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The German-Polish Connection Presented Here Courtesy of AHRS
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These essays have been presented here for educational purposes under the ‘Fair Use’ exclusion.A Brief History of PrussiaThe area known as Prussia was inhabited in early times by West Slavic tribes, ancestors of the modern Poles, in the West, and Baltic tribes, closely related to Lithuanians, in the East. Sometime after the seventh century, the area was invaded and settled by pagan German tribes, later known as Prussians. In 1226, Prussia was conquered by the Teutonic Knights, a military religious order, who converted the Prussians to Christianity. The Teutonic Knights were overthrown by the Prussians with help from Poland and Lithuania in 1454. Prussia was divided into Royal Prussia in the west and Ducal Prussia in the east. Royal Prussia was incorporated into Poland providing it with a corridor to the Baltic Sea (the "Danzig Corridor"). Ducal Prussia became a Polish territory. At this time, the port city of Danzig (modern day Gdansk) was designated a "free city". The Protestant Reformation in the early to mid 1500s saw most Prussians convert to Protestantism whereas Poland remained, and still remains, solidly Roman Catholic. In 1525 Ducal Prussia became a hereditary duchy under Albrecht Hohenzollern, the last grand master of the Teutonic Knights. In 1657, after an invasion by the Swedes, Poland surrendered sovereignty over Ducal Prussia which then became the Kingdom of Prussia headed by the Hohenzollern line. Prussia's power grew and in 1772, under King Friedrich II (Frederick the Great), consisted of the provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Danzig, West Prussia and East Prussia (modern day East Germany, northern Poland, and a small portion of the Soviet Union). A major event in German history was the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, making Germany a world power. It was during this war that, in 1870, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck orchestrated the unification of the German states. The German Empire was established under Prussian leadership with Bismarck as Chancellor. Wilhelm II, the last of the Hohenzollern dynasty, became Emperor of Germany (Kaiser) in 1888 and ruled until Germany's defeat in World War I. After defeat in World War I, Germany was forced to give up the Danzig Corridor to Poland and Danzig once again became a free city. This caused the province of East Prussia to be separated from the rest of Germany. The Rosenberg District was at this time contained in East Prussia. After Germany's defeat in World War II, West Prussia and East Prussia were divided by Poland and the Soviet Union. The old Rosenberg District in now part of the Itawa District of Poland. All of the villages now have Polish names. Check out these old maps of the West Prussia area. [Source]
A brief history of Poland in the last 200 years
During the second half of the 18th century the Kingdom of Poland was a country which differed from present-day Poland in many important ways. Its territory included all of what we now call Lithuania, Belarus and half of contemporary Ukraine. On the other hand, nearly half of the contemporary area of Poland then belonged to Prussia (or, less precisely - to Germany). From time immemorial all those territories had been inhabited by diverse peoples of several religions. The western and central regions of the Kingdom were inhabited mostly by Catholics of Polish ethnic background. Catholic Poles and Lithuanians lived in its north-eastern section, which is now the Republic of Lithuania. The eastern regions were inhabited by Byzantine Catholics of Ruthenian (which is now Belarussian and Ukrainian) background and a small but important Catholic Polish minority. All parts of the Polish Kingdom were also inhabited by Jews (about 10% of the whole population) who lived mostly in shtetls, i.e. tiny cities. Also other ethnic groups, e.g. Germans, Armenians, Tartars, Scots, Dutchmen, etc. were represented. The Prussian provinces of Pomerania, Silesia and East Prussia which now belong to Poland also had a considerable Polish minority, although the majority was of German ethnic background. Pomerania and East Prussia were traditionally Lutheran, whereas most of the Silesian people belonged to the Roman Catholic Church.
Between 1772 and 1795 the entire territory of the Kingdom of Poland was divided between Prussia, Austria and Russia. During those so-called Partitions of Poland, Prussia acquired the western regions of Poland, esp. those, which were later renamed to West Prussia (formerly Royal Prussia) and Province of Posen (the area around Poznan, the Polish name being Wielkopolska, i.e. Greater Poland). The southern Polish territories around Kraków and Lwów were incorporated into the Austrian Empire and renamed "Galicia". The central and eastern provinces of Poland were taken over by the Russian Empire. Only during a short period when Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Central Europe, he restored Poland as a Duchy of Warsaw, dependent on himself, consisting of the territories Prussia and Austria had annexed in 1793-95. After Napoleon's fall, the situation was finally resolved in 1815. The victorious Russia took control over most of the Duchy of Warsaw. The Tzars gave it relatively much autonomy and created the new Kingdom of Poland there (but dependent on Russia) whereas the former eastern parts of Poland were directly incorporated into the Empire (and the populace of the Byzantine Catholics living there was forced to "convert" to Eastern Orthodox). The boundaries fixed in 1815 were stable during the next century but many other things changed. The 19th century was the time of industrial development and massive migrations. The Polish provinces under Prussian government were slowly germanized as more and more Germans settled there. Several attempts to regain independence were made by Poles, but all the uprisings against Russia, Prussia and Austria were bloodily suppressed. That was one of the reasons why in the last three decades of the 19th century more than a million people emigrated from Poland, mostly to North America. The First World War was a catastrophe for all the Empires that had once divided Poland. An independent Republic of Poland was restored. Most of the 19th century Kingdom of Poland, the whole Galicia and most of the former Prussian provinces of West Prussia and Posen together with some areas of present-day Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine constituted Poland between the Wars. Most German inhabitants of the former Prussian provinces emigrated to Germany. [Source]
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