THE MODERN POLISH FRONTIERS 393and Leuthen (Lutynia, 1757); and above all, to Frederick's great defeats at Gross
Jagersdorf (1757) and at Kiinersdorf (Kunowice, 1759). All these engagements,
however, have been seen in Poland to be part of 'foreign' rather than of 'local'
history, and as such are rarely judged worthy of attention, even where the mod-
ern Polish tourist might take comfort from the result. In educated German
minds, for instance, the name of Kiinersdorf conjures up the same sort of noble
reflections which the British associate with Kipling's Recessional and the French
with Hugo's lines on Waterloo in L'Expiation. Kiinersdorf was the site of
Prussia's greatest disaster, the cause of a catastrophe where the Russians threat-
ened to destroy the Hohenzollerns for good, the scene of untold carnage, and the
subject of Christian Tiegde's celebrated Elegy to 'Humanity butchered by
Delusion on the Altar of Blood'. Appropriately enough, as Kunowice, it has now
become the Polish frontier station on the main railway line between Berlin and
Warsaw. Other monuments to past glory might also be raised to Gneisenau's
defence of Colberg (Kolobrzeg) in 1806; to Napoleon's victory at Eylau (Ilawa)
in 1807; to Hindenburg's destruction of two Russian armies in the Battle of the
Masurian Lakes in September 1914, or even to Pilsudski's repulse of the Red
Army from their intended advance into Germany in August 1920. A colossal
statue of Hidenburg, erected at Hohenstein (Pszczolki) in memory of his success
against the Russians was demolished by the Nazis in 1944 to prevent its dese-
cration by the advancing Soviet Army; whilst a diminutive memorial at
Radzymin, with the curious inscription 'KOSCIUSZKO-RODACY-i92or' (To
Kosciuszko, from his compatriots, AD 1920) was long the only mark of Pilsud-
ski's success at the Battle of Warsaw.
Similarly, if the post-war Polish authorities were now to commemorate all the
famous sons and daughters of the 'Recovered Territories', commemorative
plaques would have to be fixed to the birthplace in Szczecin of Katherina von
Anhalt-Zerbst (1729-96) later Empress of Russia; to the birthplaces in Gdansk
of Johann Hevelius (1611—87), the beer-brewing astronomer, of Gabriel
Fahrenheit (1686-1736), the physicist, of Artur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), the
philosopher, and of the Von Schellendorf brothers, successive German War
Ministers under Bismarck; to those in Poznari of Heinrich Graetz (1817-91), the
historian, of Edward Lasker (1829-94), the National Liberal leader, of Field
Marshal-President Paul von Beneckendorff und Hindenburg (1847-1934), and
of Field Marshal Hans von Kluge (1882-1944); and to those in Wroclaw of
Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832), Metternich's secretary and theoretician of the
Balance of Power, of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), the theologian, of
Karl Lessing (1808-90) and Adolf Menzel (1815-1905), historical painters, of
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-64), the socialist, of Field Marshal Hermann von
Eichhorn (1848-1918), of Sir George Henschel (1850-1934), singer, conductor,
and founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and of Max Born (1888-1970),
the British scientist and Nobel Prize winner. By the same token, Morqg
(Mohrungen) can claim J. G. Herder (1744-1803), the historical philosopher,
mythologist, and collector of folk-songs; Zeblin near Koszalin (Coslin) can