Culture carrier theory

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The culture carrier theory is a specific view of the German-Slavic relationship, especially in the period of the high medieval development of the country in the Germania Slavica , including the resulting consequences. This theory was based on a static development gap in civilizational terms between the old German settlements and the comparatively backward Slavic countries and evaluated the "East German colonization " as the actual cornerstone of the state and history-defining shape of East Central Europe.

This nationalist theory was particularly strongly represented in the context of " Ostforschung ", especially in the period between around 1850 and 1950. It often appeared in connection with the " primitive German theory " and was particularly intensified during the Nazi era by the biological - the racist perspective of National Socialism . After 1945 it served in particular the expellees from the German eastern territories as a moral claim to the return of the eastern territories of the German Reich . Since the beginning of the 1990s, it has been clearly refuted and, in terms of the theory of science, overcome.

The counterpart to the culture carrier theory is the catchphrase of the "German urge to the east" , with which the German newcomers to the medieval Germania Slavica are identified not as bringing culture , but as aggressors.

The culture carrier theory is the subject of historical stereotype research . Without prejudice to the end of the one-sided national “Ostforschung”, the stereotype of the “Polish economy” and the “Polack” still appears today. The article therefore documents in detail German perspectives on the German-Slavic relationship with regard to cultural appreciation or disdain, which so far have been treated too briefly in the articles hostility to the Slavs , historiography of the political changes and Poland's foreign policy . To change the point of view see z. B. Art. Historical picture of the Mark Brandenburg .

Emergence

The historical background to the development of the culture carrier theory is the struggle for the possession of areas that had belonged to the Polish state since the Piasts ( 966 ) (regardless of the fact that the throne was temporarily occupied by rulers from Anjou , Lithuania and Saxony ). The three Polish partitions at the end of the 18th century eliminated Poland as an independent nation . The period from the third and final partition of Poland in 1795 to the establishment of the Second Polish Republic in 1918 was determined by the Poles' struggle to regain their national independence. With the culture carrier theory, the Prussian-German side established the maintenance of ownership of the territories obtained through the Polish partitions.

While Poland was still liberated in the 17th and early 18th centuries because of its religious tolerance , its republican freedom and because of its mission , which was so successfully demonstrated by Jan Sobieski before Vienna in 1683 , to defend Europe from the Ottoman-Muslim invasion thinking people had been celebrated in Germany, this positive assessment changed in the course of the 18th century. The Thorner Blutgericht offered the first occasion in 1728 to accuse the Polish Catholic clergy of narrow-mindedness, fanaticism and intolerance.

The suppression of the peasants by the Polish nobility aroused a deeply felt disgust with Johann Georg Forster for this "mishmash of Sarmatian, almost New Zealand rawness and French superfineness" . The stereotype of the “Polish economy” made known by Forster around 1790 referred primarily to the political circumstance of the oppression of the peasants by the irresponsible nobility, and only secondarily to the backwardness in the country caused by this oppression: the “greatest incurable damage ” Of the Polish nation lies “ in its abominable state constitution ” : the aristocratic republic ( Rzeczpospolita ) with the keywords“ ungovernability ”,“ anarchy ”and“ Polish Reichstag ”. This escalation by Forster as an impatient young revolutionary was clearly put into perspective in 1793 by his support for the Polish revolutionaries: “Everything there is maturing for revolution” ; the damage was therefore not "incurable" .

It was important and decisive that this criticism of the “Polish economy” in the decline of the Polish aristocratic republic (2nd half of the 18th century) was carried over by the enlightened German historians to the very different conditions of the Middle Ages . At the same time, these historians also criticized the colonization activity of the Teutonic Order , which was compared to the Spanish conquest of South America. In 1795, Schlözer condemned the “blatant injustices” of the Germans who “came as colonists to the Wendish countries, Prussia , Courland , Livonia , etc.” , but on the other hand praised the culture-bringing mission of the German Hanseatic League .

After 1831, the nationality conflict increased slowly but steadily in the Prussian part of Poland (as it had before in Russian), and in the steadily escalating conflict there was mutual stereotype formation, which affected both the images of others and the images of oneself German side led to an unreserved appreciation of the activities of the Teutonic Order in East Prussia. This in turn necessitated the equation of the Middle Ages and early modern times : a typical characteristic of national stereotypes, which are based on unchangeable characteristics and therefore represent an unhistorical perspective.

The Prussian-German Poland policy was characterized by an ambivalent relationship between superiority and fear of the “ungrateful” Poles. The problems and disputes shaped by contemporary politics were transposed into the past, while at the same time the past, the time of the medieval eastern settlement, was ideologized. The “eastern colonization” was ultimately regarded as the (reverse) continuation of the migration of peoples : after the internal conditions of the new Germanic empires had stabilized, “German colonization pushed back east into the areas that were meanwhile flooded by the Slaves. Here, however, at the same time the bearer of a nobler culture that had already been won, Germanness was restored there. ” According to this point of view, the nearly millennium between the migration of peoples and the Ottonian Empire had evidently not brought about any historically relevant change in“ Germanness ”.

German perspectives on Slavs over the centuries

In the middle ages

The "culture carrier theory", which has been comprehensible in German historiography and journalism since the middle of the 19th century , was based on views that had existed since the Middle Ages, which were initially ambivalent (and, as always, were based on reciprocity). One- sided national stereotypes did not solidify until around 1830, a phenomenon that was noticeable throughout Central Europe.

The first verifiable historical mention of a Polish ruler, Mieszko I , the founder of the Polish "state", which is contained in a Saxon source ( Chronicle of Widukind von Corvey ), describes him as "friend of the emperor" ( Latin amicus imperatoris ) Otto III. The “Gnesen Act” in the year 1000 is the most spectacular accent of the early German-Polish cooperation .

Thietmar von Merseburg (975–1018), Adam von Bremen (probably before 1050–1081 / 1085) and Helmold von Bosau (around 1120 – after 1177) unanimously referred to the Slavs as barbarians and pagans , who were cruel, wild, unfaithful, treacherous and are (religiously) obdurate. For Helmold, the cruelty of the Slavs was innate, that is, a national characteristic: “Slavorum genti crudelitas ingenita” (Helmold I, 52). On the other hand, it must be taken into account that for Helmold the Danes were also regarded as cruel, wild and idolatrous. All three chroniclers also noted that there had been an occasion on the German side: through the stubbornness and greed of the Saxon princes. And they even noted positives. Adam praises B. the city of Jumne (probably Wollin):

“Behind the Liutizen , also called Wilzen, you come across the Oder , the most water-rich river in the Slavic region. Where it flows at its confluence with the Scythian Sea [meaning the Baltic Sea ] , the very famous city of Jumne offers barbarians and Greeks [meaning Orthodox Christians from Russia ] a much-visited meeting point in a wide area [...] It really is the largest of all the cities that Europe harbors; Slavs with other tribes, Greeks and barbarians live in it. Foreigners from Saxony also have the same right of settlement if they are not allowed to publicly profess their Christianity during their stay. For all are still caught in pagan misbelief; apart from that, however, one will hardly be able to find a people who are more honorable and friendly in their way of life and hospitality. The city is filled with goods from all the peoples of the North, nothing desirable or rare is missing. "

Regarding the “way of life and hospitality” even Helmold recognizes “many natural advantages” (multis naturalibus bonis), at least among the Pruci and Rani , “among them hospitality, care and mercy.” And he not only praises the settlement by the Saxons, but he also knew from the Slav prince Pribislaw that he "built the castles Mecklenburg , Ilow and Rostock and populated their areas with Slavic inhabitants." Herbord , Otto von Bamberg's biographer (around 1060–1139), reports on his cultural experiences in Stettin :

Albrecht the bear as the alleged bringer of culture: The Szczecinians had been Christianized since 1128.

“There were four assembly halls in the city of Szczecin. One of these, which was the noblest, was wonderfully ornate and elaborately built, had sculptures inside and out that protruded from the walls, pictures of people, birds and animals, so lifelike in their posture that one could assume they were breathing and living would have liked to hold, and, which must be mentioned very rarely, the colors of the external pictures could not evaporate or be washed off by any snow or rainy weather, that is how the art of the painters arranged it. "

With the influx of German settlers, knights and clergymen in the 13th century, the relationship with the Germans became an internal problem in Polish society for the first time. The conflict with the Teutonic Order in the 14th century developed to its center, especially after their submission to the Pomeranians . Nevertheless, the western border of Poland remained the “quietest border” in Europe at that time from the 15th to the 18th century .

