Geschichte der Sintflut: Auf den Spuren der frühen Zivilisationen (Becksche Reihe) (German Edition)

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Stefan M. Maul

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Anything that originated in Germany, regardless of value, everything except the works of mechanics, is considered pernicious, and is rejected with suspicion. King Wenzel is said to have been displeased by the expression, his reply being noted in the chronicle: 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.

Polish collections of popular sayings include the following:. W naszej wsi, jak psy zawyly, wsystkich Szwabow diabli wzieli. 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. 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. Even their greatest and best-known novelists, such as Adam Mikiewicz and Henryk Sienkeiwicz, use these insulting terms. And this in the edition intended for Polish school children!

The very well known Polish writer W. The first month of the war proved that, in September 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. 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: 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. The picture depicts flaming huts and fleeing peasants, while Teutonic Knights discharge firearms from horseback.

In the north, the pioneers of this movement were the Teutonic Knights. The Order succeeded, over a 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 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.

The great masses of the Polish people had no idea that this was just a shameless piece of atrocity propaganda. 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 always reveal their own character defects in attempting to accuse the Germans. 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: 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 persuade the Polish nobleman to move forward to intervene. 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. 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. For the Poles, in particular, their greatest hour had come: Polish bravery was — and is — simply a legend, just like their honesty. 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: 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:.

The Germans provided the standard of living, the Poles provided order. The role of the cities was truly educational. 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 this connection, Professor Grabski of the University of Warsaw writes as follows p. Polish peasants were very unreliable as settlers. Since they were hardworking, peaceful and economical, they were a socially creative element representing a model for the domestic population. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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:.

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: 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 years. During this period, the Germans achieved incomparable feats of culture which benefited the country.

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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 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. 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.

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: 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 , 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 years at that time. 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. Did this emissary of a Polish king then become a Pole solely by virtue of his office? The Poles are supposed to be Slavs.

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 question now arises: 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. 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? But back to the Doenhoff family chronicle, which reveals still another important piece of information. 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.

Germans had already inhabited the area for years. As early as B. It begins as follows: 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. The present day also furnishes examples of what happens to people in Poland who undertake research into authentic history. The Polish literary historian, Jan Josef Lipski, made the attempt: His crime, in particular, consisted of the following passage in his history of culture:.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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: 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:.

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 libeling precisely those German accomplishments which enabled them to do so, although there is sufficient proof of both. 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.

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. Responsibility for this rests, first of all, with the clergy: 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. The peasant is simply convinced that, in Heaven and around the Pope, the only language ever spoken is Polish….

Heaven is only for Catholics! The Germans and Jews are swindlers. Your religion is false. 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. The following verse, which I prefer to give in translation only, is noted from the region around Cracow: 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. Brystron , and which runs, freely translated:. From the unholy heretics it comes And from too few Catholics in the land. During the Counter Reformation, the clergy shrank from no tactic, no matter how devious, to lead people back to Catholicism.

The defamation 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.

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. 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 region of Lublin a taunting game arose, which, freely translated, says:. What kind of person is he? The Minister of Hell! They only believe in Luther, the wretch. He was immediately banned from Rome, Since he invented a new church.

He seduced many women. A new order was his objective. But the Schwab is so stupid, He gives everything to Luther. And Luther collects the money, And spends in the tavern on wine. This verse refers to German stupidity: 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 devilish kind as can be invented.

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: 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 necessary 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: Such persons no longer made any attempt to overcome difficulties on their own.

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They had a scapegoat, responsible for all the evils of life: 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: 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: Proof of this was provided in 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: 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. 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?

In volume 2, p. 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. Sienkiewicz, translated into German by Sonja Placzek, not to mention a second translation, is nothing but a hoax perpetrated on the German reader. For example, volume II, p. We refer to the third edition, published in Warsaw by Gebethner and Wolf. The following passages have been deleted in the translation:. A Pole, in the reverse case, would simply refuse to translate such a book.

This undignified process of falsification should be ended once and for all. We should either translate all the passages 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 disservice 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. 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. 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? 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.

Thus smote Moses the Egyptian bloodhounds to death, who murdered the children of God! And again he struck the Germans, overflowing with blood until they looked like a bloody stump. The crazed one nevertheless had such a horrible expression on his face, and such a fire of rage broke forth from him, that the horde of Germans held back at some distance. Jantsch aimed at Von Molken.

Go ahead and shoot!

