Recovered Territories

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For territories acquired by Prussia in the 18th century, see Western Borderlands.
Eastern Borderlands
is in gray while the Recovered Territories are in pink.

The Recovered Territories or Regained Lands (Polish: Ziemie Odzyskane), also known as the Western Borderlands (Polish: Kresy Zachodnie), and previously as the Western and Northern Territories (Polish: Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne), Postulated Territories (Polish: Ziemie Postulowane) and Returning Territories (Polish: Ziemie Powracające), are the former eastern territories of Germany and the Free City of Danzig that became part of Poland after World War II, at which time most of their German inhabitants were forcibly deported.[1][2]

The rationale for the term "Recovered" was that these territories formed part of the Polish state, and were lost by Poland in different periods over the centuries.[3] It also referred to the Piast Concept that these territories were part of the traditional Polish homeland under the Piast dynasty (there were their small parts under Poland even after the Piast ended), after the establishment of the state in the Middle Ages. Over the centuries, however, they had become predominantly German-speaking through the processes of German eastward settlement (Ostsiedlung), political expansion (Drang nach Osten), as well as language shift due to Germanisation of the local Polish, Slavic and Baltic Prussian population.[4] Therefore, aside from certain regions such as West Upper Silesia, Warmia and Masuria, as of 1945 most of these territories did not contain sizeable Polish-speaking communities.

While most regions had long periods of Polish rule, spanning hundreds of years, some were controlled by Polish dukes and kings for short periods of up to several decades at a time. Various regions, when not under Polish rule, were in different times under the authority of the

fragmentation of Poland
, which began in the 12th century.

The great majority of the previous inhabitants either fled from the territories during the later stages of the war or were expelled by the Soviet and Polish communist authorities after the war ended, although a small German minority remains in some places. The territories were resettled with Poles who moved from central Poland, Polish repatriates forced to leave areas of former eastern Poland that had been annexed by the Soviet Union, Poles freed from forced labour in Nazi Germany, with Ukrainians forcibly resettled under "Operation Vistula", and other minorities which settled in post-war Poland, including Greeks and Macedonians.[5]

However, contrary to the official declaration that the former German inhabitants of the Recovered Territories had to be removed quickly to house Poles displaced by the Soviet annexation, the Recovered Territories initially faced a severe population shortage.[6] The Soviet-appointed communist authorities that conducted the resettlement also made efforts to remove many traces of German culture, such as place names and historic inscriptions on buildings.

The post-war border between Germany and Poland (the Oder–Neisse line) was recognized by East Germany in 1950 and by West Germany in 1970, and was affirmed by the re-united Germany in the German–Polish Border Treaty of 1990.

Origin and use of the term

History of Brandenburg and Prussia
Present
Polish nationalist propaganda from the 1930s: "Nie jestesmy tu od wczoraj. Sięgaliśmy daleko na zachód." (We are not here since yesterday. Once we reached far west.)

The term "Recovered Territories" was officially used for the first time in the Decree of the President of the Republic of 11 October 1938 after the annexation of Trans-Olza by the Polish army.[7] It became the official term[8] coined in the aftermath of World War II to denote the former eastern territories of Germany that were being handed over to Poland, pending a final peace conference with Germany which eventually never took place.[9] The term "Recovered Territories" is a collective term for different areas with different histories, which can be grouped into three categories:

The underlying concept was to define post-war Poland as heir to the

People's Republic of Poland under the Polish Workers' Party thus supported the idea of Poland based on old Piast lands.[18][19] The question of the Recovered Territories was one of the few issues that did not divide the Polish Communists and their opposition, and there was unanimity regarding the western border. Even the underground anti-Communist press called for the Piast borders, that would end Germanisation and Drang nach Osten.[22] The official view was that the Poles had always had the inalienable and inevitable right to inhabit the Recovered Territories, even if prevented from doing so by foreign powers.[23] Furthermore, the Piast concept was used to persuade the Allied Powers, who found it difficult to define a Polish "ethnographic territory", to assume that it would be an intolerable injustice to not "give the territories back".[12]

US Department of State demographics map from 10 January 1945 Germany – Poland Proposed Territorial Changes

