History of Silesia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

has been inhabited from time immemorial

Time immemorial

Time immemorial is a phrase meaning time extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition, indefinitely ancient, "ancient beyond memory or record"...

by people of multiple ethnic group

Ethnic group

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...

s. Germanic tribes

East Germanic tribes

The Germanic tribes referred to as East Germanic constitute a wave of migrants who may have moved from Scandinavia into the area between the Oder and Vistula rivers between the years 600 and 300 BC. Later they went to the south...

were first recorded within Silesia in the 1st century. Slavic

Slavic peoples

The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

White Croats

White Croats is the designation for the group of Slavic tribes, of which seven tribes led by 5 brothers and 2 sisters migrated to Dalmatia as part of the migration of the Croats in the 7th century, being invited to settle on this vastly depopulated area by Roman...

arrived in this territory about the 6th century establishing White Croatia

White Croatia

White Croatia is a vaguely defined area, said to lie somewhere in Central Europe, near Bavaria, beyond Hungary on south of Poland and west of Ukraine, and adjacent to the Frankish Empire from which the part of White Croats crossed the Carpathians and migrated in the 7th century into Dalmatia...

. The first known states in Silesia were those of Greater Moravia and Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

. In the 10th century, Mieszko I incorporated Silesia into the Polish state. In this state it remained until the Fragmentation of Poland. Afterwards it was divided between Piast dukes, descendants of Władysław II the Exile, High Duke of Poland.

In the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, Silesia was divided among many independent duchies

Duchies of Silesia

The Duchies of Silesia resulted from divisions of the original Duchy of Silesia after 1138.In accordance with the last will and testament of Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth, the Kingdom of Poland was, upon his death in 1138, divided into five hereditary provinces distributed among his sons, including...

ruled by various Silesian dukes

Dukes of Silesia

The Dukes of Silesia were the sons and descendants of the Polish Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth. In accordance with the last will and testament of Bolesław, upon his death his lands were divided into 4-5 hereditary provinces distributed among his sons, and a royal province of Kraków reserved for the...

of the Piast dynasty

Piast dynasty

The Piast dynasty was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. It began with the semi-legendary Piast Kołodziej . The first historical ruler was Duke Mieszko I . The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir the Great...

. During this time, cultural and ethnic German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

influence increased due to immigrants

Ostsiedlung

Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...

from the German-speaking components of the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

. Between the years 1289–1292 Bohemian king Wenceslaus II became suzerain of some Upper Silesian duchies. Silesia subsequently became a possession of the Crown of Bohemia under the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century, and passed with that Crown to the Habsburg Monarchy

Habsburg Monarchy

The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...

in 1526. The Duchy of Crossen

Krosno Odrzanskie

Krosno Odrzańskie is a city on the east bank of Oder River, at the confluence with the Bóbr. The town in Western Poland with 12,500 inhabitants is the capital of Krosno County...

was inherited by Margraviate of Brandenburg

Margraviate of Brandenburg

The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806. Also known as the March of Brandenburg , it played a pivotal role in the history of Germany and Central Europe....

in 1476 and, with the renunciation by King Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558 and king of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526 until his death. Before his accession, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs in the name of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.The key events during his reign were the contest...

and estates of Bohemia in 1538, it became an integral part of Brandenburg.

In 1742, most of Silesia was seized by King Frederick the Great of Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

in the War of the Austrian Succession

War of the Austrian Succession

The War of the Austrian Succession – including King George's War in North America, the Anglo-Spanish War of Jenkins' Ear, and two of the three Silesian wars – involved most of the powers of Europe over the question of Maria Theresa's succession to the realms of the House of Habsburg.The...

and subsequently made the Prussian Province of Silesia

Province of Silesia

The Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919.-Geography:The territory comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Silesia and the County of Kladsko, which King Frederick the Great had conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th...

.

After World War I, parts of Silesia were transferred to the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

and administered as the Silesian Voivodeship. A plebiscite

Upper Silesia plebiscite

The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a border referendum mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out in March 1921 to determine a section of the border between Weimar Germany and Poland. The region was ethnically mixed, chiefly among Germans, Poles and Silesians. According to prewar statistics,...

recorded the majority of the population of all of Upper Silesia wished to remain part of Germany. However, the easternmost portion of Upper Silesia, with a majority ethnic Polish population, was transferred to Poland. The Prussian Province of Silesia within Germany was divided into the Provinces of Lower Silesia

Province of Lower Silesia

The Province of Lower Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Upper Silesia as the Silesia Province. The capital of Lower Silesia was Breslau...

and Upper Silesia

Province of Upper Silesia

The Province of Upper Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia created in the aftermath of World War I. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two administrative regions , Kattowitz and Oppeln...

. Austrian Silesia

Austrian Silesia

Austrian Silesia , officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Empire, from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...

(officially: Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia; almost identical with modern-day Czech Silesia

Czech Silesia

Czech Silesia is an unofficial name of one of the three Czech lands and a section of the Silesian historical region. It is located in the north-east of the Czech Republic, predominantly in the Moravian-Silesian Region, with a section in the northern Olomouc Region...

), the small portion of Silesia retained by Austria after the Silesian Wars

Silesian Wars

The Silesian Wars were a series of wars between Prussia and Austria for control of Silesia. They formed parts of the larger War of the Austrian Succession and Seven Years' War. They eventually ended with Silesia being incorporated into Prussia, and Austrian recognition of this...

, became part of the new Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

.

In 1945, following World War II, both of the provinces of Silesia were seized by the Soviet Union. According to the Potsdam agreement

Potsdam Agreement

The Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...

most of this territory was afterwards transferred to Poland. As a result a vast majority of the native ethnic German population was expelled by force

Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II

The flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland was the largest of a series of flights and expulsions of Germans in Europe during and after World War II...

and replaced by Polish settlers who had themselves been expelled

Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946)

The Polish population transfers from the former eastern territories of Poland also known as the flight and expulsion of Poles towards the end – and in the aftermath – of World War II refer to the forced migration of Poles between 1944–1946...

from eastern Poland

Kresy

The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...

Early history

The first signs of genus Homo

Homo (genus)

Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old, evolving from australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis....

in Silesia date to between 230,000 and 100,000 years ago. The Silesian region between the upper Vistula and upper Oder was the northern extreme of the human penetration at the time of the last glaciation

Last Glacial Maximum

The Last Glacial Maximum refers to a period in the Earth's climate history when ice sheets were at their maximum extension, between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago, marking the peak of the last glacial period. During this time, vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and...

. The anatomically-modern human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

is estimated to have arrived in Silesia about 35,000 years ago. Subsequently, Silesia was inhabited by people who belonged to changing archaeological cultures in the Stone

Stone Age

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...

, Bronze

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

and Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

s, and the ethnic identity of whose cannot currently be determined. The civilization of Old Europe undoubtedly included Silesia. In the late Bronze Age, the Lusatian culture

Lusatian culture

The Lusatian culture existed in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age in most of today's Poland, parts of Czech Republic and Slovakia, parts of eastern Germany and parts of Ukraine...

(in the past, variously speculated to be either 'pre-Germanic', Proto-Slavic, Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

, Karpo-Dacian or Illyria

Illyria

In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....

n) covered Silesia. Later, the Scythians and Celts (the tribes of Boii

Boii

The Boii were one of the most prominent ancient Celtic tribes of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul , Pannonia , in and around Bohemia, and Transalpine Gaul...

, Cotini

Cotini

Cotini was a Celtic tribe most probably living in today's Slovakia, and in Moravia and southern Poland. They were probably identical or constituted a significant part of the archaeological Púchov culture, with the center in Havránok.The tribe was first time mentioned in 10 BC in the Elogium of...

and Osi

Osi

- External links :*...

) are known to have played a role within the Silesian territory. Still later Germanic tribes migrated to Silesia, possibly from Northern Germany or Scandinavia.

The first written sources about Silesia came down from the Egyptian Claudius Ptolemaeus (Magna Germania) and the Roman Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...

). According to Tacitus, the 1st century Silesia was inhabited by a multi-ethnic league dominated by the Lugii

Lugii

The Lugii, Lugi, Lygii, Ligii, Lugiones, Lygians, Ligians, Lugians, or Lougoi were an ancient Germanic tribe attested in the book Germania by the Roman historian Tacitus. They lived in ca...

. The Silingi

Silingi

The Silings or Silingi supposedly were an East Germanic tribe, probably part of the larger Vandal group. According to most scholars, examples Jerzy Strzelczyk, Norman Davies, Jerzy Krasuski, Andrzej Kokowski, Henryk Łowmiański, the Silingi may have lived in Silesia...

were also part of this federation, and most likely a Vandalic

Vandals

The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....

people (Germanic) that lived south of the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

in the Laba, later Elbe

Elbe

The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...

, Oder

Oder

The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...

and Vistula

Vistula

The Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....

river areas. Also, other East Germanic tribes inhabited the region.

After , the migration period

Migration Period

The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...

had induced the bulk of the East Germanic tribes to continue their migration and leave Silesia towards Southern Europe, while Slavic tribes began to appear and spread including into the Silesian lands. Early documents mention a few mostly Slavic tribes probably living in Silesia (Silesian tribes

Silesian tribes

Silesian tribes – are the European tribes of West Slavs that lived in the territories of Silesia. The territory they lived on became part of the Great Moravia in 875 and later, in 990, first Polish state created by duke Mieszko I and then expanded by king Boleslaw I at the beginning of the 11th...

). The Bavarian Geographer

Bavarian Geographer

The Bavarian Geographer is a conventional name given by Jan Potocki in 1796 to the author of an anonymous medieval document Descriptio civitatum et regionum ad septentrionalem plagam Danubii ....

specifies the following peoples: the Ślężanie

Slezanie

Ślężanie were a tribe of West Slavs, specifically of the Lechitic , inhabiting territories of Lower Silesia, near Ślęża mountain and Ślęza river, on the both banks of the Oder, up to the area of modern city of Wrocław...

, Dzhadoshanie, Opolanie

Opolanie

Opolanie – West Slavic tribe that lived in the region of upper Odra. Their main settlement was Opole. They were mentioned in the Bavarian Geographer, under the name Opolini, as one of the seven tribes living in Silesia...

, Lupiglaa and Golęszycy. A document of the Bishopric of Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

(1086) also mentions the Zlasane, Trebovyane, Poborane and Dedositze.

Great Moravia and Kingdom of Bohemia

In the 9th century, parts of Silesia's territory came under the influence of Great Moravia

Great Moravia

Great Moravia was a Slavic state that existed in Central Europe and lasted for nearly seventy years in the 9th century whose creators were the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. It was a vassal state of the Germanic Frankish kingdom and paid an annual tribute to it. There is some controversy as...

, the first historically-attested state in the region. After Great Moravias decline one of its successors, Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

, gradually conquered Silesia. At the beginning of the 10th century Vratislaus I subdued the Golensize and soon afterwards seized Middle Silesia. Wrocław was most probably founded by and named after him. His son Boleslaus I subdued the Boborane between 950 and 965 and later also the Opolane and Dedosize. The town of Bolesławiec bears his name. The Bohemian rulers also tried to evangelize the region and opened up Silesia for the international trade. Abraham ben Jacob

Abraham ben Jacob

Abraham ben Jacob, better known under his Arabic name of Ibrâhîm ibn Ya`qûb was a 10th century Hispano-Arabic, plausibly Sephardi Jewish, traveller, probably a merchant, whose brief may have included diplomacy and espionage...

in 973 crossed Southern Silesia on a road which later became one of the major trading routes between East and West when he travelled from Prague

Prague

to Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

Kingdom of Poland

At the end of the 9th century Silesia came within the sphere of influence of two other neighbours, the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

and Poland. In order to proselytise Silesia to Christianity Holy Roman emperor Otto I in 971 donated the tithe of the Dziadoszyce area to the Diocese of Meissen, and in 996 Otto III defined the Oder

Oder

The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...

up to the spring as the border of the Margraviate of Meissen. All this however was without practical consequences as the expanding Polish state of Mieszko I conquered Silesia at the same time. The Dziadoszyce area was already incorporated . In 990 Mieszko annexed Middle Silesia and its main township Niemcza

Niemcza

Niemcza is a town in Dzierżoniów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Niemcza....

with the help of the Holy Roman Empire, which supported Poland in order to weaken Bohemia. In the coming years Mieszkos successor, Bolesław I, integrated the area of the Opolane and Golenszanie into his realm. With the establishment of an independent Polish ecclesiastical province in 1000 (see: Congress of Gniezno

Congress of Gniezno

The Congress of Gniezno was an amical meeting between the Polish duke Bolesław I Chrobry and Emperor Otto III, which took place at Gniezno on March 11, 1000...

