HEIMATSCHUTZ AND GRENZSCHUTZ VERSUS THE GREATER POLAND UPRISING OF 1918/1919 IN THE COVERAGE OF 'KURIER POZNANSKI' AND 'DZIENNIK POZNANSKI'

During the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918/1919 the newspapers 'Kurier Poznanski' and 'Dziennik Poznanski' provided considerable coverage of the activity of the German troops: 'Heimatschutz' and 'Grenzschutz'. Those were formations recruited by the government in Berlin in mid-November and beginning of December 1918 respectively, to defend Germany's eastern territories and dispatched to combat Poles, among other reasons out of fear of losing the Grand Duchy of Posen. Regrettably, both daily papers did not pay adequate attention to a detailed presentation of facts. As a result, many reports either lack such basic information as the date and place of the described event or the data pertaining to its precise location are extremely laconic. Such an approach to reported events might suggest that some of the accounts, especially those concerning brutal murders of the civilian population and Polish soldiers, could have been manipulated for propaganda purposes. It must be remembered that newspaper columns were an arena of struggle for the awareness of the reader, who was persuaded to support views represented by a particular newspaper and the groups that shared its options. Despite the above mentioned shortcomings, analysis of the press of those times enables to view the Greater Poland Uprising from a different, hitherto marginalized, perspective.