By 1949, the term "Recovered Territories" had been dropped from

Polish communist propaganda, but it is still used occasionally in common language.[24] On the grounds that those areas should not be regarded as unique territories within the Polish state, the authorities began to refer to them instead as the "Western and Northern Lands".[24][25] Wolff and Cordell say that along with the debunking of communist historiography, "the 'recovered territories' thesis ... has been discarded", and that "it is freely admitted in some circles that on the whole 'the recovered territories' had a wholly German character", but that this view has not necessarily been transmitted to the whole of Polish society.[26] The term was also used outside Poland. In 1962, Pope John XXIII referred to those territories as the "western lands after centuries recovered", and did not revise his statement, even under pressure of the German embassy. The term is still sometimes considered useful, due to the Polish existence in those lands that was still visible in 1945, by some prominent scholars, such as Krzysztof Kwaśniewski.[27]

History before 1945

Further information: History of Poland
Mieszko I
in 992, who is considered as the first historical ruler of Poland and the creator of the Polish state, after his realm was recognized by the papacy.

Several different

Warmian-Masurian part of Old Prussia and eastern Lusatia
.

Map (published in 1917 in the United States) showing Poland at the death of Boleslaw III in 1138

Mieszko's son and successor, Duke

King of Poland in 1320, achieved partial reunification, although the Silesian and Masovian
duchies remained independent Piast holdings.

In the course of the 12th to 14th centuries, Germanic, Dutch and Flemish settlers moved into East Central and Eastern Europe in a migration process known as the Ostsiedlung. In Pomerania, Brandenburg, Prussia and Silesia, the indigenous West Slav (Polabian Slavs and Poles) or Balt population became minorities in the course of the following centuries, although substantial numbers of the original inhabitants remained in areas such as Upper Silesia. In Greater Poland and in Eastern Pomerania (Pomerelia), German settlers formed a minority.

Despite the loss of several provinces, medieval lawyers of the Kingdom of Poland created a specific claim to all formerly Polish provinces that were not reunited with the rest of the country in 1320. They built on the theory of the Corona Regni Poloniae, according to which the state (the Crown) and its interests were no longer strictly connected with the person of the monarch. Because of that no monarch could effectively renounce Crown claims to any of the territories that were historically and/or ethnically Polish. Those claims were reserved for the state (the Crown), which in theory still covered all of the territories that were part of, or dependent on, the Polish Crown upon the death of Bolesław III in 1138.

This concept was also developed to prevent from loss of territory after the death of King Casimir III the Great in 1370, when Louis I of Hungary, who ruled Hungary with absolute power, was crowned King of Poland. In the 14th century Hungary was one of the greatest powers of Central Europe, and its influence reached various Balkan principalities and southern Italy (Naples). Poland in personal union with Hungary was the smaller, politically weaker and peripheral country. In the Privilege of Koszyce (1374) King Louis I guaranteed that he would not detach any lands from the Polish Kingdom.[28] The concept was not new, as it was inspired by similar Bohemian (Czech) laws (Corona regni Bohemiae).

Some of the territories (such as

Polish monarchs until the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 had to promise to do everything possible to reunite the rest of those territories with the Crown.[29]

Many significant events in Polish history are associated with these territories, including the victorious battles of Cedynia (972), Niemcza (1017), Psie Pole and Głogów (1109), Grunwald (1410), Oliwa (1627), the lost battles of Legnica (1241) and Westerplatte (1939), the life and work of astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus (16th century) and Johannes Hevelius (17th century), the creation of the oldest Polish-language texts and printings (Middle Ages and the Renaissance era), the creation of the standards and patterns of the Polish literary language (Renaissance era), Polish maritime history, the establishment of one of the first Catholic dioceses in Poland in the Middle Ages (in Wrocław and Kołobrzeg), as well as the Polish Reformation in the Renaissance era.

Significant figures were born or lived in these territories. Astronomer

Polish Enlightenment are connected with these lands: philosopher, geologist, writer, poet, translator, statesman Stanisław Staszic and great patron of arts, writer, linguist, statesman and candidate for the Polish crown Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski were both born in these territories, Ignacy Krasicki (author of the first Polish novel, playwright, nicknamed the Prince of Polish Poets) lived in Warmia in his adulthood, and brothers Józef Andrzej Załuski and Andrzej Stanisław Załuski (founders of the Załuski Library in Warsaw, one of the largest 18th-century book collections in the world) grew up and studied in these territories. Also painters Daniel Schultz, Tadeusz Kuntze and Antoni Blank, as well as composers Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki and Feliks Nowowiejski
were born in these lands.

