Pomeranian Voivodeship (1919–1939)

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Województwo pomorskie
Pomeranian Voivodeship
location
Symbols
coat of arms
coat of arms
Basic data
Country Poland
Capital Toruń (Thorn) (1920–1939)
surface 1921: 16.386
1939: 25.683
Residents 935,663 (1921)
1,086,140 (1931)
1,884,400 (1939)
Local authority with elected state parliament and self-government within the framework of the Second Republic of Poland . Map below with the voivodeship borders as of March 31, 1938.
Rural and urban districts in 1930
Rural and urban districts in 1930

The Pomeranian Voivodeship ( Polish Województwo pomorskie ) was an administrative unit of the Second Republic of Poland from 1922 to 1939. From 1945 it existed again until 1975.

Designations

The official Polish name was Województwo pomorskie (German Pomeranian Voivodeship or Pomeranian Voivodeship ). The name Pommerellen (or English or Latin Pomerelia and French Pomérélie ) is given in Polish by adding a place name (usually Gdańsk) to the Polish word Pomorze or its derivatives. In German, however, the voivodeship was always named with the contemporary name of the Pomeranian region. The names distinguish this region from the area to the west, formerly ruled by the Pomeranian dukes from the house of the Griffins , which has been referred to in German as “Pomerania” since the 16th century.

“The abbreviation“ Pomeranian ”was used by both the German and the Polish side in the interwar period. The name refers to the area of ​​the then Pomeranian Voivodeship (województwo pomorskie). The Pomeranian Voivodeship was enlarged in 1938 (see Appendix 1 ), so that at that time people spoke of "Groß Pommerellen" (Wielkie Pomorze). The term Pomeranian also includes the Pomorze Gdańskie region. The area lies between Pomerania (Pomorze Zachodnie), Warmia and Mazury (Warmia i Mazury) and Kujawia . "

After a considerable expansion as part of the Polish territorial reform on April 1, 1938, the voivodeship was officially called Województwo Wielkopomorskie , d. H. then correspondingly in the German parlance at the time, the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship . After the German occupation of Poland in 1945 it was given the old name of Pomeranian Voivodeship . In 1950 it was named Bydgoszcz Voivodeship .

Since the territorial reform in 1999, a voivodeship has again carried this Polish name and has taken up significant parts of the area of ​​the former Pomeranian Voivodeship . The name of today's Województwo Pomorskie is commonly translated into German as the Pomeranian Voivodeship .

The name Pomerania in Polish and German refers to landscapes on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which coincide in the core area between the Oder and Vistula, but otherwise also include other regions in their geographical extent. In German, the meaning of the name changed up to the end of the Middle Ages. Until the middle of the 15th century, it was generally understood to mean the area that was referred to as Hinterpommern from the 17th century , usually only its western half up to Gollenberg near Köslin.

The area further east to Danzig, which was ruled by the Samborids until 1294 , came into different hands after their extinction and has been known in German as Pommerellen = Little Pomerania since the late Middle Ages . When most of this area came to Poland from the Teutonic Order with the 2nd Thorner Peace of 1466, it became part of Royal Prussia . Poland divided the areas taken over by the Teutonic Order into the three voivodeships of Culm , Marienburg and Pomeranian , of which the voivodship encompassing the Pomeranian landscape was the largest, see administrative structure of the Polish Aristocratic Republic .

With the Polish partitions , the area came to Prussia. From then on it usually became West Prussia in German . "The Pomeranian Voivodeship in the interwar period formed only part of the West Prussian province (62%)", which formed an administrative unit in the Prussian state from 1815 to 1824 and again from 1878 onwards. With the cession of most of West Prussia to the re-established Polish state in 1919, the old Polish name Województwo pomorskie (Pomeranian Voivodeship) revived.

geography

Großpommerellen was made up of four different parts,

In northern Pomerania, west of Danzig, there are many lakes alternating with wooded hills - u. a. the 329 m high Turmberg - which is why this area is known as Kashubian Switzerland . In the far north is the coast, at that time Poland's only territorial access to the sea. The actually small coastal area had a relatively long coastline of 74 km, as the long Putziger Spit made up a large part of the coastline. In the southwest of the area, which at that time belonged to the voivodeship, there are extensive forests of the Tuchel Heath .

Rivers, mostly tributaries of the Vistula, in the area are the Brahe , Ferse , Radaune , Rheda and Schwarzwasser west of the Vistula and Drewenz and Ossa east of it in the Culmer Land. Its soils - like that of the Vistula lowlands - are considered fertile.

The areas that would then make up the voivodeship were evacuated by the German military and other sovereigns after the Treaty of Versailles came into force on January 10, 1920. They included the East Prussian area with Soldau (Działdowo) and 32 smaller communities (evacuated from January 10th) as well as the West Prussian areas of the middle Vistula lowlands and Kashubia, which were handed over to Poland by January 20, 1920. In addition, a very small area (6.64 km², 224 inhabitants, 1910) of the Prussian province of Pomerania was added to the northwest .

In the west the voivodeship bordered on the Pomeranian administrative district of Köslin and the Prussian province Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia , which existed from 1922–1938 , in the southwest on the voivodeship Posen , in the southeast on the voivodeship Warsaw (Land) , in the east on the East Prussian administrative districts Allenstein and West Prussia , in the northeast to the Free City of Danzig and in the north to the sea, once to the Danzig Bay of the open Baltic Sea and - separated from it by the Putziger Spit - to the Putziger Wiek . Since road and rail traffic between Pomerania and East Prussia had to pass through the Polish area of ​​(Greater) Pomerania, this area was also called the Polish Corridor .

