Boundaries and Identity of Central Europe: Changing Concepts

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Boundaries and Identity of Central Europe: Changing Concepts. by Hans Lemberg

Half a century ago the prominent Polish Historian Oskar Halecki discussed in his landmark study the “limits and divisions of European History”.1 What he really did was to define the boundaries between Central Europe and the Eastern, orthodox part of Europe. In doing so he stood at the cross road between a discussion of the twenties and early thirties of our century on the meaning of East European History and a se- ries of future make ups of this dispute, which is alive until our days, when on the pages of the Journal “Osteuropa” historians mostly of the younger generation discuss the significance of academic study of East European History in its German tradition and connotation. Halecki’s book is, moreover, a document of his time, written in the era of beginning Cold War between what was called “East and West” of Europe, and his fatherland being embedded in the Eastern, Soviet hemisphere instead of - where it belonged to by all its historical roots: to Old Europe, if not to East Central Europe, a term which Halecki himself used in his book and, by the way, defended it against the indeed dubious term of Central Eastern Europe (Europe Centro-Orientale, Mittel- osteuropa),2 which alas, fifty years later, had to become a common place in the offi- cial jargon of European Union.

Already in 1923 young Halecki had opened the discussion on “Eastern Europe” at the fifth International Congress of Historical Sciences with a communication on “L’histoire de l’Europe Orientale. Sa division en époques, son milieu géographique et ses problèmes fondamentaux”.3 It was in this paper that Halecki presented his ob- servation, that Eastern Europe was divided in two parts: Poland belonged as now as in history to the Western part, whereas Soviet Russia - which was at that time in a catastrophic state - was the Eastern part of this region. This perception was discussed and modified during the VII. International Congress of Historical Sciences in War- saw in 1934, where the 15th section was dedicated to the definition of East European history. By the way this was the same section number under which we are discussing

1 OSKAR HALECKI: The Limits and Divisions of European History. London–New York 1950 (German translation: Darmstadt 1957). 2 Ibid, German edition, p. 113. 3 OSKAR HALECKI: L’histoire de l’Europe Orientale. Sa division en époques, son milieu géographique et ses problèmes fondamentaux. In: La Pologne au Ve Congrès International des Sci- ences Historiques à Bruxelles 1923. Varsovie 1924, pp. 73–94. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 2 now at the XIX. congress, 67 years later, the quite similar topic of Central Europe, although in the Warsaw discussion of 1933 the term Central Europe has not explic- itly been mentioned.4

I do not intend to define anew the meaning of what is to be understood by Central or Eastern Europe, even if this discussion is alive to-day again; this dispute has been revitalised after the revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this paper is as well not to continue deliberating about what might be or not be „Mitteleuropa“. The history of this notion has been pointed out many times, and especially what regards this notion seen by e.g. German Geographers during the last two centuries the diagnosis is rather deterrent.5

The sober definitions by the historians Klaus Zernack6 or Rudolf Jaworski7 are more down to earth: The one putting “Ostmitteleuropa” as region of a specific and relative long lasting domiation of estates in modern history, the other one more in pursuing the historical development and the political implications of „Mitteleuropa“.

This paper will concentrate mainly on 20th century, but not without looking back to the predispositions and changes of the centuries before; and I will ask, which specific functions might have had boundaries for Central Europe and its identity.8

In this communication the interest may leave aside the outer “limits” of Central or East Central Europe, which may be understood as the region of pre-modern estate system with its liberties9 (that is above all Poland, the Bohemian Lands and Hun-

