History of Pomerania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Historical administrative divisions
[edit] Eastern Pomerania
Removed Free City of Danzig, left bank of Vistula river and Grenzmark Posen-Westpreussen
Pomeranian Voivodship 1920-1938
Added Bydgoszcz county 1938
Pomeranian Voivodship 1938-1939
added Free City of Gdansk
Danzig-Westpreussen 1939-1945 ...
Gdansk Voivodship
Gdansk Voivodship 1975-1998
Added: part of Slupsk Voivodship, Elblag Voivodship and Chojnice County from Bydgoszcz Voivodship Pomeranian Voivodship 1998-
[edit] Prehistoric Pomerania
Before 500 AD Pomerania was dominated by East Germanic tribes including several branches of Goths tribes, who gradually came from Scandinavia since about 2000 BC, and the centre of what is now modern Poland. Goths and Rugians are recorded by Roman historians in the areas of Pomerania in 98 AD.
See Lusatian culture, Pomeranian culture, Wielbark Culture, Goths
[edit] Slavic Pomeranians
Perhaps due to centuries of ongoing raids on Europe by various Asiatic peoples a group of people later known as Slavic tribes moved into Magna Germania (as the area west and south of the Vistula river was called), as well and by 1000 AD the region was recorded as inhabited by various Slavic tribes known collectively as Pomeranians and Polabians, part of the Lechitic group of the West Slavs. The tribes spoke Pomeranian and Polabian dialects. Frankish king and since 800 AD emperor Charlemagne held overlordship over these people and moved them onto Saxon land at the Baltic Sea in his wars against the still pagan Saxons.
A Frankish document entitled Bavarian Geographer (ca 845) mentions the tribes of Volinians (Velunzani), Pyritzans (Prissani), Veleti (Wiltzi), and Abodrites (Nortabtrezi).
At this point in time, the region was settled by Lechitic Pomeranians who were constantly defending themselves against Viking and Polish raids. Pomeranians made their living mainly from trading and fishing. Chronicles report that Pomeranian cities in the very early Middle Ages belonged to the biggest and most affluent cities in the Slavic world and the whole of Europe.
Pomeranians are claimed to have occasionally raided Vikings in their Scandinavian homes. The ships of Pomeranians probably were not distinguishable from the ships of the Vikings themselves.
[edit] Pomerania as a province of Poland
One of the earliest assumed references to Pomerania as a province of Poland comes in 962, when Mieszko I of Poland supposedly inherited territory, later called eastern Pomerania. In the 960s, Mieszko fought with the tribes of Wieletes and Volinians south of the Baltic Sea, and their ally, the Saxon count Wichman. It is supposed that Mieszko at least partially conquered western Pomerania (Polish, Zapomorze; German, Vorpommern) in this period.
Mieszko later defeated Count Dietrich of the Northern March at Cedynia in 972 and reached the mouth of the Oder River in 976. The decisive battle there in 979 ensured Mieszko's position as ruler of the area. In the following year, he celebrated his victory by dedicating the city of Gdansk at the mouth of the Vistula River, to compete with the ports of Szczecin and Wolin on the Oder (all in Pomerania province). Shortly before his death, Mieszko placed his state, under the suzerainty of the pope in a document usually called the Dagome Iudex.
Mieszko's son and successor, Boleslaus I of Poland, continued his father's conquests in Pomerania in 995, when he personally led his army. In 1000 CE, while on pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Adalbert of Prague at Gniezno, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III invested Boleslaus with the title Frater et Cooperator Imperii ("Brother and Partner of the Empire") and confirmed the rights of Boleslaus to Pomerania. On the same visit, Otto gave Boleslaus the right to create the first Pomeranian bishopric in Kolobrzeg. The ultimate aim of this gesture was to christianize the Pomeranians.
Nevertheless, the mission was destroyed when Pomeranians revolted against the church in 1005. The events brought five new martyrs to the Roman Catholic Church. This was the first time that the country split; the eastern part along the Vistula remained subject to Poland, whereas western Pomerania tended to remain independent and pagan. The Pomeranian bishopric was moved to safer Kruszwica in Cuiavia (ca 1015.