The border with the Warsaw (Land) Voivodeship was initially identical to the former German border with Russian Poland . Due to the territorial reform with effect from April 1, 1938, however, the district powiat Działdowski with Działdowo (Soldau) came from the Pomeranian Voivodeship to the Warsaw-Land Voivodeship. "To the province of Pomerania were affiliated groups from the province Posen (województwo Poznańskie) and Warsaw (województwo warszawskie) Province." The Warsaw Province was in turn the Kujawy circles Lipno County , Powiat Nieszawski , rypin county and włocławek county from in Pomerania.

On the part of the Poznan Voivodeship, four districts and two independent cities were added, namely Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) and Inowrocław (Inowrazlaw / Hohensalza) as well as the districts of Powiat Bydgoski , Powiat Inowrocławski , Powiat Szubiński and Powiat Wyrzyski . As a result, Pommerellen's area and population were significantly increased. The name change to Großpommerellen also took this into account. From April 1938, the voivodeship area encompassed 25,683 km². For an overview of all districts and urban districts, see the list of rural and urban districts .

Population and languages

The population in the voivodeship was essentially divided into three language groups, Polish speakers (or ethnic Poles in modern parlance), Kashubian speakers (or ethnic Kashubians ) and German speakers (or ethnic Germans ). This terminology describes Polish , Kashubian or German as the mother tongue or preferred language for the so-called people . The use of Yiddish, almost exclusively by Jews , had declined sharply in favor of German by 1918, but had increased again by 1931 due to Yiddish immigration from the Austrian and Russian part of Poland, with 1,822 native speakers. In 1931, a good 95% of the Yiddish-speaking Jews were Jews, the rest with no or other religious denomination. In fact, a large number of the inhabitants of Pomerania were multilingual, especially due to the prevailing use of German in schools and administration - as well as mostly in business - all of the inhabitants had a more or less good knowledge of German.

The long dominance of German in many areas of life - as a politically intended "power of the factual" - meant that many people and entire households who previously preferred another language switched to German as the most widely used language in their lives that they were indeed bilingual.

This development and in general the coexistence of the multi-lingual residents of Pomerania led to many marriages between people with different linguistic backgrounds. In 10% of all marriages concluded in Germany in 1910 with a Polish-speaking spouse, the other partner considered himself / herself to be German-speaking.

Before and after 1918, the conflict between people over identities was charged by the sometimes fierce nationality policy on the part of various associations and the respective state, which used official means of power (on the part of the German state e.g. until 1918: settlement commission ).

The flowing transitions from the use of one language to another, even if mostly changing in only one direction, and the perhaps accompanying change of cultural identity, were often the subject of the parties in the nationality dispute. In German times there were official surveys with regard to the preferred language of the residents, and you could choose which language to use. The statistics compiled in the process sometimes showed figures on language use that the various parties in the nationality dispute considered advantageous or disadvantageous.

Those who interpreted the figures as support for their position immediately explained the recorded linguistic usage of the respondents as expressing their will with regard to their state affiliation. If the statistics could not be interpreted successfully for the position of a party in the nationality dispute, the party usually denied that the statistics were correct. At the same time, however, she assumed that if the statistics were recorded correctly in her opinion, the figures that would then certainly be advantageous for her position should also be viewed as expressions of will by the respondents with regard to their state affiliation, as the counterparty claimed for the present figures. Linguistic nationalists do not perceive that stating the preferred language usage is synonymous with the desired nationality.

Since there was no official categorization according to ethnicity, but one could freely choose and change one's feeling of belonging, the terms ethnic German, ethnic Kashubian or ethnic Pole are difficult to grasp and were also misused and damaged in the struggle of the nationalists. On the other hand, single or multiple citizenship is officially recorded, accordingly the terms German (r) and Pole (n) are used here as nationalities. If it is necessary to distinguish the language usage, then we are talking about German, Kashubian or Polish speakers.

In 1919 the area that would form the voivodeship the following year had around 955,000 inhabitants, of which 433,000 were Polish, 412,000 German and 120,000 Kashubian speakers. Two years later the population - after many mostly German-speaking optants had emigrated (for the term see below) - decreased to 935,663 inhabitants. 175,726 of them were German speakers. There was also immigration from formerly Russian Poland, but the sharp decline in German speakers is due to a. back to a reorientation of many residents. The multilingualism of many residents of Pomerania made it possible for them to adapt quickly, especially since the previously often criticized one-sided dominance of German in schools, administration and business had not given way to a composition of languages ​​that took account of needs, but now Polish instead of German is the dominant one Took place. In the survey, fewer respondents then stated German as their preferred language, as the now widely necessary use of Polish led to the respondents also giving preference to this language.

In accordance with the territorial principle of citizenship - apart from settled foreigners who the state could refuse to stay - all residents - regardless of their linguistic or cultural identity - were German until 1920. With the restitution of the Polish state, there was also Polish citizenship again. According to the territorial principle, the inhabitants of the voivodeship would now all be Poles. Not everyone wanted to change their citizenship with the affiliation of the area, so every resident - regardless of linguistic or cultural identity - could opt to remain German (cf. Article 297b of the Versailles Treaty). Those who opted, one speaks of optants , remained German, but now abroad (i.e. foreign German ), and were thus subject to Polish foreigners legislation. As a result, optants who remained in the area could also be expelled, depending on the Polish residence regulations for foreigners. If someone had opted to remain German, Germany did not make retention of citizenship subject to conditions such as preferred German language use and the like. Germans previously living in Germany who came to live abroad through the annexation of their residential area were not officially withdrawn from their citizenship.

