History of Pomerania (1806–1933)

The industrial revolution primarily affected the Stettin area and the infrastructure, while most Pomerania retained a rural and agricultural character.

[4] Napoleonic occupation also thwarted Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden's plans to construct a fortified port city on Rügen, Gustavia.

In November 1808, the French troops left the province except for Stettin, which forced the provincial government to move to Stargard in 1809.

[7] The Hardenberg decree reformed all Prussian territories, which henceforth formed ten (later eight) provinces with similar administration.

Hardenberg however, who as the Prussian chief diplomat had settled the terms of session of Swedish Pomerania with Sweden at the Congress of Vienna, had assured to leave the local constitution in place when the treaty was signed on June 7, 1815.

Based on two laws of June 5[9] and July,[10] 1823, the Landtag was constituted by 25 lords and knights, 16 representatives of the towns, and eight from the rural communities.

The affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Prussia had been reorganised by the Bull "De salute animarum", issued in 1821.

Breslau's Prince-Bishop Heinrich Förster (1853–81) gave generous aid to the founding of churches, monastic institutions, and schools, especially in the diaspora regions.

[15] The construction of narrow-gauge railways was enhanced by a special decree[16] of July 28, 1892, implementing Prussian financial aid programs.

[18] The Swine and lower Oder rivers, the major water route to Stettin, were deepened to 5 meters and shortened by a canal (Kaiserfahrt) in 1862.

[25] On March 2, 1850, a law was passed[26] settling the conditions on which peasants and farmers could capitalize their property rights and feudal service duties, and thus get a long-term credit (41 to 56 years to pay back).

This was not possible before, when the jurisdiction had sanctioned the use of farmland and feudal services according not to property rights, but to social status within rural communities and estates.

Most of the German-Prussian province of West Prussia fell to Poland as the so-called Polish Corridor, and constituted the Pomeranian Voivodeship (województwo pomorskie) with the capital at Toruń (Thorn).

It cut Germany off from her province of East Prussia while at the same time it allowed interwar Poland access to the Baltic Sea.

Those people who wanted to stay in their hometowns had to take Polish citizenship, as Poland refused to accept German citizens living in its territory.

[citation needed] Throughout the East Prussian plebiscite in July 1920 Polish authorities tried to prevent traffic through the Corridor, interrupting any postal, telegraphic and telephonic communication.

If the frontier is unsatisfactory now, it will be far more so when it has to be drawn on this side (of the river) with no natural line to follow, cutting off Germany from the riverbank and within a mile or so of Marienwerder, which is certain to vote German.

The Polish voivode, Wiktor Lamot, stressed that "the part of Pomorze through which the so-called Corridor runs must be cleansed of larger German holdings.

"[42] Because the German landholders who had remained in the Polish part of Pomerania resented their loss of status and the privileged position they had enjoyed before the land reform, they then became nationalistic and anti-Polish in their outlook.

The book, Orphans of Versailles, states that as result of disloyalty of German citizens, who openly expressed their joy at Polish defeats in Polish-Soviet war, "Other places witnessed violent demonstrations against the minority; in Chełmno/Culm, the Starost reportedly encouraged Poles, 'If a German or Jew dares to say anything against the Polish State, [to] tie him up and drag him through the streets to the starost's office or to the court.'

Covering a total area of 1,966 square kilometers (754 sq mi), the territory was roughly twice the size of the Napoleonic statelet.

Unlike mandated territories, which were entrusted to member countries, Danzig like the Territory of the Saar Basin remained under the authority of the League of Nations itself, with representatives of various countries taking on the role of High Commissioner:[49] The Free City had a population of 357,000 (1919), 95% of whom were German-speakers,[50] with the rest mainly speaking either Kashubian or Polish.

The Treaty of Versailles, which had severed Danzig and surrounding villages from Germany, now required that the newly formed state had its own citizenship, based on residency.

[51] It became clear almost at once that the overwhelming German majority population of the Free State resented the concessions which had been made to Poland and their dismemberment from Germany.

[citation needed] Professor Burckhardt, the League of Nations' High Commissioner in Danzig found, by 1939, his position as absolute arbiter in the endless disputes almost untenable.

On January 5, 1919, workers' and soldiers' councils ("Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte") were in charge of most of the province (231 towns and rural municipalities).

[58] Landowners formed the Pommerscher Landbund in February 1919, which by 1921 had 120,000 members and from the beginning was supplied with arms by the 2nd army corps in Stettin.

[57] The provincial and county parliaments (Landtag and Kreistag) were hence elected directly by the population, including women, in free and secret votes.

Poland changed this export route to a new inner-Polish railway connecting Kattowitz with the new-build port of Gdingen within the corridor.

On the other hand, people left the rural communities en masse and turned to Pomeranian and other urban centers (Landflucht).