Sifting Poles from Germans? Ethnic Cleansing and Ethnic Screening in Upper Silesia,
1945–1949
Author(s): HUGO SERVICE
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 88, No. 4 (October 2010), pp. 652-680
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2010
SEER, Vol. 88, No. 4, October
Poles fromGermans?Ethnic
Sifting
Cleansingand EthnicScreeningin
Upper Silesia,1945-1949
HUGO SERVICE
I
The ethniccleansingwhichengulfedCentraland EasternEurope in
thefirsthalfof the twentieth
centurywas oftena matterof indiscriminate expulsionin whichlittleor no timewas takento reflecton the
of thevictims.Yet not all of it was carriedout in this
culturalidentity
manner.The occupiersand governments
whichimplementedethnic
in
Poland
and
Czechoslovakia
cleansingpolicies
duringand afterthe
Second World War came to the conclusionthat therewere many
inhabitants
of theterritories
theywishedto 'cleanse'who could notbe
as
instantly
recognized belongingto one nationalgroup or another.
decided
to subjectthesepeople to rigorousethnicscreeningto
They
ensurethatonlygenuinemembersof unwantednationalgroupswere
uprooted.
Ethniccleansingwas combinedwithethnicscreening,forexample,
in the territories
which Germanyannexed fromPoland in autumn
it
theformof theDeutsche
Volksliste
where
took
(DVL). The DVL
1939,
fill
in
these
territories
to
out
special questionrequiredpeople living
naireswhichthe Nazi Germanauthorities
attemptedto use to determinewhethertheywereGermans,cofGermandescent'or Poles.It was
at the linguistically
mixed areas of the annexed
targetedparticularly
- eastern
of
territories
Upper Silesia,part theDanzig regionand part
of southernEast Prussia- wherethe Nazi leadershipassumedthat
German
a large proportionof local inhabitantswere ethno-racially
be culturallyassimilatedinto the German Volk
and shouldtherefore
The Nazi German authoritiesultimately
categorizedthe majorityof
in
as Germansor 'individuals
of
these
areas
either
each
people living
of Germandescent'by enteringtheminto one of the fourcategories
as a whole the authorities
of the DVL. In the annexed territories
enteredaround2.8 millionpre-warPolishcitizensintotheDVL. This
shieldedthemfromexpulsionto the GeneralGovernmentor to other
UniverFellowat theFacultyofHistory,
AcademyPostdoctoral
Hugo Serviceis a British
sityofCambridge.
HUGO SERVICE
653
partsoftheannexedterritories thefateofaroundone millionpeople
duringthe war, most of themresidentsof the so-calledWartheland
region.1Meanwhile,in occupied Czechoslovakia,the Nazi regional
ofBohemiaand Moravia,Reingovernoroftheso-calledProtectorate
'Germanize'half
hard Heydrich,developedsimilarplans to culturally
of the territory's
populationand eitherto sterilizeor to uprootthe
thisplan,between
As thefirst
otherhalfeastwards.
steptowardsfulfilling
1941 and 1943 his authoritiesethnicallyscreenedthousandsof the
each as either'Germanizable'
inhabitants
ofthisterritory,
categorizing
or 'un-Germanizable'.2
The defeatof Nazi Germanyin 1945 by no means put an end
to large-scaleethnicscreeningin East-CentralEurope. Indeed, in the
threemillion'Germans'were
aftermath
of the war, as approximately
to
or
beingexpelled forcibly
transported the US and SovietOccupation Zones of GermanyfromCzechoslovakia,the country'spost-war
decided that- since it was not alwaysclear who was a
government
of theircountryGermanand who a Czech amongthe inhabitants
anotherround of ethnicscreeningwould be necessary.Local courts
the countryin 1945 to judge people's ethnowere set up throughout
nationalidentity
based on whateverevidencewas available.In subsequent years,theycategorizedthousandsof people as ethnicCzechs,
sparingthemfromdisplacementfromthe country.3While thiswas
goingon in post-warCzechoslovakia,a similarprocessgot underway
in post-warPoland.This ethnicscreeningprocess,introducedthroughout the new westernand northernterritories
whichPoland acquired
fromGermanyat the end of thewar,was knownas the ethnicVerificationaction' (akcjaweryfikacyjna)
and willbe the primaryfocusof this
article.
1Zofia
na Górnym
i ich
Boda-Krçzel, Sprawa volkslisty
Slqsku.Koncepcje
likwidacji
problemu
lusnosci
realizacja,Opole, 1978,pp. 22-26 and 33; Zdzislaw Lempiriski,Przesiedlenie
niemieckiej
w latach
Z województwa
slqsko-dqbrowskiego
ig^-igjo, Katowice,1979,pp. 89-92;Wiodzimierz
in H. Lembergand W. Borodziej(eds), "Unsere
Heimatistunsein
Borodziej,'Einleitung',
Land geworden
. . ." Die Deutschen
östlichvon OderundNeiße ig^-ig^o:
fremdes
Dokumente
aus
Archiven,
4 vols,Marburg,2000-04, 1, pp. 37-113(pp. 42-43); Ingo Eser, 'Die
polnischen
in ibid.,2, pp. 360-99 (pp. 372-73);PerttiAhonen,Gustavo
Deutschenin Oberschlesien',
RainerSchulze,Tamas Stark,BarbaraStelzlMarx,Peopleon
Corni,JerzyKochanowski,
theMove:ForcedPopulation
Movements
in Europein theSecondWorldWaranditsAftermath,
Oxford,
2008, pp. 29-34; Mark Mazower, Hitler'sEmpire:Nazi Rulein Occupied
Europe,London, 2008,
pp.2193-98.
Chad Bryant,
'EitherGermanor Czech: FixingNationality
in Bohemiaand Moravia,
1939-1946',SlavicReview,
61,2002,4, pp. 683-706(pp. 686-96); Tara Zahra,'Reclaiming
Childrenforthe Nation: Germanization,
NationalAscription,
and Democracyin the
BohemianLands, 1900-1945',Central
History,
European
37, 2004,4, pp. 501-43 (pp. 52733)3
'EitherGermanor Czech',pp. 696-700;Jeremy
A
intoCzechs:
Bryant,
King,Budweisers
Local History
Politics,Princeton,NJ, 2002, pp. 194-202.
ofBohemian
654
SIFTING
POLES
FROM GERMANS
The role ethnicscreeningplayed in the ethniccleansingof EastCentralEurope duringand afterthe Second World War is relatively
A numberof recentbooks and articleshave looked at
under-studied.
thissubject,includingthoseby RichardBlanke,Chad Bryant,Andreas
Hofmann,JeremyKing, BernardLinek,PiotrMadajczyk,Grzegorz
Strauchold,PhilippTher and Tara Zahra.4 Each of thesestudieshas
that it is not possible to fullyunderstandthe acts of
demonstrated
ethniccleansingcarriedout in thisregionduringand afterthe Second
the simplistic
ethno-national
WorldWar withoutcritically
confronting
these
actions.
But
Hoffmann's
and Straubehind
only
categorieslying
betweenethnicscreening
chold'sstudieshave subjectedtheinteraction
and ethniccleansingin thisregionat thistimeto detailedexamination.
Moreover,therehas yet to be an in-depth,local-levelanalysisof the
part ethnicscreeningplayed in the ethniccleansingof East-Central
Europe in the 1940s.
This articleseeks to providepreciselythat- by focusingon the
localityof Oppeln/Opole Districtin westernUpper Silesia.5'Western
Upper Silesia' refersto thepartofUpper SilesiawhichafterthepartitionofUpper Silesiain 1922remainedin Germanyand was notincor- the part of Upper Silesia whichin Polish is
poratedinto Poland
referredto as SkyskOpolski. WesternUpper Silesia was one of the
regionsPoland acquired fromdefeatedGermanyin 1945.A western
Upper Silesianlocalityhas been chosenas thecase studyforthisarticle
because this region was where the post-warCommunist-ledPolish
authorities
firstimplementedethnicscreeningin theirnew territories
and wheretheydid so on thelargestscale. Opole/Oppeln Districthas
been selectedbecause itwas one ofthewesternUpper Silesiandistricts
where ethnicscreeningplayed a particularlyimportantrole in the
ethniccleansingprocess.
4 Richard
Germans?
Blanke, Polish-Speaking
LanguageandNationalIdentity
amongtheMasurians
since1871,Cologne,2001;Bryant,'EitherGermanor Czech'; AndreasR. Hofmann,Die
in denpolnischen
und Bevölkerungspolitik
in Schlesien.GesellschqflsSiedlungsgebieten
Nachkriegszeit
na
Bernard linek, Polityka
antyniemiecka
I945~I94ß->Cologne, 2000; JeremyKing, Budweisers;
SlaskaOpolskiego
Slaskuw latach1945-1950,Opole, 2000; PiotrMadajczyk, Przylqczenie
Górnym
do Polski1945-1Q48,Warsaw, 1996; Grzegorz Strauchold,Autochtoni,
Polscy,Ntemieccy,
czy. . .
BevOdNacjonalizm
doKomunizm
Toruñ,2001;PhilippTher,'Die einheimische
(1945-1949),
einer
Die Enstehehung
ölkerungdes OppelnerSchlesiensnach dem ZweitenWeltkrieg.
undGesellschaft,
Geschichte
deutschen
26, 2000,pp. 407-38;Zahra,'Reclaiming
Minderheit',
Children'.
5 'district'
of
and miasto
ofOppelnand thepowiat
I meanboththeStadtundLandkreis
By
before1945.Opole has been itsname since
Opole. Oppelnwas thename of thedistrict
on 17May 1939,accordingto a nation1945.The size ofthepopulationofOpole District
der
Strukturwandel
undGrenzen:
wideGermancensus,was 198,100.AlfredBohmann,Menschen
Staats-und Verwaltungsbereich,
impolnischen
deutschen
Cologne, 1969, p. 209.
Bevölkerung
HUGO SERVICE
655
This article contendsthat the ethnic screeningcarried out by
in East-Central
Nazi German,Czechoslovakianand Polishauthorities
War
to achieve
and
after
the
World
failed
Second
Europe during
its primarygoals since it was based on a crude nationalistoutlook
which soughtto distilcomplexculturalidentitiesand collectiveselfintosimplistic
nationalcategories.
understandings
This was something
notwellunderstoodby theonlyotherhistorians
Verificawho have looked at westernUpper Silesia's ethno-national
tion' in detail - ZbigniewKowalski and Jan Misztal.6Writingin
CommunistPoland in the early1980s,bothhistorians
provideduseful
about the innerworkingsof ethnicscreeningin
empiricalinformation
theregionafterthewar. Yet bothpresentedthe same black-and-white
understandingof cultural identityand self-understanding
among
who implementedthe process.
Upper Silesiansas the Polish officials
This meantthattheypresentedall pre-warinhabitants
ofUpper Silesia
as fallingintotwo nationalcategories:Germansand Poles. As willbe
whichlay at the heart
arguedin thisarticle,it was thissimplification
of thefailureof Verification'.
II
The ethnicVerification'
of the pre-warpopulationof Oppeln/Opole
Districtwas part of a broad processof ethniccleansingimplemented
Poland by thecountry'sSoviet-backed
and Communist-led
throughout
between
and
It
was
government
1944
1949.
partlya productof the
anti-German
which
were
strong
feelings
ubiquitousin Polish society
brutal
and
following
Germany's
humiliating
occupationofthecountry
afterSeptember1939.But the ethniccleansingcarriedout in Poland
between1944and 1949mustalso be understoodas the productof an
older traditionof Polish ethnicnationalismassociatedsince the late
nineteenth
withthe figureof Roman Dmowskiand
centuryprimarily
propoundedin the earlypartof the twentieth
centuryby his National
DemocraticParty,as well as such organizationsas the Poznañ-based
PolishWesternAssociation(PolskiZwi^zek Zachodni). The relatively
weak supportforCommunismin Poland at theend ofthewar prompted Poland's Moscow-backedCommunistgovernment
to embracekey
aspectsof thisethno-nationalist
ideologyin orderto gain popularity
6
do Polski.Organizaçja
Zbigniew Kowalski, PowrótSlaska Opolskiego
wiadçyludoweji reguhcja
w latach1945-1948,2nd edn, Opole, 1988 (ist edn, Opole, 1983);
problemów
narodowokiowych
narodowokiowa
na SlaskuOpolskim
Jan Misztal, Weryfikaçja
1945-1950,Opole, 1984 (hereafter,
Misztal's 1990 book Weryfikaçja
narodowokiowa
na ZjtmiachOdzyskanych,
Misztal, Weryfikaçja).
