In Nazi German terminology, Volksdeutsche were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of volksdeutsch, with Volksdeutsche denoting a singular female, and Volksdeutscher, a singular male. The words Volk and völkisch conveyed the meanings of "folk".
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heavy industry.
Polish people, or Poles, are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe. The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland, regardless of heritage or ethnicity. The majority of Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism.
The Province of Silesia was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1742 and established as an official province in 1815, then became part of the German Empire in 1871. In 1919, as part of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, Silesia was divided into the provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia. Silesia was reunified briefly from 1 April 1938 to 27 January 1941 as a province of Nazi Germany before being divided back into Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia.
The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out on 20 March 1921 to determine ownership of the province of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and Poland. The region was ethnically mixed with both Germans and Poles; according to prewar statistics, ethnic Poles formed 60 percent of the population. Under the previous rule by the German Empire, Poles claimed they had faced discrimination, making them effectively second class citizens. The period of the plebiscite campaign and inter-Allied occupation was marked by violence. There were three Polish uprisings, and German volunteer paramilitary units came to the region as well.
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In linguistics, Germanisation of non-German languages also occurs when they adopt many German words.
The Polish diaspora comprises Poles and people of Polish heritage or origin who live outside Poland. The Polish diaspora is also known in modern Polish as Polonia, the name for Poland in Latin and many Romance languages.
Wojciech Korfanty was a Polish activist, journalist and politician, who served as a member of the German parliaments, the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag, and later, in the Polish Sejm. Briefly, he also was a paramilitary leader, known for organizing the Polish Silesian Uprisings in Upper Silesia, which after World War I was contested by Germany and Poland. Korfanty fought to protect Poles from discrimination and the policies of Germanisation in Upper Silesia before the war and sought to join Silesia to Poland after Poland regained its independence.
Babimost is a town in Zielona Góra County, Lubusz Voivodeship, western Poland. It is the administrative seat of Gmina Babimost. Babimost has an area of 3.65 square kilometres, and as of June 2022 it has a population of 3,848.
Kępno is a town in south-central Poland. It lies on the outskirts of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, bordering the historical region of Silesia and the Łódź Voivodeship. As of December 31, 2009 Kępno had a population of 14,760. One popular attraction in Kępno is the Rynek.
Silesians is a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Europe divided by the current national boundaries of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Historically, the region of Silesia has been inhabited by Polish, Czechs and later in modern era by Germans. Therefore, the term Silesian can refer to anyone of these ethnic groups. However, in 1945, great demographic changes occurred in the region as a result of the Potsdam Agreement leaving most of the region ethnically Polish and/or Slavic Upper Silesian. Silesian dialect is one of the main dialects of the Polish language and based on Polish/Lechitic grammar. The names of Silesia in different languages most likely share their etymology—Polish: ; German: ; Czech: Slezsko ; Lower Silesian: Schläsing; Silesian: Ślōnsk ; Lower Sorbian: Šlazyńska ; Upper Sorbian: Šleska ; Latin, Spanish and English: Silesia; French: Silésie; Dutch: Silezië; Italian: Slesia; Slovak: Sliezsko; Kashubian: Sląsk. The names all relate to the name of a river and mountain in mid-southern Silesia, which served as a place of cult for pagans before Christianization.
The Province of Upper Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two government regions called Kattowitz (1939–1945), and Oppeln (1819–1945). The provincial capital was Oppeln (1919–1938) and Kattowitz (1941–1945), while other major towns included Beuthen, Gleiwitz, Hindenburg O.S., Neiße, Ratibor and Auschwitz, added in 1941. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Lower Silesia as the Province of Silesia.
Union of Poles in Germany is an organisation of the Polish minority in Germany, founded in 1922. In 1924, the union initiated collaboration between other minorities, including Sorbs, Danes, Frisians and Lithuanians, under the umbrella organization Association of National Minorities in Germany. From 1939 until 1945 the Union was outlawed in Nazi Germany. After 1945 it had lost some of its influence; in 1950 the Union of Poles in Germany split into two organizations: the Union of Poles in Germany, which refused to recognize the communist Polish government of the Polish United Workers' Party, and the Union of Poles "Zgoda" (Unity), which recognized the new communist government in Warsaw and had contacts with it. The split was healed in 1991.
The registered German minority in Poland at the Polish census of 2021 were 144,177.
Szlichtyngowa is a town in western Poland, in the Wschowa County of the Lubuskie Voivodship, near the Oder river.
Ruhrpolen is a German umbrella term for the Polish migrants and their descendants who lived in the Ruhr area in western Germany since the 19th century. The Poles migrated to the rapidly industrializing region from Polish-speaking areas of the German Empire.
After partitioning Poland at the end of the 18th century, the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire imposed a number of Germanisation policies and measures in the newly gained territories, aimed at limiting the Polish ethnic presence and culture in these areas. This process continued through its various stages until the end of World War I, when most of the territories became part of the Second Polish Republic, which largely limited the capacity of further Germanisation efforts of the Weimar Republic until the occupation during World War II. The genocidal policies of Nazi-Germany against ethnic Poles between 1939 and 1945 can be understood as a continuation of previous Germanization processes.
The Deutsche Volksliste, a Nazi Party institution, aimed to classify inhabitants of Nazi-occupied territories (1939-1945) into categories of desirability according to criteria systematised by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The institution originated in occupied western Poland. Similar schemes were subsequently developed in Occupied France (1940-1944) and in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (1941-1944).
From Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, the Wehrmacht recruited from Poland's 2.2% ethnic-German minority but did not enlist ethnic Poles on racist grounds. When Germany began losing the war in 1943, the Wehrmacht forcibly conscripted ethnic Poles, who were commanded with racist policies against them.
Nowe Kramsko is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Babimost, within Zielona Góra County, Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland. It lies approximately 4 kilometres (2 mi) south-west of Babimost and 28 km (17 mi) north-east of Zielona Góra. It is situated on the northern shore of Lake Wojnowskie.
