The Image of the Germans in Polish Literature

Dedicated to the memory of the ethnic researcher Dr. Kurt Lueck, Posen, in gratitude for his scientific research into the German ethnic national areas of Poland.

Foreword

When I was asked about a year and a half ago whether or not I would consider giving a talk on the subject of Poland — in view of the considerable interest in Poland on the part of the German people and the extent of German assistance programmes to that country — I began to research the “Polish problem” in greater detail than had hitherto been the case. It was not difficult for me to write recollections from my own experience, extending as far back as my earliest childhood and school days, while simultaneously discussing the findings of literature and history. At the request of the listeners, a printed text of my first talk was prepared, followed, some time later, by a further revised and expanded second edition, which has now been superceded by a third.

My first talk was followed by many others. Many questions were raised and innumerable letters received, expressing gratitude for my work of enlightenment, with the request that I publish other information, unknown in Germany, which might contribute to a more accurate appraisal of the Polish national character. I wish to comply with that request on the part of interested readers by writing a second part on falsifications of Polish history.

The enormous quantity of available materials made selection difficult; I had only intended to write a brochure enabling the German reader to see and understand the development of the Polish nation from its earliest Germanic racial origins to its chauvinistic hatred of everything German. In so doing, I made plentiful use of documentation prepared by scientific researchers and historians of an earlier era, as well as of materials dating from more recent research.

At this point, I should like to thank all those who have written to me enclosing clippings, etc. from the various news media, or who have alerted me to certain matters, thus helping me to clarify the topic of a falsified historical past in relation to falsifications of the present day.

It is not the case that the falsification process has come to an end. Quite the contrary: it is now, as in the past, being given continued life not only by foreigners, but by German writers and journalists, whether out of ignorance, carelessness, or deliberate malice, we may not say. It is the fashion — indeed, the fad — to write about Poland, since Poland is headline news in the world press; the subject must therefore be dealt with. The following pages are intended to reveal another aspect of Poland: the Poland of Polish literature, to which all Poles, and many Germans, make reference.

At the immediate moment, for example, the Hoffman and Campe Publishing Company is offering a large-format MERIAN book on glossy paper, advertised as follows:

“POLAND – a passion. Poland, the eternal. What kind of land is it, what kind of people? … We know too little about the history of Poland, writes the author Karl Dedecius. Yet Polish history is made especially clear to us precisely by Polish literature. Polish history and literature complement each other perfectly, since Polish literature has at all times been nationally and historically conscious, and therefore representative of the Polish people. The selection of texts is unusual. Poetry and prose are presented alongside historical documents and many journalistic texts. Bruno Barbey's photos provide atmosphere, depicting everyday occurrences, unique qualities, and historical events. Barbey's photographs reveal the Polish people and their surroundings with unreserved sympathy.”

That Polish literature was, and is, very nationalistic, is already well known. How historically accurate it may be, has been discussed by someone more competent than the writer discussed above. The second authority is the Pole, Prof. Markiewicz, head of the Polish School Book Commission, who, speaking on German television, described the kind of historical consciousness which is representative of the Polish people. His statements are as follows:

“We should not forget that the historical consciousness of a people was, and still is, influenced not so much by professional historians and their work, but rather — and to a much greater degree — by novelists and their works. I would like to remind you of our great writers Adam Mickiewicz, particularly his two novels 'Drazyna', and 'Konrad Wallenrod'; Henryk Sienkiwicz, whose novel 'The Knights' was filmed a few years ago; and Boleslaw Prus, with his work entitled 'The Watch Posts'.”

When the publisher of the Merian Book says that we know too little about Polish history, we can only agree with him. But he offers only an “unusual selection of texts”, and, in addition to historical and political documents, a number of more journalistic writings and topics photographed with “unreserved sympathy”. This means that the reader can renounce all hope of learning the truth about Poland and its history. I should like to provide some assistance in ameliorating this lack of knowledge with regards to the works of the great Polish poets referred to by Prof. Markiewicz, who were responsible for “forming the historical consciousness of the Polish people”, as Prof. Markiewicz expressly admits; but I fear that I will not concur with the “passionate author”, Karl Dedecius, and his 60 books on Poland — which he would like to expand to 100, according to page 37 of the “Darmstadter Echo” of 18 September 1982. The manner in which the writer's output is praised to the book purchaser is highly peculiar. This clever fellow possesses an inimitable method of production, described as follows:

“Every morning — at least this is the impression he gives the reader — he takes one, two, three, Polish poems and translates them, much as another man might munch upon one, two, three English muffins. For a mid-morning snack, he treats himself to a couple of letters, which he translates; at noon, he relaxes with a few aphorisms, which he translates; in the afternoon, he writes a little essay or two — sometimes short, sometimes long — on translation work. In the evening, he attends a colloqium on Polish literature, or holds a meeting or two with a few experts on Poland. One may admire the quantity of work tossed off per annum by the 61-year old translator, but the quality can only be wondered at. So far, he has written, translated, or published approximately 60 books, testifying to his passion for Poland.”

I shall not attempt to compete with this mass producer as regards sheer quantity; but perhaps I can come closer where quality and truth about Poland are concerned. His connections — such as the Robert-Bosch Foundation — are not availble to me, but I hope to offer my readers a closer acquaintance with the Polish literature mentioned by Prof. Markiewicz so as to provide them with a clearer image of the land and people of Poland.

There is also a study group called “Poland Writings in the German Language”, led by a certain Udo Kuehn of Wiesbaden, of whom I wish to speak, since he has also attempted to “fill the German information gap on Poland”. According to the advertising blurb, however, he is apparently attempting to do so in the interests of the Poles and their country, rather than in German interests. The wares offered therein will therefore rather resemble the merchandise purveyed by Prof. Markiewicz where the historical consciousness of the Polish people is concerned, i.e., a product based on anything but reality and truth. German interests cannot, however, be served by whitewashing Polish literature and rendering it innocuous through deceptive translations, but rather, solely and finally, through the truth. I therefore agree with all those who say that the information gap on Poland must be filled, but please, let it not be filled not by persons who know neither the land nor the people, who have no idea of the conditions there, or who have only permitted themselves to be filled with one-sided information from Poles, i.e, those who accept the Polish image of themselves. Rather, I am in favour of permitting an expert with the highest qualications to speak on the subject.

My compatriot from the German East, the ethnic and national researcher Dr. Kurt Lueck, of Posen, provides information on the Polish national character and way of thinking in his very extensive works “The Myth of the German in the Polish Tradition and Literature”, and “German Construction Forces in the Development of Poland”. It is regrettable that these works can only be consulted in the Eastern Studies Departments of universities. They really belong in every German home, so that the unrealistic delusion of a proud and noble Poland — standing as high as the heavens above German barbarism — might finally be dispelled here in Germany, and facts be taken into account. Kurt Lueck's research has done us a magnificent service through his sifting of Polish literature; I wish to rescue that work from obscurity.

It is only natural for screams of “incitement to racial hatred” to be raised whenever the coddled, pampered Polish child receives a scolding. In reply, let it be said that I cite exclusively texts originating in Polish literature or history, that is, admissions made by the Poles themselves, for which they alone are responsible. To us Germans, it is more important — in fact, a vital necessity — to learn the whole truth about the systematically engendered and pressure-packed Polish hatred of everything German, i.e, that we recognize the extent and origins of Polish chauvinism, as we ourselves experienced it in the 1920s and 30s, and are still experiencing it today.

Contemporary research has dealt with the question of the Eastern German settlement areas with typically German thoroughness, and in so doing it has reached findings which can no longer be thoughtlessly ignored. Even the Poles will be compelled to recognize these truths, if genuine reconcilation between both peoples is to become a reality.

The history of the settlement of an area is determinative for all time. Culture is not created by force or by lies, but only by intellectual work on the part of the elite of a people. Rights and ownership arise only by reason of the achievements of a people brought into fullness in a geographical area. There is no culture of weapons, no culture of lies. Only history provides an insight into the identity of the real founders of an ethnic culture.

I described the origins of the Polish nationality in my previous text, “Falsifications of Polish History”, in which I limited myself to the briefest possible discussion. Here again, I must return to the beginnings of Polish historical writings in the briefest manner possible.

All Polish history books, indeed all Polish literature, including the so-called “Letter of Reconciliation” from the Polish bishops Stefan Wyszynski and Karol Woytyla to the German bishops in 1956, refer to Miseszko I as the “first Polish Duke”, who took the Holy Sacrament of baptism in the year 966.

Of course, at the same time, this constitutes proof that no Polish empire existed in 966, since Miezszko was the “first”; furthermore, he was not a Pole, but rather, a Norman named “Dago-Mesico”, from the Norwegian family line of the Daglingers, who migrated into lands settled by the Germans on the Weichsel and Warthe. His baptism proves nothing at all — certainly not that he was a Pole, or that he ever became a Pole: it only proves that Dago accepted Christianity. There are no records — as scholars confirm today — which ever mention — even once — a people bearing the name “Poles” or “Slavs” [in the area] at that time. The only tribes which were native to the area were Germanic, and the founders of the Polish empire were also German. But Polish history has to begin somewhere; it was therefore logical to take this Christian baptism as the point of departure.

The falsifiers of history, who came along very much later, were simple men who lived mostly for the present, as is the case at all times. They lacked experience in falsification, and failed to realize that their falsifications would be recognized as such, even centuries later. They could hardly imagine that research into the truth would ever begin, even after a thousand years.

They falsified for the present and the immediate future; they encouraged belief for the present, and they knew how to compel this belief, just as they had known how to compel baptism at an earlier time. Baptism or death — thus was the conversion to Christianity achieved. The new “Polish” language, which was only invented much later, could hardly be imposed by force in the same way, since nobody would have understood it. The transformation of an entire people into a previously non-existent ethnic group could hardly occur overnight; long periods of time were required for this purpose, as well as stubborn, deliberately conscious work. First to be effaced was human memory, relegated to oblivion. The re-writing of the cloister chronicles dating back to the year 966 — the time of the first Christian baptism in the area — was only completed at the expense of great time and effort. It was, after all, necessary to take the name of every well-known person, every village, every ordinary object, and give it a new name, while concealing one's objective.

Artificial languages are not as difficult to devise or as unusual as one might at first imagine. Synthtetic languages are created with specific objectives and propagated in books and groups even today, such as Esperanto, for example.*

* Translator's note: The 1911 Encylopaedia (Poland) remarks:

“The first press from which books in the Polish language appeared was that of Hieronymus Wietor, a Silesian, who commenced publishing in 1515… the first complete work in the Polish language appeared from the press of this printer at Cracow in 1521…”

Polish belongs to the West Slavonic group of languages, several of which acquired written form, with many German loan words, only in the 19th century.

Today, we are in a position to see how our own experience of the very recent past is falsified on a daily basis. Since 1945, the German past — not just the National Socialist period but even the Weimar Republic and the Empire of the Kaisers — has been re-written according to the requirements of the victors and the ruling hierarchy. The newspapers are simply not allowed to say how it really was. And the further removed we become from personal experience, the more susceptible we become to a history bespattered with lies and filth; all efforts to clear our name are either ignored or subject to legal prosecution. Yet this is the case in an “enlightened age”, a “democratic state”, a “state of law”. The same certainly cannot be said of the period during which the Polish falsifications were devised. The invention of the “new” Polish artificial language by the German bishop Wolf Gottlobonis — later name-changed into Wincent Kadlubek — began in 1218, at the cloister of Klein-Morimund, near Cracow. Just as, today, all sorts of attempts are made, with recourse to every conceivable variety of manipulation, to turn the German people into a race of mongrels, doomed to renounce their traditions and their ability to recall, to make them easier to rule and to exploit, in the same manner, an effort was begun to dissolve the connections between the peoples of the Eastern German settlement areas and their Germanic origins. The new language was also given a new past. For simplicity's sake, the date of the origins of the Polish state was deemed to coincide with the first Christian baptism.

For that particular period of history, this may have been enough: ordinary people had no idea what the falsifiers were getting up to in their ecclestiastical and municipal chronicles. If a “Polish people” really existed from a racial point of view, then it must have fallen down out of the sky, without any racial ancestors. A Polish miracle without parallel.

Ordinary people didn't accept the new artificial language for a long time. It took almost 300 years for a so-called Polish conversational language to arise from the glagolitic church Latin of the monks. The city of Cracow, which according to the statements of Polish historians remained German until the late 15th century, held out the longest. But as it was impossible to cause the German chronicles to disappear, they continue to provide mute evidence, even today.

That the German inhabitants of the city Cracow resisted for so long, is food for thought. It cannot have been due to their religious belief, since all men were of the same faith. But the seat of the bishop falsifier Kadlubek, who would today be called a “collaborateur”, was located in the city of Cracow. We may presume that the reason why a knowledge of the altered form of the language and ethnic identity of the people was retained for so long, was precisely because people had acquired a first awareness of the basic objective. Their ideological teachings obviously aroused resistance, which lasted until the final eradication of tradition, as people fell gradually victim to compulsion.

The manner in which Germans are transformed into Poles is described very exactly on pages 240-276 ff. of “Ostgermanien” by Franz Wolff. I know from personal experience how German names became Polish, how German names were changed in the 1920s and 30s, how personal identity documents were issued bearing Polish names only. Thus, Else became Elzbieta; Eugen became Eugeniusz; Albert or Albrecht became Wojciech; Nickolaus became Mikolaj; Lorenz became Wawrzyniak; Mathias became Maciej. And if there wasn't any translation for a name — Hildegard, for example — then the person was simply called Elzbieta, i.e., Elizabeth. Protests were a waste of time. The Nuremberg sculptor Veit Stoss became “Wit Stwosz”. The German, Nikolaus Kopernikus, from Thorn, became “Mikolaj Kopernik”. The last two could hardly protest, since they had already been dead for centuries. Yet top-ranking officials of the Polish Catholic Church, Cardinals Wyszynski and Wojtyla, in their so-called “Letter of Reconciliation” in 1965, claimed that the Germans were permitted to retain their names, that nothing was taken from them. How credible, then, are the other statements made by the same men in their attempt to excuse themselves? Do the stones of Breslau really “speak Polish”, as the Primate Cardinal Wyszynski claimed in Breslau Cathedral? If the Cardinal Primate personally lies in solemn ceremonies in the Cathedral, then what can one expect from his colleagues in the education of a people? Ordinary people are not responsible for the lies contained in Polish history — the Polish clergy, the intellectuals, the writers, and the press are responsible. They are the educators of the people, as everywhere in the world. When these educators are dishonest and filled with hate, then the people will be, too. The seeds sown by chauvinistic educators produce cruel fruit. I should like to describe this “seed” to the German reader. In my view, this is absolutely necessary, because only a recognition of the causes can lead to a remediation of the effects. Light must be shed one of the most shameful chapters in Polish history.

