Polish territory?

[michael mills]

As to the Treaty of Thorn 1466, and the subsequent status of Royal Prussia, I have stated the source from which I derived my information. It was a pro-Polish source by an American scholar, who in turn had derived it from a Polish historian who is hardly likely to have taken an anti-Polish position.

Windward quoted a Polish translation of the Latin text of the Treaty, which did not prove that the above material was incorrect.


Here is a site that gives a non-chauvinist German view of the history of West Prussia, including the Second Treaty of Thorn.

http://home.t-online.de/home/glee-family/History.html

[Galicia]

Look, simply, if a country or culture had it's own way, regardless of which culture or country we are refering to, it would own the entire world if it had the chance.

The Poles have thought, (well, most of them at least since we seem to have sympathetic ones on this board), for hundreds of years that the Ukrainians were servant peasants. They thought they could own Galicia, Lithuania, etc. for the next couple hundred years after 1919 as well. As long as the Poles don't want to repress the Ukraine, (or insult their National icons, regardless of their personal opinions...), I frankly have no problems with them. We're probably interrelated.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Komitet Narodowy Polski, (or the Polish National Committee), headed by a Roman Dmowski. When he gave Wilson the boarders, (which he had generously cut down), President Wilson exclaimed, "You have presented me with a map which claimed half the world!" This is the type of person with whom I have a problem with. He stalled the entire Paris conference so he could get his way, (granted, according to my literature, which is somewhat Nationalistic):

"...demanding all of Galicia, half of Czecoslovakia's Teschen Region, the Kingdom of Poland, (or Poland's borders c. 1815 formed by Tzar Alexander I), the Russian provinces of Rivne, Vilnius, Grodno, Volyn, the Minsk Province, the German provinces of Posen, West Prussia, Upper Silesia, and most of Eastern Prussia." (Logusz, 32)

It escalated further, when a young Lieutenant, Stephan Bonsal, reported the following to President Wilson,

"...that the Ukrainian problem is the most complicated of many with which the Conference is confronted. There are probably 45 million of these vigorous and interesting people, all hitherto held in leash, indeed often under the lash, by half a dozen alien rulers." (Bonsal, p. 135)

Lt. Bonsal was of French Extraction, and his literature should therefore not be considered Nationalist.

To quote, "The Poles should get not too much, but not too little." I think that this stands today with the world's current borders.

[Feanor]

michael,
I assume the posts addressed to "Windward" are in fact addressed to me:

I would challenge Windward to find any passage where I have asserted a German claim in the present to the territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, or suggested that they be returned to Germany.

OK then, then we have no argument, so what was all that about?

I do not bewail the territorial changes wrought by the exercise of naked power, or shed tears over the populations that were displaced or destroyed thereby, whatever their ethnicity.

Well, saying things like (emphases are mine):

Obviously, for Feanor, the self-determination of the overwhelming German majority in those territories, all 11.5 million of them, counts for nothing... and the people living in those territories clearly wanted to remain part of Germany. ...inadmissibility of determining the present status of territories on the basis of who lived there one thousand years ago, rather than according to the wishes of the people who live there now and have lived there for several centuries.

suggest that you do, but I'll take you at your word.

What I do object to is mealy-mouthed hypocrites refusing to admit that those actions were an exercise of naked power, and try to dress them up in dishonets phrases like "return of territory", "historic rights" etc.

Ok michael, now I challenge YOU to find any reference in my posts about how these territories became Polish because God suddenly realized what an injustice in was that the Germans had occupied them and decided to return them to Poland. Of course there was violence involved (have I ever said otherwise?). Said territories were RETURNED to Poland by violence, just as they had been TAKEN from Poland by violence. But don't you think it's more moral to use violence to take back what's yours rather then to take what ISN'T yours?

Windward claims that the annexation by Poland of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line was actually a "return" of territory that was really Polish, but had been stolen and occupied illegally by Germans for seceral centuries. He does that on the basis that way back in the 10th century those territories formed part of an entity that he calls the Duchy of Poland

What do you mean, I call it the Duchy of Poland--that's what it's called.

