In terms of housing the District has suffered greatly from the impacts of the war. Even before the war there had been a severe shortage of small apartments in the former Polish state; but the additional destruction of housing facilities in the course of the war has rendered the situation quite intolerable. Of the 20,650 buildings in the city precinct of Warsaw before the war, some 2,200, or 10.6%, were completely destroyed; 8,740, or 41%, were partially or extensively damaged, or gutted by fire; and another 30% sustained slight damage.

View of Ostrow.

Preliminary surveys of the housing situation have shown that an average of 20% of pre-war building totals were also destroyed in the other nine county precincts of the District. Several towns in the county precincts of Warsaw (rural), Garwolin, Minsk, Ostrow, Sochaczew and Lowitsch are completely destroyed or severely damaged. The resultant overpopulation of the remaining residential buildings has brought about a great deterioration in the structural and sanitary conditions of these accommodations.

Street in Grojec.

On the other hand, studies have shown that more than 3,000 residential buildings have been privately repaired and more than 2,700 reconstructed by their owners with private funds. As well, building projects in Cracow have been financially assisted by government construction loans to promote the adequate accommodation of German officials, employees and other persons. At first, a number of officials from the Reich who had been entrusted with the initial rudimentary development of the administrative network could only be accommodated in temporary shelters or even in their offices, but as work was completed on the already partially constructed residential buildings the situation improved considerably. With the assistance of the first construction loan of 2 million zloty, provided by the government through a "residential building fund", more than 500 rooms outfitted with all the conveniences of our modern age were financed and furnished in the District of Warsaw for the officials, employees and other personnel of the German administration. These residential buildings, which were given a German architectural appearance as far as was possible within the constraints of the prevailing situation, are not only commensurate with the dignity of German international standing but have also contributed greatly to raising morale.

Aside from the most immediate program for accelerated completion of already partially constructed buildings, German housing policies had to undertake the construction of extensive new housing developments to create more living space in the newly won regions. In this regard the German administration was left with a sad legacy indeed.

As history shows, Poland has never been capable of structuring its territory in a practical and sensible way on its own initiative but rather has subsisted chiefly on the fruits of the German pioneer labors which had begun with the vigorous eastward-directed policies of the first German Emperors, were perpetuated systematically by the Teutonic Order in the early 13th century, and were given their last expansion and transmission by the powerful league of the Hanseatic towns. The Polish have not been able to develop their own methods for the establishment and expansion of a city or the shaping of their countryside because they do not have that quality which is vital for a uniquely national development of a settlement frontier: a conscious national tradition with close ties to their ancestral soil. Polish state leadership also lacked an understanding of the goals of a national sense of community. And this is why there is no characteristic "Polish living space" which might serve as the basis for a healthy national existence. The few "cities" in the East, the focal point of whose layout is usually a market square or a church, reveal a predominantly German planning impetus, and their great architectural monuments were created by German artists. Beyond that, the haphazard development of Polish cities, which as a rule have no discernible growth zones or building alignment or any segregation of residential, business and industrial sectors, shows an absence of any kind of organic unity.

This is why the system of Polish mismanagement abandoned the greatest part of the buildings to their fate, with no regard for the needs of their inhabitants.

Disorganized, unrestrained and muddled agricultural policies on the one hand, and unthought-out agglomerations of industrial facilities destructive of the countryside's natural beauty on the other, had combined to result in an uneven distribution of the population, resulting in turn in a terrible shortage of housing.

Polish laborers' settlement.

Measures for the social care of the labor force, which had been quartered in strung-out groups of cottages and squalid shacks, were a concept quite alien to the Polish state. The lack of funding therefore also precluded any sort of settlement expansion. In Warsaw, there are only the housing development of Kolo (65 residential buildings, with 1,030 apartments, and 1 large communal building) in the west and the housing development of Grochow (40 buildings, with 640 apartments) in the east. These had been built by the Society for the Construction of Workers' Housing Estates (Towarzystwo Osiedli Robotniczych) between 1934 and 1938. The overall layout is that of hive-like mass quarters. Individual apartments consist, on average, of 1 or 2 rooms.

Apartment building typical of the former Polish row housing developments.

The common room contains a small kitchenette. 9 to 15 apartments must share one bathroom as well as laundry facilities. Since Polish working-class families tend to be very large, an average of 3 to 5 persons share each room.

Besides being incapable of creating healthy residential facilities in the cities, the Polish have also shown no sense of consonance between houses and the landscape in their settlement of the rural areas. Square houses with ugly flat roofs giving them the appearance of matchboxes lying flat or perched on edge are scattered randomly along the roadside or stand off somewhere in the middle of a field – anomalies in the misunderstood countryside. In other areas, rows of houses line the road for miles, devoid of any central focus or coherence, and are not only repulsive in appearance but usually also lack sewers and plumbing. In these scattered settlements as well, the Poles, in their careless jumbling of wildly different architectural styles, have not only betrayed a lack of independent creative thought and perpetrated a violation of tasteful architectural practice (if there can even be any mention of such a thing in context), they have also utterly failed to recognize the needs and common interests of the inhabitants with respect to sanitation.

This is why settlement in the East is not merely a technical matter but rather a question of the cultural development of a German community. And with that, the task is set: the development of an internally well-ordered community competent in colonial matters, established in a "German Residential Quarter" (urban) or "Settlement Region" (rural). Bearing in mind the atrocious Polish conditions described previously, it is clear that there is no model here for us to adhere to in the development of a German town or the establishment of a German settlement. All efforts will be in completely new and unfamiliar territory. Besides the extensive responsibilities of urban planning and housing policies, the configuration of the German sphere of settlement also entails thorough studies of population policy, a detailed examination of ground conditions, consideration of the commercial and industrial enterprises, landscape and economic planning, the drawing up of building and development plans, the delimitation of administrative jurisdiction and political units, the development of farmsteads and the establishment of roads. Accomplishing all these tasks will require not only the co-operation of the professional experts directly involved but also the active, enthusiastic participation of each and every national comrade serving here in the East.

The hostilities which broke out in the East in June of 1941, and the ensuing demand for construction materials (iron, lumber, cement etc.) at the front, have resulted in a ban on the construction of all buildings not vital to the conduct of the war. This temporary suspension of building activity has been used to plan future construction programs for the individual counties. To provide decent accommodations for all Germans in the District, more than 2,000 new buildings will be erected in the next few years. Their construction presents considerable challenges to urban planning, since these building projects are to be rationally and intelligently integrated into the future German residential quarters of the county seats. The German Residential and Settlement Company Inc. of Warsaw has been commissioned with the construction of these new buildings. To ensure uniform residential and settlement policy, this company has been chosen by the government as the bearer of sole responsibility for the creation of all new residential facilities and of all German settlements.

Sketch of a County Administrator's Headquarters. (Reminiscent of the style used by the Teutonic Order.)

In a break with the tradition of earlier days, the focal point of the new residential or settlement region will not be a church and market square; rather, this role will be assumed by the headquarters of the County Administrator, the sovereign representative of the Party as well as of the uniformly integrated German community. A large Square lined with trees or a strip of lawn in front of the Head Administrative Center will serve as site of public announcements or the mustering of troops.

Model of a future German residential section (planned for county precinct Sochaczew).

The Square will be surrounded by a number of public buildings. The individual German settlement buildings, with gardens whose size will be determined by the degree of need for them, will be grouped around and outwards from the building of the County Administrator. Schools, the HJ and BDM^* Centers, and sports facilities will be located near the German Residential Section, while businesses will open their doors to the world in a different part of town.

Some distance away from the German center of the new city, the Polish will have a residential quarter of their own. This is expressive of the sense that the Polish are separate and distinct from German life and lifestyle; as well, it will ensure that they can be readily called in to useful employment whenever the need arises.

Once all the land surveying has been completed, and as soon as the ban on construction is lifted, the creation of German residential sections and settlements will immediately begin in all counties of the District.

Future German homesteads.

In these German establishments and settlements, ethnic Germans as well as Germans from the Reich will no longer feel that they are in a foreign country, but rather as though they were at home in their own nation.

At the same time, however, these German residential regions will be a cultural act and statement of Germanness which, in contrast to the tasteless and uncultured architectural style of the Polish state, will create an architecturally pleasing, modern living environment in accordance with the spirit of National Socialism, and which – like the castles of the Teutonic Knights or the Hanseatic trading centers of days gone by – will bear witness to the flowering of National Socialism for centuries to come.

^*[Trans. note:] HJ = Hitler-Jugend, "Hitler Youth", a National Socialist youth organization. Established in 1926 and made mandatory in 1939, the aim of this organization was to provide National Socialist political education and pre-military training for all German boys and young men.
      BDM = Bund Deutscher Mädchen, "League of German Girls", the girls' counterpart to the "Hitler Youth". ...back...

Warsaw Under German Rule
German Reconstruction and Development in the District of Warsaw