The size of the German minority in Poland is hard to estimate and the sources give very variable numbers. In the census of 2002 approximately 150,000 people indicated that they belong to the German minority in Poland, which would be less than 0,4% of the total population. The German embassy in Poland assumes that the number of people with German ancestry is double, namely about 300,000 people. Most Germans live in the Voivodeship of Opole/Oppeln and in the western part of the Voivodeship of Silesia/Schlesien.
The first German settlements stem from to the 12th century, and also because of new border changes after the First World War new German settlements were developed.
The approximately 8.5 million Germans came under severe pressure between 1944 and 1950, when they were expelled from the Polish territory. Many of them chose to become Polish and were allowed to stay, other were suppressed and their identity denied, so that after 1951 the wrong message was disseminated that there were no Germans in Poland anymore.
Since 1991 the Verband der Deutschen Sozial-Kulturellen Gesellschaften (the Federation of German Socio-Cultural Assocations) represents the German minority in Poland.
450,000 (Pan) / 500,000 (Ethnologue) / 204,573 (Euromosaic)
German (450.000 Speaker)