© 2010 Peter Polak-Springer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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© 2010 Peter Polak-Springer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MAKING ‘RECOVERIES’: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF TERRITORIAL APPROPRIATION IN A POLISH- GERMAN INDUSTRIAL BORDERLAND, 1922-1953 by PETER POLAK-SPRINGER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In Partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History Written under the direction of Professor Belinda Davis __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2010 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Making “Recoveries”: The Cultural Politics of Territorial Appropriation in a Polish-German Industrial Borderland, 1922-1953 By PETER POLAK-SPRINGER Dissertation Director: Professor Belinda Davis The present dissertation examines the development of a Polish-German transnational political culture of contesting and nationally appropriating a common territory over a three-decade time span. It is based on the case-study of the Upper Silesian Industrial District, an area that underwent three border re-drawings between 1922 and 1950. First, it focuses on how the bilateral national “cold war” over this borderland during the interwar era spurred the cultivation of revanchist discourses, acculturation programs, symbolic landscapes, and particular groups of Polish and German elites devoted to agitating for the territory. Second, it explores how these factors served as the supporting and legitimating basis of war- and postwar-era violence and ethnic cleansing that occurred in this borderland, as well as the totalitarian-minded regimes that promoted it. Third, it examines the transnationally interactive character of rivaling Polish and German revanchist cultural politics, the bilateral contestation of nationalization efforts, and the influence each rivaling side had on the other. Finally, it also examines the contestation of state efforts to construct national landscapes and minds at the local level and the impact that this contest had on the ultimate fate of nationalization efforts. ii Drawing heavily on archival records and multimedia published primary sources, this dissertation focuses on a broad range of acculturation efforts as well as a number of agents and governments coordinating them. It examines the revanchist politics of Polish and German centrist governments, the Sanacja, German National Socialist, and Polish Communist regimes, as well as how these governments mobilized a constant set of Polish and German border activist groups to do their bidding. The prime concern here is on an analysis of a multifarious range of cultural-political policies and acculturation projects, including the use of architecture and landscape development for nationalization politics, the manipulation of folk culture (music, costume, religious practices and festivals), the coordination of adult education programs, and the promotion of culturally racist discourses of the “other.” The transnational contestation of these and other nationalization policies, their reception at the local level, and how they served as counterparts to ethnic cleansing-oriented population politics, are likewise a strong concern of the investigation here. iii DEDICTATION To William S. Franz, Dear Friend & Teacher iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The extensive research work that I devoted to this dissertation would not have been possible without generous financial support from my sponsors. I would like to thank the United States Education Department, the Social Science Research Council, the Freie Universität in Berlin, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation & American Council of Learned Societies. I am also grateful to Dan Klemen and Susanna Treesh at the Rutgers Center of European Studies for generously providing me with a spacious office to write up this dissertation. More individuals have helped and inspired me during the work on this project than I have room to mention here. Foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Belinda Davis, for her tireless editing, her support and council on this project and all academic as well as many personal matters during the last half-decade. I am likewise very grateful to Paul Hanebrink for all his advisement and support over the years. I would also like to thank Jochen Hellbeck and Eagle Glassheim for their help with this project and their service as readers. Many of the ideas for this dissertation came from the pre-ABD stage of graduate studies, a time in which I had a wealth of support and company from the Rutgers History Department and the wider university community. For their help with administrative matters as well as obtaining and managing outside fellowships, I would like to thank Dawn Ruskai, Teresa Delcorso, Simona Turcu, Gary Buschhorn, and Harvey Waterman. I am likewise grateful for the intellectual stimulation and company of my professors and colleagues, including Andrew Daily, Darcie Fontaine, Jennifer Miller, and Bonnie Smith. Likewise, I thank my undergraduate mentor, Vivian R. Gruder, for her advice and support over the years. v During the research stages of this work I benefitted greatly from discussions at summer seminars such as the 2006 Transatlantic Institute in German Studies, a workshop in Wrocław in 2006 sponsored by the Zeit-Stiftung, and as well as the Berlin Program of 2008-9. I would like to thank organizers and co-participants at these forums for their assistance, including Karin Goihl, Padraic Kenney, and Jeffrey Saletnik. While working in the web of institutes in the Upper Silesian Industrial District, I would surely have been lost had it not been for invaluable assistance from a number of excellent scholars. I am particularly grateful to Grzegorz Bębnik, Adam Dziurok, Ryszard Kaczmarek, Tomasz Kamusella, Bernard Linek, Aleksandra Namyslo, Piotr Przybyła, and Sebastian Rosenbaum. On the German side of the border, I would like to thank Simon Donig, Michael Esch, Juliane Haubold-Stolle, Gregor Thum, and Philipp Ther for their help with this project. In Moscow, I would surely never have accomplished the research I did if not for the generous aid and warm hospitality of Katja Roshina. I owe an eternity of gratitude to my parents, especially for their support over the graduate school years. I would also like to thank the Polacy and Borysławscy of Lower Silesia and the Springer of Mecklenburg for all their support and warm company. My dearest companion from the Polish-German border, Katrin, has been as married to this project over the years as she has been to me. I want to thank her for moving to Poland and Germany with me during the field work stage. Her love, friendship, and inspiration have been the driving force behind all my academic endeavors. I dedicate this dissertation to William S. Franz, author, artist, martial arts teacher, as well as man of character, wit, and defiance. In our two decades of close friendship, from no one have I learned more about courage, independent thinking, and the spirit of passion. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract..........................................................................................................................ii. Dedication......................................................................................................................iv. Acknowledgement...........................................................................................................v. List of Images…………………………………………………………………………viii. Index of Commonly Used Place Names…..……………………………………………ix. Index of Abbreviations………………………………………………………………….x. Maps…………………………………………………………………………………….xi. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1: The “Real” Upper Silesian ……………………………………...................30 Chapter 2: Celebrating Revanchism, 1922-1934……………………………………..103 Chapter 3: Keeping Up With the Joneses, 1926-1939………………………………..180 Chapter 4: Giving “Polish Silesia” a “German” face, 1939-44 ……………………....269 Chapter 5: Territorial Appropriation and the “Saddling of the Cow,” 1945-53……....366 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….458 Images………………………………………………………………………………....471 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..508 Curriculum Vitae ……………………………………………………………………...529 vii LIST OF IMAGES 1.1: The Silesian Insurgent’s Monument in Królewska Huta........................471 1.2: Unveiling of the Silesian Insurgent’s Monument...................................472 1.3: Insurgent’s Monument in Chorzow.........................................................473 1.4: Plaque Commemorating the Polish-German war of 1921……………...474 1.5: “Beuthen O/S, das Bollwerk” Propaganda Pamphlet…………..............475 3.1 & 3.2: Voivodeship Government Building……………...………............476 3.3: The House of Enlightenment...................................................................477 3.4: The Silesian Technical Scientific Works………………………….........478 3.5: Administration Offices Building………………………………………..479 3.6: The Skyscraper…………………………………………………….........480 3.7: The „Skyscraper” set in the urban landscape of Katowice………….......481 3.8: The Cathedral…………………………………………………………...482 3.9: Upper Silesian Regional Museum…………………………………........483 3.10: Silesian Museum Building………………………………………..........484 3.11: Silesian Museum Building………………………………………..........485 3.12: The Water Tower in Ratibor…………………………………………...486 3.13: Reich Memorial Atop the Mount of St. Anne…………………….........487 3.14: Reich Memorial Atop the Mount of St. Anne with Amphitheater.........488 3.15: Wooden Church from the 14th century…………………………….......489