1. Wojciech Korfanty fought to protect Poles from discrimination and the policies of Germanisation in Upper Silesia before the war and sought to join Silesia to Poland after Poland regained its independence.
13 Facts About Wojciech Korfanty
1. 2.
Wojciech Korfanty was born the son of a coal miner in Sadzawka, part of Siemianowice, in Prussian Silesia, then part of the German Empire.
3.
In 1901, Wojciech Korfanty became editor-in-chief of the Polish language paper Gornoslazak, in which he appealed to the national consciousness of the region's Polish-speaking population.
4.
In 1903, Wojciech Korfanty was elected to the German Reichstag and in 1904 to the Prussian Landtag, where he represented the independent Polish circle.
5.
However, Wojciech Korfanty retained his Christian Democratic convictions and later returned to them in domestic Polish politics.
6.
Wojciech Korfanty was the head of the Polish plebiscite committee in Upper Silesia.
7.
Wojciech Korfanty was one of the leaders of the Second Silesian Uprising in 1920 and the Third Silesian Uprising in 1921, which were Polish insurrections against German rule in Upper Silesia.
Related searches
Wincenty Witos 8.
Wojciech Korfanty was accused by Germans of organizing terrorism against German civilians of Upper Silesia.
9.
Wojciech Korfanty was a member of the national Sejm from 1922 to 1930 and in the Silesian Sejm, where he represented a Christian Democratic viewpoint.
10.
Wojciech Korfanty opposed the autonomy of the Silesian Voivodship, which he saw as an obstacle against its reintegration into Poland.
11.
Wojciech Korfanty briefly acted as vice-premier in the government of Wincenty Witos.
12.
In 1930, Wojciech Korfanty was arrested and imprisoned in the Brest-Litovsk fortress, together with other leaders of the Centrolew, an alliance of left-wing and centrist parties in opposition to the ruling government.
13.
Wojciech Korfanty returned to Poland in the April 1939, after Nazi Germany had cancelled the Polish-German non-aggression pact of 1934, hoping that the renewed threat to Polish independence would help overcome the domestic political cleavage.