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Flexible Fatherlands: “Patriotism” among Polish-speaking German Citizens during World War I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2020
Abstract
This article examines the experiences of Polish-speaking subjects of the German Empire during World War I. Fighting for wartime empires tended to be retrospectively defined as involuntary service to a “foreign” cause. But the author of this article argues that it was very difficult to distinguish ostensibly passive “compliance” from ostensibly active “patriotism.” The apparent tensions between a German imperial agenda and Polish nationalism also proved to be highly navigable in practice, with German war aims often seen as not only reconcilable with but even conducive to the Polish national cause. Drawing on a recent wave of relevant historiography in English, German, and Polish, and incorporating further analysis of individual testimonies, the article explores the various ways in which “non-German” contributors to the German war effort tried to make sense of their awkward wartime biographies.
Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Erfahrungen polnischsprechender Angehöriger des Deutschen Reichs während des Ersten Weltkriegs. Das Kämpfen in den Diensten von Imperien zu Kriegszeiten ist retrospektiv oft als unfreiwillige Leistung für eine „fremde“ Sache definiert worden. Der Autor des vorliegenden Artikels argumentiert jedoch, dass scheinbar passive „Befolgung“ nur schwer von scheinbar aktivem „Patriotismus“ unterschieden werden konnte. Die sichtbaren Spannungen zwischen den deutschen imperialen Vorstellungen und dem polnischen Nationalismus erwiesen sich in der Praxis als gut navigierbar – und die deutschen Kriegsziele mit der Sache der polnischen Nation nicht bloß vereinbar, sondern ihr sogar dienlich. Aufbauend auf einer Fülle jüngst veröffentlichter relevanter Geschichtsschreibung auf Englisch, Deutsch und Polnisch sowie unter Einbeziehung weiterer Analysen einzelner Zeitzeugenaussagen untersucht der Beitrag die verschiedenen Arten und Weisen, in denen „nicht-deutsche“ Beitragende zu den deutschen Kriegsanstrengungen ihre heiklen Kriegsbiographien einzuordnen versuchten.
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- Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association, 2020
Footnotes
A paper that formed the germ of this article was presented at a conference on “Patriotic Cultures during the First World War” in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June 2014. An article based on that paper was subsequently included in a Russian-language edited volume: “V poiskakh patriotizma sredi pol'skoyazychnykh germanskikh poddannykh, 1914–1918,” in Kultury patriotizma v period Pervoy mirovoy voyny (Sankt-Peterburg, 2018). This article is a substantially revised version of that contribution.
References
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91 “Fiasco” from Father Kapica's characterization of the policy in “Ks. Jan,” Schlesische Volkszeitung, 56–57.
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93 Kaczmarek, Polacy w armii Kazera, 304–05. Sienkiewicz's death on November 15, 1916—eerily proximate to the establishment of the Kingdom of Poland—no doubt further spurred consciousness of and references to his work.
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95 Kaczmarek, Polacy w armii Kazera, 299.
96 The published edition of Iwicki's letters helpfully includes a glossary of all of the (many) newspapers mentioned by the author in his correspondence. Iwicki, Z myśla o Niepodleglej, 301–03.
97 Letter from Iwicki to his mother, November 27, 1916, Kaczmarek, Polacy w armii Kazera, 168–69.
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100 Kaczmarek, Polacy w armii Kazera, 358–59; Eichenberg, Kämpfen für Frieden und Fürsorge, 64.
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102 Veterans of the imperial armies received benefits in the range of 50 to 75 percent of the earnings of civil servants, while Polish veterans received benefits in the range of 60 to 80 percent. Eichenberg, Kämpfen für Frieden und Fürsorge, 145–47; on the role of the Upper Silesian plebiscite in shaping policy on veterans’ benefits, see pages 138–39.
103 Jan Karkoszka, a native of Nowy Bytom and veteran of both the German army and the Polish uprisings, was a leader in both Polish veterans’ organizations and international veterans’ organizations. Eichenberg, Kämpfen für Frieden und Fürsorge, 121–22.
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