Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland

Thats what I thought, its just silly.

Yes, it's a joke. I just read it again. Sorry folks! Still have to learn about the Polish humour! ;-)

America is still a very young nation and they never had to deal with decline and defeat, until now! They will have to learn a lot in the next decades, the hard way, if they don't take care! We Germans owe a lot to Americans and I hope they will have wise politicians the next years. The Western world needs them.

Thank you - nicely put!


Its only theoretical ....talk ...don't be agitated.
Because you asked !
Yes, but I treat those treaties as conditional i.e. as long as they will not join Russia giving up their independence - fine but in that case pleasse give us back our ancient land.

Now, to ease your instigation. Imagine I sitting behind a oak desk wearing balaclava and with Webley Mk VI on my lab.

And in this case there is legitimate consent; Poland recognises the present borders of Ukraine. It is not occupied, nor is any other part of Europe.

Hipis

C'mon be real, man, huge chunks of nowadays Poland were much longer German than Polish. We all know it, no need to argue about it.

Nobody can foresee the future.

Who in the year 1900 would have thought that only 20 years later Poland would be an independent country again. Which Pole of the the year 1920 would have thought only 30 years later Wroclaw and Szczecin would be Polish cities and all Germans would have left.

Everything is possible.

But I don't think the majority of Ukrainians will give up their independence to become "Little Russians" again.

German gov disagrees with you.

You have examples for this?

Even Yanukovych wouldn't like to become Putin's backer. The Russians didn't succeed too much in making friends the recent years and they lost a lot of their charisma.

If you ask me it's more probable the Russian Federation breaks apart in the next fifty years than there will be a Soviet Union 2.0. But agin: everything is possible and I might be wrong.

When?
Danzig was always polish, from it's beginning.
The Deutscher Orden was the one who occupied Danzig in 1308.
And later in 1772 Prussia occupied it again.
Before WWII it was occupied again by III Reich, what was illegal.
Bresleu also was polish from the beginning until XIII.
The original names of the cities are slavic.

I can agree that Wilno was never polish, but Lithunian.
But Lwow was was build by Poland, and belonged to Poland a lot longer than it did to Russia or Ukraine (as far as i know it never belonged to Ukraine until 1945).

It was as much polish as Poznan or Warsaw.


No, Poland did not accept it.
It was Stalin who changed the boarder.
Poland had nothing to say. It was Stalin, Roosvelt and Churchill on Jalta conference.
Poland asked USA for help, to make Stalin change his decision, but they never did nothing.

The city names Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Rostock, Schwerin, Potsdam, Görlitz and the names of hundreds of other German cities are also Slavic by origin? Does this mean these cities are less German than Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg? What about Cologne, Mainz, Regensburg which were founded by the Romans? Should countries like France and Italy make claims for these cities because of that?

I wrote enough about Gdansk which was a city of the Polish/Lithuanian Commonweath inhabited by a German speaking majority for centuries. It's a proper Polish city since 1945 and nothing is going to change that.

Wroclaw indeed was a city of the Polish realm until the 14th century but what does this mean for today? Your argumentation is dangerous because in return Germans of the year 2700 (if there still is something like Germany and Poland which I doubt) could make claims for Szczecin and Wroclaw because the city populations were predominantly German 700 years before.

This whole discussion is completely fruitless because neither Germany nor Poland have the demographic power to repopulate even one city like Szczecin or L'viv.


Does this mean there are no legally binding treaties for Poland regarding its border with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine? Are you sure about that?

I know that. I read very much about Sorbs and Wenden, and their ancestors.
As for Danzig, I know Germany has it's own version of the citys history, and so does Poland.
But if you ever been there, or if you ever looked at old paintings, you can see in many places of the town the symbol of Poland right next to the symbol of Gdansk.

The crown in the symbol above the silver crosses is the polish king's crown.
And even during the prussian occupation in XVIII century, even the german speking citizens of gdansk didn't want Gdansk to be prussian, but polish (J. Upgagen).

