Kattowitzer Volkswille generally called just Volkswille, was a German-language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 Social Democratic

Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 newspaper published from Kattowitz (today Katowice). The newspaper was founded in 1916 by the Social Democratic Party of Germany

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 (SPD) politician Otto Braun

Otto Braun

This article is about the Prime Minister of Prussia. For the German Communist and once the Comintern military adviser to the Chinese Communist revolution see Otto Braun ....

. Initially, the newspaper carried the devise 'Upper Silesian Free Press - Organ of the Upper Silesia Agitation District of the Social Democratic Party of Germany'.

As Kattowitz/Katowice was transferred to Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 after the Silesian Uprisings

Silesian Uprisings

The Silesian Uprisings were a series of three armed uprisings of the Poles and Polish Silesians of Upper Silesia, from 1919–1921, against German rule; the resistance hoped to break away from Germany in order to join the Second Polish Republic, which had been established in the wake of World War I...

, the devise of the newspaper was changed to 'Organ of the German Social Democratic Party of Poland for the Working People'. Volkswille became the central party organ of the German Social Democratic Party of Poland

German Social Democratic Party of Poland

German Social Democratic Party was a political party in Poland, founded on March 26, 1922.-Foundation:The party emerged out of a fusion of the Oberschlesien organizations of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Teschener-Schlesien...

 (DSPP), which had been formed out of the remains of SPD, USPD

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...

 and SDAPÖ

SPO

- Technology :SPO: Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Cloud Computing, Office 365. See Microsoft Online Services-Economics:* Secondary Public Offering, an equity capital market instrument...

 branches in areas that were now within the Polish republic. As 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...

 was divided between Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Poland, a new SPD organ (Oberschlesisches Volksblatt) was founded in the parts of Upper Silesia that remained in Germany.

When the DSPP merged into the German Socialist Labour Party in Poland (DSAP), Lodzer Volkszeitung became the new central party organ of the unified party. Volkswille continued to published though, being the DSAP organ in Katowice. In January 1931 the 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....

 DSAP organ Volksstimme was, due to lack of funds, merged into Volkswille.

In 1933, Volkswille was converted from a daily to a weekly newspaper. The cause was rather simple, the German Machtübernahme meant that financial subventions from Germany for Volkswille ceased. In 1935 all DSAP organs were merged into one, Volkszeitung-Volkswille-Volksstimme, published from Lodz

Lódz

Łódź is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, it had a population of 742,387 in December 2009. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is approximately south-west of Warsaw...

.

Editors

Karl Okonsky became editor of Volkswille on December 12, 1918. Between 1922-1924 the editor was Dr. Wilhelm Wolf, chairman of AfA-Bund. From 1924 to 1935 the DSPP chairman Johann Kowoll

Johann Kowoll

Johann Kowoll was a German socialist politician.In his young years, Kowoll had several jobs; as stenographer, office assistant, journalist, cottage worker and machine operator. In 1906 he joined the Free Trade Unions...

served as the Volkswille editor.

Edition

In January 1928 Volkswille was estimated to have a daily circulation of about 1,800-1,900. By 1932, the daily circulation had risen to around 4,000-5,000. But soon thereafter, circulation shrunk. In August 1933, the now-weekly newspaper had around 1,200 subscribers. Around 800 of them lived in the Katowice area and 400 in Bielsko.