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Issue 142 (2019)

Joanna Gierowska-Kałłaur, Dr. Habil., Professor

Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Republic of Poland

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2019.142.1

GERMAN POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO LANDS OF FORMER POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMNWEALTH IN WORLD WAR I ERA. PRO-LITHUANIAN AND PRO-BELARUSIAN, OR DIRECTED AGAINST POLISH ASPIRATIONS?^[1]

The Germans did not fight the Great War to liberate anyone. Their goal was to expand Germany's borders. This paper seeks to develop an old thesis of Franz Fischer about the expansionist nature of the German war objectives through the examination of yet unknown primary sources found, for the most part, in archives in Vilnius. As Fischer demonstrated, Bethmann-Hollweg planned to push away Russia as far as possible from the German borders, and to abolish Petrograd’s hold over non-Russian vassal peoples already in September 1914. Berlin intended to establish a Central European economic union operating de facto under German leadership, although with preservation of the external equality of its members. It seems that this plan was maintained through the war. The Bethmann-Hollweg peace terms, transmitted to Wilson in January 1918, stipulated, among other things, that the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth should be included in the German economic and military sphere of influence.

Keywords: Germans, Poles, Lithuanian, Belarusian; WW I era; former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; former Grand Duchy; Bethmann Hollweg; Gustaw Krupp; Silvio Alois Max Broederich-Kurmahlen.

[1] The paper was presented at the panel “The Great War End on the Eastern Front. The Brest Peace Conference and the international relations in Central Europe, 1917–1918”, organized by Aliaksandr Piahanau, at the 7^th International Congress of Belarusian Studies on 17 September 2017, Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland

Received by the editorial board: 08.07.2019

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References

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2. Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių biblioteka, Vilnius, fund 168-36. German Chancellor's speech about Poland. Second part of speech by German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, delivered in the morning meeting of the Parliament's budget committee on 9 November 1916. Translation (1).

3. Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių biblioteka, Vilnius, fund 251-352 l. 1-1v-2-2 v. A different translation (2) of Bethmann-Hollweg’s speech on 9 November 1916 with the handwritten annotation “Literal translation from German transcript”.

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Issue 142 (2019)

GERMAN POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO LANDS OF FORMER POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMNWEALTH IN WORLD WAR I ERA. PRO-LITHUANIAN AND PRO-BELARUSIAN, OR DIRECTED AGAINST POLISH ASPIRATIONS?[1]

GERMAN POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO LANDS OF FORMER POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMNWEALTH IN WORLD WAR I ERA. PRO-LITHUANIAN AND PRO-BELARUSIAN, OR DIRECTED AGAINST POLISH ASPIRATIONS?^[1]