Both Nazi and Polish regimes classified mixed Silesians for labor utility.

Evidence

As usual, nationality proved more complicated in Upper Silesia. Already in February 1945, the Polish occupiers had inverted the Nazi Volksliste in their favor. Silesians who had been part of the Herrenvolk were disenfranchised, expropriated, placed in labor camps, and ultimately expelled, while any Poles who had survived the Nazi occupation received privileged status. Once more, most Upper Silesians fell between the i rst and fourth tiers of the Volksliste hierarchy and were classii ed as an autochthonous population. The Polish regime tried to retain as many of them as possible to sustain uninterrupted productivity in the relatively intact industrial region and prove that a “Polish” element had lived in these “ancient Polish” lands. — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 373

Categorization

• XREF: The inversion of the Volksliste — both occupiers pragmatically retaining ambiguous middle categories for labor — complicates the primordial-identity question the reader pursues.