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The Province of Upper Silesia (German: Provinz Oberschlesien; Silesian German: Provinz Oberschläsing; Polish: Górny Śląsk; Silesian: Gůrny Ślůnsk) was a province of the Free State of Prussia created in the aftermath of World War I. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke), Kattowitz and Oppeln. The provincial capital was Oppeln (1919—1938) and Kattowitz (since 1941), while other major towns included Beuthen, Gleiwitz, Hindenburg O.S., Neiße and Ratibor.
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Within Weimar Germany, the Prussian Province of Silesia was divided into the provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I. Silesian Uprisings of Poles against Germans occurred in Upper Silesia from 1919 and 1920. Uproar over the Upper Silesia plebiscite of 1921 led to a third uprising, which culminated in the Battle of Annaberg. According to the German-Polish Accord on East Silesia,[1] signed in Geneva on May 15, 1922 the eastern Upper Silesian lands were transferred from Germany to the Second Polish Republic on June 20 and became part of the Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship. The territory remaining in Prussian Upper Silesia was administered within Regierungsbezirk Oppeln and - according to Polish sources - had 530,000 Poles within it. [2]
After the Nazis' takeover in Germany the German-Polish Accord on East Silesia was signed. Among other stipulations, according to the treaty each contractual party guaranteed in its respective part of Upper Silesia equal civil rights for all the inhabitants. The German Upper Silesian Franz Bernheim succeeded in convincing the League of Nations to force Nazi Germany to abide by the Accord.[3] Accordingly in September 1933 the Reich's Nazi government suspended in Upper Silesia all anti-Semitic discrimination laws already imposed and excepted the province from all new such future decrees, until the Accord expired in May 1937.[4]
The Province of Upper Silesia was joined to Lower Silesia to form the Province of Silesia in 1938.
After the invasion of Poland in 1939, Polish Upper Silesia, including the Polish industrial city of Kattowitz, was directly annexed into the Province of Silesia. This annexed territory, also known as East Upper Silesia (Ostoberschlesien), became part of the new Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz.
German occupation forces began a policy of repression against the Polish population of eastern Upper Silesia, which started as early as September 1939[5] based on lists made before the war that pointed out Poles active in social and political life.[5] A second wave of arrests happened during October and November in Intelligenzaktion Schlesien, aimed against Polish intellectuals, many of whom perished prison camps. A third wave of arrests came on in April and May 1940 during the AB Aktion.
In Katowice, according to the historian Czesław Madajczyk, one of the harshests centres of oppression was the prison on Mikołowska street where people were reported to be murdered by Germans through the use of guillotine.[5] A prison and penal camp were also established in the region in which Polish activists from Upper Silesia were held.[5]
At the same time, the Polish population was expelled from eastern Upper Silesia; from 1939 till 1942 40.000 Poles were expelled.[6] In their place ethnic Germans from Volhynia and the Baltic countries were settled in Upper Silesia's urban areas. Until 1943 about 230,000 ethnic Germans were located on the Polish territories of eastern Upper Silesia and the Wartheland.[7][8] The death toll of Polish population in Upper Silesia at the hands of Germans is within 25,000 victims, with 20,000 of them being from urban population.[5]
In 1941, the Province of Silesia was again divided into the Provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia; Kattowitz (Katowice, in the former Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship of pre-war Poland) was made the capital of Upper Silesia instead of the smaller town of Oppeln.
The German province of Upper Silesia was conquered by the Soviet Red Army from February until the end of March 1945 during World War II's Lower and Upper Silesian Offensives. The post-war Potsdam Agreement granted the entire province's territory to the People's Republic of Poland; the territory is now in the Polish Opole and Silesian Voivodeships. Most Germans remaining in the territory were expelled westward. The Landsmannschaft Schlesien represents German Silesians from Upper and Lower Silesia. Near and in Opole, a German minority remains.
As of January 1, 1945
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