Book Reviews

Oceny i omówienia

Author(s): Sławomir Łukasiewicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 01/2007

Keywords: expulsion; Vertreibung; Polish Migration in UK after 1945; Czech historiography; the Third Reich; German in Czechoslovakia; Auschwitz; Fashism; History in the German literature after 1945; debate on German history;

Rafał Stobiecki, Klio na wygnaniu. Z dziejów polskiej historiografii na uchodźstwie w Wielkiej Brytanii po 1945 r. (omów. Sławomir Łukasiewicz) Jaroslav Pánek, Rozmluvy s historiky. Ceská historiografie a soudobé dejiny ocima zahranicních kolegu (omów. Marceli Kosman) Micha Brumlik, Wer Sturm sät. Die Vertreibung der Deutschen (omów. Piotr Madajczyk) Klaus Bachmann, Długi cień Trzeciej Rzeszy. Jak Niemcy zmieniali swój narodowy charakter (omów. Joanna Nitka) Karol Jonca, Dekrety prezydenta Edvarda Benesa. Niemcy w czechosłowackiej doktrynie politycznej i prawnej z lat 1920-1945 (omów. Władysław Chlebowski) Christoph Cornelißen, Roman Holec, Jirí Pesek, Diktatur - Krieg - Vertreibungen. Erinnerungskulturen in Tschechien, der Slowakei und Deutschland seit 1945 (omów. Aleksandra Kruk) Laurence Rees, Auschwitz. Naziści i "ostateczne rozwiązanie" (omów. Rafał Matera) Robert O. Paxton, Anatomia faszyzmu (omów. Michał Urbańczyk) Peter Englund, Listy ze strefy zerowej (omów. Waldemar Łazuga) Carsten Gansel, Paweł Zimniak (Hg.), Reden und Schweigen in der deutschsprachigen Literatur nach 1945. Fallstudien (omów. Roman Dziergwa) Peter Oliver Loew, Gdańsk literacki (1793-1945) (omów. Marek Andrzejewski)

History and (Non)Memory. On the Attempt to Assess Dictatorship in Chile

Historia i (nie)pamięć. O próbie rozliczenia dyktatury w Chile

Author(s): Adam Szymaniak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 01/2007

Augusto Ugarte Pinochet is – both in Chile and Poland – an ambiguous symbol of the shaping of historical memory. For the political left he is a dictator who brutally abused human rights, whereas the right sees him as a defender of conservative values, liberal economy and religion, a man who stopped communism and was the author of Chile’s economic miracle. Not without significance for the assessment of the junta and the person of the general is the fact that he peacefully transferred power to his democratically elected successors. The aim of the article is an attempt to answer the question how to assess authoritarian past.

Polish Antisemitism According to Jan T. Gross; The Diary of Ester Daum

Polski antysemityz według Jana T. Grossa; Dziennik Estery Daum

Author(s): Wojciech Stankiewicz,Bożena Górczyńska-Przybyłowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

Soldiers of the Home Army in the Jogła Camp

Żołnierze Armii Krajowej w obozie Jogła

Author(s): Zenon Kachnicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article addresses the deportations of soldiers of the Polish Home Army, who were transported to the labor camps of the NKVD Nr 270 in the region of Borowicze, Novgorod County in November and December 1944 and returned to Poland in the spring of 1946. Aggressive behavior of the escorts, acute shortage of food and especially water, rationed in very sparse quantities during many days of the journey, lack of any information – such were the physical and mental oppressions which taken together were a foretoken of what might be expected at the unknown place of destination. This destination turned out to be the Jogta labor camp. A majority of the internees were Home Army privates from the Lublin area (the biggest groups came from the counties of Radzyn, Lukow, Krasnystaw, Lubartow and the city of Lublin), Eastern-Warsaw and Rzeszow. The prisoners were detained in inhuman and climatically adverse conditions, in overcrowded barracks, received starvation food rations and were forced to do exhausting physical labor; there was a lack of work clothes and adequate shoes, and the sanitary conditions were fatal. Deaths were frequent also due to diseases such as: dystrophy, pneumonia, dysentery, lung tuberculosis and intestine inflammation. After their release from the camp and return to Poland, many of those Home Army soldiers experienced repressions at the hands of the „people’s authority” which was establishing itself in power. They were persecuted and treated as second rate citizens stigmatized with the „Home Army brand”.