By the time that Poland regained her independence in 1918, Polish activist Dr. Józef Frejlich was already claiming that the lands situated on the right bank of the Oder river, including inner industrial cities such as Wrocław, and Baltic ports such as Szczecin and Gdańsk, were economic parts of Poland that had to be united with the rest of the "economic territory of Poland"[30] into a united and independent state, as a fundamental condition of the economic revival of Poland after World War I.[31]

After the successful

Danzig, the Czechoslovakian part of Cieszyn Silesia and other bordering areas with significant Polish population. The Polish population of these lands was subject to Germanisation
and intensified repressions, especially after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933.

Most of long Germanized

Eastern Prussia remained undisputed.[32] However, in reaction to Hitler's Germany threats to Poland shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Polish nationalists
displayed maps of Poland including those ancient Polish territories as well, claiming their intention to recover them.

In the

renaming of thousands of placenames
, to remove traces of Slavic origin.

Pomerania

Main article: History of Pomerania
Location of the annexed part (orange) of the Province of Pomerania and of the other "Recovered Territories" (green)
Castle of the Dukes of Pomerania in Szczecin

The

Nazis
came to power in Germany in 1933.

Gdańsk, Lębork and Bytów

Further information: History of Gdańsk and Lauenburg and Bütow Land
Gdańsk was a principal seaport of Poland since the Middle Ages. From the mid-15th to the early 18th century it was the largest city of Poland. Lost by Poland in the Second Partition in 1793.
Location of the former Free City of Danzig (orange) and of the other "Recovered Territories" (green)

The region of

monastic state of the Teutonic Knights
.

Most cities of the region joined or sided with the

Second Peace of Thorn (1466) made Royal Prussia a part of Poland. It had a substantial autonomy and a lot of privileges. It formed the Pomeranian Voivodeship, located within the province of Royal Prussia in the Kingdom of Poland, as it remained until being annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the partitions of 1772 and 1793. A small area in the west of Pomerelia, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land (the region of Lębork and Bytów) was granted to the rulers of Pomerania as a Polish fief, before being reintegrated with Poland in 1637, and later on, again transformed into a Polish fief, which it remained until the First Partition, when three quarters of Royal Prussia's urban population were German-speaking Protestants.[34]
After Poland regained independence in 1918, a large part of Pomerelia was reintegrated with Poland, as the so-called Polish Corridor, and so was not part of the post-war so-called Recovered Territories.

Lubusz Land and parts of Greater Poland

Main articles:
Province of Posen-West Prussia
East Brandenburg
(orange) and of the other "Recovered Territories" (green)
A 19th-century map of Piast-ruled Greater Poland: Lubusz Land, stretched on both sides of the Oder, marked in yellow, northwestern parts of Greater Poland annexed by Brandenburg, marked in green

The medieval

Bishopric of Lebus, established by Polish Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth, remained a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Gniezno until 1424, when it passed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. The Lubusz Land was part of the Lands of the Bohemian (Czech) Crown
from 1373 to 1415.

Brandenburg also acquired the castellany of

Polish–Teutonic War (1431–35) several towns of the region rebelled against the Order to join Poland, among them Choszczno, Drawno and Złocieniec.[35] The present-day Polish Lubusz Voivodeship
comprises most of the former Brandenburgian Neumark territory east of the Oder.

Location of Posen-West Prussia (orange) and of the other "Recovered Territories" (green)
Polish Enlightenment, in Piła
(nowadays a museum)

A small part of northern Greater Poland around the town of

Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen
(the German Province of Posen–West Prussia) until 1939.

Silesia

Main article: History of Silesia
Location of Silesia (orange) in the "Recovered Territories" (green)

town rights for the first time in the history of Poland in 1211 to the Lower Silesian town of Złotoryja. The Book of Henryków, containing the oldest known written sentence in Polish, was created in Lower Silesia.[37] The first Polish-language printed text was published in Wrocław by Głogów-born Kasper Elyan, who is regarded as the first Polish printer.[38] Burial sites of Polish monarchs are located in Wrocław, Trzebnica and Legnica
.

Polish city names in Silesia; from a 1750 Prussian official document published in Berlin during the Silesian Wars.[39]

Piast dukes continued to rule Silesia following the 12th-century

Archbishopric of Gniezno
until 1821.

