The Image of the Germans
in Polish Literature

By Else Loeser
Translated by Carlos W. Porter

See also
Letter 13
Quicklime

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talk was prepared, followed, some time later, by a further revised and expanded second edition, which has now been superceded by a third.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."

"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 available 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 qualifications 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 reconciliation 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. synthetic languages are created with specific objectives and propagated in books and groups even today, such as Esperanto, for example. *
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* "Translator's note: The 1911 Encyclopaedia (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.

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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 counselors, court counselors, 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, ripped 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 persuade 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.

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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."

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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 (Roumainia). 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 unacquainted 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 benefited 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.

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* 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."
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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.
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* "Author's note: Proof that the Polish language and glagolitic monks' Latin were still generally unknown as late as the 15th century is the "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".).
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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 literary 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 libeling 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."*

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* 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:

In the entire General Gouvernement, it was said:

"Whoever is a Pole, is a Catholic. Whoever is a German, is a Lutheran."

From the Posen area:

"Look there, what heretics!", people who see a wild brawl exclaim to each other.

From the Lemberg area:

"Every German is a renegade."

And from the region of Chelm:

"Half German, half goat: an unbeliever without God."

"The Germans believe in God as the devil in his horn." "The German religion is like an old cow".

"When a German is sick, the devil dances."

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:

"In Poland, there was great misery Did it come from Man or God? From the unholy heretics it comes And from too few Catholics in the land."

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 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.

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:

"Was Martin Luther born of woman?
No! a she-wolf in the forest lost him out of her behind. Who raised him? Lucifer, his companion!
What kind of person is he?
The Minister of Hell!"

Or

"A God, that's what the Germans don't have.
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.
That's why he had to flee from Rome to Germany,
Since the Pope wanted to castrate him.
If the Germans didn't listen to Luther,
They would have clothing and forage in winter.
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: 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 devilish 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 defamation 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 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: confused souls, crippled and made sterile by hatred, were converted or retained, for whom there existed only one guilty party in relation 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 perpetrated 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.

"A number of cosmetic corrections in the Polish text were made even in the translation of W. St. Reymont's 'The Peasants'. For example, volume II, p. 475, 'you are even worse than the Germans', should, in reality, be translated as 'you are even worse heathens than the Germans.'

"On p. 491, certain insults hurled at the Germans 'swinskie podogonia, sobacze pociotki' i.e., 'sow buttocks, race of dogs', have been left out.

"On page 492, in the curse 'that you shall all come to shame to the last man', the last phrase, 'like rabid dogs', has been deleted.

"Reymonts 'Ziemia obecana' ('The Promised Land', 1899, which appeared in 1915 in a translation published by Georg Mueller, Munich) contains very seriously falsified translation passages. We refer to the third edition, published in Warsaw by Gebethner and Wolf. The following passages have been deleted in the translation:

"Vol. I, p. 79, the passage containing the sentence 'that the Germans are a low people'; p. 122 'German swine' (in the translation only 'swine') p. 163 'Prussian cattle'; p. 286 'German women are only good for founding a national cattle stall'.

"In S. Lipiner's translation of 'Mr. Thaddeus, or the Last Entry into Lithuania', by Adam Mieckiewicz, published in Leipzig in 1882, the expression coined for Prussian officials 'psubraty' ('dog's brother') has been replaced with the somewhat milder-sounding 'vermin'.

"Even the rendering of 'Polish Folk Tales' by Glinski replaces the contemptous term 'rozum niemieki' ('German understanding'), with 'citified understanding'.

"And in the translation of the Jalu Kurek's novel 'Grypa szaleja w Naprawie' (4th edition, Warsaw 1935), a few evil expressions used against Germany are simply left out. A Pole, in the reverse case, would simply refuse to translate such a book. This novel, of course, won a prize from the Polish Academy of Literature in 1934; in Poland, it nevertheless appears on the Catholic Church's index of forbidden books.

"A few tasteless anti-German expressions have even been deleted from the novel 'The Sable and the Fairy', by Josef Weissenhoff, which recently appeared in German translation.

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. 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.

"May the hand of God protect us from the German neighbour". Reymont; p. 351. "Strong were the scoundrels, broad shouldered and strong, in blue jackets with silver chains across gorged bellies, and their snouts -- they simply glowed from good eating.