Territorial nationals who had agreed not to become Poles by failing to exercise their right to opt to remain German have sometimes experienced the Polish state denying them Polish citizenship. The refusal of Polish citizenship affected v. a. German-speaking residents who had just not opted for their German citizenship. The Polish state usually did not honor German-speaking non-opters for their loyalty advance, but instead developed a state policy of nationalities, which took place in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. a. turned against German speakers. Until 1918 there was a comparable policy under the opposite sign, which was directed against Polish speakers.

However, there were also Poles who were formerly Germans who made successful careers. For example, Joseph von Unruh , formerly an officer in the Imperial Navy , played a key role in building up the Polish Navy and, having promoted to Rear Admiral, became famous as Józef Unrug.

Poland's policies, especially since the coups d'état in 1926, not only led to conflicts within the Pomeranian Voivodeship and elsewhere in Poland, but the Second Republic of Poland negated its multilingualism and the diversity of its different cultural identities. Making all Poles, not just Polish-speaking, citizens equal has not been effectively reached. Politicians were more likely to be determined by the assumption that being Polish means being Polish-speaking, and those who speak Polish can only be in favor of belonging to Poland. The policy was aimed at polonizing as many Poles who speak other languages ​​as possible to become Polish speakers, instead of giving all Poles, regardless of the language, the experience of being equal before the law and finding recognition from the state that takes each group into account.

As far as this nationality policy concerned the voivodships of Pomerania, Poznan and Silesia , it grew into conflicts between Germany and Poland (cf. German-Polish customs war ).

Nationality policy measures were the expulsion of optants according to the option under the Polish Aliens Act. Nonoptants, v. a. German-speaking, recognition as Poles was sometimes refused or existing property rights to land were disputed. The emigration of the optants took place more quickly from the cities than from the rural areas. As a result, from 1921, their proportion was higher in the rural districts than in the urban districts, contrary to the situation up to 1918. The number of German speakers fell to 105,000 by 1931.

After the territorial expansion of the Pomeranian Voivodeship to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship on April 1, 1938, the population was 1,884,400 inhabitants. Other Optanten had emigrated, and Kujawian circles without any noteworthy German-speaking element were also added, but also areas along the Noteć (networks) where German-speaking people also lived. The numbers changed with 88% Polish and Kashubian speakers (or around 1,658,000) compared to 10.1% German speakers (or around 190,000).

Self-government, state administration and structure

The Pomeranian Voivodeship was one of the voivodeships with pronounced self-government. The voivodships were organized differently on this issue. In addition to the more extensive autonomy as in Polish Silesia , there were the voivodeships of Pomerania and Poznan with their own elected state parliament (sejmik wojewódzki), whose deputies were elected by the voivodship government (wydział wojewódzki). This then exercised the self- government together with the voivode appointed by the central government .

Thorn: Former voivodeship administration

In the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919) - with effect from January 10, 1920 - the German Reich undertook to cede the future territory of the voivodeship to Poland without a referendum. When the voivodeship was officially founded on August 12, 1919, what would later become the territory was under German administration. The capital was Thorn, which the German military evacuated on January 18, 1920. In the enthusiastic mood after the founding of the state, Poles around Józef Haller celebrated in the fishing town of Puck (Putzig) on February 10, 1920 "the marriage of Poland to the sea", which was followed by demands to build a Polish sea power.

The Prussian municipal code remained valid for the Pomeranian Voivodeship. The voivodeship was divided into counties (powiaty). Each powiat was a starost before, with a Starostei as a district office. Until March 31, 1938, the voivodeship was divided into 18 districts and three independent cities ( Gdynia only since 1926). From April 1st, there were five independent cities and 23 rural districts. There were also 64 cities and 234 municipalities belonging to the district, some of which were still subdivided into scholtiseien , each with its own sołtys (Schuldheiß).

economy

Until 1920, little industrialized agriculture and forestry dominated large parts of the voivodeship. In 1937 forests covered 26.7% of the voivodeship area, which was higher than the Polish average of 22.2%. The existing infrastructure, on the other hand, was considered good compared to the former Russian Poland . The railway network in the voivodeship area - with a density of 11.4 km per 100 km² - was 1,887 km in total length, making the Pomeranian Voivodeship in second place in the country. The population was also considered to be well educated, the illiterate rate in the voivodeship was 8.3%, which was well below the Polish average of 23.1% in 1931.

The Pomeranian Voivodeship was one of the richest and most developed in the Second Republic of Poland . The gross wage level in the former German area was higher than elsewhere in Poland. The gross level was not only higher because by 1914 the unions had successfully achieved higher wages in terms of collective bargaining policy than in Russian Poland.

In addition, the compulsory social contributions for the social insurance created in 1891 increased the gross wage. The companies in Germany, which had themselves agreed on increasing wage agreements in collective agreements and had to accept the state-levied social security contributions, had switched their production to only those goods and services whose sale in the largely globalized domestic and world markets before 1914 brought in sufficient income to bring back the costs of labor, which is an expensive resource in Germany.

Since the social security was retained in the voivodeships whose territory was formerly part of Germany, the gross wage in Pomerania remained higher than in other parts of Poland. In the other voivodships, a comparable insurance system emerged from 1934 with the Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych (ZUS).

