TheRecovered Territories orRegained Lands (Polish:Ziemie Odzyskane), also known as theWestern Borderlands (Polish:Kresy Zachodnie), and previously as theWestern and Northern Territories (Polish:Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne),Postulated Territories (Polish:Ziemie Postulowane) andReturning Territories (Polish:Ziemie Powracające), are theformer eastern territories of Germany and theFree City of Danzig that became part ofPoland afterWorld War II, at which timemost of their German inhabitants were forcibly deported.[1][2]
The rationale for the term "Recovered" was that these territories formed part of the Polish state, and were lost by Poland in different periods over the centuries.[3] It also referred to thePiast Concept that these territories were part of the traditional Polish homeland under thePiast dynasty (there were their small parts under Poland even after the Piast ended), after the establishment of the state in theMiddle Ages. Over the centuries, however, they had become predominantly German-speaking through the processes of German eastward settlement (Ostsiedlung), political expansion (Drang nach Osten), as well aslanguage shift due toGermanisation of the localPolish,Slavic andBaltic Prussian population.[4] Therefore, aside from certain regions such asWest Upper Silesia,Warmia andMasuria, as of 1945 most of these territories did not contain sizeable Polish-speaking communities.
While most regions had long periods of Polish rule, spanning hundreds of years, some were controlled by Polish dukes and kings for short periods of up to several decades at a time. Various regions, when not under Polish rule, were in different times under the authority of theBohemian (Czech) Kingdom,Hungary,Austria,Sweden,Denmark,Brandenburg,Prussia, and theGerman Reich. Many areas were also part of various Polish-ruled duchies, created as a result of thefragmentation of Poland, which began in the 12th century.
The great majority of the previous inhabitants eitherfled from the territories during the later stages of the war or were expelled by the Soviet and Polish communist authorities after the war ended, although a smallGerman minority remains in some places. The territories were resettled with Poles who moved from central Poland,Polish repatriates forced to leave areas offormer eastern Poland that had been annexed by theSoviet Union, Poles freed fromforced labour in Nazi Germany, withUkrainians forcibly resettled under "Operation Vistula", and other minorities which settled in post-war Poland, includingGreeks andMacedonians.[5]
However, contrary to the official declaration that the former German inhabitants of the Recovered Territories had to be removed quickly to house Poles displaced by the Soviet annexation, the Recovered Territories initially faced a severe population shortage.[6] The Soviet-appointedPolish communist authorities that conducted the resettlement also made efforts to remove many traces of German culture, such as place names and historic inscriptions on buildings.
The post-war border between Germany and Poland (theOder–Neisse line) was recognized byEast Germany in 1950 and byWest Germany in 1970, and was affirmed by the re-united Germany in theGerman–Polish Border Treaty of 1990.
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The term "Recovered Territories" was officially used for the first time in the Decree of the President of the Republic of 11 October 1938 after the annexation ofTrans-Olza by the Polish army.[7] It became the official term[8] coined in the aftermath ofWorld War II to denote theformer eastern territories of Germany that were beinghanded over to Poland, pending a final peace conference with Germany which eventually never took place.[9] The term "Recovered Territories" is a collective term for different areas with different histories, which can be grouped into three categories:
The underlying concept was to define post-war Poland as heir to themedieval Piasts' realm,[10][11][12] which was simplified into a picture of an ethnically homogeneous state that matched post-war borders,[13] as opposed to the laterJagiellon Poland, which was multi-ethnic and located further east.[14] The argument that this territory in fact constituted "old Polish lands"[15][16] seized on a pre-war concept developed by Polish right-wing circles attached to the SN.[17] One reason for post-war Poland's favoring a Piast rather than a Jagiellon tradition wasJoseph Stalin's refusal to withdraw from theCurzon line and the Allies' readiness to satisfy Poland with German territory instead.[18] The original argument for awarding formerly German territory to Poland – compensation – was complemented by the argument that this territory in fact constituted former areas of Poland.[15][17][19][20] Dmitrow says that "in official justifications for the border shift, the decisive argument that it presented a compensation for the loss of the eastern half of the pre-war Polish territory to the USSR, was viewed as obnoxious and concealed. Instead, a historical argumentation was foregrounded with the dogma, Poland had just returned to 'ancient Piast lands'."[17] Objections to the Allies' decisions and criticism of the Polish politicians' role at Potsdam were censored.[17] In a commentary forTribune,George Orwell likened the transfer of German population to transferring the whole of the Irish and Scottish population.[21] Also, the Piasts were perceived to have defended Poland against the Germans, while the Jagiellons' main rival had been the growingDuchy of Moscow, making them a less suitable basis for post-war Poland's Soviet-dominated situation.[18][20] ThePeople's Republic of Poland under thePolish Workers' Party thus supported the idea of Poland based on old Piast lands.[18][19] The question of the Recovered Territories was one of the few issues that did not divide the Polish Communists and their opposition, and there was unanimity regarding the western border. Even the underground anti-Communist press called for the Piast borders, that would endGermanisation andDrang nach Osten.[22] The official view was that the Poles had always had the inalienable and inevitable right to inhabit the Recovered Territories, even if prevented from doing so by foreign powers.[23] Furthermore, the Piast concept was used to persuade the Allied Powers, who found it difficult to define a Polish "ethnographic territory", to assume that it would be an intolerable injustice to not "give the territories back".[12]
