Words of thanks towards the 'Federation of Expellees' by Angela Merkel

With the upcoming national election one might think the current development to be a strategic act to bring in more voters, but Polish media doubts that the outspoken thanks from Angela Merkel, the German Chanecellor, are just polemics since her party is leading by 13 percent.

The organisations which form the "Federation of Expellees", while stating officially a nature of humanitarian character are collection ponds for revisionist and right-wing minded members.

I recall a speech at the 2001 congress in Nuremberg, where Interior Minister Otto Schily was booed with old laddies fist swinging when he said that the expulsions were the consequence of German aggression and that one has to accept German responsibility for WWII.

further reading:

Merkel reiterates support for expellees' memorial
dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4591934,00.html

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/5687591/Angela-Merkels-party-backs-homeland-for-Germans-expelled-by-Poland.html- Angela Merkel's party backs 'homeland' for Germans expelled by Poland

After starting WWI and WWII, and surrendering unconditionally, the Germans are very lucky to even have a homeland. What chutzpah!

ROFL

Would you rather have them in Poland???
We propably would had seen another war by now...

Get used to it, this part of the history is going to stay, no taboo anymore.
No need to throw a tantrum every time the expellees are mentioned...it's a sore point in german history, leave the Germans alone with how, if and when they want to talk about it.

Germans are not stopping Poles during their mourn fests for their victims either ...

Both doesn't and shouldn't have any impact on todays relationships.

Let them come back - what's stopping them?

We're in EU now, so German citizens who wish to live in Poland are allowed to do so.
The problem is that Germany has to worry how to stop the depopulation of former DDR
before they can start thinking of any large scale settlement in Poland (which I don't
oppose, considering the extremely low birth rate in our country we can always use some
hard-working Europeans among us).

That's the point...they can't be arsed.
Alone the possibility to go visit their old haunts on holidays was enough for the old ones. Now it's the second/third generation who have a good life in Germany...

And since there are no borders anymore it deceased to be a festering wound alltogether.
That is a non-issue actually!

But that doesn't mean that this part of the history should be some kind of "forbidden" and I can't stand it that every f'ucking time someone mentions "expellees" a Pole get's frothing at the mouth, accusing whole Germany of this and that.

...that starts to grate on my nerves.
The expellees aren't going to vanish and this history neither. Get used to it or better just ignore us.

Hey Torqi, where have you been???

Anyway, her party lead always by a higher percentage before the last two elections and in the end it was always pretty close.
So, she surely just wanted to reassure some "traditional" christian democratic voters.
In German media, they do not ever show anything of this, it is of zero public interest - as it is obvious distraction from real problems like health care, etc.

But the Polish public apparently is always buying it, instead of doing the same (ignoring as of no legal consequence) - nice for your politicians.

And: Sorry, guys, nothing in comparison to what Kaczynski, Berlusconi or Sarkozy are sometimes uttering. That should not be taken seriously either sometimes.


Yawn.
Same level: Yes, but did not Stalin win the war? If he had wanted, you would not have a homeland either. You were also in his hands. What Mazel!

That's exactly what he did. Are you thick?

I agree - no subject should be "forbidden".


I admit that there is sometimes a sort of overreaction from Polish side, but it's, to some
extent, understandable. Give it 15-20 years of good relationship and honest discussion
and such overreactions to the issue of "expellees" will dissappear (along with expellees
themselves, to be brutally honest).


Oh, I was doing an undercover job for the government. I could tell you about it
but then I would have to kill you ;)

Good then that I didn't start a "missing Torq"-thread as planned...

1jola


You mean sick? No, that's exactly what I wrote. He and secondly Roosevelt won the war. They decided, nobody else, even if some beaten countries wanted this (for understandable reason for sure).

No, I meant thick, as in dense.


So you think that People's Poland was what we Poles fought for? Are you an internationalist and have difficulty understanding what a homeland is?


You're going to have to put that in English, I'm afraid.

Hmm... it's a difficult issue. Stalin did make Poland a satellite state of Soviet Union
after the WW2, but to say that he could have officially occupy Poland and incorporate
it into the Soviet Union is debatable (not impossible in my opinion but highly improbable).

No, 1jola, "thick" I am not either, if you like to use that expression.
Have you on your side difficulties in understanding the term "same level"?

My example showed perfectly what I meant: These kind of provocations lead to nowhere.
So, please, let people regret that they were (partly guilty, partly not) on the wrong side of the war and that they lost their homes - without arrogantly acting as if you were the one passing judgements on guilt or whether a country could have been swept away.

In the other sentence all information is given, just read it again, or again, or again. (It was anyway same nonsense as you stated in the beginning).

@Torq: Yeah, I agree, difficult. As you see above, I just wanted to prove a point. Provocations are easy to utter.
And as I said, Germany and Poland have surely more severe problems than old people in costumes.
My father-in-law died in a Polish hospital because physicians were so overworked that they maltreated him. Same could have happenend in Germany. Politicians and the politically influrenced media should talk about that - solutions for health care, nursing, etc.

