A Forgotten Chapter of Regional Social History: The Polish Immigrants to the Ruhr 1870–1939

Michaela Bachem-Rehm

Chapter 5 in The Economies of Urban Diversity, 2013, pp 93-113 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Leafing through the telephone books of the Ruhr cities, it is impossible not to notice the many Polish-sounding names, Czerwinski, Komarek, Kowalski, or Wischnewski for instance. It is estimated that 600,000 descendents of the so-called Ruhr-Poles now live in the Ruhr and Rhineland areas. The term Ruhr-Poles was used contemporaneously to refer to the migrant workers that came to the Ruhr between 1870 and 1914 from the eastern Prussian provinces of East and West Prussia, Posen, and Upper Silesia to find mining and industrial work. As these originally Polish provinces belonged to Prussia, the immigrants were legally Prussian citizens.1 Although it is therefore formally incorrect to speak in this context of Poles, the term can be used because it reflects both external and self-perceptions of the group in question.

Keywords: Polish Organization; Weimar Republic; Polish Miner; Ruhr Area; Polish Immigrant (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-33881-5_5

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137338815_5

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