By 1949, the term "Recovered Territories" had been dropped fromPolish communist propaganda, but it is still used occasionally in common language.[24] On the grounds that those areas should not be regarded as unique territories within the Polish state, the authorities began to refer to them instead as the "Western and Northern Lands".[24][25] Wolff and Cordell say that along with the debunking of communist historiography, "the 'recovered territories' thesis ... has been discarded", and that "it is freely admitted in some circles that on the whole 'the recovered territories' had a wholly German character", but that this view has not necessarily been transmitted to the whole of Polish society.[26] The term was also used outside Poland. In 1962,Pope John XXIII referred to those territories as the "western lands after centuries recovered", and did not revise his statement, even under pressure of the German embassy. The term is still sometimes considered useful, due to the Polish existence in those lands that was still visible in 1945, by some prominent scholars, such as Krzysztof Kwaśniewski.[27]
Several differentWest Slavic tribes inhabited most of the area of present-day Poland from the 6th century. DukeMieszko I of thePolans, from his stronghold in theGniezno area, united various neighboring tribes in the second half of the 10th century, forming the first Polishstate and becoming the first historically recordedPiast duke. His realm roughly included all of the area of what would later be named the "Recovered Territories", except for theWarmian-Masurian part ofOld Prussia and easternLusatia.
Mieszko's son and successor, DukeBolesław I Chrobry, upon the 1018Peace of Bautzen expanded the southern part of the realm, but lost control over the lands of WesternPomerania on theBaltic coast. After fragmentation, pagan revolts and aBohemian invasion in the 1030s, DukeCasimir I the Restorer (reigned 1040–1058) again united most of the former Piast realm, includingSilesia andLubusz Land on both sides of the middleOder River, but without Western Pomerania, which became part of the Polish state again underBolesław III Wrymouth from 1116 until 1121, when the nobleHouse of Griffins established theDuchy of Pomerania. On Bolesław's death in 1138, Poland for almost 200 years was subjected tofragmentation, being ruled by Bolesław's sons and by their successors, who were often in conflict with each other.Władysław I the Elbow-high, crownedKing of Poland in 1320, achieved partial reunification, although theSilesian andMasovian duchies remained independent Piast holdings.
In the course of the 12th to 14th centuries,Germanic,Dutch andFlemish settlers moved into EastCentral andEastern Europe in a migration process known as theOstsiedlung. In Pomerania,Brandenburg,Prussia and Silesia, the indigenousWest Slav (Polabian Slavs andPoles) orBalt population became minorities in the course of the following centuries, although substantial numbers of the original inhabitants remained in areas such asUpper Silesia. InGreater Poland and in Eastern Pomerania (Pomerelia), German settlers formed a minority.
Despite the loss of several provinces, medieval lawyers of the Kingdom of Poland created a specific claim to all formerly Polish provinces that were not reunited with the rest of the country in 1320. They built on the theory of theCorona Regni Poloniae, according to which the state (the Crown) and its interests were no longer strictly connected with the person of themonarch. Because of that no monarch could effectively renounce Crown claims to any of the territories that were historically and/or ethnically Polish. Those claims were reserved for the state (the Crown), which in theory still covered all of the territories that were part of, or dependent on, the Polish Crown upon the death of Bolesław III in 1138.
This concept was also developed to prevent from loss of territory after the death of KingCasimir III the Great in 1370, whenLouis I of Hungary, who ruled Hungary with absolute power, was crowned King of Poland. In the 14th centuryHungary was one of the greatest powers ofCentral Europe, and its influence reached variousBalkan principalities andsouthern Italy (Naples). Poland in personal union with Hungary was the smaller, politically weaker and peripheral country. In thePrivilege of Koszyce (1374) King Louis I guaranteed that he would not detach any lands from the Polish Kingdom.[28] The concept was not new, as it was inspired by similar Bohemian (Czech) laws (Corona regni Bohemiae).
Some of the territories (such asPomerelia and Masovia) reunited with Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. However allPolish monarchs until the end of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 had to promise to do everything possible to reunite the rest of those territories with the Crown.[29]
Many significant events in Polish history are associated with these territories, including the victorious battles ofCedynia (972),Niemcza (1017),Psie Pole andGłogów (1109),Grunwald (1410),Oliwa (1627), the lost battles ofLegnica (1241) andWesterplatte (1939), the life and work of astronomersNicolaus Copernicus (16th century) andJohannes Hevelius (17th century), the creation of the oldest Polish-language texts and printings (Middle Ages and theRenaissance era), the creation of the standards and patterns of the Polish literary language (Renaissance era), Polish maritime history, the establishment of one of the first Catholic dioceses in Poland in the Middle Ages (inWrocław andKołobrzeg), as well as the Polish Reformation in the Renaissance era.
Significant figures were born or lived in these territories. AstronomerJan of Głogów and scholarLaurentius Corvinus, who were teachers ofNicolaus Copernicus at theUniversity of Kraków, both hailed fromLower Silesia.Jan Dantyszek (Renaissance poet and diplomat, named theFather of Polish Diplomacy) andMarcin Kromer (Renaissance cartographer, diplomat, historian, music theoretician) were bishops of Warmia. The leading figures of thePolish Enlightenment are connected with these lands: philosopher, geologist, writer, poet, translator, statesmanStanisław Staszic and great patron of arts, writer, linguist, statesman and candidate for the Polish crownAdam Kazimierz Czartoryski were both born in these territories,Ignacy Krasicki (author of thefirst Polish novel, playwright, nicknamedthe Prince of Polish Poets) lived inWarmia in his adulthood, and brothersJózef Andrzej Załuski andAndrzej Stanisław Załuski (founders of theZałuski Library inWarsaw, one of the largest 18th-century book collections in the world) grew up and studied in these territories. Also paintersDaniel Schultz,Tadeusz Kuntze andAntoni Blank, as well as composersGrzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki andFeliks Nowowiejski were born in these lands.
By the time that Poland regained her independence in 1918, Polish activistDr. Józef Frejlich was already claiming that the lands situated on the right bank of theOder river, including inner industrial cities such asWrocław, and Baltic ports such asSzczecin andGdańsk, were economic parts of Poland that had to be united with the rest of the "economic territory of Poland"[30] into a united and independent state, as a fundamental condition of the economic revival of Poland afterWorld War I.[31]
After the successfulGreater Poland uprising, the cession ofPomerelia to Poland following theTreaty of Versailles and theSilesian Uprisings that allowed Poland to obtain a large portion ofUpper Silesia, the territorial claims of theSecond Polish Republic were directed towards the rest of partially Polish speaking Upper Silesia andMasuria under German control, as well as the city ofDanzig, the Czechoslovakian part ofCieszyn Silesia and other bordering areas with significant Polish population. The Polish population of these lands was subject toGermanisation and intensified repressions, especially after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933.
Most of long GermanizedLower Silesia,Farther Pomerania andEastern Prussia remained undisputed.[32] However, in reaction toHitler's Germany threats to Poland shortly before the outbreak ofWorld War II, Polishnationalists displayed maps of Poland including those ancient Polish territories as well, claiming their intention to recover them.
In theinterwar period the German administration, even before the Nazis took power, conducted a massive campaign ofrenaming of thousands of placenames, to remove traces of Slavic origin.
ThePomeranian (Western Pomeranian) parts of the Recovered Territories came under Polish rule several times from the late 10th century on, whenMieszko I acquired at least significant parts of them. Mieszko's sonBolesław I established abishopric in theKołobrzeg area in 1000–1005/07, before the area was lost again. Despite further attempts by Polish dukes to again control thePomeranian tribes, this was only partly achieved byBolesław III in several campaigns lasting from 1116 to 1121. Successful Christian missions ensued in 1124 and 1128; however, by the time of Bolesław's death in 1138, most of West Pomerania (theGriffin-ruled areas) was no longer controlled by Poland. Shortly after, the Griffin Duke of Pomerania, Boguslav I., achieved the integration of Pomerania into the Holy Roman Empire. The easternmost part of later Western Pomerania (including the city ofSłupsk) in the 13th century was part ofEastern Pomerania, which was re-integrated with Poland, and later on, in the 14th and 15th centuries formed aduchy, which rulers werevassals of Jagiellon-ruled Poland. Over the following centuries Western Pomerania was largely Germanized, although a small Slavic Polabian minority remained. Indigenous Slavs and Poles faceddiscrimination from the arriving Germans, who on a local level since the 16th century imposed discriminatory regulations, such as bans on buying goods from Slavs/Poles or prohibiting them from becoming members of craft guilds.[33] TheDuchy of Pomerania under the native Griffin dynasty existed for over 500 years, before it was partitioned betweenSweden andBrandenburg-Prussia in the 17th century. At the turn of the 20th century there lived about 14,200 persons ofPolish mother-tongue in theProvince of Pomerania (in the east ofFarther Pomerania in the vicinity of the border with the province ofWest Prussia), and 300 persons using theKashubian language (at theŁeba Lake and theLake Gardno), the total population of the province consisting of almost 1.7 million inhabitants. The Polish communities in many cities of the region, such asSzczecin and Kołobrzeg, faced intensified repressions after theNazis came to power in Germany in 1933.
