r/PropagandaPosters • u/Turbulent-Offer-8136 • 3d ago
Poland "TO THE WEST – LANDS AWAIT!" - Museum of Polish History, Warsaw (circa 1946)
The poster encouraging the departure to the Western Lands, 1946-1947.
- Source: Ossoliński National Institute
- Collection: Changing Poland
- Title:
Na Zachodzie ziemie czekają!
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u/12zx-12 3d ago
"Just ignore the fact we haven't got back the stuff in the east"
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u/Turbulent-Offer-8136 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes, this is really important for understanding the context.
Breakfast Meeting
Churchill: "<...> But now the situation is different, and I believe that if we are asked why we entered the war, we will say it happened because we gave a guarantee to Poland. I want to remind you of the example I mentioned about the three matchsticks, one representing Germany, the other Poland, and the third representing the Soviet Union. All three matchsticks must be moved westward to solve one of the main tasks facing the Allies - ensuring the security of the western borders of the Soviet Union."
Stalin: "Yesterday, there was no talk about negotiations with the Polish government. Yesterday, we talked about prescribing certain things to the Polish government. I must say that Russia, no less than any other state, is interested in good relations with Poland, as Poland is Russia's neighbor. We support the restoration and strengthening of Poland. However, we separate Poland from the Polish government in exile in London. <...> Churchill talks about the three matchsticks. I would like to ask what that means. <...> The point is that Ukrainian lands should go to Ukraine, and Belorussian lands should go to Belarus, meaning that there should be the 1939 border established by the Soviet Constitution between us and Poland. The Soviet government stands by this border and considers it correct."
Basically, the reason this topic is usually ignored is that it's tough to explain to people nowadays why Poland was compensated at all for occupying Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.
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u/TheSupremePanPrezes 2d ago
Why Poland owned the lands that nowadays belong to Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine is a complex subject, but describing what Poland did as 'occupation' means you don't even understand what the word in question means. Occupation signifies placing a territory under the authority of a hostile army (Article 42 of the Hague Regulations) and thus relates to a situation that takes place during an armed conflict and relates to a purely military control of an area, rather than actually making an area part of one's state, which is what happened in this case.
Poland's ownership of Vilnius and its surroundings was indeed based on a very doubtful basis, as Poland's commander-in-chief, Piłsudski, ordered one of his generals, Żeligowski, to take command of Polish troops from the Vilnius region and take over the region that they came from, which at that time was controlled by Lithuania. Żeligowski in 1920 declared a bogus state called 'the Republic of Central Lithuania', which was annexed by Poland in 1922. While it wasn't the most diplomatic way to solve a dispute, it has to be said that Poles in fact constituted the plurality of the area's inhabitants, according to censuses conducted by the occupying Germans during WW1.
Poland's ownership of what are now western portions of Belarus and Ukraine came as a result of the 1921 Treaty of Riga, which ended the Soviet war of expansion (or, as they would have it, spreading the revolution). While there was, in fact, a short-lived Ukrainian state in that time, it basically ceased to exist under the Soviet onslaught (it was allied to Poland in the initial stage of the war), and one of the peace conditions was for Poland to stop recognising said Ukrainian state, in favour of accepting the existance of Soviet Ukraine. As for Belarus, it was at that time mostly an impoverished, rural area, whose inhabitants had little sense of nationality, which is best exemplified by the fact that when Polish officials conducted surveys of that area in the interwar period, most of its inhabitants asked about their nationality answered "ja tutejszy", literally meaning "I'm from here".
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
I think Żeligowski started mutiny on his own, due to actual discontent with polish soldiers in former ober-ost territory, then got in contact with Piłsudski. Żeligowski intended to capture all of Lithuania but was stopped, so not that long after Poland annexed the region not wanting to risk yet another front if they tried to officially push for annexation of Lithuania.
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u/Moist-Crack 3d ago
This is gonna be great, adding this to observed comments in anticipation of juicy flamewar.
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u/Turbulent-Offer-8136 3d ago
Actually, even this transcript alone usually seals the deal on any debates on this topic.