Pomeranian companies, which were already successfully producing products before 1914, which could be sold at a profit despite high labor costs, were now also successful in their product areas compared to companies elsewhere in Poland. Until the customs wars, the previously well-served German domestic market was still open to Pomeranian companies without customs barriers. Their relatively more expensive and high-quality products found better sales on the German market because consumers there also bought high-quality products in view of the initially higher real income.

In 1920 there were two smaller harbors on the Polish coast in Puck (Putzig) and Hel (Hela) . It is true that Danzig was constituted as a mandate area of the League of Nations and Polish customs connection area in order to serve again as a Polish seaport without - taking into account the German-speaking majority of Danzigers - belonging to Poland itself. However, after the experience during the Polish-Soviet war , Danzig appeared to the Republic of Poland as an unreliable connection to the worldwide maritime traffic. Britain and France had supported Poland with arms shipments to the Soviet Union to communism to beat. The showmen in Danzig had, however, partly on strike to delete the armaments in order to keep the front of the young Soviet Union, the supposed workers' state, free from ever new weapons aimed at them.

This strike-related arms embargo was a threat to Poland during the war; therefore the republic decided to build an efficient port in its own stretch of coast. Three months after the celebration of the "marriage of Poland to the sea" in Putzig, Vice Admiral Kazimierz Porębski , 1916/17 Rear Admiral of the Russian Navy and since 1919 Department Director for Maritime Affairs in the Polish Ministry of Defense, the engineer Tadeusz Wenda (1864-1948), commissioned the most favorable location for the construction of a war port to be found. Wenda recommended Gdynia (Gdynia) as a suitable location in June 1920 . The Polish government chose Gdynia in the winter of 1920, and Wenda also delivered the design for a war, trade and fishing port in the same year. Construction began, and on April 29, 1923, Poland's President Stanisław Wojciechowski and Premier Władysław Sikorski opened the temporary naval port and a sheltered temporary berth for fishing vessels.

Gdynia was connected to the Polish inland by a new railway line, the so-called coal main line, completed in 1933 , which made it possible to avoid the use of the previous Gdynia railway connection, which partly ran over Gdansk territory.

Religion and culture

The majority of the inhabitants, v. a. the Kashubian and Polish speakers professed Roman Catholicism . The responsible diocese at that time was the Kulm diocese based in Pelplin . The 1925 Concordat between Poland and the Vatican made the Roman Catholic Church a state church .

The Protestants were mostly German-speaking and until the early 1920s, most of the Protestant parishes belonged to the Uniate Evangelical Church of the older Prussian provinces , which was divided into church provinces. Among the 84,622 Protestants of the Old Prussian Union in 1931 90% German and 9.7% Polish as their mother tongue, among the 5,931 Lutherans ( Old Lutherans and members of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland ), 68% had German as their mother tongue 31% Polish, among the 4,052 Reformed people 81% German and 18% Polish. The ecclesiastical province of West Prussia extended over three states after the borders were drawn in 1920. The Protestant congregations in the area of ​​the Free City of Danzig, where the West Prussian Consistory also had its seat, reorganized as the State Synodal Association of the Free City of Danzig and remained the ecclesiastical province of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union , as the Old Prussian Regional Church was called since 1922.

As a result, the Protestant communities in the part of the church province West Prussia that had become Polish lost their center, because outside Danzig and the Vistula Delta, Protestants in Pomerania mostly lived in the diaspora . Since the Polish government was opposed to a cross-border Evangelical Church, the Ecclesiastical Province of Poznan - without the communities in the north and west of the former political province that remained with Germany - under General Superintendent Paul Blau as the Uniate Evangelical Church in Poland (Ewangelicki Kościół Unijny w Polsce) made. The consistory in Poznań continued to serve as the administration within the new church. Blue won over the Pomeranian Protestant parishes to join this church as well. The Uniate Evangelical Church in Poland thus included all Protestant parishes that had belonged to the regional church in Prussia, except for the 17 Evangelical parishes in East Upper Silesia , which founded the Uniate Evangelical Church in Polish Upper Silesia in 1923 . Community and church life was initially made more difficult by the emigration of many German-speaking people who had lost their jobs in administration, education or associations because they did not speak enough Polish or new organizations with new Polish-speaking people took the place of the old ones.

Despite the required separation from the Old Prussian Church, there was no state recognition of the Uniate Evangelical Church in Poland . In addition, the Polish authorities caused German-speaking Poles who wanted to study Protestant theology at a German university to have passport difficulties. The Uniate Evangelical Church in Poland then built its own theological school and a seminary for preachers in 1921. The cooperation with the Danzig Regional Synodal Association remained close, as the Polish state did not cause any problems when traveling to the Free City.

In Bydgoszcz, with the influx from other parts of Poland, a Polish-speaking congregation of the Evangelical Church AB also gathered in other places congregations of the Evangelical Church AB, which, where available, often in the churches of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in western Poland ( Kościół Ewangelicko-Luterski w Polsce Zachodniej) were granted hospitality. This church was formed in 1920 by those parishes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia that came to Poland after 1919.

According to the 1931 census, 1.6% of the then 1,080,138 inhabitants of the voivodeship were Jews (3,447), all of whom lived in diaspora . The Jews were ethnically divided into three groups, 50% with Yiddish, 27% with Polish and 19% with German as their mother tongue.

As an important museum for the Kashubian region , the oldest open-air museum in Poland, Kaszubski Park Etnograficzny (Kashubian Ethnographic Park), has been in existence in Wdzydze Kiszewskie on Lake Weitsee since 1906 on the initiative of the couple Theodora and Isidor Gulgowski .