(of course, East Prussia had never belonged to that entity, or been inhabited by Slavs)

To the DUCHY of Poland, no. (Well, actually a part of it called Pomezania did). To the FIRST REPUBLIC of Poland, yes, in a way (it was a Polish fief from 1525 to 1617, I believe). As to Slavs living there, they did like in Masuria (southern East Prussia)--as you yourself noted, they moved in after the German-majority Teutonic Order wiped out the Prussians/Borussia.

Fine, but why not take as a reference point the situation one thousand years previously, when the western half of the present territory of Poland was inhabited by Germanic tribes?

Quite simply because there was no state, these people were not cntrally (or even non-centrally) organized in any way. See, if we take tribes as the basis, we'll all end up in Ouldvai Gorge. Tribes move around, states are stable. And I'm taking state in its broadest form here--any more or less centrally organized, internationally recognized entity.

If we were to use Windward's criterion, that if a territory once belonged to the forerunner of a present state, then the seizure of that territory by the modern state merely constitutes a "return", then Germany would be justified in seizing the Netherlands, Belgium, the eastern half of France. northern Italy, Austria, Czechia and Slovenia, all of which belonged to the German state (The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) in the early medieval period.

Of course, the point is, was the HRE a GERMAN state--it had many components--including the Dutch, the Flamands, Italians, etc., etc. For instance, if you read my posts on the other thread (dealing w/Lwow) you will see that I didn't think Poles had a historic claim to Vilnyus/Wilno/etc even though it had belonged to the Rzeczpospolita, simply because it belonged to the Lithuanian, not the Polish component.
But certainly, a German takeover of the Netherlands is more historically "justified" than, say, a German takeover of New York.

To the surprise of Windward, we would find those descendants among the Germans who fled from or were driven out of those territories in 1945

And you ignore the 1M autochtonic Poles living there in '45 (oh, btw. the data I gave previously was incorrect, in '39 there were 8.5M, not 12.5M inhabitants as I had said previously, mea culpa).
And once again, I reiterate that I don't base the claims on people, rather on states.

You see, the germanisation of those territories, while it involved the settlement of people brought in from the west, mainly was a result of a change in the ethnic identity of the native people, their adoption of German language and culture.

You forgot to mention the wiping out of native populations, driving them east, making them an underclass--these things were also practiced.

I have no problem with the territories east of the Oder-Neisse remaining Polish.

Good, then we have no problem, and this entire argument was based on a mutual misunderstanding.

But I would really like Windward and all the other Polish chauvinists to affirm that the seizure of those territories by Poland was an exercise of naked power politics, equivalent to the previous German seizure of the Wartheland and Bialystok.

Well, not quite. You see, the Polish state possessed the territories in question (Silesia, Lubusz terr., and Pomorze; this excludes E. Prussia) BEFORE the German state did, so it had more rights to it in '45 than Germany did to Wielkopolska (let's not use the NAZI term for it, shall we, say Posen, or even South Prussia if you must), because it had belonged to Germany before (twice, in fact), it had been Polish before each of those times. But I would say that the return of Silesia, etc. was morally equivalent to the German return, of, say, Warmia in 1772. Happy?

As to the Treaty of Thorn 1466, and the subsequent status of Royal Prussia, I have stated the source from which I derived my information. It was a pro-Polish source by an American scholar, who in turn had derived it from a Polish historian who is hardly likely to have taken an anti-Polish position.

Windward quoted a Polish translation of the Latin text of the Treaty, which did not prove that the above material was incorrect.

