The mere thought of being ruled by Poles was enough to send a shiver through the soul of any authentic German nationalist. The year 1919 saw not just a rearrangement of boundaries in Europe. It was truly a post-colonial moment. Established hierarchies of politics, culture and ethnicity were overturned. This sense of revolutionary change in turn helps to explain the attitude of suspicion and fear shared by those who had to decide the Polish question at Paris.
