Origins of The Idea
The Polish people had constituted one of the largest minorities in the German Empire since its creation in 1871. It was as a result of the earlier acquisitions made by Prussia, the very state that initiated the Unification of Germany. The Kingdom of Prussia, with its capital in Berlin after 1451, acquired historic lands with significant Polish population in a series of military operations, and, in the second half of the 18th century, had seized western territories of the Polish Kingdom by taking part in the Partitions of Poland and the Silesian Wars with Austria.
The idea of pan-Germanism, demanding the unification of all Germans in one state, including the German diaspora East of the imperial border, grew out of Romantic nationalism. Some pan-Germanists believed that Germans were ethnically superior to other peoples — including Slavs, whom they viewed as inferior to the German "race" and culture. The Nazi concept of Lebensraum in turn demanded "living space" for German people, claiming overpopulation of Germany and alleged negative traits of heavy urbanisation in contrast to agricultural settlement. The desired territories were to be taken particularly from Poland. Both pan-Germanism and Lebensraum theory viewed Poles as an obstacle to German hegemony and prosperity as well as future expansion of the German state.
Read more about this topic: Expulsion Of Poles By Germany
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“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
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