Wpływ społecznej roli książki na koordynację polskiej działalności wydawniczej w Niemczech Zachodnich w pierwszych latach po II wojnie światowej

Abstract

A numerous group of Poles awaiting an organised repatriation, relatively further emigration, in specially prepared camps after the end of the war was yearning for the contact with Polish printed word. It was an escape from traumatic memories and “a restraint for moral relaxation and offences of irresponsible individuals”. The book at that time served schools and religious life of Polish displaced persons. The lack of paper and other printing materials made a decision on a publication taken in accordance of the function the book was to fulfill and postulated the publishing of merely valuable titles. It was often the case that one title was Publisher in a few different publishing centres, which caused an “irretrievable loss of time and energy”. The situation forced the formation of tools which controlled both a factual level of the published books, and shaped a publishing offer of the institutions publishing a Polish book in Western Germany in the first years after the World War II. The article constitutes an attempt to discussed the methods in question. Among others, the ways of coordinating a publishing policy used by Polish social and cultural institutions were presented. The activity of the Association of Polish Publishers and Booksellers whose main statutory aim was to control and organize a Polish postwar publishing movement in Western Germany was analysed in detail.