4 HANS LEMBERG: Mitteleuropa und Osteuropa. Politische Konzeptionen im Spiegel der Histo- rikerdiskussion der Zwischenkriegszeit. In: Mitteleuropa-Konzeptionen in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ed. R.G. PLASCHKA et al., Wien 1995 (= Zentraleuropa-Studien. 1), pp. 213-220. 5 HANS-DIETRICH SCHULTZ: Deutschlands „natürliche“ Grenzen. „Mittellage“ und „Mitteleu- ropa“ in der Diskussion der Geographen seit dem Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15 (1989), pp. 248-281. 6 KLAUS ZERNACK: Osteuropa. Eine Einführung in seine Geschichte. München 1977, passim. 7 For the Discussion of the last two decades cf. RUDOLF JAWORSKI, Die aktuelle Mitteleuropa- Diskussion in historischer Perspektive, in: Historische Zeitschrift 247 (1988), pp. 529-550; TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Mitteleuropa, aber wo liegt es? In: Transit 16 (1998/99), pp. 133 ff.; JÜRGEN ELVERT: Mitteleuropa! Deutsche Pläne zur europäischen Neuordnung 1918-1995. (Historische Mitteilungen. Beiheft 35), Stuttgart 1999. 8 Cf. HANS LEMBERG: Grenzen und Minderheiten im östlichen Mitteleuropa - Genese und Wechselwirkungen. In: Grenzen in Ostmitteleuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Aktuelle Forschungs- probleme, ed HANS LEMBERG. (Tagungen zur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. 10), Marburg 2000, pp. 159-181. For further literature cf. IDEM: Arbeitsbibliographie, ibid., pp. 247 ff. 9 KLAUS ZERNACK: Osteuropa (see above, note 6); such is the delimitation of “Geisteswissen- schaftliches Zentrum Kultur und Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas” in Leipzig. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 3 gary), or without Hungary, but inclusively the Baltic Lands.10 The content of these concepts may also change depending on the topic of the research or of the time dealt with. The interest of this paper is on the political boundaries and on their function; their changing concepts through the centuries accompany the development of the societies from a pre-modern to the concept of a homogeneous national state of our century, and, possibly, on the question what is specific in them for Central Europe.

It may just shortly be mentioned, that even the notion of boundary, in German “Grenze”, goes back to Slavonic origins. The word “granica” is to be found for the first time in documents of Germania Slavica as special term for a linear boundary. From there the word and the conception of linear border has penetrated to nearly the whole extension of German language, superseding also the older concept of “Mark”, that is of broader or narrower frontier zones.11

The modern concept of Grenze, of linear boundary, has been implemented in the 16th and 17th centuries in the context of coming into existence of the modern territorial state, of superioritas territorialis. By then, states have been defined by the triplicity of state people, state authority, and state territory. There is no doubt, that state territories are surrounded and defined in their proper sense by the state frontier. These frontiers or borders have been shifted, territories have been divided or united, or parts of state territories have been annexed by other states, in most cases on the real or pretended grounds that there are historical-legal foundations for these shifts.12

It was then only in the age of enlightenment, that a new, presumably rational principle for boundary definition came into existence: The “natural borders”. It was Mon- tesquieu, who taught that every state has its “limites naturelles” which were to be the real measures for state boundaries - and not their delimitation by old and dusty privileges.13 The state may expand until these natural limits - trespassing these would be a breaking of this natural law. In a way this idea was tailor-made for France, and

10 As in the Herder-Institut, Marburg. 11 HANS-WERNER NICKLIS: Von der „Grenitze“ zur Grenze. Die Grenzidee des lateinischen Mittelalters (6.–15. Jh), in: Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 123 (1992), pp. 1–30. 12 DIETMAR WILLOWEIT: Rechtsgrundlagen der Territorialgewalt. Landesobrigkeit, Herrschafts- rechte und Territorium in der Rechtswissenschaft der Neuzeit. Köln-Wien 1975 (Forschungen zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte. 11),esp. pp. 274 ff.; see also: HANS MEDICK: Grenzziehung und die Her- stellung des politisch-sozialen Raumes. Zur Begriffsgeschichte und politischen Sozialgeschichte der Grenzen in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Grenzland. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutsch-deutschen Grenze, ed. B. Weisbrod. Hannover 1993, pp. 195-211. 13 N.J.G. POUNDS,: The origin of the idea of natural frontiers in France, in: Annals. Association of American Geographers 41 (1951), pp. 146-57; IDEM: France and "Les limites naturelles" from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, in: Ibid. 44 (1954), pp. 51-62. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 4 indeed in Napoleonic times the attaining of the natural boundaries of Ocean and Py- renees, of Alps and Rhine-Maas seemed to fulfil the vision.