In his incomparably exhaustive work, Dr. Kurt Lueck of Posen has researched and established the traditional conceptions of the Polish people from German traditions. In the introduction to his “Myth of the German in Polish Popular Traditions and Literature”, he mentions the peculiarly Polish manner of viewing identical matters in a different light; for example, the “winning” of the originally German — but later Western Slavonic — areas between the Oder and the Elbe by Boleslaus the Brave is called a “State programme” by Polish historians, who, in the same breath, call it “lust for plunder” when the same areas are settled by the German Empire. These contradictory value judgments on all aspects of national and popular life, to their own advantage and according to the needs of the moment, were, and still are, the mainspring of Polish actions and the Polish character.

Lueck then continues:

“The sociological roots of the Polish anti-German hatred and antipathy may be illustrated by a few additional examples. The religious division was decisive. The abyss which first separated Christian Germans from pagan Poles in the early Middle Ages was not overcome without great pressure upon converts. As a result of paganism's defensive anti-Christian attitudes, the new religion was called “the German Faith”. But even the still unified world of the Western churches was not free from disputes. In 1248, for the first time, we hear bitter complaints from the Poles regarding foreign colonists who failed to keep the fasts as strictly as themselves; or, later, of serious conflicts within the nationally mixed clergy itself over benefices, rights, and the language of sermonizing and educational work. Stubbornly, but finally in vain, the German bourgeousie of the end of the 15th and 16th centuries in Cracow, Lemberg, Krossen, and Weislok, in Bietsch and other localities struggled to retain their mother tongue in religious services. But nothing brought religious temperaments to a boil with greater heat than the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Once again, the Polish people called the faith of which they wished to know nothing, “the German Faith”. As in the Middle Ages, awakening nationalism implied that the struggle against Lutheranism was now to became the chief source for a renewal of Polish Catholicism. Hatred of dissidents grew to a mass psychosis, exploding in the numerous persecutions of Protestants over the centuries which have cast their dark shadow over the history of the country. Protestantism is described in Polish writings, even today, as the 'eternal enemy of Poland'”.

This is the key to all later developments in Poland. It can hardly be assumed that the new converts complained so bitterly of the failure of old believers to keep fasts — believers who had been invited into the area from the German Empire by Polish counts and priests to develop the land — as to be the cause of the ensuing conflicts. Rather, the serious conflicts among the nationally mixed clergy over benefices, rights, and the language of sermonizing and educational work sowed the initial seeds of the hatred which was to become so pervasive among the common people of later times. There are so many indications of this clerical hatred that it is impossible to mention them all. The following is therefore a mere selection from Kurt Lueck's compendium:

Page 34:

“From the 17th century, there are so many such statements that we can only list a few of them:

'The Bishop Pawel Piasecki explains in one of his chronicles: 'The Poles, and all the Slavic peoples, have always felt a national abhorrence of everything that smelt of Germany. Anything that originated in Germany, regardless of value, everything except the works of mechanics, is considered pernicious, and is rejected with suspicion.' Or: 'The name of the Germans is hateful to the Poles, inherently arousing an inexorable Slavic tribal hatred in their hearts'. Piasecki viewed the Reformation as the mortal enemy, calling it the 'German poison', which the Poles were to reject at all costs.”

Page 84:

“The Dominican Fabian Birkowski writes: 'Your corrupt religion arose through false prophets, and was created by the Devil, who wanted to be equal to God… Your leader is the Angel of Hell, that is, the Devil'”.

Page 269:

“The Gneneser Archbishop, Jakob Swinka, around the turn of the 13th century, habitually called the Germans 'dog's heads'. Thus he said of a bishop at Brixen that he would have been an excellent preacher, had he not been a 'dog's head' and a German.

The term “dog's head” is also referred to in the “Koenigsaaler Chronicle”. King Wenzel is said to have been displeased by the expression, his reply being noted in the chronicle: 'He who spake thus, showed that he possessed a worse tongue than a dog; since a dog's tongue promotes healing, while the tongue of the speaker, on the contrary, injects the poison of slander.'”

This “poison of slander”, originally invented and expressed by an Archbishop, has been passed down for centuries. Not only has this poison passed into the language of the people, vilifying the Germans in every manner possible, but “aesthetic” and “spiritual” writings, even paintings, have used this disgusting manner of expression. The frequency of vilification, the constant recurrence of insults in all possible contexts and variations, reveals a deliberate intent and, finally, a popular conviction that there had to be a justification for such slander, or else literature and even the clergy would not have produced it. The term “dog” is considered by Poles to be the worst insult applicable to anyone. Polish collections of popular sayings include the following:

“Co Niemiec, to pies”—Whoever is a German, is a dog.

“Zdechly Niemiec, zdechly pies, mala to roznica jest”—A dead German is a dead dog, there's not much difference.

“A wy Niemcy nic nie wiecie, wasza mowa to psie wycie. W naszej wsi, jak psy zawyly, wsystkich Szwabow diabli wzieli.”—And you Germans don't know anything, your language is pure dogs' barking. When the dogs howled in the villages, the devils took away all the Germans.

For the corresponding results in the plastic arts, one need only mention a painting by W. Brotanski: “Psie Pole pod Wroclawem”, i.e.,”Dog's Field by Breslau”, in relation to which Kurt Lueck remarks:

“The battle after which the bodies of the German knights were eaten by dogs before the very eyes of the victorious Polish King Boleslaus 'Crooked Mouth', is well known never to have taken place; rather it is an invention. Brotanski's painting is distributed as an 'art postcard' by the 'Exposition of Polish painters in Cracow', entitled, in Polish: “Dogs Field in Breslau. Boleslaus 'Crooked Mouth' on the Battlefield after the Glorious Victory over Henry V, the German Emperor, in 1109″. We wonder whether it ever dawns upon the Polish admirers of this work — as it does to us — if they were to reflect a bit, with how little dignity, how tastelessly, a Polish king is depicted here? What it is supposed to prove, if Boleslaus allowed the corpses of enemy knights to be eaten by dogs? It is certainly no proof of historical greatness. We Germans would never distribute such postcards; we would be too ashamed of them.”

Let us consider a few more examples of Polish “literary” writings. Even their greatest and best-known novelists, such as Adam Mikiewicz and Henryk Sienkeiwicz, use these insulting terms. Yet it is precisely in reference to them that Professor Markiewicz says, in his discussion of the film “Scars”:

“We should not forget that the historical consciousness of a people was, and still is, influenced not so much by professional historians and their work, but rather — and to a much greater degree — by novelists and their works. I would like to remind you of our great writers Adam Mickiewicz, particularly his two novels 'Drazyna', and 'Konrad Wallenrod'; Henryk Sienkiwicz, whose novel 'The Knights' was filmed a few years ago; and Boleslaw Prus, with his work entitled “The Watch Posts”.

Now, let us look at Lueck for Adam Mickiewicz's statements on the Teutonic Knights [invited into Poland to protect the Poles against the Lithuanians; the Poles later combined with the Lithuanians against the Teutonic Knights — Translator's note] in his novel “Grazyna”, to see just what Professor Markiewicz is so proud of today. Mickiewicz uses expressions such as “psiarnia Krzyzakow”- “the dog scum of the Knightly order”; or, “such a damned fellow from the dog scum of the Crusaders”. And this in the edition intended for Polish school children! The same writer, in his novel “Pan Tadeusz”, speaks of “all state counsellors, court counsellors, commissars, and all dog scum”. His novel “Tzech Budrysow” refers to “Krzyzacy psubraty” — “the Knights, the scum of dogs”.

Henryk Sienkiewicz uses the insult “scum of dogs” several times in his novel “Krzyzacy” (the Knights).

Lueck discusses several other writers who speak of Germans as “scum of dogs”, “Saxon vile dogs”, “bloody German dogs”, “rabid German dogs”, “barking German dogs”, etc.

• The very well known Polish writer W. Reymont, in his peasant novel “Chlopi”, speaks of “dog heretics” and “dog rabble”.
• Jan Kochanowski, in “Proporzec” (1569) calls the Order of the Teutonic Knights “pies niepocigniony” — “unexcelled dogs”.
• R.W. Berwinski, in “Powiesci Wielko-Polskie” (Tales of Greater Poland) 1844, speaks of “the Germans, the damned race of dogs.”
• Jozef Szujski, in his play “Krolowa Jadwiga” (Queen Hedwig) (1866), act II, scene 2, says: “A Teutonic dog sank down from his horse.”
• Adolf Dygasinski, in his novel “Demon” (1866), says: “psy szwabscie “German dogs”, and, at another point, exclaims, “and who brought you to Poland, you dogs?”
• K. Przerwa-Tetmajer, in his novel “Nefzowkie”, speaks of a German manufacturer who is called “rudy pies” — “red haired dog” — by his Polish workermen.
• Lucjan Rydel — Polonized form of the German name Riedel — in “Jency” (The Prisoners), speaks of “the German enemy dogs”.
• Maria Konopnicka, in “Pan Balcer w Brazyliji”, speaks of “the German packs of dogs”.
• Jadwiga Luszczweska, in “Panienka z Obienka” (3rd edition, 1927, p. 17), says “co pol Niemiec i pies luter” — “half a German is also half a Lutheran dog”.
• J. Weyssenhoff's “Woz Drzymaly”, in which a German official is called “brother to the dogs” was compulsory reading in German classical secondary schools (for example, in Posen).
• In Gustow Morcinek's novel “Wyrabany Chodnik” (1931, volume 1, p. 309, 310, 312), which won a prize in 1931 and was republished in 1936, a dog with the name “Bismarck” appears several times.

As we shall see, it is not just abstract theory when Polish writers speak and write of “bloody German dogs”. The first month of the war proved that, in September 1939. According to Lueck, p. 271: “the Poles threw dead dogs into many of the graves of murdered ethnic Germans. Near Neustadt in West Prussia, the Poles cut open a captured German Luftwaffe officer's abdomen, rippped out his intestines, and packed a dead dog inside. This report has been reliably established.”

Where is the dignity of a people which can sink so low? They may believe themselves to be expressing hatred for their neighbour, but in reality they are only revealing their own soul. Do they think it is a sign of culture when German-speaking human beings are referred to as “tam sczczekaja po neimiecku” — “there, they're barking German”? Or when a dog is called by the name of a great German statesman, or is called “Prusak”, “Krzyzak”, “Szwab”, or “Niemiec”? This lack of dignity is neither a unique phenomenon nor a momentary aberration. It is a systematic denigration of a neighbouring people, with the unrelenting object of education in hatred and contempt.

It is precisely this which reveals the Polish lack of that culture which they claim to possess in such great measure. Culture is not expressed by the spewing forth of hatred, insults, lies, and distortions in all aspects of life. On the contrary, such actions simply express a painful inferiority complex festering in the soul of the writer or painter. Painting has not been used just occasionally to make the Germans appear contemptible: it has been used systematically in this education in hatred. Lueck reproduces illustrations of a variety of paintings, for example, “Zamordowanie Przemyslawa w Rogoznie przez Margrabiow brandenburskich” (1296). (“The Murder of Premeyslaus in Rogasen by the Count of Brandenburg”). This is the title of a colour postcard reproduction of a painting by Jan Matejko, published by the “Exposition of Polish Painters in Cracow”. The painting shows one the murderers with a dagger clutched between his teeth. His helmet bears the Black Eagle of Brandenburg. In reality, this is just another atrocity legend. Premyslaus — as serious Polish historians have established — was killed by Polish irregulars. Even the insinuation of the Polish text — irresponsibly presented as fact — that the Brandenburgers were the instigators, lacks convincing evidence. It is part of the psychosis of border dwellers to blame their neighbours for wind, rain, illness, and accidents. Art and science should be freed from this psychosis.”

Another painting in the service of hatred is “Lowy na ludzi” (“Manhunt”), by Wojciech Kossak. The picture depicts flaming huts and fleeing peasants, while Teutonic Knights discharge firearms from horseback.

Regarding this painting, Lueck remarks:

“Polish painting never depicts Teutonic Knights except as burning villages, ravishing women, and butchering the male population. The comments of a POLISH HISTORIAN — Tadeusz Ladenberger — regarding this painting, should also be quoted:

'Study has convinced us that two factors have had a decisive influence on the distribution of population in Poland: the soil, and German colonization. In the north, the pioneers of this movement were the Teutonic Knights. The Order succeeded, over a 100 year-period, in establishing populous cities and villages in the region of Chelm — instead of a thinly populated wilderness — and in making the land productive. A century was all it took to give this region — with by no means the best soil — mostly clay — the highest population density in Poland.'”

The Poles have repaid this achievement of the Teutonic Knights with libels and hatred, as in the painting by Wojciech Kossak, “Napad Kryzapkow” — “The Attack of the Knights”.

The scene shows a Polish village population being murdered. The settlement is being set on fire, while a young girl is ravished despite the pleadings of her mother.

This painting was sold in both black and white and colour reproduction as an “art post card” in every stationery shop in Poland, and was published by the “Exposition of Polish Painters in Cracow”. The great masses of the Polish people had no idea that this was just a shameless piece of atrocity propaganda.”

On Polish songs, Lueck writes:

“Even 'History in the Songs of the Polish People' is not characterized by love for truth. Sobieski's forward movement to Vienna (1683) has long been celebrated by Polish tradition. The songs tell how the city was conquered by the Turks, the houses of worship desecrated, the monks and nuns tortured and killed. Parts of the song consist of confused phrases taken from a song about Turkish battles in the vicinity of Podolisch-Kamentz. But the verses fit the legend of Polish assistance and German ingratitude, for example: 'The Poles beat the Turks at Vienna, but the German thieves did nothing, and didn't even say “'thank you”'. Even today, whenever someone generously sets off on a thankless errand, he is warned 'it's worth about as much as fighting for Vienna.'”

Here I must recall Brigette Pohl's description, published in the “Deutsche Wochen Zeitung” no. 9 of 2 March 1979, of the noble Polish chronicle of Jan Sobieski and his movement to Vienna. It is worth recalling, even if only in excerpts, since it shows why the Poles always blame the Germans in connection with the battles against the Turks at Vienna, saying “the thieves didn't even say 'thank you'”. The Poles always reveal their own character defects in attempting to accuse the Germans.

