Hey everyone I am not sure wether this is even true, I can only speak from my experience and knowledge and it might be wrong. So sorry in advantage if I said something false!
However, as far as I am informed, both, Germany and Russia invaded Poland, both treated them badly and both were rather brutal back in the days. Poland got suppressed by both nations, right?
But whenever I get to talk with Polish people, they seem to see Russians as their brothers and even feel connected with them. I think, whatever happened, they forgave the Russians and have sympathy for them.
However, when it comes to Germans, there is always this negative vibe. I can understand that, even though it all is past, many still will feel some bitter aftertaste maybe because of stories of their grandparents and so on. A Pole even said to me he doesn't get how I can be a nice person and yet be a German-speaker. I mean it was just a joke of him, but you get the idea.:)
So I wonder why Poles forgave Russia but not Germany, when both used to be brutal nations. Is there something important in the history of the relations with those two that I missed? Or is it not even true and I just have a wrong impression? I welcome any kind of information
There is difference between attitude towards Russia and Germany and towards Russians and Germans. Russians look more similar and speak more similar language than Germans, and shared Communism with Poles. They even earn similar money. That's why Poles can feel more understood by Russians.
I don't think it's a question of forgiveness. The Poles do remember what Russia used to be. But Poles and Russians share Slavic roots and culture. If you fight with a stranger and with your brother, it's easier to make up with your brother than with the stranger, even though both might have used the same level of aggression.
It is not truth and it looks like you hang with the wrong Polish people. I could write more about it but have no time. One example i can give is that Polish hooligans had a riots and fought with the Russians during the Euro 2012 not with the Germans.
Because the Germans dislike Poles even more. If you are German, you know very well which stereotypes they have towards Poles. However the Germans do still have those bad stereotypes against almost every nation/race on earth. On the other side, the Poles also have some stereotypes against other people. However the Germans still believe inside them they are better in every way than any other nation/people on earth. Due to the constant media in Germany suppressing that mentality, the Germans don't speak it openly but they still think so.
Once I was in Germany speaking polish with my polish girlfriend, we had people looking angry at us just to the fact that we were speaking polish. Try for instance driving a polish registered car in Germany, and you will realize that some drivers will get aggressive towards you. The Germans think the Poles are nothing more than 'cheap labor' .
By the way, I was recently in Germany again, I mentioned to someone that I stay very often at X place in Poland where my girlfriend comes from. His answer 'that is the place where the cleaning ladies come from'
Ive known a Polish person to say during the occupation that the Germans soldiers used to hand out sweets to Polish children whilst the Russians raped the girls. Granted there does seem to be more discontentment towards Germans with regard to history.
Ive known a Polish person to say during the occupation that the Germans soldiers used to hand out sweets to Polish children whilst the Russians raped the girls.
No, you got it a bit wrong. I only said that my mother, a sweet blond girl, got a piece of chocolate from a German officer in Nazi occupied Krakow because she probably reminded him of his daughter back in Germany. Whereas, after liberation, when she approached an army field kitchen hoping to get something to eat, the Russian cook shouted at her and even waved a ladle in a menacing manner. So she escaped. That`s what I said. Stick to facts.
And Russian women are much prettier than German ones.
+1
you guys obviously haven't seen many German women then ;-) I'm not saying that Russian women are ugly but there are definately many good looking women in Germany, so much is for sure.
you guys obviously haven't seen many German women then
No, we haven`t. We have only heard a few silly jokes. E,.g., how do you know that you have just crossed the Polish German border into Germany? Cows look better than women.
Poles have had historically more of a natural ethnic link with the Russians than the Germans. Indeed, perhaps the one Western European nation with whom the Poles have cultivated some kind of affinity has been France, for obvious reasons. The first (and still foremost) remains Frederic Chopin, son of a French father and a Polish mother, plus French was the language of the Polish court, NOT German. Moreover, Germany and Poland have been difficult neighbors for centuries; the Poles secretly envied the Germans while the latter typically despised the former, for the myriad reasons discussed thus far here on PF.
Poles will go to Germany to study, while rarely do Germans go to Poland for the same purpose, save maybe on some sort of business trip. Admiration between the two countries is clearly unequal, always has been and doubtless will continue to be:-) Poles look at Russia as the Communist occupiers after 1945 until roughly 1989. Poles also learned Russian in school, but hated it, almost NEVER speaking it publically. More Poles speak German, and of course some English, rather than Russian.
However, as far as I am informed, both, Germany and Russia invaded Poland, both treated them badly and both were rather brutal back in the days. Is there something important in the history of the relations with those two that I missed?
Russians were often ruled by non-Russians. For example Catherine the II who together with Germany and Austria participated in Poland partition was known up to age of 19 as: "she was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg".
Josef Stalin wasn't Russian either. He spoke all his life with strong accent in Russian, what later served as a matter of different parodies. Nicolas the II of Russia promised independence to Poland if they will fight well on side of Russia in WWII. If I remember there was no ruler of Russia (who would be more or less ethnical Russian) and who would invaded Poland just to conquer it. Even Bolsheviks were more obsessed with idea of World Revolution than just joining Poland to Russia. Neither ethnical Russians ever genocidized ethnical Poles for just been Poles if I know it correct. It comes to a certain contrast with following historical fact:
Unconditionally, attention should be paid to the fact that there can be no "Polish masters"; where there are Polish masters, and I do not care how hard this sounds, they must be killed. (...) The Fuhrer must emphazize once again that for Poles there is only one master and he is a German, there can be no two masters beside each other and there is no consent to such, hence all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be killed. (...) The General Gouvernment is a Polish reservation, a great Polish labor camp." - note of Martin Borman
Russians slaughtered an outsized number of ethnic Poles, historical fact. Yet, the Ukrainians probably killed off more Jews than either Russia or Poland combined!. Polish Jews though probably forgive the Russians more easily than they forgive the Poles for various post-War pogroms, e.g. Kielce and Jedwabne. as well as the Ukrainian nationalists such as Petlura BEFORE the War! Polish Faschists and Russian Resistance fighters also came to physical loggerheads, let's not forget either.
Katyń is but one instance of mass slaughter to give perhaps the most pertinent example. One needn't go as far back as Czarist times or earlier to give examples of Russian atrocities against, among others, the Germans themselves, such as post-Occupation at War's end. Documented evidence shows that Russian soldiers raped German women following their "triumphal march" into a battered and defeated Reichshauptstadt Berlin during the infamous period known as "Stunde Null". Clearly these women, Nazi though they might well have been, probably had nothing to do with combat, but were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A pleasant pipe-dream, but scarcely realistic! History is laden with the layers, the excesses, the exaltations wedded closely to the tragedies of defeat. To put all that behind us would be next to impossible, my friend.
Documented evidence shows that Russian soldiers raped German women following their "triumphal march" into a battered and defeated Reichshauptstadt Berlin during the infamous period known as "Stunde Null".
Are you sure those were Russians? I thought those were Kyrgyz.
You have a funny tendency of saying "western Europeans", We are talking here about the particular country in the Central Europe - Germany
You have some funny ideas about western Europeans and the importance of the Polish language, dude.
Those are not my ideas, those are statements of Germans, friends of mine. Do you realize that there is a long boarder between Germany and Poland? Do you know there are a few millions o Poles living in Germany?
Stop being obtuse and get some elementary information about the subject :-)
