OBYWATELSTWO TZW PÓŹNYCH PRZESIEDLEŃCÓW NIEMIECKICH1. ROZWAŻANIA NA TLE PRAWA MIĘDZYNARODOWEGO
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Date
2005
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Wydział Prawa i Administracji UAM
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CITIZENSHIP OF THE ‘LATE DISPLACED GERMANS’. CONSIDERATIONS OF THE ISSUE IN THE LIGHT OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW
Abstract
Citizenship is a legal tie that connects a person to a certain state. Although, as a rule, decisions
regarding citizenship lie within the exclusive competence of the state, one can observe an increasing
role of the international law in that matter, and consequently a limitation of sovereign
rights of the state which is now forced to take into account the will of the person in question in matters
related to the granting, changing or depriving of citizenship. The only one, exceptionally accepted
possibility, is a collective regulation of citizenship in the case of a territorial succession. This
was the case regarding Polish-German relations after the acquisition by Poland in 1945 of parts of
the former Third Reich, and the consequent international obligations arising from Potsdam-Yalta
regulations which called for displacement of German citizens beyond the new borders.
In the year 2005, already 60 years after the 2nd World War, the issue of citizenship of persons
who had left for Germany after 1945, came back as an off-shot of the property-reparations dispute
and has now constituted a certain political problem.
The paper is a legal analysis of the post-war national verification pursued within the territories
attached to Poland as a consequence of the Potsdam displacement decisions as well as the later
deprivations of Polish citizenship exercised on those who, between 1945 and 1989, had left Poland
to live in either of the two German States. It is indicated, against the background of the post-first-
-world-war solutions regarding national questions (Versailles standard), that this problem should
be looked at from the point of view of Potsdam regulations.
In the paper, an assessment of the national regulations is pursued in the light of international
law. It covers an analysis of the official legislation of the Polish People's Republic (1945-1989), the
unpublished international and national acts and the quasi-precedent judiciary of the Polish
courts. Its aim is an attempt to answer the question of the factual status of the said persons in the
Polish law today. The conclusion of the analysis indicates that the international and national legal
acts are in conflict as there are certain legislation gaps and political misconceptions of successive
Polish governments, including the present one. Further, it is proved that from the legal point of
view, the current Polish foreign politics according to which the issue of the German „displaced” citizenship
constitutes „Poland’s internal problem” is wrong and disadvantageous. The solution
should rather lead to force Germany to regulate the issue on the basis of international agreements
in the real interests of Poland i.e. the confirmation of the deprivation of their Polish citizenship of
those „displaced” . Keeping the current status quo may result in a verification of Potsdam regulations
and will be a victory of the German policy seeking of the revision of the obligations and penalties
for the aggression and the war.
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Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 67, 2005, z. 2, s. 33-49.