Note: In this post, I discuss the fate of the hotel my family owned for three generations in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]. Largely intact following the cessation of hostilities after WWII, it appears to have been demolished for a combination of reasons, including geopolitical ones and the Soviet Union’s desire to remove historical traces of German connections to Silesia.
Related Posts:
POST 11: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL
POST 11, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL
POST 11, POSTSCRIPT 2: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL
Regular readers know I periodically revisit topics or people I’ve talked about to amplify new findings. Since the process of learning rarely follows a linear path, one is often left to reevaluate previous findings or conclusions considering more recently uncovered evidence.
The family establishment in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz Von Preußen” Hotel, was owned for what I estimate are roughly three generations, from the early 1850s to around the mid-1920s. (Figures 1-2) A historic police file found at the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz” indicates the business was sold in around 1926, and subsequently went through a series of owners. (Figure 3)
I thought I had previously laid to rest the issue of why the building does not stand today. It would be reasonable to assume the structure was destroyed during World War II, by Allied bombing of the city prior to its capture or in the waning days of the war when the Soviets encircled and seized the city. However, a post-WWII photo given to me by a curator at the Muzeum w Raciborzu proves the structure was largely intact possibly apart from the roof; the photo, while of high resolution, is taken at too great a distance to ascertain how badly the roof was damaged. (Figure 4)
Realizing the Bruck’s “Prinz Von Preußen” Hotel, which oddly retained its name throughout its existence despite its Jewish origins, outlasted the cataclysmic events of WWII, I sought another explanation for why it might not have survived. This was provided, so I thought, by Mr. Paul Newerla (Figure 5), my friend from Racibórz, a retired lawyer who now researches and writes extensively about the history of Silesia and Ratibor. Paul sent me a copy of a letter he found in the Racibórz Archives dated the 27th of March 1950 from the so-called Racibórz Municipal Board to the Municipal National Council in Racibórz (Figure 6); in essence, the letter states that damaged buildings in the town had been evaluated for their “historic character” and found lacking, so that parts of or all a structure could be dismantled to provide 5,000,000 bricks needed for the reconstruction of Warsaw.
Indicative of the method used to clear burned and destroyed houses and buildings in Racibórz, Paul found another letter dated the 12th of January 1948 sent from the Konservator of the Voivodeship, essentially the province, to the Technical Department of Racibórz’s Municipal Department. (Figure 7) The province was reminding the Municipal Board that the use of explosives to clear these damaged structures in the vicinity of historic edifices such as the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Racibórz was prohibited. It is safe to assume that explosives were similarly used to take down the Bruck’s Hotel.
Why the city of Racibórz would have agreed to or recommended the dismantling of perfectly functional structures like the former family hotel probably requiring only minor reconstruction at a time when housing was likely in short supply seems to defy logic. Paul jumped to my assistance to explain broader geopolitical factors that apparently dictated why the former family establishment was torn down. I will attempt to explain this to readers.
The address for the Bruck’s “Prinz Von Preußen” Hotel was Oderstraße 16 (Figure 8); the hotel was located on an east-west street that terminated along the west bank of the Oder River [Polish: Odra]. (Figure 9) The historic walled city of Ratibor lay along the west side of the Oder River, as does much of the current central part of Racibórz. The location of the hotel along the west side of the Oder River is significant, as I will demonstrate. Spoiler alert. The destruction of the Bruck’s Hotel may be partially related to the anticipated location of the German-Polish frontier following the end of WWII.
The subject of Poland’s western frontier was brought up by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as early as late 1943 at the Tehrān Conference; this was a meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin held in Tehrān between November 28–December 1, 1943. The chief discussion centered on the opening of a “second front” in western Europe. Stalin agreed to an eastern offensive to coincide with the forthcoming Western Front. On the Polish question, the western Allies and the Soviet Union were at sharp odds. While the Americans were not interested in discussing any border changes during the Tehrān Conference, Roosevelt agreed in principle that Poland’s western border should be extended west to the Oder River.
At the Yalta Conference, during the second of the Big Three conferences between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin held in February 1945, American and British officials agreed on the basics of Poland’s future borders. In the east, the British agreed to the Curzon line, the proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I; this line was first proposed in 1919. The British acknowledged that the Americans might push for Lwów, current-day Lviv in western Ukraine, to be included in post-war Poland. It was generally agreed that Poland should receive part of East Prussia, Danzig, the eastern part of Pomerania, and Upper Silesia; for reference Ratibor, present-day Racibórz, was in Upper Silesia.
In terms of this blog post, the following observation in Wikipedia is relevant: “With respect to Poland’s western frontiers, Stalin noted that the Polish Prime Minister in exile, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, had been pleased when Stalin had told him Poland would be granted Stettin/Szczecin and the German territories east of the Western Neisse [River]. Yalta was the first time the Soviets openly declared support for a German-Polish frontier on the Western as opposed to the Eastern Neisse. Churchill objected to the Western Neisse frontier, saying ‘it would be a pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food that it got indigestion.’ He added that many Germans would be shocked if such large numbers of Germans were driven out of these areas, to which Stalin responded that ‘many Germans’ had ‘already fled before the Red Army.’” The question of Poland’s western border was ultimately left to be decided at the Potsdam Conference.
Let me digress briefly to give readers a sense of geography regarding the whereabouts of the Western and Eastern Neisse Rivers in relationship to the location of Racibórz. The Neisse River, in Polish Nysa, is two rivers in present-day southwestern Poland. The better-known Nysa Łużycka, or Lusatian Neisse, is the more westerly and longer of the two rivers running 157 miles or 252 km; the Nysa Kłodzka, or Glatzer Leisse or Neisse of the city of Kłodzko (Glatz), is the shorter is 113 miles or 182 km and lies entirely within Poland. Both rivers rise in the Sudeten Mountains, flow northward, and empty into the Oder River. (Figure 10) Near the village of Ratzdorf, the Lusatian Neisse discharges into the Oder River.
Görlitz, located on the more westerly Lusatian Neisse River, is the easternmost town in Germany (easternmost village is Zentendorf), and lies opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec. Görlitz is slightly less than 200 miles west-northwest of Racibórz (Figure 11), while Kłodzko along the Eastern Neisse is only about 90 miles to the west-northwest of Racibórz. (Figure 12)
As readers can easily discern for themselves, the Soviet proposal to establish Poland’s western frontier along either the Western Neisse or Eastern Neisse would have resulted and did ultimately result in considerably more land being included within Poland. However, at the time of the Yalta Conference, the precise location of Poland’s western border was still an open question. The western Allies accepted in general that the Oder River into which both the eastern and western Neisse rivers emptied would be the western border of Poland in that area. Still in doubt at the time was whether the border would follow the eastern or western Neisse. The western Allies sought to place the border on the eastern Neisse closer to Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Suggestions of a border on the Bóbr River (Bober) were also supposedly rejected by the Soviets.
At the latitude at which Racibórz is located, the eastern and western Neisse are situated much further to the west of the Oder River. In none of the materials I’ve read have I seen any mention that the Allies were seriously considering establishing the border between Germany and Poland along the Oder at this latitude; as mentioned above, the discussion always revolved around establishing the western frontier along the Neisse rivers or conceivably along the Bober River. (see Figure 10) While this may be true, as far as the local authorities in Racibórz may have been concerned, there may have been sufficient uncertainty as to where the final frontier would be established. Thus, to hedge their bets, the Communist authorities may have decided to dismantle the Bruck’s Hotel and salvage the bricks fearing it would remain on the German side of the border.
A recent citation sent to me by Paul Newerla sheds additional light on how the Bruck’s Hotel was destroyed. On page 69 of a book entitled in Polish “Od Joannitow Do Ratownikow–Czyli Dzieje Strazakow Ziemi Raciborskiej,” translated roughly as “From the Joanites to the rescuers or the history of firefighters of the Racibórz Land,” there is an eyewitness account by a former firefighter who worked for the fire brigade in Racibórz. (Figures 13a-c)
Below is the translation of what he wrote:
“One day (it was 1945, without further date) the fire brigade was alerted and ordered to the fire of the Hotel Bruck on the corner of Oderstraße and Bollwerkstraße (now Reymonta-Straße). The hotel was in unusually good condition after the war. When the firefighters appeared with their firefighting trailer in front of the burning hotel, they met Russian soldiers equipped with weapons. They refused to have the hotel deleted [sic]. The Polish administration was also powerless. So the beautiful hotel burned.”
It would appear, based on this account, that perhaps an evening of drunken debauchery by occupying Russian soldiers “accidentally” led to the Bruck’s Hotel being set on fire and to the establishment’s ultimate destruction; clearly, the soldiers had no interest in seeing the fire extinguished when the firefighters showed up. Depending on the intensity of the fire, it’s likely the bricks would still have been usable and likely salvaged.
Time and again through history, we have seen foreign invaders attempting to destroy traces of earlier history and culture in places they occupy, to rewrite the past, so to speak. The Nazis sought to eradicate Jewish culture. Currently, we are witnessing in the Ukraine Russians plundering museums in places like Kherson and Mariupol, because, above all, according to Putin’s propaganda, “Ukraine as a country doesn’t exist, it’s part of Russia—so they can grab anything they want.” Thus, like today, it’s probable the orders to wipe out evidence of earlier cultures in Racibórz following WWII were coming from someone high in the Kremlin, likely Stalin himself. Later, during the Communist Era, the headstones in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor were removed and sold off because again, after all, Jews were never considered a part of the cultural fabric of the city.
In closing, let me make a few observations about the frontier between Germany and Poland, and the territorial losses that both suffered because of WWII. The Potsdam Agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union concluded on the 2nd of August 1945, in anticipation of a final peace treaty, placed the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line under Polish administration. All Germans remaining in the old and new Poland, it was decided, should be expelled. The Oder-Neisse line marked the border between the former East Germany and Poland from 1950 to 1990. The then-two Communist governments agreed to the border in 1950, while then-West Germany, after a period of refusal, conceded with reservations in 1970. Notwithstanding West Germany’s misgivings about this frontier, with the reunification of Germany, they eventually agreed to it when the German-Polish Border Treaty was signed on the 14th of November 1990.
Ultimately, Poland for its loss to the Soviet Union of 72,000 sq. miles (187,000 sq. km.) of lands east of the Curzon line was compensated with 43,000 sq. miles (112,000 sq. km.) of former German territory. The final borders resulted in Germany’s loss to Poland of most of Silesia, half of Pomerania, the eastern portion of Brandenburg, a small part of Saxony, and part of East Prussia. The northern part of East Prussia, including Königsberg [today: Kaliningrad, Russia], was annexed by the Soviet Union, while Memelland became part of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, today Lithuania. (Figure 14)
Thus, while we may wish to believe frontiers and borders are immutable, as we’ve seen in just the past nine years since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, they are ever-changing and much more fluid than we would expect.
REFERENCES
Dafoe, Taylor. “Before Retreating from Kherson, Russian Troops Emptied One of Ukraine’s Top Museum of Nearly 15,000 Objects.” Artnet News, 14 Nov. 2022, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/russian-troops-loot-kherson-museum-2209777
Geanous, Jacob. “Russian art curators have reportedly helped loot dozens of Ukraine museums.” New York Post, 4 Feb. 2023, https://flipboard.com/article/russian-art-curators-have-reportedly-helped-loot-dozens-of-ukraine-museums/f-1f12bf14a5%2Fnypost.com
Grutchot, Katarzyna (ed.) “Od Joannitow Do Ratownikow—Czyli Dzieje Strazakow Ziemi Raciborskiej.” (“From the Joanites to the rescuers or the history of firefighters of the Racibórz Land”). Nowiny Publishing House.
“Neisse River.” Encylopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Neisse-River-Europe
“Oder-Neisse line.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oder%E2%80%93Neisse_line