Demographics in The Early 20th Century
The area east of the Oder in Upper Silesia was dominated by ethnic Poles, most of whom were lower class. A large proportion spoke a dialect of Polish, many also felt that they were a Slavic ethnic group of their own called Silesians. Simultaneously, most of the local elites - the landowners, businessmen, factory owners, local government, police and Catholic clergy - were German. There was a further division along the religious lines: almost all of the higher German Silesian officials were Protestant while the vast majority of Polish Silesians were Catholic.
In the German census of 1900, 65% of the population of that eastern part of Silesia was recorded as Polish speaking, decreasing to 57% in 1910. This was the result of forced Germanization as well as creating a category of "bilingual inhabitants" for the purpose of the census, which reduced the number of Polish-speaking Silesians. German scholar Paul Weber drew a language map that showed that in 1910 in majority of Upper Silesian districts east of the Oder river Polish-speaking Silesians were a majority, forming over 70% of the population.
Read more about this topic: Silesian Uprisings
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