Difference between revisions 4885979 and 4886597 on enwiki

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Since medieval times, western [[Poland|Polish lands]] had some Germanic residents, 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 (eg Württemberg) migrated in significant numbers. As time progressed the settler came more from neighboring Ge(contracted; show full)

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 [[Posen Bembergs]]).


==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. ⏎
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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. ⏎
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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. ⏎
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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. ⏎
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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  provi(contracted; show full)mvent 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. 
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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.(contracted; show full)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 s(contracted; show full)
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.


==War and atrocities==
World War II brought the brutal repressions of totalitarian German state against Poles. Unspeakable attrocities touched every family in the Western provinces of Great Germany(see [[World War II atrocities in Poland]]).