Really, what part of:

also the territory of Pomorze .... will belong and be the belongings of ... the Kindgom of Poland
To the aforementioned ... Kingdom of Poland will belong forever the castles, cities, towns and fortresses above mentioned in Treaty; they will belong to the right, property, and title of the Kingdom of Poland and should belong to it forever

don't you understand.
Oh, and I'm sorry I couldn't quote a part of the Treaty that said "it is not true that Royal Prussia will become a coeval component along with Poland and Lithuania under the Jagiellonian crown"--there WASN'T one, and in this case absence of evidence IS evidence of absence (if it ain't in the treaty terms, it WASN'T a term of the treaty). And the parts that I did cite PROVE that this couldn't be so because it makes the territory in question part of Poland. But if you don't believe me, go ahead, read the entire treaty, I provided the link. Oh, and believing a secondary source when you have a primary source in front of you and it says something else is, well, not smart.
If you don't trust my translation, you're welcome to put the Polish parts which I also quoted thru a translator (you won't get a pretty picture, though) or get one of the Polish-speaking members of the forum to testify to the accuracy of my translation (though I bet you wouldn't trust them either, bunch of Polish chauvinists). If it's the Polish translation you don't trust (after all, it's on a Polish chauvinist website), I provided the website where the original treaty is displayed, so go ahead and take a stab at reading the Latin.


Galicia,

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Komitet Narodowy Polski, (or the Polish National Committee), headed by a Roman Dmowski. When he gave Wilson the boarders, (which he had generously cut down), President Wilson exclaimed, "You have presented me with a map which claimed half the world!" This is the type of person with whom I have a problem with. He stalled the entire Paris conference so he could get his way, (granted, according to my literature, which is somewhat Nationalistic):

Yeah, Dmowski was, well, crazy. Pilsudzki's idea's were expansionistic enough, but Dmowski...
Oh well, I've always been a fan of Poland's historic borders, which correspond quite closely to what we have today--from the Oder and Lusatian Neisse to the Bug, and from the Carpathians and Sudets to the Baltic.[/quote]

[michael mills]

My apologies to Windward if I have attributed views to him that are not his.

[Feanor]

Oh yes, another reason why the return/seizure/whatever you want to call it of Silesia, Pomerania, etc. by Poland is morally more justified than even the German return/seizure of Warmia in 1772, not to mention the other German seizures of land in what is now Poland. In the case of WWII, Poland did not start the war. Germany did. In the case of the First Partition of '72, Germany was the aggressor. Hence, Poland was not out to aggrandize itself this time, and it is ironic and kindof just that a war started by Germany for the purpose of aggrandizing itself at Poland's expense (among others) would end up with Poland (re)gaining territory at Germany's expense.

[Windward]

I would challenge Windward to find any passage where I have asserted a German claim in the present to the territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, or suggested that they be returned to Germany.

Had I said you have asserted "a German claim" or "they should be returned to Germany" blah blah blah I will be glad to receive your challenge. But I can't remember that I had ever said so. In another thread about Lwow, I imaged if german (as some guys in the Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten)dare to raise another war for their lost lands then what will happen. And everybody could see it's an answer for Benoit Douville's "what if", not for yours. I talked about German but not Poles or other guys, because I'm not clever enough to image a mass invasion held by Poles, by Czechs or by Slovakian, because I had only read the history of the two world wars, and I'm too stupid to find out another world war in which Poles and Polish government behaved so cruel, so criminal and so evil as some guys did in the Second World War. If my words make you feel so ill, then I'll be glad to declare that das Große Deutschland von jemand das Recht hat, alle anzuordnen Over Europa, nicht nur in den gestohlenen Gegenden Pommern, Schlesien und Prussia, aber auch in den baltischen Nationen, im Ostland und in allen Ländern auf dem Kontinent in denen das herrliche deutsche gewesene Rennenhade. So you feel better? I hoped that the threads should be peaceful and we should calm down, but obviously some of us can't do this.

regards

Jasen

[Windward]

My apologies to Windward if I have attributed views to him that are not his.

I had not seen your apologies when I was answering your earlier post, and I think it should be mistake or misunderstand. Above all, we came here for discussion, not for quarrel. If any words in my post above are ill-considered, I hope you could forgive me too. But I won't edit it, because it's what I think when I answering the question you argued about my opinion.

Regards!