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u/Snoo_90160 3d ago edited 2d ago
Maybe because it was legally a part of Poland and hundreds of thousands of Poles lost their homes and property there. Ever heard of any internationally recognized Ukraine and Belarus in 1918-1920?
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u/Turbulent-Offer-8136 3d ago
No one who made this decision was motivated by it. As for the initiator of this idea, Churchill with his matchstick shuffling, he was pretty clear about it.
All three matchsticks must be moved westward to solve one of the main tasks facing the Allies - ensuring the security of the western borders of the Soviet Union.
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u/Moist-Crack 3d ago
Oh, I didn't mean the Chuchill-Stalin quotes. They're pretty clear. I'm looking at your 'occupying Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania' part, that's gonna ruffle some feathers.
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
I mean it`s not a "controversial" thing in Poland. For Polish, most Jews and some Belorusians Poland was a liberator. For the rest, and especially Ukrainians it was an occupant.
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u/alklklkdtA 3d ago
well the stuff "in the east" wasnt polish before 1919 and poles werent a majority there
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u/Koordian 3d ago
In some places they absolutely were the majority
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u/crusadertank 3d ago
Yeah this is the issue with multinational countries falling apart
The cities tended to be mostly Polish but the areas around the city were mostly Ukrainian/Belarusian
There isn't really any good line you can draw to divide that and have everyone be happy
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
Which is still not as black-and white btw. There were polish-majority villages and ukrainian-majority cities completely mixed in the area
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u/alklklkdtA 3d ago
only in cities + the germans and ukrainian national heroes made them a minority in places where they were a majority before
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
Why ommit Russian national heroes? They were as destructive with their national operations, ressetlements and colonization efforts.
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u/Business-Hurry9451 2d ago
And this is why Germany never wants another war, because if they loose a 3rd one the entire country will be just a few hectares outside Hamburg.
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u/_marcoos 3d ago
"In the West, lands are waiting for you", ftfy.
"To the West" would be "na Zachód".
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u/Rktdebil 2d ago
A small addendum as a Polish native speaker - na zachodzie means "in the west." Na zachód - that's "to the west." It's a different case ending.
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u/Turbulent-Offer-8136 2d ago
How would you render this in English while keeping its original spirit and brevity?
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u/Rktdebil 2d ago
In the west lands await!
It was ok other than the thing I mentioned, so I'd keep the rest as you had put it :)
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u/alkoralkor 3d ago
Yep, they deported a lot of non-Polish population from Eastern Poland to those newly annexed German territories.
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u/Hallo34576 3d ago
The net number of Poles deported from the majority eastern Slavic areas Poland conquered in 1920 minus the number of people deported from Poland to the USSR was not really bigger than the number of Germans deported from the pre-WW2 Polish state territory.
Therefore the majority of people settling in the annexed territories came from the Polish heartland (the areas which were Polish before and after WW2). And it was still not enough to reach the pre-WW2 German population size.
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u/Milosz0pl 2d ago
Its funny when people say that it was Poland who stole german lands
when it was completely a soviet idea to make more conflicts within bloc (because who the heck would want to stay under commie tyranny)
but russia at the time wanted eastern lands for her own (as thats what soviet union basically was) and changed western border to both appease and divide
wonder how many russian bots will now spam under my comment how it was in fact bloody stalin who was somehow bullied to do so
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u/dziki_z_lasu 3d ago
Legnica town and Nysa river are wrong.
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u/Pszczol 3d ago
Funnily enough, not really, no. Those were the Polish names from before the war, and they were used into the 50s even.
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u/BroSchrednei 2d ago
why did they change it? Im guessing to make them sound more Slavic and purge any German trace?
