Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T13:46:30.773Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Polish Trade Union in the Ruhr Coal Field: Labor Organization and Ethnicity in Wilhelmian Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Richard C. Murphy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The German industrial revolution that transformed the unified Reich into the leading European economic power by the eve of the First World War was accompanied by an equally notable demographic revolution. In 1871 less than a third of the country's population lived in urban areas (population over two thousand); by 1910 more than 60 percent of Germans were city dwellers. That urban growth was brought about by a great internal migration. Among the millions who forsook the countryside for the expanding industrial centers were large numbers of Poles, Reich subjects native to the eastern provinces of Prussia. Thousands of them—perhaps as many as half a million—attracted by jobs in foundries and mines and courted by labor recruiters, migrated to the prototypical German industrial complex, the Ruhr (Ruhrgebiet). There the Poles not only experienced the universal problems of adjustment from rural to urban and preindustrial to industrial patterns, but were also threatened with the loss of ethnic identity.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 335 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Wachowiak, Stanislaus, Die Polen in Rheinland-Westfalen (Ph.D. diss., Munich, 1916), p. 61.Google Scholar

2. Koch, Max Jürgen, Die Bergarbeiterbewegung im Ruhrgebiet zur Zeit Wilhelms II., 1889–1914 (Düsseldorf, 1954), p. 73.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., p. 72; and Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, “Die Polen im Ruhrgebiet bis 1918,” in Moderne deutsche Sozialgeschichte, ed. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich (Cologne, 1966), p. 447.Google Scholar

4. Wachowiak, Die Polen, pp. 71–78.

5. Imbusch, Heinrich, Arbeitsverhältnis und Arbeiterorganisationen im deutschen Bergbau (Essen, 1909), pp. 504–5, discusses the problems of a Polish-language journal.Google Scholar

6. Klessmann, Christoph, Polnische Bergarbeiter im Ruhrgebiet, 1870–1945 (Göttingen, 1978), p. 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Koch, Die Bergarbeiterbewegung, p. 58.

8. Imbusch, Arbeitsverhältnis, pp. 506–7.

9. Kirchhoff, Hans Georg, Die staatliche Sozialpolitik im Ruhrbergbau, 1871–1914 (Cologne and Opladen, 1958), p. 128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Wehler, “Die Polen,” p. 453.

11. Die Polen im Rheinisch-Westfälischen Steinkohlen-Bezirk (Gau “Ruhr und Lippe” des Alldeutschen Verbandes, Munich, 1901), p. 492.Google Scholar

12. Hoeffner, Josef, Sozialpolitik im deutschen Bergbau (Münster, 1956), p. 48.Google Scholar

13. For a thorough discussion of the Arbeiterausschüsse and Sicherheitsmänner see Adelmann, Gerhard, Die soziale Betriebsverfassung des Ruhrbergbaus vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (Bonn, 1962), pp. 134–52.Google Scholar

14. Landrat Recklinghausen an den Regierungspräsidenten, Münster, July 2, 1898 (Staatsarchiv Münster, Regierung Münster, Nr. 1046).

15. Bottroper Volkszeitung, July 25 and 27, 1898.

16. Koch, Die Bergarbeiterbewegung, pp. 72–73.

17. Wachowiak, Die Polen, p. 82; and Schäfer, Hans, Die Polenfrage im rheinisch-west-fälischen Industrierevier während des Krieges und nach dem Krieg (Ph.D. diss., Würzburg, 1921), p. 143.Google Scholar

18. Wachowiak, Die Polen, p. 82; and Adelmann, Die soziale Betriebsverfassung, p. 147. The percentage of Poles is taken from Schulze, Franz, Die polnische Zuwanderung im Ruhrrevier und ihre Wirkung (Ph.D. diss., Munich, 1909), pp. 100–103Google Scholar, and is for the year 1909.

19. Wachowiak, Die Polen, pp. 38–41; and Ronge, Paul, “Die Oberschlesiersiedlung Bottrop i.W.,” in Schksien, no. 4 (1960), p. 246Google Scholar; and Bredt, Johann Victor, Die Polenfrage im Ruhrkohlengebiet (Leipzig, 1909), p. 45.Google Scholar

20. Kirchhoff, Die staatliche Sozialpolitik, p. 51.

21. Kirche und Religion im Revier, pt. 1 (Essen, 1968), pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

22. Koch, Die Bergarbeiterbewegung, p. 72. The number of Poles who were members of either the older unions or the ZZP grew steadily throughout this period. The percentage of organized Polish mine workers who were represented by the ZZP also increased—from 63.2 percent (of 19,000) in 1905 to 72.7 percent (of 44,000) in 1907.

23. Nachweisung über die in der Gemeinde Bottrop vorhandenen Polen und Masuren, Feb. 6, 1905 (Staatsarchiv Münster, RM VII, Nr. 35b).

24. This account is based on Koch, Die Bergarbeiterbewegung, pp. 77–108, who has made good use of the extensive sources.

25. The formal exchange of correspondence is found in Engel, “Der Bergarbeiterausstand im Ruhrbezirk im Jahre 1905,” Glückauf, no. 8 (02 1905), pp. 213–32.Google Scholar

26. “Statistik des Bergarbeiterausstand im Ruhrrevier,” Glückauf, no. 20 (05 1905), pp. 641–43.Google Scholar

27. Landrat Recklinghausen an den Regierungspräsidenten, Münster, Feb. 28, 1905 (Staatsarchiv Münster, RM VII, Nr. 35b).

28. Bottroper Volkszeitung, Feb. 3, 1905.

29. Landrat Recklinghausen an den Regierungspräsidenten, Münster, Feb. 28, 1905 (Staatsarchiv Münster, RM VII, Nr. 35b).

30. Wachowiak, Die Polen, p. 71.

31. Again, see Koch, Die Bergarbeiterbewegung, pp. 121–29, for an account of the strike of 1912.

32. Kirchhoff, Die staatliche Sozialpolitik, p. 174, stresses the different nature of this strike.

33. Ibid., p. 158.

34. Bottroper Volkszeitung, throughout the month, but especially on Mar. 13 and 16, 1912.