Jasen

[michael mills]

Concerning the status of Royal Prussia, I have obtained the following information from the book "Poland's Access to the Sea", by Kazimierz Smogorzewski, London 1934. This book appears to be a Polish nationalist apologetic, but not extremist.

Page 50:

King Casimir IV, following the steady policy of the Jagellos and inspired by federal principles, conceded to "Prussia" in his Act of Incorporation of March 4, 1454, a large measure of autonomy which meant simply that the union of this country with Poland was purely personal [my emphasis]. The words incorporare, inviscerare, reunire and appropriare used in the document of 4th of March leave us sufficiently clear as to the aim and character of the charter. The King promised to defend the country and to refuse to permit its being taken by force from Poland. He agreed also that he would not decide any one of omnes causas notabiles, dictas terras concernentes without consulting the Diet of the Prussian Estates or their delegates forming the Regional Council. The composition of the latter, often modified, was fixed in 1508. Its members then were: three Pomeranian Voivodes (Prefects), six representatives of the nobility, two bishops and three representatives of the towns. At first the Diet as well as the Council of Prussia conferred by preference in German [my emphasis]; this was the result of the germanising policy practised by the Order. In 1544 the King's representative spoke for the first time at the Diet of "Prussia" in Polish, without a translator.

Page 60:

On March 16, 1569, King Sigismund Augustus, the last of the Jagellos, issued a decree interpreting and completing the Act of Incorporation of his grandfather. By virtue of this Decree the deputies of the three Prussian voivodeships - those of Pomorze, Chelmno and Marienburg - were to have seats henceforth in the Diet of Poland, and the members of the Council of Prussia were to be members of the Senate of Poland. Also, the signature of Fabian Czema, Voivode of Marienburg, of Ahatius Czema, Voivode of Pomorze, as well as that of John of Stemberk Kostka, treasurer of the territories of "Prussia", figure at the foot of the Act of Union of Lublin, July 1, 1569, by which the old personal union of Poland and Lithuania, signed at Horodlo in 1413, became a corporate union.

Thus, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was extinguished at the same time as that of Lithuania, at the period when Poland, under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, had become religiously intolerant.

Smogorzewski notes that the Czemas mentioned were a family of polonised German nobility, the original name being Von Zehmen.

Furthermore, on that same page 60, he states:

Certain great towns, such as Torun, Danzig, marienburg and Elbing, where the German language continued and the Protestant religion attracted followers, resisted the movement [to incorporate Royal Prussia in Poland]

Given that Copernicus was born in Thorn/Torun, which was a German-speaking town, it seems likely that his native language was German. Being an inhabitant of Royal Prussia, he would have regarded himself as Prussian by nationality.

Feanor, I suggest you try reading some books sometime.

[Feanor]

Ah well, typical michel mills, he's got the original document, a PRIMARY SOURCE right in front of his nose, yet he still persists in finding SECONDARY sources that back his claim while totally ignoring the former. Note that you source doesn't talk about the Treaty of Thorn of 1466, but the act of Incorporation of 1454. Now, the postulates of that act were MODIFIED by the treaty of Thorn (for instance, the Order got to keep East Prussia). But let's examine the document:

large measure of autonomy which meant simply that the union of this country with Poland was purely personal [my emphasis]. The words incorporare, inviscerare, reunire and appropriare used in the document of 4th of March leave us sufficiently clear as to the aim and character of the charter.

Wow, did you even READ what you posted. I certainly agree that words like "incorporate", "inviscerate" (viscera--internal ograns of the body), "reunite" and "appropriate" DO leave a sufficiently clear sense of what it meant--that the lands in question would be PART of Poland.

At first the Diet as well as the Council of Prussia conferred by preference in German [my emphasis]; this was the result of the germanising policy practised by the Order.

Wow, let's look at the part you conveniently DIDN'T emphasize, which explains WHY they were holding the discussions in German. I hope I don't have to explain that germanizing implies that that another language was there before--Polish.

Thus, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was extinguished at the same time as that of Lithuania, at the period when Poland, under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, had become religiously intolerant.

