Bismarck signed an informal alliance aimed at creating better cooperation between Poland and Germany and by the end of his power, the effort to “Germanize” Poles as a method of maintaining government order had pretty much died out. Some in the German Lutheran minority of Greater Poland feared the Bismarck’s concessions would lead to the Polish Catholic clergy gaining too much power over their lives. The Ostmarkenverein, or German Eastern Marches Society, was formed in response and only had 21,000 members by 1901, and 48,000 at its height in 1913. The raganization also opposed any immigration of Poles from the Russian reaches into the area for fear that jobs for the Germans would be lost.

In the period 1870-91, great waves of Russian Poles had emigrated into Germany. They were fleeing from the Russification policies in place in their homeland. In Polish Russia after 1864, even elementary education was in Russian and private education in Polish was forbidden. If young Polish men failed to pass Russian High School exams, they were not allowed into the civil service jobs or universities in the Russian Empire and were usually conscripted into the Russian army. Warsaw University became a Russian university in 1869, and its administration was Russian, as was the language of the judicial system. All street names had to be in Russian. While Polish newspapers, plays, periodicals and books could be published, they were subject to strict censorship. The Russian Empire was the only market for 72% of Russian Poland’s thriving textile industry, but after 1890 tariffs were introduced to protect Russian textile industry, which hurt the economy of Russian Poland. Classes in subjects such as Polish History and Literature were forbidden from the 1880s to 1914 and were available only in underground groups called “Flying Universities” because they moved from place to place to avoid detection by the Russian authorities.

In contrast, two Polish universities in Austrian Poland were in Krakow and Lwow [Lviv] and the only center of Polish culture for a time was in Austrian Poland, or Galicia. After Austria’s defeat by Prussia in 1866, Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph agreed to a “Compromise” which created Austria-Hungary, giving Hungary self-government and equal status with Austria. Polish nobles of Galicia were rewarded for their loyalty to him by being granted home rule, although without the same status as Hungary. The provincial legislature was located in Lwow (Lemberg).

Even though students were required to learn German as a second language in middle school and high schools, Polish became the language of education. The universities in Cracow and Lwow could now become Polish, and the Polish Academy of Sciences was founded in 1869 out of Cracow. The atmosphere in Galicia allowed for the development of Polish art, literature, theater, and university studies. Polish deputies formed An influential “Polish Circle” in the federal parliament was formed by Polish deputies who worked from Vienna on behalf of Polish interests and they were much more effective in Vienna than their peers both in the German parliament in Berlin and in the Russian “Duma” which began to function in 1906.

Others who joined the Ostmarkenverein were landowners and businessmen with financial concerns and others who worried about a loss of their own cultural identity, as it was generally feared that the Poles would have to be Germanized or the Germans would end up being Polonized. The movement had its zealots, however, like any other nationalistic organization and had its counterparts in Poland!

It supported the creation of a commission to buy land from the Poles and redistribute it among German settlers, eventually becoming a rather nasty vehicle by which Polish property owners could be evicted and their land taken by eminent domain. Called “the Exceptional Laws,” these measures provoked widespread Polish resistance and therefore the spread of national consciousness on all levels of Polish society in Prussian Poland. The Polish National Democratic Party, which saw Germany as the Poles’ biggest enemy, had it largest following in Prussian Poland. These laws had the undesired result of making the Poles more nationalistic, not less.

Moreover, this attack on private property rights did not agree with the Prussian aristocracy either, as they feared losing their traditional Polish labor force and farmworkers. Lastly, the Germans who were settled in these regions by the Ostmarkenverein found themselves socializing and amicably dealing with (and even marrying) their Polish neighbors and they soon either ignored and even opposed the ideas of the society. In its 27 years of life, the Settlement Commission of the Ostmarkenverein succeeded in relocating only 25,000 German families to land in Greater Poland and Pomerania, while in reaction, similar Polish societies managed to plunk 35,000 new Polish farmers in the same amount of land! In any case, the Allies exaggerated its size, its importance and its popularity within Germany and it therefore provided fodder for First World War Allied propaganda aimed at making Germany seem “expansionistic.” The Society was shut down in 1934.