Pomerania in 1920: The Prospect of Integration with the Republic of Poland

In January and February 1920 the Polish Army and civil administration annexed the greater part of the Vistula Pomerania to the Republic of Poland, which had been granted to it by the decision of the Paris Peace Conference of 28 June 1919. The centenary of the return of Pomerania to Poland, celebrated in 2020, becomes an impulse for the reflections on the events that took place during the first year that Pomerania belonged to Poland, and their significance for the integration of this region and its society into the Republic of Poland. With a review of historical research and analysis of published and archival sources as a starting point, the article provides a comprehensive account of the problems related to the incorporation of Pomerania into the Polish statehood in 1920, which affected the Polish, Kashubian and German populations in different ways. They were mainly associated with the frail Polish administration established from scratch, the lawlessness brought about by undisciplined military units stationed in Pomerania, as well as the policy of the state authorities aimed at the economic unification of this region with Poland. These phenomena were accompanied by changes in nationality structure and economic ownership, which resulted from the departure of the majority of German population to the Reich, and the war with Soviet Russia. The negative experiences during the first year of unification with Poland were largely unavoidable. However, their long-term consequences, the most serious of which was an increase in the sense of separate and distinctive regional identity among the inhabitants of Pomerania, had an inhibiting effect on the process of integrating Pomerania into the Republic of Poland during the interwar period