Polish persecution of Germans in Poland prior to World War 2

Polish persecution of Germans in Poland is a subject which has been virtually ignored by "victors'" historians since 1945. Despite signing the Minorities Treaty of 28 June 1919, an adjunct to the Treaty of Versailles, Poland immediately began 20 years of persecution, dispossession, cruelty (sometimes murder) and expulsions of the German population in the disputed provinces which Versailles had awarded the new state. This included the 25-year League of Nations Mandate awarded to Poland of former Austrian Galicia.

History

During the Paris Peace Conference the demarcation of the new German-Polish frontier was handed over to an Allied 'Commission on Polish Affairs' on 12 Feb 1919. Its President was Jules Cambon (former French ambassador at Washington D.C.) and the Vice-President was General le Rond of the French army. Both were anti-German and pro-Poland. The illegal and self-appointed Polish delegation to the conference pronounced Germany as "an enemy of humanity" and demanded the frontiers Poland had in 1771, which were not ethnographic frontiers. This was declined by the Peace Conference, although almost all the county of Posen was returned to Poland. West Prussia was also given to them without a plebiscite, and Danzig forced to become a 'Free City' under the sovereignty of the League of Nations without any consultation of the 407,000 population. Everywhere plebiscites had been held the result was against Poland. From 1919, onwards, Polish persecutions of ethnic Germans who now suddenly found themselves living in a foreign country, began.

"The Polish terror in the Ukraine (Galicia) today is worse than anything else in Europe. Ukraine became a country of desperation and destruction. The murderous deeds multiplied. Germans have been mutilated and tortured to death, their corpses desecrated. Villages and palaces have been robbed, burnt, blown up. The incidents depicted in the official publication of the German government in 1921 exceed the worst atrocities one can imagine."

By the Land Law of 28 December 1925, the Polish Government obtained the power to acquire large estates and farms by compulsory expropriation and this power was exercised on a very large scale in the former Prussian provinces in order for them to be broken up for Polish peasant smallholdings. According to the Polish Constitution and the 1919 Minority Treaty there should have been no discrimination between Poles and Germans, but equal treatment in every respect. In fact, Polish estates were systematically exempted, while the German properties were singled out for wholesale dispossession under all sorts of disingenuous pretexts, with the admitted object of placing Poles on the land and so effecting the speedier suppression and eviction of the German minorities in the rural districts. A large proportion of the estates so unfairly dealt with were in the ownership of noble families whose heads had lived on the land as lords of the manor for generations, cultivating part or the whole of their lands either directly or with the help of overseers, and filling as public-spirited citizens an important place in the civil and social life of their localities. Many such men were summarily dispossessed on very inadequate terms which they were forced to accept. Where the lands of these owners were expropriated the mansions and farm buildings were usually razed to the ground, so that the materials may be used by Polish peasants in erecting small dwellings etc. (Only Poles could apply for new holdings.) A few landowners instituted legal proceedings against the Polish Government, a difficult task at best in any country, but doubly and trebly difficult in the new chaotic Poland, where judges were arbitrarily removable and the administration of "justice" was too often influenced by non-judicial considerations. The Prefect (or governor) of Pomerelia (Polish Corridor) wrote to the District Land Board at Graudenz on 22 December 1929 stating: "The coast district must be settled with a nationally-conscious Polish population and the properties in these districts which belong to Germans must as a rule be more severely treated than others in the matter of expropriations under article 5......[in addition] Pomerelia must be relentlessly purged of the larger German population."

Persecution of ethnic Germans in Poland became openly severe in 1939, and diplomatic reports in numerous countries national archives attest this. Much of the information about Poland and her persecution of ethnic Germans was published in 100 documents from German Foreign Office (on the origins of World War 2).

Atrocities against Germans in Poland was one of the stated reasons given by Germany for the start of the war against Poland. One report claimed 58,000 dead or missing. This included also killings after the start of the war, such as Bloody Sunday (1939).

In September 1, 1939, Germany's Chancellor Adolf Hitler revealed that it was Poland who rejected his efforts to establish good neighborly relations, and instead Poland preferred open confrontation/war (Poland had mobilised its armed forces against Germany commencing April 1939). His speech also mentioned Poland's persecution of Germans..

