lviv/Lwów]])
|-
| ''Kreishauptmannschaften''
| Breschan ([[Berezhany|Brzeżany]]), Tschortkau ([[Chortkiv|Czortków]]), [[Drohobycz]], Kamionka-Strumilowa ([[Kamianka-Buzka]]), Kolomea ([[Kolomyia]]), Lemberg-Land, Rawa-Ruska ([[Rava-Ruska]]), Stanislau ([[Ivano-Frankivsk]]), Sambor ([[Sambir]]) [[Stryi|Stryj]], [[Tarnopol]], Solotschiw ([[Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast|Zolochiv]]), Kallusch ([[Kalush, Ukraine|Kalush]])
|-
| ||<small>1, added after 1941. 2, removed after 1941.</small>
|}

A change in the administrative structure was desired by Finance Minister [[Lutz von Krosigk]], who for financial reasons wanted to see the five existing districts (Warsaw, Kraków, Radom, Lublin, and Galicia) reduced to three.<ref name="Okkupation"/> In March 1943 he announced the merger of the Kraków and Galicia districts, and the split of the Warsaw district between the Radom district and the Lublin district.<ref name="Okkupation"/> (The latter acquired a special status of "Germandom district", ''Deutschtumsdistrikt'', as a "test run" of the Germanization according to the ''[[Generalplan Ost]]''.<ref>Frank Uekötter, "The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany", 2006, {{ISBN|0521612772}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=q-LavK2QaMcC&pg=PA158 pp. 158-159]</ref>) The restructuring further involved the changing of Warsaw and Kraków into separate city-districts (''Stadtdistrikte''), with Warsaw under the direct control of the General Government. This decree was to go into effect on 1 April 1943 and was nominally accepted by Heinrich Himmler, but [[Martin Bormann]] opposed the move, as he simply wanted to see the region turned into ''Reichsgaue'' (Germany proper). [[Wilhelm Frick]] and [[Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger]] were also skeptic about the usefulness of this reorganization, resulting in its abolition after subsequent discussions between Himmler and Frank.<ref name="Okkupation"/>

==Demographics==
The General Government was inhabited by 11.4&nbsp;million people in December 1939. A year later the population increased to 12.1&nbsp;million. In December 1940, 83.3% of the population were Poles, 11.2% Jews, 4.4% Ukrainians and Belarusians, 0.9% Germans, and 0.2% others.<ref>Włodzimierz Bonusiak. ''Polska podczas II wojny światowej'' (Poland during II World War). Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego. 2003. p.68.</ref> About 860,000 Poles and Jews were resettled into the General Government after they were expelled from the territories 'annexed' by Nazi Germany. Offsetting this was the German genocidal campaign of liquidation of the Polish intelligentsia and other elements considered likely to resist. From 1941 disease and hunger also began to reduce the population.

Poles were also deported in large numbers to work as forced labor in Germany: eventually about a million were deported, of whom many died in Germany. In 1940 the population was segregated into different groups. Each group had different rights, food rations, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation and restricted restaurants. They were divided from the most privileged, to the least.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin:0 0.5em 0.5em 1em; font-size:90%"
|+ Distribution of food in General Government as of December, 1941&nbsp;<ref>Madajczyk 1970, p.226, volume 2.</ref>
!Nationality
!Daily food energy intake
|-
| Germans
| {{cvt|2310|Cal}}
|-
| Foreigners
| {{cvt|1790|Cal}}
|-
| Ukrainians
| {{cvt|930|Cal}}
|-
| Poles
| {{cvt|654|Cal}}
|-
| Jews
| {{cvt|184|Cal}}
|}
#Germans from Germany (''Reichdeutsche''),
#Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, Volksliste category 1 and 2 (see [[Volksdeutsche]]).
#Germans from outside, passive Germans and members of families (this group also included some ethnic Poles), Volksliste category 3 and 4,
#Ukrainians,
#Highlanders (''[[Goralenvolk]]'') – an attempt to split the Polish nation by using local collaborators
#Poles (partially exterminated),{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}
#[[Romani people]] (eventually largely [[Porajmos|exterminated]] as a category),
#Jews (eventually largely [[Holocaust|exterminated]] as a category).

