POLISH CHARACTER OF UPPER SILESIA according to official Prussian sources AND THE RESULTS OF THE PLEBISCITE B Y Ing. CHARLES T. F1RICH. Foreword by W. Trqmpczynski Speaker of the Polish Diet ENGLISH TEXT BY WALDEMAR A. PRZEDPELSKt. A*\ 3 * Published by the Central Polish Plebiscite Cofhmittei. " Warsaw, Diet Building, May 1921. POLISH CHARACTER OF UPPER SILESIA according to official Prussian sources AND THE RESULTS OF THE PLEBISCITE B Y Ing. CHARLES T. FIRICH. Foreword by W. Trqmpczynski Speaker of the Polish Diet ENGLISH TEXT BY WALDEMAR A. PRZEDPELSKl. Published by the Central Polish Plebiscite Committee, Warsaw, Diet Building. May 1921. To the Memory of the Heroic Upper Silesians who fell on the Field of Honour for the Freedom of their Country and that Truth and Justice might Prevail. # # The course of the plebiscites, resulting from the Versailles Treaty, has proved, that a plebiscite is perhaps the worst ^method possible to accomplish those two great tasks which the world pledged herself to try to accomplish after the great war: the drawing of frontier lines according to the prin­ ciple of self-determination of nations, and removal of the causes of future international conflict. In deciding the conditions and conduct of the plebiscites it was forgotten that the plebiscite is to be the means to TDring the out truth i.e. the true wish of the population sub­ mitted to the plebiscite. On the contrary almost everything was done to obscure the truth because the less conscientious part of the population were permitted to perpetrate outrages and to cheat grossly and flagrantly If giving of the right to vote to the emigrants was such a staggering blow against truth, then what was the power of that unjustified concession, given to Germany, which permitted the emigrants to vote simultaneously with the inhabitants. The purpose and result of this concession was to hide the actual will of the inhabitants of Upper Silesia under that of a mass German controlled emigrants. The final result of this decision was that these swarms of emigrants, brought in at the expense of the German Government, were able to terrorize completely the poor Polish population in the northern and western districts of the plebiscite territory, these very districts, which were largely Polish. The system of voting, as used in this plebiscite, that of handing to every voter two official slips with „Poland" and „Germany" written on them respectively, facilitated the Ger­ mans to use bribery. They openly bought the slips marked „Poland". This was proved in thousands of cases. Finally the fact that the German bureaucracy was left at its post enabled its members to terrorize the Polish population, chiefly in the agricultural districts to such an extend, that the plebiscite became a tragedy. So it is not to be wondered at that the plebiscite results are much more unfavourable for the Polish population than any — 4 shown by Prussian statistics concerning the nationality of the? entire population and of the school children. The impression left by this plebiscite is that in the cir­ cles which are to play the part of the arbitrators, it has been forgotten that we do not live in the times of the Vienna Con­ gress, when nations could be partitioned according to the~ interest of the arbitrators themselves. The arbitrator must be a judge. A judge, who purposely closes his eyes on the falsifications done by one of the partys to be judged, violates the duties of his office. The purpose of this little book is to show the truth not only to the arbitrators but also to all those people of the world who are unwilling to see the national hope of a people long oppressed crushed once more under the iron heel ofr Prussian Despotism. (—) TRAMPCZYtiSKI Warsaw May 1921. Speaker of the Diet^ CONTENTS. Page Foreword by W.Tr^mpczynski the Speaker of the Diet 3 From the author ........ 7 Introduction 9 Polish character of Upper Silesia and the results of the plebiscite . 13 A. Upper Silesia 13 B. Polish Character of Upper Silesia . 14 C. The plebiscite of 29th March 1921 . 15 D. The results of the plebiscite contradict the actual Polish strength in Upper Silesia 16 E. The reasons of the apparent declaring of a part of Upper Silesia for Germany . 17 a) Plebiscite emigrants . 17 b) The influence of the large estates. 20 F. The results and the worth of the plebiscite. 21 The sources . ..... 23 Annexes. ......... 27 General remarks ........ 37 DIAGRAMS AND MAPS. Table No. Upper Silesia ........ 1 Poland in 1190 . la The Proportion of Polish and German elements in years 1828—1867 2 Ethnographical maps of Upper Silesia: Copy from the German atlas by Dr. Partsch 3 a Copy from the German atlas by Andre . 