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Politics and Society in Upper Silesia Today: The German Minority Since 1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Karl Cordell
Karl Cordell*
Affiliation:
University of Plymouth, England
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Extract

In 1919, Polish nationalist forces led by Josef Pilsudski succeeded in re-establishing an independent Polish state. Poland had disappeared from the map of Europe in 1794 following the third partition. It had been devoured by its traditional enemies; Prussia, Austria and Russia. Historically, Poland had been a state without fixed borders, and via a combination of changing dynastic alliances and a pattern of eastward migration, from the twelfth century formerly Slav areas east of the rivers Oder and Neisse became progressively germanicized. By 1921, following the end of World War I, several peace conferences, and after a series of referenda in disputed (former) German areas and a series of wars with all of its neighbors, including an especially successfully prosecuted war against the embryonic Soviet Union, the new state had managed to become a state which incorporated virtually all ethnic Poles. However, in addition to incorporating the overwhelming majority of ethnic Poles, the borders of the new Polish state also included huge numbers of other ethnic, religious and national groups.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 269 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR, Inc. 

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References

Notes

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