Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939

328 Pages·2014·37.943 MB·English

by  Richard Blanke

Orphans
of
Versailles
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O r p h a n s
of
Versailles
The Germans in Western Poland
1918-1939
RICHARD BLANKE
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Copyright©1993byTheUniversityPressofKentucky
ScholarlypublisherfortheCommonwealth,
servingBellarmineCollege, BereaCollege, Centre
CollegeofKentucky, EasternKentuckyUniversity,
TheFilsonClub,GeorgetownCollege,Kentucky
HistoricalSociety,KentuckyStateUniversity,
MoreheadStateUniversity, MurrayStateUniversity,
NorthernKentuckyUniversity,TransylvaniaUniversity,
UniversityofKentucky,UniversityofLouisville,
andWesternKentuckyUniversity.
EditorialandSalesOffices:Lexington,Kentucky40508-4008
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Blanke,Richard.
OrphansofVersailles :theGermansinWesternPoland,1918-1939/
Richard Blanke.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN:978-0-8131-5633-0
1. Germans-Poland-WesternandNorthernTerritories-History.
2. Westernand NorthernTerritories (Poland)-History. 3. Western
andNorthernTerritories(Poland)-Ethnicrelations. I. Title.
DK4600.03342B53 1993
943.8'100431-dc20 92-19216
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepapermeeting
therequirementsoftheAmericanNationalStandard
forPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials. S
To Fred, Rom.an, Marie, and Claire
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. Establishmentofthe GermanMinority, 1918-1922 9
2. The Great Exodus 32
3. Coming to Terms 54
4. The Pilsudski Era and the Economic Struggle 90
5. The Minorityin the InternationalArena 121
6. The Impact ofNationalSocialism 163
7. The Minorityin 1939 207
Conclusion 238
Appendix A. Western Polish Place Names: Official Polish and
GermanEquivalents 242
Appendix B. Population ofWestern Poland and German
Proportion, 1910-1931 243
Bibliography 246
Notes 269
Index 307
Maps
1. PrussianPoland/WesternPoland, 1919-1939 2
2. Ethnographic Composition ofthe German-Polish Borderlands,
1910 22
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Acknowledgments
Thisstudyhasbenefitedfromtheassistanceofnumerousindividualsand
institutions, anditisapleasuretoexpressthanks tosomeofthemhere.
TheResearchFundsCommitteeattheUniversityofMaineprovidedthe
original "seed money" in the form of a faculty summer research grant.
Subsequently, the projectreceived generoussupportfrom theFulbright
Commission and the American Council of Learned Societies, which al
lowed me to spend a sabbaticalyear in proximity to European archives
and libraries. A grant from the International Research and Exchanges
Board financed a summer visit to Poland for the same purpose. Special
thanks go also to the Herder Institute in Marburg/Lahn, which has the
singlebestcollectionofpublishedsourcesonGerman-Polishproblems;in
the course of the year I spent there, Frau Eisinger and her colleagues
patiently produced a significant proportion ofthis collectionfor my pe
rusal.ThanksalsototheVolkswagen-Stiftung,whichprovidedaffordable
accommodationsinGermany;totheRussianandEastEuropeanCenterat
theUniversityofIllinois,Champaign-Urbana,forthesummertimeuseof
itsfinelibrary;toHarvardUniversityforproviding"outsiders"generous
access to its vast holdings, and to LibbySoiferand BarbaraJones ofthe
inter-library loan office at the University of Maine Library for essential
serviceswhenIwasunabletobeattheseotherplaces.
ThelistofindividualstowhomIamindebtedisheadedbymywife,
Ann, without whose support and competence in other matters this
project would not have been possible (and without whom it would not
have been worth undertaking in the first place). Thanks also to Hans
Lembergforvariedhelpandkindnessduringasabbaticalinhiscountry;
to Tomas Olejniczak, who made research during a chaotic time in his
country somewhat easier; to Bill TeBrake and Kim Pelletier, who made
mybelatedentryintotheworldofthe wordprocessorless traumatic; to
Baycka Voronietsky for help with Polish officialdom; to David Smith,
Stew Doty, and other colleagues at Maine who were always willing to
discuss this project with me; to John Kulczycki, Mieczyslaw Biskupski,
x Acknowledgments
Anne Young, and others who wrote in behalf of it on more than one
occasion. Finally, sincere thanks to those who will point out the short
comings and inevitable errors of the work that follows, and so help
advance the project itself.