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92-523: The immigrants mainly came from what was then eastern provinces of Germany ( Province of Posen , East Prussia , West Prussia , Province of Silesia ), which were acquired by the Kingdom of Prussia in the late-18th-century Partitions of Poland or earlier, and which housed a significant Polish-speaking population. This migration wave, known as the Ostflucht , began in the late 19th century, with most of

184-596: A German majority (the Posen–West Prussia Border March, Lauenburg and Bütow Land , the southern and western rim of East Prussia , Ermland , Western Upper Silesia , and the part of Lower Silesia east of the Oder ), or mixed German– Czech with a German majority ( Glatz ). Virtually the entire German population of the territories that did not flee voluntarily in the face of the Red Army advance of 1945 ,

276-809: A consulate, and eventually moved to Düsseldorf in 1936. In the interbellum , the main Polish newspaper of the Ruhr Poles was Naród , issued in Herne since 1921, whereas Wiarus Polski , the oldest Polish newspaper of the Ruhr, was moved to Poznań , Poland in 1923. Bochum was the headquarters of the Third District of the Union of Poles in Germany , which covered not only Westphalia and Rhineland , within which

368-577: A kingdom. Subsequently, it entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories of Royal Prussia in the First Partition of Poland (1772), with Warmia being made part of the newly formed province of East Prussia in 1773. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, a minor part around Soldau was transferred to Poland, the Klaipėda Region formed a free city supervised by

460-562: A massive campaign of renaming of thousands of placenames , to remove traces of Polish, Lithuanian and Old Prussian origin. Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war on 1 September 1939, heralding the start of the Second World War . The Third Reich annexed the Polish lands included the former Prussian Partition , comprising Pomerelia (the " Polish Corridor "), Chełmno Land , Greater Poland proper, Kuyavia , Łęczyca Land , Sieradz Land , Northern Masovia , as well as

552-777: A migration process known as the Ostsiedlung , and the Hanseatic League dominated the shores of the Baltic Sea . In Pomerania, Brandenburg , East Prussia , Lusatia , Kłodzko Land and Lower Silesia , the former West Slav ( Bohemians , Polabian Slavs and Poles ) or Baltic population became minorities in the course of the following centuries, but substantial numbers of them remained in areas such as Upper Silesia . In Greater Poland and in Eastern Pomerania ( Pomerelia ), German settlers always remained

644-862: A minority. Some of the territories, such as Pomerelia and Masovia, reunited with Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. Silesia, Lubusz Land and Lusatia (as parts of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ) and the Duchy of Pomerania became more firmly incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire . In the course of the Partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire acquired vast territorial shares of

736-668: A political ultimatum caused a Lithuanian delegation to travel to Berlin, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Juozas Urbšys and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany in exchange for a Lithuanian Free Zone in the port of Memel that used the facilities erected in the previous years. In the interwar period , the German administration, both Weimar and Nazi, conducted

828-583: A replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire the German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund), an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe under the nominal leadership of the Austrian Empire . Its boundaries largely followed the ones of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire , defining the territory of Germany for much of the 19th century and confirming Pomerania , East Brandenburg and Silesia as its parts. On

920-673: A separate realm and becoming a part of the Habsburg monarchy in the aftermath of the Bohemian Revolt 's defeat in the Battle of White Mountain . After losing the 18th-century Silesian Wars , the Habsburg monarchy was forced to cede most of the region to the Kingdom of Prussia in the treaties of Breslau and of Berlin , retaining only Austrian Silesia . The ceded lands also included the (sometimes considered Moravian ) territories of

1012-659: Is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. A clean sweep will be made. The problem with the status of these territories was that the Potsdam Agreement was not a legally binding treaty , but a memorandum between the USSR, the US and the UK (to which neither France, nor Germany or Poland were party). It regulated

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1104-635: The Cold War , had been indefinitely postponed; however, West Germany in 1972 recognised the Oder–Neisse line as the western boundary of Poland when the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw between West Germany and Poland took effect; and in 1973, the Federal Constitutional Court acknowledged the capability of East Germany to negotiate the Treaty of Zgorzelec as an international agreement binding as a legal definition of its boundaries. In signing

