Bilingual town signs in Ople powiat

[Mikula]

A couple weeks ago I visited Opole.
I was surprised that towns and villages around this town had bilingual Polish-German town signs
(Prószków - Proskau).
I know that in this area lived (also) Germans before, but in Prudnik powiat (what had German population, too),
are town-sign just in polish language, only.

[Peterski]

I know that in this area lived (also) Germans before

Yeah, it still has them. Germans were never deported from Opole Region because they were considered as Germanized Poles.

Here is an article (published in 1939) about the Polish minority in Germany (within pre-1939 borders of Germany, of course):

https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/Content/360...39_004_005.pdf

^^^ Data for Provinz Oberschlesien (1919-1945) is on pages 226-233 (or 26-33 / 110 of the PDF file).

In that area there were, according to German census of 1925 - 153,689 Poles and 368,075 Bilinguals ("Poles-Germans").

For comparison, in 1950 there were in this area 806,766 autochthons (pre-war inhabitants) out of 1,398,151 inhabitants:

Spoiler!

To sum up:

1. Weimar Germany's census of 1925 counted 153,689 Poles and 368,075 Polish-German Bilinguals in Provinz Oberschlesien

2. After WW2 almost 1 million people were classified as "autochthonous Poles" in this region (and not deported to Germany)

So a lot of people who were counted as German-speakers and Bilinguals before 1939 stayed in this area after 1945.

but in Prudnik powiat (what had German population, too),
are town-sign just in polish language, only.

In order for signs in German you need a certain percent of population who identify as Germans.

If they identify as Poles, Poles-Silesians or as Silesians - then you will not get signs in German.

[Ülev]

on YT you have some clips about it: https://youtu.be/dI70MXvKoPs, https://youtu.be/1X9d8MA3eds

[Peterski]

This is a nice book if you read German, Mikula:

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_CqpCAAAAIAAJ

Some fragments:



More excerpts:



And some more:



Another one in German:

https://books.google.pl/books?id=VN7vBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA13

And something in English:

https://archive.org/details/polesunderprussi00kozi

[Mikula]

Thanks a lot for the explanation and interesting sources. I knew that Germans are one of ethnical minorities in Poland, but I did not know that they are so numerous.

[Peterski]

Check also Joseph Partsch's book "Schlesien", two volumes:

http://www.sbc.org.pl/dlibra/docmeta...&dirds=1&tab=1

https://www.sbc.org.pl/dlibra/public...d=3316&dirds=1

And here a book in German about ethnically Polish Silesians:

https://archive.org/details/diepoleninobersc00webeuoft

And "Cuius Regio" series in English, five volumes in total:

Volume I covers years 1000-1526:

http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/Cont...egio_vol_1.pdf

Volume II covers years 1526-1740:

http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/Cont...egio_vol_2.pdf

Volume III begins with Prussian takeover of Silesia in the 1740s:

http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/dlib...=79021&lang=en

Volume IV (starts with WW1) and V cover the 20th century.