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Trans-OlzaErik Goldstein, Igor Lukes: The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II. 2012. p. 51. (, ; , Záolší; ), also known as Trans-Olza Silesia (), is a territory in the Czech Republic which was disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Interwar Period. Its name comes from the Olza River.
The history of the Trans-Olza region began in 1918 when, after the collapse of Austria-Hungary, the newly-established Czechoslovakia claimed the area, which was mainly inhabited by Poles. Poland maintained control over the region and began to hold elections, to which Czechoslovakia responded by invading and annexing the territory in January 1919.
The area as it is known today was created in 1920, when Cieszyn Silesia was divided between the two countries during the Spa Conference. Trans-Olza forms the eastern part of the Czech portion of Cieszyn Silesia. The division again did not satisfy any side, and persisting conflict over the region led to its annexation by Poland in October 1938, following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. After the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the area became a part of Nazi Germany until 1945. After the war, the 1920 borders were restored.
Historically, the largest specified ethnic group inhabiting this area were Poles.Zahradnik 1992, 16–17. Under Austrian rule, Cieszyn Silesia was initially divided into three (Bielitz District, Friedek and Teschen District), and later into four districts (plus Freistadt). One of them, Frýdek, had a mostly Czech population, the other three were mostly inhabited by Poles.Watt 1998, 161.Piotr Stefan Wandycz. France and Her Eastern Allies, 1919-1925: French-Czechoslovak-Polish Relations from the Paris Peace Conference to Locarno. University of Minnesota Press. 1962. pp. 75, 79 During the 19th century the number of ethnic Germans grew. After declining at the end of the 19th century,The 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910 Austrian censuses asked people about the language they use. (Siwek 1996, 31.) at the beginning of the 20th century and later from 1920 to 1938 the Czech population grew significantly to rival the Poles. Another significant ethnic group were the Jews, but almost the entire Jewish population was murdered during World War II by Nazi Germany.
In addition to the Polish, Czech and German national orientations there was another group of Silesians, who claimed to be of a distinct national identity. This group enjoyed popular support throughout Cieszyn Silesia, though its strongest supporters were among the Protestantism in the eastern part of Cieszyn Silesia (now part of Poland), not in Trans-Olza itself.Hannan 1996, 47.
Since the 1960 reform of administrative divisions of Czechoslovakia, Trans-Olza has consisted of Karviná District and the eastern part of Frýdek-Místek District.
After the fall of Great Moravia in 907 the area could have been under the influence of Bohemian rulers. In the late 10th century Poland, ruled by Bolesław I Chrobry, began to contend for the region, which was crossed by important international routes. From 950 to 1060 it was under the rule of Bohemia,Žáček 2004, 14–20. and from 1060 it was part of the Piast Kingdom of Poland. The written history explicitly about the region begins on 23 April 1155 when Cieszyn/Těšín was first mentioned in a written document, a letter from Pope Adrian IV issued for Walter, Bishop of Wrocław, where it was listed amongst other centres of castellany. The castellany was then a part of Duchy of Silesia. In 1172 it became a part of Duchy of Racibórz, and from 1202 of Duchy of Opole and Racibórz. In the first half of the 13th century the Moravian settlement organised by Arnold von Hückeswagen from Starý Jičín castle and later accelerated by Bruno von Schauenburg, Bishop of Olomouc, began to press close to Silesian settlements. This prompted signing of a special treaty between Duke Vladislaus I of Opole and King Ottokar II of Bohemia on December 1261 which regulated a local border between their states along the Ostravice River.I. Panic, 2010, p. 50 In order to strengthen the border Władysław of Opole decided to found Orlová monastery in 1268.I. Panic, 2010, p. 428 In the continued process of feudal fragmentation of Poland the Castellany of Cieszyn was eventually transformed in 1290 into the Duchy of Cieszyn, which in 1327 became an autonomic fiefdom of the Bohemian crown.Panic 2002, 7. Upon the death of Elizabeth Lucretia, its last ruler from the Polish Piast dynasty in 1653, it passed directly to the Bohemian kings from the Habsburg dynasty.Zahradnik 1992, 13. When most of Silesia was conquered by Prussian king Frederick the Great in 1742, the Cieszyn region was part of the small southern portion that was retained by the Habsburg Monarchy (Austrian Silesia).
