GHDI logo
German History in Documents and Images
return to system

Federal Minister for All-German Affairs Jakob Kaiser at the Second Federal Meeting of Silesians in Munich (September 16, 1951)
On September 16, 1951, the Second Federal Meeting of Silesians concluded with a mass rally of 100,000 people on Königsplatz in Munich. Federal Minister for All-German Affairs Jakob Kaiser (CDU) delivered a speech demanding that Silesia and other areas in the East be reacquired “through political means rather than war.” Hinrich Kopf, the Social Democratic minister president of Lower Saxony, went so far as to say that the expellee question was “the biggest problem the world was facing,“ and he insisted on the expellees’ legal right to their homeland. The banner shown below reads: "Silesia is our homeland."