Wojciech Korfanty

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Wojciech Korfanty

Wojciech Korfanty , born as Adalbert Korfanty (born April 20, 1873 in the Sadzawki colony near Siemianowitz / Laurahütte ; † August 17, 1939 in Warsaw ) was a Polish journalist, member of the German Reichstag and Prime Minister of Poland .

Its historical evaluation is different; for the German side he was a Polish nationalist and irregulars , for the Poles a Silesian protagonist, for the Silesians the father of the Silesian autonomy in Poland. As the main initiator of the founding statute of the Silesian Voivodeship , he contributed significantly to the establishment of the Silesian Autonomous Voivodeship and the Silesian Parliament in Katowice . In the vote of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza , he was voted the most important Silesian of the 20th century, ahead of the former voivod Jerzy Ziętek and the film director Kazimierz Kutz .

Life

Wojciech Korfanty (1905)
Memorial plaque ( University of Wroclaw )

Adalbert (Wojciech) Korfanty was the son of a family of miners. From 1879 he attended an elementary school in Siemianowitz, then from 1885 the Royal High School in Kattowitz (today's Adam Mickiewicz High School ), where he met Konstanty Wolny . In the high school they founded a secret association for the dissemination of Polish literature and culture. Even while he was still at school, he established relationships with Propolian activists in the province of Poznan and took part in Propolian meetings. These activities resulted in his expulsion from school on August 14, 1895, shortly before graduation. Thanks to Józef Kościelski , a member of the Reichstag from the Prussian province of Posen, he was able to take his Abitur exams externally, so that he could begin his studies at the Technical University of Charlottenburg in 1895 . After a year he moved to the University of Wroclaw , where he studied philosophy , economics and law .

Korfanty, initially a member of the Catholic German Center Party , was the first member of the German Reichstag with a mandate from the Polish National Democratic Party ( Poland Party ) from 1903 to 1912 . His constituency was Katowice - Zabrze . After an interruption due to a financial scandal, he entered the Reichstag again in 1918 through a by-election, this time in the constituency of Gleiwitz .

In the period from 1904 and 1918 Korfanty was also a member of the Prussian Landtag , where he stood up for the Polish population. Shortly before the end of World War I , in his Reichstag speech of October 25, 1918, he pleaded for the connection of German eastern territories to Poland . The basis of his speech was the 13th point of the 14-point program of the "official peace goals of the Allies" (formulated by US President Woodrow Wilson ), which provided for the restoration of an independent Polish state, and what was important for Upper Silesia was not more the historical borders before the partitions of Poland meant, but all "areas inhabited by an undeniably Polish population".

After the end of the First World War, Korfanty went to the re-established state of Poland and Polonized his first name. Because of his political experience and knowledge of the Upper Silesian situation, Korfanty was appointed Polish plebiscite commissioner by the Warsaw government.

Armed vehicle with the inscription Korfanty

Wojciech Korfanty was the organizer of the uprisings in Upper Silesia , which aimed at connecting Upper Silesia to Poland. One of the improvements to the Versailles Treaty that the German government delegation was able to achieve before it was signed was the implementation of a referendum in Upper Silesia . In the event of a tight voting relationship, the contract provided for the possibility of dividing the area. The Polish Freikorps Polska Organizacja Wojskowa Górnego Śląska of the secret Polish Military Organization ( POW , Polish Polska Organizacja Wojskowa ) dissolved on the morning of August 17, 1919 in Paprotzan (Polish Paprocany, now part of Tychy at that time in the district of Pleß , Polish Pszczyna ), an uprising that was suppressed by the corps of the Black Reichswehr , including Hermann Ehrhardt's brigade , in the fighting for Upper Silesia. The area was now administered by the Inter-Allied Government and Plebiscite Commission for Upper Silesia and Korfanty was entrusted with organizing the referendum. The Polish Plebiscite Commissariat was based in Bytom (Upper Silesia) , where the headquarters of the Korfanty Freikorps operating under the code name Association of Former Prisoners of War was located in the Hotel Schlesischer Hof .

