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Journal articles on the topic 'Polish-German War'
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1
Bjork, James. "Flexible Fatherlands: “Patriotism” among Polish-speaking German Citizens during World War I." Central European History 53, no. 1 (2020): 71–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008938919000979.
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AbstractThis article examines the experiences of Polish-speaking subjects of the German Empire during World War I. Fighting for wartime empires tended to be retrospectively defined as involuntary service to a “foreign” cause. But the author of this article argues that it was very difficult to distinguish ostensibly passive “compliance” from ostensibly active “patriotism.” The apparent tensions between a German imperial agenda and Polish nationalism also proved to be highly navigable in practice, with German war aims often seen as not only reconcilable with but even conducive to the Polish national cause. Drawing on a recent wave of relevant historiography in English, German, and Polish, and incorporating further analysis of individual testimonies, the article explores the various ways in which “non-German” contributors to the German war effort tried to make sense of their awkward wartime biographies.
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Chlipała, Michał. "Konspiratorzy w Policji Polskiej i Polskiej Policji Kryminalnej w Krakowie w latach 1939‒1945." Prace Historyczne 147, no. 3 (2020): 597–618. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/20844069ph.20.032.12486.
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Conspirators in the Polish Blue Police and Polish Criminal Police in Kraków during 1939‒1945 The article describes the history of Polish pre-war policemen who were forced to continue their service in the Polish Police in the General Government (the so-called Blue Police), created by German occupying authorities. Many of these policemen, faithful to the oath they had made before the war, worked for the Polish Underground State. In Kraków, the capital of the General Government, in the Autumn of 1939, Polish policemen began to create conspiracy structures, which gradually became one of the most effective Polish intelligence networks. Thanks to them, the Home Army, subordinated to the Polish Government-in-exile in London, could learn the secrets of the Kraków Gestapo and the German police. Despite the enormous efforts of the German counter-intelligence machine and the losses among the conspirators, they worked out the exact structure of the German forces in Kraków, helped the persecuted population and infiltrated secret German institutions. In post-war Poland, many of them experienced persecution at the hands of the communist regime. Most of them preferred to keep their wartime experiences secret. To this day their activities are poorly known, being suppressed by the popular image of a Polish policeman-collaborator created by the media.
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Kettler, Mark T. "Designing Empire for the Civilized East: Colonialism, Polish Nationhood, and German War Aims in the First World War." Nationalities Papers 47, no. 6 (2019): 936–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/nps.2018.49.
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AbstractThis article critically reexamines how Germans understood Polish national identity during World War I, and how their perceptions affected German proposals for ruling Polish territory. Recent historiography has emphasized the impact of colonial ideologies and experiences on Germans’ imperial ambitions in Poland. It has portrayed Germans as viewing Poland through a colonial lens, or favoring colonial methods to rule over Polish space. Using the wartime publications of prominent left liberal, Catholic, and conservative thinkers, this article demonstrates that many influential Germans, even those who supported colonialism in Africa, considered Poland to be a civilized nation for which colonial strategies of rule would be wholly inappropriate. These thinkers instead proposed multinational strategies of imperialism in Poland, which relied on collaboration with Polish nationalists. Specifically, they argued that Berlin should establish an autonomous Polish state, and bind it in permanent military and political union with the German Empire. The perception of Poland as a civilized nation ultimately structured Germany’s occupation policy and objectives in Poland throughout the war, much more than stereotypes of Polish primitivity.
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Rydel, Jan. "Generał Reinhard Gehlen i jego raport o polskim podziemiu." Studia Środkowoeuropejskie i Bałkanistyczne 30 (2021): 53–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/2543733xssb.21.005.13798.
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General Reinhard Gehlen and his report on the Polish underground The article presents the brilliant military career of Wehrmacht officer Reinhard Gehlen, who led the intelligence of the German land forces on the eastern front from 1942 to 1945. He developed this intelligence and became Germany’s best expert in the Soviet Army, which made it easier for him to establish close cooperation with the CIA after the war and become head of West German Intelligence (BND ). During the war, General Gehlen’s intelligence was, among other things, involved in the development of the Polish resistance movement. For this reason, when in the last weeks of the war, the German leadership considered the creation of a major Nazi resistance movement after the Third Reich’s capitulation, Gehlen presented an extensive one in April 1945, The final report under the title Militärische und nachrichtendienstliche Kräfte im Gesamtrahmen der Polnischen Widerstandsbewegung [Military and Intelligence Forces within the overall framework of the Polish Resistance], because he considered the Polish underground to be the best resistance movement in Europe. The report contains, among others, positive opinions about the will to survive and the resistance of the Polish society, high professional evaluations of the Polish underground army and even words of admiration for the activities of Polish military intelligence.
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Bykowska, Sylwia. "Problem ludności niemieckiej w Gdańsku w pierwszym okresie po zakończeniu II wojny światowej. Rekonesans badawczy." Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki, no. 25/2 (April 28, 2017): 33–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.35757/rpn.2017.25.13.
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This article focuses on the problem of Germans in Gdańsk shortly after the end of World War II. Among the issues analysed are: forced relocations of the German population by the Red Army; the so-called wild expulsion of Germans by the Polish authorities in 1945; the attitude of the Gdańsk administration towards the Germans; relations with Polish settlers from Central Poland and eastern territories incorporated into the Soviet Union. Mistrust, aversion and disputes were parallel to, sometimes, brutal competition for material goods, such as houses and workshops left by previous inhabitants. The Germans were underdogs in this conflict. They understood that they would no longer be responsible for their home city. They lost their position. Not having civil rights, they lost the right to their houses and farms. Gdańsk was an example of a former German city, whose new Polish community was created in the presence of its German inhabitants, who were subsequently deported to the territories on the other side of the Oder River. By this time, the coexistence of the Polish and German populations had evolved from hostility to cooperation between people devastated by war experience and forced migration. An official verification procedure was launched to determine who was a real German or Pole. One had to prove Polish descent and national usefulness in front of the Verification Commission. By the end of 1948, the number of native citizens of Gdańsk accepted as Polish citizens reached nearly 14,000. However, it was not possible to classify instantly all citizens of Gdańsk by their nationality. The memory of the pre-war Free City of Gdańsk was often more important for the collective identity of those who were born and lived in Gdańsk or Danzig before 1939. Both German and Polish citizens of Gdańsk were so strongly linked to their local homeland that they called themselves and were called by others ‘gdańszczanie’ or ‘Danziger’ for many years after the war.
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Komierzyńska-Orlińska, Eliza. "The Origin of the Polish National Loan Fund and Its Operation on the Polish Lands." Roczniki Nauk Prawnych 28, no. 3 ENGLISH ONLINE VERSION (2019): 45–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.18290/rnp.2018.28.3-4en.
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The idea of establishing the Bank of Poland as the central bank of the Second Polish Republic and introducing a new currency appeared shortly after Poland regained its independence. At the beginning of 1919, in the economic circles it was believed that one of the initial steps taken by the government would be to establish a new issuing bank in place of the Polish National Loan Fund, which had appeared on the Polish territory in an emergency situation—during the First World War, and which, contrary to the original (both German and Polish) plans survived for 7 years and was transformed after the war into the first bank of issue in the now independent Polish State.
 The Polish National Loan Fund established by the Germans as an issuing institution by way of the ordinance of December 9, 1916 establishing the Polnische Landes Darlehnskasse was granted the privilege of issuing a new currency, that is a new monetary unit under the name marka polska. The German authorities were guided by various objectives when creating the new issuing institution—first of all, the aim was to limit the area of circulation of the German mark and to create an instrument that would draw in the occupied area of the Polish territory to finance the war, contrary to the assurances of the occupying authorities that the PKKP would be an institution supporting the economy and banking system of the country—the Kingdom of Poland, whose creation was envisaged after the end of World War I.
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Kapica, Wojciech. "Domniemane i rzeczywiste kontakty prominentów nazistowskich z polskością przed 1933 rokiem." Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem 38, no. 2 (2017): 35–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/2300-7249.38.2.3.
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ALLEGED AND ACTUAL CONTACTS OF PROMINENT NAZIS WITH POLISHNESS BEFORE 1933The article is an attempt to examine the contacts of prominent Nazis with Polishness before 1933. The author looks at these contacts with regard to the place of birth, living in a given place until 1918, living in a given place in the inter-war period 1918–1933, participation in the First World War in Poland, participation in Polish-German fighting in 1918–1921, having a Polish-sounding name and impact of all these factors on the period of the Second World War German occupation of Poland.
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Nogaj, Adam. "Evaluation of the correctness of the German military intelligence’s findings concerning armament and equipment of the Polish Army in 1939. Part II. Aviation, Navy, radio communication, means of transport and logistics of the Polish Army." Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces 197, no. 3 (2020): 600–619. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0014.3955.
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The presented article constitutes the second part of the publication and is devoted to the current knowledge of the German military intelligence concerning the armament and equipment of land forces, Navy, radio communication, means of transport and logistics of the Polish Army in 1939. The article also attempts to assess the correctness of these findings. The presented article is one of several articles written by the author to present the knowledge of German military intelligence about the Polish Army in 1939, together with the assessment of the correctness of these findings. The article is based on archival materials of the 12th Foreign Armies East Intelligence Section of the General Staff of the High Command of the Land Forces of 1939, which developed synthetic elaborations for the top military commanders of the German army, based on the analysis and collective materials from the individual Abwehstelle. For years, the documents analysed were classified and delivered exclusively to the top commanders of the German army and Hitler’s Chancellery. At present, they are entirely non-confidential and available to researchers at the Bundesarchiv-Militaerarchiv in Freiburg. Copies of parts of these documents, in the form of microfilms, can be found, among others, in the Archive of New Files in Warsaw. According to the author, working out both – the Polish aviation and fleet – was carried out at a high and correct level. Nevertheless, it does not mean that no mistakes were made, even very serious – for example as regards the assessment of the number of submarines. The greatest negligence of the German Military Intelligence’s findings on armament and equipment of the Polish Army concerns the equipment of signal corps. As the German Intelligence overlooked modernisation of communication equipment which took place in the years 1937-1939, there was no knowledge of, among the other things, the “N” type radio stations, which were used in almost every regiment. Scarcity of the Polish Army equipment as regards mechanical means of transport was well known. The shortages in the above scope were enormous. What is interesting, is the fact that logistics of the Polish Army was completely overlooked by the German Intelligence. It should be assumed that the German Military Intelligence’s figuring out of armament and equipment of the Polish Army was carried out on a high and correct level. Nevertheless, it does not mean that all the findings were appropriate and true. The accuracy of the correctness of the German Military Intelligence’s findings concerning figuring out of organisation and composition of the Polish Army, and dislocation of the Polish units in time of peace, should also be highly assessed. Nevertheless, the Intelligence’s findings, as regards signal mobilization process, figuring out the mobilization and operational plans of the Polish Army and organisation and the composition of the Polish Army during war should be evaluated differently. It results from the fact that the German Intelligence was not aware of, among the other things: number of divisions Poland would engage at war, names and composition of the Polish military units, very strong reserve of the High Commander, as well as it was not able to localize the Polish divisions developed over the borders just before the outbreak of war. Knowledge of the Polish economy was also on a very basic level. Therefore, the aforementioned negligence in the German Military Intelligence’s findings on the Polish Army and Poland itself during the period directly preceding the war, should be regarded as major. Taking the above into consideration, the conclusion is that the German agency did not exist among the people holding high positions in the Polish Army; in the Central Staff, General Inspector of Training, Corps District Commands. Nevertheless, the overall view of the Polish Army recorded by the German Military Intelligence was correct. It was noticed that the army is weak, poorly equipped and badly managed and it would not be able to fight the enemy. It was a correct assessment.
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Garczewski, Krzysztof. "Narracje historyczne w niemieckim dyskursie publicznym – wybrane problemy i implikacje dla Polski." Rocznik Instytutu Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej 18, no. 2 (2020): 255–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.36874/riesw.2020.2.12.
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The main purpose of the research was to analyze selected elements of the German discourse on historical narratives present in public space and to determine the implications for Poland thereof. German- and Polish-language monographs and studies related to the issues of historical narratives and Polish-German relations were used and the content of selected German press materials was analyzed. The author used the method of analyzing history discourse, and the source analysis of selected German-language documents was made. The autor defined the concept of historical narratives and analyzed terminology used in German historical discourse. The author pointed out the role of The Federation of Expellees (BdV) and political organizations in public discourse. The role of anniversaries and historical of the World War II in German cinema were identified. Such analysis was the basis for describing importance of this proces for Poland. The main reference point in German narratives about World War II that are present in public space is the memory of the Holocaust. At the same time, the process of consistent promotion of the memory of German victims of war continues in Germany, taking place simultaneously on many levels. In parallel, the memory of the crimes committed during World War II by the Nazi regime on Poles is in the background, which is still a serious gap in German narratives of that period and also requires the Polish side to take further action to change this situation. Germany’s important instrument for promoting a positive narrative about the latest history of Germany is promoting the memory of the fall of the Berlin Wall and therefore further strengthening the image of Germany on the international stage.
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Venken, Machteld. "Nationalization campaigns and teachers’ practices in Belgian–German and Polish–German border regions (1945–1956)." Nationalities Papers 42, no. 2 (2014): 223–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2013.817386.
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This contribution looks into nationalization and education in European borderlands in the early post-World War II period. Belonging to Belgium and Poland, respectively, in the interwar years, the Eupen–St. Vith–Malmedy and the East-Upper Silesia regions came under German rule during World War II. Returned to the Belgian and Polish nation-states once the war was over, the regions experienced a pronounced upheaval in the population profile as a result of population transfers and reorientations in education curricula. The aim of these measures was to guarantee the national reliability of borderland inhabitants, with a special role being designated for teachers, who were perceived as crucial in the raising of children as national citizens imbued with certain core values. This contribution compares the methods employed by the authorities in selecting educational personnel for their borderlands, the nationalizing role teachers were to play and the way teachers gave meaning to their professional practices.
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Sywenky, Irene. "Representations of German-Polish Border Regions in Contemporary Polish Fiction: Space, Memory, Identity." German Politics and Society 31, no. 4 (2013): 59–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/gps.2013.310404.
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This article examines post 1989 Polish literary production that addresses German-Polish history and border relations in the aftermath of World War II and participates in the German-Polish dialogue of reconciliation. I consider the methodological implications of border space and spatial memory for the analysis of mass displacements in the German-Polish border region with particular attention to spatiocultural interstitiality, deterritorialization, unhomeliness, and border identity. Focusing on two representative novels, Stefan Chwin's Death in Danzig and Olga Tokarczuk's House of Day, House of Night, I argue that these authors' attention to geospatiality, border space, and displacement forms a distinct characteristic of Polish border narratives. Chwin's and Tokarczuk's construction of interstitial border spaces reflects a complex dynamic between place, historical memory, and self-identification while disrupting and challenging the unitary mythologies of the nation. With their fictional re-imagining of wartime and postwar German-Polish border region, these writers participate in the politics of collective memory of the border region and the construction and articulation of the Polish perspective that shapes the discourse of memory east of the border.
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Kornilova, Oksana. "Polish Camps for Red Army Prisoners of War in the 1919–1924s: Modern Russian-Polish Approaches." Izvestia of Smolensk State University, no. 3 (51) (November 2, 2020): 233–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.35785/2072-9464-2020-51-3-233-246.
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The article discusses modern Russian and Polish historiography, devoted to the organization, functioning and liquidation of Polish camps for the Red Army prisoners of war who were captured during the Soviet-Polish War of 1919–1920. The history of the camps for the Red Army prisoners of war Polish
 authors begin with the creation of German camps in Poland during World War I. After the repatriation the camps continued to contain interned members of anti-Soviet armed groups and members of their families. Without considering the
 methodology of establishing the total number of prisoners and deceased, the author raises the question of interpreting the causes of the Red Army prisoners of war massive loss in Polish captivity. The researchers’ opinions range from the objective impossibility of the Polish authorities to provide prisoners with proper conditions to a targeted policy of destroying the Red Army soldiers by famine, cold, and refusal of medical care.
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Bojenko-Izdebska, Ewa. "‘Expulsion’ in German historical policy — consequences for Polish-German relations." Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem 40, no. 3 (2018): 11–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/2300-7249.40.3.3.
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‘EXPULSION’ IN GERMAN HISTORICAL POLICY — CONSEQUENCES FOR POLISH-GERMAN RELATIONSAfter the Second World War constant controversies and confrontations between Poland and Germany were provoked, in addition to question of the recognition of Poland’s western border, by the “fl ight and expulsion” Flucht und Vertreibung of Germans — described as “population transfer” by the Polish side — and the activity of homeland associations. In the early 1990s, after the fi nal recognition of the border and in view of the growing collaboration in many fi elds, it could seem that the controversies were resolved. However, the problem of “expulsions” returned in the 21st century with a new German historical policy and institutionalisation of remembrance. The change was symbolised by the Centre Against Expulsions project of 2002. In the end the German Bundestag adopted a resolution establishing a documentation centre of the Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin. In 2017 the centre presented a concept for a permanent exhibition. Its opening is planned for 2019. The controversies surrounding both projects have had an impact on the Polish-German relations and have revealed the diff erences in historical policies of the two countries.
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Lewandowska, Izabela. "Educational contexts of migration. The case of East Prussia / Warmia and Mazury in 1945." Echa Przeszłości, no. XXII/1 (May 10, 2021): 268–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.31648/ep.6719.
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Millions of people were forced to emigrate when World War II came to an end in 1945. Migration processes were particularly pronounced in East Prussia, the German territory that was partitioned between Poland and the USSR after the war. Germans fled from East Prussia, and their farms were settled by newcomers from central Poland and the Eastern Borderlands that had been ceded to the Soviet Union. This article discusses the narrative surrounding the wave of post-war migration in Polish and German academia, museums and informal education. An analysis of textbooks and academic scripts revealed that this topic has received broad coverage in the German educational system. Museum exhibitions focusing on emigration from East Prussia and the Eastern Borderlands were also examined, and the results of the analysis indicate that German museums displayed a greater interest in the topic.In the last step, websites dedicated to migration issues were compared as a form of informal education. The comparison revealed a similar number of websites as well as similar levels of activity in Polish and German websites.
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Nowakowska, Natalia. "Forgetting Lutheranism: Historians and the Early Reformation in Poland (1517–1548)." Church History and Religious Culture 92, no. 2-3 (2012): 281–303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18712428-09220005.
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This article reconstructs and explores the problematic historiography of the early Reformation in the lands of the Polish Crown, a significant locus of Lutheranism in the reign of King Zygmunt I Jagiellon (1506–1548). The eighteenth, nineteenth, and early-to mid twentieth centuries produced a sizeable literature on early Lutheranism in Poland, fuelled by Polish-German conflict, minority politics, and Stalinist state sponsorship. Since the 1960s, however, scholarship in Polish and German has had very little to say about Lutheranism in the lands of the Polish Crown before 1548. It is argued that the discrediting of Ostforschung after World War Two, coupled with the rise of a new Polish nationalist reading of the Reformation from the 1960s (which rejected Lutheranism as German, and un-Polish), have led to a deliberate twentieth-century “forgetting” of the Polish kingdom’s Lutheran past, which impoverishes our understandings of the European Reformations.
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Naumann, Stephen. "Narratives Transcending Borders: Sabrina Janesch’s "Katzenberge" as a German Response to Polish Migration Literature." Bibliotekarz Podlaski Ogólnopolskie Naukowe Pismo Bibliotekoznawcze i Bibliologiczne 47, no. 2 (2020): 157–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.36770/bp.475.
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The establishment of the Oder-Neisse border between Poland and Germany, as well as the westward shift of Poland’s eastern border resulted in migration for tens of millions in regions that had already been devastated by nearly a decade of forced evacuation, flight, war and genocide. In Poland, postwar authors such as Gdańsk’s own Stefan Chwin and Paweł Huelle have begun to establish a fascinating narrative connecting now-Polish spaces with what are at least in part non-Polish pasts. In Germany, meanwhile, coming to terms with a past that includes the Vertreibung, or forced migration, of millions of Germans during the mid-1940s has been limited at best, in no small part on account of its implication of Germans in the role of victim. In her 2010 debut novel Katzenberge, however, German author Sabrina Janesch employs a Polish migration story to connect with her German readers. Her narrator, like Janesch herself, is a young German who identifies with her Polish grandfather, whose death prompts her to trace the steps of his flight in 1945 from a Galician village to (then) German Silesia. This narrative, I argue, resonates with Janesch’s German audience because the expulsion experience is one with which they can identify. That it centers on Polish migration, however, not only avoids the context of guilt associated with German migration during World War II, but also creates an opportunity to better comprehend their Polish neighbors as well as the geographical spaces that connect them. Instead of allowing border narratives to be limited by the very border they attempt to define, engaging with multiple narratives of a given border provide enhanced meanings in local and national contexts and beyond.
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Łotysz, Sławomir. "Reconstruction of War Damaged Buildings - A Problem that Still Stands. The Case of the National Economy Bank in Warsaw Restored During the Second World War." Civil And Environmental Engineering Reports 23, no. 4 (2016): 111–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ceer-2016-0056.
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Abstract The Polish national historiography remains silent on the reconstruction of damaged towns and cities that was undertaken by the German administration after capturing Poland in September 1939. This paper, on the war-time restoration of the National Economy Bank’s headquarters in Warsaw, is an attempt to at least partially fill the gap. Designed by celebrated architect Rudolf Świerczyński in the late 1920s in accordance with contemporary air raid defence regulations, it was bombed and nevertheless seriously damaged during the September Campaign. Under the German management of the bank, the building was reconstructed and even modernized by commissioned Polish engineers.
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Czachur, Waldemar, and Heinz-Helmut Lüger. "80 Years After – Ways to a common German-Polish Culture of Remembrance?" Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature 45, no. 2 (2021): 93. http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2021.45.2.93-105.
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<p>The article analyses two speeches commemorating the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, delivered by the German President Frank Walter Steinmeier and the Polish President Andrzej Duda. The authors examine the two texts and ask what aspects of World War II the politicians evoke in their speeches, what images of the Self and the Other are created and what goals are pursued. In the beginning, the article outlines the different meanings of World War II in Polish and German collective memory, and then it proceeds to briefly characterise the commemorative speech as a type of speech. A special emphasis is placed on the analysis of the perspectives underlying the speeches, including the theses presented, as well as on the comparison of the most important differences. </p>
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Pyzłowska, Beata. "Ernsta Jüngera obraz wojny." Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis | Studia Historicolitteraria 15 (December 12, 2017): 105–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.24917/3924.
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War described by Ernst Jünger World War I (1914–1918) was one of two wars in Europe which Germany sought. One of the participants of the war was a German soldier and writer Ernst Jünger, who described his experiences in Storm of Steel (In Stahlgewittern). His diaries are a valuable source of knowledge of the Great War. Sincere confessions of a German soldier who during the war was promoted through the ranks is also a story of a daily life on the front of both Jünger and the subordinates of the German Emperor – Wilhelm II. The diary holds a special place among books about war due to their origins – written by a German fluent in French and passionate about French literature and culture. Jünger’s dairy was translated into Polish by a soldier Janusz Gaładyk and given the title Książe piechoty. Through such a title, Gaładyk paid his respects to the German comrade. The book has a didactic character because it shows the multidimensionality of the atmosphere in the German army.Key words: France; Germany; nationalism; patriotism; I World War;
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Nowacki, Krzysztof, and Adam Szymanowicz. "German preparations for the war in the light of documents of the Polish military intelligence (1933-1939) – selected aspects." Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces 192, no. 2 (2019): 253–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0013.2597.
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As a result of the Treaty of Versailles the provisions concerning the issue of limitation of the armed forces were imposed on Germany. These provisions were unilaterally terminated by Germany two years after Adolf Hitler had come to power. There was introduced general and compulsory military service. On 21st May 1935, Hitler – as the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor – signed the secret Reich Defence Law, which gave the Wehrmacht command wide powers to expand the army. Thus, the intensive development of the German army was initiated. After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, gaining new information by the Polish military intelligence became increasingly difficult. It was connected with the expansion of the German counter-intelligence services, especially the Gestapo, as well as the police supervision over the German society. Through good operational work of the Polish intelligence the Polish side already before the outbreak of the war was relatively well familiarized with the particular phases of the overall German army’s armaments, as well as the German operational doctrine and methods of warfare.
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Jarząbek, Wanda. "Rząd Polski na Wychodźstwie wobec zbrodni niemieckich w Polsce, 1939–1943. Uwagi do problemu." Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki, no. 23 (April 29, 2015): 104–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.35757/rpn.2015.23.05.
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The policy of the Polish government in exile during World War II has been the subject of numerous studies, but it still seems reasonable to trace their relation to crimes committed on Polish soil. The aim of this article is not to present the whole problem, but just outline the attitude towards German crimes. It must be remembered that the Polish government was also confronted with the occupation policy of the Soviet Union and the crimes committed in Volhynia and Galicia by Ukrainian nationalists. The final caesura of the article is the President’s decree of on punishment for war crimes released on March 30, 1943.The Polish government was of the opinion that the crimes should be punished primarily on the level of individuals who committed them, but the consequence of the criminal policy of the Third Reich should be the adoption of such a post-war policy against Germany that would guarantee compensation for victim countries, including compensation for material damage, and lead to a change in the German mentality, which was blamed partly responsible for the policy of the Third Reich. Such an attitude was shared by the anti-Hitler coalition countries.On the practical level, the Polish government’s policy had several stages. Initially, they collected information, tried to make it public and sough the cooperation of other countries. Despite numerous doubts were reported, they decided to amend the Polish criminal law to allow punishing war criminals more proportionally, as they thought, to the committed acts. The government’s activity probably influenced the attitude of the Allies, although it is difficult to accurately recognize and describe this issue. As a result of the situation after World War II, the new Polish authorities pursued a policy of punishing the guilty. Due to the international situation, i.e. the growing conflict between the coalition partners, many criminals escaped punishment.
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Gierowska-Kałłaur, Joanna. "GERMAN POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO LANDS OF FORMER POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMNWEALTH IN WORLD WAR I ERA. PRO-LITHUANIAN AND PRO-BELARUSIAN, OR DIRECTED AGAINST POLISH ASPIRATIONS?" Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. History, no. 142 (2019): 5–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2019.142.1.
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The Germans did not fight the Great War to liberate anyone. Their goal was to expand Germany's borders. This paper seeks to develop an old thesis of Franz Fischer about the expansionist nature of the German war objectives through the examination of yet unknown primary sources found, for the most part, in archives in Vilnius. As Fischer demonstrated, Bethmann-Hollweg planned to push away Russia as far as possible from the German borders, and to abolish Petrograd’s hold over non-Russian vassal peoples already in September 1914. Berlin intended to establish a Central European economic union operating de facto under German leadership, although with preservation of the external equality of its members. It seems that this plan was maintained through the war. The Bethmann-Hollweg peace terms, transmitted to Wilson in January 1918, stipulated, among other things, that the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth should be included in the German economic and military sphere of influence.
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Łazowska, Bożena. "Polish statistical research during the Second World War." Wiadomości Statystyczne. The Polish Statistician 62, no. 4 (2017): 68–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0014.0894.
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The aim of this article is to present the research conducted by the Polish statisticians within 1939—1945. The paper was prepared on the basis of the query in the Central Statistical Archive of CSO and the State Archive of the Capital City of Warsaw, as well as German statistical sources, reports, memoirs, chronicles, press articles, biographies and historical monographs. It presents the work of the Polish statisticians employed by the Statistical Office of General Government in Cracow and the underground statistical research conducted mainly by the Institute of Social Economy under the name of the Central Welfare Council in Warsaw, including especially the effort of Ludwik Landau and Jan Piekalkiewicz. Also, the illegal statistical education and activity of the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile relating to the statistics were discussed. The study shows that under the Nazi occupation Polish statisticians conducted underground statistical research mainly in Cracow and Warsaw and their results were delivered to the structures of the Polish Underground State and to the Polish Government in exile in London.
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Bykowska, Sylwia. "The impact of World War II on the population of Gdańsk." History in flux 1, no. 1 (2019): 135–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.32728/flux.2019.1.7.
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The article discusses the impact of World War II on the fortunes of the population of Gdańsk, which was incorporated into Poland together with eastern parts of Germany. The development of ethnic relationships in the areas described in post-war Poland as the "regained territories" was determined by the national idea. The German population was resettled, whilst the people of the Polish-German borderlands had to prove their ethnic usefulness by means of ethnic vetting. In Gdańsk, this applied mainly to the inhabitants of the pre-war Free City of Danzig.
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Wolff-Powęska, Anna. "Dwie rewolucje." Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem 38, no. 4 (2017): 119–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/2300-7249.38.4.8.
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TWO REVOLUTIONSThe emergence of the notion “conservative revolution” in Polish scientific literature as well as in the public debate leads to a comparison with the conservative revolution in the Republic of Weimar. The representatives of this German intellectual movement in the inter-war period induced ideological climate, which favoured the rise of fascism. Therefore, an analysis of the ideas of the representatives of Polish conservatism may be helpful in seeking an answer to the question why and to what extent Polish rightwing “revolutionaries“ draw inspiration from the German conservative ideology. This also includes the question about the responsibility for the political state of Poland and of Europe.
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Szymański, Mirosław S. "Recepcja niemieckiej pedagogiki kultury w polskiej humanistyce." Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny 64, no. 4 (254 (2020): 9–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0013.8456.
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The starting point for the discussion is the obvious statement that cultural pedagogy is one of the three main currents in German education sciences; the other two are empirical and critical pedagogy. As the title suggests, the author focuses on cultural pedagogy only, and in particular on the reception of German cultural pedagogy by Polish cultural pedagogy during the interwar period. One can definitely say that German Geisteswissenschaften, or “the sciences of spirit” (including pedagogy) influenced Polish humanities. The main thesis of the article is that although the geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik had an overwhelming influence on pedagogical thinking and actions in Poland before World War II, it became considerably marginalised or almost totally forgotten after the war, as it was proclaimed a “bourgeois relic” and an “old fashioned trinket”. Theodor Litt (1880–1962) and Eduard Spranger (1882–1963) are commonly considered the leading representatives of German cultural pedagogy, and their Polish counterparts are Bogdan Nawroczyński (1882–1974) and Bogdan Suchodolski (1902–1993). The article refers to original source literature – although in brief – to discuss the influence of the educational concepts of the former group on the latter one. By proposing such analysis, the author hopes for fair and critical restructuring of cultural pedagogy in Poland, if not for its revitalisation. The first signs are already there.
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Opiłowska, Elżbieta. "“The Miracle on the Oder”." East Central Europe 41, no. 2-3 (2014): 204–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04103003.
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This article aims to analyze the impact of the policy of détente in the 1970s on the development of the German-Polish borderland and on grassroots cooperation. Opening the border for non-visa and non-passport traffic on 1 January 1972 was of great importance to mutual relations between the residents of the border regions. In the first period, German citizens used the opened border mainly for traveling to the so-called native land in order to look at their former households and houses, to “one more time cover the way back home from school.” The Polish, in turn, started shopping, mainly for children’s goods and food. It soon turned out that the German Democratic Republic had not been prepared for such a large number of Polish customers. Because of this conflicts arose and new prejudices appeared. Even so, for the first time since the war had ended the open border enabled direct contacts. New acquaintances were made. The number of Polish-German marriages significantly increased. Based on archive sources and written memoirs as well as narrative interviews this paper will investigate what influence this period had on the Polish-German relations in the border regions and how it is reflected in the memories of the border area residents.
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Cordell, Karl. "Memory, Identity and Poland's German Minority." German Politics and Society 27, no. 4 (2009): 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/gps.2009.270401.
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This paper seeks to offer an assessment of the nature of identity among Poland's German minority and to investigate why since 1950 large numbers of that minority have migrated to Germany. It does so by examining the nature of identity in the historic Polish-German borderlands, by recounting the experiences of those Germans who remained behind in Poland after the post World War Two expulsion process was completed in 1949, and by examining the continued salience of negative stereotypes of Germans and Germany among elements of Polish society. The paper highlights a number of salient factors of importance for members of the minority in deciding whether or not to stay in Poland or to migrate to Germany.
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Teshajev Sunderland, Eva. "Bezug zur Zeitgeschichte in Wörterbüchern. Die Widerspiegelung der deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen im Słownik języka polskiego 1958–1969, herausgegeben von Witold Doroszewski, vor dem Hintergrund des Zweiten Weltkriegs und der Nachkriegspolitik." Germanica Wratislaviensia 143 (December 17, 2018): 387–401. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/0435-5865.143.26.
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Ausgehend von der Tatsache, dass Sprachwörterbücher ebenfalls einen Einblick in die Zeitgeschichte und somit in politische, gesellschaftliche und kulturelle Aspekte geben, werden im vorliegenden Beitrag die zur Veranschaulichung der Stichwörter verwendeten Belegbeispiele aus ausgewählten Lemmastrecken A, B, C, Ć, K, Z, Ź und Ż des einsprachigen polnischen Wörterbuchs Słownik języka polskiego 1958–1969 daraufhin untersucht, welches Bild sie von den Deutschen und den deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen in der Nachkriegszeit transportieren. Dabei konnte festgestellt werden, dass das Thema Deutschland zwar nur selten im Wörterbuchs auftaucht, die vorhandenen Belegbeispiele mit Deutschenbezug jedoch ein negatives Deutschenbild, das tatsächlich im Nachkriegspolen präsent war, vermitteln. References to recent history in dictionaries. How German-Polish relations are reflected in the Słownik języka polskiego 1958–1969, edited by Witold Doroszewski, with regard to World War II and post-war politicsDictionaries can give us an insight into the history of a certain period and its political, social and cultural aspects. Therefore, this article has explored the image of the Germans and German-Polish relations in post-war times found in the monolingual Polish dictionary Słownik języka polskiego 1958–1969. The author conducted this analysis by reviewing all the headwords listed under certain letters A, B, C, Ć, K, Z, Ź and Ż in this dictionary, then examining the example sentences she found which mentioned these topics. Results show that although the topic of Germany occurs rarely in the dictionary, the example sentences that do contain references to the Germans reveal a negative image which corresponds to the widespread Polish image of the Germans in post-war times.
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Eigler, Friederike. "Moving Forward: New Perspectives on German-Polish Relations in Contemporary Europe." German Politics and Society 31, no. 4 (2013): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/gps.2013.310401.
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Since the end of the Cold War and the reconfiguration of the map ofEurope, scholars across the disciplines have looked anew at the geopoliticaland geocultural dimensions of East Central Europe. Although geographicallyat the periphery of Eastern Europe, Germany and its changing discourseson the East have also become a subject of this reassessment inrecent years. Within this larger context, this special issue explores thefraught history of German-Polish border regions with a special focus oncontemporary literature and film.1 The contributions examine the representationof border regions in recent Polish and German literature (IreneSywenky, Claudia Winkler), filmic accounts of historical German and Polishlegacies within contemporary European contexts (Randall Halle, MeghanO’Dea), and the role of collective memory in contemporary German-Polishrelations (Karl Cordell). Bringing together scholars of Polish and Germanliterature and film, as well as political science, some of the contributionsalso ponder the advantages of regional and transnational approaches toissues that used to be discussed primarily within national parameters.
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Kosicki, Piotr H. "Caritas across the Iron Curtain?" East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures 23, no. 2 (2009): 213–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0888325408327846.
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This article takes the November 1965 letter of Poland's Roman Catholic bishops to their German counterparts as a starting point for historical inquiry into the nature and consequences of Catholic engagement in Polish-German reconciliation. The article begins with a close reading of the letter's text and its philosophical-theological underpinnings; then, it discusses the letter's reception history and its political consequences. The letter and its reception have a double significance: first, as an event in post-World War II European political, intellectual, and ecclesiastical history; second, as an ethical commentary on the spirit of dialogue promulgated in the constitutions of the Second Vatican Council. Although the letter helped to facilitate a process of Polish-German reconciliation that remains ongoing, this process has failed to assimilate the letter's ethics of forgiveness. That failure has reinforced the roadblocks that hamper Polish-German reconciliation almost two decades after the fall of communism in Europe.
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Babiracki, Patryk. "A Tower of Tangled Histories: The Upper Silesia Tower in Poznań and the Making of an Unromantic Poland, 1911–1955." Slavic Review 79, no. 3 (2020): 566–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/slr.2020.158.
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Engaging with regional, international, and spatial histories, this article proposes a new reading of the twentieth-century Polish past by exploring the vicissitudes of a building known as the Upper Silesia Tower. Renowned German architect Hans Poelzig designed the Tower for the 1911 Ostdeutsche Ausstellung in Posen, an ethnically Polish city under Prussian rule. After Poland regained its independence following World War I, the pavilion, standing centrally on the grounds of Poznań’s International Trade Fair, became the fair's symbol, and over time, also evolved into visual shorthand for the city itself. I argue that the Tower's significance extends beyond Posen/Poznań, however. As an embodiment of the conflicts and contradictions of Polish-German historical entanglements, the building, in its changing forms, also concretized various efforts to redefine the dominant Polish national identity away from Romantic ideals toward values such as order, industriousness, and hard work. I also suggest that eventually, as a material structure harnessed into the service of socialism, the Tower, with its complicated past, also brings into relief questions about the regional dimensions of the clashes over the meaning of modernity during the Cold War.
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Wigura, Karolina. "Alternative Historical Narrative." East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures 27, no. 3 (2012): 400–412. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0888325412467456.
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“Polish Bishops’ Appeal to Their German Colleagues” of 18 November 1965 was one of the fifty-six letters written by the Polish Episcopate to episcopates all over the world on the occasion of the end of the Second Vatican Council. However, this one had a special character. In all letters, the brother bishops were first informed about one thousand years of Christianity in Poland, then an outline of the millennium history was given, emphasizing, if possible, common history. The Letter to the German Episcopate had a special significance symbolized by the famous words contained in it: “we grant forgiveness and we ask for forgiveness.” Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, in a communist Poland, where being anti-German (more precisely being anti-Western Germany) was an inherent feature of the official propaganda of the state, the Polish bishops undertook to write an alternative history of relations with the western neighbour. The article examines the Appeal, presenting the background of creating the document, recalling its text and interpreting the text, using keys derived from contemporary philosophy of forgiveness, such as for example Paul Ricoeur’s and Józef Tischner’s, as well as historical documents such as letters written by the authors of the Appeal. Thanks to the alternative history described by the letter, the Appeal has served for years not only as the first step on the way to German–Polish reconciliation but also as the first political declaration using the word “forgiveness” after the Second World War.
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Reckendrees, Alfred. "Business as a Means of Foreign Policy or Politics as a Means of Production? The German Government and the Creation of Friedrich Flick’s Upper Silesian Industrial Empire (1921–1935)." Enterprise & Society 14, no. 1 (2013): 99–143. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/es/khs035.
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In the 1920s, the German government secretly supported private business activities across the German-Polish border due to revisionist political aims. Based on these aims, the (in-) famous industrialist Friedrich Flick was able to attract financial support for otherwise uneconomical activities in Upper Silesia to which the government provided “insurance.” Not even considering the possibility of moral hazard and holdup, the German government was captured in its secret cooperation with Flick, who could effectively exploit this “insurance.” Until 1931, Flick was able to gain high subsidies and to use them efficiently building up an industrial empire that comprehended the German, Polish, and Austrian iron and steel industry. The interplay of German foreign policy and private business activities in the inter-war years is analyzed as an agency problem in a specific “public-private partnership” that allowed for blackmailing the Government.
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Graczyk, Konrad. "Opinia profesora Władysława Woltera w sprawie działalności sądów niemieckich na obszarach polskich w okresie najazdu hitlerowskiego." Krakowskie Studia z Historii Państwa i Prawa 14, no. 2 (2021): 221–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/20844131ks.21.015.13523.
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Opinion of Professor Władysław Wolter on the Activities of German Courts in Polish Territories during the Nazi Occupation The study was devoted to the legal opinion drawn up in the post-war trial against the German judge Albert Michel on the activities of German courts in Polish territories during the Nazi occupation. The scope of the opinion is broader than it appears from the title – Professor Władysław Wolter covered the entire German occupation including the actual German invasion in 1939. The text of the source was preceded by a discussion in which the circumstances of the opinion were explained, the author’s profile was presented, and its most important theses were characterised. The statements of the opinion were related to other views of the doctrine and jurisprudence, as well as the decisions issued in the Michel case.
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Boichuk, Boichuk. "Evolution of historical policy in Poland after II World War in the context of treatment of Germany." Grani 23, no. 9 (2020): 26–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.15421/172082.
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The research dedicated to the analysis of the evolution of historical policy in Poland after the World War II. The crucial part of the article is the role of Germany in this process. On the current stage of mutual Polish-German relations, where a remarkable point of political ties is historical conflict over the aftermath of the World War II. The evolution process of the historical process in Poland is complicated and complexed. Furthermore, the evolution of the historical narrative goes in a shadow of the ideological struggle between two blocks, which had been established after the war. It is need to point the international aspect of historical policy establishing in Poland had one point of view. On the other hand, internarial factors played the crucial role, which were attached at that time for Polish society.The aim of the research is an analysis of the process of historical policy establishing in the Polish People’s Republic and research of main elements in this process. The context of the last events in Polish-German relations is heightening the role of conflict in the sphere of political history over the aftermath of the World War II. It arises the necessity to analyze more deeply the process of historical policy establishing in Poland.It had been established that the historical policy in the Polish People`s Republic was used as the instrument of internal policy and propaganda. The historical policy played two main functions is the integration and the stabilization. The function of integration is used to unite Polish society on the background of the stereotype “Germans – enemy” and for confirmation of new western territories (Ziem odzyskanych). At the same time, the historical policy led to the approval of a new sociopolitical order in Poland at that time. It is noted that historical policy in Poland has few approaches dedicated to periodization and mostly it depends on the area of research. Social researchers divide historical policy after the World War II into two periods. In contrast to social science, representatives of Political Science divide into three periods.
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Eigler, Friederike. "Postmemory and Implication: Susanne Fritz Revisits the Post/War Period in Wie kommt der Krieg ins Kind (2018)." Humanities 10, no. 1 (2021): 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h10010023.
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After providing an introduction to German language family narratives of the past forty years and discussing the relevance of Michael Rothberg’s notion of the “Implicated Subject” for the study of these narratives, this article presents a detailed analysis of Susanne Fritz’s German-Polish family history Wie kommt der Krieg ins Kind (How does the war get into the child, 2018). Exemplifying the archival turn in postmemorial writings, the book draws on multiple sources and makes a compelling case for a broader public acknowledgment of the incarceration of German civilians (including the author’s mother) in post-war Polish labor camps, to this day a little-known aspect of German wartime suffering. The article examines on the one hand the intertwined nature of the mother’s wartime memories and the daughter’s postmemories and, on the other, questions of “implication” at the historical and the textual level (i.e., regarding the ancestors’ involvement in Nazi Germany and regarding the narrator’s positioning vis-à-vis her family history). The central challenge the narrative grapples with is how the suffering of Germans can be addressed within a larger perpetrator heritage. In its critical examination of archival materials and its multi-faceted examination of implication, the book makes a significant contribution to the collective memory of the (post-) war period as well as to the academic study of memory.
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Kimla, Piotr. "George F. Kennan a „sprawa polska” u schyłku II wojny światowej." Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem 39, no. 2 (2017): 95–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/2300-7249.39.2.6.
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GEORGE F. KENNAN AND THE “POLISH CAUSE” AT THE END OF WORLD WAR IIThe article aims at explaining why the famous American diplomatist and intriguing political thinker George F. Kennan already in 1944 considered “the Polish cause” as the “all alost cause” and did not believe in the possibility of restitution of Poland as an independent country after World War II. According to Kennan, this was determined primarily by the Russo-German Nonaggression Pact signed in August 1939. Strictly speaking, by the crimes committed on the Polish population by the Soviet police authorities in 1939–1941. Another important factor was the general expansionist nature of the Soviet regime. Even the Warsaw uprising filled with the unprecedented heroism could not change anything in Stalin’s policy towards Poland.
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KRUTIKOV, Anton. "Hard Parting with “Empireness”." Perspectives and prospects. E-journal, no. 1 (17) (2019): 130–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.32726/2411-3417-2019-1-130-135.
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Review of a new book on the struggle for imperial succession in Central Europe after the end of the First World War by German historian J. Böhler. Constructing new national identities in the “borderlands” of three collapsed empires involved political and armed conflict among several national projects. The restored Polish State was at the “center of events”, while no single Polish nation existed in 1918, according to J. Böhler.
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Jockheck, Lars. "Od agenta do kolaboranta? Współpraca żydowskiego publicysty Fritza Seiftera z Bielska z władzami niemieckimi w latach trzydziestych i czterdziestych." Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, no. 2 (December 2, 2006): 163–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.32927/zzsim.185.
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Fritz Seifter, a Jewish-German journalist and Polish citizen, collaborated with the German authorities on two occasions: first during 1933–1934 in Bielsko, where, supported by the Reich Ministry of National Education and Propaganda, he launched his newspaper Jüdische Wochenpost; second, in July 1940, when the General Governor's Department of National Education and Propaganda in Cracow appointed him editor-in-chief and managing director of Gazeta Żydowska. But in either case the circumstances and motives for collaboration differed significantly.
 In the case of Jüdische Wochenpost, Seifter completed a project he had been planning to carry out since the late 1920s. His newspaper was to consolidate the bonds of German-speaking Polish Jews with Germany. The Reich Ministry of National Education and Propaganda supported the establishment of this newspaper in order to tone down the opinions of Polish Jews regarding the Nazi regime in Berlin. During 1933–1934 Seifter saw himself as an agent of the German Ministry of Propaganda.
 In 1940, German occupation authorities in Krakow searched for and found Fritz Seifter, who was to be appointed editor-in-chief and managing director for the German-planned Gazeta Żydowska, completely controlled by the Germans. Its principal aims were to isolate the Jews even further from their Polish environment, herd them to work and give illusions of hope for emigration after the war.
 Thus there was no continuity in Seifter's co-operation with the German authorities, and collaboration was not the case. During 1933–1934, Seifter's main reason to launch his newspaper was German nationalism, which ostensibly linked him to the Germans. In 1940, however, Fritz Seifter no longer acted of his own accord, and any illusions as to the genocidal character of the Nazi regime was out of the question: Seifter alongside the rest of Polish Jews wanted only to survive.
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Knapton, Samantha K. "‘There is No Such Thing as an Unrepatriable Pole’: Polish Displaced Persons in the British Zone of Occupation in Germany." European History Quarterly 50, no. 4 (2020): 689–710. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265691420960379.
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A group of Polish displaced persons (DPs) was stranded in the British zone of occupation in 1945, a smaller part of a much broader population upheaval in Europe in the 1940s that included Nazi forced labour and resettlement plans, as well as the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe. The relationship between British military officials, welfare workers and the Polish DPs within the British zone deteriorated quickly after German surrender. Using the issue of repatriation as a focal point, this article will explore the growing tensions between the British and Polish who had fought alongside one another and place these within the wider context of increasing East-West tensions in the immediate post-war world. As the British tendency to look upon the Polish DPs as a troublesome ‘nuisance’ can be viewed as a by-product of pressure on an economically weakened Britain straining to live up to its pre-war stature, in this context the need to help the very people who embodied the provocation for going to war became irrelevant.
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Gryz, Ryszard. "Episkopat wobec integralności ziem polskich po II wojnie światowej. Wybrane problemy z najnowszej literatury i źródeł." UR Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 16, no. 3 (2020): 100–122. http://dx.doi.org/10.15584/johass.2020.3.6.
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The article presents selected issues concerning Polish Primates cardinal August Hlond and cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and other bishops’ engagement in the case of emergence and stabilisation of the Polish church administration on the Western and Northern Lands after World War II. It covers the most important stages in the chronology of events related to this topic (1945 – 1951 – 1956 – 1972). The most significant decisions were made in August 1945, when five apostolic administrations were created for the dioceses of Warmia and Gdańsk, Gorzów, Opole Silesia and Lower Silesia. In June 1972, after the Bundestag’s ratification of the border agreement between the Polish People's Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany, the temporary nature of the Polish ecclesiastical structures on the so-called Recovered Territories came to an end. In his bull “Episcoporum Poloniae coetus”, Pope Paul VI liquidated apostolic administrations and created four new dioceses (Gorzów, Koszalin-Kołobrzeg, Szczecin-Kamieńsk and Opole). In the twenty-seven-year long process of stabilisation of the Polish ecclesiastical structures, the position of successive Popes and the Holy See was decisive. They were taking into account the views of the German and Polish episcopates and the state of Polish-German relations in the matter of the boundary line approval. The most active among the Polish hierarchy was Bishop Bolesław Kominek (apostolic administrator in Opole, archbishop of Wrocław, and cardinal). The basis of the article’s synthetic narrative is the selection of the latest Polish publications on state-church relations in Poland after the Second World War, and source editions. The personal notes of Primate Wyszyński – “Pro memoria”, pastoral letters of the Polish Episcopate, announcements of the Episcopal Conference of Poland, and official statements of bishops, among others, were used.
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Szymoniczek, Joanna. "Losy niemieckich cmentarzy wojennych z okresu I wojny światowej." Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki, no. 22 (April 30, 2014): 64–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.35757/rpn.2014.22.03.