The “brave Polish king” remained behind with his comrades, far removed from the blood of battle at all times, at a safe distance from the battlefield. He knew just where to hide — in the Vienna woods, at Dreimarkstein, where no Turk was to be seen or could even be expected for miles around…

Far behind the front line, the noble Sobieski was right up front: on Bald Mountain, ministering to the Papal nuntio Marco D'Aviano and reading Mass. Then he once again withdrew, leaving it to the Germans to defeat the Turks. He must have been about as peace-loving as the Soviet Union today. Again and again, the Germans attempted to pursuade the Polish nobleman to move forward to intervene. But in vain. He had letters to write to his noble wife, who wanted to know how much loot he would bring back. He replied that he and his son Jakob would quite certain to run no risk of danger.

This was while the Germans fought and died in fierce combats around Heiligenstadt, in Nussdorf, and Grinzing. The generals were wounded, the brothers Moritz of Duke Croy fell at Nudsdorf, the Duke himself was severely wounded. Prince Eugene, later to become famous, won his first laurels here, in the service of Germany; none spared himself. Streams of blood flowed over the famous wine region of Grinzing. Only the Poles held back, “biding their time…

But when they considered the battle safely won, oh, then they broke cover, since of course they wanted to be the first to divide the spoils. But they failed to reckon with the Pascha of Ofen, Ibrahim, who broke forth upon the Poles at the edge of the city of Dornbach, so that the Poles, crying for help — this is reported by the chronlicler Diani, who is very well disposed towards Sobieski — ran away in large numbers. Count Ludwig of Baden then attacked with two of his Imperial dragoon regiments, and succeeded in rolling back the Turkish line of battle. Duke Charles of Lorraine gained the victory by undertaking a daring wheeling movement with doubling and flanking movements. The road to the surrounded city of Vienna now lay open. The chronicler reports: “Our cavalry was too heavy to keep on their(the Turks') heels. That of the king (Sobieski) was, of course, lighter; he, however, abandoned the attempt at pursuit due to other considerations” (!) For the Poles, in particular, their greatest hour had come: while the Germans buried their dead, cared for their wounded, comforted distraught and desperate refugees from the burning outlying villages of Vienna, and sought in vain to pursue the Turks with their heavy cavalry, the good Sobieski made himself at home in the tent of the Great Vizier and “gave his Polish army and accompanying hordes the order to plunder.”

Thus the legend of “the brave King Sobieski” and his equally brave army is disproven on the basis of historical fact.

[Translator's note: The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica disputes this, but depicts Sobieski as a traitor in the pay of Louis XIV: “He died a broken-hearted man, prophecying the inevitable ruin of a nation which he himself had done so much to demoralize.”]

Sobieski's behaviour is strikingly similar to that of the Polish Marshal in the last war, Rydz-Smigly, who naturally wished to be depicted in an equestrian victor's pose before the wings of the Brandenburg Gate in the summer of 1939, but who, when the war which he demanded actually came about, rapidly left his troops in the lurch and fled to a foreign country (Romania). Polish bravery was — and is — simply a legend, just like their honesty. Why would they need to call the Germans robbers and plunderers at all times if they didn't need to distract attention from their own misdeeds? Plundering the treasures of the Great Vizier Kara Mustafa at Vienna can hardly have been so unprofitable as not to be worth fighting for. But this must not be admitted; attention must therefore be diverted towards the ungrateful Germans.

There are a few Polish historians and writers who recognize the constructive achievements of the Germans, and have openly confirmed it. But the overwhelming majority dispute everything, twisting even the arduous task of clearing the land and making it arable into its very opposite: they call it “plundering the Polish peasant”. At this point, I would like to include a few remarks by Polish scholars as quoted by Kurt Lueck in his extensive work “German Construction Work in the Development of Poland”. The following comments were made by one of the most respected Polish scholars of his time, Alexander Brueckner (despite his German name, he considered himself ethnically Polish), Professor at the University of Berlin until WWII:

“German settlement, especially in the cities, was beneficial to both sides. The Germans provided the standard of living, the Poles provided order. The role of the cities was truly educational. The two peoples learned to respect each other; to live together; to respect the law; (German) urban legal proceedings (law and procedure) was progressive compared to(Polish) domestic procedures. The cities created trades and professions, which had hitherto existed only as a potential. The cities contributed to the wealth of the whole country, as well as to the general standard of living. They created the basis for schools and universities, which could only function in a well-managed city.”

The history of German immigration in Poland is known to most people only in its general outlines. In my first publication, “Poland and Falsifications of History”, I stated that the regions of Weichsel and Warthe at the time of the introduction of Christianity were not even inhabited by Poles, and that the newly founded cloisters were forced to recruit German peasants and artisans from the German Reich. In this connection, Professor Grabski of the University of Warsaw writes as follows (p. 54):

“The cloisters founded by the Germans in Poland began to draw emigrants from Germany, Flanders, and other areas, as early as the 12th century, in order to achieve more efficient land management. Polish peasants were very unreliable as settlers.”

The Pole Dabrowski described the activity of German farmers in the following manner:

“The Germans lived in closed cities and open villages, in village farmhouses and manors, occupying themselves with artisanship, trade, farming, soldiering, and the word of God. Since they were hardworking, peaceful and economical, they were a socially creative element representing a model for the domestic population.”

The Poles always brag that Casimir the Great took over a “wooden Poland”, and left it a “Poland made of stone”. Lueck gives the Polish historian Bruecker an opportunity to express himself in the following terms (p. 23):

“It was not Casimir the Great who changed 'wooden Poland' into a 'Poland of masonry and stone': it was the cities that accomplished this. There was a tremendous difference between the German Cracow of 1300 and the Bishop's Cracow of 1200 — and this applies not just to Cracow, but to every other city.”

The Pole Czeckanowski confirms German research on [Polish] racial and biological descendance from the Germans in the following two sentences (p. 103):

“In the rise of our city population, German immigrants played a very great role. Their descendants today form part of the highest strata of the Polish patriciandom.”

Another Polish historian has also concerned himself with the significance of the German city founders and citizens; he is the very respected and serious cultural historian Ptasnik (p. 131).

“It is uncomfortable to write about the history of trade and professions in Poland, and even sadder to describe the magnificent men who rendered service in this connection. Certainly, there was Polish trade, in the sense that it took place on Polish soil, importing goods from abroad, selling them to the Polish population, and exporting domestic raw products to foreign countries. But who were the merchants and tradesmen, who carried on the trade? Germans mostly — Poles only came along at the end.”

What Ptasnik (p. 22) as well as Grodecki (p. 23) were compelled to admit with regards to earlier times also applies, with some reservations, to Poland during the 17th century. Ptasnik writes:

“Insofar as it applies to earlier times, that is, around the 13th and 14th centuries, those who immigrated into the newly founded cities were primarily German population groups; at least, the strata that gave the city its national character, namely, the tradesmen and artisans, were German. The name of the citizens who took part in city government, whose names are recorded in the archives even today, testify expressly to this fact.”

Another Polish testimony to the value of German work of construction is given by Sokolowski (p. 136):

“Honour must be paid to these careful, assiduous, hardworking, and energetic descendants who, though they came from foreign lands, acquired a liking for their new homeland, were loyal to their King and city; who brought culture to the rough soil of our earth, uniting us with the world of the West and sealing our link to Latin culture. In the tops of the Cracow towers, in the bastions surrounding the city, in the construction of houses, in commercial and art objects, in everything that is dear to us, everything which forms the pride of our city, we may perceive traces of the influence of the Franks, which, together with the influence of the Italian Renaissance, created the Golden Age of our history.”

On page 330 of his work “German Construction Work in the Development of Poland”, Lueck quotes the Pole Tadeusz Smarzewski, in the agricultural newspaper “Kraj” in January 1901:

“Only those who are unaquainted with history due to the present circumstances of nationalities in the Prussian part of the territory could be depressed by this picture [of German construction work]. Those who, by contrast, possess a more exact knowledge of history from childhood on, and who know what to expect in Greater Poland, will feel differently. Anyone who knows that these provinces had already long reflected a land with a mixed population, that the cities of West Prussia bore a German character even during the ancient Republic of the Nobles, and that the great Polish cities possessed an overwhelmingly German middle class, will be far less disappointed.”

In like manner, an equally, extraordinarily positive view of the Germans and the value of their construction work, published in the “Gazeta Polska” in 1901, is quoted by Lueck on pages 451-2. It confirms that not all Poles have adopted the so-called “traditional hostility” as the sole basis of their dealings with Germany: many excellent historians have shown a dedication to the truth, and have also attempted to do justice to the truth. But they were the minority, and are ignored by their ill-willed brethren. Here is the translation of a note published in the Polish original text of Prus-Glowacki:

“We always had the best possible relations with the German people. From them, we acquired the Gothic style in building, wood cutting, numerous mechanical devices, vessels, and tools, a great deal of scientific knowledge, trades and textiles, trade, many customs, and many forms of organization… We have no fear of the truth: to this noble people we owe the greater part of our civilization.”

These Poles have done their fatherland a greater service than those who, dripping with envy and hatred caused by their feelings of inferiority, describe the Germans as the progeny of Hell. The German Polish border was at peace for more than 300 years.

During this period, the Germans achieved incomparable feats of culture which benefitted the country. Of course, they didn't do so for the country's sake alone; they did it for their own well-being as well — it could hardly be otherwise — but the greatest beneficiary was the country itself. Allegations to the contrary notwithstanding, the Germans did not engage in compulsory “Germanization”; on the contrary, they were often forced to resist an extremely violent “Polonization”. They were compelled to defend themselves against the forced assimilation of German Catholics as Poles. The excessively emotional, egotistical Poles only acknowledge measures taken in their favour; they are not objective. The Poles always consider their “Polonization” programmes to be justified, no matter how violent they may be; measures taken by others in self-defence, on the other hand, are considered an injustice committed against themselves.

At this point, I should like to reproduce part of a history by a German writer which is relevant to the Pole Czckanowski's remark that the descendants of German immigrants formed part of the highest strata of Polish patriciandom. The information is derived from an East Prussian family chronicle, which we owe to a fortunate accident. It was written after WWII in book form as the story of the history of a distinguished family, from which the author was descended. The book is entitled “Names None Dare to Mention”, and the author is Marion Graf Doenhoff. At the beginning, we learn how the Countess Doenhoff came to occupy herself with the history of her family, which had not interested her when she was younger. Upon concluding her studies at Basel, the professor assigned her the dissertation topic of “The Rise of the Landed Estates of the Doenhoffs in East Prussia”. She agreed to the topic, after some initial hesitation, and got down to work. In so doing, she had to consult many cubic metres of official documents and private papers, which she had to sort, label, catalogue, and classify. After 12 months of preparatory work, she was finally ready to begin her dissertation.

This family chronicle is extraordinarily interesting: it is probably the most revealing chronicle in existence of over 700 years of German history in East Prussia.

The Doenhoff family left the Ruhr in the 13th century, and emigrated to the East. They settled first in Livonia, and finally in East Prussia. The oldest available document dates back to 1379, and was signed by Grand Master Winrich von Knipprode, who bestowed the title under the law of Chelm. According to this document, the Doenhoffs had already been settled in the area for 100 years at that time. I do not wish to dwell on the descriptions of the expansion of the landed property, which are of no interest here, but rather, on the parallels to the Pole Czekanowski's remark — that the descendants of German immigrants formed part of the highest strata of Polish patriciandom. The Doenhoffs contributed a great many state officials and advisors to kings, both German and Polish. The author mentions a Doenhoff who was a representative at the Brandenburger court in the 17th century, and who founded a Polish line. This is a perfect example of the manner in which ethnic Germans became Poles. Because the Polish king needed a representative at the Brandenburg court, the honour was offered to a descendant of the most highly respected family. Since German was the “lingua franca” at all European princes's courts, * the linguistic qualification was decisive in itself. Did this emissary of a Polish king then become a Pole solely by virtue of his office? The Poles are supposed to be Slavs. Did Count Doenhoff become a Slav, and found a Polish Slavic family? Such cases exist by the hundreds of thousands, beginning with the monk Wolf Gottlobonis, who later became bishop “Wincent Kadlubek”, and who has remained so to the present day. The only difference was that the monk adopted a Polonized name, while Count Doenhoff retained his German name, which makes it easier for us to establish his German origins. Neither was a Slav; nor were the hundreds of thousands — even millions — of Germans who emigrated to the East during the same period, cleared the land, and made it arable.

The Doenhoff family chronicle also contains another interesting piece of information: the grandmother of the Polish king Stanislav Lezczynski was also a Doenhoff! The question now arises: how “Slavic” was this Polish king? Perhaps they will find someone to research the Leszczynski family tree, so as to discover the origins of their family name. Nor was Kadlubek born under that name in Poland. And according to legend, the name Pilsudzki — which is unique in Poland — allegedly stems from the German name “Pils” or “Pilz”. It is generally well known that Pilsudzki originated in Lithuania, was Calvinistic in religion, and that his first marriage was consecrated in the Evangelical Church near Bialystok. His second marriage was to a Jewess atheist; he only converted to Roman Catholicism after becoming Polish head of state. This is not a legend, but simple fact. Was he Slavic in origin, or just possibly a German named Pilz? After all, the names Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Tito, and even Willy Brandt, are not real names either, but pseudonyms.

But back to the Doenhoff family chronicle, which reveals still another important piece of information. In relation to the allegedly “originally Slavic” area of East Prussia, the Countess, based on her documentation, remarks as follows:

“Since we are dealing with errors at this point, reference may be made to another inexact allegation: East Prussia was never originally Slavic territory, into which the Germans penetrated as conquerors; rather, the Slavs appeared quite late on the Weichsel and Oder, no earlier than around the 9th century A.D. Germans had already inhabited the area for 1500 years. As early as 1000 B.C., the Goths inhabited the mouth of the Weichsel, and remained in the area… At the time of the birth of Christ, East and West Prussia were both inhabited by Goths, and the region of Posen was inhabited by Burgundians.”

