Prussian Partition - Society

Society

Poles in the Prussian partition were subject to extensive Germanization policies (Kulturkampf, Hakata). Frederick the Great brought 300,000 colonists to territories he conquered to facilitate Germanization.

That policy, however, had an opposite effect to that which the German leadership had expected: instead of becoming assimilated, the Polish minority in the German Empire became more organized, and its national consciousness grew. Of the three Partitions, the education system in Prussia was on a much higher level than in Austria and Russia, irrespective of its virulent attack on the Polish language specifically (Września).