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History of Pomerania (1945–present) covers the History of Pomerania during World War II aftermath, the Communist and Democratic era.

After the post-war border changes, the German population that had not yet fled was expelled from what in Poland was propagated to be recovered territory. The area east of the Oder and the Szczecin (Stettin) area was resettled primarily with Poles, and much of the German cultural heritage was removed. . Most of Western Pomerania remained in Germany and was later merged into Mecklenburg.

With the consolidation of Communism in East Germany and Poland, Pomerania became part of the Eastern Bloc. In the 1980s, the Solidarnosc movement in Gdańsk and the Wende movement in East Germany forced the Communists out of power and led to the establishment of democracy in both Polish and German parts of Pomerania.

After the German defeat in 1945

Soviet occupation

Soviet occupation of Pomerania had started after the East Pomeranian Offensive and the northern campaigns of the Battle of Berlin had been accomplished successfully by the Red Army in March and April 1945.

The Soviets installed an administration basically adopting the former German administrative structures. Every-day life was then regulated by Soviet decrees. Besides civilian administrative tasks, the local Soviet administration also was to secure the hinterlands of the frontline. German property was considered "post-German", and anything portable was transported to the Soviet Union. This included the items of the houses' interior like furniture, pianos, and carpets, as well as life stock and industrial devices.

The large and many of the smaller factories as well as the shipyards were deconstructed and transported to the Soviet Union.

Vast areas of Farther Pomerania were vacated as the population had fled the Red Army. This was primarily the case with the areas toward s the Netze and Oder rivers. For example, in the town of Arnswalde with a previous population of 14,000 only a few dozen people remained. In other areas, a heterogeneous population remained, consisting of Pomeranians as well as stranded refugees from areas further east and evacuees from the industrial centers. For example, there were 330,000 Germans in the counties of Stolp, Schlawe, Köslin, and Belgard.

The local population was forced to participate in the acquisition and transportation of Soviet war loot, and to live in especially assigned neighbourhoods of the towns. Some were also employed by the Soviet authorities in industry or its deconstruction, in agriculture, and in the clean-up of the wartime destruction, and were paid a low salary.

There were numerous examples of atrocities visited on the local populations by the Soviets including: brutal manhunts, arrests and deportations for slave labor, holdups, forays, and rapes.

Establishment of a Polish administration in Farther Pomerania

First Polish communist officials arrived in Farther Pomerania in April 1945. The provisional government of Poland in March 14 had created the Polish administrative district of Pomerania, which included Farther Pomerania and the northern Neumark. This was based on a decision of the Soviet state council for defense in February to place some eastern territories of Germany under Polish administration, and a subsequent order of the military council of the First Belorussian Front in early March requiring a solely Polish civilian administration in the territories that were handed over and also required the Soviet military to assist in the Polish administration's establishment.

The Polish plenipotentiary for the new Pomeranian district since April 11 was colonel Leonard Borkowicz. Subordinate to Borkowicz were forty county assignees (starosts). Borkowicz and the starosts had a very limited knowledge of the area they were to govern, and were sent in only with an official attestation of their position, sketches of the counties, 500 Zloty, and alcohol to use as valuta. Their primary objective was the preparation of the area for Polish settlement.

The Polish officials were regarded no more than auxiliary personnel by the Soviet military administration, which was in charge of most of industry, bakeries, most of the farmland, and fishery. The Polish administrators concentrated on reinstating electricity, gas, and water supply and on stockpiling groceries for the expected Polish settlers. Conflicts arose when they tried to charge the Soviets for power, gas, or water. Also they failed to have the Soviet authorities inhibit the forays of Red Army soldiers and officers. Overall Soviet attitude toward the Polish administrators ranged from providing aid to neglect.

Deportations of Germans before the Potsdam Agreement

In two weeks of June 1945, the Polish Army deported 110,000 Germans from the areas adjacent to the eastern bank of the Oder river, and the counties of Stargard, Labes, Pyritz, and Arnswalde, all in Farther Pomerania.

Many German civilians were deported to labor camps like Vorkuta in the Soviet Union, where a large number of them perished or were later reported missing.

