#second silesian uprising

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Insurgent fighters - almost all in posed pictures - from the Second Silesian Uprising / II powstanie śląskie, September 1920. Grabbed from sundry Polish news websites. 

[shy-girl04]

Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

A solo soprano sings Polish texts in each of the three movements.

The first is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus.

The second a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II.

The third a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son killed by the Germans in the Silesian uprisings.

The first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, and the second movement from that of a child separated from a parent.

The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood, despair and suffering.

[salantami]

Katowice

Built in 1900 by the German

 Now  a city in Poland

The city was inhabited mainly by Germans, and Poles

Following the Silesian Uprisings of 1918–21 Katowice became part of the Second Polish Republic

Photo credit :

[cursedmaps]

Victoria 2 game

The map of Europe after the Silesian Wars. After the Austrian Republic unified all the Germanies in the 1860s, many thought it would be a great superpower in the center of Europe, however the prediction that the Austrians would be able to finally tame this tumultuous part of Europe was sorely mistaken. After the unification of Austria with its various other German states, the Hungarian congress decided to attempt to push the cause of independence. However before any discussions of a peaceful separation could go through was the first of many coups and the long string of dictatorships that would haunt the small republic. The first dictator would institute a few reforms like splitting up the republic into autonomous republics, these being Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Dalmatia, the Croatian Military Frontier, Western Ukraine, and Bukovina. Slovenia would also eventually be added to this list as well as the independence of Poznan. Each head of state was personally picked by the dictator of Germany at the time which would cause issues down the line when the second dictator came to power a few years later from a coup. the 2nd dictator would come to fight with the heads of state and name himself as the protector of all German minorities in these states. Though he threatened to replace and re-annex much of these republics, he only succeeded at re-annexing the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and a partition of Poznan with the Russian Empire before also meeting his fate in the gallows of Vienna only 3 years after his inauguration

The 3rd dictator came to power not from a coup, but a popular uprising in the capital. He was a small time bureaucrat who was able to capitalize on the resentment of various German nationalists on two decades ago loss of territory to the Republic of France. The territory France had taken were the at the time independent principalities of Baden and Pfalz. However the war would come to a complication as Germany’s number one ally at the time was the United States who was also allies with France. So when Germany began the invasion of France to retake territories and also claim the land of Elsass-Lothringen from France, the United States would declare neutrality with under-the-table financial support towards Germany. Many believe the implicit support of the United States was due to the ongoing colonial race in Western Africa between it and France, but historians are unsure why it truly happened

The war lasted a short month as Germany surprised and easily outmanned the French as the border was mostly undefended. Thus our 3rd dictator was declared a hero for the conquests, but it only took 3 years for this honeymoon period to sour. As Germany would be plunged into a failed coup turned civil war. As the Republic of Prussia was declared in the country’s East and the Rhine. Though the Rhine region of the war would collapse in only 7 months, the entire war would last 7 years and have two Germanies vying for power in Europe with the Prussian dictatorship beating out the eyes of the German dictatorship. International brigades from the United States and Italian Republic would attempt to help their respective sides by trying to take out rebel hideouts in Germany and Prussia, the rebels proved far more powerful than anticipated and both left the country in shame

Though the direct war between Germany and Prussia would stop, the effective cold war and build up of troops as well as the near constant guerilla armies would continue. Silesia would prove the most volatile and unstable part of this conflict as it made much of Germany entirely ungovernable

At the start of 1887, various rebel groups from Silesia would contact the government of the United States and the French Republic. Telling of tales of the massacres done by the Prussian government and the squalid refugee camps of the German government. The two made an agreement to support the Silesian rebels in their fight against the Prussian government and attempt to mend the situation in Germany once and for all. The two were able to get Italy to agree to the situation by promising a concession of the Italian portion of South Tirol to Italy as well as generous concessions at the end of the war. As Italy was the premiere land military power of Europe after Prussia. However Prussia was able to agree to help to convince the Russian Empire and Spanish Empire to support its cause with the promise of French colonial concessions and the return of the previously lost Alyaska Oblast from the Americans. And so began the war

The German Republic was technically neutral in this war, however was the battleground for much of the war due to its turmoil as well as being the only area being able to host the American navy. Though even then, armies traveling through Germany had an extremely hard time even getting to the front without getting assailed by the various rebel armies and also Russian patrols. The American army was first to the scene and was able to capture Prussian Stettin, the capital of Prussia, but was unable to make any in-roads into Silesia proper. The Pyrenees Front was however going much better as the French made quick headways into Catalonia and Basque Country. Though both fronts would become hypercharged when the Italian double-headed offensive was able to break through two stalemates simultaneously. Both being able to fight off the Prussians and Russians on the Eastern Front and being able to fight off the Spanish on the Western Front