Up to the mid-19th century members of the local Slav population did not identify themselves as members of larger ethnolinguistic entities. In Cieszyn Silesia (as in all West Slavic borderlands) various territorial identities pre-dated ethnic and national identity. Consciousness of membership within a greater Polish or Czech nation spread slowly in Silesia.Hannan 1996, 76–77.
From 1848 to the end of the 19th century, local Polish and Czech people co-operated, united against the Germanization tendencies of the Austrian Empire and later of Austria-Hungary.Zahradnik 1992, 40. At the end of the century, ethnic tensions arose as the area's economic significance grew. This growth caused a wave of immigration from Galicia. About 60,000 people arrived between 1880 and 1910.Zahradnik 1992, 48. The new immigrants were Polish and poor, about half of them being illiterate. They worked in coal mining and metallurgy. For these people the most important factor was material well-being; they cared little about the homeland from which they had fled. Almost all of them assimilated into the Czech population.Zahradnik 1992, 51. Many of them settled in Ostrava (west of the ethnic border), as heavy industry was spread through the whole western part of Cieszyn Silesia. Even today, ethnographers find that about 25,000 people in Ostrava (about 8% of the population) have Polish surnames. The Czech population (living mainly in the northern part of the area: Bohumín, Orlová, etc.) declined numerically at the end of the 19th century, assimilating with the prevalent Polish population. This process shifted with the industrial boom in the area.
Following an announcement that elections to the Sejm (parliament) of Poland would be held in the entirety of Cieszyn Silesia,Gawrecká, 23, in particular the quotation of Dąbrowski: "Czesi uderzyli na nas kilka dni przed 26 stycznia 1919, w którym to dniu miały się odbyć wybory do Sejmu w Warszawie. Nie chcieli bowiem między innemi dopuścić do przeprowadzenia tych wyborów, któreby były wykazały bez wszelkiej presyi i agitacyi, że Śląsk jest polskim". the Czechoslovak government requested that the Poles cease their preparations as no elections were to be held in the disputed territory until a final agreement could be reached. When their demands were rejected by the Poles, the Czechs decided to resolve the issue by force and on 23 January 1919 invaded the area.Długajczyk 1993, 7.Zahradnik 1992, 59.
The Czechoslovak offensive was halted after pressure from the Triple Entente following the Battle of Skoczów, and a ceasefire was signed on 3 February. The new Czechoslovakia claimed the area partly on historic and ethnic grounds, but especially on economic grounds.Mamatey 1973, 34. The area was important for the Czechs as the crucial railway line connecting Czech Silesia with Slovakia crossed the area (the Košice–Bohumín Railway, which was one of only two railroads that linked the Czech provinces to Slovakia at that time). The area is also very rich in Bituminous coal. Many important coal mines, facilities and metallurgy factories are located there. The Polish side based its claim to the area on ethnic criteria: a majority (69.2%) of the area's population was Polish according to the last (1910) Austrian census.Dariusz Miszewski. Aktywność polityczna mniejszości polskiej w Czechosłowacji w latach 1920-1938. Wyd. Adam Marszałek. 2002. p. 346.Zahradnik 1992, 178–179.
In this very tense atmosphere it was decided that a plebiscite would be held in the area asking people which country this territory should join. Plebiscite commissioners arrived there at the end of January 1920, and after analysing the situation declared a state of emergency in the territory on 19 May 1920. The situation in the area remained very tense, with mutual intimidation, acts of terror, beatings and even killings.Zahradnik 1992, 62–63. A plebiscite could not be held in this atmosphere. On 10 July both sides renounced the idea of a plebiscite and entrusted the Conference of Ambassadors with the decision.Zahradnik 1992, 64. Eventually, on 28 July 1920, by a decision of the Spa Conference, Czechoslovakia received 58.1% of the area of Cieszyn Silesia, containing 67.9% of the population. It was this territory that became known from the Polish standpoint as Zaolzie – the Olza River marked the boundary between the Polish and Czechoslovak parts of the territory.
The most vocal support for union with Poland had come from within the territory awarded to Czechoslovakia, while some of the strongest opponents of Polish rule came from the territory awarded to Poland.Hannan 1996, 46.