Tell me exactly who made so much destruction? Now, the Germans, the Germans who else? The Polish peasant spoke further: Everywhere, the Germans take the wood away from the Polish peasants, suck us dry, make us all their slaves. The dialogue of Konrad with his brother goes like this:. 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.

The Duke gave them land in Greater Poland to clear! The Koczura should have broken their German bones — not deserted the honestly acquired property which was theirs. When they have made a strip arable, then you give it to the Germans, and they send you further into the wilderness. The nobles agreed with him: This is how the Poles are deceived into believing that it was they who cleared the land and made it arable.

The German moved aside, and asked, seized with fear: The quarrelsome, brawling Pole challenges the less belligerent 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 Only in overwhelmingly great numbers do the Germans ever dare to attack the Poles: 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: 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! And now you baggy pants have lost your guts, now you retreat! Where is your land then! Not one piece of land, you thief of foreign property! Do arrogance and conceit have no limits? Are these writers or spreaders of filth?

What news of Jena? Then they really make a run for it! All the streets out of Greater Poland were full of fleeing Germans! The reader senses the poet positively gloating over the cruel notion that no Prussian was still alive who might still have needed medical treatment. A Polish student tells a German wood merchant, in reply to the question of what a great stone is doing in such a place, the following legend, which is supposed to be amusing:.

On top, there is a depression and a furrow. The simple people say that, in the night of the full moon, around midnight, the mountain opens up, and, from underneath the stone come bearded old men dressed in white with oak clusters on their foreheads and golden lutes in their hands… Behind go others leading a Knight fastened with an iron chain. The Knight wears a black cross on his coat and breast.

In vain, he struggles and moans; his eyes flash like lightning: An old priest bends over him, and sinks a sharp stone knife into the breast arched with pain… Blood spurts. The Knight bellows like a stuck pig! The priest pushes his arm into the steaming wound to above the elbow, and searches for a long time… Finally, the whole story concludes miserably, since, instead of the heart of the barbarian, he pulls forth, with great effort… a rather large but empty purse, manufactured in Berlin… The Knight spent everything he had on frivolous lady Slavs!..

I found one just like it! I lost it here last year! But there must have been money in it! Give it here, Izyda! And with a German purse? Szmit turned to Izyda. 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: 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.

People swindle you with sheer cleverness. 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 cruellest 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 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. This is a perfect example of the manner in which the Poles are unable to learn from history.

In , the Cossack leader Chmielnicki annihilated them under identical circumstances. For Chmielnicki and his host these splendid cavaliers expressed the utmost contempt. 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. Then began the manhunt for the Germans. This, too, was typical Polish thanks for benefits received. The following events, especially in Bromberg on Sunday, 3 September , were of such cruelty that the human mind has difficulty believing them.

And yet they are true. In my possession are 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 pages from the secret archives of the Reichsgovernment, 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.

Germans were murdered indiscriminately without regard to age, profession, social position, religion, or sex: The victims were not shot by firing squad: 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.

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 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, poles in Bromburg, in eternal remembrance to which they even erected a monument to their imaginary dead. Every name is that of the actual witness, every description is based on sworn statements. 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. 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;.

Pater Breitinger, pastor for the German Catholics of Posen, writes as follows on the procession of kidnapped persons out of Posen:. Kempf, 25 years old, murdered at Wiesenau, district of Hohensalza. With her were killed: Killed by pistol shots through the skull a , in addition to mutilation of the 4th and 5th fingers of the right hand b , with amputation of the ring finger c.

The victim was nearing the natural termination of her pregnancy. The embryo was found partially expelled from the abdominal cavity. Rather, birth began during the death agony of the mother. As to the facts: Upon my request to be permitted to take some changes of clothing and food with me, he replied that this would not be necessary, that I would be released to go home inside half an hour. Another police officer was waiting in front of the cloister with his pistol drawn; both policemen drove me, together with three other arrested persons, like dangerous criminals, to the police station.

There, a police official placed me under arrest, and pressed a certificate of arrest into my hand against receipt, whereupon I saw that I was really going to be interned. In the police courtyard, I met about 20 people I knew; I spent the night together with them under an open sky. Additional transports filled with companions in misfortune arrived during the night from other parts of the city.

The Elder of my cloister attempted to intervene with regards to my arrest with the supreme commandant of the police administration. You dare to intervene for such a man? You must be mixed up with spies. You deserve a bullet through your head like the others. My Elder was so astonished that he later told me that, at that moment, he felt ashamed to be Polish for the first time. The commandant, however, replied that, unfortunately, he could do nothing, since all power was in the power of the military. On 2 September , we had to line up in 2 groups.

