Recovered Territories
"Recovered Territories", "Regained Territories" or "Western and Northern Territories" (Polish: Ziemie Odzyskane, Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne) were the official terms used by Polish post-war authorities to denote those ocupied by Germany territories, which were in the past part of Polish state and over centuries became lost and Germanised, and which were returned to Poland after the Second World War[1]. The rationale given for the term "Recovered Territories" was that these territories—Pomerania, Silesia, the Lubusz Land, and Warmia-Masuria—had been under the rule of various Polish dukes and kings during the early to high Middle Ages, before becoming seized by Holy Roman Empire or being seized by Prussia during the Partitions of Poland, while other territories were Polish fiefs. In the late stages of Second World War the area, formerly part of the Third Reich, was occupied by the Red Army. Following the Potsdam Agreement, the territories were taken under Polish administration, and Polish population (some of it expelled from the Eastern Poland) replaced most of the German inhabitants who either fled or were expelled. The border was formally recognized by East Germany in the Treaty of Zgorzelec (1950), by West Germany in the Treaty of Warsaw (1970), and affirmed by the re-united Germany in the German-Polish Border Treaty (1990). The term was often used by Propaganda in the People's Republic of Poland[1]
Origin of the term
The term was introduced by Polish authorities, with the 'recovered' being a reference to earlier territories of Polish state from the Middle Ages under the Piast dynasty, whose borders were similar to the ones achieved in 1945, but which fell out of the sphere of Polish influence during the fragmentation of Poland or at an later point in time, for example in Partitions of Poland. The creation of a picture of the new territories as integral part of historical Poland in post-war had the aim of forging Polish settlers and repatriates arriving there into a coherent community loyal to the new regime.[2]
Former Eastern Poland (Kresy) was in turn annexed by the Soviet Union, and as the result the territory of post war Poland was moved west and also became nearly 20% smaller (389,000 km² [3]).
The question of 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 in underground anti-Communist press, there was no resistance to the return of borders of Piast Poland in the West, and support for ending the Germanisation and Drang nach Osten once and for all[4].
The territorial and population-related reorganization was not to be called "Shift to the West", in the course of which the Soviet Union had acquired considerable territories that had formerly been Polish. Instead, the official policy was to speak about Poland's return to "traditionally Polish territory", which for a long time had only become the victim of forced Germanization. The communist position concerning the new territory gained in the north and in the west coincided with the nationality-related policy concepts devised by the parties from before the war[citation needed]. This meant that soon there was a fairly broad consensus in society on the necessity of expelling the Germans and integrating Recovered Territories territories into the Polish state.
Usage
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The term was in use immediately following the end of World War II when it was used to encourage Polish settlers in those territories.[2], that were to increase the already existing Polish population in those areas, which (by Polish sources)in 1939 counted 1.3 million Poles against 7.1 million Germans [5] while in 1925 in this area 676.000 people gave Polish as their native language [1]. As German state during the Second World War made extensive use of Poles as slaves, the Polish population increased in those territories, for example in Wrocław Poles made up 4,000 to 5,000 citizens in 1918 while in 1944 the Polish population increased by 30,000-60,000 [6] It seems to have been "officially" dropped from Polish communist propaganda sometime in the 1950s[citation needed]. By the 1960s, it had clearly been dropped from official use but it is still occasionally used in texts and in common language.[citation needed]
The term "Recovered Territories" is sometimes also known as "Western and Northern territories".[7]
Brief history of "Recovered Territories"
Prehistory and migration period
The areas of today's Poland, including the "Recovered Territories", was place of migration of various peoples, including Celts, and later Germanic tribes. Also Balts settled in the Northeast. As Germanic tribes moved further west in their journey, Slavic peoples settled the area in large numbers and begun to form there the first organised states.
Beginning of the Polish state
Polish duke Mieszko I united territories of various neighboring West Slav tribes in the second half of the 10th century and placed them under control of Polish gentry.
The lands Mieszko I Piast of Poland, were described about 1080 in a note found in a cloister, which talks about the supposed Dagome iudex, with which the land came under protection of the Pope.
In the year 1000 AD the Polish ruler Boleslaw I of Poland, the son of Mieszko I and Bohemian princess Dobrawa received recognition from the Holy Roman Empire at the Congress of Gniezno, where he was named as a friend and ally of the empire.
Loss of Lubus
In 1252 Poland lost to Brandenburg the swampy bishopric of Lubus. It became the base for the further expansion of Neumark into the areas located between Western Pomerania and Great Poland. Eventually all communication between the neighbouring provinces was cut by the new province.
Teutonic Knights
During Christianization parts of non-Christian territories of Prussians (one of the Baltic tribes) were conquered by the German-speaking Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Knights had been employed by Konrad I Piast of Masovia in 1226, who initiated the Northern Crusades. In the following centuries, the Teutonic Knights became fierce enemies of the Polish Kingdom.
German migration (Ostsiedlung)
In the course of the 12th to 14th centuries, large numbers of German, Dutch and Flemish settlers moved into East Central Europe and Eastern Europe. In Pomerania, Brandenburg, East Prussia and Silesia, the former West Slav (Polabian Slavs and Poles) or Balt population became extinguished or dissimilated except for small minorities. In Poland and Pomerelia (West Prussia), German settlers formed a minority.