In the early modern times

In 1519, the Hamburg scholar Albert Krantz , in his “Description of Wendish History”, considered the “Wendish Quarter” of the Hanseatic League as a glorious founding of the Wends , which he mistakenly traced back to the Vandals , that is, to an East Germanic tribe. In the "V. Chapter "he rates them as his ancestors:

"After the Saxons brought these Wendish lands under themselves and into the utmost servitude, this name is so despicable that if they get angry, one of the serfs and always under their feet must otherwise scold not but a claw. But if we take the history and deeds of our ancestors too hard and consider them, we shall draw from us not for a vice but for an honor that we were born from such people. "

Krantz repeatedly refers to the most famous chroniclers Adam, Thietmar, Helmold and Saxo Grammaticus , where he emphasizes above all the laudable, e.g. B. the splendor of Vineta described by Adam . He also mentions the paganism of the Slavs, but without the disgust typical of medieval chroniclers, because for Krantz the Wends were originally a tribe of the Teutons, who were just as pagan. In their struggle against the Reich, for him, the Wends are no different from the Danes.

The last unreservedly positive assessment of the Poles relates to the liberation of Vienna in 1683 by Jan Sobieski. According to this, negative representations of Poland predominate in the 18th century ( "civilizationally backward" ): They are found mainly in travel reports; Incidentally, more often in French and Italian than in German. This pejorative view does not differ from the usual negative stereotypes, e.g. B. between England and France or France and Germany.

The highly respected polymath Leibniz , on the occasion of the Polish king's election in 1669, did not shy away from reviling the Polish candidate with the familiar prejudices in a work commissioned by a German competitor under a pseudonym.

In the 18th century

Typical of the ambivalence that was valid until 1848 is: The stereotypes “freedom-loving and fanatical” are used both positively and negatively. It is about the same character trait of the national urge for freedom, but sometimes it is directed against the Russians (then he is “freedom-loving”), sometimes against the Prussians (then he is considered “fanatical”). The positive stereotype of the “noble (freedom-loving) Poland” corresponds to the stereotype of the “beautiful (glowing-eyed) Polish woman”.

The life's work of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) is representative of the formerly close ties between German and Slavic culture . Herder's writings contributed significantly to the emergence of a national feeling among the Slav peoples based on language and culture. They aroused interest among Slavic intellectuals in their own folk tradition and in researching their mother tongue, because, according to Herder, “the understanding of a people and its character was shaped in each of them.” Above all, through the Slav chapter in his main work “Ideas for Philosophy of the History of Humanity ” , Herder helped arouse a sense of self-confidence and a sense of togetherness among the Slavs. Herder saw every people as a being created by God who, according to the plan of creation, had to fulfill an irreplaceable function. At the same time, he considered the peoples to be living mirrors that depicted the whole of humanity according to a different “angle of refraction”. In the aforementioned chapter on the Slavs, Herder wrote:

“They were charitable, hospitable to the point of waste, lovers of rural freedom, but submissive and obedient, enemies of robbery and plunder. None of that helped them against the oppression; yes it contributed to the same. Since they never competed for the supremacy of the world, had no war-addicted, hereditary princes under themselves and preferred to be liable to taxes when they could only inhabit their country in peace: several nations, but mostly those of the German tribe, have joined forces sinned harshly to them. Even under Charlemagne, those wars of oppression began which evidently had commercial advantages as their cause, although they used the Christian religion as a pretext. (...) What the Franks had started, the Saxons did; in whole provinces the Slavs were exterminated or made serfs and their lands were distributed among bishops and nobles. (…) Unfortunate [is the Slavic people] that their position among the earth peoples brought them so close to the Germans on one side, and on the other left their backs exposed to all attacks of Eastern Tatars , under which, even under the Mongols , they suffered a lot , much tolerated. The wheel of changing time, however, turns inexorably; and since these nations for the most part inhabit the most beautiful stretches of earth in Europe, when it has been completely built up and trade has been opened from it, since it is probably not to be thought otherwise than that in Europe the legislation and politics instead of the warlike spirit more and more the quiet industry and have to and will promote the calm intercourse between the peoples: so you too, so deeply submerged, once industrious and happy peoples, will finally be encouraged from your long sluggish sleep, freed from your slave chains , your beautiful regions from the Adriatic Sea to the Carpathian mountains , from the Don to the Mulda ( Moldau ) use as property and celebrate your old festivals of quiet industry and trade on them! "

