I'm well aware of that, thus my point. All of these proposals are fascinating, and this is a great thread. I was merely observing that Germany is different from other federations.
German Reorganization Proposals - 1871 to Present Day
- Thread starter Iserlohn
- Start date
I just wanted to do a quick update on what the following few posts will entail. My aim is to get two posts out before Pentecost (when I'll be going on a little vacation), and then the last two, which will be quite hefty, in June. After that, this project will go on hiatus for a bit. Probably until October or November, sadly. Personal stuff coming up, including my B.A. thesis, which has nothing to do with this topic at all 
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The first is what I'll call a "Weimar-Era Miscellany", compiling smaller proposals like the ones I've included [here] with some new ones, plus some properly included sources. This will also include some notes from Walter Mühlhausen's "Hessen im 20. Jahrhundert", who includes some small references to Hesse-related proposals from that era. I dunno if I'll find enough stuff in the future to do a follow-up on non-nationwide proposals in the Weimar Republic, or if I'll find enough stuff to do a second look at Hesse specifically like I did earlier in this thread by looking at Ludwig Bergsträsser's documents.
The next will be a look at the formation of Lower Saxony in the post-WW2 British occupation zone and what alternatives existed at the time. This will include a general overview on the academic discourse on small states versus small states, since the question of viability was foremost on the mind when Lower Saxony was deliberated upon.
The other two are a two-parter, maybe even a three-parter, covering the many, MANY proposals the Western Allies had in relation to the Rhine Province and the Ruhr industrial area. I've found some excellent sources on this, including a few maps, and it'll basically be building on top of the post I made [here]. I plan on the first part being on French proposals, then the second part being on British and American proposals. If I stumble across more US sources, they might become their own post. Now, as a small teaser, these proposals will include several options to partition Germany instead of merely redrawing state borders, but given the proximity of the two topics and that this is my thread, I'll do what I want!
.The first is what I'll call a "Weimar-Era Miscellany", compiling smaller proposals like the ones I've included [here] with some new ones, plus some properly included sources. This will also include some notes from Walter Mühlhausen's "Hessen im 20. Jahrhundert", who includes some small references to Hesse-related proposals from that era. I dunno if I'll find enough stuff in the future to do a follow-up on non-nationwide proposals in the Weimar Republic, or if I'll find enough stuff to do a second look at Hesse specifically like I did earlier in this thread by looking at Ludwig Bergsträsser's documents.
The next will be a look at the formation of Lower Saxony in the post-WW2 British occupation zone and what alternatives existed at the time. This will include a general overview on the academic discourse on small states versus small states, since the question of viability was foremost on the mind when Lower Saxony was deliberated upon.
The other two are a two-parter, maybe even a three-parter, covering the many, MANY proposals the Western Allies had in relation to the Rhine Province and the Ruhr industrial area. I've found some excellent sources on this, including a few maps, and it'll basically be building on top of the post I made [here]. I plan on the first part being on French proposals, then the second part being on British and American proposals. If I stumble across more US sources, they might become their own post. Now, as a small teaser, these proposals will include several options to partition Germany instead of merely redrawing state borders, but given the proximity of the two topics and that this is my thread, I'll do what I want!
Upper Silesia 1918-1922
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Upper Silesia 1918-1922 - Struggling Between Autonomy, Independence & Partition
In late 1918 Poland and Czechoslovakia listed these as their claims to Silesia:
- Czechoslovakia desired most of Kreis Waldenburg (to gain control over the significant black coal deposists there), the Silesian portion of the Kłodzko Valley/Glatzer Kessel (basically the Kreise Glatz, Habelschwerdt, and Neurode), and Upper Silesia west of the Oder but at least containing most of the Kreise Leobschütz and Ratibor.
- Poland meanwhile requested all of Upper Silesia except the Kreise Neiße and Grottkau and parts of the Kreise Neustadt and Falkenberg, as well as the Central Silesian Kreise Groß Wartenberg and Namslau. They also were “open” to border corrections in Czechoslovakia’s favor in the Kreise Leobschütz and Ratibor.
This is important because, in the wake of these “foreign” claims and the chaos in Berlin, politicians in Silesia were thinking about the region’s future. The newspaper “Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten”, which had close connections to the Social Democratic (USPD)-run Volksrat that governed Silesia at the time, suggested on November 25th that Silesia could temporarily separate itself from the Reich “until order is restored in Germany and in Berlin specifically”, marking a clear distinction to Rhenish and Bavarian separatism. While that idea died as early as December, for the Regierungsbezirk Oppeln (Upper Silesia) they suggested autonomy in regards to language and religious policy, as well as preferential treatment for local (read: Polish-speaking, Catholic) government functionaries. The Zentrumspartei in Silesia shared this suggestion.