The hardest hit fighting was on the Spanish front as the Spanish line would collapse rather quickly as the entire country fell to the French-Italian threat. Spain would attempt some Hail Mary plays such as invading the United States by island hopping through Alaska only for the expeditions to die to the cold. The American Pacific Fleet would also capture the Marianas, Caroline, and Philippine Islands

The Eastern Front was more slow-going as the amount of troops would require much more careful planning. Though the armies were able to eventually push past Pomerania and Silesia into Russian Poland

With the conquest of Poland, the imperial powers would surrender at the Congress of Strasbourg. The United States mandated the creation of Poland and the creation of an independent Ukraine that goes all the way to the Dnipro River. Romania would also gain the territory of Bukovina and Bessarabia from Germany and Russia respectively. America would also mandate the turning over of all of Western Sahara to the Kingdom of Morocco from Spain as well as the colonies of the Spanish Pacific being handed over to the Americans. America would also mandate that Portugal be given Galicia to follow more ethnic lines of Iberia. America would also come to mandate that Georgia be given all the territory of Russian Tiflis. America would go against French demands for Alsace and negotiate with France to create the Republic of Alsace as a buffer-state between Germany and France that was under French influence.

France would mandate the creation of an independent Basque Country from Spain as well as annexing Spanish Catalonia. France would also demand the colonies of Spanish Western Africa. France would also demand concessions from Germany to give over the territory of Vorarlperg and Liechtenstein be handed over to Switzerland and the German territory of Cleve being given over to the Netherlands. France would also replace the government of Germany with a provisional French authority as well as re-unifying Germany and Prussia. Germany would keep the territory of Bohemia, Hungary, and Slovenia as autonomous regions of Germany.

Italy would demand concession of Dalmatia, Istria, Italian populated South Tirol, as well as the separation of Czechia and Slovakia. With Slovakia being governed by the Italian authority til further notice.

Though despite the fact that the Russian Empire was fighting on the opposite side, Russia would also gain some concessions. Russia’s diplomats to Serbia were able to convince the treaty organizers to create the nation of Yugoslavia with the king of Serbia as the head of state, so the Kingdom of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia were merged into Yugoslavia. The king of Serbia then declared his fealty to the Russian Tsar which made Yugoslavia a satellite of the Russian Empire. So Russia both lost and gained territory

[kajenus]

🖊️ Hanik and/or Ernest

A dump of short fun facts about those two! Hanik:

Hanik doesn't like when people take pictures of him

He loves to stand at the train station and watch the trains depart, it fills him with a lot of longing and nostalgia

He is quite popular among the coal mine "Giesche" workers

Misses his left incisor tooth; lost it in a fight at bar

His second name is Edmund! It was given to him after his father

Good at swimming

Attended a church choir as a kid

Ernst:

He's a womanizer, but sometimes flirts with men, too. Doesn't label himself tho

Hates cucumber soup with burning passion

Ernst has a diastema. Hates when people make fun of it, will punch you if you do so

During the Second Silesian Uprising, Ernst and Hanik stole weapons from the Germans

He comes from Bytom, but lived in Katowice since he was 19

Enjoys reading! His fav genre are crime stories

Loves to annoy and bicker with Marcin

[sawwyouuinadream]

In a world which is split, alienated, untrue to itself, this unity of the world is torn and reconfigured under the totalitarianism of alienated existence. Capital aims at becoming the social whole, at subordinating everything to itself and reorganizing the world around its all-devouring growth. As Marx taught us, capital originates from the way the relations between living beings are organized, but also dominates these beings. By doing so, it acts “behind the backs of the actors.” In a word, capitalism becomes second nature in a dual sense — it literally operates above and beyond the individuals who create it the same way that natural, physical processes like gravitational pull do, and it appears to individuals in capitalist society as the natural order of the world.

Marx tried to describe this phenomena in the related concepts of commodity fetishism, where value appears as a characteristic of objects themselves rather than as socially created, and of real abstraction, abstract categories like labor-as-such or value-as-such which operate in everyday life. The division of labor and growing scale and density of society in turn make society into something like a massive machine, where it is impossible for any individual to comprehend or control the whole thing. What he always emphasized is that capitalism is literally mystified, and that this mystification occurs both on the level of our social whole and on the level of subjective consciousness.

With this in mind, an uncritical form of appealing to “lived experience” seems quite problematic. Not only can our consciousness about the world be mystified, and fail to understand — the world itself can be mystified? How can we be sure we understand the world, or even ourselves? If our lived experience is complacent with this mystification (and vice versa), then how can it be a reliable appeal for emancipatory truth?

