During World War II, Puńsk was occupied by Germany, who incorporated it directly into the province of East Prussia. The invaders started to introduce a new order. It was decided to make a clean sweep of undesirable people in the Suwałki Region. The unsuitable ones for Germanisation were killed and the favourable ones had been left to become assimilated. It was also decided to colonize this area and populate it with Germans in accordance with the "Lebensraum" policy, and resettle many indigenous Lithuanians to Lithuania, which was then occupied by the Russians. According to the agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on 10 January 1941, about 70% of people were expelled from the territory. Most of them returned after the German occupation ended.