Frederick the Great (King in/of Prussia from 1740 to 1786) settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia and aimed at a removal of the Polish nobility, which he treated with contempt.
After the First Partition of Poland in 1772 it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and named West Prussia, and became a constituent part of the new German Empire in 1871.
Frederick the Great (King in/of Prussia from 1740 to 1786) settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia and aimed at a removal of the Polish nobility, which he treated with contempt.
On the other hand, he encouraged administrators and teachers who could speak both German and Polish. Prussia pursued a second colonization aimed at Germanisation after 1832.
After the First Partition of Poland in 1772 it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and named West Prussia, and became a constituent part of the new German Empire in 1871.
Later, the German Empire bought up land in an attempt to prevent the restoration of a Polish majority in Polish inhabited areas in its eastern provinces. Christian Raitz von Frentz notes that measures aimed at reversing past Germanization included the liquidation of farms settled by the German government during the war under the 1908 law. In 1925 the Polish government enacted a land reform program with the aim of expropriating landowners.
The Prussian census of 1910 showed that there were 528,000 Poles (including West Slavic Kashubians, who had supported the Polish national lists in German elections) in the region compared with 385,000 Germans (including troops and officials stationed in the area).
The province of West Prussia as a whole, had between 36% and 43% of ethnic Poles in 1910, depending on source (lower number is based directly on German 1910 census figures, while higher number is based on calculations according to which a large part of people counted as Catholic Germans in the official census, in fact identified as Poles).
Starting in December, the Polish-Ukrainian War expanded the Polish republic's territory to include Volhynia and parts of Eastern Galicia, while at the same time the German Province of Posen (where even according to the German made 1910 census 61,5% of the population was Polish) was severed by the Greater Poland uprising, which succeeded in attaching most of the province's territory to Poland by January 1919.
A number of German civil servants and merchants were introduced to the area, which influenced the population status. According to Richard Blanke, 421,029 Germans lived in the area in 1910, making up 42.5% of the population.
There were other demonstrations when Germans showed disloyalty during the Polish-Bolshevik war as the Red Army announced the return to the pre-war borders of 1914.
In January 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson issued his 14 Points settling out American war aims; Point 13 called for a Polish state with access to the sea.
Since a Polish state had not existed since the Congress of Vienna, the future republic's territory had to be defined. Giving Poland access to the sea was one of the guarantees proposed by President Wilson in his Fourteen Points of 1918.
Following the military defeat of Austria-Hungary, an independent Polish republic was declared in Western Galicia on 3 November 1918, the same day Austria signed the armistice.
As the Polish commission report to the Allied Supreme Council noted on 12 March 1919: "Finally the fact must be recognised that 600,000 Poles in West Prussia would under any alternative plan remain under German rule".
Starting in December, the Polish-Ukrainian War expanded the Polish republic's territory to include Volhynia and parts of Eastern Galicia, while at the same time the German Province of Posen (where even according to the German made 1910 census 61,5% of the population was Polish) was severed by the Greater Poland uprising, which succeeded in attaching most of the province's territory to Poland by January 1919.
The call was answered by the minister of defense Gustav Noske, who decreed support for raising and deploying volunteer "Grenzschutz" forces to secure East Prussia, Silesia and the Netze District. On 18 January, the Paris peace conference opened, resulting in the draft of the Treaty of Versailles 28 June 1919.
In turn, anti-Polish prejudice fueled German policy. == Impact on the East Prussian plebiscite == In the period leading up to the East Prussian plebiscite in July 1920, the Polish authorities tried to prevent traffic through the Corridor, interrupting postal, telegraphic and telephone communication.
On March 10, 1920, the British representative on the Marienwerder Plebiscite Commission, H.D.
By 1921 the proportion of Germans had dropped to 18.8% (175,771).