) the bishopric of Wrocław, subordinate to the archbishopric of Gniezno

Gniezno

Gniezno is a city in central-western Poland, some 50 km east of Poznań, inhabited by about 70,000 people. One of the Piasts' chief cities, it was mentioned by 10th century A.D. sources as the capital of Piast Poland however the first capital of Piast realm was most likely Giecz built around...

, was established.

After the death of Bolesław I in 1025 his oldest son Mieszko II was crowned as king of Poland. Due to a foreign invasion in 1031 Mieszko had to go on exile. The military defeat of the young state led to a pagan revolt that took place between 1031 and 1032. It endangered the newly established Christian church also in Silesia where it ousted the bishop of Wrocław. However Mieszko managed to regain power in 1032 and restored order in the kingdom. He died in 1034 and his oldest son Casimir the Restorer came into power. In 1037 a nobility revolt took place and Casimir had to flee from the country. This was used by a Bohemian Duke Bretislaus I who after pillaging Greater Poland

Greater Poland

Greater Poland or Great Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief city is Poznań.The boundaries of Greater Poland have varied somewhat throughout history...

took control of Silesia in 1038. In 1039 Casimir was back in Poland and started to reunite the country. In 1050, he retook most of Silesia, but was forced to pay a tribute to Bohemia. This tribute, 300 Marks per year and later raised to 500 Marks, was the reason for long-lasting wars between the two countries. Silesia was moreover divided by internal struggles, as some parts of the society were unsatisfied with the changes imposed by Poland. In 1093 an uprising of the Silesian nobility, which was supported by Bohemia, took place. The nobles demanded removal from power of despotic palatine Sieciech

Sieciech

- Biography :All information about Sieciech has come down from the chronicler Gallus Anonymus. He was a count palatine at the court of duke Władysław I Herman of Poland. Though the exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, he is said by Gallus Anonymus to have lived in the second half of the...

as well as recognition of rights to the Polish crown of prince Zbigniew of Poland

Zbigniew of Poland

Zbigniew , Duke of Poland from 1102 until 1107.-Early years:Zbigniew was the first-born son of Prince Władysław I Herman and Przecława, who apparently belonged to the Prawdzic clan...

. The uprising was only partly successful. Zbigniew was officially recognized as an heir to the throne, Sieciech

Sieciech

however retained power until 1099 and fled the country in 1101. This era of wars and unrest ended with the peace treaty of Kladsko (Polish: Kłodzko) in 1137, in which the border between Bohemia and Silesia was defined and the affiliation of the Kladsko area to Bohemia was confirmed.

In 1146, High Duke Władysław II was driven into exile to Germany by his brothers, who opposed his attempts to strengthen control of High Duke over the remaining dukes. Silesia then became a possession of the new High Duke, Bolesław IV the Curly. Meanwhile, Władysław was trying to persuade Holy Roman Emperors Conrad III

Conrad III of Germany

Conrad III was the first King of Germany of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. He was the son of Frederick I, Duke of Swabia, and Agnes, a daughter of the Salian Emperor Henry IV.-Life and reign:...

and his successor Frederick Barbarossa to aid him in retaking his duchy but he never managed to succeed. In 1163, his three sons Konrad

Konrad Spindleshanks

Konrad Spindleshanks , was a Duke of Głogów since 1177 until his death.He was the third and youngest surviving son of Władysław II the Exile by his wife Agnes of Babenberg, daughter of Margrave Leopold III of Austria and half-sister of King Conrad III of Germany.-Life:Little is known about Konrad's...

, Mieszko and Bolesław took possession of Silesia with Imperial backing and probably ruled it together until 1172. Afterwards they divided the territory. Bolesław received the area of Wrocław, Opole and Legnica, Konrad Żagań

Zagan

Zagan may refer to:*Zagan - a demon in the Ars Goetia*Żagań - a town in west Poland...

, Głogów and Krosno

Krosno Odrzanskie

Krosno Odrzańskie is a city on the east bank of Oder River, at the confluence with the Bóbr. The town in Western Poland with 12,500 inhabitants is the capital of Krosno County...

and Mieszko the smallest part with Ratibor and Cieszyn

Cieszyn

Cieszyn is a border-town and the seat of Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It has 36,109 inhabitants . Cieszyn lies on the Olza River, a tributary of the Oder river, opposite Český Těšín....

. As Konrad prepared himself in Fulda

Fulda

Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district .- Early Middle Ages :...

for a clerical career his brother Bolesław administered his possessions until Konrads early dead, when Bolesław incorporated Konrads part into his duchy. Mieszko at the same time expanded his own duchy with parts of the Duchy of Kraków around Bytom

Bytom

Bytom is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The central-western district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - metropolis with the population of 2 millions. Bytom is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Bytomka river .The city belongs to the Silesian Voivodeship since...

and Oświęcim

Oswiecim

Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...

, which were given to him by Casimir II

Casimir II the Just

Casimir II the Just was a Lesser Polish duke at Wiślica during 1166–1173, and at Sandomierz since 1173. He became ruler over the Polish Seniorate Province at Kraków and thereby High Duke of Poland in 1177; a position he held until his death, interrupted once by his elder brother and predecessor...

in 1778, and Opole, which he received after the dead of Bolesław. In 1202 Bolesław's son, Henry I

Henry I the Bearded

Henry I the Bearded , of the Silesian line of the Piast dynasty, was Duke of Silesia at Wrocław from 1201 and Duke of Kraków and thus High Duke of all Poland - internally divided - from 1232 until his death.-Heir of Wroclaw:...

, and Mieszko moreover specified to rule out the right of succession among their branches, an arrangement which was largely responsible for the special position of what would become Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...

. In the same year Poland abolished the seniorate and Silesias duchies became independent under constitutional law.

In the first half of the 13th century Silesian duke Henry I the Bearded

Henry I the Bearded

, managed to reunite much of the divided Kingdom of Poland (Regnum Poloniae). His expeditions led him as far north as the Duchy of Pomerania

Duchy of Pomerania

The Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania ....

, where he for a short time held some of her southern areas. He became the duke of Kraków

Kraków

(Polonia Minor) in 1232, which gave him the title of the senior duke of Poland (see Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty), and came into possession of most of Greater Poland in 1234. Henry tried to achieve the Polish crown but he did not manage to succeed. His activity in this field was continued by his son and successor Henry II the Pious

Henry II the Pious

Henry II the Pious , of the Silesian line of the Piast dynasty was Duke of Silesia at Wrocław and Duke of Kraków and thus High Duke of all Poland as well as Duke of Southern Greater Poland from 1238 until his death. During 1238–1239 he also served as a regent of two other Piast duchies: Sandomierz...

but his sudden death in 1241 (Battle of Legnica

Battle of Legnica

The Battle of Legnica , also known as the Battle of Liegnitz or Battle of Wahlstatt , was a battle between the Mongol Empire and the combined defending forces of European fighters that took place at Legnickie Pole near the city of Legnica in Silesia on 9 April 1241.A combined force of Poles,...

) unabled him to achieve this goal. His successors were not able to maintain their holdings outside of Silesia, which were lost to other Piast dukes. Polish historians refer to territories acquired by the Silesian dukes in this period as Monarchia Henryków śląskich ("The monarchy of the Silesian Henries"). In those days Wrocław was the political center of the divided Kingdom of Poland.

Mongol invasion

In 1241, after raiding Lesser Poland

Lesser Poland

Lesser Poland is one of the historical regions of Poland, with its capital in the city of Kraków. It forms the southeastern corner of the country, and should not be confused with the modern Lesser Poland Voivodeship, which covers only a small, southern part of Lesser Poland...

, the Mongols

Mongols

Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

invaded Silesia

Mongol invasion of Europe

The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...

and caused widespread panic and mass flight. They looted much of the region, but abandoned their siege of the castle of Wrocław, supposedly after being fended off by Blessed Czeslaw's "miraculous fireball." They then defeated the combined Polish and German forces under Henry II at the Battle of Legnica

Battle of Legnica

, which took place at Legnickie Pole

Legnickie Pole

Legnickie Pole is a village in Legnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Legnickie Pole. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany....

near Legnica

Legnica

Legnica is a town in south-western Poland, in Silesia, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the plain of Legnica, riverside: Kaczawa and Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 31 December 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is currently the seat of the county...

. Upon the death of Ögedei Khan

Ögedei Khan

Ögedei Khan, born Ögedei was the third son of Genghis Khan and second Great Khan of the Mongol Empire by succeeding his father...

, the Mongols chose not to press forward further into Europe, but returned east to participate in the election of a new Grand Khan.

German settlement

Walloons

Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...

belonged to the first ambassadors of western culture in Silesia, working in various fields and places in the middle and late 12th century. Noticeable were weavers in Wrocław and Oława, peasants near Wrocław, Oława and Namysłów and Augustinian monks from Arrouaisse in Sobótka

Sobótka

Sobótka is a town in Wrocław County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Sobótka. Sobótka is located about southwest of Wrocław on the northern slope of Mount Ślęża, part of the Central Sudetes mountain range...

. The German Ostsiedlung

Ostsiedlung

was started at the same time by the ruling Piasts in order to develop their realms and to increase their power. Silesia then was sparsely populated with approximately 150.000 people, the settlements consisted of small hamlets, each with only a few peasants. Castellanies with small suburbias around them were centers of administration, commerce and crafts. In 1155 probably 20 castellanies existed all over Silesia. Some market places however also existed without a castle, like Środa Śląska

Sroda Slaska

Środa Śląska is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of Środa Śląska County, and of the smaller administrative district called Gmina Środa Śląska. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany...

or Sobótka. These settlements were already noticeable towns in an economic sense, most of the larger ones being the residence of a ruler. Contemporary sources record 8 markets in Silesia, their real number however was probably much higher. The castellanies with their fortified churches were also the center of the church organization, while the network of churches was very coarsely meshed and multiple villages belonged to one parish. The dominions were protected by the so called Preseka , a wide, fortified strip of woodland which had to be maintained by the Polish peasants.

The Ostsiedlung probably started already with the arrival of German monks in the entourage of Bolesław I, who spent a part of his life in Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

, when he returned from his exile in the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

. These Cistercian monks from the Saxon abbey of Pforta

Pforta

Pforta, or Schulpforta, is a former Cistercian monastery, Pforta Abbey , near Naumburg on the Saale River in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is now a celebrated German public boarding school, called Landesschule Pforta...

were brought into the country by the duke to establish Abbatia Lubensis abbey

Abbatia Lubensis abbey

Lubiąż Abbey , also commonly known in English as Leubus Abbey, is a former Cistercian monastery in Lubiąż,, in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship of southwestern Poland, located about northwest of Wrocław...

