Zdzisław Włodarczyk

The article reviews the personnel policy of the occupant regarding the appointment of the landrat/ county supervisor in South Prussia — a province created from the territories seized by the Hohenzollerns following the second partition of Poland in 1793. Due to external factors and the situation in the province, the process of appointing landrats underwent some modifications. Initially, these officials were elected directly by the Prussian administration, with no contribution from the nobles. The denomination of the nominee played an important role — Evangelical Reformed Church members who had been living in these territories for generations were preferred. All of it was in accordance with the demands of minister Bucholz formulated in the early 1793. During the Kościuszko Uprising many of these elected officials took up arms against the Prussians. As a consequence, they were removed from their positions, and people with no ties with the county they were meant to administer were nominated. However, as early as 1795, the demands of middle noblemen were taken into account, especially since they pledged their allegiance to the monarch during the uprising (in Radomsko) or called for the nomination of a former Prussian officer (in Częstochowa). This nominating procedure also functioned during the second term of minister Voss in South Prussia (after Frederick William III of Prussia had come to the throne). At that point, noblemen were allowed to choose the candidate among themselves, which was in compliance with the General State Laws for the Prussian States, wishes submitted when assuming supervision over the province, as well as the suggestions of the minister himself from the early days of his office.

Pursuant to the decisions of the Congress of Vienna, western parts of the Duchy of Warsaw (with Poznań and Bydgoszcz) were incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia as the Grand Duchy of Posen/the Province of Posen. Although the new ruler, Frederick William III , guaranteed tolerance for the Catholic religion practiced by most of the region’s inhabitants, this did not extend to monasteries and convents (a total of 57 sites with 454 monks and 119 nuns). These were to be gradually reduced in number, and ultimately — dissolved altogether. At the same time, circumstances did not allow for radical solutions of the kind adopted in Silesia in 1810. The plan of Prussian authorities involved a “natural” dissolution of monasteries and convents through a gradual reduction in the numbers of monks and nuns (for example by eliminating novitiate) and secularization. The implementation of these solutions accelerated after the outbreak of the November Uprising, and the subsequent designation of Eduard Flottwell as the governor. Under an administrative decision of March 31, 1833, the remaining congregations in the Grand Duchy were to be completely dissolved within 3 years. The process ultimately ended in 1841 with the death of the last reformation commissioner, and the dissolution of the Bernardine monastery in Górka (near Łobżenica) soon after. The only congregations left in the territory of the Duchy were the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul in Poznań and the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Gostyń, as the Prussian authorities considered them useful.