Silesian People's Party
The Silesian People’s Party (Silesian: Ślōnskŏ Ludowŏ Partyjŏ, Polish: Śląska Partia Ludowa, Czech: Slezská lidová strana, German: Schlesische Volkspartei) was a political organization in Cieszyn Silesia that existed from 1909 to 1938 in Austrian Silesia, which later became international plebiscite territory and finally part of Czechoslovakia.
The Silesian People's Party was founded in summer of 1908 by the principal of an elementary school, Józef Kożdoń, in Skoczów.
The goals of the SPP were not new – similar sentiments had been present in Cieszyn Silesia since the Revolutions of 1848[10] – but this was the first time that supporters of Silesian independence were organized into a distinct political party.
Such sentiments were also voiced informally by community institutions, like the paper Nowy Czas (New Time), edited by preacher Theodor Haase.
"The Szlonzakian movement had expanded in the nineties of the 19th century, collecting Slavic people who didn’t want to vote for Poles or Czechs and chose attachment to a separate Silesian nation".
In the rural Cieszyn-Fryštát-Jablunkov electoral district, Fraciszek Halfar of the Union of Silesian Catholics won with support from the SPP and Polish parties as well.
The second deputy from this circle, Jan Michejda, defeated the SPP candidate, Josef Cichy, thanks to the votes of Polish Catholics and Czechs.
The SPP won in 39 municipalities of the counties of Bielsko and Cieszyn: Jaworze and Jasienica in the judicial district of Bielsko; Bładnice Dolne, Cisownica, Goleszów, Godziszów, Górki Wielkie, Harbutowice, Hermanice, Kozakowice Górne, Kozakowice Dolne, Łączka, Międzyświeć, Nierodzim, Simoradz, Wieszczęta, Wilamowice and Ustroń (here with a coalition of Szlonzakians and Germans) in the judicial district of Skoczów; Bąków, Drogomyśl, Pruchna, Zaborze and Rudzica (here with a coalition of Szlonzakians and Poles) in the judicial district of Strumień; Bażanowice, Dzięgielów, Gumna, Konská, Leszna Górna, Komorní Lhotka, Nebory, Puńców, Svibice, Zamarski, Horní Žukov and Šumbark (here with a coalition of Szlonzakians and Poles) in the judicial district of Cieszyn; Lyžbice, Mosty u Jablunkova and Oldřichovice in the judicial district of Jablunkov.
Even when the SPP officially supported Czechoslovakia, the party did not abandon the option of independence, which was still advocated by its allies, the Germans of Cieszyn Silesia.
[22] In January 1934, Konrad Markiton, Jan Pokrzyk, Paweł Teda, Alfons Pośpiech, Jerzy Jeleń and Waleska Kubistowa re-formed the Silesian People's Party in Katowice.
On 15 April 1934 Polish police confiscated the first issue of the party's bilingual paper, Śląska Straż Ludowa – Schlesische Volkswacht (Silesian People’s Watch) and stamped its editorial office.
The pro-Czech faction cut ties with Kożdoń and became a separate organization, closely affiliated with the Republican Party of Agricultural and Smallholder People.
The SPP dominated the commune of Svibice too, and it had a large number of communal council members, starting in various political configurations (alone as the Silesian People's Party, in a separate Polish-language faction, in a separate German-language faction, in a broad German and Polish coalition, and in various communal and citizens committees).
Gustaw Wałach, a member of the Szlonzakian movement, took third place, after Leon Wolf from the Union of Silesian Catholics and Wiesław Wójcik from the Polish Socialist Workers Party.
In response the mayor of Opava, Ernst Franz, founded the Committee for the Protection of Silesian Rights, which opposed this decision.
The committee produced a German-language brochure by Kożdoń, "Right of our Silesian homeland for administration unhabitance", in which he argued that the merging of Czech Silesia with Moravia was irrational, based on historical, social and economic issues.
In the National Assembly elections of 1935, the SPP supported Polish candidate Karol Junga from a Polish-Slovak-Ruthenian list, the Autonomy Bloc.
The petition, to which was attached Kurt Witt's work "Die Teschener Frage" ("The Cieszyn question"), was signed by Kożdoń as mayor of Český Těšín, along with Bruno Kappel, Karol Kubik, Robert Wallach, Walter Harbich and Český Těšín county council member Rudolf Francus.
[27] On 18 September 1938 Walter Harbich as leader of the "assembly of the Silesian nationality" sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler, requesting the independence of Cieszyn Silesia under the protection of Nazi Germany.
At this time, Walter Harbich, in cooperation with Paul Lamatsch but without Kożdoń's knowledge, subordinated the illegal Silesian People's Party to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle ("Central office of ethnic Germans living abroad") in Berlin.