Attracted by the enthusiastic work to develop Gdynia into a port for Poland, some artists stayed in this Pomeranian city. B. the Warmian-Polish composer Feliks Nowowiejski and the writer Stefan Żeromski . In 1921 Żeromski closely followed the construction of the temporary war port and the berth for fishermen. Inspired by these works, he wrote the novel Wiatr od morza (The Wind from the Sea), in which he provided a surprisingly true picture of the nascent port and the nascent city of Gdynia from what did not yet exist, as it soon turned out to be.

history

In 1922 the Pomeranian Voivodeship was formed in the Second Polish Republic. The capital became Toruń (Thorn). Almost all areas of the voivodeship belonged to West Prussia (Prusy Zachodnie) until 1920 , to Royal Prussia (Prusy Królewskie) until 1772, to Order Prussia until 1454/1466 (Prusy Zakonne) and before that to Pomerania, all four of which formed the prehistory of the voivodeship .

On April 1, 1938, as the Greater Pomerania Voivodeship , it was considerably expanded in terms of territory.

Actual dissolution of the voivodeship during World War II

On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler explained to the assembled representatives of the Wehrmacht the intended archaic character of the impending war: “Our strength is our speed and our brutality. Genghis Khan chased millions of women and children to their death, consciously and with a happy heart. History sees in him only the great founder of a state. What the weak Western European civilization says about me does not matter. I have given orders - and I let anyone utter a word of criticism be fused - that the aim of the war is not to reach certain lines, but to physically destroy the enemy. So, for the time being only in the East, I have prepared my skull bandages with the order to send mercilessly and mercilessly man, woman and child of Polish origin and language to their deaths . This is the only way we can gain the living space we need. Who is still talking about the annihilation of the Armenians today ? "

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union conspired against Poland in the German-Soviet non-aggression pact . On the orders of Rear Admiral Unrug , the Polish torpedo destroyers ORP Błyskawica , ORP Grom and ORP Burza left Gdynia for Great Britain on August 30, 1939 as part of Operation Peking . They and their Polish garrisons remained in service even after the country was completely conquered by the Germans and Soviets on October 6, 1939.

With the German invasion on September 1, 1939, which overran most of the voivodeship within a few days, the existence of this administrative unit de facto ended. With the Soviet invasion from September 17th, the needed help did not come, but the second annexionist great power and accelerated the Polish collapse. As soon as the invasion began, alongside the killing caused by the war, the systematic murders ordered by Hitler began.

Initially, on the orders of Hitler v. a. Members of the Polish intelligentsia , often including spouses and children, murdered. Around 60,000 Poles, including 7,000 Jewish Poles, fell victim to these massacres by the end of the year. But the patients of the Konradstein Provincial Insane Asylum were all murdered on September 22, 1939, and the asylum was converted into a German military hospital.

The Polish military defended the republic on land until October 6, 1939. In Groß Pomerania the last Polish land position surrendered on October 1st, while the sea fight and training for it continued until 1945. Until September 19, 1939, Polish marines under Stanisław Dąbek (born March 28, 1892, † September 19, 1939 in Gdingen-Oxhöft) held the Szkoła Podchorążych Marynarki Wojennej Naval Academy on the Oxhöfter Kämpe . On October 1, 1939, Rear Admiral Unrug surrendered in Hel (Hela) - the last Pomeranian land position held - to the German conquerors, who took over the city on October 2, 1939.

The voivode Władysław Raczkiewicz managed to escape to Britain, where he belonged to the newly formed Polish government in exile . Poland's government did not capitulate. Except for military surrender agreements, according to which Polish units surrendered to Germans, there was no agreement between German and Polish government representatives.

"During the Second World War, Pomerania was incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia ." The area of ​​the voivodeship was transferred to new administrative areas and structures under the occupation authorities. Since Poland had neither surrendered nor agreed to any territorial changes, these acts remained unilateral German arbitrariness without recognition under international law. By the end of 1939, around 90,000 Poles, including many Jewish, had been expelled from the annexed area of ​​the Poznan and Greater Pomerania Voivodeships to the Generalgouvernement occupied area , and by 1945 there should be 900,000.

Resistance during the occupation

The Tajna Organizacja Wojskowa "Gryf Pomorski" (TOW; Secret Military Organization "Pomeranian Greif"), which was independent of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) , was formed in Pomerania. There was “an existential crisis in 1943, triggered by the murder of the commandant of the organization, Józef Gierszewski. The attack ... came from Józef Dambko, a rival of Gierszewski for the leadership of »Gryf« and a vehement opponent of unification with the Home Army. The murder, committed by a Kashubian conspirator with the knowledge of the leadership, and the escalating conflict damaged the reputation of the resistance ... and also led to the resignation of Colonel Josef Wrycz [correctly: Józef Wrycza] from the organization, who up to this point had unrestricted authority had enjoyed. "

Restitution of the voivodeship from March 1945

Polish voivodships and occupation districts (okręg I to IV in the eastern German territories) as of April 7, 1945. The voivodeship boundaries shown here remained roughly unchanged until 1950 (with the exception of September 1945 to June 1946).

From the end of January the Red Army took over the voivodeship and while fighting against German occupiers continued in the voivodeship, its administration resumed its official duties. In the course of the reconstruction of Polish administrative structures, which Voivode Henryk Świątkowski drove in Thorn from February 2, 1945, the Großpommerellen Voivodeship revived on March 14, 1945, initially within its old borders. Świątkowski moved the capital to Bromberg on March 2nd. On April 7th, the northern districts of the City of Gdynia, Powiat Kartuski, Powiat Kościerski, Powiat Morski, Powiat Starogardzki and Powiat Tczewski - were spun off and united with the former League of Nations mandate area of ​​the Free City of Danzig to form the new Gdansk Voivodeship . The reduced voivodeship was now called Pomeranian again.