There were, therefore, no “original Slavic areas” on the Weichsel, Warthe, Oder, and Pregel. And when the “Slavs” allegedly “appeared”, suddenly in the 9th century, they must have fallen down out of the sky, since they have been unable to prove any other origins.*

* Translator's note: The 1911 Encylopaedia Britannica, “Slavs”, vol. XXV p. 229, states: “In spite of the prevalent brachycephaly of the modern Slavs, measurements of skulls from cemeteries and ancient graves which are certainly Slavonic have shown, against all expectations, that the farther back we go, the greater is the proportion of long heads, and the race appears to have been originally dolichocephalic and osteologically indistinguishable from its German, Baltic, and Finnish neighbours.”)

Today we know that the concept “Slav” is not characteristic of a race or of racial origins, but was the invention of vain scholars, manipulated by a hateful clergy against German power and greatness.*

* Author's note: Proof that the Polish language and glagolitic monks' Latin were still generally unknown as late as the 15th century is the “parchment document with attached lead seal” of King Casimir of Danzig”, dated 1466. It begins as follows: “Kazimirus von gots gnade konig zsu Polan, grosforste in Lythawin, in Rewssin, Prewssin herre und erbeling etc. bekennen und thun kunth… (I, Casimir, king of Poland by grace of God, great prince of Lithuania, lord and heir in Russia, Prussia, and heir etc., hereby acknowledge and announce… i.e., the document is in archaic German and not Polish.) It might be observed that the term is not “Polen” (Poland) but rather “Polan”, i.e., “po” (Germanic “an”, “am”, “bei” = near), and “lan”, derived from the Germanic = “arable land, field, land”. (See my remarks on page 24, part I, “Falsifications”.) [Web editor's note: The counter part to Polan is Pomern, which is “po mer” in middle high German or “beim Meer” in current German, the German province next to Poland bordering at the Baltic Sea, which today is called Pommern.]

The term “Slav” arose in the 18th century through the German theologist August Shloezer (1738-1809), in Russian service, who, to please his employer, the Czar, as a researcher of Russian history and linguistic sciences at St. Petersburg, systematized his research on glagolitic church Latin and invented the word “Slav”. The basis for the word was the designation “Sclavi” in the ancient church Latin of the monks, which, however, meant “servant, pagan, heathen”. The term is used in all ancient chronicles to refer to any heathen not yet converted to Christianity.

The Poles, naturally, refuse to admit this. “Slavic” traditions are sacrosanct. The present day also furnishes examples of what happens to people in Poland who undertake research into authentic history. The Polish literatary historian, Jan Josef Lipski, made the attempt: he was arrested and thrown into prison. His crime, in particular, consisted of the following passage in his history of culture:

“A mass of false myths and concepts has arisen in the Polish mind regarding our historical relations with the Germans, which, for the sake of truth and our own well-being, must be cleansed of lies once and for all. False statements on one's own history are a sickness in the soul of a nation, which, in particular, can only lead to hostility to foreigners and national megalomania.” And he adds: “Almost everyone in Poland — even the educated — believes today that, after the Second World War, we moved into an area which had been stolen from us by the Germans. We need only mention Danzig and the Ermland, which were among the lands given to the First Republic under the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), although both Danzig and the Emland were ethnically German in the majority, then and until the end of WWII. The rest of East Prussia was never Polish; the Germans did not take this area away from Poland, they took it from the Prussians…”

Elsewhere, Lipski says: “After centuries of development of German culture, side by side with Polish culture in Silesia (the overwhelmingly German city of Danzig) and the long since exclusively German culture of West Pomerania, a rich heritage of architecture and other works, in addition to German historical archive materials, was bequeathed to us as the result of historical events. We are the trustees of this material for all of humanity. We are therefore obliged to maintain these treasures in full awareness that we are safeguarding a heritage of German culture for the future — including our future — without lies, and without concealing the origin of this material. People in Poland don't like to write about this, or to be reminded of our debt to the Germans in terms of civilization and culture: our styles of roofing, brickwork, our masons, printers, painters, sculptors, and hundreds of Polish words, are all evidence of debt to our Western neighbour.

“The magnificent heritage in architecture and sculpture, paintings, and other works of art and craftsmanship in Cracow and many other cities and villages of Poland, not only during the middle ages, but to some extent even later, up to the end of the 19th century, was for the most part the work of the Germans, who settled here and enrichened our culture. Almost every Pole knows about Veit Stoss. But not everybody knows that he was an ethnic German (credit must be paid here to Polish scholarship, because, in this case, definitive proof was adduced by the priest Boleslaw Przybyszewski; many people imagine that he was a Pole, and are ready to assault those who contradict them — only specialists know the hundreds, nay, thousands, of first and last names of creative Germans who have left indelible traces in our culture.”

Apart from the fact that the Poles were not “bequeathed” any heritage, but, to the contrary, committed land piracy, this paragraph from the pen of a Pole is a cultural act of greatness for which its author was compelled to pay with his freedom; and not only with his freedom, but with his health. The Polish press supplied proof of that in its own reports.

Just like earlier Polish rulers, the present rulers of the Polish people do not wish to hear any truth at all; they do not wish to admit that they lack a suitable national identity to look back upon; they therefore invent their history in order to feel like a people, at least for the present moment at any particular time. They believe that they cannot permit themselves to hear the truth. Truth must therefore be subjugated to a hotheaded nationalism which has long since deteriorated into chauvinism, to make up through “style” that which it lacks in positive substance. This lack of substance — of which the Poles are ashamed, and which they attempt to conceal through the camouflage of misappropriated German cultural accomplishments, has another, hidden side, however. This is described by a Polish contemporary of the first partition of Poland in 1772, born in Scheidemuehl, Stanislaw Staszic:

“Before my eyes stand five sixths of the Polish people. I see millions of unhappy creatures, half-naked, covered with skins and raw cloths, disfigured by smoke and dirt, with sullen eyes, short of breath, moody, degenerate, stupified: they feel little, think little: one hardly perceives in them a rational soul.

“They look more like animals than human beings. Their usual fare is bread mixed with chaff; the fourth part of the year, merely weeds. They drink water and brandy; they live in earth huts or dwellings which are almost on a level with the earth; there, no sun penetrates; smoke and vapours suffocate the people inside and often kill them in childhood. Exhausted from the days work for their noble lords, the father of the family sleeps together with his naked children on filthy straw, in the same room with the cow with her calf, and the pig with her piglets.”

Such was the reality of the Polish Republic of the Nobles, which is so famous today, of which the claimant to the Polish royal crown, Stanislaw Leszczynski, at that same time complained:

“I cannot remember without a shudder of horror the law according to which a nobleman who killed a peasant was fined no more than 50 franks. This was the price at which one purchased immunity from the force of law in our nation. Poland is the only country in which all men are equal in having lost all their human rights.”

Today, the Poles glorify the misery and suffering of the past, from which they only rose with German help, vilifying and libelling precisely those German accomplishments which enabled them to do so, although there is sufficient proof of both. The contemporary witness, Staczic, has even been honoured by a monument in his birthplace Scheidemuehl, as may be seen from the “Pommerschen Zeitung” of 24 July 1982 — a monument to Polish misery. The Poles are, in fact, well aware of the limitless misery of the people who suffered under the degenerate and corrupt Republic of the Nobles, since a monument exists, even today, to the writer who revealed the conditions of that epoch for what they were, and set them down for posterity in writing. The quotation is taken from the booklet “Germany and Poland 1772-1914”, only 76 pages long, by Dr. Enno Meyer, published by Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart.

At the time of its partition in 1772, Poland was incapable of survival.* <* Translator's note: The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica calls Poland "a moribund state, existing on sufferance simply because none was yet quite prepared to administer the coup de grace... the folly, egotism, and selfishness of the Polish gentry, whose insane dislike of all discipline, including even the salutary discipline of regular government, converted Poland into something very like a primitive tribal community...". The same description could be applied to almost any period of Polish history.> Without the concern of the Prussian King Frederick the Great, who took over the old settlement areas in a wretched condition, there would presumably have been no more Poles left alive today. That is what the Poles refuse to admit in their megalomania and arrogance. That is why every voice of reason in Poland is suppressed. That is the explanation for the creation of a hate literature without parallel. Though national conflicts, despite the invention of the artificial Polish language, were insignificant until the end of the 18th century, a systematic buildup of hatred began with the invention of the term “Slav”. Responsibility for this rests, first of all, with the clergy: this is shown by the endless number of Polish proverbs current among the lower classes, crushed by the power of the priesthood. Kurt Lueck remarks as follows in volume I page 111:

“Polish Messianism, which made Poland the Saviour of the World in the 19th century, was an entire philosophical system. For centuries, the Poles considered it their mission to form the bulwark of Christendom in the East. Even in the early Middle Ages, the Holy Stanislaw Cult contributed considerably to bringing about an awakening of Polish national feeling in the struggle against their German neighbour. And God's preferential support to Poland is already clearly visible in the chronicle of Vincenz Cadlubko (Kadlubek).

“The superstitious beliefs of the Polish peasant, contain, of course, neither philosophical systems, nor concepts of a mission. The peasant is simply convinced that, in Heaven and around the Pope, the only language ever spoken is Polish…

“Conflicts of the following variety break out on the ethnic front on a daily basis. An old German says to a little old Polish grandmother from Gutowo near Wreschen (Warthegau): 'Yes, soon we'll both go up to Heaven!' 'What', protests the old woman, 'you Evangelicals think you're going to Heaven? Heaven is only for Catholics! The Germans and Jews are swindlers. Your religion is false. God only created the Catholic faith'.

“In many areas, they also believe that German is spoken in Hell. The Mother of God, naturally, is only concerned with the Poles, as the 'Crowned Queen of Poland', as 'Our Mother'. It would never occur to the peasantry to think that Holy Mary would ever think of the Germans, or even understand their language. On the contrary, she is sometimes beseeched in their prayers to go for the throats of their enemies. One of these prayers is quoted by Kazimierz Laskowski in his novel 'The Culture Bearers':

“'Matko Boska Polska ochraniaj Polakow. Tych przybledow szwabow powrzucaj do krzakow”. Translated: 'Polish Mother of God, protect us wonderful Poles, and throw the Schwabs (Germans) in the bushes.'”

The following verse, which I prefer to give in translation only, is noted from the region around Cracow: “At Cracow Castle, the gods had a brawl. Our Lord Jesus cut the Germans' legs in two.” This clearly shows that the religious abhorrence of the peasantry did not simply arise from the people, but was instigated by the Polish clergy, which needed to explain to the peasantry why the Germans were so much more prosperous than the Poles. Of course, they didn't wish to tell them that the Germans worked harder, were more assiduous, frugal, and cleaner, while the common Poles, vegetating in the slavery of their nobles and the clergy, gave themselves over increasingly to drink and idleness in an attempt to escape their inhumane existence. Thus, attention was diverted from the real problem, while subliminally convincing the peasants that the Germans were responsible for all their misery — so much the more so, since great numbers of these same “Schwabs” were also heretics. At the same time, Catholic Germans were said to be “Polish”, on the principle that “anyone who was a Catholic was also a Pole”. The heretics, the Lutherans, on the other hand, were the enemies of Poland, and were to be abhorred. Here are a few examples:

The next 4 lines are taken from the first strophe of a formerly widespread song from the Swedish war, which was reproduced in a Polish songbook by J.St. Brystron (1925), and which runs, freely translated:

The Reformation of Martin Luther and Calvin had reached the German settlement areas. During the Counter Reformation, the clergy shrank from no tactic, no matter how devious, to lead people back to Catholicism. The diffamation of Martin Luther from that time onward continues to produce results in religious hatred even today, religious hatred which cannot be separated from national hatred. Luther is portrayed as a drunkard, glutton, whoremonger, and betrayer of souls, as the progeny of the Devil and of Hell.

The Dominican friar Fabian Birkowski wrote (see Lueck p. 84):

“Your rotten religion arose through false prophets, created by the Devil, who wanted to be equal to God… your leader is the Angel of Hell, who is the Devil.”

Of course, similar expressions were used by Catholics against Protestants during the Counter Reformation in Germany; but the German Enlightenment ensured that this kind of language finally ceased to be used. In Poland, by contrast, this kind of language was encouraged, and has continued down the centuries to the present day, quickened and entwined with national sentiment, rendered second nature to the people through so-called 'aesthetic literature'. The culturally very backward, exploited people sought solace and consolation for their miserable existence, and found it — which is perfectly normal and understandable — in religion. Thus, the clergy had an easy time of it, achieving its own objectives in terms of power. Letters were published which Luther was said to have written from Hell. In the sermons of the Dominican friar Birkowski, Luther was called 'stinking filth', and it was said that even pigs — if they could talk — would speak like Luther. In the region of Lublin a taunting game arose, which, freely translated, says:

Or

This verse refers to German stupidity: this alleged characteristic of the Germans is constantly stressed in all possible variations. No Polish novel fails to describe the Germans as stupid, cowardly, greedy, dishonest, fat, filthy, thieving, cruel, brutish, and as many other similar qualities of a devlish kind as can be invented. In the forefront of all of these stands Henyrk Sienkiewiczs's novel “The Knights”, the most widely read quasi-historical novel in Poland, which depicts the Germans as the cruelest of all animals; all Poles, without exception, are examples of shining nobility. The reader is soon compelled to put aside the novels of Sienkiewicz, Mickiewicz, and many others from a feeling of sheer nausea at the sight of so much hatred. But Professor Markiewicz is quite proud of this literature, even today: indeed, he considers this literature of diffamation to be of “historical value” for German children in his recommended school books!

We cannot understand how so much filth can accumulate in a single human being, who reveals his true nature despite himself merely by depicting this animalistic hatred. Since even the best author can only describe in words that which dwells in his mind, his manner of expression is the mirror of his soul. The language of this literature committed, and continues to commit, a form of murder against the soul of the Polish people, just as the language of the fanatical Polish clergy of the 16th and 17th centuries deliberately obscured and murdered the souls of the people in the struggle against Protestantism. It was believed necesary to erect a religious retaining wall to prevent the loss of souls, which would have weakened the power of Rome and the Polish Church. But the results were even more far-reaching: confused souls, crippled and made sterile by hatred, were converted or retained, for whom there existed only one guilty party in relatiion to any of the difficulties which arose in the natural struggle for existence: the German. Such persons no longer made any attempt to overcome difficulties on their own. They had a scapegoat, responsible for all the evils of life: the Germans. This was much more comforting than having to work personally. And if things went well for the Germans, then the Germans were naturally to blame if things went badly for the Poles, since the Poles had of course been taught that the German was in league with the Devil — even that the German was a devil himself. Of all the devils in the world, the German was by far the worst. The devil spoke only German: he wore German clothing, while German laws, which were naturally dishonest and devilish, were valid in Hell. This doctrine of the German devil enabled the Polish Catholic clergy to reinforce its own position among the people. Fear of the devil kept the people in obedience: after all, who should know better than the clergy, who was alone competent in religious matters? The people failed to notice the transition from faith to superstition, and they still don't notice. Proof of this was provided in 1977: a Polish worker's newspaper, in an article on the great Lodz industrialist Karl Scheibler, claimed that Scheibler had made a pact with the devil, as a result of which he received gold rubles down the factory chimney into his lap, for the sole purpose of better exploiting his Polish workers! The “Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung” informed us of this piece of lunacy in an article in the last issue of May 1977, and printed my remarks as a letter to the editor in one of the following issues. How primitive must a people be to accept such a sick joke today?

