The Ruhr Poles

Introduction
 

A glance at the two-volume encyclopedia of surnames of Polish origin in the Ruhr area is enough to get an idea of how close the genealogical relationship between Germans and Poles is - especially in the Rhine and Ruhr regions. On the basis of telephone directories from 1994 to 1996 alone, the authors identified more than 30,000 Polish surnames in the Ruhr area. This does not take into account German variants of Polish surnames and name transformations, or Germanised forms of originally Polish surnames, not to speak of family members and persons with no telephone connection or with a telephone number hidden behind the individual telephone directory entries during the said period.[1]

The background to this close relationship is made up of several westward migration phases from areas with an ethnic Polish population, or from a Polish state between the middle of the 19th century and the present day. The most comprehensive of these migrations took place in the Rhineland Westphalian industrial area between 1870 and the start of the 1920s. In contrast to overseas emigrations that took place at the same time and were also designated as migration processes, this migration movement, which was known under the heading “Ost- bzw. Landflucht” (migration from Eastern resp. rural Prussia), was an internal migration within Prussia and the German Reich: i.e. the emigrants were Prussian citizens who were free to choose their place of work and life on the basis of the Reich Law on Freedom of Movement passed in November 1867. According to calculations made by researchers on the basis of Prussian statistics, during this period up to half a million Polish-racial or Polish-speaking people emigrated from rural eastern provinces in Prussia to the Rhine-Ruhr industrial area.[2] That said, the most recent studies and comparisons of individual emigration figures from certain regions (including Upper Silesia, as well as the inaccuracy and, at times, deliberate manipulation of Prussian statistics and the high fluctuation of immigration, repatriation and onward migration that is not reflected in these statistics), point to a considerably higher number of persons who were living and working in the Rhine and Ruhr around 1900, at least for on a temporary basis.[3]

About one third of the migrants, for whom the term Ruhr Poles has established itself in research, came from each of the provinces of Poznan and East Prussia, above all from the Masurian provinces (Polish-speaking Protestants),[4] and southern Warmia, which was also largely Polish-speaking but Catholic. In addition to the two largest groups, several tens of thousands of immigrants each came from West Prussia, Kashubia and the province of Silesia, especially from the southern part of the administrative district of Opole (Polish-speaking Catholic Upper Silesians). The main reasons for migration were economic. The population growth that gained momentum in the 19th century had led to overpopulation in the rural regions of origin. Moreover, these regions were industrially underdeveloped or not developed at all (with the exception of Upper Silesia). Above all they offered young men few job opportunities, poor living conditions and hardly any future prospects.[5]