Stanisław and Helena Sierakowski. Polish patriots from Waplitz.
In the end calls from Polish circles in Germany for an umbrella organisation became ever louder. In this connection, starting in mid-1921, discussions took place with a variety of organisations in Germany. On 5th June that year a conference of representatives from these organisations took place, in which Poles in Eastern Prussia were represented by Jan Baczewski and Stanisław Sierakowski, a meeting that served to increase Sierakowski’s personal reputation. The upshot was that the participants elected him to discuss matters with further organisations. These discussions lasted for several months and ended with important agreements. Accordingly the BdPiD was set up at a meeting held on 27th August 1922 in Berlin. This was to become the centre of all the organisations in the whole of Germany, which were fighting for a united Poland. The first chairman of the League was Stanisław Sierakowski, who held the office until 1927.
Sierakowski enjoyed the total confidence of the Polish community so that he was given further functions. In 1923 he was elected as a member of the Prussian Parliament, in which he actively participated until December 1924. In February 1923, along with the Polish Member of Parliament, Jan Baczewski, he submitted a formal question on the Polish school system in Germany. From 1923 onwards he belonged to the Presidium of the Association of Polish Organisations and School Clubs (Związekk Polskich Organizacji i Towarzystw Szkolnych).
The foundation of the central organisation of Poles in Germany was a significant act which linked all the Polish organisations in the whole of Germany and allowed them to be an organ for expressing the political will of the Poles over against the German state. From the very start those responsible for the BdPiD sought allies amongst the representatives of other minorities. On the initiative of Stanisław Sierakowski and Jan Baczewski, this resulted in a meeting with representatives of Danish and Sorbian organisations in Greater Waplitz in summer 1923. Following these discussions a conference was arranged to take place on 26th January 1924 in Berlin, where a new institution was set up: the League of National Minorities in Germany, which comprised German citizens of Polish, Danish, Sorbian, Friesian and Czech origin. Lithuanians were also invited to take part in the conference but they did not appear, and only joined the League later in 1927. The first chair of the League was Stanisław Sierakowski. After he relinquished this post in later years, the Dane, Ernst Christiansen, was elected as his successor in 1934. The press organ of the League was the monthly periodical “Kulturwille” (the magazine for minority culture and politics): it was renamed “Kulturwehr” in 1925. Its chief editor was the Upper Lusatian journalist, writer and politician, Jan Skala. Its owner and publisher was the chairman of the League, Stanisław Sierakowski. The periodical quickly became an important forum for communications and the exchange of ideas and experiences between members of national minorities in Germany.
Sierakowski also attempted to strengthen the position of Poles in Germany on the international stage. From 1924 onwards he represented the Polish minority in the League of Nations. One year later, on the grounds of his official duties, he was invited to take part in preparations for a congress of national minorities in Europe. He used this opportunity to protest, amongst others, against demands to revise the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, and attempted to get the representatives of other minorities in Germany, like the Sorbians, the Friesians and the Lithuanians, to agree to take part in the conference.
