How did communist authorities decide who is "German" and who is "Polish" when expelling Germans from recovered territories?

Question

It is a well known fact that Poland won a lot of territory over Germany after WWII, and that German people were expelled, and the place was re-settled with ethnically Poles. What is less known is how they decided who counts as a German and who counts as a Pole.

The region being originally Polish but having gone through years of germanisation, especially during the XIXth century, many people living there would have a multicultural German/Polish identity. In the region a variety of dialects were spoken, and it was not clear if a dialect would be a Slavic influenced German dialect or a German influenced Slavic dialect, neededless to say the debate is more political than ethno-linguistical

Wikipedia says:

Historian John Kulczycki argues that the Communist authorities discovered that forging an ethnically homogenous Poland in the Recovered Territories was quite complicated, for it was difficult to differentiate German speakers who were "really" Polish and those who were not. The government used criteria that involved explicit links to Polish ethnicity, as well the person's conduct. Local verification commissions had wide latitude in determining who was or was not Polish and should remain.

However it would be nice to have more/better info about how they decided whenever a particular bunch of individuals are "Poles" or "Germans".

Side question: Names could play a major role in such a settlement, but what about polonized German names (for example, Szuter), or germanized slavic names (for example, Lukasewitz)? Or people having a German given name and a Slavic family name, or vice-versa?

Answer 1

The answer is based on my talks with people of Polish origins in East Prussia and Upper Silesia and might not represent all the cases. I also do understand the answer does not cite any sources.

Since about late 1944 it was clear that the territories west of Poznań and Łódź are going to be in Poland. The Allied forces which were present in Western (of 1939) Poland were:

• the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), which was considered by Soviets an enemy. The Home Army did not perform any major actions (except for some espionage) west of the border and I will not consider it below,
• Soviet forces (mainly 1st Belorussian Front, including 1st Polish Army, and 1st Ukrainian Front, in which there was 2nd Polish Army.)

During the liberation of Poland all AK forces were eliminated, both physically, or just wiped off to forests, etc. Of course at first the administration were conducted by military (Soviet and People's Poland), then civilians. The civil administration were backed by at first NKVD, but later replaced with Militia forces, and KBW, having Polish personnel.

The tasks of these de-facto military organizations were to suppress any "reactive movements" ie. all activity leading to re-establishment of pre-war capitalist system. They performed the same tasks in the Recovered Territories.

It became clear (in late 1944) that the Soviet Army is too strong to be stopped by Germans, which was met with mixed feelings in Poland, but mainly people were happy the war would end at last. There was a faith that Western Powers will help to keep democracy.

The Polish in Third Reich were clearly happy seeing liberating forces approaching, as they did not know everything about repressions of a new regime (repressions were mostly hidden in Poland itself). The German administration was ruined and many people tried to escape or save their possessions.

The Polish were not afraid of Russians, and of course both Polish armies. So when Allies entered, the Polish stopped hiding and began to co-operate and help. Soon it became clear who was Polish and who was not. The Polish administration knew these people. They were not high-class persons, and rarely middle-class (eg. teachers, doctors, engineers etc.); mainly they were peasants and workers, and as such not enemies of Soviet/Polish administration. Many of them have risen to became mayors or other officials. And they also knew one another; they knew personally who was German and who was Polish. If they didn't, they could easily recognize Germans by their fashion, behaviour (Germans were afraid of some kind of revenge and now they were trying to hide), way of speaking, what they had at home (like photographs of male relatives in Wehrmacht uniforms). If there were Germans disguised as Polish, they were easily recognizable. It is difficult for Germans to speak Polish without a strange accent (it was easily recognizable even for a Russian officer). It is difficult to pronounce clearly things which every Pole could (like a prayer, Mickiewicz rhymes, etc.). Please also note that German administration was known for their meticulous record-keeping. Anyone who wanted to prove their ownership of a building, shop, or land, needed to keep their own identity and thus couldn't just pretend to be Polish.

The names were also a clue, but not always decisive. There were Polish-German intermarriages. A few years ago I met professor Ulrich Schrade. He was from East Prussia and was born in Polish family. Both first and last names are German (the first name should be "Ulryk" in Polish, but it is very rare name). I did ask him if he was German (he spoke Polish fluently) and he said that he always was Polish, but it was common to give children German names even among Poles. So names did not matter in many cases (also some Polish could be traitors).

So answering shortly: the Germans wanted to be known to be Germans because they believed they would be allowed to keep their property. The ones who wanted to hide were easily unveiled the same way as we do recognize foreigners.

Eventually they lost everything, but it was too late to hide, and in fact they had no reason to stay other than sentiment for their local homeland (Heimat).

Answer 2

In most cases it was regional. Entire towns and provinces were expelled if they were German. When you are expelling hundreds of thousands of people at once, you don't have the time to be going person by person. You just ship out the whole county.

In cases where population was mixed, the name would usually indicate whether the person was German or Polish. If the person had no papers or otherwise verifiable name, a Polish interrogator would simply determine what you were.

Of course, I suppose a German who could speak Polish fluently and tell a believable story might be able to convince a Pole that he was Polish, but those were probably exceptional cases, not the norm.