POLITICAL CONCEPTS OF RESOLVING THE GERMAN QUESTION IN INTERWAR POLAND

Abstract

The article highlights the main principles of government policy regarding the German minority in the Second Polish Republic. It was found that the specifics of the territorial location of the German population, its peculiarities of socio-professional structure, as well as the national-cultural separateness of the German minority actualized the German question in Poland. It is emphasized that the concept of national policy regarding the German population was based on the principles developed by national democrats during the first years of independence. The policy of their governments was aimed at reduction of German influences in economic, political and cultural spheres, simultaneously with strengthening of the Polish element, primarily in the western territories of the state. It was found that the most effective and influential methods of assimilation on Polish Germans were considered to be joining the Catholic faith, integration of German children to the Polish educational and cultural environment, encouraging mixed marriages between representatives of both nations. The May upheaval of 1926 and the coming to power of the «sanation» led to a slight adjustment of the government's policy towards the German minority in Poland. Similarly to national democrats, the followers of Pilsudski were supporters of the assimilation of Germans, however, they also emphasized the need to take into account the national and cultural requirements as well as economic interests of the German population. This was evidenced by the so-called «Silesian program», which was worked out by the government circles, and which had been running for 13 years by voivode Michal Hrazynskyi (1926–1939). It is shown that the factor that was significantly influencing the character of the government policy regarding the German population was the neighborhood with Germany. Attempts to settle the situation of the German minority in Poland and the Polish minority in Germany were not successful at the international level. At the end of the 1930s, on the background of the aggravation of international relations, the fact of the possible use of the German question in Poland was becoming more and more obvious, being used as an instrument of the revisionist policy of the Nazi government led by A. Hitler.