One answer to this unreliability would be to simply identify that truth with the whole rather than the individual, to say that truth on an individual scale falls apart and that one only reaches truth when the truth-seeker is identical to the object they seek truth about. The individual truth-seeker, the knower, is not enough — one must reach the scale of the whole knowing itself. Perhaps, this ultimate identity of subject and object can directly be called God, or it can be called the Absolute, the unconditioned truth which is not merely true relative to something else. This is Hegel’s answer. In light of the horrific catastrophe of modern life however, from the Holocaust to the capitalocene, this seems trite. Theodor Adorno’s slogan, that “The whole is the false,” seems more appropriate to the world we live in.

The critical dialectic of Marxism offers us a potential to redeem this desire for emancipatory approach premised on “lived experience” where it critiques the “truth” of this capitalist social totality. This dialectic teaches us to question intuition, since immediate experience often contains abstractions and mystifications. Yet, it also values that embodied intuition as a potential seed for transformation on a total scale. Marx spoke approvingly of the intuitive revolts of workers, saying of the 1844 uprising of Silesian weavers “[…]Not only are the machines, these rivals of the worker, destroyed, but also the ledgers, the property titles, and while all the other movements turned first only against the industrial baron, i.e. the visible enemy, this movement turned also against the banker, the hidden enemy[…]”

Here, Marx sees the working class as already recognizing the power of capital as transcending individuals, as something beyond just its embodiment in the boss. In this sense, the workers themselves, in their uprising itself, point through their practice to a theoretical point. In his words, “[…]the Silesian revolt by no means took place in the separation of thoughts from social principles.” As Raya Dunayevskaya has noted about his writing on the working class struggle to shorten the workday in Capital (1867), “[…]theory is not something the intellectual works out alone. Rather, the actions of the proletariat create the possibility for the intellectual to work out theory.” Rather than emancipatory truth being the social totality, or being the solipsistic and quantitative individual, Marx pointed towards the potential emancipatory whole embedded in the revolutionary actions of everyday life.

Revolution, or emancipation, must start from everyday life, but cannot become content with staying there. The notion of “emancipatory” solipsism is in truth a defense of the capitalist social totality — You are not revolutionary merely by existing. There is a revolutionary potential within our concrete, lived existences, but these existences in themselves are not revolution. We must reject both those pessimistic doctrines which speak of the “system” as independent of human action (whether it is the natural order or it is so entrenched that it may as well be so) and those which try to take the individual as a refuge from society, ignoring the historical and social mediation of every individual and their identities — including their very identity of being an individual! We are not inherently anything, and this becomes obvious when the attempt to strictly delineate “lanes” falls apart into incoherence.

[werewolvesandaccordions]

mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief and loss, maybe sentiments of angst and pain that Poland had suffered through the 20th century. The first movement is a giant eight voiced canon, where each new introduction of the theme is in a different Greek mode [from lowest strings to highest, we hear the Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian, Lydian, Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian, and back to Aeolian modes], and the canon is interrupted by a pause of tone clusters, the soprano sings a 15th century Lamentation of the Virgin Mary from the Lysagora Songs collection of the Holy Cross Monastery, lamenting Jesus’ death. After the song is over, the canon breaks in at its height, and then unravels into silence. The second movement is also built out of tone cluster drones, the soprano sings a prayer to the Virgin Mary that was found in a Gestapo cell in Zakopane. The third movement is made of subtle variations on a short theme in a minor, while the soprano sings a folk song about a mother searching for her son who was killed in the Silesian uprisings of 1919-1921, and the music opens into a majestic uplifting major section before returning to the somber mood of the opening. The work is depressing, languid, and conveys the pain of parents losing children, and vice versa, and even though Górecki was previously an obscure composer, a 1992 recording of the work with Dawn Upshaw exploded in popularity, over one million copies sold, and probably became the best selling record of a contemporary classical piece in recording history. Regardless of popularity, Górecki is an awesome composer and if you haven’t heard him before I urge you to listen to this symphony, his “Little Requiem for a Polish Girl”, his Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, and his Symphony 2 “Copernicus” Movements: 1. Lento – Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile 2. Lento e largo – Tranquillissimo 3. Lento – Cantabile-semplice

mikrokosmos: mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief…

[tinas-art]

mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief and loss, maybe sentiments of angst and pain that Poland had suffered through the 20th century. The first movement is a giant eight voiced canon, where each new introduction of the theme is in a different Greek mode [from lowest strings to highest, we hear the Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian, Lydian, Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian, and back to Aeolian modes], and the canon is interrupted by a pause of tone clusters, the soprano sings a 15th century Lamentation of the Virgin Mary from the Lysagora Songs collection of the Holy Cross Monastery, lamenting Jesus’ death. After the song is over, the canon breaks in at its height, and then unravels into silence. The second movement is also built out of tone cluster drones, the soprano sings a prayer to the Virgin Mary that was found in a Gestapo cell in Zakopane. The third movement is made of subtle variations on a short theme in a minor, while the soprano sings a folk song about a mother searching for her son who was killed in the Silesian uprisings of 1919-1921, and the music opens into a majestic uplifting major section before returning to the somber mood of the opening. The work is depressing, languid, and conveys the pain of parents losing children, and vice versa, and even though Górecki was previously an obscure composer, a 1992 recording of the work with Dawn Upshaw exploded in popularity, over one million copies sold, and probably became the best selling record of a contemporary classical piece in recording history. Regardless of popularity, Górecki is an awesome composer and if you haven’t heard him before I urge you to listen to this symphony, his “Little Requiem for a Polish Girl”, his Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, and his Symphony 2 “Copernicus” Movements: 1. Lento – Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile 2. Lento e largo – Tranquillissimo 3. Lento – Cantabile-semplice

mikrokosmos: mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief…

[dariaandjanelanefanboy]

mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief and loss, maybe sentiments of angst and pain that Poland had suffered through the 20th century. The first movement is a giant eight voiced canon, where each new introduction of the theme is in a different Greek mode [from lowest strings to highest, we hear the Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian, Lydian, Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian, and back to Aeolian modes], and the canon is interrupted by a pause of tone clusters, the soprano sings a 15th century Lamentation of the Virgin Mary from the Lysagora Songs collection of the Holy Cross Monastery, lamenting Jesus’ death. After the song is over, the canon breaks in at its height, and then unravels into silence. The second movement is also built out of tone cluster drones, the soprano sings a prayer to the Virgin Mary that was found in a Gestapo cell in Zakopane. The third movement is made of subtle variations on a short theme in a minor, while the soprano sings a folk song about a mother searching for her son who was killed in the Silesian uprisings of 1919-1921, and the music opens into a majestic uplifting major section before returning to the somber mood of the opening. The work is depressing, languid, and conveys the pain of parents losing children, and vice versa, and even though Górecki was previously an obscure composer, a 1992 recording of the work with Dawn Upshaw exploded in popularity, over one million copies sold, and probably became the best selling record of a contemporary classical piece in recording history. Regardless of popularity, Górecki is an awesome composer and if you haven’t heard him before I urge you to listen to this symphony, his “Little Requiem for a Polish Girl”, his Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, and his Symphony 2 “Copernicus” Movements: 1. Lento – Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile 2. Lento e largo – Tranquillissimo 3. Lento – Cantabile-semplice

mikrokosmos: mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief…

[hushilda]

mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief and loss, maybe sentiments of angst and pain that Poland had suffered through the 20th century. The first movement is a giant eight voiced canon, where each new introduction of the theme is in a different Greek mode [from lowest strings to highest, we hear the Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian, Lydian, Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian, and back to Aeolian modes], and the canon is interrupted by a pause of tone clusters, the soprano sings a 15th century Lamentation of the Virgin Mary from the Lysagora Songs collection of the Holy Cross Monastery, lamenting Jesus’ death. After the song is over, the canon breaks in at its height, and then unravels into silence. The second movement is also built out of tone cluster drones, the soprano sings a prayer to the Virgin Mary that was found in a Gestapo cell in Zakopane. The third movement is made of subtle variations on a short theme in a minor, while the soprano sings a folk song about a mother searching for her son who was killed in the Silesian uprisings of 1919-1921, and the music opens into a majestic uplifting major section before returning to the somber mood of the opening. The work is depressing, languid, and conveys the pain of parents losing children, and vice versa, and even though Górecki was previously an obscure composer, a 1992 recording of the work with Dawn Upshaw exploded in popularity, over one million copies sold, and probably became the best selling record of a contemporary classical piece in recording history. Regardless of popularity, Górecki is an awesome composer and if you haven’t heard him before I urge you to listen to this symphony, his “Little Requiem for a Polish Girl”, his Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, and his Symphony 2 “Copernicus” Movements: 1. Lento – Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile 2. Lento e largo – Tranquillissimo 3. Lento – Cantabile-semplice

mikrokosmos: mikrokosmos: Górecki – Symphony no. 3, “Symphony of Sorroful Songs” This symphony marked Górecki’s shift from a more dissonant serialist style to a more tonal one. Though it is “tonal” and sometimes considered “minimalist”, I think the terms downplay the complexity of the music. This symphony is Górecki’s most popular work, it is a monument to grief…

[voxerver]

Undeclared German-Polish war

The Silesian Uprisings were a series of three armed uprisings in Upper Silesia from 1919 to 1921 in which Poles and Polish Silesians sought to break away from Germany and join the new Polish Republic, founded after World War I. 

