‘Recovering’ Territories: The Use of History in the Integration of the New Polish Western Borderland after World War II

This article analyses the historical narrative about the territories annexed by Poland from Germany at the end of World War II. The so-called ‘Recovered Territories’ were reinterpreted as ‘ancient Slavonic lands’, which had been unlawfully seized by Germans and only now restored to their rightful owners. The aim was to establish authority over the acquired territories, integrate them with the rest of Poland and build a sense of identity with them. At the same time, scholarship entered into a complex relation with the new communist regime, joined by the common interest of establishing the new Polish–German border.