Page - 14 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Horst Pöttker | Successful Integration? 14 contradictions, between the statistical sources. Restitution offered by the Polish state is often seen as a major reason for the return to the homeland of many Poles who had settled in the Ruhr area and were, for the most part, willing to become integrated: Poles of German citizenship who were older than 18 years old were guaranteed a right to Polish citizenship. The time period for exercising this right expired on January 10th, 1922. Those persons who had decided to take up residence in Poland by then were allowed to relocate with their movable estate free from duties (Kleßmann 1978, 156). Both German and Polish sources estimate that between 300,000 and 400,000 people of Polish migration background lived in the Ruhr area in 1921. Officials in organizations of the Ruhr Poles estimated that about two thirds of them would make use of this right to Polish citizenship (Kleßmann 1978, 157). De facto, according to the Polish embassy, the total number of Poles in the Ruhr area had decreased to 230,000 by 1923; the Polish consulate estimates the number to have sunk to 150,000 by 1929.2 But the return to the homeland facilitated by the right to Polish citizenship was much lower than had been expected by either the Polish or the German authorities. According to statistics cited by Kleßmann, a total number of 30,000 to 40,000 people in the entire Ruhr area made use of this privilege, a relatively low figure that “might be traced back to the Polish government’s request to only opt for Poland if one intended to actually return to the country by January 10th, 1923; all others were advised to keep their German citizenship” (Kleßmann 1978, 159). Incidentally, the Polish government did not provide much support for returning migrants, so that their number was actually lower than the number of people who had exercised their right to Polish citizenship. Year Polish Population in the Ruhr Area Migration until then Further Migration to the Polish Homeland Further Migration: to France Britain, U.S.A 1914 500 50 20 30 1921 350 150 80 70 1923 230 270 70 200 1929 150 350 40 310 Table 4: Migration of the Polish Minority from the Ruhr Area in the 1920s (in thousands). (Estimates according to: Kleßmann 1978, esp. p. 161-168) The rapid decrease in the number of Ruhr Poles in the 1920s seems to have been caused primarily by the migration movement of discontented miners and 2 Kleßmann 1978, 156: With a view to these statistics, one should keep in mind that by the 1920s “criteria on who is a Pole, a Masurian, or to be considered a German”, had begun to blur both on the Polish and on the German side.