1196-612: The Duchies of Silesia to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown . Ecclesiastically, the Diocese of Wrocław covering Silesia remained a suffragan of the Polish Archdiocese of Gniezno until becoming exempt in 1821. The first German colonists arrived in the late 12th century, and large-scale German settlement started in the early 13th century during the reign of Henry I . New forms of agriculture, technology and law brought in by

1288-721: The Dziennik Polski daily newspaper was founded in Dortmund, and in 1909 the Narodowiec newspaper was founded in Herne. The two most successful and popular football clubs of the Ruhr region, FC Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund , were co-founded by Poles, and the former was even mockingly called the Polackenverein (" Polack club") by the Germans because of its many players of Polish origin. The main center of

1380-580: The German Empire . While initially German officials hoped that the Polish population would succumb to Germanization , they eventually lost hope that the long-term strategy would succeed. Polish schools had their accreditation refused, and state schools no longer took account of ethnic diversity. In schools with a high percentage of Polish-speaking students, German officials split up the students. When parents tried to organise private lessons for their children, police would come to their homes. Germany banned

1472-622: The Helsinki Final Act in 1975, both West Germany and East Germany recognised the existing boundaries of post-war Europe, including the Oder–Neisse line, as valid in international law. In 1990, as part of the reunification of Germany , both German countries accepted clauses in the peace treaty with the four countries representing the Allies ( Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany ) to replace

1564-952: The Late Middle Ages . The northern part of East Prussia was annexed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as the Kaliningrad Oblast , now forming a Russian exclave . The post-war border between Germany and Poland along the Oder–Neisse line was defined in August 1945 by the Potsdam Agreement of the leaders of the three main Allies of World War II , the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and

1656-620: The League of Nations , albeit bound in some aspects by an imposed union with Poland. However, in areas such as Upper Silesia , no clear division between the mostly bilingual population was possible. After a first plebiscite, Upper Silesia was to stay part of Germany's territory. However, after the Silesian Uprisings , the area was divided in accord with the German–Polish Convention regarding Upper Silesia . The parts of

1748-557: The League of Nations , annexed following the Klaipėda Revolt by Lithuania but reclaimed by Germany in 1938, while the bulk (including entire Warmia and Masuria) remained a part of Germany, following the East Prussian plebiscite , and became enlarged by the addition of the formerly West Prussian Malbork Land . In the Potsdam Agreement the description of the territories transferred is "The former German territories east of

1840-630: The Munich agreement . However, as distinct from other lost Czechoslovakian domains, it was not attached to Sudetengau (the administrative region covering the Sudetenland ) but to Prussia ( Upper Silesia ). By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in the Memel Territory , which had been annexed by Lithuania in the Klaipėda putsch . In the early hours of 23 March 1939, after

1932-534: The Oder–Neisse line ", and permutations on this description are the most commonly used to describe any former territories of interwar Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line. The term has sometimes been confused with the name East Germany , a political term, used to be the common colloquial English name for the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and mirrored the common colloquial English term for

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2024-838: The Ossolineum and the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów were both relocated to Wrocław , the former Breslau. The territories acquired by Poland after World War II are known there as the Recovered Territories . The territories Poland annexed had been ruled as part of Poland by the Piast dynasty in the High Middle Ages , with the exception of southern East Prussia , which originally was inhabited by Old Prussians and came under Polish suzerainty in

2116-574: The Polish National Council . Poles also demanded Polish priests and mass services in Polish. After the end of World War I and the rebirth of independent Poland , many Poles left the region and returned to Poland, although a sizeable community stayed. To take care of the remaining Polish population in the region and to facilitate the return of Poles to Poland, a Polish Vice-Consulate was established in Essen in 1920, later elevated into

2208-610: The Potsdam Agreement , whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory outside East and West Germany. As the result of this treaty, Germany's recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as the border was formalised by the re-united Germany in the German–Polish Border Treaty on 14 November 1990 and by the repeal of Article 23 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany under which German states outside

