Ethnic conflicts in western Poland
|
|
Western Polish lands had some Germanic residents since medieval times, for the first several centuries by invitation. Polish landowners had unproductive land and needed more workers. Germans from the Protestant Low Countries were recruited to reclaim wetlands of northern Poland. Additionally, groups of oppressed Protestants from areas that Catholics had won in southern Germany (e.g. Württemberg) migrated in significant numbers. As time progressed the settler came more from neighboring German lands. For quite some time, the western settlers were given complete freedom of religion, which was a major inducement to move, as Western Europe was engulfed in a series of protracted and violent religious wars, which did not extend to Poland. Poland was the unique example of tolerance, thanks to Warsaw Confederation, that guaranteed the religious freedom and internal peace.
| Contents |
Counterreformation
Starting with the reign of Sigismund I of Poland, the Swedish king, himself a fervent Catholic, the religious conflict emerged in the form of the Counter-Reformation. While the king swayed back and forth, he found himself between the Roman Catholic Church, which brought its influence to bear, and his own misgivings and those of many of the nobles. At one point, the bishop called a congress to enact strict rules, but so many nobles opposed the issue, that the effort failed at the time.
In the 1600s and 1700s, but especially after the Deluge period (Swedish invasions), the freedom to worship that had been guaranteed the protestant settlers was gradually removed, and a number of their churches destroyed, appropriated or forbidden to be used. Protestants were even required to support the Catholic church in some places. The exact nature of the revocation of freedom of worship in Poland, varied over time and with the nature of the local nobles and officials. Some Protestant communities survived, while some others were forcefully converted. Some Protestants chose to emigrate.
In the second half of the 1700s, new laws inspired by ideas of the Enlightenment were enacted, which forced the bishops to relax the oppression. The second half of the 1700s was a time of increased German and Dutch immigration to Poland, especially to Greater Poland.
The tumble times of Bar Confederacy created a situation, when the foreign settlers sided on the government side, while some Poles sided with partisans. For example, in Czarnkow region, settlers were attacked by roving bands of Polish militia.
Partitions
The tide turned in the late 1700s when the powerful neighbors carved Poland up in the three Partitions of Poland. Now the native Poles came under occupation, ruled by a foreigners and the minority Germans began to have the upper hand. The Prussian state determined to become stronger with the acquisition of the additional Polish lands. To ensure continued possession and a secure German presence, settlers were encouraged, German communities were assisted with gifts that built churches, provided bells and various other infrastructure improvements. Most notable was the creation of the canal between Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg) near the Vistula (German: Weichsel) and Naklo (German: Nakel) on the Notec (German: Netze). The Prussian bureaucracy developed into a one machine and the 1800s introduced other machinery that brought about broad social changes as well.
Napoleon
Napoleon I temporarily turned the tables for about eight years, then the situation reversed again. (Add info about Polish involvement, French relations, Germans preventing French shipments on river barges, etc.)
Prussian times
After the Napolean era, Prussia again received Great Poland. In total, 5 Prussian Provinces, included large Polish speaking minorities (or majorities ?):
According to the Vienna peace congress results, Great Poland became the Grand Duchy of Posen (1815-1846), an autonomous province under Hohenzollern rule with the rights of "free development of Polish nation, culture and language", and outside the German Confederation.
However, contrary to these arrangements, Prussia gradually limited the autonomy of Great Poland and finally in 1846 renamed it to Province of Posen. All these actions naturally created resistance, which sometimes erupted into uprisings, the most notable in 1848, in conjunction with other parts of Germany and Europe.
In 1811, Prussian authorities performed abolition of serfdom, in 1823 it also was performed in Great Poland. The outcome of Prussian reform was, that the group of rich farmers and landlords prospered.
In the long term the abolition completely reverted the relations in the Polish provinces. Before that, the only Polish group were nobles, after that time peasants gradually took part in the Polish national movement, under leadership of Polish landlords.
Germanization and the beginning of ethnic conflict
German national movement was perceived by some Poles as an ally against the great powers. German nationalists believed the Poles defend them from Russian tyranny. However, during revolution 1848, German democrats tried to annex Kurland, East Prussia, West Prussia and most of Great Poland into United Germany
After 1871, the Prussian state combined the other German states into a German empire, and the Prussian overlords became more and more oppressive, coming to a position that they would always own these lands and that the Polish peoples must become Germanized. German national liberals joined their former enemies from the Prussian court.
