Belonging to the Nation: Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1939–1951

John J. Kulczycki

Published by Harvard University Press 2016

Belonging to the Nation

Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1939–1951

John J. Kulczycki

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674969551

Overview
Contents

About this book

In 1939 Nazis identified Polish citizens of German origin and granted them legal status as ethnic Germans of the Reich. After the war Poland did just the opposite: searched out Germans of Polish origin and offered them Polish citizenship. John Kulczycki’s account underscores the processes of inclusion and exclusion that mold national communities.

Reviews

Belonging to the Nation is required reading for anyone wishing to understand the contentious re-engineering of European societies after the Second World War. Kulczycki’s magisterial account is the first systematic treatment in English of the enormously complicated and hotly contested question of how to deal with several million people with connections to Polish language and culture who had nonetheless spent the war classified as ‘ethnic Germans.’ Were they Poles who had been misidentified as Germans or rather Germans now potentially being mistaken for Poles? Kulczycki carefully tracks the fierce arguments and oscillating policies generated by this attempt to pin down national identities, demonstrating that the question of who belonged to the nation was never definitively answered.
-- James E. Bjork, author of Neither German nor Pole

The complicated ambiguities and ambivalences in national affiliations—their exigencies, constraints, and sometimes surprising pragmatics—have recently inspired some of the best work on the twentieth-century nationality conflicts of east-central Europe. A wise and seasoned specialist in the Polish experience of German rule, Kulczycki now brings this lens to the Polish-German borderlands under successive regimes of occupation, with characteristically revealing and important results.
-- Geoff Eley, author of Nazism as Fascism

Kulczycki has written a fine examination of the origins of the idea to purify nations and its application during and after the Second World War, a process that resulted in the resettlement of many interwar Polish citizens in Germany. Kulczycki seeks to show how the stories of those who left Poland for West Germany in the 1950s do not easily fit the narrow categories of expulsion or economic migration…Kulczycki has written an engaging and deeply informative account of nationalization policies in the German-Polish borderlands. The book presents many of the findings of German and Polish scholars of the last twenty years in English and will be helpful to advanced students and scholars alike. Judicious and fairly written, the book reminds readers that the need to respect the cultural variety of the region remains relevant to this day.
-- Winson Chu H-Net Reviews

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Maps Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	viii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Disputed Polish-German Borderlands Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
2. The German Occupation of Poland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
3. The Creation of a New Poland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
4. The Recovered Lands and Their Inhabitants Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
5. The Prologue to Polonizing Identities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
6. The Initial Polish Government Nationality Measures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
7. After the Potsdam Conference Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
8. The Central Government and Nationality Verification Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
9. The Rehabilitation of Volksdeutsche in 1946 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
10. A Year of Crucial Changes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
11. Nationality Policies Following the End of Mass Expulsion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
12. The Status of Autochthons at the End of 1949 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
13. The Last Phase of Nationality Verification and Rehabilitation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	284
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	300
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	387
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	389

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages
- Main content: 416
Illustrations
- Other: 3 maps, 9 tables

eBook

Published: March 28, 2016
ISBN: 9780674969551