Warsaw,1990,it is true,is also mainlyconcernedwithUpperSilesiaand was published
afterthefallofCommunism,
butis essentially
modified
versionofhis1984
merelya slightly
book,exhibiting
exactlythesamenationalist
assumptions.
656
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
withinPolish society.The government'spost-warpolicy of ethnowas a clear manifestation
of this.Crucially,
nationalhomogenization
this policy saw not only 3.6 millionGermans expelled or forcibly
of
transportedto occupied Germanyfromthe post-warterritories
Poland between1945and 1949,but also aroundhalfa millionethnic
Ukrainiansand thousands of ethnic Belarusians and Lithuanians
uprootedeastwardsto the SovietUnion.7
As the Red Armyforcedits way into Germanyin early 1945,it
under
began to place vastswathesofpre-wareasternGermanterritory
Poland had alreadylostmassiveterthe controlof Polishauthorities.
ritoriesin the east to the SovietUnion in 1944and the Polishgovernmentwas therefore
anxiousto ensurethatall oftheGermanterritories
theRed Armywas puttingunderitscontrolin theearlymonthsof 1945
be incorporatedinto Poland by the Allied Powers
would ultimately
viewedthe existence
when the war was over.The Polishgovernment
ofwhatit believedto be ethnicPolishpopulationsin easternGerman
territories
primarilyin westernUpper Silesia and southernEast
Prussia as a crucialpart of the argumentwhichit intendedto put
forwardto the Allied Powersat the end of war in orderto convince
The
themto grantPoland permanentpossessionof theseterritories.8
therefore
plannedboth to ethnicallycleanse the pre-war
government
of Germansand, at the same time,to keep
easternGermanterritories
in place a largepopulationwhichitwouldpresentto theAlliedPowers
Poles'.
as 'autochthonous
Ethnicscreeningcame to be seen as the way to achieve thisdual
and provingto
goal of removing'Germans' fromthese territories
the Alliesthata large numberof 'nativePoles' alreadyresidedthere.
theseterritories
The post-warPolishauthorities
applied it throughout
in the half decade followingthe war. But ethnicscreeningwas first
introduced,as mentionedalready,in westernUpper Silesia, as an
in Warsawbut of Upper
not of Poland's centralgovernment
initiative
Silesia's new regional governor (Wojewoda), General Aleksander
Zawadzki. Zawadzki was a CommunistPartypolitburomemberwho
was sentto thecityofKatowicein earlyspring1945to setup a regional
and expanded
administration
(Urz^d Wojewódzki)forthe,reconstituted
This
administrative
Silesia
of
(WojewództwoSl^skie).
region Upper
region,unlikeitspre-warversion,includedbotheasternUpper Silesia
- which had been part of Poland beforethe war - and western
7 T. David
in Western
Poland,1945-1960,
Gurp,A CleanSweep?ThePoliticsofEthnicCleansing
pp. 57-58;
Rochester,NY, 2006, pp. 5-12, 21-25 and 39-40; Borodziej,'Einleitung',
ontheMove,pp. 96-100;Bernadetta
DieNachkriegszeit,
Hofmann,
pp. 272-74;Ahonen,People
aus Polen1945 bis 1949, Munich,
derdeutschen
undAussiedlung
Nitschke,Vertreibung
Bevölkerung
2003,
8 pp. 276-77.
p. 108.
Borodziej,'Einleitung',
HUGO SERVICE
657
Upper Silesia,whichhad been partofGermanybefore1939.Zawadzki
had alreadybegun to set up an ethnicscreeningprocessin western
to it as ethnicVerification5.9
Upper Silesiain March 1945 referring
It was notuntilthesecondhalfof 1945thatsimilarVerification
actions'
werealso introducedin otherpartsofPoland'snewpost-warterritories
- the otherarea where a
action' was later
large-scaleVerification
southern
East
Prussia.10
implemented
being
In the springof 1945, Polish officialsarrivingin westernUpper
Silesia began to establish special ethnic Verificationcommittees'
throughoutthe region to carry out the task of determininglocal
Locals were told to begin submitting
people's ethno-national
identity.
to
the
committees
applications
providingevidence of their Polish
ethno-national
(narodowos'c
identity
polskd)}1Based on thejudgementsof
thesecommittees,
successfulapplicantswere thenissuedwith'tempoofPolishnationality'12
administrararycertificates
bytheirlocal district
tion(Starostwo)or townadministration
(Zarz^d Miejski).13
In thenewlyrenameddistrict
of Opole, the Verification
action'was
14The officials
introduced
Polish
in
officials
late
by arriving
spring1945.
createda large numberof Verification
committees'to carryout the
taskofjudgingethno-national
identityin the district.A single'town
verification
committee'dealtwithall applicationsfromresidentsofthe
townof Opole, whilean entirethree-tier
comsystemof Verification
mittees'was setup to do thesame in the surrounding
ruralpartofthe
district.15
At the bottomof these three tiersstood the Village verification
committees'.
Therewerearoundninetyoftheseoperatingin thedistrict
9
Eser,'Die Deutschenin Oberschlesien',
pp. 389-90; Kowalski,Powrót,
pp. 296-97.
u
Strauchold,
Autochtoni,
pp. 50-52; Borodziej,'Einleitung',
pp. 108-09;Hofmann,Die
Nachkriegszeit,
p. 284.
11
Kowalski,
Powrót,
pp. 296-97and 301;Misztal,Weryfikacja,
pp. 94 and 98-99; Eser,'Die
Deutschenin Oberschlesien',
Die Nachkriegszeit,
Hofmann,
pp.
388-91;
p. 283.
12In Polish:
zaswiadczeniao przynaleznosci
'tymczasowe
narodowej.'
13
Kowalski,Powrót,
pp. 296-97 and 301; Eser, 'Die Deutschenin Oberschlesien',
Die Nachkriegszeit,
Hofmann,
388-91;
pp.
p. 283.
14
w Katowicach(hereafter,
Katowice,ArchiwumParistwowe
APK), 185/4,sygn.21,
administration's
Social-Political
208-09,'Situationreport'by Opole district
Department,
29-5451D
Archiwum
Paristwowe
w Opolu (hereafter,
Opole,
APO), 185,sygn.85, 3, Reportby
theSocial-Political
ofOpole townadministration,
Department
24.8.45;APK, 185/4,sygn.
of the 'verification
action'in Opole District,
in
written
435) 5I-52>Reporton inspection
thesecondhalfofDecember1945;APO, 185,sygn.85, 11,Reportwritten
by thehead of
the townadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
20.12.45;APO, 185,sygn.85, 33,
'Situationreport'bythehead ofOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
21.6.46;APO, 178,sygn.41,1-4,'Situationreport'on period20.8.45-20.9.45;
APK, 185/4,
of the 'verification
action'in Opole District,
sygn.435, 53-56, Reporton an inspection
datingfromthesecondhalfofDecember1945.
658
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
and theywere the firstcommittees
to examinethe Verification'
applications.Theirjob was to categorizeeach applicationas 'indisputable5,
'rejected'or 'contentious'beforesendingthemto one of the district's
'communeverification
committees'forfurther
twenty-one
inspection.
The communecommittees,
whichwereeach in chargeofthescreening
process in several of the district'svillages,then re-categorizedthe
Only thoseplaced in
applicationsas accepted,rejectedor contentious.
the last of these threecategorieswere then sent to Opole District's
to
committee',at the top of the hierarchy,
single'districtverification
A similarhierarchy
of 'verification
committees'
makefinaldecisions.16
in the courseof
was set up in each of westernUpper Silesia'sdistricts
in
was
a
deal
of
variation
the numberof
there
good
1945,although
in
each
district.17
committees
operating
In termsof how thesecommittees
were composed,the villageand
in Opole Districtwereeach said to
committees'
commune'verification
ludnosc
containat least three'local Polishpeople' (miejscowa
polska)committees'
these'local Polish
and in manyof the 'villageverification
a majorityof the committeemempeople' may even have constituted
bers. But it is not exactlyclear what the authoritiesmeantby 'local
Polishpeople'. They may oftenhave meantpre-warresidentsof westernUpper Silesiaas a wholeratherthanof theparticularvillagesand
communesin whichthecommittee
actuallyoperated.In anycase, they
theirPolish
are all likelyto have been people who had demonstrated
nationalistcredentialsto the authoritiesby provingtheyhad been
in theinternarperiod.The remaining
membersofPolishorganizations
were all outsidersfromthe pre-warterrimembersof the committees
toriesof Poland who had been givenofficialadministrative
positions
committees'
in the districtafterspring1945. The 'villageverification
wereeach headed by a villagemayor(Soltys)or local head teacher,the
communecommittees
by a communemayor(Wójt).18
whichwereheaded
and town'verification
The district
committees',
chief
official
District's
(Starosta)and Opole
by Opole
respectively
town'spresident,were much largerand had broader memberships.
issued by regionalgovernorZawadzki
instructions
Closely reflecting
in summer1945,Opole's 'townverification
committee',forexample,
fromthe Polish Workers'Party,the Polish
containedrepresentatives
SocialistParty,the Polish Peasants'Party,the DemocraticParty,the
16APK,
action'in
of theVerification
185/4,sygn.435,53-56,Reporton an inspection
fromthesecondhalfofDecember1945;Misztal,Weryfikacja,
p. 88.
District,
dating
Opole
17
Ibid.,
pp.
87-88.
18
action'in
of the Verification
APK, 185/4,sygn.435, 53-56, Reporton inspection
p. 91;
datingfromthesecondhalfofDecember1945;Misztal,Weryfikacja,
Opole District,
p. 176;
Ther,'Die einheimische
Bevölkerung',
pp. 423 and 430-31;Madajczyk,Przyiqczenie,
Autochtoni,
Strauchold,
p. 305.
p. 83; Kowalski,Poivrât,
HUGO SERVICE
659
SecurityPolice (Urz^d BezpieczeñstwaPublicznego),the Citizens'
Militia(thatis, theregularpolice),the CommitteeforFormerPolitical
the Associationof Veteransof the
Prisoners,the school inspectorate,
Silesian Uprisingsand the Polish WesternAssociation.The 'district
verification
committee'was similarly
of
composed.19The involvement
in
thePolishWesternAssociationin the'verification
action', particular,
the ethnicnationalistgoals lyingbehindthisscreeningprohighlights
cess.This staunchly
nationalist
associationhad been foundedin Poznan
in 1921 and, out of politicalnecessity,
had acceptedclose cooperation
withthe Communist-led
Polish governmentafter1944. It had been
role in the Verification
action'throughout
western
givenan important
Upper Silesia.20
Zawadzki demanded, moreover,that not just the village and
communeVerification
committees'
but also thedistrict
and townVerificationcommittees'contain representatives
fromthe 'local Polish
'town verification
committee'
population'.Opole's nineteen-member
apparentlycontainedas many as nine pre-warresidentsof the town
in August1945.All of themwere said to be eitherformermembersof
the internarAssociationof Poles in Germany(Zwi^zek Polaków w
Niemczech)or 'trustedindividualswho are veryknowledgeableabout
the local region',meaningpeople who had provento the authorities
that in the past theyhad engaged in Polish nationalistactivities.21
comOpole District,in fact,was ratherunusualin having'verification
mittees'withsignificant
of
'autochthonous
Poles'.
Elserepresentation
wherein westernUpper Silesia it was commonforthe committees
to
containnot a singlepre-warresidentof the region.22Zawadzki criticized thisin a circularsentout on 24 October 1945,invalidatingall
decisionsreachedby committees
whichdid not containpre-warresidentsof westernUpper Silesia.23Yet givenhow manyseatsin Opole
District'stwo mostimportant'verification
committees'were assigned
to officials,
and
activists
most,ifnotall,ofwhom
policemen
political
wereoutsidersfromcentralPoland - it is clear thattheparticipation
of pre-warresidentsin the Verification'
processhad more to do with
vestingthe processwithlegitimacythan enhancingthe accuracyof
oflocal people.24
judgementsmade about the ethno-national
identity
19
SocialAPO, 185,sygn.85, 11,Reportby the head of Opole townadministration's
PoliticalDepartment,
20.1245;APO, 185,sygn.85, 3, Reportby Opole townadministration's Social-PoliticalDepartment,24.8.45; Hofmann,Die Nachkriegszeit,
pp. 284-85;
Kowalski,
Powrót,
p. 299.
