Flight and Expulsion of Germans From Poland During and After World War II - "Autochthons"

"Autochthons"

Close to three million residents of Masuria (Masurs), Pomerania (Kashubians) and Upper Silesia (Silesians) were considered of Slavic descent, many of them did not identify with Polish nationality, were either bilingual or spoke German only. The Polish government declared these so-called "Autochthons" to be Germanized Poles, who would be re-Slavicized and serve as a proof of a continual Polish settlement. The Polish government aimed to retain as many "autochthons" as possible, as they were needed both for economic reasons and also for propaganda purposes, as their presence on former German soil was used to indicate an intrinsic "Polishness" character of the area and justify its incorporation into the Polish state as "recovered territories". "Verification" and "national rehabilitation" processes were set up to reveal a "dormant Polishness" and to determine which were redeemable as Polish citizens, few were actually expelled. "Autochthons" not only disliked the subjective and often arbitrary verification process, but they also faced discrimination even once verified. Polish settlers coveted autochthon property, and they resented and distrusted the verified autochthons. Many autochthons fled to occupied Germany in despair at their treatment, although the situation in Germany was little better. As one Silesian wrote, "In Poland, I'm a German. In Germany, a Pole. Perhaps they should create a state for us on the moon. There we might finally feel at home".

The verification procedure varied in different territories and was changed several times. Initially, the applicants had to prove their past membership in a Polish minority organization of the German Reich, and in addition needed a warrant where three Polish locals testified their Polishness. In April 1945, the Upper Silesian voivode declared the fulfillment of only one of these requirements to be sufficient. In the areas like Lower Silesia and province of Pomerania, where the Polish authorities suspected only Germans, verification was handled much more strictly than in the former German-Polish borderlands In Masuria a Polish last name or a Polish-speaking ancestor was sufficient. Of the 1,104,134 "verified autochtones" in the census of 1950, close to 900,000 were natives of Upper Silesia and Masuria.

The word "autochton", introduced by the Polish government in 1945 for propaganda purposes, is today sometimes considered an offensive remark and direct naming as Kashubians, Silesians and Masurians is preferred to avoid offending the people described.