The autonomy of Lithuania extinguished? Are you out of your mind? Wait, pop quiz, do you even know where Poland is? Could you find it on a map? With the Union of Lublin, Lithuania BECAME autonomous (and ceased to be an independent state in union with Poland). If you weren't so blinded with your hatred of "Polish chauvinists" you would perhaps find out more about Poland's history.

Feanor, I suggest you try reading some books sometime.

michael, I suggest that you:
a) actually read the things that you post--you actually prove my points for me
b) rely on primary rather than secondary sources when/if the former are available. See, historians do this on the same principle that in court they accept testimony but not hearsay. What do you think is more accurate: what a document says, or what somebody says it says. If you don't believe this, perhaps you missed out on the games of "telephone" when you were a kid?

[viriato]

Feanor wrote:

Said territories were RETURNED to Poland by violence just as they had been TAKEN from Poland by violence.

False. Let us see what happened to each territory:

1-Silesia: Annexed (and returned) to the Czech (or Bohemian if you want...) Kingdom (and a fortiori to Germany as the Czech king were by right the German emperor) without a single battle have been fought.

2-Pomerania: Annexed by Germany on demand of the Dukes of Pomerania. Again not a single battle was fought for its annexation.

3-East Prussia/Duchal Prussia, West Prussia/Royal Prussia, Posen/Wielkopolska. Annexed to Germany in 1867. Any battle fought? Again no.

But certainly, a German takeover of the Netherlands is more historically "justified" than, say, a German takeover of New York.

Why? Wasn't New York once called Nieuw Amsterdam and belonged to the Netherlands...

And you ignore the 1M autochtonic Poles living there in '45

And what is your source? This seems to be mere propaganda. No census arrived to that kind of size of Polish minority. See for instance:

http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Deutschland/index.htm

Fremdsprachige Bevölkerung:
373.952 (0,6 %); davon Polnisch 57,2 %, Wendisch 16,6 %, Masurisch 13,3 %, Tschechisch u. Mährisch 2,9 %, Dänisch 1,3 %, Russisch 1 %, Englisch 1 %, Niederländisch 0,9 %.

AusländerInnen:
921.900 (1,48 %); davon Polen 28,2 %, Tschechoslowaken 24,1 %, Österreicher 13,9 %, Niederländer 8,9 %, Russen 5,1 %, Schweizer 4,6 %, Italiener 2,6 %, Ungarn 1,7 %, Jugoslawen 1,5 %, US-Amerikaner 0,8 %.

At the same time the Polish party received just a small part of the votes in Upper Silesia (10% in 1922 and less than 2% in 1932/II). See:

http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Preussen ... t_RTW.html

Interestingly enough on the other side of the border, in Polish Upper Silesia, the German parties received always more than a third of the votes in spite that according to the Polish census of 1931 they were just some 6% of the total population... 8)

...German return/seizure of Warmia in 1772...

Since when did Warmia/Ermland belong to Germany in 1772????

Well, actually part of Silesia which had been Polish up to 1795 was taken by Prussia in the third partition (see map provided by Windward).

I am not sure but I think the territory mentioned corresponds to Bedzin and Sosnowiec. Those towns went to Russian Poland afterwards. If so they were part of Prussia for just a brief period of time.

However, I most certainly do NOT disagree the self-determination in the present--let's hold a plebiscite in these territories now, shall we, and we'll see who wins.

Why today? Self-determination was already applied in 1920/1921 in some of the disputed territories and everybody can see that the Germany option won. Unfortunally the plebescites were not arranged in the so-called corridor and in Posen. What would have been the outcome? Rather more in favour of Germany for sure (and that is one of the reasons they did not take place).

...since the Czech Kindom WAS independent prior to being included in the HRE, not to mention ownership by the Habsburgs.

One that know nothing about the subject would have thought that the Czech kingdom was annexed by Germany (the "HRE") and was owned (at that time) by the Habsburgs. But both assumptions are false. The Czech kingdom became de jure part of Germany because her kings were elected to German emperors. And these kings were the Luxemburgers not the Habsburgers.

