I have received a couple of email admonishing me about not making regular enough additions to this blog. This past week has been particularly busy, as I had considerable responsibilities for the short course that we just finished. And tomorrow, I am off to Warsaw for several days of work on their scanning electron microscope (SEM).
I couple of evenings ago I was one of the leaders of a walking history tour through Szczecin. Quite an international affair, as I would guess we had walking participants from eight or ten countries. There is much history to be seen, between the old four-five story apartment buildings of my area of Szczecin and the mostly newer (ie, bombed during the war) part of the old riverfront area. Catherine the Great – Czarina of Russia – was born in Szczecin (Stettin, back then), and the house where she was born (in 1729) still exists, but it now houses an insurance business and has a totally modern exterior. So, Szczecin is a decided mix of times and cultures.
Poland has a long and complicated history of independences and occupations, throughout which the people have been able to maintain their language and culture. Countries that at one time or another have “owned” the territory that now is Szczecin include Sweden, Germany, Russia, France (Napoleonic times) and Denmark. There once was a Polish Kingdom – of size larger than the Russia of that time – that covered most of modern day Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine and Lithuania. This period ended with long squabbling between the nobles and those who desired a constitution. In 1791 the nobles asked Russia for some help, and Russia of course “helped themselves” to Poland.
In 1918 or so, the German, Austrian and Russian occupiers of Poland had all lost wars and the Polish people made enough noise that a piece of land was set aside for “Poland” during the chopping up of the world after WWI. There was something of a Poland-Soviet war from 1919-21, with Poland securing a border there, at least temporarily. Of course, both Adolf and Josef – they were very much on a first name basis for a time – were happy to end that business and on first opportunity invaded Poland, starting WWII (Russia invaded a bit later, so Hitler gets most of the credit). Hitler of course, after digesting his half of Poland went for the rest of it and then some in 1941.
The Polish are quite proud that there was no home-ground supporters of the Germans during the war. All other countries had their quislings, and provided military units for use by the Germans, but not Poland. Enough young Polish escaped the country to staff entire air squadrons and destroyer crews. And it was some Polish mathematicians that provided the initial breaks into the German Enigma code that was a major contribution to the Allied victory. Of course, what Poland got out of all this was occupation by the Russians, and it was a hostile occupation. A couple of people here have told me that their grandparents say that the Russian soldiers after the war were worse than the Nazis. And of course, the Polish troops that were captured by the Russians early in the war did not go to prison or concentration camps. The old local monument to “Russian-Polish friendship” is now derelict and has “KATYN” spray-painted on all sides (my students who do not know what that means need to look it up!)
After the war, Russia reoccupied its portion of Poland with no intentions to give it up. A solution was to take a strip of eastern Germany of essentially similar size, and give that to Poland. Poland told the Germans in that area to leave and the Polish folks now displaced by Russia leap-frogged (I will be questioned about this word from my Polish readers) across the country to occupy what had previously been most of old Prussia. This is how Poland came to its modern borders and the old German city of Stettin became the now Polish Szczecin. Much of old Germany still remains here, however, though there are very few of the old Germans; many of the streets retain their original names and you do hear Polish last names that obviously have German origins.
Szczecin had a major shipping industry, and built at least major components for U-boats during the war, and thus the areas nearest the river were the target of several bombings by the British and Americans. Some of the destroyed buildings such as the cathedral and castle have been reconstructed, but there was much of the old city center that was lost. In the early years, Poland did not put many resources into this area as there was uncertainty about whether they would keep it in the long-term. The Germans have now reconciled themselves to their present borders, and of course Szczecin provides an inexpensive shopping district near enough to Berlin, so it appears everyone is happy enough with the present arrangements and there is no new European war on the immediate horizon. Whew!