Herder's thoughts met with an extraordinary echo in the deeper layers of consciousness of representatives of the Slavic intelligentsia, especially in the time of the “national awakening”, the “rebirth” of the Central European peoples during the first half of the 19th century.

In the year Herder's writing, which is still highly regarded in Poland, was published, the aristocratic republic, which had shrunk as a result of the first two Polish partitions, adopted the constitution of May 3, 1791 , which was considered the most modern constitution in Europe after the French Revolution of 1789.

In the 19th century

Already in the "History of the Prussian States" published between 1801 and 1805 by Johann Friedrich Reitemeier, the medieval eastern settlement through which the "unsupervised part of the German nation" , the "excess crowd" had been led to the east, with the "colonization and Immigration of Europeans to North America ” compared. The resistance of the "Wends" was "violently broken, with entire villages having to be driven out" , but in these "Germanized" areas with the German sword and the German language also "the culture and the comforts of luxury " came. The Prussian state only continues this policy, which has been characterized as a "revolution of the most benevolent kind" . This applies to the "reshaping of the Wends by the German nation, the destruction of their religion and their Asian customs by Christianity, the cultivation of the Germans in the wilderness there and the advances in culture in these countries."

After the interlude of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1815), Prussia got back the territories it had gained through the three Polish partitions. The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. formulated in his speech on May 19, 1815: “You too have a fatherland […] You will be incorporated into my monarchy without being allowed to deny your nationality […] Your religion should be upheld […], your language should be used in all of them alongside German public negotiations are needed. "

Humanistic spirit speaks from the words of the Prussian minister of culture von Altenstein , who founded his language decree in 1823: “Even if one wanted to consider it desirable to gradually restrict the use of the Polish language and thus denationalize the people, every direct step would be to the obvious annihilation of their language, instead of bringing it closer to the goal, only to remove it. Religion and language are the highest goods of the nation, in which its whole world of ideas and concepts is based. An authority that recognizes, respects and appreciates this, can be sure to win the hearts of the subjects, which, however, shows itself indifferently against it or even allows attacks against it, which embitters or degrades the nation and creates unfaithful or bad subjects. "

With the November uprising in 1831 , Poland tried to regain national independence for the Russian-occupied territories. This created an enthusiasm for Poland in liberal -minded circles in Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria , which persisted there even after the suppression of the uprising by the Russians and the march of freedom-loving Poles through Germany into mainly French exile and led to the creation of Polish clubs and Polish songs .

This political stance, which lasted from 1830 to the summer of 1848, led part of Prussian society to campaign for the abolition of the division of Poland and the creation of a Polish nation state . The opposite discussion sparked off in the province of Posen , which had fallen to Prussia in 1815 as the Grand Duchy of Posen . About 60% Poles ( Catholics ), 34% Germans (mostly Protestants ) and 6% Jews lived in it , most of whom lived in the city. The Germans had a relative majority regionally in the four western districts of the Poznan and in the four northern districts of the Bydgoszcz administrative district . In contrast, the central districts and those on the eastern border were inhabited by few Germans. Economically, the Germans, who dominated the non-agricultural professions, were generally better off than the Poles. There were hardly any propertyless among German farmers, most of them were rich or medium-sized farmers. The November 1830 Polish uprising against Russia did not affect Poznan. Nevertheless, as a member of the "Holy Alliance" , Prussia continued to pursue an anti-Polish policy of oppression at the instigation of its allies during the restoration period .

