German Life and Letters 48:3 July 1995 001WJ777

WENDS, SERBS OR SORBS? THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS O F LUSATIA (1942-47)

PETER BARKER

During the latter part of the Second World War the British Foreign Office was rather startled to start receiving communications in the form of letters and memoranda from an organisation calling itself The Wendish National Committee which seemed to be based in London. The organisation was not totally new to the government, since the Special Branch had already sup- plied the Home Office with a report in 1942 on the Wendish Information Circle (later the Wendish Nationul Circle), whose chairman, a certain Josef Majewski, turned up again as the instigator of the memoranda in 194415. The Home Office was in the process of drawing up a list of German and Austrian refugee groups in Britain, and this group, whose professed aim was to defend ‘the Wends living under German rule, and to collect materials to be used for the solution of the Wendish problem in the future’,’ was being considered for inclusion. As it happened, the Home Office decided that this group was totally harmless and i t was left out of the final list which was completed in November 1942. What the Home Office had discovered was that this group was not being run by Sorbs or Wends, the autochthonous Slav minority from Lusatia, but was one of the groups associated with the Polish government in exile in London and was under the control of Poles. The final sentence of the report reads: ‘Mr Majewski is regarded by his fellow Polish citizens as an eccentric but harmless person.’2

Between February 1944 and April 1945 this organisation, which changed its name in September 1944 to the Wendish National Committee, sent five memoranda and letters to the British government. It claimed to ‘establish a link with the tradition of the Wendish independents and of the Narodny Wubjerk (the National C~rnmittee)’,~ which in 1919 sent two representatives with the Czechoslovak delegation to Versailles to try and gain recognition of Sorbian rights, if possible in the form of a separate Sorbian state under Czechoslovak protection. In reality it represented Polish, rather than Sorb- ian, interests, which is clear from the appendix to the first memorandum of 21 February 1944, in which the Sorbs are described as ‘a Polish min- ~ r i t y ’ . ~ The main demand of this memorandum, which is repeated in later ones, is the creation of a Wendish state, the Free State of Wendland, to

’ Letter from the Home Office (Aliens Department) to G.W.Harrison (Foreign Office), dated 26 October 1942, Public Record Ofice, Kew (hereafter PRO), FO 371/30911, file no. C10352. ’ Ibid. 3Letter dated 3 September 1944, PRO FO 371/39140, file no. C13515.

371/47788, file no. N 4527, p.2.

Q Blscliwcll PUMiahers Ltd 1995. Publiahed b BIxhvell Publishers. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1IF. UK nod 238 Main Street, Cambridge. MA 02142. bSA.

Annex to Memorandum of 21 February 1944, ‘Outline of the Wendish Problem in Germany’, FO

THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (194247) 363

include not only the Sorbian areas of Upper and Lower Lusatia but also the whole area between the Elbe and the Oder as far north and west as Hamburg and Kiel, that is to say those areas which were originally settled by Slav tribes, probably from the fifth century onwards, until their gradual colonisation by the Germans, beginning in the ninth century. In the later memorandum of 31 March 1945 it was suggested that this area should be occupied by the Polish armed force^.^ In a letter sent to Winston Churchill two weeks later it was suggested that Poles should be allowed to emigrate freely into these areas.6 The second demand, raised in the memorandum of 1 November 1944, concerned the separation of Wendish from German prisoners of war. It was suggested that Sorbian soldiers had joined the Germany army unwillingly, but the main argument was that they would form excellent allies for the occupation authorities after the cessation of hostilities because of their antagonistic attitude towards the Germans and their knowledge of local condition^.^ The reaction of the Foreign Office to these clearly ludicrous demands was appropriately scathing. Officials took note of the first memorandum commenting, ‘Mr Majewski appears to have some very original if rather queer ideas’, and ‘I hardly see “Wendland” playing a major role in the future of Europe’.8 Although Majewski sent a telegram to Churchill in Quebec on 17 September 1944 to try to influence the discussions on the zonal boundaries in Germany, no notice seems to have been taken of it.

