Destruction of Kalisz

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Kalisz (German Empire)
Kalisz
Kalisz
Location of Kalisz on the border with the German Empire

The destruction of Kalisz was an event from the initial phase of the First World War in August 1914. The city of Kalisz in Russian Poland was first occupied by German troops, then attacked and partially destroyed for reasons that cannot be explained today. It is estimated that at least 100 residents of the city were shot by the Germans. The events recall the behavior of German troops during the invasion of Belgium and the destruction of Lion in August 1914.

background

Map of the Kalisz Governorate. Kalisz (Russian marked as Калишъ) is located near the western border of the governorate.

The Greater Poland Kalisz (Eng. Kalisch ), located on the Prosna River , is one of the oldest cities in Poland and was already mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD (see Kalisia ). In the 13th century it received from the large Polish Duke Boleslaw the Pious , the city charter . During the Third Partition of Poland in 1795 , it fell to the Kingdom of Prussia and belonged to the Province of South Prussia until 1807 , then to the Duchy of Warsaw . From 1815 it belonged to the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland ), which was linked in personal union with the Russian Empire , and was a border town to Prussia and the later German Empire . In 1867 Kalisz became the seat of a Russian governorate and was connected to the railway network in 1902. After that the population jumped from about 38,000 around 1900 to 65,400 in the last census before the war in 1913. Kalisz was a garrison town in 1914 for the 14th Little Russian Dragoon Regiment and the headquarters of a brigade of the Russian 14th Cavalry Division.

Reconstruction of the events

Occupation of the city on 2/3 August

On August 1, 1914, the German Reich declared war on the Russian Empire after failing to comply with an ultimatum to end its general mobilization. On the night of Sunday, August 2, 1914, the first day of mobilization in the German Reich, on August 3, German troops occupied the Polish-Russian border towns Kalisz, Częstochowa ( Czestochowa ) and Będzin ( without serious resistance and after a chaotic Russian evacuation ) Bendzin ), the latter in Silesia. In Kalisz the Russians blew up the main bridge over the Prosna before they withdrew and set some strategic buildings on fire. The population of Kalisz welcomed the German troops with friendly curiosity, and the Polish mayor Bronisław Bukowiński chaired a welcoming committee. Major Hans Rudolf Hermann Preusker, Commander of the 2nd Battalion / 7th West Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 155 ( stationed in Ostrowo / Ostrów before the war , around 25 kilometers from Kalisz; part of the 10th Division of the 5th Army Corps ) was in command of the German troops in the city. He moved into the Hotel Europa near the city center. On August 3, he issued a proclamation on the takeover of the Prussian military administration over Kalisz. It was u. a. all privately owned weapons are required to be returned within 24 hours. The local police, consisting mostly of Russians, were disbanded and disarmed.

Events from August 3rd to 7th

The first incident occurred on the evening of August 3rd: after alleged shooting at German troops, they began with shootings and artillery fire on the center of the city. Residents were dragged from their homes and mistreated in the street and some were shot. Mayor Bukowiński had to lie face down on the street all night and was beaten unconscious. One of his employees was shot while trying to cover him with a coat.

On the morning of August 4, doctors including Dr. Alfred Dreszer from Szpital Swietej Trojcy , unable to help the wounded, the rescue of the wounded and dead was prevented by German soldiers. On the same day, Major Preusker issued a proclamation in German and Polish in which it was forbidden to visit restaurants, a night curfew was imposed, the shooting of every 10th male adult was threatened in retaliation for assaults and a contribution of 50,000 rubles was required. The publication of newspapers was banned.

On the afternoon of August 4th, the German troops withdrew from the city. In the following days up to August 7th, the city was sporadically bombarded with artillery without causing any major damage. A witness later stated that he had counted a total of 88 shells.

