Description
The German Minority in Interwar Poland is a book that examines the experiences of Germans from different empires living together in the newly formed state of Poland after World War I. The book challenges the idea that German nationalism viewed all Germans as a homogeneous group and instead shows how regional distinctions and conflicts among the German minority in Poland persisted. The author argues that Polish repressive policies and unequal subsidies from the German state exacerbated these differences, and the rise of National Socialism only further divided the German minority. The book also highlights the disconnect between nationalist rhetoric and the reality of national solidarity in this period. Overall, the book sheds light on the complexities of ethnic politics and national identity in interwar Europe.
The German Minority in Interwar Poland analyzes what happened when Germans from three different empires - the Russian, Habsburg and German - were forced to live together in one new state. After the First World War, German national activists made regional distinctions among these Germans and German-speakers in Poland, with preference initially for those who had once lived in the German Empire. Rather than becoming more cohesive over time, Poland's ethnic Germans remained divided and did not unite within a single representative organization. Polish repressive policies and unequal subsidies from the German state exacerbated these differences, while National Socialism created new hierarchies and unleashed bitter intra-ethnic conflict among German minority leaders. Winson Chu challenges prevailing interpretations that German nationalism in the twentieth century viewed 'Germans' as a single homogeneous group of people. His revealing study shows that nationalist agitation could divide as well as unite an embattled ethnicity. Review: 'In this fine study, Winson Chu examines the political sources of cohesion and conflict among ethnic Germans in interwar Poland. Because he demonstrates the prevalence of internal conflict even into the Nazi era, he significantly complicates conventional views about ethnic politics in Europe between the wars.' Roger Chickering, Emeritus Professor, Georgetown University 'Winson Chu's authoritative study of the Germans of interwar Poland reminds us that under the rhetorical surface, nationalist conflict more frequently seeks to police its own supporters rather than to defeat an 'enemy nation'. He demonstrates convincingly that regional German nationalist interests in Poland were fundamentally irreconcilable, that Polish repression hardly caused these differences, and that the advent of the Nazi regime in Germany reinforced the existing fragmentation of regional German political interests in Poland.' Pieter M. Judson, Swarthmore College 'In exposing the internal and regional divisions within Poland's German minority, Chu forces us to confront the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality of national solidarity in this period, and to reexamine the relationship between national identity, regionalism, citizenship, and borders (geographic, political, and cultural) ... there is a great deal of interesting material here that is sure to generate discussion and further research.' Slavic Review
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