Germans Built Poland is a Myth Piskorski

Historiographical Approaches to Medieval Colonization of East Central Europe, by Jan M. Piskorski (Editor). 2003

The “Germans Civilized the Poles” and “Germans Built Poland” Racist Polonophobic Myths Debunked

This work discusses the medieval colonization of many European lands. The scholarly papers are in English and German. I focus exclusively on the historiography, of German colonization, authored by Jan M. Piskorski.

DEFINING MOMENTS IN HISTORY

In Polish historiography, the Partitions were a defining moment. Piskorski compares this with Hungarian thinking–of the 16th and 17th century destruction of their state by the Turks and Habsburgs, and with Serbian thinking in the light of their defeat by the Turks at Kosovo Field in 1398, etc. (p. 98).

GERMANS AND POLES: WHO “CIVILIZED” WHOM?

The Nazis would have us believe that everything valuable held or achieved by Poles owed entirely to the Germans. Some Polish scholars such as J. Lewelel (178-181) believed almost the opposite. They suggested that the wild and primitive German settlers were civilized by their contact with Slavs. (p. 98).

GERMAN COLONISTS ACTUALLY HARMED POLAND

K. Szajnocha (1818-1868), a Lwow historian of Czech origin, saw the German colonists largely as an expansionist movement of greedy Germans. They introduced to Poland such things as cruelty, superstition, the stake, debauchery, and exploitation of peasants. (p. 98).

GERMANS BUILT POLAND–A MYTH

Polish scholars of the “Krakow school”, sponsored by Vienna, tended to emphasize positive German influences on the development of Poland. (p. 99). However, the “Krakow school” was almost wholly dependent upon German historiography. (p. 100).

German law, introduced into Poland, had earlier been derived from Flemish and Dutch law. (p. 101). Did Polish law originate from German law? Piskorski comments, “Balzer and Bujak were more cautious in their evaluation of medieval German settlement and law. They placed far more emphasis on the existence of colonization based on Polish law, preceding the later German variant. This has emerged as the consensus view today, not only within Polish historiography.” (p. 102).