==Economics==
{{Further|Baudienst|Forced labor in Germany during World War II}}

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, Jews over the age of 12 and Poles over the age of 14 living in the General Government were subject to forced labor.<ref name="Majer2">Majer (2003), p.302</ref> Many Poles from other regions of Poland conquered by Germany were expelled to the General Government and the area was used as a slave labour pool from which men and women taken by force to work as laborers in factories and farms in Germany.<ref name="Germany"/> In 1942, all non-Germans living in the General Government were subject to forced labor.<ref name="Majer303">Majer (2003), p.303</ref>

Parts of Warsaw and several towns ([[Bombing of Wieluń|Wieluń]], [[Sulejów]], [[Bombing of Frampol|Frampol]]) were destroyed during the Polish-German war in September 1939. Poles weren't able to buy any construction materials to reconstruct their houses or businesses. They lost their savings and GG currency, nicknamed "[[Młynarki]]", was managed by German-controlled [[Bank Emisyjny w Polsce]].
[[File:500 zł 1940 awers.jpg|thumb|180x180px|So-called "Góral"- 500 złoty banknote used in the territories of the GG]]

Former Polish state property was confiscated by the General Government (or by Nazi Germany in the annexed territories). Notable property of Polish individuals (ex. factories and large land estates) was often confiscated as well and managed by German "trusts" ({{langx|de|Treuhänder}}). Jewish population was deported to the [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|Ghettos]], their dwelling and businesses were confiscated by the Germans, small businesses were sometimes passed to the Poles.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/term/541,treuh-nder/ |title=Treuhänder - Glossary - Virtual Shtetl |access-date=2016-06-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160806002108/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/term/541,treuh-nder/ |archive-date=2016-08-06}}</ref>
Farmers were required to provide large food contingents for the Germans, and there were plans for nationalization of all but the smallest estates.

German administration implemented a system of exploitation of Jewish and Polish people, which included high taxes.<ref>Götz Aly, ''Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State''</ref>

== Food supply ==
While scholars debate whether from September 1939 to June 1941 the mass-starvation of the Jewish people of Europe was an attempt to conduct mass murder, it is agreed upon that this starvation did kill a large amount of this population.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sinnreich |first=Helene Julia |date=May 2004 |title=The Supply and Distribution of Food to the Łódź Ghetto- A Case Study in Nazi Jewish Policy, 1939 -1945 |journal=ProQuest |pages=56 |id={{ProQuest|305208240}}}}</ref> There was a shift in the amount of resources that were being used by the Generalgouvernement from 1939 to 1940. For example, in 1939, seven million tons of coal were used but in 1940 this was reduced to four million tons of coal used by the Generalgouvernement. This shift was emblematic of the shortages in supplies, depriving the Jews and Poles of their only heating source. Although before the war, Poland exported mass quantities of food, in 1940 the Generalgouvernement was unable to supply enough food for the country, nonetheless exporting food supplies.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Polish Society Under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement: 1939-1944 |last=Gross |first=Jan Tomasz |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1979 |isbn=0691093814 |location=Princeton, New Jersey |pages=92}}</ref> In December 1939, the Polish and Jewish reception committees, as well as the native local officials, all within the Generalgouvernement, were responsible for providing food and shelter to the Poles and Jews that evacuated. In the expulsion process, the help provided to the evacuated Poles and Jews by the Generalgouvernement was considered a weak branch of the overall process.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Rutherford |first=Phillip |date=2003 |jstor=4547300 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=254 |title="Absolute Organizational Deficiency": The 1.Nahplan of December 1939 (Logistics, Limitations, and Lessons) |journal=Central European History |doi=10.1163/156916103770866130 |s2cid=145343274|issn = 0008-9389 }}</ref> Throughout 1939, the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn|Reichsbahn]] was responsible for many of the other important tasks including the deportations of Poles and Jews to concentration camps as well as the delivery of food and raw materials to different places.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rutherford |first=Phillip |date=2003 |title="Absolute Organizational Deficiency": The 1.Nahplan of December 1939 (Logistics, Limitations, and Lessons) |jstor=4547300 |journal=Central European History |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=248 |doi=10.1163/156916103770866130 |s2cid=145343274}}</ref> In December 1940, 87,833 Poles and Jews were deported which added stress to different administrations which were now responsible for these deportees. During the deportations, people were forced to reside on the trains for days until a place was found for them to stay. Between the cold and lack of food, masses of deportees died due to transport deaths caused by malnutrition, cold, and moreover unlivable transportation conditions.<ref name=":0"/>