It must be noted that Poland and Czechoslovakia were considered by many as illegal countries, their existence only due to the fact that their establishment as new States came as a result of USA, France and Britain causing Germany's collapse in Nov 1918 (Germany had only gone to war in 1914 in self-defence), and their dismembering of Germany after World War 1.

Document No. 63 (415) in the above source (page 139) gives "some" of the details about Polish persecution of Germans starting from April 2, 1939. Document No. 63 (415) and these can be read below.

Document No. 63 (415) - Memo by an official in the Political Department of the German Foreign Office (Translation)

Berlin, 20 August 1939

During the last few months the German Foreign Office has continually received reports from the German Consulates in Poland about the cruel maltreatment to which members of the German minority are subjected by the Poles who have been more and more lashed to fury and have abandoned themselves to unbridled fanaticism. In the annex thirty eight especially grave cases have been collected, in which the remarkable similarity is to be noticed with which the assaults on minority Germans are staged. This seems to justify the question to what degree these excesses are tolerated or fomented by the authorities . In spite of the assurances repeatedly given to the German Embassy in Warsaw by competent Polish authorities, according to which the Polish Government were exerting all their influence in order to, prevent the persecutions of Germans, one cannot but get the impression that the excesses against the Germans are fomented as far as possible by official quarters in order thus to maintain the war spirit of the Polish nation. Bergmann

Annex (Translation)

1. On 2 April, eight members of the German Sport Club at Klein. Komorsk, in the district of Schwetz, were attacked on the farm belonging to the minority German Pankratz by Poles who fell upon the Germans with sticks and flails . One German, who had been knocked down, was pushed into the cesspool. Pankratz was so badly beaten up that the doctor said he would be unable to work for a period of six weeks. The next day Pankratz was arrested by the police.

2. On 17 April 1939, the minority German Fritz Pawlik, of Ciszowieco, was so badly beaten by a group of Poles, led by the Pole Malcharek, that he had to be taken by the police, in an unconscious condition, to his parents' house. Although he was still unconscious an the following day, the Polish authorities refused to admit him to a hospital.

3. On 19 April 1939, the minority Germans Peter Kordys and Richard Mateja, of Kattowitz, were attacked by about forty Insurgents. The two Germans were so beaten that Kordys fled covered with blood, and Mateja was left lying there, seriously injured. He was carried away by the police, and thrown into prison, without medical examination or treatment.

4. On 23. April 1939, Cofalka, an old man, who was an invalid, and hard of hearing, was delivering copies of the newspaper Kattowitzer Zeitung in Chorzow, when he was attacked by Insurgents and beaten till the blood flowed. As a result of this assault, Cofalka has become completely deaf in one ear.

5 . On 27 April, Hermann and Emil Mashies, of Liebenwalde in the district of Schwetz, were attacked in their home and so brutally treated that the one had several teeth knocked out and his lower jaw smashed, while the other was knocked down and left unconscious.

6. On 28 April, Fritz Koppke, of Zbiczno in the district of Strasburg, a minority German, was attacked by members of the Polish Reservists Association, and so brutally manhandled that he had two ribs fractured . For weeks he had to stay in bed and was unfit for work.

7. On 30 April, an attack was made on several young minority Germans of Piaski in the district of Schwetz. Eckert, a minority German, was so badly injured that he was left lying unconscious. Oswald Frey, another minority German, of Schonreich had several teeth knocked out.

8. On 3 May, Franz Hybiorz, a minority German, of Bijasowice, was attacked by about twenty Poles in Reservist's uniforms and so brutally beaten with rubber truncheons that he remained lying unconscious in the street.

9. On 4 May, in the station of Bismarckhütte, Ehrenfried Heiber, a minority German, was attacked from behind and knocked unconscious with a blunt object. He received a wound approximately four inches long and half an inch wide. The police refused to take down the report of this assault.

10. On 5 May, Rauhut,a pupil of the German Secondary School in Bromberg, was attacked by several, Poles who hit him. on the head with a bottle with such force that the bottle was smashed and Rauhut collapsed with severe cuts in the head. When he recovered, he was again knocked down by the passers-by, who had applauded this brutal action.

11. On 9 May, two minority Germans, Richard Fandrey, of Neukirchen in the district of Schubin, and, Damrau, a farmer, were attacked by about thirty Poles and so brutally beaten, with sticks and stones that their faces were battered beyond recognition.