Canute the Great was the son of sea-king Sweyn Forkbeard, also reputed to be a member of the Jomsburg Vikings, a military organization of mercenary warriors with a fortress based in Pomerania. There is some dispute among historians, however, over the existence of the "Jomsvikings." Canute's mother was Gunhild (formerly Swiatoslawa, daughter of Mieszko I of Poland). In about 1020, Canute made a deal with Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, and the emperor gave Canute the Mark of Schleswig and Pomerania to govern. Nevertheless, Pomerania or parts thereof may or may not have been part of that deal. In any event, Boleslaus sent his troops to help Canute in his successful conquest of England.
[edit] Pomeranian duchies under Polish sovereignty
In the 1030s, the Polish state was destroyed and fragmented into several provinces, but was soon rebuilt when Casimir I the Restorer was victorious in a battle with Mazovians and Pomeranians in 1047. Boleslaus II of Poland ("Boleslaw Smialy") is reported to have lost control of Pomerania.
The first written trace of the Pomeranian monarch is the 1046 mention of Zemuzil dux Bomeranorum (Siemomysl, duke of Pomeranians). The Chronicle of the Polish dukes written in 1113 by Gallus Anomynous mentions several dukes of Pomerania--Swantibor, Gniewomir, and an unnamed duke besieged in Kolobrzeg.
In 1107, there was a civil war in Poland between Duke Boleslaus III of Poland and his brother Zbigniew. As Zbigniew was allied to Pomeranians, Boleslaus brought warriors to Pomerania and captured Bialogard, Koszalin, Kamien Pomorski, and Wolin.
In military campaigns in 1116, 1119, and 1121, the entire region of Pomerania was conquered by Boleslaus III and divided into four parts. Eastern Pomerania and Gdansk were placed under direct Polish control, and the duke nominated his governors. Middle Pomerania, including Slupsk and Slawno, was made a Polish fief under the Pomeranian duke Racibor I. Western Pomerania, including Kamien, Kolobrzeg, and Bialogard, was made a Polish fief ruled by duke Warcislaw I. Szczecin and Wolin were semi-independent city-republics governed as Polish fiefs.
Once his reign was consolidated, Boleslaus asked Otto of Bamberg to convert Pomerania to Christianity, which he accomplished in his first visit in 1124, leaving the first Christian and post-Migration Period German marks upon Pomerania. Otto of Bamberg returned in 1128, this time invited by duke Wartislaw himself, aided by the emperor Holy Roman Emperor Lothar II, to convert the Liutici tribe, who were located mainly in the city of Demmin and incorporated into a Pomeranian state, and to strengthen the Christian faith of the inhabitants of Szczecin (Stettin) and Wolin (Wellin), who fell back into heathen practices and idolatry.
In their meeting in Merseburg (1135), Boleslaus and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation agreed that Pomerania and the island of Rügen would be fiefs of Poland.
[edit] Eastern Pomerania
In 1136, following the death of Boleslaus III, Poland was fragmented into several semi-independent principalities. As the influence of the central authority weakened, Polish governors in Eastern Pomerania gradually gained more power, evolving into semi-independent dukes, ruling the duchy until 1294. So, in contrast to other Polish territories, which were governed by descendants of Boleslaus III, Eastern Pomerania was ruled by separate dynasties. In various times they were vassals of Poland and Denmark. The duchy was split temporarily into districts of Gdansk, Bialogard, Swiecie, and Lubieszewo-Tczew.
Ancestors of Racibor I ruled the Duchy of Middle Pomerania until 1238, and next the area was an object of competition between the Dukes of Western Pomerania, Eastern Pomerania, Rugen, and Brandenburg.
In 1226, Prince Konrad of Masovia signed an agreement with the Teutonic Knights. The Knights gradually conquered and massacred people of neighbouring Prussia, becoming the most serious threat to Pomerania.
[edit] Principality of Rana
One of the ancient centers of Slavic paganism was the island of Rügen, with the main pagan religious center of the Slavic Wendish being in Arkona. The Slavic nation of Ranow resisted foreign domination until it was conquered by Denmark in 1168 and the local ruler give birth to a dynasty of dukes of Rugen, vassals of Danish kings. In 1325, the principality of Rugen fell to Pomerania. The Slavic language of Rana/Rugen went extinct in the eighteenth century.
[edit] Independent Pomerania between Germany, Denmark, and Poland
In 1164, the dukes of Pomerania became vassals of the Saxon ruler Henry the Lion from the newly conquered territory of Slavia (today in Mecklenburg).
