Ethnic Germans Find Haven, Hope in Church : Poland: Now worshipers in Silesia can hear Mass in what was recently an underground language. But old ethnic tensions remain in the border region.

They came by the hundreds Sunday, filling every pew and aisle and nook, then spilling outside into the chilly courtyard of the ornate 15th-Century shrine here on St. Anne’s Hill.

But they were different from all the other Poles who also honored the Sabbath in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country Sunday--even from the ones who attended five other services in the same shrine. These worshipers came to celebrate the Mass in what was, until five months ago, virtually an underground language in this area--German.

Inaugurated last June 4, the weekly German-language service quickly became popular throughout the Opole district of Silesia, which shifting borders from two 20th-Century wars have assigned to southwestern Poland, but which has a large ethnic German population.

And last week the Mass became famous internationally, when West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had to scrap hopes of attending the rite during an upcoming state visit to Poland because of powerful ethnic tensions that remain just below the surface here and elsewhere in fast-changing Eastern Europe.

At a time when reform in the Soviet Union and breathtaking events in East Germany have put the topic of eventual German reunification on the diplomatic agenda, St. Anne’s Hill illustrates another side of the so-called German question--fear among some that political and economic reform in the region will inevitably lead to German domination.

It also casts a rare spotlight on the often unhappy fate of this country’s German minority.

No one knows how many ethnic Germans there are in Poland. Millions were expelled after World War II, when former German lands were handed over both as reparations and to make up for an even larger expropriation of formerly Polish territory by the Soviet Union.

During a “verification action” in 1946, anyone wishing to stay in Silesia had to swear allegiance to Poland. “To stay, you had to become Polish,” said Henryk Krol, a veterinarian and founding member of the new Socio-Cultural Assn. of the German Minority in Opole, Silesia.

“Who (was) confirmed to be a Pole could stay here and could remain on his farm,” Krol added. “Who claimed German nationality was sent to a camp.”

Krol’s was one of the families that had its name “Polonized”--changed from the German spelling, Kroll, to the more Polish-appearing Krol. A friend, Eryk Szmidt, says his name is spelled differently on his identity card than is his wife’s-- Szmid. Only his brother still has the correct spelling, Schmidt, on his card.

In the Opole district, children can study French or Russian, but not German, which is still banned from the curriculum.

“Until now, this society has been educated in hatred for Germans, presenting all Germans as fascists,” Krol said during an interview at his home in nearby Krapkowice.

To Krol and his friends, the rise of the Solidarity-led coalition government here represents a chance to reverse decades of discrimination, or at least neglect, under the Communists. And while they understand the national sensitivities at work, they are naturally disappointed over the Kohl affair.

The West German chancellor reputedly wanted to attend the German Mass during his scheduled Nov. 9-14 state visit as a symbol of reconciliation. He was invited by Opole’s Bishop Alfons Nossol. But skeptics here accused him of seeking political gain with a gesture that would appeal particularly to the West German right, some of whom openly seek the eventual return of Silesia to German sovereignty.

The Polish Communist Party newspaper objected that such a visit would be “a scandal” because St. Anne’s Hill was the site of a locally famous 1921 battle between Polish-speaking and German-speaking Silesians over the political future of the region.

“It is a symbol of Silesia remaining part of Poland, a place of Polish . . . patriotism,” commentator Rudolf Hoffman wrote.

Poland’s Communists have long depicted their continued rule and that of their East German counterparts as the only effective guarantee of Poland’s western borders against right-wing German revanchism.

Meanwhile, Solidarity leaders such as the head of the independent trade union federation’s parliamentary delegation, Bronislaw Geremek, have said that it is not possible to argue for democratic freedom in Poland while denying the right of people in East Germany and West Germany to reunify.

The fact that Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki persuaded Kohl in two telephone conversations to drop his planned visit to St. Anne’s Hill underlines the volatility of the issue here. So did a weekend interview in which Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told West Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper that while he sees the division of Germany as “artificial,” he is worried that the pace of change may be dangerously fast.

While it may still take time to heal Eastern Europe’s old ethnic wounds, Krol and others remain hopeful that things will improve.

The veterinarian said that a signature campaign last spring turned up 250,000 individuals in the Opole district alone who claimed German ancestry. While their association means to work for greater cultural opportunities--including German-language courses in school and hyphenated names for Silesian towns, which remind people of their former German identities (Wroclaw-Breslau)--it is indicative that their main goal is to stop a massive emigration of ethnic Germans from here to the West.

“That house is empty,” said Krol, pointing to a former neighbor’s place. “So is that one,” he added, pointing across the street. “And that one, too. There are only caretakers here. And it’s like this all over Silesia.”

Outside the shrine at St. Anne’s Hill, a man who refused to give his name said his two sons and a daughter have all left within the last few years. “They went to pay a visit (in West Germany), and they didn’t come back,” he said with a wry laugh. “I have three sisters and a brother there, too.”

“The young people have no future here,” added a friend, who also refused to give his name.

Krol hopes that if Poland’s ethnic Germans are made to feel more at home, that will at least help. “We understand that our problems are very difficult for this new government,” he said. “But we feel understanding that we didn’t feel before.”

And at St. Anne’s Hill, Father Dominik Kiesch told a visitor Sunday that the shrine still has old, pre-World War II missals in which Polish and German language prayers are printed side by side.

When Hitler came along, the priest recalled, he outlawed Polish. And after the war, the Polish Communists banned German. Now, finally, there are services in both languages again. “It’s late, but at least it’s another start,” he said.

BACKGROUND Silesia is a mineral-rich region of about 4,000 square miles lying mainly along the Oder River valley in southwestern Poland. It has been coveted and conquered by its neighbors through the centuries. Prussia wrested most of Silesia from Austria in the mid-18th Century, and it played an important role in the economic development of Imperial Germany until the end of World War I. After the war, Poland and Czechoslovakia lay claim to all or part of Silesia, but the region, in a 1921 plebiscite, voted to remain a part of Germany. After Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, all but a small portion of Silesia was turned over to Poland. East Germany secured a section of the northeast corner, while Czechoslovakia recovered areas that had been seized by Nazi Germany.