Heim ins Reich was a foreign policy pursued by German dictator Adolf Hitler before and during World War II, starting in 1938. Hitler wanted to convince the German diaspora (the Volksdeutsche) who were living in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and western Poland to retain their German nationality and strive to bring the German-majority regions back into the Reich. On 7 October 1939, in Decree No. 3075, Hitler published an order to consolidate the German folkdom, directing the Reichsfuhrer-SS to bring back German citizens abroad to the Reich, to eliminate the "harmful influence of such alien parts of the population", and to create new German colonies through resettlement. The Heim ins Reich system of population transfers and ethnic cleansing ended in 1944 with the Soviet liberation of Eastern Europe.