Border shift and consequences

In the Potsdam Agreement, the allies decided to move the Polish-German border 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, including the city of Stettin (Szczecin) and Swinemünde (Swinoujscie), became Polish. In addition, a 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 these cities. The remainder of Pomerania west of Stettin/Szczecin and the Oder River was joined with Mecklenburg and formed Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

In Potsdam, the border was defined as leaving the Oder river at a bridge some three kilometers west of Greifenhagen and from that point running north as a straight line to the church of Ahlbeck. In September 21, 1945, the Polish plenipotentiary Borkowicz and the Polish president of Stettin, Piotr Zaremba, adjusted the border in the Treaty of Schwerin. The border now started at a point in the Bay of Pomerania 3 miles (5,5 kilometers) off the shore, from which it ran south through the Oder Lagoon and left Camminke on the German and Papart on the Polish side.

In January 1951, the border was again adjusted. The potable water reservoir of Swinemünde, which was on the German side since the Treaty of Schwerin, and the islands of the Oder River were assigned to Poland, and a small part of Usedom to Germany. Also, the border within the Pomeranian Bay was extended to 6 miles.

Polish part of Pomerania - Szczecin Voivodship

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.

In the summer of 1945, the Soviets started to dissolve their administrative institutions in Pomerania. In 14 towns, the civilian administration was handed over to Polish officials.

In October, the counties of Stettin and Swinemünde were handed over to Polish administration. The areas on the Oder's left bank (Pölitz area) stayed under Soviet control until 1946. There, a provisional Soviet county was set up on order of marshal Zhukov, where 25,000 Germans had to completely deconstruct an industrial facility used to produce synthetic fuels. Also the Stettin port stayed directly under Soviet control, and was only handed over to Poland from February 1946 to September 1947, officially only in May 1954. The Oder waterway was handed over to Poland in September 1946. Farmland and estates were handed over until 1949 - in February 1946, half of the farmland was still Soviet property.

The Red Army started to increase the withdrawal of troops from the Polish part of Pomerania in the fall of 1945.

Polonization

Along with the establishment of the People's Republic of Poland, the population had to be made to fit the new frontiers. With its eastern territories (the Kresy) annexed by the Soviet Union, Poland was effectively moved westwards and its area reduced by almost 20% (from 389,000 km² to 312,000 km²). Millions of "non-Poles" (mainly Germans and Ukrainians) had to be expelled from the new Poland, while the Poles east of the Curzon line had to be expelled from the Kresy. The expellees were termed "repatriates". The result was the largest exchange of population in European history. The picture of the new western and northern territories being recovered Piast territory was used to forge Polish settlers and "repatriates" arriving there into a coherent community loyal to the new regime, and to justify the previous ethnic cleansing of the area.

Largely excepted from the expulsions of Germans were the "autochthons", close to three million ethnically Slavic inhabitants of Pomerania, the Kashubians and Slovincians, of whom however many did not identify with Polish nationality. The Polish government aimed to retain as many "autochthons" as possible for propaganda purposes, as their presence on former German soil was used to indicate the intrinsic "Polishness" of the area and justify its incorporation into the Polish state as "recovered" territories. "Verification" and "national rehabilitation" processes were set up to reveal a "dormant Polishness" and to determine which were redeemable as Polish citizens; few were actually expelled The "autochthons" not only disliked the subjective and often arbitrary verification process, but they also faced discrimination even after completing it, such as the Polonization of their names.

Treatment and expulsion of Germans after the Potsdam Agreement

The remaining Germans were to be expelled from the now Polish areas of Pomerania. The major staging area from which the Germans deployed to post-war Germany was the Stettin-Scheune railway station, which had become infamous due to raids of gangs who raped and looted the expellees. Germans were either transported by ship from Stettin to Lübeck or sent in trains to the British occupation zone.

Between November 20 and December 21, 1945, some 290,000 Germans were expelled.

Another major wave of expulsions termed "Jaskolka" (swallow) lasted from February 1946 to October 1947. During this operation, 760,000 Germans were expelled. These expulsions were not indifferent, as Germans were grouped into five categories ranging from "obstructive" to "specialists", with the "obstructive" Germans becoming expelled first and the specialists last.

Expellees were often not even allowed to carry household articles with them, and the few items they managed to take along were often robbed on the way.

The Germans who were not yet expelled obtained the legal status of a "troublesome foreigner temporarily in Poland". They were not allowed to have communication devices like telephones or radios, and were restricted in when and where to go or move.