The first German colonists arrived in the late 12th century, and large-scale German settlement started in the early 13th century during the reign of

Odra river. Here the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages became mostly Polonized; Germans dominated in large cities and Poles mostly in rural areas. The Polish-speaking territories of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly described until the end of the 19th century as the Polish side, were mostly Germanized in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for some areas along the northeastern frontier.[41][42] The province came under the control of Kingdom of Bohemia in the 14th century and was briefly under Hungarian rule in the 15th century. Silesia passed to the Habsburg monarchy of Austria in 1526, and Prussia's Frederick the Great conquered most of it in 1742. A part of Upper Silesia became part of Poland after World War I and the Silesian Uprisings
, but the bulk of Silesia formed part of the post-1945 Recovered Territories.

Warmia and Masuria

Further information: Prussia (region) and East Prussia
Polish Crown (1466–1657). Warmia was directly incorporated to the Polish state until the First Partition of Poland
(1772)
Location of southern East Prussia (orange) and of the other "Recovered Territories" (green)

The territories of

Ducal Prussia. Then it would become one of the leading centers of Polish Lutheranism, while Warmia, under the administration of prince-bishops remained one of the most overwhelmingly Catholic
regions of Poland.

Polish suzerainty over Masuria ended in 1657/1660 as a result of the Deluge and Warmia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the First Partition of Poland (1772). Both regions formed the southern part of the province of East Prussia, established in 1773.

All of Warmia and most of Masuria remained part of Germany after World War I and the re-establishment of independent Poland. During the 1920 East Prussian Plebiscite, the districts east of the Vistula within the region of Marienwerder (Kwidzyn), along with all of the Allenstein Region (Olsztyn) and the district of Oletzko voted to be included within the province of East Prussia and thus became part of Weimar Germany. All of the region as the southern part of the province of East Prussia became part of Poland after World War II, with northern East Prussia going to the Soviet Union to form the Kaliningrad Oblast.

Polish minorities already living in the Recovered Territories

Piast Castle in Opole before its destruction by the local German authorities between 1928 and 1930

Since the time of the

House of Griffins.[43] Likewise, in the 14th, 15th and 16th century many Polish settlers from Mazovia migrated into the southern portions of the Duchy of Prussia.[44]

The former headquarters of the pre-war Polish newspaper Gazeta Olsztyńska in Olsztyn, destroyed under Nazi rule in 1939,[45] rebuilt in 1989

Before the outbreak of war, regions of

NSDAP (Nazi Party) is usually not considered by historians and demographers as trustworthy but as drastically falsified.[48] Therefore, while this German census placed the number of Polish-speakers and bilinguals below 700,000 people, Polish demographers have estimated that the actual number of Poles in the former German East was between 1.2[47] and 1.3 million.[49] In the 1.2 million figure, approximately 850,000 were estimated for the Upper Silesian regions, 350,000 for southern East Prussia and 50,000 for the rest of the territories.[47]

Under German rule, these communities faced discrimination and oppression.[citation needed] In 1924, an association of national minorities was founded in Germany, also representing the Polish minority. Jan Baczewski from Warmia, member of the Landtag of Prussia, initiated a law allowing the founding of schools for national minorities.[50] In 1938, the Nazi government changed thousands of place-names (especially of cities and villages) of Polish origin to newly invented German place-names; about 50% of the existing names were changed in that year alone.[51] Also, undercover operatives were sent to spy on Polish communities. Information was gathered on who sent their children to Polish schools, or bought Polish books and newspapers. Polish schools, printing presses, headquarters of Polish institutions as well as private homes and shops owned by Poles were routinely attacked by members of the Schutzstaffel (SS).[52] Although, thousands of Poles forcefully or voluntary migrated to this lands during World War II.

Also, small isolated enclaves of ethnic Poles could be found in Pomerania, Lubusz Land and Lower Silesia. These included scattered villages which remained ethnically Polish and large cities such as Wrocław (Breslau), Szczecin (Stettin) and Zielona Góra (Grünberg in Schlesien) which contained small Polish communities.[53][54][55]

Origin of the post-war population according to 1950 census

During the Polish post-war census of December 1950, data about the pre-war places of residence of the inhabitants as of August 1939 was collected. (In the case of children born between September 1939 and December 1950, their place of residence was reported based on the pre-war places of residence of their mothers.) Thanks to this data it is possible to reconstruct the pre-war geographical origin of the post-war population. Many areas located near the pre-war German border were resettled by people from neighbouring borderland areas of pre-war Poland. For example,

Poznań region of pre-war Poland settled in East Brandenburg. People from East Upper Silesia moved into the rest of Silesia. And people from Masovia and the Suwałki Region moved into adjacent Masuria. Poles expelled from former Polish territories in the east (today mainly parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania
) settled in large numbers everywhere in the Recovered Territories (but many of them also settled in central Poland).

Origin of settlers and the number of autochthons in the Recovered Territories in 1950 (county data grouped based on pre-1939 administrative borders)[56]
Region (within 1939 borders): West Upper Silesia Lower Silesia East Brandenburg West Pomerania Free City Danzig South East Prussia Total
Autochthons (1939 German/Danzig citizens) 789,716 120,885 14,809 70,209 35,311 134,702 1,165,632
Polish expellees from Kresy (USSR) 232,785 696,739 187,298 250,091 55,599 172,480 1,594,992
Poles from abroad except the USSR 24,772 91,395 10,943 18,607 2,213 5,734 153,664
Resettlers from the
City of Warsaw
 11,333 61,862 8,600 37,285 19,322 22,418 160,820
From Warsaw region (Masovia) 7,019 69,120 16,926 73,936 22,574 158,953 348,528
From Białystok region and Sudovia 2,229 23,515 3,772 16,081 7,638 102,634 155,869
From pre-war Polish Pomerania 5,444 54,564 19,191 145,854 72,847 83,921 381,821
Resettlers from
Poznań region
 8,936 172,163 88,427 81,215 10,371 7,371 368,483
Katowice region (
East Upper Silesia
) 		91,011 66,362 4,725 11,869 2,982 2,536 179,485
Resettlers from the City of Łódź 1,250 16,483 2,377 8,344 2,850 1,666 32,970
Resettlers from Łódź region 13,046 96,185 22,954 76,128 7,465 6,919 222,697
Resettlers from Kielce region 16,707 141,748 14,203 78,340 16,252 20,878 288,128
Resettlers from Lublin region 7,600 70,622 19,250 81,167 19,002 60,313 257,954
Resettlers from Kraków region 60,987 156,920 12,587 18,237 5,278 5,515 259,524
Resettlers from
Rzeszów region
 23,577 110,188 13,147 57,965 6,200 47,626 258,703
place of residence in 1939 unknown 36,834 26,586 5,720 17,891 6,559 13,629 107,219
Total pop. in December 1950 1,333,246 1,975,337 444,929 1,043,219 292,463 847,295 5,936,489
See also: Right of return

Polonization of the Recovered Territories

new Polish-German border
in 1945

The People's Republic had to locate its population inside the new frontiers in order to solidify the hold over the territories.

moved westwards and its area reduced by almost 20% (from 389,000 to 312,000 km2 (150,194 to 120,464 sq mi)).[57] Millions of non-Poles – mainly Germans from the Recovered Territories, as well as some Ukrainians in the east – were to be expelled from the new Poland, while large numbers of Poles needed to be resettled having been expelled from the Kresy. The expellees were termed "repatriates".[12] The result was the largest exchange of population in European history.[12]

The picture of the new western and northern territories being recovered Piast territory was used to forge Polish settlers and "repatriates" arriving there into a coherent community loyal to the new regime,

East Brandenburg), the local authorities conceded already in 1948 that what the PZZ claimed to be a recovered "autochton" Polish population were in fact Germanized migrant workers, who had settled in the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – with the exception of one village, Babimost, just across the pre-war border.[62]