The region ofPomerelia at the eastern end of Pomerania, includingGdańsk (Danzig), was part of Poland since its first rulerMieszko I. As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, it was ruled in the 12th and 13th centuries by theSamborides, who were (at least initially) more closely tied to the Kingdom of Poland than were the Griffins. After theTreaty of Kępno in 1282, and the death ofthe last Samboride in 1294, the region was ruled by kings of Poland for a short period, although also claimed byBrandenburg. After theTeutonic takeover in 1308 the region was annexed to themonastic state of the Teutonic Knights.
Most cities of the region joined or sided with thePrussian Confederation, which in 1454 started an uprising against Teutonic rule and asked the Polish KingCasimir IV Jagiellon to incorporate the region to Poland. After the King agreed and signed the act of incorporation, theThirteen Years' War broke out, ending in a Polish victory. TheSecond Peace of Thorn (1466) made Royal Prussia a part of Poland. It had a substantial autonomy and a lot of privileges. It formed thePomeranian Voivodeship, located within the province ofRoyal Prussia in the Kingdom of Poland, as it remained until being annexed by theKingdom of Prussia in thepartitions of 1772 and 1793. A small area in the west of Pomerelia, theLauenburg and Bütow Land (the region ofLębork andBytów) was granted to the rulers of Pomerania as a Polishfief, before being reintegrated with Poland in 1637, and later on, again transformed into a Polishfief, which it remained until theFirst Partition, when three quarters of Royal Prussia's urban population were German-speaking Protestants.[34] After Poland regained independence in 1918, a large part of Pomerelia was reintegrated with Poland, as the so-calledPolish Corridor, and so was not part of the post-war so-called Recovered Territories.
The medievalLubusz Land on both sides of the Oder River up to theSpree in the west, including Lubusz (Lebus) itself, also formed part of Mieszko's realm. In the period of fragmentation of Poland the Lubusz Land was in different periods part of the Greater Poland and Silesian provinces of Poland. Poland lost Lubusz when theSilesian dukeBolesław II Rogatka sold it to theAscanian margraves ofBrandenburg in 1249. TheBishopric of Lebus, established by Polish DukeBolesław III Wrymouth, remained a suffragan of theArchdiocese of Gniezno until 1424, when it passed under the jurisdiction of theArchbishopric of Magdeburg. The Lubusz Land was part of theLands of the Bohemian (Czech) Crown from 1373 to 1415.
Brandenburg also acquired the castellany ofSantok, which formed part of theDuchy of Greater Poland, from DukePrzemysł I of Greater Poland and made it the nucleus of theirNeumark ("New March") region. In the following decades Brandenburg annexed further parts of northwesternGreater Poland. Later on, Santok was briefly recaptured by the Poles several times. Of the other cities, KingCasimir III the Great recoveredWałcz in 1368. The lost parts of Greater Poland were part of theLands of the Bohemian (Czech) Crown from 1373 to 1402, when despite an agreement between theLuxembourg dynasty of Bohemia and theJagiellons of Poland on the sale of the region to Poland, it was sold to theTeutonic Order. During thePolish–Teutonic War (1431–35) several towns of the region rebelled against the Order to join Poland, among themChoszczno/Arnswalde,Neuwedell andFalkenburg.[35] The present-day PolishLubusz Voivodeship comprises most of the former Brandenburgian Neumark territory east of the Oder.
A small part of northern Greater Poland around the town ofCzaplinek was lost toBrandenburg-Prussia in 1668. Bigger portions of Greater Poland were lost in thePartitions of Poland: the northern part withPiła andWałcz in theFirst Partition and the remainder, including the western part withMiędzyrzecz andWschowa in theSecond Partition. DuringNapoleonic times the Greater Poland territories formed part of theDuchy of Warsaw, but after theCongress of Vienna Prussia reclaimed them as part of theGrand Duchy of Posen (Poznań), laterProvince of Posen. AfterWorld War I, those parts of the former Province of Posen and ofWest Prussia that were not restored as part of theSecond Polish Republic were administered asGrenzmark Posen-Westpreußen (the German Province of Posen–West Prussia) until 1939.
Lower Silesia was one of the leading regions of medieval Poland.Wrocław was one of three main cities of the Medieval Polish Kingdom, according to the 12th-century chronicleGesta principum Polonorum.[36]Henry I the Bearded grantedtown rights for the first time in the history of Poland in 1211 to the Lower Silesian town ofZłotoryja. TheBook of Henryków, containing the oldest known written sentence in Polish, was created in Lower Silesia.[37] The first Polish-language printed text was published in Wrocław byGłogów-born Kasper Elyan, who is regarded as the first Polish printer.[38] Burial sites of Polish monarchs are located in Wrocław,Trzebnica andLegnica.
Piast dukes continued to rule Silesia following the 12th-centuryfragmentation of Poland. TheSilesian Piasts retained power in most of the region until the early 16th century, the last (George William, duke ofLegnica) dying in 1675. Some Lower Silesian duchies were also under the rule of PolishJagiellons (Głogów) andSobieskis (Oława), and part ofUpper Silesia, theDuchy of Opole, found itself back under Polish rule in the mid-17th century, when the Habsburgs pawned the duchy to the PolishVasas. TheRoman Catholic Diocese of Wrocław, established in 1000 as one of Poland's oldest dioceses, remained a suffragan of theArchbishopric of Gniezno until 1821.