The Versailles borders were now effectively abolished, so that new, differently shaped units could be formed. On September 25, 1945, east-south-east areas of the former Prussian province of Pomerania were annexed to the voivodeship. “The Schlochau / Człuchów and Flatow / Złotów districts were only in the Pomeranian Voivodeship until May 28, 1946, after which they were incorporated into the Szczecin Voivodeship .” In 1950 there were some minor changes along the voivodeship and a new name. From the beginning of 1950 it was named after the capital Bydgoszcz Voivodeship .

Pomeranian Voivodeship within the borders as they existed from September 25, 1945 to May 28, 1946.

The Soviets freed the residents of Pomerania from persecution and stalking by the Nazis. But they immediately set up their own persecution apparatus. The NKVD deported immediately after the invasion of German-speaking and Polish-language, v. a. those who were listed as ethnic Germans and those who were held to be opponents of communism, supporters of the government in exile or the Armia Krajowa were in camps.

Meanwhile, many of those who had been deported or who had fled during the occupation were heading home. Due to the destruction of the war, publicly usable means of transport were rare, so that returnees often traveled on foot. But not a few Warsaw residents came to Pomerania from their places of displacement and refuge, v. a. to Bromberg, Gdingen and Thorn, whose civil buildings had largely remained intact. On February 11th, on the initiative of Świątkowski , fled and displaced professors from the University of Vilnius and the Technical University of Lviv founded the University of Thorn .

In the second half of 1945 the NKVD handed over most of the camps to Polish hands - v. a. to Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego (UB, security service) and Milicja Obywatelska (MO, citizens' militia). "Both organs arrested and imprisoned the Germans and the Poles belonging to the German People's List, as well as members of the resistance movement (Home Army / Armia Krajowa)."

However, the NKVD kept the main camps in Ciechanów (Zichenau) and Grudziądz (Graudenz) as well as another one each in Posen and one in Landsberg an der Warthe in eastern Brandenburg as the point of departure for the deportations to the east. The Zichenau camp was established on February 1, 1945. ... The camp's sources give the number of internees. According to this, almost 6,000 Poles, Germans and representatives from other nations were imprisoned there and were deported from there to the Soviet Union.

On February 8, 1945, the first transport with 1005 prisoners left. Of these, 336 were Germans, including 38 women. 156 of the Germans were prisoners of war, the reason given for their arrest was that they were German soldiers. However, the records are incomplete.

List of rural and urban districts of the voivodeship

This is indicated for circles that were ceded by the voivodeship on April 1, 1938 and April 7, 1945 or joined to it. The Polish districts linked here (powiat = district, miasta na prawach powiatu = city within the range of a district) are today's districts of the same name, whose boundaries are not necessarily the same today as they were then.

  • Cities within the range of a district (information on the area and number of inhabitants, as of 1931)
  1. Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) , 75 km² with 117,200 inhabitants - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  2. Gdynia (Gdingen) , 66 km² with 38,600 inhabitants (1931), 115,000 inhabitants (1939) - from February 10, 1926, as an independent city, spun off from the powiat Wejherowski; on April 7, 1945 to the new Gdansk Voivodeship
  3. Grudziądz (Graudenz) , 28 km² with 54,000 inhabitants
  4. Inowrocław (Inowrazlaw / Hohensalza) , 37 km² with 34,400 inhabitants - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  5. Toruń (Thorn) , 59 km² with 61,900 inhabitants
  • Counties (powiaty)
  1. Powiat Brodnicki , 913 km² with 56,300 inhabitants, seat: Brodnica (Strasburg an der Drewenz)
  2. Powiat Bydgoski , 1,334 km² with 58,100 inhabitants, seat: Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  3. Powiat Chełmiński , 738 km² with 52,800 inhabitants, seat: Chełmno (Culm)
  4. Powiat Chojnicki 1,854 km² with 76,900 inhabitants, seat: Chojnice (Konitz)
  5. Powiat Działdowski , seat: Działdowo (Soldau) - from April 1, 1938 to the Warsaw Voivodeship
  6. Powiat Gniewski, seat: Gniew (Mewe) - from April 1, 1932 to Powiat Tczewski
  7. Powiat Grudziądzki , 758 km² with 42,800, seat: Grudziądz (Graudenz)
  8. Powiat Inowrocławski , 1,267 km² with 67,500 inhabitants, seat: Inowrazlaw - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  9. Powiat Kartuski , 1,302 km² with 68,700 inhabitants, seat: Kartuzy (Karthaus) - on April 7, 1945 to the new Gdansk Voivodeship
  10. Powiat Kościerski , 1,162 km² with 51,700 inhabitants, seat: Kościerzyna (Berent in Kashubia) - on April 7, 1945 to the new Gdansk Voivodeship
  11. Powiat Lipnowski , 1,535 km² with 104,500 inhabitants, seat: Lipno - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  12. Powiat Lubawski, 833 km² with 53,600 inhabitants, seat: Lubawa (Löbau in West Prussia)
  13. Powiat Morski (Seekreis), 1,281 km² with 79,900 inhabitants, seat: Gdynia (1927–1928), Wejherowo (Weyhersfrey / Neustadt in West Prussia) (from March 21, 1928) - founded on January 1, 1927 and on April 7, 1945 for new Gdansk Voivodeship
  14. Powiat Nieszawski, 1,278 km² with 117,900 inhabitants, seat: Aleksandrów Kujawski , until April 1, 1932 in Nieszawa (Nessau) - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  15. Powiat Nowomiejski , seat: Nowe Miasto Lubawskie (Neumark in West Prussia)
  16. Powiat Pucki ,? km² with? Inhabitants, seat: Puck - dissolved on December 31, 1926 and assigned to the new powiat Morski
  17. Powiat Rypiński , 1,188 km² with 84,900 inhabitants, seat: Rypin - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  18. Powiat Sępoleński , 681 km² with 31,600 inhabitants, seat: Sepolno Krajenskie (Zempelburg)
  19. Powiat Starogardzki , 1,127 km² with 71,800 inhabitants, seat: Starogard Gdański (Prussian Stargard) - on April 7, 1945 to the new Gdansk Voivodeship
  20. Powiat Szubiński, 917 km² with 47,800 inhabitants, seat: Szubin (Schubin) - from April 1st to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  21. Powiat Świecki , 1,533 km² with 88,000 inhabitants, seat: Świecie (Schwetz)
  22. Powiat Tczewski , 716 km² with 67,400 inhabitants, seat: Tczew (Dirschau) - on April 7, 1945 to the new Gdansk Voivodeship
  23. Powiat Toruński , 864 km² with 52,300 inhabitants, seat: Toruń (Thorn)
  24. Powiat Tucholski , 1,039 km² with 41,200 inhabitants, seat: Tuchola (Tuchel)
  25. Powiat Wąbrzeski , 673 km² with 49,900 inhabitants, seat: Wąbrzeźno (Briesen)
  26. Powiat Wejherowski , 1,281 km² with 85,400 inhabitants, seat: Wejherowo - dissolved December 31, 1926 and assigned to the new Powiat Morski (northern district area) and Powiat Kartuski (rest of the district area)
  27. Powiat Włocławski , 1,325 km² with 147,800 inhabitants, seat: Włocławek - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship
  28. Powiat Wyrzyski, 1,101 km² with 64,900 inhabitants, seat: Wyrzysk (Wirsitz) - from April 1, 1938 to the Greater Pomeranian Voivodeship