Great efforts were made to propagate the view of the Piast Concept. It was actively supported by the Catholic Church.[63] The sciences were responsible for the development of this perception of history. In 1945 the Western Institute (Polish: Instytut Zachodni) was founded to coordinate the scientific activities. Its director, Zygmunt Wojciechowski, characterized his mission as an effort to present the Polish history of the region, and project current Polish reality of these countries upon a historical background.[64] Historical scientists, archaeologists, linguists, art historians and ethnologists worked in an interdisciplinary effort to legitimize the new borders.[65] Their findings were popularised in monographs, periodicals, schoolbooks, travel guides, broadcasts and exhibitions.[66] Official maps were drawn showing that the Polish frontiers under the first known Piast princes matched the new ones.[12] According to Norman Davies, the young post-war generation received education informing them that the boundaries of the People's Republic were the same as those on which the Polish nation had developed for centuries. Furthermore, they were instructed that the Polish "Motherland" has always been in the same location, even when "occupied" for long periods of time by foreigners or as political boundaries shifted.[23] Because the Recovered Territories had been under German and Prussian rule for many centuries, many events of this history were perceived as part of "foreign" rather than "local" history in post-war Poland.[67] Polish scholars thus concentrated on the Polish aspects of the territories: medieval Piast history of the region, the cultural, political and economic bonds to Poland, the history of the Polish-speaking population in Prussia and the "Drang nach Osten" as a historical constant since the Middle Ages.[65]

Removal of Germans and traces of German habitation

Further information:
Committee for Settling of Place Names
See also: Emigration from Poland to Germany after World War II
Lubiąż abbey was removed and transferred to Stężyca
, in eastern Poland in order to replace church stalls destroyed by the Germans.

The Communist authorities of the Polish People's Republic and some Polish citizens desired to erase all traces of German rule.

Polish Communist regime had collapsed 300,000-350,000 people declared themselves German.[47]

The flight and expulsion of the remaining Germans in the first post-war years presaged a broader campaign to remove signs of former German rule.[72]

More than 30,000 German placenames were replaced with Polish

Ziemia Lubuska "Socialist competitions" were organized to search and destroy final German traces.[72]

Historian John Kulczycki argues that the Communist authorities discovered that forging an ethnically homogeneous Poland in the Recovered Territories was quite complicated, for it was difficult to differentiate German speakers who were "really" Polish and those who were not. The government used criteria that involved explicit links to Polish ethnicity, as well the person's conduct. Local verification commissions had wide latitude in determining who was or was not Polish and should remain. Their decisions were based on the nationalist assumption that an individual's national identity is a lifetime "ascriptive" characteristic acquired at birth and not easily changed. However people who "betrayed" their Polish heritage by their political words or actions were excluded from the Polish nation. Everyone else was labelled as "Polish" and had to remain in their "native" land – even if they wanted to emigrate to Germany.[80]

Resettlement of the Territories

Further information:
Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946) and Repatriation of Poles (1955–1959)
East Galicia
. People from these areas who resettled in the Recovered Territories brought this and other culinary traditions with them to their new homes.

People from all over Poland quickly moved in to replace the former German population in a process parallel to the expulsions, with the first settlers arriving in March 1945.[81] These settlers took over farms and villages close to the pre-war frontier while the Red Army was still advancing.[81] In addition to the settlers, other Poles went for "szaber" or looting expeditions, soon affecting all former eastern territories of Germany.[81] On 30 March 1945, the Gdańsk Voivodeship was established as the first administrative Polish unit in the "recovered" territories.[82] While the Germans were interned and expelled, close to 5 million settlers[83][84] were either attracted or forced to settle the areas between 1945 and 1950. An additional 1,104,000 people had declared Polish nationality and were allowed to stay (851,000 of those in Upper Silesia), bringing up the number of Poles to 5,894,600 as of 1950.[47] The settlers can be grouped according to their background:

  • settlers from Central Poland moving voluntarily (the majority)[83]
  • Poles that had been freed from
    forced labor in Nazi Germany (up to two million)[83][85]
  • so-called "repatriants": Poles expelled from the areas east of the new Polish-Soviet border were preferably settled in the new western territories, where they made up 26% of the population (up to two million)[83][85]
  • non-Poles forcibly resettled during the Operation Vistula in 1947. Large numbers of Ukrainians were forced to move from south-eastern Poland under a 1947 Polish government operation aimed at dispersing, and therefore assimilating, those Ukrainians who had not been expelled eastward already, throughout the newly acquired territories. Belarusians living around the area around Białystok were also pressured into relocating to the formerly German areas for the same reasons. This scattering of members of non-Polish ethnic groups throughout the country was an attempt by the Polish authorities to dissolve the unique ethnic identity of groups like the Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lemkos,[86] and broke the proximity and communication necessary for strong communities to form.
  • Tens of thousands of
    Polish 1968 political crisis.[88]
  • Greeks and Macedonians, refugees of the Greek Civil War (around 10,000 people)[5]
A black-and-white photograph showing a group of cyclists, with a banner above them
"The 10th stage, Zgorzelec to Wrocław, leads you through primeval Polish lands." Photograph from the June 1955 Peace Race

