Prussian Settlement Commission
[4] Efforts of new private initiatives by the minority, but actually a majority in wide parts of Posen and West Prussia province, who founded the Prussian banks Bank Ziemski, Bank Związku Spółek Zarobkowych (Vereinsbank der Erwerbsgenossenschaften) and local land acquisition cooperatives (spółki ziemskie)[5] which collected private funds and succeeded to buy more latifundia from defaulted owners and settle more ethnically Polish Germans as farmers on the parcelled land than their governmentally funded counter-party.
Poles were portrayed as "backward Slavs" by Prussian officials who acted to spread the German language and culture.
[3] In 1847, two hundred fifty seven Polish activists were imprisoned upon charges of conspiracy and eight of them were sentenced to death,[11] the Spring of Nations, however, stopped their execution.
The advent of the Kulturkampf marked a period, when the Prussian government attempted to Germanise the Poles through language, schooling, and religious restrictions.
[17] The state itself was led by German nationalism and Bismarck viewed Poles as one of the chief threats to German power; as he declared The Polish question is to us a question of life and death and wanted Polish nation to disappear[18] in private going as far as expressing his wish to exterminate Poles.
[19] As a result, the Polish population faced economic, religious and political discrimination as the Germanisation of their territories was promoted.
Additional funds were awarded to assistance projects such crediting bankrupt German estates (125 million marks in 1908[1]).
[3] From 26 April 1886 until 1 January 1901, the Settlement Commission purchased 147,475 ha (3.64% of the Province of Posen and 1.65% of West Prussia), and settled 4,277 families (about 30,000 persons).
A publication from German Empire named Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon claimed that in 1905-1906 that only 2,715 families were not native to these provinces.
[3] In Greater Poland the Polish share of the population didn't reach its pre-1815 levels: According to Władysław Kulski the commission was only a part of the German efforts to eradicate Poles from territories conquered by Prussia from Poland;in addition to 154,000 colonists, Germany also settled 378,000 German military personnel and officials in Polish territories.
Other measures in support of the Germanisation policy included: The creation of the Commission stimulated Poles to take countermeasures, that gradually turned into a competition of the Polish minority against the German state with Poles running their own settlement banks and settlement societies, resulting in a "battle for soil" (Kampf um den Boden).
From 1890 till 1912 Polish enterprises, banks and associations grew in number and strength providing Poles with defence against the Germanisation of their land.
A social understanding has risen among the Polish population that led to abandoning the class differences in order to defend national existence - the rich helped the poor to perform better in economy and were supported by the clergy in their actions.
Rich nobility often sold their artistic heritage to invest in banking and financial enterprises, or to buy more land for Poles.
Local newspapers attempted to intimidate residents who purchased goods from German and Jewish merchants by publishing their names in the paper and accusing them of "betray[ing]...their country.
[40] Even before the First World War, some Germans, like Hans Delbrück or Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, proposed expelling Poles from the eastern territories of Germany.
[1][41] With the coming of the war, those ideas began to take real and determined form in the shape of plans to be realised after German victory and, as a consequence, hegemony of Central and Eastern Europe.
The president of the Settlement Commission, Gense, was one of the chief supporters and planners of the so-called "Polish Border Strip" that envisioned expelling circa 2 million non-Germans (chiefly Poles and Jews) from 30,000 square kilometers of the would-be annexed territories from Congress Poland, which would then become Germanised.
[20] Other notable names of Settlement Commission activists include Friedrich von Schwerin and industrialist Alfred Hugenberg who worked for and represented the Krupp family.
[1] The Germanisation policies resulted in strong measures against the German settlers by the Polish state after World War I.
[1] The Polish state refused to recognize the ownership rights of most of the German settlers, about half of whom fled or were driven out of Poland.
[43] Prussian policies of settlement and forced assimilation were an influence for German Nazi thinkers during their war in the East.
[44] Their plans were a renovation of the idea, this time however rather than colonize just the land purchased by Prussian Settlement Commission, Poles would be ethnically cleansed and murdered, and German colonists would occupy their place.
[45] The plan was laid out by Nazi official Curt von Gottberg, who presented it to Himmler, and as reward was appointed as Land Registry Chief in Prague in June 1939.