It was not until hostilities with Germany ended in May 1945 that the Foreign Office started to take more note of the particular situation of Lusatia with its Slav ethnic minority. Despite extreme uncertainty about the actual size of the Sorbian population - the memorandum of 2 1 February 1944 had maintained that there were 200,000 Sorbian speakers, whereas 80-100,000 would have been a far more accurate figure - British officials started to become aware of the possibly delicate position of the area as a result of two developments. Firstly, Slav frontiers had moved much closer to Lusatia with the provisional allocation of most of Silesia to Poland, and secondly the intention of the Czechoslovak government to expel the German population of the Sudetenland had created a potentially unstable situation not far away from Lusatia. Underlying this uncertainty was an increased fear of unpredictable Soviet reactions to separatist demands by Sorbian organisations, since final agreement on some of Germany’s post-war frontiers had not yet been reached and was postponed at Potsdam until the conclusion of a Peace Treaty with Germany.

Memorandum dated 31 March 1945, ibid., p.1. 6See the letter from the WNC, dated 14 April 1945, and the memorandum of 31 March 1945, ibid., pp.1-2. ’ See ‘Memorandum upon the necessity of the elimination of the prisoners of war of Wendish descent out from the bulk of the German prisoners and of their concentration into separate prisoners’ camps’, ibid. ‘Notes in the Minutes to the memorandum of 21 February 1944, dated 7 March, PRO FO 371/ 30911, file no. C2849.

0 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1595.

364 THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (1942-47)

The Foreign Office’s first concern was the fact that some Czechoslovak ministers had expressed support for Sorbian separatist demands after the memorandum of 12 May 1945 from the Lusatian National Committee (LNC) in Prague had been sent to Stalin and BeneS, the Czechoslovak president, but the FO was also aware of the suggestion made by the Czechs that the Sorbs should simply be allowed to emigrate into areas of the Sudetenland from which Germans had been expelled. The British govern- ment had already been informed in February 1945 by a Czech representa- tive in London, Ripka, who later became the first Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Trade, of the suggestion that the Sorbs or Wends could be transferred to Czechoslovakia in exchange for the Sudeten Germans ‘to fill the v a c u ~ m ’ . ~ Initially the Foreign Office believed that the LNC was merely asking that Sorbs should be allowed to emigrate to Czechoslovakia, but at the end of May and throughout June they received broadcast reports from Prague of rallies at which Czechoslovak ministers had spoken in favour of the annexation of Lusatia by Czechoslovakia. On 10 July they received the English version of a second memorandum sent to Stalin and BeneS on 1 June in preparation for the Potsdam conference, and they realised that the Sorbian organisation was actually asking for Lusatia to be incorporated into Czechoslovakia, and as a first step for the Czechoslovak army to occupy the area.

The Foreign Office’s reaction was one of complete rejection of separatist demands, although they were prepared to countenance the emigration of Sorbs to the Sudetenland under Four Power supervision. Anything beyond that was totally rejected.” In a note written as a reaction to another report by Prague radio of an enthusiastic rally on 16 August in favour of the annexation of Lusatia it was made clear that these demands represented a claim on the rump of Germany and were therefore totally unacceptable.” But the FO was not sure how seriously it should take the situation. On 9 June a report of a broadcast in Prague had been received which had stated, ‘the Czechoslovak government has begun negotiating with the Soviet government for the incorporation of Lusatia, into Czechoslovakia’.’2 It was true that at least two ministers had spoken at rallies in favour of annexation, David, the Deputy Premier, and Nedjely, the Minister of Education. On the other hand, they had received reports from their ambassador in Prague that Beneg ‘did not want to touch the Lusatian Sorbs with a bargepole’ and that in BeneE’s opinion ‘the Lusatian Sorbs were Nazis to a man’.I3 Also a discussion took place in the Foreign Office on 19 July between

Note dated 13 February 1945, PRO FO 371/47085, file no. N 1702. “‘See the note dated 5 August 1945 in PRO FO 371/47173, file no. N9094: ‘I hope we shall give no encouragement to this agitation.’ “ S e e PRO FO 371/47173, file no. N10888. “PRO FO 371147788, file no. N4527. l 3 Letter from Mr Nichols in Prague to the Northern Department, dated 18 July 1945, PRO FO 371/47173, file no. N9094. There was however some disagreement in the Northern Department as to whether this was really Benes’s view. See the note dated 13 August in the same file.

0 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1995.

