NOVEMBER 5 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

NOVEMBER 5

1916

On November 5, 1916, a joint declaration by Emperors Wilhelm II of Germany, and Franz Jozef I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,  established the Kingdom of Poland out of territory of Congress Poland.  The Act intended that the Polish territory would be merely a puppet state, controlled by the Central Powers.  Hence, Germany legitimized its continued occupation on Polish soil.  The strategy was followed by a massive propaganda campaign in which pamphlets were distributed to Polish citizens (in 1915).  In it, they claimed that German soldiers were going to arrive as "liberators" and free Poland from Soviet occupation. As a result of this Act, Polish efforts accelerated towards the goal for freedom and independence;  the Italian Parliament supported the plan for the independence of Poland; and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson made public his wish for an independent Poland.  In January 1918, President Wilson gave a speech on the Fourteen Points, a statement espousing the principles of peace that were to be applied to peace negotiations following the end of World War One.  It included the resolution of territorial issues, calling for the independence of Poland, and that of several other nations.

1939

The Nazis began Mass expulsions of Poles from Poznań.  About 70,000 Polish citizens from Poznan were expelled to the General Gouvernment, an administrative center established by the Nazi Germans in central Poland. It was, in effect, a giant penal colony.  The deportations were directed by SS Wilhelm Koppe and supervised by SS Ernst Damzog. Damzog was also in charge of the Chelmo extermination camp. The Nazi operation, code named Heim ins Reich (translation: Back to the Reich), was the manifestation of Hitler's plan of Lebensraum, that is the expansion of the German nation and Germanization of Europe.  By 1944 over 1.7 million Polish citizens were expelled and replaced with about half a million German Volkdeutsche settling the area.  The Heim ins Reich manifesto referred to areas that had been ceded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles after the end of WWI, especially that of the reborn nation-state of Poland, the Sudetenland, and Danzig.  In 1941, Hitler declared that Poland would become purely German within 15 to 20 years, that the Nazis would "clear" 15 million Polish nationals (Jews as well as ethnic Poles)  from the region and that by that  time, the areas would be occupied by 4 to 5 million ethnic Germans.

1995

Following the second round of the Presidential election in Poland,  Aleksander Kwaśniewski  won with 51.7 percent of the votes, while Solidarity leader, Lech Wałęsa won 48.3 percent.  Kwaśniewski's campaign slogans were "Let's choose the future" and "A Poland for all" . Political opponents disputed his victory, and presented concrete evidence to prove that Kwasniewski had lied about his education in registration documents and public presentations.  There was also considerable doubt as to whether he even graduated from university.   A court of law ruled that Kwaśniewski had indeed lied about his record, but strangely did not penalise him for it, instead judging that these facts were deemed irrelevant to the election result.  (In the first round of votes,  64.7% of citizens cast their votes and 98.2% of those were valid. In the second round, 68.2% of citizens cast their vote and 98.0% of those were valid.