German Economic Policy on Polish Territory Annexed to the Reich in the Years 1939-1945

Niemiecka polityka gospodarcza na ziemiach wcielonych do Rzeszy w latach 1939-1945

Author(s): Tadeusz Janicki / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article presents German economic policy on the so-called territories annexed to the Reich in the years 1939-1945. The study provides a synthetic overview of the major sources, objectives, stages and means used by the German occupants in implementing their goals in selected areas and branches of economy. The economic policy which was realized on those lands was an important element of building the German “living space” (Lebensraum) in the East of Europe. Its sources were of an ideological, economic and political character. Racism and a glorification of country life became a foundation for the policy of extermination of foreign ethnic groups, Germanization of annexed lands, deportation of their hitherto inhabitants and settlement of German peasants. Factors such as treating the “lands annexed to the Reich” as colonies in terms of economy, natural conditions, the doctrine of the “Great Space Economy” (Großraumwirtschaft) and war demands led to a restructuring of the economy of those territories so as to make them complementary to the economy of the so-called Old Reich accompanied by maximal exploitation of their production and population potential. The plunder of property that Germans practiced on mass scale, a policy of concentrating production, escalation of predatory economy and destruction resulting from military operations led to an economic degradation and significant civilizational regress of those areas.

Mechanisms of Historical Policy in Polish People’s Republic in Post-Stalinist Period

Z polityki historycznej w Polsce Ludowej w okresie postalinowskim

Author(s): Andrzej Choniawko / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

Współczesnej publicystyce historycznej, a także opracowaniom mającym ambicje uchodzić za naukowe, nieobce są opinie odmawiające historiografi i polskiej z czasów Polski Ludowej większej wartości poznawczej. W ślad za ocenami politycznymi Polska Ludowa jest traktowana przy tym często w sposób statyczny1. W konsekwencji nie dostrzega się ewolucji, jaką historiografi a polska przechodziła od epoki stalinizmu po schyłkowe lata realnego socjalizmu. Na tym tle nie zauważana pozostaje rola jaką w przełamywaniu dogmatycznego, pełnego fałszów i półprawd traktowania historii Polski odegrały mimo cenzury i ideologicznej presji poszczególne monografi e historyczne. Do takich należały między innymi prace A. Czubińskiego o Centrolewie oraz L. Moczulskiego na temat wojny obronnej Polski w 1939 r. Wydaniu obu książek towarzyszyły perturbacje mające polityczne tło. Ich przedstawienie posłużyć może ilustracji mechanizmów rządzących polityką historyczną w Polsce Ludowej w pełnych nadziei na zapanowanie liberalnych praktyk w tej dziedzinie zarówno w pierwszych latach po przełomie październikowym 1956 r., jak i w pierwszych latach po rewolcie robotniczej na Wybrzeżu 1970 r.

German Sabotage and Battles in Pomerania in September 1939

Dywersja niemiecka i walki na Pomorzu we wrześniu 1939 roku

Author(s): Piotr Saja / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article deals with Polish-German relations in Pomerania preceding the outbreak of the Second World War and gives an account of the sequence of battles fought in 1939. The author discusses German preparations to the invasion of Poland, focusing mainly on the region of Gdansk Pomerania. Attention is drawn to the disproportion of forces engaged in combat on the Polish and German sides. The course of the September Campaign in Pomerania is assessed taking into account the actual strategic-operational capacities of the units of the „Pomorze” Army. The article also highlights some of the documents which provide significant evidence of the real intentions of the generalship of the Third Reich’s armed forces.

Persecution and Extermination of Jews under Nazi Rule in the Wartheland

Prześladowania i zagłada Żydów pod rządami nazistów w Kraju Warty

Author(s): Bożena Górczyńska-Przybyłowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

During the German occupation of Poland, the Wartheland played a distinctive role in the persecution and extermination of Jews. It is there that German Nazis developed methods of murdering people and built the first extermination camp in the history of humanity where they partly realized the process of the “final solution of the local Jewish issue” even before the Wannsee conference, murdering there about two hundred thousand people. The remaining persons of Jewish origin from the area were murdered mostly at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. They were for the most part prisoners previously concentrated in the ghetto in Łódź. Until its close-down in 1944 the Łódź ghetto functioned as a peculiar kind of factory, operating according to the principles of a concentration camp with a large slave workforce whose labor was exploited both inside and outside the ghetto. Material evidence of the murderous exploitation of Jews during German occupation has remained even until today (e.g. in Poznań: the artificial lakes Rusałka and Malta, the cemetery at Miłostowo, the communication routes to Berlin and the airport at Krzesiny). The above mentioned examples are manifestations of a brutal termination of many centuries of coexistence of Poles and Jews on this territory, a coexistence which was problematic but also based on partnership.