It was always a town of many nations (scots, flamands, etc) but it was loyal to Poland.
But the most important thing is that over 90% of Gdansk was destroyed during the last war.
Everything had to be rebuild. Every building that stands in Gdnask today, was build and rebuild by polish hands.
The originals are gone...

But your right, nobody has the power to change anything today.


It was illegally taken from us.
When the war started, polish government emigrated to France, than Englad.
After the war, the communists "took over" and organized a voting for new gorernment it was all false, they did that to have control over east european contries.

So you can say that from 1945-1989 we were occupied by soviets. The 'polish' government were only puppets in the hands of Moscow. The legal government was in London, and had nothing to say, because all other contries didnt authorize it anymore.

Poland helped defend Lwow along with the soviets, from the nazis.
When they succeded, polish soliders were arested by soviets, and send to capms and prisons.
Poland never, ever agreed to give Lwow away. We tried to fight for it even when it was taken from us.
But soviets deported most polish people from Lwow (and other territories in that region), making us leave all our stuff (houses, furniture, everythig).
You should read about polish history from that time.
I can swear to you it was not only illegal, it was crime.
In my opionion, what soviets did to Poland (and not only, but also to Ukraine) was much, much worse than Hitler.

Hitler and the Nazis wanted to destroy the Polish state and nation completely. What can be worse than that?
I don't know which plans Stalin originally had for Poland and the Poles. The fact that in Katyn and other places he began to kill the Polish elite, too, like the Nazis did, is pretty ominous. But at least after 1945 there was a Polish state and a place where Poles could live so I wouldn't say Stalin was much worse than Hitler (to the Poles).


True, but there is one detail thats importance should not be underestimated. The loyality of the German speaking Danzigers went to a multi-ethnical and multi-cultural Polish state and King, not to a modern Polish nation state.

Yes, Scots, Flemings, Dutchs and Kashubians and some Russians also lived in Danzig, but it does not change the fact that the (North and Low) German element was predominant in Gdansk over many centuries.

I notized many times that some Poles try to overstate the Flemish and Dutch element of the historic Danzig city culture in order to diminish the German one. Until the 20th century the differences between Low German, Dutch and Flemish were just minor. There still is a complete dialect continuum between all three languages and all languages are mutually intelligible. In Danzig Low German was replaced by High German only in the first decades of the 20th century.

That was exactly my point earlier in this thread, but wladyslaw kind of missed it.

The only thing that bothers me is that some "patriots" here find the annexation of the so-called "recovered territories" after WW2 perfectly okay (because hey, those were Polish lands 50.000 years ago), but moan and whinge about the "lost territories" in the East on a constant basis. You can't have it both ways, comrades. ;)

I know what Hitler wanted, but i think we should judge poeople for what they did. Not for what they wanted to do.
Soviets killed in Katyn over 200 000 polish elite (prefessors, genreals, doctors).
For many years Russia lied about Katyn, saying that Nazis did it.
Till this day they did not apoligize (Germans at least admit to what Nazis did and apologized many times).
Did you eaver hear about Hlodomor?
Stalin starved to death (murdered) over 7 000 000 Ukrainians (yes seven million), that was 27% of the whole nation, 20 000 Polaks died also.
Also soldiers who fought for Poland were discriminated, accused for terrorism, send to Siberia to camps, prosons, or killed.
So what there was a Polish state, when it was illegal to be a patriot, most products were made for Russia. It was all a big lie.

I personally think i'd rather die in a country which fought till the end, and got destroyed with pride, than give up and live like a slave.

One more thing. On the first battle of WWII in Westerplatte.
After 7 days when the major gave up, nazis aressted him with honor, gratulated him he lasted so long (150 Poles against 2500(?) Germans)
Sovietes never treated anyone with honor, they did what they could to imbaress their enemy.
And i think you know who completely destroyed Gdansk....


What about Jan Sobieski?
He was very respected in Gdansk.
Even J. Hevelius named a star system to honor him.
And what about Stanislaw Leszczynski? Gdansk supported him insted of August II (who was from Saxony)
They were 100% polish kings.