. The monks received the permission to settle Germans on their possessions, which in turn were excluded from Polish law "for all time" and instead encouraged to use their own German law. This approach became exemplary for all later German settlements, but the German law also replaced older, customary Slavic and Polish laws in existing settlements. Towns were chartered with the codified German town law

German town law

German town law or German municipal concerns concerns town privileges used by many cities, towns, and villages throughout Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.- Town law in Germany :...

, most of the time either Magdeburg law or local Silesian variants like Środa Śląska/Neumarkt law , which was a variant of Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

law. Existing settlements, until then only towns in an economic sense, received German town law often before the Mongol invasion in 1241. Examples are Wrocław, Oława, Sobótka and Środa Śląska. The vast majority of the new towns however, often built beside earlier Slavic settlements, were systematic foundations of German settlers, which established these cities as centers of new settlement areas. Most of the new German towns were planned and built in a grid-like pattern with a rectangular market square in the center. The cities were surrounded by large, regular villages, whose construction varied depending on the nature of their creation. Newly created settlements in land clearing areas in the southern and/or forested parts of Silesia were built as Waldhufen villages, in other regions either as Zeilen villages, villages arranged in rows, or Anger villages, villages arranged around a central square. The establishment of both villages and cities was carried out by planning entrepreneurs, the so called locators , who received the foundation charters from the landlord and hired settlers to built the settlement. The foundation of towns and villages was a coordinated effort, and sometimes happened at the same time (in the so called Weichbild system). The villages were affected by the German land law, which was split into a Frankish

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

law, used in newly created settlement areas, and Flemish

Flemish people

The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...

law, used in already populated areas. This law, beside other things, regulated the size of property for peasants.

After slow beginnings in the late 12th century the German Ostsiedlung fully started in the early 13th century, initiated and supported by duke Henry I

Henry I the Bearded

, the first Slavic ruler outside of the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

to invite German settlers on a wider base. At this time, the eastern border of the German settlement area was still some 130 kilometres (80.8 mi) away from Silesia. The security of the borders was the biggest goal Henry I. wanted to achieve, which was the reason why the earliest German settlements, built by colonists from Middle Germany, appeared in the area of the Preseka, and later moved into the border forests on the outside of the Preseka. The colonization first affected the region on the western border together with the subsequent southwestern area along the Sudete mountains. German villages soon also appeared in forest islands inside Slavic settlement areas, for instance in a triangle between Wrocław, Legnica

Legnica

and Ząbkowice Śląskie

Zabkowice Slaskie

Ząbkowice Śląskie is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is the seat of Ząbkowice Śląskie County, and of the smaller administrative district called Gmina Ząbkowice Śląskie....

. A second goal of the duke was a better exploitation of resources with the help of more advanced technologies of German miners, which led to the foundation of the mining towns of Goldberg in 1211 and Löwenberg

Lwówek Slaski

Lwówek Śląski is a town in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in Poland. Situated on the Bóbr River, Lwówek Śląski is about 30 km NNW of Jelenia Góra and has a population of about 10,300 inhabitants...

in 1217, some of the earliest German towns in Silesia.

While the German settlement in Lower and Middle Silesia was in a steady progress, it advanced much slower in Upper Silesia, before 1241 actually only because of outside pressure from Moravia

Moravia

Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...

, which itself invited German settlers after 1220 to colonize the area around the border to Silesia.

The Mongolian invasion of 1241 inflicted casualties in Silesia, the damage however was limited to a narrow strip from Opole

Opole

Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...

to Wrocław and Legnica and soon compensated by the ongoing colonization. The time after 1241 was marked by a strong expansion of the German settlement activities, mostly carried out by people from older German places in Silesia. The colonization now affected also the mountains in the south of Lower and Middle Silesia, the Lower and Middle Silesian regions to the right of the Oder

Oder

The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...

and also Upper Silesia. During the same time many existing Polish places received German law, often with the help of German settlers.
At the end of the 13th century all regions in Silesia except for some small outer zones in the east were affected by the Ostsiedlung. Because of the German colonization not only Silesia's population density but also the forms of settlement and the population itself changed dramatically. Characteristic now were well-planned, large German villages. A network of almost 130 towns covered the country almost evenly, with a distance from town to town of approximately 18 km (11.2 mi). The Weichbild constitution replaced the old Slavic castellany constitution. As every German village built its own church (the number of churches at the end of the 13th century added up to 1200) the network of parishes also became much more dense, and the diocese was split into the archdeaconries of Breslau, Glogau, Opole and Liegnitz. There are different estimates about the population of Silesia in the 14th century. It varies from approximately 500.000 people, including a Slavic minority to over 1 000 000 in 1400 and 1 200 000 in 1500. It is estimated that in the year 1400 there were about 30 000 Czechs and 30 000 Germans in Upper Silesia with a Polish population of 240 000 (80%). In the Lower Silesia the amount of Poles and Germans is estimated as equal and amounts 375 000 for each language group. After the era of German colonistaion, Polish language was still predominant in Upper Silesia and parts of Lower and Middle Silesia north of the Odra river. Here, the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages were mostly Polonized

Polonization

Polonization was the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, in particular, Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland...

; Germans dominated in large cities and Poles mostly in rural areas. The Polish speaking territories of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly described until the end of the 19th century as the Polish side were mostly Germanized in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for some areas along the northeastern frontier.

Silesian duchies

After the death of Henry II the Pious

Henry II the Pious

his realm was divided between various Piast dukes. In the second half of the 13th century, Henry II's grandson, Henryk IV Probus

Henryk IV Probus

Henryk IV Probus was a member of the Silesian branch of the royal Polish Piast dynasty...

of Silesia, made an attempt to gain the Polish crown, but he died in 1290 before realizing his goal. Duke Przemysł II of Greater Poland united two of the original provinces and was crowned in 1295, but was murdered in 1296. According to his will, Greater Poland was supposed to be inherited by Duke Henryk III głogowski, (a Silesian duke of Głogów) who also aspired to unite Poland and even claimed the title Duke of Poland. However, most nobles of Greater Poland supported another candidate from the Kuyavia

Kuyavia

Kujawy , is a historical and ethnographic region in the north-central Poland, situated in the basin of the middle Vistula and upper Noteć Rivers, with its capital in Włocławek.-Etymology:The origin of the name Kujawy was seen differently in history...

n line of Piasts, Duke Władysław I the Elbow-high. Władysław eventually won the struggle because of his broader support. In the meantime, King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia decided to extend his rule and was crowned as King of Poland in 1300. The next half-century was rife with wars between Władysław (later his son Casimir III the Great) and a coalition of Bohemians, Brandenburgers and Teutonic Knights

Teutonic Knights

The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...

trying to divide Poland. During this time, most Silesian duke

Duke

A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...

s, despite their ties with Poland, refused to accept Władysław's and Casimir's claims for rule sovereignty over other Piasts, and their relatively small realms fell again under the influence of neighboring Bohemia.

After the death of Wenceslaus III

Wenceslaus III of Bohemia

Wenceslaus III Premyslid was the King of Hungary , King of Bohemia and the king of Poland ....

, king of Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

and Poland, the right to the Polish crown was disputed, being claimed by various Piast dukes as well as the successors of Wenceslaus III on the Bohemian throne. In 1327 John of Bohemia invaded Poland in order to gain the Polish crown. After the intervention of King Charles I of Hungary

Charles I of Hungary

Charles I , also known as Charles Robert , was the first King of Hungary and Croatia of the House of Anjou. He was also descended from the old Hungarian Árpád dynasty. His claim to the throne of Hungary was contested by several pretenders...

he left Polonia Minor, but on his way back he enforced his supremacy over the Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

n Piasts.

In 1329 Władysław I the Elbow-high engaged himself in a war with the Teutonic Order. The Order was supported by John of Bohemia who managed to enforce his supremacy over the dukes of Masovia and Lower Silesia

Lower Silesia

Lower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast.Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of the medieval Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy from 1526...

.

In 1335 John of Bohemia renounced his claim to the title of king of Poland in favour of Casimir the Great, who in return renounced his claims to the Silesia province. This was formalized in the Treaty of Trentschin and Congress of Visegrád (1335)

Congress of Visegrád (1335)

The first Congress of Visegrád was a 1335 summit in Visegrád in which Casimir III of Poland, Charles I of Hungary, and John I of Bohemia formed an anti-Habsburg alliance...

, ratified in 1339 and later confirmed in the 1348 Treaty of Namslau

Treaty of Namslau

The Treaty of Namslau or Namysłów, also known as the Peace of Namslau, was a peace treaty between King Charles IV of Bohemia and King Casimir III of Poland...

.

The last independent Silesian Piast, Bolko II of Świdnica, died in 1368. His wife Agnes ruled the Świdnica

Swidnica

Świdnica is a city in south-western Poland in the region of Silesia. It has a population of 60,317 according to 2006 figures. It lies in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, being the seventh largest town in that voivodeship. From 1975–98 it was in the former Wałbrzych Voivodeship...

duchy until her death in 1392. From that time on all remaining Silesian Piasts became vassals of the Bohemian crown.

Despite the shift of the Silesia province from Poland to Bohemia and the treaties mentioned above, medieval lawyers of the Kingdom of Poland created a specific claim to all formerly Polish provinces that were not reunited with the rest of the country in 1320. It based on the theory of the Corona Regni Poloniae according to which the state (the Crown) and its interests were no longer strictly connected with the person of the monarch

Monarch

A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...

. Because of that no monarch could effectively renounce his claims to any of the territories that were historically and/or ethnically Polish. Those claims were reserved for the state (the Crown) which in theory still covered all of the territories that were part, or dependant of, the Polish Crown in 1138.

Over the following centuries, the lines of the Piast dukes of Silesia died out and were inherited by the Bohemian crown:

Opolska (of Opole
Opole
Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...

)in 1314;
Świdnicka (of Świdnica
Swidnica
Świdnica is a city in south-western Poland in the region of Silesia. It has a population of 60,317 according to 2006 figures. It lies in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, being the seventh largest town in that voivodeship. From 1975–98 it was in the former Wałbrzych Voivodeship...

) in 1368;
Oleśnicka (Oleśnica
Olesnica
Oleśnica is a town in the Trzebnickie Hills in southwestern Poland with 36,951 inhabitants . It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship...

and Głogów) in 1476;
Żagańska (of Żagań
Zagan
Zagan may refer to:*Zagan - a demon in the Ars Goetia*Żagań - a town in west Poland...

) in 1504;
Woitowitz (of Woitowitz, Wrocław) in 1532 ;
Cieszyńska (of Cieszyn
Cieszyn
Cieszyn is a border-town and the seat of Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It has 36,109 inhabitants . Cieszyn lies on the Olza River, a tributary of the Oder river, opposite Český Těšín....

) in 1625;
and Brzesko-Legnicka (of Brzeg
Brzeg
Brzeg is a town in southwestern Poland with 38,496 inhabitants , situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on the left bank of the Oder...

and Legnica
Legnica
Legnica is a town in south-western Poland, in Silesia, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the plain of Legnica, riverside: Kaczawa and Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 31 December 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is currently the seat of the county...

) in 1675.

Although Friedrich Wilhelm, the last male Silesian Piast Duke of Teschen (Cieszyn

Duchy of Cieszyn

The Duchy of Cieszyn or Duchy of Teschen or Duchy of Těšín was an autonomous Silesian duchy centered on Teschen in Upper Silesia. After the feudal division of Poland it was split off in 1281 and ruled by Silesian dukes from the Piast dynasty since 1290...

) died in 1625, rule of the duchy passed to his sister Elisabeth Lucretia, wife of the duke of Liechtenstein, until her death in 1653 after which it reverted to the Bohemian crown under the Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

rulers.

By the end of the 14th century, the country had been split up into 18 principalities: Wrocław, Brzeg, Głogów, Jawor

Jawor

Jawor is a town in south-western Poland with 24,347 inhabitants . It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship . It is the seat of Jawor County, and lies approximately west of the regional capital Wrocław.In the town can be found a Protestant Church of Peace...

