Province of Posen

Province of Posen
Provinz Posen (German)
Prowincja Poznańska (Polish)
A province of Prussia
1848–1920
Coat of arms of Province of Posen
Coat of arms
Posen (red) within Prussia (blue) within the German Empire
CapitalPoznań
Area
 • Coordinates52°24′N 16°55′E / 52.400°N 16.917°E / 52.400; 16.917
 
• 1910
28,962 km2 (11,182 sq mi)
Population 
• 1910
2,099,831

Lesser coat of arms
History 
• Established
1848
• Disestablished
1920
Political subdivisionsPosen
Bromberg
Preceded by		Succeeded by
Grand Duchy of Posen
Posen–West Prussia
Poznań Voivodeship (1919–1939)
Today part ofPoland

The Province of Posen (German: Provinz Posen; Polish: Prowincja Poznańska) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920. It comprised most of the historical region of Greater Poland, which is currently in the west-central part of Poland. Its capital was the city of Posen (present-day Poznań).

Prussia acquired the territory that became the Province of Posen in the 1772 and 1793 partitions of Poland. During the Napoleonic Wars, the region was briefly a client state of France before it was returned to Prussia as the Grand Duchy of Posen in 1815. Following the failed Greater Poland Uprising of 1848, it was reorganised into the Province of Posen and went on to be incorporated, still as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia, into the North German Confederation in 1866 and the German Empire in 1871. Following World War I, the Treaty of Versailles awarded all but two small areas in the far west of the province to the Second Polish Republic in 1920. The territory that remained with Germany was combined in 1922 with the remnants of the Province of West Prussia to form the Prussian province of Posen-West Prussia within the Weimar Republic. As a result of Germany's defeat in World War II, all of what had been the Province of Posen came within the Soviet-dominated Polish People's Republic in 1947. It is today part of the Third Polish Republic.

Posen was always a majority-Polish province, with roughly 60 to 70 percent of its inhabitants Polish speakers. It was affected by three uprisings for an independent Polish state between 1846 and 1919. The Prussian government responded with a series of Germanisation measures including the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf, laws to enforce the use of German in schools and government offices, and programs to attract German settlers to the area. The efforts were in the end unsuccessful and had the effect of heightening the Poles' sense of a national identity.

Geography

Physical map of Posen in 1910

The land is mostly flat, drained by two major watershed systems, the Noteć (German: Netze) in the north and the Warta (Warthe) in the centre. Glaciers left moraine deposits, and the land is speckled with hundreds of "finger lakes", streams flowing in and out on their way to one of the two rivers.

Agriculture was the primary industry. The three-field system was used to grow a variety of crops, primarily rye, other grains, sugar beets, potatoes, and some tobacco and hops. Significant parcels of wooded land provided building materials and firewood. There was some livestock, notably a fair number of sheep.

History

Grand Duchy of Posen

Greater Poland – the region of west-central Poland (Polish Wielkopolska) whose largest city was Posen (Polish Poznań) – became part of the Kingdom of Prussia during the First and Second Partitions of Poland in 1772 (the Netze District) and 1793 (South Prussia). After Prussia's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, the territory became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, a client state of France, under the terms of the 1807 Franco-Prussian Treaties of Tilsit. The 1815 Congress of Vienna, which re-ordered Europe following Napoleon's downfall, restored the western part of the duchy to Prussia, with the remainder going to the Russian Empire. Prussia initially administered the region as the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen. It had its own parliament, although in an advisory capacity only, Polish was the official language in all state functions including education, and Antoni Radziwiłł was appointed to the special position of viceroy (Statthalter) to be a liaison between the central government and the Polish gentry. After the failed anti-Russian November Uprising of 1830 in Congress Poland, the Grand Duchy was stripped of much of its special status. Under Eduard Heinrich von Flottwell, who as Oberpräsident replaced the Statthalter position in December 1830, Prussia's Germanisation measures increased with such policies as inviting German settlers and extending the use of German in education.

Greater Poland uprisings and establishment of the province

A first Greater Poland Uprising against Prussian rule in 1846 failed when its leaders were reported to the Prussian police and arrested. The Prussian authorities declared martial law in Posen, and some 600 additional arrests were made. Despite Prussia's mistrust of the Polish nobility, relatively few of them were involved in planning the abortive uprising. The independent peasants of the region for the most part also remained at a distance.

Ludwik Mierosławski, a leader in the first two Greater Poland uprisings

The second Greater Poland Uprising was sparked by the German revolution of 1848–1849, an attempt to unify and liberalise the German states that made up the loosely knit German Confederation. On 20 March 1848, Ludwik Mierosławski and other participants of the 1846 rebellion were freed from prison in Berlin, and a Polish National Committee was formed in Posen. When the assembly of representatives from across the German Confederation that was meeting at Frankfurt voted to include Posen in the elections for a German National Assembly, Poles in Greater Poland under Mieroslawski's leadership rose up against becoming part of Germany. They wanted a restored Poland that would include the parts held by both Russia and Prussia. The friendly mood towards Poles among German revolutionaries quickly soured with the outbreak of the uprising. The Frankfurt Parliament voted 341 to 31 to bring it into the German Confederation and thus make it part of a new Germany.

In order to quell the disturbances in Greater Poland, King Frederick William IV of Prussia issued a cabinet order on 26 April 1848 that divided the Grand Duchy into a Province of Posen in the west, which would join the German Confederation, and an eastern part that was promised its own constitutional government. When the insurrection continued unabated, Prussia sent in troops and defeated the Poles. All of the former Grand Duchy of Posen subsequently became the Province of Posen. Prussia's kings nevertheless retained the title "Grand Duke of Posen" until the fall of the German and Prussian monarchies in 1918. The 1848 revolution overall failed to reach its goals, and the situation in the German Confederation remained largely unchanged. Posen belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia but was outside the Confederation.

Frederick William granted the Kingdom of Prussia a constitution in 1848. It gave the Poles no special status, which meant that they had the same civil liberties as all other Prussians, including the right to send members to the Prussian parliament, the Landtag in Berlin. Polish districts in Posen elected Polish-speaking Catholics who formed an opposition group in the Landtag. It was a small caucus and frequently sided with opposition parties.

In 1866, following Prussia's victory in the Austro-Prussian War, the German Confederation was dissolved, and Posen became part of the Prussian-led North German Confederation. Posen's Polish delegates to the Landtag protested in vain that they had a right to an autonomous administration and did not want to be part of the new confederation. During its short life (1866–1871), the North German Confederation did not push Germanisation in Posen because Prussia believed that German settlement would take place of itself. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck also wanted to maintain good relations with the Catholics in Posen as he eyed the possibility of bringing the southern German states with their large Catholic populations into a united Germany.

German Empire

Otto von Bismarck in 1873. His Kulturkampf against Catholics antagonised Posen's Poles.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), which led to Germany's unification, the level of pro-French partisanship in Posen alarmed Prussian officials, and Bismarck spoke out forcefully against it in the cabinet. Following the formal establishment of the German Empire, Polish representatives in the Reichstag protested Posen's incorporation in much the same terms that they had used in the Prussian Landtag in 1867. Bismarck feared that a large Polish minority that was seeking independence could endanger the Empire and classified Poles as enemies of the Reich (Reichsfeinde) along with socialists. His hostility towards the Poles was already well known. In 1861 he had written in a letter to his sister: "Hit the Poles so hard that they despair of their life; I have full sympathy for their condition, but if we want to survive we can only exterminate them." His dislike was firmly entrenched in Prussian traditions, and most Prussians, including the King, agreed with his views.

Prussian responses to the Poles in its eastern provinces were primarily in three areas: religion, language and settlement policy. Bismarck fired the first salvo of his nationwide anti-Catholic Kulturkampf (1871–1878) in Posen in 1872 by taking inspection of Catholic schools out of the hands of the clergy. When priests rebelled against the inspection and later Kulturkampf laws, Polish parishioners rallied behind them. They did what they could to protect their clerics against arrest, refused to attend services led by German-speaking replacements and in some cases even physically attacked them. It was the Kulturkampf that first brought Polish-speaking peasants into the Polish national movement.

The questions surrounding the use of the Polish language in schools and government offices lasted much longer than the Kulturkampf, which officially ended in 1878. Not long after the formation of the German Empire, Prussia implemented an ordinance that required that German be the language of school instruction "wherever possible" and that public meetings be shut down if any of the speeches were not in German. German was made the sole and official language for all government business in 1876. Over 25 years later, in 1902, a scandal erupted when it became public that children in Posen were being beaten for refusing to recite the Lord's Prayer in German. In 1906, 100,000 school children went on strike over the practice of whipping those who refused to answer questions in German. A petition by the archbishop of Posen requesting that religious instruction in Polish be allowed was rejected. Parents who then withdrew their children from the classes were fined or fired from their positions.

Emperor Wilhelm II's imperial residence in Posen in its original form

By the 1880s, the increasing flight of Germans from the agriculturally depressed east to the industrializing areas in the west prompted the Prussian Landtag to establish the Prussian Settlement Commission headquartered in the city of Posen. It was given 100 million marks to buy failing Polish estates, subdivide them and let the land out to German farmers. Another 100 million marks was allotted to the commission in 1898 and 250 million more in 1903, at which point a law also made it illegal for the German settlers to sell their land to Poles. In the first 15 years of the program, over 300 square miles of land in Posen were distributed. In 1905, Emperor Wilhelm II initiated the construction of an imperial residence in the city of Posen. When it was completed in 1910, Posen was designated an imperial residence city.

Ultimately, Polish resistance to the Kulturkampf and to the imposition of the German language in schools and the government, together with the unbroken tide of German flight to the west, made a failure of Prussia's attempts to suppress the striving for Polish independence in Posen and the other eastern provinces with a substantial Polish-speaking minority. Discrimination in all areas continued to some degree up to 1914, and during World War I Germanisation and annexation were carried out through military means. Poles in Posen nevertheless maintained their sense of a cultural and national identity throughout.

Dissolution after World War I

Division of the Province of Posen after World War I. The areas in orange and red remained in Germany, while the grey region became part of Poland. (Note: 'ehem.' = 'former')

Germany's defeat in World War I ushered in the end of the Province of Posen. A third Greater Poland uprising broke out on 27 December 1918, ignited by Polish pianist and patriot Ignacy Jan Paderewski's speech in the city of Posen the preceding day. The insurgents quickly took the city from the Germans and controlled most of the province in mid-January. By the time an armistice was signed between Germany and the Poles in Trier on 16 February 1919, an estimated 3,000 to 3,500 people had died in the fighting.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which became effective on 10 January 1920, the territory captured during the uprising became part of the Polish Republic as the Poznań Voivodeship. The majority German-populated remainder (with Bomst, Fraustadt, Neu Bentschen, Meseritz, Tirschtiegel (partially), Schwerin, Blesen, Schönlanke, Filehne, Schloppe, Deutsch Krone, Tütz, Schneidemühl, Flatow, Jastrow, and Krojanke – about 2,200 km2 (850 sq mi)) was merged with the western remains of the former Province of West Prussia and administered as Posen–West Prussia with Schneidemühl as its capital.

The majority of German speakers in the region that had been ceded to Poland moved west into areas that still belonged to Prussia and Germany. Under Article 91 of the Treaty of Versailles, all German nationals who were resident in Posen before 1 January 1908 automatically became Polish citizens, although within two years of the treaty's effective date they could opt for German nationality. Many of those affected thought that the option was a referendum on whether their region should be part of Germany or Poland rather than a personal choice. The new Polish government's strict policy regarding minorities led to well over half of German speakers in the regions of Posen and West Prussia that had become part of Poland to emigrate.

Posen-West Prussia was dissolved in 1938 when its territory was split between the neighbouring Prussian provinces of Silesia, Pomerania and Brandenburg. In 1939, the territory of the former province of Posen was annexed by Nazi Germany and made part of Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen).

Following Germany's defeat in World War II, at the demand of the Soviet Union, all of the German territory east of the Oder–Neisse line defined under the Potsdam Agreement was turned over to either Poland or the Soviet Union. All historical parts of the Province of Posen came under Polish control, and the ethnic German population was forcibly expelled.

1919 German army permit to enter the Polish territory of Posen, which had just been ceded to Poland
Division of the province between Poland and Weimar Germany
Given to: Area in 1910 (km2) Share of territory Population in 1910
28,962 2,099,831
Poland (Poznań Voivodeship) 26,111 90% 93%
Germany (Posen-West Prussia) 2,851 10% 7%

Religious and ethnic composition

Posen was inhabited by a Polish majority together with German and Jewish minorities and a smattering of other ethnic groups. Almost all the Poles were Roman Catholic, and most of the Germans were Protestant. The small number of Jews were primarily in the larger communities, mostly in skilled crafts, local commerce and regional trading. The smaller the community, the more likely it was to be either all Polish or all German.[citation needed] Such "pockets of ethnicity" existed side by side, with German villages concentrated in northern and western Posen. Under Prussia's Germanisation policies, the population became more German until the end of the 19th century, when the trend reversed as millions of Germans from the region migrated in the Ostflucht to more industrialised regions in central and western Germany.

Languages in the Province of Posen according to the Prussian census of 1910. Shading is from bright red (mostly German) to dark blue (mostly Polish).
Ethnolinguistic composition of the Province of Posen
Year181518191837 184618901910
Total population798,000883,9721,158,608 1,343,1351,751,6422,099,831
% Polish-speaking (including bilinguals) 73%77.0%65.3% 71.7%60.1%61.5% (or 65%)
% German-speaking (including most Jews) 25%17.5%28.3% 28.3%39.9%38.5% (or 35%)

Statistics

Area: 28,962 km2

Population

Divisions

Prussian provinces were subdivided into government regions (Regierungsbezirke). Posen had two:

The governmental regions (Regierungsbezirke) Posen (pink) and Bromberg (green) with their subdivisions (Kreise)

The regions were subdivided into districts called Kreise. Cities had their own Stadtkreis (urban district) and the surrounding rural area was named for the city and referred to as a Landkreis (rural district). In the case of Posen, the Landkreis was split into two: Landkreis Posen West, and Landkreis Posen East.

Ethnic Structure of the Province of Posen (1910 census)
District Name in Polish Population German % Polish % Bilingual %
Province of Posen - 2,099,831 806,720 38.4% 1,278,890 60.9% 11,899 0.6%
Bromberg Region - 763,947 379,488 49.7% 378,831 49.6% 4,956 0.6%
City of Bromberg Bydgoszcz 57,696 46,720 81.0% 9,350 16.2% 1,557 2.7%
Bromberg Bydgoszcz 96,473 58,783 60.9% 37,049 38.4% 590 0.6%
Czarnikau Czarnków 42,287 30,016 71.0% 12,027 28.4% 179 0.4%
Filehne Wieleń 33,653 23,504 69.8% 9,918 29.5% 217 0.6%
Gnesen Gniezno 56,250 21,461 38.2% 34,643 61.6% 129 0.2%
Hohensalza Inowrocław 77,294 28,394 36.7% 48,599 62.9% 258 0.3%
Kolmar in Posen Chodzież 76,020 61,600 81.0% 13,957 18.4% 427 0.6%
Mogilno Mogilno 49,253 14,274 29.0% 34,659 70.4% 194 0.4%
Schubin Szubin 48,304 21,035 43.5% 26,799 55.5% 403 0.8%
Strelno Strzelno 37,620 7,437 19.8% 30,109 80.0% 67 0.2%
Wirsitz Wyrzysk 67,219 34,235 50.9% 32,446 48.3% 495 0.7%
Witkowo Witkowo 29,094 4,814 16.5% 24,164 83.1% 91 0.3%
Wongrowitz Wągrowiec 52,574 16,309 31.0% 35,955 68.4% 216 0.4%
Znin Żnin 40,210 10,906 27.1% 29,156 72.5% 133 0.3%
Posen Region - 1,335,884 427,232 32.0% 900,059 67.4% 6,943 0.5%
Adelnau Odolanów 36,306 4,681 12.9% 31,537 86.9% 87 0.2%
Birnbaum Międzychód 28,887 14,069 48.7% 14,513 50.2% 264 0.9%
Bomst Babimost 63,120 30,980 49.1% 31,794 50.4% 214 0.3%
Fraustadt Wschowa 28,914 19,663 68.0% 8,902 30.8% 337 1.2%
Gostyn Gostyń 48,326 6,528 13.5% 41,720 86.3% 70 0.1%
Grätz Grodzisk Wielkopolski 36,483 5,997 16.4% 30,280 83.0% 199 0.5%
Jarotschin Jarocin 51,626 9,236 17.9% 42,168 81.7% 197 0.4%
Kempen Kępno 37,050 5,933 16.0% 30,697 82.9% 242 0.7%
Koschmin Koźmin Wielkopolski 33,519 5,719 17.1% 27,685 82.6% 58 0.2%
Kosten Kościan 47,325 5,149 10.9% 42,091 88.9% 50 0.1%
Krotoschin Krotoszyn 46,874 15,822 33.8% 30,709 65.5% 325 0.7%
Lissa Leszno 44,579 27,451 61.6% 16,659 37.4% 427 1.0%
Meseritz Międzyrzecz 53,306 41,059 77.0% 12,207 22.9% 3 0.0%
Neutomischel Nowy Tomyśl 34,292 15,700 45.8% 18,481 53.9% 109 0.3%
Obornik Oborniki 55,880 22,450 40.2% 33,139 59.3% 253 0.5%
Ostrowo Ostrów Wielkopolski 43,887 9,713 22.1% 33,970 77.4% 166 0.4%
Pleschen Pleszew 37,362 6,200 16.6% 30,965 82.9% 130 0.3%
City of Posen Poznań 156,691 65,319 41.7% 89,351 57.0% 1,333 0.9%
Posen West Poznań, Zach. 43,129 7,374 17.1% 35,474 82.3% 238 0.6%
Posen Ost Poznań, Wsch. 49,119 14,102 28.7% 34,795 70.8% 178 0.4%
Rawitsch Rawicz 50,523 21,253 42.1% 29,150 57.7% 99 0.2%
Samter Szamotuły 66,856 17,071 25.5% 49,589 74.2% 145 0.2%
Schildberg Ostrzeszów 37,290 5,470 14.7% 31,100 83.4% 718 1.9%
Schmiegel Śmigiel 36,383 6,626 18.2% 29,544 81.2% 208 0.6%
Schrimm Śrem 57,483 10,017 17.4% 47,088 81.9% 368 0.6%
Schroda Środa Wielkopolska 49,176 6,201 12.6% 42,870 87.2% 92 0.2%
Schwerin Skwierzyna 21,620 19,729 91.3% 1,722 8.0% 143 0.7%
Wreschen Września 39,878 7,720 19.4% 31,859 79.9% 290 0.7%

The numbers in the 'German' column include the German-speaking Jewish population.

Presidents

The province was headed by presidents (German: Oberpräsidenten).

Term Name
1815–1824 Joseph Zerboni di Sposetti
1825–1830 Johann Friedrich Theodor von Baumann
1830–1840 Eduard Heinrich von Flottwell
1840–1842 Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg
1843–1850 Carl Moritz von Beurmann
1850–1851 Gustav Carl Gisbert Heinrich Wilhelm Gebhard von Bonin
1851–1860 Eugen von Puttkamer
1860–1862 Gustav Carl Gisbert Heinrich Wilhelm Gebhard von Bonin
1862–1869 Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Georg von Horn
1869–1873 Otto von Königsmarck
1873–1886 William Barstow von Guenther
1886–1890 Robert Graf von Zedtlitz-Trützschler
1890–1899 Hugo Freiherr von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
1899–1903 Karl Julius Rudolf von Bitter
1903–1911 Wilhelm August Hans von Waldow-Reitzenstein
1911–1914 Philipp Schwartzkopff
1914–1918 Johann Karl Friedrich Moritz Ferdinand von Eisenhart-Rothe

Notable people

Notes

  1. ↑ The western fringes of Prussian Greater Poland remained in Germany after 1918. The area included all of county Skwierzyna and portions of counties Wschowa, Babimost, Międzyrzecz, Chodzież, Wieleń and Czarnków (Netzekreis). It contained 12 towns: Piła, Skwierzyna, Bledzew, Wschowa, Szlichtyngowa, Babimost, Kargowa, Międzyrzecz, Zbąszyń, Brójce, Trzciel and Trzcianka. The area was home to significant Polish minority.
  2. 1 2 Official German figures from 1910 fix the percent of Polish-speaking residents at 61.5%. According to historian Stanislas Kozicki, "Authoritative Polish statisticians reckon that, out of 141,000 persons inscribed as 'German Catholics ' in the census of 1910, half may be considered Poles. In this case, the Polish population would form 65 per cent."

References

  1. ↑ Brockhaus, Friedrich Arnold (1886). Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexikon: allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyklopädie [Brockhaus Conversation Lexicon] (in German). Vol. 13. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus. p. 207.
  2. ↑ Gilman, Daniel Coit, ed. (1905). The New International Encyclopaedia. Vol. 20. New York: Dodd, Mead. pp. 128–129.
  3. ↑ Chambers's Encyclopaedia. Vol. 7. London: W. and R. Chambers. 1874. p. 703.
  4. ↑ Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise And Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 410–411. ISBN 978-0-674-02385-7.
  5. ↑ Sprungala, Martin (2011). "Die Einführung der Distriktsämter in Posen und Westpreussen" [The Establishment of District Offices in Poznań and West Prussia]. Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (in German). Retrieved 22 August 2026.
  6. 1 2 Thun, Romedio Graf. "Polnischer Aufstand in Posen" [Polish Uprising in Posen]. Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (in German). Retrieved 22 August 2026.
  7. ↑ "Die Polendebatte in der Paulskirche" [The Poland Debate in St. Paul's Church]. Deutsche & Polen (in German). Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  8. ↑ Krische, Paul; Riemann, Karl (1907). Die Provinz Posen [The Province of Posen] (in German). Stassfurt: R. Weicke. pp. 42–43.
  9. ↑ "Provinz Posen" [The Province of Posen]. Deutsche Schutzgebiete (in German). Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  10. ↑ Pufelska, Agnieszka; Ackermann, Felix (9 January 2025). "Der andere Kolonialismus" [The Other Colonialism]. Le Monde diplomatique (in German). Retrieved 25 September 2026.
  11. ↑ Steinkühler, Martin (2001). "Die Bundesversammlung in Frankfurt/ Main erklärt Ost- und Westpreussen als nicht zum Deutschen Bund gehörend" [The Federal Assembly in Frankfurt am Main Declares that East and West Prussia Do Not Belong to the German Confederation]. Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (in German). Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  12. ↑ Clark 2006, p. 578.
  13. 1 2 3 Simon, Eduard (1888). Kaiser Wilhelm (I.) und sein Reich [Emperor William (I) and His Empire] (in German). Jena: H. Costenoble. p. 394.
  14. ↑ Clark 2006, pp. 578–579.
  15. ↑ Clark 2006, p. 579.
  16. 1 2 "'Verpreußung' – die Politik Preußens in den polnischen Territorien" ['Prussianization' – Prussia's Policies in the Polish Territories]. Preussen. Chronik eines deutschen Staates (in German). Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. 21 May 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2026.
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  18. ↑ Crankshaw, Edward (2011). Bismarck. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 1685–1686. ISBN 978-1-448-20487-8.
  19. ↑ Clark 2006, p. 579–580.
  20. ↑ Nelke, Reinhard. "Posen". www.preussenweb.de (in German). Retrieved 22 September 2026.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Wikisource This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Posen (province)". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  22. 1 2 Clark 2006, p. 580.
  23. 1 2 Sprungala, Martin (2011). "Die Königlich Preussische Ansiedlungskommission für Westpreussen und Posen" [The Royal Prussian Settlement Commission for West Prussia and Posen]. Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (in German). Retrieved 27 September 2026.
  24. ↑ Beryt, Heidi (2016). "Landeskunde Posen: "Poznań – Stadt mit polnischer und deutscher Tradition"" [Regional Studies: Poznań: “Poznań – A City with Polish and German Traditions”] (PDF). Polen in der Schule (in German). Retrieved 25 September 2026.
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  26. ↑ "Großpolnischer Aufstand" [Greater Poland Uprising 1918–1919]. Region Wielkopolska (in German). Retrieved 26 September 2026.
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  29. ↑ Treaty of Versailles/Part_III  – via Wikisource.
  30. ↑ von Unruh, Georg-Christoph. "Die Provinz Grenzmark Posen–Westpreußen" [The Province Frontier March Posen–West Prussia]. Heimatkreis Meseritz (in German). Retrieved 2026-10-08.
  31. 1 2 Porada, Haik Thomas (4 October 2021). "Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen" [March Posen-West Prussia]. Online-Lexikon zur Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa (in German). Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  32. ↑ "Die preußischen Provinzen und ihre Verfassungsordnung" [The Prussian Provinces and Their Constitutional Systems]. Verfassungen der Welt (in German). Retrieved 28 September 2026.
  33. ↑ Weinfeld, Ignacy (1925). Tablice statystyczne Polski: wydanie za rok 1924 [Poland's statistical tables: edition for year 1924] (in Polish). Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy "Bibljoteka Polska". p. 2. Archived from the original on 2018-12-25. Retrieved 2019-06-10.
  34. 1 2 Nadobnik, Marcin (1921). "Obszar i ludność b. dzielnicy pruskiej" [Area and population of former Prussian district]. Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny (in Polish). 1 (3). Poznań – via AMUR - Adam Mickiewicz University Repository.
  35. ↑ Radziwiłł, Anna; Roszkowski, Wojciech (1995). Historia 1789-1871 : podręcznik dla szkół średnich [History 1789–1871: A Textbook for High Schools] (in Polish). Warsaw: PWN Scientific Publishing House. p. 224.
  36. ↑ Hassel, Georg (1823). Statistischer Umriß der sämmtlichen europäischen und der vornehmsten außereuropäischen Staaten [A Statistical Overview of All European Countries and the Most Prominent Non-European Countries] (in German). Verlag des Geographischen Instituts Weimar. p. 43.
  37. ↑ Plater, Leon (1846). "Opisanie historyczno-statystyczne Wielkiego Księstwa Poznańskiego" [A Historical and Statistical Account of the Grand Duchy of Poznań]. Pan Biblioteka Kórnicka (in Polish). Jan N. Bobrowicz, Leipzig: 71.
  38. 1 2 3 Belzyt, Leszek (1998). Sprachliche Minderheiten im preußischen Staat 1815–1914 [Linguistic Minorities in the Prussian State, 1815–1914] (in German). Marburg: Herder-Institut. pp. 17f. ISBN 978-3-879-69267-5.
  39. ↑ Eddie, Scott M. (2004). "Ethno-nationality and property rights in land in Prussian Poland, 1886–1918, Buying the land from under the Poles' feet?". In Engerman, Stanley; Metzer, Jacob (eds.). Land Rights, Ethno-nationality and Sovereignty in History. Milton Park, UK: Taylor & Francis. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-203-07371-1.
  40. 1 2 Kozicki, Stanislas (1918). The Poles Under Prussian Rule. London: Polish Press Bureau. pp. 3–4.
  41. ↑ Rademacher, Michael. "Preussische Provinz Posen bis 1922" [Prussian Province of Posen Until 1922]. www.geschichte-on-demand.de (in German). Archived from the original on 2018-04-20. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
  42. ↑ Jehke, Rolf (20 November 2004). "Provinz (Großherzogtum) Posen" [Province (Grand Duchy) of Posen]. Territoriale Veränderungen in Deutschland und deutsch verwalteten Gebieten 1874 - 1945 (in German). Retrieved 2026-09-29.