Silesia has been at the geographic and political crossroads of Europe throughout its entire history - a position which has seen it sitting ambivalently on the borderlands of this or that kingdom, or continually placed in the crosshairs of various land-grabbing empires and nations throughout history. 

Silesia’s true political relevance didn’t begin to take shape until the 19th century when the revelation spread that the region was rich in natural resources, particularly coal, and it developed into a hotbed of heavy industry which would largely enable the German war machine during World War I. When the Allies agreed to the reconstitution of the Polish nation in the aftermath of the war, Silesia became a bone of contention between the two countries where the local population was an almost even split between Germans and Poles. 

The First Uprising

Tensions finally broke on August 15th, 1919 when rogue German border guards murdered ten civilians in the Mysłowice coal mine. Polish armed insurrectionists took several small towns in the region and opened guerrilla warfare in the countryside against the Weimar Republic Provisional National Army as Polish miners across Silesia went on strike. The uprising was short-lived however, as the German Army quickly summoned a force of 61,000 troops and easily broke the back of the uprising within ten days. In response to the horrible reprisals that followed - as some 2,500 Silesian Poles were rounded up and either hanged or executed by firing squad – in February 1920 an Allied Plebiscite Commission composed of Italians, Frenchmen and Brits was sent to Upper Silesia to try to keep the peace. It was soon apparent however that the strength of the coalition was not enough to establish order, a problem aggravated by divided sympathies amongst the Allies between the two sides. 

The Second Uprising

Slightly better organised uprising which was staged one year later on August 19th when most industrial cities in the region were quickly captured by insurgents or paralysed by strikes. Polish insurgents were able to seize control of government buildings in the districts of Katowice, Pszczyna and Bytom, and fighting spread throughout the region before being slowly brought to an end through Allied military involvement and diplomatic success in getting the two sides to negotiate terms of a ceasefire. The Polish side succeeded is dissolving the regional police force and creating a new one which would be 50% Polish, as well as gaining admission into local administrative positions; in return the dissolution of the Polish Military Organisation was guaranteed, although this never actually took place as the Poles slyly continued with their secret intelligence operations.

The Third Uprising

During negotiations over the fast-approaching fixed date of the dubious plebiscite to be held March 20th, 1921, the Polish side lobbied hard to restrict voting to Silesian residents only. However, the near-sighted western powers didn’t see it that way and made anyone over 20 who was born in Silesia eligible to vote in the plebiscite. The result was an influx of some 200,000 Germans from outside the region taking place in the crucial vote, which - when it finally occurred – was questioned by the Allies and deemed to be largely inconclusive, though that’s not what the numbers said. The results which sat before them officially revealed 59.4% in favour of Silesia remaining in Germany, and only 40.5% for joining the new Polish Republic. To the fore came Wojciech Korfanty, a politician turned revolutionary, well-known for his defence of Germany’s Polish minorities and inspiring rhetoric. Able to quickly organise a volunteer army of 40,000, Korfanty initiated the Third Silesian Uprising on May 2nd, 1921 with the strategic destruction of rail bridges, which essentially severed all connections between Silesia and Germany, thus thwarting the potential assistance of the German government to the local Freiburg paramilitary units his men were now pitched against (all official military troops had been removed from Silesia by that time). Korfanty’s surprise offensive pushed the small German forces he faced westward and by June 4th he had crossed the Oder River and captured the strategic 400 metre-high hill of Annaberg from which he could apparently dominate the entire Oder Valley.  

As the Germans spent the next two weeks preparing a counter-offensive, Korfanty’s insurgents essentially seized all of Upper Silesia and had things well enough in hand to gain some diplomatic leverage with the Allied Commission. The Germans would eventually engage Korfanty’s men in The Battle of Annaberg - the only proper engagement during the Silesian Uprisings, which had up to that point featured mostly skirmishes and positional guerrilla battles – and what ensued was a crude battle of epic inconclusiveness (a running theme through this story) lasting several days with large numbers of senseless losses on both sides. 

Aftermath

At the final tally, Poland had actually obtained less than a third of the geographic territory, but it was generally considered to be 'the good part.' Of 61 coal mines, 50 fell to PL; of the 37 furnaces, 22 to PL; of the 16 zinc and lead mines, 12 went to Poland along with all the iron mines, and on and on. Germany had lost the war and to Poland went the spoils. In addition to Katowice, the main towns of Chorzów and Tarnowskie Góry were also incorporated into Poland, all three of which had very small to negligible German minorities. Although today it may not seem like such a great outcome to the underwhelmed tourist walking around downtown Katowice, the Silesian Uprisings were considered a major success for Poland and are today an extreme point of pride for Silesians.