The prices for food outside of ghettos and concentration camps had to be set at a reasonable price in order for them to align with the [[black market in Poland|black market]]; setting prices at a reasonable rate would ensure that farmers did not sell their crops illegally. If the prices were set too high in cities there was a concern that workers would not be able to afford the food and protest the prices. Due to the price inflation which was occurring in the Generalgouvernement, many places relied on the [[Barter|barter system]] (exchanging goods for other goods instead of money). "Introducing rationing in September 1940, [[Marshal Petain]] insisted that ‘everyone must assume their share of common hardship.’"<ref name=":1" /> There was clearly food instability not only in the ghettos, but also in cities, which caused everyone to be conscious about food rationing, and caused conditions for Jewish people to worsen. While workers in Norway and France protested the new rationing of food, Germany and the UK, where the citizens supported war efforts were more supportive of the rationing therefore it was more effective. Cases, where a country was being occupied, caused the citizens to be more hesitant about the rationing of food and it was overall not as effective.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe |last=Mazower |first=Mark |publisher=The Penguin Press |year=2008 |isbn=9780713996814 |location=London, UK |pages=277–279}}</ref> In December, 1941 it was recognized by the Generalgouvernement that starving the Jewish people to death was an inexpensive and expedient solution. In August 1942, the required food shipments from the General Government to the Reich were increased and decided that the 1.2 million Jews that were not completing jobs that were "important to Germany" would no longer be given food.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Polish Society Under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement: 1939-1944 |last=Gross |first=Jan Tomasz |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1979 |isbn=0691093814 |location=Princeton, New Jersey |pages=102}}</ref> The Nazis knew the effects of depriving the Jewish people of food, yet it continued; the ultimate revolt against the Jewish race was mass murder due to starvation. The Food and Agriculture Ministry administered the rations of food in concentration camps.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sinnreich |first=Helene Julia |date=May 2004 |title=The Supply and Distribution of Food to the Łódź Ghetto- A Case Study in Nazi Jewish Policy, 1939 -1945 |journal=ProQuest |pages=vii |id={{ProQuest|305208240}}}}</ref> Each camp's administration got food from the open market and depots of the [[Waffen-SS]] (Standartenführer Tschentscher). Once the food arrived at a camp, it was up to the administration how to distribute it. The diet for the Jews in these camps was "watery turnip soup drunk from pots; it was supplemented by an evening meal of sawdust bread with some margarine, ‘smelly marmalade,’ or ‘putrid sausage.’ Between the two meals inmates attempted to lap a few drops of polluted water from the faucet in a wash barracks."<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Destruction of the European Jews |last=Hilberg |first=Raul |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2003 |location=New Haven, Connecticut |pages=581–582}}</ref>