By the end of 1945, between 120,000 and 150,000 Germans were legally employed primarily in agriculture and fishing. In the summer of 1946, there were 78,000 Germans employed on large farms, and about 90% of the employees of Polish state estates were German. Germans were employed primarily because they were not subject to Polish civil law, were prohibited from joining workers' unions, and worked hard and for food only. They were often preferred because of their low costs and also did illicit work. In April 1946, the Polish authorities limited the daily work to ten hours and nominally adapted the Polish wages for German workers, but subtracted 25% for "reconstruction of the country and social purposes". In March 1947, the Polish authorities in Dramburg leased the local Germans to Polish farmers for free.

During the Soviet conquest of Farther Pomerania and the subsequent expulsions of Germans until 1950, 498,000 people from the part of the province east of the Oder-Neisse line died, making up for 26,4% of the former population. Of the 498,000 dead, 375,000 were civilians, and 123,000 were Wehrmacht soldiers. Low estimates give a million expellees from the then Polish part of the province in 1945 and the following years. Only 7,100 km2 remained with Germany, about a fourth of the province's size before 1938 and a fifth of the size thereafter.

In 1949, the refugees from West Prussia and the Province of Pomerania established the non-profit Landsmannschaft Westpreußen and Landsmannschaft Pommern, respectively, to represent West Prussians and Pomeranians in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Removal of German population and heritage

Despite the propagandist picture of an ancient Polish territory, the "Recovered Territories" after the take-over still hosted a substantial German population, and the centuries of German presence had marked the area a German one. This had to be changed quickly, as the territories' legal status was uncertain at the end of the war, and left room for different interpretations even after the Potsdam Agreement. The Polish administration set up a "Ministry for the Recovered Territories", headed by the then deputy prime minister Władysław Gomułka. A "Bureau for Repatriation" was to supervise and organize the expulsions and resettlements.

The expulsion of the remaining Germans in the first post-war years presaged a broader campaign to remove the footprints of centuries of German history and culture from public view. All German place names were replaced with Polish or Polonized medieval Slavic ones. If no Slavic name existed, then either the German name was translated or Polish assigned. The German language was banned, and many German monuments, graveyards, buildings etc. were demolished. Objects of art were moved to other parts of the country. Protestant churches were either converted into Catholic ones or used for other purposes. Official propaganda spread all-round anti-German sentiment, which was shared by many of the opposition as well as many in the Catholic church.

A Polish law of May 1945 declared German property "abandoned". Only a decision of March 1946 declared it "state property" and prohibited further removal by the public. Many institutions in Central Poland ordered art, furniture, machines, bureau equipment, cars and construction material from the regional authorities. Over years, bricks were sent to Warsaw.

Resettlement

People from all over Poland moved in to replace the former German population in a process parallel to the expulsions. The settlers can be grouped according to their background:

• settlers from Central Poland moving voluntarily (the majority), more than half a million in 1950.
• Poles that had been freed from forced labor in Nazi Germany and Poles from other European countries, about 47,000 people.
• so-called "repatriants": Poles expelled from the areas east of the new Polish-Soviet border were preferably settled in the new western territories, where they made up 26% of the population (up to two million)
• non-Poles forcibly resettled during Operation Wisła in 1947. Large numbers of Ukrainians were forced to move from south-eastern Poland under a 1947 Polish government operation aimed at dispersing, and therefore assimilating, those Ukrainians who had not been expelled eastward already, throughout the newly acquired territories. Belarusians living around the area around Białystok were also pressured into relocating to the formerly German areas for the same reasons. This scattering of members of non-Polish ethnic groups throughout the country was an attempt by the Polish authorities to dissolve the unique ethnic identity of groups like the Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lemkos, and broke the proximity and communication necessary for strong communities to form. 53,000 people were forced to settle in the Szczecin Voivodship in 1947.
• Jewish Holocaust-survivors, most of them "repatriates" from the East, creating Jewish cooperatives and institutions – the largest community was founded in Szczecin (Stettin). About 30,000 Jews from the Soviet Union settled in the Szczecin Voivodship, but most emigrated soon after. Most had left Poland by 1968 due to communist governmental antisemitic campaign, with the first mass flight of Jews from Poland taking place as a consequence of postwar anti-Jewish violence culminating in the Kielce pogrom in 1946.
• since the 1950s, Greeks, Macedonians, and Roma people settled in the Szczecin Voivodship, with the Roma first sticking to their nomadic way of life.

