Orphans of Versailles This page intentionally left blank O r p h a n s of Versailles The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939 RICHARD BLANKE THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright©1993byTheUniversityPressofKentucky ScholarlypublisherfortheCommonwealth, servingBellarmineCollege, BereaCollege, Centre CollegeofKentucky, EasternKentuckyUniversity, TheFilsonClub,GeorgetownCollege,Kentucky HistoricalSociety,KentuckyStateUniversity, MoreheadStateUniversity, MurrayStateUniversity, NorthernKentuckyUniversity,TransylvaniaUniversity, UniversityofKentucky,UniversityofLouisville, andWesternKentuckyUniversity. EditorialandSalesOffices:Lexington,Kentucky40508-4008 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Blanke,Richard. OrphansofVersailles :theGermansinWesternPoland,1918-1939/ Richard Blanke. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN:978-0-8131-5633-0 1. Germans-Poland-WesternandNorthernTerritories-History. 2. Westernand NorthernTerritories (Poland)-History. 3. Western andNorthernTerritories(Poland)-Ethnicrelations. I. Title. DK4600.03342B53 1993 943.8'100431-dc20 92-19216 Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepapermeeting therequirementsoftheAmericanNationalStandard forPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials. S To Fred, Rom.an, Marie, and Claire This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1. Establishmentofthe GermanMinority, 1918-1922 9 2. The Great Exodus 32 3. Coming to Terms 54 4. The Pilsudski Era and the Economic Struggle 90 5. The Minorityin the InternationalArena 121 6. The Impact ofNationalSocialism 163 7. The Minorityin 1939 207 Conclusion 238 Appendix A. Western Polish Place Names: Official Polish and GermanEquivalents 242 Appendix B. Population ofWestern Poland and German Proportion, 1910-1931 243 Bibliography 246 Notes 269 Index 307 Maps 1. PrussianPoland/WesternPoland, 1919-1939 2 2. Ethnographic Composition ofthe German-Polish Borderlands, 1910 22 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Thisstudyhasbenefitedfromtheassistanceofnumerousindividualsand institutions, anditisapleasuretoexpressthanks tosomeofthemhere. TheResearchFundsCommitteeattheUniversityofMaineprovidedthe original "seed money" in the form of a faculty summer research grant. Subsequently, the projectreceived generoussupportfrom theFulbright Commission and the American Council of Learned Societies, which al lowed me to spend a sabbaticalyear in proximity to European archives and libraries. A grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board financed a summer visit to Poland for the same purpose. Special thanks go also to the Herder Institute in Marburg/Lahn, which has the singlebestcollectionofpublishedsourcesonGerman-Polishproblems;in the course of the year I spent there, Frau Eisinger and her colleagues patiently produced a significant proportion ofthis collectionfor my pe rusal.ThanksalsototheVolkswagen-Stiftung,whichprovidedaffordable accommodationsinGermany;totheRussianandEastEuropeanCenterat theUniversityofIllinois,Champaign-Urbana,forthesummertimeuseof itsfinelibrary;toHarvardUniversityforproviding"outsiders"generous access to its vast holdings, and to LibbySoiferand BarbaraJones ofthe inter-library loan office at the University of Maine Library for essential serviceswhenIwasunabletobeattheseotherplaces. ThelistofindividualstowhomIamindebtedisheadedbymywife, Ann, without whose support and competence in other matters this project would not have been possible (and without whom it would not have been worth undertaking in the first place). Thanks also to Hans Lembergforvariedhelpandkindnessduringasabbaticalinhiscountry; to Tomas Olejniczak, who made research during a chaotic time in his country somewhat easier; to Bill TeBrake and Kim Pelletier, who made mybelatedentryintotheworldofthe wordprocessorless traumatic; to Baycka Voronietsky for help with Polish officialdom; to David Smith, Stew Doty, and other colleagues at Maine who were always willing to discuss this project with me; to John Kulczycki, Mieczyslaw Biskupski, x Acknowledgments Anne Young, and others who wrote in behalf of it on more than one occasion. Finally, sincere thanks to those who will point out the short comings and inevitable errors of the work that follows, and so help advance the project itself.