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Posen–West Prussia

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(Redirected from Grenzmark)
Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia
Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen (German)
Marchia Graniczna Poznańsko-Zachodniopruska (Polish)
Province of Prussia
1920/1922–1938
Coat of arms of Posen-West Prussia
Coat of arms

Posen-West Prussia (red) within the
Free State of Prussia (blue).

CapitalSchneidemühl
Area 
• 1925
7,695 km2 (2,971 sq mi)
Population 
• 1925
332,400
History 
• Created from Posen and
West Prussia
1 July 1920/1922
• Ruled by Brandenburg
1934
• Divided between
Brandenburg, Pomerania
and Silesia
1 October 1938
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Province of Posen
West Prussia
Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)
Province of Brandenburg
Province of Silesia
Today part of

The Frontier March of Posen–West Prussia (German: Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen; Polish: Marchia Graniczna Poznańsko-Zachodniopruska) was a province of Prussia that existed from 1920 (de facto) and 1922 (de jure) until its dissolution in 1938. It comprised most of the former territory of West Prussia and parts of the Province of Posen that had remained within Germany following the territorial losses to the Second Polish Republic after the Greater Poland Uprising, and confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles. The province was created in 1922 as part of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, incorporating three remaining non-contiguous territories of the former provinces of Posen and West Prussia.

Schneidemühl (present-day Piła) served as the provincial capital. From 1934 onwards, the province came under the de facto administration of the Province of Brandenburg, and on 1 October 1938, the territory was officially dissolved by Nazi Germany. Its lands were subsequently incorporated into the neighbouring provinces of Pomerania, Brandenburg and Silesia.[1] Following the end of World War II and the redrawing of borders, the entire area of the former province was incorporated into Poland, lying east of the Oder–Neisse line.

Background

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A map of West Prussia and the Netze District c. 1786. Part of the later border of South Prussia is also shown.

Until the late 18th century partitions of Poland, the lands which made up Posen–West Prussia had been part of the Greater Poland and East Pomeranian (Pomerelian) regions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and were administratively parts of the Poznań, Gniezno (Kalisz before 1768) and Pomeranian Voivodeships. Following the First Partition in 1772 the Kingdom of Prussia established the West Prussian province and the Netze District on annexed Pomerelian and Greater Polish (and Kuyavian) territories respectively. The South Prussian province was established following the Second Partition of 1793 and included the remainder of Greater Poland among other territories; the Third Partition in 1795 ended the existence of the Polish state entirely.

1905 map of the Province of Posen. Polish-speaking areas shown in yellow.

In 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, South Prussia, the Kulmerland (part of West Prussia) and part of the Netze District, along with New Silesia and New East Prussia (excluding the area around Białystok which was ceded to Russia) were ceded to the Napoleonic client Duchy of Warsaw; Danzig was also detached from West Prussia as the Free City of Danzig. The parts of the Netze District which remained within the Kingdom of Prussia were incorporated into West Prussia. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Duchy of Warsaw was re-partitioned between the Grand Duchy of Posen under Prussia, the Kingdom of Poland under Russia and the Free City of Cracow (a joint protectorate of Austria, Prussia, and Russia); Danzig returned to West Prussia. The Grand Duchy of Posen was mostly made up of former parts of South Prussia and the Netze District, but also included the Kulmerland which had been part of West Prussia before 1807; the Kulmerland was restored to West Prussia in 1817.

In 1829 West Prussia and East Prussia were merged to form the Province of Prussia, but they were restored in 1878.

Both Posen and West Prussia lay beyond the borders of the German Confederation and Posen was, at least nominally, semi-autonomous. Their population was predominantly Catholic and Polish-speaking, while a sizable Protestant German minority settled mainly in the western parts. Posen lost its semi-autonomous status after the failed Greater Poland Uprising of 1848, becoming the Province of Posen. With Prussia, these provinces became part of the North German Confederation in 1867 and the unified German Empire in 1871. Ethnic tensions were exacerbated by the Germanisation policies of the Berlin government and the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf measures enacted by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

History

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Coat of arms of Posen–West Prussia since 1929

Interwar period

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Upon the German defeat in World War I, another Greater Poland Uprising broke out in 1918, which aimed to incorporate the lands once annexed by Prussia into a re-established Polish state. The forces of the Polish Military Organisation were able to oust the German administration from the bulk of the Greater Polish lands, whereafter the Posen governor (Landeshauptmann) Ernst von Heyking was forced to retire to Meseritz (Międzyrzecz) and de facto only ruled over the far western, predominantly German settled districts at the border with the adjacent Prussian provinces of Pomerania, Brandenburg and Silesia.

The Polish advance was halted, after the German forces had re-organised in several Freikorps units and the demarcation line became the basis of the ruling by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, adjudicating the parts occupied by Polish forces uti possidetis to the Second Polish Republic. The governmental power of the German administration was confined to the smaller western parts of Posen and West Prussia, the Prussian state government was represented by the former Bromberg supervisor (Regierungspräsident) Friedrich von Bülow, who relocated his administrative seat to Schneidemühl. With the entry into force of the German Ostmark law on 1 July 1922, the province was created out of those smaller western parts of former Posen and West Prussia that remained with the Weimar Republic.

In view of previous clashes of arms and the loss of territories considered German, the remaining German population in province maintained a strong nationalistic attitude from the outset. In the provincial elections, the German National People's Party (DNVP) emerged as the dominant political force. Friedrich von Bülow, a member of the national liberal German People's Party, served as Oberpräsident from the province's formal establishment in 1922 until his retirement in 1933. He was succeeded by DNVP politician Hans von Meibom from Meseritz, who held the office until 1934, when the DNVP was dissolved as part of the Nazi regime's Gleichschaltung measures.

