PC: German Empire successfully assimilates the Poles

Well, probably that they won't receive it.

Assuming the Germans do go this extra mile in ensuring that there are no TV or radio stations in Polish in their empire, you still have the probability of Polish TV and radio stations in Austrian Galicia or the Polish national heartland in the Russian Empire. Or worse yet, if the Germans establish a Polish buffer state after a war with Russia.

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.

So how do you explain the continued existance of German in South Tyrol?

If I had to guess German in Alsace and French in Aosta Valley dissapeared because there was a concerted effort to get rid of them and no real counter efforts to keep them. Saying this was just because of TV seems really simplistic.
 
The younger Hispanic populations in the USA are becoming predominantly English speaking and retaining less Spanish proficiency.

There’s no reason Polish couldn’t follow a similar trajectory in the German Empire
 
So how do you explain the continued existance of German in South Tyrol?
Because South Tyrol consists mostly of remote valleys, and remote rural areas are always where that process is slowest. Significantly, Bozen, the capital, is in fact already in majority Italian speaking. Meanwhile, Posen and West Prussia are flat land, with good roads and railways, and larger cities like Posen, Gnesen, Bromberg, Thorn, Kulm... and of course, Upper Silesia even has the Upper Silesian industrial area.

And seeing as the thread title is "successfully assimilates", we can, for this scenario, just assume that the Germans either don't allow or are very obstrusive about such things as Polish language TV or Polish language schools.
 
The younger Hispanic populations in the USA are becoming predominantly English speaking and retaining less Spanish proficiency.

There’s no reason Polish couldn’t follow a similar trajectory in the German Empire
As immigrant community Hispanics in USA are more comparable to Ruhrpolen, who also were successfully assimilated, unlike these Poles who stayed in Posen.
 
As immigrant community Hispanics in USA are more comparable to Ruhrpolen, who also were successfully assimilated, unlike these Poles who stayed in Posen.

Idk I think since German will be necessary for people to have good jobs in the 21st century in Germany (even Posen), you’re going to see assimilation just like how English is necessary for the Hispanic population to advance in the US.
 
Because South Tyrol consists mostly of remote valleys, and remote rural areas are always where that process is slowest. Significantly, Bozen, the capital, is in fact already in majority Italian speaking. Meanwhile, Posen and West Prussia are flat land, with good roads and railways, and larger cities like Posen, Gnesen, Bromberg, Thorn, Kulm... and of course, Upper Silesia even has the Upper Silesian industrial area.

Bozen/Bolzano became majority Italian because Mussolini colonized it with Southern Italians. And if flatlands and roads and railyways are now your argument instead of TV, then you'll have to explain why Posen wasn't assimilated after 104 years of unbroken Prussian rule (1814.-1918.).

And seeing as the thread title is "successfully assimilates", we can, for this scenario, just assume that the Germans either don't allow or are very obstrusive about such things as Polish language TV or Polish language schools.

This would still take centuries to achieve. Again, the Wends are the best/closest example. Make German rule of Posen unquestionable and really long-lasting, and Germany will sucessfuly assimilate the Poles within their borders.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
It seems from my reading, it was easier for a Pole to be accepted as Prussian, than to be accepted as German. If I were to try to write this ATL, I think I would put a POD in the Napoleonic area. Prussia keeps all the lands from the partition of Poland including Warsaw. We see the Prussia national identity include more Polish elements than OTL, by a wide margin. Polish nobility integrates/merges into the Prussian nobility. Polish nobility is important to the Prussian Army.

Then you can still have some unification event like OTL modern Germany. Or maybe OTL northern confederation. Or even better yet, Austria unifies Germany and has to deal with the pesky Kingdom of Bavaria and Kingdom of Prussia. Maybe Prussia did not have near as many lands near the Rhine due to the POD. Over this century or so, almost all Poles are fluent in German. In this new Germany or Northern Federation or Greater Austria, we have what we would see as a hybrid identity, but they see as Germans.

