After the war started, units under his command took part in revenge and in the shooting of POWs during the September Campaign, but von dem Bach was not there in person. On 7 November 1939, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler asked him if he wanted the job of "Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom" in Silesia. His duty was to force people to leave and to take their property. By August 1940, his units had forced more than 20,000 Żywiec families to leave their homes.