Province of Silesia


The Province of Silesia was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1740 and established as an official province in 1815, then became part of the German Empire in 1871. In 1919, as part of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, Silesia was divided into the provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia. Silesia was reunified briefly from 1 April 1938 to 27 January 1941 as a province of Nazi Germany before being divided back into Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia.
Breslau was the provincial capital.

Geography

The territory on both sides of the Oder river formed the southeastern part of the Prussian kingdom. It comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Upper and Lower Silesia as well as the adjacent County of Kladsko, which the Prussian King Frederick the Great had all conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy under Empress Maria Theresa in the 18th century Silesian Wars. It furthermore included the northeastern part of Upper Lusatia around Görlitz and Lauban, ceded to Prussia by the Kingdom of Saxony according to the resolutions of the Vienna Congress in 1815.
The province bordered on the Prussian heartland of Brandenburg in the northwest, and on the Grand Duchy of Posen in the north, i.e. the Greater Polish lands that before the 18th century Partitions of Poland had belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the northeast, Upper Silesia bordered on remaining Congress Poland, the Russian partition that was incorporated as Vistula Land by 1867. In the east lay the Austrian share, the Lesser Polish kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria with the Free City of Kraków, and in the south the remaining Bohemian crown lands of Austrian Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia proper. The incorporated Upper Lusatian strip of land in the west touched the remaining territory of the Saxon kingdom.

History

Prussian Silesia, 1740–1815

The coronation of Maria Theresa as queen regnant of the Kingdom of Bohemia immediately triggered an invasion of the region of Silesia by King Frederick the Great of Prussia, thereby starting the War of the Austrian Succession. By the end of the First Silesian War in 1742, the Prussian forces had conquered almost all of the Habsburg crown land in Silesia, while according to the peace treaties of Breslau and Berlin, only some smaller parts in the extreme southeast, like the Duchy of Teschen as well as the southern parts of the duchies of Troppau and Nysa, remained possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy as Austrian Silesia. Attempts by Maria Theresa to regain the crown land in the Second Silesian War failed and she ultimately had to relinquish her claims over Silesia by the Treaty of Dresden.
The Third Silesian War, a theatre of the Seven Years' War, once again confirmed Prussian control over most of Silesia, and due to its predominantly Protestant population especially in Lower Silesia, it became one of the most loyal territories of the House of Hohenzollern. When the Prussian territories were reorganized upon the Congress of Vienna, the Province of Silesia was created out of the territories acquired by Prussia in the Silesian Wars, as well as those Upper Lusatian territories which King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony had to relinquish due to his indecisive attitude in the Napoleonic Wars. As the lands had been part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1806, Silesia was among the western Prussian provinces that laid within the borders of the German Confederation.

Province of Silesia

1815–1919

In 1815, after the Napoleonic wars, Prussian Silesia was formally reorganized into the Province of Silesia. The character of the province's eastern third, Upper Silesia, had been much lesser shaped by the medieval German Ostsiedlung. According to the census of 1905, about three-quarters of the Silesian inhabitants were German–speaking, while a majority of the population to the east of the Oder river spoke Polish. Because of the extended iron ore and black coal deposits of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, there was considerable industrialization and urbanization in Upper Silesia and many people from neighbouring Posen and Congress Poland immigrated at that time. In 1871, Silesia became part of the German Empire as a province of Prussia following the unification of Germany. The Upper Silesian Industrial Region was the second largest industrial agglomeration of the German Empire after the Ruhr area. Over decades the mainly Catholic Upper Silesian citizens in majority voted for the German Centre Party, while the Lower Silesian constituencies were dominated by the Free-minded Party and the Social Democrats. Ethnic tensions rose on the eve of World War I, with politicians like Wojciech Korfanty separating from the Centre Party and giving utterance to distinct Polish interests.
In 1919, a year after the war ended, the parts of Silesia remaining in Weimar Germany were re-organized into the two provinces of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia. After three Silesian Uprisings and the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite, the East Upper Silesian part of the province around the industrial town of Kattowitz was transferred to the Second Polish Republic and incorporated into the Silesian Voivodeship in 1922. Further, in 1920 the Hlučín Region was ceded to Czechoslovakia according to the Treaty of Versailles.

Division after WWI

Division of:Area in 1910 in km2Share of territoryPopulation in 1910After WW1 part of:Notes
Lower Silesia27,105 km2100%3.017.981Divided between:
to Poland526 km22%1%Poznań Voivodeship
to Germany26,579 km298%99%Province of Lower Silesia
Upper Silesia13,230 km2 100%2.207.981Divided between:
to Poland3,225 km2 25%41% Silesian Voivodeship
to Czechoslovakia325 km2 2%2% Hlučín Region
to Germany9,680 km2 73%57% Province of Upper Silesia

1939–1945

On 1 April 1938 the Province of Silesia was re-established by Nazi Germany by uniting the existing Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia provinces, then following the conquest of Poland, the border was extended eastwards when parts of Polish Silesia were merged into the province. On 27 January 1941, during World War II, the province of Silesia was divided again by reverting into Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia.
Upon the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line according to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, most of the Prussian Silesia Province became part of Poland, incorporated into the Lubusz, Lower Silesian, Opole and Silesian Voivodeships. The German-speaking population left or was expelled following World War II, though a minority remains. A smaller western part of the former Silesia Province lies within modern German states of Saxony and Brandenburg.

Administration