Following von Meibom's removal, administrative authority over Posen–West Prussia was assumed by Wilhelm Kube, the Nazi Oberpräsident of neighbouring Brandenburg. Kube, who had a reputation for corruption, administered both provinces until 1936, when he was dismissed after a political dispute with Nazi jurist Walter Buch, the father-in-law of Martin Bormann. Thereafter, Posen–West Prussia remained under joint administration with Brandenburg under Nazi Oberpräsident Emil Stürtz until the province was formally dissolved on 1 October 1938. Its territory was subsequently divided between the provinces of Silesia, Pomerania and Brandenburg.[2]

World War II

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After the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, the province was incorporated into the newly formed Reichsgau Wartheland, with smaller portions absorbed into Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. German civil administration replaced the short-lived military occupation, and Nazi authorities implemented a programme of forced Germanisation, expulsions of the Polish and Jewish populations, and the establishment of ghettos and camps. The former provincial structures of Posen–West Prussia were not reinstated; rather, the annexation was treated as a permanent extension of Nazi Germany, in breach of international law.

Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the entire territory that once constituted the province was placed under Polish administration in accordance with the decisions made at the Potsdam Conference. The Oder–Neisse line was established as the new German-Polish border, moving it considerably westward. As a result, the former German population was subject to mass expulsion and replaced by Poles, many of whom had themselves been displaced from areas annexed by the Soviet Union. The former lands of Posen–West Prussia were fully integrated into the post-war Polish state, and the province ceased to exist both de facto and de jure.

Subdivision

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Districts of Posen–6West Prussia, 1922–1938.

Despite the name, the city of Posen (Polish: Poznań) was no longer part of the province, as it had become the capital of the re-established Greater Polish Poznań Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic. The capital of the Prussian Posen-Westpreußen province and seat of the Oberpräsident supervisor was Schneidemühl. The seat of the province's Landeshauptmann elected by the Landtag assembly remained at Meseritz.

Regierungsbezirk Schneidemühl

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Administration

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The former Oberpräsidium at Schneidemühl.

The office of an Oberpräsident (i.e. upper president) appointed by the Prussian state government had to carry out central prerogatives on the provincial level and to supervise the implementation of central policy on the lower levels of administration.

As to common interests and tasks to be fulfilled on the provincial level, such as schools, traffic installations, hospitals, cultural institutions, sanitary premises, jails etc., the urban and rural districts (Kreise) within each province (sometimes within each government region) formed a corporation with common assets to these ends, called Provinzialverband (provincial association, or – within government regions or smaller entities – Bezirksverband or Kommunalverband, i.e. municipal or regional association). Since 1875 all provinces had this double identity, being based on central Prussian prerogatives from above, on the one hand, and being bottom-up corporations of province-wide or region-wide self-rule, on the other hand. Initially, the assemblies of the urban and rural districts elected representatives for the provincial diets (Provinziallandtage; or as to regional diets, the so-called Kommunallandtage), which were thus indirectly elected.

After the end of the Prussian monarchy, the provincial or regional diets were all directly elected by the citizens of the provinces (or regions, respectively), with direct elections first held in 1921 and 1922. These parliaments legislated within the competences transferred to the provincial or regional associations. Before the formal establishment of the new Province, the rural and urban district assemblies elected representatives for the Kommunallandtag Posen–West Prussia, legislating within the competences of the former Posen and West Prussia provincial associations and its premises within the territory of the future Posen–West Prussia. After the formal formation of the province, its parliament was called the provincial diet of Posen–West Prussia which elected a provincial executive body (government), the provincial committee (Provinzialausschuss), and a head of province, the Landeshauptmann ("Land Captain").[3]

Oberpräsident

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Landeshauptmann

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Population

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  • 1910: 309,200 (in areas which later became parts of this province)
  • 1919: 326,900
  • 1925: 332,400
  • 1933: 470,600

Polish minority

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Polish minority in Grenzmark

After the Treaty of Versailles came into force, some members of the local Polish minority emigrated to Poland. In 1925, 13,284 people declared themselves to be either Polish-speaking or bilingual German/Polish. This corresponded to a population share of 4.3%. The share of the vote of the Polish-Catholic People's Party was stable at around 3% in all state and Reichstag elections in the Weimar Republic. The settlement centers of the Polish minority were unevenly distributed. According to the census of 1925, the districts of Bomst (20.6%), Flatow (16.8%) and Meseritz (5.8%) had the highest proportions of Polish speakers (including bilinguals). A special achievement of the Polish minority was the establishment of a network of Polish private schools.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Werner Bucholz: Pommern. Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas. Siedler, Berlin 1999 p.511, ISBN 3-88680-272-8
  2. ^ Gause, Fritz: Die Geschichte der Stadt Königsberg in Preußen, vol. 3, Böhlau Verlag, 1996, p. 80, ISBN 9783412088965
  3. ^ In some Prussian provinces the same office continued to be called Landesdirektor according to the naming usual until the 1880s. Cf. article: "Landesdirektor", in: Der Große Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens in zwanzig Bänden: 21 vols.; Leipzig: Brockhaus, 151928–1935; vol. 11 (1932), p. 71.
  4. ^ "De Gruyter". De Gruyter. Retrieved 2021-03-14.

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