only around two thirds of the population considered themselves polish, while one third belonged to one of the minorities. in 1919, under pressure from the peasants and to prevent the russian revolution from spreading to poland, the polish parliament passed a land reform. however, in the years that followed, this was only partially put into practice and was simply undermined by many large landowners. the result was a small farming community that had to make do with less and less land due to the division of inheritance. in the 1930s, polish agricultural planners - like their colleagues in other eastern european countries - looked to the national socialist hereditary farm law as a model. with its help, the outdated agricultural structure was to be eliminated and a "healthy peasant middle class" created, a loyal and, above all, productive basis for the regime. the polish agrarian law of 1937 was a first step in this direction. when buell published his analysis, 70 percent of the population lived from agriculture. some of the agricultural land was in the hands of a few large landowners, while others were fragmented into tiny plots. to call their owners small farmers would be an exaggeration. they often had to travel for hours to get to their fields. according to buell, four million polish "farmers" had no land of their own. for them, their wives and children, especially outside of the harvest season, it was impossible to get to their land. gtz aly, vordenker der vernichtung
Austria