12. On 12 May, Valentin Jendrzejak, an Insurgent, forced his way into the home of Robert Robotta, of Kattowitz, a minority German, seized a chair and struck Robotta with it; Robotta received a blow on the left arm, which fractured his wrist . Then the Pole kicked the helpless man repeatedly in the abdomen and iit the hips. Robotta's daughter wanted to ring up the police from Poloczek, the grocer's, but the shopkeeper did not allow her to do so as, according to him, the police were only there to protect the Poles.

13. On 14 and 15 May, hundreds of members of the German minority of Tomaschow, Konstantynow, and other places in the voivodeship of Lodz, were attacked, their homes plundered and destroyed.' In this pogrom, one minority German was killed, ten others were so seriously injured that there was little hope of their recovery, numerous other minority Germans were more slightly injured.

14. On 16 May 1939, Leo Krawczyk, an Insurgent, attacked Adelheid Cichy, a minority German, in Kattowitz. He kicked her in the groin with his boot and tried to throw her down the stairs of the house. Frau Cichy received numerous injuries in the head, thigh, groin, and hands.

15. On 18 May, Paul Enders, of Luck, a minority German, was arrested without cause. When he was being questioned about his membership in the Young German Party, he was repeatedly struck in the face and kicked in the stomach. On 20 May, he was taken to Rowno in chains, and there set free on 25 May.

16. On 24 May, Erhard Ossadnik, of Kattowitz, a minority German, was attacked by four Poles in uniforms because he had spoken German to a friend in the street. He received numerous injuries on the left side of his face, and four of his front teeth were knocked out.

17. On 27 May, Josef Mazur, of Kobior, a minority German, was attacked by a large group of Poles. He was knocked unconscious with rubber truncheons. In the medical examination, numerous effusions and cuts in the head, face, and ears were found, as well as numerous welts of a reddish blue colour and covered with clotted blood on the chest, back and buttocks.

18. On 29 May, Albert Krank, a country labourer, of Kzywka, was attacked by two Poles, who had disguised their faces, while working in the fields. His penis and left testicle were so severely injured by stabs and blows that he had to be taken to the hospital of Lessen for treatment.

19. On 29 May 1939, Stuhmer, of Neudorf in the district of Briesen, a minority German, was arrested and struck dead by the Poles when he was about to cross the frontier. His body, very badly mutilated, was identified by his relatives in the hospital of Graudenz.

20. On 1 June 1939, the minority German Johann Burdzik, of Giszowiec-Myslowice, a disabled miner, was attacked by an Insurgent. The latter first took him by the throat, then threw him into a ditch, and injured him severely with a stick. When the Insurgent tried to put out Burdzik's eyes, he was pulled off by passers-by, so that Burdzik got off with effusions in the eye, numerous bruises and injuries caused by blows in the face and the body, and two teeth knocked out.

21. On 2 June, Theodor Stehr, a minority German of Konistantynow, was attacked by a Pole. When he offered resistance, four more Poles hastened to the spot and beat hint to such a degree that he collapsed and had to be taken to hospital with a fractured rib and other injuries.

22. On 5 June, Wilhelm Kubel, a minority German of Kostuchna, who carries round copies of the newspaper Kattowitzer Zeitung, was robbed of his bundle of newspapers. When he tried to regain possession of it, he was knocked down by other Poles and badly kicked when lying on the ground. The police did not interfere.

23. On 6 June, Georg Kindler, of Bykowina, and Bernhard Harmada, of Nowa Wies, both minority Germans, were attacked by Poles. Kindler was struck in the ribs with a bottle with such force that the bottle smashed. Harmada, a badly disabled war invalid with a stiff leg, was so severely beaten with beer bottles, rubber truncheons and a walking stick that he had wounds and bruises all over his body.

24. In the night of 11 June 1939, the minority German Anton Podszwa, of Trzyniec, an innkeeper, was shot dead on his way home by persons unknown.

25. On 15 June, Alois Sornik, a German national, was hit on the head from behind by the Polish forest labourer Onufrak, of Zielona, and was so severely injured that he died a few days later.

26. On 17 June, the minority German, Fritz Reinke, of Tonowo in the district of Znin, was knocked down from behind by two Polish farm hands with battens taken from a wooden fence. The -Poles continued beating Reinke when he was lying on the ground, so that he had numerous deep cuts and effusions in the bead, face, shoulders, arms, and hands, and is incapacitated for work for the time being.

27. On 17 June, the minority German, Hans Zierott, of Oberausmass in the district of Kulm, was attacked by three men who tried to force him to say :- "Hitler is a swine" . When he refused he was threatened with a knife, and thus compelled to comply with their demand . Zierott is a cripple and unable to defend himself .

28. On 20 June 1939, the minority Germans, Volpel, Dilk, and Sawadski, all leading members of the Haraidie branch (district of Luck) of the Young German Party, were summoned to the chief of police . Volpel was so maltreated with blows that his lower lip was cut through; then a police man kicked him in the abdomen several times and dragged him about by the hair till he signed his resignation from the Young German Party and, together with his friends, brought in a motion on the following day that the whole local branch should be voluntarily dissolved . A short, time afterwards, the Polish Press reported that local branches of the Young German Party were being dissolved voluntarily on the grounds of their general outlook, (Weltanschauung).

29. On 22 June, the minority German Luzie Imiolcyk, of Chorzow, was attacked inside the entrance of her house by two neighbours, the Polish women Maciejkowiak and Wietrzniak, and badly beaten although she was carrying a child of fourteen months in her arms . In the end, she was thrown to the ground and some of her hair was torn out. When she reported the incident to the police, she was arrested for having insulted the Polish woman Maciejkowiak.

30. When, on 2 July, the minority German Luise Sprenzel was cycling to Zytna in -the- district of Rybnik, she was attacked by two Insurgents and so severely struck on the forehead that she fell from her bicycle and lay on the road unconscious.

31. On 7 July 1939, the minority German Julius Saeftel, of Szopienice in the district of Myslowice, a badly disabled war invalid with only one arm, was struck with fists and injured in the face by five Poles after the funeral of a minority German, which had already been disturbed by Poles.

32. On 9 July 1939, the Pole Kaczmarek forced his way into the home of Margarete Plichta, a minority German of Tarnowskie, by breaking in the door with a hammer. Then he set upon the German woman with his hammer and knocked a weapon which she had grasped in self-defence, from her hand so that her hand was badly injured. Then he took her by the throat and threatened to kill her. He only left his victim when she cried for help.

33. On 23 July, three Polish soldiers forcibly entered the home of the minority German Ewald Banek, of Sypiory in the district of Schubin, and asked for food and drinks. After having received them free of charge, they insulted the members of the family present and set upon them. Banek was badly wounded in the left shoulder and right arm by stabs with a bayonet. At the same time Polish soldiers forced their way into the home of the minority German, Arthur Pahlke and tried-to rape Frau Pahlke . When Pahlke tried to protect his wife, he was very severely maltreated.

34. On 6 August, a gang of young Poles forced the gate of the farm belonging to the seventy year old minority German August Mundt, of Bialezynek. They injured Mundt in the eye and lower jaw, beat his son Wilhelm with sticks and stones till be fell, to the ground unconscious, and also maltreated the country labourer Karl Jesser, who is in Mundt's employ.

35. On 9 August, policemen entered the Christian Hospice in Kattowitz where a meeting of the German People's League was just being held. The armed police set upon the eighteen minority Germans present with rubber truncheons and the butt-ends of their rifles and dragged them to the police station. During the night they were questioned as to what had happened at the meeting, and subjected to such severe maltreatment that when they were released in the morning, they were covered with red and blue bruises and welts. One minority German had his arm badly wrenched, another had become temporarily deaf in consequence of blows on the head.

36. On 14 August, the minority German Thomalla, of Karwin, was arrested, the reason being unfounded calumnies. During his two days' detention he received neither food nor water. At his examination he was severely beaten, and knocked unconscious with fists and bludgeons so that he was mentally deranged when he was released on 16 August.

37. In the middle of August, innumerable minority Germans were arrested on the pretext of having committed high treason. The minority German Rudolf Wilsch, of Laurahutte, District Leader of the Young German Party, was arrested and during his examination beaten till he collapsed completely. After this grave maltreatment he was forced by threats of quartering or of similar torture to plead guilty to the unjust accusation brought against him.