[Feanor]

Quote:
Said territories were RETURNED to Poland by violence just as they had been TAKEN from Poland by violence.

False.

Ummm, you seem to be forgetting the battles fought at Gdansk in 1308 and during the Wielkopolska uprising in 1846 just to name some off the top of my head. Btw. I haven't heard of any great rejoicing of the populace when those territories became German.

East Prussia/Duchal Prussia, West Prussia/Royal Prussia, Posen/Wielkopolska. Annexed to Germany in 1867. Any battle fought? Again no.

I see you take the creation of the North Germanic confederation to be the date of the annexation of the territories to Germany. However, by this time the territories had already been long annexed to Prussia. If you had followed the discussion, you would know that at least I was taking the broad definition of "Germany' and "poland"

Wasn't New York once called Nieuw Amsterdam and belonged to the Netherlands

Which at the time was no longer a part of the HRE, so no claims there.

And what is your source? This seems to be mere propaganda.

Ture, my source is Polish but it isn't propaganda. The criteria for proving yourself "Polish" were pretty strict when the Polish administration arrived. People who might have been ethnic Poles but had been throughly Germanized were expelled. You had to be able to not only prove Polish roots but speak Polish to be considered a Pole.

Since when did Warmia/Ermland belong to Germany in 1772????

First Partition of Poland in 1772--Warmia was part of the territory received by Prussia.

Why today?

Why not. We were talking about the justifiability of Poland's claims to the areas.

Self-determination was already applied in 1920/1921 in some of the disputed territories and everybody can see that the Germany option won.

Problems with the plebiscites were already discussed.

Unfortunally the plebescites were not arranged in the so-called corridor and in Posen. What would have been the outcome? Rather more in favour of Germany for sure (and that is one of the reasons they did not take place).

If the Germans had practiced the same methods as they did in Silesia, then I don't doubt it
But even according to German census data, both provinces were majority Polish, even after intensive German efforts to colonize and de-Polonize them.

One that know nothing about the subject would have thought that the Czech kingdom was annexed by Germany (the "HRE") and was owned (at that time) by the Habsburgs.

Note that "included" (the word I used) is not a synonym of annexed. And "not to mention" implies that this (Habsburg rule) came later.

[michael mills]

Feanor wrote:

Ummm, you seem to be forgetting the battles fought at Gdansk in 1308 ....

Feanor claims that a battle fought at Danzig in 1308 was an example of a territory being taken from Poland by violence.

(I use the name "Danzig" deliberately, since in official documents dating from the 1230s the town was already referred to a "civitas Dantzik").

I have already explained why Feanor's interpretation of the events of 1308 is a falsification of historical fact, but let us go through it again.

The Civitas Dantzik was subject to the Dukes of Pomerelia, who in turn were under the lordship of the King of Poland, so in that sense the town was a possession of the Polish Crown, although not directly.

A Polish noble in rebellion against the Polish king offered Danzig to the Margraves of Brandenburg in return for support.

In 1308, the army of the Margraves of Brandenburg came to besiege Danzig, in order to take possession of it. The inhabitants of Danzig, who were mainly Germans from Luebeck who had settled in the town and incorporated it under Luebeck law, opened the gates of the town to the Margraves. Only the castle, commanded by the Royal Castellan, Bogusza, continued to resist.

As the King of Poland was not strong enough to come to the aid of Bogusza, he asked the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Cross to send an army to drive away the army of the Margraves of Brandenburg and retake the town. He offered to reimburse the Order's costs of the campaign, and agreed that it could remain in possession of Danzig until he had made payment in full.

In November 1308, the army of the Knights of the Cross drove away the Brandenburgers and retook Danzig, killing many of the citizens in the process.

However, the crafty grandmaster pulled a swifty on the hapless King of Poland. The Order of the Knights of the Cross presented a bill for costs that was so high that the impoverished king could not possibly pay it. Thus the Order remained in possession of the town.

Later in the 14th century, the heirs of the Dukes of Pomerelia, who were the legal lords in title of Danzig, renounced their claims to it, thereby legalising the ownership of the city by the Order.

Thus, Danzig was by no means taken from Poland by force (and certainly not from the Polish people). The citizens of Danzig obviously did not want to under the lordship of the King of Poland, since they had opened their gates to the Margraves of Brandenburg. The Order obtained ownership by a bit of legal manipulation that nevertheless was within the letter of the law (ie they kept Danzig as security for an unpaid debt); such quibbling was quite common in medieval times, and not considered to be an injustice. Finally, the possession of Danzig by the Order was fully legalised by the renunciation of title by the legal heirs to the lordship over it.

Feanor's claims are more justified in relation to the uprising in Wielkopolska (or the Posen Province of the Kingdom of Prussia, as it then was under international law, having been re-awarded to Prussia at the Congress of Vienna) of 1846. By that time there was a clear sense of Polish nationhood, and a clear majority of the population of Posen Province identified itself as part of the Polish nation, and wished for the restoration of a Polish national state. Therefore, the uprising can justifiably be seen as a struggle for national independence, analogous to the 1830 uprising in Russian Poland.

Furthermore, Wielkopolska (or Posen Province) had only been annexed by Prussia in 1793, in the Second partition of Poland. Until then the territory had always been part of the Polish state, and had been in fact its birthplace, so it is reasonable to say that it was taken from Poland by force, although factions in the Polish szlachta certainly acquiesced in the seizure.

[viriato]

Feanor it is good to know after all that you don't dispute the fact that Pomerania and Silesia became part of Germany without any violence involved. This is an improvement from your previous statements.

As to the fact that I don't equate Prussia and Germany of course I don't. Their histories were of course close related but the four concepts are not identical. You may ask, four concepts? Yes because for Prussia we have at least three different meanings. The first one coincides with the kingdom of Prussia, the second one to the territories called East Prussia/Ducal Prussia and West Prussia/Royal Prussia and finally the original meaning of Prussia, the land inhabited by the Prussians and conquered/assimilated by the Teutonic Order. Independently of those meanings EP/DP, WP/RP only became part of Germany in 1867 even if they were ruled by some duke/prince/king reigning from somewhere in Germany. And also if they had a majority of population which was German form the XV/XVI centuries on. As so any battles or wars fought before 1867 are not important for my argument.

Ture, my source is Polish but it isn't propaganda. The criteria for proving yourself "Polish" were pretty strict when the Polish administration arrived. People who might have been ethnic Poles but had been throughly Germanized were expelled. You had to be able to not only prove Polish roots but speak Polish to be considered a Pole.

And what about the 1M poles in Pre-WW2 Germany? Where were they? As to the concept of "Pole" you are referring to it is funny to know that it is more restrictive than the contemporaneous German concept of "German" which allowed people to consider themselves German and accordingly have all the benefits of German citizenship even if they didn't speak German! And yet the Germans have the fame of being racists/chauvinists...

If the Germans had practiced the same methods as they did in Silesia, then I don't doubt it

The German methods??? And what about the Polish methods (and those of their protectors, the French)? As far as I know the French who were the majority of the occupation forces on Upper Silesia and commanded the operation made almost everything they could to facilitate a Polish victory.

But even according to German census data, both provinces were majority Polish...

Posen yes but West Prussia (and I´m referring only to the part that went to Poland in 1920) no. But the fact that Polish had a majority of population in Upper Silesia according to the German census of 1910 didn't preclude a German victory. Besides if we than divided Posen between districts in which Germany had the majority and those who voted for Poland as happened in Upper Silesia then at least Bromberg and Lissa (Posen itself not far behind) would have ended in Germany.

...even after intensive German efforts to colonize and de-Polonize them

So "intensive" that the proportion of the two ethnicities didn't change appreciably in the century before 1918... 8). Compare to that what the Poles achieved in less than 10 years after 1918...

Note that "included" (the word I used) is not a synonym of annexed. And "not to mention" implies that this (Habsburg rule) came later.

Ok I give you the benefit of the doubt.