These proposals went counter to the policy pursued by Adolph Hoffmann (USPD), who served as Germany’s Minister for Science, Culture, and Education at the time. He argued for a strict separation of church and state, including the banning of religion from public education, both in the form of church-operated schools and religious instruction.
Meanwhile Upper SIlesia also had its own, genuine separatist movement. Apparently some local industrialists were in favor of it because they feared that any non-leftist government in Berlin would fail to keep Upper Silesia in the Reich and that a leftist regime in Berlin would expropriate their businesses. They also thought that, potentially, a “sovereign, neutral Upper Silesian Republic” would be exempt from war indemnity claims, which would also be good for their businesses.
Three important people in the Upper Silesian autonomist movement were Ewald Latacz, a lawyer based in Loslau/Wodzisław, and the brothers Jan and Thomak Reginek. In December 1918 they formed a committee for the “Freistaat Oberschlesien”, with a political system modeled on Switzerland’s.
Ultimately the separatist movement quickly fizzled out due the failure of the Spartacist Uprising in January 1919 ending fears of a Communist takeover of Germany, which largely ended the interest of the local industrialists in the project, and the fact that even the pro-independence movement that remained was divided between an explicitly pro-German “independence as a stopgap” faction and an idealistic, neutrality-favoring faction headed by the Reginek brothers. Instead Upper Silesia would be plagued by ethnic-based violence in the coming years until the partition of Upper Silesia in late 1921.
Still, the whole ordeal resulted in the creation of the separate Prussian province of Oberschlesien thanks to a September 30th 1919 compromise between Zentrum, who as previously mentioned had sympathies to their fellow Catholic Poles, and the USPD government of the Free State of Prussia.
On July 15th 1920 the Polish government released their proposal on the administrative future of Upper Silesia. The Silesian Voivodeship was to have significant autonomy, including the right to keep most of the collected taxes and to run their own police, maintain their own agricultural policies, and to have linguistic and religious autonomy. This proposal greatly inspired pro-autonomy (Upper) Silesians, who were vocal in stating that these laws would provide more autonomy than the still nascent Provinz Oberschlesien would. German officials were torn, fearing that more autonomy for the region might allow for Polish agents to eventually carve it away from Germany later.
Thus November 25th 1920 saw a law passed that stated, in effect, that Upper Silesia would be granted the right to a referendum on the creation of its own state within Germany after the Entente occupation ended. After the subsequent referendum and partition in 1921, this referendum was supposed to take place on September 3rd 1922.
Still, in the lead-up to this referendum the debate was intense. Pro-autonomy activists from Zentrum and smaller groups run by the Polish minority were keen on maintaining rights in matters of education, language use, and religion. Anti-autonomy factions feared that losing access to Prussia’s funding would lead to a decline of German-speaking cultural institutions, as well as economic decline. On July 11th 1922, less than two months before the referendum was to take place, the Prussian Landtag passed a law that allowed for Upper Silesian privileges regarding education and the languages used in government facilities serving ethnically mixed municipalities. This law effectively satisfied the demands of most autonomists, leading to Zentrum backing off their support for the creation of a separate Land Oberschlesien.
As a result the September referendum, which saw a turnout of 79.4 percent, was a clear victory for the “unionists”. Of the votes cast, 91.1 percent were against the establishment of Upper Silesia as a separate state. The only portions that featured significant pro-separation votes were Groß Strehlitz and Gleiwitz, which the year prior had voted to join Poland but weren’t ceded to it.
If you want a clue on what alternate international borders in Silesia might have looked like, here’s an overview map. Of special note here are the Korfanty Line, Poland’s claim that would’ve put 59 percent of the plebiscite area and 70 percent of its population under Polish control, and the Percival-de-Marinis Line, which would’ve given Poland 25 percent of the territory and 21 percent of the population, and would’ve kept the Beuthen-Gleiwitz-Kattowitz-Königshütte-Tarnowitz industrial area fully in Germany.
Sources Used:
- “Autonomie- und Separatismusbestrebungen in Oberschlesien 1918-1922” by Andrea Schmidt-Rösler in Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung 48
- “Das Reichsthalerländchen”, part of the Namslauer Heimatfreunde e.V.’s website (source of map)
- “Die Provinz Oberschlesien. Volksabstimmungen 1920 und 1922”, part of Andreas Gonschior’s website Wahlen in der Weimarer Republik
- "Ideas for the Division of Upper Silesia" by Renata Skoczek for the Institute of National Remembrance
- “Von der Provinz zum Freistaat?” Der oberschlesische Separatismus im Jahr 1918/19” by Przemysław Hauser in Regionale Bewegungen und Regionalismen in europäischen Zwischenräumen seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (ed. P. Ther & H. Sundhaussen)