Ruhrpolen
With " Ruhr Poles " people are meant to have migrated some with their families from the former Kingdom of Poland, Masuria, Kashubian, partly also from Upper Silesia and the Ruhr area in the late 19th century and have mostly worked there as miners, as well as their descendants.
History
Requirements
In the 19th century there was not a sovereign Polish state. The history of Poland in the 18th century ended with the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, when the country was divided into three areas that came under Austrian, Russian and Prussian rule. Since then, in the eastern provinces of Prussia regions with predominantly Polish-speaking population and regions with strong Polish minority (even if the era of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna brought some changes with it ).
In the second half of the 19th century, industrialization also led in Germany to profound changes. In the focal areas of industrialization, the demand for labor grew rapidly. This was particularly true of the Ruhr area.
Development
Due to the strongly increasing demand for labor, many people migrated to the Ruhr. In addition to people from the immediate rural environment also attracted to people from more remote regions to work in the industry. Among them were many from the eastern provinces of Prussia, so that even among domestic migrants in the industrial centers were many people who spoke Polish and felt as Poland. A large proportion of immigrants known as the " Ruhr Poles " said however regional languages such as Masurian, Kashubian and Polish water.
From 1880 strengthened the East-West migration from the East Prussian to the Ruhr. The workers from the German, Austria - Hungarian and Russian Poland as well as from Masuria, which was under German rule since the 13th century, and from Upper Silesia, which belonged to the Reich territory since the 14th century, became more and more attractive for industry and agriculture. Polish -speaking seasonal workers engaged in industry, especially in mining, metallurgy, construction and brick making, and to the east in agriculture. In particular, the East Elbe goods laid more and more on the approximately 400,000 low-wage workers. The commuters were unskilled, seasonal, contributed longer hours and received lower wages than German workers. Functionally, the Polish seasonal workers often served as Lohndrücker and scabs. 1890 led the Prussian administration the rules " waiting period ", then the binding forced the immigrants to leave the country after the end of the season.
Labour migration originated from the demand for labor during industrialization. 1871 moved to the German - French war miners from Upper Silesia, Polish-speaking farm workers from East and West Prussia and Posen to the Ruhr. The mine entrepreneurs were able to meet the surge in demand for labor in the Ruhr mining. The German working class took the " Ruhr Poles " as foreign true for their part strictly Catholic faith and its unfamiliar language. Consequently, the Poles formed an independent working-class environment in the cities of the Ruhr area, mainly in Essen, Dortmund and Bochum. In Gelsenkirchen, was the center of the Protestant Masuria, the conscious deposed from the poles. As an illustration, in Bochum completely self- created structures such as the influential Polish trade union Zjednoczenie zawodowe Polskie that Arbeiterzeitung Wiarus Polski and the Polish Workers Bank. An important role was played in January Brejski.
The interplay of the various traditions produced the industrial culture for which the Ruhr area is known today. The assimilation succeeded completely; government policy had strong anti-Polish trains. Since the Polish language was not maintained, the descendants of the immigrants are almost indistinguishable today except for the many Polish surname in the Ruhr and some last cultural remnants of the ancestral population.
Controversy surrounding the FC Schalke 04
The well-known Gelsenkirchen football club FC Schalke 04 got even before the First World War meant the pejorative name " Polackenverein ". A lot of the players of the team that made the strongest club Schalke in the German Reich in the thirties, had Polish -sounding family name. As Schalke in 1934 became German football champions for the first time, the Warsaw Sports newspaper Przegląd Sportowy made ( Sports Rundschau) with the headline: " The German Championship in the hands of Poland. Triumph of the players from Schalke 04, the team of our countrymen. " In the report it was said that Schalke so far because of the" been penalized by the German Football Association Polish nationality " of the players, but is now all but resistors become football champions notwithstanding. The Warsaw Journal also reported that, inter alia, the player Emil Czerwinski, Serious Kalwitzki, Serious Kuzorra, Hermann Mellage, Fritz Szepan, Otto Tibulski, Adolf Urban and Ferdinand Zajons Poles were, " sons emigrated to Westphalia Polish miners ". Moreover, it was said that the name of " once because of their origin hated football players " would now revered.
Other Polish newspapers moved to and presented the achievements of the country people out who would have the Gelsenkirchen club not German champions without. The kicker published some of these Polish Press.
Schalke club management then sent an open letter to the kicker as well as several newspapers in the Ruhr. The Buersche newspaper gave the letter, the heading " All German boys," in the bottom line was from " unfounded rumors " the speech. In the letter, the eleven players of the championship and two reservists were listed by name with their birthplaces and their parents with the birth places. All 13 players were born therefore in the Ruhr area, the eight sets of parents were from Masuria, the Protestant part of East Prussia. Two sets of parents were locals, one each came from Upper Silesia, from the Poznan area and from Ostfriesland, namely the family of the goalkeeper Hermann Mellage. Miners were not present among the ancestors of the Schalke players.
In fact, almost all the performers of the club were Protestant. Masuria became Lutheran in the 16th century as a part of Prussia. The population, therefore, was based not on Catholic Poland but at the far Berlin and Potsdam. She was also known as the " Old Prussian population." It was no accident that among the Masurian the first name Fritz was particularly popular - " Old Fritz " after, the hated in Poland Prussian King Frederick II, who later became soccer star Fritz Szepan was baptized. Nowhere in the German Empire, the mood was anti-Polish than in Masuria and the Masurian immigrants in the Ruhr. That the Nazis in the twenties, the defense of East Prussia prior to Polish claims propagated brought them under the Masuria numerous followers. Also Kuzorra and Szepan joined the NSDAP and were instrumentalized by Nazi propaganda.
In order to distinguish themselves from Polish immigrants took advantage of many of the Prussian dominated immigrants from the Mazury offered by the authorities ability to Germanise their Polish-sounding family name. Also in some cases Schalke are busy: Zurawski was to Zurner, Regelski to Reckmann, Zembrzycki to Zeidler. The Left Wing of the championship team of 1934, Emil Czerwinski, changed his family name in Rothardt, which represents a corresponding translation - " czerwony " means in German "red".
Schalke was still referred to as " Polackenverein " because the native Westphalia not between Protestant Mazury, Catholic Upper Silesians and Catholic Poles distinguished. The latter organized preferably in the national patriotic aligned Sokol clubs ( sokół = falcon).
Pay
1871, in the Ruhr 536,000 people, in 1910 there were already three million. Half a million was Polish, Masurian or Upper Silesian origin.
Example Bottrop
Bottrops community numbered in 1875 6.600 inhabitants until 1900, the number quadrupled; 40 percent of the population was Polish, Upper Silesian, Kashubian or Masurian descent. 1915 again counted Bottrop 69,000 inhabitants, the indigenous population Westphalian presented the minority dar. 1911 presented the migrants, 36 percent of the workforce of the mines.