394 GRANICEclaim Christian von Kleist (1715-59), the Prussian soldier and poet, killed at
Kiinersdorf; Metschkau (Mieczkow) in Silesia can claim Adalbert Falk
(182.7—1900), Prussian Minister of Education and author of the Kulturkampf,
Kostrzyn (Kiistrin), the scene of Frederick II's juvenile incarceration, can claim
General Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922); Pokoj (Carlsruhe) near Opole can
claim both Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833-1905), the geographer and Chinese
explorer, and his equally adventurous grandson, Manfred von Richthofen
(1892-1918), the 'Red Baron', the leading air-ace of the First World War,
W^brzezno (Briesen) near Grudziadz can claim Walter Herman Nernst
(1864-1941), formulator of the Third Law of Thermodynamics. Krzyzowa
(Creisau) near (widnica was given to Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke
(1800-91) in recognition of his services in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. In
later times, as the home of the Field Marshal's great grandson, Helmuth von
Moltke (1907-45), who was hanged by the Nazis for treason, it gave shelter to
the 'Kreisau Circle' of German resistors.^40 Skyren (Skorzyn), near Krosno
(Crossen) on the Oder, was the home of Leon Count von Caprivi (1831-99), and
Haynau (Chojonow) of Georg Michaelis (1857-1936). Both men in their day
served as German Chancellors. Raciborz (Ratibor) was the centre of the
Hohenlohe estates - the largest landed fortune in Central Europe: and
Tarnowskie Gory (Tarnowitz) of the Donnersmarck fortune. Among the per-
sonalities of the Second World War, Panzer General Heinz Guderian
(1888-1954) was born at Chelmno (kulm) on the Vistula: SS-
Obergruppenfuehrer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewsky (1899-1972), victor of the
Warsaw Rising, at Lgbork (Lauenberg) in Pomerania; and SS-General Kurt
Daluege (1897-1946), Head of the Nazi Ordnungspolizei, at Kluczbork
(Kreuzberg) in Silesia. The list is endless, and fills more entries in any general
encyclopaedia than those of entire nations. Who is to say that so many distin-
guished names, and the ancient German communities which produced them, are
now to be dissociated from the land of their birth? How, if they are simply
struck from the record, can their evil deeds, as well as their noble ones, be
remembered?
Yet encyclopaedic entries prove little. The really striking feature of German
life in the East was to be found in the intensity with which the population's
Germanity was associated with its homeland. For exactly the same feelings of
insecurity which nowadays inspire their Polish successors, the patriotism and
cultural zeal of the eastern Germans was all the more fervent for its exposure to
the tensions of disputed border territory. In many ways, the Germans of Breslau
or Posen were more staunchly loyal to German culture and to the German state
than were many of their compatriots elsewhere in Germany (just as the
'Loyalists' of Belfast cultivate their Britishness far more demonstratively than
most people elsewhere in the United Kingdom). None the less, if this patriotism
sometimes possessed a truculent edge of which the Poles are all too well aware,
it also inspired extraordinary achievements in all fields of human endeavour.
In the realm of learning, the scholars and scientists of Breslau, whose German