The three major Polish paramilitary operations in Upper Silesia are commonly known as „uprisings,“ and will be therefore also called so in the following. One has nevertheless to keep in mind that the area with its indigenous population, and especially with its prosperous industrial area, was claimed by Germany and Poland at the same time, and that the Germans had the better arguments—given the fact that the area had been part of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries and was not a Polish territory taken away in the course of the partitions of the late eighteenth century. The conflict was about territory and economic assets, not about challenging an oppressive German regime by Polish freedom fighters.

—Jochen Böhler, Civil War in Central Europe, 1918-1921, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 108.

Bookmark the permalink.