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The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodship (Oppeln), where most of the minority resides. The German minority electoral list currently has one seat in the Polish parliament (Sejm) benefiting from the provision in the current Polish Election Law which allows national minorities to be exempt from the 5 per cent national threshold (there were four from 1993 to 1997).
There are 325 Polish schools that use the German language as the first language of instruction, with over 37,000 students attending them. Most members of the German minority are Roman Catholic and only some of them are Protestants (the Evangelical-Augsburg Church). A number of German language newspapers and magazines are issued in Poland.
Statistical data
Most Germans in Poland (93%) live in Silesia: Opole Voivodeship - 104,399 i.e. approx. 69,9% all Germans in Poland, and approx. 10% of the population of this Voivodeship and Silesia Voivodeship - 31,882 i.e. approx. 20.8% of all Germans in Poland. In the other voivodeships, the percentage of Germans in the population lies between 0.632–0.007%.
Region Population German % GermanPoland 38,557,984 147,094 0.381
Opole Voivodeship 1,055,667 104,399 9.889
Silesian Voivodeship 4,830,000 30,531 0.632
Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship 1,428,552 4,311 0.302
Pomeranian Voivodeship 2,192,000 2,016 0.092
Dolny Śląsk Voivodeship 2,898,000 1,792 0.062
West Pomeranian Voivodeship 1,694,865 1,014 0.060
Greater Poland Voivodeship 3,365,283 820 0.024
Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship 2,068,142 636 0.031
Lubusz Voivodeship 1,009,005 513 0.051
Mazowsze Voivodeship 5,136,000 351 0.007
Łódź Voivodeship 2,597,000 263 0.010
History of Germans in Poland
German migration into the area of modern Poland began with the medieval Ostsiedlung (see also:Walddeutsche). The historical regions of Lower Silesia, East Brandenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia were nearly completely German-settled by the High Middle Ages, while in the other areas there were substantial German populations, most notably in the historical regions of Pomerelia, Upper Silesia, and Posen or Greater Poland. Lutheran Germans settled numerous "Olęder" villages along the Vistula River and its tributaries during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In the 19th century, Germans were actively involved in developing the cloth making industry in what is now central Poland. Over 3000 villages / towns within Russian Poland are noted to have had German residents. Many of these Germans remained east of the Curzon line after World War I, including a significant number in Volhynia. In the late 19th century, some Germans moved westward during the Ostflucht, while others were settled in Central Poland by a Prussian Settlement Commission. After the creation of the Second Polish Republic, large numbers of Germans were forced to leave, especially in the Polish Corridor area.
During the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II, Germans from other areas of Eastern Europe were settled in Poland by the Nazis, who at the same time expelled, enslaved and killed Poles and Jews.
With the Nazis' defeat and Poland's shift west between the Oder Neisse and Curzon lines, the Germans who had not fled were expelled or even killed. An excellent demonstration of the ambiguity of the Polish German minority position can be seen in the life and career of Waldemar Kraft, a Minister without Portfolio in the West German Bundestag during the 1950s.
The vast majority of the ethnic Germans east of the Oder-Neisse line were Protestants and were forced out, but a significant minority in Silesia were Roman Catholic, even speaking a partly Slavic dialect called Wasserpolak, and the Poles generally allowed them to stay if they wished. Of those who remained, many later chose to emigrate to post-war West Germany, fleeing Communist rule. With the downfall of the Communist regime, the German minorities' political situation improved. Germans are now allowed to acquire land and property in the areas where they, or their ancestors, used to live, and to move there.
There is no clear-cut border between the German and some other minorities, who in some aspects have a similar heritage due to centuries of assimilation, Germanisation and intermarriage, but in other aspects have a different heritage due to either ancient regional West Slavic roots or Polonisation. Examples for these minorities are the so-called Slovincians (Lebakashuben), the Masurians or the Silesians of Upper Silesia. While in the past these people have been claimed for both the Polish and the German ethnicity, it depends on their self-perception which group(s) they choose to belong to.
German media in Poland
- Schlesisches Wochenblatt
- Polen-Rundschau
- Schlesien Aktuell - German-speaking radio station from Opole
- Radio Polonia (broadcasting in German for half an hour a day)
- Polen am Morgen - Online-newspaper, published daily since 1998
See also
- Waldemar Kraft
- Bilingual communes in Poland
- German Minority (political party)
- Germans in the Czech Republic
- Polish minority in Germany
- Olędrzy
- Vistula Germans in Russian Poland
- Bambrzy
- SGGEE German history and genealogy in Russian Poland; includes map of German settlements in Russian Poland as referenced above.
Notes
- ^ As of 2002, according to Polish National Census.
- ^ Marta Moskal in "Language minorities in Poland at the moment of accession to the EU" notes that 2% (704,000) did not state any nationality in the 2002 census. She assumes that some members of the German national minority who have inhabited the Silesia region for numerous generations might define their nationality as Silesian (173,200 defined their nationality as Silesian). Representatives of ethnic minorities presume that the figures for their groups are underestimated due to the fact that, given their exclusion in the communist period, the minority groups prefer not to state their real ethnicity.
- ^ Tomasz Kamusella in "Dual Citizenship ..." estimates the number of ethnic Germans to be 400-500 thousand.
References
- Dual Citizenship in Opole Silesia in the Context of European Integration, Tomasz Kamusella, Opole University, in Facta Universitatis, series Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology, Vol 2, No 10, 2003, pp. 699-716
- Scholtz-Knobloch, Till (2002) (in German). Die deutsche Minderheit in Oberschlesien - Selbstreflexion und politisch-soziale Situation unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des so genannten „Oppelner Schlesiens (Westoberschlesien)“. Goerlitz: Senfkorn-Verlag. ISBN 3-935330-02-2.
- Zybura, Marek (2004) (in Polish). "Niemcy w Polsce". Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie. ISBN 83-7384-171-7.
- Rabagliati, Alastair (2001) (in English). "A Minority Vote. Participation of the German and Belarusian Minorities within the Polish Political System 1989-1999". Kraków: Zakład Wydawniczy NOMOS. ISBN 83-88508-18-0.
Further reading
- Cordell, Karl (June 1996). "Politics and society in Upper Silesia today: The German minority since 1945". Nationalities Papers 24 (2): 269–285. doi:10.1080/00905999608408441.
- Cordell, Karl; Stefan Wolff (June 2005). "Ethnic Germans in Poland and the Czech Republic: a comparative evaluation". Nationalities Papers 33 (2): 255–276. doi:10.1080/00905990500088610.
- Dyboski, Roman (September 1923). "Poland and the Problem of National Minorities". Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs 2 (5): 179–200. doi:10.2307/3014543.
- Fleming, Michael (December 2003). "The Limits of the German Minority Project in Post-communist Poland: Scale, Space and Democratic Deliberation". Nationalities Papers 31 (4): 391–411. doi:10.1080/0090599032000152915.
Historical
groupings
Diaspora