Neumark

Coordinates: 50°39′26″N 12°21′19″E / 50.65722°N 12.35528°E / 50.65722; 12.35528
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Neumark (disambiguation).
Neumark or East Brandenburg
Neumark or Ostbrandenburg (
Latin)
Region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg
1252–1945
Coat of arms of Brandenburg, shared by the Neumark of Neumark
Coat of arms of Brandenburg, shared by the Neumark
Poland
1 August 1945
1 January 1999
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Lubusz Land
Lubusz Voivodeship
Today part of
a: Pawned to the
Teutonic Knights
in 1402, who gained complete control of the territory by 1429. Pawned back to Brandenburg in 1455, whose reacquisition of the territory was completed in 1463.

The Neumark (listenⓘ), also known as the New March (Polish: Nowa Marchia) or as East Brandenburg (German: Ostbrandenburgⓘ), was a region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and its successors located east of the Oder River in territory which became part of Poland in 1945.

Called the

ethnic German Neumark remained within the Free State of Prussia, itself part of the Weimar Republic
(Germany).

After

Government Region of Frankfurt (coterminous with the Neumark) after the 1815 Congress of Vienna, became part of East Germany in the 1940s, becoming part of Germany after reunification
in 1990.

Location

The Oder marked the borders of the Neumark in the west and south; in the north it bordered

Province of West Prussia
; the Neumark shared borders with both.

After 1815 (Congress of Vienna) the Neumark was dissolved, largely becoming part of Regierungsbezirk Frankfurt of the Province of Brandenburg. Most of the eastern border of the Neumark became that of Brandenburg/Frankfurt with West Prussia (Province of Prussia 1829–1878) and the Grand Duchy of Posen (Province of Posen from 1848).

The Warta and Noteć Rivers and their swamp regions dominated the landscape of the region. At the time of the Neumark's greatest territorial extent (at the end of the 17th century), the region included the following later Kreise (districts) and towns:

In the Brandenburgian Region of Frankfurt

See also:
Frankfurt (region)

In the Pomeranian Region of Köslin

See also: Köslin (region)

History

Ancient history

In the

Celtic
tribes.

As its inhabitants moved westward, the region became depopulated during the Migration Period.[citation needed] After AD 500 West Slavic tribes gradually repopulated the area, which became a forest borderland between Pomerania and Greater Poland. According to the Bavarian Geographer's description, the Miloxi inhabited the future Neumark region: they had 47 settlements between the Oder and Poznań.

Middle Ages

Piast period
(marked in yellow)

The region came under the sovereignty of the

Bolesław I (ruled 992–1025), Dukes of the Polans.[1] Polish rulers incorporated the future Neumark territory as the Lubusz Land and by the beginning of the 13th century the previously depopulated region had a thinly-spread population of Poles
.

Beginning in the 1230s, Low-German–speaking colonists from the Holy Roman Empire began settling north and south of the Warta and Noteć Rivers upon the initiative of Pomeranian and Polish lords (see Ostsiedlung). The lords invited members of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller to establish monasteries, near which settlements began to develop. To fortify the borderland Pomeranian and Polish dukes built castles in the north, around which settlements also grew.

The

castellany of Santok, an important base and crossing point over the Warta near its junction with the Noteć, was sought by Pomerania. To relieve himself of the trouble of maintaining the fortress, Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland granted the castellany to Margrave Conrad as a dowry for his daughter Konstancja. To safeguard the region Margrave John I founded the town of Landsberg an der Warthe (now Gorzów Wielkopolski) in 1257. The Templars sold Soldin
to the Ascanians in 1261, and the town began to become a center for the region.

Most of the colonists who settled in Brandenburg's new eastern territory came from Magdeburg or the Altmark ("Old March"). Unlike in the rest of Brandenburg (where the Ascanians settled knights in open villages) the margraves began constructing castles in their land east of the Oder to guard against Poland.[3] The Slavic inhabitants of the region gradually became Germanized. Because the new Terra trans Oderam, or "land across the Oder", formed an extension of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, it became known as the Neumark ("New March") after the middle of the 15th century.

With the extinction of the Ascanian line in 1320, Brandenburg's interest in the Neumark decreased. Neither the margraves of the Wittelsbach (1323–1373) nor those of the Luxembourg dynasties concerned themselves with developing their easternmost territory further. The political vacuum allowed Poland to reassert its influence in the area, while robber barons terrorized the populace.

