The German Fifth Column in Poland (2 page)

According to official Polish statistics the number of Germans in Poland at the date of the German aggres
sion did not exceed 765,000. Of this number, which agrees with the estimates of the Germans themselves, and in particular the figures of the German
Sejm und
Senats-Büro
(the office of the German Parliamentary group in Poland) the majority, consisting of some 400,000 Germans, inhabited the three western regions of Pomorze, Posnania, and Upper Silesia, all bordering on the Reich. The rest were scattered in more or less homogeneous groups over the whole of Poland. One the largest concentrations of the German urban population in the centre of Poland was at the industrial city of Łódź, lying less than 100 miles from the capital, Warsaw. Among the scattered rural colonists, the largest agricultural group was in Wolhynia, near the Soviet frontier. 

The German citizens of Poland did not exceed 2.4
percent of the total population of the State. But Hitler's steadily growing figures for the German Minority finally reached two millions. Such estimates are as false as those of the alleged victims of the atrocities said to have been committed by Poles in September, 1939, against the “loyal” German minority.
[4]
  In this sphere also the Germans applied their “blitz”—propaganda: in the course of two or three months the number of these alleged victims jumped from 5,800 to 58,000!

The German minority, splendidly organized and methodically directed by Berlin, enjoyed the full protection of the law.
The rights of Germans were guaranteed by both the Polish Constitutions: that of 1921 and that of April 1935. Article 5, par. 2 of the latter reads:

“
The State assures the citizens the possibility to develop their personal qualities as well as their liberty of conscience, of speech, and association. The limits of these liberties are determined by the interests of the State.”

Furthermore:

“The citizens owe allegiance to the State and are expected to fulfil conscientiously the duties that this involves.”
(Art. 6.)

“
The rights of citizens to exercise an influence upon public affairs shall be measured according to the value and merits of their efforts.”
(Art. 7, par. 1.)

“
Neither origin, religion, sex, nor nationality may cause any limitation of these rights.”
(Art. 7, par. 2.)

Several Articles relating to minorities which were part of the 1921 Constitution were retained in that of 1935.
Some of the most important of these are worth quoting:

“
All citizens have the right to retain their nationality, to cultivate their language, and to maintain their national peculiarities.”
(Art. 109, par. 1.) 

“
Polish citizens belonging to national minorities by religion or by language have, equally with other citizens, the right to found, control, and administer at their own cost any charitable, religious, or social institution, school, or other educational establishment, as well as to make free use of their language and to satisfy the requirements of their religion.”
(Art. 110.)

“
The churches of the religious minorities and all other religious associations recognized by the law shall be governed by their own laws, which the State may not refuse to recognize so long as they contain no illegal provisions. 

“
The relations between the State and these churches or confessions shall be determined by legislative means after agreement with their legal representatives.”
(Art. 115.)

The juridical position of the German minority was in obvious contrast to that prevailing in the totalitarian regime of the Third Reich, where the only citizens enjoying full rights, in the real meaning of the phrase, were the Germans themselves.
The national minorities in Germany, of which the 1.5 million Poles were the most numerous, found themselves in a State based ideologically upon the principles of National Socialism, which laid down that the State was the central organism of the German Nation, and the expression exclusively of that nation's will. The sole representative of that Will, according to German totalitarian theories, is the National-Socialist Party, subjected absolutely to the Führer. Hitler is the one source of law; he is the executor, the judge, and supreme arbiter of Germany and National Socialism. It is obvious that in such a regime there was no room at all for any separate national group outside the German community. In fact, the National Socialists tolerated the existence of Poles in Germany only temporarily and for purely political reasons. On the other hand, the entire machinery of the single-party German regime was directed to the brutal and ruthless destruction of the Polish element.

The juridical principles obligatory in the Third Reich were diametrically opposed to the liberal principles of the Polish Constitution, and were favourable only to this one object of extermination. For the leading tenet of those principles
runs: “That which serves the German Nation is in conformity with German law. Nothing is in conformity with the law which would appear to be prejudicial to that nation's existence.” On the other hand, the first tenet of the Polish Constitution of 1935 is: “That the Polish State is the common good of all its citizens, without discrimination on the grounds of religion or national origin.”
 

This constitutional framework, characteristic of a very different regime, ensured the best conditions for the development of the national culture of each national minority, including the Germans. The State intervened only when the activities of a particular minority acquired the obvious features of subversion stimulated from abroad.

In these circumstances the Germans were able to develop their activities with freedom in all spheres of life. The following survey is confined mainly to the chief features of this development in the area of the three German minority regions in Western Poland.
 

In the sphere of economics, according to 1933 statistics, some 26 percent or about 700,000 hectares of the land in the Posnania region was in German hands, although they represented only 8 percent of the
population of this province. Of the land owned by the Germans, about 400,000 hectares came in the category of large estates, while 300,000 were in the hands of smaller holders. In the provinces of Pomorze and Silesia the disproportion was still greater between the percentage of the German population and the amount of land owned by it. Such a state of affairs was the result of a very considerate application by the Polish authorities of the rights she possessed with regard to the liquidation of German properties and under the Agrarian Reforms.

To maintain this state of affairs was one of the
principal tasks of the foremost representatives of the German minority. The instructions issued by Berlin had the same end in view, and in addition Germany sent large subsidies for the German farmer element, as well as for the agricultural co-operatives. 

The statistics available concerning these co-operative societies are very instructive. According to the 1930 statistics of the Co-operative Union Bank, in the region of Posnania there were 356 Polish co-operatives with 209,232 members, while in the same region the Germans had 434 co-operatives with 28,752 members. These figures reveal the freedom of organization enjoyed by the German minority in the sphere of economic development.

Experience proved that the Germans, taking advantage of the great credits flowing from the Reich, were able to build up their economic life by means of these subsidies. Thus they succeeded in forging the main instrument of national resistance, and also gained a certain influence over that part of the Polish population which was directly or indirectly dependent upon the German co-operatives. It goes without saying that these economic centres constituted an excellent basis for subversive and espionage activities.

A further illustration of the German minority's freedom can be drawn from an entirely different sphere, that of the minority press. The Polish 1933 statistics record that the minority Germans possessed altogether 106 periodicals of different kinds. Of these only 32 existed before 1914, and 15 more appeared during the period 1915 to 1920. Thus, 59 periodicals were started between 1921 and 1931. A number of German periodicals were closed down after the Great War, but these
were mainly official and propaganda organs. Of the 106 periodicals in 1933, 34 were political dailies issued by various German groups, 17 were economic and professional, 21 were religious, 9 catered for juveniles, 5 were scientific, and 20 were classed as miscellaneous. These figures demonstrate the favourable conditions which existed for the unhampered development of German activities.

German Schools in Poland
.—The last general census of the population of Poland, taken in 1931, showed that there were some 400,000 inhabitants in the German language classification within the areas of the western regions. Taking the proportion of children of school age at 10 percent of the total population, the figure of 40,000 German children of school age is obtained.

In 1933, in the region of Pomorze, the Germans had
50 State and private schools, with 3,682 scholars. In Posnania there were 286 schools with 16,366 scholars, and in Upper Silesia 95 schools with 18,688 scholars. Altogether, in all the western regions there were 431 schools with 38,736 scholars. In addition, the German minority in Poland had 9 State colleges and 21 private colleges, with a total of 4,743 scholars.

In that same year 1933 the Poles in Germany had 64 private schools in the territory of the Reich, with 1,892 scholars, as well as one private college with 240 students. Polish State schools existed only in German Upper Silesia, and these 25 schools were attended by 295 scholars. Yet, according to the estimate of the Polish Union in Germany, the Polish minority numbered about 1,500,000, so that on the
10 percent basis there were some 150,000 children of school age. Of this number, barely 2 percent were able to attend Polish schools.

Further examples of the cultural life of the German minority in Poland can be drawn from other spheres. The German Teachers' Union, the
Landesverband Deutscher Lehrer und Lehrerinnen in Polen
, had some 2,000 members, and published two periodicals, the
Deutsche Schulzeitung in Polen
and
Jugendland.
This little army of teachers was always studying, and it even had its own bookshop, the
Pädagogische Hauptbücherei
in Bydgoszcz. At Dornfeld
[5]
in the Lwów region existed a German People's University. Other organizations, disposing of considerable funds, were specially concerned with the German libraries. These libraries possessed volumes totalling at least 500,000. 

In Posnania the Germans had three permanent theatres, in Pomorze four, and in Upper Silesia one, at which the German theatre from Bytom also gave seasons. This does not include the innumerable amateur theatres. A network of choral societies covered the whole of Poland, and there was a similar network of tourist
associations; but above all else mention must be made of the sports clubs, which were merely camouflaged paramilitary organizations.

There was also a number of scientific societies, such as the
Historische Gesellschaft für Posen
, at which Rauschning was professor for many years;
Deutscher Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein und Politecnische Gesellschaft
in Poznań, the
Theologische Studiengemeinschaft
in Poznań, the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft
in Bydgoszcz, the
Copernicus-Verei
n
für Wissenschaft und Kunst
in Toruń, and the
Muzeum i Archiwum Niemieckie
i
n
Stanisławów, founded in 1928.

Thus the national life of the German minority had taken on a tremendous scope in all spheres of activity. The Polish authorities intervened only when the provocative character of the conspiracies against the State forced them to do so, and when compelled to take steps by the general indignation which these conspiracies aroused among the Polish community. It is
no exaggeration to say that during the past twenty years the Germans in Poland, living in the atmosphere of exceptional tolerance allowed by the State authorities, and supported by subsidies flowing abundantly from the Reich, experienced the golden age of their existence. This golden age ended at the moment of their “incorporation” into the Reich, which involved brutally forcing them into the framework of the totalitarian State system.

Political Organization. —The political life of the German minority was concentrated in two main groups. The first was the
Jungdeutsche Partei
, with former Senator Wiesner at its head, which regarded itself as the corresponding organization in Poland to the German National-Socialist Party of Germany. The second group was composed of more conservative elements, which none the less equally stressed their fidelity to the “National Socialist idea.”  These elements did not have a homogeneous organization; in the Pomorze and Poznań areas they were organized in the
Deutsche Vereinigung
, in the Silesian area in the
Deutscher Volksblock
and the
Deutsche Partei
, and in the Łódź district in the
Deutscher Volksverband
. They had joint representation in the German Council in Poland (
Rat der Deutschen in Polen
), which was composed of representatives of the organizations named. The chief leader of this group was Senator Hasbach.