Upper Silesia

“ Upper Silesia particularly, because I had many personal ties there and because none of us could understand that even those severe stipulations of Versailles were not observed. It is a question of minorities which also played a very important part. Later I shall have to refer to this point more in detail, particularly in connection with the Polish crisis. But right from the beginning, German minorities, as is known, suffered very hard times. At that time it was again Upper Silesia particularly, and those territories which were involved and suffering under that problem, under that treatment. ”

“ When too late a prince of Anhalt-Pless assembled an armed force in Upper Silesia and attempted to relieve Breslau, but Thiele neglecting to make a sally at the decisive moment, the Poles in Prince of Pless's small army took to flight, and the whole plan miscarried. A small Prussian corps, amounting to about five hundred men, commanded by Losthin, afterward infested Silesia, surprised the French under Lefebvre at Kanth and put them to the rout, but were a few days after this exploit taken prisoners by a superior French force. ”

“ In Upper Silesia, they constitute 61 per cent of the population and number about 1,300,000. This majority has been maintained, in the face of aggressive Germanization, since the first half of the fourteenth century. The city of Posen contains 170,000 inhabitants, of whom 58 per cent are Poles. The farming districts of the province contain only about 10 per cent of Germans. Over 900,000 Poles live in East and West Prussia. In this section of Germany, they form a sufficiently compact body to be able to send representatives chosen from their own people to the Landstag and Reichstag. ”

“ They are an intelligent race—I have never been one of those who denied them intelligence. But they can never govern themselves; history has proved that over and over again. In my twenty-three years’ residence in Upper Silesia I have seen how the laborers’ houses have improved, how they have thrived and reached a far higher plane of culture under German rule. ”

“ To these belongs the upper Silesian coal-basin, which occupies a considerable area in south-eastern Silesia. North of the middle districts of the Elbe country the heights are called the Fläming hills. Westward lies as the last link of this series the Lüneburger Heide or Heath, between the Weser and Elbe, north of Hanover. A second tract, of moderate elevation, sweeps round the Baltic, without, however, approaching its shores. This plateau contains a considerable number of lakes, and is divided into three portions by the Vistula and the Oder. ”

“ Other adult Prussian citizens who were born within the territory of the province of Upper Silesia and who within one year after the establishment of the state (No. 2) declare that they desire to be citizens of Upper Silesia shall be citizens on the date of the filing of such declaration; (c) All citizens of the Reich who by birth, legitimation, or marriage follow the citizenship of any person specified in (a) or (b) . ”

“ A large part of Upper Silesia was actually lost shortly afterwards. On 30 January 1945, Speer again sent a memorandum to Hitler—Page 67 of the English text of the document book, Page 64 in the French text. I submit this document as Exhibit Number 22, and I quote only the following:
“After the loss of Upper Silesia, the German armament production will no longer be in a position to cover even a fraction of the requirements of the front as regards munitions, weapons and tanks, losses on the front, and equipment needed for new formations.” ”

“ In the east of Germany and the north-east of Austria the winding frontier through low plains is the result of the partition of Poland, but in spite of the absence of marked physical features it is for the most part in its details almost as typical as the mountainous frontier on the south of Germany. All the great rivers are crossed. Most of the line runs through a tract of strikingly scanty population, and the dense population in one part of it, where upper Silesia confines with Russian Poland, has been developed since the boundary was fixed. ”

“ There was “a deal of human nature” about most of them; and they can scarcely be called more illogical than those critics of the Peace settlement, whose hearts bleed for Ireland, Egypt, and India, but who are inconsolable over the destruction of “venerable, old Austria,” and who would much have preferred that the large Polish majority in Upper Silesia, made up mainly of oppressed peasants and workingmen, should have remained in the grip of the German minority of feudal magnates and capitalists. ”