But they rather like to play with people's fears.

Key word, the nazi fvks are old and will die out soon enough so there's no point in fussing really.

My personal observation on this issue.

While we could get emotional and say, what was little Hans guilty of to get expelled? Let's comemorate his plight. Well, we are also comemorating his uncle Fritz's plight, who may have not been so inocent.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenberg





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschutz

It is worth mentioning that Katyń was a similar action on the Soviet side thanks to the NKVD-Gestapo cooperation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo-NKVD_Conferences

So, the plight of German expellees is an issue to some Germans, but we can see how the Polish side has a bit if a kneejerk reaction. Erika Steinbach, the leader of this movement, was born in occupied Poland to a German soldier. Is she an expelee?

One last thing. The process of expeling the Germans from Poland after the war was conducted by Soviet controled People's Poland. who also proceeded to round up Polish Home Army soldiers and often executing them. Their crimes are unpunishable to this day, but that's another story.

When are we going to see spellcheck on PF? :)

Steinbach isn't an expelee, she's a pure opportunist and she does nothing at all to help the problem.

Yes, she fled Lebesraum when the Soviets arrived.

I'd say she is harming Polish-German relations which are good at the present.

She's harming more than just Polish-Germans, she's harming expelees themselves.

Most people considered as expelled aren't such in reality. Millions of people were looking for drop of foreign blood in 1970's and left Poland for political reasons using bloods law.

Steinbach family came to Poland in 1939 - and feleed Poland in 1945... she is good face for this organisation as long as she was living in stolen house and is dauther of German officer who came to Poland with invading German army. I would say it is perfect

As for other issues - In my opinion "ethnic" is wrong word.

All in all the biggest critic of German miniority in Poland was ... Józef Beck - who was partly of German origin...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Józef_Beck

So it was rather about political alligance.

What is more it was gen. Berling and many other people had no problems in communistic Poland in result of being party of German origin.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Berling

Expelled Germans were mostly people who conisdered themsleves as more Germans than Poles... and it was very easy to verify after WWII.

As for east German communists : No body made such hot kisses with Soviet leaders as German leader - Honecker ... so he wasn't protesting aganist some decisions made by Soviets...

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

As if anything what YOU think costs a German one minute of sleep...
As if Poles get to decide what an expellee is and who is not...
That is so not your concern!

*takes helmet and leaves Poles to bicker between themselves*

Hey Luki, did they let you out of the Asylum again?

You can even call Hans Frank opressed expelle ... it makes you look more ridiculous. To be honest you are close to it.

As for history you should deal with some other issues which are not part of debate :

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany

You are obsessed Luki...that is so not healthy...

I am not obsessed.

First of all Germans destroyed whole Poland and murdered milions of people in Poland ... so here is huge space for debate about fate of Germans after the WWII.

Secondly ...

East German government agreed on everything and said "thank you" with kisses for the soviets.

Last point is that when we look on German "expelled" arguments and biographies ... then the reason why British, Russians and Americans decided to change our border is clear.

You ARE obsessed..

He is not obsessed.

He is making a mistake by equating the East German government with the German people. Same sort of nonsense we often fight against when people stick it to us Poles - Poland did this and this in 1950. It is grossly unfair to throw things at people who were truly enslaved and were persecuted for opposing the communist regime.

LOL

I am not obsessed.

Anny way ... it is not debate about the history.


It is not mistake I know history of communism in this part of europe.

Why Germans think that they can just forget about decisions made by Eastern German government ... :)

Because that government was Soviet controlled?

Maybe it was maybe it wasn't ...

To this day 20% of Eastern Germans would like to see Berlin wall rebuild. It is fact that novadays Left wing is weaker in europe than it was in the past ... and still 20% of east Germans would like to see the wall ...

In my opinion in the past the support for the wall was much bigger ...

What is more it is not so easy to make some Polish communists international agreements not valid ... so why why should we forget about Eastern German governments decisions.

But if we make both communists decisions not valid ... we should start new debate about compensations which Germans should pay for Poland.

You are still an idiot Lukasz.

Why do you think there was a need for the commie bosses to build a wall in the first time?
Why do you think they needed armed guards with shooting orders ON THE INSIDE!

And I'm not sure which international agreements you speak about?

It was West Germany which didn't accepted the borders after the war and left the questions always open.
But it was negotiated during the re-unification. The acknowledgment of the Oder-Neisse-border (and any other current border) was actually a prerequisite for the re-unification.


Absolutely mad and obsessed!

...go play with Crowie...you can share the same play ground...

Don't call me idiot:

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/5687591/Angela-Merkels-party-backs-homeland-for-Germans-expelled-by-Poland.html


It is not debate about the history... in such case borders will be valid but Poland is going to have milions of Germans within its borders ... then Kosovo ... ect..

It is not just debate about history.


Russians build guags for their own people ... as the North Korea ... and many other countries