During the reign of Otto I, Margrave of Brandenburg and son of Albert I of Brandenburg (1100-1170), Brandenburg claimed sovereignty over Pomerania.
In 1181, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I invested Duke Boguslaw with the Duchy of Slavia/Pomerania.
Between 1185 and 1227 Western Pomerania remained under sovereignty of Denmark. However 1198/99 Brandenburg again tried held the sovereignty over Western Pomerania. Their virtual rights are recognized by king (later emperor) Frederick II in 1214. After the Battle of Bornhoeven remaining Danish sovereignty rights were removed. Treaties of 1236 and 1250 between Pomeranian dukes and margraves of Brandenburg verify the Brandenburg lordship. Stargard and the northern Uckermark come into direct ownership of Brandenburg.
In 1231 Emperor Frederick II again invested the Ascanian Brandenburg margraves with the duchy of Pomerania.
In 1266 Barnim I, duke of Pomerania, who had inherited his brothers' parts, married Mechthild, the daughter of Otto III, Margrave of Brandenburg.
Then in 1269 duke Barnim promised in his testimony the city of Danzig (Gdansk) and other parts of Eastern Pomerania to his father-in-law, the margrave of Brandenburg. Barnim however had no right to do it, since Eastern Pomerania was ruled by the Mscislaw dukes of Swiecie family, who decided that after his death Pomerania should return to Poland. Schwetz was to be inherited after his death. Barnim died in 1278 at Altdamm (near Stettin).
After the line of the dukes of Pomerania died out in 1294, strifes broke out and in 1295 Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg verified the Lehnshoheit, the right to feodality, of the margraves of Brandenburg over Pomerania. From Brandenburg it was dispensed to the sons of Barnim I, Otto I and Bogislaw IV. New lines Pommern-Wolgast and Pommern-Stettin were started. Harbors, waterways etc. were to be held in common and it remained that way until those lines became extinct in 1464.
From ca. 1300 AD the Pomeranian towns were increasingly dominated by ethnic Germans and many new ones were even founded by Germans. The German East Colonisation was formalized in Upper Pomerania too and rural areas from western Pomerania up to about Kolberg increasingly experienced German settler influence, while the countryside remained somewhat Slavic until the end of the 17th century, when increasingly German nobility took over agrarian lands and transformed them into large aristocratic estates.
[edit] Eastern Pomerania and Poland
In line with the will of the duke Mscislaw of the Eastern Pomerania, the duke Przemysl II of Poland took over Eastern Pomerania in 1294. Therefore the Eastern Pomerania united with his principality - Greater Poland. Keeping two of five major lands of Poland he was crowned as king of Poland.
When he was killed by an assassin sent from Brandenburg in 1295, the country shared with the rest of Poland controversy over succession. From 1300 until 1306 Eastern Pomerania was ruled by the Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and his son Wenceslaus III, King of Bohemia and Poland, later also disputed King of Hungary. After the death of Wenceslaus III in 1306, the most powerful of Polish dukes became Władysław Lokietek.
On becoming king of Poland, in summer 1300, Wenceslaus II of Bohemia asked the Teutonic Knights to protect Pomerania from the claims of Brandenburg. In 1306 Władysław Lokietek seized Gdańsk. When Gdańsk was subsequently attacked by the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1308, Lokietek called the Teutonic Knights for help. The Brandenburgers were defeated. The Teutonic Knights, however, then ousted the Polish garrison from Gdańsk castle and carried out the "massacre of Gdansk" on the city. Teutonic Grandmaster Heinrich von Dirschau und Schwetz thus became lord over all of Pomerania. The Margraves ceded the area to the Teutonic Order in the 1309 Treaty of Soldin for payment of 10,000 Mark. Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor ratified the Soldin Treaty in 1313. The districts of Sławno (Schlawe), Darłowo (Rügenwalde) and Słupsk (Stolp), however, remained with Brandenburg. Previously, they had been regarded as part of Eastern, that is: Polish, Pomerania (Pomerelia). The rulers of Poland believed, however, they were legal proprietors of entire Pomerania. Since the wealth of the province arose from trade and the main trade route for the country was the Vistula river. The existence of the Vistula, linking Eastern Pomerania with the counties of Poland, also linked all Pomeranian citizens, regardless of language,, ethnicity and nationality, further and further with Poland.
