Nazewnictwo miejscowe w polityce władz rejencji opolskiej (spojrzenie onomasty)
Place-names in the policy of the authoritiesof Opole Regency (a look of an expert in onomastics)

Summary/Abstract: the aim of the article is to present the Polish-German relations as reflected in the names given to places in Silesia in the time of Opole Regency (1816–1945). Beginning with the mid-18 th century, the influence and pressure of the official-administrative factor on the system of giving names to places grew stronger. as a result of the monopolistic position of the state, the tendency towards the administrative codification of names was transformed into a legal obligation, took on political accents and became a tool of conscious assimilation of ethnic minorities, displacement of their language and obliteration of the image of the historical past. this period of intentional and conscious processes of enforcing the German language grew stronger clearly after the Plebiscite and the division of upper Silesia, and then after taking the power over by national socialists. in the first place, it was the ethnic segment „Polnisch” (Polish) which was removed from names, and – after 1933 – names which were evidently of the Slavic origin and sounded alien were being changed on a mass scale. in 1936 only, there were 1,088 place-names changed in Opole Regency. the process and the course of „Germanization” of the toponyms in this part of Silesia were compared with the same actions executed in other regions of the Reich.

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