Landsmannschaft Schlesien

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The Landsmannschaft Schlesien - Nieder- und Oberschlesien e.V. ("Territorial Association of Silesia - Lower and Upper Silesia") is an organization of Germans born in the former Prussian provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, or their descendants, who currently live in Germany. The association consists of people who were expelled or evacuated during World War II or after, as well as people who emigrated in more recent times, exercising their right to German citizenship, based on a 1913 German law.

The current president is Rudi Pawelka, who succeeded Dr. Herbert Hupka, the president from 1968 to 2000. The Landsmannschaft Schlesien is a member of the Federation of Expellees, and has its seat in Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia.

"Freedom for Silesia" - political poster from the Landsmannschaft Schlesien.

According to the Landsmannschaft, respect for the human rights and the Geneva Conventions is an important goal. However, certain advocates^[who?] consider it a "reactionary" organization.

In 1985 it planned to hold a congress in Stuttgart under the motto 40 Jahre Vertreibung - Schlesien bleibt unser ("40 years of expulsion - Silesia remains ours"). Chancellor Helmut Kohl declined to attend unless it was modified, which it was, to "Silesia remains our future in a Europe of free nations". At the 2001 congress in Nuremberg, Interior Minister Otto Schily was booed when he said that the expulsions were the consequence of German aggression.

The youth organization of the Landsmannschaft is the Schlesische Jugend. There is also another Silesian Landsmannschaft, the Landsmannschaft der Oberschlesier e.V. (Bundesverband) representing Upper Silesians.