PC: German Empire successfully assimilates the Poles

Anyway the German Empire could successfully assimilates its Polish Population like How France absorbed the different Groups inside its borders.

What would be the impact on the German Empire and on World War 1
 
France had more time to do the job. Prussia/Germany would be more successfull in assimilating Upper Silesian and West Prussian Poles if Posen was given to Russia, but Russian Posen is quite challenge, it would require war over Polish-Saxon Crisis in 1814/15.
 
There a couple of ways this could have been attempted:

-More forceful deportations to the region of Germans and restriction of freedom of movement, would have been unpopular.
-Easing the inter-denominational tensions between Catholics and Protestant, avoiding the Kulturkampf and allowing language conversion and assimilation to happen without religion as a barrier as it was in Posen.
-Avoiding mindless discrimination of Poles and use an actually workable carrot and stick approach.
-Start with a process of assimilation first and resettlement second, the resettlement as far as I can tell triggered a Polish reaction of resisting German authorities which would make assimilation harder.

France had more time to do the job. Prussia/Germany would be more successfull in assimilating Upper Silesian and West Prussian Poles if Posen was given to Russia, but Russian Posen is quite challenge, it would require war over Polish-Saxon Crisis in 1814/15.
You think that the acquisition of Posen jeopardized assimilation in other regions? How so? Not saying you are wrong I'm just curious.
 
-Start with a process of assimilation first and resettlement second, the resettlement as far as I can tell triggered a Polish reaction of resisting German authorities which would make assimilation harder.
There was also the fact that German settlement of the east was being reversed in the late 19th century due to industrialization in the Ruhr. There would have to be good economic incentives for Germans to move there.
 
Anyway the German Empire could successfully assimilates its Polish Population like How France absorbed the different Groups inside its borders.

What would be the impact on the German Empire and on World War 1

I’d say there are generally more differences between the Germans and Poles than between the different groups in France.
 
I was wondering. The influential Poles after the dividing up of Poland in 1796, would be the Polish nobility wouldn't it? I meant at least within the three nations that carved them up. Prussia(later Germany), Austria, and Russia. So I guess my question in order for this scenario to be worked out; "How much influence would the Polish Nobility whom I assume would continue to hold special status in their occupied parts of Poland, play a part in your scenario?"
 
You think that the acquisition of Posen jeopardized assimilation in other regions? How so? Not saying you are wrong I'm just curious.
At least in Upper Silesia it would make difference. At begining of 19th century Silesia was forgotten by Poles, then after Partitions Poles from Posen and Upper Silesians both happened to live within borders of Prussia, Posen Poles discovered, that there are Polish speaking people still living there. Living in the same country made contacts between Posen Poles and Upper Silesian Poles easier, some Posen Poles moved to Upper Silesia looking for jobs in industry. Also Posen contained ecclesiastical capital of Poland (Gniezno) and was unique, because its main city-Poznań, was big center of Polish culture and had Polish majority during second half of 19th century, when Upper Silesia lacked one dominant city and main city of West Prussia (Danzig) was circa 90% German.
 
Don't include Posen in the Duchy of Warsaw, and we would likely have seen a German majority in Posen.
That is impossible-Duchy of Warsaw was created as result of 1806 Polish uprising in Greater Poland (Posen), untill 1809 Warsaw was on periphery of the Duchy, so either Duchy has Posen or Duchy do not even exist. And how Duchy existing for mere 7 years prevented Germanization of Posen during over 100 years of Prussian/German rule that followed?
 

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Very difficult, Slavs are notoriously difficult to fully "digest". Even the now-disappeared groups (Polabians) could have just been considered parts of a bigger ethnicity

They could nibble at them slowly but i doubt they'd have the time required to send them to the levels of the Lusatian Serbs
 
Short of expulsion, the German Empire could assimilate Posen in a few centuries of unbroken rule. These things take time.
 
Short of expulsion, the German Empire could assimilate Posen in a few centuries of unbroken rule. These things take time.
If Germany had held on to those regions into the age of modern telecommunication, mass TV and the like, then the local language might have receded very rapidly, as examples elsewhere show.

But as for the 19th century... I wonder, could a "divide and conquer" strategy have worked? Recognizing and promoting Kashubian as an own language in northern West Prussia, maybe even forming Silesian (which is recognized as the most 'removed' Polish dialect) as an own language? That could be helped by the fact that those regions would be more prosperous than Poland proper, which usually helps to form out an own identity for self-serving reasons. In the same vein, maybe a spread of Old Catholicism in those regions to sever them from Roman-Catholic Poland proper.

The effect would be that those areas aren't culturally German, but not Polish either - and they might stick to the country that is more prosperous and which recognizes their local culture. Plus, it would allow assimilation efforts to be concentrated just in Posen and southern West Prussia.
 
Would Nazi Germany winning count? For example, Britain makes peace in 1940, and the Soviets get crushed in 1941.

The Polish language, I'm sure, would be gone in 2018. Of course, that would involve genocide and expulsion.
 
Polish is not a "regional language". Posen/Poznan is not filled with Germans who just so happen to not speak Hochdeutsch. A better analogy would be the Wends.
I did say languages, not dialects. That is another phenonmenon. But Breton (a Celtic language), German in Alsace, the North Italian languages that are closer related to French than Italian... they all became moribound as soon as there was telecommunication, national TV and so on. Why should Polish in Posen or Upper Silesia fare better?
 
I did say languages, not dialects. That is another phenonmenon. But Breton (a Celtic language), German in Alsace, the North Italian languages that are closer related to French than Italian... they all became moribound as soon as there was telecommunication, national TV and so on. Why should Polish in Posen or Upper Silesia fare better?

Because there are millions of Polish speakers outside of Posen and Upper Silesia. Again, Polish is not a "regional" language, it is the language of a very large national group with a very strong national consciousness. Do you really think having TV in German would somehow change that? And what exactly is stopping them from having Polish language TV?
 
Because there are millions of Polish speakers outside of Posen and Upper Silesia. Again, Polish is not a "regional" language, it is the language of a very large national group with a very strong national consciousness. Do you really think having TV in German would somehow change that? And what exactly is stopping them from having Polish language TV?
Well, probably that they won't receive it. You have a period in the 20th century that sits just right between ever increasing national standardization and eventual globalization. A period where border crossings were much rarer than these days, but national standardization had already reached our levels. So in between national language schools, TV news, cinema, radio, etc... it's a barrage, and experience shows languages without national language status are ill-prepared to deal with them. Once again: German in the Alsace, or also French in the Aosta Valley. There are even more German speakers or French speakers outside those regions, and yet... And there is nothing to suggest things would go differently for Polish in Posen and Upper Silesia.
 
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