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The Settlement Commission (Template:Lang-de) was a department that operated between 1886 and 1918, set up by Otto von Bismarck to increase land ownership of Germans at the expense of Poles in the German Empire's eastern provinces of West Prussia and Posen, through the use of economic and political methods, as part of the country's policy of Germanisation.
Aim and funds
The Settlement Commission bought land in West Prussia and the Province of Posen to distribute it among German settlers. The original goal of the Commission was to remove Polish owners from the land completely. The first budget of the Commission was 100,000,000 marks. At later times, even larger funds were made available to purchase lands from Poles. At the same time, laws were enacted that discriminated against Poles, making it more difficult for them to continue profitable operations and to rehabilitate failed operations.
Accomplished settlement
From April 26, 1886 until January 1, 1901, the Settlement Commisson had bought 147,475 ha (3,64 % of the Province of Posen and 1,65 % of West Prussia), settled with 4277 families (about 30,000 persons), of which 2715 families were not natives to these provinces. After this, the original budget of 100,000,000 marks was exhausted.</ref>
The Commission in the end bought 613 estates from German owners and 214 from Poles, functioning to bail-out German debtors as often as fulfilling its declared mission. Up to 1914 22,000 German peasant families had settled in the bought up land and throughout its 32 years of existence the Commission was able to buy 8 percent of the total land in Posen - West Prussia . Altogether 21.866 families were settled bringing the number of German colonists to 154,000. In 1913, 450 new villages were founded, areas of 438,560 ha was bought, of which 124,903 ha were bought from Poles, an overall 150,000 German inhabitants were counted on these lands since 1886.
5,400 families were Germans of the other parts of the partitioned Poland, Congress Poland (Russian province) and Galicia (Austrian province). Yet, the numbers of settlers were low compared to the overall population of 3,800,000 in both West-Prussia and the province of Posen.
The Commission created numerous modern settlements, especially around city of Bromberg (Polish: Bydgoszcz).
Polish reaction
The creation of the Commission made Poles defend their ownership of the land, that gradually turned into Polish-German economic competition. It was to a great extent won by Poles, in that the measures failed to make much difference in the percentages of land ownership. Organized Polish countermeasures and the population decline of the Germans vs. the increase of the Poles figured greatly in the lack of success (see Ostflucht).
Political background
In 1904 the Prussian Government sought to restrict the right of ethnic Poles to acquire land, even though they were German citizens, but this attempt was stoped by a decision of the Prussian Administrative High Court. Due to the overall failure of the policy, the Prussian diet in 1908 passed a law permitting the forcible expropriation of Polish landowners by the Settlement Commission. In 1912 the first and only four Polish large estates of 1,656 hectares were expropriated. German historian Profesor Imannuel Geiss in his scholary work on German designs for Poland during World War I, Der polnische Grenzstreifen 1914-1918. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Kriegszielpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg, writes that legislation was drafted by German leaders in preparation for a larger colonization effort, wherein some two million Poles and Jews would be removed to make room for German colonists in annexed territories of Congress Poland, while Poles within the German Empire's Polish provinces, obtained in the Partitions of Poland, would be "encouraged" to move out if they did not accept Germanization.
Outcome
The Settlement Commision goal to Germanise Polish territories failed and with the fall of German Empire in 1918, after the defeat in World War I, the Commission ceased to function. By then, the number of Poles was greated then at the start of Comission's function. Between 1918 and 1939, the German population in these areas declined by another 70%, and the land owned by Germans by 45%. Publications in Nazi Germany made claims that many colonists were German natives from the region.
References
- Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, 6. Auflage 1905–1909, online at
- Volker Rolf Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics, p. 106, 2004, ISBN 1845450116
- Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, p. 51, ISBN 0813118034
- Andrzej Chwalba - Historia Polski 1795-1918 page 461
- Baron Galéra, Deutsche unter Fremdherrschaft, Band I, p.37
- Jochen Oltmer, Migration und Politik in der Weimarer Republik, p.142, 2005, ISBN:352536282X
- Baron Galéra, Deutsche unter Fremdherrschaft, Band I, p.37
- Volker Rolf Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics, p. 106, 2004, ISBN 1845450116
- John Komlos Selected Cliometric Studies on German Economic History, p.156, 1997, ISBN 3515068996
- Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, p.240, 1993, ISBN 0813118034
- Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, p.240, 1993, ISBN 0813118034
- Baron Galéra, Deutsche unter Fremdherrschaft, Band I
External links
- Selected Cliometric Studies on German Economic History
- Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939
- Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics