Page "Silesia" Paragraph 17

Polish Silesia was among the first regions invaded during Germany's 1939 attack on Poland.

One of the goals of Nazi occupation, particularly the occupation of Upper Silesia, was to expel the Polish Silesian population.

German repatriation of Poles in Upper Silesia was made a priority for two crucial reasons.

First, Nazi Germany was resentful over the loss of Silesia after the uprisings of the early 1920s and wished to regain the region for its natural resource wealth and strategically important locomotive network.

Second, the Nazi war machine needed more members.

Those repatriated as German were immediately subject to military service, thus bolstering the German Army's numbers.

As for the non-German speaking Polish population of Silesia, they were reduced to a lower worker class status and were oftentimes severely mistreated by their new German overlords.

This treatment would be addressed by the Poles years later.