Germans in Wrocław: “Ethnic minority” versus hybrid identity. Historical context and urban milieu

Abstract

After 1945, German Breslau was transformed into Ur-Polish Wrocław at Stalin’s behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and salient narratives of identity as shaping forces, which include the suppression of German culture under Communism, prevalent intermarriage between Germans and Poles, and the city’s qualified reinvention as “multicultural” after Polish independence in 1989. Together with the group’s relatively small numbers, these narratives play out in their hybrid approach to ethnicity, often invoking blended cultural practices or the ambiguous geographical status of the Silesian region, to avoid choosing between “national” antipodes of “German” and “Polish.” The results follow Rogers Brubaker’s insight into ethnicity as an essentializing category used to construct groups where individual self-perception may differ; and the concept of “national indifference,” previously applied to rural populations. It also suggests we might better approach circumscribed “minority” identities such as these, by seeing them as a form of “sub-culture.”

Keywords:

• ethnicity
• identity
• Germans
• Poland
• Wrocław
• minority

Acknowledgements

Particular thanks to Dr. Irena Kurasz, Wrocław University; Frau Elbers, Deutsches Konsulat Breslau; Frau Zajączkowska, Deutsche Soziale und Kulturelle Gesellschaft (Breslau); and my colleagues Drs. Jan Fellerer and Marius Turda.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Official statistics are hard to come by, partly due to the desired invisibility of Germans from the 1950s. This figure accords with sources used by Thum (2001), Davies and Moorhouse (2002), and Madajczyk (2000a, 2000b). The city’s overall population rose from 315,000 to 622,000 in 1981, reaching 645,000 by 1991 (Thum 2001, 89). A 2015 estimate c. 630,000, see “UN Data” (2015).

2. The minority still occasionally insists on enhanced rights, for example, “Minderheiten wollen ihren EU-Kommissar haben” (2014). Background: Fleming (2002, 531–548).

3. For example, Treaty on Good Neighbourly Relations and Friendly Cooperation. For more background, including official Polish definitions of the minority: Łodziński (2005).

4. Anonymous, with age/gender noted, recorded with informed consent, following Oral History Society guidelines and with ethical approval from the University of Oxford.

5. This paper is informed by awareness of the tendency to reify “identity;” theorizing it systematically is out of scope. See Brubaker and Cooper (2000).

6. These include the very recent work by Kurasz (2015), not seen when compiling or writing up this research. Without relevant coverage of identity: Ociepka (1992).

7. Various essays in Żuk and Pluta (2006), especially Maria Lewicka, “Dwa miasta – dwa mikrokosmosy. Wrocław i Lwów w pamięci swoich mieszkańców,” 100–133. Also, Lewicka (2008, 209–231). For a study of Polish attitudes to another previously German town: Mach (1998).

8. Figures from Lewicka (2008, 220).

9. Agenda and scope: “Deutsche Vertretung Polen” (2015).

10. Note that this also distinguishes my sample from Kurasz op. cit., who interviewed only DSKG members. The DSKG has two membership categories, standard and supporter members. Standard need to document their German ethnicity, supporters do not. Combined total: around 1200. Source: DSKG (2015).

11. Three respondents (three generations of the same family) lived in Sobótka, all others in Wrocław.

12. For a summary of the 2007 Polish government report on minorities, including statistics see Raport (2015) and “Oberschlesisches Landesmuseum” (2015).

13. Interviews 20: unmarried, and 15: first husband was Polish-German, second German.

14. Totaling 19 responses, interviews 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29.

15. Third-generation interviewees 22 and (by implication) 30; plus the late-born daughters of first-generation interviewee 25.

16. Of those not born in Wrocław, around half (16, mainly first generation), were born in other parts of Silesia: 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. Three others were from close to Wrocław and from childhood had used the city as a main point of orientation and cultural life (5, 6, 9). Interviewee 12 was the only outlier, being from northern Poland (third generation, one German grandfather).

17. Interviews 15, 20, 24 (first generation); 13 (second; by implication); 22 (third).

18. Four of them, interviews 6, 12, 22, 30; interview 8, second generation; interviews 27 and 28, first generation.

19. The autonomy movement’s aims and scope: http://autonomia.pl (last visited 26 September 2015).

20. Publications using Silesian dialect in the title, sponsored by the regional government and the EU “village programme,” eliding national narrative(s).

21. Arndt (2007, 116) notes this was also taken on as a practice by German Catholic priests during the Communist period.

22. The museum’s role in retelling the city’s history is explored in a forthcoming doctoral thesis by Kretschmann (2015) at the Freie Universität Berlin.

23. Informal conversation with Zarzycki in 2014 about plans to address Wrocław’s multiethnic past during his tenure as coordinator of international projects for the Capital of Culture project.

24. Conversations by the author with Chris Baldwin, an artistic director of the Wrocław 2016 European Capital of Culture. For details of his programme, see Baldwin (2005).

25. More typical answers were the Gothic Town Hall or Max Berg’s Jahrhunderthalle [centennial hall], known today by simple translation into Polish (Hala Stulecia). Two from the second generation reflected their Communist-era upbringing by referring to it as the Hala Ludowa (people’s hall) (interviews 7 and 23).

26. Religion does not serve sufficiently to bound the group in “sub-cultural” terms, as almost all said they were Catholic, some going to German Mass, others to Polish.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom, as part of the project “Sub-Cultures as Integrative Forces in East-Central Europe, c. 1900-present,” project number: CARWBV00 (University of Oxford, 2012–2016).