9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down

Melissa Theuriau

• 
  la bombe cathodique.
  

You didn't mention pogroms, which is surprising.

1989, an Irish perspective. This is part 3 of 3 (but the other parts aren't that relative to this topic). Start from 2 minutes in.

I remember when some hot eastern german women flooded Greece in the early '90s.Those were the times.
I guess western men were surprised by the treasure carefully hidden from them in the other side of the iron curtain.They thought,damn these capitalists had cheated to us.

1jola, Sjam is actually right, I think you should address this point instead of replying like this.

Good question indeed: why is Polish collaboration with the communists never mentioned? Is it inconvenient to admit? We hear all the time: Jewish communism, Jewish crimes, Jewish collaboration. I know it must be a taboo, just like Polish collaboration with the Nazis.

You seem to be a reasonable kid, 1jola, pls adress this very good point of Sjam.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Well I haven't read much, I'm just here to give my 2 cents :D

My family had lived in East Germany, (I'm only 15, I wasn't there to experience it), and it was a horrible experience. They lived in a car (a Trabi, if anyone is familiar), starved a lot, my dad was forced to fight in the Navy (or else...), and the malnutrition was killer.

When they heard "Mr.Gorbachev, tear down this wall" on the radio (it was crappy, and stolen), they cried, and the first person they thanked (Besides God) was Pope John Paul II

The Polish Pope had given my parents so much hope, and the will to keep fighting. Knowing that there was someone out there who had been through similar times (Nazis), and had loved them. My parents took "Be not Afraid" to heart, and had fought.

It disturbs me when Communists look to East Germany as a model and say "oh look how great Communism is" when it was only the Facade of the country that looked nice. It wasn't. They then say that the DDR should rise again.

Always remember, but never again.

Nie wieder.

It is mentioned. I mention it whenever I can. I want them publicly named and prosecuted if warranted.

The Left is not keen on this though.

1jola

Ok.

A bit like what happened to the Dutch girls who were messing around with the German soldiers after the war?

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

No. A trial is not like cutting hair.

The USA in your case wasn't it?

Because Polish collaboration with the communists is a myth it never happened :-)) A bit like the myth that Poles could not escape the communist regime when according to the US department of immigration at least 750,000 did just that having recieved temporary vistors visas to go the USA and then promptly stayed put in the US illegally. 1jola and his folks where among these 750,000 who got permission to leave Poland. Many of those that stayed became US citizens and later returned to Poland once the regime had been overthrown—by those who were not so lucky to obtain passports and visas and were left to carry on the fight for freedom.


Who is going to prosecute the 28,000 catholic priests for collaboration with the Polish communist securtity services—who knows what the reprecussions were to those people these priests were informing on?

1jola

I was aiming at the publicely naming.

sjam

Come to think about it: they were able to escape communism, indeed: a friend of mine, her uncle was able to emigrate to Canada in 1981. And there were much more like him...She told me that at one point her mom was complaining because a lot of her family members were off to other countries. If it were impossible to leave PL, he and his family and the others would never be able to do that...But I guess it's better to leave the legend of Poles trapped in their country under communism alive...And this comes usually indeed from ppl who are born somewhere else, hence living proof that it was pssbl...Why didn't I think of that before? Must be a flash or something :)

>^..^<

M-G (gee)

Hey BBoy, my German is a little rusty.
Could you help me with that text in the lower part of the domino from the Berlin celebrations?

And again you pretend things which aren't true...I sense a pattern here! ;)

It was a nice party....I dunno why you need to cheapen it with mocking East-Germans...


Z-Darius springs to mind....

You and your like are against punishing communists for their crimes. The Left is very much against that, look even a film like Soviet Story about communist crimes meets with similar reaction as you have. I find it telling that you spend your days criticizing Poles and defending Jews, when in your country a communist war crime is not a crime. I've seen no critique of that although this fact has been mentioned repeatedly.

And my family didn't enter the US on a "temporary visitors visa."

z_darius
The part where it says "Es Began in Polen" in cursive?

It began in Poland... :D

He knew that already Hobbes! ;)

You will not be able to point to anywhere where I stated such a thing.