3 b Copy of the map by Ing. J. Spett . 3 c Polish territory in Upper Silesia according to offi­ cial German sources . 3d The population of the districts in Dec. 1, 1910. * 4 a The population of the rural comunities in Dec.l, 1910 4 b Polish school children in Upper Silesia, according to the records of 1911 5 The general result of the voting . 5 a The comparison of the percentage of Poles in Up­ per Silesia, according to the censuses in 1890 to 1919 with the results of the plebiscite 6 Comparison between the percentage of Upper Sile- sian Polish children, according to the lists made in 1906 and 1919, and the results of the ple­ biscite ......... 7 The lowering of the percentage of Poles in Upper — 6 — Table Nc Silesia during the plebiscite as compared with the censuses ...... 8 The comparison of the percentage of Polish school children in Upper Silesia, according to the lists of 1906 and 1911 with the result of the; plebiscite ........ 9 The influence of the emigrants on the Upper Silesian plebiscite . ....... 10 The emigration from Upper Silesia, according to the plebiscite, as compared with the actual emi­ gration according to official lists 11 The emigration and imimigration in the Upper Sile­ sian districts in the years 1871 to 1905 • . 12 The result of the voting of the Upper Silesian in­ habitants together with the emigrants . 13 a The result of the voting of the Upper Silesian in­ habitants without the emigrants . 13 b> The relation between the plebiscite emigrants and the actual emigration in years 1871—1905 . 14 Percentage of emigrants in relation to the total number of voting inhabitants of Upper Silesia 15 Relation between the plebiscite emigrants and the votes in favour of Germany . 15 a The influence of the large landed estates in Upper Silesia on the result of the Plebiscite . 16 The results of the plebiscite in the two blocks: Po­ lish and German . .17 Polish population in the plebiscite area and the results of the plebiscite . • . .18 NUMERICAL TABLES. Tables The partition of Upper Silesia according to Ver­ sailles Treaty ....... I Poles in Upper Silesia ...... II The plebiscite of March 29th 1921 . Ill Relation of the official censuses to the communal elections and the results of the plebiscite . IV Comparison of the official lists of the school children with the result of the plebiscite ... V Relation between the plebiscite emigrants and the actual emigration ...... VI The influence of large estates of Upper Silesia on the result of the plebiscite . VII The results of the plebiscite in the Polish and German blocks . VIII FROM THE AUTHOR. The results of the plebiscite in Upper Silesia are so different from the known Polish character of this territory and the conditions under which this plebiscite took place were so unusual, that the entire Polish nation exasperated at such an outrage against the will of the population-could not and can­ not acknowledge quietly this fact. It is no wonder that when the news arrived that even such results of the plebiscite as there were were not to be taken for a basis in forming the decision of the Allies the inhabi­ tants of Upper Silesia were compelled to perform acts of despair, to prove to the world that after all they were Poles and that their wish to belong to Poland must be complied with. The great contradiction of the spontaneous movement of the population and the apparent results of the plebiscite must have some deeper causes which in the name of truth and justice must be studied and made clear. Being deeply moved by the tragic fate of the Upper Silesian inhabitants, who, after centuries of slavery, notwith­ standing the great words of the Versailles Treaty, are threa- tend with a yet worse fate-the return under the German yoke— 1 decided to study this problem to find the truth and show it to the world. This has proved to be very difficult as the official sta­ tements on the results of the plebiscite are not published as yet. Moreover it is not known whether it would comply with the interest of certain powerful factors to bring them into the light. As far as the limited time and the difficult conditions of work allowed I did my best to get at the truth itself basing my work on the authentic material available. The truth, as it is shown here, discloses the tragic fate of the Polish population of Upper Silesia. They expected that the Right and Justice will triumph. They have been deceived! — 8 — I was able to complete this work, which required enor­ mous efforts, only due to the kind assistance of several men. I can hardly find adequate words to express my grati­ tude, Let the consciousness that they helped a just cause be a reward for them.