Also, if Prussia gets a lot more Poles, we are pushing for a near catholic majority in Prussia. I think this makes Greater Austria more likely.
 
German Empire successfully assimilates the Poles

I read that as the German Empire successfully assimilates the north pole and the south pole. Presumably by sending expeditions to the Arctic and to Antarctica. Although it would be terribly cold, by sitting astride the Earth's magnetic poles, they could undoubtedly devise some megalomaniac scheme to conquer the world by destabilising the Earth from its Axis... or something. Could make a great plot for a movie!
 
Idk I think since German will be necessary for people to have good jobs in the 21st century in Germany (even Posen), you’re going to see assimilation just like how English is necessary for the Hispanic population to advance in the US.

How many major cultures disappeared in the 19th and 20th centuries like this? Gaelic, Welsh, Catalan, Basque... they're still around!
 
All of those speakers are at least bilinigual though
Poles of Posen, West Prussia and Upper Silesia also were bilingual in 1918, and then bilingualism was quickly lost like in former Soviet republics, where older people speak Russian, when younger ones born after fall of USSR don't.
 
Poles of Posen, West Prussia and Upper Silesia also were bilingual in 1918, and then bilingualism was quickly lost like in former Soviet republics, where older people speak Russian, when younger ones born after fall of USSR don't.

I just think media and social media is going to help assimilation of the younger generations and over time German Poles will become more German and less Polish. Y’all are all basing stats off of the early 1900s but we have to think about the impact mass media will have on cultural minorities in Germany.
 
The issue was radicalism was both language and religion, maybe if old Fritz pass real tolerance laws as well pushing german as hard as possible assimilation could happen...aanother is no Napoleón thus super prussia never got Rhineland and is half polish
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
It seems from my reading, it was easier for a Pole to be accepted as Prussian, than to be accepted as German. If I were to try to write this ATL, I think I would put a POD in the Napoleonic area. Prussia keeps all the lands from the partition of Poland including Warsaw. We see the Prussia national identity include more Polish elements than OTL, by a wide margin. Polish nobility integrates/merges into the Prussian nobility. Polish nobility is important to the Prussian Army.
IMO you are on something here.
German and Polish were still quite nebulous terms at that time.
At that time people easily carried two or three different identities - a late XVIIIth/early XIXth centry person could be a German speaker, Lutheran, yet happily "Polish" as he lived in the PLC.
Hence a prolonged existence of Prussia and somewhat different policies towards non-German speakers and/or non-Protestants could had allowed for the adoption of a Prussian identity by Roman Catholic Polish speakers.
I read somewhere that the post-Partitions forced integration of Polish speaking Presbyterians (Calvinists were Polish speaking szlachta, Lutherans were German speaking burghers) into the Prussian State Church - including use of German in Church - lead some groups to convert to Catholicism out of spite (I've read of a similar instance in Hungary - there the local Calvinists hounded by the Catholic Habsburg authorities converted to Orthodoxy). How true is that - I dunno ...
Look at the Masuren - for a very long time they identified were Polish speaking Prussians.
Identification as Polish by bi-lingual/monoglot Silesians was far from universal.
For the Posen/West Prussian peasants to assume an identity of Polish speaking (and mostly Catholic) Prussians - this coming on top of their regional identity as Wielkopolanie (Great Polish) - is possible.
A different interpretation of (Klein)Deutschland could also help - just as one could be Badenian, Bavarian or Rheinlander AND German, it might had been possible to be a Polish speaker and Poznaniak/Pomorzak/Ślązak (Great Poland, West Prussian and Silesian respectively) and German at the same time. Just as it was possible to be Scots or Welsh and British at the same time.
Destroying the szlachta - either after an AU Russo-Prussian victory in 1807 - or imediatelly after Vienna - would help.
And no Kulturkampf or Hakata ... these simply backfired and only served to fuel rejection of "Germanness" - just like Polish efforts in the Borderlands between 1921 and 1939 did ...
I wonder if the Prussian/German state picked the worst possible route - the repression was not enough to force assimilation but strong enough as to foment resentment.

