Galerie

der Weichsel: Historic Problems

objective opinion) we will take a look at Norman Davies’ two— volume God’s Playground: A History of Poland. According to the blurbs on the jacket, the New York Times sez: “This is beyond doubt not only the best book on Poland in the English language; it is the book on Poland.” Stanislaw Baranczak’s commentary/review in The New Republic: “...What is even more worthy of recognition is that Professor Davies has managed to maintain an equilibrium between understanding and objectivity sympathy and criticism.” Here’s what Davies said:)

Poland’s claim to Danzig was based chiefly on economic arguments. In the period of Prussian rule, the city’s German population had lost all trace of former Polish loyalties, and in the 1930s was to provide many ardent recruits to the Nazi cause. There was no serious doubt that any free plebiscite in Danzig would have resulted in an overwhelming vote for a union with the Reich. In this light, Lloyd George’s insistence at the Peace Conference on the formation of a Free City must be seen as a concession to Polish pressure. In practice, it gave equal offence to both Poles and Germans, and presented Hitler with the specific pretext by which his invasion of Poland in September 1939 was justified. The problem was solved once and for all by the flight or expulsion of the German Danzigers in the last days of WWII.

The districts of Allenstein and Marienwerder both lay on the southern confines of East Prussia. Both were subjected to popular plebiscites held under Allied auspices in the summer of 1920. Polish charges against German skulduggery, in particular against the fraudulent manufacture of outvoters, could not conceal the overwhelming desire of the population, includin9 part of the Polish-speaking Protestants, to remain German citizens. The result, declared on 11 July 1920, showed a crushing majority of 460,000 votes (96.52%) for Germany to 16,000 (3.47?) for Poland. The Allied garrison, consisting of Italians and of Irishmen of the Inniskillen Fusiliers, were sharply withdrawn for fear of being politically contaminated by the Red Army, which happened at that very moment to be bearing down on them from the East. In those few neighboring towns such as Soldau (Dzialdowo) which the Red Army occupied before its precipitate retreat in August, the Soviet commander expressed their government’s belief that this “ancient German land” should be returned to its rightful owners. German order reigned supreme until 1945.

[These are just a few references that provide an insight into written history of the Plebiscite years. Perhaps you can now see the difficulty in writing objective accounts of history. Philatelically, covers from the Irish Fusiliers should be quite scarce and quite interesting, as would those from the American warships that lay in Danzig harbor at that time.]

 

Danzig Report  Nr. 74 - January - February - March - 1992, Page 14.