The Years 1900 - 1990

Year

Event

1905

The Russian revolution causes rebellion in Central Poland. Mass demonstrations in Warsaw are terminated by the imposition of the state of emergency.

1914

Beginning of the First World War (01.08.1914). Russia allies itself with the Western powers in the war against the German Empire and Austria Hungary.

1914

Battle of Tannenberg - the Russian army is destroyed by the German troops under guidance of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff.

1915

Deportation to Russia - the Russian administration considers the Germans living in Poland as internal enemies. Whole German village communities are deported to Russia (Saratov). Most of them could return in 1918.

1917

Downfall of the Russian Czar. The temporary Russian government recognizes the right of self-determination for Poland. Also the allies of the First World War promote a sovereign Polish state.

1918

Abdication of William II. - Prussia becomes a republican Free State.

1918

The Republic of Poland is proclaimed (11.11.1918). Jozef Pilsudski becomes the temporary head of state and receives dictatorial authority.

1919

Contract of Versaille - Poland gains the majority of West Prussia, the "Danzig Corridor" and almost the whole province of Posen.

1920

Polish Soviet war (1920-1921) about the border line between both states. Poland had not recognized the border line already fixed in 1919 that had followed the language border.

1921

Peace of Riga - ends the Polish-Soviet war with a compromise that splits the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Soviet Russia. Two Polish Autonomous Districts within the Soviet Union were created: one in Belarus near Minsk, the other in Volhynia, 100 km west of Zhytomyr.

1921

After violent arguments between Poles and Germans a commission of the League of Nations decides to divide the Upper Silesia - the partition of a district which is essentially a valuable economic unit. The Council awards the greater part of the Upper Silesian industrial district to Poland. 

1922

After the parliamentary elections president Pilsudski withdraws. Its successor Gabriel Narutowicz is murdered only a few days after assumption of office. New president becomes Stanislaw Wojciechowski.

1926

Military putsch - Jozef Pilsudski seizes again power (12.05.1926). The political style becomes increasingly authoritarian and is characterized by restrictive minority politics.

1939

In April Adolf Hitler cancels the Polish German no aggression treaty of 1934.

As a result there is an increased anti-German attitude in Poland. There are more and more acts of violence against the German fellow citizens.

At the beginning of the Second World War German settlers in Poland are brought to the Polish concentration camp Bereza Kartuska.

1939

A supplementary protocol of the German Soviet no aggression treaty agreed upon between the dictators Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin plans an allocation of Poland between the USSR and the German Reich.

1939

The Second World War begins with the German attack on the Polish garrison on the Westerplatte near Danzig. A little later the Soviet Red Army occupies East Poland.

Polish counterattack against the German and Soviet armies. The largest battle during this campaign takes place near the Bzura river west of Warsaw from September 9 to September 18. The counterattack fails after an initial success.

1939

The "Generalgouvernement Poland" is created from the remaining areas of Central Poland after West Prussia and Posen were integrated into the German Reich. The Polish population in the "Generalgouvernement" suffers substantial repressions.

1941

The attack of Hitler on the USSR leads to the occupation of East Poland by the German Reich.

1944

Warsaw Uprising - peak of the embittered resistance of Polish partisans and the Armia Krajowa (homeland army).

In July the Red Army crosses the Bug river toward the west. The German army is gradually pushed back.

1945

12. January 1945 the Russian major offensive - the Soviet Red Army occupies all of Poland within a few days.

On 12. January the Nazi authorities still spread slogans to keep up. For propaganda reasons they prohibit the evacuation of the civilian population.

For the eastern part of the Warthegau permission for evacuation was given on 16. January for wives and children and on 18. January for the rest of the German inhabitants.

1945

Yalta Conference - agreement over the Polish east border in favor of the USSR. Poland is to be compensated for it by German areas in the west and the north.

Stalin awarded Poland all the German territories in Pomerania, Silesia and Brandenburg east of the Oder-Neisse Line, plus the southern half of East Prussia.

1945

May 1945 - the Soviet Red Army reaches Berlin and receives the unconditional surrender of Germany. Thus the war is terminated in Europe.

1945

Agreement of Potsdam - the three Allied powers Great Britain, USSR and the USA specify new borders for Poland. The entire national territory shifts to the west up to the rivers Oder and Neisse. In the east Poland has to transfer large parts (including the city of Lemberg) to the USSR.

1945

After the new definition of the Polish borders nearly three million Germans from the now Polish areas are expelled.

At the same time Polish people originating from East Poland are settled in the new West Polish areas.

In addition the restrictive minority politics of the communist regime forces thousands of just returned Jewish Nazi victims to leave Poland again for Israel and the USA.

1950

By 1950 5 million Poles had been settled in what the Poles now called the Regained Territories.

1952

Under the guidance of the  Polish United Workers' Party (the communist party's official name) Poland becomes the "People's Republic of Poland".

1955

Establishment of the "Warsaw Pact" for friendship and co-operation with the Soviet Union and other states of the Eastern Bloc.

1970

The East contracts, substantially influenced by Chancellor Willy Brandt are meant to relax the relations between Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany by the acknowledgment of the inviolability of the existing borders.

1980

Bottlenecks and repeated price increases release strike waves again and again. Strikes in Danzig spread to whole Poland. The independent trade union "Solidarnosz" is founded.

1981

Head of state Jaruzelski places Poland under martial law and uses force of arms against factory hands and miners.

1990

In the contract of the German Unity Germany recognizes obligatorily the west border of Poland following Oder and Neisse as international law.