38. Jaeger, a German national, Grant, a minority German, Fraulein Kiesewetter, and Fraulein Neudam, as well as other German nationals and members of the German minority, were grossly maltreated in Polish prisons in order to extort confessions from them. Caustic liquids, for instance, were injected into their genitals, they had ribs broken and were tortured by applications of electric current. After a long stay in hot rooms they were given salt water as a beverage. The minority German Schienemann, still resident in Sieradz, has had his health completely ruined, and during the inquisition lost nearly all his teeth.

Other Polish Atrocities of German minorities in Poland

Further documents which contain more Polish atrocities. All of these are from the same sources as given above.

No. 62 (412) Telegram from the German Consul-General at Kattowitz to the German Foreign Office in Berlin:

(Translation) Kattowitz, 16 August 1939

Action announced by the Polish authorities in progress since 14 August. Numerous houses searched and people arrested, especially in the circles of the Young German Party (Jungdeutsche Partei), the Deutscher Volksbund, and the trade unions; number of arrested approximately 200. German newspapers, trade unions, etc ., closed down; frontier almost completely closed. Pursuit of alleged fugitives still continues. Guards and armament along the frontier increased. Noldeke

No. 64 (416)

Memo by an official in the Political Department of the German Foreign Office: (Translation)

Berlin, 23 August 1939

According to a statement made by the Reich Ministry for Home Affairs, about 70,000 refugees belonging to the German minority in Poland have been given shelter in refugee clearing camps up to 21 August last. Of these, about 45,000 came from Polish [occupied] Upper Silesia and the Olsa territory. Neither refugees who moved into the Danzig territory nor those who have been able to find shelter with relatives or friends in Germany without passing through a refugee camp, are included in the above figures. - Bergmann

No. 65 (417)

The German Consul General at Thorn to the German Foreign Office Report:

(Translation)

Thorn, 28 August 1939

To-day I received the following report from a trustworthy source in Usdau: - "A week ago a Polish demonstration having as its slogan "Harvest Festival with drawn Swords" was to take place at Usdau; the attendance, however, was extremely disappointing as the German population refused to take part. Last Sunday the Poles thought the time was ripe to take vengeance on the German population. Under the pretext of conforming with the measures for evacuation, the greater part of the German minority was driven together like cattle and, as there were no vehicles available for their transport, were marched off into the interior of the country. Those who could not keep up the quick pace of the march were driven forward by blows with the butt-ends of rifles. A woman who was with child and could not march on was so badly beaten by the guards that she had a miscarriage as a result of which she died.

Another woman had to take her little daughter, who was only four years old. Several blows with the butt-end of a rifle which both mother and child received, gave the child a severe wound on the head rendering her absolutely unable to walk any further. The mother then attempted to carry the child, but by doing so was herself so much impeded that she could not keep up with the extremely quick pace of the march. The [Polish] leader, therefore, uttering unrepeatable insults, simply snatched the child from her mother and slew it. To his accomplices he justified his action by saying: "This brat would otherwise only give birth some day to more German swine." These minority Germans have, in, all probability, been driven into one of the numerous concentration camps. - Von Kuchler

See also

• Causes of World War II

Sources and further reading

• von Bulow, Prince Bernhard, Imperial Germany, London, 1914, pps:257 – 263 and 266-268: on illegal Polish immigration into Prussian provinces.
• Donald, G.B.E., LL.D., Sir Robert, The Polish Corridor and the Consequences London, 1929.
• Martel, Professor Dr.René, The Eastern Frontiers of Germany , London & Paris, 1930, p. 67-9.
• German Foreign Office, The Polish Atrocities Against the German Minority in Poland, 2nd revised edition, Berlin, 1940, p. 17-18
• Dwinger, Edwin Erich, Death in Poland - The Fate of the Ethnic Germans in September 1939, Jena, Germany, 1940, English-language edition 2004, second printing 2021.
• Blanke, Professor Richard, Orphans of Versailles - The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939, Kentucky University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8131-1803-4
• de Zayas, Prof.Alfred M., The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau 1939-1945, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and London, 1989 (originally published in German in 1979), ISBN: 0-8032-1680-7, contains terrible and verified atrocities against Germans.

In German

• Der Tod sprach polnisch: Dokumente polnischer Grausamkeiten an Deutschen 1919–1949 (in German), Arndt-Verlag, ISBN 978-3887411541