"Give their pig snouts a sound thrashing...

"I'll give this one on the end a punch in the guts, and if he attacks me, then I'll strike! Don't hurry so, you beggars, or you'll lose your baggy breeches!", St. Reymont, in "Chlopi" ("The Peasants"), 1914; p. 351.

"Wherever the Germans go, no poor Jew can earn a living, much less a dog", Henr. Sienkiewicz, in "Dwie drogi" ("Two Ways"); p. 351.

"The Brandenburg swine want to root up the earth with their snouts, to make a new empire of swine. That might be good enough to destroy the flowers, but he rubbed his snout bloody on a stone, and had to give up his plan", Sienkiewicz, in "Flowers and Stone"; p. 353.

"One must hit them, break their bones, until the soul quits peeping in their bodies", Adolf Dygasinski, in "Struggle for the Land" p. 353. Lueck remarks that Dygasinksi was an implacable enemy of the Germans, whose extermination in the interest of a durable peace in Europe he repeatedly demanded.

"Listen, you degenerate tyrant! 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 people need men like Moses!" cried the crazy mob, ruled by fury, "so that such men may free the people from the hands of the heathen!"

"Blows crackled down like hail over the Germans, who had not a moment's time to stand up straight. 'When you strike, strike like a crazy man', said von Molken. 'Follow me, people, let's take the German Palki down again! To the castle!

"But Staszek alone pushed himself slowly out of the crowd, with a gigantic scythe in his hand. Immediately, a group of Germans came out of the castle bearing various weapons from Lutowojski's armory, kept ready to shoot. 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.

"'Shoot, you scoundrel, men without weapons are easy to kill!", called the youngster, going after his adversary. "Now, you degenerate folk, worse than all the beggars in the world, infamy of the century, scum of humanity! Go ahead and shoot!", Dygasinki, in "Von Molken", (1885); pp. 353-5.

"Wherever one went, everywhere, one came into contact with Germans. No one in the vicinity could earn their daily bread, because they even forbade the old women to go into the woods, so that they couldn't gather mushrooms any more... A great deal of gibberish was spoken, but nobody understood what it was all about with those renegades. The peasants liked them about as much as a dog's tail, but the lord of the manor stuck close to this gang", Dygasinski, in "Two Devils" (1888); p. 355-6.

"'Who caused such devastation in the Ojcower woods? Tell me exactly who made so much destruction? Now, the Germans, the Germans who else?', my travel companion cut in involuntarily. The Polish peasant spoke further: 'Yes, see! see!', and with these words the white-haired old man raised his sinewy, work-worn hand in the air, his face took on a peculiarly hard expression, and he called solemnly, as if in answer to an inspiration: 'May the Lord God refuse them wood for their coffins, they that exterminate us here so. Everywhere, the Germans take the wood away from the Polish peasants, suck us dry, make us all their slaves. All the poison of the Germans will not suffice to poison the body of our people... the peasant loves his earth, and hates the Germans", Dygasinski in "Demon" (1886); p. 357.

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 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 1786):

"Should you meet a real schwab in the war,
"He never thought of anything but drink and food.
"You don't need to prepare a regiment,
"Or any drums, flutes, or trumpets against those weaklings.
"Just show the Schwab a hare,
"He can scare away three hundred Schwabs."
Or, in Reymonts "Peasants", the Pole Gschela scorns the Germans:
"'They are too soft to be neighbours to us peasants, and if you ever hit one of them on the head, they just fall down right away.'
"'Did he ever fight with one?' asked the lord of the manor, curiously.
"'You call that fighting? Mathias pushed one, because he didn't answer his 'Praised be Jesus Christ', and he started bleeding right away; a miracle that his soul didn't didn't fly up and away.
"'A whole nation of softies! They look like oaks, but if you ever hit one with your fist, it's like hitting a feather bed..."

"Bartek the Victor", hero of the novel by Sienkiewicz, beats up a German teacher together with his adult son, sticks him headfirst into a water barrel, and, with a lathe of wood, holds off the colonists hurrying to assist, until a treacherous stone's throw on the head knocks him to the ground. But even then, the Germans don't dare approach him.

