Karol Marian Pospieszalski

I I V KAROL MARIAN POSPIESZALSKI . L DOCUMENTA O OCCUPATIONIS V THE CASE OF 58,000 VOLKSDEUTSCHE An investigation into Nazi claims regarding losses among the German minority in Poland before and during the September Campaign THE CASE OF 58 000 “VOLKSDEUTSCHE”: AN INVESTIGATION INTO NAZI CLAIMS REGARDING LOSSES AMONG THE GERMAN MINORITY IN POLAND BEFORE AND DURING THE SEPTEMBER CAMPAIGN DOCUMENTA OCCUPATIONIS VII KAROL MARIAN POSPIESZALSKI THE CASE OF 58 000 “VOLKSDEUTSCHE”: AN INVESTIGATION INTO NAZI CLAIMS REGARDING LOSSES AMONG THE GERMAN MINORITY IN POLAND BEFORE AND DURING THE SEPTEMBER CAMPAIGN POZNAŃ INSTITUTE FOR WESTERN AFFAIRS 1959 Reprint of the 1959 edition Original title: Sprawa 58 000 „Volksdeutschów” Sprostowanie hitlerowskich oszczerstw w sprawie strat niemieckiej mniejszości w Polsce w ostatnich miesiącach przed wybuchem wojny i w toku kampanii wrześniowej Editorial team: Bogumił Rudawski (editor) Monika Jania-Szczechowiak (proofreading) Anzelma Kwiatkowska (proofreading) Maciej Grochowski (graphic design) Translation from Polish into English: Graham Crawford Thomas Anessi Krzysztof Kotkowski © Copyright by Instytut Zachodni PL ISSN 0860-4142 ISBN 978-83-61736-88-2 Poznań 2019 The publication was prepared thanks to co-financing by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities within the project “Doc- umenta Occupationis Instytutu Zachodniego, t. I-VIII” (31H 13 0173 82). CONTENTS New Introduction �� VII I. Nazi propaganda about the persecution of Germans in Poland and its after-effects . 1 II. Nazi diversion in Poland before and during the 1939 September Campaign . 6 III. Claims about the alleged murder of 62,000 Volksdeutsche in the months preceding the outbreak of war . 16 IV. Claims about the alleged murder of 58,000 Volksdeutsche during the September campaign . 21 V. Losses among the German minority in Poland in September 1939 in the light of the records of the central graves office in Poznań . 28 VI. Conclusions . 45 APPENDIX DOCUMENTS GERMAN FIFTH COLUMNS IN POLAND I. German Documents �� 47 II. Polish Accounts . 57 ACTIVITIES OF THE CENTRAL GRAVES OFFICE I. Creation of the Office . 81 II. Secret Instructions. 82 III. The Number of Cards in the Index . 87 IV. Accounts of Volksdeutsche Combatants �� 92 V. Card Index of Dead Soldiers . 102 VI. Card Index of Missing Soldiers . 119 VII. Card Index of Dead Civilians . 163 VIII. Card Index of Missing Civilians. 178 IX. List of Freikorpskämpfer Killed �� 202 Polish Name of Towns . 227 V NEW INTRODUCTION “Sprawa 58 000 Volksdeutschów” (“The case of 58,000 Volks- deutsche”) by Karol Marian Pospieszalski was first published by the Institute for Western Affairs of Poznań in 1959, as Volume VII in the series Documenta Occupationis. Made up of merely forty pages (also in its English translation) and large annexes, the book played a significant role in Polish-German relations. It contributed to a complaint against respected West German academic literature for highly exaggerating the estimated losses which ethnically German citizens of Poland suffered at the hands of Poles in September 1939. The second edition of Pospieszalski’s work appeared in 1981. While the documentation part was unchanged, the publisher added a brief, half-page Foreword to the second edition, as well as a twen- ty-page Afterword, together with its translation into English. The fact that the issue came out in a bilingual format brought it into international circulation. However, neither of the two issues contained information on Karol Marian Pospieszalski himself. Born in 11 September 1909 in Bremen to a Polish-German family, he lived in Berlin with his parents until he moved to Poznań in 1919. He completed legal studies at the University of Poznań, worked as a court assessor (in Ostrów Wielkopolski and Poznań), and later as a judge in Tczew. After the war broke out, he returned to Poznań, only to be deported to the General Government soon afterwards, in December 1939, together with his parents and siblings. He spent nearly all of the occupation in Częstochowa. While still in Poznań, in November 1939, Pospieszalski joined the secret organisation Ojczyzna, established by people of a national democratic background. On 22 June 1941 in Warsaw, he attended a meeting establishing Studium Zachodnie (the Western Studies Institute) within the framework of the Polish Underground State. In December 1944, Studium Zachodnie gave rise to the Institute for Western Affairs, which was also set up in secrecy. Pospieszalski worked in the Institute for many years after the war ended. VII In his underground activities, Karol Marian Pospieszalski en- gaged in checking the German propaganda