Treaties and The Creation of Poland
A number of treaties were concluded with various states, including Switzerland, the United States, Italy, Latvia, and Finland. Most were economic in character, and served to clear away the debris left by the war. The extension of the Russo-German Treaty of Rapallo to the Soviet republics federated with Russia took place as a matter of course, and aroused no attention.
The Second Polish Republic and Germany made good progress towards coming to terms on the question of Upper Silesia. Through the mediation of the Swiss deputy Felix Calonder, the two countries came to an agreement in April. The agreement was designed to last fifteen years, which gave prospect of a lasting settlement. The most difficult questions were those of the protection of minorities, and of German private property liquidation in the portions of Upper Silesia assigned to Poland. Difficulties arose when Poland claimed an unrestricted right of liquidation, and failed to recognize the right of the chairman of the Mixed Commission to arbitrate. A compromise was reached, in which Poland gained a limited right of liquidation, without inflicting too great a hardship on the German owners.
On July 17, the transfer to Poland of the parts of Upper Silesia assigned to her commenced. At the same time, large portions of the population moved from newly-Polish districts into the parts that remained German. A few weeks later, the German districts voted on whether they should become an autonomous federated state, or remain incorporated with Prussia. The result was: 513,126 votes for Prussia, 50,400 for autonomy. It was now possible to hold the elections to the Reichstag (institution) and the Prussian Landtag which had been postponed on account of the occupation. They ended unfavourably for the Poles, who won no seat out of five in the Reichstag, and only one out of eight in the Landtag.
Great dissatisfaction arose in Germany in response to the fate of five villages on the east bank of the Vistula. These villages had formerly belonged to West Prussia, were inhabited almost entirely by Germans, and had voted to remain in Germany in the East Prussian plebiscite. The boundary commission nevertheless assigned them to the Polish Corridor, in spite of protests by the inhabitants, the Reichstag, and the Prussian Landtag. The Prussian premier Otto Braun emphatically stigmatized this decision as a "scandalous breach of the peace of Versailles". The protest was so effective that the execution of the decision was postponed and had not yet been carried out at the end of the year.
Read more about this topic: 1922 In Germany
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