2300-498: The Potsdam Conference , held from 17 July until 2 August 1945, placed all of the areas east of the Oder–Neisse line, whether recognised by the international community as part of Germany until 1939 or occupied by Germany during World War II, under the jurisdiction of other countries, pending a final Peace Conference. The Allies also agreed that: XII. Orderly transfer of German populations. The Three Governments [of

2392-650: The Second Peace of Thorn (1466), Warmia and the Malbork Land (comprising northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania ) became subject to the Polish Crown as a part of Royal Prussia , a region initially holding considerable autonomy and continuing to use the German language as official, but ultimately becoming fully integrated with the Crown of Poland upon conclusion of the Union of Lublin . Masuria and

2484-674: The Silesian duke Bolesław II Rogatka sold it to the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg in 1249. Brandenburg also acquired the castellany of Santok from Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland and made it the nucleus of its Neumark ("New March") region. The Bishopric of Lebus remained a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Gniezno until 1424, when it passed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg . The Lubusz Land

2576-561: The Soviet Union after World War II . In contrast to the lands awarded to the restored Polish state by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I , the German territories lost with the post-World War II Potsdam Agreement were either almost exclusively inhabited by Germans before 1945 (the bulk of East Prussia , Lower Silesia , Farther Pomerania , and parts of Western Pomerania , Lusatia , and Neumark ), mixed German– Polish with

2668-618: The Teutonic Knights in the 13th and 14th centuries. Under the Teutonic Order, the region's towns were founded, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable to be settled by colonists, predominantly from German-speaking areas but also from neighboring Polish and Lithuanian lands. The area became predominantly German during the Ostsiedlung , either almost exclusively ( Sambia , Natangia , and Bartia together forming

2760-421: The fragmentation of Poland after the death of Polish ruler Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1138. The Dukes of Pomerania then became independent, and later were vassals of the Duchy of Saxony from 1164 to 1181, of the Holy Roman Empire from 1181 to 1185, of Denmark from 1185 to 1227 and finally, from 1227 on, were under the Holy Roman Empire (including periods of vassalage to the Margraves of Brandenburg ). By

2852-427: The Confederation (a failed attempt to include these lands in the German Empire (1848–49) was undertaken by the Frankfurt Parliament ), as did the Austrian-held partition of Poland (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria ), Transleithania , as well as the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland and the French region of Alsace. In the following years, Prussia superseded Austria in the role of the primary driving force of

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2944-423: The Duchies of Troppau and of Krnov north of the Opava river, as well as the strategically important Kłodzko Land, a part of the core territory of the Kingdom of Bohemia. As the result of the peaceful influx of German -speakers, Lusatia, Silesia and the Kłodzko Land became predominantly German-speaking. Czech continued to be spoken in parts of Austrian Silesia, in the Hlučín Region of Upper Silesia and in

3036-440: The Federal Republic could formerly have declared their accession. Germany went from a territory of 468,787 km before the 1938 annexation of Austria to 357,022 km after the 1990 reunification of Germany, a loss of 24%. Despite its acquisition of the formerly German territory, the war also saw Poland's territory reduced by about 20% overall because of its losses in the east to the Soviets. Farther Pomerania comprised

3128-441: The German settlers, took root in the region, also benefiting the Slavic population. By the late 14th century, 130 towns and 1300 villages had adopted German law . Silesian cities such as Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg), Lwówek Śląski (Löwenberg) and Złotoryja (Goldberg) had typical architecture, being centered around a central square, the ring, which became known in Polish as rynek . German craftsmen and miners also started settling

3220-411: The German state, and control over the borderlands would shift back and forth between the two polities over the centuries to come. Mieszko's son and successor, king Bolesław I Chrobry , upon the 1018 Peace of Bautzen expanded the southern part of the realm but lost control over the lands of Western Pomerania on the Baltic coast. After pagan revolts and a Bohemian invasion in the 1030s, Duke Casimir I

