Przemoc i bezprawie w okresie zasiedlania południowej części byłych Prus Wschodnich w latach 1945–1946

This article is devoted to the negative phenomena that accompanied the process of settlement in the southern areas of East Prussia, which was incorporated into Poland in 1945. Violence, robbery, and pillage committed by the Polish population from the border areas of the Second Polish Republic, who unlawfully entered the territory of the former East Prussia, entailed long-term social and economic consequences in the southern areas of Warmia and Masuria. So far, this issue has only been mentioned in works devoted to the settlement processes in Warmia and Masuria. The purpose of this article is to examine the course and effects of the aforementioned phenomena, whose particular intensity was noted between 1945 and 1946. The text is based on a critical analysis of unpublished archival sources of local and central administration, including materials produced by local structures of the Public Security Bureau. The research was supplemented by an analysis of printed sources and memoirs. The findings made it possible to investigate and describe the involvement of the officers of the Citizens’ Militia and the Public Security Bureau in the acts of violence, robberies and pillage in Warmia and Masuria, which have not been previously accounted for in literature. As it turned out, the majority of these officers came from the same areas as the so-called ‘wild settlers’ and looters.