The Bund Deutscher Osten (BDO; English: "Federation of the German East") was an anti-Polish German Nazi organisation founded on 26 May 1933. The organisation was supported by the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. The BDO was a national socialist version of the
German Eastern Marches Society
German Eastern Marches Society (german: Deutscher Ostmarkenverein, also known in German as ') was a German radical,Geoff Eley, op.cit.p.43/ref> extremely nationalist xenophobic organization founded in 1894. Mainly among Poles, it was sometimes kno ...
, which was closed down by the Nazis in 1934. It promulgated the idea of the "German East", an
irredentist
Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent sta ...
concept that attempted to deny the very existence of Poland and the Polish people's right to live there.
The ''
Reichsleiter
' (national leader or Reich leader) was the second-highest political rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), next only to the office of ''Führer''. ''Reichsleiter'' also served as a paramilitary rank within the NSDAP and was the highest position attaina ...
'' of the Bund Deutscher Osten between 1933 and 1937 was
Theodor Oberländer
Theodor Oberländer (1 May 1905 – 4 May 1998) was an Ostforschung scientist and German Nazi official and politician, who after the Second World War served as Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees and Victims of War in West Germany ...
. In May 1933, when
Passau
Passau (; bar, label=Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north.
Passau's popu ...
founded its own association, school superintendent
Wilhelm Leidl became its leader.
[Anna Rosmus: Hitlers Nibelungen, Samples Grafenau 2015, pp. 77f]
See also
*
Kulturkampf
(, 'culture struggle') was the conflict that took place from 1872 to 1878 between the Catholic Church led by Pope Pius IX and the government of Prussia led by Otto von Bismarck. The main issues were clerical control of education and ecclesiastic ...
*
Kirchenkampf
''Kirchenkampf'' (, lit. 'church struggle') is a German term which pertains to the situation of the Christian churches in Germany during the Nazi period (1933–1945). Sometimes used ambiguously, the term may refer to one or more of the follo ...
*
Germanisation
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, German people, people and German culture, culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationa ...
*
Ostflucht
The ''Ostflucht'' (; "flight from the East") was the migration of Germans, in the later 19th century and early 20th century, from areas which were then eastern parts of Germany to more industrialized regions in central and western Germany. The ...
*
Anti-Polish sentiment
Polonophobia, also referred to as anti-Polonism, ( pl, Antypolonizm), and anti-Polish sentiment are terms for negative attitudes, prejudices, and actions against Poles as an ethnic group, Poland as their country, and their culture. These incl ...
References
Bibliography
*Karol Fiedor, ''Bund Deutscher Osten w systemie antypolskiej propagandy'', Instytut Śląski w Opolu, Warszawa–Wrocław 1977
*Philipp–Christian Wachs "Der Fall Theodor Oberländer (1905–1998): Ein Lehrstück deutscher Geschichte", Frankfurt/Main; New York Campus–Verl. 2000,
Nazi Party organizations
Germany–Poland relations
Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe
German irredentism
Organizations established in 1933
1933 establishments in Germany
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