3312-400: The Gestapo, under threat of arrest, demanded 30 leading Polish activists to appear at the Gestapo station in Bochum and present lists of members of Polish organizations, but again to no avail. Due to increasing German repressions, many Polish organizations suspended public activity. After the outbreak of the Second World War , all remaining Polish organizations in the Ruhr faced dissolution by

3404-405: The Kłodzko Land were contested between Bohemia and Poland. Several independent duchies formed, and eventually some attached themselves to the Kingdom of Bohemia , an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire , while the Kłodzko Land became a constituent part of the kingdom itself. In the 14th century, the Treaty of Namysłów had King Casimir III the Great give up all Polish claims to Silesia and ceded

3496-462: The Nazis. On 11 September 1939, 249 leading Polish activists from the Ruhr were arrested and then placed in concentration camps . At least 60 of them were murdered for their activities by Nazi Germany. Headquarters of Polish organizations and premises in Bochum were looted and expropriated by Nazi Germany. The Gestapo closed the Polish monastery in Bochum, which was then converted into a transit camp for people deported from German-occupied Lithuania . It

3588-411: The Poles had been expelled. The remainder of Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the district of Białystok , which included the Białystok , Bielsk Podlaski , Grajewo , Łomża , Sokółka , Volkovysk and Grodno counties,

3680-587: The Polish Movement in the Rhine-Westphalian Industrial Districts ( Zentralstelle fur Uberwachung der Polenbewegung im Rheinisch-Westfalischen Industriebezirke ) was established by the Germans in Bochum. Other measures included instructing teachers and officials that their duty was to promote a German national consciousness. A decree was issued that ordered all miners to speak German. Discrimination started to affect issues of basic existence. The Settlement Law of 1904 made it difficult for Poles who wished to return east to purchase land. In 1908, laws discriminating against

3772-466: The Polish community of the Ruhr area was Bochum, and since 1905, many organizations and enterprises were based at Am Kortländer Street, which was hence nicknamed "Little Warsaw ". The former Redemptorist Monastery in Bochum, which was closed down by the Prussian government during the Kulturkampf in 1873, was reopened and became a Polish religious center. The rights of the Ruhrpolen as citizens were restricted in many ways by anti-Polish policies of

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3864-459: The Polish language were applied to the entire German Empire. In response to harassment by Prussian authorities, the organisations of Ruhr Poles expanded what had been their purely cultural character and restored their links with Polish organisations in the east. The League of Poles in Germany, founded at Bochum in 1894, merged with the ''Straż'' Movement set up in 1905. In 1913, the combined group formed an executive committee, which worked alongside

3956-414: The Potsdam protocols, without German agreement to an Oder–Neisse line boundary there could be no Peace Treaty and no German Reunification. The debate affected Cold War politics and diplomacy and played an important role in the negotiations leading up to the reunification of Germany in 1990. Bochum Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

4048-415: The Restorer (reigned 1040–1058) again united most of the former Piast realm, including Silesia and Lubusz Land , on both sides of the middle Oder River but without Western Pomerania, which returned to of the Polish state only under Bolesław III Wrymouth from 1116 to 1121, when the noble House of Griffins established the Duchy of Pomerania . On Bolesław's death in 1138, Poland was for almost 200 years

4140-423: The Ruhr Area (out of roughly five million) are of Polish descent. Former eastern territories of Germany In present-day Germany, the former eastern territories of Germany ( German : ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete ) refer to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany , i.e. the Oder–Neisse line , which historically had been considered German and which were annexed by Poland and

4232-461: The Ruhr area, although Nazi Germany increased both its invigilation of Polish activists and organizations, and the censorship of Polish press. Polish activists, expecting a German attack, secured the files of Polish organizations. On 15 July 1939, the Gestapo entered the headquarters of the Union of Poles in Germany in Bochum, searched it and interrogated its chief Michał Wesołowski. The Nazis then carried out mass searches of Polish organizations in