In 1919, the matter went to consideration in Paris before the World War I Allies. Watt claims the Poles based their claims on ethnographical reasons and the Czechs based their need on the Cieszyn coal, useful in order to influence the actions of Austria and Hungary, whose capitals were fuelled by coal from the duchy. The Allies finally decided that the Czechs should get 60 percent of the coal fields and the Poles were to get most of the people and the strategic rail line. Watt writes: "Czech envoy Edvard Beneš proposed a plebiscite. The Allies were shocked, arguing that the Czechs were bound to lose it. However, Beneš was insistent and a plebiscite was announced in September 1919. As it turned out, Beneš knew what he was doing. A plebiscite would take some time to set up, and a lot could happen in that time – particularly when a nation's affairs were conducted as cleverly as were Czechoslovakia's."Watt 1998, 163.
Watt argues that Beneš strategically waited for Poland's moment of weakness, and moved in during the Polish-Soviet War crisis in July 1920. As Watt writes, "Over the dinner table, Beneš convinced the British and French that the plebiscite should not be held and that the Allies should simply impose their own decision in the Cieszyn matter. More than that, Beneš persuaded the French and the British to draw a frontier line that gave Czechoslovakia most of the territory of Cieszyn, the vital railroad and all the important coal fields. With this frontier, 139,000 Poles were to be left in Czech territory, whereas only 2,000 Czechs were left on the Polish side".
"The next morning Beneš visited the Polish delegation at Spa. By giving the impression that the Czechs would accept a settlement favorable to the Poles without a plebiscite, Beneš got the Poles to sign an agreement that Poland would abide by any Allied decision regarding Cieszyn. The Poles, of course, had no way of knowing that Beneš had already persuaded the Allies to make a decision on Cieszyn. After a brief interval, to make it appear that due deliberation had taken place, the Allied Council of Ambassadors in Paris imposed its 'decision'. Only then did it dawn on the Poles that at Spa they had signed a blank check. To them, Beneš' stunning triumph was not diplomacy, it was a swindle (...) As Polish Prime Minister Wincenty Witos warned: 'The Polish nation has received a blow which will play an important role in our relations with the Czechoslovak Republic. The decision of the Council of Ambassadors has given the Czechs a piece of Polish land containing a population which is mostly Polish.... The decision has caused a rift between these two nations which are ordinarily politically and economically united' ( ...."Watt 1998, 164.
With respect to the arbitration decision itself, Mamatey writes that "On 25 March, to expedite the work of the peace conference, the Council of Ten was divided into the Council of Four (The "Big Four") and the Council of Five (the foreign ministers). Early in April the two councils considered and approved the recommendations of the Czechoslovak commission without a change – with the exception of Cieszyn, which they referred to Poland and Czechoslovakia to settle in bilateral negotiations."Mamatey 1973, 36. When the Polish-Czechoslovak negotiations failed, the Allied powers proposed plebiscites in the Cieszyn Silesia and also in the border districts of Orava and Spiš (now in Slovakia) to which the Poles had raised claims. In the end, however, no plebiscites were held due to the rising mutual hostilities of Czechs and Poles in Cieszyn Silesia. Instead, on 28 July 1920 the Spa Conference (also known as the Conference of Ambassadors) divided each of the three disputed areas between Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Nevertheless, the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Józef Beck, believed that Warsaw should act rapidly to forestall the German occupation of the city. At noon on 30 September, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. It demanded the immediate evacuation of Czechoslovak troops and police and gave Prague time until noon the following day. At 11:45 a.m. on 1 October the Czechoslovak foreign ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted. The Polish Army, commanded by General Władysław Bortnowski, annexed an area of 801.5 km2 with a population of 227,399 people. Administratively the annexed area was divided between two counties: Frysztat County and Cieszyn County. At the same time Slovakia lost to Hungary 10,390 km2 with 854,277 inhabitants.
The Germans were delighted with this outcome, and were happy to give up the sacrifice of a small provincial rail centre to Poland in exchange for the ensuing propaganda benefits. It spread the blame of the partition of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, made Poland a participant in the process and confused political expectations. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany – a charge that Warsaw was hard-put to deny.Watt 1998, 386.