[edit] Feudal fragmentation and reunification
[edit] Internal divisions of West Pomerania (1295–1464)
After the death of duke Barmin I (1278) his sons have divided West Pomerania in 1295 between themselves. Duchy of Szczecin was ruled by Otto I and his successors until 1464. The Duchy of Wolgast was ruled by Boguslaw IV and his successors. The latter was split in 1368 into the proper Duchy of Wolgast and the Duchy of Slupsk under Boguslaw V the Old. (For complete list of dukes and duchies see: Dukes of Pomerania.)
[edit] Thirteen-years war for Eastern Pomerania (1454–1466)
to be written
[edit] War for Szczecin inheritance between Brandenburg and Pomerania (1464–1529)
to be written
[edit] Unification and modernisation under Boguslaw X (1478–1523)
to be written
[edit] Pomeranian voivodship in Royal Prussia (1466–1772)
to be written
[edit] Divisions of Duchy of Pomerania (1569–1625)
to be written
[edit] The Last Pomeranian monarch: Boguslaw XIV (1625–1637)
to be written
[edit] Thirty Years' War (1618-48) and its consequences
During the Thirty Years' War Pomerania lost two thirds of its population due to military raids, plague and criminal violence.
Upon entering into the Thirty Years' War in 1629, Sweden gained effective control over Pomerania. Following the death of Duke Boguslaw XIV without issue in 1637, control was disputed between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia - which had previously held reversion to the Duchy. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 enforced a partition. Sweden received Upper Pomerania (now in Germany), together with Szczecin (Stettin), as a possession. Lower Pomerania (now in Poland) passed to Brandenburg-Prussia. Szczecin (Stettin) became part of Brandenberg-Prussia following the end of the Great Northern War in 1720.
Upper Pomerania remained a dominion of the Swedish Crown from 1648 until 1815.
[edit] Napoleonic Wars and its consequences
In 1812, when French troops marched into Pomerania, The Swedish army mobilized and 1813 won against Napoleon in the Battle of Leipzig, together with troops from Russia, Prussia and Austria. Sweden also attacked Denmark. During the peace negotiations in Kiel 1814, Sweden got Norway, but gave Pomerania to Prussia in 1815.
After the extinction of the Ascanian Brandenburg line several other ruling houses were invested with the administration of Pomerania by the empire. After Napoleon's break-up of the empire in 1806, the Western Part was the member of the Deutsche Bund. After foundation of the German Empire of 1871, the whole of Pomerania was included into the newly created state.
[edit] All of Pomerania in the Kingdom of Prussia (1815–1870)
to be written yet
[edit] Pomerania in the German Empire (1870–1918)
During the German Empire whole Pomerania remained an agricultural area.
The Prussian Province of Pomerania was dominated by large-scale agriculture which forced many abundant workers to emigrate into the western provinces of Germany. Only the city of Stettin (now Szczecin) became an industrialized city with more than 200,000 inhabitants. Some towns on the Baltic Sea became tourist resorts. The Prussian Province of Pomerania was a stronghold of conservative parties and of the nobility during the German Empire. Except for Schneidemühl and Stolp, where Polish and Slavic Slovincian minorities lived, 19th century Pomerania province was virtually entirely German and Germanized. As such, it was also moderately German-nationalistic.
The Prussian province of West Prussia (Pomerelia) was inhabited by both ethnic groups: Polish people predominantly in rural areas in the southern parts, as well as Slavic Kashubians dominating the northern areas and ethnic German people predominantly in big cities. The German government tried to support German settlement in Polish and Kashubian areas, but German investors did not show much interest. Polish people founded economical and political organisations and succeeded in electing some Polish representatives into the German Reichstag.
| Population of the Prussian provinces in 1890 | Area km² | Population | foreigners |
| West Prussia | 25,483 | 1,433,681 | 1,976 |
| Pomerania | 30,121 | 1,520,889 | 1,405 |
| Total | 55,604 | 2,954,570 | 3,381 |
[edit] World Wars of the 20th century
[edit] Between WWI and WWII - Pomerania in Germany and Poland (1919–1939)
As a result of the Versailles Peace Treaty (1919) after World War I, Pomerania was divided between Poland and Germany. Most of the German-Prussian province of West Prussia fell to Poland and constituted Pomeranian Voivodship (województwo pomorskie) with the capital at Toruń. Danzig was made the Free City of Danzig. The population of Danzig, 90% of which spoke German, was not asked whether it wanted to leave Germany. Remainders of West Prussia were joined to East Prussia and newly created province Grenzmark Posen-Westpreussen. The entire Prussian province of Pomerania remained in Germany. The area inhabited by Kashubians remained split between Poland, the Free City and Germany.