4324-569: The Ruhr is located, but also Baden and the Palatinate . Polish church services were held in numerous churches, often in multiple churches in the same cities (as in Bochum, Castrop, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Lünen and Oberhausen), however, in the interbellum they were gradually limited, prohibited or cancelled. In 1934, the last Polish councilman was removed from the Bottrop city council. According to 1935 estimates, Polish organizations in Westphalia and Rhineland had 21,500 members. In early 1939, there were no anti-Polish riots in

4416-429: The Ruhrpolen arriving around the 1870s. The migrants found employment in the mining, steel and construction industries. In 1913 there were between 300,000 and 350,000 Poles and 150,000 Masurians. Of those, one-third were born in the Ruhr area. The Protestant Masurians did not accept being identified with Catholic Poles and underlined their loyalty to Prussia and the German Empire. The first Polish organization Jedność

4508-421: The Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain], having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner. because in the words of Winston Churchill Expulsion

4600-447: The United States; and was formally recognized by East Germany in 1950, by the Treaty of Zgorzelec , under pressure from Stalin . In 1952, recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as a permanent boundary was one of Stalin's conditions for the Soviet Union to agree to a reunification of Germany (see Stalin Note ). The offer was rejected by Konrad Adenauer , Chancellor of West Germany , at least in part because one of Stalin's other conditions

4692-425: The annexed areas of Poland into administrative units: The territories had an area of 94,000 km and a population of 10,000,000. Throughout the war, the annexed Polish territories were subject to German colonisation. Because of the lack of settlers from Germany itself, the colonists were primarily ethnic Germans relocated from other parts of Eastern Europe. The ethnic Germans were then resettled in homes from which

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4784-400: The area. In contrast the Polish-speaking parts of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly described until the late 19th century as the Polish side , were mostly Germanised in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for a few patches and a larger area along the northeastern frontier. Originally inhabited mainly by the pagan Old Prussians , the regions were conquered and incorporated into the state of

4876-404: The central part of the region), mixed German- Lithuanian (the North-Eastern part called Lithuania Minor including Sudovia , Nadrovia and Scalovia ), or mixed German – Polish ( Masurians , Warmiacy ) comprising the southern ( Sasna and Galindia , together forming Masuria ) and western ( Warmia , Pomesania , and Pogesania , the latter two together forming Powiśle ) rim of the region. By

4968-400: The demised Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . During the Napoleonic era the Greater Polish territories and the Chełmno Land formed part of the Duchy of Warsaw following the Treaties of Tilsit , and Danzig was granted a status of a Free City . However, after the Congress of Vienna , the Polish duchy was again partitioned between Russia and Prussia. The Congress of Vienna established as

5060-420: The eastern Hohenzollern-ruled territories with a predominantly Polish population (especially the formerly Polish territories of Posen and West Prussia) increasingly became a target of aggressive Germanisation efforts , German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns ( Kulturkampf ), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles, and finally annexed following the North German Confederation Treaty (1866). At

5152-412: The eastern part of the Prussian Province of Pomerania . It stretched roughly from the Oder River in the west to Pomerelia in the east, and roughly corresponds to today's Polish West Pomeranian Voivodeship . Along with Farther Pomerania, a small area of Western Pomerania including Stettin (now Szczecin ) and Swinemünde (now Świnoujście ) was transferred to Poland in 1945. The Pomeranian parts of

5244-420: The eastern territories with a predominantly or almost exclusively German population (East Brandenburg, East Prussia, Hither and Farther Pomerania, and the bulk of Silesia ) remained with Germany. The historically Polish and strategically vital for Poland but predominantly German-speaking city of Danzig formed henceforth with its surrounding areas the Free City of Danzig , a self-governing territory supervised by

5336-407: The end of the Middle Ages , because of an influx of Germanic settlers, the assimilation of the Slavic population, the introduction of German town law , the influence of Germanic customs, and the trade of the Hanse , the area had been largely Germanized . Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Farther Pomerania became part of Brandenburg–Prussia . In 1772 the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and

5428-504: The end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open, and the western Allies also accepted in general the principles of the Oder River being the future western border of Poland and of population transfer being the way to prevent future border disputes. The open questions were whether the border should follow the Eastern or Lusatian Neisse rivers and whether Stettin , the traditional seaport of Berlin , should remain in Germany or be included in Poland. Originally, Germany

5520-436: The former Starostwo of Draheim were annexed by the King in Prussia and integrated into the Province of Pomerania of the Kingdom of Prussia , though not into the Holy Roman Empire, and did not become part of Germany until being included in the German Confederation in 1815. After the Napoleonic Wars , Swedish Pomerania was merged into the Prussian province in 1815, both now constituting the Province of Pomerania . In 1938,

5612-440: The former eastern territories of Germany had been under Polish rule several times from the late 10th century on, when Mieszko I acquired at least significant parts of them. Mieszko's son Bolesław I established a bishopric in the Kołobrzeg area in 1000–1005–07, before the area was lost by Poland again to pagan Slavic tribes. The Duchy of Pomerania was established as a vassal state of Poland in 1121, which it remained until

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5704-419: The former province of Posen and of West Prussia that were not restored as part of the Second Polish Republic were administered as Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen (the German Province of Posen–West Prussia) until 1939. The defeat of Germany and the imposed terms of peace left a sense of injustice among the population. The subsequent interwar economic crisis acted as a fertile ground for irredentist claims that

5796-428: The historic post-war German Democratic Republic, and its counterpart five successor states in the current reunited Germany . However, because people and institutions in the states traditionally considered as Middle Germany , like the three southern new states Saxony-Anhalt , the Free State of Saxony and the Free State of Thuringia , still use the term Middle Germany when referring to their area and its institutions,

5888-409: The international recognition of the Polish government-in-exile, which had been evacuated in 1939. The conference agreed that the Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line and that Poland would receive substantial territorial compensation in the west from Germany, but the exact border was to be determined later. A "Committee on Dismemberment of Germany" was to be set up to decide whether Germany

5980-464: The issue of the eastern German border, which was confirmed as being along the Oder–Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final decisions concerning Germany, and hence the detailed alignment of Germany's eastern boundaries, would be subject to a separate peace treaty; at which the three Allied signatories committed themselves to respect the terms of the Potsdam memorandum. Hence, so long as these Allied Powers remained committed to

6072-514: The main ethnic groups of three of the western republics of the Soviet Union – and many towns that were primarily inhabited by Poles and Jews. The Jewish communities in this region were mostly exterminated in the Holocaust and the Polish communities were mostly expelled to the restored Polish state after World War II, the communist ruled Polish People's Republic . Poles from the northern part of Kresy were primarily resettled in Pomerania and Poles from Galicia were primarily resettled in Silesia , e.g.

6164-438: The northern part of the dissolved Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia became part of the province. At the turn of the 20th century, the total population of the province of almost 1.7 million inhabitants had a Polish-speaking minority of less than 1%. The medieval Lubusz Land , on both sides of the Oder River up to the Spree in the west, including Lubusz ( Lebus ) itself, also formed part of Mieszko's realm. Poland lost Lubusz when

6256-419: The other German state of West Germany . When focusing on the period before World War II, "eastern Germany" is used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe ( East Elbia ), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt , but because of the border changes in the 20th century, after World War II the term "East Germany" and eastern Germany in English has meant

6348-416: The other hand, the remaining parts of the lands ruled by the House of Hohenzollern which were not included in the Holy Roman Empire, namely the German-speaking Prussian nucleus ( East Prussia ), and the newly acquired predominantly Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territorial share of the collapsed and dismembered Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ( Grand Duchy of Posen and West Prussia ), continued as external to

6440-469: The parts of Upper Silesia located in Poland, including the former Czechoslovak part of Cieszyn Silesia annexed by Poland in 1938. The Senate of the Free City of Danzig , elected by the Volkstag already also dominated by the Nazi Party at that time, voted to become a part of Germany again, but Poles and Jews were deprived of their voting rights and all non- Nazi political parties were banned. Two decrees by Adolf Hitler (8 and 12 October 1939) divided