The Polish side argued that Poles in Trans-Olza deserved the same ethnic rights and freedom as the Sudeten Germans under the Munich Agreement. The vast local Polish population enthusiastically welcomed the change, seeing it as a liberation and a form of historical justice,Zahradnik 1992, 86. but they quickly changed their mood. The new Polish authorities appointed people from Poland to various key positions from which locals were fired.Gabal 1999, 123. The Polish language became the sole official language. Using Czech (or German) by Czechs (or Germans) in public was prohibited and Czechs and Germans were being forced to leave the annexed area or become subject to Polonisation. Rapid Polonization policies then followed in all parts of public and private life. Czech organizations were dismantled and their activity was prohibited. The Roman Catholic parishes in the area belonged either to the Archdiocese of Breslau (Archbishop Adolf Bertram) or to the Archdiocese of Olomouc (Archbishop Leopold Prečan), respectively, both traditionally comprising cross-border diocesan territories in Czechoslovakia and Germany. When the Polish government demanded after its takeover that the parishes there be disentangled from these two archdioceses, the Holy See complied. Pope Pius XI, former nuncio to Poland, subjected the Catholic parishes in Trans-Olza to an apostolic administration under Stanisław Adamski, Bishop of Katowice.Jerzy Pietrzak, "Die politischen und kirchenrechtlichen Grundlagen der Einsetzung Apostolischer Administratoren in den Jahren 1939–1942 und 1945 im Vergleich", in: Katholische Kirche unter nationalsozialistischer und kommunistischer Diktatur: Deutschland und Polen 1939–1989, Hans-Jürgen Karp and Joachim Köhler (eds.), (=Forschungen und Quellen zur Kirchen- und Kulturgeschichte Ostdeutschlands; vol. 32), Cologne: Böhlau, 2001, pp. 157–174, here p. 160. .
Czechoslovak education in the Czech language and German language ceased to exist.Zahradnik 1992, 87. About 35,000 Czechoslovaks emigrated to core Czechoslovakia (the later Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) by choice or forcibly.Zahradnik 1992, 89–90. The behaviour of the new Polish authorities was different but similar in nature to that of the Czechoslovak ones before 1938. Two political factions appeared: socialists (the opposition) and rightists (loyal to the new Polish national authorities). Leftist politicians and sympathizers were discriminated against and often fired from work.Zahradnik 1992, 88–89. The Polish political system was artificially implemented in Trans-Olza. The local Poles continued to feel like second-class citizens and a majority of them were dissatisfied with the situation after October 1938.Zahradnik 1992, 96. Zaolzie remained a part of Poland for only 11 months until the invasion of Poland started on 1 September 1939.
Richard M. Watt describes the Polish capture of Zaolzie in these words:
Amid the general euphoria in Poland – the acquisition of Zaolzie was a very popular development – no one paid attention to the bitter comment of the Czechoslovak general who handed the region over to the incoming Poles. He predicted that it would not be long before the Poles would themselves be handing Zaolzie over to the Germans.
Watt also writes that
the Polish 1938 ultimatum to Czechoslovakia and its acquisition of Zaolzie were gross tactical errors. Whatever justice there might have been to the Polish claim upon Zaolzie, its seizure in 1938 was an enormous mistake in terms of the damage done to Poland's reputation among the democratic powers of the world.Watt 1998, 458.
Daladier, the French Prime Minister, told the US ambassador to France that "he hoped to live long enough to pay Poland for her cormorant attitude in the present crisis by proposing a new partition." The Soviet Union was so hostile to Poland over Munich that there was a real prospect that war between the two states might break out quite separate from the wider conflict over Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Prime Minister, Molotov, denounced the Poles as "Hitler's jackals".
In his postwar memoirs, Winston Churchill compared Germany and Poland to vultures landing on the dying carcass of Czechoslovakia and lamented that "over a question so minor as Cieszyn, they the sundered themselves from all those friends in France, Britain and the United States who had lifted them once again to a national, coherent life, and whom they were soon to need so sorely. ... It is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a people capable of every heroic virtue ... as individuals, should repeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life." Churchill also associated such behaviour with hyenas.
In 2009 Polish president Lech Kaczyński declared during 70th anniversary of start of World War II, which was welcomed by the Czech and Slovak diplomatic delegations:
The Polish annexation of Zaolzie is frequently Whataboutism by Russian media as a counter-argument to Soviet-Nazi cooperation.
