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The Prussian Settlement Commission (Template:Lang-de, Template:Lang-pl) was a Prussian government commission that operated between 1886 and 1924 (active only until 1918), set up by Otto von Bismarck to increase land ownership of Germans at the expense of Poles in the German Empire's eastern provinces of West Prussia(Zachodnie Prusy) and Province of Posen(Prowincja Poznańska), through the use of economic and political methods. The Commission was one of Germany's prime instruments in the official policy of Germanisation. The Commission in the end purchased 613 estates from German owners and 214 from Poles, functioning to bail-out German debtors as often as fulfilling its declared mission. The total of 154,000 settlers, including a portion of local Germans, influenced the ethnic make-up of Prussian partition of Poland. The commission's persistence contributed to a rise of Polish nationalism and triggered a variety of Polish countermeasures, climaxing in the expropriation of commission-owned lands when the Second Polish Republic was established after the First World War.

Background

The Kingdom of Prussia during the partitions of Poland acquired West Prussia (Template:Lang-de, Template:Lang-pl) and the later Province of Posen (Template:Lang-de, Template:Lang-pl). Despite Germanisation efforts by both Kingdom of Prussia and German Empire the Polish population in the province of Posen in 1890 still made up for the nearly 60% (1,049,000 Poles vs 702,000 Germans), and in West Prussia for one third of the population (484,000 Poles vs 949,000 Germans). In 1871, the German Empire was founded with Prussia being the leading and dominating state. While already Prussia had refused to honour the rights of Polish nationality as promised during the Congress of Vienna and engaged in persecution of Polish activists the start of German Empire and Kulturkampf marked intensification of that policy, when the Prussian government attempted to Prussianize the Poles through language, schooling, and religious restrictions as well as expulsions of Polish people. Later, the increase in the sheer numbers of Poles led the government to a direct anti-Polish demographic policy. By 1885, Prussia still faced difficulties digesting her "Polish provinces", and the "Polish Question" was one of the Reich's most pressing problems. The state itself was led by German nationalism and Bismarck viewed Poles as one of the chief threat to German power; as he declared The Polish question is to us a question of life and death and wanted Polish nation to disappear in private going as far as expressing his wish to exterminate Poles As a result the Polish population faced economic, religious and political discrimination the Germanisation of their territories was promoted.

In the late 19th century, an east-to west migration (Ostflucht) took place, in which parts of the population of the eastern provinces migrated to western, more prosperous territories. The German government was issuing concerns that Ostflucht would lower the percentage of Germans in the eastern regions. This event was used as pretext and justification presented to the international community for actions aiming at Germanisation of those provinces.. In reality both Poles and Germans moved to richer western German provinces

Goals

The goals of the Commission were the financial weakening of Polish landowners, and ensuring Germanisation of Polish cities as well as rural areas. The destruction of Polish landownership combined with the fight against the Polish clergy (Kulturkampf) was to achieve the elimination of a Polish national identity. Polish landowners were regarded by Bismarck as the principal agitators for Polish nationalism, purchasing their estates and parceling them out to Germans in family-sized farms was intended to both disestablish this group and significantly higher the numbers of Germans in these areas.

The focus on land ownership was motived by the German "völkisch" idea that “where the German plough will plow, there German fatherland will arise”. The settlement was to isolate Polish settlements in German inhabited areas by surrounding them with German settlements and spread German ones into Polish dominated areas to isolate specified Polish villages from the rest. The German settlements were to be always concentrated to provide a “barrier” to Polishness. While the Commission bought mostly German land, this was not interfering with the goal of increase of German presence, and buying a large tract of land from a single German owner to distribute it among many German colonists was perceived as beneficial to the goal. Of the colonists, 96,9% were Protestants as the Prussian authorities believed that ‘the true German is a Protestant”. The whole practice was new and unheard in Europe. Besides Ostflucht, the German government justified its action to the international community by labeling Poles as internal enemies of the state. Those attempts didn’t achieve much success. Bismarck himself said that the Poles who find themselves without land should “move to Marocco”.