6532-471: The region and interrogated Polish activists, however, they did not obtain the desired lists of Polish activists, which had been previously hidden by Poles. Nazi terror and persecutions rapidly intensified. The Nazis limited freedom of assembly , increased censorship and confiscated Polish press for reporting on the persecution and arrests of Poles. In response, many Poles from the region came to Bochum for organizational and information meetings. On 24 August 1939,

6624-584: The region's mountainous areas. The Bohemian Lands were under the rule of the House of Jagiellon in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary until the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Afterwards, they were ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Archduchy of Austria by the Holy Roman Emperors of the House of Habsburg , finally ceasing de facto (but not de jure ) to exist as

6716-524: The restoration of German unity and secured this position by abolishing the German Confederation in the Peace of Prague . Austria was in turn transformed into poly-ethnic Austria-Hungary , abstained from further German unification efforts and abandoned forced Germanization. Thus, the planned German unification was to be accomplished in the Lesser German solution version. With rise of nationalism ,

6808-723: The southern part of Pomesania and Pogesania stayed part of the rump Teutonic state (called thereafter Monastic Prussia or Teutonic Prussia ) which became a German fief of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , finally secularised in 1525 to become the Ducal Prussia . The latter later emancipated, taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge , and merged with the Electorate of Brandenburg to form Brandenburg–Prussia, shortly thereafter becoming

6900-560: The term Ostdeutschland is still ambiguous. As various Germanic tribes had left present-day Poland and East Germany, West Slavic tribes moved to these places from the 6th century onward. Duke Mieszko I of the Polans , from his stronghold in the Gniezno area, united various neighboring tribes in the second half of the 10th century, formed the first Polish state and became the first historically recorded Piast duke. His realm bordered

6992-652: The territory ceded to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania in 1919–1922 should be returned to Germany, which paved the way for the Nazi takeover of the government . In October 1938 Hlučín Area ( Hlučínsko in Czech, Hultschiner Ländchen in German) of Moravian-Silesian Region , which had been ceded to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Versailles, was annexed by the Third Reich as a part of areas lost by Czechoslovakia under

7084-665: The territory of the German Democratic Republic. In German, only one corresponding term Ostdeutschland exists, meaning both East Germany and Eastern Germany. The rather ambiguous German term never gained as widespread use for the GDR during its existence, as did the English designation, or the derived demonym Ossi (Eastie), and only following the German reunification has it started to be commonly used to denote both

7176-562: The three Partitions of Poland and had been part of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire for the 100 years of the non-existence of Polish state. The territories retroceded to Poland in 1919 were those with a Polish majority, such as Greater Poland , as well as Pomerelia , historically the part of Poland providing its access to the sea. Restoration of Pomerelia to Poland meant the loss of Germany's territorial contiguousness to East Prussia making it an exclave . Most of

7268-568: The time of German Unification in 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia was the largest and dominant part of the North German Confederation , the predecessor of the newly formed German Empire . The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended the war, restored the independence of Poland, known as the Second Polish Republic , and Germany was compelled to cede territories to it, most of which were taken by Prussia in

7360-550: The unilateral implementation of a Polish government in these areas. After World War II, several memoranda of the US State Department warned against awarding Poland such extensive lands, apprehensive of creation of new long-standing tension in the area. In particular, the State Department acknowledged that Polish claims to Lower Silesia had no ethnic or historic justification. Under Stalin's pressure,

7452-468: The use of the Polish language in schools (since 1873), in mines (since 1899), and at public gatherings (since 1908). Polish publishing houses and bookstores were often searched by the German police, and Polish patriotic books and publications were confiscated. Polish booksellers whose books were confiscated were sentenced by German courts to fines or prison. In 1909, the Central Office for Monitoring

7544-749: The war. The status of Poland was discussed but this was complicated by the fact that Poland was then controlled by the Red Army . The conference agreed to reorganise the Provisionary Polish Government , which had been set up by the Red Army, by the inclusion of some politicians of the Polish government-in-exile , and to transform it into the Provisional Government of National Unity , with an unfulfilled promise to hold democratic and fair elections . That effectively ended

