Geography of Silesia - Demographics

Demographics

Modern Silesia is inhabited by Poles, Germans, Czechs and Silesians. The last Polish census of 2002 showed that the Silesians are the largest national minority in Poland, Germans being the second; both groups are located mostly in Upper Silesia. The Czech part of Silesia is inhabited by Czechs, Moravians, Silesians and Poles.

Before the Second World War, Silesia was inhabited mostly by Germans and Poles, with a Czech and Jewish minority. In 1905, a census showed that 75% of the population were Germans and 25% Poles. The German population tended to be based in the urban centres and in the rural areas to the north and west, whilst the Polish population was generally rural and in the east.

Silesia's Jewish community, who were concentrated around Breslau and Upper Silesia, numbered 48,003 (1.1% of the population) in 1890, decreasing to 44,985 persons (0.9%) by 1910. In Polish East Upper Silesia the number of Jews was around 90,000-100,000.

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Jewish population of Silesia was either placed in ghettos or expelled to the General Government. Those sent to ghettos would from 1942 be expelled to concentration and work camps. In August 1942 10,000 to 13,000 Silesian Jews were killed at Auschwitz. There were seventy thousand Jews in Lower Silesia at the end of the war.

The majority of Germans fled or were expelled from the present-day Polish and Czech parts of Silesia during and after World War II. From June 1945 to January 1947, 1.77 million Germans were expelled from Lower Silesia, and 310,000 from Upper Silesia. Today, most German Silesians and their descendants live in the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, many of them in the Ruhr area working as miners, like their ancestors in Silesia. In order to smooth their integration into West German society after 1945, they were placed into officially recognized organizations, like the Landsmannschaft Schlesien, with financing from the federal Western German budget. One of its most notable but controversial spokesmen was the CDU politician Herbert Hupka. Prevailing public opinion in Germany is that these organisations will achieve reconciliation with the Polish Silesians, which is gradually occurring.

The expulsion of Germans led to widespread underpopulation. The population of the town of Glogau fell from 33,500 to 5,000, and from 1939 to 1966 the population of Wrocław fell by 25%. Attempts to repopulate Silesia proved unsuccessful in the 1940s and 1950s, and it was not until the late 1970s that Silesia's population reached pre-war levels.