, Legnica, Ziębice

Ziebice

Ziębice is a town in Ząbkowice Śląskie County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Ziębice. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany...

, Oleśnica

Olesnica

Oleśnica is a town in the Trzebnickie Hills in southwestern Poland with 36,951 inhabitants . It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship...

, Świdnica

Swidnica

and Ścinawa

Scinawa

Ścinawa is a town and municipality on the Oder river in the Lower Silesian region of Poland. The town features a number of historic monuments including city hall and the town church . The Ścinawa train station is a key gateway for travel throughout the region, connecting major destinations such...

in Lower Silesia; Bytom

Bytom

, Niemodlin

Niemodlin

Niemodlin is a town in Opole County, Opole Voivodeship, Poland, with 6,911 inhabitants .It was first mentioned as Nemodlin in a 1224 deed and received town privileges in 1283. Originally a part of the Duchy of Opole, after the death of Duke Bolko I Niemodlin became the capital of a duchy in his...

, Koźle

Kozle

Koźle is a district of Kędzierzyn-Koźle and is at the junction of the Kłodnica and Odra rivers, 29 Ifl. southeast of Opole by rail. The district has a Roman Catholic church, a medieval chateau, remains of a 19th century fortress and a high school...

, Nysa

Nysa, Poland

Nysa is a town in southwestern Poland on the Nysa Kłodzka river with 47,545 inhabitants , situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Nysa County. It comprises the urban portion of the surrounding Gmina Nysa, a mixed urban-rural commune with a total population of 60,123 inhabitants...

, Opole

Opole

Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...

, Racibórz

Racibórz

Racibórz is a town in southern Poland with 60,218 inhabitants situated in the Silesian Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship...

, Strzelce Opolskie

Strzelce Opolskie

Strzelce Opolskie is a town in south-western Poland with 19,628 inhabitants , situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Strzelce County. Strzelce Opolskie is one of the biggest centers of German minority in Poland....

, Cieszyn

Cieszyn

and Opava

Opava

Opava is a city in the northern Czech Republic on the river Opava, located to the north-west of Ostrava. The historical capital of Czech Silesia, Opava is now in the Moravian-Silesian Region and has a population of 59,843 as of January 1, 2005....

in the upper district. The petty rulers of these sections wasted their strength with internecine quarrels and proved quite incompetent to check the lawlessness of their feudal vassals. Save under the vigorous rule of some dukes of Lower Silesia, such as Henry I and Bolko I

Bolko I

Bolko I can refer to:* Bolko I the Strict , Silesian duke* Bolko I of Opole , Silesian duke...

, and the above-named Henry II and IV, who succeeded in reuniting most of the principalities under their sway, the country fell into a state of growing anarchy.

Kingdom of Bohemia

The ties with Bohemia revived Silesia's economy, which until then mainly profited from the High Road

Via Regia

Via Regia, i.e. "Royal Highway", denotes a mediæval historic road. The term, in the usual sense, means not just a specific road, rather a type of road. It was legally associated with the king and remained under his special protection and guarantee of public peace.There were many such roads in the...

, an important trade road between Eastern and Western Europe which crossed the country. According to the wishes of the House of Luxembourg

House of Luxembourg

The House of Luxembourg was a late medieval German dynasty, which between 1308 and 1437 ruled the Holy Roman Empire, twice interrupted by the rivaling House of Wittelsbach.-History:...

Breslau, Silesia's main emporium, established new contacts with Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

and Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

to the south, Thorn

Torun

Toruń is an ancient city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Its population is more than 205,934 as of June 2009. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus....

and Danzig to the north and became a member of the Hanseatic League

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

. The economic prosperity supported the development of a rich municipal culture, which found its expression in important religious and secular buildings as well as the attendance of many Silesians at the surrounding universities of Kraków

Jagiellonian University

The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....

, Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

and Prague

Charles University in Prague

Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...

, the latter being the most popular until the decree of Kutná Hora

Decree of Kutná Hora

The Decree of Kutná Hora or Decree of Kuttenberg was issued in Kutná Hora, Bohemia, by King Wenceslas IV to give members of the Bohemian university nation a decisive voice in the affairs of the Charles University in Prague....

(1409).

With the death of Charles IV in 1378 and the following disputes in the house of Luxemburg the protection of Silesia by Bohemia ended; strife spread out and robber baron

Robber baron

A robber baron or robber knight was an unscrupulous and despotic nobility of the medieval period in Europe, for example, Berlichingen. It has slightly different meanings in different countries. In modern US parlance, the term is also used to describe unscrupulous industrialists...

s devastated the country. The regional public peaces, declared by local Silesian princes, did not change the situation, which became much worse in the following Hussite wars

Hussite Wars

The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars involved the military actions against and amongst the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the period 1419 to circa 1434. The Hussite Wars were notable for the extensive use of early hand-held gunpowder weapons such as hand cannons...

The burning of Jan Hus

Jan Hus

Jan Hus , often referred to in English as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague...

at Konstanz

Konstanz

Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...

led to religious and national agitation in Bohemia, which was tolerated by king Wenceslaus

Wenceslaus, King of the Romans

Wenceslaus ) was, by election, German King from 1376 and, by inheritance, King of Bohemia from 1378. He was the third Bohemian and second German monarch of the Luxembourg dynasty...

. After his death in 1419 the Czechs refused to accept Sigismund

Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...

as their new king as he let Hus be executed. Sigismund in return called a Reichstag

Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)

The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...

in Breslau, the first one to the east of the Elbe

Elbe

, to determine actions against the revolting Czechs. Eighteen Silesian rulers rendered homage to the king and promised help against his foes. In 1421 a Silesian army repeatedly invaded (northeastern) Bohemia, but was defeated by the Hussites. As Moravia also joined the Hussite movement Silesia and Lusatia became isolated in the Bohemian lands and the foremost object of hate for the most radical Czechs, the Taborite

Taborite

The Taborites were members of a religious community considered heretical by the Catholic Church. The Taborites were centered on the Bohemian city of Tábor during the Hussite Wars in the 15th century. The religious reform movement in Bohemia splintered into various religious sects...

s. In January 1425 began permanent pressure on Silesian lands, so-called "beatiful rides". After 1427 the Hussites—supported by some Polish lords (Dobiesław Puchała, Sigismund Korybut

Sigismund Korybut

Sigismund Korybut was a duke from the Gediminid dynasty, best known as a military commander of the Hussite army and a governor of Bohemia and Prague during the Hussite Wars....

) and Silesian dukes (Bolko V the Hussite

Bolko V the Hussite

Bolko V the Hussite was a Duke of Opole between 1422–1424 , ruler over Głogówek and Prudnik since 1424, Duke of Strzelce and Niemodlin from 1450 and ruler over Olesno since 1455....

)—invaded Silesia many times, destroyed more than 30 towns and ravaged the country. On the other hand, united armies of local dukes and wealthy towns (Breslau etc.) plundered Bohemian-Silesian borderland and eastern Bohemia (area around Náchod

Náchod

Náchod -History:Náchod was founded in 14th century by knight Hron of Načeradice, who founded a castle on a strategical place, where local trade road reaches the defile called Branka. The first written note dates back to 1254.-Castle:...

and Trutnov

Trutnov

Trutnov is a city in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has a population of 31,239 and lies in the Krkonoše in the valley of the Úpa River....

). Some Silesian towns, like Gleiwitz

Gliwice

Gliwice is a city in Upper Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Gliwice is the west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population of 2 million...

, Kreuzburg

Kluczbork

Kluczbork is a town in southwestern Poland with 26,670 inhabitants , situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Kluczbork County and an important railroad junction. In Kluczbork the major rail line from Katowice splits into two directions - westwards to Wroclaw and northwards to Poznań...

, Nimptsch

Niemcza

Niemcza is a town in Dzierżoniów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Niemcza....

or Ottmachau

Otmuchów

Otmuchów is a town in Nysa County, Opole Voivodeship, Poland, with 5,317 inhabitants ....

, became Hussite bases for several years and were a constant threat for the surrounding regions. The Hussite menace lasted until 1434, when they were defeated by the more moderate Ultraquists

Utraquism

Utraquism was a Christian dogma first proposed by Jacob of Mies in 1414. It maintained that the Eucharist should be administered "in both kinds" — as both bread and wine — to all the congregation, including the laity...

at Lipany

Battle of Lipany

The Battle of Lipany or Lipan, also called the Battle of Česky Brod, was fought at Lipany 40 km east of Prague on 30 May 1434 and virtually ended the Hussite Wars...

in Bohemia. Sigismund now became king of Bohemia and united Silesia (except lands of Bolko V) by a public peace and the appointment of bishop Konrad, duke of Oels, as senior governor .

The dead of Sigismund in 1437 however was soon followed by new challenges for Silesia. The Bohemian crown was now disputed between Albert II of Habsburg and Władysław III of Poland. After Albrecht's early death in 1439 his widow Elisabeth renewed these claims. Silesia, lying between Poland and Bohemia, became a constant battleground of both powers. Wladislaus moreover demanded Silesia and covered the country with war. The majority of Silesian princes however supported Elisabeth. After Wladislaus dead in 1444 Bohemias interim regent George of Poděbrady

George of Podebrady

George of Kunštát and Poděbrady , also known as Poděbrad or Podiebrad , was King of Bohemia...

was elected new king of Bohemia in 1458 and enfeoffed his two sons with the Silesian duchies of Münsterberg (Ziębice) and Opava

Duchy of Troppau

The Principality or Duchy of Troppau or Opava was based for centuries around the Upper Silesian city of Troppau . In the final four centuries of its existence, the Duchy belonged to the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, and it was dissolved with the Habsburg Empire in 1918...

(Troppau), but also Bohemian territory Kladsko

County of Kladsko

The County of Kladsko was a historical administrative unit in the Kingdom of Bohemia and later in the Kingdom of Prussia with its capital at Kłodzko on the Nysa river...

(Glatz), which thereby became closer connected to Silesia. He moreover appointed Czech peers as governors of Silesian hereditary principalities and thus made Czech temporarily the official language for large parts of Silesia.

George of Podiebrad's enemies in 1469 elected Matthias Corvinus

Matthias Corvinus of Hungary

Matthias Corvinus , also called the Just in folk tales, was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458, at the age of 14 until his death...

, king of Hungary and former son-in-law of George, as his rival king of Bohemia. Silesia was divided on the matter, and the power struggle between George and Matthias was predominantly carried out on territory of Silesia and Moravia. The fighting did not stop with George's death in 1471 but continued under his underage successor Vladislaus. After long battles a compromise was found: both kept their title as king of Bohemia, Vladislaus received the Bohemian heartland whereas Matthias took Moravia, Lusatia and Silesia.

The internal development of Silesia during the 15th century was marked by these external insecurities. Some peripheral regions of Silesia were lost, among them Siewierz

Siewierz

Siewierz is a town in the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland.-History:In history, Sewerien was first mentioned in 1125, which was administered by the Castellan of Bytom. In 1177, Casimir II granted Sewerien to Mieszko IV Tanglefoot duke of Silesia and Racibórz, together with the duchy of Bytom. The...

, Oświęcim

Oswiecim

Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...

or Zator

Zator

Zator is an old town on the Skawa river within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship in southern Poland. From 1975 to 1998 it belonged to the Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship. It is the administrative seat of the Gmina Zator...

, while other territories were acquired by non- Silesian dynasties like the Wettins, who gained Sagan

Zagan

Zagan may refer to:*Zagan - a demon in the Ars Goetia*Żagań - a town in west Poland...

, or the House of Brandenburg, which gained the Duchies of Krosno

Krosno Odrzanskie

Krosno Odrzańskie is a city on the east bank of Oder River, at the confluence with the Bóbr. The town in Western Poland with 12,500 inhabitants is the capital of Krosno County...

