Prussian settlement commission

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Former headquarters of the Settlement Commission in Poznan, today Collegium Maius of the University of UAM

The Royal Prussian Settlement Commission for West Prussia and Posen was founded in 1886 as a central component of the Germanization policy of the eastern provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia . The aim was to resettle German immigrants in the provinces of Posen and West Prussia . The settlement commission officially existed until the 1920s, but its practical work ended in 1918.

Goals and intentions

The move towards settlement policy was part of a general change in Prussian policy towards Poland. Instead of cultural assimilation, population policy and demographic measures have been used since the 1880s. One concrete cause was the increased emigration of large parts of the German-speaking population from the agrarian eastern provinces of Prussia to the industrial centers in the west of the country. A majority of conservatives and national liberals decided in the Prussian House of Representatives with the "Law on the Promotion of German Settlements in the Provinces of West Prussia and Posen" to found the settlement commission. Its purpose was to buy up indebted goods in Polish possession. This measure was directed against the Polish nobility, whom the Prussian Prime Minister (and Reich Chancellor) Otto von Bismarck regarded as the most important bearer of the Polish will to resist.

The goods should be divided up and given to German settlers. The division was enforced by the National Liberals against Bismarck and numerous conservatives, who saw it as having negative consequences for aristocratic property in general.

The seat of the commission was in the city of Poznan . It was initially equipped with a capital of 100 million marks. Those responsible hoped to be able to settle 40,000 new farmers in this way. These should, as it was called at the time, form a "living wall against the Slavic flood". The commission was directly subordinate to the Prussian State Ministry .

In the period up to 1892 around 58,000 hectares of land were acquired. The largest part of around 53,000 ha came from Polish and a smaller part of 5000 ha from German property. In the following period it was hardly possible to acquire land from Polish property. The land was divided into farm positions and mostly given out as so-called pension property. As the investor, the settlement commission retained the resale right and ultimately the upper ownership because the land could only be redeemed up to 90%. This was to prevent the property from being resold to Polish owners.

After the end of the moderate Caprivi era , the settlement policy was tightened again. In 1898 the settlement commission was granted a further 100 million marks and in 1902 a further 150 million marks were added. At the same time, the Polish acquisition of goods was made more difficult. In 1907, under pressure from the Ostmarkenverein , the possibility of expropriating land was created. This encroachment on property rights met with criticism from the conservatives. This is probably one of the reasons why the Commission initially did not make use of the right. It was not until 1912 that this was applied in response to pressure from the Ostmarkenverein in the case of four goods. There were parliamentary debates in the Prussian House of Representatives and in the Reichstag on the procedure. The House of Representatives spoke out against the vote of the Polish parliamentary group and the center in favor, while the majority of the Reichstag disapproved of the procedure in 1913.

consequences

In fact, significantly fewer new settlers' jobs were created on the basis of the law than had been hoped for. The majority was in the Poznan Province.

The establishment of the settlement commission led to the unwanted strengthening of the Polish national movement. A Polish state has not existed since the partitions at the end of the 18th century, apart from the brief interlude of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Napoleonic era. The Poles founded a Landesbank ( Bank Ziemski ) and a cooperative bank ( Bank Społek Zarobkowych ) to secure their property . These and other institutions succeeded in buying up more goods and distributing them to Polish settlers than the German commission.

The aim of weakening the Polish national movement through the Settlement Commission was also a failure because its focus was no longer with the nobility, but with the bourgeoisie and still with the Catholic Church in Poland .

Ultimately, the Commission bought up more German property than Polish property. Between 1886 and 1906, 220 million marks went to German owners and only 30 million to Polish landowners. In total, the commission spent about 1 billion marks up to the beginning of the First World War . Hans-Ulrich Wehler judges that the commission was ultimately a restructuring company for numerous heavily indebted Junkers . By threatening to sell their land to a Polish institution, the Junkers induced the settlement commission to buy it at prices well above its value. The prices for land from large estates rose in the affected areas from 1895 to 1907 by 65–130% per hectare. A total of 21,727 settler sites were created between 1886 and 1916, each holding 13-15 hectares. The numbers were too small to shift the relationship between the Polish and German populations.

After the peace treaty of Versailles , most of the province of Posen and West Prussia was ceded to the (new) Second Polish Republic ; the border mark Posen-West Prussia was created . With this the settlement commission lost its importance.

Commissioners

Chairperson

Other members of the commission

Web links

literature

  • Manfred Alexander : Small history of Poland. License issue. Federal Center for Political Education, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-89331-662-0 , p. 249 ( Federal Center for Political Education. Series of publications 537).
  • Christopher Clarke: Prussia. Rise and fall 1600–1947. License issue. Federal Center for Political Education, Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-89331-786-8 , p. 662 ( Federal Center for Political Education. Series 632).
  • Thomas Nipperdey : German History 1866-1918. Volume 2: Power state before democracy. Beck, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-34801-7 , p. 272.
  • Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society. Volume 3: From the “German Double Revolution” to the beginning of the First World War. 1849-1914. Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-32490-8 , p. 964.
  • Eugen Richter : Political ABC book, 9th edition. Verlag "Progress, Aktiengesellschaft", Berlin 1898, pp. 278-280. Article: "Poland Laws"

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sebastian Conrad: German colonial history. Munich 2008, p. 99.
  2. ↑ cf. "Polendebatte" in the Prussian House of Representatives. In: Latest reports from January 30, 1886. Online version
  3. ↑ on objective also: Latest communications February 11, 1886 online version
  4. ↑ Wehler (1995), p. 964.
  5. ^ Protocols of the Prussian State Ministry. Vol. 9, p. 5.
  6. ^ Karl Erich Born: Prussia in the German Empire 1871-1918. Leading power of the empire and tasks of the empire. In: Wolfgang Neugebauer (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Prussischen Geschichte. Vol. 3, Berlin - New York 2001 p. 47
  7. ^ Karl Erich Born: Prussia in the German Empire 1871-1918. Leading power of the empire and tasks of the empire. In: Wolfgang Neugebauer (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Prussischen Geschichte. Vol. 3, Berlin - New York 2001 pp. 51f.
  8. ↑ Wehler (1995), p. 964
  9. ^ Karl Erich Born: Prussia in the German Empire 1871-1918. Leading power of the empire and tasks of the empire. In: Wolfgang Neugebauer (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Prussischen Geschichte. Vol. 3, Berlin New York 2001, p. 52
  10. ^ Karl Erich Born: Prussia in the German Empire 1871-1918. Leading power of the empire and tasks of the empire. In: Wolfgang Neugebauer (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Prussischen Geschichte. Vol. 3, Berlin New York 2001, p. 53

Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 34.5 ″  N , 16 ° 55 ′ 9 ″  E