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Polish Corridor (Template:Lang-de; Template:Lang-pl, województwo pomorskie) was a term used for the interwar Pomeranian Voivodeship, linking the Second Republic of Poland to the Baltic. In the course of the reestablishment of the previously partitioned Polish state as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, the "corridor" was set up from the bulk of the dissolved former province of West Prussia, comprising Pomerelian areas and the Chelmno (Kulmer) Land, thereby cutting Germany off her province of East Prussia and the Free City of Danzig. The term was first used by Polish politicians, translated into German and used international, later criticised by Polish politicians as a German nationalistic one.

Background

Giving Poland access to the sea was one of the guarantees proposed by the United States President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points of 1918. The thirteenth of Wilson's points was:

An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

Rationale

The transfer of this territory to Poland in 1920 was justified on these grounds:

• Historical: The area had at various times been a part of Poland from the 10th century until 1772. After the Peace of Thorn (1466), it became part of the Polish-Lithuanian union as Royal Prussia. Over 300 years later it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia during the First Partition of Poland in 1772.

• Economic and political: It was argued that if the newly independent Polish state did not have an outlet to the Baltic Sea, it would be economically and therefore politically dependent on Germany. Since the United Kingdom and France wanted a strong Polish state as a counter-weight to Germany, they accepted this argument.

• Ethnic: As argued by Antoni Abraham, Polish delegate to the Versailles Conference, most of the population of the region was Polish (in the area on the west bank of the Vistula, between Danzig (Gdańsk) and Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), including Kashubians (the direct descendants of the medieval West Slavic tribe of Pomeranians) in the coastal area north-west of Danzig.

Ethnic composition

Most of the area was inhabited by Poles and Germans. Yet, after its creation in 1919, the percentage of the German population in the corridor had dropped from 42,5% (421,029 Germans) in 1910 to 18,8% (175,771) in 1921. Over the next decade, the German population decreased by another 70,000 to a share of 9,6%. Also, there was a significant Kashubian population and a Jewish minority.

The 1920s

In the post-World War I period, the primarily German-speaking seaport of Danzig (Gdańsk) became the Free City of Danzig and was placed under the protection of the League of Nations, without consulting the local populace. After the seaport workers of the Free City of Danzig harbour went on strike throughout the Polish-Soviet War the Polish Government decided to built a new seaport at Gdynia in the territory of the Corridor. A large part of the German population of the Polish Corridor left the area after its cession to the Second Polish Republic had been published in June 1919. Poland took over complete control on January 20, 1920. Those people, who wanted to stay in their hometowns had to take Polish citizenship, as Poland refused to accept German citizens living in its territory. Former public officials were not accepted as Polish citizens and had to leave the area. Other people, declining to give up German citizenship, had also to leave the Corridor. Due to the reduced population German schools were closed and property of former Germans residents was confiscated.

Throughout the East Prussian plebiscite in July 1920 Polish authorities tried to prevent traffic through the Corridor, interrupting any postal, telegraphic and telephonic communication. On March 10, 1920, the British representative on the Marienwerder Plebiscite Commission, H.D. Beaumont, wrote of numerous continuing difficulties being made by Polish officials and added "as a result, the ill-will between Polish and German nationalities and the irritation due to Polish intolerance towards the German inhabitants in the Corridor (now under their rule), far worse than any former German intolerance of the Poles, are growing to such an extent that it is impossible to believe the present settlement (borders) can have any chance of being permanent.... It can confidently be asserted that not even the most attractive economic advantages would induce any German to vote Polish. If the frontier is unsatisfactory now it will be far more so when it has to be drawn on this side (of the river) with no natural line to follow, cutting off Germany from the river bank and within a mile or so of Marienwerder, which is certain to vote German. I know of no similar frontier created by any treaty."