Measures become more and more severe, and it was forbidden to use Polish in public gatherings, including school and church. The government fought a losing battle to replace Polish land ownership with German settlers, through the Settlement Commission.
However, the Kulturkampf united in opposition, Catholic Poles and Germance of the province. The outcome was, that many Catholics became Poles, even if their knowledge of Polish was limited. (see also Bambrzy).
Brutality of the Prussian Regime
The economic development of the Prussian part of Poland followed entirely different lines than that of Russian Poland but in their political attitude toward the Poles the Prussians were not a whit superior to the Muscovites. Extreme hatred of everything Polish is their historical tradition. The entire country which they claim is built on lands taken by force of arms from the Slavs, chiefly the Poles. Brandenburg, the nucleus of the State, was the first German outpost in Slavic territory. East Prussia, a Polish fief went to them as a heritage of the bloody Order of the Cross; the purely Polish province of West Prussia and the Duchy of Posen, the cradle of the Polish nation, were their share of the partition pillage while Silesia, an originally Polish land, was wrested from Austria only half a century ago. In their haughty disdain and dislike of everything non-Prussian, they subjected the tenacious and irrepressible Poles to all kinds of indignities and iniquities conceivable. And yet, to quote the words of Mr. Asquith, uttered recently in reply to the parliamentary speech of Chancellor Bethmalin-Hollweg, "the attempt to Germanize Poland has been at once the strenuous purpose and colossal failure of the Prussian domestic policy." To a great extent this failure was due to the untiring efforts of the Polish clergy to protect the Church from the onslaught of the "Kulturkampf." The coincidence of the persecution of the national and the religious attachments of the Poles, both in Russia and Prussia has tended to strengthen the historic tradition that originated with the Vasa period in the XVIIth century, that Polish nationality and Roman Catholicism are inseparable and has assured to the clergy an important position in Polish life. To this day one can find among the backward peasants in Russian and Prussian Poland many who, when asked about their nationality will reply that they are Catholics, and who will speak of a German as a Lutheran and of a Russian as an Orthodox. In the Duchy of Posen, since the dawn of the "organic" or "positivist" era the priests have been active in organizing cooperative societies, loan associations, trade circles and benefit funds among the city workingmen and peasants, and have stimulated self-help and developed political and social instinct. The great success obtained has been due in no mean degree to the administrative and financial genius Father Wawrzyniak. In politics, however, they were extreme loyalists and at times subordinated the national interests to those of the Church. Yet, during the "Kulturkampf" the loyal Archbishop of Gnese Cardinal Ledochowski, two other bishops and many priests were arrested and some exiled from the country. The "Kulturkampf" of Bismarck was particularly bitter in the Polish provinces because here was not only directed against the Catholic Church but also against the Polish race. All schools, religious orders and civic agencies were closed and the jails filled to overflowing with recalcitrant peasants and workmen. Under the pretext of freeing the Polish schools from the control of the clergy the Prussian government entrusted all the supervisory activities in the Polish schools to German inspectors. Soon the Polish language was barred from all grammar and high schools in the Duchy of Posen, West Prussia and Silesia, and the teachers were selected exclusively from among the Germans. When the German Imperial Union was established, the Polish provinces, in spite of the specific guarantees given to them in the Treaty of Vienna were made a part of Prussia with no recognition of their national character and all the protests of the Polish representatives proved of no avail. The world failed to take cognizance of this breach of international law. When, in 1873, Prussia introduced certain internal reforms granting more home rule to her cities, the Polish provinces were excluded from the provisions of the new law. In 1876 the Polish language was superseded by the German in all official, civil judicial and administrative transactions. The guaranteed and sworn Polish autonomy. dwindled, and in order to obliterate all traces of the national character of the, provinces, the Government proceeded to change the names of places, substituting German designations for the ancient Polish ones, and accordingly Leszno was named Lissa Chelmno--Kulm, Pila became known as Schneidemuhl, and so along the line with every town and hamlet. The Poles were deprived of their constitutional right to assemble and hold peaceful meetings if Polish were spoken at such gatherings. To circumvent this restriction, business at Polish assemblies was transacted with the aid of blackboards and chalk. The law did not prohibit the employment of these accessories at Polish gatherings. In 1885 an order was issued by Bismarck directing all Poles who were not Prussian subjects to leave the country immediately. Within a short time over forty thousand persons were compelled to leave their estates or to abandon posts at which they had been working for years and to seek new homes in other parts of