Events from the 7th to the end of August

On August 7, around 2 p.m., two battalions of the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 7 (2nd West Prussian) of the 3rd Landwehr Division and, probably at a later date, a battalion of the Royal Saxon Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 133 in Kalisz and replaced the 155 Infantry Regiment, which was relocated to the Western Front after the 5th Army Corps was made mobile. The regiment commander, a lieutenant colonel von Hofmann, had the Polish magistrate summoned and obtained their promise that similar incidents as in the previous days would not be repeated. Only a little later, however, there were new shootings. Several witnesses later mentioned a shy horse as the cause of the confusion. The German side later claimed that after a "signal" they had been taken under targeted fire and had only returned fire.

On this and the following day, Kalisz was bombarded again with artillery. Fires broke out that raged for ten more days and destroyed part of the city. Arbitrary shootings took place, and the victims included priests, women and children. In the evening the town hall was set on fire, the artillery fire continued all night. On August 8, around 700–800 male residents were taken hostage and held in a field outside the city. Thousands of residents fled the city fearing for their lives. The German troops looted and pillaged the deserted city center. Only around 5,000 residents remained in the city in mid-August. The poorer residents fled to the surrounding villages, the rich to Warsaw or to Russia proper.

On August 10th and 11th, houses were systematically looted and then burned down. Furniture and household items were brought to the train station in requisitioned wagons to be taken to Germany. Soldiers then went from house to house with bales of straw and started fires that lasted about 10 days. Almost the entire central area fell victim to the flames. On August 11th, Dr. Dreszer and some of his employees from the hospital and about 20 other citizens were brought to the city by the Germans and threatened with shooting, but later released. Despite his German descent, Dreszer was accused of being a spy. He fled the city after his release. On August 13, around 500 male hostages (of at least 750 originally) were deported to Germany, where some were interrogated in Posen .

Mayor Bukowiński returned to the city on August 17th and found a scene of devastation. Looting and arson continued for some time, presumably until August 22, when a German general intervened at Bukowiński's request. Bukowiński later managed to escape to Russia.

Press reports, propaganda exploitation and investigations during the war

News of the events quickly reached the public through reports from refugees from Kalisz. On August 8, the Petrograd newspaper Nowoje Wremja published a report on “German barbarism” in Poland. On August 14, 1914, the newspaper Birzhevye vedomosti (“ Börsennachrichten ”) published an article entitled “Unheard of German cruelty in Kalisz, eyewitness reports”. Other Russian, Polish and Yiddish-speaking media followed in the next few weeks with articles that were sometimes sensational. In October 1914, Mayor Bukowiński was interviewed for the high-circulation Russian magazine Niva . In another interview conducted in 1915, Bukowiński mentioned two revolver shots around 11 p.m. on August 3 as the trigger for the attacks.

German newspapers also reported on the events in Kalisz. Despite press censorship, some of them blamed a “Franktireurwahn” for the events. However, the coverage of “Russian atrocities” in East Prussia was considerably more extensive. The Russian side, in turn, tried to use the incidents in Kalisz and elsewhere to justify its tough crackdown on the people of East Prussia.

For the incidents in Kalisz, which were compared with similar events in Belgium and France, the term katastrofa kaliska became common in Poland during the war . In some cases, encouraged by the London Times and in reverse of the chronology, there was also talk of a “Polish lion ”. The propaganda film Krwawe dni Kalisza ("Kalisch's Bloody Days") from September 1914 was shown for a long time in Warsaw cinemas. The cabaret program “Wiluś i spółka” (“Wilhelm & Co.”) was also very popular.

In Russia, the focus was particularly on the fate of the Russian tax officer Sokolov, who was shot by the Germans because he did not want to hand over money or documents to them and thus died in "the most faithful fulfillment of duty". A special memorial service was held for him in Petrograd in the presence of the Finance Minister Pyotr Bark and the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Vladimir Sabler. Newspapers such as Birzhevye vedomosti reported widespread sexual assault against women and girls, including against Jewish women. However, the actual number of such incidents cannot have been very high, as Birzhevye vedomosti himself admitted and warned against exaggeration.

