Popular egoism

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The term people's egoism , together with the attribute “healthy” - “healthy people's egoism” - was coined by Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan on the first day of the three-day Polish debate on July 24, 1848 in the Frankfurt National Assembly .

background

After the three partitions of Poland jointly undertaken by Austria , Prussia and Russia since 1772 , the Poles have since been concerned with re-establishing their own state. Mainly West German liberals, but also a woman like Bettina von Arnim campaigned for the self-determination of the Poles. Since this affected Prussian interests, the claims of the Polish independence movement came on the agenda in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt . Jordan, who comes from East Prussia, said:

“I say the policy that calls out to us: release Poland, it doesn't cost anything, is a short-sighted, a self-forgotten policy, a policy of weakness, a policy of fear, a policy of cowardice. It is high time for us to finally wake up from that dreamy self-forgetfulness in which we raved about all possible nationalities, while we ourselves were defeated in shameful bondage and were trampled underfoot by all the world, to a healthy folk egoism in order to to say the word straight out, which puts the welfare and honor of the fatherland first in all questions. "

Jordan also spoke out against the Poles for a policy of strength. He claimed that the land conquered in the past could not be returned. In doing so, he conjured up the "German character" that had worked in the "Colonists" towards the east since the 12th century and had "fortified the conquests through armed force". He saw popular egoism as being based on the fact that "if we wanted to be ruthlessly fair, (...) we would have to publish not just Posen (...) but half of Germany" as far as the Elbe and Saale and beyond.

consequences

In the Frankfurt National Assembly, 342 MPs agreed with Jordan, and only a tiny minority of 31, including Robert Blum , was convinced of the possibility of peaceful cooperation between nations. The majority took the position presented by Jordan that the Germans should be seen as an ethnically homogeneous people to which the minorities would have to subordinate themselves to the desired national territory. In 1848 Otto von Bismarck expressed a similarly negative attitude towards the independence of the Poles. He feared that a Polish state would reach out to East Prussia as well as parts of Silesia and Pomerania, which would “cut Prussia's best tendons”, and in 1850 spoke of “state egoism” which, against all romanticism, “is the only healthy foundation of a great state” to be.
The left democrats gathered around Blum, however, saw the nation politically and wanted the minorities affected, such as the Danes in Schleswig and the Poles in the Prussian eastern provinces, to vote freely on their nationality.

The most lasting consequences were evident in the Polish reaction to the majority standpoint and led to a Polish nationalism corresponding in its intentions to German , which received its formulated program at the turn of the century. The best- known representative was Roman Dmowski , who in 1893 in his youthful publication “ Our Patriotism - Foundations of a Program for a Contemporary National Politics ” ( Nasz patriotyzm. Podstawy programu współczesnej polityki narodowej ) envisaged an “all-Polish” objective that responded to the “ pan-German ” . In 1902 the main theoretical works of ethnically formed Polish nationalism appeared in Lemberg , namely Dmowski's “ Thoughts of a Modern Poland ” ( Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka ) and Zygmunt Balicki's work “ The national egoism in the face of ethics ” ( Egoizm narodowy wobec etyki ). Dmowski's book became the "Bible of the Nationalist Movement". He convinced with a point of view like this:

"I'm polish (...). In addition to my personal affairs and interests, I know the national questions, the interests of Poland as a whole, the highest interests of all, for which one must also sacrifice what one cannot sacrifice for personal affairs. "

For Germany, the majority position that became visible in 1848 after the attack on Poland in 1939 at the end of the Second World War had the most momentous consequences. Because the Poles reported in August 1945, the objections of Winston Churchill against those of Joseph Stalin implemented demand for the Oder-Neisse line back as Poland's western border with the objection "that Poland possessed only a part of since time immemorial Slavic areas again; citing historical law, which was even confirmed by the Germans, Poland could actually reclaim all Slavic areas up to the Elbe, although it did not ”.

See also Polish West Research .

literature

  • Roland Gehrke, The Polish Western Thought until the re-establishment of the Polish state after the end of the First World War. Genesis and justification of Polish territorial claims against Germany in the age of nationalism , Herder Institute Marburg 2001; ISBN 3-87969-288-2 .
  • Christian Jansen / Henning Borggräfe, Nation - Nationality - Nationalism , Campus Publisher: Frankfurt-New York 2007; ISBN 3-59338-449-3 .
  • Andreas Lawaty , The end of Prussia from a Polish perspective. On the continuity of negative effects of Prussian history on German-Polish relations , de Gruyter: Berlin-New York 1986; ISBN 978-3-11-009936-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Bettina von Arnim's commitment to Poland
  2. ↑ See German enthusiasm for Poland
  3. ^ Franz Wigard, Stenographic Report on the Negotiations of the German Constituent National Assembly in Frankfurt am Main , Vol .: 2 No. 34-61, Frankfurt a. M. 1848, 4 years of age. 161 ea-2, p. 1145. See digital library
  4. ^ Roland Gehrke, The Polish West Thought to the Re-establishment of the Polish State after the End of the First World War. Genesis and justification of Polish territorial claims against Germany in the age of nationalism , Verlag Herder-Institut Marburg 2001, p. 75.
  5. ^ Volker Ullrich, Otto von Bismarck, Rowohlt: Reinbek bei Hamburg 1998, p. 45; ISBN 3-499-50602-5 .
  6. ↑ Bismarck commented on Blum's shooting in Vienna as follows: “If I have an enemy under control, I have to destroy him!” (Cf. Volker Ullrich, Otto von Bismarck, 1998, p. 41.)
  7. ↑ Christian Hansen / Henning Borggräfe, nation - Nationality - nationalism , Campus Verlag: Frankfurt / New York 2007, pp 53-56.
  8. ↑ Roland Gehrke (2001), p. 116 f.
  9. ↑ Andreas Lawaty, The End of Prussia in a Polish View: On the Continuity of Negative Effects of Prussian History on German-Polish Relations , Walter de Gruyter: Berlin-New York 1986, p. 208.

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