Recovered Territories
The Communist authorities of the Polish People's Republic and some Polish citizens desired to erase all traces of German rule. The "Recovered Territories" after the transfer still contained a substantial German population. The Polish administration set up a "Ministry for the Recovered Territories", headed by the then deputy prime minister Władysław Gomułka. A "Bureau for Repatriation" was to supervise and organize the expulsions and resettlements. According to the national census of 14 February 1946, the population of Poland still included 2,288,000 Germans, of which 2,075,000—nearly 91 per cent—lived in the "Recovered Territories". By this stage Germans still constituted more than 41 per cent of the inhabitants of these regions. However, by 1950 there were only 200,000 Germans remaining in Poland, and by 1957 that number fell to 65,000.