claims regarding the circumstances in which Poland was invaded. In a pamphlet titled Z pierwszej linii frontu (From the Front Line) published secretly in Warsaw in March 1943 (co-authored by Kirył Sosnowski and Al- eksander Rogalski), Pospieszalski took his first stance on the Nazi propagandists’ effort to pin on the Poles the blame for the alleged murders of nearly 60,000 members of the German minority1. Karol M. Pospieszalski’s other focal point was the situation (par- ticularly the legal situation) of Poles in the territories incorporated into the Reich in the autumn of 1939. Immediately after the war, he published a number of scholarly articles on the topic. Even in September 1945, Pospieszalski obtained a doctoral degree with the dissertation “Stanowisko prawne narodu polskiego pod okupacją niemiecką na Ziemiach Zachodnich Rzeczypospolitej” [“Legal situation of the Polish nation under the German occupation in the Western Territories of the Republic of Poland”]. In 1946, the In- stitute for Western Affairs published a monograph titled “Polska pod niemieckim prawem 1939-1945 (Ziemie Zachodnie)” [“Poland under German law 1939-1945 (Western Territories)”], which ended up being used by Poland’s representatives in the trials of prominent German criminals in Nuremberg. Pospieszalski appeared as an expert in the trials of German criminals, including that of the Governor of the Wartheland Arthur Greiser. From 1945 onwards, he worked at the Poznań Institute for Western Affairs (heading the documentation section, subsequently transformed into a unit in charge of investigating the history of the German occupation) and at the Faculty of Law and Economics of the University of Poznań. In 1948, he obtained a second degree doctor- ate, which was nevertheless not recognised by the Ministry of Econ- omy. It was not until the thaw of 1955 that he was able to become a deputy professor, then docent in 1956 and associate professor in 1957. From 1957, he headed the German State Law Section at the Institute for Western Affairs, renamed the Section of German State and Law in 1961. Karol Marian Pospieszalski’s problems resulted from his world views. Pospieszalski distanced himself from communist ideology, 1 A reprint of the work appeared in November of the same year in Glasgow. VIII while maintaining strong links with circles associated with the Catholic Church. In the late 1940s, he was constantly observed by the Security Office, and apprehended for a brief time in 1952. The Security Office unsuccessfully attempted to recruit him. In the late 1960s, Pospieszalski again felt the fallout from his ideological choic- es. In August 1966, months after he refused to sign a statement of protest by Institute for Western Affairs employees, drawn up on the initiative of party activists, against a letter by Polish bishops to German bishops (November 1965), he was forced to leave the In- stitute for Western Affairs, the official excuse being that he was not allowed to hold two positions. He remained at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań although his application for the title of full professor was blocked by the Poznań branch of the Regional Com- mittee of the Polish United Workers Party. In 1974, Pospieszalski was barred from running the Faculty of Law. He was reinstated in this position in 1979. Up until his death (on 19 February 2007 in Poznań), he worked with the Institute for Western Affairs, although such cooperation became very limited in the final years of his life. In 2005, Pospieszalski received Honorary Citizenship of the City of Poznań. His other distinctions included the Knight’s Cross and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta2. In 1951, Pospieszalski completed the preparation of the records of the so called Central Graves Office (Zentrale für die Gräber der ermordeten Volksdeutschen), which was established by the Germans after the conclusion of the campaign in Poland. The text, based on materials found as early as autumn 1945 in Poznań3, remained in the form of a typescript. It was not until 1959 that the text could finally appear in print. It was published in a substantially extended version as Volume VII of Documenta Occupationis. As a matter of fact, Karol Marian Pospieszalski co-authored the series published by the Institute for Western Affairs4. For some 2 B. P. Wróblewski, Karol Marian Pospieszalski (11 September 1909 – 19 Fe- bruary 2007), „Kwartalnik Historyczny”, CXV, 2008, 1, pp. 157-160. 3 Pospieszalski found the materials of the so called Central Graves Office (including a complete index of the dead and missing) in the library of the Regional Office of Poznań.

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