=== Black market ===
During this environment of food scarcity Jews turned to the black market for any source of sustenance. The [[black market]] was important both in and outside of the ghettos from 1940 to 1944. Outside of the ghettos, the black market existed because rations were not high enough for the citizens to remain healthy. In the ghettos of eastern Europe in August 1941 the Jewish population recognized that if they were forced to remain in these ghettos they would eventually die of hunger. Many people that were in ghettos made trades with the outside world in order to stay alive.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |title=Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe |last=Mazower |first=Mark |publisher=The Penguin Press |year=2008 |isbn=9780713996814 |location=London, UK |pages=279}}</ref> Jewish people were forced to reside in ghettos, where the economy was isolated and there were large food shortages, which caused them to be seen as a source for cheap labor; many were given food that was purchased on the Aryan side of the wall in exchange for their labor. The isolation of the people forced into ghettos caused there to be a disconnect between the buyer and seller, which added in another player: the black market middleman. The black market middleman would make a profit by creating connections between sellers and buyers. While supply and demand was [[Inelastic supply|inelastic]] in these ghettos, the selling of this food on the blackmarket was extremely competitive, and beyond the reach of most Jews in ghettos.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Polish Society Under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement: 1939-1944 |last=Gross |first=Jan Tomasz |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1979 |isbn=0691093814 |location=Princeton, New Jersey |pages=111–112}}</ref>

==Resistance==
{{unreferenced section|date=May 2018}}
{{Main|Polish resistance movement in World War II}}
Resistance to the German occupation began almost at once, although there is little terrain in Poland suitable for [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla operations]]. Several small army troops supported by volunteers fought till Spring 1940, e.g. under major [[Henryk Dobrzański]], after which they ceased due to German executions of civilians as reprisals.
[[File:Flaga PPP.svg|thumb|200px|Flag of the [[Home Army]]]]

The main resistance force was the [[Home Army]] (in Polish: ''Armia Krajowa'' or ''AK''), loyal to the [[Polish government in exile]] in London. It was formed mainly of the surviving remnants of the pre-War [[Polish Army]], together with many volunteers. Other forces existed side-by-side, such as the communist [[People's Army (Poland)|People's Army]] ''(Armia Ludowa'' or AL) parallel to the PPR, organized and controlled by the Soviet Union. The AK was estimated between 200,000 and 600,000 men, while the AL was estimated between 14,000 and 60,000.

German repressions in 1942-43 caused the [[Zamość uprising]].
[[File:German announcement General Government Poland 1941.jpg|thumb|250px| German announcement of the execution of 9 Polish peasants for unfurnished contingents (quotas). Signed by the governor of [[Lublin]] district on 25 November 1941]]

In April 1943 the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from the [[Warsaw Ghetto]], provoking the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]], April 19 to May. 16 That was the first armed uprising against the Germans in Poland, and prefigured the larger and longer [[Warsaw Uprising]] of 1944.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}}

In July 1944, as the Soviet armed forces approached Warsaw, the government in exile called for an uprising in the city, so that they could return to a liberated Warsaw and try to prevent a Communist take-over. The AK, led by [[Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski]], launched the [[Warsaw Rising]] on August 1 in response both to their government and to Soviet and [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] promises of help. However Soviet help was never forthcoming, despite the Soviet army being only 18 miles (30&nbsp;km) away, and Soviet denial of their airbases to British and American planes prevented any effective resupply or air support of the insurgents by the Western allies. They used distant Italian bases in their [[Warsaw airlift]] instead. After 63 days of fighting the leaders of the rising agreed a conditional surrender with the [[Wehrmacht]]. The 15,000 remaining Home Army soldiers were granted POW status (prior to the agreement, captured rebels were shot), and the remaining civilian population of 180,000 expelled.

==Education==
{{Main|Education in Poland during World War II|Secret Teaching Organization}}

All universities in GG were disbanded, many Kraków professors imprisoned during the ''[[Sonderaktion Krakau]]''.