(Crossen), Krnov

Duchy of Krnov

Duchy of Krnov was one of the Duchies of Silesia, with its capital in Krnov, present-day Czech Republic.-History:The duchy was created in Upper Silesia in 1377 by partition from the Duchy of Opava , on lands which until 1269 had been part of Moravia...

(Jägerndorf), Opole-Racibórz

Duchy of Opole

Duchy of Opole was one of the duchies of Silesia ruled by the Piast dynasty. Its capital was Opole in Upper Silesia.After Bolesław I the Tall and his younger brother Mieszko I Tanglefoot backed by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa had retained their Silesian heritage in 1163, they divided the...

(Oppeln-Ratibor) and Bytom

Duchy of Bytom

The Duchy of Bytom or Duchy of Beuthen was one of many Silesian duchies. It was established in Upper Silesia about 1281 during the division of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz among the sons of Duke Władysław Opolski...

(Beuthen). The economy declined, not only caused by the Hussite destruction but also because the commodity flow avoided both Bohemia and Silesia due to the general insecurity. The new direct trading route between Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

and Poznań

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

threatened Silesias interests and was a reason for several trade wars between Silesia and Poland. Breslau lost its staple right

Staple right

The staple right was a medieval right accorded to certain ports, the staple ports, that required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port, and display them for sale for a certain period, often three days...

in 1515, and the trade on the High Road towards the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

lost its importance after the Turkish occupation of Italian colonies on the Black Sea

Black Sea

. The trade with South East Europe, especially Hungary, however increased after the kings of Hungary became the overlords of Silesia, and the trade connections to Upper German cities were also strengthened.

The population declined since the late 14th century because of a late-medieval agricultural crisis, which was later intensified by the Hussite wars. While rural settlements desolated the cities lost a part of their population. This caused a population movement which led to an intermix of Germans and Slavs in Silesia. The respective minority soon adopted the language of the majority, which in turn resulted in a linguistic offset in Silesia. Most Polish linguistic enclaves in Lower and Middle Silesia disappeared; these regions became largely German. Polish survived only in the region around Grünberg

Zielona Góra

Zielona Góra is a city in Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland, with 117,557 inhabitants within the city limits and 294,000 inhabitants within the metropolitan area, including three neighbouring counties ....

and Deutsch Wartenberg

Otyn

Otyń is a village in Nowosolski County, Poland. As of 2004 it has about 1200 inhabitants.The Gothic palace and church of Otyń were a property of the Society of Jesus from 1661 until its suppression in 1776, Duke Peter von Biron of Courland and Semigallia bought it in 1787 and called the place...

and in the agricultural plain to the left of the Oder in a triangle between Breslau, Kanth, Strehlen

Strzelin

Strzelin is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is located on the Oława river, a tributary of the Oder, about south of the region's capital Wrocław. The town is the seat of Strzelin County and also of the smaller municipality of Strzelin...

and Ohlau. On the other hand almost all German linguistic enclaves in Upper Silesia vanished in the 16th century too. Only the towns of Opava

Opava

(Troppau), Kietrz

Kietrz

Kietrz is a town in Głubczyce County, Opole Voivodeship, Poland, near the border with the Czech Republic. As of 2007, it has a population of 6,366.-Notable residents:*Alfons Luczny , Luftwaffe general...

(Katscher) and Bielsko

Bielsko

Bielsko was until 1950 an independent town situated in Cieszyn Silesia, Poland. In 1951 it was joined with Biała Krakowska to form the new town of Bielsko-Biała. Bielsko constitutes the western part of that town....

(Bielitz) remained largely German. This Polonization was moreover encouraged by the usage of Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

as the official language at that time, as both languages were still closely related at the time.

Efforts to implement a constitution for all Silesian estates and thus unite the fragmented country were positive aspects of the 16th century. First attempts by Sigismund in the 15th century were only temporarily successful, Matthias Corvins reforms however were far more effective. The king always had his representatives in Silesia, for a short time called Oberlandeshauptleute (senior governors), otherwise called advocates. Sometimes the competences of these advocates were split between Upper and Lower Silesia; these terms appeared for the first time in the 15th century. The Fürstentage ("Princely diet"), until then only irregular meetings, became yearly events, although sometimes split between Upper and Lower Silesia. The diets dealt with questions like tax collection (tax demands by the overlord were a novelty), the deployment of troops for public peace or coinage. A supreme "Princely court" (Czech: knížecí soud; German: Fürstenrecht) was established for the first time in 1498 to settle disputes between the king (then Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary

Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary

Vladislaus II, also known as Ladislaus Jagiellon ; was King of Bohemia from 1471 and King of Hungary from 1490 until his death in 1516...

), the princes and barons (free lords

Freiherr

The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...

) & the estates of 3 duchies: Głogów (Glogau), Opole-Racibórz and Żagań

Duchy of Żagań

The Duchy of Żagań or Duchy of Sagan was one of the duchies of Silesia ruled by the Silesian Piasts. Its capital was Żagań in Lower Silesia, the territory stretched to the town of Nowogród Bobrzański in the north and reached the Lusatian Neisse at Przewóz in the west, including two villages...

(Sagan).

Habsburg monarchy

After the death of King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia

Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia

Louis II was King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia from 1516 to 1526.- Early life :Louis was the son of Ladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife, Anne de Foix....

in 1526, Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

of the Habsburg

Habsburg

dynasty was elected King of Bohemia. In the same year, he made the formerly elected Bohemian crown

Elective monarchy

An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by an elected rather than hereditary monarch. The manner of election, the nature of the candidacy and the electors vary from case to case...

an inherited possession of the Habsburg dynasty. In 1537, the Piast Duke Frederick II of Brieg concluded the Treaty of Brieg with Elector

Prince-elector

The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

Joachim II of Brandenburg

Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

, whereby the Hohenzollerns

House of Hohenzollern

The House of Hohenzollern is a noble family and royal dynasty of electors, kings and emperors of Prussia, Germany and Romania. It originated in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century. They took their name from their ancestral home, the Burg Hohenzollern castle near...

of Brandenburg would inherit the Duchy of Brieg upon the extinction of the Piasts, but the treaty was rejected by Ferdinand.

The Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

of the 16th century took an early hold in Silesia. Its leading advocates were Frederick II of Liegnitz and George von Ansbach-Jägerndorf, who promoted the adoption of the new faith in his own duchy and in the pledged duchies of Oppeln and Ratibor. Breslau not only adopted the faith but, as the seat of the Provincial governor, also promoted Protestantism in the principality of Breslau. After the death of Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

in 1564 only the bishop of Breslau, the rulers and lordships of Loslau, Pleß and Trachtenberg and 10% of the population were still Catholic. Silesia became closer attached to the center of the Protestant Reformation, Brandenburg

Brandenburg

and Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, and the country produced several important representatives of the Protestant intellectual sphere. In 1526 Silesia received the first Protestant university of Europe when Frederick II opened an evangelic academy in Liegnitz. This school however was closed three years later due to economic difficulties, but even more because of theological disputes between Lutherans and followers of Caspar Schwenckfeld, a sectarian and confidant of Frederick II whose ideas became more and more popular in Silesia.

The Protestant confession was not persecuted by Ferdinand I and Maximilian II

Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian II was king of Bohemia and king of the Romans from 1562, king of Hungary and Croatia from 1563, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 1564 until his death...

, only Schwenckfeld's teachings, Anabaptists and unhallowed clergymen were not accepted. This changed with the accession of Rudolf II to the throne and with the help of archduke Carl, bishop of Breslau.

In order to avert the oppression of their faith the estates of Silesia joined the Protestant estates of Bohemia and denied paying taxes to the emperor in 1609. After the Bohemians eked out the Maiestas Rudolphina the emperor was moved to publish another letter of majesty for Silesia containing even further rights. When Ferdinand II

Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand II , a member of the House of Habsburg, was Holy Roman Emperor , King of Bohemia , and King of Hungary . His rule coincided with the Thirty Years' War.- Life :...

tried to withdraw from these agreements the estates of Bohemia and Silesia changed allegiance and followed Matthias

Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor

Matthias of Austria was Holy Roman Emperor from 1612, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1608 and King of Bohemia from 1611...

, who already owned Austria, Moravia and Hungary. Matthias not only affirmed the letter of majesty but also granted the Silesian estates its own independent German chancellery in Prague, which was responsible for Lusatia too. At the same time the Protestants in Silesia were weakened when several Silesian rulers converted to Calvinism or back to Catholizism.

After the second Defenestration of Prague in 1618 the Silesian followed the Bohemian estates, elected Frederick V

Frederick V, Elector Palatine

Frederick V was Elector Palatine , and, as Frederick I , King of Bohemia ....

as their new king of Bohemia and paid homage in Breslau. After the defeat in the Battle of White Mountain

Battle of White Mountain

The Battle of White Mountain, 8 November 1620 was an early battle in the Thirty Years' War in which an army of 30,000 Bohemians and mercenaries under Christian of Anhalt were routed by 27,000 men of the combined armies of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor under Charles Bonaventure de Longueval,...

Frederick returned to Breslau to gather troops, however as these attempts failed he advised the Silesians to contact Saxony, which occupied Lusatia, a part of Bohemia and neighbour of Silesia, and as an imperial ally was authorized to negotiate. The mediated treaty, the Dresden accord, spared Silesia for the next few years and affirmed the earlier privileges, however the Silesian estates had to pay 300.000 gulden and accept Ferdinand II as their suzerain. Soon after the emperor and the prince-bishop started the counter-reformation by inviting Catholic orders to Silesia and giving land to Catholic peers.

The Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

reached Silesia when Protestant Ernst von Mansfeld

Ernst von Mansfeld

Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld , was a German military commander during the early years of the Thirty Years' War.-Biography:...

started a military campaign against Hungary and crossed Silesia in 1629. This gave the emperor the chance to invade the country and to enforce his imperial might. The Silesian district authority became an imperial office, Albrecht von Wallenstein

Albrecht von Wallenstein

Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein , actually von Waldstein, was a Bohemian soldier and politician, who offered his services, and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men during the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War , to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II...

became lord of the Duchy of Sagan and of Glogau, the infamous Liechtenstein dragoons pressed the citizens of the principalities back into the Catholic Church or otherwise expelled them, Protestant landlords lost their possessions and were replaced by Catholic families.

In 1632 the Protestant countries of Saxony, Brandenburg and Sweden, which were united against the emperor, invaded Silesia. The Protestant estates of Silesia joined these countries, however as neighbouring Saxony made peace with the emperor in 1635 the Silesians lost this important ally, further weakened their position and had to submit to the emperor once again. This time only the duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau, Oels and the town of Breslau could keep their religious liberty.

The quiet years after 1635 were followed by new military conflicts between 1639 and 1648. Swedish and imperial troops devastated the country, cities were destroyed by fires and plagues, many people fled to the neighbouring countries of Brandenburg, Saxony or Poland, where they could freely express their faith, or at least to the countryside to escape the adverse conditions in the cities.

The Peace of Westphalia

Peace of Westphalia

The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...

ended the Thirty Years' War. The duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau, Oels and the city of Breslau retained their religious freedom, and the construction of three Protestant churches, the Churches of Peace, was permitted. The systematic oppression of the Protestant faith however was intensified in the rest of Silesia as most churches were closed or given to the few Catholics left. A new exodus to the surrounding countries started, which led to the foundation of several new towns. Also Protestant churches on the soil of these countries and close to the Silesian border, the so called "border churches" (German: Grenzkirchen), were built to provide a place were Silesians could practise their religion.