20Hofmann,
Die Nachkriegszeit,
pp. 272-73;Gurp,A CleanSweep?,
pp. 21-2^ and 3Q-40.
21APO,
Social-Political
185,sygn.85, 3, ReportbyOpole townadministration's
Department,24.8.45.
¿¿Kowalski,Powrót,
pp. 30^-06.
23Hofmann,
Die Nachkriegszeit,
pp. 200-01;Kowalski,PowróL
pp. qqo-qi.
24
Hofmann,Die Nachkriegszeit,
p. 285.
66O
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
reachdecisionsabout whether
So how exactlydid thesecommittees
a local residentwas an ethnicPole or not? In fact,they received
littleguidancefromUpper Silesia'sregionaladministration
surprisingly
in Katowice on what counted for Polish ethno-nationalidentity.25
Accordingto one individual,who had been a memberof Opole's
committee'at thistime,theytherefore
devisedtheir
'district
verification
own criteria for determiningPolish ethno-nationalidentity.He
claimed:
A goodcommandofPolishwas demandedas wellas [. . .] factsattesting
withthe Polishnation- suchas membership
of the
to an affiliation
of Poles in Germany,
beforethewar to Polish
Association
subscription
and books,attendance
ofPolishminority
schools,[experience
newspapers
and
at
the
handsoftheGermans,
of]persecution repression
participation
involvein theplebiscite
orintheSilesianUprisings,
ofrelatives
campaign
mentin excursions
to Polandincluding
[...], RomanCatholic
pilgrimages
and thePoles.26
towards
Polishaffairs
and a loyalattitude
faith,
- such
This suggestedthat'behavioural'criteriaforPolish ethnicity
as what organizationsan individualhad chosen to join before1945
and how an individualhad acted duringthe plebiscitecampaignand
SilesianUprisingsof 1919-21- were attributed
by the committeean
equal importanceto thesupposedly'objective'criteriaoflanguageand
religion.Opole's committeewas not doing anythingunique in this
littlein the way of specificguidelines,Katorespect.Despite offering
committees'
wice did, fromthe outset,advisethe region's'verification
to base theirdecisionson Polishethno-national
just as much
identity
on 'behavioural'criteriaas on 'objective'ones.27
the versionof proceedingspresentedby thisformer
Nevertheless,
committee'was clearlyhighly
verification
memberof Opole's 'district
wishedto demonidealized.BecausewesternUpper Silesia'sauthorities
stratethata large proportionof the region'sinhabitantswere ethnic
Poland'sterritorial
claimto theregion
Poles- and therebystrengthen
- the 'verification
committees'simplycould not affordto applystrict
criteriawhen judging the applications.In practice,the committees
were often,therefore,
willingto 'verify'people as ethnicPoles based
ofsupporttheyreceivedfrompre-warresidents
on
the
solely
signatures
who had been designatedas 'trusted'(thatis, Polish nationalist)by
the authorities.
And in certainplaces,verysmallnumbersof 'trusted'
ofsupportforverylargenumbers
residents
suppliedsignatures
pre-war
of applicants- people whomtheyrarelypersonallyknew.28
25Ibid.pp. 286 and 300.
26Citedin ibid.,
pp. 285-86; APO, 185,sygn.85, 11,Reportby thehead of thetown
Social-Political
administration's
Department,
20.12.4^.
Die Nachkriegszeit,
27Misztal,
pp. 274-79and 281.
pp. 94-96; Hofmann,
28Misztal,Wervfikaga,
Weryfikacja,
pp. 94-99.
HUGO SERVICE
66l
This practicewas clearlyin line withregionalgovernorZawadzki's
thathe
He made it absolutelyplain to the region'sofficials
intentions.
when
committees'to be too stringent
did not want the Verification
in
an
ethno-national
October
Polish
identity complaining
judging
1945circular,forexample,thattoo manyapplicationswerebeingrejected.29This circularmay have been what promptedOpole District's
at the end of October,to inspectthe camps in the local
chiefofficial,
area wherepeople whose Verification'
applicationshad been rejected,
werebeinginterned.He reportor who refusedto submitapplications,
edly came across individualsin thesecamps who could speak Polish
and immediatelyordered theirrelease so that they could undergo
as ethnicPoles.30
Verification'
In the firstyear or so of the Verification'
processOpole District's
Verification
committees'rejectedveryfew applications.Of the app59,000 locals who had alreadysubmittedapplicationsfor
roximately
Verification'
by theend of 1945,around57,000wereVerified'as ethnic
Poles and only 1595 applications- less than 3 per cent - were
rejected.Twenty-nine
per centofOpole District'sentirepre-warpopulation had thereforealready been Verified'as ethnicPoles by this
time.31
EveryoneVerified'as an ethnicPole in Opole Districtwas,ofcourse,
entitledto continuelivingthere.The problemwas thatPolishsettlers
ofPoland,
frombothcentralPoland and thepre-wareasternterritories
annexedfromPoland in 1944,
whichthe SovietUnion had effectively
floodedinto Opole Districtin 1945. The firstcargo train carrying
settlersfromPoland's ceded easternterritories
had alreadyarrivedin
32
Oppeln/Opole townin March 1945. Because Opole townhappened
to be one ofthefewplaces in westernUpper SilesiawheretheSoviets'
recently-installed
broad-gaugerailwaycame to an end, huge numbers
29Kowalski,PowróL
pp. 330-31.
30
commitAPK, 185/4,sygn.435,53-56,Reportbychairmanofthe'regionalinspection
in thesecondhalfofDecember1945;EdmundNowak,Obozy
naSlqskuOpolskim
tee',written
w systende
obozóww Polsce(ig^-ig^o). Historiai implikacja,
powojennych
Opole, 2002, pp. 213-
0
verification
committee'
had acceptedaround53,000applications
and
Opole's 'district
had accepted3897applicacommittee'
rejectedonly1266,whileOpole's 'townverification
tionsand rejectedonly329. APK, 185/4,sygn.435, 51-52,Reporton the 'verification
action'in Opole District,
written
in thesecondhalfofDecember1945;APK, 185/4,sygn.
action'in Opole District,
in the second
written
435, 51-52,Reporton the 'verification
halfof December1945;APO, 185,sygn.85, 11,Reportby Opole townadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
20.12.45;APO, 178,sygn.41, 13-15,'Situationreport'on
DatenundFaktenzu ihrer
period20.12.45-20.1.46; HeinrichBartsch,Die StädteSchlesiens.
undsozialgeschichtlichen
undBedeutung,
landes-,kultur-,
Dortmund, 1977,
wirtschafte-,
Entwicklung
12.
p.32
WlodzimierzBorodziej,StanislawCiesielskiand JerzyKochanowski,'Wstçp',in
Giesielski(ed.), Przesiedlenie
ludnosci
do Polski1944-1947,Warsaw,
poslkiejz kresówwschodnich
Ost-Dokumentation
Bundesarchiv,
X999>PP-5~5x (P-43)5Bayreuth,
(hereafter,
BOD), 2,
229,48-52,WitnessreportbyAlfonsS. fromOppeln/Opoletown,23.1.49.
662
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
ofeasternPolishsettlers
wereunloadedtherefromspring1945onwards
withtheaim oftransferring
themontonarrow-gauge
trainsforonward
numbers
of
settlers
also arrived
Meanwhile,
large
transportation.33
fromcentralPoland - some of themunassisted,but most of them
to the districton goods trains.34
By earlysummer1945,
transported
were said to be arrivingin Opole town
8,000 to 10,000Polishsettlers
onwards.35
daily,manyofwhomcould notbe immediately
transported
a makeshift
To deal withthisgrowingmass of homelesssettlers,
camp
was set up next to Opole's railwaystation,whereconditionsquickly
werestay1945,27,000Polishsettlers
beganto worsen.By mid-summer
Their
ingthereand a seriousepidemichad brokenout amongthem.36
numberrapidlygrew,peakingin late September1945,when 88,000
were livingeitherat this camp or in barracksaround the town of
Opole.37
Veryfewofthesepeople could be givenpermanenthomesin Opole
District.By the end of 1945,only 15,000to 20,000 Polishsettlershad
receivedpermanentplaces to live in the Opole District.The primary
of the pre-warresidentshad
reasonforthiswas thatonlya minority
oflocal civiliansfrom
forgood duringtheflight
abandonedthedistrict
theRed ArmyinJanuary1945.Of thelargenumberoflocal residents
as the Red Armyinvadedin late
vacatedthe district
who had initially
beforethewar
January1945,manyhad alreadyreturnedto thedistrict
ended or withinweeksof thewar's end. Only in thetownof Oppeln/
as Germans
wheremostpeople had regardedthemselves
Opole itself,
before the war, was the majorityof the population permanently
themajority
Correspondingly,
uprootedin thecourseofthismassflight.
of Polishsettlerswho did manage to get permanenthomes in Opole
Districtafterthe war were allottedhouses and flatsin the town of
Opole.38
33Hofmann,Die NachkriezszeiL
p. ioq; Eser, 'Die Deutschen in Oberschlesien',p. 384.
34
Hofmann,Die Nachkriegszeit,
p. 108.
35
Ibid., p. 109; APK 185/4,sygn.436, 60-61, Report on an inspectionof Opole District
which took place 6-19.2.46; APK 185/4, sygn.27/1,43-47, 'Situation report' by Opole
districtadministration,0.8.4^.
36APK
185/4,sygn.25, 12-14,'Situationreport'by Opole districtadministration'sSocialPoliticalDepartment,20.6.45; Hofmann,Die Nachkriegszeit,
pp. 109-10; Eser, 'Die Deutschen
in Oberschlesien',p. 384.
37APO
178, sygn. 41, 1-4, 'Situation report' by Opole District's chief officialon the
period
20.8.45-20.9.45.
38APO
178, sygn. 41, 5-8, 'Situation report' by Opole Districts chief officialon the
period 20.9.45-20.10.45; APO 178, sygn. 41, 10-12, 'Situation report' by Opole District's
chiefofficialon the period 20.11.45-20.12.45; APO 178, sygn.41, 13-15, 'Situation report'
by Opole District'schiefofficialon the period 20.12.45-20. 11.46;APO 185, sygn.85, 14-15,
Report by Opole town administration'sSocial-PoliticalDepartment,21.2.46; BOD 2, 229,
1-2, Witnessreportby A. fromOppeln/Opole town,15.7.55;BOD 1, 243, 299-301, Witness
report (guidelines) by Franz G. from Rogau (Rogów), 8.9.55; BOD 1, 243, 174-81,
Witness reportby Georg K. fromHinterwasser(Zawada), 24.10.57; BOD 1, 243, 349-51,
Witnessreport(guidelines)by Georg S. fromTauentzien (Okoly), undated.
HUGO SERVICE
663
As indicatedalready,any pre-warresidentof Opole Districtwhose
'verification'
applicationwas rejectedor who refusedto submitan
was
application categorizedas a Germanand,wherepossible,interned
in one of severalspecialcampsforGermanssituatedin thelocal area,
wheretheyweresubjectedto veryharshconditionsand forcedlabour.39
At thesame time,thedistrict's
authorities
encouragedthoselocalswho
as
Germans
to
to GermanyVoluntarily'
of
themselves
migrate
thought
various
anti-German
measures
and issuingso-called
by introducing
around
for
2,500people had
'passes permanentemigration'.Officially,
the
of
end
leftthe districtvoluntarily
by
1945
thoughthe actual
several
thousand
than
this.40
was
higher
figure probably
action'continuedinto1946,Opole District'spopuThe Verification
towards
lationby thispointapparentlyexhibiting'utterindifference'
in
it.41It was in the springof 1946 thatPoland's centralgovernment
decidedto takecontroloftheVerification'
Warsawfinally
process.The
MinistryforRecoveredTerritoriessent out an order at the startof
April1946whichhad twoprincipalconsequences.First,it broughtthe
39APK 185/4,22, 49-51, Reportby Opole districtadministration's
Social-Political
5.6.45;APK 185/4,sygn.27/1,43-47,'Situationreport'by Opole District's
Department,
chiefofficial,
9.8.45;APO 178,sygn.41,1-4,'Situation
report'on theperiod20.8.45-20.9.45
APK 185/4,syg11chiefofficial;
435>5I-525Reporton the'verification
by Opole District's
in thesecondhalfofDecember1945;APK 185/4,syg11written
action'in Opole District,
of the'verification
action'in Opole District,
written
435,53-56,Reporton an inspection
in thesecondhalfof December1945;APO 178,41, 5-8, 'Situationreport'on theperiod
chiefofficial;
APO 185,sygn.85, 16, Reportby the
20.9.45-20.10.45
by Opole District's
Social-Political
21.1.46; BOD 1, 243,
head of Opole townadministration's
Department,
September1956;BOD 1,
225-26,WitnessreportbyJakobP. fromKranst(Chrzajstowice),
by Marta D. fromPlümkenau(Radomierowice),
243,281-83,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by EmilieB. fromNeuwedel
15.9.56;BOD 1, 243, 271-74,Witnessreports(guidelines)
(Swieciny),
29.8.55;BOD 1, 243, 275-76,Witnessreportby WilhelmB. fromNeuwedel,
Górna),
30.7.55;BOD 1, 243, 93-96, Witnessreportby M. T. fromEichtal(DajDrówka
21.1.57;Madajczyk,
Przytqczenie,
pp. 220-21;Nowak,Obozy,
pp. 212-17;Eser,'Die Deutschen
in Oberschlesien',
p. 387.