In 1938-39, the German and Polish Pomeranian provinces were enlarged. Most of Grenzmark and two counties of Brandenburg were made a district of the German province of Pomerania. Several counties from Mazovia and Greater Poland were joined to Polish Pomerania, and the voivodship's capital was moved from Toruń to Bydgoszcz.
[edit] Pomerania during World War II (1939–1945)
The dispute between Germany and Poland over rights to Free City of Danzig and land transit through the Polish Corridor (Polish Pomerania/Pomerelia) to the exclave of East Prussia, came to ignite Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland, which commenced on September 1, 1939.
The strategy of the Nazi government was to temporarily divide Poland with Stalin's Soviet Union, formalized in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In the longer perspective, the National Socialists aimed to expand the German "Lebensraum" in the East, to exploit soil, oil, minerals and workforce from the lands of the Slavs, turning them into a race of slaves destined to serve the German 1000 Year Reich and its master race (Germanics). The fate of other peoples of these territories, notably Jews and Gypsies, was to be annihilation and deportation in the Holocaust.
Initially, the German Guderian's tank corps was to pass through Pomerelia (Polish Pomerania, Kashubia) on the way to Eastern Prussia. The Guderian corps was to regroup there and attack Warsaw from the east.
The Polish opponent was the Army of Pomerania (Armia Pomorze). It was not quite decided, if the army was to protect the Free City of Danzig in case of local uprising in support of the German invasion, or defend the Polish corridor in case of the general war. The first aim suggested to put large units deep north into the province of Polish Pomerania.
However, they were unprepared for the unexpected attack from the Germans, and this contributed to the fact that the Army of Pomerania was quickly destroyed in the battle of Bory Tucholskie.
One of the famous episodes of the Invasion of Poland was the famous Krojanty charge, where Polish cavalry unit had charged against German infantry. Germans began to escape in panic to the forest site, where German tanks were hidden and the charge broke down there. The episode was used in Nazi propaganda to underline unreasonable Polish resistance against overwhelming German power. However, many people in Europe sympathised with the picture of the brave Poles charging desperately against German Panzer, not knowing how false a depiction it was.
After the initial battles in Pomerelia, the remains of Army of Pomerania withdrew to the southern bank of river Vistula. After defending Toruń for several days, it withdrew further south under pressure of the overall strained strategic situation, and took part in the main battle of Bzura.
On the borders of the Free City of Danzig, there were two fortified Polish points: the Polish post office in Danzig and the Polish ammunition store on the Westerplatte. Both were ordered to defend up to 12 hours in case of local uprising, until the help from the Polish army was to arrive.
The Polish Post office were held by 52 employees led by Konrad Guderski against the German Danzig police, Home Guard (Heimwehr) and SS, which after 14 hours of battle set the building on fire with flamethrowers. All but four postman who escaped either died in the battle or were executed by the Germans as partisans.
The Polish Military Transit Depot (Polska Wojskowa Składnica Tranzytowa) on the Westerplatte bravely repelled countless attacks by the Danzig Police, SS, the Kriegsmarine and the Wehrmacht. Finally, the Westerplatte crew surrendered on 7 September, having exhausted their supplies of food, water, ammunition and medicines.
There were heavy fights in Pomerania, and the Polish Navy base at the Hel peninsula held out as one of the last centres of Polish military resistance until October 3, 1939 (see battle of Hel).
The Polish corridor and the Free City of Danzig-Gdansk were annexed by Germany on October 8, 1939, and were made into the province of Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen. They were not added to the German Province of Pomerania.
