Karl Cordell

Ethnic Germans in Poland and the Czech Republic: a comparative evaluation*

This paper seeks to analyze the nature of the German minorities in the Czech Republic and Poland. In order to achieve this goal, the relationship between Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic and Poland with the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany/FRG), forms an essential intellectual backdrop to our main theme. Reference to the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic/GDR) will be made as and where appropriate. As we shall see, tensions simmered between the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany/SED), and the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza Zjednoczona (Polish United Workers’ Party /PZPR), and in reality relations between the two sides were poor (Czaplinski: 2004). Reference will be made to wartime German occupation policy in both Poland and the Czech lands. Due attention will also be paid to the consequent expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia. However, due to limitations of space these themes, that have been exhaustively dealt with elsewhere, do not form part of our main focus of study.

Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Cultural Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe

The political management of ethno-cultural diversity is an issue that has elicited considerable discussion throughout Europe over the past decade and a half. It has been particularly salient, however, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which have been required to demonstrate ‘respect for and protection of minorities’ as part of their ongoing engagement with European and transatlantic international organizations. Past instances of instability and conflict in Europe’s East have led to a widespread understanding of this region as somehow predisposed to intolerant ‘ethnic’ nationalism, as distinct from the more liberal, ‘civic’ variant deemed characteristic of Western Europe. In this regard one can mention especially the work of Hans Kohn, which continued to set the tone for much of the academic writing on the region in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. The image of backwardness already present during the interwar period (Burgess, 1999; Chandler, 1999) has since been reinforced by the wars in former Yugoslavia, which did much to explain Brubaker’s (1996) prediction that ‘nationalizing’ states and nationalist conflict were likely to be the norm in Central and Eastern Europe more generally. More recent works have provided a corrective to such stereotypes. Instead of assuming some kind of predetermined path for the region’s development, they have highlighted the common dynamics of nation building and the simultaneous existence of different forms of nationalism—civic/ethnic and inclusive/intolerant—within all European societies, West and East (Kuzio, 2001; Roshwald, 2001; Smith, 2002; in this regard, see also Billig (1995)). Such works invite us to focus upon the struggle of ideas and contested quality of nationhood within Eastern European societies during the interwar period and beyond. In this vein, a number of recent authors have sought to counter the relentless pessimism voiced by Brubaker (1996) by highlighting trends and factors supporting the development Ethnopolitics, Vol. 6, No. 3, 337–343, September 2007

The politics of ethnicity in Central Europe

Dedication Acknowledgements Prefatory Remarks Glossary of Place Names (German, Polish, Czech) Biographical Notes List of Maps Chronology of Silesian History Introduction: K.Cordell Nationalism and the Nation State in Central Europe T.Sullivan Ethnic Conflict and Conciliation in Central Europe Today K.Cordell The Germans and Central Europe in the pre-Modern Era K.Struve Silesia and the Dawning of the Modern Era P.Ther, T.Kamusella & P.Kacir Upper Silesia 1918-1945 T.Kamusella & P.Kacir Polish and Czech Silesia Under Communist Rule: A Comparison B.Linek & K.M.Born The Articulation of Identity in Silesia Since 1989 K.Cordell, T.Kamusella & K.M.Born The Future of Silesia K.Cordell & T.Kamusella Conclusion K.Cordell Index

The German minority in Upper Silesia: Electoral success and organizational patterns

This article seeks to examine the nature and role of the German minority in the Polish territory of Upper Silesia. The activities of German minority organizations are also examined within the context of the reform of local and regional government in Poland. Some observations are made concerning the internal structures of these organizations, and there is analysis of their performance in the local and regional elections of 1998. The article concludes with an assessment of the future of the minority in general and the various organizations that seek to promote the interests of the German population in Upper Silesia.

The past, the present, and virtual reality: A comparative assessment of the German Landsmannschaften

Abstract This article seeks to examine contemporary perceptions of Heimat held by the various Landsmannschaften (Homeland Organizations) that claim to represent the interests of ethnic German expellees, refugees and subsequent German migrants from the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia and Poland. The attitudes and standpoints of these organizations are compared with those of the Deutsch-Baltische Landsmannschaft im Bundesgebiet (German-Baltic Homeland Association in the Federal Area/DBLiB), which performs an analogous role for ethnic Germans whose origins lie in Estonia and Latvia. The early part of the article presents some observations on the origins, role and nature of these organizations. Their activities with regard to the former Heimat are then assessed. The paper demonstrates that the Landsmannschaften show clear and obvious interest in their former countries of residence. Yet their perception of Heimat is of the “virtual” variety. In other words their perceptions correspond to the concrete world, and are not wholly separate from it, but nevertheless, they are guided by nostalgia for what has vanished and can never be restored.

Germany's European policy challenges

Germanys European Diplomacy: Shaping the Regional Milieu. By Simon Bulmer, Charlie Jeffery and William E. Paterson. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000. Pp.vii+148. £40 (hardback), £10.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 7190 5854 6 and 0 7190 5855 4. German‐Bashing and the Breakup of Yugoslavia. By Daniele Conversi. The Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Vol.16. Seattle: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, 1998. Pp.81. US

Polish and Czech Silesia under Communist Rule: A Comparison

6.50 (paperback). ISSN 1078 5639. Poland and Germany, 1989–1991: The Role of Economic Factors in Foreign Policy. By Randall E. Newnham. The Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Vol.26. Seattle: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, 2000. Pp.96. US

The Partnership between the Czech and German Greens

7.50 (paperback). ISSN 1078 5639

Working Together: The Partnership Between the Czech and German Greens as a Model for Wider Czech–German Co-operation?

Researching into postwar problems connected to the national question in Polish Upper Silesia is difficult. The difficulty lies mainly in the very topicality of the issue and the moral and legal implications of what occurred in the aftermath of National Socialist rule. Research in this area must also be undertaken with an eye to Polish-German inter-state relations, and all who engage in this work are dependent on historiographies which have frequently been written from a nationalist point of view.

The Articulation of Identity in Silesia since 1989

The primary purpose of this article is to make some observations on the nature of cooperation between the German and Czech Green parties. Cooperation between Alliance’90/The Greens (Bündnis’90/Die Grünen) and The Czech Green Party (Strana zelených – SZ) is of interest to students of Czech–German relations for several reasons. First, their cooperation is extensive. Second, their shared post-national perspective has meant that neither is burdened by the weight of history to the extent that other parties are in either country. Third, and consequent upon the first two points, this instance of cross-national cooperation may provide some lessons for other Czech and German parties on how best to proceed with the business of German–Czech cooperation. The contested nature of Czech(oslovak)–German history continues to have a major impact upon bilateral inter-state and inter-party relations. Close links between the Christian Social Union (Christlich Soziale Union – CSU) and the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft (SdL) make it difficult for either of the German Christian Democratic parties to build a sustained relationship with potential Czech equivalents such as the Krest’anská a demokratické unie (Christian and Democratic Union – KDU). In turn, initiatives between the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – SPD) are dogged by disagreement within the Czech Social Democratic Party (Česká Strana Sociálne Demokratická – ČSSD) over the implementation and consequences of the Beneš Decrees. As for the Free Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei – FDP) and more especially the recently founded Left Party (Die Links Partei), bilateral initiatives are hampered by the exclusion of either party from government, and especially in the case of the Left Party by the lack of any recognisable equivalent in the Czech party system.