Funding

The funding for the Commission constantly increased:

• 1886 100 million marks
• 1898 100 million marks
• 1908 150 million marks
• 1913 500 million marks.

By 1914 the overall funding for the Commission was 955 million marks. Additional funds were awarded to assistance projects such crediting bankrupt German estates (125 million marks in 1908).

Due to operations of the Commission the price of land in Polish territories rose in response. The economical attempt to Germanise those areas failed and with the beginning of the World War One German authorities and leading members of Commission started to look for new ways to secure German foothold on Polish territory.

Accomplished settlement and land purchase

While the commission planned to settle up to 40,000 families in Posen and West Prussia, it only managed to settle a total of 21,866 families until 1914, bringing the number of German colonists to 154,000.

Achievements by 1901

From April 26, 1886 until January 1, 1901, the Settlement Commission had purchased 147,475 ha (3.64% of the Province of Posen and 1.65% of West Prussia), settled with 4277 families (about 30,000 persons). Publications in German Empire claimed that only 2715 families were not native to these provinces. After this, the original budget of 100,000,000 marks was exhausted.

Achievements by 1913

By 1913, the SC had bought up about 5.4% of the land in West Prussia and 10.4% in Posen. By than, 450 new villages were founded, a total area of 438,560 ha was purchased, of which 124,903 ha were purchased from Poles. In 1914, Germans owned 59% of land in Province of Posen, while making up for about 40% of population in 1890.

Overall achievements

Throughout its 32 years of existence the Commission was able to buy 8% of the total land in Posen and West Prussia. Altogether, about 22,000 families were settled, bringing the number of German colonists to 154,000. 5,400 families were Germans from the other parts of the partitioned Poland, Congress Poland (Russian Empire province) and Galicia (Austrian province).

Overall, the commission bought 828 estates (430,450 ha) for 443 million marks, 214 of those (115,525 ha) from Poles for 96,4 million marks, and the other 614 (314,926 ha) from Germans for 346,7 million marks. Further the commission bought 631 peasant farms (30,434 ha) for 44,5 million marks, 274 of those (11,152 ha) from Poles for 16,6 million marks and the other 357 (19,282 ha) from Germans for 27,9 million marks. Of the total of 955 million marks spent, about half (488 million marks) was spent for the actual land purchase, while the rest was spent for administration, parcellisation, infrastructure etc.

Origin of the settlers

The portion of local Germans from West Prussia and Posen who took part in the settlement process declined over time, while the number of Germans from the Russian Empire increased. In the first years (1886-90), locals from Posen and West Prussia constituted 48% of the settlers while the proportion of Germans from Russia was below 1%, however in the years 1902-1906, locals only made up for 17% and Germans from Russia for 29% of the settlers.

Of those settled until the end of 1906, a quarter originated in Posen and West Prussia, another quarter in the neighboring provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony and Silesia, 30% from other parts of the German Empire and 20% from outside the empire, especially from Russia.

Impact on the ethnic composition

The accomplished settlements influenced the ethnic composition of the provinces in Prussian partition of Poland, while the Polish population slightly increased the German one despite claimed dangers of Ostfluch remained at high level:

Legislation

As the economic approach showed to be a failure, various laws were enacted to promote the Settlement Commission's aims.

• 1896: Land acquired from the commission could be sold freely only to the settler's next of kin, commission’s approval was required for any other sale.
• 1904: The Prussian Government sought to restrict Poles from acquiring land, if this would interfere with the goals of the commission. Any new settlement required a building permit, even if it were only for renovation of an existing building to make it habitable. Local officials routinely denied these permits to Poles. The law faced international criticism and opposition from liberal groups concerned about private property rights. The Prussian Administrative High Court ended this legislation
• 1908: The Prussian diet passed a law permitting the forcible expropriation of Polish landowners by the Settlement Commission. In 1912, four Polish large estates of 1,656 hectares were expropriated. The law faced criticism from international community and liberals concerned about the free market rights. Additionally the Austrian State Council upon request of Poles, who enjoyed considerable autonomy and influence in Austro-Hungary condemned the actions of German government. Rota, a patriotic poem by Maria Konopnicka was created as response to this law. Newspapers in Europe wrote that Prussia is becoming a “police state”. In part due to those protests, the law's execution was delayed until 1914.
• 1913: To prevent Poles redistributing their land among other Poles, a law was passed that forbade the dividing of private land without the agreement of the state.