Polish and Soviet newspapers and officials encouraged Poles to relocate to the west – "the land of opportunity".. These new territories were described as a place where opulent villas abandoned by fleeing Germans waited for the brave; fully furnished houses and businesses were available for the taking. In fact, the areas were devastated by the war, the infrastructure largely destroyed, suffering high crime rates and looting by gangs. It took years for civil order to be established.

The newly created society, first binational and multi-cultural, quickly became subject to homogenisation decreed by the state. This new Pomeranian society was tied to the Polish one, and failed to develop a local or regional identity.

Demography

In the fall of 1945, 230,000 Poles had settled in the Szczecin Voivodship, and more than 400,000 Germans remained.

In the spring of 1946, Polish and German population were about equal in number.

By the end of 1947, 900,000 Poles and 59,000 Germans lived in the Szczecin Voivodship.

German part of Pomerania

In May 1945, the armies of the Soviet Union and the western allies met east of Schwerin. Following the Potsdam Agreement, the western allies handed over the western part of Mecklenburg to the Soviets. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was established in July 9, 1945, per order Nr. 5 of Red Army marshal Zhukov, head of the Soviet administration (SMAD), as the Province of Mecklenburg and West Pomerania (sapadnoi Pomeranii).

The post-war period was characterized by the extreme difficulties arising from the need of housing and feeding the occupation forces as well as the refugees, while simultaneously state and private property was carried to the Soviet Union.

Furthermore, many of the towns had suffered severe war damages.

Demographical changes

During and after the war, the make-up of Mecklenburg and Vorpommern's population changed due to wartime losses and the influx of evacuees (mainly from the Berlin and Hamburg metropolitan areas that were subject to air raids) and people who fled and were expelled from the former eastern territories of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line, which became the eastern border of Mecklenburg Vorpommern. After the war, the population had doubled with more than 40% of the population being refugees.

Before the war, Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania had a population of 1,278,700, of whom many perished during the war and another share moved west in the course of the Red Army's advance. In October 1945, the authorities counted 820,000 refugees in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, of whom a number of 30,000 and 40,000 moved about without destination.

Before the war, the about 7,100 km2 of Vorpommern that would remain German were inhabited by about half a million people. After the war, 85,000 of these were either dead, had fled or were imprisoned. In 1946, the influx of 305,000 refugees raised the population to 719,000.

In 1946, the refugees in Vorpommern made up for 42,4% of the population. In the Stralsund and Grimmen counties, half of the population were refugees. The towns of Stralsund and Greifswald had the lowest rates of refugees.

More than half of the refugees in Vorpommern were expellees from the former eastern parts of the Province of Pomerania, the other ones were from any other former eastern territory. In 1947, some 1,426,000 refugees were counted in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 1 million of which was from post-war Poland. Most of them were settled in rural communities, but also the towns' population increased, most notably in Schwerin from 65,000 (1939) to 99,518 (January 1947), in Wismar from 29,463 to 44,173, and in Greifswald from 29,488 to 43,897.

In 1949, out of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's population of 2,126,000, refugees accounted for 922,088. Yet, many people - both refugees and pre-war locals - moved towards the western allies' occupation zones, causing the number of inhabitants to decrease within the following decades.

Land reform

Following the land reform of 1945/46, all farms larger than 100 ha were seized by the administration. Two thirds of the seized farms, making up for 54% of the overall seized farmland, were distributed among the refugees, who had become the majority in many rural communities. The remaining large farms not distributed among the population were run by the administration as so-called "People-owned farm" (Volkseigenes Gut, VEG).

After the reform, one out of two refugees was assigned to an own small farm.

The new partitions of land were usually of a size of five hectares.

Administration

In June 5, 1946, a law enacted by the Soviets led to the constitution of a provisional German administration (Beratende Versammlung) under Soviet supervision in June 29, 1946. After the unfree elections of October 20, 1946, a Landtag replaced the Beratende Versammlung and worked out the constitution of January 16, 1947, for the Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

In March 1, 1947, the state's name was shortened to Land Mecklenburg following a Soviet order. Earlier attempts by local politicians like Otto Kortüm, mayor of Stralsund, to have the Pomeranian part of the new state organized in a separate administrative subdivision such as "Regierungsbezirk Stralsund, or to have a representative of the state's administration in Greifswald had all failed."

Parties

In April 1946,the social-democratic party (SPD) party was forced by the communists and the SMAD (Soviet administration) to merge with the communist party (KPD), resulting in the creation of the SED, which in the following years would act on Moscow's behalf.

• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern within East Germany, black: 1947 border, red: 1990 border
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern dissolved (northern districts Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, 1947-1990
• In most of German Pomerania, it was not possible to receive West German TV programs (red area), thus referred to as "Tal der Ahnungslosen" ("dale of the unknowing")

Communist era

Polish part of Pomerania

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 Władysław Gomułka as the head of politburo. Poland developed the ports of Pomerania and restored the destroyed shipyards of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Szczecin.

These were organised as two harbour complexes: one of Szczecin port with Swinoujscie avanport and the other was Gdańsk-Gdynia set of ports. Gdańsk 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 Władysław Gomułka'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 Gdańsk, which allowed the country independent access to oil from OPEC countries. The new oil refinery had been built in Gdańsk, and an oil pipeline connected both with main Polish pipeline in Płock.

East German part of Pomerania

The part of Pomerania west of the Oder Neisse line was attached to Mecklenburg by a SMAD order of 1946 to form the Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This Land was renamed Mecklenburg in 1947, became a constituent state of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949 and was dissolved by the GDR government in 1952, when the East Berlin government abandoned "states" in favour of districts (German: Bezirke). The area of Western Pomerania was split into the eastern Kreis districts of the newly established Bezirk administrative GDR subdivisions Bezirk Rostock and Bezirk Neubrandenburg, Gartz (Oder) joined Bezirk Frankfurt (Oder). The administrative changes also made the historical border between Mecklenburg and Pomerania vanish from the maps.

The Pomeranian counties had already undergone changes in 1950: Randow county, recreated in 1945, was dissolved, the southern parts with Gartz (Oder) joined Brandenburg. Thus, Western Pomerania lost the last link with the Oder river, the historical eastern border. Ueckermünde county was renamed Pasewalk county and 22 Brandenburgian communities were merged in. The Pomeranian town Damgarten was fused with the Mecklenburgian town Ribnitz to Ribnitz-Damgarten, thus Western Pomerania's historical western border (Recknitz river, flowing between Ribnitz and Damgarten) vanished from the administrative maps.

In 1952, another county reform made other parts of the historical Mecklenburgian and Pomeranian frontier vanish from the maps. The name "Pomerania" was now only used by the Pomeranian Evangelical Church, which had to change this name in "Evangelical Church Greifswald" in 1968.

Throughout the 1950s, small farms including those created in the previous land reform were forced to group to Socialist-style LPG units. In 1986, 90 LPGs ran close to 90% of the farmland, in addition there were the state estates (VEG, "Volkseigenes Gut"). An LPG had an average size of 4,700, a VEG 5,000 hectares. Agriculture was characterized by huge fields up to a hundred hectares, the use of large machines and an industrial way to work. Fertilizer was in many cases applied by planes.

In Aktion Rose, private property of housing was turned over to the state. From this stock, various state organizations ran the GDR's seaside resort, serving 75% of the East German Baltic coast tourists.

The East German policy of industrialization led to the establishment of a nuclear power plant in Lubmin near Greifswald, the Stralsund Volkswerft shipyard, and the Sassnitz ferry terminal directly linking Western Pomerania to the Soviet Union via Klaipeda. The Volkswerft was the main industry of Western Pomerania with 8,000 employees. One third of the Soviet fish trawlers were build in Stralsund. Another shipyard set up during the Communist era was the Peenewerft in Wolgast, where East German navy ships were built. In Greifswald, industry constructing electronic supplies for the shipyards was settled, employing 4,000 people.

Democratic era

Polish part of Pomerania

File:Strike Gdansk 1980.jpg

In 1980, Polish Pomeranian coastal cities, notably Gdańsk, became the place of birth for the anticommunist movement, Solidarity. Gdańsk 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.

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.

German part of Pomerania

In October 1990, after the GDR regime was overthrown by the peaceful Wende revolution of 1989, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was reconstituted and joined the Federal Republic of Germany, with Vorpommern being a constituent region of the Bundesland with a special status, but not an administrative one. Since then, the region suffers from a population drain as mostly young people migrate to the West due to high unemployment rates.

Pomerania euroregion

The Pomerania euroregion was set up in 1995 as one of the euroregions, thought to connect regions divided between states of the European Union. The name EUROREGION POMERANIA is taken from the region of Pomerania, yet the euroregion is of a different shape than the historical region. It comprises German Western Pomerania and Uckermark, Polish Zachodniepomorskie, and Scania in Sweden.