Even during the September campaign, security police set up first security police camps for Poles. Deportations to the General Government and Stutthof soon followed. Polish was strictly forbidden, even in church by the German Roman Catholic Bishop Carlo Maria Splett of the Diocese of Danzig. Local Polish-Kashubian intelligentsia were executed in the mass murder site of Piasnica.[citation needed]
The remaining Poles and Kashubians of Eastern Pomerania-Pomerelia organized guerrilla resistance called Pomeranian Gryffin (TOW Gryf Pomorski).
In central Pomerania (the German province of Pomerania, called Hinterpommern, or Western Pomerania by the Poles) during the first month of the Second World War no fighting took place as the Polish army was defeated on Polish soil and did not cross the border to Germany. In this province existed no Polish population which could have formed a Polish or Pan-Slavic resistance, as the Slavic Slovincians had been assimilated as well as the Slavic Kashubians. It is possible that Kashubians in this province formed links with the Polish resistance, but no evidence exists to confirm this. On German manors and bigger farms Polish prisoners of war replaced German workforce - they were often treated badly, especially in those areas where Polish-German conflicts had a long history. In the cities Polish forced-labourers were exploited by German companies and factories.
Western Pomerania suffered from British and American air-raids. The (later world heritage site) Stralsund suffered from raids aimed at the historical center as well as Anklam and Stettin. Roughly 60,000 German men from Pomerania died as soldiers in the Wehrmacht and SS until May, 1945. In March, 1945, the German-Soviet Eastern Front reached central Pomerania (Köslin, Kolberg). The next months would bring the final end of 800 years of German settlement, language and culture in most of the province of Pomerania, notably its centre and eastern parts.
In March the Russian Red Army reached the coast near Stettin and Köslin. Central Pomerania, roughly the coastal area between the village of Treptow an der Rega up to the town Stolp, was cut off by land from the west of Germany. The civilians and many German soldiers tried to flee by ship over the Baltic sea. The Hela peninsula and Hela town, northwest of Danzig, were defended by the German army until the end of the war on May, 9th, 1945. 900,000 people where evacuated by ship, mainly by the Kriegsmarine. 200,000 could flee to the more western provinces of Germany on land (most before March, 1945). Only 3% of those who fled per ship died on the Baltic sea due to Soviet torpedoes. On land, due to the harsh winter and due to Soviet air raids, the losses among civilians were much higher.
Many Germans in Pomerania (Western Pomerania) and Danzig (Gdansk) and West Prussia (East Pomerania, Pomerelia) died during and shortly after the war due to air raids, but mainly afterwards due to Polish and Soviet Red Army atrocities committed in revenge against the German civilians.
The German civilian losses in all of the territories generally called "Pomerania" were estimated at:
- Danzig: 100,000 dead out of 404,000 inhabitants, living there in December 1944.
- German Province of Pomerania: 440,000 dead out of 1,895,000 inhabitants, living there in December 1944.
- West Prussia (Eastern Pomerania): 70,000 of 310,000 inhabitants, living there in December 1944 (of which 100,000 were "settlers" transferred to this province by the nazi government).[1]
The Germans who had not already fled the Pomeranian towns and countryside were expelled by the Polish communist Government. Less than 50,000 ethnic Germans stayed in the entire region after 1948, and many of these repatriated to West Germany in the 1950s due to increasing discrimination and maltreatment by Poles. Some of the Kashubians in the formerly German Province of Pomerania, called Western Pomerania by the Poles, were allowed to stay, if they could speak a bit of Polish.
The Polish Government brought settlers to Pomerania who took the houses of the expelled Germans. These settlers were mostly poor civilians and "asocial persons" from central Poland and also ethnic Poles from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Many also were ethnic Ukrainians, both Greek Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox, from southeastern Poland whom the Communist Polish Government had forced to move to this western part of the state, to ensure no ethnic rebellion or clash could happen at the new, ethnically mixed southeastern Polish-Ukrainian border.
[edit] Border shift after World War II (1945)
After the WWII Polish-German border was moved to the west to the Oder-Neisse line. In case of Pomerania, the Free City of Danzig and most of the pre-war German province of Pomerania fell to Poland. The city of Stettin (now Szczecin) and, located on Usedom island, Swinemünde (now Swinoujscie) were assigned to Poland, as the vessel route goes through Swinoujscie to Szczecin. In addition, the small strip of land 20 km west of Stettin/Szczecin, and a small part of the Usedom island also became part of Poland in order to facilitate the growth of the cities. (see also German exodus from Eastern Europe). The remainder of Pomerania west of Stettin/Szczecin and the Oder River was joined with Mecklenburg and later renamed Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern).
