Supreme People's Council

The Council grew out of the secret Central Citizens' Committee, active in Poznań from 1916, dominated by the National Democrats and backed by the Polish National Committee in Paris. After the revolution in Germany and the armistice it emerged on 11 November 1918 as the People's Council, on 12 November chose a Provisional Commissariat (Stanisław Adamski, Wojciech Korfanty, Adam Poszwiński), and on 14 November took the name Supreme People's Council. Local people's councils and a People's Guard were set up in the districts.

The Provincial Sejm, meeting in Poznań on 3–5 December 1918, elected a new Council and recognised it as the supreme authority of the Poles in Germany. Its leaders wanted to wait for the peace conference, but after the Greater Poland Uprising broke out on 27 December they took civil and military control of the liberated lands. The Council lasted until August 1919, when the Ministry of the Former Prussian Partition took over its tasks; in Upper Silesia its sub-commissariat worked longer.