T H E FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS O F LUSATIA (1942-47) 365

Ripka, the Czechoslovak minister for Foreign Trade, and a Mr Shaw from the Foreign Office Research Department concerning Czechoslovak claims for revisions of its northern frontier. During this meeting Ripka assured the Foreign Office that his country had no intention of making any claim to districts inhabited by the Lusatian Wends, but that there were other areas - such as Teschen on the Silesian border, where there was a border dispute with the area under Polish administration - which were regarded as vital to Czechoslovak interests. In a note to the Northern Department Shaw added that Ripka regarded support for the annexation of Lusatia as the work of pan-Slav sentimentalists, but did admit that there were a number of hot-heads eager to stake such claims.’’

What is clear from these early reactions to Sorbian separatist claims is that the Foreign Office was very much at sea when confronted with these demands. This was largely a result of ignorance on the part of officials. A slightly ludicrous series of exchanges between London and Prague after the LNC had sent Attlee, the British Prime Minister, a New Year’s telegram is typical of the Foreign Office’s lack of detailed knowledge. The Prague embassy was not able to make up its mind whether to use the term ‘Serb’ or ‘Sorb’, and after a series of exchanges it was instructed by the Northern Department in London to use the term ‘Sorb’.’’ A similar exchange took place between London and Warsaw later in the year. There was also confusion about the interest of other Slav states in the situation of the Sorbs. There was slight bewilderment when the Foreign Office received reports from Belgrade of the arrival of a Sorbian representative, Jurij Rjen?, and of his meeting with Marshal Tito in April 1946. When discussing connections between Sorbian groups and other Slav countries a month later, one official seemed incapable of understanding that there could be a Yugoslav interest: ‘I think Yugoslavia must be a misprint for Czechoslo- vakia.’16 In fact, the Foreign Office had already received letters from its embassy in Belgrade pointing out that the Yugoslavs had an interest in raising the Sorbian question and, as it later turned out, was the only country to raise the question officially at Foreign Ministers’ meetings in 1947.”

The Foreign Office was also worried by the arrival of a Sorbian represen- tative in Warsaw on 1 May 1946. It immediately sought reassurance from

“See PRO FO 371/47090, file no. N9188. l 5 See PRO FO 371/56040, file no. N458, note dated 30 January 1946. The problem here is that W d e was the traditional term used by the Germans to denote the Slavs from the area between the Elbe and Oder, of whom the Sorbs are the only survivors. But this term had often been used in a pejorative sense, especially during the Nazi period, and was superseded by the German term Sorbc after 1945. The term in Sorbian is ‘Serb’, but in order to distinguish people so described from Serbs of Serbia it is usually preceded by the equivalent epithet for ‘Lusatian’ in other Slav languages. In Polish the term ‘Ltyyczanic’ is used to denote the Sorbian inhabitants of Lusatia. It is easy to see why the Foreign Office was confused! See GStone, The Smallest Skauonic Nation. The Sorbs of Luatia, London 1972, pp.3-5. I6See the note in the Minutes, dated 20 May 1946, in PRO FO 371/56040, file no. N6431. ”See the note in the Minutes to PRO FO 371/56040, file no. N5076, dated 17 April 1946: ‘Evidently the Yugoslavs are considering what use can be made of the Sorbs’.

0 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1995.

366 THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (1942-47)

the Polish government that this representative, Paul Cyi, would not have any diplomatic status.18 After Czechoslovakia had made it clear that it was not going to help the Sorbs to pursue any separatist claims, the Poles had taken over the leading role in support for Sorbian lobbying which was taking place prior to the Foreign Ministers’ meetings in Paris in the summer of 1946, but, as was made clear in a letter from the British Embassy in Warsaw, this support had only limited aims:

Poland has no intention of making any territorial claims on Saxony, but they wished to show that the Slav population [. . .] stretched beyond Poland’s present frontiers, and that this Slav population was deserving of protection, if not a u t ~ n o m y . ’ ~

By the late summer of 1946 the Foreign Office was starting to get a clearer picture of the situation. This was partly a result of consultations at the Foreign Ministers’ meetings in Paris and their observation of Sorbian lobby- ing. They were slightly alarmed to note that the two Sorbian representatives, Junj WiCai and Marka Cyiowa (wife of Jurij CyZ), were staying at the same hotel as the Russian delegation, but they reported that although there had been evidence of Sorbian lobbying in Paris, there had been no formal submission of their case. The other main element in their increased knowl- edge was the fact that they were starting to receive intelligence reports from Germany on the situation in Lusatia. For example, on 9 July 1946 the head of military intelligence in Berlin, Brigadier Spring, sent a report to London, entitled ‘The Lausitz Coalfield’. In it he referred to the separatist movement which was said to have Russian and Czechoslovak backing and reported that Czech flags were flying in the area.20

The increased lobbying by the Sorbs in Paris and reports of changes on the ground in Lusatia prompted the Foreign Office to summarise its knowl- edge of the situation in a briefing which was put together by A.R.Walmsley from the Foreign Office Research Department (F.O.R.D.), dated 9 August 1946. The briefing summarised the different involvements of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and of the Sorbian representatives in those countries, noting that ‘the Poles seemed to be trying to steal from the Czechs the “protection” of this minority’, and that the Lusatian National Committee in Warsaw ‘regarded itself as the “provisional parliament of Lusatia”’. The Polish government was also, according 10 the LNC, arguing that it was entitled

“The Foreign Office was clearly confused by the number of Sorbs with the surname Cyi, the Sorbian equivalent of ‘Smith’, who were involved in the Sorbian organisations. The memorandum of 7 January 1946 sent to the U N conference in London by the LNC was signed by Jan Cyi (Chairman), Dr Jan Cyz (Landrat of Bautzen) and Dr Junj Cy i (General Secretary), the brother of Paul C y i , as well as by Paul Nedo, chairman of the Sorbian cultural organisation in Bautzen, the Domowina. See PRO FO 371/56040, filr no. N6431, dated 18 May 1946: ’ I t is perhaps an unwarranted presumption to regard this as i i family business.’ ”Ib id . Letter dated 13 May 1946.

Separatist Movement in the Nieder- and Oberlausitz District’. 0 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1995.

the report in PRO FO 371/56040, file no. N 10531, dated 17 August 1946, entitled ‘Alleged

THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (1942-47) 367

to have a representative in Bautzen.21 The briefing took issue with the inflated figures contained in the Sorbian memoranda and statements: ‘The figure of “500,000” quoted by the Wends no doubt includes the more numerous Germans intermixed in Wendish territory. The memorandum of 7 Jan. 1946 even gives the population of “Lusatia” as 9o0,000.’22 But it did note that ‘a certain “Wendisation” was taking place in the Wend area’, and quoted several intelligence reports of Wends being introduced as burgomasters and teachers, and of increased teaching of the Wend language. One of the reports notes that ‘the Germans are furious with the Wends who want to be incorporated into either Poland or Czechoslovakia’ and mentions a thesis which was often put forward by FO officials, namely that the Sorbs only wanted to separate from Germany in order to escape any shared guilt with the Germans and the consequences of occupation: ‘They will not admit today that they had just as many supporters of Hitler as the German p o p u l a t i ~ n . ’ ~ ~ The preoccupation of the Foreign Office with the question of the borders of the Soviet zone was finally underlined by a note at the end of the briefing that ‘the strictly Wend area does not abut either on the Czech frontier or the Polish zone of occupation, but is much closer to the latter.’24

It is clear from this briefing that despite the determination of the Foreign Office to ignore the Sorbian aspirations to independence, it was aware of some of the dangers inherent in the situation, especially in the light of its experience with the Soviet Union and its unilateral handing over of the area of its zone of occupation to the east of the Oder and Western NeiRe to Poland without the final agreement of its war-time allies. But at the same time it was aware that KPD/SED policy towards the Sorbs opposed any form of autonomy for Lusatia. In March 1946 the FO had already received reports of a radio broadcast given by the mayor of Bautzen on 28 February which condemned the separatist aspirations of Sorbian organis- ations and spoke of good relations between Germans and Wends. A note dated 18 March saw this broadcast as ‘a rebuff to Czech-Wendish separatist claims. I t fits in admirably with the Russo-German communists’ new-found enthusiasm for a united German R e i ~ h . ’ ~ ~ Later in the year the FO noted a report, dated 19 November, in the Czech Social Democrat newspaper, Pravo Lida, which concluded from a Leipzig radio broadcast that Lusatia was to remain an integral part of Germany and that the Soviet Union had given up any idea of separating Lusatia from the Soviet zone.26

In the meantime in Lusatia, the main Sorbian organisation in Bautzen, the Domowina had started to cooperate with the SED. For the local elections in September and the Land elections in Saxony in October, it had come

21 PRO FO 371/56040, file no. N 9056. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. “ Ibid. 25 PRO FO 371/55833, file no. C2564. ”See PRO FO 371/56040, file no. N15158.