“ But Poland wants to take away Upper Silesia from Germany notwithstanding the plebiscite and against the treaty, and which has in this action the aid of the metallurgical interests and the great interests of a large portion of the Press of all Europe. Poland, which has large nuclei of German populations, after having been enslaved, claims the right to enslave populations, which are more cultured, richer and more advanced. And besides the Germans it claims the right to enslave even Russian peoples and further to occupy entire Russian territories, and wishes to extend into Ukraine. ”

“ Add the later decisions of the Entente Powers in regard to Upper Silesia and Eastern Galicia, and we have the problem of a new country, hardly more than half of whose inhabitants are Poles, a country of thirty millions, wedged in between Russia and Germany, at the expense of both of whom Poland has been constituted and put in possession of railways and oil-wells and coal-mines and industries. ”

“ Indeed, we may say without exaggeration: the poorer the position of a proletarian stratum is, the more numerous is its blessing of children; occasional exceptions are, of course, conceded. This opinion is confirmed by Virchow, who wrote, in the middle of the last century; “as the English laborer in his deepest degradation, in the utmost emptiness of mind, knows only two sources of enjoyment, intoxication and cohabitation, so the population of Upper Silesia, until recent years, had concentrated all its desires and endeavors upon these two things. ”

“ From there the frontier is drawn roughly south-wards, and includes in the new state the territories of West Prussia, Posen and Upper Silesia. On the South the Carpathians form a natural frontier, and thus there is included in the new state the whole of Galicia. ”

“ Minorities to be protected.
Germany cedes to Poland the greater part of Upper Silesia, Posen and the province of West Prussia on the left bank of the Vistula. A Field Boundary Commission of seven, five representing the allied and associated powers and one each representing Poland and Germany, shall be constituted within fifteen days of the peace to delimit this boundary. ”

“ When questioned by counsel for the prosecution the witness Mettbach stated (Tr. pp. 9737-8) :
“Mr. Hardy: Were there any foreign nationals—that is, men other than Germans—used in these experiments?
“Witness Mettbach: Austrians and Burgenlaender and some from Upper Silesia and East Prussia.
“Q. No Czechs?
“A. No.
“Q. No Russians?
“A. No.
“Q. No Poles?
“A. A couple of them talked Polish but I think they came from Upper Silesia or East Prussia. That very often happens. Lots of Upper Silesians can talk Polish.” ”

“ Loudon is to be joined by 60,000 Russians, under a Feldmarschall Butturlin, not under sulky Soltikof, this Year; junction to be in Upper Silesia, in Neisse neighborhood. We take that Fortress," say the Vienna people; "it is next on the file after Glatz. Neisse taken; thence northward, cleaning the Country as we go; Brieg, Schweidnitz, Glogau, probably Breslau itself in some good interim: there are but Four Fortresses to do; and the thing is finished. Let the King, one to three, and Loudon in command against him, try if he can hinder it!" This is the Program in Vienna and in Petersburg. ”

“ German industry utilized Polish labour in large quantities, and was much concerned with the westward-flowing Slavonic stream which was said to be altering the character of the German people. On the other hand, a German stream of organization flowed eastward and south-eastward, and the industrial fever made great strides in the latter half of the nineteenth century in Bohemia, in Austria proper, in Upper Silesia, and in Poland. ”

“ Gleiwitz is the centre of the mining industry of Upper Silesia. Besides the royal foundry, with which are connected machine manufactories and boiler-works, there are other foundries, meal mills and manufactories of wire, gas pipes, cement and paper. ”

“ There is a total want of energy at Sans Souci and unfortunately the troops are showing symptoms of disaffection. Use was not made of them at the proper time, and agitators have been allowed to seize the opportunity for shaking their fidelity. The absence of all legal authority has again aroused the arbitrary greed of the rural populations, while the Chambers have failed to satisfy their anxiety for a definite settlement with the overlords: thus burning and pillage have been begun once more in Upper Silesia. Rothschild of Vienna who had a fine estate there has just seen it utterly ruined. ”