Teutonic Knights

See also: Treaties of Cölln and Mewe

Brandenburg pawned the Neumark to the

Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland. This allowed the Order to retain much of its territory in the First Peace of Thorn in 1411.[4]

In 1454/1455 the Knights' mismanagement led to their pawning of the Neumark back to Brandenburg, by then led by Elector Frederick II of the Hohenzollern dynasty (Treaties of Cölln and Mewe). After Frederick completed the re-acquisition of Neumark in 1463 for 40,000 guilders, the region belonged to Brandenburg for the following centuries, with the exception of the time between 1535 and 1571. Frederick II wrote for his successors "that the said land, the New Mark, shall belong to German territory and to the worshipful Electorate of the Mark of Brandenburg, with which it was incorporated at the institution of the Electorate, and shall so remain, and shall never pass to those who speak not the German tongue".[5]

Brandenburg-Küstrin

Margraviate of Brandenburg-Küstrin
Markgrafschaft Brandenburg-Küstrin (German)
1535–1571
A
Early modern age
• Partitioned from
    Brandenburg
1535
• Reabsorbed into
    Brandenburg
1571
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Margraviate of Brandenburg
Margraviate of Brandenburg
Today part of

After the death of Elector

Protestant Reformation, John succeeded in converting the Neumark to Lutheranism and in confiscating church property. He lived frugally and acquired wealth for his treasury through usury and hiring out mercenary
companies.

The division of Brandenburg resulted in trade wars between the brothers, as Crossen and Landsberg competed with the Kurmark's Frankfurt for mercantile primacy. The two margraves eventually compromised – at the economic expense of Stettin. (The brothers also reconciled out of concern for their territories during the Schmalkaldic War of 1546–47.)

In 1548 John's administration moved from Soldin to

Küstrin. With the death of both brothers within ten days of each other in 1571, the Neumark became reunited with the Kurmark under Joachim II's son, John George.[3]

Brandenburg-Prussia

In 1618, East Brandenburg became part of Brandenburg-Prussia after the electors' inheritance of the Duchy of Prussia. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) both Swedish and Imperial troops plundered, ravaged and burnt the land, while plague epidemics in 1626 and 1631 killed much of the populace. While occupied by Swedish troops the region had to contribute 60,000 thalers and 10,000 Wispel of rye.

Kingdom of Prussia

Districts in the Neumark as of 1873

After the declaration of the

Frederick II
, increased land reclamation and economic consolidation resulted from the drainage of the Warta and Notec areas.

The reorganization of Prussia after the territorial changes – resulting from the

Frankfurt Region of the Province of Brandenburg
.

Germany

With the formation of the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871 the Neumark — along with the rest of Brandenburg — became part of a unified German state. In the Weimar Republic's National Assembly of 1 November 1919, the majority of the region voted for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Neumark populace mostly voted for the German National People's Party in the elections for the German Reichstag on 20 May 1928, with a small island of SPD voters. In the Reichstag vote of December 1924 1,900 votes were cast for the Polish People's Party out of a population of 570,000. In 1925 the Neumark had 3,500 Polish speakers.[6] In the Reichstag vote of 6 November 1932, the Nazi Party won the election in the region.[7]

When the Nazi authorities dissolved the province of

Brandenburgisch dialect
.

Infrastructure before 1945

The Neumark region long featured agriculture and forestry. The medium-sized towns were mostly Ackerbürgerstädte, or farmer-citizen-towns. The textile industry became prominent in the 19th century. With the construction of modern roadways, of the Fernverkehrstraße 1 (an arterial road from Berlin to Königsberg), and of the Prussian Eastern Railway, the Neumark also began to develop industrially. Such development was primarily geared toward agricultural needs and was concentrated near the cities of Landsberg and Küstrin, and the Neumark did not become nearly as industrialized or densely populated as other German areas such as the Ruhr, Saxony, or Upper Silesia.

World War II

Near the end of World War II, the Soviet Red Army reached the Neumark at the end of January 1945. Because the Red Army had advanced so quickly, the civilian population of the region suffered greatly from warfare and occupying troops because they had not prepared to flee in time. More than 40,000 New Marchers were killed in action as soldiers.

Under the terms demanded by the Soviet Union in the

expelled. Poles who had themselves been expelled from the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union settled the region. A small part of the German population, mostly technicians for the water supply companies, were retained and used for compulsory labour; they were allowed to emigrate to Germany in the 1950s. Older estimates indicated that of the pre-war population of 645,000, only 5,000 of the inhabitants from 1939 remained in the province in 1950.[7][8]

Villages in today's Germany west of the Oder

After the

regulation of the river
Oder in the 18th century the western border of the New March was not adapted to the Oder's new partially more eastern course. Thus the New Marcher villages west of the Oder, now the German-Polish border, remained with post-World War II Germany.

Formerly located within the District of Königsberg in the New March were the villages

Neurüdnitz, Neutornow [de; pl], Neuwustrow [de], Schaumburg in the Oderbruch (a locality of Bleyen), Schiffmühle [de], Zäckericker Loose [de] and Zelliner Loose (a locality of Letschin). The villages of Aurith [de] and Kunitz-Loose (a locality of Wiesenau
) formed part of the Weststernberg district.

Poland

The

divided cities
:

To replace the expelled indigenous German population, Soviet authorities re-settled Neumark with Poles and

Zielona Góra with a small section around Chojna in Szczecin Voivodeship. Since the reorganization of Polish voivodeships on 1 January 1999, almost all of the former Neumark region lies within the Lubusz Voivodeship
.

Modern inhabitants

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 case of children born between September 1939 and December 1950, their origin 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. The same area corresponding to 1939 East Brandenburg east of the

Oder-Neisse line
(which became part of Poland in 1945) was inhabited as of December 1950 by:

1950 population by place of residence back in 1939:[9]
Region (within 1939 borders): Number Percent
Autochthons (1939 DE/FCD citizens) 14,809 3,3%
Polish expellees from Kresy (USSR) 187,298 42,1%
Poles from abroad except the USSR 10,943 2,5%
Resettlers from the
City of Warsaw
 8,600 1,9%
From Warsaw region (Masovia) 16,926 3,8%
From Białystok region and Sudovia 3,772 0,8%
From pre-war Polish Pomerania 19,191 4,3%
Resettlers from
Poznań region
 88,427 19,9%
Katowice region (East Upper Silesia) 4,725 1,1%
Resettlers from the City of Łódź 2,377 0,5%
Resettlers from Łódź region 22,954 5,2%
Resettlers from Kielce region 14,203 3,2%
Resettlers from Lublin region 19,250 4,3%
Resettlers from Kraków region 12,587 2,8%
Resettlers from
Rzeszów region
 13,147 3,0%
place of residence in 1939 unknown 5,720 1,3%
Total pop. in December 1950 444,929 100,0%

Over 95% of the 1950 population were newcomers to the region, with less than 5% residing in German East Brandenburg already back in August 1939 (so called autochthons, who had German citizenship before

pre-war Poznań Voivodeship of Poland (historical Greater Poland
region), comprising one-fifth of post-war inhabitants.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Poland.gov. "Mieszko I and Boleslaw Chrobry (Boleslaus the Brave)". Accessed December 3, 2006.
  2. ISBN 0-393-30153-2
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-88029-158-3
  4. ISBN 1-85367-535-0
  5. ^ Eulenburg, Herbert, translated by M. M. Bozman. The Hohenzollerns. The Century Co. 1929.
  6. ^ a b Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen. "History of the German expellees and their homelands". Archived 2006-10-15 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 12 May 2006.
  7. ^ a b Westermanns Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. Georg Westermann Verlag. 1963.
  8. ISBN 3-8289-0358-4
  9. ^ Kosiński, Leszek (1960). "Pochodzenie terytorialne ludności Ziem Zachodnich w 1950 r. [Territorial origins of inhabitants of the Western Lands in year 1950]" (PDF). Dokumentacja Geograficzna (in Polish). 2. Warsaw: PAN (Polish Academy of Sciences), Institute of Geography: Tabela 1 (data by county) – via Repozytorium Cyfrowe Instytutów Naukowych.

External links

50°39′26″N 12°21′19″E / 50.65722°N 12.35528°E / 50.65722; 12.35528

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