The German authorities introduced terror into Trans-Olza. The Nazis especially targeted the Polish intelligentsia, many of whom died during the war. Mass killings, executions, arrests, taking locals to forced labour and deportations to concentration camps all happened on a daily basis. The most notorious war crime was a murder of 36 villagers in and around Żywocice on 6 August 1944.Zahradnik 1992, 102–103. This massacre is known as the Żywocice tragedy (). The resistance movement, mostly composed of Poles, was fairly strong in Trans-Olza. So-called Volksliste – a document in which a non-German citizen declared that he had some German ancestry by signing it; refusal to sign this document could lead to deportation to a concentration camp – were introduced. Local people who took them were later on enrolled in the Wehrmacht. Many local people with no German ancestry were also forced to take them. The World War II death toll in Trans-Olza is estimated at about 6,000 people: about 2,500 Jews, 2,000 other citizens (80% of them being Poles)Zahradnik 1992, 103. and more than 1,000 locals who died in the Wehrmacht (those who took the Volksliste). Also a few hundred Poles from Trans-Olza were murdered by Soviets in the Katyn massacre. Percentage-wise, Trans-Olza suffered the worst human loss from the whole of Czechoslovakia – about 2.6% of the total population.
As to the Catholic parishes in Trans-Olza pertaining to the Archdiocese of Breslau Archbishop Bertram, then residing in the episcopal Jánský vrch castle in Czechoslovak Javorník, appointed František Onderek (1888–1962) as vicar general for the Czechoslovak portion of the Archdiocese of Breslau on 21 June 1945. In July 1946 Pope Pius XII elevated Onderek to Apostolic Administrator for the Czechoslovak portion of the Archdiocese of Breslau (colloquially: Apostolic Administration of Český Těšín; ), seated in Český Těšín, thus disentangling the parishes from Breslau's jurisdiction. Biographisches Handbuch der Tschechoslowakei, Heinrich Kuhn and Otto Böss (compil.), Munich: Lerche 1961, (Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum), p. 115. On 31 May 1978 Pope Paul VI merged the apostolic administration into the Archdiocese of Olomouc through his Apostolic constitution Olomoucensis et aliarum.Emil Valasek, "Veränderungen der Diözesangrenzen in der Tschechoslowakei seit 1918", in: Archiv für Kirchengeschichte von Böhmen – Mähren – Schlesien, vol. 6 (1982), pp. 289–296, here p. 292.
Poland signed a treaty with Czechoslovakia in Warsaw on 13 June 1958 confirming the border as it existed on 1 January 1938. After the Communist takeover of power, the industrial boom continued and many immigrants arrived in the area (mostly from other parts of Czechoslovakia, mainly from Slovakia). The arrival of Slovaks significantly changed the ethnic structure of the area, as almost all the Slovak immigrants assimilated into the Czech majority in the course of time.Hannan 1996, 163–164. The number of self-declared Slovaks is rapidly declining. The last Slovak primary school was closed in Karviná several years ago. Photo of the school Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Trans-Olza has been part of the independent Czech Republic. However, a significant Polish minority still remains there.
The area belongs mostly to the Cieszyn Silesia Euroregion with a few municipalities in the Euroregion Beskydy.
| 1880 | 94,370 | 71,239 | 16,425 | 6,672 | – |
| 1890 | 107,675 | 86,674 | 13,580 | 7,388 | – |
| 1900 | 143,220 | 115,392 | 14,093 | 13,476 | – |
| 1910 | 179,145 | 123,923 | 32,821 | 22,312 | – |
| 1921The 1921 Czechoslovak census asked people about their native language. (Siwek 1996, 32.) | 177,176 | 68,034 | 88,556 | 18,260 | – |
| 1930People could declare a nationality other than that indicated by their native language. (Siwek 1996, 32.) | 216,255 | 76,230 | 120,639 | 17,182 | – |
| 1939The German occupational census based nationality on self-declaration of citizens. The census was distorted by the occupational regime. (Siwek 1996, 32.) | 213,867 | 51,499 | 44,579 | 38,408 | – |
| 1950The 1950, 1961, 1980 and 1991 Czechoslovak censuses based nationality on self-declaration of citizens. (Siwek 1996, 37–38.) | 219,811 | 59,005 | 155,146 | – | 4,388 |
| 1961 | 281,183 | 58,876 | 205,785 | – | 13,233 |
| 1970The 1970 Czechoslovak census asked people about their native language. (Siwek 1996, 37.) | 350,825 | 56,075 | 263,047 | – | 26,806 |
| 1980 | 366,559 | 51,586 | 281,584 | – | 28,719 |
| 1991 | 368,355 | 43,479 | 263,941 | 706 | 26,629 |
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