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Polen / Poland
| DD.MM.YYYY | German | English | Notes |
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| »Eine Verständigung mit Polen ist weder möglich noch erwünscht. Die Spannung zu Polen muß schon aus dem Grunde erhalten bleiben, damit das Interesse der Welt an einer Revision der deutsch-polnischen Grenze nicht einschläft. Daß Polen mit dem Gedanken eines Präventivkriegs wegen unserer territorialen Forderungen spielt, ist bekannt. Unsere Politik muß daher mit großer Vorsicht operieren und Einzelaktionen vermeiden.«
~ Bernhard von Bülow, zit. nach ADAP, C, 1, 1, Dokument 142, S. 259. |
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| »Glauben Sie, irgend jemand von uns hätte nach dem Sommer 1940 etwas an der Tatsache ändern können, daß Polen den Krieg wegen des im Frühjahr 1939 gegebenen Versprechens der englischen Regierung riskiert hatte, nicht nur Ostpreußen sondern auch Oberschlesien zu erhalten?«
~ Heinrich Brüning, zitiert in: Scheil, Stefan: Polen 1939: Kriegskalkül, Vorbereitung, Vollzug, Schnellroda: Antaois-Verlag 2013), S. 63. |
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| 18.03.1930 | »All daß veranlaßt mich zu der ergebensten Bitte, Sie, hochverehrter Herr Reichsminister, möchten gütigst der Erwägung einer anderweitigen Verwendung für mich nähertreten. Vulgär gesagt: Ich kann nach all den Kämpfen, Intrigen und Ermüdungen keinen Polen mehr sehen!«
~ Ulrich Rauscher, 18.03.1930, ADAP, B/14, S. 378. |
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| 1930 | »One might have thought that a century of suffering would have changed many things. When, after the war, we saw the Poles reappear at Versailles and in all our capitals, we found that they were still the delightful and unpractical Poles of old. Their public men flooded the Cabinets of the Entente with memorials, reports, plans, historical reconstructions, juridical theses without end. According to them, half of Europe had been Polish and might have become Polish again. Poles are sometimes accused of a somewhat feminine want of logic. These Poles were terribly logical and persistent, with the result that everybody got sick of their claims. So it happened, for instance, that when Dmowski asked for the annexation of East Prussia to Poland, to avoid, as he very logically said, the paradox of the Dantzig Corridor, diplomatic Europe became so irritated with these eternally increasing demands that, had matters depended on Lloyd George alone, we might have seen in the end a Fourth Partition.«
~ Carlo Sforza, former Italian foreign minister, in: Makers of Modern Europe, London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot 1930, p. 367. |
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| 27.10.1932 | »Wenn es den Leitern der Außenpolitik der Republik gelungen ist, die Sicherheit der Ostgrenze des Staates durch Abschluß des Nichtangriffspakts mit Sowjetrußland zu garantieren, so kann dieses Tatsache nur eine Bedeutung haben: Sie macht uns die Hände gegenüber Deutschland frei.«
~ Josef Beck, damaliger Oberst, 27.10.1932, zit. nach einem Bericht der Bundespolizeidirektion in Wien an den österreichischen Bundeskanzler Dollfuß über einen Brief von Beck and Pilsudski, 04.11.1932 zit. nach: Scheil, Stefan: Polens Zwischenkrieg. Der Weg der Zweiten Republik von Versailles nach Gleiwitz, Pour le Merite 2022, S. 143 ff. |
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| 27.10.1932 | »Wenn das nicht erkannt wird, werden nicht nur wir selbst, sondern auch unsere Kinder Groß-Polen nicht erleben.«
~ Josef Beck, damaliger Oberst, 27.10.1932, zit. nach einem Bericht der Bundespolizeidirektion in Wien an den österreichischen Bundeskanzler Dollfuß über einen Brief von Beck and Pilsudski, 04.11.1932 zit. nach: Scheil, Stefan: Polens Zwischenkrieg. Der Weg der Zweiten Republik von Versailles nach Gleiwitz, Pour le Merite 2022, S. 146. |
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| »Wie haben schon vor einigen Jahren vorausschauend den Alliierten ein Losschlagen gegen den Feind vorgeschlagen, als er seine Kräfte erst zu entfalten begann. Die Alliierten glaubten, daß sich dieses Problem ohne Krieg lösen lasse und die Deutschen in ihren Eroberungszügen aufgehalten werden könnten. Wir glaubten nicht daran und heute sehen wir, daß das Recht auf der Seite der polnischen Staatsraison war.«