In 1676 the Duchy of Legnica

Duchy of Legnica

The Duchy of Legnica or Duchy of Liegnitz was one of the Duchies of Silesia. Its capital was Legnica in Lower Silesia....

and Duchy of Brzeg

Duchy of Brzeg

The Duchy of Brzeg or Duchy of Brieg , was one of the Duchies of Silesia. Its capital was Brzeg.It was created in 1311 during the fragmentation of the Duchy of Legnica among the sons of Duke Henry V and ruled by Bolesław III the Generous of the Silesian Piasts, who declared himself a vassal of...

passed to direct Habsburg

Habsburg

rule after the death of the last Silesian Piast duke, Georg Wilhelm (son of Duke Christian of Brieg

Christian of Brieg

Christian of Brieg also known as of Legnica was a Duke of Legnica , Brzeg , Wołów and Oława...

), despite the earlier inheritance pact by Brandenburg and Silesia, by which it was to go to Brandenburg.

These remaining Protestant duchies were also recatholized, but as the Swedish king Charles XII

Charles XII of Sweden

Charles XII also Carl of Sweden, , Latinized to Carolus Rex, Turkish: Demirbaş Şarl, also known as Charles the Habitué was the King of the Swedish Empire from 1697 to 1718...

pressed Joseph I

Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

Joseph I , Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, King of Hungary, King of the Romans was the elder son of Emperor Leopold I and his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg....

to accept the treaty of Altranstädt (1707)

Treaty of Altranstädt (1707)

The Treaty or Convention of Altranstädt was signed between Charles XII of Sweden and Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor on 31 August 1707. It settled the rights of Protestants in Silesia.-Historical context:...

the religious freedom in these duchies had to be restored. Moreover the construction of six further churches, the so called churches of mercy (German: Gnadenkirchen), was allowed.

Due to the Thirty Years' War, diseases and emigration Silesia lost large parts of its population. Especially affected were the cities, which recovered sometimes not until the 19th century.

Despite the uncertain political, economic and religious circumstances Silesia became the center of the German Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

poetry in the 17th century. Its most important representatives were poets like Martin Opitz, Friedrich von Logau, Andreas Gryphius

Andreas Gryphius

Andreas Gryphius was a German lyric poet and dramatist.Asteroid 496 Gryphia is named in his honour.-Life and career:...

or Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau

Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau

Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau was a German poet of the Baroque era.He was born and died in Breslau in Silesia. During his education in Danzig and Leiden, he befriended Martin Opitz and Andreas Gryphius, both leading figures in 17th century German poetry...

, but also writers and mystics like Angelus Silesius

Angelus Silesius

Angelus Silesius was a German Catholic mystic and poet.-Life:Silesius was born in Breslau , Silesia as son of Polish noble and German mother...

, Abraham von Franckenberg

Abraham von Franckenberg

Abraham von Franckenberg was a German mystic, author, poet and hymn-writer.- Life :Abraham von Franckenberg was born in 1593 into an old Silesian noble family in Ludwigsdorf bei Oels...

or Christian Knorr von Rosenroth

Christian Knorr von Rosenroth

Christian Knorr von Rosenroth was a German Hebraist born at Alt-Raudten, today Stara Rudna in Silesia. After having completed his studies in the universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig, he traveled through Holland, France, and England.On his return he settled at Sulzbach and devoted himself to the...

Kingdom of Prussia

In 1740, the annexation of Silesia by King Frederick II

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

the Great of Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

was welcomed by many Silesians, not only by Protestants or Germans. Frederick based his claims on the Treaty of Brieg and began the War of the Austrian Succession

War of the Austrian Succession

(1740–1748). By war's end, the Kingdom of Prussia had conquered almost all of Silesia, while some parts of Silesia in the extreme southeast, like the Duchy of Cieszyn

Duchy of Cieszyn

and Duchy of Opava, remained possessions of the Crown of Bohemia and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy

Habsburg Monarchy

. The Seven Years' War

Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...

(1756–1763) confirmed Prussian control over most of Silesia.

Already during the War of the Austrian Succession Prussia installed its own administration which met the needs of a modern absolutistic state. Headed by a provincial minister , who was directly subordinate to the king, Silesia was split into two war- and domain chambers in Breslau and Glogau, which administrated 48 districts . Silesia thus maintained its exceptional position inside Prussia, only the judicature was affiliated to the head of the respective Prussian department. The fortifications were strengthened and the number of soldiers increased tenfold to secure Silesia.

Silesia's industry suffered badly after the war. To stimulate the economy Protestant Czechs, Germans and Poles were invited to settle in the country, particularly in Upper Silesia. Most of the settlers originated from non-Prussian countries as Frederick II wished to increase the population of Prussia. The Poles, most of them from the Habsburg ruled area around Teschen, settled all over Upper Silesia, whereas the Czechs mainly located in the areas around Oppeln, Strehlen and Groß Wartenberg. With the recruitment of Germans from Middle and Western Germany many miners' and lumberjacks' settlements were established. The owners of large estates soon followed these examples of the state and also founded many new settlements. Frederick II supported the reconstruction of the cities, sometimes even by donation from his privy purse, but even more by measures to stimulate the economy, such as the ban to export wool to Saxony or Austria and the increase of customs duties.

Mining and metallurgy became of special importance in the middle of the 18th century. In 1769 Silesia received a standardised mining law, the so-called "revidierte Bergordnung", which excluded the miners of the subservience to the laird and placed them under the control of the upper mining authority , which first resided in Reichenstein and later in Breslau. In the beginning the center of mining and also metallurgy was in Waldenburg and Neurode in Lower Silesia, but later it moved to Upper Silesia.

The confessional restrictions were abolished already during the first Silesian war and, until 1752, 164 provisional churches, so called Bethäuser or Bethauskirchen, were built. The Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination, established several new settlements, among them Gnadenfrei , Gnadenberg and Gnadenfeld . Although Frederick and the bishop of Breslau argued about the competences of the Catholic Church the king also strongly supported the Catholic school system.

In 1806 confederates of Napoleon invaded Silesia. Only the forts of Glatz, Silberberg and Cosel withstood until the Treaties of Tilsit

Treaties of Tilsit

The Treaties of Tilsit were two agreements signed by Napoleon I of France in the town of Tilsit in July, 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland. The first was signed on 7 July, between Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon I of France, when they met on a raft in the middle of the Neman...

. After the adoption of the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg

Karl August von Hardenberg

Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg was a Prussian statesman and Prime Minister of Prussia. While during his late career he acquiesced to reactionary policies, earlier in his career he implemented a variety of Liberal reforms...

between 1807 and 1812 Silesia was fully incorporated into Prussia, the Catholic Church properties were secularized and the social and economic conditions improved. At the same time the first European university with both a Protestant and a Catholic faculty was established in Breslau. In 1812 Silesia became the center of the revolt against Napoleon. The royal family moved to Breslau and Frederick William III published the letter An mein Volk (to my people) which called the German people to arms. The experience of the war of liberation strengthened the bond of the Silesians to Prussia and the Province of Silesia

Province of Silesia

became one of the most loyal provinces of Prussia. Several military leaders of outstanding merit, like Blücher

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt , Graf , later elevated to Fürst von Wahlstatt, was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall who led his army against Napoleon I at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 with the Duke of Wellington.He is...

or Yorck von Wartenburg, received lavishly appointed manors in the country.

In 1815, the northeastern part of Upper Lusatia

Upper Lusatia

Upper Lusatia is a region a biggest part of which belongs to Saxony, a small eastern part belongs to Poland, the northern part to Brandenburg. In Saxony, Upper Lusatia comprises roughly the districts of Bautzen and Görlitz , in Brandenburg the southern part of district Oberspreewald-Lausitz...

, formerly part of Saxony

Saxony

, was incorporated into the province, which was divided into the three administrative districts Liegnitz, Breslau and Oppeln.
Already in the Middle Ages, German had become the only popular language in all of Lower Silesia

Lower Silesia

. However, dialects of Polish were still used in much of the countryside of Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

, whereas German was the most common language in most Upper Silesian cities.

Silesias industry was in bad condition in the first decades after 1815. Especially Silesian linen weavers suffered as Prussia's free trade policy and British competitors, which already used machines (see Industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...

), led to the non-competitiveness of Silesian linen. The situation got worse after Russia imposed an import embargo and the Silesian linen industry began to mechanize their production. In several towns this traditional craft died out altogether, and many linen weavers lost their work. As the social conditions worsened the unrest culminated in the Silesian weavers uprising (German: Schlesischer Weberaufstand) of 1844. This uprising, on the eve of the revolution of 1848

Revolutions of 1848 in the German states

The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, also called the March Revolution – part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many countries of Europe – were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire...

, was closely observed by the German society and treated by several artists, among them Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...

(drama Die Weber) and Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...

(poem Die schlesischen Weber).
The recovery of the Silesian industry was closely connected to the railroad. The first railroad line of Silesia was built between Breslau and the industrial region of Upper Silesia (1842–1846), lines to the Lower Silesian industrial region around Waldenburg (1843–1853), to Berlin (1846), Leipzig

Leipzig

(1847) and Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

(1847/48) followed soon afterwards. The fast growing network of railroad lines supported the establishment of new companies, which in turn led to a huge growth of the industrial centers of Breslau, Waldenburg and in Upper Silesia, the second biggest industrial area in Germany at that time. The concentration of mining, metallurgy and factories in a small region like Upper Silesia resulted in an enormous aggregation of the settlement area, especially because of workers' villages next to mines and ironworks. As the old cities of the area, Beuthen

Bytom

and Gleiwitz

Gliwice

Gliwice is a city in Upper Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Gliwice is the west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population of 2 million...

, could not meet the requirements anymore new municipal centers like Kattowitz

Katowice

Katowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...

, Königshütte

Chorzów

Chorzów is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Chorzów is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a population of 2 million...

and Hindenburg

Zabrze

Zabrze is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union is a metropolis with a population of around 2 million...

emerged, which all were chartered during that time (1865, 1868, 1922).

The discontent of Silesians with the absolutism in Prussia found its expression in the democratic revolt of 1848. The approval of the national assembly in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

to the new constitution imposed by the Prussian king led to the May uprisings in Breslau (May 6 and 7, 1849). Simultaneously, peasant revolts happened all over the country. All of these democratic efforts however were oppressed by the Prussian state.

After the political situation stabilized in the 1860s and political parties evolved the special status of Upper Silesia, caused by confessional, linguistic and national differences, began to develop.

German Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire

As a Prussian province

Province of Silesia

, Silesia became part of the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

during the unification of Germany

Unification of Germany

The formal unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor Wilhelm of the German...

in 1871. There was considerable industrialization in Upper Silesia, and many people moved there at that time. The overwhelming majority of the population of Lower Silesia

Lower Silesia

was German-speaking and most were Lutheran, including the capital of Breslau. There were areas such as the District of Oppeln

Opole

Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...

(then Regierungsbezirk

Regierungsbezirk

In Germany, a Government District, in German: Regierungsbezirk – is a subdivision of certain federal states .They are above the Kreise, Landkreise, and kreisfreie Städte...

Oppeln) and rural parts of Upper Silesia, however, where a larger portion or even majority of the population were Slavic-speaking Poles and Roman Catholic. In Silesia as a whole, ethnic Poles

Poles

thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

comprised about 23% of the population, and most of them lived around Kattowitz (Katowice

Katowice

) in the southeast of Upper Silesia. In whole Upper Silesia Poles made 61,1% of population in 1829, but due to state's policy of forced germanization their numbers decreased to 58,6% of population 1849. The Kulturkampf

Kulturkampf

The German term refers to German policies in relation to secularity and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria...

set Catholics in opposition to the government and sparked a Polish revival, much of it fostered by Poles from outside of Germany, in the Upper Silesian parts of the province. The first conference of Hovevei Zion

Hovevei Zion

Hovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism....

groups took place in Kattowitz (Katowice)

Katowice

, German Empire

German Empire

in 1884.

