Nationalism on the Margins - Brendan Karch

The democratic Weimar era proved a crucial turning point in the growing divisions
between activists and nationally apathetic Upper Silesians, and thus is the focus of two
separate chapters. Chapter four addresses the failure of the Polish nationalists on the
German side of newly partitioned Upper Silesia to nationalize the population, despite a
greatly augmented social-cultural program. Attempts to target local Polish speakers –
especially youth – through theater and singing groups found short-term success in the later
1920s, but failed to convey an enduring sense of nationalist belonging. The increasingly
insular group of nationalist activists regularly exaggerated threats and violence against
Poles, while at the same time lamenting the apathy of their own Polish-speaking flock
towards their nationalization project. Schools and church catechism remained particularly
potent sites of national apathy, as parents increasingly chose a bilingual or German
education for their children on grounds of social integration. The Catholic Center Party
experienced a resurgence as the protector of these bilingual rights and practices – a position
it had established in the plebiscite period by securing provincial autonomy for the region
and greater control over cultural policies. Polish nationalists, meanwhile, saw their electoral
support plummet over the course of the Weimar period, and entered the Nazi era in
disarray, with another internal revolt among activists. While these activists looked back on
the 1920s in disappointment, many felt an affinity – counter-intuitive though it may seem
– with the new Nazi regime, in that both sides now advocated the racial unmixing of
societies and an end to practices of assimilation and integration.
While efforts to create a Polish national community around Oppeln/Opole resolutely
failed in the Weimar era, so too did efforts to forge German national loyalty among local
citizens, as shown in chapter five. The Polish and German national projects were
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