The bilateral relations between Poland and Germany have been marked by an extensive and complicated history.German-Polish Relations: A History Of Betrayals Currently, the relations between the two countries are very friendly, with the two being allies within NATO and the European Union.
From the 10th century onward, the Piast-ruled Kingdom of Poland established under Duke Mieszko I had close and chequered relations with the Holy Roman Empire. However, these relations were overshadowed in the Late Middle Ages both by the push eastwards of the Margraviate of Brandenburg into Polish territory and the centuries-long Polish–Teutonic Wars, as a result of which the State of the Teutonic Order became a fief of the Kingdom of Poland, later transformed with the consent of the Polish King into the secular Duchy of Prussia. Prussia retained a certain level of autonomy under Polish rule. Later, the Kingdom of Prussia rose and eventually became one of the three partitioners of Poland in 1772–1795. Following the partitions various anti-Polish policies were pursued, including the Kulturkampf, Germanization and expulsions of Poles. That period was also marked by several Polish uprisings against Prussian rule, including the Greater Poland uprising of 1848 during the European Revolutions of 1848.
After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence and its place on the map. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Poland regained most of the territories lost to Prussia in the Partitions of Poland and parts of territories lost even earlier, while Gdańsk (Danzig) became a free city in customs union with Poland. It was seen as a great injustice in the Weimar Republic, in part leading to the Nazi takeover of power in 1933. On 1 September 1939, Poland was invaded by Germany, thus initiating World War II. The Third Reich established concentration camps in German-occupied Poland, the biggest located in Auschwitz. During the war, Poland suffered circa 6 million casualties and it also suffered huge material losses because Germany sought to commit genocide against its Polish, Jewish and Roma populations. As a result of World War II and the decision of the Big Three, Poland lost the eastern half of its territory, which was annexed by the Soviet Union, and as compensation for this loss, it received most of the pre-war eastern territories of Germany. From 1945–1950, a series of flights and expulsions occurred, in which up to 11 million ethnic Germans were forced to leave their homes in Poland and resettle in post-war West and East Germany. It was the largest forced displacement of a population in history.
The Cold War saw good relations between the communist states of the Polish People's Republic and the German Democratic Republic. Polish-West German relations, on the other hand, were strained, although they improved after Chancellor Willy Brandt launched the Ostpolitik. In 1990, Germany reunified and it confirmed the Polish-German border on the Oder-Neisse line in a treaty. Both states are now NATO and the European Union allies and partners, having an open border and being members of the European Single Market. Both countries are also members of the OECD, OSCE, the Council of Europe, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, HELCOM and the World Trade Organization. The once poor relationship between Poland and Germany has now become a strategic partnership.
Overview Middle Ages
In the 10th century, the West Slavic Polan tribe under the Piast prince Mieszko I about 960 were able to consolidate Lechitic tribes and establish a sovereign state around Poznań and Gniezno in an area later called Greater Poland. Mieszko's territory included Masovia beyond the Vistula river, Silesia and in 962/63 he first met with the Saxon forces of Margrave Gero, ruler of the Marca Geronis between the Saale and Bóbr rivers established in 937 by King Otto I of Germany. During the fight with Germanic duchies Mieszko I in 963 recognized Otto I as EmperorReuter, 164. Howorth, 226. In return for tribute to the newly crowned Emperor, Otto I recognized Mieszko I as amicus imperatoris ("Friend of the Emperor") and stated that he is dux Poloniae ("Duke of Poland"). As he could not prevail against Gero, Mieszko I resorted to consolidate his realm: he strengthened the relations with the Bohemian duke Boleslaus I by marrying his daughter Dobrawa and converted to Christianity in 966. The next year however, he once again entangled with the troops of the Saxon renegade Wichmann the Younger, fighting over the island of Wolin on the Baltic coast. He also had to defend the Polish border on the lower Oder river against the forces of Margrave Odo I of Lusatia at the 972 Battle of Cedynia.
Meanwhile, Poland had to face the claims to universal power raised by Otto I when he had conquered the Kingdom of Italy and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XII in 962. According to the idea of the translatio imperii, the Emperor would continue the tradition of the Roman and Carolingian Empire as guardian of the Catholic Church superior to all secular and ecclesiastical rulers. Mieszko sought to improve the relations with Otto I: he appeared as amicus imperatoris at the Imperial Diet of Quedlinburg in 973 and in 978 secondly married Oda, the daughter of Dietrich of Haldensleben, margrave of the Northern March. In 984 Mieszko's son Bolesław I the Brave was married to a daughter of Margrave Rikdag of Meissen. However, in the same year the Polish ruler, instigated by Duke Boleslaus II of Bohemia, interfered in the conflict between minor King Otto III of Germany and the deposed Bavarian duke Henry the Wrangler. He timely switched sides, when he realized that Otto's mother Theophanu would gain the upper hand and in turn sparked a long-term conflict with the Bohemian dukes over Silesia and Lesser Poland. Mieszko backed the German forces several times against the revolting Lutici (Veleti) tribes (though to no avail) and until his death in 992 remained a loyal supporter of the Emperor. Nevertheless, Mieszko precautionally had the Dagome iudex document drawn up, whereby he put his realm called Civitas Schinesghe under the auspices of the Holy See.
