Archaeology misused:
Polish-German dialogue in Greater Poland
in the period of developing nationalisms (1920-1956)

       In the Polish language there are a few words related to the concept of nation that are similar in form but different in meaning. These words are as follows: "naród" - nation, "narodowość" - nationality, "nacja" - old-fashioned for nation and "nacjonalizm" - nationalism. Naród is a separated ethnic community that is often organized in a state; naród is actually identical with the old Polish nacja of a Latin origin. The related narodowość is also a separated ethnic community, it does not however need to be a sovereign state. Love towards one's own country, towards the big state but also towards the small local fatherland is called patriotyzm - patriotism. The word nacjonalizm - nationalism has already a pejorative meaning and is understood as a degenerated form of patriotism. We refer to nationalism when an exceptional attention is paid to the nationality, superiority of a nation's interest is indicated over the interest of an individual or any other social group. Chauvinism is an extreme form of nationalism in which uncritical admiration of one's own nation is accompanied by a conviction of its superiority over any other nations and by hostility towards them (Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN 1996, p. 201).
       Elaborating on nationalism, that is on deformed patriotism, is extremely challenging, as it is often impossible to spot the borderline separating cases where it is still permissible to speak about the fight for just rights from cases where speaking about just rights has already chauvinistic grounds. Separating patriotism from nationalism is especially difficult in instances when an ethnic group is incorporated into a foreign state against its will, it is oppressed by that state, sometimes even exterminated, and the property of this ethnic group's members are transferred to members of some other ethnic group without any observance of their rights. How long are people allowed to feel hurt and miss after or for their Promised Land? What should be done if an ethnic group settles in a cradle of some state, grows bigger and stronger and after some time starts to demand e.g. sovereignty for themselves? These are issues that have not been answered so far.

       In order to understand the merits of the Polish-German conflict in years 1920-1956, one will need to go slightly back in time. In the end of the 18^th century Poland was partitioned by three neighboring countries. Greater Poland (or: Wielkopolska) became a part of Prussia (fig. 1). From that moment on Poles became a national minority in the Prussian state, being subject to increasing discrimination and trials of denationalization. It is Germans that were privileged in Greater  Poland,  supported  in the 19^th century by the

Prussian state by means of financial subsidies and developing education system, building temples, rendering offices available, creating chances of promotion in the army. The group of Germans was soon joined by the Greater Poland's Jews, who quickly surrendered to Germanization. The Poles from the Prussian partition were left alone in coping with this difficult situation, and so they handled the matters of economics and social life, but also organized secret lessons of writing and reading in the mother tongue (from year 1901). Because it was a nationality and not an individual social group that was oppressed, the Poles consolidated, and the up till then poorly developed national consciousness of the Polish peasantry found its firm grounds.
       On the turn of the 19^th century according to Greater Poles, a decent Pole was someone who felt Polish, did not surrender himself nor his family to Germanization, had a job and worked in an honest manner, remained sober and economical, purchased goods mainly from other Poles and thus supported the home economics, was a Catholic tied closely to his family and participated actively in Polish social organizations. Such an understanding was accompanied by ill-will towards Germans and Jews who were perceived as oppressors, which was not unjustified, but certainly not in all cases.
       On the other hand there was an ideal German living in Wielkopolska Province that was seen by German authorities as a Prussian subject who supported policies of the authorities, was a Protestant (possibly of Jewish faith), down to earth, surpassing Poles in terms of behavior and education as well as managerial abilities, a person actively engaged in Germanizing the country, participating in German organizations and avoiding any closer relations with Poles. Naturally, both representations were often only wishful thinking that had little in common with the reality.
       By the mid-eighties of the 19^th century ancient artifacts were generally considered to be traces from the Polish past - in the sense of today's cultural heritage of a given country. When in 1885 Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor commissioned a supervisor of the Bydgoszcz province to draw up a plan for accelerated Germanization of Greater Poland, the later, apart from setting up the Colonization Commission, pointed to the German inhabitants feeling strange. In reaction to this statement antiquity historians and archaeologists "Germanized" the province's past, convincing Germans into believing that their ancestors had inhabited the territory for ages. They referred to written sources, particularly by ancient authors, especially Tacitus, Jordanes and Plinius. Interpretations of vague data provided by Tacitus as alleged evidence of German ancestors being settled in Greater Poland met with protests of local Poles, too weak however to be convincing - there were no professional prehistorians in the region.

       For Europe, and particularly its central, eastern and partly southern parts, World War I caused by Austio-Hungary supported by Prussia, Bulgaria and Turkey (the central powers) brought by significant political changes. Foremost the Austrio-Hungarian Empire was dissolved and instead a number of national countries were established. Moreover the Russian Tsardom was abolished and in its place a multinational Bolshevik state was brought into existence. Also Poland regained its independence. Already the outbreak of the war made the Prussian authorities as well as the Germans living in Greater Poland gradually change their approach towards Poles so they would not decide to support the anti-German alliance. It was extremely crucial because in all three partitioning armies over half a million of soldiers were Polish. Naturally both sides of the conflict counted on Poles participating in their armies, therefore during the war a number of declarations were issued on establishing an independent Polish state in the future. On November 5, 1916 the central powers called into existence the satellite Polish Kingdom out of a part of the Polish territory annexed by Russia. On January 22, 1917, United States President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the right of national sovereignty and in his address he called for erecting a "united, independent and self-contained" Polish state. The Poles right of sovereign country was recognized also by Russia, and it is both by the Petrograd Council of Workmen's Delegates (March 27, 1917) and by the Temporary Government (March 30, 1917). Germans however put their efforts so that the possible reconstruction of Poland would not be at the cost of Prussia. In the end of 1918 in Poznań the Commission of German Unions issued the leaflet "Wohin gehört Posen?" (Where does Poznań belong to?) that read: "The Poznań Province is not a Polish piece of land but a country of German culture and customs. (...) It belongs to Germany in terms of economics and strategy." In November 1918 Ostmarkverein (Hakata) also made an address calling for cooperation of all Germans, "so that our old German eastern boundaries remain with the German nation, so that the local Germans are saved from foreign governments" (Grześ, Kozłowski, Kramski 1976, pp. 274-277, 300-301, 363). On November 11, 1918 the truce convention was signed and Greater Poland remained within the borders of Germany (Grześ, Kozłowski, Kramski 1976, p. 379), however on the turn of 1918 Poles living in Greater Poland rose up in arms and succeeded in the fight for freedom by force of arms.

       The Versailles Treaty settled down that the bigger part of Greater Poland was included in the Polish state. Poles, Germans and Jews were free to choose their citizenship, and also Germans and Jews could return without any restrictions to Germany and sell their real estates directly or using some help from Poland. On April 30, 1919 the Polish provincial authorities in Poznań officially assured the German inhabitants of Greater Poland about full equality of rights, freedom of religion and beliefs, access to state offices, freedom to maintain and develop the German language and national culture and protection of property (Grześ, Kozłowski, Kramski 1976, pp. 418-419). These solutions were not satisfactory to anyone.
       Whereas in 1919 in Poznań was inhabited by Germans and Jews in 42% (the Jews alone constituted app. 5,1%), in 1921 the two nationalities constituted only 5,5% of all inhabitants (Jakóbczyk 1998, pp. 798, 944). Although the Germans who decided to stay enjoyed liberties they had never awarded to Poles, they lost former privileges and became citizens not different from Poles, had to learn the despised Polish language to be able to communicate in offices and while travelling to Berlin, they needed passports. Therefore they called Poland a "season country" and demanded the borders be revised according to the state as of year 1914.
       Neither the Polish habitants of Wielkopolska Province were satisfied with the state of facts. They dismissed the idea that vast lands settled by the Polish majority were allowed to Germany, and this not only in Greater Poland, but also in Upper Silesia, all the more because the liberties awarded to Germans in Poland were not governed by the rule of mutuality. Any movements in that respect met with minimal reaction of the government in Warsaw. A classic example of carelessness about the Polish interests in the West sides is a village Kalina in the Piła region that under the Versailles Treaty was awarded to Poland and that was sold to Germany by the government of Poland for 50 thousand Marks (Grześ, Kozłowski, Kramski 1976, p. 425).

       As of 1919 some grounds of Polish institutional archaeology were being laid down. At that time Polish conservation services and university departments were established and the museum management was adjusted for changed conditions. The interwar period was however a challenging time for the state and the society. Attempts to merge the three parts of Poland from under the partition were not easy. Frictions could be observed between diverse interests and traditions, which were equally visible in the archaeology.

       In Poznań the new order in archaeology was organized foremost by Józef Kostrzewski (fig. 2). He was a typical "citizen of Greater Poland", a remarkable organizer used to creating necessary work tools without waiting for any official ordinances but hoping for settling the formalities later in the future. For Józef Kostrzewski the first years after World War I were the time of organizing and putting the prehistory in Poznań in order, and in the science in general the time of cultural systematizing of the Polish territories. In 1919 in Poznań there  were  two  museums  with   their  archeological

collections: the Polish (fig. 3), established in 1857 (in future Mielżynski Family Museum) and the Wielkopolskie Museum (founded in 1894 as a German Provinzialmuseum, and in 1904 renamed as Kaiser Friedrich Museum - fig. 4). The existence of two museums made sense as long as Greater Poland was a part of Prussia. After 1919 operations were carried out for combining the two collections which was finally achieved in 1924 as a new autonomous Prehistoric Department of the Wielkopolskie Museum was founded under the management of Józef Kostrzewski. At the same time Kostrzewski was one of the Poznań University founders, where starting of 1919 he took over the prehistoric department. Also the post of the prehistoric monuments conservator was established this year held in Greater Poland during the entire interwar period by Zygmunt Zakrzewski. Moreover in 1920 in Poznań Kostrzewski called the Polish Prehistoric Society into existence.

       Józef Kostrzewski quite quickly realized that method of identifying culture with ethnos (applied by Gustav Kossinna when supporting the thesis about the German origin of archeological cultures) can equally well speak for the Slavic origin of these cultures. Kostrzewski held in high respect all three pioneers of the method: Pič, Kossinna and Aaberg (Kostrzewski, after 1930). Therefore when criticizing the apparent clumsiness and incoherence of Kossinna'a thinking, Kostrzewski applied the method to support the Pre-Slavic origin of Lusatian culture - the theory promoted already in the 19^th century by southern-Slavic and Czech antiquity historians that was presented in Poznań already in 1886 by Klemens Koehler, a Polish archaeologist-amateur. The first note about the possibility of identifying the Lusatian culture with the Slavic ancestors Kostrzewski made public in Poznań in 1914 in a publication "Greater Poland in prehistoric times", although the same year he defended his doctor thesis "Die ostgermanische Kultur der Spätlatenezeit", which he then published in 1919. As the number of publications devoted to the Preslavic theory grew, he got involved in many more disputes with some German prehistorians, and most often with B. v. Richthofen. Kostrzewski expressed his attitude towards the polemics with German scientists in a leaflet from 1930 Vorgeschichtsforschung und Politik. Eine Antwort auf die Flugschrift von Dr. Bolko Frh. von Richthofen: Gehört Ostdeutschland zur Urheimat der Polen that he concluded with the statement: "we Poles do not need to make references to archaeological arguments as both the historic and ethnographic evidence speak to our advantage too explicitly. From the political point of view it might be indifferent to us what nationality were the prehistoric inhabitants of Poland or Eastern Germany at that time especially that at best these were German of Scandinavian origin and not ancestors of Germans. However as long as the German prehistorians will lodge claims for the Polish territory on the grounds of archaeological research, we will be forced to refute the attacks with scientific arms" (Kostrzewski 1970, pp. 166-171). This statement of Kostrzewski is a quite faithful reflection of his split-approach to archaeology characteristic to his entire heritage. When reading through his own and his co-workers' hand-written documentation (and these are thousands of documents), the Polish-German polemics as such does not actually appear in there. The Lusatian culture is generally called the Lusatian culture and very rarely the Pre-Slavic one. The letters surviving in MAP archives written by German scientists (e.g. E. Sprockhoff, E. Petersen, M. Jahn, La Baume, H. Jahnkuhn, G. Dorka, K. Langenheim, P. Paulsen, E. Nickel, H. Knorr) refer to the data exchange, requests for consultations or rendering the collections available. They rarely mention the ethnical identification such as "burgundy culture" in the letter by Dr. Schulz or Bohnsack from Königsberg, or a political demonstration (letter by G. Müller from Hamburg ends up with "Heil Hitler"). When the correspondence is compared for example with the documentation of a dispute between Kostrzewski and bishop Antoni Laubitz concerning the architectural excavation in Gniezno, which is full of emotions, then the "German mail" is an unattainable model of fruitful negotiations filled with respect. Analogically, in the majority of scientific publications by both Kostrzewski and his students there are no political allusions, or they are hid in statements relating to borders of Poland (Kostrzewski 1970, p. 130).

       The disputes look differently when we look into the journalistic activity of Kostrzewski or into his petitions for subsidies addressed to authorities. Here the polemics with Germans, perceived as "refuting unjustified German claims", was carried out in a similar method and style as by German researchers (Kostrzewski 1970, p. 121). He went into polemics with German archaeologists explaining some

evident examples of nonsense included in papers by e.g. Franz v. Wendrin who wrote about Germans living in the Tertiary period, German king, Thorson who allegedly had founded all cities in Poland already 200 000 years ago or about Christ, the German king, or Ernst Petersen (fig. 5) who claimed the Lech tribe on Silesia in Medieval Times (Kostrzewski 1970, pp. 121, 187). It is worth remembering that Józef Kostrzewski conducted the policy of Greater Poland that was barely supported by the state government - on the contrary to his German colleagues who had the full support of their state authorities.

       An exemplary archaeological site, the research results of which were abused, was Biskupin (fig. 6). The site was discovered in 1933 by Walenty Schweitzer and then researched for many years under Kostrzewski's supervision (fig. 7). The research was accompanied by propaganda, but as it seems now the Biskupin propaganda was mostly about advertising the archaeology in order to receive funds for further research and to show archaeology as a serious discipline of science  that  is  worth  of  such  support  (fig. 8, 9).  Moreover  the  promotion  of

Biskupin together with an appropriate national propaganda (identifying the Lusatian culture with ethnos - the Slavic ancestors) met the social demand and efficiently popularized the archaeology as a scientific discipline and this was what the Polish archaeologists needed at that time. Archaeology gave Greater Poles, tired with the over-hundred fighting against Germanization, a feeling of stability - we have been here for ages; not only for the last one and a half thousands years, but "for ever". In exchange for the subsidies the authorities expected some "practical" results, so when Kostrzewski filed with the National Culture Fund for a subsidy for works in Biskupin, he supported his request as "refuting the unjustified claims of the German scientists concerning the ethnographical relations in prehistoric Poland on the basis of which The German scientists attempted to question Greater Poland belonging to the Polish state" (UAM A-969).

       In 1939 Germany attacked Poland and thus began World War II. In result of some military activity Greater Poland was annexed to Germany as Warthegau, although the borders between the Old and New Germany. Scientific and cultural institutions were taken over by German authorities that staffed them with Germans. Poles could work in them only at the lowest posts - as cleaning persons, janitors or drivers. The Wielkopolskie Museum regained its original name: Kaiser Friedrich Museum.
       The occupation of Poland by the German army closed a particular stage in the history of Germany. The German society frustrated with losing WWI and many territories as the result of the war, and also with the later economical crisis, began in the thirties to listen to nationalistic slogans with attention greater than whenever and wherever before. According to Adolf Hitler, Slavs as the "inferior people" on the territory of Germany may at best serve the other and outside they were allowed to manage by themselves, provided they recognize the German superiority.
       When founding the grounds for their ideology, national socialists also took it down to prehistoric times. Already on May 9, 1933 the interior minister, dr. Trick stated that "the prehistory plays a prime role in teaching, as it takes the beginnings of the Central-European cradle of the German nation back in time; it is a superbly national discipline of science" (Kostrzewski 1934, pp. 57-60). And this is how the archaeology was boiled down to proving "scientifically" the superiority of the "German race" over other races. The strong political stream present in the German archaeology already from the 19th century fostered the popularization of the national socialism among archaeologists, all the more because after Hitler came to power, he offered jobs to all unemployed prehistorians, provided they joined NSDAP, SS or at least Deutsche Arbeitsfront. In the Scientific archive MAP a prewar film commentary can be found reading, "inequality of human races is an order intended by the God. As the contemporary society aims at selecting the races, there is an obligation to examine which anthropological and psychological features characterize the German race. (…) The Northern races left some unforgettable traces of their high culture, language, management abilities, political and leadership talents". (…) Settled at first by Germans (Goths, Burgunds and Vandals), lands in the east were left by these tribes in the period of migration movements. (…) After the Slavs entered the abandoned lands, Germans were trying to make up the losses for many centuries." Completion of this historical mission fell to the lot of the national socialists (MAP A-dz-52/5).
       Before the outbreak of the war, archaeologists were prepared for plundering any cultural goods on the territories intended for conquering, and for an ideological war. SS supervised all the activities by means of organizing special excavation divisions and units designated for looting architectural monuments on the conquered lands, and many others. An institution called Ahnenerbe RFSS directed by A. Rosenberg played a vital role. It organized offices that were responsible for taking the possession of cultural goods on conquered territories for the benefit of the Reich and for steering the cultural politics and managing various cultural institutions. Each time Germans invaded a country, in the second front line there were SS divisions specializing in confiscating any historical objects and other valuable items, accompanied by workers of the Trust Office assigned to administer the conquered territory.

       It was not much different in case of Poland. In Poznań the German Landeshauptmann took over the Prehistoric Division of the Wielkopolskie Museum, renamed to Kaiser Friedrich Museum. Its Polish employers lost their jobs or decided to leave them out of caution. Taken over were also all buildings of the university. In the end of 1939 professor Hans Schleiff came to Poznań who was appointed Der Generaltreuhändler für die Sicherstellung deutschen Kulturgutes in den ehemals polnischen Gebieten, Treuhandstelle Posen (the main administrator for matters related to securing German cultural goods on the former territory of Poland; administrative center in Poznań). He drew up a project for planned plundering of cultural goods and for introducing new structures to museum management and historical sites and objects protection. In keeping with the project's guidelines in 1940 the Prehistoric Department was turned into an office. It was called Landesamt für Vorgeschichte (LfV) and carried out conservatory services and excavation works. It supervised its affiliates among others in Łódź and Kalisz. The office's main assignment for the years to come was to "Germanize the collections" which should be understood as organizing them according to some applicable German regulations. The post of the Monuments Conservator was appointed, and when in 1941 the Reichsuniversität was founded, Professor Ernst Petersen (fig. 5) directed the prehistoric department.
       In 1940 Freiherr Wolf von Seefeld (fig. 10) was employed in the LfV. On November 5, 1940 Walter Kersten (fig. 11), "an old comrade" who took care of Rhineland, Saxony and Greece, became the director of LfV, which was strictly dependent on the authorities of Warthegau. Among other archaeologists employed in LfV worth mentioning were Günter Thärigen and Elisabeth Schlicht, and an excavation technician Gustav Mazanetz. Some Poles were employed there as well, including a few persons from Józef Kostrzewski's staff - Władysław Maciejewski and Aleksander Waligórski.

       For all German employees lesson of the Polish language were organized; there are still class works available with propaganda texts for translation (MAP A-dz-62/12). Due to the obligation to systematize the materials no archeological research was planned other than intervention works. The settlement of Biskupin was an exception from this rule, the research of which was lead by an SS excavation unit. A yearbook Posener Jahrbuch für Vorgeschichte was founded, discoveries were exchanged so that they were stored at the site of the discovery, and centralization of monuments and books' collections was continued by means of  plundering  the  Polish  resources.  Al l documents,  the  yearbook  and  press

releases are simply full of propaganda (fig. 12). The activity included: contacting schools and organizations, guiding around the exhibitions, delivering speeches and lectures, publishing results of archeological excavation and intervention works in press. When in 1942 a reference book on Poznań was released (Klock 1942, p. 5), the city was described as the "uralten deutschen Vorburg im Osten" (ancient German burg in the east).

       Another assignment not related to a scientific research was an obligation to write memoirs from war. The LfV workers who fought in the front took down their experiences so they could be published in a special "book of heroes". As the war extended in time and became truly cruel, more "heroes" (MAP A-dz-47/5) had a chance to draft their own picturesque stories. Memories of soldiers, full of vivid descriptions of lice, ulcers, diseases, mud, vodka, museum, monuments and never-ending victories were a source of admiration of men and women left at the museum.
       Another institution that dealt with archaeology during the WWII was the Institut für Vorgeschichte (opened on April 24, 1941). Professor Ernst Petersen (fig. 5) was the manager, but his presence there was only occasional as he occupied himself mainly with training of the SS front divisions. A substitute teacher, Professor M. Jahn from Wrocław, delivered lectures in the Institute instead. After the death of Petersen in March 1944 Jahn became the head of the prehistoric department. The Institute was busy finding evidence of the "German nature" of Greater Poland, which can be supported by some exemplary titles of lectures: Introduction to early days of Warthegau, Migration of people and Vikings on the territories to the east from the Elbe river, The culture of facial urns and the Lusatian culture; the urns' holders fighting for the German east. During a few operational years of the Institute a dozen or so students learned there and in general the Institute did not play any significant roles.
       The German archaeologists working in the war-time Poznań were mainly ardent advocates of national socialism (surely with the exception of T. E. Haevernick). In his letter to Kurt Langenheim, Walter Kersten (fig. 11) expressed a belief that in Warthegau the Polish language and Poles are doomed to extinction. Extermination or resettling of Poles, although unpleasant, was entirely justified. Considering himself a humanist, Kersten was prone to reach a compromise on the territory of General Gubernia where only the intelligence was to be exterminated and the living standard of poorly educated people elevated so that they could be won for the national socialism (MAP A-dz- 52/4). Kersten's remarks clearly show what the humanism was about in the national-socialist version.
       Until the beginning of 1943 the archaeologists' enthusiasm relating to military victories remained immense. "I was in Słupca… We are going to celebrate the peace there (I hope)" - (MAP-A-dz-47/5) this is how on August 31, 1942 Kersten made an appointment with W. von Seefeld, at that time in the front (Kersten died on April 7, 1944 south of Psków: MAP-A-dz-47/1). In 1944 in the Poznań LfV there were only women and Poles left, and the employees received no leaves and participated in self-defense, sanitary, fire-protection and many other courses. The affiliates in Łódź and Kalisz were closed, but the intervention works were still carried out. In the end of 1944 some LfV workers attempted to leave Poznań and head for the west (MAP A-dz-49/3), majority however evacuated with other officials in the beginning of 1945. Already in mid-December 1944 the premises of LfV were taken over by uniform service Waffen SS and the soldiers staying there ended up destroying partly the buildings and collections (Kostrzewski 1970, pp. 249-250).

       The war was finally finished but the consequences were disastrous not only for German archaeologists, but mainly for Polish ones. Gone were the followers of Józef Kostrzewski: Jacek Delekta (died in Oświęcim), Zdzisław Durczewski (murdered in Warsaw), and his students: Szubert (killed in 1939), Wydra (killed in the Warsaw Uprising), Łukasiewicz (died in Oświęcim) and others including one of Kostrzewski's sons. When all Polish archaeologists are counted that were professionally active in the prewar period, one fourth of them did not survive the war (11 persons); the next 7 did not return to the country.
       In order to defeat Hitler, the anti-Hitler coalition was forced to enter into an alliance with Stalin. In 1944 it was clearly visible that it was mainly Stalin who would decide about the future of the Central and Eastern Europe. Due to Stalin's intervention Poland as the only state of the anti-Hitler coalition lost a considerable part of land in the East. In the end on the Jalta and Potsdam Conferences it was determined that the loss would be compensated with some territory along the Oder and the Lusatian Nysa including Szczecin and with a part of Eastern Prussia. Nevertheless the territory of Poland was decreased and it by as much as one fourth. Pursuant to the decision by the anti-Hitler coalition Germans were resettled from the territories awarded to Poland and from Sudety Mountains within the borders of Czecho-Slovakia. Poles from the Eastern parts of the country taken from Poland could leave for Poland and then they were settled on the newly annexed lands in the West and North. For many years to follow, the re-settlers lived with a conviction of a personal injustice. Many Germans demanded a few times the borders to be revised - and this according to the state of year 1937.

       Already in 1944, being aware of the planned territorial changes, a group of Polish scientists coming from different regions (including Greater Poland) who stayed in Kraków under compulsion specified a goal for themselves. They wanted to prepare a scientific background for these changes and to make the Polish citizens aware of their rights to these territories. In December 1944 historians: Zygmunt Wojciechowski, Maria Kiełczewska and Jan Zdzitowiecki founded the Institute for Western Affairs, which was a research and development station focused on the entire aspect of Polish-German relations. Following the liberation, Poznań was supposed to be its place of residence as the most natural environment due to its traditions and geographical location (Bilans I roku… 1946, pp. 291-295, Z życia IZ 1947, pp. 362-376, Pollak 1955, pp. 469-472). Having received the Prime Minister's approval in February 1945, the Institute started its legitimate operation (Bilans I roku… 1946, pp. 291-295). Its charter read: "The aim of the Institute is to examine the integral relations between Slavic countries, and particularly Poland, with Germany; their course, lands that constitute their territories and peoples living there". The Institute aimed at providing Polish schools and society with necessary material - decent and honest information about the Polish origins of recently recovered lands (Bilans I roku… 1946, pp. 291-295). In its first years the Institute incorporated also the archaeologists. On May 12-18, 1947 in Osieczna an informative course on the Recovered Lands took place for educational workers from the Western and Northern Poland. W. Hensel delivered a speech there (Z życia IZ 1947, p. 586) on the ancient times of the lands. Generally, all the numerous papers published by the Institute for Western Affairs were to make Poles more familiar with the Recovered Lands, which was the case with a linguistic paper by Lehr-Spławiński "About the origins and prehistoric father land of Slavs" (Bilans I roku… 1946, pp. 291-295) or a paper by Kostrzewski "Pre-Polish culture".

       The Institute for Western Affairs was not the only institution concerned with integrating the western lands with the rest of Poland. Having returned to Poznań already on March 3, 1945 (Kostrzewski 1970, pp. 245-246), Kostrzewski immediately got down to reconstructing the Poznań archaeology. At first he occupied himself with renovating the building of the museum and with recovering various collections taken away to towns around Greater Poland but also to a salt mine in Grassleben in Brunswick. On the other hand being almost entirely destructed, the University Institute of Prehistory had to start from the beginning. Kostrzewski developed a vivid style of work, focusing on three main tasks: reconstruction of archeological institutions, obligations of a conservator, and participation in site planning of the Recovered Lands. The Museum remained independent - it was now called Prehistoric. The museum building became home also to two university departments: the Institute of Prehistory and the Institute for Slav Antiquity Research in operation between 1945 and 1950. The later took over the excavation works in Biskupin. In 1945 the Polish Prehistoric Society was reactivated.
       Having assumed that all archeological monuments are "ours" irrespective of the nationality, which was a type of thinking characteristic to the Poznań archaeologists already in the 19^th century, in the first postwar years Józef Kostrzewski took under his conservator's wings the territory of the then Poznań province which covered areas up to the Oder and the West Pomerania. He was mostly interested in "rubbled museums" and mansions left behind by Germans that were constantly robbed. And so he took all that to Poznań, declaring a return as soon as new, appropriately staffed museums are founded in Pomerania (MAP A-dz-80/3). Naturally it was only possible for a small part of all collections - Stafiński, a coworker of Kostrzewski, estimated that 70% of regional museums collections were stolen or destroyed by newcomers (MAP A-dz-80/3).
       The third field of Professor's activity covered his participation in the cultural planning for the "Recovered Lands". Apart from the salvation action, the director of the Prehistoric Museum launched a popularization program on prehistoric times of Greater Poland and the Recovered Lands. His first lecture on the archaeology of Pomerania (PAN A-JK-106) he delivered already in April 1945. Next lectures followed and the Prehistoric Museum organized temporary exhibitions on prehistoric times of Lubuskie Land (MAP A-dz-80/2). In 1945 the castle in Poznań presented archaeology on an exhibition organized by the Polish Western Society, Poznań District, which was devoted to the fight against the German rule and which showed the Western Lands (MAP A-dz-82/1). On the turn of February 1946 the Wielkopolskie Museum organized a series of lectures on prehistoric times of Slavic nations and Poland (MAP A-dz-80/1). Moreover, cooperation developed with such institutions and organizations as provincial governments, forest inspectorates, local units of information and propaganda and the Monuments Protection Department. In 1946 Professor Kostrzewski cooperated with the Editors of the Polish Atlas residing at the Measurements Main Office. The Editors were preparing the so-called small atlas in relation to the Peace Conference (MAP A-dz-82/3).
       Naturally, as years passed by, the stress put on fighting against Germans became weaker and the celebrations related to 1000 years of the Polish state became more significant (the anniversary was in 1966). Poland fell within the reach of the Soviet Union's policy, which for humanities meant nothing else but introducing Marxism as the methodological basis. On no account was Kostrzewski able to popularize Marxism, so in spite of the entire recognition the authorities had for his Pre-Slavic theory, he was made to retire from the university but remained the director of the Museum. In reaction to attempts to centralize the archaeology and to transferring the control center to Warsaw as well as establishing the German Democratic Republic, the Poznań-German polemics became weaker and when they happened, they were always approved by Warsaw. Therefore as it seems to the authors of this paper, the main stream of Poznań habitants fighting for the western lands ended rather in the beginning of the 1950s and not in 1956.

       When in polemics with German archaeologists, Józef Kostrzewski applied a similar style and the same ethnographical method, but the sense was different.
       Kossina dared to use such statements as: "For Germans, who always, and even more in a time of war, have a strong desire of law and order, they [Slavs] were just objects of abhorrence and atrocity" (Kostrzewski 1970, pp. 154-155). At the same time Kostrzewski would compare migration of Germans to the movement of Gypsies (Kostrzewski 1970, p. 155) - a comparison seemed offensive to Germans but only because of their belief in the race theories fashionable at that time. Professor also reminded that although there is a German minority in Poznań, it does not signify that it is a German country, to the same extent as the German Westfalia cannot be Polish only because a quarter of a million of Poles live there (Kostrzewski 1970, p. 113).
       Both Poles and Germans were legitimate to express their opinion on lands with mixed ethnic origins such as Silesia or Pomerania. No wonder both sides reached to historical arguments, however those were possible to prove only as far in the past as by medieval times. When research is made deeper in time, where reconstruction of the past is only hypothetical, conclusions are already abusing the rules of science. When a side to a dispute presents racial arguments to support extermination of a particular group of people, we can call it a crime.
       In case of Kostrzewski we talk about using the hypothesis about the Preslavic origins of the Lusatian culture to support the rights to land, and this only in journalistic and not strictly scientific texts. The style of his argumentation was strongly influenced by his explosive temper, which resulted in numerous arbitration commissions and court cases where he was either the insulting or the insulted party. The main goal of the Polish-German polemics was to prove the rights to the disputable lands that "always were and will be ours". Kostrzewski had an easier task here as without any trouble he could show that Poles and not Germans were first to live on the territory of both Silesia and Pomerania. In the end it was the politics and not history that decided about the shape of borders of our countries.
       In one more thing Germans and Poles could not agree. When the German scientists put forward a hypothesis about historical rights of Germans to Greater Poland, after a few dozens of years all graduates from German elementary schools in the Poznań province knew that they live on the piece of land that historically could belong to them. After the war attempts were made to teach some prehistory in Polish schools, but not for too long. Connections between Poland and the Recovered Lands were convincing only to those settlers who came from Greater Poland. For families coming from the east the Masurians and Silesians who spoke a dialect filled with German vocabulary were the "natives", understood as Germans, a strange element. Misunderstandings between the two groups lead to emigration of many natives.
       Recently the concept of Pre-Slavic origins developed by Józef Kostrzewski is being criticized ever stronger, particularly by the Polish archaeologists majoring in the period of Roman influences. However, the opponents have not developed their own research method but returned to the classic methods of Gustav Kossinna, also in terms of the style of vivid polemics with skeptics who doubt in the possibility to specify the ethnos of the archeological culture exclusively on the basis of discovered objects. And so the mystery of the Slavs' origin is still waiting for new concepts.