But how can one explain that, in Germany, the Poles are considered an enlightened, proud, and pious people? And how can we explain the present German sympathy for the Poles?

First, there is the very skillful propaganda of the Poles, who possess a magnificent understanding of how to depict themselves in the best light. They must exaggerate their own worth if they wish to survive in competition against the hardworking, culturally much more highly developed Germans. They must therefore represent themselves as a people with an ancient culture who have been unfairly dealt with by history. As a necessary corollary, they must present their history in the best possible light in order to gain sympathy. People who enjoy sympathy are more readily believed, especially by the Germans themselves. But this alone is not enough: their adversaries must be denigrated, and their human worth reduced to a minimum. This is why the Germans are depicted as devils in human form, a dangerous people of violent criminals, constantly obsessed with plundering the poor, noble Poles. If it is possible to misappropriate the credit for the enormously valuable construction work performed by the Germans, one must necessarily rise in the estimation of others. Above all, this must be hammered into the heads of one's own people; eventually, the whole forgetful world will believe it. Isn't there a saying that “attack is the best defence”? That is how the Poles proceed in their propaganda. As attackers, they are justified in their own eyes if the victim is made to appear to appear inferior and of lesser worth, since he must appear to deserve no better treatment. That is why the entire Polish people from childhood onwards is educated in hatred and superstition, destroying the capacity for rational judgement through prejudice.

Are the Poles pious? In their own own minds, yes, since they are the underlings of their clergy, and think only what they are supposed to think. This is shown with particular clarity by the present conflict between the State and the at all times politically committed national Church. A power struggle is raging between these two blocks in Poland. Which of them will emerge victorious it is impossible to predict, but it will not result in freedom for the masses in any case, since the result will be continue to be subjugation as in the past.

How can one explain the one-sided sympathy of the German people for the Poles, despite the immense hate literature directed against all things German? Kurt Lueck provides one answer: dishonest translations of Polish literature, novels, poems, etc. In volume 2, p. 415, he remarks:

“At this point in our study, mention must be made, in all strictness, of what is traditionally an egregious defect in all German translations. These translations regularly delete or falsify passages in Russian or Polish originals containing derogatory statements or expressions of hatred and contempt for Germany and the Germans. One need only compare the originals of Russian masterpieces such as Tolstoy's 'War and Peace', 'Anna Karenina', Dostoievsky's 'Debased and Insulted', 'The Brothers Karamozov', and others, with the translations! 'Corrections' are also often made in the translations of Polish novelists. 'The Knights', by H. Sienkiewicz, translated into German by Sonja Placzek, not to mention a second translation, is nothing but a hoax perptrated on the German reader. The spirit of the Polish original is falsified by means of numerous deletions, and the text, which are often quite “raw”, is adjusted to suit the reader's taste.

This undignified process of falsification should be ended once and for all. We should either translate all the passsages critical of Germans without doctoring them up, or we should simply ignore a work of fiction containing unjustified or tactless criticism. The German people are done a misservice through the censorship of statements critical of us in foreign works of fiction. What is more, foreign authors are encouraged to think that they need not shrink from any manner of expression, since the book will appear in German translation anyway, while ethnic Germans, to whom these falsifications become very quickly apparent, are deprived of their German dignity and worth as human beings.”

The ethnic researcher Dr. Kurt Lueck has rendered us a great service in exposing these falsified translations for what they are, and in calling them by their true name: a hoax perpetrated against the German reader, who is not permitted to see how he is viewed in a foreign country. Dr. Lueck's remark regarding foreign authors — that they may permit themselves any manner of expression, since their books are translated anyway — is of even greater significance. At this point, I should say that the problem is not just that translations of Polish authors are falsified and given a face-lift; the problem is that we translate this hate literature at all, instead of protesting publicly and, if needs be, throwing it on the rubbish dump — through public condemnation — since the preservation of this red-hot hatred over the centuries undermines all human dignity, including that of the Polish writer. What kind of miserable people nourishes itself upon hatred, deriving gratification from the most inhumane atrocity propaganda directed against precisely that neighbour to whom it owes its basic existence?

I must admit that I did not recognize the extent of the hatred contained in Polish literature, even though these books were compulsory reading in my school days. Our teachers obviously proceeded in the same manner as our translators, and deleted the worst atrocity tales. Not one of us ever read a Polish novel — such as “The Knights” — in its entirety. And how many people ever read them in Germany? But it, and many other Polish atrocity legends, are translated and sold. Are they read all the way through, or just part way, and put aside? Really, shouldn't the competent cultural authorities have raised an objection? Let us take the contrary case as an assumption. If a comparable body of anti-Polish hate literature had ever existed, no matter who wrote it, the Poles would have screamed incessantly until it was prohibited.

To give the German reader at least a taste of this “aesthetic literature”, I would like to cite a few examples, indicating the original source, followed by the page numbers in Lueck's book.

An especially tasty tidbit, such as Zofia Kossak-Szczucka's recent (1930) novel, turns the history of medieval Silesia (1234-41) completely upside down. In her “Legnickie Pole”, “The Battlefield at Liegnitz”, she compares the Duke of the Piasts (first dynasty of Polish rulers) Heinrich the Bearded, and his second son, Heinrich the Pious with the Duke's eldest son Konrad, who is an enthusiastic Pole, and at the same time a implacable enemy of the Germans and their way of life. The dialogue of Konrad with his brother goes like this:

“'Have you brought new Germans over here?' Heinrich got excited: 'Yes, three families, a heap of people in each one. Decent settlers from far away in the Bamberg area. You will be astonished at how hardworking they are! They will harvest many times the wheat that you sow. Our lord Father gave them farmland near Buczyna and in addition, fields in the east”;

p. 36

“'Where did the Koczura and Biesage come from, who settled at Buczyna? The Duke gave them land in Greater Poland to clear!' Konrad said indignantly, 'Why don't the Germans settle on uncleared land?' Heinrich laughed haughtily: 'Them, clear land! They're not used to that kind of work. It's been hard enough to bring them out into the cleared fields, although they each have 3 'malter' of grain for sowing. They wouldn't go into the wilderness under any circumstances!', said Konrad, knitting his brows. 'And when the Koczura clears the new land, then you give it to the Germans, since they're not used to hard work! The Koczura should have broken their German bones — not deserted the honestly acquired property which was theirs.'”

And then:

“'Our people just clear new land, and get tired. When they have made a strip arable, then you give it to the Germans, and they send you further into the wilderness.'”

At another point, it says:

“Two more wagons with Germans appeared. 'It's already known', replied Slup, 'these are new settlers from the Bamberg area.'

“'They ate so greedily it was impossible to tolerate it', Konrad continued. 'Whereever you throw a stick, you hit a German, and my illustrious father, the Duke, calls more and more in'. The nobles agreed with him: 'The Germans are a plague, may the Devil take them to Hell!'”

This is how the Poles are deceived into believing that it was they who cleared the land and made it arable.

Here is a part of a “humourous poem” of the 17th century by Wezpazyan Kochowski (1633-99), p. 376:

“A man from Masow and a German met on a narrow road. 'Out of the way!' shouted the German to the other loudly. 'Step aside, you baggy pants, or you'll see right away how I beat a German up yesterday; I'll beat up another today'. The German moved aside, and asked, seized with fear: 'What's the matter?' 'Ha! If you weren't such a coward', said the Pole, 'I would have gotten out of the way!'

This “poem” contains a typically Polish allegation which should not be overlooked. The quarrelsome, brawling Pole challenges the less belligerant German, and orders him about at every possible opportunity. When the German gives way without making too much trouble, he is accused of cowardice. Thus, the Germans are described as cowardly in many scornful verses, novels, and stories, such as, for example, in the following verses by Antoni Labecki (born 1786):

Or, in Reymonts “Peasants”, the Pole Gschela scorns the Germans:

Only in overwhelmingly great numbers do the Germans ever dare to attack the Poles: for example, in Artur Gruszeckis “Starancza” (1899), where forty German boys attack an old man and a few women, and beat them unconsious. The fight begins when the boys bait the old man like a dog.

A miracle of bravery is performed by a brave peasant in a novel by Walery Lozinski: three Teutonic Knights stand before the peasant. He warns them in a friendly manner, and, when that is no use, he chops all three Knights' heads off simultaneously with one single blow of his sword (a peasant with a sword?). For this miracle, he is rewarded with the grant of a coat of arms featuring 3 ass's heads by King Lokietek (King “Yard-Long”).

In Zeromskis “Popioly”, five hundred Germans are besieged by the Poles and French at Tschenstochau. Peasants from the surrounding area set fire at several different locations to feign great numbers of besieging troops.

At the mere threat of immediate bombardment of the city, five hundred German soldiers surrender with three hundred (!) weapons to an enemy numbering one fifth as many.

At another point, Friedrich Wilhelm III is ridiculed:

“He's taken Warsaw, besieged Tschenstochau, and marched up to Cracow. And now you baggy pants have lost your guts, now you retreat! Where is your land then! Show me! Don't you have Berlin anymore? Not one piece of land, you thief of foreign property!”

Do arrogance and conceit have no limits? Are these writers or spreaders of filth?

But even the Polish “Prince of Poets”, Adam Mickiewicz, is not sparing in disgusting outbursts of hatred. In the much-read “Pan Tadeusz”, which is compulsory reading in all schools, the following “poem” has been preserved for posterity:

The reader senses the poet positively gloating over the cruel notion that no Prussian was still alive who might still have needed medical treatment. This is certainly great testimony to the great “humanity” of the Polish people! I would like to give the German reader one more example of this “humanity”, the last one of its kind which I care to repeat here, since these texts, with their lust for murder and bestial cruelty, cannot be contemplated without the profoundest horror. This doesn't mean that there is no more “educational literature” of this kind. Lueck discusses a great many more examples of these hateful tirades from Polish literature than I can reproduce here. He writes:

One could not possibly imagine a bloodthirstier fantasy or a greater degradation on the part of scribbling Polish slanderers and liars. What can possess the soul of a Polish scribbler who imagines that he is elevating his own people with oak clusters and golden lutes, depicting the Teutonic Knights as whoremongers carousing around with stolen money, bellowing like pigs, while at the same time a priest of his own people is described sinking his arm bloodily to above the elbow into the breast of a barbarian, in search of his heart? Who, then, is the greater barbarian: the tortured Knight, or the bloodthirsty priest? But one can hardly expect so much logic from Polish writers, whose only concern is to sow hatred at any price.

Polish literature is intended for long term effect, and depends upon the short memories of other nationalities, as well as on the well-known good nature and helpfulness of the Germans — as well as on German stupidity, which inclines us to believe all the lies told by other people — people who ridicule us in practically every novel, not to mention their proverbs. For example: “Even clever Germans are stupid rabble, the Poles can always sell them a pig in a poke.”

The whole point of Polish literature is simply to portray the Poles as the most good natured, the noblest, most heroic people in the world, while branding the Germans as the greediest, dumbest, most cowardly, degraded, and cruel. Constant exposure to this poison is bound to awaken the cruelest instincts, instincts which cry for war to get revenge, although one does not even know why. And since the Germans are represented not only as stupid but as cowardly as well, the entire Polish people is educated in arrogance, and taught to overestimate themselves. Thus, even responsible officials in the Ministry of War in 1939 believed that all they needed to do was to order Polish troops on horseback, armed with lances decorated with pennants, to attack German tanks, and then ride through the Brandenburg Gate as victors. The awakening was a bitter one. But the guilt for that, of course, lay, not with the frivolous, arrogant Poles, but with the wicked Germans, who had tanks.

Translator's note: This is a perfect example of the manner in which the Poles are unable to learn from history. In 1648, the Cossack leader Chmielnicki annihilated them under identical circumstances. “The Polish army, 40,000 strong, with 100 guns… consisted almost entirely of the noble militia, and was tricked out with a splendour more befitting a bridal pageant than a battle array. For Chmielnicki and his host these splendid cavaliers expressed the utmost contempt. 'This rabble must be chased with whips, not smitten with swords', they cried… After a stubborn three days' contest the gallant Polish pageant was scattered to the winds. The steppe for miles around was strewn with corpses…” 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Poland.”

Only the bloodthirsty descriptions contained in Polish novels, the systematic education in hatred, the demands for the extermination of every German inhabitant of the area, which the Poles merely took to heart and imbibed, could lead to the orgy of murder on Bloody Sunday in Bromberg, Bereza Kurtuska, and, later, in Lamsdorff. The Polish people were fed on this literature for two hundred years, from the 18th to the 20th centuries. This is in addition to the hereditary heritage of the Mongolian hordes of earlier wars, a heritage determined by blood. Blood is not just a body fluid. Suitably instigated, it exploded in an avalanche of crimes against ethnic Germans which is without parallel in the world.

Polish radio on 1 September 1939 repeatedly broadcast “call number 59” at short intervals. The call contained a codeword, established in collaboration with the authorities, and an order to the voivodes [administrative officials], for transmission to the police stations, to arrest all the ethnic Germans, who were already listed by name, in accordance with already existing arrest warrants. Then began the manhunt for the Germans. At the same time, the Polish singer Jan Kiepura — discovered by a German film director and trained as a singer in Germany, made famous by the German UFA film company at a time when he was considered to have no talent in his own country — sang the notorious “Rota”, calling for war against Germany, at a demonstration in a market place in Warsaw. This, too, was typical Polish thanks for benefits received.