Karol Marian Pospieszalski. Studies on German Occupation Undertaken by the Institute of Western Affairs

Karol Marian Pospieszalski. Badania nad okupacją niemiecką w Instytucie Zachodnim

Author(s): Zbigniew Mazur / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article presents the scientific and organizational activity of Professor Karol Marian Pospieszalski at the Institute for Western Affairs. Special emphasis is placed on his endeavors to maintain a continuity of studies on the German occupation of Polish territory.

Poland, Germany and the Genesis of the Second World War

Polska, Niemcy i geneza II wojny światowej

Author(s): Stanisław Żerko / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The detente in relations with Germany which started in 1934 was a great achievement of Poland’s foreign policy. In a situation when Paris and London adopted a conciliatory attitude toward Berlin, concern for a favorable atmosphere in Warsaw-Berlin relations appeared to be from the Polish perspective a raison d’état. Also a temporary cooperation with the Reich (e.g. when both countries opposed the Eastern Pact project) could be in the interest of Poland. However, during the Sudeten crisis of 1938 this cooperation took a dangerous turn for Poland and there was a threat of her being isolated by Western powers, a risk that had been overlooked by the Polish authorities. At the time of friendlier relations with Poland, Germany formulated offers of a closer cooperation and alliance aimed against the Soviet Union. Those propositions included also a weakening of Poland’s alliance with France and were accompanied by demands for consent to incorporate Gdańsk into Germany and to create an exterritorial road connection across Polish Pomerania. At this point there could be no doubt that the German offer would lead to a degradation of Poland to the status of a satellite state. In this situation, Poland’s refusal and efforts to improve the strained ties with Western powers (which resulted in the establishment of an alliance with Britain and a revitalization of that with France) had all the characteristics of a rational decision.

Book Reviews

Oceny i omówienia

Author(s): Maciej Walkowiak,Jadwiga Kiwerska,Bogdan Koszel,Łukasz Jastrząb / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

Reviewed books: Pozytywista z duszą romantyka. O życiu i twórczości Edwarda Serwańskiego, pod red. Henryka Olszewskiego, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, Poznań 2008, 235 ss. WIESŁAW OLSZEWSKI: Cmentarze na stokach poznańskiej Cytadeli, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, Poznań 2008, 596 ss. MACIEJ HEJGER: Przekształcenia narodowościowe na Ziemiach Zachodnich i Północnych Polski w latach 1945-1959, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii Pomorskiej w Słupsku, Słupsk 2008, 464 ss. ANNA MROŻEWSKA: Naturrechtsmotive in der Literatur der Weimarer Republik und des Dritten Reiches, Wydawnictwo Uczelniane Politechniki Koszalińskiej, Koszalin 2007, 188 ss.

German Policy of the Displacement of Poles and German Settlement in the Years 1939-1945 in the Area of Gau Danzig-Westpreussen, Świecko County

Niemiecka polityka wysiedlania Polaków oraz osadnictwa Niemców w latach 1939-1945 w Okręgu Gdańsk-Prusy Zachodnie, powiat świecki

Author(s): Wiesław Trzeciakowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article tackles the theme of displacements of Polish families (as a matter of fact they should be defined as expulsions) from farms and other rural and urban real estates confiscated without any compensation by the German occupant. The study has been narrowed down to the county of Swiecko in order to show as if under a microscope the structure of the activities of the German administration: from government guidelines through local police and administration on the level of Gau Danzig-Westpruessen down to concrete instances of displacement. In this way we obtain a clear and coherent picture showing the implementation of the German plans of displacements (expulsions) of Poles from territories annexed to the Reich. Whole families were expelled to the so-called displacement camps (Umsiedlungslager) which were then sealed and within a short time transformed into concentration camps with forced labor, like e.g. the Potulice camp (Umsiedlungslager Lebrechtsdorf) – it was built at the turn of 1940/1941 and since 1942 already functioned as a branch of the penitentiary concentration camp Stutthof. The homes of the expulsed Polish families were settled by German migrants from the Baltic states, Bessarabia (Moldova, Romania) and Volhynia or passed into the hands of the local Germans. The campaign of expulsion and settlement was personally supervised by H. Himmler by means of security forces and police as well as central and lower level institutions for displacement (in Pomerania – the Central Office for Displacements in Gdansk).

