League of East European States
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The League of East European States (German: osteuropäischer Staatenbund), - was a political idea conceived during World War I for the establishment of a buffer state (Pufferstaat) within the Jewish Pale of Settlement of Russia, composed of the former Polish provinces annexed by Russia, which would be a de facto protectorate of the German Empire in Mitteleuropa. The main purpose of this proposal was to make impossible any revival of an independent Poland.[1]
In 1902, prominent Zionist Max Bodenheimer wrote a memorandum to the German Foreign Ministry in which he claimed that Yiddish, the common language of East European Jewry who lived in the provinces annexed from Poland by Russia and Austria, was "a popular German dialect", and that these Jews were mentally well disposed to Germany by linguistic affinity and hence could be an instrument of German imperial policy in the East. In August 1914, a German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews (Deutsches Komitee zur Befreiung der Russischen Juden) was founded by German Zionists, including Bodenheimer, Franz Oppenheimer and Adolf Friedmann, and Russian Zionist Leo Motzkin.
According to this plan, the new state should be a monarchy ruled by the Hohenzollern dynasty.
The population of some 30 million of this state would be composed of of 6 million Jews, 8 million Poles, 11 million Ukrainians and Belarusians, 3.5 million Lithuanians and Latvians, and under 0.5 million Baltic Germans. Isaiah Friedman in the book Germany, Turkey, and Zionism 1897-1918 on page 231 gives the following number of nationalities: Poles, 8 million; Ukrainians, 5 million; Belarusians, 4 million; Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians, 3 to 5 million; Jews, 6 million; and Germans, 1.8 million. While in theory all the groups were to enjoy national autonomy, the Poles were to be "counterbalanced" and Jews and Germans were to "tip the scales" in the proposed state. Isaiah Friedman notes that such a collection of nationalities had merits for German war aims, as it would be dependent on Germany, while a separate Polish state spelled danger.
This concept was criticized by various Zionist leaders as impractical and dangerous, and eventually was given up after Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Joseph of Austria issued the Act of November 5th 1916 in which they proclaimed the creation of the Kingdom of Poland.
Conspiracy theory
The Bodenheimer plan has been associated by some Polish writers with the antisemitic idea of "Judeopolonia", a conspiracy theory positing a future Jewish domination of Poland that arose in the late nineteenth century.[2][3] In this sense, the term ascribes an exaggerated importance to the Bodenheimer plan, which actually had little support from from any group and little chance of success. The "Judeopolonia" conspiracy theory actually predates the Bodenheimer plan by several decades, and the Bodenheimer plan was never called "Judeopolonia" historically (the "Judeopolonia" term has also been used by a few writers without antisemitic intent, but the term's antisemitic origin is established).
This myth has been revived every so often in connection with the Bodenheimer plan, most notably by the author Andrzej Leszek Szcześniak in his 2001 book Judeopolonia.[3]
References
- ^ Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski Jews in Poland - New York 1998, p. 297.
- ^ Michlic, Joanna Beata (2006). Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, pp. 48, 55-56. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803232403.
- ^ a b Blobaum, Robert (2005). Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland, p. 61. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801443474.
- Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski Judeopolonia
- Zosa Szajkowski Demands for Complete Emancipation of German Jewry during World War I, in: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 55, No. 4 (Apr., 1965), pp 350-363.
- Zosa Szajkowski The German Appeal to the Jews of Poland, August 1914, in: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 59, No. 4 (Apr., 1969), pp 311-320.
- Andrzej Leszek Szcześniak Judeopolonia - żydowskie państwo w państwie polskim 2004 ISBN 83-88822-92-6