Due to these difficulties, ongoing after the East Prussian Plebiscite ended with a significant German success, the German Ministry for Transport established the Seedienst Ostpreußen ("Sea Service East Prussia") in 1922 to provide a ferry connection to the German exclave of East Prussia, independent on the transit through Polish territory.

In 1925 the Polish government enacted a land reform program intending to expropriate landowners. While 39 percent of the agricultural land of the Corridor area was owned by Germans, the first annual list of properties to be reformed included 10,800 hectares from 32 German landowners and 950 hectares from seven Poles. The wojewode of Pomorze, Wiktor Lamot, stressed that “the part of Pomorze through which the so-called corridor runs must be cleansed of larger German holdings”. The coastal region “ must be settled with a nationally conscious Polish population.. Estates belonging to Germans must be taxed more heavily to encourage them voluntarily to turn over land for settlement. Border counties, ... particularly a strip of land ten kilometers wide, must be settled with Poles. German estates that lie here must be reduced without concern for their economic value or the views of their owners.” Prominent politicians and members of the German minority were the first to be included on the land reform list and whose property was attached.

Throughout the 1920s and especially the 1930s, according to German propaganda, German planes and buses were reported to have been shot at by Polish police and militia while passing through or flying over the Polish Republic's territory on their way to or from German East Prussia.

The creation of the corridor aroused great resentment in Germany, and all post-war German Weimar governments refused to recognize the eastern borders agreed at Versailles. The German statesman Gustav Stresemann, for instance, known for his policy of conciliation with the Western Allies, several times declared that Germany's eastern borders would have to be revised, and refused to follow Germany's acknowledgment of its western borders in the Treaty of Locarno of 1925 with a similar declaration with respect to its eastern borders..

Nazi Era

The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, took power in Germany in 1933 . Hitler at first ostentatiously pursued a policy of rapprochement with Poland, culminating in the ten year Polish-German Non-Aggression Pact of 1934. In the coming years, Germany placed an emphasis on rearmament, as did Poland and other European powers. Regardless, the Nazis were able to achieve their immediate goals without provoking armed conflict; in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria and the Sudetenland after the Munich Agreement. In October 1938, Germany tried to get Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. Poland refused, as the alliance was quickly becoming a sphere of influence for an increasingly powerful Germany.

Following negotiations with Hitler for the Munich Agreement, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain reported that, "He told me privately, and last night he repeated publicly, that after this Sudeten German question is settled, that is the end of Germany's territorial claims in Europe". Almost immediately following the agreement, however, Hitler reneged. 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.

The situation regarding the Free City and the Polish Corridor created a number of headaches for German and Polish Customs. The Germans requested the construction of an extra-territorial highway (Berlinka) and railway through the Polish Corridor, connecting East Prussia to Danzig and Germany proper. Poland agreed on building a German highway and to allow German railway traffic. However, no agreement was reached concerning the Free City of Danzig.

This seemed to conflict with Hitler's plans and with Poland's rejection of the Anti-Comintern Pact, his desire to either isolate or gain support against the Soviet Union. German newspapers in Danzig and Nazi Germany played an important role inciting nationalist sentiment; headlines buzzed about how Poland was misusing its economic rights in Danzig and German Danzigers were increasingly subjugated to the will of the Polish state. At the same time, Hitler also offered Poland additional territory as an enticement, such as the possible annexation of Lithuania, the Memel Territory, Soviet Ukraine and Czech inhabited lands. However, Polish leaders continued to fear for the loss of their independence and a shared fate with Czechoslovakia, although they had also taken part in its partitioning. Some felt that the Danzig question was inextricably tied to the problems in the Polish Corridor and any settlement regarding Danzig would be one step towards the eventual loss of Poland's access to the sea. Nevertheless, Hitler's credibility outside of Germany was very low after the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

In 1939, Nazi Germany made another attempt to renegotiate the status of Danzig; the city was to be incorporated into the Reich while the Polish section of the population was to be "evacuated" and resettled elsewhere. Poland was to retain a permanent right to use the seaport and the route through the Polish Corridor was to be constructed. However, the Poles distrusted Hitler and saw the plan as a threat to Polish sovereignty, practically subordinating Poland to the Axis and the Anti-Comintern Bloc while reducing the country to a state of near-servitude. Additionally, Poland was backed by guarantees of support from both the United Kingdom and France in regard to Danzig.