==Culture of Poland==

Germans plundered Polish museums. Many of the pieces of art perished.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://culture.pl/en/article/22-precious-works-of-art-that-vanished-during-world-war-ii |title=22 Precious Works of Art That Vanished During World War II |access-date=2019-05-17 |archive-date=2019-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190517091547/https://culture.pl/en/article/22-precious-works-of-art-that-vanished-during-world-war-ii |url-status=live }}</ref> Germans burned a number of Warsaw libraries, including the [[National Library of Poland]], destroying about 3.6&nbsp;million volumes.<ref>{{cite book |author1=various authors |author2=Tomasz Balcerzak |author3-link=Lech Kaczyński |author3=Lech Kaczyński |editor1=Tomasz Balcerzak |others=transl. Philip Earl Steele |title=Pro memoria: Warszawskie biblioteki naukowe w latach okupacji 1939-1945 |year=2004 |publisher=Biblioteka Narodowa |location=Warsaw |pages=4}}</ref>

== German sport ==
[[Hans Frank]] was an avid chess player, so he organized [[General Government chess tournament]]s. Only Germans were allowed to perform in sporting events. About 80 football clubs played in [[Gauliga Generalgouvernement|four district divisions]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://rfbl.pl/polsko-niemiecka-historia-pilki-czyli-powrot-do-przeszlosci/ |title=Polsko-niemiecka historia piłki, czyli powrót do przeszłości |date=2015-12-27 |access-date=2018-05-25 |archive-date=2018-05-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180525204719/http://rfbl.pl/polsko-niemiecka-historia-pilki-czyli-powrot-do-przeszlosci/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

==The Holocaust==
{{main|The Holocaust in Poland}}
[[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG|thumb|260px|Nazi extermination camps in [[occupied Poland]], marked with black and white skulls. General Government in beige. Death camp at [[Auschwitz]] (lower left) in the neighbouring new German ''Provinz Oberschlesien'']]During the [[Wannsee conference]] on January 20, 1942, the State Secretary of the General Government, ''[[SS-Brigadeführer]]'' [[Josef Bühler]] encouraged [[Reinhard Heydrich|Heydrich]] to implement the "[[Final Solution]]". From his own point of view, as an administrative official, the problems in his district included an overdeveloped black market. He endorsed a remedy in solving the "Jewish question" as fast as possible. An additional point in favor of setting up the extermination facilities in his governorate was that there were no transportation problems there,<ref name="upenn-eichmann">{{Cite web |url=http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/wansee-transcript.html |access-date=2009-01-05 |title=The Wannsee Conference Protocol |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |author=[[Adolf Eichmann]] |others=Dan Rogers (translator) |archive-date=2019-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190515091325/http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/wansee-transcript.html |url-status=live }}</ref> since all assets of the disbanded [[Polish State Railways#History|Polish State Railways]] (PKP) were being managed by ''[[Ostbahn (General Government)|Ostbahn]]'', the Kraków-based ''[[Deutsche Reichsbahn]]'' branch of the ''Generaldirektion der Ostbahn'' ("General Directorate of Eastern Railways", '''Gedob'''). This made a [[Holocaust trains|network of death trains]] readily available to the ''[[SS-Totenkopfverbände]]''.<ref name="Wasilewski">{{cite web |url=http://old.pkp.pl/node/178 |title=25 września. Wcielenie kolei polskich na Śląsku, w Wielkopolsce i na Pomorzu do niemieckich kolei państwowych Deutsche Reichsbahn. |publisher=[[Polskie Koleje Państwowe]] PKP |year=2014 |access-date=8 February 2014 |author=Jerzy Wasilewski |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140208175309/http://old.pkp.pl/node/178 |archive-date=8 February 2014}}</ref>

{{main|Operation Reinhard}}
The newly drafted [[Operation Reinhard]] would be a major step in the systematic liquidation of the Jews in occupied Europe, beginning with those in the General Government. Within months, three top-secret camps were built and equipped with stationary gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, based on [[Action T4]], solely to efficiently kill thousands of people each day. The Germans began the [[Holocaust|elimination of the Jewish population]] under the guise of "resettlement" in spring of 1942. The three Reinhard camps including [[Treblinka]] (the deadliest of them all) had transferable SS staff and almost identical design. The General Government was the location of four of the seven [[extermination camp]]s of World War II in which the most extreme measures of [[the Holocaust]] were carried out, including closely located [[Majdanek concentration camp]], [[Sobibor extermination camp]] and [[Belzec extermination camp]]. The [[genocide]] of undesired "[[Race (classification of human beings)|races]]", chiefly millions of Jews from Poland and other countries, was carried out by gassing between 1942 and 1944.<ref name="Arad">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/belzecsobibortre00yitz |url-access=registration |quote=Belzec. |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps |first=Yitzhak |last=Arad |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |publisher=Indiana University Press |orig-year=1987 |year=1999 |isbn=0253213053 |id={{ASIN|0253213053 |country=uk}} |via=Internet Archive |page=[https://archive.org/details/belzecsobibortre00yitz/page/37 37]}}</ref>

== Punishments ==
*[[Hans Frank]] instituted a reign of terror against the civilian population<ref>{{cite web |title=Holocaust Encyclopedia: Hans Frank |website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007108 |access-date=18 April 2016 |archive-date=7 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507152733/https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007108 |url-status=live }}</ref> and became directly involved in the mass murder of Jews. At the [[Nuremberg trials]], he was found guilty of [[war crime]]s and [[crimes against humanity]] and was executed. His secretaries, [[Arthur Seyss-Inquart]] and [[Josef Bühler]], were executed in Nuremberg and Poland, respectively.
*[[Ludwig Fischer]] was a governor of the Warsaw District. He was sentenced and hanged in Warsaw.
*[[Ernst Kundt]] was a governor of the Radom District. He was sentenced and hanged in Czechoslovakia.

==Gallery==
<gallery class="center">
File:The_Wall_of_ghetto_in_Warsaw_-_Building_on_Nazi-German_order_August_1940.jpg|The wall of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] being built under the orders of Dr. Ludwig
File:Bundesarchiv N 1576 Bild-003, Warschau, Bettelnde Kinder.jpg|The Warsaw Ghetto (1940–1943)
File:Afisz-kara śmierci za pomoc Żydom.jpg|Announcement by the Chief of [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] and Police 5.09.1942—Death penalty for Poles offering any help to Jews
File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 06b.jpg|[[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]], April 1943: Jews being held at gunpoint by [[SS]] troops (from a report written by [[Jürgen Stroop]] for [[Heinrich Himmler]])
File:Poles, inmates of Pawiak prison, hanged by Germans in Leszno Street , Warsaw February_11th_1944.jpg|Polish inmates of [[Pawiak]] prison hanged by Germans in Leszno Street, Warsaw, February 11, 1944 (photo taken secretly from tram by a member of the Polish [[Armia Krajowa|Home Army]])
File:Powstanie warszawskie patrol.jpg|[[Warsaw Uprising]]: Polish soldiers in action, August 1, 1944
File:Polish civilians murdered by German-SS-troops in Warsaw Uprising Warsaw August 1944.jpg|Polish civilians murdered by [[SS]] troops during the [[Warsaw Uprising]], August 1944
File:Destroyed Warsaw, capital of Poland, January 1945 - version 2.jpg|Aerial view of the city of Warsaw, January 1945
File:Raphael missing.jpg|''[[Portrait of a Young Man (Raphael, formerly Kraków)|Portrait of a Young Man]]'' by [[Raphael]], stolen at the behest of Hans Frank in 1939 and never returned; one of over 40,000 works of art robbed from Polish collections
File:Polish Hostages preparing in Palmiry by Nazi-Germans for mass execution 2.jpg|Polish hostages being blindfolded during preparations for their [[Palmiry massacre|mass execution in Palmiry]], 1940
File:The Bochnia massacre German-occupied Poland 1939.jpg|A mass execution of Poles in [[Bochnia]], December 18, 1939
File:Warsaw Uprising 12345.jpg|The Warsaw Uprising, 1944
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[Areas annexed by Nazi Germany]]
*[[Chronicles of Terror]]
*[[Ernst Lerch]]
*[[German camps in occupied Poland during World War II]]
*[[Gestapo-NKVD Conferences]]
*[[Money transfers in the Generalgouvernement]]
*[[Postal communication in the General Government]]
*[[World War II evacuation and expulsion]]
*[[West Galicia]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}
:a. {{Note|a-RKF}} The RKF (also RKFDV) stands for the ''Reichskommissar für die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums'', or the [[Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood]], an office in Nazi Germany held by ''Reichsführer-SS'' [[Heinrich Himmler]]. Meanwhile, the HTO stands for ''[[Haupttreuhandstelle Ost]]'', or the Main Trustee Office for the East, a Nazi German predatory institution responsible for liquidating Polish and Jewish businesses across [[occupied Poland]]; and selling them off for profit mainly to the [[SS]], or the German ''[[Volksdeutsche]]'' and war-profiteers if interested. The HTO was created and headed by Nazi potentate ''[[Reichsmarschall]]'' [[Hermann Göring]].<ref name="Sikora">Mirosław Sikora (16 September 2009), [http://www.radiomaryja.pl/informacje/aktion-saybusch-na-zywiecczyznie/ "Aktion Saybusch" na Żywiecczyźnie.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924084615/http://www.radiomaryja.pl/informacje/aktion-saybusch-na-zywiecczyznie/ |date=2015-09-24 }} Regional branch of the [[Institute of National Remembrance]] IPN Katowice. Reprint. Retrieved 24 August 2015.</ref>

==Citations==
<references />

==References==
{{Commons category|General Government}}
*Kochanski, Halik. ''The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War'' (2012)
*Mędykowski, Witold Wojciech. ''Macht Arbeit Frei?: German Economic Policy and Forced Labor of Jews in the General Government, 1939-1943'' (2018)
*[http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206246.pdf?WT.mc_id=wiki Generalgouvernement] on the [[Yad Vashem]] website
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20021023143916/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/franktest.html Testimony of Frank at Nuremberg], examined by his defense attorney, Dr. Alfred Seidl, 4/18/1946.
*[http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/cou/pol/ww2p-gg.html General Government] NAZI occupied Poland, the CIH World War II Pages. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
*[http://www.chroniclesofterror.pl/dlibra Collections of civilian testimonies from Nazi-occupied Poland in testimony database "Chronicles of Terror"]

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |last1=Mędykowski |first1=Witold W. |title=Macht Arbeit Frei?: German Economic Policy and Forced Labor of Jews in the General Government, 1939-1943 |date=2018 |isbn=9781618119568 |location=Boston |publisher=[[Academic Studies Press]] |url=https://www.academicstudiespress.com/browse-catalog/macht-arbeit-frei |format=pdf |series=Jews of Poland |access-date=2019-02-01 |archive-date=2019-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190201120038/https://www.academicstudiespress.com/browse-catalog/macht-arbeit-frei |url-status=dead}} {{open access}}

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[[Category:General Government| ]]
[[Category:German occupation of Poland during World War II]]
[[Category:Nazi colonies in Eastern Europe]]
[[Category:World War II occupied territories]]
[[Category:Ukraine in World War II]]
[[Category:Jewish Polish history]]
[[Category:Jewish Ukrainian history]]
[[Category:The Holocaust in Poland]]
[[Category:Poland in World War II]]
[[Category:History of Ukraine (1918–1991)]]
[[Category:States and territories established in 1939]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1945]]
[[Category:1939 establishments in Poland]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Poland]]
[[Category:1939 establishments in Ukraine]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Ukraine]]
[[Category:People from wartime administrations in Poland (1939–1947)]]