The definition of natural borders whatsoever in Central and Eastern Europe made considerable difficulties. With only rare exceptions as the Düna in 18th, the Oder- Neiße in 20th century or the “natural” ranges from the Sudetens to the Carpathians or in South Europe some parts of Save or Danube, the Balkan range or the Drina, the argument of natural boundaries could only play a minor part.

Albeit for this Region of Europe there has been another element than ranges or rivers which could function as “natural borders”: the ethnicity (Volkstum), defined above all by unity of language. Invention of ethnicity (or language) borders in the role of natural ones marks the beginning of 19th century German national movement. There has been at that time a characteristic German anti-French propagandistic campaign as constituent part of German romanticist thought stating that river borders are useless (aiming against the French identification of the Rhine as natural border of France), but language borders seemed to be truly “natural”. Therefore from that time on - it was the epoch of shifting weights towards the ethnically founded, modern nation - there has been a broad range of nationality maps being produced, most of them following implicit or explicit political aspirations.14 This is a means for political propaganda down to our days. And from there the device of “Ein Volk, ein Reich” (one ethnic nation, one Empire) has not been far away.

For more than a century - down to World War I - the two principles conflicted with each other: the traditional one of historical legitimacy, and the more recent principle of modern, ethnic nationhood, neither of them gaining absolute superiority. The de- bates in 1848 Frankfurt parliament demonstrated the competing standpoints. In traditional societies, above all in the estates milieu, the idea of historical legitimacy pre- vailed; modern egalitarian national movements tended to the ethnic principle. The fierce dispute between Samarin and Schirren in the Baltic provinces of Russian Em- pire in the sixties of 19th century were classic examples for this conflict which did not in the first line concern frontiers but the beginning metamorphosis of a privileged

14 ALEXANDER DEMANDT: Die Grenzen in der Geschichte Deutschlands, in: Deutschlands rd Grenzen in der Geschichte, ed. ALEXANDER DEMANDT, 3 ed. München 1993, pp. 9–31. - JOHANNES DÖRFLINGER: Sprachen und Völkerkarten des mitteleuropäischen Raumes vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in die 2. Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, in: 4. Kartographiehistorisches Colloquium, Karlsruhe 1988. Vor- träge und Berichte, ed. WOLFGANG SCHARFE, HEINZ MUSALL und JOACHIM NEUMANN. Berlin 1990, pp. 183–195; GUNTRAM HENRIK HERB: Under the map of Germany. Nationalism and Propaganda 1918–1945. London, New York 1997, esp. pp. 8–12. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 5 estate to a modern ethnic minority under the pressure of an Empire changing itself from a dynastic to a national state.15

The conflict between modern nationalists and the adherents of historic legitimacy in regard to inner and outer boundaries was strong down into late 19th and even 20th centuries. A remarkable figure in this regard is the argumentation about “historical state rights”. It can be observed with the Czech or the Croatian national movements which in parts adhered to this ideological figure. The Hungarian efforts to regain historical rights against Habsburg centralism had been successful in 1867, when Regnum Hungariae regained a considerable autonomy in the Eastern part of the now dualistic Empire.16

Czech bourgeois politicians in a sort of imitative action adapted the traditional argumentation of the Czech Nobility’s country territorial patriotism (Landespatriotismus) and requested in their turn the “historical rights” of the lands of the St. Wenceslaus’ Crown in just applying this argument to the interests of modern Czech national movement: in identifying Czech nation and Bohemia. Bohemian Lands should gain similar autonomy as Hungary did, and so they would be that particular state in the Habsburg empire, where Czech population would hold a firm majority. Against this state right concept the Germans set their demand for a more modern solution in terms of national principle: to divide the Bohemian lands along an ethnic borderline. The purpose of this demand was to avoid the menace of the constant minority role in Bo- hemian Lands. Czech politicians denounced this aim as “Landeszerreißung” (tearing of the country).17