It was softened under Friedrich Wilhelm IV (from 1840). Prussia prevented the uprising planned for 1846 by arresting and imposing a state of siege . Poles' discontent was exacerbated by insurgent convictions, censorship and the dissolution of clubs and casinos . In March 1848 , German and Polish revolutionaries considered the realization of the German nation state to be compatible with the creation of a Polish nation state. In Berlin, the Polish revolutionary Ludwig Mieroslawski waved the black, red and gold flag and shouted: “It was not you, noble German people, who forged chains to my unhappy fatherland; your princes have done it; With the partition of Poland they have incurred eternal shame. "

The pre-parliament and the national assembly in Frankfurt committed themselves to both goals, the creation of a German as well as a Polish national state. At the request of Gustav Struve from Mannheim , the pre-parliament in Frankfurt decided almost unanimously on March 31, 1848 “that it was the holy duty of the German people to restore Poland by declaring the partition of Poland a blatant injustice.” The compromise formula of Polish patriots like Mieroslawski understood the "National Reorganization" approved by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV on March 24th as a promise to form an independent Grand Duchy "under the mere protection of Prussia" .

But as early as April 1848 it became clear that the promised national reorganization was limited to the “Polish” part of the province, which in the following period was repeatedly reduced by moving it further and further east, until in the end only for a few rural districts Autonomy for the Poles was promised in the Gnesen area . The Polish debate of the German National Assembly from July 24 to 27, 1848 showed that only a minority, including leftists such as Robert Blum and Arnold Ruge , stood for the rights of Poles to have their own state, while the majority of Poznan for the claimed the German nation-state after the German minority in Poznan had demanded their membership of Germany and the Wielkopolska uprising had been militarily suppressed in April and May 1848 .

Member of Parliament Wilhelm Jordan said in the National Assembly: “To want to restore Poland simply because its downfall fills us with just sadness, that is what I call idiot sentimentality. Our right is none other than the right of the strongest, the right of conquest. ” Thereupon the majority of the National Assembly voted in favor of the incorporation of Poznan (apart from the small district in the Gnesen area intended for Polish autonomy ) and the object of“ enthusiasm for Poland ”had disappeared .

The discussions of 1848 are the hour of birth of the culture carrier theory, represented by almost all German historians ( Wattenbach , Ranke , Sybel , Treitschke , Droysen ) and publicists ( Gustav Freytag , Felix Dahn ) of the 19th century, including Marx and Engels ; the latter had spoken of the "filth and filthiness of the Jewish-Germanic race in Posen" .

In 1871, when the German Reich was founded, parts of the Polish population were definitely included in the Prussian-German Reich Association. The previous ambivalence narrows before the nationality conflict increases to a predominantly negative complex of ideas: intensification of Germanization , change in the stereotype “Polish economy” from the political chaos of the aristocratic republic ( veto , corruption ) to a generally underestimated state of culture.

Fontane wrote in 1873 in the third volume of his extremely popular “Wanderings through the Mark Brandenburg” : “The question has often been raised whether the Wends really stood on a much lower level than the advancing Germans, and this question is not always a definite one "Yes" has been answered. It is very likely that the superiority of the Germans, which will ultimately have to be admitted, was less than has often been asserted on the German side. ” In the same context, however, Fontane also wrote: “ In 1180 the first monks appeared in the march ... where the unculture was at home , the culture bringer had their most natural field. "

In the 20th century

Just as ambivalent as Fontane were Hans Delbrück and Max Weber . In addition to the culture carrier theory, from 1871 the construction of protonational connections and the projection of the national problems of the 19th and 20th centuries onto the feudal world of the Middle Ages and the early modern period became characteristic of the "Ostforschung", which continued to develop independently until 1945 : the Reformation was a manifestation of German identity presents the distinctive Corporatism in the German Reich as a sign of cultural and political superiority of the Germans over other peoples. A well-known representative in the 1920s and 1930s was the leading Brandenburg regional historian Willy Hoppe .

After 1945, the formation of a block during the Cold War gave rise to different perspectives between the FRG ( displaced persons' associations : injustice) and the GDR ( Eastern Bloc : international understanding ). An important, paradigmatic turning point came in the 1980s with the Solidarność movement, which resulted in the dissolution of the blocs and their confrontational perspectives: Studies carried out after reunification in 1990 confirmed the assumption that the SED leadership was quite consciously in the early 1980s tried to build on the prejudices against the Polish population in order to discredit the resistance (through Solidarność) against the communist system of rule in the neighboring country.