“ The manufactures comprise sheet-iron, boilers, zinc, brick and tiles, paraffin, petroleum, soap and candles. The Rothschild iron-works at Witkowitz are in the vicinity. (2) Polnisch-Ostrau (Polish Ostrau) , a mining town in Austrian Silesia, opposite Mährisch-Ostrau. Pop. (1900) 18,761, mostly Czech. It has large coal mines, which form the south-western portion of the extensive Upper Silesian coal fields, the largest Austrian deposit. ”

“ The Teutonic knights often required aid in their struggle against the pagans in Northern Europe, and the German princes frequently undertook warlike expeditions to Lithuania and the neighbouring districts as a substitute for the former crusades to the Holy Land, which many previous failures had rendered distasteful. After a great deal of desultory and indecisive fighting King John returned to Bohemia through Silesia, and succeeded in obtaining by treaty that part of Upper Lusatia which, after the death of Waldemar of Brandenburg, had remained in the hands of one of the Silesian princes. ”

“ Yes, sire, there is the fearful road through Silesia, that lamentable Austrian province. Ah! your majesty, this is a road of which in your blessed land you have no idea, and which is happily unknown in the other Austrian provinces. This poor Silesia has given only care and sorrow to the empress; but, perhaps, for that reason, she loves it so well, and would so gladly assist it. But even Nature seems to prevent the accomplishment of her noble intentions. ”

“ The richly-cultured fields waving with golden grain, the luxuriant, flowery meadows, which lie like broad green ribbons among them, the dark forests which bound the horizon do not it is true combine to form a scene of majestic magnificence, but the landscape is full of a tender, benignant beauty, and in the eyes of Herr von Osternau, who was agriculturist to his very heart's core, there was in all Silesia no more beautiful spot than his dear Osternau. ”

“ At all costs the Germans must defend Silesia, not only because it is the key to Germany from the south-east, but because it is the German Lancashire, a great industrial province which supplies the empire with much of its cotton, linen, woollen, and metal manufactures. Should this province be captured, Germany would suffer a blow from which she could hardly recover.
There is another but a less important reason why Silesia must be held by the Germans. Silesia is, as it were, a wedge between the Slav peoples of the east and those of Bohemia. ”

“ Among these, with whatever justice, certainly with very little generosity, was the king of Prussia, who, having assembled his troops, as was imagined, to support the pragmatick sanction, on a sudden entered Silesia with thirty thousand men, publishing a declaration, in which he disclaims any design of injuring the rights of the house of Austria, but urges his claim to Silesia, as rising "from ancient conventions of family and confraternity between the house of Brandenburg and the princes of Silesia, and other honourable titles." ”

“ But that life was too good to last. At twenty, a corporal of Prussian dragoons fell in love with me, or I with him—it is all the same. His regiment was ordered to Silesia, and away we all marched. But if ever there was a country of fogs, that was the one. There are, now and then, a few even in our delightful France; but, in Silesia, they have a patent for them, they have them par privilège; if men could eat them, there would never be a chance of starving in Silesia. ”

“ But there was a striking difference in the case of Silesia; for whilst in the other Sclave countries the people were crushed by the iron hand of the conqueror, and were compelled to adopt German habits of life, Silesia became the centre of a quiet, peaceful colonization, which spread itself far and wide over, the frontier towards the east. ”

“ The resolutions look upon this decree as a very indifferent substitute for German demands, upon the fulfillment of which the party must insist, namely the annexation of German-speaking districts of southern Bohemia to Upper Austria, of southern Moravia ot Lower Austria, and of northern Moravia and northeastern Bohemia, together with the industrial district of Moravian Ostrava to Silesia. At the southern end of the monarchy the party is opposed to all attempts to unite the South Slav districts with Croatia ”

“ From the Silesian side, again, Prince Leopold, whose head-quarters are about Striegau, intimates, That he cannot yet say, with certainty, what districts Prince Karl will occupy for winter-quarters in Bohemia. Prince Karl is vaguely roving about; detaching Pandours to the Silesian Mountains, as if for checking our victorious Nassau there;—always rather creeping northward; skirting Western Silesia with his main force; 30,000 or better, with Lobkowitz and Nadasti ahead. ”