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Volume V · Page 10
| everybody in those villages answered in Polish when spoken to in German by me, and only the oldest people could speak German. Now, at the end of the century, the Polonization has long been completed and nobody in those villages speaks a word of German anymore. Hence, the Polonization of several thousand Germans was carried out by the church and the school before the gates of the provincial capital, the fortress of Poznan, under the eyes of the highest state and school authorities. According to a very low estimate, the number of Catholic Germans Polonized in the last fifty years in the province of Poznan amounts to 200,000 * * *." |
| Bismarck in the Prussian Parliament |
| From the great speech of 9 February 1872
— The complaint we have against the clerical school inspections in the provinces where Polish is not predominant but is spoken, is based on the fact that they do not accord to the German language its lawful right but endeavor to have the German language neglected and not taught; and the teacher whose pupils have made progress in the German language, does not get a good mark from his clergyman. To this, you have to add, that until now under the former minister for education and religion most such positions as Schulrat [school superintendent] with the governments, i.e., the highest provincial authorities, were filled with people who for unknown reasons favored these trends although they were of German nationality, favored the teachers in half Polish districts whose pupils did not learn German, and were much more strict with those in whose classes the children made good progress in the German language. This has helped to bring about the fact that today we have communities in West Prussia which formerly were German, where now the younger generation no longer understand German, after having been in our possession for a hundred years, have been Polonized. This is an excellent testimony for the vitality and efficiency of Polish propaganda, but perhaps this Polish propaganda only thrives on the good-naturedness of the state. But let those gentlemen not overestimate this good-naturedness, for, I can tell you, it has come to an end! And we shall know what we owe to the state! I have been told that they will present further requests and complaints in favor of the Polish language; we will counter them with bills fostering the German language, also for the province of Poznan. For it is necessary for the indigenous population to know how to judge for themselves the state in which they are living, and not to depend upon a deceptive representation which has |
