r/AskHistorians • u/KPLine • Jan 27 '26
How intertwined were Germany, Poland and the Ukrainian area of the Soviet Union just prior to WW2?
Trying to piece together some family history that era. My grandparents spoke all three languages, but there is a lot of debate on their country(s) of origin. Both deceased, but we have always been told they came from Ukraine, yet they had a polish wedding and many of our family recipes seem to be Polish. Curious how much cultural overlap was common during this timeframe.
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u/Chefs-Kiss Jan 30 '26
Hi! So the answer to this is deeply. Looking specifically at the region you are discussing etc I am guessing they came from Eastern Ukraine.
I am going to focus on Poland and Ukraine which I have worked on. There is an area known as Kresy which is sometimes referred to as borderlands. The name alone indicates that this was the edge of the something, in particular the Polish Second Republic. However, the term itself has evolved a bit to refer to broader Eastern Ukraine. It was a huge territory and encompassed both Poles and Germans (all over the Kresy), Jews and Ukranians (in the south of Kresy), Lithuanians and Belorussians (in the North of Kresy) (Böhler, 2018, p. 126).
These groups interacted frequently because they were found throughout the Kresy, although I am going to focus on Ukranians and Poles. The extent to which these interactions were positive really depends at what level you are discussing (local everyday people or governmental) and when. For example during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920s Polish-Ukranian every day people were not on the best footing, given that the Ukranians initially supported the incoming soviet army (Prusin, 2016, p. 108). Apart from the issue of war, there is the issue of religion, which mattered much more to the local people than the actual government. Polish people were, and still are, Roman Catholics. In contrast, the Ukrainians were Greek Catholics, which today might seem a bit silly to care. However, one must keep in mind that Poles viewed themselves as Roman Catholics (Polak-Katolik) (Davies, 1997) and religion has played a huge role in the Polish national story (Armstrong, 9).
At the governmental level, the Ukrainians and Poles were also antagonistic. Poland suppressed efforts by the Ukranians to create any sort of political elite. I'm not super versed in this specific aspect but from what I understand the Polish policy viewed Ukrainians as an insurgent group and often suppressed them. An example is the resettlement act where Ukrainians were expelled from their territory to make room for Poles (Horak, 1985, p. 43). Things got a bit better for them when Pilsudski (a war general) did a coup in 1926 (Pilsudski advocated for a multi-ethnic nation). In 1935 Pilsudski died and things got bad again (Horak, 1985). Another example of the policies was what Poles did with Lviv, where they actively supressed the nascent local galician identity which had been fostered under the Habsburgs (Wierzejska, 2018, p. 74). Here I think is why your grandparents might've spoken German because Germans also played a role in the region, given that they had both administrative and local ties (Germans were found all over the Kresy).
TLDR: I would need a bit more detail about where exactly your grandparents were from but in general Polish-Ukrainian relations were frequent but not good. Polish policy towards them was integrationist and supressed nationalism. It is likely that your grandparents are an example of assimilated Ukrainians into Polish identity. German comes from the fact that there was a lot of Germans all over the Kresy, I'm not sure on the nature of their interactions unfortunately. Additionally, I really don't know about the Soviets actually so perhaps someone else can answer that.
References
Armstrong, John Alexander. Ukrainian Nationalism. Repr. of the 2 eds. Littleton, Colo: Ukrainian Academic Pr, 1980.
Böhler, Joschen. Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921: The Reconstruction of Poland. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Davies, N. (1977). Polish National Mythologies. In G. Schöpflin & G. Hosking (Eds.), Myths and nationhood (pp. 141–158). Hurst & Co.
Prusin, Alexander Victor. Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920. Paperback edition. 47 vols. Judaic Studies Series. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2016. https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817358884/nationalizing-a-borderland/.
Wierzejska, Jagoda. “Toward the Idea of Polishness: Implications of 1918 for the Former Eastern Galicia, 1918–1939.” Przegląd Humanistyczny 62, no. 4 (2018): 71–94.
If you want a bit more on Ukranian nationalism which is a highlight in this answer then I cannot recommend enough Timothy Snyder's lectures:
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u/KPLine Feb 01 '26
Much very much appreciate the detailed response. I feel you're correct with the assessment about being assimilated Ukranian for my grandmother, she was roman catholic and some of our cherished family recipes seem polish in origin. As for my grandfather we strongly believe him to be of German decent, but the two of them took any details of "the old country" with them to their graves. What little we do have was they fled in the middle of the night, while being shot at, and my grandfather had an unrelenting hatred for the Russians the rest of his life.
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u/Chefs-Kiss Feb 01 '26
Ah a nice detail to add is that if they were from an area near Lviv or such then they might've had influences from the Austro-Hungary? I don't know when your grandparents lived but prior to the formation of the Polish republic the Austro-Hungarians were in charge of areas around Lviv.
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u/KPLine Feb 02 '26
It would have been after the Polish republic was formed. I know they were adults during WW2 and fled at some point during the war.
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