Mniejszość niemiecka w Polsce a proces transformacji systemowej – założenia i wstępne wyniki badań
German minority in Poland and the political transformation – assumptions and preliminary research results

Summary/Abstract: To date, the scholarly monographs on the issue of the emergence and development of the German minority movement in Poland after 1989 took the political transformation in Poland as the reference point. In this sense, transition and political transformation created the circumstances in which people identifying themselves with the German nation could take advantage of the introduction of democratic freedoms into the public life in Poland, including the freedom of association. Democratization meant systemic acceptance of worldview pluralism and the ethnic diversity of Polish society. On this basis, the German minority movement initiated the process of organizational institutionalization, at the same time joining in the regional and nationwide sociopolitical life. This problem is rather exhaustively described in the literature; however, it was analyzed without taking into account the possible influence of the emergence and development of the German minority movement on the regional and nationwide processes related to building up the democratic political system in Poland. The paper presents the development of the German minority movement in the context of the political transformation in Poland, distinguishing four issues that allow for understanding the specificity and mutual relationships between political transformation and mobilization and consolidation of the German minority in Polish public life. The research undertaken with the aim of preparing this paper allows for a conclusion the emergence of the German minority movement in Opolian Silesia had a considerable impact on the pace and scope of democratization – this milieu was in those processes not only a beneficiary of the transformation, but also played a role of facto rwhich generated that transformation.

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