~ Josef Beck zit. nach Hans Roos: Die "Präventivkriegspläne" Pilsudskis von 1933, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Jhg. 3 (1955), Nr. 4, S. 344-363, hier S. 347. |
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| »...the Pilsudski government instructed its ambassador in Washington Filipowicz, to bring to Hoover's attention the fact that "there is at almost any moment the danger of the invasion of Polish territory by German irregular troops" and that the Poles were determined to counter by marching into Germany "to settle the thing once and for all" regardless "of any action of the League of Nations or anyone else." The Polish representations caused Secretary of State Stimson to state at a press conference that "the question of Polish-German relations was a purely European problem in which the American Government had no direct interest." This was followed by a terse communique issued by the White House on October 25, 1931: "A press statement that the President has proposed any revision of the Polish Corridor is absolutely without foundation. The President has made no suggestion of any such character."«
~ Sharp, Samuel L.: Poland. White Eagle on a Red Field, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1953, p. 280-281. |
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| 1936 | »When Hitler marched the German Army into the Rhineland on March 7, 1936, Minister Beck asked the French Ambassador in Poland, even before the French government had reached its decision, to relay to Paris the message that Poland understood the difficult position of France and was ready to carry out its alliance obligations. [...]
In spite of his first fighting speech of Premier Sarraut [on March 8], Minister Beck expected that the chances of armed reaction on the part of France were exceedingly small. Nevertheless, his move was of great political significance. At the conclusion of the nonaggression declaration with Germany, special stress was placed on the fact that the declaration did not in the least alter our earlier commitments. this referred mainly to the alliance with France and the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. Our envoy to Berlin at that time took particular care that the German side should be aware that we remained definitely true to our commitments towards France. We assured France as well, that the declaration of nonaggression with Germany did not restrict our freedom of action within the framework of the alliance.«
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| 1946 | »The last hundred years have been the Century of nationalism, and the States created or revived by the 1919 Peace Treaties were regarded as National States. Among these States was Poland. Yet the Polish ruling class and Polish intellectuals had aimed at the restoration of a Poland bounded by the frontiers of 1772. These frontiers would not in any way correspond with ethnical boundaries, and a State contained within them would not be a National State. Historical Poland was not a National State, but a multinational Empire which arose in the course of centuries when the dogma of Nationalism, as understood in modem times, did not exist. Poland was destroyed at the end of the eighteenth century, but a movement for its restoration continued to exist in all three portions of the dismembered State. This movement consisted only of people of Polish language and nationality. Among these Poles a nationalism in the modern sense developed, from the time of the French Revolution onwards. Its aim appeared to the outside world to be to liberate the Poles, that is the people of Polish language and nationality, from the yoke of Prussia, Russia and Austria. The Polish national movement enjoyed much sympathy abroad, particularly in France, Britain, Italy and the United States of America. In fact, however, the aim of this movement, as conceived by its political and intellectual leaders, was not merely the liberation of Poles from foreign rule, but the restoration of Historical Poland, a State including millions of people who were not Poles, and who during the course of the nineteenth century had developed for themselves a much stronger national consciousness than they had possessed in the days when Historical Poland existed. The fact that, the true political aim of the Polish ruling class was not nationalist at all but imperialist, that it involved the domination of Poles over large numbers of people of origin other than Polish, has never been sufficiently understood in Western Europe, and this failure to understand it has been responsible for errors in the policy of the Western Powers towards Poland.«