7636-695: The western part of the Kłodzko Land ( Czech Corner ). Sorbian was spoken in parts of Lusatia, while Polish prevailed in Middle Silesia north of the Oder river, in parts of Austrian Silesia and in Upper Silesia . In the latter case, the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages became mostly Polonised , especially with the advent of the industrial revolution which created employment and business opportunities, attracting numerous Poles to

7728-507: Was subjected to fragmentation and ruled by Bolesław's sons and by their successors, who were often in conflict with one another. Władysław I the Elbow-high , who was crowned king of Poland in 1320, achieved a partial reunification, but the Silesian and Masovian duchies remained independent Piast holdings. In the 12th to the 14th centuries, German settlers, most of whom spoke Low German , moved into Central and Eastern Europe in

7820-722: Was "attached to" but not incorporated into East Prussia, and Eastern Galicia ( District of Galicia ), which included the cities of Lwów , Stanislawów and Tarnopol , was made part of the General Government. The final decision to move Poland 's boundary westward was made by the United States , the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, shortly before

7912-567: Was destroyed during air raids in 1943, rebuilt afterwards, and eventually demolished in 2012. Shortly before demolition, the church bells were sent to Poland. Polish men and women from German-occupied Poland were deported by the Germans to slave labour in the region, including to the subcamps of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Bochum, Dortmund, Essen, Unna and Witten. It is estimated that in modern times, some 150,000 inhabitants of

8004-604: Was for Germany to never join NATO ( similarly to Austria ). The then official West German government position on the status of the former territories of Germany east of the Oder and Neisse rivers was that the areas were "temporarily under Polish [or Soviet] administration", because the border regulation at the Potsdam Conference had been taken as preliminary provisions to be revisited at a final peace conference which, due to

8096-1122: Was founded in 1876 in Dortmund by bookseller Hipolit Sibilski. In 1890, Wiarus Polski , the first Polish newspaper in the region, was established in Bochum . Various Polish organizations were founded in the region, including Towarzystwo św. Michała ("St. Michael's Club") in 1888, Związek Polaków w Niemczech ("League of Poles in Germany") in 1894, a regional branch of the "Sokół" Polish Gymnastic Society in 1898, and Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie  [ pl ] ("Polish Professional Union") in 1902. Dozens of Polish bookstores were founded in various places, including Dortmund, Bochum, Herne , Witten , Recklinghausen , Oberhausen , Habinghorst  [ de ] (present-day district of Castrop-Rauxel ), Ückendorf  [ de ] (present-day district of Gelsenkirchen ), Bruckhausen  [ de ] and Laar (present-day districts of Duisburg ). There were also various Polish companies, co-operative shops, banks, sports clubs and singing clubs. In 1904,

8188-668: Was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1373 to 1415. After Germanic tribes left the area in the Migration Period , Lechitic tribes began to settle Silesia, while Lusatia was settled by the Milceni and the Polabian Slavs and the Kłodzko Land was settled by Bohemians . In the 10th century Mieszko I of Poland made Silesia part of his realm. From the 10th century to the 12th century, Silesia, Lusatia and

8280-592: Was to be divided into six nations and, if so, what borders and interrelations the new German states would have. To pressure the Western Allies regarding the verbal commitments of Tehran and Yalta, the Soviets began transferring regions east of the Oder–Neisse line to Polish control, although these areas were still officially part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The US government strongly protested to

8372-621: Was to retain Stettin, and the Poles were to annex all of East Prussia with Königsberg . Eventually, however, Stalin decided to keep Königsberg for strategic grounds (it would also be a year-round warm-water port for the Soviet Navy) and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead. The wartime Polish government-in-exile had little say in the decisions. The Yalta Conference agreed to split Germany into four occupation zones after

8464-513: Was violently expelled to Germany , with their possessions being looted and stolen. The ceding of the east German lands to Poland was done in large part to compensate Poland for losing the Kresy lands east of the Curzon line , a region that was annexed by the Soviet Union after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. This territory had large populations of Ukrainians , Belarusians and Lithuanians –

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