Poland fragmented and re-united
Poland, like many other countries in Europe, was fragmented in the 12th-13th centuries into several semi-independent duchies. These duchies were ruled by the Piast dukes, who were often in conflict with each other. When the duchies were reunited as the Kingdom of Poland from 1306 to 1320 by King Władysław I the Elbow-high, not all provinces once conquered by Mieszko I. were included, with the duchies of Pomerania, Silesia, and Masovia remaining independent. At this time, the Baltic coast regions were ruled by the Teutonic Knights. Masovia was recovered by Poland in 1526, while many Silesian dukes had allied with the Crown of Bohemia (at that time the Bohemian kings held claims to the Polish Crown).
Expansion of Brandenburg-Prussia
After the death of the last Pomeranian Duke Bogulaw XIV in 1637 Brandenburg-Prussia inherited parts of Pomerania, and subsequently incorporated whole Pomerania into the Kingdom of Prussia until 1815. In 1742, during the Silesian Wars, Silesia—until then part of the Habsburg Monarchy—came under the rule of the Prussian King Frederick II. Prussia also took part in the Partitions of Poland of the late 18th century, and in the political reshuffle after the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
The most contentious subject at the Congress of Vienna was the so-called Polish-Saxon Crisis. Russia and Prussia had devised a plan in which Poland would become an independent kingdom in personal union with the Tsar of Russia: Tsar Alexander I would become King of Poland, in return for which the Prussians would receive all of Saxony as compensation. The Austrians, French, and British were vehemently opposed to this, to the point of war if necessary. In the end an amicable settlement was reached, by which Russia received most of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw as the "Kingdom of Poland" (called Congress Poland), but not the district of Poznań (Grand Duchy of Poznań), nor Kraków. The former was given to Prussia (which only received 40% of Saxony), and the latter became a free city.
Poland restored and shifted
- See also Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the short lived Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918)
After World War I, in 1918, the Polish state (which was previously an elective monarchy) was re-established as the Second Polish Republic. Its territory included the territories that had been annexed by Prussia in the third partition of Poland. When Prussia became part of the German Empire in 1871, these territories were brought into the empire as well. The territories taken from Germany and ceded to the re-established Poland by the Treaty of Versailles were: Pomerelia (West Prussia), Greater Poland, and half of Upper Silesia.
At the Yalta Conference, towards the end of World War II, Joseph Stalin used the puppet Polish government to demand that Poland should receive the provinces of Western Pomerania, Lebus Land Lubusz Land, the remainder of Silesia, the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk), and southern part of East-Prussia (the present Warmia-Masuria). Poland had to give up its Kresy territories (east of the Curzon Line) to the Soviet Union.
Potsdam conference aftermath
In 1945, the population of the regions occupied by the Polish and Soviet Armies, and assigned to Poland after the Second World War consisted of Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians. Initially, Poland was promised western areas of the Second Polish Republic as well as East Prussia, Upper Silesia, and most of Pomerania. At the Potsdam Conference, Poland's western borders were drawn along the Oder-Neisse line. Eventually, however, the northern half of East Prussia was kept by Russia (for its warmwater port) and is now know as the Kaliningrad Oblast. The German inhabitants of the areas east of the line either fled westwards or were expelled, often violently, by Soviet forces and the newly installed Communist local Polish administration. After the former population was gone, the areas were resettled by Poles from former Eastern Poland and Central Poland. Today the area is predominantly Polish, though a small German minority still exists in many places including Olsztyn (German: Allenstein), Masuria, and Upper Silesia.
During the Cold War the official position in First World was that the concluding document of the Potsdam Conference was not an international treaty, but a mere memorandum. It regulated the issue of the German eastern border, which was to be the Oder-Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final status of the German state and therefore its territories were subject to a separate peace treaty between Germany and the Allies of World War II. A treaty was not signed until 1990 as the "Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany". This meant that for 45 years, people on both sides of the border (and of the issue) could not be sure that the settlement reached in 1945 would not be changed at some future date.
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 German unification of democratic West Germany and communist East Germany to go ahead quickly. The same year as the Final Settlement came into effect, 1990, Germany signed a separate treaty with Poland, the German-Polish Border Treaty confirming the two countries’ present borders.
See also
References
- ^ a b An explanation note in "The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland", ed. by Polonsky and Michlic, p.466
- ^ a b Martin Åberg, Mikael Sandberg, Social Capital and Democratisation: Roots of Trust in Post-Communist Poland and Ukraine, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003, ISBN 0754619362, Google Print, p.79
- ^ Paczkowski, Andrzej (2003). "The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom". translation Jane Cave. Penn State Press. pp. p. 14.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe 1944-1948 By Philipp Ther, Ana Siljak Page 81
- ^ Professor Wojciech Roszkowski "Historia Polski 1918-1997" page 157 PWN 2000 ISBN 83-01-12684-1
- ^ Norman Davies "Microsm" Kraków 2002
- ^ Martin Åberg, Mikael Sandberg, Social Capital and Democratisation: Roots of Trust in Post-Communist Poland and Ukraine, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003, ISBN 0754619362, Google Print, p. 51