40APO
Social185,sygn.85, 13,Reportby the head of Opole townadministration's
16.1.46;APK 185/4,sygn.435, 51-52,Reporton the 'verification
PoliticalDepartment,
in thesecondhalfofDecember1945;APK 185/4,sygn.
written
action'in Opole District,
action'in Opole District,
in thesecondhalf
written
435,53-56,Reporton the'verification
of December1945;APO 185,sygn.85, 41-42,'Special situationreport'by Opole town
administration's
Social-Political
13.11.46;APO 185,sygn.85, 47, Reportby
Department,
the head of Opole townadministration's
Social-Political
17.1.47;APO 185,
Department,
Social-Political
sygn.85, 32, 'Situationreport'bythehead ofOpole townadministration's
admin21.6.46;APO 178,sygn.B15,i-ia, 'Situationreport'byOpole district
Department,
istration's
Social-Political
4.12.46;BOD 1, 243 and BOD 2, 229, numerous
Department,
in thesefiles,especially
witness
BOD 2, 229,3-4 byAlfred
vonA. fromAlthammer
reports
(Paliwoda),10.4.51and BOD 2, 229, 58-62 by Oskar TilgnerfromCarlsruhe(Pokój),
19.6.52; Madajczyk,Przylqczenie,
pp. 200-02 and 222-23; Eser, 'Die Deutschenin
Oberschlesien',
pp. 384,087,qqi-an¿ qq7
41
on the
APO, 178,sygn.41, 13-15,'Situationreport'by Opole District'schiefofficial
period20.12.45-20.1.46.
664
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
otherVerification
actions',introducedelsewherein the new territories
in the secondhalfof 1945,procedurally
intoline withthe Verification
action5being carriedout in westernUpper Silesia.42Secondly,and
more importantly
for Opole Districtand the restof westernUpper
that
almosteverybody
in the
Silesia,believing
eligibleforVerification5
new territories
had by spring1946 alreadybeen Verified5
as an ethnic
orderedthe dissolutionof all Verification
Pole, the Polishgovernment
committees5
be completedby the end of the summerof 1946.43
The problemwiththiswas thatwesternUpper Silesiawas stillwitfromGermany
nessinga steadystreamof pre-warresidentsreturning
afterfleeingfromthe Red Armyin the earlymonthsof 1945- and
on theirreturn
theyinvariablysubmitted
applicationsforVerification5
to theregion.By the secondhalfof 1946,Opole District'sVerification
committees5
recentreturnees
were,in fact,almostexclusively
Verifying5
fromGermany.44
the
fact
that
thousands
of Verification5
Yet, despite
were
submitted
these
applications
being
by
returninglocals, Opole
District'sofficials
wereforcedto dissolvetheirVerification
committees5
in the autumnof 1946,requiringthemsimplyto hand overthetaskof
evaluatingVerification5
applicationsto administrative
departments.
The committeesoperatingin the ruralpart of Opole Districttransferredtheirfunctions
to Opole district
administration's
Social-Political
while
the
'town
verification
committee5
Department,
(dissolvedon 19
November 1946) transferred
them to Opole town administration's
Social-PoliticalDepartment.45The same proceduralchange to the
Verification5
processwas witnessedin all of westernUpper Silesia5s
districtsin the second half of 1946.46Given that by this time the
majorityof the region'sadministrative
posts were filledby outsiders
fromcentralPoland ratherthan pre-warresidentsof westernUpper
42
Borodziej,'Einleitung',p. 109; Hofmann,Die Nachkriegszeit,
pp. 284 and 300-01;
Kowalski,PowróL
pp. 208-00 and 338-30.
43
Hofmann,Die Nachkriepszeit
p. 301.
44APO, 178,sygn.41, 34-36, 'Situationreport'on the period20.6.46-20.7.46;APK,
ofthe'verification
action'in Opole Dis185/4,syg11436, 62-64,Reporton an inspection
trictcarriedout 10-23JuneX946;APO, 185,sygn.85, 33,'Situationreport'byOpole town
administration's
Social-Political
21.6.46;APO, 185,sygn.85, 35, 'Situation
Department,
Social-Political
21.8.46;APO, 185,
report'by Opole townadministration's
Department,
Social-Political
Department,
sygn.85,44, 'Situation
report'byOpole townadministration's
administration's
APK, 185/4,sygn.39,54~54a,'Situation
21.12.46;
report'byOpole district
Social-Political
Department,
31.12.46.
45
administration's
APK, 185/4,sygn.39, 54~54a, 'Situationreport'by Opole district
Social-Political
31.12.46;APO, 185,sygn.85,43,'Situation
report'bythehead
Department,
ofOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
21.11.46;APO, 185,sygn.85,
Department,
Social41-42,'Exceptionalsituationreport'by the head of Opole townadministration's
PoliticalDepartment,
13.11.46; APO, 185,sygn.85,47,Reportbythehead ofOpole town
Social-Political
administration's
17.1.47.
Department,
46
Kowalski,Powrót,
p. 375.
HUGO SERVICE
665
Silesia,local participationin the 'verification5
processwas now very
limited.47
In 1947,as the influxof applicationsfromrecentreturneescontinSocial-Political
ued, Opole townadministration's
Departmentwas itself
dissolved.
in
Now
in both Opole
of
the
Verification'
suddenly
charge
townand the ruralpartof the district,
district
administration's
Opole
Social-Political
Departmentwas unableto processthelargenumberof
applicationsstillflowingin fromreturning
pre-warresidents.A large
of
Verification'
thus
The backbacklog
applications
quicklyformed.48
in
was
resolved
but
continued
to arrive
log
finally
1948,
applications
fromreturnees;and it was not until 1949 that the return-migration
finallypeteredout,causingthe Verification'
applicationsat last to dry
The
Verification
action'
was
up.
finallybroughtto an end in Opole
Districtand in all otherwesternUpper Silesiandistricts
in thesummer
of 1949.49
47BOD
(see note 32 above) 2, 229, 1-2, Witnessreportby A. fromOppeln/Opole
town,15.7.55;BOD 1, 243, 379-80,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by E.D. fromWalldorf
(Wawelno),undated;BOD 1, 243, 105-15,Witnessreportby Magda E. fromHopfental
(Chmielowice),
24.5.56;BOD 1, 243,335-37,Witnessreportby Karl B. fromSchönkirch
(Chrzasczyce),
19.8.55;BOD 1, 243,277-80,Witnessreportby Frau K. fromOderwinkel
(KajyOpolskie),30.5.59;BOD 1,243,33-36,Witnessreport(guidelines)
byGustavR. from
Blumenthal
(KrzywaGòra),undated;BOD 1, 243, 25-27,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by
FranzG. fromBergdorf
(Daniec),undated;BOD 1,243,13-16,Witnessreport(guidelines)
byJosef
J. fromEichberg(Dçbiniec),,
19.12.54;BOD 1,243,271-74,Witnessreport(guidelines)by EmilieB. fromNeuwedel(Swieciny),
29.8.55;BOD 1,243,67-72,Witnessreport
M. fromDershau(SuchyBór);BOD 1,243,289-93,Witnessreport
(guidelines)
byArthur
(guidelines)
byJuliusT. fromProskau(Prószków),
14.4.56;BOD 1, 243,299-301,Witness
report(guidelines)
by FranzG. fromRogau (Rogów),8.9.55;BOD 1, 243, 121-22,Letter
writtenby Herr G. fromFalkendorf(Falkowice),8.4.1959;Ther, 'Die einheimische
Bevölkerung',
pp. 423 and 430-31;Madajczyk,Przyiqczenie,
Autochtoni,
p. 176;Strauchold,
83; Kowalski,Powrót,
p.48
p. 305.
SocialAPO, 185,sygn.85, 47, Reportby the head of Opole townadministration's
PoliticalDepartment,
17.1.47;APO, 185,sygn.85, 48, 'Situationreport'by the head of
Social-Political
21.1.47;APO, 185,sygn.85, 51,
Opole townadministration's
Department,
'Situationreport'bythehead ofOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
21.3.47;APO, 178,sygn.62, 7-11, 'Situationreport'by Opole districtadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
1.4.47;APO, 178,sygn.62, 12-14,'Situationreport'by Opole
district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
2.5.47;APO, 178,sygn.62, 16-18,
'Situationreport'by Opole district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
6.6.47;
administration's
SocialAPO, 178,sygn.62, 21-23,'Situationreport'by Opole district
PoliticalDepartment,
12.8.47.Thereare no more'situation
reports'
byOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
Departmentin fileAPO, 185, sygn.85 afterthe one dated
21.4.47.
49
administration's
APO, 178,sygn.65, 7-8, 'Currentissues'report'by Opole district
Social-Political
Department,
2.3.48;APO, 178,sygn.62, 12-14,'Situationreport'byOpole
district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
2.5.47;APO, 178,sygn.62, 16-18,
'Situationreport'by Opole district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
6.6.47;
administration's
SocialAPO, 178,sygn.65, 11-12,'Currentissues'reportbyOpole district
PoliticalDepartment,
7.4.48;APO, 178,sygn.65, 23-24,'Currentissues'reportby Opole
district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
6.5.48; APO, 178,sygn.65, 56-57,
'Currentissues' reportby Opole districtadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
666
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
In the course of this action,Opole District'sauthoritieshad suca verylarge proportionof the district's
ceeded in Verifying'
pre-war
as
ethnic
Poles.
As one district
officialput it in November
population
1949,c[t]henativepopulationhas yieldedto theverification
process'.50
Altogether,Opole District's Verificationcommittees'and SocialPoliticalDepartmentshad Verified'as ethnicPoles, accordingto one
source,139,944individuals(includingchildren)between1945and 1949.
This suggestedthat72 per centof the district's
entirepre-warpopulationwas Verified'as ethnicPoles afterthewar.51The figureforwestern
Upper Silesia as a wholewas also large:56 per cent.52
This massivefigurehad been achieved,as we have seen,by avoiding
ofpre-warresidents.
What is
a stringent
approachto the Verification'
is
that
this
extended
to
former
however,
approach
considering
striking,
In
as ethnicPoles. fact,Opole
Nazi PartymembersforVerification'
allowednot onlyformerNazi Partymembersbut
District'sauthorities
evenformerBrownShirtsand SS men to submitVerification'
applicationsafterthewar.53ThirtyformerNazi Partymemberswereactually
Verified'as ethnicPoles by Opole's 'districtverification
committee'
in the initialmonthsof the action.This musthave happened before
October 1945 when Upper Silesia's regional governor,Zawadzki,
themnot to allow
sentout an orderto theregion'sofficials
instructing
committees'to Verify'formerNazi Partymembers
local Verification
49Continued
Social4.9.48; APO, 178, sygn.65, 50-52, Reportby Opole districtadministration's
on thefirst
twoquartersof1948;APO, 178,sygn.65, 25-26,'Current
PoliticalDepartment
administration's
Social-Political
issues'reportby Opole district
1.6.48;APO,
Department,
178,sygn.113,64-65, Reporton 'the liquidationof the tracesof Germanlanguageand
administration's
Social-Political
culture'bythehead ofOpole district
31.7.48;
Department,
administration's
SocialAPO, 178,sygn.65,54-55,'Currentissues'reportbyOpole district
adminisPoliticalDepartment,
4.8.48;APO, 178,sygn.64, 7-8, Reportby Opole district
on theperiod1.1.48-31.
tration's
Social-Political
12.48;APO, 178,sygn.64, 36,
Department
Social-Political
administration's
5.8.49;APO, 178,
Department,
Reportby Opole district
Social-Political
administration's
25.11.49;
Department,
sygn.64,43,ReportbyOpole district
administration's
Social-Political
APO, 178,sygn.64, 14,Reportby Opole district
Department,8.3.4Q;Kowalski,Powrót,
p. 377.
50
Social-Political
APO, 178,sygn.64, 43, Reportby Opole districtadministration's
Department,2^.11.40.
5ÎThis
dated 1.7.49,cited in
figureis fromUpper Silesia'sregionaladministration,
Kowalski,Powrót,
p. 158. Otherfiguressuggestthatthe
p. 381 and Misztal,Weryfikacja,
numberwas under130,000.See APO, 178,sygn.65, 17-21,Reporton the're-Polonization
Social-Political
administration's
action'by Opole district
21.4.48;APO, 178,
Department,
Social-PoliticalDepartment,
sygn.64, 43, Report by Opole districtadministration's
25.11.49.
52Misztal,
p. 209; Eser, 'Die Deutschenin
p. 158; Bohmann,Menschen,
Weryfikacja,
Oberschlesien',
p. qqi.
53
on period
chiefofficial
APO, 178,sygn.41, 1-4,'Situationreport'by Opole District's
20.8.45-20.9.45;APO, 178, sygn.65, 56-57, 'Currentissues'reportby Opole district
Social-Political
administration's
4.9.48.
Department,
HUGO SERVICE
667
as ethnicPoles. He instructed
local committeesinsteadto send any
from
former
applications
partymembers,whichtheydid not wishto
in Katowice forfurto
Silesia's
reject, Upper
regionaladministration
therconsideration.54
wereapparently
Opole District'sauthorities
being
toldat thistimeby 'trusted'pre-residents
thatmanyoftheformerNazi
Partymemberslivingin the district'had neverconcealedtheirPolish
ethnicity,
alwaysused the Polishlanguageetc.', and had onlyjoined
thepartybecausetheyhad been pressuredintoitbytheGermanauthoThe famoussociologistStanislawOssowskiwas told the same
rities.55
Polish
nationalist
locals whenhe visitedthisarea in August1945.56
by
in Warsaw towardsthis
The attitudeof Poland's centralgovernment
issuechangedovertime.In July1945it ruledthatformermembersof
the Nazi Partyand otherNazi formations
were ineligiblefor'tempoofPolishnationality'.
But by April1946it had decided
rarycertificates
that formerNazi Party membershipshould not be viewed as an
as an ethnicPole since many had
absoluteobstacleto 'verification'
been 'coerced'intojoiningtheparty.57
Severalthousand'verification'
applicationswereprobablysubmitted
in Opole Districtbetween1945 and
Nazi
former
members
by
Party
a
of
which
were sentto the regionaladmin1949
largeproportion
in Katowiceforfurther
istration
consideration.
What numberof these
were
'verified'
as
ethnic
Poles
cannotbe said for
ultimately
applicants
certain- but some definitely
were. Several thousandformerNazi
Partymembersare estimatedto have been 'verified'as ethnicPoles in
westernUpper Silesia as a whole.58
action'in Opole District,
54APK, 185/4,sygn.435, 53-56,Reporton the 'verification
in thesecondhalfofDecember1945;Kowalski,Powrót,
written
pp. 330-31and 350-51.
55APK, 185/4,sygn.22, 49-51, 'Situationreport'by Opole districtadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
5.6.45;APK, 185/4,syg1125>Ï2-I4, Reportby Opole district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
20.6.4.^.
56Stanislaw
Ossowski,'Zagadnieniawiçzi regionalneji wiçzi narodowejna Sla^sku
Dziela,6 vols,Warsaw,1966-70,3, pp. 251-300(pp. 271,285 and
Opolskim',in Ossowski,
296).
57
DieNachkriegszeit,
Hofmann,
pp. 284 and 301;Borodziej,'Einleitung',
p. 109;Kowalski,
PowróL
pp. 2q8-qq and 338-30.
58
ofthe'verification
action'in
APK, 185/4,sygn.436, 60-61,Reporton an inspection
Opole Districtcarriedout 6-19 February1946;APO, 185,sygn.85, 32, 'Situationreport'
Social-Political
by Opole townadministration's
Department,
21.5.46;APK, 185/4,syg11of the 'verification
action'in Opole Districtcarried
436, 62-64,Reporton an inspection
out 10-23June X946;APO, 178,sygn.62, 12-14,'Situationreport'by Opole district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
2.5.47;APO, 178,sygn.65, 56-57,'Current
issues'reportby Opole district
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
4.9.48;APO,
Social178,sygn.65, 63-65, 'Currentissues'reportby Opole districtadministration's
PoliticalDepartment,
adminis5.11.48;APO, 178,sygn.64, 7-8, Reportby Opole district
tration's
Social-Political
Department
reporton theperiod1.1.48-31.12.48; Kowalski,Powrót,
PP-SS0^1 and 35O~52-
668
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
In practice,mostoftheformerNazi Partymemberswho made successfulapplicationswereable to showthattheirjobs would have been
at riskhad theynotjoined the Nazi Party.One successfulapplicant
fromOpole District,forexample,claimed thathe had been a proPolishactivistin the plebisciteperiod and had joined the Nazi Party
only to avoid losing his positionas the local mayor of his village.
that
AnotherOpole Districtresidentsucceededin convincingofficials
he had onlyjoined the Nazi Party(and Germanizedhis surname)to
retainhisjob by includingin his applicationa letterof supportfrom
the Special CommitteeforFormerConcentrationCamp Prisonersin
Bamberg.This letterexplainedthathe was a formerpoliticalprisoner
who had foughtagainstGermanyand helped many Poles to escape
fromcampsduringthewar.59
wereVerified'
Because so manyofOpole District'spre-warresidents
fewlocalswereforcias ethnicPoles between1945and 1949,relatively
This was in starkcontrastto themassive
blyremovedfromthedistrict.
of Germanscarriedout in mostotherlocalities
forcedtransportation
in thisperiod.Nevertheless,
some 'Germans'
in Poland'snewterritories
this
This process
from
District
at
time.
wereforcibly
Opole
transported
got underway in August1946 when two trainsdepartedfromOpole
who had been categorizedas Germansin the
town.The local residents
at a collection
action'weregatheredtogether
courseoftheVerification
to a
camp in Opole town,loaded into goods trainsand transported
There
in
in
Silesia.
southern
Upper
large collectioncamp Ghibczyce
crammedback
theywereunloaded,subjectedto a luggageinspection,
intogoods wagons- up to thirty-six
people per wagon and transAnother
Zone
of
the
British
to
Germany.
goods
Occupation
ported
wereforcedto
trainleftin December 1946;thistimethosetransported
camp in
spend several nightsof extremecold at the rudimentary
Soviet
Zone.
to
the
before
Only small
being transported
Glubczyce
in
to
were
sent
of
residents
Germany subsequentyears.
contingents
Perhapsaround5,000 residentsof Opole District,in total,weretransmany of
portedto Germanybetween 1946 and 1949. Significantly,
- very often
them had registeredvoluntarilyfor transportation
authorities
afterbeingVerified'as ethnicPoles. The district's
justified
sending these VerifiedPoles' to Germany by claiming that they
were merely'correcting'the 'mistakes'made duringthe Verification'
process.60
59
Misztal,Weryfikaga,
pp. 142-44.
60APO
s
185,sygn.85, 35, 'Situationreport'by thehead ofOpole townadministration
Social-Political
21.8.46;APK 185/4,sygn.39, 54~54a, 'Situationreport'by
Department,
Social-Political
administration's
31.12.46;APO 185,sygn.85,
Department,
Opole district
Social-Political
21.12.46;
Department,
44, 'Situation
report'byOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
administration's
ÁPO 178,sygn.62,2-3, 'Situationreport'byOpole district
30.1.47;APO 185, sygn.85, 47, Reportby Opole townadministration's
Department,
HUGO
SERVICE
669
Since so fewpre-warresidents
fromOpole
wereforcibly
transported
Districtbetween1946 and 1949,the authoritiesstruggledto provide
Polishsettlerswithpermanenthomesthereduringtheseyears.From
spring1946 onwards,the authoritiesconcentratedtheir effortson
Polishsettlersout of the district,
actuallyshifting
sendingthemto the
districts
of
northern
Lower
Silesia.
Nevertheless,
under-populated
had been permanently
around40,000 settlers
settledin Opole District
by the end of 1940s the majorityof themin the townof Opole.61
The 'ethniccleansing'of Opole Districtbetween 1945 and 1949,
did notinvolveuprootingtheentireresidentpopulationand
therefore,
it
replacing withPolish settlersfromelsewhere as it did in most
in
Poland's
otherlocalities
newterritories.
These processesofuprooting
60
Continued
Social-Political
17.1.47;APO 178,sygn.62,4-14 and 21-23,'Situationreports'
Department,
administration's
Social-Political
byOpole district
3.3.47,1.4.47,2.5.47,12.8.47;
Department,
APO 178,sygn.65,63-65,'Currentissues'reportbyOpole district
administration's
SocialPoliticalDepartment,
5.11.48;APO 178,sygn.64, 12-13,'Currentissues'reportby the
24.1.49;APO 178,sygn.64, 7-8, Reporton theyear1948by Opole district
department,
administration's
Social-Political
undated;APO 178,sygn.63,9-10,Reportby
Department,
administration's
Social-Political
Opole district
7.1.49;APO 178,sygn.64, 36,
department,
administration's
Social-Political
Reportby Opole district
5.8.49; Document
Department,
w Polsce1945-1950,
324 in Wiodzimierz
Borodziejand Hans Lemberg(eds),Niemcy
4 vols,
Warsaw,2000-01,2, pp. 465-66; BOD 1, 243, 335-37,Witnessreportby Karl B. from
Schönkirch
(Chrzasczyce),
14.8.55;BOD 1,243,53-61,Witnessreportby HelmutR. from
Carlsruhe(Pokój),19.8.58;BOD 1, 243,33-36,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by GustavR.
fromBlumenthal
(KrzywaGòra),undated;BOD 2, 229, 9-10,Witnessreportby M. H.
fromCarlsruhe(Pokój),23.6.52;BOD 1,243,379-80,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by E. D.
fromWalldorf(Wawelno),undated;BOD 1, 243, 289-93,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by
JuliusT. fromProskau(Prószków),
14.4.56;BOD 1,243,25-27,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by FranzG. fromBergdorf
(Daniec),undated;BOD 1,243,49-51,Witnessreport(guide22.11.54; BOD 1, 243,349-51,Witlines)by DorotheaS. fromBurkardsdorf
(Bierdzany),
nessreport(guidelines)
by GeorgS. fromTauentzien(Okoly),undated;BOD 1,243,22728,Witnessreport(guidelines)
undated;BOD 1,
byJosefM. fromKrappitz(Krapkowice),
243,271-74,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by EmilieB. fromNeuwedel(Swieciny),
29.8.55;
BOD 1, 243,67-72,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by ArthurM. fromDershau(SuchyBór),
7.10.54;Eser, 'Die Deutschenin Oberschlesien',
p. 395; Hofmann,Die Nachkriegszeit,
and 229-31.
pp.
222-24
61APO
chiefofficial
178,sygn.41,20-23and 25-27,'Situation
reports'
byOpole District's
on theperiods20.3.45-20.3.46
and 20.4.46-20.5.46;
APK 185/4,sygn.436, 62-64,Report
on an inspection
ofOpole District
in period10-23.6.46;APO 178,sygn.41,38-41,'Situationreport'byOpole District's
chiefofficial
on theperiod20.7.46-20.8.46;
APO 178,sygn.
chiefofficial
on theperiod20.8.46-20.9.46;
41,43-45,'Situation
report'byOpole District's
APO 178,sygn.41,47-49,'Situationreport'byOpole District's
chiefofficial
on theperiod
APO 178,sygn.62, 12-14,'Situationreport'byOpole district
administra20.9.46-20.10.46;
tion'sSocial-Political
Department,
2.5.47;APO 178,sygn.42, 27-28,'Situationreport'on
the period20.5.47-20.6.47;
APO 178,sygn.42, 35-36, 'Situationreport'on the period
APO 178,sygn.42, 39-41,'Situationreport'on theperiod20.8.47-20.9.47;
20.7.47-20.8.47;
APO 178,sygn.42, 43-45,'Situationreport'on theperiod20.9.47-20.10.47;
APK 185/4,
administration's
Social-Political
sygn.51,69-69a, 'Currentissues'reportby Opole district
11.12.47;APO 178,sygn.43, 9-12,'Situationreport'on theperiod20.12.47Department,
administration's
Social-Political
20.1.48;APO 178,sygn.65, 17-21,ReportbyOpole district
Die Nachkriegszeit,
Department,
21.4.48;Hofmann,
p. 116;Kowalski,Powrót,
p. 365.
67O
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
minorrolesin the authorities'
and repopulationplayedonlyrelatively
driveto ethnically
District.
Like elsewherein westhomogenizeOpole
ern Upper Silesia and certainpartsof southernEast Prussia,a more
ethnorolewas playedin Opole Districtby the authorities'
important
enabled the Polish
national Verificationaction', which purportedly
thata verylargeproportionof the pre-war
authorities
to demonstrate
were
ethnicPoles who, therefore,
did not
of
the
district
population
need to be uprootedand replaced.77 per centof the 168,000permanent residentsof Opole Districtat the end of the 1940s were thus
beforethewar.62
people who had alreadybeen livingin the district
Ill
the Verification
action' was that
The centralassumptionunderlying
Silesia
was
of
western
thepre-warpopulation
composedof two
Upper
nationalgroups,Poles and Germans.Once the Poles had been identified,the Germanscould be uprooted.Or, as Upper Silesia's regional
governor,Zawadzki, put it: 'Nie chcemyani jednego Niemca, nie
oddamyani jednej duszypolskiej'(eWe don't want a singleGerman,
nor willwe giveaway a singlePolishsoul').63
There were clear groundsforclaimingthat a large proportionof
westernUpper Silesia's pre-warpopulation was ethnicallyPolish.
therewere the resultsof German censusescarriedout before
Firstly,
the 1922partitionof Upper Silesia. In the nationwidecensusof 1910,
had
the majorityof residentsin mostwesternUpper Silesiandistricts
in
For
mother
as
their
down
Polish
tongue.
example, Oppeln/
put
Opole District63 per centofthepopulationwerecategorizedas speakers of Polish,whilein both Gross-Strehlitz/Strzelce
OpolskieDistrict
Olesno Districtthe figurewas as highas 79 per cent.
and Rosenberg/
The proportionof Polish speakerswas foundto be even higherin a
censusofprimaryschoolchildrenof 1911:75 per centin Oppeln/Opole
District,89 per cent in Gross-Strehlitz/Strzelce
Opolskie District,94
Olesno Districtand clear majoritiesin mostof
per centin Rosenberg/
ofwesternUpper Silesia.64
the remainingdistricts
62APO, 178, sygn. 65, 17-21, Report on the 're-Polonizationaction' by Opole district
administration'sSocial-PoliticalDepartment,21.4.48; Misztal, Weryfikacja,
p. 158; Bohmann,
Menschen*
p. 200: Blanke, Polish-Sòeaking
Germans,
pp. 2Qi-q8.
63Cited in
Eser, 'Die Deutschen in Oberschlesien',p. 388.
64As well as
people whose mother tongue was said to be Polish, these figuresinclude
the much smallerproportionof the region's residentsdescribed as bilingualin both Polish
SincetheWorldWar. Witha Collection
and German. Sarah Wambaugh, Plebiscites
of Official
and
2 vols, Washington,D.G., 1933, 1, p. 250; T. Hunt Tooley, NationalIdentity
Documents,
WeimarGermany:
UpperSilesia and theEasternBorder,igi8-ig22, Lincoln, NE and London,
pp. 192, 211 and 238.
1997,p. 240; Bohmann, Menschen,
HUGO SERVICE
671
Secondly,althoughthe number of people categorizedas Polish
in the censusesof the internarperiod
speakersdroppeddramatically
- so that,for
less
than
one per cent of Oppeln/Opole
example,
werefoundto speakPolishby the timeof the 1939
District'sresidents
census65- manyCatholicmassescontinuedto be givenin Polishin
the region.This persistedeven once the Nazis came to power and
startedto suppressPolish and Slavic culture.As late as the mid1930S,over70 per centof massesin Oppeln/Opole District'sCatholic
churches,forexample,were stillbeingdeliveredin Polish.66
Thirdly,beforethe war, many residentsof westernUpper Silesia
read Polish-languagenewspapersand many were also membersof
Polish organizations.The mostimportantof theseorganizationswas
the Associationof Poles in Germanywhich,like the Polish-Catholic
Schools Society (Polsko-KatolickieTowarzystwoSzkolne), had its
regionalheadquartersin Oppeln/Opole townbefore1939.One ofthe
was also published
region'smain Polish-language
newspapers,
Nowiny,
in Oppeln/Opole townin the internarperiod.67
But none of thismeant that the post-warPolish authoritieswere
rightto regardthemajorityofwesternUpper Silesia'spre-warpopulation as Poles. Up to 200,000 people may have read Polish-language
newspapersin the regionin the late 1920s,but theystillrepresented
oftheregion'soverallpopulation- and an evensmaller
onlya fraction
fractionwas made up of membersof the Associationof Poles in
Germanyand otherPolishorganizations.68
Moreover,the claim that the majorityof the region'sinhabitants
spoke Polishwas not beyonddispute.As one formerresidentof the
in Oppeln/Opole Districtclaimed:
villageof Eichberg/Dçbiniec
PurePolishwas notspokenin theregionfromwhichI came.The local
dialect[. . .] shouldneverbe regarded
as Polish.[During
Wasserpolnisch
thewar]I myself
wasassigned
thejob ofa guardina campforforeigners.
There were Poles in thiscamp and theycould not understand
the
dialectwhatsoever.69
Wasserpolnisch
65
Againthisfigurealso includespeoplesaid to be bilingualin Polishand German.But
unlikein the1910census,the1939censusalso includedthecategories
'UpperSilesian'and
'UpperSilesianand German'.Less than5 percentofOppelnDistrict's
populationplaced
in thesecategories
themselves
in theiq^q census.Bohmann.Menschen,
od. 2q8-qq.
66Michal
Lis,'Mniejszos'c
czçsciGórnegoSlajska',in "Wachauf,mein
polskaw niemieckiej
von 1740
Herz, und denke".Zur Geschichteder BeziehungenzwischenSchlesienund Berlin-Brandenburg
bisheute,
Berlinand Opole. iqq^. dd. 261-70fon.267-60).
67Maria Wanda
Wanatowicz, Historiaspoleczno-polityczna
Slqskai SlqskaCieszynskiego
Górnego
w latachigiß-igtf,Katowice,1994,pp. 145-60 and 177-78;Lis, 'Mnieszoscpolska',
in Karl Gordell(ed.),ThePolipp. 262-69;Tomasz Kamusella,'UpperSilesia1918-1945',
ticsofEthnidty
in Central
2000,pp. 92-112(pp. 97-101and 104);Ther,
Europe,
Basingstoke,
'Die einheimische
Bevölkerung',
pp. 415-18;Madajczyk,Przyiqczenie,
p. 197;Linek,Polityka
antyniemiecka,
pp. ^o-qc?.
68
Wanatowicz,Historia,
pp. 147-51;Lis, 'Mnieszoscpolska',pp. 265-66; Ossowski,
'Zagadnienia',
pp. 267-68.
69BOD
1, 243, 13-16,Witnessreport(guidelines)by JosefU. Eichberg(Debiniec),
19.12.54.
672
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
There is littledoubt that the Slavic vernacularspoken in western
Upper Silesiawas a dialectofPolish,but itwas a verydifferent
typeof
Polishto the languagespokenin centralPoland. This dialectwas the
productof centuriesof culturaland politicalseparationfromPoland
and politicaland culturalaffiliation
withthe Habsburgand Prussian
This
dialect
had
links
withboth Czech and German,
empires.
strong
in
terms
of
its
to
particularly
vocabulary,and was barelyintelligible
the settlersfromcentraland pre-wareasternPoland who arrivedin
the regionafterthe war. It was speakersof thisdialectratherthan of
conventionalPolishwhom the 1910and 1911 censuseswere generally
to in westernUpper Silesiawhen theycategorizedpeople as
referring
of
speakers 'Polish5.70
Yet it would be equallyquestionableto claim thatmostof western
Upper Silesia'spre-warinhabitantsregardedthemselvesas Germans.
To be sure,the majorityofvotersin westernUpper Silesia had opted
forGermanyin the plebisciteof 1921 - including69 per centof the
votersin the ruralpart of Oppeln/Opole Districtand 95 per cent in
Oppeln/Opoletown.Butthe60 per centwhichGermanyhad received
in the overall Upper Silesian vote had not been achieved without
the Germanauthorities
manytensofthousandsofUpper
transporting
Silesian migrantworkersinto the regionfromwesternGermanyto
boost the German vote. Moreover,votingfor Germanyin the 1921
plebisciteand regardingoneselfas a Germanwere two quite different
things.People had diverse,oftenverypragmaticreasonsforvotingfor
Germany which usuallyhad littleto do with people perceiving
themselvesas having a German ethno-national
identity.Beforethe
Second World War, a large proportionof westernUpper Silesia's
as Germans,but theyneverinhabitants
clearlyhad viewedthemselves
of the overallpopulationof the region
a minority
thelessconstituted
- concentrated
in the region'slargertowns.And thepost-warPolish
authorities
were rightto assume thatmostof the people who viewed
as Germanshad fledthe regionas the Red Armyinvaded
themselves
inJanuary1945.71
70Ther,'Die einheimische
Bevölkerung',
p. 411; ManfredAlexander,'Oberschlesien
- eine mißverstandene
undGesellschaft,
im 20. Jahrhundert
30, 2004,
Region',Geschichte
pp. 465-89 (pp. 467-68 and 474-76);Ossowski,'Zagadnienia',pp. 271,275-76,281,287,
ofNational
289; Tomasz Kamusella, Silesia and CentralEuropeanNationalism:The Emergence
and EthnicGroupsin PrussianSilesiaandAustrian
Silesia,1848-^18, West Lafayette,IN, 2007,
Polandand SzlonzoGermany,
pp. 118-24; Kamusella, TheSzlonzoksand TheirLanguage:Between
EUI workingpaper, Florence,KS, 2003, pp. 11-21;Tooley,National
kianNationalism,
Identity,
p. n.
71Bozena
Slasku (genezai character),
Opole, 1989,
Malec-Masnyk, Plebiscytna Górnym
Bevölkerung',
Identity,
pp. 234-52;Ther, 'Die einheimische
pp. 179-80;Tooley,National
pp. 415-21;Lis, 'Mniejszoscpolska',pp. 261-62.