I know of no similar frontier created by any treaty." == Impact on German through-traffic == The German Ministry for Transport established the Seedienst Ostpreußen ("Sea Service East Prussia") in 1922 to provide a ferry connection to East Prussia, now a German exclave, so that it would be less dependent on transit through Polish territory. Connections by train were also possible by "sealing" the carriages (Korridorzug), i.e.
passengers were not forced to apply for an official Polish visa in their passport; however, the rigorous inspections by the Polish authorities before and after the sealing were strongly feared by the passengers. In May 1925 a train, passing through the Corridor on its way to East Prussia, crashed because the spikes had been removed from the tracks for a short distance and the fishplates unbolted.
25 persons, including 12 women and 2 children, were killed, some 30 others were injured. == Land reform of 1925 == According to Polish Historian Andrzej Chwalba, during the rule of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire various means were used to increase the amount of land owned by Germans at the expense of the Polish population.
Later, the German Empire bought up land in an attempt to prevent the restoration of a Polish majority in Polish inhabited areas in its eastern provinces. Christian Raitz von Frentz notes that measures aimed at reversing past Germanization included the liquidation of farms settled by the German government during the war under the 1908 law. In 1925 the Polish government enacted a land reform program with the aim of expropriating landowners.
President Herbert Hoover, Polish delegate Filipowicz noted that any continued provocations by Germany could tempt the Polish side to invade, in order to settle the issue once and for all. == Nazi German and Polish diplomacy == The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, took power in Germany in 1933.
In November 1938, Hitler ordered his Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed with Japan in 1936 and joined by Italy in 1937 into an anti-British military alliance.
In November 1938, Hitler ordered his Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed with Japan in 1936 and joined by Italy in 1937 into an anti-British military alliance.
Hitler at first ostentatiously pursued a policy of rapprochement with Poland, Despite this, the Nazis were able to achieve their immediate goals without provoking armed conflict: firstly, in March 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria, and at the beginning of October the Sudetenland after the Munich Agreement; together with Germany Poland also made an advance against Czechoslovakia and annexed Zaolzie (1 October 1938).
Poland refused, as the alliance was rapidly becoming a sphere of influence of an increasingly powerful Germany. On 24 October 1938, the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop asked the Polish ambassador Józef Lipski to have Poland sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.
During a visit to Rome on 27-28 October 1938, Ribbentrop told the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano that he wanted to turn the Anti-Comintern Pact into a military alliance, and spoke of his desire to have Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania sign the Anti-Comintern Pact so "all our energies can be directed against the Western democracies".
In a secret speech before a group of 200 German journalists on 10 November 1938, Hitler complained that his peace propaganda stressing that his foreign policy was based upon the peaceful revision of the Treaty of Versailles had been too successful with the German people, and he called for a new propaganda campaign intended to stoke a bellicose mood in the Reich.
The Nazis increased their requests for the incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into the Reich, citing the "protection" of the German majority as a motive. In November 1938, Danzig's district administrator, Albert Forster, reported to the League of Nations that Hitler had told him Polish frontiers would be guaranteed if the Poles were "reasonable like the Czechs." German State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker reaffirmed this alleged guarantee in December 1938.
In late 1938-early 1939, Hitler had decided upon war with Britain and France, and having Poland sign the Anti-Comintern Pact was intended to protect the Reichs eastern border while the Wehrmacht turned west.
In November 1938, Hitler ordered his Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed with Japan in 1936 and joined by Italy in 1937 into an anti-British military alliance.
Starting in October 1938, the main focus on German military planning was for a war against Britain with Hitler ordering the Luftwaffe to start building a strategical bombing force capable of bombing British cities.
Among the harshest critics of the term corridor was Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck, who in his May 5, 1939 speech in Sejm (Polish parliament) said: "I am insisting that the term Pomeranian Voivodeship should be used.
In late 1938-early 1939, Hitler had decided upon war with Britain and France, and having Poland sign the Anti-Comintern Pact was intended to protect the Reichs eastern border while the Wehrmacht turned west.
On 17 January 1939, Hitler approved of the famous Z Plan that called for a gigantic fleet to take on the Royal Navy and on 27 January 1939 he ordered that henceforward the Kriegsmarine was to have first priority for defense spending. The situation regarding the Free City and the Polish Corridor created a number of headaches for German and Polish Customs.
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