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In 1890 the Germanisation of Poles was slightly eased for a couple of years but the activities intensified again since 1894 and continued until the end of the World War I. This led to international condemnation, e.g., an international meeting of socialists held in Brussels in 1902 called the Germanisation of Poles in Prussia "barbarous". [11]
The implementation of Germanisation requires a change of character of the occupied nation via partial expulsion of the Polish populous and the assimilation of the rest, deemed upon their "racially worthy" elements." [1] The greatest fervour of Germanisation was implemented in those regions seized by the German Wehrmacht during World War II.
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In linguistics, Germanisation of non-German languages also occurs when they adopt many German words.
Poland had a large Jewish population, and according to Davies, more Jews were both killed and rescued in Poland, than in any other nation, the rescue figure usually being put at between 100,000 and 150,000. [113] Thousands of Poles have been honoured as Righteous Among the Nations – constituting the largest national contingent. [114]
Polish Matczak family among Poles expelled in 1939 from Sieradz in central Poland. The Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany during World War II was a massive operation consisting of the forced resettlement of over 1.7 million Poles from the territories of German-occupied Poland, with the aim of their Germanization (see Lebensraum) between 1939 and 1944.
Polish Americans vigorously supported the war effort during World War I, with large numbers volunteering for or drafted into the United States Army, working in war-related industries, and buying war bonds. A common theme was to fight for America and for the restoration of Poland as a unified, independent nation. [154]
In the territories annexed during the Partitions of Poland, German authorities sought to limit the number of ethnic Poles by their forced Germanisation and by a new wave of settlement by German colonists at their expense. [4] Beginning with the Kulturkampf, laws were enacted to restrict Polish culture, religion, language, and rights to property.
The dispute between Germany and Poland over rights to Free City of Danzig and land transit through the Polish Corridor to the exclave of East Prussia, served as Hitler's pretext for Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland, which commenced on September 1, 1939.