Did Kresy Poles prefer to be resettled in the Recovered Territories or did they prefer to be resettled elsewhere?

[gebhk]

The risk of Ostdeutschland is that it could always be absorbed back into Westdeutschland, so any concessions that the Soviet Union will make towards it could eventually end up benefitting Westdeutschland.

The problem with that argument is that the absorption of East Germany into West Germany was only going to happen over the USSR's cold dead corpse or at least it's end-stage coma, by which time Poland would almost certainly be lost too and the problem would be a Polish one, not a Soviet/Russian one - as indeed turned out in practice. However, as WM points out, most folk would not be thinking about this in such objective detail....

Interestingly in this context, am I right in thinking that the 1990 German–Polish Border Treaty was the first time since the war that Germany formally and explicitly renounced its territorial claims to any parts of present-day Poland and finalised the Oder-Neisse line as the boundary? This presumably was on top of the more general amendments to the German constitution in the run-up to unification, that limited Germany to present-day territories and thus made her no longer open to further expansion into former eastern territories that were now within the borders of other states (Poland, Russia and Lithuania). This, presumably, implies that prior to 1990 Germany was open to expansion eastwards?

[Futurist]

This, presumably, implies that prior to 1990 Germany was open to expansion eastwards?

Yes, I believe so.

[wm]

What caused them to stop?

They ran out of Poles. Most of the expelled from Eastern Borderlands people were transferred to the Recovered Territories by the end of 1946.

[Futurist]

Did Poles from central Poland continue moving into the Recovered Territories beyond 1946, though?

[wm]

Certainly, but in realatively insignificant numbers.

[Futurist]

How insignificant? Less than 100,000? Less than 50,000?

[wm]

I suppose it was 10,000 at best.

[Futurist]

Per year?

[wm]

In total.

[Futurist]

Wow!

[wm]

After the initial "stampede" there was no good reason to move there unless you were a farmer, member of the underground, Jew, or a criminal.

The largest cities were destroyed, many towns too. The infrastructure, especially the buildings were seriously decapitalized (they were mostly built in the 19th century - I think the decapitalization was about 80 percent.)
The place wasn't any tzimmes.

[Futurist]

I thought that the infrastructure was subsequently rebuilt by the Poles who moved there?

[wm]

You're doing that again, assuming that money grows on trees.
The Communists didn't have money for that; they destroyed the economy pursuing their own utopia.

They rebuilt - slowly, even in the eighties they were ruins in centers of cities and towns.
And destroyed a lot - by neglect, by incompetence.

This palace in 1945:

and 15 years later:

The wages of communism is destruction.

[Futurist]

Technically speaking, though, if you're a Communist, you don't actually need money to rebuild; rather, all you need is to force people to work.

[gebhk]

Hi WM

You seem to be spoiling a valid argument with a very poor example. The above photographs of Schloss Koppitz are clearly not from 1945 and 1958. I do not believe the German owners of estate had time or the inclination to produce painstakingly tinted picture greetings postcards while they were frantically getting ready to flee the advancing Soviets in January-February 1945. The picture is clearly from happier times, probably pre-WW2 and does not in any way represent the state of the building received by Polish authorities in 1945 after Soviet soldiers had ransacked the place for a number of months.

between 1945 and 1958 it was tidied up and served as a holiday resort for school children. In that year a devastating fire, the effect of arson by person or persons unknown, swept through the building causing most of the damage seen now. Local wisdom has it that the authorities were responsible.... indirectly. Some of the buildings were being used for warehousing agricultural produce by a local gang of black marketers. Before a scheduled stock check and inspection by the authorities, alarmed by the inexplicable disappearance of large amounts produce could take place, the castle conveniently burned to the ground. If we blame the communist authorities for this then we must equally condemn the capitalist government of France for the Notre Dame fire, to give just one example of very many What was left that wasn't nailed down, was lifted by locals over time - not that there was much after the Siviets had been through it.

When communism ended, things didn't get better - arguably worse. A succession of owners, rather than restoring it as they had contracted to do, continued degrading the building albeit on a grander scale, with entire structures being removed. I would suggest that the second photograph is of a much more recent date than the '15v years after 1945' you suggest (for one thing in 1958 the lake had been drained; one of the reasons it proved impossible to contain the fire) and represents the accumulated destruction of both communist and capitalist (mis)management. In the 30 years since communist government ended, precisely as much has been done to restore the building to its pre 1958 state, as was made in the 32 years of communist rule - that is, next to nothing of any consequence. The only differences were that firstly, in 1958, the government had very many, more pressing building priorities than restoring historical whimsies. Secondly the petty thieves that filched from the estate in communist times would have been punished if caught by the authorities, while afterwards those degrading the building did so openly and with little fear of any consequences.