Polish and Soviet newspapers and officials encouraged Poles to relocate to the west – "the land of opportunity".[83] These new territories were described as a place where opulent villas abandoned by fleeing Germans waited for the brave; fully furnished houses and businesses were available for the taking. In fact, the areas were devastated by the war, the infrastructure largely destroyed, suffering high crime rates and looting by gangs. It took years for civil order to be established.

In 1970, the Polish population of the Northern and Western territories for the first time caught up to the pre-war population level (8,711,900 in 1970 vs 8,855,000 in 1939). In the same year, the population of the other Polish areas also reached its pre-war level (23,930,100 in 1970 vs 23,483,000 in 1939).[47]

Today the population of the territories is predominantly Polish, although a small German minority still exists in a few places, including Olsztyn, Masuria, and Upper Silesia, particularly in Opole Voivodeship (the area of Opole, Strzelce Opolskie, Prudnik, Kędzierzyn-Koźle and Krapkowice).[89]

Role of the Recovered Territories in the Communists' rise to power

Władysław Gomułka (center), minister in the Polish People's Republic who oversaw the integration and development of the Recovered Territories between 1945 and 1948

The Communist government, not democratically legitimized, sought to legitimize itself through anti-German propaganda.[69] The German "revanchism" was played up as a permanent German threat, with the Communists being the only guarantors and defenders of Poland's continued possession of the "Recovered Territories". Gomułka asserted that:

The western territories are one of the reasons the government has the support of the people. This neutralizes various elements and brings people together. Westward expansion and agricultural reform will bind the nation with the state. Any retreat would weaken our domestic position.[73][90]

The redistribution of "ownerless property" among the people by the regime brought it broad-based popular sympathy.[73]

After the Second World War, the Soviet Union annexed the Polish territory of the

Curzon line—and encouraged or forced ethnic minorities in these parts of Poland, including ethnic Poles, to move west. In the framework of the campaign, Soviets exhibited posters in public places with messages such as,[91]

Western territories. Eldorado. In bloody battles, the Polish soldier has liberated very old Polish territories. Polish territory for Poland. 5,000 lorries are available to bring settlers to the west.

Legal status of the territories

Main article:
Oder-Neisse line
Municipal House of Culture in Zgorzelec, place of signing of the Treaty of Zgorzelec in 1950

During the

Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany
".

Boundary stones of Germany and Poland in the Ueckermünde Heath

Until the Treaty on the Final Settlement, the West German government regarded the status of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse rivers as that of areas "temporarily under Polish or Soviet administration". To facilitate wide international acceptance of German reunification in 1990, the German political establishment recognized the "facts on the ground" and accepted the clauses in the Treaty on the Final Settlement whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder-Neisse line. This allowed the treaty to be negotiated quickly and for unification of democratic West Germany and socialist East Germany to go ahead quickly.

In accordance with a duty imposed on Germany by the Treaty on the Final Settlement, in the same year, 1990, Germany signed a separate treaty with Poland, the

German-Polish Border Treaty
, confirming the two countries' present borders.

The signature and ratification of the border treaty between Germany and Poland formalized in international law the recognition of the existing border and put an end to all qualified German claims.