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War graves and cemeteries depict a nation’s history. Fallen soldiers are buried far away from where they once lived, often in another country and the vast majority remain anonymous. Around 8.5 million soldiers died in World War I, 2 million of whom were German. They found their final resting place in cemeteries and graveyards or, sometimes, in nameless and forsaken graves scattered not only almost right across Europe, but also in many countries in other parts of the world. More than five hundred war cemeteries were located in Poland. Immediately after the war, their existence stirred no major emotions, albeit that there were some people who objected to their non-native character or to the very fact that it was the soldiers of other nations who were buried there. At that time, financial issues were a more significant problem. The number of war cemeteries in Poland was considerable. In accordance with humanitarian law, they had to be maintained by the state on the territory of which they were located. The authorities were unable to cope with all the obligations. There were a great many cemeteries and their maintenance and upkeep required substantial financial outlays. Efforts were undertaken anyway; involving the local authorities, local inhabitants and young people still at school, they aimed to carry out the necessary work and repairs. The situation began to change at the end of the nineteen thirties. On the part of the Germans, the less-than-ideal state of the German cemeteries was used for propaganda purposes, with reports of visits to Poland being presented in the press, making for an image of poverty, backwardness and a lack of respect for the soldiers’ final resting places. The outbreak of World War II changed the situation of the cemeteries. It was the Germans who then undertook their repair and restoration, on account of both their propaganda value and the fact than many of the newly fallen were also being buried in them. They were not to retain their new appearance for long. Having once again suffered destruction in 1944 and 1945, they were left in that condition over the subsequent decades. While they did not give rise to such emotions and controversies as the German cemeteries of World War II, nevertheless, because they were German cemeteries, they were not accorded the attention and care due to them. There existed an unwillingness to remember that Poles who had been forcibly conscripted to the Wehrmacht were also buried there. It was only the agreement included in the Joint Statement of the Polish Prime Minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, of 14 November 1989 and the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation (Vertrag über gute Nachbarschaft und freundschaftliche Zusammenarbeit) of 17 June 1991, which, between them, provided a comprehensive solution to all the issues related to the German cemeteries in Poland. While these initiatives emphasised the resolving of the issues related to the German World War II cemeteries, repairs to those from World War I have nevertheless also been underway since the nineteen nineties. However, the needs are so great that the involvement of the German party which has funded these efforts thus far is insufficient. The several decades over which these cemeteries were left without any care brought about their disappear from the landscape, while nature has also taken its course. Soldiers, volunteers and young people from Poland and Germany alike are now attempting to make up for the lost years and restore this element of the past of the Polish lands.
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SYLWESTRZAK, Bartosz, and Rafał NIEDZIELA. "POLAND AND ITS RESIDENTS IN THE EYES OF GERMAN SOLDIERS DURING POLISH CAMPAIGN OF 1939." Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces 162, no. 4 (2011): 209–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0002.3225.
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The authors present the circumstances related to the German invasion of Poland during the campaign in September 1939, with special emphasis put on the attitude of Germans towards Poland and Polish people. This is presented on the basis of the letters from Poland to soldiers’ families in Germany and reports in company or battalion chronicles.The moment when German soldiers entered Polish towns and villages was a terrible experience for their residents. The behaviour of the invaders was crude and rough: not only was it caused by war, but also by the attitude of Germans towards Poland and Polish people. Poles were perceived as a lower category of people, without any right to defend themselves. Each part of their life was criticised and damaged. Germans’ irritation was intensified by Jews living in Poland. The article can be useful for supporting lessons on military history.
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Cordell, Karl. "Politics and Society in Upper Silesia Today: The German Minority Since 1945." Nationalities Papers 24, no. 2 (1996): 269–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905999608408441.
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In 1919, Polish nationalist forces led by Josef Pilsudski succeeded in re-establishing an independent Polish state. Poland had disappeared from the map of Europe in 1794 following the third partition. It had been devoured by its traditional enemies; Prussia, Austria and Russia. Historically, Poland had been a state without fixed borders, and via a combination of changing dynastic alliances and a pattern of eastward migration, from the twelfth century formerly Slav areas east of the rivers Oder and Neisse became progressively germanicized. By 1921, following the end of World War I, several peace conferences, and after a series of referenda in disputed (former) German areas and a series of wars with all of its neighbors, including an especially successfully prosecuted war against the embryonic Soviet Union, the new state had managed to become a state which incorporated virtually all ethnic Poles. However, in addition to incorporating the overwhelming majority of ethnic Poles, the borders of the new Polish state also included huge numbers of other ethnic, religious and national groups.
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Bjork, James. "A Polish Mitteleuropa?: Upper Silesia's Conciliationists and the Prospect of German Victory." Nationalities Papers 29, no. 3 (2001): 477–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905990120073717.
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In the first days of August 1914, as enthusiastic crowds hailing the German declaration of war on Russia and France swarmed in front of the imperial residence in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II famously declared that he no longer knew political parties, only Germans. The remark was intended to be rhetorically inclusive, of course, to signal the surmounting not only of party-political divisions but also of the empire's chronic class, confessional, and regional tensions. But for one of the empire's most marginalized groups of subjects—those millions who did not consider themselves of German descent and who spoke Polish rather than German as a native language—the Kaiser's invocation of a common German identity was more effective in underlining the limits rather than the promise of civic solidarity. Unlike the Habsburg Monarchy or (to a lesser extent) the Czarist Empire, where Polish nationalists could hope to reconcile commitment to their national cause with faithfulness to an imperial dynasty or even a diffuse sense of patriotism to a multinational state, the Hohenzollern monarchy had, over the previous half-century, become virtually synonymous with hostility to all things Polish. Upholding the Prussian monarchy, it seemed, was functionally inseparable from promoting a culturally homogenized German nation-state.
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BOCHACZEK-TRĄBSKA, Joanna. "ACTIVITY OF BRANCH 3 IN BYDGOSZCZ IN THE 1930s. OPERATION “WÓZEK”." Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces 162, no. 4 (2011): 200–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0002.3221.
Full textAbstract:
From the moment Poland regained independence, national security was threatened by Germany. This article shows the activity of Branch 3 of Unit II of the General Staff of the Polish Army in Bydgoszcz in the face of the war threat. Branch 3 conducted both military intelligence and counterintelligence activities. Operation “Wózek” carried out by the branch is worth attention. Its objective was to check German parcels, especially military ones, transported from Germany to East Prussia and the Free City of Gdańsk [Polish: Wolne Miasto Gdańsk]. Such a way of obtaining valuable intelligence material was not only important but also inexpensive. Operation “Wózek” contributed to the identification of German preparations for their aggression against Poland in September 1939.
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Grieves, Forest L., and Sheldon Anderson. "A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc: Polish-East German Relations, 1945-1962." German Studies Review 25, no. 3 (2002): 642. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1432650.
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Yongdeog Kim. "A Study on the Polish-German Border Line during the Second World War." Journal of Contemporary European Studies 28, no. 2 (2010): 425–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.17052/jces.2010.28.2.425.
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Kmeťová, Marianna, and Marek Syrný. "The 1944 Warsaw Uprising." Journal of the Belarusian State University. History, no. 1 (January 31, 2020): 18–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.33581/2520-6338-2020-1-18-23.
Full textAbstract:
After the German campaign at the beginning of World War II (1939), Poland was divided between nazi Germany which occupied the west and center of the country, and the Soviet Union which occupying the Eastern regions. The controversial relationship with Moscow has seen several diametrical breaks from a positive alliance after the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers in 1941, to a very critical relationship with the USSR after the revelation of the so-called Katyn massacre in 1943. With the approach of the Eastern Front to the frontiers of pre-war Poland, massive Polish Resistance was also activated to get rid of nazi domination and to restore of pre-war Poland. The neutralization of possible claims by the Soviets on the disputed eastern areas (Western Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania), respectively to prevent the crushing sovietization of Poland, it was also intended to serve a clear and world-wide resistance act in the sense of liberating at least Warsaw from the German occupation. This was to prevent the repeat of the situation in the east of the country, where the Red Army and the Soviet authorities overlooked the merits and interests of the Polish Resistance and Polish authorities. The contribution will therefore focus on the analysis of the causes, assumptions, course and consequences of the ultimate outcome of the unsuccessful efforts of the Armia Krajowa and the Warsaw inhabitants to liberate the city on their own and to determine the free post-war existence of the country.