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Posts by Bratwurst Boy  

Joined: 2 Apr 2007 / Male ♂
Warnings: 1 - Q		 Last Post: 21 Nov 2024
Threads: Total: 8 / In This Archive: 2
Posts: Total: 11820 / In This Archive: 3273 		From: Berlin, Germany
Speaks Polish?: No
Interests: his helmet

Displayed posts: 3275 / page 7 of 110
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Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Patton thought revenge was okay against the SS guards in this case.

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?
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

So we really were the good guys :-))

Yeah...never anything happened! ;)

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

More another case of "victors right" I think...*shrugs*...not that this would make a big difference.
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

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?

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

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).

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.
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

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...
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / Pole, Jew and dog: all have the same faith. [33]

I see this one, but that is not it, right?

I don't understand a word but as the story goes it seems two men first growl at each other, one about to be killed by another but then beer comes into play and they decide to party together instead....:)
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Hey BBoy, my German is a little rusty.

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...

But I guess it's better to leave the legend of Poles trapped in their country under communism alive...

Z-Darius springs to mind....
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Maybe this is a bit harsh, after all most people just wanted to live their lives not fight in a war all the time.

Well...that you had in common with most people in the soviet bloc (and in the western bloc I believe).

Those that could leave Poland did, infact 750,000 Polish economic migrants left communist Poland during 1960s to 80's for the USA alone

The GDR build a wall to stop just that! No visa at all for the ordinary east german, jailed for life.

Crikey, I find myself agreeing with one of your posts, woe is me :-))

Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

We're getting to a truly united Europe. It's a painstakingly slow process, but we're getting there.

Man...the first generation growing up in a united Europe is underway! No more wars or walls...
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Why are you doing that? Is that a polish thing??? I'm actually at a loss here.

Oh I get it...you are truly miffed! Yes?

A polish journo writes:

But we still have to put up with the fact that the fall of the Berlin Wall, on the evening of 9 November 1989, remains the universally accepted symbol of the collapse of communism. No matter if most Poles find this disagreeable, exasperating, or even unacceptable, that is the way it is - and it is for this reason that we have a national obligation to patiently inform our fellow Europeans of the Polish narrative of end of the Iron Curtain.

Events in Berlin, and not Warsaw, have come to symbolize the collapse of the Soviet communist system for several reasons....
Photographs of "wall peckers" and large sections of the wall being torn down are certainly a more vivid representation of the triumph of freedom than photographs of the 4 June elections (the first semi-free vote in Poland, which was won by the opposition), even if they did occur five months earlier....

Is it this???
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Amazingly, chuckleheads bought these little hunks of spray painted concrete for $5, $10 bucks.

It get's worse!
The most favourite souvenir are besides some stone pieces are the military hats of the eastern german guards...they sold more of them till now as the whole GDR ever had soldiers!

I know you're kinda pis.sed off.

Well...it's a unique thing actually! I wonder how the Poles would had coped with such a task?
But yes, whereas the re-unification is no topic anymore with the young generation, some older ones still bear grudges or mourn...but then there are still oldies around who miss the third Reich...they just won't die! ;)

I'm actually still not sure why you want to **** Ossis off? Didn't you get attention enough?
What is your problem actually?

But seriously, it seems Poland does not alot to really get all the painful and dirty stuff out to research and talk openly and honestly about it. You had barely any soviet troops on your soil but still you were a trusted, obedient member of the Warsaw Pact for decades. I don't think you have any reason to somehow "mock" the Ossis...for being an occupied country which needed to build a wall to keep the people in.

Why are you doing that? Is that a polish thing??? I'm actually at a loss here.

I know it must be easier to blame an outward enemy for all warts, but it isn't the true, the good way. No guts? It will back fire some day...

We here in Germany do alot of "navel searching", sometimes to much of it I think. But here everybody can know about his spies and informers...it's all out in the open!

Apropos for your opinion the Vatican had been a big help:
voanews.com/english/archive/2007-01/2007-01-12-voa47.cfm?moddate=2007-01-12

He said, "This is extremely embarrassing. It is also, of course, embarrassing for the Vatican," he said. [With] a background check, a serious background check, these files would have revealed this information much earlier had the [Catholic] hierarchy in Poland been interested in looking for it. But it wasn't."

Micgiel says it hurts the church's image, given its historic role in keeping the Polish culture alive and fighting communist oppression.

He said, "The Catholic Church was, in essence, the repository of polish national thought and culture in the period when there was no Poland. So for 123 years, after the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, it was basically the Catholic Church that was reminding people about their culture, about their history."

Stuff like this happens when you don't teach the truth...myth becomes history!
Bratwurst Boy   
10 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

If that isn't sad.

Why? It's what's most Germans believe anyhow...

Poland was a virtual symbol f relentless struggle against communism, while East Germans relentlessly worked for STASI.

*Yawn*...you weren't especially successful then all these decades before, weren't you!
Even helping to supress other peoples struggles as a nice member of the Warsaw Pact..without your gov needing a wall against you at all because they could so trust in you, right?

over 4 months after Poland had already elected their first free government after WW2.

And still you always forget to thank Gorbi for that...why is that I wonder!

Man, Darius! You are truly embarrassing.
Why do you have such problems to accept the real polish life during all these years? We Ossis have no problems with this...Did you ever heard about the Gauck-Behörde? Poland never had such a thing...

dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1480985,00.html

Polish Secret Police List Opens Old Wounds

Reading your tales about an always resisting anti-commi Poland shows it's about time. Poland was just another soviet-style society...you were in the Warsaw pact too, your army and secret service helped surpass freedom fights, your people was drowned in informers too, your commie party had you in their grip too (even without having to fear that you would run away)...get used to it.

Nothing better, nothing worse! Stop pretending you were some shining light of freedom...not for Ossis anyhow...

...
Poland's secret police, known as the SB, has much in common with other secret police agencies in former communist countries in that it was known for its brutality and kept tabs on much of the population. The SB had records on some 98,000 "secret spies" in 1988, shortly before the fall of Communism...

...all un-polish Martians probably! ;)

Interesting blog about you "resisters":

Polish Collaborators: Sons of Dzerzhinsky

A public interest blog about Polish collaborators with communism and agents of the Soviet-era secret police

polishcollaborators.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-read-polish-secret-police.html

Monday, May 14, 2007

...Moreover, the Tribunal closed the archives at the Institute of National Remembrance to scholars and journalists. Secret police documents are to remain secret until such time as a "fair" way of dealing with the agents is discovered.

It looks like another attempt by the old guard to help Poland's Soviet collaborators to remain burrowed throughout the country's civil society...

Why is that? It seems that is only good for myth-making as shown by z-darius.
A people who isn't told about their compliance and collaboration may truly believe they are a people of "resisters"...
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Germans are masters of universe in creating myths.

If so then we learned from the best! ;)

-Prussians contribution decided about outcome of the Waterloo Battle

Polish cavalry saved Europe from the Turkes (alone of course! No coalition needed at all.)

-German anti-Nazi underground

a) The Poles were the most determined Jew-saver of all during the war!
b) Without the Poles the allies would had never won against the Germans!

-German destroyed communism crying "Wir sind das Volk!' few days before fall of the wall in Berlin.

The Poles destroyed the russian commie empire all by themselves.
Perestroika is actually a polish invention!
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Former Polish leader Lech Walesa, whose pro-democracy movement Solidarity played a key role in ending communism in Eastern Europe, is to tip the first domino as the artistic display comes tumbling down.
source

As I said...
news.yahoo/s/ap/eu_germany_wall_anniversary

...
BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev crossed a former fortified border on Monday to cheers of "Gorby! Gorby!" as a throng of grateful Germans recalled the night 20 years ago that the Berlin Wall gave way to their desire for freedom and unity....

It's probably just much more catchier than "Walli, Walli"....

...
"You made this possible - you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect," she told Gorbachev in front of several hundred people gathered in light drizzle on the bridge over railway lines...

Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Happy celebrations.

Oh **** off
I will gladly acknowledge the Gorbi part in this, even the US part without their support not much would had developed at all but Poland or the Vatican..oh pleeeaaaase!

Our president is much to generous...probably not wanting to spoil the day knowing how easily miffed Poles can become if they don't get some attention.
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Yeah...now we leaving the topic, that's a fact!
But now wonder that even at such a date the whining goes on...

As far as I remember Poland was a member of the Warsaw Pact, was it not? Who did sit in the polish Panzers?
Wait...that must have been these miraculous Martians again who are responsible for all shameful things Poles and Poland ever did...yes, that must be it! Those mean un-polish Martians!
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

BBoy, we both know (I hope I'm speaking for both) that a statement like that is pretty much bulls.hit.

What? Another case of "dishing out but can't take it"?

Just bringing some facts to your narrative. There was no wall needed to keep the "resisting" Poles well behaved and down, right?
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Fly to where? To GDR? CSRR? USSR? Try to swim to Sweden across the Baltic?

To freedom of course! (you Poles love freedom so much...contrary to the well behaved Ossis, right?)

Poland had no wall with a "paradise" on the other side.

Ossis tried to flee from wherever they could, the whole eastern bloc had a border for Ossis, which guards had the order to shoot at refugees. Many were killed even outside of Germany. Shot down from the sky, out from tunnels, drowned in the sea...name it, they did it.

...and so on! Quite "well behaved". Why do you think the GDR decided to build the wall in the first place? For tourism????

We had a whole country of dedicated communist population of GDR to travel through.

Poles never traveled to other countries?

You mean any specific period, or the combined total?

Give me the total...I'm very interested, really!

And please don't give me Siberia...Poland was an ally of Russia, Germany was an enemy, occupational zone, spoil of war...wanna bet who had more people in Siberia as prisoners???
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

That symbolism in itself speaks to the role that Poland played in the downfall of Communist Rule in Europe.

I think it's an error...and they should had let Gorbi do that. But I think Gorbatschov being the head of the state who actually the peaceful revolutions were against was not the first choice for this reason.

Be serious, as if Walesa or other Poles could give a **** about the Berlin wall at all...

And it's raining cats and dogs right now! :(
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

BBoy, most Soviet troops stationed in GDR came there via Poland.

Well, they came for the GDR, not for Poland...

East Germans gave up after one, and that's why I considered them "well behaved".

Well...how many Poles fled out of Poland at mortal danger? And how many of them got killed or maimed? Help me out with the number here please, I forgot...

On the other hand maybe it is some polish logic that I as a German just can't follow but when you mock the eastern Germans for being "well behaved" in a much more restrictive system, with much higher odds stacked against them (number of soviet occupation troops) than in Poland, to what makes this the Poles then? Slimers?

What were you doing all the time???
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

'cept for Polish troops were directed by the USSR while GDR offered a "gesture" on their own, and actually the Soviets decided the idea was idiotic.

Oh please...listening to you (and others) it's always the Russians or his grandmom but miraculously never Poles who did anything (besides brave resisting of course).

Another thing you have to work through and reassess as a people!
You had barely any soviet troops on your soil, you were much less brutal governed than the GDR but still it took you till '89 too (inclusive Washington and the Pope) and you helped Moscow to supress other uprisings (with polish soldiers in the tanks).
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Again, hardliners could have won but they didn't.

Nobody could knew that before hand, Gorbatschov surely didn't.
You speak with hindsight!

I actually don't understand what you discuss....do you want to blame the East Germans for living in a much more restrictive dictatorship than Poland? You are truly nuts!

In the end...who cares...tonight is party in Berlin! Lotsa guests here....Sarkozy just trying his German: "Wir sind Berlin!"
Now Medwedew...in german too...not bad...

Yes, it is a shameful moment of Poland's history. As shameful as East German offer to send troops to Poland to squash the Solidarity movement.

Well the one did, the other did not!
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

No, the majority surely didn't.
Gorbatschov himself wasn't sure he would not be putsched against...he could never be sure and he told so. It was a very narrow thing. It could have become violent very quickly! He also took a great personal risk as the hardliner in his own party were itching already...

Of course East Germans were not to be counted on in case or major insurgency.

Well...if it makes you feel better to classify the people in the eastern bloc please do.
You have no idea about the people and the life in the GDR...you are just a stupid idiot who thinks some pope in a far away Vatican has more influence than the one man with the proverbial thumb on the proverbial trigger...what's next? "Polish prayers" made the wall stones tumbling down?

Everybody knows about polish traditions to overestimate their influence every time but you are ridiculous!

Of course East Germans were not to be counted on in case or major insurgency.

Yeah...no east german Panzers to supress the uprising in Prague...right! But Moscow could count on the polish allies...hey...wait...where was the pope then???
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

It took Reagan/JP2... what? 6 years? I

Ever heard of the "cold war"? ;) Already going for 50+ years!
Do you think that started with Reagan or the pope? As if Moscow had cared...before perestroika that is!
Do you really think hard core stalinists would have given a fart about some PR stunt on the wall or some protestors on some wharf or what a religious nutter thinks about them who most of them don't gave a **** about religion anyhow? Get real!

What happened in Moscow or Berlin were effects of what happened in Washington, DC and the Vatican.

That's not logical!
Fights for freedom and uprisings had happened in the eastern bloc before, and they were handled with the usual means every time. (Where was Washington or the Vatican in Prague or Budapest???)

The cold war pitted the whole western world against the communist bloc for decades already...but still nobody believed the day before it happened that the wall would really come down so soon.

No...it needed the change in Moscow to allow all that to happen, it was alone Gorbatschows decision to let it go and not send the military, not Washingtons, not Warsaws, and surely not Berlins.
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Not the Hoff? :)

Naaaah

I find it very interesting to talk to people from this era here in Poland.

You sure?

beatroot.blogspot.com/2006/06/are-poles-happy-now.html

Or perhaps it crumbled in Washington, DC and the Vatican?

I don't think so...if it would had been for Washington or the Vatican it would had already crumbled much, much earlier...they did everything they possible could.

No, it had to and did crumble at home! Perestroika in Moscow was the most important key to everything what followed in this autumn...

The moment the GDR did forbid the publication of a soviet newspaper everything was upside down...till then the official mantra had been: "Von der Sowietunion lernen heißt siegen lernen!"
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
History / 9th November 1989: And the wall came tumbling down [113]

Suprising how many people would like the wall put back up.

1 in 8 after the newest poll...makes it 2 in 16 or 3 in 24...I think more people would wish for the third Reich back actually!

I wonder how many Poles want Communism back...are there any polls?

IMO all Gorby did was realize that the resistance was futile, so he wasn't a driving force by any stretch of imagination.

It wasn't about "resistance" at all..without his perestroika the panzers would had rolled in Leipzig as the GDR asked the Russians for help.

But the moment as Gorbatschov told Honnecker that he would do exactly nothing the dices were fallen...

I think it was relentless push of Reagan, JPII and the Poles against the communism. All the others followed. Merkel certainly thanked Poles and Walesa.

And I'm quite sure without the perestroika the movements would been just another defeated uprising as it happened before...this empire crumbled at the head, in Moscow, not in Warsaw or Berlin.

In other words, East Germans waited dutifully for a signal

ROFL
I would wanted to see you big mouth trying to flee over the wall...but who knows..maybe your polish pope could have worked wonders!

and Germany consumed Yugoslavia

You mean we aquired a new province? Niiiiiice! :)
Bratwurst Boy   
9 Nov 2009
News / Poland's place in changing world order? [74]

Now Japan is in constant crisis and never has been so innovative as the US.

Well..a crisis originating in anglo-saxon mismanagement and Japan is the most technological advanced country on earth, surpassing even the US!