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Silesian German emerged as the result of Late Medieval German migration to Silesia, [2] which had been inhabited by Lechitic or West Slavic peoples in the Early Middle Ages. Until 1945, variations of the dialect were spoken by about seven million people in Silesia and neighboring regions of Bohemia and Moravia. [3]
As a Prussian province, Silesia became part of the German Empire during the unification of Germany in 1871. There was considerable industrialization in Upper Silesia, and many people migrated there. The overwhelming majority of the population of Lower Silesia was German-speaking and most were Lutheran, including the capital of Breslau.
During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, Germans and Volksdeutsche fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and from the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and the eastern parts of Brandenburg and Pomerania (Hinterpommern), which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union.
The organic unity between the towns and the countryside, typical of Silesia in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, was progressively replaced by marked social differences. [19] Lower Silesia remained German until after the Second World War, when it became part of Poland. Breslau, the principal Silesian city, became Wrocław. [20]
Between 1327 and 1348, the duchies of Silesia came under the suzerainty of the Crown of Bohemia, which was then passed to the Habsburg monarchy of Austria in 1526. Beginning in the 13th century, Slavic Silesia began to be settled by Germans from various parts of Germany, including Prussia and Austria. This led to changes in the ethnic structure ...
In contrast to the lands awarded to the restored Polish state by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the German territories lost with the post-World War II Potsdam Agreement were either almost exclusively inhabited by Germans before 1945 (the bulk of East Prussia, Lower Silesia, Farther Pomerania, and parts of Western Pomerania, Lusatia ...
Silesia [a] (see names below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany.Its area is approximately 40,000 km 2 (15,400 sq mi), and the population is estimated at 8,000,000.
The Social-Cultural Society of Germans in Opole Silesia, representing the last of the volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority in Silesia, called for a monument to honor both sides. [51] The mayor of Opole stated he wanted to "commemorate the heroes of the Silesian uprising who fought for Poland and not those who shot at them." [51]