Studia Maritima

The historian in the contemporary Poland has to fulfil not only the tasks on his workplace, commonly at a state university or in a research institute but he has also commitments which result from the traditional ethos of a man of science. In the public sphere he has to deal with historical politics created by the state and the political forces immediately, which cannot actually be influenced by the scientific circles in a relevant way. The political forces await from the historian the disclosure of such a “truth” which would interpret the existing reality as the possible space for creation of that what ought to be. The associational scientific movement as a traditionally autonomous body concerned with population of knowledge has in this situation the chance and the not utterly fulfilled task of defending of the historical truth, conditioned and determined with the contemporary theory of knowledge.

The eminent French historian Fernand Barudel pointed out in his works about the Med that one would need for understanding of activites of an individual a wide context created by the social space and environment in which the main hero tends to live in. For Braudel became Philippe 2nd only a pretence to analyse the whole civilisation of the Medin his times. This context can be employed on the man of letters, a loner, spending the most of his life in his astronomical observatory – Nicolaus Copernicus. Unquestionably, the social environment of Thorn exerted the biggest influence on the formation of the young Copernicus. The city was located on the lower Vistula, on the boarder of the state of Teutonic Knights and Poland, with strong relationships with Silesia, Cracow and Hansa and over Hansa with Northern Europe. This location created extraordinary circumstances for the formation of the one of the biggest intellects of his times. This cultural mosaic was the native environment of Nicolaus Copernicus, a German- speaking Pole, on the maternal side a descendant of immigrants from Westphalia, on the paternal side of Silesian Copernicus-family with Slavic roots, from his birth to his death the faithful subject of the Polish kings.

The cooperation of the Polish and German historians from Greifswald and Szczecin was developed in the second half of the 20th century in different periods: in the times of German Democratic Republic and Polish People’s Republic and also after 1990, as the two states mentioned no more existed or rather when the social-political system in these states ceased to be. Idependently of the caesura 1990 the contacts of Polish and German historians still remained in the shadow of experiences of the 2nd W W a nd i ts e ffects. In the first phase the cooperation can be judged partially positive, in spite of its burden with a big political involvement and ideological servitutes, as the first move against the prevalent hostility between both nations till the middle of the 20th century. These contacts were not fully frank and spontaneous and inspired (especially on the East German side) through party and state factors which caused them being not very original. The both parties possessed a list of issues not to be discussed which allowed to minimize the possibility of starting a historiographic dispute. In the times of open wounds this procedure might be evaluated being positive. The output of this cooperation period seems to be rather limited and sometimes even embarrassing. This can be understood as the necessary way for both parties to achieve the access to archives or to get trust of authorities for realization other fields of research. After 1990, as the political and ideological restrictions no more existed, the mutual German-Polish investigations of the Pomeranian past could experience their development in full bloom, which can be estimated upon a rich amount of publications. In that time, one was not able to create a durable base for the cooperation which could allow the new generation of Pomerania researchers to abandon looking for new ways of communication and seldom used paths of mutual contacts.

The aim of the article is depiction of the scientific cooperation between historians from Szczecin and Greifswald which is continuously developed in the beginning of the 21st century. The cooperation based primary on the DAAD guest professorship of Prof. Joerg Hackemann at the Institute for History and International Relationships at the University of Szczecin, lectures held by Prof. Lutz Oberdörfer from Greifswald, workshops at the EMAU lead by Dr. Paweł Migdalski, various research projects presented there by Dr. Rafał Simiński and Dr. Tomasz Ślepowroński. To mention be in this context the activity of Prof. Włodzimierz Stępiński and Prof. Jan M. Piskorski in the German scientific life and their participation at many debates and historical conferences. The rich contacts between the historians from both Pomeranian universities are referred to in a new and original form of a Szczecin–Gryfino postgraduate programme, started in the 21st century by the Institute for History and International Relationships at the University of Szczecin and Historisches Institut Ernst Moritz Arndt Universität Greifswald. Within this undertaking two meetings of postgraduates took place where their scientific output was presented: on the 3rd/4th November 2010 in Szczecin and on the 26th/28th Mai 2011 in Greifswald. This initiative is for young researchers of importance – it allows their development outside of the only one, native research milieu. Unfortunately, the project of postgraduates from Szczecin and Greifswald is one of only few initiatives within the Polish-German historical neighbourhood.

The factor that stimulated the thought of ethical justification of warfare in medieval Europe was among others expansion of Islam. At the beginning of the Islamic religion, its believers were deeply convinced by the ideas coming from the pages of Koran dictated by prophet Mohammed, the words which encouraged them to convert infidels. The fact is that during the lifetime of Mohammed, Muslims bent to their own will many Arabic tribes and just after his death they had a greater part of the Arabian Peninsula in their hands. In 711 they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and started conquering the Iberian Peninsula. In the meantime, in Europe, people who, on account of their public role, were supposed to have a wider perspective of the world issues, were aware of the dangers which Islam caused. The fight for preservation of the Latin civilization caused thus far an unprecedented inner consolidation of armed, political and intellectual forces of those times. In this way the epoch of the crusades began.

In the reign of John Frederick, Duke of Pomerania (1569–1600) one of the most important central clerks was the chancellor who had not only a high position in the hierarchy of the court but also was in charge to control the court’s chancery – a very important place at a court where the inner and foreign policy was focused in, where documentation for different affairs was created, where income and outgoings registers were managed and till 1575 – where judicial decisions were elaborated. The article describes shortly the principles of the chancery operations, the duties of the chancery clerks and the obligatory circulation of documents. The analysis of the court ordinations allowed only a detailed recognition of the chancellor’s and scribes’ tasks and a short presentation of settled chancery matters. A more complex description of the function of the Szczecin’s court chancery shall base on long-lasting and laborious source investigations.

The article concerns a case study in the times of Enlightment. In that time the traditional class system has been questioned. The aim of the article was the description of a polemic between Bützow, a court clerk from Greifswald and the Swedish government in Stralsund in 1782 and its historical context. The dispute concerned the question, whether during the national mourning the clerks might put on the relatively cheap lacy cuffs at mourners’ sleeves. The main source for the analysis were files with the number 252 from the state archives in Greifswald. In the Swedish Pomerania, similar to many other places in Europe, and also on the empire’s territory the lacy cuffs were an attribute of nobility and of chosen court officials. The general governor of the Swedish Pomerania guaranteed in 1751 with an issued law the nobility the right to put them on as a symbol of mourning without specification, if the officials also be entitled to wear them. He created therefore an interpretation gap which Bützow tried to use for his aims. The fact that Bützow did not succeed and even had to apologize for his behaviour proves the stability of the traditional class system in the Swedish Pomerania at the end of the 18th century.

Marxism, as any social ideology, contains many conflicting motives. They represent the potential of various political doctrines. The aim of the article was to show the sources, content and consequences of the ideological conflict between the two Marxists, precursors of conflicting political ideologies. Vladimir Lenin, with his monopolistic rights to the interpretation of Marxism, the army-like organization of the party and the recognition of his opponents as enemies, became the forerunner of the totalitarian system. Eduard Bernstein, touted as the creator of revisionism, has verified Marxism, rejected the ved that the socialist party should participate in a democratic system dogma of the class struggle, claimed the proletarian revolution being irrational and belie, using its mechanisms for achieving the objectives of the working class. In this way Bernstein became one of the promoters of democracy. The article discussed the main ideological and political consequences of the gap between the two ideological movements.

The article concerns the role of violence while takeover of the National Socialists in Pomerania. Another aim is the explanation of the influence of state control surveillance measures on the strategic organization of the party’s inner life. Mittenzwei states that the NSDAP-history in Pomerania was dominated by many internal conflicts. These conflicts not only raise to question about action potential of the regional party authorities but also influenced the abilities of the whole party. Even if the Stennes’ revolt did not cause a sustainable division in the party and even if the state control surveillance ended up with no party prohibition, the circumstances reflected the influence on the party organization. In spite of the feared party prohibition the NSDAP-Gauleitung in Pomerania regarded itself being incapable of backing away from the violent takeover course. The Gauleiter Wilhelm Karpenstein saw in view of the inner conflicts in the party and revolting SA formations the only option: he put himself against the directives of the NSDAP-Reichsleitung at the head of the group which demanded a violent takeover and called for violence repeatedly. Finally, this strategy allowed the takeover in the countrified Pomerania but it caused also the end of Wilhelm Karpenstein as the Pomeranian Gauleiter. This end took place with the imprisonment of the Pomeranian SA-leader within so called Röhm revolt. This was also the reason after the Karpenstein’s dismissal to replace the Gau’s elite with Schwede-Coburg who surrounded himself with familiar faces from his times in Coburg.

In December 1939 the Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess performed the ground-breaking ceremony for the Oder-Danube Canal, with Austria, Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia already under German control,. Besides connecting the Oder and the Danube, resulting in a nonstop waterway from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, spatial planning authorities, he saw the canal as a fundamental addition for the ‘second Ruhr valley in the East’ (Upper Silesia). The outcome of this connection would have been a widely expanded trade between northern and southern Europe. The trade might become then faster and cheaper, a wide array of strategic materials like coal, ore, petroleum and petrol would have been accessible for industry and armed forces. Due to the war progress the work on the canal had to be discontinued in 1940. One of the profiteers of the canal should have been the seaport in Szczecin, located at the intersection of the Oder and the Baltic Sea. Therefore a think tank called the ‘Oder-Donau-Institut’ has been found to deliver scientific arguments reinstating the work on the canal under the lead management of the economic chamber of Pomerania (Szczecin) in close contact with the University of Greifswald. The director of the institute was Heinz Seraphim, professor for political economy at the University of Greifswald. Under his leadership, the well-financed institute started to work not only for the economic interests of the economic chamber but also for the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt.

Mixed couples, as one of the determinants of breaking distance of historical, cultural, psychological and social nature, trespass the fundamental principles that separate a group from the “Other”. This otherness makes the couples of this type evoke social attitudes of integration or isolation. A relationship is seen as mixed when the difference between the partners is considered significant by them or by the local community. When one speaks about everyday life of Polish-German couples living at the new north-western border of Poland after 1945, an important factor in their formation, i.e. the historical events of World War II and the sense of temporariness until the western Polish border was settled in 1950, cannot be overlooked. After 1945 mixed couples were an important part of the image of the border area, also integrating the Polish community with the remaining Germans. They formed the part of the first generation of such couples, which encompasses the years 1945–1971, the opening of the border with East Germany in 1972 gave rise to the second generation, which lasted until 1989, while accession of Poland to the European Union marks the end of the third generation. In our text we shall only focus on three aspects of everyday life, i.e. the formation of the German-Polish relationships, negative contacts with the surrounding environment and problems with authorities.

The repatriation of Poles after World War II, despite its flaws, which caused its implementation not possible until 1949, at that period was possible only with the support of the Soviet Union. The international situation and the political situation in China in late forties made USSR only possible link between polish government and Manchuria, and a potential ally, which had measures to help in its organization. It was a pragmatic decision based on the possibilities and conditions. The central soviet authorities had an established communication with his consulate, adequate infrastructure for the transit of returnees and already developed basis of Polish-Soviet agreement on its terms. Only the change of the political situation after the establishment of Peoples Republic of China has allowed the Polish authorities to avoid additional costs and delays, which ware considerable disadvantages of the repatriation in cooperation with the Soviet Union.

In the following article the author discussed the form of research and the central effects of a doctor’s project about four smaller party-blocks in the last years of the DDR. The citizens and members of all five party blocks, also SED, demanded between summer 1986 and November 1989 political and economic reforms in the DDR, referring to Gorbatschow’s glasnost’ and perestroika and under the dynamical influence of the social processes in Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania. The parties’ members issued critical statements about social deficits within the socialistic system which were relayed to the party leaders with different intensity. The dissertation shall provide answers concerning assumed impulses for the DDR-reformation from the party-blocks even without the citizens’ initiatives and the political engagement of the churches. T he a rticle d iscussed the developments of CDU(D), LDP(D), NDPD and DBD since 1980ies and described their positioning within the political and economic system of the DDR.

The article discusses the problem of province and smaller cities/towns within general political and social changes in critical times of Communists’ Poland and the role played by smaller communities in the occuring changes. The Author states that the influence range of central changes in the Communists’ party PZPR and other state organs in Warsow had a weaker feedback on the province and their regional pendants. The same concerned vivid social workers’ and independence movements, strikes and different struggles. The neighbourhood of two big centres: Szczecin and Gdańsk, the craddle of „Solidarność”, have had a rather low-rated effect on the changes in Koszalin (mainly influenced by Szczecin) and Słupsk (mainly influenced by Gdańsk) region. The both centres were active clusters of oppositional movements. Between them, as Marciniak stated, existed in the years 1956–1981 a precipice, a ‘sociological vacuum’, conditioned mainly by a lack of strong academic, intellectual and religious circles.

The Baltic Sea has always played a vital part in the history of Poland. In the light of the resolutions of the Yalta Conference, Poland’s boarders were shifted, including Western Pomerania in its territory. In 1945 Kołobrzeg was the most severely destroyed city on that territory. The city was either already ablaze or set on fire by German gangs active at that time. All its pre-war functions were non-existent. The harbour was immobilized, the economic basis fell apart. The city was devoided of water, power and food delivery was problematic. The newly-arrived Polish settlers perceived Kołobrzeg as a tragic and overwhelming image of a “dead city”. The area was dominated by debris, the stench of decomposing bodies of German soldiers and looters arriving from central Poland. The Wehrwolf pursued sabotages and the most terrifying Red Army committed crime and rapes. In the light of the population records and files of the Registry Office the inflow of people was rather slow during the first months, only to increase the pace in the following years. Many of them believed they would find employment rebuilding the city or in the harbour. The settlers had long been insecure about the temporary character of Poland in Western Pomerania and on the Baltic coast.