Was he a hero or a traitor? And if he was guilty of treachery, which of the nations that claimed him did he betray?
As nationalism rises as a political force across Europe, Ernest Wilimowski, a long-dead soccer star who played for the national teams of both Poland and Nazi Germany, is raising tricky questions about national loyalty and betrayal.
In addition to Poland (for which he once scored four goals against Brazil in a World Cup) and Germany, Mr. Wilimowski also had a third allegiance — to Silesia, an identity without a state. He spoke its language, was formed by its culture and scored his first goals for teams on its territory, now firmly part of Poland but still in some ways a land apart.
“From the Polish perspective, he was of course a traitor. He betrayed Poland,” said Zbigniew Rokita, a Polish writer and Silesia native who speaks with his wife in Silesian, and wrote a celebrated book, in Polish, about his home region. “But from the perspective of his family and society, the judgment is different.”
Fans and the management of the Polish soccer team where Mr. Wilimowski made his name in the 1930s before moving to Germany, remember him only as a legendary goal scorer. During World War II, he played for Germany and died there in 1997.
