Everything about Recovered Territories totally explained
"Recovered Territories",
"Regained Territories" or
"Western and Northern Territories" were the official terms used by Polish post-war authorities to denote those former German territories, which were in the past part of Polish state and over centuries became lost and
Germanised, and which were returned to Poland after the
Second World War. The rationale given for the term "Recovered Territories" was that these territories—
Pomerania,
Silesia, the
Lubusz Land, and
Warmia-Masuria—had been under the rule of various Polish dukes and kings during the early to high
Middle Ages, before becoming seized by
Holy Roman Empire or being seized by
Prussia during the
Partitions of Poland, while other territories were Polish
fiefs. In the late stages of Second World War the area, formerly part of the
Third Reich, was occupied by the
Red Army. Following the
Potsdam Agreement, the territories were taken under
Polish administration, and Polish population (some of it
expelled from the Eastern Poland) replaced most of the German inhabitants who either
fled or were expelled. The
border was formally recognized by
East Germany in the
Treaty of Zgorzelec (1950), by
West Germany in the
Treaty of Warsaw (1970), and affirmed by the re-united
Germany in the
German-Polish Border Treaty (1990). The term was often used by
Propaganda in the People's Republic of Poland
Former Eastern Poland (
Kresy) was in turn annexed by the Soviet Union, and as the result
the territory of post war Poland was moved west and also became nearly 20% smaller (389,000 km² ).
The question of Recovered Territories was one of the few issues that didn't divide the Polish communists and their opposition, and there was unanimity regarding the western border. Even in underground anti-Communist press, there was no resistance to the return of borders of Piast Poland in the West, and support for ending the
Germanisation and
Drang nach Osten once and for all.
The territorial and population-related reorganization wasn't to be called "Shift to the West", in the course of which the Soviet Union had acquired considerable territories that had formerly been Polish. Instead, the official policy was to speak about Poland's return to "traditionally Polish territory", which for a long time had only become the victim of forced Germanization. The communist position concerning the new territory gained in the north and in the west coincided with the nationality-related policy concepts devised by the parties from before the war. This meant that soon there was a fairly broad consensus in society on the necessity of expelling the Germans and integrating Recovered Territories territories into the Polish state.
Usage
The term was in use immediately following the end of
World War II when it was used to encourage Polish settlers in those territories. while in 1925 in this area 676.000 people gave Polish as their native language
(External Link
). As German state during the Second World War made extensive use of Poles as slaves, the Polish population increased in those territories, for example in Wrocław Poles made up 4,000 to 5,000 citizens in 1918 while in 1944 the Polish population increased by 30,000-60,000 It seems to have been "officially" dropped from
Polish communist propaganda sometime in the 1950s. By the 1960s, it had clearly been dropped from official use but it's still occasionally used in texts and in common language.
The term "Recovered Territories" is sometimes also known as "Western and Northern territories".
Brief history of "Recovered Territories"
Prehistory and migration period
The areas of today's Poland, including the "Recovered Territories", was place of migration of various peoples, including
Celts, and later
Germanic tribes. Also
Balts settled in the Northeast. As Germanic tribes moved further west in
their journey,
Slavic peoples settled the area in large numbers and begun to form there the first organised states.
Beginning of the Polish state
Polish duke Mieszko I united territories of various neighboring West
Slav tribes in the second half of the 10th century and placed them under control of Polish gentry. The lands Mieszko I
Piast of
Poland, were described about 1080 in a note found in a cloister, which talks about the supposed
Dagome iudex, with which the land came under protection of the Pope.
In the year 1000 AD the Polish ruler
Boleslaw I of Poland, the son of Mieszko I and Bohemian princess Dobrawa received recognition from the
Holy Roman Empire at the
Congress of Gniezno, where he was named as a friend and ally of the empire.
In
1252 Poland lost to
Brandenburg the swampy bishopric of
Lubus. It became the base for the further expansion of
Neumark into the areas located between
Western Pomerania and
Great Poland. Eventually all communication between the neighbouring provinces was cut by the new province.
Teutonic Knights
During
Christianization parts of non-Christian territories of
Prussians (one of the
Baltic tribes) were conquered by the German-speaking
Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Knights had been employed by Konrad I
Piast of Masovia in 1226, who initiated the
Northern Crusades. In the following centuries, the Teutonic Knights became fierce enemies of the Polish Kingdom.
In the course of the 12th to 14th centuries, large numbers of
German,
Dutch and
Flemish settlers moved into East
Central Europe and
Eastern Europe. In
Pomerania,
Brandenburg,
East Prussia and
Silesia, the former
West Slav (
Polabian Slavs and
Poles) or
Balt population became extinguished or dissimilated except for small minorities. In Poland and
Pomerelia (West Prussia), German settlers formed a minority.