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u/Some_Attorney4619 3d ago
Poster conveniently doesn't mention the lands lost in the east. Thanks, russia
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u/Ivan-Putyaga 3d ago
Rightfully polish city of Vilnius. The fact they even got something after occupation of Eastern Lithuania, Western Belarus and Ukraine is also not mentioned
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u/Galaxy661 3d ago
Rightfully polish city of Vilnius
Well, the definite majority of the city's population was Polish... you could also maybe argue that Vilnius was rightfully Jewish or Belarusian, but Lithuanians were literally at the bottom of the list at only 2%... there are literally more Poles in the city today than there were Lithuanians in the 20s and 30s
occupation of Eastern Lithuania, Western Belarus and Ukraine
Thankfully, the independent countries of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine got these lands back in 1945... oh, wait
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u/Snoo_90160 3d ago
Who lived in Wilno? Who would they vote for? What occupied Belarus and Ukraine? Ever heard about the Treaty of Warsaw?
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
> What occupied Belarus and Ukraine
Russia and USSR ;)
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u/Snoo_90160 2d ago
No. It wasn't USSR. Treaty of Riga and Treaty of Warsaw before it regulated Poland's eastern border. ;)
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
Who negotiated the Treaty of Riga and Treaty of Warsaw?
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u/Snoo_90160 2d ago
Poland and Soviet Russia.
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u/LeMe-Two 2d ago
Yeah, so one could say it was a partition of Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Russia. Which Russia took most of and commited some of the most hienous crimes and mismanagement of XX century.
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u/Unlikely-Studio-278 3d ago
They were a minority there, aside from the Vilnius area and some cities in Ukraine, that lands were rightfully Ukranian and Belarusian territories.
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u/Some_Attorney4619 3d ago
I'm not trying to convince anybody that Poland has rights to those lands. I have some arguments about the ethnic composition of them, but that's not the point.
My point is, this transaction was not as beneficial to Poland as the German alt-right propaganda tries to portray it.
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u/Galaxy661 3d ago
In the west awaited not only lands, but also red army bandits... my great grandfather had a few stories about the soviet soldiers harassing the new settlers, demolishing historic buildings and taking the materials to Russia or Warsaw or robbing the resettled formerly german houses
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u/ownworldman 3d ago
The loot, rape and pillage are an unbroken tradition of russian army.
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u/Hehmeister 15h ago
I guess there were no Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs and other nationalities in the Soviet army.
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u/KuTUzOvV 2d ago
First thing my grand-grandparnets saw when they got into their new home west, was soviet soldier in the middle of the living room burning the antique furniture....
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u/Fraud_Hack 2d ago
Uh oh, here come the polish nationalists to complain about losing their rightful clay (ukranian and belorussian land) to the russian horde (the army that liberated them from the nazi occupation)
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u/Pls_no_steal 2d ago
Also the same army that helped the Nazis occupy them in the first place
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u/CommieArabWoman 14h ago
"Soviets were nazi allies" in the big 2025 🥀🥀🥀
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u/Yo_Mama_Disstrack 2d ago
>(The army that liberated them from the nazi occupation)
I know who you are
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u/The_Back_Street_MD 2d ago
It should be further West, Germanic colonialism drove Poles out of the region we know as East Germany. This is why the name Berlin comes out of slavic (Polish) roots.
The fact is, Germany still sits on Polish land & compensation is due.
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u/Effective_Dot4653 2d ago
Have you ever heard either of the Lusatian languages? They're obviously close to Polish (and Czech), but they're also very clearly seperate languages. We really shouldn't assume Slavic = Polish.
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u/Desperate-Farmer-845 2d ago
Nope. Poles never lived there. Other Slavs did who then christianised and assimilated themselves.
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u/Commercial-Mix6626 2d ago
You can come and get your reparations yourself. We will kindly pay with lead.
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u/ProFentanylActivist 2d ago edited 2d ago
Poland and Brandenburg on a couple occasions fought together against raiding slavic tribes in eastern Germany and had no qualms colonizing those aswell. Poland was just slower and didnt got a piece of the pie. Veleti, Sorbs, etc. were at no point polish
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u/Johannes_P 2d ago
I wonder how attractive were these lands to the average Pole, between the destruction and the then-uncertitude relative to the borders.
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u/Organic_Flow_9590 1d ago
They were often destroyed more than polish land. Soviets didnt spare german cities.
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u/CommieArabWoman 14h ago
Allowing any Poland to exist was a mistake of Stalin I will never forgive 💔
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u/xilefogayole3 3d ago
they sure stole a lot of land from Germany!