Other measures in support of the Germanisation policy included:

• Ethnic Germans were favoured in government contracts and only they won them, while Poles always lost.
• Ethnic Germans were also promoted in investment plans, supply contracts.
• German craftsmen in Polish territories received best locations in cities from authorities so that they could start their own business and prosper.
• Soldiers received orders that banned them from buying in Polish shops and from Poles.
• German merchantmen were encouraged to settle in Polish territories.
• Tax incentives and beneficial financial arrangements were proposed to German officials and clerks if they would settle in Polish inhabited provinces.

Polish countermeasures

The creation of the Commission stimulated Poles to take countermeasures, that gradually turned into a competition of the Polish minority against the German state with Poles running their own settlement banks and settlement societies, resulting in a "battle for soil" (Kampf um den Boden). In 1888 Teodor Kalkstein founded Bank Ziemski, supported by Poles from Austrian Galicia region. 1894 saw Polish intellectuals in cooperation with Polish farmers founding Spólka Rolników Indywidualnych. Ignacy Sikorski founded Bank Parcelacyjny in 1896. From 1890 till 1912 Polish enterprises, banks and associations grew in number and strength providing Poles with defence against the Germanisation of their land. For the Settlement Commission, these countermeasures led to a decreasing availability of purchasable Polish-owned land, in 1895 and all years following 1898, the vast majority of estates was purchased from Germans instead of Poles, and since 1902, the commission was able to acquire land from Poles "only rarely and only through a middleman".

Numerous initiatives proved to be more elastic and efficient then the large centralised German bureaucracy. A social understanding has risen among the Polish population that led to abandoning the class differences in order to defend national existence - the rich helped the poor to perform better in economy and were supported by the clergy in their actions. Rich nobility often sold their artistic heritage to invest in banking and financial enterprises, or to buy more land for Poles. This was viewed as moral and ethical behaviour among the Polish population. As a result the German initiative created the very thing it tried to eliminate in the first place, a Polish national awakening in the Greater Poland region (province of Posen) and feeling of Polish national unity. Thus, faced with the inability to Germanise the Polish provinces by economic means led the German leaders and thinkers to consider pursuing extraordinary means.

First World War

Even before First World War some Germans like Hans Delbrück or Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow proposed expelling Poles from eastern territories of Germany. With the coming of the war, those ideas begun to take real and determined form in the shape of plans to be realised after German victory and as consequence hegemony of Central and Eastern Europe. The idea of extraordinary measures was the result of the failed economic attempt to Germanise Polish provinces. Heads of the Settlement Commission were among the architects and supporters of those plans. The president of the Settlement Commission, Gense, was one of the chief supporters and planners of the so called “Polish border strip” that envisioned expelling circa 2 million non-Germans (chiefly Poles and Jews) from 30,000 square kilometers of the would-be annexed territories from Congress Poland, which would then become Germanised. The Poles remaining in Germany who would refuse to become Germanised were to be “encouraged” to move to an alleged German-run Polish puppet state established from the remains of Congress Poland.

Other notable names of Settlement Commission activists include Fredrich von Schwerin and industrialist Hugenberg who worked for and represented the Krupp family.