These alternative motivations (historical legitimacy, and democratic self determination) were used by the two national movements in the Bohemian Lands so similar to each other, the Czechs and the Germans. Both were fighting for their concept of future shape of Bohemian lands with its alternative borders - historical or ethnic ones, but in both cases with strictly national purposes - albeit fighting in parliamentary

15 HANS LEMBERG: Der Weg zur Entstehung der Nationalstaaten in Ostmitteleuropa, in: Osteu- ropa zwischen Nationalstaat und Integration, hrsg. v. Georg Brunner, Berlin 1995 (Osteuropa- forschung. Schriftenreihe der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde. 33), pp. 45-71 16 OTTO URBAN: Die tschechische Gesellschaft 1848–1918, Bd. 1, Wien-Köln-Weimar 1994 (Anton Gindely Reihe zur Geschichte der Donaumonarchie und Mitteleuropas. 2), pp. 278 ff. passim; see also: JAN KR!EN: Die Konfliktgemeinschaft. Tschechen und Deutsche 1780–1918. München 1996 (Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum. 71). 17 HELMUT SLAPNICKA: Die Stellungnahme des Deutschtums der Sudetenländer zum „Historis- chen Staatsrecht“, in: Das böhmische Staatsrecht in den deutsch-tschechischen Auseinandersetzungen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, hrsg. v. ERNST BIRKE und KURT OBERDORFFER. Marburg/ Lahn 1960, pp. 15–41. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 6 speeches and in newspaper articles but without weapons. Until the Great War neither of these conflicting parties, neither Czech state rightists nor German Land dividers, attained their goals, but tension especially in Bohemia was running high; even the diet was dissolved . It was only during the War, that both of them under the new and seemingly almighty principle of self determination of nations, felt near to the reali- zation of their goals.

Although the radical change of boundaries in East Central Europe is specific for this region after World War I, we must keep in mind, that this change had precursors in South East Europe some decades before, when the Ottoman Empire began to crum- ble at its Balkan outskirts. The foundation of Christian national states in South East Europe was something new for the rather stable European system after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the following decades only one new state came into existence in the West of Europe: Belgium. It was - with this exception - only in South Eastern Europe, that new states emancipated themselves from Empires in 19th century Europe: Greece and Serbia early in the century and with slowly growing position, and much later the other Balkan States: Romania and Bulgaria - all emerging from the weakened Balkan outpost of the Ottoman Empire.

When this model was being applied to Central Europe, it immediately was nick- named by the pejorative term of „balkanization“. Anyway, this abusive name was at first applied to Central Europe, and so - may it seem paradox - the so-called Balkani- zation is a Central European phenomenon.18

During World War I a rather obscure Swiss anthropologist, Georges Montandon, published a brochure in which he rightly predicted an age of national states after the War. To ensure a lasting peace under these circumstances, he proposed to provide the new states with borders well to defend and - which seemed to him most important - with an ethically homogeneous population. National and ethnic minorities would not to be tolerated; they were to be transferred to the national state of their own.19

In some respects Montandon’s predictions were fulfilled after 1918. Indeed, a broad range of new national states came into existence on the ruins of the conservative puissances de l’est. Even if a good deal of expertise was invested for delimitation of boundaries, when in doubt, the new state borders were painted by the victors at the