Link to the original article

[yugoslavfub]

Polish Silesian insurgents. These partisans were involved in a series of three armed uprisings of the Poles and Polish Silesians of Upper Silesia, from 1919 to 1921, against German rule; the resistance hoped to break away from Germany in order to join the Second Polish Republic, which had been established in the wake of World War I.

[artofreddit]

''We won't give you Silesia!'' - anti-German postcard made during the Second Silesian Uprising, Poland, 1920 posted by Reddit User: BalQn Visit artofreddit.com for more art #propagandaposters

[tabiochan-blog]

9 Best Movies like The Killing (1956)

After just being released from a five year stint in prison, Johnny Clay has assembled a five man team, including two insiders, to carry out what he estimates will be a $2 million heist at Lansdowne Racetrack, that take, minus expenses, to be split five ways. Besides Johnny, none of the men truly are criminals in the typical sense. In addition to the other four team members, Johnny has hired two men external to the team to carry out specific functions for a flat fee, the other four who will not meet the two men for hire or know who they are, while the two men for hire will not be told of the bigger picture of the heist. None involved are to tell anyone, even their loved ones, about the job, each of the five who has a specific reason for wanting his share of the money: Johnny, in wanting to get married to his longtime girlfriend Fay, the two who have known each other since they were kids, realizes that to live comfortably, he has to shoot for the moon instead of carrying out the penny ante stuff that put him behind bars; Marvin Unger, a bookkeeper who is bankrolling the plan, is doing it out of his friendship and loyalty to Johnny; Randy Kennan, a crooked police officer, is already late with his repayment to a loan shark; Mike O'Reilly, one of the track's bartenders, wants to be able to provide better overall care, most importantly medical, to his bedridden wife, Ruthie O'Reilly; and milquetoast George Peatty, one of the track's ticket clerks, is trying to buy back the love of his shrew of a wife of five years, Sherry Peatty, if he ever had her love at all. The elaborate plan requires meticulous timing by all seven men. Beyond any unforeseen problems causing the plan to fail, what the other four team members are unaware of is that weak minded George told Sherry of the broad issue that he will be involved in a heist in an effort to hold on to her emotionally, she, in turn, who told her boyfriend Val Cannon, with Sherry and Val having their own ideas of absconding with the entire take of the heist after the fact.

Here are list of 9 Best Movies like The Killing (1956):

1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Paranoid Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper of Burpelson Air Force Base, believing that fluoridation of the American water supply is a Soviet plot to poison the U.S. populace, is able to deploy through a back door mechanism a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union without the knowledge of his superiors, including the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Buck Turgidson, and President Merkin Muffley. Only Ripper knows the code to recall the B-52 bombers and he has shut down communication in and out of Burpelson as a measure to protect this attack. Ripper's executive officer, RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (on exchange from Britain), who is being held at Burpelson by Ripper, believes he knows the recall codes if he can only get a message to the outside world. Meanwhile at the Pentagon War Room, key persons including Muffley, Turgidson and nuclear scientist and adviser, a former Nazi named Dr. Strangelove, are discussing measures to stop the attack or mitigate its blow-up into an all out nuclear war with the Soviets. Against Turgidson's wishes, Muffley brings Soviet Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky into the War Room, and get his boss, Soviet Premier Dimitri Kisov, on the hot line to inform him of what's going on. The Americans in the War Room are dismayed to learn that the Soviets have an as yet unannounced Doomsday Device to detonate if any of their key targets are hit. As Ripper, Mandrake and those in the War Room try and work the situation to their end goal, Major T.J. "King" Kong, one of the B-52 bomber pilots, is working on his own agenda of deploying his bomb where ever he can on enemy soil if he can't make it to his intended target.

2. Paths of Glory (1957)

The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack.

3. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A two-segment look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines. The first half follows a group of recruits in boot camp under the command of the punishing Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second half shows one of those recruits, Joker, covering the war as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, focusing on the Tet offensive.

4. Barry Lyndon (1975)

In the Eighteenth Century, in a small village in Ireland, Redmond Barry is a young farm boy in love with his cousin Nora Brady. When Nora gets engaged to the British Captain John Quin, Barry challenges him to a duel of pistols. He wins and escapes to Dublin but is robbed on the road. Without an alternative, Barry joins the British Army to fight in the Seven Years War. He deserts and is forced to join the Prussian Army where he saves the life of his captain and becomes his protégé and spy of the Irish gambler Chevalier de Balibari. He helps Chevalier and becomes his associate until he decides to marry the wealthy Lady Lyndon. They move to England and Barry, in his obsession of nobility, dissipates her fortune and makes a dangerous and revengeful enemy.

5. Spartacus (1960)

In 73 BCE, a Thracian slave leads a revolt at a gladiatorial school run by Lentulus Batiatus. The uprising soon spreads across the Italian Peninsula involving thousand of slaves. The plan is to acquire sufficient funds to acquire ships from Silesian pirates who could then transport them to other lands from Brandisium in the south. The Roman Senator Gracchus schemes to have Marcus Publius Glabrus, Commander of the garrison of Rome, lead an army against the slaves who are living on Vesuvius. When Glabrus is defeated his mentor, Senator and General Marcus Licinius Crassus is greatly embarrassed and leads his own army against the slaves. Spartacus and the thousands of freed slaves successfully make their way to Brandisium only to find that the Silesians have abandoned them. They then turn north and must face the might of Rome.

6. Lolita (1962)

Humbert Humbert forces a confrontation with a man, whose name he has just recently learned, in this man's home. The events that led to this standoff began four years earlier. Middle aged Humbert, a European, arrives in the United States where he has secured at job at Beardsley College in Beardsley, Ohio as a Professor of French Literature. Before he begins his post in the fall, he decides to spend the summer in the resort town of Ramsdale, New Hampshire. He is given the name of Charlotte Haze as someone who is renting a room in her home for the summer. He finds that Charlotte, widowed now for seven years, is a woman who puts on airs. Among the demonstration of those airs is throwing around the name of Clare Quilty, a television and stage script writer, who came to speak at her women's club meeting and who she implies is now a friend. Those airs also mask being lonely, especially as she is a sexually aggressive and liberated woman. Humbert considers Charlotte a proverbial "joke" but decides to rent the room upon meeting Charlotte's provocative daughter, Dolores Haze - more frequently referred to as Lolita - who he first spots in a bikini tanning in the back yard. He is immediately infatuated with Lolita, with who he becomes obsessed in a sexual manner despite her age, she being just into her teens. He will also learn that Charlotte has the exact same feelings for him. While Charlotte does whatever she can to be alone with Humbert, Humbert does the same with Lolita. As the summer progresses, Humbert, based on the circumstances, decides to enter into a relationship with Charlotte just to be near Lolita. In that new arrangement, Humbert has to figure out how to achieve his goal of being with Lolita with Charlotte out of the way. As things begin to go Humbert's way, he is unaware that Charlotte is not the only thing standing in his way between him and Lolita, that other thing being Lolita's possible interest in other boys, and other members of the male sex, young or old, who may have their own designs on Lolita.

7. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

After his wife, Alice, tells him about her sexual fantasies, William Harford sets out for a night of sexual adventure. After several less than successful encounters, he meets an old friend, Nick Nightingale - now a musician - who tells him of strange sex parties when he is required to play the piano blindfolded. All the men at the party are costumed and wear masks while the women are all young and beautiful. Harford manages to find an appropriate costume and heads out to the party. Once there, however, he is warned by someone who recognizes him, despite the mask, that he is in great danger. He manages to extricate himself but the threats prove to be quite real and sinister.

8. Killer's Kiss (1955)

Prize-fighter Davy Gordon intervenes when private dancer Gloria Price is being attacked by her employer and lover Vincent Raphello. This brings the two together and they get involved with each other, which displeases Raphello. He sends men out to kill Davy, but they instead kill his friend. Gloria is soon kidnapped by Raphello and his men, and it is up to Davy to save her.

9. Fear and Desire (1953)

A ficticious war in an unidentified country provides the setting for this drama. Four soldiers survive the crash-landing of their plane to find themselves in a forest six miles behind enemy lines. The group, led by Lt. Corby, has a plan: They'll make their way to a nearby river, build a raft, and then, under cover of night, float back to friendly territory. Their plans for getting back safely are sidetracked by a young woman who stumbles across them as they hide in the woods, and by the nearby presence of an enemy general who one member of the group is determined to kill.

Source: https://moviessimilarto.com/title/the-killing-1956

[kajenus]

you should write a short biography for all of them and post it here :D

I already did a couple of months before, buuuuut here we go again!!

➼ Hanik He's the protagonist of the story during the 1920s! An energetic and extroverted, optimistic, a bit of happy-go-lucky person, there's always a smile on his face – either genuine or a cocky one. Super patriotic, always considered himself Pole first, then Silesian. Hates Germans. He's a miner in the coal mine "Giesche" (later "Wieczorek"). He's the husband of Helena Dytko. Can imagine him acting against commandant's orders during the fights two or three times. He's 24 during the story :o)

➼ Marcin The oldest of the group, born in 1888 (33 during the story), he's also their voice of reason™️. He was raised in a rather wealthy family, which wanted him to become a priest, but decided to lead a life of a simple miner instead (works in the same coal mine as Hanik). Oasis of calm, it's really hard to provoke him. A good balance to the volatile characters of Hanik and Ernst. He served during WW1, where he got shot between ribs – miraculously managed to survive. That's why he has a German uniform on the ref. He's asexual and aromantic! Good at playing various card games – almost nobody in Giszowiec can beat him.

➼ Ernst Ernst is many things: a womanizer, unprofessional horse rider, and a radio host in radio "Katowice". He doesn't look for long or devoted romances, often has one-night stands – everybody else is TIRED of hearing about them. He comes from Bytom, but moved to Katowice with his family, and later fought in the second and third Silesian Uprising – that's how he met Hanik and Marcin, and they've been friends since. A sarcastic person, he loves to tease others with his irony. 22 during the events of the 1920s arc. Owns a horse named Dakota.

➼ Gynek He's the youngest of the group, born in Cieszyn in 1901. He decided to fight in the third Silesian Uprising because he was kicked out of his house and had nowhere to go. After the uprising, he was offered to come to Giszowiec with Hanik, Marcin and Ernst, where he began to work in the coal mine "Giesche". He's a young, talented, naïve artist. He never attended art school, so he doesn’t know if he can call himself an artist at all. He's shy and really self-conscious, but despite that, he also fought bravely against Germans. He's bisexual.

Uff, I guess that is it! Now you know them a bit.... if you want more info, I have a whole Toyhouse dedicated to my characters. Thank you for asking!

[kajenus]

Hello! I have finally decided to introduce my OCs and story to a larger public. The universe takes place in Silesia (mostly Katowice) through the whole 20th century, and some 21st c. too. Here we have characters from the interwar period. Feel free to ask them/ask me about them about everything! I love sharing my ideas with people. 🗡️ Janusz Dytko 🗡️ Hanik, Hanzlik or Janek. Whatever. Just not Johannes. Hanik is the main character of the story, during the 1920s and 1930s arcs. He lives in Giszowiec (estate of Katowice, Poland) since 1917, and he works as a miner in KWK “Giesche” (coalmine “Giesche”) in Nikiszowiec. He fought in all three Silesian Uprisings. He is a very extroverted person, and there’s almost always a smile on his face – either a pure one or cocky one. Hanik is short-tempered, and easy to unnerve – especially if you’re German. His hobby is collecting various knives (Finnish knives, hunting, whatever he gets his hands on) and raising pigeons.

🍻 Marcin Niedźwiecki 🍻 Caressingly called “Cinek” by his friends, but try to call him like that, and he can break your fingers. Supporting character. Just like Hanik, he works on KWK “Giesche” as a miner, fought in all three Silesian Uprisings as well. As he’s not married, he lives in a miners' hotel in Giszowiec. Born in 1888. He’s an oasis of calm, Marcin is rather insular, and his mustache covering his mouth gives him even more dignity. Sometimes he’s tired of the impulsive characters of Hanik and Ernest. His family wanted him to become a priest, but Marcin preferred to become a miner. He can play grand piano, as he was taught by his mother in childhood. He’s asexual aromantic.

🍷 Ernest Rębacz 🍷 Ernest is another supporting character. In short Ernst, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. Even though he isn’t a miner – he works in radio “Katowice” since it’s establishment in 1927 – he also fought in second and third Silesian Uprising. During those events, he met Hanik and Marcin, and they’ve been friends since. Ernest is a womanizer, who doesn’t looks for long or devoted romances. He’s a hobbyist horse rider. Just like Hanik, he has a rather volatile personality. He often replies with irony or sarcasm, and he often has a smirk on his face. 🎨 Eugeniusz Myśliwski 🎨 Gynek or Ojgen in short; using his full name, you can make him embarrassed. Supporting character. Gynek was born in Cieszyn in 1901, and despite his young age, he decided to go to Annaberg to fight in the third Silesian Uprising. There he met Hanik, Marcin and Ernest, with whom he came back to Giszowiec – after the uprising, he had nowhere to go. Gynek is working on coalmine “Giesche” too, as well as a young, talented naïve artist. He never attended art school, so he doesn’t know if he can call himself an artist. Like Marcin, he lives in a miners’ hotel. A shy boy, typically self-conscious. Bisexual.

🍳 Helena Dytko 🍳 Known to everyone as Lynka. Really supporting characters; she’s Hanik’s wife. The man promised her to get married as soon as Silesia becomes part of Poland again, which happened in 1922.

She’s a housewife, who takes care of their home in Giszowiec. Lynka can be described as chopiona – a woman wearing traditional Silesian clothing. Despite her small posture, and work which isn’t hard to many, she perfectly knows how to get her way. Energetic and friendly individual, although she can point out your dirty shoes on a freshly cleaned floor. Or wet coat. She had good intuition. She knows how to operate basic weaponry, and if there is a need, she can use a frying pan or a rolling pin as a weapon if prompted to.