Final Conference: Industrialisation in Upper Silesia in the 'Age of Extremes'

Final conference, May 31 to June 1, 2023

Industrialization in Upper Silesia in the 'Age of Extremes'. A cultural history of the economy using the example of the Ballestrem Group ca. 1890-1950

Organizer: TU Dresden, Center for Central and Eastern European Studies
Realization: Steffen Heidrich and JP Tim Buchen
Venue: Technical Collections, Junghansstraße 1 - 3, 01277 Dresden

Program

Thursday, June 1, 2023, Technical Collections, Conference Room

From 9 a.m. Arrival
9.30 a.m. Welcome and opening

Panel 1: Challenging Narratives on past and heritage (10-11.30 am )

Leszek Jodlinski
In Splendid Isolation? The Ballestrem Family from the Perspective of the Villagers of Pławniowice. The True Story Behind the Diary of Priest Franz Pawlar.

Beata Piecha-Van Schagen
The role of individual and bottom-up memory in the face of colonizing historical policy (using the Ballestrem family inheritance as an example)

Panel 2: Building, donating, structuring. The design of public and private spaces (11.30-13.30)

Marta Ostrowska-Bies
Innovation or repetition: The Ballestrem family patrimony against the background of buildings of this type in Upper Silesia at the time

Kamil Iwanicki
The Ballestrem Model of Workers Housing Estate in Rokitnica

Jerzy Gorzelik
The Ballestrems as patrons of ecclesiastical art in the administrative district of Opole

Panel 3: The Internationalization of Markets between the Belle Epoque and the Depression (15-16.30)

Jakub Grudniewski
The economic expansion of the Ballestrem Group in the Far East

Robert Andrzejczyk
Development of Scandinavian sales market for Polish hard coal during interwar period (1925-1939)

Friday, June 2, 2023, Technical Collections, Seminar Room

Panel 4: Structural change and total economy (9.30-11 a.m.)

Miroslaw Sikora:
A future that never was. The Second World War and the restructuring of the Ballestrem Group

Tim Buchen, Steffen Heidrich
The personnel policies of the Ballestrem Group between welfare, control and exploitation, 1927-1950

11-12 a.m. Final discussion

The event is sponsored by: