Ein guter Deal?

Abstract

There is no doubt that the redrawing of the Polish borders after 1945 had a significant impact on the Polish economy. The former eastern territories of Germany made up around one third of the new Poland. However, analysis of the productivity of the territories Poland lost in the east - the so-called Kresy - has been scarce, as have calculations showing the “economic gains” in the Polish west when parts of the former German Reich were attached to Poland. The following article attempts to conduct plausible calculations on the economic productivity of both the Kresy and the former eastern German territories. The paper argues that, while the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Kresy amounted to roughly 9.4 billion 1990 Geary- Khamis dollars (or 19 percent of Poland’s GDP; all figures for 1936), the former East Germany had a GDP of 25.4 billion Geary-Khamis dollars.