Poland. In 1886 a Colonization Commission was established with the aim of buying out land from the Poles and settling it with German colonizers. One hundred million marks was voted for this purpose at the outset. A brutal anti-Polish orgy spread over all Prussia and Germany. Under the protectorate of Bismarck a special society was formed to agitate-German public opinion against the Poles. The Government subsidized this society by large allowances and carried out its recommendations. This society, known as the H. K. T. from the initials of its three founders, Hausemann, Kennemann and Thiedemann, has carried out, with the personal encouragement of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a most pernicious and vituperative propaganda by means of special publications, pamphlets, meetings and dramas, and has been responsible, in a large measure, for fostering intense animosity between the two races. "Ausrotten!" (Exterminate !) became, the slogan, of the German nation with reference to the Poles, and for the realization of this inhuman aim no amount of money, was too large. Over ten billion marks were spent for the purpose. Polish merchants, manufacturers and workmen were systematically and openly boycotted and German trade in Poland was heavily subsidized. The Polish village communities were deprived of their right of supervision over the village schools and, in Russian fashion, private instruction outside of the school buildings was made punishable by heavy penalties. Children became the peculiarly favored butt of the H. K. T. assaults. In schools they were flogged for speaking or praying in Polish. When, in 1901, the parents of the children of the little town of Wrzesnia, rose against this barbarous practice on the part of the teachers, they suffered heavy penalties. The echo of this case reverberated loudly all over the world, and for the first time called the attention of the civilized nations to Prussian Kultur which, with reference to the Poles, bore such a striking resemblance to the Tsar's conception of government. Following the Russian policy in Lithuania and Ruthenia, which forbade the acquisition of real estate by Poles, and realizing that all the efforts of the Colonization Commission were in vain in view of the unexampled attachment of the Polish peasant to his native land, the Prussian government determined in 1904 to arrest the growth of Polish homesteads by making the building of houses on newly acquired properties dependent on special permission, which seldom, if ever, was given. This new limitation did not stop the efforts of the Poles to get hold of as much real property as possible. To overcome the restriction, the peasants have followed the example of one Drzymala and live in houses built on wheels, in this manner circumventing the spirit of the restriction, for the law does not as yet prohibit a Pole from living in a wagon. It is incredible that a civilized government should drive people to resort to such means of defence in the struggle for self-preservation. The Prussian inhumanity had at least one redeeming feature, for by its constant pressure it created a healthy reaction. German thoroughness and efficiency have called forth an equal measure of preparation and co-operation. German methods were imitated to defeat German aggression. The Peasant Bank of Posen and its large number of local branches has successfully competed with the Colonization Bank. In thrift and productiveness the Polish peasant became equal, if not superior to the German Michel. In endurance and education he is similarly his equal. He is as progressive and as prosperous as the German peasant and his standards of life and requirement have become infinitely higher than those of his brother in Russian Poland, to whom the Russian Government has denied all the achievements of European civilization. The German system of compulsory education though resented by the Poles because of its policy of Germanization has served, however, to develop the mental faculties of the Polish peasantry. There is no illiteracy in the German part of Poland. On the other hand, the German hammer stunned, as it were, the higher creative faculties of the Poles. Very few great artists and writers have appeared in Prussian Poland, though there have been several notable exceptions. The cities in German Poland are well ordered and managed and the population prosperous. In spite of all the repressions, the number of daily Polish newspapers and the consumption of Polish literature in German Poland has increased. Even Silesia, which was separated from Poland in the XIVth century has recently seen an awakening and the people are becoming conscious of their true national affiliation.
World War I and aftermath
Then came World War I, many Poles fought in the German forces, for the foreign case. Others prepared themselves for the defeat of Germany. With the defeat of Germany, it lost most of its territory in this area. While many Germans migrated west, especially military and administration staff, a relatively large amount of Germans remained, preferring to live and work their farms and businesses as Polish citizens. In general Poland guaranteed German minority national rights. However, many landestates that belong to German landowners were subject of parcelation and were sold to Polish peasants.
World War II and atrocities
World War II brought the brutal repressions of totalitarian German state against Poles. Unspeakable atrocities touched every family in the Eastern provinces of Great Germany (see World War II atrocities in Poland).