But was there a united german country in XIV-XV century?
I thought there were seperate states (saxony, brandenburgia etc)
If you look at the buildings in Gdansk they look just like in Harlem or Antwerpien.
The most important builders of Gdansk (like van den Blocke) were flemish, some were german, but they came to Poland, because they had to leave their home countries because of religion problems. Gdansk (i think the whole Poland at that time) was a city of freedom for religion.

I would say "germans not welcome in their country, moved to a country which welcomed them with open hands to buld their towns" insted of "germans came to build german town" ;)

I agree about the language, but lower german was used in all Hanza towns, including Latvia, Lithunia, Sweden and i think a little part of nort-west Russia.

But it was a union of baltic cities - not a seperate country.

Not a country called Germany, but the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The latter is generally seen as the historic predecessor of modern day Germany. But what does a nation state have to do with the culture settlers brought with them? The majority of the people of Danzig (I'm using this name on purpose here) had - at times - a cultural background which you would call German nowadays.

But didn't they fight against eachother?
Saxony against Branderburgia?
And what do you think about Budyšyn - dose it have german background, or is it Sorbian? (i'm just curious i never asked any German about the Serbs)

Jan Sobieski was respected and honored in every German speaking city in the late 17th century, because Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, most definitely would have fallen into the hands of the Turks, that besieged the city for months in the year 1683, if he and 3,000 Polish Winged Hussars haven't bailed out the city.

By the way: his crucial role in the Battle of Vienna was systematically neglected in Prussian and German historiography during the Polish partitions until the 1990s. When I went to school in Bavaria in the 1980s we never learned anything about Jan Sobieski and the very important role of Poland in saving the city, when the Turkish siege of Vienna was on the agenda. I read about it the first time in the early 1990s. But this has changed, now in every German documentation about the siege of Vienna Jan Sobieski's role is prominentely explained.

So surely the Danzigers liked and honored him, too. But I think they were loyal to him because he was a wise and capable king and not because he was an ethnic Pole. Under his rule a standard of living was possible in Danzig that wouldn't have been possible in one of the German states of the year 1683. Don't forget there was war in Germany from 1618 until 1648, so many parts of Germany still were devestated. Ethnicity did not play a big role in early modern Europe! So the Danzigers probably followed the old Roman proverb: Ubi bene ibi patria! (Where it is well there is the fatherland!)


You are right about that, but at the time when the buildings were constructed in Danzig, the Netherlands still were a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Actually many of the "German" settlers that colonized the area around Danzig in the 1300s came from present day Holland and Flanders. The German dialect that was spoken in Danzig until the expulsion in 1945 still resembled a lot of Dutch. So the area of Northern Central Europe in early modern times was one cultural sphere dominated by Low German/Dutch/Flemish which was very much the same language in the 1700s.


Yes, it is difficult to explain that. After the 30 year's war the Holy Roman Empire was pretty much dysfunctional. States began to fight against each other and bigger states like Austria and Brandenburg began to acquire territory outside the sphere of the Holy Roman Empire (Hungary, Prussia, Polish Particions etc,). But the realm still existed until Napoleon abolished it in 1806.

I read somewhere, that 95% of countries today have some kind of land dispute with their neighbors.

Say who ?sissy-boy ?


He had artillery and infantry with him as well, and light cavalry as well.

I just read he arrived in Vienna with 30,000 men not 3,000 as I wrote. I also didn't know he was the elected commander of the of the Imperial Holy Roman Forces. Here is a good summary about the Battle of Vienna and the crucial role of Jan III Sobieski: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

Lviv was founded on the existent settlement most probably in 1240-1247 by Daniel, ruler of the medieval Ruthenian kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, and named after his son, Lev.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv

Actually it were Poles who always draw line between themself and ``inferior Ukrainians``. It`s enough to say that until 1939 majority of Ukrainians in Polish governed part of Ukraine didn`t have


citizenship! Could you imaging to live on territory where your ancestors lived for a thousand of years maybe, and be treated like underhuman without citizenship? Polish citizenship was granted by special permission of Polish government to minority of Ukrainians only. A way to the higher ranks of Polish society was almost closed to Ukrainians.Well,if some nation permits to itself luxury of meaningless racism and gaining on somebody instead uniting with them against common adversaries, consequences were predictable...