18 Edgar Hösch: Die “Balkanisierung” - Vor- und Schreckbilder der Entstehung neuer National- staaten. In: Grenzen in Ostmitteleuropa, ed. Lemberg (see above, note 8), pp. 79-94. 19 GEORGES MONTANDON: Frontières nationales: Détermination objective de la condition pri- mordiale nécessaire à l'obtention d'une paix durable, Lausanne 1915. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 7 expense of the losers. And, as envisaged Montonadon, within the new national states there was a distinct difference between titulary state nations on one hand and on the other hand national minorities, which in every state had a considerable share of the whole population. Yet the drastic remedy against ethnic mixture and for homogeni- zation of national states proposed by Montandon was avoided from the beginning: The new international system protected minorities, so neither an “unmixing of peo- ples” by means of population transfer or exchange nor forceful assimilation were permitted. And the international system of the Paris Peace treaties of 1919 also pre- vented - for time being - any changes of boundaries. So, during the twenties and until the mid-thirties there were many complaints from the minorities, albeit generally they were being systematically protected.20

It was only in the remote south eastern periphery of Europe, that a new model was being created by the Balkan powers Greece and Turkey with strong allied assistance: By the Treaty of Lausanne 1923 a compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey was agreed upon just to stop the horrors of fierce expulsion and flight of so many people;21 and this solution - even if very imperfect - was looked at in the thirties and forties as a proven pattern for liquidation of otherwise unsolvable minority problems, a pattern however suitable better for the Near East than for Cen- tral Europe.22

The seemingly stable system of state frontiers in Europe established by the Paris Peace Conference was threatened from the mid-thirties by Hitler’s Germany who began to destroy the Paris international order. Seemingly, Hitler aimed at the estab- lishment of a homogeneous and complete national state under the motto of “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”. The first steps in this direction (the Saar, the Anschluß of Austria and even the treaty of Munich) were tolerated by the guarantee powers of the Paris system who saw in these acts a certain correction of faults of the peacemak- ers of 1919. This fault was commonly seen in the ethnically mixed structure of national states; especially since the Sudeten crisis minorities were seen per se as the reason for international conflicts.

20 Cf. the articles on protection of minorities in: Ostmitteleuropa zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen (1918-1939). Stärke und Schwäche der neuen Staaten, nationale Minderheiten, ed. HANS LEMBERG. Marburg 1997 (Tagungen zur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. 3). 21 STEPHEN P. LADAS: The Exchange of Minorities. Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, New York 1932. 22 JOHN S. STEPHENS: Danger Zones of Europe. A study of National Minorities London 1929 (Merttens Lecture on War and Peace. 3), Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 8 So, from the mid-thirties onwards, additionally to the instruments of minority protection, which seemed to fade away in these years of league of nation crisis, of assimilation (a more and more hopeless concept) and of unmixing of populations by exchange, another remedy was being experienced, which seemed taboo from Paris Conference on: Adaptation of frontiers to the extent of ethnic boundaries.23

This receipt, however, seemed - after the “Anschluss” of Austria to Hitler’s “Groß- deutsches Reich” inapplicable to Germany’s new neighbour Italy. There were the South Tyrol Germans in Northern Italy, but shifting the Brenner line southward seemed to be out of the question in regard to axis friendship. So the Lausanne model was reactivated, now for the first time in Central Europe. German South Tyrolians had to decide whether to opt for Italy (and become italianised) or to be transferred to Germany or - Hitler’s New Order had begun to gain pace - to German occupied territories. The German-Italian frontier, however, remained stable.

The more or less voluntary population transfer solution, agreed upon by international treaties, was from there on and above all after Hitler’s speech in the Reichstag of October 9th, 1939, effectuated in not less than 15 treaties with East European states inclusive the Soviet Union and with numerous “Umsiedlungen” of German population groups “heim ins Reich”, the Baltic Germans being the most numerous group of them. It must be stated, that even in Hitler’s mentioned speech, the ideology preva- lent (apart from racist thought) was the same as everywhere: Minorities are an evil and a source of steady conflicts; they had to be eliminated; national states had to be homogeneous.

