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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
A small municipality that has a large population from Poland’s ethnic German minority has won over 600,000 zloty in compensation after suing the former government for cutting funding for teaching German in schools.
The head of an organisation representing the local German minority has welcomed the decision, saying it confirms that the funding cuts – which were criticised by Germany, the Council of Europe and other Polish minority groups – were discriminatory and unconstitutional.
In 2022, when Poland was ruled by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, the government cut funding for teaching the German language to members of the ethnic German minority by two thirds, meaning they would have only one hour per week instead of three.
According to census data, around 132,500 ethnic Germans reside in Poland. Most live in Silesia, a region in southwest Poland that has historically been part of both Poland and Germany during different periods.
PiS justified its decision by saying it was “restoring symmetry” because the German government does not provide any funding for teaching Polish to Poles in Germany.
However, Germany pointed out this was untrue: while its federal government does not fund Polish teaching, because it is not responsible for education, individual states, which are responsible for it, do.
The PiS government’s decision prompted criticism from German minority organisations as well as solidarity from other ethnic and national minorities in Poland. Internationally, it was also condemned by Germany and the Council of Europe.
Meanwhile, many Polish municipalities with large ethnic German populations decided that, instead of cutting German teaching by two hours a week, they would themselves provide funding for one or two additional hours.
Poland’s German minority has launched a campaign calling for the government to restore German teaching after cuts were made last year.
The education minister has responded by saying that it is Germany which is discriminating against its Polish population https://t.co/XCadd1HZdb
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 18, 2023
Ozimek was one such municipality. It paid for an extra hour per week of teaching for all children learning German as a minority language. Currently, it has 737 such children in schools and 193 in preschools among its population of 20,000 people.
“Language skills and preserving the identity and multiculturalism of our region are key,” wrote the local authorities. “We decided that we cannot limit the learning opportunities for our children, and the lands we live in have always been characterised by understanding and…respect [for] our common history.”
However, the municipality also in December 2023 filed a lawsuit against the government seeking compensation for the extra costs it had been forced to bear due to the funding cuts.
For the first time since Poland's first fully free post-communist elections in 1991, the German minority will not have a representative in parliament, after losing its solitary seat at Sunday’s elections.
It is "the end of an era", says their outgoing MP https://t.co/XU9YzCwOTg
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 17, 2023
Now, the district court in Warsaw has accepted that claim, awarding Ozimek almost 626,000 zloty (€150,000) plus interest as compensation as well as around 42,000 zloty to cover costs related to the case.
The municipality’s mayor, Mirosław Wieszołek, notes that a justification for the ruling – which is not final and can still be appealed – has not yet been published.
The court’s decision was welcomed by Rafał Bartek, chairman of the Social and Cultural Association of Germans in Opole Silesia.
“From the first day that these PiS attempts [to cut funds] appeared, we pointed out that it was unconstitutional and discriminated against one specific group,” he told local newspaper Nowa Trybuna Opolska. “Today’s verdict confirms that we were right. Let’s hope that other municipalities will obtain similar decisions.”
Bartek notes that the teaching of other officially recognised minority languages in Poland, such as Kashubian, was not cut, indicating that the German minority was being discriminated against.
He revealed that eight other municipalities have filed similar lawsuits claiming compensation. In total, the cuts introduced by the government in 2022 amounted to around 40 million zloty annually.
In December 2023 – the same month that Ozimek filed its lawsuit – the PiS government was removed from power and replaced by a more liberal ruling coalition, which quickly restored funding for three hours a week of German teaching for the German minority from the start of the 2024/25 school year.
The new government also passed legislation recognising Silesian, which is spoken by hundreds of thousands of people in Silesia, as an official regional language. However, the bill was vetoed by PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda.
Poland’s first-ever university course to train teachers of Silesian language and culture has been launched, with all available places filled within three days.
It comes months after President Duda vetoed a bill to recognise Silesian as a regional languagehttps://t.co/UPpTsrtGyx
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 18, 2024
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Policja Lubuska (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
