Wojciech Korfanty

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Wojciech Korfanty in 1905

Wojciech Korfanty (20 April 1873 - 17 August 1939), born Albert Korfanty, was a Polish nationalist activist, journalist and politician, serving as member of the German parliaments Reichstag and Prussian Landtag, and later on, in the Polish Sejm. Briefly, he also was a paramilitary leader, known for organizing the Polish Silesian Uprisings in Germany's Upper Silesia.

He was known for his irredentist policies in the wake of World War I. He fought to protect Poles from discrimination and against the policy of Germanisation in Upper Silesia before the war. Wojciech was one of the chief advocates of joining Upper Silesia to the new Polish state after the war.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Korfanty was born the son of a coal miner in Sadzawka,1 part of Siemianowice (at the time Laurahütte), in Prussian Silesia, then German Empire. From 1895 until 1901, he studied philosophy, law, and economics, first at the Technical University in Charlottenburg (Berlin) (1895) and at the University of Breslau,2 where Marxist Werner Sombart was among his teachers and remained on friendly terms with him for many years.

A plaque dedicated by the University of Wrocław to celebrate the 130th anniversary of Korfanty's birth in 2003. The text reads: Student of philosophy, law, and economics at Wrocław [sic!] University; journalist, defender of Polishness, leader of the Silesian Uprisings; member of parliament and senator of the Polish Republic.

In 1901, Korfanty became editor-in-chief of the Polish language paper Górnoslązak (The Upper Silesian), in which he appealed to the national consciousness of the region's Polish-speaking population.3

In 1903, Korfanty was elected to the German Reichstag4 and in 1904 also to the Prussian Landtag,5 where he represented the independent "Polish circle" (Polskie koło). This was a significant departure from tradition, as the Polish minority in Prussia had so far predominantly supported the Catholic 'Centre Party' in elections.6 As the Catholic 'Centre Party' had refused to protect Polish rights, the Poles distanced themselves from the party, seeking protection elsewhere. In a polemic paper entitled Precz z Centrum ("Away with the Centre Party", 1901), Korfanty had urged the Catholic Polish-speaking minority in Germany to overcome their national indifference and shift their political allegiance from supra-national Catholicism to the cause of the Polish nation.7 However, Korfanty retained his Christian Democratic convictions and later returned to them in domestic Polish politics.8

Polish Restoration

At the end of World War I, in 1918, a Kingdom of Poland was proclaimed by Germany, which was replaced by an independent Polish state. In a Reichstag speech on October 25, 1918, Korfanty demanded that the provinces of West Prussia (including Ermeland and the city of Danzig (Gdańsk)), the Province of Posen, and parts of the provinces of East Prussia (Masuria) and Silesia (Upper Silesia) be included in the Polish state.9 After the war, during the Great Poland Uprising, Korfanty became a member of the Naczelna Rada Ludowa (Supreme People's Council) in Poznań (Posen), and a member of the Polish provisional parliament, the Constituanta-Sejm.10 He was also the head of the Polish plebiscite committee in Upper Silesia.11 He was one of the leaders of the Second Silesian Uprising in 192011 and the Third Silesian Uprising in 192112 — Polish insurrections, supported and financed by Warsaw, against German rule in Upper Silesia. The German authorities were forced to leave their positions by the League of Nations and the occupying French and Italian troops did not protect the country. Despite majority votes for Germany Poland took roughly half of the population and the most valuable mining districts, which were eventually attached to Poland. Korfanty was accused by Germans of organizing terrorism against the German civilians of Upper Silesia.13 They also accused him of ordering the murder of Silesian politician Theofil Kupka.14

Republican Politics

Mr. Korfanty was a member of the national Sejm from 1922 to 1930, and in the Silesian Sejm (1922-1935), where he represented a Christian Democratic view-point. He opposed the autonomy of the Silesian Voivodship, which he saw as an obstacle against its re-integration into Poland. However, Mr. Korfanty defended the rights of the German minority in Upper Silesia, because he believed that the prosperity of minorities enriched the whole society of a region.

He briefly acted as vice-premier in the government of Wincenty Witos (October-December of 1923). From 1924, he resumed with his journalist activities as editor-in-chief of the papers Rzeczpospolita ("The Republic", not to be confused with the modern paper of the same name) and Polonia.15 He opposed the May Coup of Józef Piłsudski and his subsequent establishment of Sanacja-government from a Christian Democratic position. In 1930, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Brest-Litovsk fortress, together with other leaders of the Centrolew, an alliance of left-wing and centrist parties in opposition to the ruling government.16

Exile

In 1935, he was forced to leave Poland17 and emigrated to Czechoslovakia, where from he participated in the "center-right" Morges Front group formed by émigrés Ignacy Paderewski and Władysław Sikorski. After the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, Mr. Korfanty moved on to France. He returned to Poland in the April of 1939, after Nazi Germany had cancelled the Polish-German non-aggression pact of 1934, hoping that the renewed threat to Polish independence would help overcome the domestic political cleavage. He was arrested immediately upon arrival. In August, he was released as unfit for prison due to his bad health, and died shortly afterwards, two weeks before World War II began with the German invasion of Poland. Although his cause of death remains unclear, it has been claimed that the treatment he received in prison may have caused his health to deteriorate.

Ex Post Facto

After 1945, when the Polish communists sought legitimation the as champions and guarantors of Polish independence, Mr. Korfanty was finally rehabilitated as a national hero due to his fight to protect the Polish population in Upper Silesia from discrimination, and his efforts to join the Polish population in Silesia to Poland. Today, many streets, places and institutions are named for him. When Opole Silesia became part of Poland in 1945, the town of Friedland in Oberschlesien, inside German Upper Silesia, was renamed Korfantów in his honour.

References

  1. ^ Rechowicz, Henryk (1971). Sejm Śląski, 1922-1939 (in Polish). Śląsk, p.340. 
  2. ^ (2003) Plaque (in Polish). Wrocław: Fundacja Odbudowy Democracji im. Ignacego Paderewskiego. 
  3. ^ Anderson, Margaret Lavinia (2000). Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany. Princeton University Press, p. 136. ISBN 0691048541. 
  4. ^ Tooley, T. Hunt (1997). National Identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the Eastern Border, 1918-1922. U of Nebraska Press, p. 15. ISBN 0803244290. 
  5. ^ Markert, Werner (1959). Polen. In Zusammenarbeit mit zahlreichen Fachgelehrten (in German). Böhlau Verlag, p. 730. 
  6. ^ Tägil, Sven (1999). Regions in Central Europe: The Legacy of History. C. Hurst & Co., p. 223. ISBN 1850655529. 
  7. ^ Orzechowski, Marian (1975). Wojciech Korfanty: biografia polityczna (in Polish). Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, p. 39. 
  8. ^ Crampton, R. J. (1997). Eastern Europe in the twentieth century - and after. Routledge, p. 42. ISBN 0415164222. 
  9. ^ Weber, Max (1988). Zur Neuordnung Deutschlands: Schriften und Reden 1918-1920. Mohr Siebeck, p. 390. ISBN 3168450537. 
  10. ^ Gordon, Harry (1992). The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania. University Press of Kentucky, p. 9. ISBN 0813117291. 
  11. ^ a b von Frentz, Christian Raitz (1999). A Lesson Forgotten: Minority Protection Under the League of Nations : the Case of the German Minority in Poland, 1920-1934. LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, p. 76. ISBN 3825844722. 
  12. ^ Halecki, Oskar; Polonsky, Antony (1978). A History of Poland. Routledge, p. 289. ISBN 0710086474. 
  13. ^ Popiołek, Kazimierz; Zieliński, Henryk (1963). Zródla do dziejów powstań śląskich. Zakład Narodowy im . Ossoliń skich, p. 330. 
  14. ^ Herde, Peter; Kiesewetter, Andreas (2001). Italien und Oberschlesien 1919-1922 (in German). Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, p. 25. ISBN 3826020359. 
  15. ^ Kaiser, Wolfram; Wohnout, Helmut (2004). Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918-45. Routledge, p. 155. ISBN 071465650X. 
  16. ^ von Frentz, Christian Raitz (1999). A Lesson Forgotten: Minority Protection Under the League of Nations : the Case of the German Minority in Poland, 1920-1934. LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, p. 173. ISBN 3825844722. 
  17. ^ Kaiser, Wolfram; Wohnout, Helmut (2004). Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918-45. Routledge, p. 165. ISBN 071465650X. 

Literature

  • Sigmund Karski: Albert (Wojciech) Korfanty. Eine Biographie. Dülmen 1990. ISBN 3-87466-118-0
  • Marian Orzechowski: Wojciech Korfanty. Breslau 1975.

External links

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  • This page was last modified on 17 November 2008, at 21:11.

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