The first German colonists arrived in the late 12th century, and large-scale German settlement started in the early 13th century during the reign ofHenry I[40] (Duke of Silesia from 1201 to 1238). After the era of German colonisation, the Polish language still predominated in Upper Silesia and in parts of Lower and Middle Silesia north of theOdra river. Here the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages became mostlyPolonized; Germans dominated in large cities and Poles mostly in rural areas. The Polish-speaking territories of Lower and MiddleSilesia, commonly described until the end of the 19th century as thePolish side, were mostly Germanized in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for some areas along the northeastern frontier.[41][42] The province came under the control ofKingdom of Bohemia in the 14th century, itself part of theHoly Roman Empire of the German Nation, and was briefly underHungarian rule in the 15th century. Silesia passed to theHabsburg monarchy ofAustria in 1526, and Prussia'sFrederick the Great conquered most of it in 1742. A part ofUpper Silesia became part of Poland afterWorld War I and theSilesian Uprisings, but the bulk of Silesia formed part of the post-1945 Recovered Territories.
The territories ofWarmia andMasuria were originally inhabited by paganOld Prussians, until the conquest by theTeutonic Knights in the 13th and 14th centuries. In order to repopulate the conquered areas, Poles from neighboringMasovia, called Masurians (Mazurzy), were allowed to settle here (hence the nameMasuria). During an uprising against the Teutonic Order most towns of the region joined or sided with thePrussian Confederation, at the request of which KingCasimir IV Jagiellon signed the act of incorporation of the region into theKingdom of Poland (1454). After theSecond Peace of Thorn (1466)Warmia was confirmed to be incorporated to Poland, whileMasuria became part of a Polishfief, first as part of the Teutonic state, and from 1525 as part of the secularDucal Prussia. Then it would become one of the leading centers of Polish Lutheranism, while Warmia, under the administration ofprince-bishops remained one of the most overwhelminglyCatholic regions of Poland.
Polish suzerainty overMasuria ended in 1657/1660 as a result of theDeluge and Warmia was annexed by theKingdom of Prussia in theFirst Partition of Poland (1772). Both regions formed the southern part of the province ofEast Prussia, established in 1773.
All of Warmia and most of Masuria remained part of Germany afterWorld War I and the re-establishment ofindependent Poland. During the1920 East Prussian Plebiscite, the districts east of theVistula within the region ofMarienwerder (Kwidzyn), along with all of theAllenstein Region (Olsztyn) and the district of Oletzko voted to be included within the province of East Prussia and thus became part of Weimar Germany. All of the region as the southern part of the province of East Prussia became part of Poland after World War II, with northern East Prussia going to theSoviet Union to form theKaliningrad Oblast.
Since the time of thePiast dynasty, which unified many of the western Slavic tribes and ruled Poland from the 10th to the 14th centuries, ethnic Poles continued to live in these territories under foreign rule, including Bohemian and German, Hungarian, Austrian, Prussian, this despite the Germanization process (Ostsiedlung), which began in the 13th century with the arrival of German, Dutch and Flemish colonists toSilesia andPomerania at the behest of the feudalSilesian Piasts and theHouse of Griffins.[43] Likewise, in the 14th, 15th and 16th century many Polish settlers fromMazovia migrated into the southern portions of theDuchy of Prussia.[44]
Before the outbreak of war, regions ofMasuria,Warmia andUpper Silesia still contained significant ethnic Polish populations, and in many areas the Poles constituted a majority of the inhabitants.[46] According to the 1939 NaziGerman census, the territories were inhabited by 8,855,000 people, including a Polish minority in the territories' easternmost parts.[47] However these data, concerning ethnic minorities, that came from the census conducted during the reign of theNSDAP (Nazi Party) is usually not considered by historians and demographers as trustworthy but as drastically falsified.[48] Therefore, while this German census placed the number of Polish-speakers and bilinguals below 700,000 people, Polish demographers have estimated that the actual number of Poles in the former German East was between 1.2[47] and 1.3 million.[49] In the 1.2 million figure, approximately 850,000 were estimated for theUpper Silesian regions, 350,000 for southernEast Prussia and 50,000 for the rest of the territories.[47]
Under German rule, these communities faced discrimination and oppression.[citation needed] In 1924, an association of national minorities was founded in Germany, also representing the Polish minority. Jan Baczewski fromWarmia, member of theLandtag of Prussia, initiated a law allowing the founding of schools for national minorities.[50] In 1938, the Nazi government changed thousands of place-names (especially of cities and villages) of Polish origin to newly invented German place-names; about 50% of the existing names were changed in that year alone.[51] Also, undercover operatives were sent to spy on Polish communities. Information was gathered on who sent their children to Polish schools, or bought Polish books and newspapers. Polish schools, printing presses, headquarters of Polish institutions as well as private homes and shops owned by Poles were routinely attacked by members of theSchutzstaffel (SS).[52] Although, thousands of Poles wereforcefully migrated or voluntarily migrated to these lands duringWorld War II.