The following events, especially in Bromberg on Sunday, 3 September 1939, were of such cruelty that the human mind has difficulty believing them. And yet they are true. In my possession are 347 pages of photocopies of official records and sworn statements, in addition to accompanying photographic evidence, of horrifyingly mutilated bodies, proving the kind of murder orgies of which the Poles are capable. In addition to these 347 pages from the secret archives of the Reichsgovernment, 650 pages of text and photographic documentation were published relating to the preliminary history of the Second World War, which material is also available to me, proving the irrefutable testimony of diplomats regarding the Polish atrocities. The crimes committed were comparable to those described in the novels. But in the novels they were invented, and attributed to the Teutonic Knights. Here, they were actually committed — because people were instigated and encouraged to commit them, and because weapons had been distributed in the churches for that purpose. Where these weapons did not suffice, the Poles used knives, axes, saws, hammers, automobile parts, daggers, hatchets, shovels, whips, fence lathes, clubs, pickaxes, iron bars, and metal-studded clubs, etc., from their own households.

Germans were murdered indiscriminately without regard to age, profession, social position, religion, or sex: no class was spared from torture, whether farmer or property owner, teacher, priest, doctor, merchant, worker or factory owner. The victims were not shot by firing squad: the butchery was never based on any title of law. The victims were shot, beaten to death, stabbed, tortured to death, without reason; the majority, in addition, were mutilated in an animal-like manner. These were deliberate murders, committed mostly by Polish soldiers, policemen or gendarmes, as well as by armed citizens, classical secondary school students, and apprentices. Uniformed insurgents, members of the “Westverband”, riflemen, railroad workers, released criminals, even housewives, all joined in the blood frenzy. Everywhere, a definite method was followed, leading naturally to the inference of a centrally planned, uniform programme of murder. The open, and even admitted, aim of Polish policy was the extinction of Germanness. Literature, among other things, was an instrument of this policy, as a means to which hatred was deliberately fomented.

I prefer to show the results of this systematic education in hatred. I do not wish to reproduce more than 3 photographs, as they appeared in the forensic medical report of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, accompanied by graphic evidence, and printed in the 650 pages of text and photographic documents on the preliminary history of the Second World War, from the archive of the Reichsgovernment. To show more than these 3 photographs would constitute intolerable cruelty to the human soul, which I wish to spare the reader.

Not only do the Poles deny the atrocities they committed, they brazenly twist the truth and allege that the ethnic Germans killed 25,000 poles in Bromburg, in eternal remembrance to which they even erected a monument to their imaginary dead.

There is another monument to the actual events in Bromberg, one which was not just erected recently with lying inscriptions to conceal the perpetrators' own guilt: one completed immediately following these inconceivable cruelties against innocent Germans, written by the man who took down the testimony of these horrible events from survivors still suffering from shock, in a book containing the following lines in a foreword:

“This book was the most difficult task ever assigned to me as a reporter: it contains only the naked truth. Every name is that of the actual witness, every description is based on sworn statements.”

The author was the world famous writer and reporter Edwin Erich Dwinger, who called his monument to the slaughtered innocent ethnic Germans “DEATH IN POLAND — The Ethnic German Passion”. That which is contained in a hundred official records of a few words each is described here in consecutive images of the inhuman crimes of the Polish population against the innocent and helpless Germans, revealing a spiritual attitude on the part of the Poles which deprives them of their claim to a place in European culture. The reader must be allowed repeated pauses in the description of the horrifying martyrdom and murderous fury to which the ethnic Germans were exposed, because the normal human mind cannot tolerate such cruelty. Through these massacres of the Germans, the Poles have forfeited all claim to pride and honour. That they dare to turn to the Germans today and beg for help, and actually accept such help, is a clear index of their character. Even if they erect a hundred monuments in Bromberg intended to prove the contrary, they can in no way conceal the real monument erected by Erich Dwinger to the slaughtered ethnic Germans in his book.

For some time now, the Poles have also made it known, in their usual way, that camp Lamdsdorff is supposed to have been a real sanitorium for the Germans held there. They proceed in this connection exactly as they did with their monument in Bromberg. I therefore recommend that every German should read the report of the Lamsdorff camp doctor, Dr. Heinz Esser: “The Hell of Lamsdorff”, to be convinced of just how shamelessly the Poles lie.

Yet no Polish priest steps forward to defend the truth; on the contrary, they demand belief in Polish innocence, which is, after all, only a lie. The misuse of religion for political purposes is obvious, because, strangely enough, no one is scandalized by these events. Even German Catholics in Germany turn a blind eye, even though the inhuman persecutors of Bloody Sunday in Bromberg made no distinction between Evangelical and Catholic Germans; on the contrary, Catholics who declared themselves to be Germans often suffered worse than the others.

I will now reproduce some sworn statements by Catholic priests on these crimes, which were taken down by the War Crimes Investigation Office of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces:

In view of the above testimonies of German Catholic dignitaries, Catholics in Germany should be cured of the superstition that Poles would not expel Germans of Catholic faith. It would really be impossible to raise a stupider objection defence of the Poles. People filed serious accusations against me with the State Prosecutor, just because I quoted a Polish saying on television: “A German Catholic is not a real German.” I quoted this in my first book. Due to my having quoted this phrase taken from the mouth of a Pole, I was accused of “insulting German Catholics”. I only made one mistake — as I realize only now, but at any rate a most serious one, when I referred to the journalist Zdanowski as the speaker. A tape of the television discussion has been made available to me, from which it is clear that it was not Zdanowski who made this statement, but rather our much-beloved expert Prof. Markiewicz, the self-styled historian, in person. I shall now quote his statement word for word:

“Religion plays a great role here. To a Pole, a real Pole was one who was a Catholic, as well as vice versa: a real German simply had to be a Protestant. For this reason, a special term was invented: German-Catholic; which sometimes means, and all the more so, that he is a German, but that he is a Catholic, that is, that he is not a real German.”

In keeping with this piece of wisdom, a Catholic Swede in Evangelical Sweden cannot be a “real Swede”, and a Catholic Chinese cannot be a “real Chinese”. This logic may be impossible to fathom, but it is, in clear language, the statement of a speaker who is far more important than the journalist Zdanowski could ever be. A history professor can hardly be said to have been talking simple rubbish when he takes a position on German-Polish problems on German television. That religion must coincide with nationality is a thought which can only originate in a Polish brain.

The person who tried to turn me over to the State Prosecutor, since he considered himself insulted and outraged as a German Catholic by my quotation from the Poles, should really have withdrawn his complaint against me and filed it against Prof. Markiezwicz. Did he possess that much decency? No. He filed an appeal to the Attorney General against the prosecutor's order dismissing the case against me on the grounds that it was groundless.

After that, he even filed a complaint with the State Supreme Court.

This event shows the grossly unlogical thinking which lurks in the brains of many who permit themselves to judge the facts and background of history. They read, but do not understand what they read. They write, but do not understand what they have written. But they proclaim their opinions at the top of their lungs, regardless of the damage they are doing to their own country and their own people. Letters to the editor are written based on willful ignorance, conceding the territories of the German East to the Poles, just because that is what the writers once learned in school. This is not the first time that the Poles have made an effort to get their ideas into German school books, through their representative Prof. Markiewicz. Such persons have always existed and on the German side, do-gooders who are ignorant of German rights and therefore give in. Among them, I include the Evangelical Churches of Germany, who, forgetting their dead in the East, express contempt for the victims through their demands that the homeland be given up. Even the Evangelical Churches of the East have had to pay in blood for their Christian convictions. The following obituaries taken from two official German publications set forth the names of those who lost their lives in the Polish murder actions:

[Translation of obituary notice from Deutsche Rundschau, 18 October 1939]

[Translation of obituary notice from Deutsche Rundschau, 17 November 1939]

It is impossible to describe all the cruelty that millions of people were condemned to suffer merely because they were German, in an event which would certainly never have taken place if the Polish people had not been incited by their intelligentsia and their fanatical clerical leadership. The persons responsible can never wash themselves clean from their guilt. It is a crime for which there is only one redmption: that is, to look at their own souls, and turn to their own people and tell the truth. The official records from September 1939 show that many Poles who committed horrible crimes against their German neighbours, weepingly exclaimed that they didn't know how they could have been capable of such deeds, had they not been incited to such an extent; it was believed that if the priests demanded it, they had to do it.

As a further proof of clerical encouragement, I quote the following text of a prayer embroidered by a Polish Christian into the priestly raiment:

The author of this “prayer” was the Polish Catholic priest Mieszko Uszerski. It was distributed as a postcard in the 1930s, along with a “map of the Greater Polish Empire” — also printed on a postcard — which included Berlin and parts of Czechoslavakia. The “enemy” was understood to be exclusively German, in whose extermination the great majority of the Polish people saw the panacea for all the ills of humanity. This is only one example of flood of anti-German incitement and the rage to destroy which explains the explusion of one million Germans after the First World War, the murder of thousands of Germans on Bloody Sunday in Bromberg on the third day after the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, as well as the total extermination of all German ethnicity beyond the Oder-on-Neisser.

This “prayer” by an allegeldy Christian priest, inoculating his flock with chauvinistic hatred, was quoted in the “Deutsche-Wochen Zeitung” of 22.1.1971.

It cannot be objected that this is merely the temporary aberration of a single priest: we have many other proofs as well. The Polish Church has never disassociated itself from such clear expressions of hatred or condemned them. They did not do so even in view of general knowledge of the cruel murder orgy of Bromberg and the long lines of kidnapped persons: rather, they were silent. Had they intervened, the atrocities of Lamsdorff could never have taken place. But down to the present day, not a word of disassociation or condemnation of the criminals has ever been uttered, not a single criminal has been brought before a court. This shows that they approve of the murder of ethnic Germans, and stubbornly defend the theft of German land. In so doing, the highest representative of the Polish Church, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, stands forth so prominantly that he even declared, in God's House, Breslau Cathedral, that Poland had regained its own property, that the very stones spoke Polish, that it was not the German soul that inhabited this cathedral, but the Polish. Is the Polish Church really Christian? Or is it exclusively Polish, pursuing other objectives which the same Cardinal revealed when he said:

“The greatest Counter-Reformation in history began in 1945!”

The explusion of nearly 15 million people from their centuries-old homeland was obviously a step towards this Counter-Reformation, since this same Polish clerical has admitted that the Lutheran Reformation was reversed in the reconquered areas.

Let us remember the role played by the Primate of Poland Cardinal Hlond, Cardinal Wyszynski's predecessor, in 1945, when he compelled the Administrator of the Bishopric of Breslau, the chapter vicar Dr. Ferdinand Piontek, to waive his jurisdiction beyond the Oder-Neisse Line. He claimed to be acting on behalf of the Vatican, but it later turned out that Pope Pius XII had no knowledge of the matter. When the Breslau University Councillor Dr. Kaps informed the Pope of Hlond's actions in detail, Pope Pius XII is said to have been very upset, saying, “We didn't wish that”.

This is significant proof of the evil role of the Polish Church in politics. It shows quite clearly that it does not travel the narrow path of virtue, but uses every instrument to achieve its goals, even lying and swindling. The Axel Springer publishing house in Berlin revealed Cardinal Hlond's role under the headline “Polish Cardinal Tricks Papal Nuntius”; at least, according to the “Homeland Letter of the Catholics of the Archbishop of Breslau” no. 3/1977.

[Translation of illustration p. 38-39]

Poster of the “Polish Protective Association” of “Anti-German Week”, 21 – 28 November 1930

Translation of text: “Away, Prussia! We Are Repeating Grunwald!”

Grunwald is the Polish name for the battle of Tannenberg in 1410, in which the Poles gained a victory against the Teutonic Knights due to the betrayal of the German positions.

The German in this illustration is depicted as fat, brutal, beastly — a monster. The Pole, by contrast, is slim, resolute — the picture of nobility.

The Poles reveal their attitude towards us at every possible opportunity — including banners on the streets during their never-ending strikes. Their attitude is that they neither forgive nor forget, even though they are responsible for their own misfortune. But that is suppressed and denied; the Poles have always been the only angels of innocence in the whole world. And the German fool always turns the right cheek even when he has just received a powerful buffet on the left one; he never sees his own rights, only those of others, no matter how lying and arrogant. And because the whole world knows this, every kind of disgraceful act is permitted against him: it is always endured.

Might I be permitted at this point to provide additional proof of the anti-German attitude of the Polish intelligentsia, making it particularly clear that Polish Christian beliefs are dependent on whether certain circumstances and events turn in their favour or to their disadvantage. The proof is a letter from Pope XII to the German bishops, in which he expresses an opinion on events in the East and on the expulsion of the Germans, together with the reaction of the Polish university teachers.

The Papal letter of 1 March 1948 reads in part as follows:

“The refugees from the East will always deserve special consideration, expelled as they were from their homeland in the East by force, expropriated without compensation, and sent to the German zones. When we come to speak of them we are not so much concerned with the legal, economic, and political point of view of this procedure, which is without parallel in European history. History will be the judge of the above mentioned points of view. We fear that its verdict will be unfavourable. We believe we know what happened during the war years in the broad expanses from the Weichsel to the Volga. But was it permissible, in retaliation, to expel twelve million people from their homes and farms, and expose them to misery? Are not the victims of every retaliation, in their majority, people who took no part in the events and misdeeds which took place, who had no influence over them? And were these measures politically reasonable or economically responsible, when one considers the living needs of the German people, in addition to the well-being of all of Europe? Is it unrealistic for us to hope and desire that all participants may come to a more tranquil view of things, and make these events reversible insofar as that is still possible?…”

The pious Poles, who are so fond of their churches, nevertheless showed the value to them of an appeal from a Pope who was not a Pole. Three months later, the university teachers of Cracow replied in a sharp counter resolution. This answer is so interesting, and provides such an insight into the character of educated Poles in particular, that one can never read this reply often enough. Envy and hatred ring throughout it, since the Pope had found words of mercy and love for the victims of explusion, but not for the Poles.

“We, the undersigned Rectors, Deacons, and Professors of the University, hereby affirm: 1) We decisively reject the unjustified opinion of the Pope regarding the question of our Western borders, which are not negotiable. The Western territories are, and remain, an integral part of the New Poland. 2) The statement of the Pope that 12 million germans were expelled, reflects neither the facts nor the truth, since only 2,155,000 Germans were resettled to Germany, and this in a manner which differed considerably from the methods employed by the Germans. 3) In his letter, the Pope speaks of the 'proud achievements of Catholic Germany in Breslau', thereby forgetting that Wrocklaw was for centuries the seat of a Polish bishop and part of the Polish state, which was governed by Catholic kings. 4) The letter of the Pope is characterised by love, friendship and mercy with regards to the Germans. The Pope addresses the Germans 'Dear Sons and Honourable Brethren', calling them a Christian people, which 'has a double right to know that the heart and concern of a Shepherd of the Representative of Christ stands nearby them'. The resettlement of the Germans from Poland is termed by the Pope a 'procedure without parallel in European history'. Unfortunately, the Pope found no such words for us when the Germans killed millions of Poles, in a manner truly without parallel in the history of mankind, nor when, in an equally unparalleled manner, they arrested outstanding personalities from the Polish sciences, professors from the oldest universities in Poland, and one of the oldest universities in Europe, as well as from other academic institutions, and caused them to die slowly in Dachau and Oranienburg; nor did he do so when they arrested Polish Catholic priests — patriots — and tortured them in camps. The Pope did not protest against the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz, Maidenek, and Treblinka, nor did he call this 'a crime without parallel in European history.'”

