The German Fifth Column in the Second World War by Louis De Jong

Author:Louis De Jong [Jong, Louis De]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, General
ISBN: 9781000008098
Google: RM6gDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-03T01:36:32+00:00

How many Reichsdeutschen and Volksdeutschen were involved, all told, in the operations described above, is not known. It must have been a few thousands at least. Taking the nature of those operations into consideration, that is a high figure and evidence of extensive activity. No German data, however, have been made known that conflict with the view that the large majority of the Reichsdeutschen and Volksdeutschen living in Poland played a passive part up to the arrival of the German troops.

Many of the Fifth Column phenomena observed by the Poles, which we sketched in Chapter I, tally with the secret operations which, as has now been proved from German sources, were indeed planned and carried out.

The Polish sources, however, also mention other operations, such as the following:

The Volksdeutschen put marks on their roofs, painted chimneys in special colours, placed their hay-ricks in a strange way, mowed their grass ‘according to design’ and stamped or ploughed figures in the soil—all of which was done with a view to making pre-arranged signals to the German armed forces, more particularly for the air force.

The Volksdeutschen showed the German air force the way by leaving on the lights in their houses, by letting light shine up through the chimneys, by striking matches, or by making signals with smoke, mirrors or white material.

The Volksdeutschen made themselves known to each other as agents by means of special buttons, sweaters or scarves.

The Volksdeutschen carried out espionage while disguised as priests and monks.

1 Information supplied by General Franz Halder, chief-of-staff of the German army’s general staff, 1939–42.

The Volksdeutschen kept in touch with the German troops by means of numerous secret transmitters, some of them concealed in hollow trees or graves, others so small that they fitted into a box not much larger than a match-box.

Proof is lacking that these observations, reported by the Poles, actually derived from the actions of Volksdeutsche who were in some sort of way connected with German military operations. One can look for such proof in vain in the publication The German Fifth Column in Poland, from which we quoted many similar observations. The value of that publication as an historical source is debatable. At least 500 statements were collected for it,1 only 109 of which were printed, most of them in fragmentary form. The statements in question look reliable, in that the witnesses who give their opinions seem in fact to have stated what they saw with their own eyes or heard with their own ears. But it is a remarkable fact that there is no proven or even clear connection with the German military operations for many of the reported observations.

1 Statement no. 512 is quoted on p. 58.

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