At the same time (in October 1939) a fundamental change began in Nazi policy in regard to boundaries and minorities: the SS took over the organisation of settlement in the whole of German occupied territories. In the first, victorious phase of the War the concept of homogenisation was thrown overboard in favour of imperialistic ex- pansion of the Reich without regard on local populations.

Boundaries were more and more of secondary value, after the German attack on So- viet Union the boundaries especially in the East got the character of inner boundaries

23 For the following cf.: HANS LEMBERG: "Ethnische Säuberung": Ein Mittel zur Lösung von Nationalitätenproblemen? In: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parla- ment. B 46/92, 6. November 1992, pp. 27-38; Reprint in: Mit unbestechlichem Blick... Studien von Hans Lemberg zur Geschichte der böhmischen Länder und der Tschechoslowakei. Festgabe zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed, FERDINAND SEIBT, JÖRG K. HOENSCH, HORST FÖRSTER, FRANZ MACHILEK and MICHAELA MAREK. München 1998 (Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum. 90), pp. 377–396. - NORMAN NAIMARK: Das Problem der ethnischen Säuberung im modernen Europa, in: Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung 48 (1999), pp. 317–349. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 9 of a potentially unlimited Greater Germanic “Ostraum”. The problem was now no more how to unite all Germans in one Reich but to refill the enormously extended German frontiers with German or quasi-German, at least superficially re-germanised population. Most efforts in this direction were futile, as was the construction of a gigantic German “land bridge” from the Baltic territories to Transylvania or the ex- perimental region of Zamos"c", where Polish population was expelled in favour of a new settlement of pseudo-German Ukrainians or polonised descendants of 18th century German settlers etc. The situation became so evidently unfavourable in the light of the Greater German doctrine, that from 1943 on, nationality maps were banned from German school atlases.

Generally speaking, from the beginning of World War II on, the conflicting organi- sations and institutions of Nazi Germany in the field of population transfers, depor- tations of work force, resettlement policies etc. generated an inhumane chaos or an over-organisation which included the murderous system of concentration and exter- mination camps. It had, then, more and more lost sight of the former aim of homogenisation of national states in Central Europe.24

On the other hand, allied post war planning (in the first war years concentrated ex- clusively in London, since 1941 also in contacts with the new allies Soviet Union and USA) was more traditional in regard to boundaries and minorities questions. From the early years of war, but not later than 1941, when Soviet interests had to be con- sidered, there have been consequently developed plans of planning groups and special committees how to delineate borders in Eastern and Central Europe with the aim to secure peace after the war better than this was the case in the thirties. For this purpose, state frontiers had to be shifted mainly in the interest of recompense for Po- land’s losses in the East, which seemed to be irrevocable, by cutting off German territories (mainly East Prussia and parts of Pomorania and Silesia).25

24 Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan, ed. CZES#AW MADAJCZYK et al., München 1994. - ROLF-DIETER MÜLLER: Hitlers Ostkrieg und die deutsche Siedlungspolitik. Die Zusammenarbeit von Wehrmacht, Wirtschaft und SS. Frankfurt am Main 1991 (Fischer Taschen- buch.10573); MICHAEL G. ESCH: „Gesunde Verhältnisse“. Deutsche und polnische Bevölkerungspoli- tik in Ostmitteleuropa 1939–1950. Marburg 1998 (Materialien und Studien zur Ostmitteleuropa- Forschung. 2). For the connection of settlement policy and Holocaust cf. GÖTZ ALY: „Endlösung“. Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden, Frankfurt am Main 1995. 25 LEMBERG: Grenzen (see above, note 8); DETLEF BRANDES: Großbritannien und seine osteu- ropäischen Alliierten 1939–1943. Die Regierungen Polens, der Tschechoslowakei und Jugoslawiens im Londoner Exil vom Kriegsausbruch bis zur Konferenz von Teheran. München 1988 (Veröffentli- chungen des Collegium Carolinum. 59). - Forthcoming: IDEM: „Transfer“: Pläne und Entscheidungen zur Vertreibung der Deutschen (und Magyaren) aus der Tschechoslowakei, Polen und Ostdeutschland 1939–1945 (Monography). Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 10 On the other hand, in the view of British planning staffs, national minorities, being seemingly the main source of conflict, had strictly to be avoided. So it is fascinating to observe, how consequently every relocation of a boundary line was connected with removals of minorities. When, e.g., German Polish boundary line was planned to be moved westward, quite mechanically the removal of German population from new Polish territory was included.