[edit] Modern times (after 1945)
[edit] Pomerania in communist Poland and Germany (1945–1989)
[edit] Polish Pomerania
At the end of the WW II, Pomerania was completely devastated. In addition to destruction during the war, Soviets treated the property left in Polish Pomerania as war loot. Machines, animals and anything that could be packed were sent to Soviet Union. Additionally, the land contained unexploded landmines and explosives remained lying around the sites of major battles. The situation in German Western Pomerania, which was to be assigned to Poland shortly, was even more catastrophical.
Gangs of criminals, mostly from razed Warsaw, terrorised the population and used the cover of night to steal anything left behind by the Soviet Army. This period was known as 'Shaber'.
The Soviet Army was granted the military polygons and naval bases of Pomerania; the areas were excluded from Polish jurisdiction until 1992. Russia used the area to store nuclear warheads.
Despite these problems, life in mostly Slavic Eastern Pomerania soon returned to normality, especially after the final and brutal expulsion of German minorities from the countryside and the German city populations had taken place. Poland was ruled by a Communist regime and the policy of the government was focused on making the state a sole proprietor of means of production and points of trade. Polish victims of WW II who settled in Western Pomerania were actually granted only long-term rent right to the land, forests and houses.
In what would later (1999) become the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, the entire (German) population however was expelled, causing the region to be totally emptied demographically in a quite violent way. Therefore the Polish authorities quickly forced Ukrainian Poles and central Polish settlers to immigrate in the future West Pomeranian Voivodeship and polonize this Western Pomerania, which before 1945 had been virtually 100 % ethnic German.
The situation changed for the worse in 1948, when all countries of the Eastern Bloc had to adopt Soviet economic principles. Private shops were banned and most farmers were forced to join agricultural cooperatives, managed by local communists.
In 1953 Poland was forced to accept the end of war reparations, which previously were solely placed on East Germany, while West Germany enjoyed the benefits of the Marshall Plan. In 1956 Poland was on the verge of a Soviet invasion, but the crisis was solved and the Polish government's communism developed a more human face with Wladyslaw Gomulka as the head of politburo. Poland developed the ports of Pomerania and restored the destroyed shipyards of Gdansk, Gdynia and Szczecin.
These were organised as two harbour complexes: one of Szczecin port with Swinoujscie avanport and the other was Gdansk-Gdynia set of ports. Gdansk and Gdynia, along with the spa of Sopot located between them, became one metropolitan area called Tricity and populated by more than 1,000,000 inhabitants.
In 1970, after putting an end to the uncertain border issue with West Germany under Willy Brandt, the massive unrest in the coastal cities marked the end of Wladyslaw Gomulka's rule. The new leader, Edward Gierek, wanted to modernize the country by the wide use of western credits. Although the policy failed, Poland became one of the main world players in the shipyard industry. Polish open sea fishing scientists discovered new species of fish for the fishing industry. Unfortunately, countries with direct access to the open seas declared 200 mile (370 km) economic zones that finally put the end to the Polish fishing industry. Shipyards also came under growing pressure from the subsidized Japanese and Korean enterprises.
During 1970, Poland built also the Northern Harbour in rebuilt Gdansk, which allowed the country independent access to oil from OPEC countries. The new oil refinery had been built in Gdansk, and an oil pipeline connected both with main Polish pipeline in Plock.
In 1980, Polish Pomeranian coastal cities, notably Gdansk, became the place of birth for the anticommunist movement, Solidarity. Gdansk become the capital for the Solidarity trade union. In 1989 it was found that the border treaty with the Communist German Democratic Republic had one mistake, concerning the naval border. Subsequently, a new treaty was signed, but one of the three ways out of Szczecin harbour was assigned to Germany.
The West Pomeranian Voivodeship's rural countryside from 1945 until 1989 remained underdeveloped and often neglected, as the pre-1945 German structures of Prussian-style nobility leading and steering agricultural cultivation had been destroyed by expulsion and communism.
[edit] Pomerania post-communism (1989)
See Pomorze Voivodship and Vorpommern for the western part of Western Pomerania.
 |
This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