@ Blackwell Fublishers Ltd 1995.

368 THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (194247)

to an electoral agreement with the SED whereby the Domowina could put Sorbs on the SED list who were not members of the SED. It had also started to distance itself from the more separatist-inclined Lusatian National Committee in Prague and Warsaw in the hope that the communists in Germany would give them at least cultural autonomy within Lusatia and support the development of Sorbian institutions and a bilingual educational system. There was, however, local resistance to the according of special rights to the Sorbs, especially amongst local functionaries of the SED, who were now powerful in key areas of local administration; as a result Sorbian representatives often went straight to the Soviet military administration (SMAD) where they usually received a more sympathetic hearing.

After the Land elections on 20 October 1946, in which the SED emerged across the Soviet zone, except in Berlin, as the largest party, but without an overall majority, moves immediately started to draw up constitutions for the individual Lander. The Sorbian organisations hoped for particular clauses giving the Sorbs cultural rights as a protected minority to be included in the Saxon constitution. On 12 December 1946 the Domowina wrote to the Landesvorstand of the SED in Dresden with its suggestions for these particular paragraphs. It became clear by January 1947 that no such paragraphs were going to be included in the Saxon constitution, and the reaction of the Domowina was a return to lobbying the war-time allies in the run-up to the two final Foreign Ministers’ conferences, in Moscow in March and in London in December 1947.

The Foreign Office received prior warning of the Domowina’s intention to submit a further memorandum to the Moscow conference demanding, amongst other things, the political separation of Lusatia from Germany,27 when in the preparatory period to the conference in January 1947 the Yugoslav government made a formal request to the allies that ‘guarantees should be provided for the “fundamental national rights” of the Lusatians’.28 Lord Jellicoe of the Foreign Office immediately commissioned a detailed report from the F.O.R.D. which was then produced on 5 February. He wanted information on the historical and ethnic justification of the Sorbian claims for a separate state; on the territorial implications, especially in relation to Poland and ‘rump’ Germany; and on the economic effect on Germany.29 The result was a detailed 7-page memorandum on the history and present situation of Lusatia, together with extensive maps which had already been put together in November 1946, and a 3-page briefing which was used for both the Moscow and London conferences.

The title and first sentence of the memorandum underline continuing uncertainty concerning nomenclature, despite the firm ruling by the Foreign

*’ ‘Memorandum submitted by The Lusatian Sorbs (Wends) to the Conference of the Four Foreign Ministers in Moscow’, dated March 1947, PRO FO 371/64542, file no. C 2544. s*See the draft briefing for the Moscow conference in PRO FO 371/64542, file no. C3347, p.1. * See the note from Lord Jellicoe to the F.O.R.D, dated 22 January 1947 in PRO FO 371/64542, file no. C2544.

@ BlsckweU Publiohcrs Lcd 1995.

THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (1942-47) 369

Office in London in January 1946 that the term ‘Sorb’ should be used: ‘The Wends, who are also called the Lusatian Sorbs or with better justifi- cation, Lusatian Serbs, are the remnants of Slavonic tribes, the, Lusitzi and Milzeni, which first settled in the area in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D.’30 In the rest of the memorandum the terms ‘Wend’ or ‘Lusatian Serb’ were used. Apart from the rather late dating of the arrival of the Slavonic tribe^,^' the historical account was reasonably accurate. There was some revision of the earlier view that had been taken concerning the inflated size of the Sorbian population as presented in the Sorbian memoranda, in that there was some recognition of the difficulty of determining who is a Sorb. The ‘wild estimate of “about 500,000 Lusatian Serbs”’ was again rejected, but there was acceptance of the assertion ‘that numbers of “Germans” in the area are really “germanicized Serbs”’. There was also recognition of the fact that ‘the Lusatian Serb population would show a marked increase if the territory were purged of Germanic in f l~ence ’ .~~ The memorandum finishes with an account of Sorbian separatist activities since 1945 and the involvement of other Slav states. But it noted in particular that ‘the Commu- nist-controlled SED (Socialist Unity Party) in Germany does not share the view of its brother parties abroad’.33