A major German–Polish War was fought between 1003 and 1018. In 1109, Poland defeated the invading German forces at Głogów.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Germans expanded eastwards from modern western and central Germany into the less populated regions, east of Elbe and Saale rivers, which were inhabited by Baltic, Finnic and Slavic peoples, including Poles. The area of German settlement roughly stretched from Slovenia to Estonia, and southwards into Transylvania. The phenomenon, known as Ostsiedlung ("east settlement", "settlement in the east") followed the territorial expansion of the Holy Roman Empire and the Teutonic Order. At various times, Germans were also encouraged by Polish rulers of the Piast dynasty to settle in Poland. Ethnic conflicts erupted between the newly arrived settlers and local populations.The Germans and the East Charles W. Ingrao, Franz A. J. Szabo, Jan Piskorski Medieval Colonization in Europe, page 31, Purdue University Press, 2007
In the 13th century, Poland was suffering from the attacks of Baltic Pagan tribes. In response, Konrad I of Masovia hired an army of unemployed German crusaders - the Teutonic Order. After the failure of converting the Old Prussians to Christianity, the Order fell into a series of conflicts with the Polish state. The Teutonic Knights invaded the Polish coastal region of Gdańsk Pomerania with the country's main port city of Gdańsk, and therefore took the control of the nearly entire southeastern Baltic Sea coast. The Teutonic Knights continued to occupy the region despite papal verdicts. They remained powerful until 1410, when a combined Polish-Lithuanian army was able to win a decisive victory over the Teutonic Order at Grunwald. As a result, Poland emerged as a major power in Central Europe. Already in the 15th century, German theologian and writer John of Falkenberg proposed and advocated the genocide of Poles. After the Battle of Grunwald, he suggested that the Polish nation, including the King, should either be enslaved or exterminated, either in its entirety, or in its majority. After Poland challenged his works at the Council of Constance, his views were condemned by Pope Martin V in 1424. He is considered the first writer to formulate the argument in justification of genocide of another nation. After the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466), Poland regained the territories previously annexed by the Teutonic Knights. The remainder of the State of the Teutonic Order became a vassal state of Poland.
Poland and Bavaria enjoyed good relations since the late Middle Ages, and several Bavarian dukes and electors married Polish princesses, including George marrying Hedwig Jagiellon (daughter of King Casimir IV Jagiellon), Maximilian II Emanuel marrying Theresa Kunegunda Sobieska (daughter of King John III Sobieski), and Maximilian III Joseph marrying Maria Anna Sophia (daughter of King Augustus III of Poland). The wedding of George and Hedwig is commemorated by a historic pageant held every four years known as the Landshut Wedding.
Modern Age In the 16th century, after the Counter-Reformation was launched and the Thirty Years War broke out in the German lands, Poland became a Roman Catholic stronghold. In 1683, the Polish army commanded by Polish king John III Sobieski helped to relieve the siege of Vienna and along with the Holy Roman Empire, ended the growing expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe.
In the second half of the 18th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned three times between Prussia, Russia and the Austria. The partitions took place in 1772, 1793 and 1795. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Poles fought alongside France against Prussia, including in the victorious Greater Poland uprising of 1806, and the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw was a part of a larger French-led alliance with the German states of the Confederation of the Rhine, however, following the War of the Sixth Coalition the Duchy of Warsaw was dissolved, and partially re-annexed by Prussia.
Under Prussian rule in areas where the Polish population lived alongside Germans a virtual apartheid existed, with bans on the Polish language and religious discrimination, besides attempts to colonize the areas with Germans.A history of modern Germany, 1800-2000 Martin Kitchen Wiley-Blackwel 2006, page 130) Germanisation policies were pursued by Prussia and, since 1871, Germany.
The Polish November Uprising in the Russian Partition of Poland of 1830–31 triggered enthusiasm for the Polish cause among German liberals, mocked by conservatives as Polish gushing (). These German liberals however felt that their political ideals for Germany corresponded to the Polish hopes. Throughout the German lands a network of organizations devoted to supporting the Poles appeared, and over 70 German doctors went to Poland to provide relief to Polish insurgents. The restoration of independent Poland was advocated at the Hambach Festival of 1832 with Poles in attendance. In 1832, Prussian soldiers committed massacres of interned Polish insurgents in Fiszewo and Elbląg, killing over a dozen people.