The security situation in Upper Silesia became more and more unstable and terror and counter-terror dominated the scene. Shortly before the outbreak of the 2nd Korfanty uprising (on August 20, 1920), German nationalists carried out an unsuccessful attempt to murder Józef Rymer , the Polish negotiator of the Paris Upper Silesia Conference, a member of the Polish National Assembly and representative of the Polish plebiscite commissioner. Shortly afterwards (on November 20, 1920), Polish nationalists murdered their former companion and head of the Upper Silesian League , Theofil Kupka .

In order to end the tensions between the ethnic groups and to stabilize the situation in Upper Silesia, a referendum (plebiscite) was set for March 20, 1921. In the run-up, both the German and the Polish side made every effort to win over those eligible to vote. While the Poles recalled an alleged common Slavic past and promised material advantages (e.g. the so-called “Korfanty cow” became known), the Germans conjured up an allegedly threatening Polish chaos and economic decline. The supervision by the Allied troop contingent and the voting police made it possible to cast a relatively safe vote, to which around 180,000 Germans born in Upper Silesia also came in 250 special trains. Ultimately, Korfanty could no longer prevent the vote, which resulted in a clear rejection of Poland in relation to the entire voting area. After the announcement of the result, which with 59.6% resulted in a clear decision for Upper Silesia to remain with Germany, Korfanty again opted for a violent solution and triggered the third uprising on the night of May 2 or 3, 1921. In the fighting on St. Annaberg , the Self-Protection Oberschlesien (SSOS), formed from the German Freikorps, with the support of the Allies, finally defeated the Korfanty militants on May 21, 1921.

Korfanty went back into politics, he was the designated Polish Prime Minister from July 16 to July 31, 1922; due to massive pressure from Józef Piłsudski , however, he could not take office. Thereupon he withdrew from political Warsaw to Katowice . He founded a press group, whose newspapers were oriented towards Christian democracy, and took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board of the Polish-French coal consortium, which took over the mines of the expropriated German industrialists.

From 1922 to 1930 he was a member of the Sejm with a mandate from the Christian Democrats. He became Józef Piłsudski's political opponent . In the autumn of 1930 he was arrested as part of a wave of arrests against opposition politicians carried out at the instigation of Piłsudski. After his release, Korfanty emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1935 , which he left after the German invasion to go into exile in France . In April 1939 he returned to Poland, where he was arrested again and released after a three-month prison term due to a serious illness. He died a little later on August 17, 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II in Warsaw, and was buried on August 20 in Katowice with great sympathy among the population.

literature

  • Sigmund Karski: Albert (Wojciech) Korfanty. A biography. Dülmen 1990. ISBN 3-87466-118-0
  • Marian Orzechowski: Wojciech Korfanty. Wroclaw 1975.

Web links

Commons : Wojciech Korfanty  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Archived in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Poland (Dz.URP) from 1921, No. 73, Item 494
  2. ↑ Bernhard Mann (edit.): Biographical manual for the Prussian House of Representatives. 1867-1918. Collaboration with Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh and Thomas Kühne . Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1988, p. 226 (handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties: vol. 3); for the election results see Thomas Kühne: Handbook of elections to the Prussian House of Representatives 1867–1918. Election results, election alliances and election candidates (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 6). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5182-3 , pp. 288-291.
  3. ↑ Annex VIII to the Versailles Treaty, concerning § 88
  4. ↑ Kattowitzer Zeitung, August 24, 1922, p. 3.
personal data
SURNAME Korfanty, Wojciech
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Korfanty, Adalbert (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish nationalist, politician and militant, MdR, Polish Prime Minister, member of the Sejm
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Sadzawki Colony, Siemianowitz / Laurahütte
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1939
Place of death Warsaw