Had a different route been taken - even after OTL Vienna - I can see Posen and Westpruessen as being much more Germanised come 1914. Closer to Upper Silesia, with language/bi-lingualism not being as clear a divider as in OTL. Speaking German was simply what one did when rising in life - Polish/Silesian was for peasants/proletariat. First you have bi-lingualism and diglossia and a generation or two later you end up with "local language revival" movements.
 
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IMO you are on something here.
German and Polish were still quite nebulous terms at that time.
At that time people easily carried two or three different identities - a late XVIIIth/early XIXth centry person could be a German speaker, Lutheran, yet happily "Polish" as he lived in the PLC.
Hence a prolonged existence of Prussia and somewhat different policies towards non-German speakers and/or non-Protestants could had allowed for the adoption of a Prussian identity by Roman Catholic Polish speakers.
I read somewhere that the post-Partitions forced integration of Polish speaking Presbyterians (Calvinists were Polish speaking szlachta, Lutherans were German speaking burghers) into the Prussian State Church - including use of German in Church - lead some groups to convert to Catholicism out of spite (I've read of a similar instance in Hungary - there the local Calvinists hounded by the Catholic Habsburg authorities converted to Orthodoxy). How true is that - I dunno ...
Look at the Masuren - for a very long time they identified were Polish speaking Prussians.
Identification as Polish by bi-lingual/monoglot Silesians was far from universal.
For the Posen/West Prussian peasants to assume an identity of Polish speaking (and mostly Catholic) Prussians - this coming on top of their regional identity as Wielkopolanie (Great Polish) - is possible.
A different interpretation of (Klein)Deutschland could also help - just as one could be Badenian, Bavarian or Rheinlander AND German, it might had been possible to be a Polish speaker and Poznaniak/Pomorzak/Ślązak (Great Poland, West Prussian and Silesian respectively) and German at the same time. Just as it was possible to be Scots or Welsh and British at the same time.
Destroying the szlachta - either after an AU Russo-Prussian victory in 1807 - or imediatelly after Vienna - would help.
And no Kulturkampf or Hakata ... these simply backfired and only served to fuel rejection of "Germanness" - just like Polish efforts in the Borderlands between 1921 and 1939 did ...
I wonder if the Prussian/German state picked the worst possible route - the repression was not enough to force assimilation but strong enough as to foment resentment.

Had a different route been taken - even after OTL Vienna - I can see Posen and Westpruessen as being much more Germanised come 1914. Closer to Upper Silesia, with language/bi-lingualism not being as clear a divider as in OTL. Speaking German was simply what one did when rising in life - Polish/Silesian was for peasants/proletariat. First you have bi-lingualism and diglossia and a generation or two later you end up with "local language revival" movements.
By being less oppressive Prussians could buy Polish loyaltly to Prussian state, but that would not make them German-just look at Austrian Galizia and Galizian conservative loyalists-"przy tobie Najjaśniejszy Panie stoimy i stać chcemy". Galizian Poles have not turned into Polish Austrians, but cult of Franz Josef and sentiment to Austria-Hungary survived in Southern Poland up to this day. If Prussians did the same perhaps people in former Posen and West Prussia would have portraits of Kaiser Wilhelm in their houses, like Galizians often have portraits of Franz Josef even today. 1795 is too late to make Poles regional variety of Germans.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Different countries, different policies.
Galizian Poles WERE "Polish Austrians" - just as there were German or Czech or Croatian "Austrians".

In Prussia - start in 1815 and you may well have the same attitude in Posen as in Masuren. I emphasise "may" - it would take a lot of right decisions at the right time to get to Polish speaking Catholic Prussians but IMO this is possible ...
Of course, only peasants and 1st and 2nd generation immigrants to the cities - everybody with a secondary education would sooner be dead than caught talking Polish ...
 
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