German Minority in Poland - History of Germans in Poland

History of Germans in Poland

German migration into the area of modern Poland began with the medieval Ostsiedlung (see also Walddeutsche). The historical regions of Lower Silesia, East Brandenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia were almost completely German-settled by the High Middle Ages, while in the other areas there were substantial German populations, most notably in the historical regions of Pomerelia, Upper Silesia, and Posen or Greater Poland. Lutheran Germans settled numerous "Olęder" villages along the Vistula River and its tributaries during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In the 19th century, Germans were actively involved in developing the clothmaking industry in what is now central Poland. Over 3,000 villages and towns within Russian Poland are recorded as having German residents. Many of these Germans remained east of the Curzon line after World War I, including a significant number in Volhynia. In the late 19th century, some Germans moved westward during the Ostflucht, while others were settled in Central Poland by a Prussian Settlement Commission. After the creation of the Second Polish Republic, large numbers of Germans were forced to leave, especially in the Polish Corridor area.

According to the 1931 census there were around 740,000 Germans living in Poland (2.3% of the population). Their minority rights were protected by the Little Treaty of Versailles. The right to appeal to the League of Nations was however renounced in 1934, officially due to German withdrawal from the League in 1933.

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 many members of the German minority (around 25%) joined the ethnic German paramilitary organisation Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz. When the German occupation of Poland begun, Selbstschutz took an active part in Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles; conversely, many ethnic German civilians were murdered by Polish soldiers as Nazi forces advanced. Due to their pre-war interactions with the Polish majority, they were able to prepare lists of Polish intellectuals and civil servants who were selected for extermination. The organisation actively participated in this mass murder and was responsible for the deaths of about 50,000 Poles.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II, Germans from other areas of Eastern Europe were settled in the pre-war territory of Poland by the Nazis, who at the same time expelled, enslaved and killed Poles and Jews.

With the Nazis' defeat and Poland's shift west between the Oder-Neisse and Curzon lines, the Germans who had not fled were expelled or even killed. In the areas which had been part of Germany, Germans had previously formed the vast majority of the population. After the expulsions from 1945 onward they were reduced to a small minority. A different case is Upper Silesia, where the population was more mixed and some Germans were allowed to stay. A possible demonstration of the ambiguity of the Polish German minority position can be seen in the life and career of Waldemar Kraft, a Minister without Portfolio in the West German Bundestag during the 1950s. However, parts of the German minority were not as involved in the Nazi system as Kraft was.

The vast majority of the ethnic Germans east of the Oder-Neisse line were Protestants and were forced out, but a significant minority in Silesia were Roman Catholic, even speaking a partly Slavic dialect called Wasserpolak, and the Poles generally allowed them to stay if they wished. Of those who remained, many later chose to emigrate to West Germany, fleeing Communist rule. With the downfall of the Communist regime, the German minorities' political situation improved. Germans are now allowed to acquire land and property in the areas where they, or their ancestors, used to live, and to move there.

There is no clear-cut division between the Germans and some other minorities, whose heritage is similar in some respects due to centuries of assimilation, Germanisation and intermarriage, but differs in other respects due to either ancient regional West Slavic roots or Polonisation. Examples of these minorities are the so-called Slovincians (Lebakaschuben), the Masurians and the Silesians of Upper Silesia. While in the past these people have been claimed for both Polish and German ethnicity, it depends on their self-perception which group(s) they choose to belong to.