The Great Patriotic War in Contemporary Russian Cinematography. On Memory Carriers

Wielka Wojna Ojczyźniana we współczesnej rosyjskiej kinematografi i. O nośnikach pamięci zbiorowej

Author(s): Agata Bachórz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article deals with selected ways of presenting the Second World War in contemporary Russian cinematography on the example of several films produced in the years 2002-2008. The theoretical framework of the analysis is defined by issues pertaining to collective memory, its carriers and the medialisation of memory. In the background of the considerations is the thesis that the victory over fascism was and still is a vital factor in building Soviet and Russian collective identity. This effect is achieved by sustaining the state-controlled, heroic, one-sided and unrealistic image of the war to the exclusion of elements at odds with the paradigm of victory. Contrary to such an interpretation, the author of the article draws attention to the heterogeneity and polyphonicity of the Russian discourse on the past. Analysis includes films which adhere to the legitimized heroic discourse as well as those that present other, alternative or even subvertive narrations.

German Repressions against the Polish People on Lands Annexed to the Third Reich during the Second World War (1939-1945)

Represje niemieckie wobec ludności polskiej na ziemiach wcielonych do III Rzeszy w latach II wojny światowej (1939-1945)

Author(s): Maria Rutowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 02/2009

The article presents the Third Reich’s occupant policy in Poland which was characterized by the most extremist actions. A variety of methods was used against all social strata and groups. All of these methods were aimed against the greatest goods of the human being, such as freedom and life. People were condemned to displacement from their homeland, forced to do slave labor, deprived of the bare necessities of existence, forbidden to obtain education or participate in cultural life. Furthermore, imponderable material damages were inflicted.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck – wizerunek ze skazą

Author(s): Damian Zieliński / Language(s): / Issue: 02/2015

Keywords: colonialism; Weimar Republic; Schutztruppe; History of Germany; World War I

The subject of the article is general Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (1870-1964). He was the commander of the German army in East Africa during the First World War, where he gained the reputation of an invincible and chivalrous leader. For many German people he was a national hero. He never came to terms with the fall of monarchy in Germany, in the period of the Weimar Republic he represented the previous era, continuing to be a champion of colonialism and reconstruction of the German army. In the period of the Third Reich Lettow-Vorbeck did not join the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (German: NSDAP), but nevertheless collaborated with the regime. After the Second World War he again became a hero of the collective imagination, however in the 1960s he was strongly criticized. The article presents not only the biography of Lettow-Vorbeck but also how his myth was created in the public sphere and how he was perceived by the society and media in particular periods.

The First World War from the perspective of the UK - the balance of gains and losses

Pierwsza wojna światowa z perspektywy Wielkiej Brytanii – bilans zysków i strat

Author(s): Dariusz Jeziorny / Language(s): / Issue: 02/2015

Keywords: Great Britain; World War I

Great Britain, famous for her balance of power policy during the nineteenth century, got involved in the Great War because the growth of German power challenged this European balance of power. The German aggression on Belgium demanded concrete counter-action on the part of London, where the Napoleonic times were still remembered. Great Britain fought mainly against Germany for four years and won the war. Nevertheless, the First World War had no winner. Although Britain achieving her basic political, colonial, military and economic postulates the losses were overwhelming and the whole British power was seriously weakened. Without any doubts this influenced the government’s internal and foreign policy in the interwar period. It was felt in the British capital that participation in any subsequent conflict on such a huge scale would result in the destruction of the United Kingdom’s power, a prediction which came true after the Second World War.

