Wikipedia: Silesia/Talk

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For how long before WWII was Silesia in Germany? Was it, earlier, part of the kingdom of Poland and, ever, part of the Holy ROman Empire? --rmhermen

The Prussian conquest of Silesia from Austria was the crux of the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s. Prussia eventually turned into Germany, of course. -- Paul Drye

A very good website ;http://www.sags.org/history.htm gives a pretty good overview of Silesian history. To that history add :

1. In 895 the Bohemia / Moravia (including Silesia at that time) princes came to Regensburg of Frankish and Holy Roman Empire and pledged allegiance to German emperor Arnulf of Carinthia .

2. 622-662 first Slavs in Europe are the Moravians under Frankish ruler Samo.

3. Mieszko I was first duke of a Poland seperat from Czech (formerly Czech and Lech)Mieszko I and son Boleslaw I Chrobry (as well as later Polish rulers pledged allegiance to emperor in turn for receiving land on loan (landlien) to rule over.

4.The Polish Piast rulers died out in 1370. (Imperial law, when a ruling house dies out , the land reverts back to the empire.

5. In circa 1537 Brandenburg Hohenzollernrulers made an agreement with the Silesian German Piasts, that Brandenburg would inherit Silesia rule. Emperor did not permit it, because the emperor (Maximilian I) had made an agreement in 1515 with Polish and Hungary ruler .Maximilian adopted Luis of Hungary.

6. Crossen , Or Krossen district (Schwiebus referred to in above website as 1815) including Zuellichau came under Brandenburg rule in 1472.

i checked out the site -- some of it is pretty useful, but other parts are questionable -- especially the stuff before about 1500. good overview, though. I found it interesting to note that Silesia seems to have been Polish in the Middle Ages...JHK