On similar tracks went the discussion of revision of Munich frontiers in Czechoslo- vak exile government. Here, too, restoration or modification of former Czechoslovak territory was tensely connected with expulsions of German Population of Czechoslo- vakia, the Sudeten Germans supposedly being the grave diggers of pre-war Czecho- slovakia. Here, additionally to the motive of homogenisation, the elements of collec- tive guilt and punishment came into discussion.26

It may seem significant in regard to the importance of ethnic cleansing avant la let- tre, that the argument of punishment for Nazi crimes was not estimated in British Foreign office: it would mean to leave non-guilty German populations in the Central European states and by that the perpetuation of minorities which had to be avoided as far as possible.

The victory of the Anti-Hitler-Coalition redressed state frontiers in Central and East- ern Europe and fulfilled the plans for liquidations of national minorities to a large degree and by the means of enormous and compulsory population transfers, mostly of Germans to the West, but also of Poles, Ukrainians and other nationalities.27

In the outcome, the boundaries of the Central European states, after World War II, were partly restored to the status quo before the war, but in some significant cases, especially the borders of Poland in the West, the North and the East, there have been new and hitherto unprecedented border delineations. They came into existence not by peace treaties but by rather unorthodox methods of establishing faits accomplis: In the East of Poland the Hitler-Stalin Border of September 1939 was preserved, and in the West - at the Oder-Neisse-Line, which was not precisely envisaged in the post war planning by the allies, a quick blow by Polish troops created a sort of military

26 HANS LEMBERG: Die Entwicklung der Pläne für die Aussiedlung der Deutschen aus der Tschechoslowakei, in: Der Weg in die Katastrophe. Deutsch-tschechoslowakische Beziehungen 1938- 1947, hrsg.v. Detlef Brandes u. Václav Kural, Essen 1994 (Veröfftl. des Instituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa. 3), pp. 77-92; Reprint in: Mit unbestechlichem Blick... (see above, note 23), pp. 343–360. 27 Tomás! Stane!k: Odsun Ne!mcu$ z C%eskoslovenska 1945–1947, Praha 1991; forthcoming: “ „Unsere Heimat ist uns ein fremdes Land geworden“. Die Deutschen östlich von Oder und Neiße 1945-1950. Ed. W#ODZIMIERZ BORODZIEJ, HANS LEMBERG, Marburg 2000. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 11 border in June, 1945, so that the Potsdam conference in August stood before established facts.

Even if the Polish western frontier has no precedents, it was justified by historical reasons. The “ziemie odzyskane [regained territories]” - so the ideological reasoning - had been germanised during the last centuries, but attaining this border line by pres- ent Poland was to signify the return to thousand years old polish matrimony; a doctrine which has been prepared by the “Polish western thought” of the inter war times. Such ideologemes were possible by the combination of communist rule after 1945/1948 with traditional nationalist historising elements stemming from the ro- mantic phase of central and East European national movements, reinforced by the times of German oppression.28

The doctrine or the fiction, that after World War II ethnically homogeneous national states have been installed in Central and Eastern Europe was so strong, that even after the Great population exchange remaining minorities have been widely sup- pressed or even denied, as was the case in Poland, where the remaining German minority in Silesia and elsewhere has been declared as “autochthone population”. It was only after 1990 that German citizens of the Polish Republic were granted full political rights.

