Thread by @Marktkettler

Day 2 of [belatedly] promoting my article with @CentralEuropean, "“Incurable Megalomania” and “Fantasies of Expansion”: The German Army Reimagines Empire in Occupied Poland, 1915–1918". Today I talk about the Polish "border-strip" (1/N)

bit.ly/3Mq3oQG

@CentralEuropean This is one of the most enduring misconceptions of the #Firstworldwar: that the leaders of the Prusso-German army were obsessed with annexing and Germanizing conquered territory in Russian Poland. (2/N)

@CentralEuropean Geiss laid out this argument in “Der polnische Grenzstreifen, 1914-1918”, arguing that the German Army fixated on claiming and homogenizing a “border-strip” of territory as their principal war aim throughout the war. (3/N)

@CentralEuropean His work is tremendously influential. Fischer used his research for “Griff nach der Weltmacht”. Historians continue to cite him. (4/N)

@CentralEuropean It’s worth parsing his argument: Geiss claimed 1) interest in a “border-strip” was relatively static, emerging in 1914 and structuring war aims through 1918. 2) The annexation and Germanization of a “border-strip” was a feature of imperial policy through most of the war, and (5/N

@CentralEuropean 3) the German Army strongly relentlessly advocated for this position.

Some of his most important evidence: Geiss noted that key figures in the Chancellery (Arnold Wahnschaffe) entertained proposals for annexing and Germanizing territory in Russian Poland. (6/N)

@CentralEuropean Some indeed supported the expulsion of Polish-speaking civilians.

He pointed out that Friedrich Wilhelm von Loebell, the Prussian Minister of the Interior, favored similar models of expansion. He cites maps of proposed border-annexations submitted by Hindenburg (7/N)

@CentralEuropean in 1914 to show the army’s early commitment.

The lynchpin of Geiss’s argument is a meeting of the Prussian Staatsministerium on 13 July 1915, which supposedly established the annexation of a “border-strip” of Russian Poland, and the resettlement (8/N)

@CentralEuropean of Polish-speaking and Jewish residents, as official imperial policy.

This paints a very stark portrait. (9/N)

@CentralEuropean For Geiss, the main organs of the German Empire, including the army, seem to operate under a firm consensus, from early in the war, that imperial expansion will require the Germanization of territory in Russian Poland, possibly even through ethnic cleansing. (10/N)

@CentralEuropean But there are problems with this interpretation. I deal with some of these in my book project, and some in the article linked above. (11/N)

@CentralEuropean 1) When we look more carefully, it’s clear that imperial policymakers are not all on the same page. Sure Wahnschaffe is receiving and reading annexationist memoranda, but other figures in or adjacent to the Chancellery (12/N)

@CentralEuropean oppose these war aims and/or articulate alternative models of imperial expansion. When we look at discussions WITHIN, the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Loebell starts to look more isolated. (13/N)

@CentralEuropean What we’re seeing in 1914-1915 is not the coronation of a “border-strip” policy, but a fierce debate over VERY different models of imperial expansion.(14/N)

@CentralEuropean 2) There’s just no good evidence that the annexation and Germanization of a “border-strip” was set as official imperial policy in 1915. Geiss doesn’t cite the minutes of that meeting on 13 July, but rather a letter by Loebell to the Chancellor written in 1916, (15/N)

@CentralEuropean almost a year after the fact. Loebell CLAIMS in this letter that annexation and Germanization were set as official policy at the meeting, but he has good reason to lie. (16/N)

@CentralEuropean If it was considered policy, it was immediately contested by administrators of occupied Russian territory and abandoned by the late summer of 1915. (17/N)

@CentralEuropean 3) One of the big problems with the historiography of German War Aims is the reflexive conflation of territorial ambition with imperial policy. What do I mean? (18/N)

@CentralEuropean When Geiss speaks about a “border-strip” he is almost invariably describing both a territorial claim (to annex the lands west of X line, for example) and a policy of pacification or integration (Germanization or ethnic cleansing).(19/N)

@CentralEuropean The problem is that imperial and military policymakers did not make this conflation. Within annexationist war aims proposals, we instead find a spectrum of ideas for managing the Polish-speaking residents of annexed territories. (20/N)

@CentralEuropean On the one extreme, some radical nationalists and even some policymakers are contemplating the expulsion or resettlement of Polish and Jewish populations. (21/N)

@CentralEuropean But on the other extreme, other proposals adopt an almost agnostic nationality policy. Poles had lived as Prussian subjects for more than a century. What was the problem? (22/N)

@CentralEuropean There’s lots of different nationalities policies between these two positions. But we need to recognize that territorial claims and imperial management were not rigidly linked in 1914-1915. When we acknowledge this, military support for Germanization looks far less solid. (23/N)

@CentralEuropean You can find some proposals favoring Germanization (even ethnic cleansing) in 1914-1915. But the army is not speaking with one voice. Hans von Seeckt, the Chief of Staff for the 11th army, opposed deporting Polish-speakers from annexations as counterproductive. (24/N)

@CentralEuropean Instead, he proposed fashioning a new autonomous province of South-Prussia. This would, he argued, allow its Polish residents to govern their own cultural and political affairs. (25/N)

@CentralEuropean As I lay out in my article, by 1915 there are very influential figures in the Officer Corps (v. Falkenhayn, v. Beseler, Herwarth v. Bittenfeld, and even Ludendorff) who endorse alternative models of imperial expansion. I’ll talk about this tomorrow. (26/26)