[2][3] Earlier, the southern parts of Warmia had become German-speaking, but eventually, more Polish settlers than Germans arrived to settle the land, particularly after 1410, so that the region gradually Polonized.

While the Mazurs in the neighboring Ducal Prussia became Protestants when Duchy adopted Lutheranism in the 16th century, most Warmiaks, populating the areas around Olsztyn, remained Catholics.

[2][3] During World War II, the Warmiaks were persecuted by the Nazi German government, which wanted to erase all aspects of Polish culture and Polish language in Warmia.

[2][3] After the war, due to their Polish roots and their Catholic faith (unlike the Masurians who were predominantly Protestant, who had a friendly attitude towards the Germans), they were not victims of the large-scale expulsion of Germans.

However, over the course of time, large numbers of Warmiaks decided to leave their native land and settle in more prosperous West Germany, exercising their right to German citizenship granted by the Basic Law as citizens or their descendants of inhabitants of Germany in the borders of 1937.