Also, small isolated enclaves of ethnic Poles could be found inPomerania,Lubusz Land andLower Silesia. These included scattered villages which remained ethnically Polish and large cities such asWrocław (Breslau),Szczecin (Stettin) andZielona Góra (Grünberg in Schlesien) which contained small Polish communities.[53][54][55]
During the Polish post-war census of December 1950, data about the pre-war places of residence of the inhabitants as of August 1939 was collected. (In the case of children born between September 1939 and December 1950, their place of residence was reported based on the pre-war places of residence of their mothers.) Thanks to this data it is possible to reconstruct the pre-war geographical origin of the post-war population. Many areas located near the pre-war German border were resettled by people from neighbouring borderland areas of pre-war Poland. For example,Kashubians from thepre-war Polish Corridor settled in nearby areas ofGerman Pomerania adjacent toPolish Pomerania. People from thePoznań region of pre-war Poland settled inEast Brandenburg. People fromEast Upper Silesia moved into the rest of Silesia. And people fromMasovia and theSuwałki Region moved into adjacentMasuria. Poles expelled fromformer Polish territories in the east (today mainly parts ofUkraine,Belarus andLithuania) settled in large numbers everywhere in the Recovered Territories (but many of them also settled in central Poland).
| Region (within 1939 borders): | West Upper Silesia | Lower Silesia | East Brandenburg | West Pomerania | Free City Danzig | South East Prussia | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autochthons (1939German/Danzig citizens) | 789,716 | 120,885 | 14,809 | 70,209 | 35,311 | 134,702 | 1,165,632 |
| Polish expellees fromKresy (USSR) | 232,785 | 696,739 | 187,298 | 250,091 | 55,599 | 172,480 | 1,594,992 |
| Poles from abroad except the USSR | 24,772 | 91,395 | 10,943 | 18,607 | 2,213 | 5,734 | 153,664 |
| Resettlers from theCity of Warsaw | 11,333 | 61,862 | 8,600 | 37,285 | 19,322 | 22,418 | 160,820 |
| FromWarsaw region (Masovia) | 7,019 | 69,120 | 16,926 | 73,936 | 22,574 | 158,953 | 348,528 |
| FromBiałystok region andSudovia | 2,229 | 23,515 | 3,772 | 16,081 | 7,638 | 102,634 | 155,869 |
| Frompre-war Polish Pomerania | 5,444 | 54,664 | 19,191 | 145,854 | 72,847 | 83,921 | 381,921 |
| Resettlers fromPoznań region | 8,936 | 172,163 | 88,427 | 81,215 | 10,371 | 7,371 | 368,483 |
| Katowice region (East Upper Silesia) | 91,011 | 66,362 | 4,725 | 11,869 | 2,982 | 2,536 | 179,485 |
| Resettlers from theCity of Łódź | 1,250 | 16,483 | 2,377 | 8,344 | 2,850 | 1,666 | 32,970 |
| Resettlers fromŁódź region | 13,046 | 96,185 | 22,954 | 76,128 | 7,465 | 6,919 | 222,697 |
| Resettlers fromKielce region | 16,707 | 141,748 | 14,203 | 78,340 | 16,252 | 20,878 | 288,128 |
| Resettlers fromLublin region | 7,600 | 70,622 | 19,250 | 81,167 | 19,002 | 60,313 | 257,954 |
| Resettlers fromKraków region | 60,987 | 156,920 | 12,587 | 18,237 | 5,278 | 5,515 | 259,524 |
| Resettlers fromRzeszów region | 23,577 | 110,188 | 13,147 | 57,965 | 6,200 | 47,626 | 258,703 |
| place of residence in 1939 unknown | 36,834 | 26,486 | 5,720 | 17,891 | 6,559 | 13,629 | 107,119 |
| Total pop. in December 1950 | 1,333,246 | 1,975,337 | 444,929 | 1,043,219 | 292,463 | 847,295 | 5,936,489 |
The People's Republic had to locate its population inside the new frontiers in order to solidify the hold over the territories.[12] With theKresy annexed by the Soviet Union, Poland was effectivelymoved westwards and its area reduced by almost 20% (from 389,000 to 312,000 km2 (150,194 to 120,464 sq mi)).[57] Millions of non-Poles – mainly Germans from the Recovered Territories, as well as some Ukrainians in the east – were to be expelled from the new Poland, while large numbers of Poles needed to be resettled having been expelled from the Kresy. The expellees were termed"repatriates".[12] The result was the largest exchange of population in European history.[12]
The picture of the new western and northern territories being recovered Piast territory was used to forge Polish settlers and "repatriates" arriving there into a coherent community loyal to the new regime,[58] and to justify the removal of the German inhabitants.[12] Largely excepted from theexpulsions of Germans were the "autochthons", close to three million ethnically Polish/Slavic inhabitants ofMasuria (Masurs),Pomerania (Kashubians,Slovincians) andUpper Silesia (Silesians). The Polish government aimed to retain as many autochthons as possible, as their presence onformer German territory was used to indicate the intrinsic "Polishness" of the area and justify its incorporation into the Polish state as "recovered" territories.[59] "Verification" and "national rehabilitation" processes were set up to reveal a "dormant Polishness" and determine who was redeemable as a Polish citizen. Few were actually expelled.[59] The "autochthons" not only disliked the subjective and often arbitrary verification process, but they also faced discrimination even after completing it,[60] such as the Polonization of their names.[61] In theLubusz region (formerEast Brandenburg), the local authorities conceded already in 1948 that what the PZZ claimed to be a recovered "autochton" Polish population were in fact Germanized migrant workers, who had settled in the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – with the exception of one village,Babimost, just across the pre-war border.[62]