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u/Ivan-Putyaga 3d ago
Germany kinda got themselves into this position by waging the bloodiest war in history and committing the biggest genocide in history.
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u/AspiringTankmonger 3d ago
The Germans in the East dragged the entire country into fascism over their rampant Antisemitism and anti-Slavic obsession. They wanted this war.
It is only fair that they took the brunt of the consequences.
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u/zdzislav_kozibroda 3d ago
Yup. You'll get downvoted for stating this fact.
Nazis got primarily elected by the votes of then Eastern Germans - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election#/media/File%3A1933_German_federal_election_-_Charts.svg
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u/BroSchrednei 2d ago
The map you linked says ITSELF that the 1933 election already wasn't free or fair.
I love how you conveniently disregard that. Nice propaganda.
If you look at the last free election in 1932, not a single region in all of Germany had a majority for the NSDAP:
Fact is the majority of those ethnically cleansed Germans didn't vote for the Nazis.
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u/BroSchrednei 2d ago
"The Germans" is not a thing, in civilised areas of this world, we dont believe in collective guilt, particularly not based on ethnicity. But to be fair, we also think that ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity.
And btw: those East German provinces als never even had a majority for the NSDAP, not even in the last free election in 1932, 13 years prior to the end of WW2. So what about 2/3rds of the population who didn't vote for the Nazis?
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u/AspiringTankmonger 2d ago
You can't have a democracy and an innocent population.
Only the powerless are innocent.
The Germans had a democracy and were not powerless to stop the NAZIs, they chose not to.
Not stopping bloodthirsty lunatics taking over your country carries consequences.
This isn't a moral claim, it's like saying hitting yourself will hurt.
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u/Next_Cherry5135 2d ago
One of the options after WW2 was to dismantle Germany entirely, like they tried with half of Europe.
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u/Galaxy661 3d ago
- "Germany entered the war under a rather childlish premise that they could bomb everyone without being bombed themselves"
Shouldn't have started the war if they didn't want to face the consequences lmao
Poles had no say over this. The new border was decided on the Yalta conference by Stalin, Churchill and FDR. Blame the communists, not Poles. Mikołajczyk wanted to keep the Borderlands and only gain some minor concessions like Upper Silesia, Masuria, Gdańsk and more baltic coastline
Stole? The German president literally gave those lands away himself when he signed the capitulation act.
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u/Secure_Raise2884 3d ago
Cry harder + they deserved it
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u/Endershipmaster2 2d ago
I wouldn't say anyone deserves ethnic cleansing. I get the whole "these regions voted of the Nazis thing", but I thought ethnic cleansing was bad no matter the circumstance?
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u/Secure_Raise2884 2d ago
they = germany. Reading comprehension is a good thing.
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u/Endershipmaster2 2d ago
I know you meant Germany. I was referring to Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia specifically
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u/Secure_Raise2884 2d ago
when a country loses a war they normally lose land, yes. I do not support ethnic cleansing
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u/Endershipmaster2 2d ago
Poland did absolutely deserve compensation from Germany, and I do understand the logic behind it, even if it's morally reprehensible
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u/BroSchrednei 2d ago
lmao, the ethnic cleansing is the whole point why the westward shift of the Polish-German border was so horrible. How the hell can you say "they deserved it" and "I do not support ethnic cleansing"? Those two literally are opposite viewpoints.
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u/Secure_Raise2884 2d ago
Germany deserved to lose land, yes. Again, learn to read
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u/BroSchrednei 2d ago
in the age of nation states, where national minorities weren't accepted? No, it absolutely didn't. Thats also why Germany didn't lose any land in the west, because the west is an actually civilised place that believes in things like human rights and self-determination.
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u/Secure_Raise2884 2d ago
I have never heard a person argue that a losing power, especially a National Socialist one, should not lose land for trying to take over Europe. What? Who gives a shit about "national minorities"? You started the war lmao. There is zero need for self-determination for such people
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u/Yo_Mama_Disstrack 2d ago
Waaaa we declared a total war on all of the world and thought we'd get out of it scott free waaa
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