Silesian nation-state. The separatists were of marginal importance, finding little support among native Silesians. The reasons for these transitions were boundary shifts and population changes that came after World War II. As a result, the vast majority of the former German Silesia, even Lower Silesia, which did not have sizeable Polish-speaking population, was incorporated into Poland, with smaller regions remaining under the control of the German Democratic Republic (which later became a part of unified Germany). Czechoslovakia obtained most of Cieszyn Silesia. Millions of Silesians, mostly of German ethnicity, were subsequently expelled, but after being sifted out from the ethnic Germans by a process of "national verification", the Silesians classified as "autochthons" by the Polish communist authorities were allowed to remain, and they were intensely polonized. Between 1955 and 1959, under the supervision of the Red Cross, some of the remaining Silesians were able to emigrate to West and East Germany to reunite with their families there. But some had to wait for years. Until 1989, nearly 600,000 Silesians emigrated to Germany. Between 1945 and 1949, millions of ethnic Poles from the former (pre-1939) eastern Poland (especially Lviv, Volhynia, Podolia, Vilnius, etc.) and central Poland moved into Silesia, particularly in Lower Silesia. Since the end of Communist rule in Poland, there have been calls for greater political representation for the Silesian ethnic minority. In 1997, a Katowice court of law registered the Union of People of Silesian Nationality (ZLNS) as the political representative organization of the Silesian ethnic minority, but after two months, the registration was revoked by a regional court. According to M.E. Sharpe, Silesians inhabiting Poland are considered to belong to a Polish ethnographic group, and they speak a dialect of Polish. United States Immigration Commission also counted Silesian as one of the dialects of Polish. As a result of German influence, Silesians have been influenced by German culture. Many German and their descendants who inhabited both Lower and Upper Silesia have been displaced to Germany in 1945-47. Language The Slavic Silesian language (often called Upper Silesian) is spoken by the Silesian ethnic group or nationality inside Polish Upper Silesia. According to the last census in Poland (2011), some 509,000 people declared Silesian to be their native language; however, as many as 817,000 people declared themselves to be of Silesian nationality, not necessarily speaking Silesian, even though the Silesian nationality has not been recognized by Polish governments since