A police officer in civilian clothes then deprived us of our civil rights in the name of the voivode, and furthermore remarked that we were now to march into a camp; and that anyone who did not march properly on the street would be shot on the spot. The police then loaded their weapons, took out their sidearms, and then led us through the streets of Posen to Glowno.

The crowd became violent at the old market as well, and we were hit with sticks, kicked, struck by flying rocks, so that we were already covered with bruises when we arrived in the suburb of Glowno. In a restaurant in Glowno, I was filled with hope when a Catholic priest, the Vicar of Glowno, entered the room. In particular, I hoped to meet with understanding and protection from him, and above all, information as to our future. I was immeasurably astonished when the priest began to interrogate me as to whether I was not really a spy in disguise, asking in a brusque tone asked why, then, had I fought with weapons in my hands against Poland?

Totally speechless, I gave up any attempt at further conversation with him. Late in the afternoon, we were led to a great meadow, which was surrounded by a large crowd. Two other groups were also interned there, including women and children, two cripples who could hardly walk — war invalids with wooden legs — and a great crowd with bandaged heads, whose clothes were covered with blood. On the meadow, we were arranged in groups of four, and were counted. We were then placed under the command of the leader of our guards, consisting of a few policemen and various humanities students in the uniform of military youth organizations, and made to exercise and sing a hateful anti-German song.

He then made me step forward in my clerical clothing, and perform exercises all by myself, to the howls of the crowd. We then had to return to Schwersenz through a gauntlet of excited people who spat on us, threw rocks, and kicked us. The accompanying guards did nothing to protect us from this mistreatment or, if they had any desire to do so, they were utterly powerless or lacked the strength to do so. In Schwersenz, the animalistic crowd beat both children and cripples sitting on wagons with sticks until the sticks broke in pieces.

The next day, I noticed that representatives of almost all German organizations as well as the entire German priesthood had been driven together. These were without exception men who were convinced that they had always conscientiously fulfilled their public duties to the Polish state, and therefore could not understand why they were now being treated worse than dangerous criminals. I received a very rude negative answer from the leader of our accompanying guards.

Running the gauntlet of heavy blows with cudgels and kicks, we were then marched through Kostrzyn to Wreschen. Here we received more blows with cudgels and kicks. Here, my Cardinal drove by, who must have recognized me as an internee from Posen. But he did nothing to intervene for us. In Wreschen, we had to exercise in a room for a while; they made us stand up, sit down, kneel down, etc. He treated me in a particular manner, called me a hypocrite and a swindler, and declared that the cross ought to be torn off me, since I had betrayed it.

Towards noon, the march continued. The guards drove in the car together with the sick people; often we had to run behind the trucks, when it suited the drivers to make us do so. At times we attempted to cover our heads with blankets and coats due to the danger of flying stones. It was incomprehensible to me that Polish soldiers, even Polish officers, participated in this mistreatment to a particular degree. Thus it happened that after a while, members of the Polish army, wearing medals, ran alongside our ranks dealing out especially powerful kicks to those of us they could reach.

From Konin, we could no longer continue our march to Kutno, and we were suddenly marched northwards. Approximately 7 km before Konin, our guards left us, and only a single policeman remained with us, who was of very limited intelligence. In the meantime, we were mistreated by Polish reservists with long beatings and thrown stones. We were saved from this by field police. At a farmstead near Maliniec, we were able to lie down for 3 days, since our policeman first had to obtain instructions as to what to do with us. Near Slesin, we came through the first Polish positions, and were lodged behind the city in a freight yard which was completely occupied with polish soldiers.

Here, a young Polish lieutenant threatened us with death, uttering innumerable curses. The next morning, we were awakened at 2 A. The wagons with the cripples and children remained behind. Later I heard that they had been shot. They were the whole Schmolke family and a war invalid with one leg. We made a forced march under cannon fire to Babiak. In the afternoon, we were forced to continue after being split into three groups, and being assigned to the guardianship of numerous soldiers. On a forest road, we were forced to give the soldiers all our watches and other jewelry, money, and even wedding and engagement rings.

When we were told to start marching again on Monday morning, some of us could no longer stand up.

In addition to five sick people, who were absolutely unable to continue including a teacher from Posen , three healthy people remained behind to protect them. Later, we heard that they had simply been shot by the guards and cruelly beaten to death with stones. After marching to and fro all day, the frontline came closer to us, and we were freed on 17 September by German troops. We were sent back to Germany through Breslau by the German army. The witness swore the following oath: I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient that I have told the pure truth and have concealed nothing, so help me God.

I was interned together with the following people, all from Posen people. Robert Weise, and other leading persons. Rauhut, pastor for the Salvation of German Catholics, testified as follows on the kidnapped persons from Gnesen:. Hurtig Army Legal Inspector: Pastor for German Catholics at Gnesen, former director of the German private humanities school, 2nd associational chairman of the Union of German Catholics in Poland, resident of Gnesen, Poststrasse 1a.

I went with my group of expelled ethnic Germans, accompanied by two policemen, along the Chaussee of Wreschen to Stralkowo. On the way, Polish troops lay on the edge of the woods. When they saw us being transferred, they threatened to shoot me in particular, because I was a clergyman. We nevertheless reached Stalkowo in the company of both police officials. Shortly before Stalkowo, policemen from military trucks supplied us with food for the continued journey, for high prices, paid cash. We were supposed to march to Kossow in the Woiwodschaft of Polesie district of Pinsk.

After several days of wandering hear and there in the fields and woods of Stralkowo to Powitz, our group of 42 men decided to send 3 men to Powitz; it was 7 September These 3 men were to ask the authorities in Powitz either to settle us in Powitz, or to allow us to return to Gnesen. We arrived in Przybrodzin around 11 A. When these formalities were taken care of, Mr.

Wiedemeyer and myself saw our third companion, Mr. Derwanz, together with one of my former students, Lyk, being taken away by soldiers to be shot.

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In any event, we never saw Mr. Afterwards, we heard that Mr. Derwanz had reportedly been buried naked in the Evangelical cemetery of Powitz. Derwanz was found after several graves were opened by persons known to me, and was identified. Wiedermeyer and myself went back to our group in the forest with our identity documents and permission from the authorities approximately 4 km away, to take them back to the city.

We were close to our group. They nearly carried out this death sentence several times on the way back. We had to go separately, and could not speak to each other. Wiedermeyer just murmured to me: We reached the police station around 5: While we sat in the police station, we heard from the commissioner of police, himself a large landowner in Poland, make several painful remarks concerning the shooting of Mr. He even condemned the shooting. We sat in the waiting room for around two hours; then our identity papers were once again demanded of us.

Shortly afterwards, we got them back again, and I was immediately taken away by three very shabbily-dressed Polish soldiers to be shot. Among them there was even a lame invalid carrying a weapon, who was particularly rough in his manner towards me. When I was in the corridor, I was told to go back into the consultation room. There was a group of young people, among them a former chairman of the so-called firing squad. When I denied all of this, he told me that fooling with shortwave radio technology was a very black point against me.

I saw that my fate was sealed. Then I remembered that the clerical authorities had given a letter of recommendation for my bishop in Polesia. I produced this; they were surprised. In the meanwhile, the local religious authority entered the consultation room and declared: Wiedermeyer was no longer there. I knew what had happened to him in the meantime. At any rate, I was sure that he had been shot, since that was the fate which had been decided for me. This also happened on the next day. For my own protection as a clergyman, I was accompanied by another clergyman who happened to be staying in Powitz with the local chairman of the citizens committee.

We reached Gnesen despite many threats made against my person along the way. The citizens committee decided to house me in the hospital of the Grey Sisters for my protection. I stayed until Monday, 11 September , at I was released by a German army captain from protective custody. I remarked that constant accusations had been made on the way to Powitz to the effect that I had possessed a shortwave radio hidden in the oven of my dwelling; I had the chairman of the Citizens Committee in Powitz establish the groundlessness of the accusation.

At this point, he told me: On Thursday, 14 September , all fresh graves in the cemetery of Powitz were dug up by civilians sent by the city of Gnesen, which led to the discovery of the dead bodies of Mr. Among them was Kropf and his son in law, Brettschneider. The abdomen of one murder victim had been cut open, and the head had been crushed. These crimes were spoken of with genuine horror in Gnesen, even among the Poles.

In my opinion, the civilians were supplied with weapons by the authorities. This happened during my absence from Gnesen. The grave diggers at the Evangelical cemetery can testify to the condition of the bodies. I cannot remember their names for the moment. An expulsion order was issued against me on 1 September from the Starost, and I left Gensen on 3 September.

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