This memorandum represents the most detailed exposition of the Foreign Office view of the situation in Lusatia. In the briefing based on it the Foreign Office recommended that the UK government ‘should oppose both the full claim for a sovereign and independent Lusatia as well as the more limited claim which may be brought forward for the inclusion in the German Peace Treaty of provisions according special minority rights to the Lusatian people’.34 As regards the first claim, the Foreign Office admitted that there was some slight justification for the Sorbian claims, but that on other grounds they were totally unjustified: ‘If for no other reason therefore the Lusatian claim would require to be rejected on economic grounds, on the basis that its acceptance would inflict grave damage to the German econ- my.'^^ Politically they were also unacceptable, partly because of the effect on the German population, ‘which rather naturally considers these claims as fantastic’, but most of all because it regarded the idea of an independent Lusatia as ‘a contradiction in terms. It would at best be merely a Czech or a Polish pr0tect0rate.j~~ The Foreign Office did expect the Soviet Union to support the second claim for the inclusion of special rights in an eventual

30 ‘The Lusatian Wends (Serbs or Sorbs).’ PRO FO 371/64542, file no. C 2544, p.1. See also note 15, above. 31 See G . Stone, op.Git., pp.8-9, who summarises the evidence for the conclusion that the Slavonic tribes had certainly arrived by the sixth century, if not earlier. 32 ‘The Lusatian Wends (Serbs or Sorbs)’, op.cit., p.4. 33 Ibid., p.6. ”Draft Brief (later Annex 1 ) for the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers in March 1947. ‘Claims of the Lusatian Serbs’. PRO FO 371/64542, file no. C 3347, p.1. 35 ‘Claims of the Lusatian Serbs’, op.n’t., p.3. 56 Ibid.

@ Blackwell F’ublishers Ltd 1995.

370 THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE SORBS OF LUSATIA (1942-47)

Peace Treaty with Germany. In the event the Soviet Union did not raise the matter in MOSCOW,~’ but in any case the Foreign Office considered that the Sorbs had less of a case than the South Tyrolese.38

The Lusatian National Council also submitted a separate memorandum to the conference, and the LNC’s representative in Paris, Jurij Wicaz, lobbied all the delegations to the conference beforehand, but to no effect. Both Sorbian organisations went through the same motions later in the year before the London conference, but again without any tangible results. Since this conference represented the final break-up in relations between the Western allies and the Soviet Union, it was the last conference in the series established by the Potsdam conference, and the Sorbs had lost an international forum to which it could bring its case. But in any case, the Domowina had decided to concentrate its efforts on lobbying the SED leadership in Berlin with a view to achieving recognition within the Soviet zone of their case for special rights. In November 1947 its leadership met Wilhelm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl, co-chairmen of the SED’s Central Committee, and leaders from the Lander involved, Saxony and Branden- burg. Although they only achieved limited recognition of a case for cultural autonomy, that meeting did lead to the passing of a special law in Saxony on Sorbian rights, Gesetz cur Wahrung der Rechte der sorbischen Bevolkerung, in March 1948,39 which provided the basis for the creation of a bilingual educational system and of a number of Sorbian cultural institutions. The other Sorbian institution, the LNC, soon lost its base in Prague when the communists took over complete control in February 1948, to be replaced by a Domowina office. During the subsequent Stalinisation of institutions after the foundation of the GDR, the Domowina had eventually to submit to total control by the SED.

The cause of an independent Lusatia thus disappeared from the inter- national scene, and after occupying the British Foreign Office for a short period, disappeared completely from their files. With the acceptance by the Western powers of the division of Germany, the question of Sorbian rights and cultural autonomy became purely a question for the Soviet Union and the government that it had installed in the GDR. When the system of communist rule broke down in 1989 there was a very brief resurgence of separatist opinion amongst some Sorbs in Lusatia, mostly at the instigation of Sorbs from outside, probably for the last time in their history.

37 See the note in the margin, dated 25 November 1947, when the briefing was reused for the December conference. PRO FO 371/64542, file no. C 15038, p.3. 58 Ibid. 39 For a commentary, together with the most important documents from the central archive of the SED in Berlin (now incorporated into the ‘Stiftung Archive der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv’) on the beginnings of the SED’s policy of limited cultural autonomy for the Sorbs. see L. Elle and P. Schurmann, ‘Domowina und SED 1947 bis 1950 - cine Dokumentation’, LttopU, 2(1993), 49-68.

@ BIackwU PuMirhers Ltd 1995.