Bierut Decrees german: Bierut-Dekrete is a term used in German historiography referring to a series of decrees, laws and regulations enacted by the

Provisional Government of National Unity The Provisional Government of National Unity ( pl, Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej - TRJN) was a puppet government formed by the decree of the State National Council () on 28 June 1945 as a result of reshuffling the Soviet-backed Provisio ...

between 1945 and 1946 concerning the flight and expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland and the property issues arising from them. The "Bierut Decrees" are named after

Bolesław Bierut Bolesław Bierut (; 18 April 1892 – 12 March 1956) was a Polish communist activist and politician, leader of the Polish People's Republic from 1947 until 1956. He was President of the State National Council from 1944 to 1947, President of Po ...

, installed by the occupying Soviet forces as the leader of communist government of Poland between 1944 and his death in Moscow in 1956. Bierut functioned as head of the Provisional National Council, a Soviet influenced quasi-parliament (''Krajowa Rada Narodowa''), from 1944 to 1947. The term presents a conscious echo of the Beneš decrees which have been seen by critics as providing a blue print for the ethnic cleansing of German and Hungarian minorities

from From may refer to: * From, a preposition * From (SQL), computing language keyword * From: (email message header), field showing the sender of an email * FromSoftware, a Japanese video game company * Full range of motion, the travel in a rang ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

between 1945 and 1948.

Background

Following defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945, political leaders from the allied powers met at

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream o ...

between July 17 and August 2 in order to progress agreement on the post-war settlement. Russian plans for Germany and Poland involved reducing Germany and annexation of the eastern part of the prewar Poland into the outlying republics of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. The Soviet acquisitions roughly corresponded to the partition along the

Curzon line The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. It was first proposed by The 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston, the British Foreign Secretary, to ...

. On the western side of Poland the border was to be moved westward at the expense of Germany, to a

new frontier The term ''New Frontier'' was used by Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the 1960 United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the ...

following the Rivers Oder and

Neisse The Lusatian Neisse (german: Lausitzer Neiße; pl, Nysa Łużycka; cs, Lužická Nisa; Upper Sorbian: ''Łužiska Nysa''; Lower Sorbian: ''Łužyska Nysa''), or Western Neisse, is a river in northern Central Europe.the west of Poland, this left large numbers of German speaking people who found that their homes were now in Poland. In reality the population of military age German males was already badly depleted by losses on the Russian front, and knowledge of the approach of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

from the east, together with the break down in relations between ethnic Germans and other communities as the war drew to its end, had already led many Germans in the east of the country to flee towards the west during 1944 and 1945, so that much property was already abandoned by them and in many cases expropriated on a local basis, giving aspects of the "Bierut Decrees" basically a retrospective character.

The law on abandoned and deserted property

Most of the territory transferred to Poland from the prewar Germany in 1945 came from areas that had been part of the historic state of

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

and subsequently of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, some of them since the

partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Polan ...

. This was the case with most of

Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

and the eastern part of

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 sq ...

, including major cities in postwar Poland such as Szczecin/Stettin and Wrocław/Breslau. Danzig/Gdańsk was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the

second partition of Poland The 1793 Second Partition of Poland was the second of three partitions (or partial annexations) that ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The second partition occurred in the aftermath of the Polish–Russian W ...

of 1793, and was a free city for about 20 years before World War II. New laws were enacted by the

regarding German speaking people who were living within Poland’s new frontiers.

Decrees of Provisional Government of National Unity

Following the shifting of borders between the two countries, on 6 May 1945 the new Polish general law on abandoned and deserted property was signed, affecting the Germans in several paragraphs. The law specified two categories of assets distinct from each other. The property, which before the invasion of Poland was owned by the Germans as well as by the defectors from Poland living in Germany (the ''

Volksdeutsche In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...

''), was classified as abandoned. Meanwhile, the assets requisitioned and/or acquired by the Germans after the invasion were classified as deserted when the new laws came into effect.Dziennik Ustaw, 1945 nr 17 poz. 96 i 97
Ustawa z dnia 6 maja 1945 r. o majątkach opuszczonych i porzuconych
(6 May 1945 Decree on Properties Deserted, and Abandoned). PDF file fro
Internetowy System Aktow Prawnych.
/ref> The law was signed by

Edward Osóbka-Morawski Edward Bolesław Osóbka-Morawski (5 October 1909 – 9 January 1997) was a Polish activist and politician in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) before World War II, and after the Soviet takeover of Poland, Chairman of the Communist-dominated inte ...

Hilary Minc Hilary Minc (24 August 1905, Kazimierz Dolny – 26 November 1974, Warsaw) was a Polish economist and communist politician prominent in Stalinist Poland. Minc was born into a middle class Jewish family; his parents were Oskar Minc and Stefa ...

and four other ministers. The subsequent decree of 8 March 1946 on formerly German property went a step further and nationalized all German assets, with the exception of property taken over by the Soviet Union already. By the same token, all laws enacted by the German occupation administration were declared legally void and invalid. The law was signed by Bolesław Bierut, Edward Osóbka-Morawski, and twenty ministers.Dz.U. 1946 nr 13 poz. 87
Dekret z dnia 8 marca 1946 r. o majątkach opuszczonych i poniemieckich
(8 March 1946 Decree on Properties Deserted, and Formerly German)
Internetowy System Aktow Prawnych.
/ref> As a result of the new law, the German nationals who found themselves residing in Poland without active citizenship became transients; therefore, there was no need for additional law to exclude them from Poland.

