Province of Silesia
Province of Silesia Provinz Schlesien | |||||||||||||
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Province of Prussia | |||||||||||||
1815–1919 1938–1941 | |||||||||||||
Silesia Province (red) within Prussia (yellow), within the German Empire, 1871 | |||||||||||||
Capital | Breslau | ||||||||||||
Area | |||||||||||||
• Coordinates | 51°7′N 17°2′E / 51.117°N 17.033°E | ||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
• Established | 1815 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1919 | ||||||||||||
• Briefly re-established | 1938–1941 | ||||||||||||
Political subdivisions | Breslau Liegnitz Oppeln | ||||||||||||
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Today part of | Germany Poland Czech Republic |
The Province of Silesia (
Breslau (present-day Wrocław, Poland) was the provincial capital.
Geography
The territory on both sides of the Oder river formed the southeastern part of the Prussian kingdom. It comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Upper and Lower Silesia as well as the adjacent County of Kladsko, which the Prussian King Frederick the Great had all conquered from the Austrian Habsburg monarchy under Empress Maria Theresa in the 18th century Silesian Wars. It furthermore included the northeastern part of Upper Lusatia around Görlitz and Lauban (Lubań), ceded to Prussia by the Kingdom of Saxony according to the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
The province bordered on the Prussian heartland of
History
Prussian Silesia, 1742–1815
The coronation of
The Third Silesian War (1756–1763), a theatre of the Seven Years' War, once again confirmed Prussian control over most of Silesia, and due to its predominantly Protestant population especially in Lower Silesia, it became one of the most loyal territories of the House of Hohenzollern. When the Prussian territories were reorganized upon the Congress of Vienna, the Province of Silesia was created out of the territories acquired by Prussia in the Silesian Wars, as well as those Upper Lusatian territories which King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony had to relinquish due to his indecisive attitude in the Napoleonic Wars. As the lands had been part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1806, Silesia was among the western Prussian provinces that lay within the borders of the German Confederation.
Province of Silesia
Kingdom of Prussia and German Empire
In 1815, after the Napoleonic wars, Prussian Silesia was formally reorganized into the Province of Silesia. The character of the province's eastern third, Upper Silesia, had been much lesser shaped by the medieval German
Weimar Republic
In 1919, a year after the war ended, the parts of Silesia remaining in
Division after WWI
Division of: | Area in 1910 in km2 | Share of territory | Population in 1910 | After WW1 part of: | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lower Silesia | 27,105 km2 [2] | 100% | 3.017.981 | Divided between: | |
to Poland | 527 km2 [3][4] | 2% | 1% | Poznań Voivodeship
|
[Note 1] |
to Germany | 26,578 km2 | 98% | 99% | Province of Lower Silesia | |
Upper Silesia | 13,230 km2 [2] | 100% | 2.207.981 | Divided between: | |
to Poland | 3,225 km2 [6] | 25% | 41% [6] | Silesian Voivodeship
|
[Note 2] |
to Czechoslovakia | 325 km2 [6] | 2% | 2% [6] | Hlučín Region | |
to Germany | 9,680 km2 [6] | 73% | 57% [6] | Province of Upper Silesia |
Nazi Germany
On 1 April 1938 the Province of Silesia was re-established by Nazi Germany by uniting the existing Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia provinces. Nazi German persecution of Poles in the province intensified in 1938-1939 with expulsions of Polish activists, distributors of Polish press, priests, craftsmen, farmers, students etc., attacks on Polish cultural centers, banks, enterprises, schools, churches and houses, seizure of Polish libraries, confiscations of Polish press, arrests and deportations of Polish activists to concentration camps and even assassinations.[8] In 1938, Nazi authorities forced the Lutheran Church not to staff bilingual German-Sorbian parishes with new Sorbian preachers, and the Bund Deutscher Osten demanded a ban on Sorbian church masses, but only a limit of two such masses per month was imposed.[9] There were instances of expulsions of Sorbian pastors.[9]
During the German
The Germans also established the Gross-Rosen concentration camp and multiple prisoner-of-war camps with numerous forced labour subcamps in the region, including Stalag VIII-A, Stalag VIII-B, Stalag VIII-C, Stalag VIII-E, Oflag VIII-A, Oflag VIII-B, Oflag VIII-C, Oflag VIII-F, for Polish POWs and civilians, and French, Belgian, Dutch and later also other Allied POWs.[13]
On 27 January 1941, during World War II, the province of Silesia was divided again by reverting into Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia.[citation needed]
Demographics
According to the Prussian census of 1890, the province of Silesia had a population of 4,224,458, of which 3,105,843 (73.52%) spoke German, 973,596 (23.05%) spoke Polish, 68,781 (1.63%) spoke Czech, 26,257 (0.62%) spoke Sorbian and 48,045 (1.14%) identified as bilingual.[14]
Regierungsbezirk Liegnitz - 1,047,405 (96.41% German, 2.51% Sorbian, 0.53% Polish, 0.11% Czech, 0.38% bilingual).
Regierungsbezirk Oppeln - 1,577,731 (58.23% Polish, 35.91% German, 3.69% Czech, 2.14% bilingual).
Administration
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Regierungsbezirk Liegnitz
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Regierungsbezirk Oppeln
|
References
- ISSN 0037-7511.
- ^ a b "Gemeindeverzeichnis Deutschland: Schlesien".
- ^ a b "Rocznik statystyki Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1920/21". Rocznik Statystyki Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (in Polish and French). I. Warsaw: Główny Urząd Statystyczny: 56–62. 1921.
- ^ "Schlesien: Geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert". OME-Lexikon - Universität Oldenburg.
- ^ Sperling, Gotthard Hermann (1932). "Aus Niederschlesiens Ostmark" (PDF). Opolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-12-25. Retrieved 2019-06-10.
- ^ a b c d e f g Weinfeld, Ignacy (1925). Tablice statystyczne Polski: wydanie za rok 1924 [Poland's statistical tables: edition for year 1924]. Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy "Bibljoteka Polska". p. 2.
- ^ Mały Rocznik Statystyczny [Little Statistical Yearbook] 1939 (PDF). Warsaw: GUS. 1939. p. 14.
- ^ Cygański, Mirosław (1984). "Hitlerowskie prześladowania przywódców i aktywu Związków Polaków w Niemczech w latach 1939-1945". Przegląd Zachodni (in Polish) (4): 25–30, 37.
- ^ a b Pjech, pp. 65–66
- ^ Cygański, pp. 32–34, 37–38
- ^ Cygański, p. 35
- ^ Urban, Wincenty (1961). "Ostatnie kazanie polskie w Kościele Św. Marcina we Wrocławiu". Śląski Kwartalnik Historyczny Sobótka (in Polish). XVI (1). Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich: 102–103.
- ISBN 978-0-253-06089-1.
- ISBN 978-3-87969-267-5.
Notes
- Poznań Voivodeship (former Province of Posen).
- ^ Interwar Silesian Voivodeship was formed from Prussian East Upper Silesia (area 3,225 km2) and Polish part of Austrian Cieszyn Silesia (1,010 km2), in total 4,235 km2. After the annexation of Trans-Olza from Czechoslovakia in 1938, it increased to 5,122 km2.[7] Silesian Voivodeship's capital was Katowice.
External links
- Coats of arms of Upper Silesian towns while part of the Province of Silesia (in German)
- Administrative subdivision and population breakdown of the Province of Silesia in 1900/1900 (in German)