This paper by CES Graduate Student Affiliate Nikolas Weyland investigates the complications that the WWII-era Gestapo encountered in handling denunciations leveled against residents of the German Ruhr region with Polish family roots for allegedly displaying loyalties to Poland. The Ruhr, Germany’s most important industrial region, had become home to tens-of-thousands of Polish-speaking German citizens and their families during the years of the German Empire. Weyland's research suggests that many residents of the Ruhr attempted to manipulate the Gestapo's presumed interest in punishing “pro-Polish” behavior and therefore regularly employed this category of alterity in denunciations—yet in doing so, they often pursued petty personal vendettas. Suspecting such misuse, Gestapo officers were surprisingly discerning in adjudicating accusations of “Polenfreundlichkeit” (friendliness to Poland) and often sought to distinguish “actual” ethnic threats from ulterior motives. Thus, paradoxically, the unprecedented control exercised by the Nazi state over the lives of everyday residents, which induced people to misuse the Gestapo in personal conflicts, drew this Nazi institution into frequent morasses and ultimately hindered its efforts at control.
The Graduate Student Research Workshop is a seminar for graduate students at Harvard University and MIT to present their research to peers and faculty with an interest in European studies. This student-run, student-centered workshop welcomes presenters at any stage of their research from any social science discipline.
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