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 unconscious. 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:

"From Lord Todwen came a message in all haste,
"Grabowski read the letter, called 'Jena Jena Hail!
"The Prussians are beaten, knocked on the head! Victory!'
"I hardly hear the words before I immediately get down from the saddle,
"And, after kneeling to thank the Lord, we rode into the city.
"Apparently just on business, as if we had heard nothing.
"Look there! All the state counselors, court advisors, commissars,
"And all other vermin of the same type honours us, "Bowing down deeply before us. They tremble, their blood is pale,
"Just like when the Germans pour boiling hot broth on a cockroach.
"We rub our hands laughingly, and ask in a servile sort of way,
"What's new? What news of Jena? Ha! Didn't they give a start!
"Astonished that we know of the misfortune of their army, the Germans cry: 'O Lord God, o misery'!
"And run with their long noses towards home. Then they really make a run for it!
"How they did run! All the streets out of Greater Poland were full of fleeing Germans! Crawling like ants,
"They dragged their vehicles, coaches, and carriages, whatever they are called, each one heavy laden, the women as well as the men,
"With pipes, boxes, and chests, bedsteads and coffee pots.
"'Run for it! Wherever there's a place!' Meanwhile, we say softly to each other,
"Holla! To horse! Let's make this journey a misery for the Germans!
"Hey! One court counselor's ribs broken! Another state counselor, and another dog's brother hacked to pieces!
"Officers and gentlemen packed by the pigtails,
"And General Dombrowski started for Posen,
"Bringing the order to rise up for the Emperor of the French!
"In eight days, the Prussians were driven out.
"Not even a drop of medicine remained behind!"

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:

"An allusion to 'The Knights' in Waclaw Sierosczewski's novel 'Zacisze' (1923) displays a singular tastelessness and lack of spirituality. 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:

"'O, that is a long and terribly fascinating story!' answers Izyda. 'They say the Devil brought it here... In any case, he performed very devilish ceremonies there. 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: men in linen cloth rip off his irons and garments, drag him out of the stone without formality, and cross his arms. 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!.. maybe he even lent money to their parents at high rates of interest... Really, just look! I found one just like it!...' he concludes solemnly, drawing an old, rain drenched, completely faded purse from his pocket.

"The youth tore it laughingly from his hand, and began to examine it with great interest.

"'By God, that's mine! I lost it here last year! But there must have been money in it! Give it here, Izyda!' cried Antos.

"'Yes! So you you've been carousing around here too, with frivolous lady Slavs? And with a German purse? .. that's really... Polish economics!'.

"That's really a fascinating legend... it must be some old tradition...'. Szmit turned to Izyda.

"'O, yes, it's a tradition... from the sojourn of the beloved neighbour... dating back... to the time of Lokieteks!"

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 German is as big as a poplar, but infernally stupid."
"Dumb as a German."
"Poles grow wiser by experience; the Germans should profit by our example, but they never learn, with or without experience."
"You Germans, you just don't know anything. 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 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:

"caption p. 45"

"German Catholic priest from the Church of the Heart of Jesus in Bromberg in silent prayer before the bodies of murdered ethnic Germans in Bromberg."

"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;

Pater Breitinger, pastor for the German Catholics of Posen, writes as follows on the procession of kidnapped persons out of Posen:

Posen, 5 October 1939
War Crimes Investigation Office of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces
Regarding: Advisor to Court Martial, Hurtig
Legal Inspector for the Army, Pitsch

There now appeared Pastor Breitinger upon interrogation, after being duly sworn:

As to myself: My name is Lorenz Breitinger, religious appelation Father Hilarius, born 7 July 1907 in Glattbach near Aschaffenburg, pastor for the German Catholics of Posen, resident in the Franciscan cloister at Posen.

"captions p. 46"

"Murdered and castrated: a body found at Bromberg"

"A married woman, Mrs. Kempf, 25 years old, murdered at Wiesenau, district of Hohensalza. With her were killed: her husband, 36 years old, their children Hilde K. 9 years old, and Helene K., 2 1/2 years old, in addition to the elderly married couple K. 70 and 65 years of age, and the farmhand Theodor Draeger, 17 years of age, i.e., a total of 7 persons. Killed by pistol shots through the skull (a), in addition to mutilation of the 4th a