The events in Kalisz became a building block in an intense propaganda war between the German and Russian sides for the loyalty of the Polish population, which was advertised with various proclamations containing a series of promises about the future of Poland. The Polish-Prussian aristocrat and politician Bogdan von Hutten-Czapski compared the events in Kalisz in 1936 with a "lost battle" in this war.

Russian investigation

In January 1915, Duma deputies first demanded an official investigation. In March of that year, the Russian Foreign Ministry appointed a commission of inquiry under Senator Alexei Krivtsov. The events in Kalisz were only one of several investigated cases; similar events had also occurred in Czestochowa. In May 1915, local historian Józef Raciborski from Kalisz, who had survived the events and fled to Russia, gave a lecture to the Petrograd Polish Association. He used German postcards to illustrate the destruction in Kalisz. At the end of 1915 the final report of the official Russian investigation was available. 94 witnesses from Kalisz were questioned.

German counter-statements and internal doubts about the official version

On May 27, 1915, an article in the Polish-language Prussian newspaper Dziennik Poznański claimed that on 3/4 August residents of Kalisz shot from their homes at the German troops. Thereupon eleven of the perpetrators were shot dead. In addition, around a dozen German soldiers were captured by residents and most of them were killed. Thereupon the use of artillery was ordered. The majority of the fires were started by residents and criminals who had escaped from prison. They were also responsible for the looting, which was then stopped by the German troops.

In November 1916, the Prussian administrative officer Konrad Hahn wrote in a report to the German military administration in what was now the regency kingdom of Poland that it was highly unlikely that residents of Kalisz would have shot at the German troops. The shots (which he regarded as proven) were probably fired by Russian police officers or provocateurs instigated by them. The destruction of the city was said to be due to an error by the German officers who had ordered the reprisals about the perpetrators of the attacks.

Dr. Dreszer later reported, however, that he had ascertained that a bullet operated on from a wounded German was of German origin. It can therefore be considered likely that the Germans were at least partially victims of self-fire .

Investigations by Allies and Poles after the war

At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Preusker was placed on the list of war criminals to be extradited by Germany. However, he had already died in April 1918 in a hospital in Karlsruhe from a war injury sustained during the German spring offensive .

In January 1919, following the capture of the Poznan area in the Poznan Uprising , an official Polish investigation was launched. Your 100-page final report, entitled Wynik butodzeń urzędowych w sprawie zburzenia miasta Kalisza przez Niemców w roku 1914 and published in 1919, contains 104 signed eyewitness testimony.

German attempts at justification in the interwar period

In 1925 the Reichsarchiv-Band appeared as the official German representation of the beginning of the war in the East. It repeated the legend that the population, possibly instigated by Russian agents, carried out raids on German troops. "Strict measures" were the result. The taking of hostages, the imposition of contributions and the demolition of houses fully corresponded to the regulations valid at the time in the German army , as they were laid down in the handbook of war customs in land wars .

The official regimental history of IR 155 appeared in 1931. It also tried to justify the destruction of Kalisz. When entering the city, 500–800 uniformed reservists were found, although they were unarmed. Russian cavalry patrols at the station were mentioned, but they had nothing to do with the following events. At around 10:00 p.m. on August 3, troops stationed at the market square were suddenly shot at from all sides and then fired back. There were raids and civilians were found in possession of firearms. These were shot summarily. At the beginning of the day on August 4, further raids were carried out, which in turn found armed civilians who were also shot. The number of those executed was around 50. The German losses were 6 dead and 2 wounded officers and 22 wounded men. On August 7th, a “signal” suddenly opened fire on roofs, cellars and windows. The next morning, nine captured "free shooters" were shot dead.

In the first volume of his work The History of the Landwehr Corps in World Wars 1914/1918 ( The Landwehr Corps in 1914 ), published in 1935, the former Chief of Staff of the Landwehr Corps, General Wilhelm Heye , took the view that Russian agents were the instigators for the shots.

"There was no doubt that the attacks by the Russians had been staged by rabble released from prisons and penitentiaries in order to induce the Germans to retaliate against the Polish cities."