Voivodes

from to Voivode
Oct. 19, 1919 Jul 2, 1920 Stefan Łaszewski
0July 2, 1920 24 Mar 1924 Jan Brejski
Oct. 24, 1924  Aug 1926 Stanisław Wachowiak
 Aug 1926  Oct. 1926 Mieczysław Seydlitz
Oct 12, 1926 04th July 1928 Kazimierz Młodzianowski
Aug 28, 1928 Nov 18, 1931 Viktor Wrona-Lamot
Nov 18, 1931 July 14, 1936 Stefan Kirtiklis
July 16, 1936 Sep 30 1939 Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz
Sep 30 1939 1941 vacancy
  1941 1944 Antoni Antczak , as a delegate of the Rządu dla Pomorza (Council for Pom.), Seat: Warsaw
1944 0Feb. 2, 1945 vacancy
0Feb. 2, 1945 Apr. 14, 1945 Henryk Świątkowski
Apr. 14, 1945 Oct. 31, 1945 Kazimierz Pasenkiewicz
Nov 15, 1945 Apr 10, 1948 Wojciech Wojewoda
Apr 14, 1948 May 24, 1950 Ignacy Kubecki

literature

  • Der Große Brockhaus: Handbook of Knowledge in twenty volumes . 21 volumes. Completely reworked. 15th edition. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1928–1935, Volume 14: Osu – Por, Article: Poland , pp. 687–702 and Article: Pommerellen, Polish Voivodeship , p. 740.
  • Walter Hubbert: Farming in Posen and Pomeranian. Diss. Techn. Hochsch. Danzig, 1932.
  • Mały rocznik statystyczny 1939 (Small Statistical Yearbook for 1939). Nakładem Głownego Urzędu Statystycznego, Warsaw 1939.
  • Hugo Rasmus: Pommerellen, West Prussia 1919–1939. Herbig, Berlin / Munich 1989.
  • Gerhard Renn: The meaning of the name "Pommern" and the designations for today's Pomerania in history (=  Greifswald treatises on the history of the Middle Ages, vol. 8). Greifswald 1937.
  • Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of the German Expellees Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 .
  • Walther Threde (ed.), Peter Nasarski (ed.): Poland and his Prussian strip 1919–1933 - The German ethnic group in Posen and Pomerania. Westkreuz, Berlin / Bonn 1983.
  • Voivodeships of Pomerania and Danzig (West Prussia) [Uniform title: Województwo pomorskie, województwo gdańskie ; German], inlet, selection and editing of the documents by Ingo Eser and Witold Stankowski, published as part 4 by: Włodzimierz Borodziej (ed.): Our home has become a foreign country to us ... (=  sources on history and regional studies East Central Europe, Vol. 4, Part 4). Herder Institute publishing house, Marburg an der Lahn 2004, ISBN 3-87969-315-3 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In Polish, the local reference for voivodeship names is given in adjectival form.
  2. ↑ a b Der Große Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens in twenty volumes : 21 volumes, completely reworked. 15th edition. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1928–1935, Volume 14: Fourteenth Volume Osu – Por, Article: Pommerellen, Polish Voivodeship , p. 740.
  3. ↑ Today, in the area of ​​the southern Baltic Sea coast, the terms are doubled by different names in different languages. The voivodeship that today occupies the majority of what is now the Polish part of the former province of Pomerania is officially called Województwo Zachodniopomorskie , which means West Pomeranian Voivodeship . According to German custom, this West Pomeranian is not located in the west of the Pomeranian areas, but either in the east or - including Pomeranian - in the middle.
  4. ^ A b c d e f Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [standard title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 17.
  5. ^ Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 18.
  6. ↑ a b c d e cf. Drugi powszechny spis ludności z dn. 9.XII.1931 r: Mieszkania i gospodarstwa domowe. Ludność. Stosunki zawodowe: Województwo pomorskie / Le deuxième recensement général de la population du 9 decembre 1931: Logements et ménages, population, professions: Voïévodie de Pomorze , Główny Urząd. Sándor Statystyczny Rzeczypemj62., Ed ), Warsaw: Główny Urząd Statystyczny , 1938, Tablica 10. Ludność według wyznania i płci oraz języka ojczystego / Population d'après la confession et le sexe, ainsi que d'après la langue maternelle.
  7. ↑ If preferred linguistic usage meant nationality, democracies like Switzerland with equal citizens, regardless of preferred linguistic usage, should not exist. Linguistically arguing nationalists see the very existence of Switzerland and the sense of belonging among the Swiss as an anomaly. Such nationalists are incapable of understanding democracy, the rule of law and state non-discrimination as the basis of the Swiss sense of belonging to their nation. Because where people in the nationality dispute are forcibly assigned to a nation according to language use, their own or ascribed cultural identity, democracy, the rule of law and non-discrimination cannot flourish.