The German image of Poland reflects the current state of German-Polish relations and is functionally dependent on the relationship with Russia. Despite the merits of Solidarnosz, the classic “Polish economy” stereotype remains unchanged, but is expressed with varying degrees of intensity.

Consequences of the culture carrier theory

Towards the end of the 19th century, the “culture carrier theory”, which was increasingly elaborated from 1800 onwards, saw the Ostsiedlung as a “historical mission of the German people” , i.e. a mandate given to the German people by history to spread civilization in East Central Europe . The leaders of the Pan-German Association therefore pleaded around 1900 for the violent Germanization of the Polish minority in the German eastern regions. 1894 Even Max Weber made by the proposal, "systematic colonization German farmers on suitable soils" the "Germans in the East" against the "Slavic tide" to protect.

The ethno-centered approach of the culture carrier theory was originally not nationalistic, in no way racist and at first probably delimiting the other peoples living in East Central Europe, but by no means hostile, but it turned out to be dangerous.

The loss of German territories in the east after the First World War , the restoration of the Polish nation state and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia caused fear of a setback to grow against the background of Pan-Slavism and the measures of forced Germanization in Poland: the “danger from the East " by a " Slavic flood "" Asian hordes. " The culture carrier theory justified the German claim to the recovery of the lost eastern territories ( Johannes Haller ). The Nazi ideology gave it an impact of racism and led to the stereotype of the culturally inferior "Slavic subhuman" , which was to be exterminated through National Socialist extermination measures in the Generalgouvernement and through the extermination campaign in Russia in order to create "space in the east" for them who had proven to be the bearers of a superior culture since the Middle Ages (Nazi variant of social Darwinism , important representative: Heinz Zatschek ). The “Reich enemy” had meanwhile become a “race enemy”.

For Wolfgang Wippermann , to whom the above presentation essentially goes back, the lines of continuity are contrasted with “clearly recognizable breaks in continuity” . Because the culture carrier theory that emerged in the middle of the 19th century included neither the biological-racist perspective nor Eastern imperialism beyond the borders of the German Reich of 1871.

Embedding in European colonialism and its "civilizing mission"

The culture carrier theory belongs to the spectrum of the Eurocentric idea of ​​the superiority of European civilization. According to Jürgen Osterhammel , the awareness of the superiority of one's own civilization and culture to other societies has been known for thousands of years, but this conviction was Eurocentric in the 19th century and was never so powerful as an idea. It initially led to an “authoritarian civilizing state” in Napoleonic France in Western Europe and broadcast from there. In England, men like Charles Grant, Baron Glenelg or Jeremy Bentham brought their deeply influenced understanding of politics to the British East India Company . In America, the Destiny Manifesto had the same effect as an ideologue. This idea had also spread in Argentina and found in Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 with his book Barbarism and Civilization an advocate of the European-motivated “civilization” of his country against the indigenous barbarism.

New European perspective

Erlen fundamentally rejects the culture carrier theory and calls for a culture-morphological view that is based on the research results of the last decades and that reveals the "Eastern settlement as part of an intensification process spreading from the center of the West to the periphery" . The colonization in the east is seen as "an integral part of the medieval peasant liberation in Europe" .

Spatial terms like " Eastern Europe " and " Orient " are constructs of the Western European Enlightenment, which saw its mission in spreading the "Western civilization" in the far East. Then Western Europe appeared as an actor, the East as a recipient . This culture carrier theory has been preserved in “General History” to this day. The potential of “ Eastern European history ”, on the other hand, lies in the demonstration of content-related leitmotifs for a “transnational history” such as social, religious and ethnic plurality and the associated integrative function of the Eastern European region for the cultural interrelationships between Europe and its environment.