- Wilhelm Heye, The History of the Landwehr Corps in World Wars 1914/1918, Vol. 1, p. 62

The aim was to turn the Poles against the German occupiers. Unfortunately, the Russians were successful with this.

Number of victims and damage

The number of victims among the population of Kalisz can probably no longer be precisely determined. The following information is based mainly on testimony from the official Polish investigation of 1919 as reported by Flockerzie (1983).

According to Karol Szpecht, administrator of the Trinity Hospital, the number of victims exceeded 100. Leonard Wągrowski, a judicial officer, also mentions the number of 100 deaths, although it is not clear from the excerpt from his testimony printed in Flockerzie what period it was acts. Wągrowski also mentioned that a large number of the bodies were completely mutilated, including children's bodies. A different statement came from parish priest Michał Majewski, who stated that he was involved in the funerals of around 500 men, women and children on August 5th and 6th alone. Flockerzie considers the number of at least 100 deaths to be probable based on the testimony he evaluated.

Engelstein (2009) states that after the second incident on August 7, 18 bodies were found in one street alone, including those of two little girls. Carole Fink's book Defending the Rights of Others mentions that 33 Jews were killed in Kalisz in August 1914 and 150 houses in the Jewish quarter were destroyed. Engelstein also states that the victims represent the composition of the Kalisz population.

In the International Encyclopedia of World War I , the historian of the University of Warsaw Piotr Szlanta speaks of several hundred dead in Kalisz under the entry on Poland. The figure of 4,000 deaths, which appeared immediately after the war in a list of German war crimes and is attributed to Mayor Bukowiński, can be considered unrealistic.

The extent of the destruction in Kalisz is less controversial. According to Keya Thakur-Smolarek, three quarters of the historic city had to be rebuilt after the war. According to Mieczysław-Arkadiusz Woźniak, 426 residential buildings, nine factories, five public buildings, the town hall, the theater, the Protestant church, a hotel as well as the post office and telegraph office were destroyed. The damage done was estimated at 22 million to over 33 million rubles.

reconstruction

The largely destroyed Kalisz was rebuilt in the 1920s and 1930s. With the permission of the authorities, most of the houses were built one story higher. According to Andrzej Banert, a Protestant pastor in Kalisz and operator of a small museum, the Kalisz Jews who had their shops in the city center did a large part of the reconstruction, which is hardly appreciated today.

gallery

  • City theater around 1900

  • Bridge over the Prosna before the war

  • Polish postcard "Kalisz in wartime 1914"
    (Great Synagogue)

  • German postcard "Kalisch in wartime - Josephplatz - plac św. Józefa "
    (Leopold Weiss Palace)

  • Badge on the town hall (rebuilt 1920–1925)

  • Poster on the house facade 2014 (main market)

  • Josefplatz

  • Stanislaw Street

literature

Polish

  • Bronisław Szczepankiewicz: Kalisz wśród bomb, granatów i ognia w dniach sierpniowych 1914 roku. Warsaw, 1939.
  • Ryszard Bieniecki, Bogumiła Celer: Katastrofa kaliska 1914. Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2014 (499 pages).
  • Maciej Drewicz: Wypadki kaliskie 1914: reinterpretacja obrazu zdarzeń. Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 2014.
  • Mieczysław-Arkadiusz Woźniak: Kalisz 1914. Pogrom miasta. Kaliskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 1995 (190 pages).

English

  • Laura Engelstein: "A Belgium of Our Own": The Sack of Russian Kalisz, August 1914 , in: Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History , Volume 10, No. 3, Summer 2009 (New Series), pp. 441–473 .
  • Lawrence J. Flockerzie: Poland's Louvain: Documents on the Destruction of Kalisz, August 1914 , in: The Polish Review , Volume. 28, No. 4, pp. 73-87 (1983).
  • Joshua A. Sanborn: Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire. Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 55-57.

German

  • Keya Thakur-Smolarek: The First World War and the Polish Question. The interpretations of the war by the contemporary Polish spokesmen. (= Volume 48 of Eastern Europe: History, Economy, Politics ; also dissertation, University of Heidelberg). Lit Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12777-8 .

Web links

Commons : Centennial Commemoration of the Destruction of Kalisz 2014  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ George J. Lerski: Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945 , ABC-CLIO, 1996, p. 238 f.
  2. ↑ History of Kalisz (Kalisch) on regionwielkopolska.pl
  3. ↑ Of the 65,400 inhabitants 5600 or 8.7% were Russian Orthodox, 31,372 or 48% Roman Catholic, 7026 or 10.7% Protestant, 21,287 or 32.5% Jewish, see Kalisz, jego dzieje i zniszczenie przez Prusakow , 1914, p. 10.
  4. ↑ Russian: 14-й драгунский Малороссийский Наследного принца Германского и Прусского полк , cf. [1] .
  5. ↑ Engelstein, p. 467.
  6. ^ Proclamation "To the inhabitants of Kalisch", Document 1 in Flockerzie, p. 78.
  7. ^ Proclamation "To the Magistrat Kalisch", Document 2 in Flockerzie, pp. 78–79 ( picture ). It speaks of 6 hostages who were taken overnight and would be shot if they were violated the smallest.
  8. ↑ statement Sergeant Stanislaw Biegański, Document 3 in Flockerzie, pp 79-80.
  9. ↑ statement Karol Szpecht, Document 4 in Flockerzie, pp 80-81.
  10. ↑ Flockerzie, p. 74, fn. 4.
  11. ↑ Article in Dziennik Poznański of May 27, 1915, Document 8 in Flockerzie, pp. 84–86.
  12. ^ Friedrich Max Kircheisen : Das Völkerringen 1914 , p. 295.
  13. ^ Statement by Michał Majewski, Document 5 in Flockerzie, pp. 82–83.
  14. ↑ Engelstein, p. 462.
  15. ↑ Keya Thakur-Smolarek: The First World War and the Polish Question , p. 106 f.
  16. ↑ Harold B. Segel on Poland in: European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment and Propaganda 1914–1918 , p. 69.
  17. ↑ Engelstein, p. 451 ff.
  18. ↑ Engelstein, p. 453 ff.
  19. ↑ Engelstein, p. 456 ff.
  20. ↑ Flockerzie, p. 77.
  21. ^ Report by Konrad Hahn, Document 9 in Flockerzie, pp. 86–87.
  22. ↑ See list des personnes désignées par les Puissances alliées pour être livrées par l'Allemagne en exécution des articles 228 à 230 du traité de Versailles et du protocole du 28 juin 1919. Without year, p. 179.
  23. ^ Reichsarchiv (Ed.): The World War 1914 to 1918. The military operations on land. Vol. 2: The liberation of East Prussia. 1925, p. 49.
  24. ^ Ed. By the Great General Staff, ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1902 ( online version ).
  25. ↑ Flockerzie, p. 75.
  26. ↑ Quoted from Flockerzie, p. 74.
  27. ↑ Engelstein, p. 463.
  28. ↑ Document 4 in Flockerzie, pp. 80–81.
  29. ↑ Document 6 in Flockerzie, p. 83.
  30. ↑ Document 5 in Flockerzie, pp. 82–83.
  31. ↑ a b Engelstein, p. 448.
  32. ^ Carole Fink: Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878-1938. Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 71.
  33. ↑ Piotr Szlanta: Poland , in: encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net
  34. ↑ statement of the mayor Bukowinski, in: The crimes of Germany; being an illustrated synopsis of the violations of international law and of humanity by the armed forces of the German empire. Based on the official inquiries of Great Britain, France, Russia and Belgium. The Field & Queen, London n.d., p. 92.
  35. ↑ Keya Thakur-Smolarek: The First World War and the Polish Question , p. 105.
  36. ^ Mieczysław-Arkadiusz Woźniak: Zniszczenie Kalisza .
  37. ↑ Jan Opielka: First World War - The Forgotten East , in: Frankfurter Rundschau , August 6, 2014.

Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 45 ″  N , 18 ° 5 ′ 25 ″  E