By the same token I don't think a British war crimes were a crime either? Or US war crimes? Come to think of it did any of the Allies commit war crimes? Yes. I personally am sure that all countries involved in WWII actually committed war crimes but it is usually the victor that determines what war crimes are prosecuted. To the victor the spoils :-).

Would you also argue about prosecuting the Soviets for war crimes against the Germans? If so then we must ask what war crimes Poles may have committed against Germans during WWII also? Or Britain? Or USA? Or France? Or whomever else was in the Allied camp in WWII?

But no the victorious Allies passed the Nuremberg Charter in which the charter stipulated that crimes of the European Axis Powers could be tried. It did not include Soviet Union as they were at that point in the Allied camp. And good job too as without Soviet blood-sacrfice on the eastern front (coupled with vast US lend-lease matreial supplies) the Nazis would not have been defeated. Period.


Well I guess they must have been in an even more privileged position in Poland to get travel documents to leave-by some accounts on here it was supposed to be well nigh impossible to leave the Polish communist state for the 'free' west. I guess its all about having connections and your family must have had all the right ones.

How did you feel about your Polish relatives as you were taking your oath of allegience to the US commander-in-chief, the President, whilst enlisting in the US airforce and knowing one day your C-in-C might have ordered you to bomb Poland? Would you have been disloyal to your oath of allegience and deserted or would you have hoped your relatives in Poland would survive?

You must have thought about this very real possibility as a US-Polish serviceman during the cold-war?

Very simple reason: better photo opportunity. That's all. There is no good way to illustrate fall of anything while taking pictures of an election, even if it's first democratic and free.

Don't get too exited, BB: DDR was the ever-present oppressive menace of a malign state and the most pathetic of all commie states. The wall is just souvenir now. Like the monstrous system it protected, it must be remembered but will surely not be mourned.

Are we talking about Communists' crimes after 1945 or in the period between 1939-1945? Because if they were committed after 1945, technically it's not a war crime as technically there was no war; WW2 ended and until the Yugoslav war, there was no war, at least not openly. Any crime committed by the Soviet between 1939 and 1945 however can pssbly be regarded as a war crime.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

MareGaea

How would you call crimes done by an occupation force during peace times after armistice or defeat?

Crimes. BB who prosecuted US or Bristish troops stationed in Germany during cold-war occupation? Was it the respective military prosectution service or German civiilan police?

What crimes?
Because all crimes done by Germans in occupied countries (even if there had been peace- or armistice treaties) were called war crimes by the allies.

I don't think Germans ever got to persecute and punish allied crimes on Germans...

Crimes. Sjam basically answered that question. If a, for example, British soldier killed another British soldier, it would be investigated by the militairy and he would be tried by the militairy. However, if he would kill a civilian, he would be tried by a civillian judge and pssbly later on by a militairy court as well. War crimes generally only occur when an official state of war exists, as far as I know.

>^..^<

M-G (nearly time to go home again)

Your question is about crimes committed by occupation forces during peace which I took to mean US and British occupation of west Germany during the cold-war (the peace-time aspect in your question). I asked who prosecuted the cases of crimes committed against Germans by US or British forces stationed in Germany during this period? Miltary or civilian police?

Crimes against humanity do not need a state of war to exist?

As I said, I don't remember ever an allied crime persecuted/punished by Germans.


Well...the same answer should hold then for crimes committed by Germans during their occupation of conquered countries (where often an official treaty ended the official war). But here all is called war crimes.

So we really were the good guys :-))


Any specific German crimes you have in mind that should not have been treated as war crimes ?

Yeah...never anything happened! ;)


More another case of "victors right" I think...*shrugs*...not that this would make a big difference.

There were several war crimes committed by US troops one of course was the Dachau massacre which was investigated but Patton dismissed all the charges despite overwhelming evidence that a crime had been committed... Patton thought revenge was okay against the SS guards in this case.


Quite right.

Just that it hadn't been guards but frontline troops from the nearby lazarett who had nothing whatsoever to do with the camp.
Something what could had been easily confirmed if the GI's had asked first.

But that would fell anyhow under the war rules...I thought we were talking about crimes in peace times?