literature

  • Felix Biermann: Confrontation between locals and immigrants in the German eastern settlement of the Middle Ages. In: Ready for Conflict. Strategies and media of conflict creation and conflict management in the European Middle Ages, ed. von Auge, Oliver / Biermann, Felix et al., Ostfildern 2008, pp. 131–172.
  • Edmund Dmitrow: Structure and functions of the image of Russia in National Socialist propaganda (1933–1945). In: Hans Henning Hahn (Ed.): Stereotype, Identity and History. The function of stereotypes in social discourses. Frankfurt / M. 2002, pp. 337-348.
  • Peter Erlen: European regional development and medieval German eastern settlement. A structural comparison between southwest France, the Netherlands and the Order of Prussia , Marburg 1992.
  • David Fraesdorff: The barbaric north. Ideas and categories of foreignness in Rimbert, Thietmar von Merseburg, Adam von Bremen and Helmold von Bosau , Berlin 2005.
  • Eike Gringmuth-Dallmer: Reversible plow and planned town? Research problems of the high medieval eastern settlement. In: Siedlungsforschung 20/2002, pp. 239–255.
  • Rudolf Jaworski: Between love for Poland and scolding Poland. On the changes in the German image of Poland in the 19th and 20th centuries. In: look back without anger. Poles and Germans in the past and present. Tübingen 1999, pp. 55-70.
  • Heinz Kneip: Image of Poland and reception of Polish literature in Germany. In: Poland and Germany. Neighbors in Europe, ed. by Hans Henning Hahn et al., Hanover 1995.
  • Susanne Luber: The Slavs in Holstein. Perspectives from Helmold von Bosau to the present day. 2nd edition Eutin 2010.
  • Ilona Opelt: Slavery abuse in Helmold's chronicle. In: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 19/1984, pp. 162–169.
  • Helmut Peitsch: Forster's departure from the stereotype “Polish economy”. In: Stereo type and historical myth in art and language, Frankfurt 2005, pp. 97–116.
  • Petra Weigel: Slavs and Germans. Ethnic perceptions and patterns of interpretation in the high and late medieval Germania Slavica. In: Bünz, Enno (Hrsg.): Ostsiedlung und Landesausbau in Sachsen. The Kührener deed of 1154 and its historical environment, Leipzig 2008, pp. 47–94.
  • Wolfgang Wippermann: The Eastern Settlement in German Historiography and Journalism. Problems, methods and basic lines of development up to the First World War. In: Germania Slavica I, Berlin 1980, ed. v. Wolfgang H. Fritze, pp. 41-70.
  • Wolfgang Wippermann: "We want to ride Gen Ostland!" Order state and eastern settlement in the historical fiction of Germany. In: Germania Slavica II, Berlin 1981, ed. v. Wolfgang H. Fritze, pp. 187-285.
  • Wlodzimierz Zientara: Stereotypical opinions about Poland in German-language printed works of the 17th and early 18th centuries. In: Hans Henning Hahn (Ed.): Stereotype, Identity and History. The function of stereotypes in social discourses. Frankfurt / M. 2002, pp. 175-186.

Web links

"Polish economy. Formation of a stubborn prejudice. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Erlen: European regional development and medieval German eastern settlement. A structural comparison between southwest France, the Netherlands and the Order of Prussia, Marburg 1992, p. 1.
  2. ^ Helmut Peitsch: Forster's departure from the stereotype “Polish economy”. In: Stereo type and historical myth in art and language, Frankfurt 2005, pp. 97–116.
  3. ^ Gustav Höfken: German emigration and colonization with regard to Hungary, Vienna 1850, p. 13.
  4. ↑ see literature list
  5. ↑ Ilona Opelt: Slave insults in Helmold Chronicle. In: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 19/1984, pp. 162–169.
  6. ↑ 1873, in Volume 3 ("Havelland"), there in the chapter "The Wends and the Colonization of the Mark by the Cistercians".
  7. ↑ See also Wolfgang Reinhard : Brief history of colonialism (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 475). Kröner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-520-47501-4 , p. 2 f.
  8. ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel: The Metamorphosis of the World: A History of the 19th Century , 5th, reviewed edition, CH Beck: Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-58283-7 , p. 1178.
  9. ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel (2010), p. 480. - Cf. also Domenico Losurdo : Kampf um die Geschichte. Historical revisionism and its myths , Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-89438-365-7 , p. 237.
  10. ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel (2010), p. 1176.