Poland obliged to make war reparations to Austria and Germany after WWI. Why?

In that case I will give it a go(:

Interesting, so they do sometimes take notice.

Yeah, I've had a couple of exchanges with authors via their publishers.

Just pondering, maybe the reparations were just payments for equipment etc which Polish authorities used after 1918 which belonged to Germany/Aistria fprmerly.

Just an idea.

That's what I was thinking whne I said Prussians... Other would rather say Berliner, Hannoverer etc... Prussian stays a Prussian no matter what

Thank you!

BB I thought you were Niederschlesien?

My Grandparents family were....living in Breslau, Liegnitz and other smaller towns and villages...
After the war they resettled in Berlin...one half of the family in West Berlin and my half in East Berlin.

I think it wears off after two generations!

It is true that the original Prussians were a group of Balts that were destroyed by Germans who then adopted their name.

Not quite, but close enough. However I meant that Prussians after WWII and communism,no longer exists, they may fancy them-selfs Prussians but it is not the same.

I could call may-self Prussian, having almost the same title as they do.:)

Not sure if the original Prussians were "destroyed" but their culture did die out and what was left became part of the German or the Polish culture (depending on the location of the inhabitants). Original Prussians were neither German nor Polish but rather a Baltic culture.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia
"...The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, a Baltic people related to the Lithuanians and Latvians. In the 13th century, "Old Prussia" was conquered by German crusaders, the Teutonic Knights. In 1308 Teutonic Knights conquered the formerly Polish region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk (Danzig). Their monastic state was mostly Germanized through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south it was Polonized by settlers from Masovia. After the Second Peace of Thorn of 1466, Prussia was split into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the eastern part, since 1525 called Duchy of Prussia, a fief of the Crown of Poland up to 1657. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701..."

Sure why not?

Prussia was very multi-kulti for it's time...Germans from everywhere, french huguenots, Jews, Poles ...

It's a state of mind rather than an everchanging geographical event. "Prussian virtues" are still very much en vogue in Germany. It had been these virtues which made people able to stamp one of the most important empires out of the barren brandenburgian sand.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_virtues#Historical_Development

It had been these virtues which enabled the Germans to pull themselves out of the dirt again and again through hard work.

And not to forget the shifting of the center of the new, re-unified Germany from cozy, comfy, dull Bonn (Bonn republic) to Berlin (Berlin republic) changed the old rhenish Bundesrepublic to a much more prussian Germany in attitude and outlook. These changes are already felt in Europe! ;)

A source of current conflict with other countries in Europe who don't follow similiar virtues, like austerity, especially now in a time of crisis.

It's a matter of spirit and that lives on! :)

Most beautiful place and taste of the best German spirit not the Prussian barracks...

Well...not bad...picturesque...quiet...small...provincial...but surely not the full monty! Unfit to lead a new, re-unified, bigger, stronger Germany;)

yeah and militaristic Prussia where everybody knew his place, but always officers were somehow better in the eyes of common opinion and custom, where order must be carried out - regardless of its contend, where government and Kaiser were always right even if they had been wrong, yes I think that is good for a new stronger Germany, one, two - time to march in ranks BB!

New barracks of EU!

Oh please...cut the crap will you?

Germany dominates Europe today without having fired a shot and no panzers on the streets.
Quite the contrary...everything military would destroy all that we build up. It's the economy - stupid! ;)
Times have changed for good (at least in Europe)...you should accept that sometime....somehow.

[mod]please stick to the topic[/mod]

So why do don't you cut the crap with your Prussia, real Prussia or Prusians no longer exist, you just spread on some nostalgic BS!

Oh humour me...I'm a prussian fanboy...I can't help it. And you would look much more smarter if you would not reduce all things Prussia to some militaristic, baby eating, Pickelhauben as it had been so much more.

Germans just love to P on russia.

Oh it was, but it was only "by the way" - a real core of Prussia was her militaristic and authoritarian features!

...said the expert on Prussia.... ;)

Read a good book and then come back!

I did - by a German author, popular in Germany - do not recall his name !
It just nostalgia after the more orderly world !

and her philosphers, religious sites and major goldsmithing.

So what...is that so bad?
How many Poles yearn (romantically) for their golden years in the Commonwealth?

It's history sure...hurts nobody....

only by-products, working for a greater glory of Prusian and Prusian King and His Army!


unless you get wrong ideas about the past :)
it could be misleading

Past is past and should stay there!

:)

was there ever a Prussian king? The stuff I'm thinking of was for the Polish king. The religious sites actually suffered under the Protestantisation of the Teutonic Order

1701 - 1872!/

Oh, thanks. I didn't know that. he must have been pretty old by the end.

Actually, they went upto 1918
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Of_Prussia#Kings_of_Prussia_1701-1918

To all, the topic is wandering.

As kaiser and title of prussian king was only an ornament in German empire

Whilst this is not the year Zamoyski is talking about, this is an example of the stuff he Is talking about:

The destruction and sacking of the city of Kalisz (Polish: zburzenie Kalisza) occurred in August 1914 by German Empire troops. From August 2 until 22 1914, at the beginning of World War I, one of the oldest towns in Poland (then under Partitions), with a rich historical tradition, and monuments of mediaeval architecture was bombed and burnt down. It was committed on a defenceless, open town, which the Russian army had left without fighting. The event is also known as Pogrom of Kalisz or Poland's Louvain.

As depicted in film(must say the troops do look smart in their uniform)