Great efforts were made to propagate the view of thePiast Concept. It was actively supported by the Catholic Church.[63] The sciences were responsible for the development of this perception of history. In 1945 theWestern Institute (Polish:Instytut Zachodni) was founded to coordinate the scientific activities. Its director,Zygmunt Wojciechowski, characterized his mission as an effort to present the Polish history of the region, and project current Polish reality of these countries upon a historical background.[64] Historical scientists, archaeologists, linguists, art historians and ethnologists worked in an interdisciplinary effort to legitimize the new borders.[65] Their findings were popularised in monographs, periodicals, schoolbooks, travel guides, broadcasts and exhibitions.[66] Official maps were drawn showing that the Polish frontiers under the first known Piast princes matched the new ones.[12] According toNorman Davies, the young post-war generation received education informing them that the boundaries of the People's Republic were the same as those on which the Polish nation had developed for centuries. Furthermore, they were instructed that the Polish "Motherland" has always been in the same location, even when "occupied" for long periods of time by foreigners or as political boundaries shifted.[23] Because the Recovered Territories had been under German and Prussian rule for many centuries, many events of this history were perceived as part of "foreign" rather than "local" history in post-war Poland.[67] Polish scholars thus concentrated on the Polish aspects of the territories: medieval Piast history of the region, the cultural, political and economic bonds to Poland, the history of the Polish-speaking population in Prussia and the "Drang nach Osten" as a historical constant since the Middle Ages.[65]
The Communist authorities of the Polish People's Republic and some Polish citizens desired to erase all traces of German rule.[68] The "Recovered Territories" after the transfer still contained a substantial German population. The Polish administration set up a "Ministry for the Recovered Territories", headed by the then deputy prime ministerWładysław Gomułka.[69] A "Bureau for Repatriation" was to supervise and organize the expulsions and resettlements. According to the national census of 14 February 1946, the population of Poland still included 2,288,300 Germans, of which 2,036,439—nearly 89 per cent—lived in theRecovered Territories. By this stage Germans still constituted more than 42 per cent of the inhabitants of these regions, since their total population according to the 1946 census was 4,822,075.[70] However, by 1950 there were only 200,000 Germans remaining in Poland, and by 1957 that number fell to 65,000.[71] While the estimates of how many Germans remained vary, a constant German exodus took place even after the expulsions. Between 1956 and 1985, 407,000 people fromSilesia and about 100,000 fromWarmia-Masuria declared German nationality and left for Germany. In the early 1990s, after thePolish Communist regime had collapsed 300,000-350,000 people declared themselves German.[47]
Theflight and expulsion of the remaining Germans in the first post-war years presaged a broader campaign to remove signs of former German rule.[72]
More than 30,000 German placenames were replaced with Polish[73] or Polonized medieval Slavic ones.[74][75] Previous Slavic and Polish names used before German settlements had been established; in the cases when one was absent either the German name was translated or new names were invented.[76] In January 1946, aCommittee for Settling of Place Names was set up to assign new official toponyms.[77] The German language was banned from public schools, government media and church services.[73][75] Many German monuments, graveyards, buildings or entire ensembles of buildings were demolished.[78] Objects of art were moved to other parts of the country.[79] German inscriptions were erased, including those on religious objects, in churches and in cemeteries.[72] InZiemia Lubuska "Socialist competitions" were organized to search and destroy final German traces.[72]
Historian John Kulczycki argues that the Communist authorities discovered that forging an ethnically homogeneous Poland in the Recovered Territories was quite complicated, for it was difficult to differentiate German speakers who were "really" Polish and those who were not. The government used criteria that involved explicit links to Polish ethnicity, as well the person's conduct. Local verification commissions had wide latitude in determining who was or was not Polish and should remain. Their decisions were based on the nationalist assumption that an individual's national identity is a lifetime "ascriptive" characteristic acquired at birth and not easily changed. However people who "betrayed" their Polish heritage by their political words or actions were excluded from the Polish nation. Everyone else was labelled as "Polish" and had to remain in their "native" land – even if they wanted to emigrate to Germany.[80]
People from all over Poland quickly moved in to replace the former German population in a process parallel to the expulsions, with the first settlers arriving in March 1945.[81] These settlers took over farms and villages close to the pre-war frontier while theRed Army was still advancing.[81] In addition to the settlers, other Poles went for "szaber" or looting expeditions, soon affecting allformer eastern territories of Germany.[81] On 30 March 1945, theGdańsk Voivodeship was established as the first administrative Polish unit in the "recovered" territories.[82] While the Germans were interned and expelled, close to 5 million settlers[83][84] were either attracted or forced to settle the areas between 1945 and 1950. An additional 1,104,000 people had declared Polish nationality and were allowed to stay (851,000 of those inUpper Silesia), bringing up the number of Poles to 5,894,600 as of 1950.[47] The settlers can be grouped according to their background:
Polish and Soviet newspapers and officials encouraged Poles to relocate to the west – "the land of opportunity".[83] These new territories were described as a place where opulent villas abandoned by fleeing Germans waited for the brave; fully furnished houses and businesses were available for the taking. In fact, the areas were devastated by the war, the infrastructure largely destroyed, suffering high crime rates and looting by gangs. It took years for civil order to be established.