Outcome

The Settlement Commission's goal to Germanise Polish territories failed and with the fall of German Empire in 1918 (at the end of World War I), the Commission ceased to function by 1924. In 1919 its headquarters were taken over by Polish state as well as most of its territory. 3.9% (18,200 ha.) of all the land purchased remained in the hands of the Germans within the new borders of Germany. The Germanisation policies resulted in strong measures against the German settlers by the Polish state after World War I. The Polish state refused to recognize the ownership rights of most of the German settlers, about half of whom fled or were driven out of Poland. These actions of the Polish state were condemned by the Permanent Court of International Justice, ruling out in 1923 "that the position adopted by the Polish Government was not in conformity with its international obligations.". By 1918, the total ethnic Polish population was greater then when the Commission began operations. Between 1918 and 1939, the German population in these areas declined by another 70%, and the land owned by Germans by 45%.

References

1. ^ Ethno-nationality, Property Rights in Land and Territorial Sovereignty in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918: Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? by Scott M. Eddie University of Toronto
2. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.57,
3. Andrzej Chwalba - Historia Polski 1795-1918
4. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.56,
5. Scott M. Eddie citing Grzesś 1979:202, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.56,
6. He has taught that it is the duty of Germany to use all the power of the State for crushing and destroying the Polish language and nationality; the Poles in Prussia are to become Prussian, as those in Russia have to become Russian. A hundred years ago the Polish State was destroyed; now the language and the nation must cease to exist. Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire by James Wycliffe Headlam 1899
7. If we want to exist, we have to exterminate them; the wolf can also not help if he was created by God and nevertheless he is being shot whenever one sees the opportunity The Immigrant Threat Leo Lucassen University of Illinois Press, 2005 page 60
8. ^ Imannuel Geiss, Der polnische Grenzstreifen 1914-1918. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Kriegszielpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg, Hamburg/Lübeck 1960
9. ^ Andrzej Chwalba - Historia Polski 1795-1918 page 461-463
10. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, pp.57-58,
11. Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, 6. Auflage 1905–1909, online at
13. Volker Rolf Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics, p. 106, 2004, ISBN 1845450116
14. Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, p. 51, ISBN 0813118034
15. Volker Rolf Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics, p. 106, 2004, ISBN 1845450116
16. Andrzej Chwalba - Historia Polski 1795-1918 page 461
17. Jochen Oltmer, Migration und Politik in der Weimarer Republik, p.142, 2005, ISBN 352536282X
18. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.60,
19. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.60,
20. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.59,
21. Walter de Gruyter, Gesamtausgabe: Innere Kolonisation in Preussen; soziologische Studien und Kritiken erste Sammlung; Schriften 1923, 2006, p.20, ISBN 3110158477, 9783110158472
22. Walter de Gruyter, Gesamtausgabe: Innere Kolonisation in Preussen; soziologische Studien und Kritiken erste Sammlung; Schriften 1923, 2006, p.19, ISBN 3110158477, 9783110158472
23. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.57,
24. Leszek Belzyt: Sprachliche Minderheiten im preußischen Staat 1815–1914. Marburg 1998, S.17
25. Leszek Belzyt: Sprachliche Minderheiten im preußischen Staat 1815–1914. Marburg 1998, S.17f. ISBN 387969267X
26. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.57,
27. Brockhaus Kleines Konversations-Lexikon, 1911, online at
28. Volker Rolf Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics, p. 106, 2004, ISBN 1845450116
29. John Komlos Selected Cliometric Studies on German Economic History, p.156, 1997, ISBN 3515068996
30. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, p.58,
31. Scott M. Eddie, Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886-1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet? in S. Engerman, Land rights, ethno-nationality and sovereignty in history, 2004, pp.59-60,
32. Hostages of Modernization, ed. Herbert A. Strauss, 1993 page 35
33. http://www.worldcourts.com/pcij/eng/decisions/1923.09.10_german_settlers/
34. Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, p.240, 1993, ISBN 0813118034
35. Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, p.240, 1993, ISBN 0813118034

External links

• Selected Cliometric Studies on German Economic History
• Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939
• Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics

See also

• Anti-Polonism
• Kulturkampf
• Deutscher Ostmarkenverein
• Drzymała's wagon
• Rota
• Ostflucht

• German Empire
• History of Poland (1795–1918)
• Germany–Poland relations