~ Hugh Seton-Watson, British historian, diplomat and secret agent, in: Eastern Europe Between the Wars 1918-1941, London: Cambridge University Press 1946, p. 320. |
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| »We frowned when Pilsudski twice a year suggested to France armed action against Germany while there was time. Why should not a century and a half of old scores be paid off and new ones economically prevented? But the French were costive , and their men dead. So Pilsudski, an exponent of 'one thing or another' - a phrase always anathema to us - cogitated other insurance.«
~ Vansittart, Robert: The Mist of Procession. The autobiography of Lord Vansittart, Longon: Hutchinsons & Co. 1958, p. 412. |
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| 1984 | »Ende Juli 1925 setzten Massenabschiebungen aus Polen ein. Binnen einer Woche mussten 20 000 Deutsche Polen verlassen. Die Auffanglager in Scheidemühl waren bald überfüllt...«
~ Doß, Kurt: Zwischen Weimar und Warschau. Ulrich Rauscher. Deutscher Gesandter in Polen 1922-1930. Eine politische Biographie, Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag 1984, S. 106. |
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| 2010 | »Das Großmachtstreben war der Fluch unserer politischen Linie. Es verfestigte sich die Überzeugung, dass Polen, um existieren zu können, eine Großmacht sein müsse, das heißt, stark genug, um sich selbst eine von seinen Nachbarn unabhängige staatliche Existenz zu sichern. [Beck] nennt Sienkiewicz einen genialen Apostel des nationalen Größenwahns Polens, räumt aber ein, dass [der Schriftsteller] ‚als Künstler’ intuitiv den Misston in diesem Größenwahn wahrgenommen und ihn mit der Einführung der Figur des Zagloba korrigiert habe; allerdings habe ich nicht den Eindruck, dass er in Polen viel Verständnis für diesen literarischen Kunstgriff gefunden hat.
[...] [Neutralität] schien den Anforderungen einer weniger aggressiven Politik gegenüber den Nachbarn angemessen, während die polnische Großmachtpolitik nicht auf Konzepte für eine Abtrennung der Ukraine und des Kaukasus von Russland verzichtete und weiterhin das Ziel formulierte, sich Danzig, wenn nicht sogar Ostpreußen einzuverleiben usw. Gewisse Aktivitäten in dieser Richtung, die sich am besten als Eiertanz beschreiben lassen, wurden durchaus von staatlichen Stellen oder von staatlich finanzierten Institutionen unternommen. Die Öffentlichkeit war darauf unglaublich stolz und sehr zufrieden damit.«
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»The great power aspiration was the bane of our political line. It solidified the conviction that Poland, in order to exist, had to be a great power, that is, strong enough to secure for itself a state existence independent of its neighbors. [Beck] calls Sienkiewicz a brilliant apostle of Poland's national megalomania, but concedes that [the writer] 'as an artist' intuitively perceived the discord in this megalomania and corrected it by introducing the figure of Zagloba; however, I do not have the impression that he found much understanding in Poland for this literary artifice.
[...] [Neutrality] seemed appropriate to the requirements of a less aggressive policy toward the neighbors, while Polish great power policy did not renounce concepts of separating Ukraine and the Caucasus from Russia and continued to formulate the goal of annexing Danzig, if not East Prussia, and so on. Certain activities in this direction, which can best be described as dancing on eggshells, were certainly undertaken by state agencies or by state-funded institutions. The public was incredibly proud of this and very pleased with it.«
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| »Colonel Beck was apprehensive of negotiations, not because they seemed hopeless, but for fear lest Hitler really consented to a compromise, and also lest Britain perhaps show an inclination to impose the compromise on Poland.«
~ Michael Freund, in: Freund, Michael: Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten. Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Dokumenten, Bd. III, Der Ausbruch des Krieges 1939, München: Verlag Herder Freiburg und Verlag Karl Alber Freibug 1956, S. 308 ff. |