This answer to Pope Pius XII proves the peculiar attitude of the Poles to the Head of the Church. They do not hesitate in the slightest to accuse the Pope of injustice and untruthfulness (that is, lying), or of preferring the Germans over the Poles. They could not possibly provide Christ's Representative at the Holy See of St. Peter with a clearer proof of the envy and ill will, the hatred and abhorrance, which they have always felt towards the Germans than this letter, in which they turn history completely upside down, since the Rectors, Deacons and University Professors obviously believe that Pope Pius XII is unaware of the history of the German East. This reveals the boundless arrogance of the intellectual classes in Poland, which does not hesitate to attack the Christian Catholic Head of the Church with a contempt “which has no parallel”, since he dares to demand justice and humanity for the Germans whom they hate so much.

This is the perfect answer to Kurt Lueck's question: do the Poles really think they are proving their greatness through an incomparable contempt for history?

These honourable gentlemen refer to the “oldest universities in Europe”, as if their founding had been the work of the Poles. But there is nothing unique in this procedure; they have always laid claim to everything to which they had no fundamental right. This what they did with Nicholas Copernicus, with Veit Stoss, and an endless list of other Germans who lived and worked in Poland to the benefit of the land and its people. They continue to do so at the present time, even with the ethically German Father Maximilian Kolbe, whom they also wish to claim for their own due to his Catholic faith, since, in keeping with the formula “Catholic means Polish, and Polish means Catholic”, the Catholic Kolbe was also transformed into a Pole. Kolbe was most certainly an extraordinary man, and he took his Christian beliefs seriously, but does that make him a Pole? Kolbe's life story is told in the script “Father Maximilian Kolbe — Hero of Auschwitz” by Franz Lesch, OFM Conv. Radio Vatican: we learn that he was born the second of 5 children in a working class family, and was named Raimund. Zdunska-Wola, his birthplace, is a city adjacent to mighty industrial city of Lodz. His father was a weaver. The father's first name is nowhere mentioned, but since the boy was given the name of Raimund, which was not common anywhere in Poland, we must assume that his parents came from the Austrian part of Silesia, where this first name occurs frequently, that they emigrated to the booming German textile city Lodz, and settled in Zdunksa Wola, which is also German. The name Kolbe is so unequivocal that it leads necessarily to the conclusion, in combination with the baptismal name of Raimund, that Kolbe was a German by birth. At the time of this birth in 1894 there was no such nation as Poland. It was, however, an era during which Silesian weavers, due to the misery of their own homelands, emigrated to seek new homes. The industrial city of Lodz and the surrounding areas offered both bread and work. None of these hard-working German weavers ever went to “Poland”, but rather to the city of Lodz, which was under Russian sovereignty.

[Translator's note: The Czarist administration of Poland was enormously beneficial to the Poles, abolishing the privileges of the nobles and leading to unprecedented prosperity among the peasantry and middle classes.]

That the young boy was accepted into the university to study the humanities, was the result of his gifts; that he was accepted into the Holy Order of Francis of Assissi at the age of 16 is no proof of Polish nationality either. During the following period, he was sent to Rome to continue his theological studies at the Papal University. In Rome, he fell ill with consumption. In January 1917 in Rome, he had a experience which proved decisive to his life. Father Lesch describes this in the above mentioned short book:

From this and other statements, it is clear that Father Kolbe was motivated by a general love of humanity which recognized no nationalities, only service and love, but never hatred of any kind: a quality of character typically characteristic of no other people as much as the self-sacrificing Germans. There is no people on earth which, apart from its other good and bad qualities, so converts this humility and dedication, this love of its enemies and renunciation of its own living rights, into action. It is precisely this characteristic which, in addition to his German name, Raimund Kolbe, confirms that he was a German and not a Pole. This fact is in no way exceptional. Another example is readily available in the person of a Catholic politician of the present day, who, though he knows nothing whatsoever about Poland, calls himself a “committed friend of Poland and Polish history”, and, what is more, proclaims that that he is in no sense a German nationalist. If he had lived in Poland, as was the case with Father Kolbe, the Poles would naturally claim him as one of their own, since after all, he is a Catholic, and full of friendship for the Polish people. The remarks of this politician, the then Federal Representative Dr. Helmut Kohl, on 19 February 1976 in the German Bundestag, as reported in the official stenographic record, read as follows:

“We have said that it is natural, based on the great tradition of the German Centre Party, to which my family belongs and in whose tradition I was raised, not having experienced the period personally, to take a pro-Polish position… I assure you, Mr. Chancellor, that you are entirely correct in your impression. No German nationalist, no committed enemy of Poland, sits before you here, but rather, a committed friend of Polish history, of the Polish future, and, above all, of the Polish people.”

Dr. Kohl, according to his own admission, is first of all a Catholic, and loves the Polish people above all else. Since he is no German nationalist, but rather a committed friend of Poland, the Polish people, and the Polish future, is he then no longer a true German, in keeping with the logic of Professor Wadyslaw Markiewiscz? And can he be therefore be claimed as a Pole by the Polish people, like Raimund Kolbe, who recognized no nationalities, and was only a Catholic? Father Kolbe's fellow prisoners in Auschwitz testified that he felt no hatred, not even of the Germans who had put him in the camp and who guarded or drove him; rather, he at all times urged only peace and love, which are certainly not Polish character traits, since Polish history supplies us solely with proofs to the contrary.

[Translator's note: The atrocities of one of the greatest and most pious of all Polish kings, Stephen Batory, resemble something out of a horror movie, and would be incredible from any source other than the 1911 Enclyclopaedia Britannica. The details are revealed only in very brief articles on peripheral subjects. Once one forgets the Polish names of the victims, it is nearly impossible to find the articles again. This can only be an act of deliberate concealment.]

Whether Father Kolbe served as a missionary in China, Japan or Poland, was indifferent to him, as may be seen from the many stories and obituaries written about him. His concern was exclusively the Catholic mission, and his particular vocation was the order of the “Militati Immaculatae”, which he founded. According to the founding documents, the order was not concerned with Poles, but the conversion of all sinners, particularly the Freemasons, followed by the healing of all men. But that is not the aim of the Poles, since they claim Heaven for themselves alone, turning the Mother of Jesus into the “Queen of Poland”, that is, a worldly regent, who can, and must, reign solely for one single people, and who must, and therefore does, only speak Polish. But this was not Father Kolbe's view: when he served as a missionary in China and Japan, his order was called the “Immaculate Virgin Mary”, not the “Queen of Poland”. He could hardly have converted any Chinese or Japanese in the name of a Polish queen! At his canonization, he was represented as the symbol of all reconciliation. But in reality, this symbol of universal reconciliation and love of humanity has been turned into a symbol of eternal hatred of the Germans. That is a Polish, not a German, method of procedure.

In the past pages, I have described how Polish literature and the fanatacal Polish priesthood have used atrocity propaganda against all things German. In literature and painting, the most horrifying atrocities were invented, depicting the Germans as subhuman monsters, and the Poles as the most heroic and noblest people in the world. Thus it is with the symbol of reconciliation which they now wish to claim for themselves, allegedly because Kolbe was of Polish blood. Precisely the same kind of “Polish blood” as flowed in the veins of Nicholas Copernicus, Veit Stoss, or Gottlieb Linde. At the same time, no image, no book, no obituary, fails to recount the most disgusting atrocities imaginable which this hero was allegedly forced to endure at the hands of the Germans. This is intended to bring anti-German disgust and hatred to a boil. It is unceasingly hammered into Polish minds that the Germans murdered their priests. At the same time, they never neglect to attribute the corresponding qualities to the Germans: the blood-drenched hangmen, SS torturers, slaves doomed to extinction, executioners, and anything else which could be invented by the noble Poles, nothing is missing. The black-white caricature of evil vs. good is drawn to perfection. Everyone is forced to participate. On the back cover of the little book by Father Lesch from the Vatican is an afterword signed by Cardinal Wojtyla, containing the epithet “Bloody Fritz”. This is another indication of this high dignitary's true priorities, since the epithet “Bloody Fritz” is intended as an incitement to hatred. The man to whom the afterword was dedicated was of far greater nobility than the man who wrote it, since all witnesses agree that Father Kolbe never spoke a word of contempt or hatred, but taught only peace and love. This type of remark from a Man of God is certainly not in the spirit of Maximilian Kolbe, who was a German by birth by the name of Raimund Kolbe. We do not doubt the descriptions of his life and dedication, we simply wish to delve further into the legend of his death, i.e., his alleged murder, since the stories abound with so many contradictions. Again, we wish to point to the misuse of religion for political purposes.

First, it must be kept in mind that Kolbe, at the time of his death, was dangerously ill with tuberculosis — very active tuberculosis — as Father Lesch and others never fail to mention. He therefore identified himself entirely with the thought of the sacrificing his life for others. He even requested this very sacrifice. Father Lesch reports that Kolbe repeatedly, voluntarily, and constantly did without bread and tea — even medical treatment — to prove his Christian humility and service. His incurable tuberculosis may have been partially responsible for this longing for death.

Let us now turn to the available — and unavailable — Auschwitz documents concerning Father Maximilian Kolbe.

From a letter from the Auschwitz State Museum dated 21.10.1977, we learn that “due to the destruction of the majority of the documents by the SS camp administration, the file of death records for Maximilian Kolbe is unavailable. But the individual document from the registry office, i.e, the “individual certificate”, is available. As such a certificate, the cloister at Niepokolanow, upon request, issues a photocopy of a letter of the last alleged eyewitness. I have translated this letter, and reproduce it in its entirety as follows, since it contains allegations which are so monstrous that they cannot reflect the truth:

Now. The German occupation troops had already withdrawn from Poland by January – February 1945. But the last “eyewitness” kept the secret of the Kolbe's death all to himself until the end of December; that is, no one showed any interest in the manner of Kolbe's death until then, obviously because there was nothing remarkable about it. From December 1945 onwards, however, it was different. The death records — i.e., documents from the internment period — were unfortunately lost, but a “death certificate” is available. There was also a last “eyewitness”, and he was alleged to have made this report. I have spoken to a doctor about this report. Here is what he says:

1. No healthy man, let alone someone suffering from tuberculosis, could survive 2 or even 3 weeks naked in a dark cell, on a bare cement floor, without any food or water. Thirst and cold would have caused very rapid death.
2. The latrines are said to have been dry and empty because the prisoners allegedly drank their own urine due to severe thirst. But if they had done that, they would have died much more quickly, since all the toxic substances of the body are concentrated in the urine, which is excreted precisely so that the body may be free of these toxins. If the prisoners had satisfied their thirst in this unappetizing manner, they would have re-ingested these toxins into their bodies, and would have rapidly died from poisoning. (A question from the doctor: if the latrines were dry and empty, did they also eat their own excrement? Even when they suffered from diarrhoea, which would have been inevitable?)
3. After 3 weeks naked on a cold cement floor with active tuberculosis, Kolbe allegedly continued to stand or kneel in the middle of the cell, praying loudly, consoling his last fellow prisoners! And all this time, they never received a drop of water! That would have been impossible even for a Hercules.
4. The last 4 prisoners are said to have been killed with an injection in the left hand, with carbolic acid, no less. This was surely the first time in the history of medicine that carbolic acid has ever been used for such a purpose; to a doctor, this is completely incredible.
5. The witness reported that any violation of secrecy about the building was punishable by death, that is, the killing was to remain secret. But carbolic acid is a strongly-smelling substance which betrays its won presence.

And now I must add a 6th objection. The death records were lost, of course, but the X-ray records survived. According to these records, Kolbe was X-rayed on two occasions, on 28 July 1941 for the last time! The witness speaks of confinement in a dark cell for 3 weeks, from July to 14 August 1941. That means that Kolbe was taken out of his dark cell to be given a quick X-ray, just before his intended murder! What curious people these Germans are!

The fact that Kolbe was X-rayed on 28 July 1941 proves that his active tuberculosis was given medical treatment, and that he was not held in any “death bunker”, since it is inconceivable that the Germans would have taken him out to X-ray him. This therefore proves that the letter from this “Borgowiec” is a fabrication. The purpose of the fabrication is clearly revealed at the end of the sworn statement of the person for whom Kolbe allegedly sacrificed his life. This sworn statement is dated even later than the Borgowiec's statement, i.e, 25 October 1946, more than 5 years after the alleged events! It does do not restrict itself to the facts, but extends to Kolbe's future beatification and canonization, which is obviously the purpose for which the statement was drawn up and written.

“I drew the lot. With the words, 'oh, my wife and my children, whom I must leave as orphans….', I went to the end of the block. I was doomed to go and starve to death in the hunger block. Father Maximilian Kolbe and a Minority Father from Niepokolanow heard these words. He stepped out of the ranks went to the camp leader and tried to kiss his hand (!). “What does the Polish pig want?”, Fritsch asked the interpreter. Father Maximilian pointed to me with his finger, and declared himself ready to go to his death for me. With a corresponding movement of his hand and the word “Aus!”, the camp leader called me out of the ranks of the doomed, and Father Maximilian Kolbe took my place. Shortly afterwards, they led them off to the death cells. They ordered us to go to the blocks. At this point, it was difficult to resist the overpowering impression which gripped me. I — the condemned man — was now to go on living, while another sacrificed himself willingly for me! Was this a dream or reality? … Among our companions in suffering at Auschwitz, only voices of admiration were to be heard for the priest's heroic sacrifice of his own life for me. I grew up in the Catholic religion, and have kept my belief throughout the hardest times of my life. Only religion gave me strength and hope at these times. Father Maximilian Kolbe's sacrifice has further strengthened my religious convictions, as well as my attachment to the Catholic Church, which is able to produce such heroes. The only thanks that I can offer my rescuer is a daily prayer, which I say together with my wife.”

