Silesian Union, Upper Silesian Peasants Union. Juliusz Ligoń was a Polish activist and poet. In 1920 the football club Ruch Chorzów was founded in the city. Later on, it would become one of the most successful Polish football teams. Interwar Poland (1922–1939) In the Upper Silesia plebiscite a majority of 31,864 voters voted to remain in Germany while 10,764 votes were given for Poland Following three Silesian Uprisings, the eastern part of Silesia, including Chorzów and Królewska Huta, was separated from Germany and awarded to Poland in 1922. Migrations of people followed. Because of its strategic value, the case of the nitrogen factory Oberschlesische Stickstoffwerke was argued for years before the Permanent Court of International Justice, finally setting some new legal precedences on what is "just" in international relations. In 1934, the industrial communities of Chorzów, Królewska Huta and Nowe Hajduki were merged into one municipality with 81,000 inhabitants. The name of the oldest settlement Chorzów was given to the whole city. In April 1939, the settlement of Hajduki Wielkie with 30,000 inhabitants was added to Chorzów. In part due to the German-Polish trade war in the 1920s, the industry of Chorzów, a border city at that time, stagnated until 1933. In 1927, a division of Huta Piłsudski was separated into a company making rail cars, trams and bridges; today it operates as Alstom-Konstal. The State Factory of Nitrogen Compounds (Państwowa Fabryka Związków Azotowych) was in 1933 merged with a similar company (largely its copy) in Tarnów-Mościce. German occupation during World War II (1939–1945) On the day of the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Chorzów was taken by Nazi Germany. Polish irregulars, mainly Silesian uprising veterans and scouts, put up resistance to the regular German forces for three days, afterwards the city was occupied by Germany, and on September 6, 1939, the Einsatzgruppe I entered the city to commit various atrocities against Poles. Most of the Polish defenders were murdered in mass executions. An execution of three Poles was carried out by the German Freikorps already on September 3, 1939. A unit of the Einsatzgruppe I was stationed in Chorzów, and it was responsible for many crimes against Poles committed in Chorzów and the nearby cities of Czeladź and Siemianowice Śląskie. Polish property was confiscated, and Chorzów was promptly re-incorporated into German Silesia; the Upper Silesian industry being one of the pillars of the Nazi Germany war