HUGO
SERVICE
673
In fact,the majorityof the pre-warpopulationof westernUpper
Silesia,as the Polish sociologistStanislawOssowskifoundduringhis
researchtripto Opole Districtin August1945,regardedthemselves
neitheras Germansnor as Poles. Rather,theywere 'nationallyindifferent5
and exhibitedmore of a regionalcollectiveconsciousnessthan
a German or Polish one. Accordingto Ossowski,most people were
muchmorelikelyto identify
themselves
as 'Silesians'(Slqzacy)or 'locals'
than Germansor Poles. They tendedto be bilingualin both
(swojacy)
the local Polishdialectand in German,but did not view thisas confromGermans.Equally, most
tradictingtheirfeelingsof distinction
residents
of
the
region,accordingto Ossowski,regardedtheir
pre-war
Catholicmassesas partof the religious
attendanceof Polish-language
ofwesternUpper Silesiaratherthana manifestation
ofPolish
tradition
nationalidentity.72
The fractionof the pre-warpopulationwho did activelyregard
as Poles, Ossowskiexplained,were the sortof people who
themselves
had supportedthe Polish insurgents
duringthe SilesianUprisingsof
1
local
branches
of
led
the
Association
ofPoles in Germanyand
1,
19 9-2
otherPolishorganizationsduringthe interwarperiod,and senttheir
childrento the small numberof Polish schoolswhichwere set up in
westernUpper Silesia afterthe 1922partitionof the region- as part
of the League of Nations' minorityrightsguarantees.These people,
accordingto Ossowski,were verysmall in number.They tendedto
be the people who, afterthe Polishtakeoverof westernUpper Silesia
in 1945,were given local administrative
posts by the authoritiesor
wereselectedby themto siton the Verification
committees'
as 'trusted
of
the
'local
Polish
representatives'
population'.73
But ifonlya fractionofthepre-warwesternUpper Silesianpopulation regardedthemselvesas Poles, why did so many people allow
themselvesto be 'verified'as Poles afterthe Second World War? In
Opole District,some of the pre-warresidentswho were uprootedto
Germanyafter1945 claimedthatmostlocal people were 'pressured',
'blackmailed'or 'forced'to 'opt forPoland'.74Opole District'sofficials
72Ossowski,
'Zagadnienia',pp. 273-85and 291-95;Kamusella,TheSzlonzoks,
pp. 12-13;
Ther,'Die einheimische
Bevölkerung',
pp. 413-14;Alexander,'Oberschlesien',
pp. 47680.
73
Ossowski,'Zagadnienia',pp. 266-74 and 280; Wanatowicz,Historia,
pp. 147-51;Lis,
'Mniejszos'c
polska',pp. 262-68;APO, 185,sygn.85, 3, ReportbyOpole townadministration'sSocial-Political
Department,
24.8.45;Witnessreportsin filesBOD 1, 243 and BOD
2 22Q.
74BOD
vonA. fromAlthammer
2, 229,3-4,WitnessreportbyAlfred
(Paliwoda),10.4.51;
BOD 1, 243, 49-51, Witnessreport(guidelines)by Dorothea S. fromBurkardsdorf
BOD
Witness
1, 243,67-72,
(Bierdzany),
22.11.54;
report(guidelines)
by ArthurM. from
Derschau (Suchy Bór), 7.10.54;BOD 1, 243, 381-82, Witnessreport(guidelines)by
WilhelmK. fromWinau(Winów),25.3.56;BOD 1,243,25-27,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by FranzG. fromBergdorf
(Daniec),undated;BOD 1, 243,13-16,Witnessreport(guidelines)byJosefJ. fromEichberg(Dçbiniec),19.12.54;BOD 1, 243, 37-39,Witnessreport
674
SIFTING
POLES
FROM GERMANS
also acknowledgedthata certainamountof pressurewas sometimes
exertedto induce people to submitVerification'applications.One
forexample,mentionedin a
officialfromOpole townadministration,
had not been
documentfromJanuary1948 'people whoseverification
But it is clear that
achievedwithouta certainamountof difficulty'.75
nobody was physicallyforcedto submita Verification'application.
Instead,the authoritiesconfrontedlocal people witha starkchoice:
eithersubmita Verification'
applicationor face evictionfromhomes,
in camps and forcibletransportation
to Germany.As one
internment
in Opole District
formerresidentof the villageof Proskau/Prószków
put it: cThosewho wishedto retaintheirpropertyhad to opt. If you
There was, then,onlya choice of
did not opt, you had no rights.'76
sorts.Anylocal who wishedto 'opt forGermany'was freeto do so, as
long as theywerewillingto accept the severeconsequencesof this.77
action' did not filterPoles fromGermans,as
Thus the Verification
claimedit did. Ratherit removedindithepost-warPolishauthorities
vidualswho openlyregardedthemselvesas Germansand individuals
who wereclearlyhostileto 'Polishculture'and 'Poles' froma populaAs long as
tionwhichlargelyheld no feelingsof 'national'affiliation.
a persondid not go out of his or her way to emphasizea German
to 'Poles', theirapplicationforVerificanationalidentityor hostility
tion' was generallysuccessful.One extraordinary
consequenceof this
ethno-national
was thatclose relativeswere oftenplaced intodifferent
For
the
'verification'
example,thebrotherof
process.
categoriesduring
Gòra in Opole District
GustavfromthevillageofBlumenthal/Krzywa
allowedto remainthereas
an applicationand was therefore
submitted
a 'Pole', whereasGustavand the restof his familyrefusedand were
to Germanyas 'Germans'in August1946.78
transported
74Continued
BOD
written
mid-1950s;
by GüntherM. fromBolko(NowaWies Królewska),
(guidelines)
1,243,299-301,Witnessreport(guidelines)
byFranzG. fromRogau (Rogów),8.9.55;BOD
September1956;
1, 243,225-26,WitnessreportbyJakobP. fromKranst(Chrzajstowice),
BOD 1,243,227-28,Witnessreport(guidelines)
byJosefM. fromKrappitz(Krapkowice),
undated;BOD 1,243,13-16,Witness
J.fromEichberg(Dçbiniec),
byJosef
report(guidelines)
iQ.12.^4..
75
ÄPO, 185,sygn.85, 48, 'Situationreport'bythehead ofOpole townadministration's
21.1.48.
Social-Political
Department,
76BOD 1,24.3,
287-88,Witnessreport(guidelines)
by RudolfT., undated.
77BOD
1, 243, 33-36, Witnessreport(guidelines)by Gustav R. fromBlumenthal
M. from
byArthur
report(guidelines)
(KrzywaGòra),undated;BOD 1,243,67-72,Witness
Derschau(SuchyBór),7.10.54;BOD 1, 243, 197-98,Letterto von Witzendorff-Rehdiger
by TosefT.fromHorst(Swierkle),
2.8.^.
75BOD 1,
243, 33-36, Witnessreport(guidelines)by Gustav R. fromBlumenthal
Rehdigerfrom
(KrzywaGòra),undated;BOD 1, 243,264-65,Letterto von Witzendorff
K.
Josef
J. Eichberg(Dçbiniec),19.10.54;BOD 1,243,309-19,WitnessreportbyFriedrich
fromSacken (Lubienia),24.7.55;BOD J>243> 49-51» Witnessreport(guidelines)by
DorotheaS. fromBurkardsdorf
22.11.54;BOD 1,243,289-93,Witnessreport
(Bierdzany),
14.4.56;BOD 1,243,121-22,Letterfrom
byJuliusT. fromProskau(Prószków),
(guidelines)
G. fromFalkendorf
8.4.59;BOD 1, 243,174-81,Witnessreportby GeorgK.
(Falkowice),
fromHinterwasser
(Zawada),24.10.57.
HUGO SERVICE
675
of Opole
All of thismightpointto a conclusionthatthe authorities
thegoal of
Districtand ofwesternUpper Silesiaas a wholeprioritized
Poland's territorial
claim to the regionover the Polish
strengthening
of
centralgovernment's
transforming
post-warPoland into an
goal
- and therefore
Verified'as Poles
Polish
nation-state
ethnically
pure
hundredsof thousandsof people whom theydid not actuallyregard
as such. But this was not at all how Opole District'sand western
viewed the 'verification
action'. As far as
Upper Silesia's authorities
- and, forthat matter,the sociologistStanislawOssowskithey
were concerned,the people Verified'as Poles actuallywereethnic
Poles,but ethnicPoles whose'nationalconsciousness'had notyetfully
'crystallized'.
From the outset,they thereforeaccompanied their Verification
action' withmeasuresaimed at culturally're-Polonizing'the pre-war
population.In Opole District,thesemeasuresincludedsuch initiatives
as expandingthe district'snetworkof Polish-languagelibrariesand
- now
resurrecting
Opole's interwarPolish-languagenewspaper
under the name NowinyOpolskie.
But theycentredon so-called 'reThese courses,whichwere
Polonizationcourses'(kursy
repolonizacyjne).
westernUpper Silesiafrom1945onwards,were
establishedthroughout
primarilyaimed at teaching local people standard Polish. Opole
setup coursesin localitiesacrossthedistrict
District'sauthorities
during
1945,increasingtheirnumberas each yearpassed.They wereparticularlykeen foryoungpeople to attend,recognizingthat,as children,
affectedby 'Germanization'during
theyhad been disproportionately
the Nazi period. Likewise,they believed that overcomingparental
reluctanceto sendinglocal childrento Polishschools- a widespread
phenomenonin westernUpper Silesia in the initialpost-waryearswas integralto the success of the 're-Polonizationcampaign' (akcja
repolonizacyjnd).79
in chargein westernUpper Silesia,mostofwhom
The Polishofficials
werefromcentralPoland, struggled
greatly,however,to comprehend
in westernUpper Silesia.They were
theintricacies
ofculturalidentity
chiefofficial
on the
79APO, 178,sygn.41, 34-36,'Situationreport'by Opole District's
period20.6.46-20.7.46;APO, 185,sygn.85, 34, 'Situationreport'by the head of Opole
townadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
21.7.46;APO, 178,sygn.B15,pp. i-ia,
'Situation
administration's
Social-Political
report'bythedistrict
Department,
4.12.46;APO,
Social-Political
185,sygn.85, 50, 'Situationreport'by the head of townadministration's
21.2.47;APO, 185,sygn.85,52, 'Situationreportbythehead oftownadminDepartment,
istration's
Social-Political
21.4.47;APO, 178,sygn.65, 17-21,Reporton the
Department,
're-Polonization
action'bythedistrict
administration's
Social-Political
21.4.48;
Department,
administration's
Social-Political
APO, 178,sygn.63,9-10,ReportbyOpole district
Departadministrament,7.1.49;APO, 178,sygn.64, 12-13,'Currentissues'reportby thedistrict
tion'sSocial-Political
24.1.49;APO, 178,sygn.64,43,ReportbyOpole district
Department,
administration's
Social-Political
Department,
25.11.49;Madajczyk,Przyiqczenie,
pp. 196-97;
Linek, Polityka
antyniemiecka,
p. 335.
676
SIFTING
POLES
FROM
GERMANS
shockedby the amountof Germanwhichcontinuedto be
particularly
in
the
spoken
regionafterthe arrivalof Polish authoritiesin 1945.
District's
chiefofficial
remarkedin December1945,forexample,
Opole
thatc[i]tis a verystrangephenomenonthatthelocal population,which
uses German'.80In
partiallyknowsthe Polish language,nevertheless
thesecondhalfof 1946,officials
acrosswesternUpper Silesiastartedto
clamp down on the 'Germanjabber' stillbeingspokenin the region's
streetsand squares,introducing
finesand otherpenaltiesforspeaking
German in public fromthe startof 1947. In August 1947 regional
governorZawadzki launcheda campaignto combatwhat he termed
the 'resurgenceof German language and culture'in the region,instructinglocal officialsto punishanyone caughtspeakingGerman in
in a speciallabour
publicwithfinesofup to 30,000zlotyor internment
in
Gliwice.81
camp
As Opole District'sauthorities
increasingly
recognized,however,this
when
even
courses',
by
supplemented £re-Polonization
penal approach,
achievedlittle.Moreover,theycame to see thatit was actuallytheuse
of Germanat home ratherthan in publicthatwas the real problem.
An officialfromOpole districtadministration
noted,forexample,in
March 1949:'There are veryfewfamiliesamongthenativepopulation
who do not teach theirchildrenGerman [. . .] The Germanlanguage
and Germanradio can stillbe heard in homes. Fightingthisphenomenon is simplynot possible,not only because of the insufficient
but also because thisis a mass
numberofSecurityPolice in thedistrict
phenomenon.'82
Far fromculturally're-Polonizing'the pre-warpopulation,these
alienated
and 're-Polonization'
positively
policiesof'de-Germanization'
the pre-warresidentsof westernUpper Silesia. In some cases, this
manifesteditselfin people who had already submitted'verification'
applicationsrefusingto supplythe separate 'declarationsof loyalty
towardsthe Polish nationand state'whichwere necessaryto secure
The authorities'nationalistpolicies
permanentPolish citizenship.83
on the
chiefofficial,
80APO, 178,sygn.41, 10-12,'Situationreport'by Opole District's
chief
it is possiblethatat thispointthe district's
period20.11.45-20.12.45.Interestingly,
official
was fromUpper SilesiaratherthanfromcentralPoland- thisis impliedby a
in a witnessreportbyFrauK. fromOderwinkel
statement
(Kajy Opolskie),30.5.59,BOD
1,81
243,277-80.
APO, 185,sygn.85, 35, 'Situationreport'bythehead ofOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
Department,
21.8.46;Linek,Polityka
antyniemiecha,
pp. 220,253-54,261-64.
82APO,
administra178,sygn.64, 16-17,'Specialreport'by thehead of Õpole district
tion'sSocial-Political
Department,
10.3.40.
83APO
185,sygn.85, 39-43,'Situationreports'by thehead ofOpole townadministration'sSocial-Political
21.9.46,21.10.46,13.11.46and 21.11.46;APO 185,sygn.
Department,
Social-Political
Depart85, 48, 'Situationreport'by thehead of Opole townauthorities'
DieNachkriegszeit,
ment,21.1.48; Borodziej,'Einleitung',
p. 300; Kowalski,
p. 109;Hofmann,
Powrót,
pp. 342 and 370-71.
HUGO SERVICE
677
werenotthesole cause ofthisalienation.Rather,theyexacerbatedthe
towardsToles' whichmanypre-warresidents
feelingsofestrangement
had alreadyfeltsince the wave of violence and robberyby Polish
'marauders'whichaccompaniedthe Polish takeoverof the regionin
spring1945.This alienationwas also a productofhostilerelationswith
overproperty,
ordinaryPolishsettlers whichresultedfromconflicts
of
cultural
differences
and
difficulties
disperceptions
understanding
tinctdialects.Polish settlersoftenreferredto the pre-warresidents
withtheirderogatorytermforGermans- szwaby.Correspondingly,
oftenclaimedthatthesettlers
fromtheceded eastern
pre-warresidents
territories
were speakingnot Polish but Ukrainianor Russian. The
impact of this alienation, according to the sociologistStanislaw
Ossowski,was to lessenthe feelingsof distanceand separationwhich
pre-warresidentsof the regionfelttowards'Germans' and towards
as Germans.More importantly,
it clearlystrengthviewingthemselves
ened theirfeelingsof regionaldistinctiveness.84
As one officialfrom
administration
remarkedin 1948,c[l]ocalpeople,without
Opole district
meaningto, oftenstressthattheyare not Poles but Silesians.They use
the term"Pole" only to describethe immigrant
population[. . .] So
theyfeeland theyemphasizetheirseparateidentity'.85
The same was beingwitnessedacrosswesternUpper Silesia by the
turnof the decade. The deputyregionalgovernorof Upper Silesia,
ArkadiuszBozek,remarkedin 1950:'The Germansmustnowbe laughing at us, because what theyfailedto accomplishin seven centuries
[. . .] we willachievein just sevenyears:the eradicationof Polishness
in theseterritories
rightdown to the roots.'86In subsequentdecades,
whentheopportunity
arose,manychose to migrateto West Germany
- influenced thefarbetter
by
livingconditionswhichtheyknewexisted there.Forty-seven
thousandpeople migratedfromwesternUpper
Silesia to the Federal Republic of Germanybetween1956 and 1959,
and manytensof thousandsfollowedafter1963. Moreover,afterthe
collapseof Communismin Poland in 1989 - althoughfewresidents
84APO, 185,sygn.85, 43, 'Situationreport'bythehead ofOpole townadministration's
Social-Political
21.11.46;APO, 178,sygn.65, 11-12,'CurrentIssues'reportby
Department,
administration's
Social-Political
Opole district
7.4.48;APO, 178,sygn.65,
Department,
administration's
Social-Political
23-24,'Currentissues'reportby Opole district
Department,6.5.48; APO, 178,sygn.65, 50-52, Reporton the firsthalfof 1948,writtenin
adminearlyJuly1948;APO, 178,sygn.65,54-55,'Currentissues'reportbyOpole district
istration's
Social-Political
Department,
4.8.48;APO, 178,sygn.65, 56-57,'Currentissues'
administration's
Social-Political
reportby Opole district
Department,
4.9.48; Ossowski,
'Zasradnienie',
pp. 288-qi and 206-00
85
administration's
APO, 178,sygn.65, 63-65, 'Currentissues'reportby Opole district
Social-Political
Department,
^.11.48.
86Cited
by Ther, 'Die einheimische
Bevölkerung',
pp. 431-37;Wanatowicz,Historia,
p. 148.
678
SIFTING
POLES
FROM GERMANS
of the regioncould speak Germanby thistime- numerousGerman
culturalorganizations
sprangup in westernUpper Silesia,particularly
in the countryside
surrounding
Opole town.Many 'Germanminority'
were
also
elected
into the region'slocal councilsand
representatives
- assisted thelack ofa minimumvotethreshold
forrepresentatives
by
of recognized'national minorities'- some even gained seats in
Poland'sSejm (nationalparliament).
Parallelto this,a Silesiannational
movementemergedin Upper Silesia withthe aim of gainingformal
governmentrecognitionfor 'Silesians' as a 'national minority'and
politicalautonomyforUpper Silesia.87
Much of thesepost-1989 identityissuesand movementsin western
and creUpper Silesiacan be tracedback to thefailureof Verification'
Polonization'in 1945to 1949.Of course,thisis notto claimthatmany
culturally
pre-warresidentsor theirdescendantswere not ultimately
assimilatedinto Polish society.Decades of Polish mass media, Polish
withsettlerscaused manyof these
schoolingand everydayinteraction
to
not
become
only
speakersof conventionalPolishbut also to
people
as Poles. It also movedthe regional
themselves
self-consciously
regard
Silesian dialect a great deal closer to conventionalPolish. But this
tookdecades and happenedinspiteoftheethnicscreening
assimilation
and ethniccleansingof thelate 1940sratherthanas a resultof it.
The outcomesof the othermajor cases of ethnicscreeningimplementedin East-CentralEurope in the 1940swerejust as problematic.
had been introducedby the Nazi German
The DeutscheVolksliste
in the Polish territories
authorities
theyhad annexed to Germanyat
the startof the war because theywishedto preventethnicGermans
ofGermandescent'frombeingexpelledto theGeneral
and 'individuals
Government
alongwithPoles andJews.But facedwiththeambiguous
in easternUpper Silesiaand
realitiesofculturalidentity,
theyresorted,
theDanzig/Gdanskregion,to entering
everyonebutthemoststubborn
woulddo after
intotheDVL - just as thePolishauthorities
dissenters
the residentsof westernUpper Silesia and
the war when 'verifying'
partsofsouthernEast Prussia.In thecase ofeasternUpper Silesia,the
decisionto categorizea verylargeproportion
Nazi Germanauthorities'
as being'of Germandescent'was partlymotivatedby
oflocal residents
industrial
theirdesireto protectskilledworkersin thisimportant
region
- and theresultwas that
fromexpulsionto the GeneralGovernment
95 per cent of the populationwas enteredinto the DVL by 1944. In
87
Ther, 'Die einheimischeBevölkerung',pp. 431-38; Alexander,'Oberschlesien5,
polscy
pp. 26-30; PiotrMadajczyk,Memcy
pp. 484-88; Kamusella,TheSzlozoks,
ig^-igßg,
Warsaw,2001,pp. 337-43;Klaus Bachmann,'JakskiócicNiemcówz Polakami',Gazeta
2006,p. 23.
(Warsaw),11September
Wyborcza
HUGO SERVICE
679
wentstillfurther
than the postfact,the wartimeGermanauthorities
war Polishauthorities
wouldlaterdo in thattheymade applicationfor
the DVL compulsory
and refusalto applyforit punishableby internmentin a concentration
the DVL had a similar
camp. Yet ultimately
outcometo the 'verification
action'in thatit inducedveryfewpre-war
Polish citizensin easternUpper Silesia to begin viewingthemselves
as Germans.Indeed, the majorityof easternUpper Silesia's residents
underwent
as ethnicPoles in theimmedivoluntarily
re-categorization
ate post-waryears throughthe post-warPolish authorities'so-called
'rehabilitationaction' (akcjarehabilitacyjna).88
In occupiedCzechoslovakia,theNazis' attemptto separate'Germanizables' from'un-Germanizables'was also characterizedby German
officials
to people who
arbitrarily
ascribingGermannationalidentities
clearlydid not regardthemselvesas Germans.And thisaction,too,
was heavilyinfluencedby the need to protectthe skilledworkersof
Bohemia and Moravia's valuable industry
frompossibleexpulsion.It
is unlikelythatthe Nazis could ever have achievedtheiroriginalaim
ofpersuadinghalfthepopulationoftheseregionsto regardthemselves
as Germans- but a surgein Czech nationalistactivities,and the
relatedassassinationof Reich ProtectorReinhardHeydrichin June
1942,anywayput a prematureend to thisethnicscreeningprocessin
ofthewar,thepost-warCzechoslovakiangov1943.89In theaftermath
ernmentprovedequallybaffledby the apparent'nationalindifference'
ofa sizeablesectionofCzechoslovakia'spopulation- at a timewhen
the government
was seekingto ethnicallycleanse the countryof all
'Germans'.The ethnicscreeningprocesswhichthe government
introduced to resolvethisconfusioncertainly
a
considerable
number
spared
of people fromforcibletransportation
to the US and SovietOccupationZones afterthewar.But itdid littleto persuademanyofthemthat
theywere Czechs.90
In all of thesecases, then,ethnicscreeninghad poor results.Yet it
is clearfromthisthatethnicscreeningplayedan important
rolein the
ethnic cleansingwhich the German, Czechoslovakianand Polish
authorities
to carryout in East-CentralEuropein thecourse
attempted
ofthe 1940s.Each regimeintroducedethnicscreeningin thefirst
place
because, althoughtheywere sure that theywantedto rid particular
territories
of stigmatized
nationalgroups,theyfrequently
foundit very
88
Boda-Krçzel,SprawaVolkslisty,
pp. 22-26 and 33; Borodziej,'Einleitung',
pp. 42-43;
Eser,'Die Deutschenin Oberschlesien',
pp. 372-73;Mazower,Hitler's
Empire,
pp. 193-98;
Kamusella,TheSzlonzoks,
p. 22; Kamusella,'Upper Silesia',pp. 104-05;Wanatowicz,
Historia,
pp.
180-81;
Borodziej,
'Einleitung',
pp. 106-07.
89
Bryant,'Either German or Czech', pp. 686-96; Zahra, 'ReclaimingChildren',
PP90527-33-'EitherGermanor
Czech',pp. 696-700;King,Budweisers,
Bryant,
pp. 194-202.
68O
SIFTING
POLES
FROM GERMANS
difficult
to identify
themembersofthesegroups.None ofthesenationthatthe cause
alistregimeswas willingto contemplatethe possibility
of thisproblemwas the conceptualframesthroughwhich theyhad
oftheseterritories.
Each failedto recogchosento viewtheinhabitants
nize thatthe nationalcategoriesintowhichtheysoughtto place these
In all contexts,
people were nothingmore than crude simplifications.
how theyunderstand
themnationalism
has requiredpeople to simplify
selves and the communitiesto which theybelong. It has impelled
themselvesprimarilyor exclusively
witha 'nation'
people to identify
and collective
and to downplayor ignoreall otherformsofcommunity
consciousness.But in regionswheremanypeople have neverthought
of themselvesin 'national' terms- regionswhich were not at all
halfofthetwentieth
unusualin Centraland EasternEurope in thefirst
- nationalismcalled for especiallywrenchingchanges to
century
traditional
self-understandings.
This is preciselywhat was witnessedin Oppeln/Opole Districtin
the fiveyearsfollowingthe Second World War. The post-warPolish
authoritiesof this districtpresentedlocals with a crude nationalist
camchoice throughtheirVerificationaction' and Cre-Polonization
themselves
paign'. They orderedthem eitherto startunderstanding
as 'Poles' or to leave. Largelyforpragmaticreasons- in orderto be
and to hold onto theirhomes- the
allowedto remainin the district
majoritychose at firstto swallowthe mostimportantelementof the
in thehalfdrive.They 'yielded'to 'verification'
nationalist
authorities'
decade followingthe war, as the districtofficialhad put it. But few
in theway the authorities
'nationalized'theiridentities
self-consciously
intended- noteven forthesake ofappearances.Few people came to
understandthemselvesas 'Poles' in the fiveyearsfollowingthe war.
on the livesof Oppeln/
action'impactedprofoundly
The 'verification
and
on
the
District's
residents
way theyunderstoodthemselves.
Opole
What it did not do is siftPoles fromGermans.