Lwów/Lviv was a culturally important Polish city before the war, but even though the city's population was mostly Polish-speaking, that of the surrounding rural regions was predominantly Ukrainian. Many of the eastern territories were ethnically mixed and both Poland and the Ukrainian SSR had a reasonable ethnic claim to them. It's not so much the territorial loss that is the most painful, but the cultural loss of Lviv specifically, and I'm sure many Poles would have much preferred Lviv to be a border city, but Stalin said no.

Nowadays, Lviv is the capital of Ukrainian culture, with the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, russified to such an extent that Ukrainian is seldom spoken there. So while losing Lviv was a cultural disaster for Poland, for Ukraine, it would now be a fatal catastrophe.

I'm sure many Ukrainians would understand that some Poles quite understandibly mourn the loss of Lviv, including the ones I know who were born there, but I've never heard the phrase "Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland" and I've found bitter sentiments such as these to be in the minority. Ukrainians and western Ukraine, as far as I'm aware, are regarded quite positively in general.

1) Lwow had not been founded by Poles.
2) From the end of 18-th century after partition of Poland and till 1918 Lwow beared
the name of Lemberg and was part Austro-Hungarian Empire.Austrian emperor
France Joseph wore Ukrainian national shirt under his cloth according to some sorces
and mastered Ukrainian to the point he was able to write poetry in Ukrainian.Once he
wanted to become a Bukovina king to joy of Ukrainians.Ukrainian soldier liked Austrian
king and called him ``our king``.Return Lwow to Poland and not to Austria?

I`m not going to argue if Lwow was predominantly Polish-speaking or not, though I`m
not sure that ethnical Poles constituted magority of popualation there in the last centuries.
Well,maybe Israel will claim Lwow too?..

Galicia–Volhynia Wars

During the wars over the succession of Galicia-Volhynia Principality in 1339 King Casimir III of Poland undertook an expedition and conquered Lviv in 1340, burning down the old princely castle.[10] Poland ultimately gained control over Lviv and the adjacent region in 1349. From then on the population was subjected to attempts to both Polonize and Catholicize the population.[17]

When in 1387 Władysław retreated from the post of its governor, Galicia-Volhynia became occupied by the Hungarians, but soon Jadwiga, the youngest daughter of Louis, but also ruler of Poland and wife of King of Poland Władysław II Jagiełło, unified it directly with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.[10]

Berlin was originally a Slavic city.

Big deal.

The latter stages of Austria-Hungarian rule are generally regarded positively by many nations formerly subject to it. It was at that time that the Polish and Ukrainian cultures were flourishing in Galicia.

All I'm saying is that Lvov can neither be regarded as a solely Polish, nor Ukrainian city historically. It's changed hands between different countries multiple times, and historically, it's been a multicultural, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish city. In 1900, when it was still part of the Austrian empire, it's population was 20% Ukrainian, 49% Polish and 27% Jewish.

And all that stuff about Franz Joseph doesn't sound particularly credible.

one of his grandsons was a very Ukrainophile but I can't remember his name

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Wilhelm_of_Austria

Good for him! Ukrainian culture is lovely.

But I don't think some monarch's Ukrainophilia is all that relevant to Lvov.

Really?I think that this is something that should be very relevant...

Really? Why?

Not really - mixed.Like a layer cake.


What a BS! Anyway who cares IT WAS MIDDLE AGED HISTORY!
Sure that Lwów should belong to Poland.


According to others sources he was wearing Ukrainian pants and while in the outhouse he used to sing Ukrainian song.


Surely can be regarded as historically Polish city.

But it hasn`t, for over half a century.

It is high time you shouted: Long live once Polish, today Ukrainian Lvov!