Exclusion of hostile elements from the Polish state

The decree and law of 1945 along with the further decree of 13 September 1946 on the exclusion of hostile elements from the Polish state concerned the ethnic German minority who had lived in Poland as defined by the frontiers agreed between 1923 and 1939. In these cases the expulsion of the German portion of the population and the expropriation of their property with impunity was effected legally.

Principal enactments

;28 February 1945 decree concerning the exclusion of elements hostile to the Polish state :Art. 6 (1) Citizens of the Polish state who after 31 August 1939 were forced by the occupiers to become Germans in the area of Poland or of the formerly free city of Danzig .... or were included in a privileged category by the occupiers may make an application for rehabilitation.... :Art.7 (1) Those who can demonstrate that they were forced against their will to be included n the Germans' privileged categoryand who can demonstrate by their conduct their Polishness can be recognized as rehabilitated... :Art. 18 (1) In areas of the Polish republic forcibly incorporated into the German Empire or in the area of the formerly free city of Danzig, assets found are subject to seizure and confiscation from: ::a) Those belonging to the German state (German citizens), ::b) People of German Nationality regardless of whether or not they hold a German passport, ::c) Polish citizens whom the authorities under the German occupation placed in .... privileged categories, ::d) Polish citizens who ... nder the occupationdeclared themselves, whether or not truthfully, to be of German nationality or descent, and thereby enjoyed special rights and privileges... ;6 May 1945 amendment concerning the exclusion of elements hostile to the Polish state :Art. 21 (1) dentical with Art. 18 (1) of the Decree of 28 February 1945 (above) ;6 May 1945 law concerning abandoned assets :Art. 1 § 1: Abandoned assets for the purposes of this law are any assets, whether movable or immovable, that following the war which began on 1 September 1939 no longer are to be found in the possession of their owners.. :Art. 2 § 1: Any movable or immovable asset the constitutes the property or possession of the German state...or the asset of a German national or of persons who switched sides in favour of the enemy, is an abandoned asset for the purposes of this law. :Art. 14 § 1: At the application of the departmental minister, the office provisional state administration shall transfer to the minister in question management control of a specified business undertaking. :Art. 38: The state or the person identified in Art. 14

bove Bove is a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Carol Bove (born 1971), American artist * Davide Bove (born 1998), Italian footballer * Edward Bove, American surgeon * Linda Bove (born 1945), deaf American actress * Raphael Bove Ra ...

or the appropriately empowered institution shall received property rights over the assets transferred after five years following the end of the calendar year in which the war ends ... ;3 January 1946 nationalisation law, concerning the acquisition into state ownership of the principal branches of the national economy :Art. 2 (1): Property is transferred into the ownership of the state without compensation in respect of businesses involved in industry, trade, mining, transport and trade: ::a) from the German state and the formerly free city of Danzig, ::b) from nationals of the German state or of the formerly free city of Danzig ..., and ::c) from businesses controlled, through nationals of the German state or of the formerly free city of Danzig, by the German authorities ... ;8 March 1946 decree concerning abandoned and formerly German assets :Art. 2.1: By force of law, ownership of assets transfers into the ownership of the state: ::a) from the German state and the formerly free city of Danzig, ::b) from nationals of the German state or of the formerly free city of Danzig, with the exception of persons of Polish nationality or of other post-German nationality, ::c) from German or Danzig

legal persons In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...

, except where legal personality is created publicly under olish nationalthe law, and ::d) from businesses controlled, through nationals of the German state or of the formerly free city of Danzig, by the German authorities ... :Art. 2.4: Assets, according to public law, of German and Danzig

, pass by force of law into the ownership of the corresponding Polish legal persons. :Art. 3.2: All asset transfers under the provisions 2.1 and 2.4 (above), and of abandoned assets to the state shall be null and void where their execution would block the operation of a regional Insolvency Office ... ;24 March 1946 regulation for identification of formerly German-owned movable assets In order to make possible the acquisition of property comprising formerly German owned movable assets, I instruct that these movable assets in the recovered regions .e. areas of Poland previously in Germanybe listed: :§1: The object of the listing concerns formerly German owned movable assets that are located: ::a) in private living accommodation ::b) in service accommodation permitted to treat by employees as private accommodation ::c) in businesses involved in trade, commerce and craft-based activity, where operated as private businesses ... :In accommodation which is still jointly used by Germans and Poles, all movable assets shall be treated as owned by the Poles... :§ 10: A standard-form inventory schedule shall be used. Essentially all the movable assets to hand in the affected living places are to be included. In particular .... ::1. All items of furniture without exception..., 2. Wall mounted and standing clocks, 3. ceiling and table lamps, 4. pianos and other musical instruments, 5. Carpets, rugs and tapestries, 6. Pictures and sculptures (excluding mass-produced items), 7. household machines of significant value (electric and gas fridges, ovens, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners...), 8. Typewriters and calculators 13 September 1946 decree concerning the exclusion of persons of German nationality from the Polish state

References