The Imperial German Board of Archives in Warsaw: A Paradigmatic Example of the ‘Moral Conquest’ Policy in the Polish Territory during the First World War

Abstract

The essay analyses the activities of the imperial German Board of Archives as a form through which the ‘moral conquest’ ( moralische Eroberung ) policy was pursued in Congress Poland by the German Empire in the First World War years. Central to the argument is not only the aspect of a model incarnation of a soft-power strategy in exportation of German science to a conquered country, this being a key instrument of the peaceful conquest of Poland, but also an organic incoherence of the strategy, as reflected in the way the Polish archives were managed. Such identification suggests that the German Empire pursued in Congress Poland activities typical of semicolonial policies. For one thing, the German administrators safeguarded against destruction the official (public, state-related) documents and archival collections abandoned by the Russians, catalogued them and made them available to historians, in a professional way and on civilised terms. Otherwise, in pursuance of their particular interests, the German authorities of the General Government of Warsaw endeavoured, from a position of strength, to take over the valuable documents from the Polish archives. This venture negated, in the perception of the Polish partners, the esteem for Germany and its civilizational achievements, administering a final blow to the ‘moral conquest’ concept.