The rescued person whose life had been saved, whose life was now given back to him, regardless of the overpowering impression which Father Maximilian Kolbe's sacrifice made on him, felt no immediate impulse to speak of the heroic sacrifice of the priest from his Church and his people, or to give public thanks for his salvation, even after the collapse of the German Reich, the evacuation of Auschwitz, and the liberation of the prisoners. Only one and a half years later did he sign a statement which was obviously prepared because it had dawned on someone that the Church needed a new Saint with which to kill two birds with one stone. First, a closer attachment of the people to the Church, and secondly, the memorializing of eternal anti-German hatred, since the simultaneous beatification and later canonization would provide plentiful opportunity to harp on German crimes. The Kolbe case was intended to establish German inhumanity even if all the other lies and atrocity stories were proven false. In so doing, they didn't limit themselves to speaking of the priest's sacrificial death; they used the opportunity to make renewed accusations of German crimes. The intent is obvious, and destroys the effect, as Wilhelm Busch would say.

It must be stressed that Father Kolbe bears no guilt for this swindle. In Poland, the Church, God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the clergy have all been nationalized and conscripted into the national struggle. And according to the motto that “Catholic means Polish”, the Catholic Kolbe is said to have been a Pole, just as in the 19th century, the villages of Bamberg were made Polish right under the noses of the Prussian government. The total misunderstanding of this process in Germany, and the indifference of Germans abroad for all the problems of ethnic Germans in Poland, contribute to this process and are equivalent to aiding and abetting in it.

How could it otherwise have been possible to confiscate the churches from their Evangelical believers, not only after the German collapse, but even today? Evangelical churches are still occupied by the Poles. This became particularly widespread after Pope Wojtyla's first visit to their homeland! This was reported in no. 1/82 of the “Anzeiger of the Emergency Administration of the German East”, as well as in some domestic newspapers and on German television. The reports contained pleas from long-resident Evangelical citizens of Mazur, weeping over the theft of their churches. Even more shocking was the impudence of the Catholic clergy, who simply declared that the confiscation of Evangelical churches in Poland was thoroughly justified and no cause for anxiety, since there were many more Catholics than Protestants in Mazur!

The procedure was described by the Lutheran pastor Firlas at Sehesten in answer to questioning by reporters. Poles gathered in the locality, and then approached the Evangelical church in the form of a procession. Adults and old people, as well as children, approached the church carrying candles in their hands. The locks on the church doors had already been broken open. The churches were guarded day and night. Signs were posted on the church doorways stating that entrance was forbidden to Evangelicals. Pastor Firlas says: “We protest against this thievery and robbery. Relations between Evangelicals and Catholics have been damaged, because we cannot live in friendship if the Catholic priests steal our churches. The Catholic Church walks over corpses to achieve its goals. The Church is fanatical, and this has worsened since a Pole became Pope. There can be no question of ecumenicalism. A total of 12 churches have been occupied. The churches are guarded day and night.”

A Catholic priest was also interrogated by reporters on the occupation of churches. Here is his answer: “The great number of Catholics here in Poland justifies the actions of members of the municipality, who acted without my knowledge. The Protestants here have 5 churches, and needed only 1. The others are empty and falling into neglect. We have so few churches here in the northern region — and only small churches — and the municipality is a big one. I believe that the Protestants are satisfied that their churches are now in better hands. We do not forbid them entrance.”

When questioned by the reporter on the occupation of churches by violence, the answer was: “Occupation, yes… but a guard is necessary. It ensures that the Protestants cannot come and try to get in.”

Nothing can exceed the impudence of this “Christian” clerical after this. He has the stolen churches guarded so that the victimized owners can no longer gain entrance, and at the same time he claims that entrance is not forbidden to them! He justifies occupation by violence on the grounds of the great number of Catholics, and even claims that Evangelicals are glad that the churches were stolen from them, since they are now in better hands! In view of such shamelessness, it is superfluous to ask how one can pray in such stolen churches.

The clergyman Firlas attempted to alarm his brothers in the faith in the West. He turned to the ecumenical churches of Germany, to the World Association of Lutherans, and the Evangelical Churches of Germany for support. But they all refused to intervene, speaking of mere “Polish political conflicts”. This is the cowardly manner in which they abandon their brothers in the faith. Reverend Firlas sees the increasing homelessness of the Lutherans in Mazur, and doesn't know what to do. The Poles say anyone who is a Catholic is a Pole, and that all the Protestants are Germans. But the Germans leave their countrymen in the lurch, saying it's only a problem of Germans in a foreign country; thus are Germans abandoned by the faith, and not just in the East. Poland has always attempted to eradicate minorities. The Catholic Churches now sense that their power is increasing; against this background, an anti-ecumenical spirit is also on the rise, particularly, a rejection of minorities: chauvinism and nationalism are also growing. Intolerance of everything which is not Polish gives rise to hatred; despite this, their worldwide propaganda claims that they are a tolerant and highly moral people. They have, so to speak, laid claim to a monopoly on morals, in an arrogance which is second to none.

The violent occupation of churches shows the effects of bad spiritual examples, even decades later. Speaking in Breslau Cathedral, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wszysynski, declared: “When we look at these Houses of God, we know that we have not taken German soil. It is not the German soul which speaks from these stones. These buildings have waited and waited, and have finally returned to Polish hands.”

But history shows that it is not the Polish soul which speaks from one single stone of Breslau Cathedral, because “Catholic” doesn't mean “Polish”. But the example given above constitutes a free licence for every kind of thievery, even that of Lutheran churches, since the Polish majority need them. It never even occurs to them to build churches of their own. They have no sense left of justice left; these “pious Christians” have simply set aside the Seventh Commandment.

This Polish attitude also reveals another aspect to these developments which should not be overlooked, since it is of enormous importance to us. The Poles advocate marriage with large families. Seven to nine children are desired by them. Lech Walesa even has eight children. He is a model to the masses. If this continues — and that is a certainty, since it is the Germans who feed these blessings in the form of Polish children — the Poles can look forward to a population of 60 to 70 million people by the year 2000. Here in Germany, by contrast, the opposite will have occurred: we will have shrunk to 30 million at the most. In my first publication, I showed, based on a map published in Poland, that German regions as far north as Bremen and as far south as Munich have already been declared “originally Slavic regions” by the Poles. There are already a great many people writing “letters to the editor — in Hamburg, Luebeck, Lueneberg — in an attempt to support this contention. Since the Catholic priest at Sehesten justified the violent occupation of the Evangelical churches through the greater numbers of Catholic believers while Evangelical churches stood empty, we must be prepared to be treated in exactly the same manner in Germany. Of course, it will then be said that we are “satisfied to see our country in better hands”!

This is the policy which has received the blessing of the Polish Pope with the aid of German Catholics, who send countless millions and millions of packages full of valuable goods as love offerings to Polish babies — postage paid! — who will expel us as soon as they are able to do so, just as they expelled 15 million Germans in 1945. The German worship of everything Polish blinds us to Polish realities. German Catholicism cannot be equated with Polish Catholicism, because German Catholicism lacks any national component, while Polish Catholicism has given birth to a nationalism, even chauvinism, which recognizes no borders. A people which, as history shows, has never been able to govern itself, is following a policy which, in its megalomania and lust for power, must lead to an explosion of violence between nations. German Catholicism is jointly guilty in this, since it only sees only the foreground of Polish economic misery and not the background of the Polish lust for power. Constant German assistance encourages the Poles to rely upon help from abroad, while continuing to refuse to work. Germany is occupied territory too, but the German people work hard. We have no freedom of action either, nor are we sovereign in our politics, but nobody goes on strike because of it. Our trade unions have not, so far, demanded 3 years maternal leave for the birth of each child, as established by Solidarnosc in the Danzig agreement. In Germany, we seem to be too poor to have children of our own, but the bankrupt Poles, by contrast, can afford 7 to 9 children per family, and 3 years maternal leave for the mother! What's the point of talking about working women? 1 child every 3 years, and there won't be a single day left for any paid work! And the stupid Germans pay for it all!

And what thanks will we get? When this “Master Race” runs out of space in its border territories — which are already stolen land — they will move westwards, over the border. At this point, it will be too late for the stupid Germans.

The whole point of Polish policy is to reverse the Reformation in the Lutheran areas, as the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski, already expressly indicated speaking of the regions stolen so far. The German people must recognize this. But the Polish people must also realize that every people has a right to the type of faith which is compatible with its own ethnic heritage; that medieval-style religious warfare will not necessarily end with the victory of the Polish Church. They have already stolen part of the religious heritage of the Lutheran Masuren, and deprived the rest of their lives of meaning, as the victims complained on television. This has not helped the reputation of the Poles, since the theft could not remain concealed. The Germans have always been prepared for reconciliation and peace, but this presupposes that the opposite side must call a halt to its attacks and its lies, put an end to its insults, recognize its artificially generated hatred for what it is, and renounce it; that it pay a tribute to truth, both past and present; that it recognize the extent of its own guilt, and call its own criminals exactly what they are, and bring them to trial, which is what every state with any culture would do. If Poland wishes to be a European state with any culture, then it must behave like a state with some culture, instead of allowing criminals to be protected by priests. As Bishop Dr. Wetter, upon leaving office in Speyer, said to his congregation in his final address: “We must succeed in reducing hostilities in the hearts of men, but on both sides. I expressly say: 'on both sides'; since only then will there be any prospect of peace.”

Every day, the Germans prove — through huge floods of assistance packages — that they bear no hostility in their hearts. They are waiting for the Poles to renounce their unjustified hatred and evil libels. This, of course, includes their lie letters about the death of Father Kolbe. Otherwise, the prospects for peace will be nil. Greatness is not revealed by hate and libel, as Polish authors believe. As long as Germans are referred to as “mad dogs” in Polish literature, we must reject reconciliation, despite our over-abundant assistance. It is shameless that one side should holds its hands constantly open to receive love gifts worth millions, while at the same time, the givers are hated so much that their very language is no longer tolerated. The German language is strictly illegal in Poland, and anyone who speaks German must reckon with anything from insults to police arrest. The CDU Bundestag Representative Helmut Sauer spoke of this before the Bundestag. Sauer, a Silesian, had taken part in his godfather's funeral in Poland. When the clergyman, a German, spoke a few words of consolation in German to the mourners in a German municipality in Poland, he was immediately arrested. His relatives only succeeded in obtaining his release by saying that he could just as easily have said a few words in English or French. “Why aren't these things called by their right name?” Representative Sauer asked the Bundestag. And I ask the same question. Why is this concealed from the German people? Why do German government representatives have to conceal the excesses of the Poles? The Poles cannot impose themselves through a lack of national dignity: in reality, this can only lead to a contempt for them. And they show their contempt for us openly, but the Germans are too stupid to notice.

And if they notice, they say nothing. That is why Dr. Fritz Wittmann, a member of the Bundestag, expressly stated, in the Danube Schwabian newspaper “Der Donauschwab” on 2 January 1983, no. 2, that the Polish authorities, especially the State Security Service, ensure that ethnic Germans receive no consideration when assistance shipments arrive from private individuals or charitable organizations.

Bundestag Representative Dr. Wittmann therefore requested all assistance organizations to take special care that this discrimination be ended, its existence be recognized, and made the object of public discussion.

The myth of the Germans in the Polish popular tradition and literature is strongly in need of correction. But it is up to us to demand this correction, and to do so with determination.

Finally, our politicians should understand that they were elected by the German people, and not by the Poles, to look after German interests. Even our churches should understand that religious freedom can only be ensured when German priests — both Evangelical and Catholic — defend their own people and protect them from defamation. It is not the responsibility of Christian clergymen to worry about misery in foreign countries which is the foreigners' own fault, while neglecting the misery of one's own people. “Brotherly love” means love for one's neighbour, one's brother, one's friends, without asking which relgion they belong to, instead of worrying about members of one's own religion in a foreign country which hates us with all its soul.

My remarks are intended to serve the truth. Because truth, and only truth, is the prelude to reconciliation. Only a recognition of historical truth can lead to peace between the peoples of Europe. As long as lies and defamation prevail, reconciliation will not be achieved.

Bibliography:

• Franz Wolff, Ostgermanien (Eastern Germany), Grabert Verlag, Tübingen, 1977
• Dr. Kurt Lueck, Der Mythos vom Deutschen in der polnischen Volksüberlieferung und Literatur [The Myth of the Germans in Polish Popular Tradition and Literature], Historische Gesellschaft im Wartheland, Verlag S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1943
• Dr. Kurt Lueck, Deutsche Aufbaukräfte in der Entwicklung Polens – Forschungen zur deutsch-polnischen Nachbarschaft im ostmitteleuropäischen Raum [German Forces of Construction in the Development of Poland – Research on German-Polish Relations in Central Europe], Verlag Guenther Wolff, Plauen im Vogtl. 1934
• Dr. Enno Meyer, Deutschland und Polen 1772-1914 [Germany and Poland 1772- 1914], Ernst-Klett-Verlag, Stuttgart
• Pater Franz Lesch, Der Selige Maximilian Kolbe – Held von Auschwitz [Father Maximilian Kolbe – Hero of Auschwitz], Verlag “Friede und Heil” Würzburg und M.I. Franziskaner-Kloster, Freiburg, Switzerland
• MUT Verlag, Aus dem Archiv der Reichsregierung: 650 Text- und Bilddokumente zur Vorgeschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges [From the Archives of the Reichs Government: 650 Text and Graphic Illustrations on the Preliminary History of the Second World War]
• Die Polnischen Greueltaten an den Volksdeutschen in Polen, im Auftrage des Auswärtigen Amtes auf Grund urkundischen Beweismaterials zusammengestellt, bearbeitet und herausgegeben, zweite ergänzte Auflage [Polish Atrocities Against Ethnic Germans in Poland. On Behalf of the Foreign Office, based on Documentary Evidentiary Material. Second Supplemented Edition], Berlin 1940.
• Heimatbrief der Katholiken des Erzbistums Breslau, no. 3/1977; herausgegeben vom apostolischen Visitator des Katholiken des Erzbistums Breslau e.V., Köln [Letter Home from the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Breslau no. 3/1977, published by the Apostolic Visitator of the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Breslau e. V., Cologne]

Self-published by Elsie Löser
Kaiserlautern, Auf der Vogelweide 14
1st edition 1983

Translated by Carlos W. Porter. Sources for all information in translator's notes: 1911 Encycopaedia Britannica