  8. ^ Ernst Opgenoort (ed.): Handbook of the history of East and West Prussia (4 parts in 5 volumes). Published on behalf of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research. Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, Lüneburg 1994–1998 (= individual publications of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research; No. 10), Part III: From the Reformation to the Treaty of Versailles 1807–1918. ISBN 3-932267-09-5 , p. 132.
  9. ^ Ernst Opgenoorth (ed.): Handbook of the history of East and West Prussia (4 parts in 5 volumes). Published on behalf of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research. Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, Lüneburg 1994–1998 (individual publications of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research; No. 10), Part III: From the Reformation to the Treaty of Versailles 1807–1918. ISBN 3-932267-09-5 , p. 133.
  10. ↑ Population figures calculated according to the 1931 census, excluding the population of the given district as well as including the newly added districts.
  11. ↑ Other provinces either had only the province governor ( Province Krakow , Polesia Province and Volyn province ) or a non-elected and also only consultative committee of woiwodschaftsangehörigen circles. Cf. Poland . In: The Great Brockhaus: Handbook of Knowledge in twenty volumes . 21 volumes. Completely reworked. 15th edition. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1928–1935, Volume 14: Osu – Por, pp. 687–702, here p. 693.
  12. ↑ a b Poland . In: The Great Brockhaus: Handbook of Knowledge in twenty volumes . 21 volumes. Completely reworked. 15th edition. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1928–1935, Volume 14: Osu – Por, pp. 687–702, here p. 695.
  13. ^ The Protestant congregations in the West Prussian administrative district that remained with Germany joined the church province of East Prussia . The Protestant congregations in the southwest of West Prussia, which remained with Germany, formed the new ecclesiastical province of Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia in 1923 .
  14. ↑ Walter Bußmann (ed.): Files on German Foreign Policy : Series D (1937–1945), 13 volumes. Vol. 7: The last weeks before the outbreak of war: August 9 to September 3, 1939 , p. 171.
  15. ^ Dieter Pohl : Persecution and mass murder in the Nazi era 1933-1945. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-534-15158-5 , p. 49. The same: Holocaust: The causes, the happenings, the consequences. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2000, ISBN 3-451-04835-3 , p. 36.
  16. ↑ General Franciszek Kleeberg handed over the last Polish land position at all on October 6, 1939 after the battle of Kock .
  17. ↑ The Naval Academy resumed its training activities in Plymouth on November 26, 1939 .
  18. ^ Willi Schultz: Ship of the line Schleswig-Holstein: Fleet service in three navies. Revised and 2nd edition. Koehler, Herford 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0502-2 , pp. 199 ff.
  19. ↑ Janusz Marszalec: Life under the terror of the occupiers and the marginal behavior of soldiers of the Armia Krajowa. In: Bernhard Chiari (ed.): The Polish Home Army: History and Myth of the Armia Krajowa since the Second World War (= contributions to military history, Military History Research Office Potsdam; Vol. 57). Published on behalf of the Military History Research Office. Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56715-2 , pp. 325–354, here p. 342 (addition in square brackets and omissions not in the original).
  20. ^ Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 63.
  21. ^ Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 28.
  22. ^ By 1951, a separate technical university was also established in Bromberg.
  23. ^ Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 32.
  24. ^ "From the Soviet sources, insofar as they are available in the Central Military Archives in Warsaw (Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe w Warszawie), it emerges that a total of 20,863 people were deported to the Soviet Union from the above-mentioned Soviet deportation camps. The number of Germans was over half at 12,148 people. ”Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pomerania, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945-1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 31.
  25. ^ Witold Stankowski: Camp for Germans in Poland using the example of Pommerellen, West Prussia (1945–1950): Review and analysis of Polish archives [uniform title: Obozy dla Niemców w Polsce na przykładzie Pomorza Gdańskiego (1945–1950) ; German]. Historical research. Cultural Foundation of German Expellees, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-88557-207-9 , p. 30.