Sources

• Werner Buchholz et al., Pommern, Siedler, 1999/2002, ISBN 3886807800, 576 pages; this book is part of the Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas series and primarily covers the history of the Duchy of Pomerania and Province of Pomerania from the 12th century to 1945, and Western Pomerania after 1945.
• Jan Maria Piskorski et al. (Werner Buchholz, Jörg Hackmann, Alina Hutnikiewicz, Norbert Kersken, Hans-Werner Rautenberg, Wlodzimierz Stepinski, Zygmunt Szultka, Bogdan Wachowiak, Edward Wlodarczyk), Pommern im Wandel der Zeiten, Zamek Ksiazat Pomorskich, 1999, ISBN 839061848. This book is a co-edition of several German and Polish experts on Pomeranian history and covers the history of Pomerania, except for Pomerelia, from the earliest appearance of humans in the area until the end of the second millennium. It is also available in a Polish version, ISBN 8391029107.

References

1. Tomasz Kamusella and Terry Sullivan in Karl Cordell, Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe, 1999, p.169: " christened so by the Polish communist-cum-nationalist propaganda", ISBN 0415173124, 9780415173124
2. Geoffrey Hosking, George Schopflin, Myths and Nationhood, 1997, p.153, ISBN 0415919746, 9780415919746
3. Joanna B. Michlic, Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, 2006, pp.207-208, ISBN 0803232403, 9780803232402
4. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes, 2005, pp.381ff, ISBN 0199253404, 9780199253401
5. Geoffrey Hosking, George Schopflin, Myths and Nationhood, 1997, p.153, ISBN 0415919746, 9780415919746
6. Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland, 1994, pp.64-65, ISBN 0271010843, 9780271010847
7. Dan Diner, Raphael Gross, Yfaat Weiss, Jüdische Geschichte als allgemeine Geschichte, p.164
8. Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt. Breslau nach 1945", 2006, p.344, ISBN 3570550176, 9783570550175
9. ^ Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.371, ISBN 839061848
10. ^ Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.373, ISBN 839061848
11. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.370,371, ISBN 839061848
12. BBC, Contributed by Audrey Lewis, The von Thadden Family in Pomerania (part six), Article ID: A8683130,
13. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.373,374, ISBN 839061848
14. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.374,375, ISBN 839061848
15. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.374,375, ISBN 839061848
16. ^ Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.381, ISBN 839061848
17. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.385,386, ISBN 839061848
18. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.386,387, ISBN 839061848
19. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.379, ISBN 839061848
20. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.379-381, ISBN 839061848
21. Geoffrey Hosking, George Schopflin, Myths and Nationhood, 1997, p.153, ISBN 0415919746, 9780415919746
22. Paczkowski, Andrzej (2003). "The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom". translation Jane Cave. Penn State Press. pp. p. 14. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
23. Geoffrey Hosking, George Schopflin, Myths and Nationhood, 1997, p.153, ISBN 0415919746, 9780415919746
24. Geoffrey Hosking, George Schopflin, Myths and Nationhood, 1997, p.153, ISBN 0415919746, 9780415919746
25. Martin Åberg, Mikael Sandberg, Social Capital and Democratisation: Roots of Trust in Post-Communist Poland and Ukraine, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003, ISBN 0754619362, Google Print, p.79
26. Geoffrey Hosking, George Schopflin, Myths and Nationhood, 1997, p.153, ISBN 0415919746, 9780415919746
27. Tomasz Kamusella in Prauser and Reeds (eds), The Expulsion of the German communities from Eastern Europe, p.28, EUI HEC 2004/1
28. Tomasz Kamusella in Prauser and Reeds (eds), The Expulsion of the German communities from Eastern Europe, p.28, EUI HEC 2004/1
29. Tomasz Kamusella in Prauser and Reeds (eds), The Expulsion of the German communities from Eastern Europe, p.28, EUI HEC 2004/1
30. Philipp Ther, Ana Siljak, Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948, 2001, p.114, ISBN 0742510948, 9780742510944
31. Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt. Breslau nach 1945", 2006, pp.363, ISBN 3570550176, 9783570550175
32. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.381,383, ISBN 839061848