See also

Sources

Notes

References

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  3. ^ Hammer, Eric (2013). "Ms. Livni, Remember the Recovered Territories. There is an historical precedent for a workable solution". Arutz Sheva. Archived from the original on 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  4. ^ Weinhold, Karl (1887). Die Verbreitung und die Herkunft der Deutschen in Schlesien (in German). Stuttgart: Verlag von J. Engelhorn.
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  6. ^ R. M. Douglas. Orderly and Humane. The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War. Yale University Press. p. 261.
  7. ^ Dziennik Ustaw 1938 no. 78 item 533.
  8. ^ An explanation note in "The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland" Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine, ed. by Polonsky and Michlic, p. 466
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  14. ISBN 978-0-271-01084-7
  15. ^ a b Alfred M. De Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam, p. 168
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  26. ISBN 978-0-415-36974-9
    . "In addition ... it has been relatively easy for Polish historians and others to attempt to debunk communist historiography and present a more balanced analysis of the past – and not only with respect to Germany. It has been controversial, and often painful, but nevertheless it has been done. For example, Poland's acquisition in 1945 of eastern German territories is increasingly presented as the price Germany paid for launching a total war, and then having lost it totally. The 'recovered territories' thesis previously applied in almost equal measures by the communists and Catholic Church has been discarded. Some circles freely admit that on the whole, 'the recovered territories' in fact had a wholly German character. The extent to which this fact transmitted to groups other than the socially and politically engaged is a matter of debate."
  27. ISBN 978-83-86944-75-0
    , also his previous work Adaptacja i integracja kulturowa ludności Śląska po drugiej wojnie światowej 1969
  28. ^ Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, t. III nr 1709, p. 425–426
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  30. ^ Freilich, Joseph (1918). Fundamental Conditions of the Economic Independence of Poland. Chicago: Polish National Defense Committee. p. 88.
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  32. ^ Fuchs, Werner (1932). Poland's policy of expansion as revealed by Polish testimonies. Deutscher Ostmarken-Verein. p. 12.
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  34. ^ Christopher M. Clark, University Christopher Clark, MD (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Harvard University Press. p. 233.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  35. ^ Strzelce Krajeńskie. Studia i szkice historyczne, Strzelce Krajeńskie, 2016, p. 73
  36. ^ „Kronika polska, Gall Anonim”, series „Kroniki polskie”, Zakł. Nard. Ossolińskich, Wrocław, p. 72.
  37. ^ Bogdan Walczak, Zarys dziejów języka polskiego, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Wrocław, 1999, p. 64
  38. ^ Jan Łoś, Początki piśmiennictwa polskiego: (przegląd zabytków językowych), Wydawnictwo Zakładu Narodowego im. Ossolińskich, Lwów, 1922, p. 212–213
  39. ^ "Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa – biblioteka cyfrowa regionu śląskiego – Wznowione powszechne taxae-stolae sporządzenie, Dla samowładnego Xięstwa Sląska, Podług ktorego tak Auszpurskiey Konfessyi iak Katoliccy Fararze, Kaznodzieie i Kuratusowie Zachowywać się powinni. Sub Dato z Berlina, d. 8. Augusti 1750". 225240 IV. Sbc.org.pl. Archived from the original on 2012-06-06. Retrieved 2013-11-20.
  40. ISBN 3-520-31602-1
  41. ^ M. Czapliński [in:] M. Czapliński (red.) Historia Śląska, Wrocław 2007, s. 290
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  43. ISBN 978-3-05-004155-1
  44. ISBN 3-570-55006-0
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  45. ^ Leon Sobociński, Na gruzach Smętka, wyd. B. Kądziela, Warszawa, 1947, p. 61 (in Polish)
  46. ISBN 3-412-12000-6
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  48. ISBN 978-83-7427-391-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
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  49. ^ Wojciech Roszkowski "Historia Polski 1918-1997" page 157
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  51. ^ Bernd Martin, p. 55
  52. ^ Maria Wardzyńska: "Intelligenzaktion" na Warmii, Mazurach oraz Północnym Mazowszu. Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu. Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr. 12/1, 2003/2004, pp. 38–42
  53. ^ Norman Davies, Roger Moorhouse (2003). Microcosm: A Portrait of a Central European City. Pimlico. p. 90.
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  55. ^ Weczerka, p. 166
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  58. ISBN 0-7546-1936-2, Google Print, p.79 Archived 2016-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
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  63. ISBN 978-3-570-55017-5
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  65. ^
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  66. ISBN 978-3-570-55017-5
  67. ISBN 978-0-19-925340-1
  68. ^ Pomocnik Historyczny POLITYKI - "Prusy - wzlot i upadek" 137 16.03.2012
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  86. ^ Thum, p.129
  87. ISBN 978-0-7146-3413-5
  88. ^ Thum, p.127 + p.128
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    , pp. 533-534 (in German, The Flower of Europe. Breslau, Wrocław, Vratislava. The History of a Town in Central Europe)
  92. ^ "Why is the Oder-Neiße Line a Peace Border? (1950)". Archived from the original on 2012-10-14. Retrieved 2008-09-30.

Bibliography

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Recovered_Territories&oldid=1214788290"