"The development of a joint political program for the Jews of Poland during World War I – success and failure", Jewish History (2005) 19: 211-226. (original) (raw)
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At the end of the 1930-ies, Germany's expansion towards the East, the invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia then Poland also represented imminence for the Hungarian government. In spring 1940, Regent Horthy and Prime Minister Teleki took the fact into account that Hungary could be Hitler's next victim, therefore in secret they took steps to set up a Hungarian emigré government in the West. However, Horthy wanted to leave the country no way. He trusted in the option of negotiating with Berlin. After Germany's attack against France, the plan of emigré representation was given up. The Hungarian leaders did not want to provoke German invasion by any chance with this step. In spring 1941, when Hitler turned again towards the East, the regent started to consider the establishment of an emigré government afresh. The Western powers, especially the British politics, received the Hungarian intent very reservedly. They did not give any sign of appreciating the Hungarian endeavours. However, Germany required closer cooperation. Finally, the Hungarian government gave up the plan of the emigré government and gave in to the German pressure.
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Between 13th January 1915 and the April of 1916 filled István Burián the charge of the Common Foreign Minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In this time culminated the polish question in the policy of the First World War constituting the basis of the relations Austro-Hungarian and Germany. The first period after 5th August 1915 after the troops of the too allied powers had occupied the full territory of the former Polish Kingdom was arising a political pressure to arrange the fate of the Polish Nation: government, political system, education, public supply and so on. The political leadership of the Danube-Monarchy had tried to settle the question in the framework of the so-called Austro-Polish-Project added the liberated Polish Kingdom to Austro-Hungary. In the Austrian policy became this concept the leading governing principle against the German ideas to unit Poland with Germany. This solution of the question was a consequence of the aspirations of Germany to the domination of t...
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The Neue Freie Presse occupies a special place in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy during the constitutional era. It had the reputation of being the "Times of Central Europe" and the "Weltblatt" of Austria. It was by far the most powerful and prestigious of the various Viennese newspapers. As such it was a newspaper with a definite political mission, founded to protéct German liberal interests within the Habsburg Monarchy (as well as make a great deal of money for its editors). It was the "German-liberal" newspaper/wr excellence, and, as we shall see, stoutly defended that political position whenever required, and it was as a stereotypical example of an Austrian liberal that Moritz Benedikt, the newspaper's legendary chief editor in its hcyday, was vilified by Albert Fuchs in his influential Geistige Strömungen in Österreich, following in the wake of Karl Kraus's obsessive attacks 1. Yet the Neue Freie Presse also had another identity, which it often denied, but was arguably just as important as its German-liberal persona. The Neue Freie Presse was generally regarded by the public, by journalists, and even by itself in unguarded moments, as a "Jewish páper", that is to say a newspaper owned and staffed mainly by Jews and representing primarily the opinions of the German Jewish bourgeoisie of "Cisleithania", the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy. Henry Wickham Steed, admittedly no friend of the Neue Freie Presse, called it the "chief German-Jewish organ" and saw it as voicing Jewish support for "economic pan-Germanism" 2. One of Karl Kraus's main problems with the Neue Freie Presse was precisely its Jewishness. On the other hand, Theodor Herzl, the Neue Freie Presse's star Journalist until his death in 1904, criticized his employers for not owning up to their Jewishness by supporting his Zionism. He had no doubt that the paper was "Jewish" and he was confirmed in this by an interesting admission by Moritz Benedikt, the Joint chief editor, later sole chief editor and guiding spirit of the paper until his death in 1920. In trying to justify his refusal to go along with Herzl's idea of a Jewish State in October 1895,Benediktremarked:"WewereregardedasaJewishpaperupuntilnow,butwehave never conceded this. Now all of a sudden we are supposed to give up all the screens * I would like to thank the East European Program of the Wilson Center, Washington D. C. for providing the funds with which I conducted the research for this article.
