Bereits 1945 kursierte im neuen Volkspolen der Witz: "Was passiert in der Sahara, wenn die Kommunisten kommen? Der Sand wird knapp!" Jerzy Kochanowskis Buch beleuchtet die Versuche von Partei und Staat im Nachkriegspolen, die "sozialistische Wüste" sowohl zu "bewässern" als auch möglichst hohe Erträge aus ihr herauszupressen. Da die meisten Betriebe verstaatlicht worden waren, mussten sich die gesellschaftlichen Akteure auf ein kompliziertes Spiel mit staatlichen Instanzen einlassen, wobei...

After World War II, some 12 million Germans, 3 million Poles and Ukrainians, and tens of thousands of Hungarians were expelled from their homes and forced to migrate to their supposed countries of origin. Using freshly available materials from Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Czechoslovak, German, British, and American archives, the contributors to this book provide a sweeping, detailed account of the turmoil caused by the huge wave of forced migration during the nascent Cold War. The book also...

Europe has a long history of state-led population displacement on ethnic grounds. The nationalist argument of ethnic homogeneity has been a crucial factor in the mapping of the continent. At no time has this been more the case than during and after the Second World War. Both under the aggressive expansionism of the Third Reich and after Germany's defeat, millions were brutally forced out of their homelands. Presenting a history from the top as well as the bottom, People on the Move reconst...

This book analyzes the history of the black market in Poland before the 1940s and the development of black-market phenomena in post-war Poland. The author evaluates the interrelation between black-market phenomena and historical and geographical conditions. At first, the black market stabilized the system by making it more flexible and creating a margin of freedom, albeit in the short term. In the long run, the informal economic activities of the people ran counter to and undermined the of...