In 1970, the Polish population of the Northern and Western territories for the first time caught up to the pre-war population level (8,711,900 in 1970 vs 8,855,000 in 1939). In the same year, the population of the other Polish areas also reached its pre-war level (23,930,100 in 1970 vs 23,483,000 in 1939).[47]
Today the population of the territories is predominantly Polish, although a small German minority still exists in a few places, includingOlsztyn,Masuria, andUpper Silesia, particularly inOpole Voivodeship (the area ofOpole,Strzelce Opolskie,Prudnik,Kędzierzyn-Koźle andKrapkowice).[89]
The Communist government, not democratically legitimized, sought to legitimize itself through anti-German propaganda.[69] The German "revanchism" was played up as a permanent German threat, with the Communists being the only guarantors and defenders of Poland's continued possession of the "Recovered Territories". Gomułka asserted that:
The western territories are one of the reasons the government has the support of the people. This neutralizes various elements and brings people together. Westward expansion and agricultural reform will bind the nation with the state. Any retreat would weaken our domestic position.[73][90]
The redistribution of "ownerless property" among the people by the regime brought it broad-based popular sympathy.[73]
After the Second World War, the Soviet Union annexed the Polish territory of theKresy—located east of theCurzon line—and encouraged or forced ethnic minorities in these parts of Poland, including ethnic Poles, to move west. In the framework of the campaign, Soviets exhibited posters in public places with messages such as,[91]
Western territories. Eldorado. In bloody battles, the Polish soldier has liberated very old Polish territories. Polish territory for Poland. 5,000 lorries are available to bring settlers to the west.
During theCold War the official position in theFirst World was that the concluding document of thePotsdam Conference was not an internationaltreaty, but a merememorandum.[citation needed] It regulated the issue of the German eastern border, which was to be theOder-Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final status of the German state and therefore its territories were subject to a separate peace treaty between Germany and theAllies of World War II. During the period from 1945 to 1990 two treaties between Poland and bothEast andWest Germany were signed concerning the German-Polish border. In 1950, the German Democratic Republic and thePeople's Republic of Poland signed theTreaty of Zgorzelec, recognizing the Oder-Neisse line, officially designated by the Communists as the "Border of Peace and Friendship".[92] On 7 December 1970, theTreaty of Warsaw between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland was signed concerning the Polish western border. Both sides committed themselves to nonviolence and accepted the existingde facto border—the Oder-Neisse line. However a final treaty was not signed until 1990 as the "Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany".
Until the Treaty on the Final Settlement, the West German government regarded the status of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse rivers as that of areas "temporarily under Polish or Soviet administration". To facilitate wide international acceptance ofGerman reunification in 1990, the German political establishment recognized the "facts on the ground" and accepted the clauses in the Treaty on the Final Settlement whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder-Neisse line. This allowed the treaty to be negotiated quickly and for unification of democratic West Germany and socialist East Germany to go ahead quickly.
In accordance with a duty imposed on Germany by the Treaty on the Final Settlement, in the same year, 1990, Germany signed a separate treaty with Poland, theGerman-Polish Border Treaty, confirming the two countries' present borders.
The signature and ratification of the border treaty between Germany and Poland formalized in international law the recognition of the existing border and put an end to all qualified German claims.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) As cited byZimniak, Pawel (2007). "Im Schatten des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Machtverhältnisse und Erinnerungsinteressen beim Umgang mit dem Deprivationsphänomen in der deutsch-polnischen Öffentlichkeit". In Glunz, Claudia; Pełka, Artur; Schneider, Thomas F (eds.).Information Warfare. Osnabrück/Göttingen:University of Osnabrück/V&R unipress. pp. 547–562, 556, 562.ISBN 978-3-89971-391-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Silesia topics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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