A revised and less favorable proposal came in the form of an ultimatum made by the Nazis in late August, after the orders had already been given to attack Poland on September 1 1939. Nevertheless, at midnight on August 29, Joachim von Ribbentrop handed British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson a list of terms which would allegedly ensure peace in regard to Poland. Danzig was to return to Germany and there was to be a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor; all Poles who were born or settled there since 1919 would have no vote, while all Germans born but not living there would. An exchange of minority populations between the two countries was proposed. If Poland accepted these terms, Germany would agree to the British offer of an international guarantee, which would include the Soviet Union. A Polish plenipotentiary, with full powers, was to arrive in Berlin and accept these terms by noon the next day. The British Cabinet viewed the terms as "reasonable," except the demand for a Polish Plenipotentiary, which was seen as similar to Czechoslovak President Emil Hácha accepting Hitler’s terms in mid-March 1939.

When Ambassador Józef Lipski went to see Ribbentrop on August 30, he was presented with Hitler’s demands. However, he did not have the full power to sign and Ribbentrop ended the meeting. News was then broadcast that Poland had rejected Germany's offer.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and German forces captured the corridor during the Battle of Tuchola Forest by 5 September. Other notable battles were at Westerplatte, the Polish post office in Danzig, Oksywie, and Hel. After occupation by Nazi Germany a census was made by German authorities in December 1939. 71% of people declared themselves as Poles, 188,000 people declared Kashubian as their language, but from them 100,000 declared themselves Polish.

Postwar era

At the 1945 Potsdam Conference following the German defeat in World War II, Poland's borders were reorganized at the insistence of the Soviet Union, which occupied the entire area. Territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, including the corridor and Danzig, were put under Polish administration. East Germany recognised this border in 1953, West Germany recognised it with the Treaty of Warsaw (1970), and re-unified Germany did so in 1990 with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany.

In literature

In The Shape of Things to Come, published in 1933, H.G.Wells predicted the Corridor as the starting point of a future Second World War.

References

1. Hartmut Boockmann, Ostpreussen und Westpreussen, Siedler 2002, p. 401
2. The text of Woodrow's Fourteen Points Speech
3. page 244 (Appendix B. German Population of Western Poland by Province and Country)
4. Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939, University of Kentucky Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8131-1803-4
5. God’s Playground. A History of Poland. Bd. 2. 1795 to the Present. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005. ISBN 0199253390, ISBN 0199253404
6. Butler, Rohan, MA., Bury, J.P.T.,MA., & Lambert M.E., MA., editors, Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, 1st Series, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1960, vol.x, Chapter VIII, "The Plebiscites in Allenstein and Marienwerder January 21 - September 29, 1920", p.726-7
7. Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939, University of Kentucky Press, 1993, p. 113
8. Marching Toward War: Poland
9. http://filebox.vt.edu/users/efalwell/sovietprop/stalin3.html
11. Document no. 9
12. The Polish Resistance and the German Press Campaign (August 1-19)
13. Anna M
14. The Polish Resistance and the German Press Campaign (August 1-19)
15. The Polish Resistance and the German Press Campaign (August 1-19)
16. The German-Polish Crisis (March 27-May 9, 1939)
19. The Polish Resistance and the German Press Campaign (August 1-19)
20. Anna M
21. Avalon Project : The French Yellow Book : No. 113 - M. Coulondre, French Ambassador in Berlin, to M. Georges Bonnet, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Berlin, April 30, 1939
23. Anna M

• Aftermath of World War I
• History of Poland (1918–1939)