Reviews

Oceny i omówienia

Author(s): Józef Szocki,Agnieszka Anna Nitszke,Krzysztof Kania,Olaf Bergmann,Ernest Kuczyński,Jerzy Kałążny,Rafał Riedel / Language(s): / Issue: 02/2015

Urlich Schmid (red.): Estetyka dyskursu nacjonalistycznego w Polsce 1926-1939, Wydawnictwo Naukowe SCHOLAR, Warszawa 2014, 509 ss. Krystian M. Szudarek : Dyplomacja brytyjska wobec polityki Niemiec w Komisji Przygotowawczej Konferencji Rozbrojeniowej w Genewie (1926-1930), Wydawnictwo DiG, Warszawa 2015, 461 ss.+96 il. Brigitte Hamann : Wiedeń Hitlera. Lata nauki pewnego dyktatora, przeł. Jolanta Dworczak, Wyd. II, Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, Poznań 2013, 584 ss. Jerz y Jarowiecki : Z badań nad polską prasą konspiracyjną w latach 1939- 1945, Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Zarządzania „Edukacja”, Wrocław 2013, 191 ss. Reinhard Ibler (Hg.): Der Holocaust in den mitteleuropäischen Literaturen und Kulturen seit 1989 – The Holocaust in the Central European Literatures und Cultures since 1989. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2014 (Literatur und Kultur im mittleren und östlichen Europa, Bd. 5), 372 ss. Ilko -Sascha Kowalczuk , Arno Polzin (red.): Fasse Dich kurz! Der grenzüberschreitende Telefonverkehr der Opposition in den 1980er Jahren und das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, 1059 ss. Józef M. Fiszer (red. naukowa): System euroatlantycki i bezpieczeństwo międzynarodowe w multipolarnym świecie. Miejsce i rola Polski w euroatlantyckim systemie bezpieczeństwa, Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, Warszawa 2013, 388 ss.

American project of internationalization of Silesia and the Polish-German border in the years 1945-1949

Amerykański projekt umiędzynarodowienia Śląska i granicy polsko-niemieckiej w latach 1945-1949

Author(s): Krzysztof Siwek / Language(s): / Issue: 02/2015

Keywords: Silesia; Oder-Neisse; international diplomacy; United States; Europe; Germany

The objective of the United States regarding internationalisation of Silesia and the Polish-German border established in 1945 was based on the needs of European economic reconstruction which included international access to Silesian coal and foodstuffs. Despite U.S. - U.S.S.R. tensions American diplomacy still emphasized the all-European dimension of the Silesian issue in particular during the Council of Foreign Ministers’ sessions in Moscow and London in 1947. Accordingly, it was not the opposition to Poland’s westward move which determined the U.S.’s critical attitude towards the Oder-Neisse question but the resolve to prevent isolation of Silesian industry behind the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless U.S. plans concerning Silesia were suspended because of the political division of Germany and Europe in 1949.

The emergence the World Bank and its initial operations in the light of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan 1944-1948

Powstanie Banku Światowego oraz jego początkowa działalność w świetle Doktryny Trumana i Planu Marshalla 1944-1948

Author(s): Łukasz Cherek / Language(s): / Issue: 02/2015

Keywords: World Bank; Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; John McCloy; Bretton Woods

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, also known as the World Bank, was created together with the International Monetary Fund at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944. Articles of Agreement, signed by the countries participating in the conference, defined five major regulations of the existence of the Bank. Those regulations soon proved to be insufficient and the new institution had to face many organizational problems which limited the role of the President of the Bank leaving it unable to make any loan decisions. The task of changing this situation was taken up by John McCloy, who acted as the Bank’s president between 1947 and 1949. This article examines the policy of the World Bank during its first years, in which it could not stay indifferent to the changing political realities in international relations, such as the implementation of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The article reassesses the role of the World Bank in international relations after 1945, presents hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, correspondence between John McCloy and Harry Truman and between McCloy and Averell Harriman from the Economic Cooperation Administration, established to administer the Marshall Plan in Europe.

The scientific journal

Z kroniki naukowej

Author(s): Mateusz Hurysz,Maria Wagińska-Marzec / Language(s): / Issue: 02/2015

Mateusz Hurysz - 100. rocznica śmierci Prymasa Polski, arcybiskupa gnieźnieńskiego i poznańskiego Edwarda Likowskiego 1915-2015 Maria Wagińska-Marzec - Polsko-niemieckie refleksje o edukacji kulturalnej oraz upowszechnianiu kultury i sztuki