Poland fragmented and re-united
Poland, like many other countries in Europe, was fragmented in the 12th-13th centuries into several semi-independent duchies. These duchies were ruled by the
Piast dukes, who were often in conflict with each other. When the duchies were reunited as the Kingdom of Poland from 1306 to 1320 by King
Władysław I the Elbow-high, not all provinces once conquered by Mieszko I. were included, with the duchies of
Pomerania,
Silesia, and
Masovia remaining independent. At this time, the Baltic coast regions were ruled by the
Teutonic Knights.
Masovia was recovered by Poland in 1526, while many Silesian dukes had allied with the Crown of
Bohemia (at that time the Bohemian kings held claims to the Polish Crown).
Expansion of Brandenburg-Prussia
After the death of the last Pomeranian Duke Bogulaw XIV in 1637
Brandenburg-Prussia inherited parts of
Pomerania, and subsequently incorporated whole Pomerania into the
Kingdom of Prussia until 1815. In 1742, during the
Silesian Wars,
Silesia—until then part of the
Habsburg Monarchy—came under the rule of the Prussian King
Frederick II.
Prussia also took part in the
Partitions of Poland of the late 18th century, and in the political reshuffle after the
Congress of Vienna in 1815.
The most contentious subject at the Congress of Vienna was the so-called
Polish-Saxon Crisis. Russia and Prussia had devised a plan in which Poland would become an independent kingdom in personal union with the Tsar of Russia: Tsar
Alexander I would become King of Poland, in return for which the Prussians would receive all of Saxony as compensation. The Austrians, French, and British were vehemently opposed to this, to the point of war if necessary. In the end an amicable settlement was reached, by which Russia received most of the Napoleonic
Duchy of Warsaw as the "Kingdom of Poland" (called
Congress Poland), but not the district of
Poznań (
Grand Duchy of Poznań), nor
Kraków. The former was given to Prussia (which only received 40% of Saxony), and the latter became a
free city.
Poland restored and shifted
» See also Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the short lived Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918)
After
World War I, in 1918, the Polish state (which was previously an
elective monarchy) was re-established as the
Second Polish Republic. Its territory included the territories that had been annexed by Prussia in the
third partition of Poland. When Prussia became part of the
German Empire in 1871, these territories were brought into the empire as well. The territories taken from
Germany and ceded to the re-established Poland by the
Treaty of Versailles were:
Pomerelia (
West Prussia),
Greater Poland, and half of
Upper Silesia.
At the
Yalta Conference, towards the end of
World War II,
Joseph Stalin used the
puppet Polish government to demand that Poland should receive the provinces of
Western Pomerania,
Lebus Land Lubusz Land, the remainder of
Silesia, the
Free City of Danzig (
Gdańsk), and southern part of
East-Prussia (the present
Warmia-Masuria). Poland had to give up its
Kresy territories (east of the
Curzon Line) to the Soviet Union.
Potsdam conference aftermath
In 1945, the population of the regions occupied by the Polish and Soviet Armies, and assigned to Poland after the Second World War consisted of Poles, Germans, Ukrainians,
Belarusians and Lithuanians. Initially, Poland was promised western areas of the
Second Polish Republic as well as
East Prussia,
Upper Silesia, and most of
Pomerania. At the
Potsdam Conference, Poland's western borders were drawn along the
Oder-Neisse line. Eventually, however, the northern half of East Prussia was kept by Russia (for its warmwater port) and is now know as the
Kaliningrad Oblast. The German inhabitants of the areas east of the line either fled westwards or were
expelled, often violently, by Soviet forces and the newly installed Communist local Polish administration. After the former population was gone, the areas were resettled by Poles from former Eastern Poland and Central Poland. Today the area is predominantly Polish, though a small German minority still exists in many places including
Olsztyn,
Masuria, and
Upper Silesia.
During the
Cold War the official position in
First World was that the concluding document of the
Potsdam Conference wasn't an international
treaty, but a mere
memorandum. It regulated the issue of the German eastern border, which was to be the
Oder-Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final status of the German state and therefore its territories were subject to a separate peace treaty between Germany and the
Allies of World War II. A treaty wasn't signed until 1990 as the "
Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany". This meant that for 45 years, people on both sides of the border (and of the issue) couldn't be sure that the settlement reached in 1945 wouldn't be changed at some future date.
Until the
Treaty on the Final Settlement, the West German government regarded the status of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse rivers as that of areas "temporarily under Polish or Soviet administration". To facilitate wide international acceptance of
German reunification in 1990, the German political establishment recognized the "facts on the ground" and accepted the clauses in the
Treaty on the Final Settlement whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder-Neisse line. This allowed the treaty to be negotiated quickly and for German unification of democratic
West Germany and communist
East Germany to go ahead quickly. The same year as the Final Settlement came into effect, 1990, Germany signed a separate treaty with Poland, the
German-Polish Border Treaty confirming the two countries’ present borders.
Further Information
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