However, the population did not move just to Silesia; Silesia was a demografically expansive region and contributed significantly to the demographics of the neighboring provinces. For example, a "typical" inhabitant of Berlin of 1938 would proverbially be a Silesian. (See also Ostflucht

Ostflucht

The Ostflucht was a movement by residents of the former eastern territories of Germany, such as East Prussia, West Prussia, Silesia and Province of Posen beginning around 1850, to the more industrialized western German Rhine and Ruhr provinces...

.)

At the same time, the areas of Ostrava

Ostrava

Ostrava is the third largest city in the Czech Republic and the second largest urban agglomeration after Prague. Located close to the Polish border, it is also the administrative center of the Moravian-Silesian Region and of the Municipality with Extended Competence. Ostrava was candidate for the...

and Karviná

Karviná

Karviná is a city in Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic, on the Olza River. It is administrative center of Karviná District. Karviná lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia and is one of the most important coal mining centers in the Czech Republic. Together with neighboring...

in Austrian Silesia became increasingly industrialized. Significant portion of the Polish-speaking people there, however, were Lutherans in contrast to the German-speaking Catholic Habsburg dynasty ruling Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

.

In 1900, the population of Austrian Silesia numbered 680,422, which corresponds to 132 inhabitants per square kilometre (342 per square mile). The Germans formed 44.69% of the population, 33.21% were Poles and 22.05% Czechs and Slavs. According to religion, 84% were Roman Catholics, 14% Protestants and the remainder were Jews. The local diet

Diet (assembly)

In politics, a diet is a formal deliberative assembly. The term is mainly used historically for the Imperial Diet, the general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, and for the legislative bodies of certain countries.-Etymology:...

was composed of 31 members, and Silesia sent 12 deputies to the Reichsrat

Reichsrat

There was a Reichsrat * Reichsrat * Reichsrat , in the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary * Reichsrat -See also:...

at Vienna. For administrative purposes Silesia was divided into 9 districts and 3 towns with autonomous municipalities: Opava

Opava

(Troppau), the capital, Bielsko-Biała

Bielsko-Biała

-Economy and Industry:Nowadays Bielsko-Biała is one of the best-developed parts of Poland. It was ranked 2nd best city for business in that country by Forbes. About 5% of people are unemployed . Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry...

(Bielitz) and Frýdek-Místek

Frýdek-Místek

Frýdek-Místek is a city in Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It is the administrative center of Frýdek-Místek District. It comprises two formerly independent towns, Frýdek and Místek, divided by the Ostravice River...

(Friedeck). Other principal towns were: Cieszyn/Těšín

Cieszyn

(Teschen); Slezská Ostrava

Slezská Ostrava

Slezská Ostrava , till 1919 Polnisch Ostrau is a district of the city of Ostrava, Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic. It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia, not counting Koblov and Antošovice lying north-west from the Oder river in the Hlučín Region.It comprises...

(Polnisch-Ostrau), the eastern part of Ostrava

Ostrava

; Krnov

Krnov

Krnov is an Upper Silesian city in the northeastern Czech Republic, in the Moravian-Silesian Region, the District of Bruntál, on the Opava River, near the Polish border....

(Jägerndorf); Karviná

Karviná

(Karwin); Bruntál

Bruntál

Bruntál is a town located near the western boundary of Moravian-Silesian Region, in Czech Silesia. A suitable position in the middle of the Jeseníky Mountains provides an ample number of touristic opportunities to the town...

(Freudenthal); Jeseník

Jeseník

Jeseník , Frývaldov until 1948 is a city and a district in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic.- Districts :* Bukovice * Dětřichov * Jeseník * Lázně Jeseník - History :...

(Freiwaldau); and Horní Benešov

Horní Benešov

Horní Benešov is a small town in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic.Benešov has a long mining tradition. It started as a mining settlement at the beginning of the 13th century. The town was officially founded in 1253, and the rights were confirmed in 1271 by the Bohemian King...

(Bennisch).

Interwar period and World War II

In the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

after the defeat of Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I, it was decided that the population of Upper Silesia should hold a plebiscite in order to determine the future of the province, with the exception of a 333 km² (128.6 sq mi) area around Hlučín

Hlucín

Hlučín is a town in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It is the center of the Hlučín Region. The population was 14,500 as of 2004....

(Hultschiner Ländchen), which was granted to Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

in 1920 despite having a German-speaking majority. The plebiscite, organised by the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

, was held in 1921. In Cieszyn Silesia

Cieszyn Silesia

Cieszyn Silesia or Těšín Silesia or Teschen Silesia is a historical region in south-eastern Silesia, centered around the towns of Cieszyn and Český Těšín and bisected by the Olza River. Since 1920 it has been divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic...

first there was an interim deal between Polish Rada Narodowa Księstwa Cieszyńskiego and Czech Národní výbor pro Slezsko about partition of past lands of the Duchy of Cieszyn

Duchy of Cieszyn

according to ethnic lines. However, that deal was not approved by the Czechoslovak government in Prague. Poland held general elections in the entire disputed area, and on 23 January 1919, Czech troops invaded the lands of Cieszyn Silesia and stopped on 30 January 1919 on the Vistula River near Skoczów

Skoczów

Skoczów is a town and the seat of Gmina Skoczów in Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland with 14,783 inhabitants . It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia....

. The planned plebiscite was not organised in the Cieszyn Silesia

Cieszyn Silesia

but was held in most of the other parts of the Upper Silesia. On 28 July 1920, the Spa Conference

Spa Conference

The Spa Conference was a meeting between the Supreme War Council and Weimar Republic in Spa, Belgium on 5–16 July 1920. It was the first post-war conference to include German representatives. The attendees included British and French Prime Ministers Lloyd George and Alexandre Millerand, German...

divided Cieszyn Silesia

Cieszyn Silesia

between Poland and the Czech Republic with the present-day border.

In 1918 there were various plans about the division of Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

. At the Paris Peace Conference

Paris Peace Conference, 1919

The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...

a commission for Polish affairs was created which was preparing proposals of the future Polish borders. In their first two proposals (of 27 March 1919 and of 7 May 1919) most of the future province was granted, together with Opole

Opole

Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...

, to Poland. Yet that was not accepted by the Big Four, and after David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

suggestion, a plebiscite

Upper Silesia plebiscite

was organized. Before it actually took place on 20 March 1920, two Silesian Insurrections instigated by Polish

Poles

inhabitants of the area were organized. After the referendum, in which in favor of Poland were 41% votes, a plan of division was created, which was leaving on the Polish side only a small piece of the territory. In those circumstances the Third Silesian Uprising took place. In its result a new plan of division was prepared but it still created a situation in which some (mostly rural) territories that voted mostly for Poland were granted to Germany and as well some urban territories with a German majority were granted to Poland. The Polish Sejm decided that the eastern-most Upper Silesian areas where majority voted for Poland, should become an autonomous area within Poland organised as the Silesian Voivodeship and with Silesian Parliament

Silesian Parliament

Silesian Parliament or Silesian Sejm was the governing body of the Silesian Voivodeship , an autonomous voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic between 1920 and 1945. It was elected in democratic elections and had certain influence over the usage of taxes collected in Silesia...

as a constituency and Silesian Voivodeship Council as the executive body. One of the central political figures that stirred these changes was Wojciech Korfanty

Wojciech Korfanty

Wojciech Korfanty , born Adalbert Korfanty, was a Polish nationalist activist, journalist and politician, serving as member of the German parliaments Reichstag and Prussian Landtag, and later on, in the Polish Sejm...

. The part of Silesia awarded to Poland was by far the best-developed and richest region of the newly formed state, producing most of Poland's industrial output.

The major part of Silesia, remaining in Germany

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

, was reorganised into the two provinces of Upper Silesia

Province of Upper Silesia

and Lower Silesia

Province of Lower Silesia

. In Silesia the synagogues in modern day Wrocław and in many other cities were destroyed during the Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

of 1938. In October 1938, Zaolzie

Zaolzie

Zaolzie is the Polish name for an area now in the Czech Republic which was disputed between interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia. The name means "lands beyond the Olza River"; it is also called Śląsk zaolziański, meaning "trans-Olza Silesia". Equivalent terms in other languages include Zaolší in...

(part of Cieszyn Silesia, the disputed area west of the Olza River

Olza River

is a river in Poland and the Czech Republic, the right tributary of the Oder River. It flows from the Silesian Beskids through southern Cieszyn Silesia in Poland and Frýdek-Místek and Karviná districts of the Czech Republic, often forming the border with Poland. It flows into the Oder River north...

: 876 km² (338.2 sq mi) with 258,000 inhabitants), was taken by Poland from Czechoslovakia following the Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement

The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...

that surrendered border areas of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. Czech Silesia with Slezská Ostrava

Slezská Ostrava

was incorporated into the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

Gau, while Hultschin was incorporated into Upper Silesia province.

World War II

With the invasion of Poland

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...

, Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

retook possession of the mostly Polish parts of Upper Silesia that had been lost after World War I. Additional lands seized in 1939 were Sosnowiec

Sosnowiec

Sosnowiec is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland, near Katowice. It is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a combined population of over two million people located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Brynica river .It is situated in...

(Sosnowitz), Będzin

Bedzin

Będzin is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland. Located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Czarna Przemsza river , the city borders the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metro area with a population of about 2 million.It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since its...

(Bendzin, Bendsburg), Chrzanów

Chrzanów

Chrzanów is a town in south Poland with 39,704 inhabitants . It is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship and is the capital of Chrzanów County.- To 1809:...

(Krenau), and Zawiercie

Zawiercie

Zawiercie is a city in the Silesian Voivodeship of southern Poland with 55,800 inhabitants . It is situated in the Kraków-Częstochowa highland near the source of the Warta River...

(Warthenau) counties and parts of Olkusz

Olkusz

Olkusz is a town in south Poland with 37,696 inhabitants . Situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship , it is the capital of Olkusz County...

(Ilkenau) and Żywiec

Zywiec

Żywiec is a town in south-central Poland with 32,242 inhabitants . Between 1975 and 1998, it was located within the Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship, but has since become part of the Silesian Voivodeship....

(Saybusch) counties. The German populations in Silesia frequently welcomed the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

and many thousands of Silesians were subsequently conscripted to the Wehrmacht. In 1940, the Germans started to construct the Auschwitz

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

and Groß-Rosen

Gross-Rosen concentration camp

KL Gross-Rosen was a German concentration camp, located in Gross-Rosen, Lower Silesia . It was located directly on the rail line between Jauer and Striegau .-The camp:...

forced labor / death camps. The later Project Riese

Project Riese

File:Project Riese - map.PNG|thumb|right|495px|Project Riese. Click on the locations to see details.rect 81 48 88 55 rect 171 248 178 255 rect 241 219 248 226 rect 235 235 242 242 rect 204 247 211 254 rect 260 241 267 248 rect 234 271 241 278...

was claimed to have killed thousands of prisoners. Following Allied bombing of Silesian refineries and plants such as Blechhammer

Blechhammer

The Blechhammer area was the location of Nazi Germany chemical plants, prisoner of war camps, and forced labor camps . Labor camp prisoners began arriving as early as June 17, 1942, and in July 1944, 400-500 men were transferred from the Terezin family camp to Blechhammer...

and Monowitz during the Oil Campaign of World War II

Oil Campaign of World War II

The Allied Oil Campaign of World War II was directed at facilities supplying Nazi Germany with petroleum, oil, and lubrication products...

, the "synthetic plants and crude oil refineries [were neutralized] by the advance of the Russian armies" .

Poland, Czech Republic and Germany

Polish part of Silesia

In 1945, the Polish part of Silesia was liberated from the German occupation by the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

and Polish People's Army. In the course of the same offensive

Silesian Offensives

The Silesian Offensives were two 1945 offensives conducted by the Soviet Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in World War II.-The offensives:...

the German part of Silesia was captured by the Red Army and soon put under Polish administration. By then a large portion of the German population had fled or were evacuated

World War II evacuation and expulsion

Forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the pre-war settlement...

from Silesia out of fear of revenge by Soviet soldiers, but many returned after the German capitulation. Under the terms of the agreements at the Yalta Conference

Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...

and the Potsdam Agreement

Potsdam Agreement

, both in 1945, German Silesia east of the rivers Oder and Lusatian Neisse

Lusatian Neisse

The Lusatian Neisse is a long river in Central Europe. The river has its source in the Jizera Mountains near Nová Ves nad Nisou, Czech Republic, reaching the tripoint with Poland and Germany at Zittau after , and later forms the Polish-German border on a length of...

was transferred to Poland (see Oder-Neisse line

Oder-Neisse line

The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...

Before the war the Silesian German population amounted to more than four million inhabitants. In the course of the war however a big portion of them died or fled before the oncoming front. Most of the remaining ones were forcibly expelled

Expulsion of Germans after World War II

The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...

after the conflict had ended and some of them were imprisoned in labour camps, e.g. Lambsdorf (Łambinowice) and Zgoda labour camp

Zgoda labour camp

The Zgoda labour camp was a concentration camp for Germans, Silesians and Poles, set up in 1945 by the Soviet NKVD in Świętochłowice, Silesia. It was controlled by the communist secret police until its closure by the Stalinist authorities of Poland in November of the same year.Between 1943 and...

. Many perished in those camps and many more during the flight towards the Soviet Occupation Zone across the Oder and Neisse Rivers. Refugees first arrived in what would become East Germany and many of the victims of the firebombing of Dresden were Silesian refugees. Some of the population stayed in the Russian zone while others left for the Western Allies Occupation Zones or what would become West Germany. In addition, some Silesians immigrated to Austria, the United States, South America or Australia. More than 30,000 Silesian men (the majority of which had German roots, some having partially Polish roots) were deported to Soviet mines

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

and Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, most of whom never returned. Other Germans from Silesia emigrated or were driven out of the region in the years after the war by the Polish government who, after the atrocities of World War II, took on a very nationalistic anti-German policy in what they deemed the Recovered Territories

Recovered Territories

Recovered or Regained Territories was an official term used by the People's Republic of Poland to describe those parts of pre-war Germany that became part of Poland after World War II...

, (see German exodus from Eastern Europe

German exodus from Eastern Europe

The German exodus from Eastern Europe describes the dramatic reduction of ethnic German populations in lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. The exodus began in the aftermath of World War I and was implicated in the rise of Nazism. It culminated in expulsions of Germans from...

and Emigration from Poland to Germany after World War II).
Soon after the war representatives of the Polish government came into the Recovered territories

Recovered Territories

Recovered or Regained Territories was an official term used by the People's Republic of Poland to describe those parts of pre-war Germany that became part of Poland after World War II...

including the former German part of Silesia. In 1946 those territories were incorporated into existing Voivodeships or divided into new ones. In Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

a Silesian-Dąbrowa Voivodeship was established roughly composing of the pre-war Polish Silesian Voivodeship and the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in the east and of the region of Opole in the west. This Voivodship was divided in 1950 creating distinct Katowice

Katowice Voivodeship

Katowice Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in the years 1975–1998, superseded by the Silesian Voivodeship...

and Opole

Opole Voivodeship

- Administrative division :Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties : 1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas.The counties are listed in the following table .- Economy :...

Voivodeships. The rest of the region was divided between Wrocław Voivodeship and Poznań Voivodeship

Poznan Voivodeship

-1975 to 1998:From 1975 to 1998, Poznań Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland, superseded by Greater Poland Voivodeship.Capital city: Poznań.Major cities and towns :...

. In 1950 the Lower Silesian districts of Brzeg

Brzeg

Brzeg is a town in southwestern Poland with 38,496 inhabitants , situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on the left bank of the Oder...

and Namysłów from Wrocław Voivodeship were added to the newly formed Opole Voivodeship while the westmost region of Poznań Voivodeship was separated from its main part and formed the Zielona Góra Voivodeship

Zielona Góra Voivodeship

Zielona Góra Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in years 1950–1998, superseded by Lubusz Voivodeship. Its capital city was Zielona Góra.-Major cities and towns :...

.

Not the whole population of the formerly German Silesia was expelled after the war. Over 1 million Silesians who considered themselves Poles or were treated as such by the authorities due to their language and customs were allowed to stay after they were verified as Poles in a special verification process. It involved declaring Polish nationality

Poles

and an oath of allegiance to the Polish nation.

The industry of Silesia, in particular the substantial industry of Upper Silesia, suffered comparatively little damage during World War II due to its relative inaccessibility to Allied

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

bombing

Strategic bombing during World War II

Strategic bombing during World War II is a term which refers to all aerial bombardment of a strategic nature between 1939 and 1945 involving any nations engaged in World War II...

, a Soviet Army enveloping maneuver

Pincer movement

The pincer movement or double envelopment is a military maneuver. The flanks of the opponent are attacked simultaneously in a pinching motion after the opponent has advanced towards the center of an army which is responding by moving its outside forces to the enemy's flanks, in order to surround it...

in January 1945, and perhaps Albert Speer

Albert Speer

Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...

's slowness or refusal to implement the scorched earth

Scorched earth

A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...

policy. This generally intact industry now played a critical role in the post-war reconstruction and industrialization of Poland. That industry that was damaged or destroyed (mostly in Opole and Lower Silesia) was rebuilt after the war. After the war, all the main businesses were nationalized. Under the terms of the nationalisation statute of 1946 all German (not including Silesians who declared themselves Poles) property was confiscated without compensation. Large businesses that were owned by Polish-Silesians were confiscated as well but for them the statute provided a compensation. Afterwards they were operated by the state, with relatively minor changes or investments, till 1989. At the fall of communism

Revolutions of 1989

The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...

in 1989, the most industrialized parts of Silesia were in decline. Since 1989, Silesia has been transitioning to a more diverse, service-based economy.
After World War II, the formerly German part of the region was substantially repopulated by Poles, many of whom had themselves been expelled from eastern Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union (see Polish population transfers (1944–1946)) and transferred from the Soviet Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. However those who declared themselves Poles in 1945 and afterwards were allowed to stay and today form a small German-speaking population in the region around Opole

Opole

Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...

(Oppeln), as well as some Slavic speaking and bilingual population of Upper Silesia who either consider themselves Poles or poses just a regional-Silesian identity. In the official Polish census, 153,000 people declared German nationality, though up to 500,000 or more may be of German ancestry. The German-Polish Silesian minority is active in politics and has pressed for the right to again freely use the German language in public which has been largely successful.
In 1975 a new administrative division of Poland was introduced. The former Voivodeships were divided into smaller ones creating a number of 49 from the previous 17. In the south of the country there were 9 Voivodeships that completely or partly lied within the historical borders of the Silesia region:

Zielona Góra Voivodeship
Zielona Góra Voivodeship
Zielona Góra Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in years 1950–1998, superseded by Lubusz Voivodeship. Its capital city was Zielona Góra.-Major cities and towns :...
Jelenia Góra Voivodeship
Jelenia Góra Voivodeship
Jelenia Gora Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in the years 1975–1998, superseded by the Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
Legnica Voivodeship
Legnica Voivodeship
Legnica Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in the years 1975–1998, superseded by Lower Silesian Voivodeship. Its capital city was Legnica.-Major cities and towns :* Legnica...
Wałbrzych Voivodeship
Wrocław Voivodeship
Opole Voivodeship
Opole Voivodeship
- Administrative division :Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties : 1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas.The counties are listed in the following table .- Economy :...
Katowice Voivodeship
Katowice Voivodeship
Katowice Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in the years 1975–1998, superseded by the Silesian Voivodeship...
Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship
Częstochowa Voivodeship
Czestochowa Voivodeship
Częstochowa Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland in years 1975–1998, superseded mainly by Silesian Voivodeship, with a few eastern gminas attached to the freshly created Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship...

In 1945, following World War II, the autonomy of the former Silesian Voivodeship was not reestablished. The region was from thereafter treated equally with other Polish regions which, because of its specificity, is sometimes considered wrong by a relatively small part of its inhabitants. After the fall of communism in 1989, the parliament of Poland did not return autonomy to Polish Silesia. Since 1991, the Silesian Autonomy Movement

Silesian Autonomy Movement

The Silesian Autonomy Movement is a movement officially declaring its support for the autonomy of Silesia as part of a unified Europe. The association was founded in January 1990 by Rudolf Kołodziejczyk and is based in the Polish part of Upper Silesia...

has tried peaceful dialogue to convince the Polish parliament to return autonomy, though so far their efforts have been unsuccessful. The support for this organisation is however rather moderate, reaching 10.4% of votes in the Bieruń

Bierun

Bieruń is a town in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland, about south of Katowice. The town belongs to the Silesian Voivodeship since its formation in 1999, previously to Katowice Voivodeship and, before World War II, was part of the Polish Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship.-Geography:It is located...

–Lędziny

Ledziny

Lędziny is a town in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. It borders the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a population of 2 million which is located in the Silesian Highlands....

county in the last Polish local elections of 2006

Polish local elections, 2006

The 2006 Polish local elections were held in two parts. with its first round on November 12 and the second on November 26, 2006. In the election's first round, voters chose 39,944 gmina councillors, 6,284 powiat councillors and 561 deputies to provincial voivodeship sejmiks...

.

Since 1998 the Polish part of the region is divided between the Lubusz

Lubusz Voivodeship

- Administrative division :Lubusz Voivodeship is divided into 14 counties : 2 city counties and 12 land counties. These are further divided into 83 gminas....

, Lower Silesian

Lower Silesian Voivodeship

Lower Silesian Voivodeship, or Lower Silesia Province , is one of the 16 voivodeships into which Poland is currently divided. It lies in southwestern Poland...

, Opole

Opole Voivodeship

and Silesian

Silesian Voivodeship

Silesian Voivodeship, or Silesia Province , is a voivodeship, or province, in southern Poland, centering on the historic region known as Upper Silesia...

Voivodeships.

German Part of the former province of Lower Silesia

After the war a part of the historical region of Lusatia

Lusatia

Lusatia is a historical region in Central Europe. It stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Elbe valley in the west, today located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Lower Silesian and Lubusz voivodeships of western Poland...

that for over a century formed the most westward part of the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia

Province of Lower Silesia

remained in Germany. Due to this facts some of the inhabitants of this region still consider themselves Silesia

Silesia

n and cultivate some Silesian customs. One of their special privileges is the right to use the Lower Silesian flag and coat of arms which is guaranteed to them by the Saxon Constitution of 1992. The Evangelical Church of Silesian Upper Lusatia meanwhile merged with the one of Berlin and Brandenburg to form the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia

Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia

The Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia is a Protestant church body in the German states of Brandenburg, Berlin and a part of Saxony. The seat of the church is in Berlin. It is the most important Protestant denomination in the area....

Czech part of Silesia

Before the war Czech Silesia

Czech Silesia

was settled by large German and Polish-speaking populations. Following the Second World War, the Czech Silesia and Hlučínsko were returned to Czechoslovakia and the ethnic Germans were expelled

Expulsion of Germans after World War II

. The Polish minority

Polish minority in the Czech Republic

The Polish minority in the Czech Republic is a Polish national minority living mainly in the Zaolzie region of western Cieszyn Silesia. The Polish community is the only national minority in the Czech Republic that is linked to a specific geographical area. Zaolzie is located in the north-eastern...

however still exists, especially in the Zaolzie

Zaolzie

region, where it amounts up to 40 000 people.

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