Post by kaima on Aug 5, 2007 2:30:50 GMT -7
It is too long and involved to quote here, but please jump to
h-net.org/~german/gtext/kaiserreich/speech.html
to read what Bismark had to say in parliament about the "Polish Question".
Bismarck and the "Polish Question."
Speech to the Lower House of the Prussian Parliament, January 28, 1886.
[The immediate background for this long speech was the brutal expulsions from Prussian territory of Poles and Polish Jews carried out in 1885. Many of these people had been resident in Prussia for years but had not become citizens, no easy matter in Germany. Polish deputies in the Reichstag formally questioned the government on these policies. Bismarck responded by denying the competence of the Reichstag in Prussian state matters. Shortly thereafter a majority of the lower house of the Prussian parliament moved a declaration for the protection of German interests in the eastern provinces. With this friendlier stimulus, Bismarck laid out the principles of the government's Polish policies. A typical Bismarck speech, it was delivered extempore (as were all speeches in the Reichstag and German state parliaments), filled with innuendo and threats and short on specific details. The intention here is to stifle criticism of an increasingly rigorous anti-Polish government policy, justifying it as an entirely reasonable response to Polish provocation. All the good will comes from the German side; all the bad faith belongs to the Poles. Source: Eugen Kalkschmidt (ed.), Bismarcks Reden (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 173-86. Translated by Richard S. Levy.]
h-net.org/~german/gtext/kaiserreich/speech.html
to read what Bismark had to say in parliament about the "Polish Question".
Bismarck and the "Polish Question."
Speech to the Lower House of the Prussian Parliament, January 28, 1886.
[The immediate background for this long speech was the brutal expulsions from Prussian territory of Poles and Polish Jews carried out in 1885. Many of these people had been resident in Prussia for years but had not become citizens, no easy matter in Germany. Polish deputies in the Reichstag formally questioned the government on these policies. Bismarck responded by denying the competence of the Reichstag in Prussian state matters. Shortly thereafter a majority of the lower house of the Prussian parliament moved a declaration for the protection of German interests in the eastern provinces. With this friendlier stimulus, Bismarck laid out the principles of the government's Polish policies. A typical Bismarck speech, it was delivered extempore (as were all speeches in the Reichstag and German state parliaments), filled with innuendo and threats and short on specific details. The intention here is to stifle criticism of an increasingly rigorous anti-Polish government policy, justifying it as an entirely reasonable response to Polish provocation. All the good will comes from the German side; all the bad faith belongs to the Poles. Source: Eugen Kalkschmidt (ed.), Bismarcks Reden (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 173-86. Translated by Richard S. Levy.]
