Deutsch-polnische Konfigurationen in den Straßennamen von Grünberg – Zielona Góra
German-Polish Configurations in the Street Names of Grünberg – Zielona Góra)

Summary/Abstract: The subject of the analysis in this article is changes in the naming of streets in Grünberg, now Zielona Góra. This city was part of Germany for a long time and was assigned to Poland after World War II. In 1945, the Polish government had to take steps to change German names into Polish ones. The reasons for this were of various nature. The names had to be adapted to the Polish language, but the propaganda that this was a reclaimed area also had to be supported. The problem with the street names was that they had never had a Polish form before, so it was not possible to fall back on old names. In this article, the new Polish names are juxtaposed with the German ones. On the basis of the analysis, different methods are identified that were used in this process of change, be it different translation methods or even new names. The starting point is the thesis that the semantics of street names influence the process of name conversion. The first step was therefore a semantic classification of the German street names. They were divided into names that originated either from proper names or from appellatives since this plays a role in possible translation methods. This was followed by a categorization into different semantic groups. The processes that were applied were determined in each subgroup created. The analysis showed that some German street names were translated, but most were completely changed. The process of creating new street names was a means of Polonising the area. Most street names in Zielona Góra were stripped of their German traces. Even in the case of neutral street names, only every second name was translated.

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