33. BBC, WW2 - People's War, The von Thadden Family in Pomerania, part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten. Last three parts cover the Polish stage.
34. ^ Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.383, ISBN 839061848
35. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, pp.383,384, ISBN 839061848
36. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.384, ISBN 839061848
37. ^ Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, p.515, ISBN 3886802728
38. Karl Cordell, Andrzej Antoszewski, Poland and the European Union, 2000, p.167, ISBN 0415238854, 9780415238854
39. Dan Diner, Raphael Gross, Yfaat Weiss, Jüdische Geschichte als allgemeine Geschichte, p.164
40. Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt. Breslau nach 1945", 2006, p.344, ISBN 3570550176, 9783570550175
41. ^ Tomasz Kamusella and Terry Sullivan in Karl Cordell, Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe, 1999, pp.175ff, ISBN 0415173124, 9780415173124
42. Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt. Breslau nach 1945", 2006, p.344, 349, ISBN 3570550176, 9783570550175
43. Dan Diner, Raphael Gross, Yfaat Weiss, Jüdische Geschichte als allgemeine Geschichte, p.164
44. Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt. Breslau nach 1945", 2006, p.520, ISBN 3570550176, 9783570550175
45. Karl Cordell, Andrzej Antoszewski, Poland and the European Union, 2000, p.166, ISBN 0415238854, 9780415238854
46. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.399, ISBN 839061848
47. Karl Cordell, Andrzej Antoszewski, Poland and the European Union, 2000, p.168, ISBN 0415238854, 9780415238854: 2.8m of 4.55m in the first years (whole western territories)
48. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.403, ISBN 839061848
49. Dierk Hoffmann, Michael Schwartz, Geglückte Integration?, p142
50. Karl Cordell, Andrzej Antoszewski, Poland and the European Union, 2000, p.168, ISBN 0415238854, 9780415238854: 1.5m of 4.55m in the first years (whole western territories)
51. ^ Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.406, ISBN 839061848
52. Dierk Hoffmann, Michael Schwartz, Geglückte Integration?, p142
53. Karl Cordell, Andrzej Antoszewski, Poland and the European Union, 2000, p.168, ISBN 0415238854, 9780415238854: 1.55m of 4.55m in the first years
54. Thum, p.129
55. Selwyn Ilan Troen, Benjamin Pinkus, Merkaz le-moreshet Ben-Guryon, Organizing Rescue: National Jewish Solidarity in the Modern Period, pp.283-284, 1992, ISBN 0714634131, 9780714634135
56. Thum, p.127 + p.128
57. Selwyn Ilan Troen, Benjamin Pinkus, Merkaz le-moreshet Ben-Guryon, Organizing Rescue: National Jewish Solidarity in the Modern Period, pp.284ff, 1992, ISBN 0714634131, 9780714634135
58. Karl Cordell, Andrzej Antoszewski, Poland and the European Union, 2000, p.168, ISBN 0415238854, 9780415238854
59. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.379, ISBN 839061848
60. Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.407, ISBN 839061848
61. ^ Jan M Piskorski, Pommern im Wandel der Zeit, p.402, ISBN 839061848
62. Brunner, Detlev, Inventar der Befehle der Sowjetischen Militäradministration Mecklenburg (-Vorpommern) 1945-1949 in Texte und Materialien zur Zeitgeschichte 12, 2003, ISBN 3-598-11621-7
63. ^ Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, p.518, ISBN 3886802728
64. Beatrice Vierneisel, Fremde im Land: Aspekte zur kulturellen Integration von Umsiedlern in Mecklenburg und Vorpommern 1945 bis 1953, 2006, p.11, ISBN 3830917627, 9783830917625
65. ^ Beatrice Vierneisel, Fremde im Land: Aspekte zur kulturellen Integration von Umsiedlern in Mecklenburg und Vorpommern 1945 bis 1953, 2006, p.12, ISBN 3830917627, 9783830917625
66. Heinrich-Christian Kuhn, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Der Bürger im Staat, "Die Bundesländer", Heft 1/2, 1999
67. Beatrice Vierneisel, Fremde im Land: Aspekte zur kulturellen Integration von Umsiedlern in Mecklenburg und Vorpommern 1945 bis 1953, 2006, p.13, ISBN 3830917627, 9783830917625
68. Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, pp.518,519, ISBN 3886802728
69. ^ Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, p.519, ISBN 3886802728
70. ^ Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, p.521, ISBN 3886802728
71. ^ Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, pp.521,522, ISBN 3886802728

• History of Germany by location
• History of Poland
• History of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern