Prussian Partition & Kulturkampf

The unified German nation-state (1871–1918) and the unification that built it.

1 chapter

1466 - 1772

The Second Peace of Thorn (1466) transferred Pomerelia to the Polish Crown as Royal Prussia—an autonomous province with its own diet and significant German-urban, Polish-noble, and Kashubian-peasant layers. The Gdańsk Crane (built 1442-44) symbolized the city's commercial power under Polish sovereignty. Jakub Wejher founded Wejherowo (1643) and its Kalwaria Wejherowska (1646-55), a Calvary shrine complex that became known as 'Kashubian Jerusalem' and anchored a local pilgrimage route. The Norbertine nuns at Żukowo maintained an embroidery school whose seven-color patterns would later become the most recognizable marker of Kashubian identity. Marian fairs at Sianowo continued to draw Kashubian pilgrims twice yearly, blending Catholic devotion with community markets and seasonal gathering patterns that predated any political border.

1918 - 1939

The Treaty of Versailles created the Free City of Danzig (1920-1939), a semi-autonomous city-state under League of Nations oversight with a 95% German population but surrounded by the Polish Corridor. Kashubian villages found themselves straddling the Free City border and the Polish state, their communities split by an international frontier. The Polish Post Office in Gdańsk became a symbol of Polish sovereignty within the Free City—its 1939 defense by Polish postal workers against the SS is commemorated today. The Gdańsk Shipyard, established in this period, would later become the birthplace of Solidarity. Dr. Aleksander Majkowski, a Young Kashubian intellectual, published the Kashubian-language novel 'Żëcé i przigodë' (Life and Adventures of Remus) in 1938, asserting a distinct Kashubian literary identity. In rural Kashubia, the Marian fairs at Sianowo and Swarzewo continued as community anchor points, while the ethnographic museum at Wdzydze Kiszewskie (founded 1906) began collecting material culture that would later freeze dynamic traditions into heritage displays.

1308 - 1466

The Teutonic Order seized Gdańsk in 1308, massacring its Polish population and establishing a crusader-state regime that lasted until 1466. Malbork Castle (Marienburg) became the Order's headquarters and the largest brick fortress in Europe—now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Under Teutonic rule, Gdańsk (Danzig) joined the Hanseatic League, and its merchant guild hall (Artus Court, built 1348-50) embodied the urban trading culture that linked Pomerania to the Baltic world. St Mary's Church (c. 1343-1502), the largest brick church in the world, rose as a statement of both civic and spiritual ambition. For Kashubian-speaking rural communities, the Teutonic period meant manorial obligations and parish reorganization, but Marian pilgrimage patterns at Sianowo persisted beneath the surface of the new ecclesiastical structure.

1939 - 1945

The Nazi invasion of September 1939 brought immediate terror to Pomerania. The Intelligenzaktion and Piaśnica massacres (1939-40) killed 12,000-14,000 Polish and Kashubian intellectuals, priests, teachers, and community leaders—deliberately decapitating cultural leadership. Kashubians were coercively classified under the Deutsche Volksliste: Category III (Eingedeutschte—'Germanized') was applied to most Kashubians, meaning refusal could mean deportation to a concentration camp while acceptance meant conscription into the German army. This triple squeeze—Nazi coercion, post-war Polish suspicion of Volksliste signers, and family silence—created a trauma gap in oral tradition that makes WWII-era festival history particularly difficult to document. The Piaśnica forest near Wejherowo is now a memorial site where mass graves were uncovered. The Przebendowski Palace in Wejherowo houses a museum that documents both the Kashubian-Pomeranian literary tradition and the wartime destruction.