1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite

Common card · No. 481995

The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out on 20 March 1921 to determine ownership of the province of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and the Second Polish Republic. The region was ethnically mixed with both Germans and Poles. According to prewar statistics, ethnic Poles formed 60 percent of the population. Under the previous rule by the German Empire, Poles claimed they had faced discrimination and had been effectively second-class citizens. The period of the plebiscite campaign and the Allied occupation was marked by violence. Three Polish uprisings occurred, and German volunteer paramilitary units came to the region. The area was policed by French, British and Italian troops and overseen by an Interallied Commission. The Allies planned a partition of the region, but a Polish insurgency took control of over half the area. The Germans responded with the Freikorps, volunteer paramilitary units from all over Germany that fought the...

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