German Eastern Marches Society
[5] Contrary to many similar nationalist organizations created in that period, the Ostmarkenverein had relatively close ties with the government and local administration,[5][6] which made it largely successful, even though it opposed both the policy of seeking some modo vivendi with the Poles pursued by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg[3] and Leo von Caprivi's policies of relaxation of anti-Polish measures.
Primarily inhabited by Poles, Greater Poland initially was formed into a semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen, granted with a certain level of self-governance.
[11] The situation was further aggravated by Bismarck's policies of anti-Catholic Church Kulturkampf that in Posen Province took on a much more nationalistic character than in other parts of Germany[12] and included a number of specifically anti-Polish laws that resulted in the Polish and German communities living in a virtual apartheid.
Although Bismarck finally signed an informal alliance with the Catholic Church against the socialists, the policies of Germanization did continue in Polish-inhabited parts of the country.
The rest were all groups of middle class Germans, that is civil servants (30%), teachers (25%), merchants, craftsmen, Protestant priests, and clerks.
[20][21] Because of this view, it insisted on extending the ban on usage of the Polish in schools, to other instances of everyday life, including public meetings, books, and newspapers.
The Society also opened a number of libraries in the Polish-dominated areas, where it supported the literary production of books and novels promoting an aggressive stance against the Poles.
The ban was also used by the German police to harass the Polish trade union movement as they interpreted all public meetings as educational undertakings.
[11] It was among the main supporters of creation of the Settlement Commission, an official authority with a fund to buy up the land from the Poles and redistribute it among German settlers.
[24] The campaign proved to be successful and on October 12, 1912, the Prussian government issued a decision allowing eviction of Polish property owners in Greater Poland.
[7] This made the Ostmarkenverein an organization formed mostly by the German bourgeoisie[25] and settlers, that is middle class members of the local administration,[21] and not the Prussian Junkers.
As an effect of the external pressure, the Poles living in the German Empire started to organize themselves in order to prevent the plans of Germanisation.
[26] Similarly, the attempts at banning the teaching of religion in Polish met with a nationwide resistance and several school strikes that sparked a campaign in foreign media.
All in all, even though the H-K-T Society was not the most influential and its exact influence on the German governments is disputable,[21] it was among the best-heard and for the Polish people became one of the symbols of oppression, chauvinism, and national discrimination, thus poisoning the Polish-German relations both in the borderland and in entire Germany.
[24] This situation proved vital to the failure of German plans of creation of Mitteleuropa during the Great War, as the Polish political scene was taken over mostly by politicians hostile to Germany.
At its end, some of its members joined the Deutsche Vereinigung (German Association), a society that aimed at preventing newly restored Poland from acquiring the lands that were formerly in Prussia.