Generally speaking, boundary disputes between Central and East European states have ceased after 1948 under the device of pax sovietica, of “socialist friendship of nations”. This long lasting era overshadowed the fact, that immediately after the war there have been some serious boundary disputes between Czechoslovakia and Poland and even between the German communists and Poland concerning the German East- ern Territories. This has been settled by the formation of the Warsaw Treaty and the COMECON.

Indeed, if we look for an interrelation between Central European identity and boundaries, we may during the second half of 20th century find a border line of a type before unseen: The so called Iron Curtain. This is a very specific Central Euro- pean Phenomenon.29 If we leave aside the Norwegian- and Finno-Soviet Section of this border on one hand and the Greek- and Turko-Bulgarian one and of course the maritime sectors of the Baltic and the Adriatic Seas, the Iron Curtain really cut

28 E. DMITRÓW: Niemcy i okupacja hitlerowska w oczach Polaków. Pogla&dy i opinie z lat 1945-1948. Warszawa 1981. 29 Bruchlinie Eiserner Vorhang. Ed. MARTIN SEGER and PAL BELUSZKY, Wien 1993; DIETMAR SCHULTKE: Keiner kommt durch... Die Geschichte der innerdeutschen Grenze 1945-1990. Berlin 1999. Oslo-Lemberg.Stand: 16.06.2000, 14:26 • c:\programfiler\adobe\acrobat 4.0\acrobat\plug_ins\openall\transform\temp\s15_4_2l_paper.doc • 12 through the two German States and continued between Germany-Austria-Italy on one side and Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia on the other one. Some parts of this Border had historical roots going back to the Middle Ages, as e.g. the Bohe- mian-Bavarian Boundary, others were quite unprecedented, as the Oder-Neisse-Line. The Yugoslav part of the Curtain was at most times not Iron in proper sense. So this Borderline in its heterogeneity, but also in its insuperability for several decades, became really part of Central European Identity, and its aftermath is even to-day, when it has become difficult to find its remainders here and there. Nearly half a century in two different socio-economic and mental systems have left its durable traces in this region after its fall: It leaves behind the problems of transformation and of numerous trans-boundary “Euroregios”30, and the long lasting and often splitted identity between former West and former East oft Central Europe.

In my paper I tried to find out some interconnections between Central European Identity and the historicity of frontiers. Some of these traits are common with other historical regions, others are specific. But it is the complex of functions and boundary phenomena,31 which makes it part of Central European Identity.

30 STEFAN KRÄTKE, SUSANNE HEEG, ROLF STEIN: Regionen im Umbruch. Probleme der Re- gionalentwicklungen an den Grenzen zwischen Ost und West. Frankfurt/M. and New York 1997; Regionen an deutschen Grenzen. Strukturwandlungen der ehemaligen innerdeutschen Grenze und an der deutschen Ostgrenze. Ed. FRANK-DIETER GRIMM, Leipzig 1995. 31 Cf. recent methodological approaches, as e.g.: JÓZEF CHLEBOWCZYK: Sprachlich-nationale Grenzräume in Ostmitteleuropa im 18.–20. Jahrhundert. Probleme ihrer Entwicklungsmerkmale. In: La Pologne au XVe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques à Bucarest. Etudes sur l'histoire de la culture de l'Europe centrale-orientale. Hrsg. v. Stanis#aw Bylina. Wroc#aw u.a. 1980, pp. 241– 262; HANS MEDICK: Grenzziehung und die Herstellung des politisch-sozialen Raumes. Zur Begriffs- geschichte und politischen Sozialgeschichte der Grenzen in der Frühen Neuzeit. In: Grenzland. Bei- träge zur Geschichte der deutsch-deutschen Grenze. Ed. BERND WEISBROD. Hannover 1993, pp. 195– 211; The Geography of Border Landscapes, ed. DENNIS RUMLEY and JULIAN MINGHI, London, New York 1991; cf. also the contributions to: Grenzen in Ostmitteleuropa, ed. LEMBERG (see above, note 8).