Background
Werner Lorenz was born Grünhof (now in Gmina Postomino, Sławno County) near Stolp, Pomerania. His father was a forest warden.
Werner Lorenz was born Grünhof (now in Gmina Postomino, Sławno County) near Stolp, Pomerania. His father was a forest warden.
In 1909 Lorenz went to Military school.
He served in World War I first as a cavalry officer then as a pilot in the Luftstreitkräfte.
A cadet officer and air corps pilot in the Imperial army, Lorenz joined the Freikorps after World War I and was an early adherent of the NSDAP.
Independently wealthy with large industrial interests and an estate in Danzig Free State, Lorenz was a traditional nationalist with the reputation of a bon viveur. He entered the SS in January 1931 and two years later was elected a member of the Prussian legislature. On 12 November 1933 he became a deputy of the Reichstag for the district of East Prussia. From 1934 to 1937 Lorenz was Commander of SS-Oberabschnitt "Northwest" in Hamburg. From 1937 to 1945 he was head of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, an office charged with defending the welfare of German nationals living abroad. Completely under the control of the SS, it considered Germans in foreign countries as biologically linked with those in the Third Reich.
The office exploited fifth-column techniques, playing an important part in preparations for the Anschluss and aided Konrad Henlein during the Sudeten crisis. During World War II it had a considerable role in the transportation or ‘resettlement' of Germans in Poland, the Baltic States and the USSR to the Greater Reich. At the same time it sought toGermanize Poles and other foreign nationals who came under its protection. Many such foreigners found themselves obliged to fight in the ranks of the Waffen-SS for the glory of the Third Reich.
The VOMI was eventually merged with the Central Office for Race and Resettlement to form the Reich Office for the Consolidation of German Nationhood. As head of the resettlement staff with the Reich Commissioner for Germanization and in charge of the International Relations Division in the SS Central Depart¬ment, Lorenz was the chief executive in Himmler’s drive to absorb ‘racial Germans’ into the Reich and extend SS power in the occupied territories. Promoted to SS-Obergruppenfuhrer in 1943, Lorenz was a power-seeker, whose record was nonetheless marginally better than some of his contemporaries when it came to the treatment of subject peoples in Nazi-controlled territory. On 10 March 1948 Lorenz was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment as a war criminal. The sentence was subsequently reduced and, following an amnesty, he was released early in 1955.
Werner Lorenz died on 13 May 1974.
In 1929 Lorenz joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1931. Two years later he had an active political role as a member of the Landtag in the Free State of Prussia, a member of the Reichstag and worked at the Hamburg State Council.