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, the restraints keeping the Polish Question in check became one of the First World War's earliest casualties. From the confl ict's opening days, the central Eu ro pean Great Powers worked to mobilize Polish discontent in the ser vice of their respective war eff orts, sending promises of a bright future for Polish national aspirations ahead of their armies as they marched into battle. Virtually overnight, Polish nationalism was transformed from a source of potential international instability into a weapon in the strug gle for military and po liti cal mastery on the eastern front. Germany, despite its history of hostility to Polish nationalism, took an active role in this initial drive for Polish sympathies, but it gave little serious thought to what it might actually do if the "fortunes of war" brought German armies into Rus sia's Polish territories. When these came under German occupation in 1915, this failure of strategic imagination was remedied by the ambitious German Governor-General, Hans Hartwig von Beseler. Over the course of his tenure in Poland, Beseler became convinced that it would be in Germany's best interests to support-and thereby control-the creation of a new Polish state in central Eu rope. A dependent Polish state, he reasoned, would be a useful ally in a potential future war with Russia-or Austria. Beseler also believed that there neither could nor should be a return to the era of the partitions; the constant upheavals of that era had shown that a diff erent answer to the Polish Question was essential to the stability of central Eu rope. Moreover, the war-by
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The article reconstructs the genesis of the order concerning the organization of the Jewish religious community in Poland. It follows the responses of the main political actors involved in the implementation of the ordinance: the German occupation authorities, the Austrian occupation authorities and the organs of Polish home rule that arose in Poland following the November 1916 German-Austrian declaration on the political future of the country. The article concentrate on the main disputes: the community's definition, responsibilities and spheres of activities and the composition of the board of governors.
Trimarium, 2023
The end of World War I brought the collapse of three multina- tional monarchies, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, in Central and Eastern Europe, which offered the societies living in the region a chance to organize their own state structures. In Poland, the political elites agreed that the western border would be demarcated at the Paris Peace Conference, while chances for a more independent resolution were seen in the east. There were two competing notions of the Polish presence in this area: the incorporationist view, promoted by nationalists and advocating the division of the so-called partitioned terri- tories between Poland and Russia, and the federal view, under which socialists and Pilsudski supporters championed the establishment of independent Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, which were bound to it by alliances, on the eastern fringes of the Republic. Although the final decisions at Riga were closer to the former, the territory of Poland that was outlined in both concepts raised objections from Ukrainians and Lithuanians. Germany reacted similarly to demands that Pomerania, Greater Poland and Upper Silesia be annexed to Poland, and Czechs opposed the annexation of Cieszyn to Silesia. These demands were only moderately strengthened by the ethnic predomi- nance of Poles in these areas, but the final decisions were influ- enced by the pressure of uprisings and the goodwill of France. The borders postulated by the nationalists and the Pilsuds- kiites corresponded with their vision of policy toward national minorities. The nationalists believed that Slavic minorities, who were denied the right to a separate state, should be assim- ilated. The Pilsudskiites, on the other hand, advocated state assimilation: they allowed religious, cultural and linguistic separateness of national minorities on condition of loyalty to the Polish state. Ultimately, however, the Second Republic failed to develop a long-term and consistent policy towards national minorities, as well as towards Poles living abroad.
Between Minority and Majority. Hungarian and Jewish/Israeli ethnical and cultural experiences in recent centuries. Budapest, Balassi Institute , 2013
The German Haavara was relatively successful, although it was criticized by both American Jews and right-winged Zionists, and it was the subject of fi erce disputes. Nonetheless, Haavara off ered something of an example, and the Jewish Agency strove in other countries of Europe to turn the situation caused by the persecution of the Jews to the benefi t of the growing Jewish community in Palestine. Negotiations regarding transfers were held in Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938–39, and in Hungary as well. Werner Feilchenfeld, one of the most prominent leaders of the earlier negotiations in Germany, was delegated to Budapest. In February, 1939 he spoke and wrote about the importance of the consultations in Hungary, and argued that the Agency needed to clinch another contract in addition to the one they already had with Germany in order to demonstrate its infl uence and economic signifi cance. In May 1938 the Jewish Agency for Palestine prepared a memorandum for transfer for the Hungarian National Bank, and they used the German and Polish transfer memoranda as models. The timing is no accident: the first anti-Jewish legislation had been passed on April 8th and was going to go into eff ect on May 29th. The leaders of the Zionist League essentially were responding to the increasingly dire exclusion of Jews from public and economic life.