History / Are Polish territories natively German? [73]

some part of the present day Germany used to part of the Polish Kingdom - and?


there were no Germanic tribes in Poland even in the 7th century AD after 600 AD - previous Germanic populations - if there remained any - were either wiped out or assimilated - there is some prove that some Germanic populations remained (but considerably reduced during the Migration Period when large groups of Germanic people wandered away) until Slavic settlers arrived and then most probably were assimilated pretty soon - the prove lies in the names of the rivers in Poland which are mostly inherited from the Germanic era (the river names in Poland mostly don't have a Slavic etymology) - still it is very possible that many of the river names were inherited by the Germanic settlers from the previous inhabitants (who cannot be identified mostly in terms of a language group)


your knowledge of history is pretty limited - I do accept it as such - time you do too - or just simply educate yourself about this and that (like Slavic fleets in the various times of the Middle Ages) - there are even places in Danmark (Falster) which have Slavic names - interesting huh

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


that depends on your definition of ethnic minority ;) hehehe

btw I would think twice, seven-times and seventy-seven times or wait 20 years before demanding any specific rights for Polish minority in Germany - satisfied - looks like I am much wiser than our current foreign minister Mr Sikorski - don't you think Brigitte ;)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


you are too much of an observer Seanus for a Brit - you should be taken care of by the remaining active participants of the Polish UK-expat community ;)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


I don't find even 16th century maps very reliable and you place your bet on a map that is 1800 old (where do you think Ptolemy got his data from actually) - those who charted 16th century maps could at least travel the lands they charted

back in the 2nd century AD Poland was mainly inhabited by Germanic tribes - now Poland is inhabited by mostly Slavic population - stop living in the past - accept the now :) -

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


so what ?? :)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


you can't be sure of the asociation - what do you base this association on??? - linguistics does not provide for such an association (even a vague assumpt) - ask any linguist you know - I hope you do know one -

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


yes - I acknowledge that Silesian Piasts got germanized gradually starting from the 13 th century (not all of them at once though - as evidence by the one called Władysław Opoloczyk in 15th century) - I also acknowledge that by the end of 13th century the area of Sudety mountains (Sudeten Gebirge) were mostly populated by ethnic Germans - I acknowledge that after the Mongol raind on Poland (see battle of Legnica) and later plagues there was considerable German colonizations of the emptied lands (directed by the Silesian Piast princes) - I acknowlegde that cities in the Lower Silesia became mostly German during 14th century - I acknowledge these lands were part of the Habsburg Empire - I acknowledge their were won from the Habsburgs by Prussia - and became even more German/germanized in time

and I ask - so what??? :)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


I haven't heard of those big Germanic settlements you mention BB (after Ptolemy) in the archeological findings - maybe they were not actually as big as you would like to think they were - or maybe at some moment they were burnt to the ground to never be found again - maybe you know more about the archeological evidence of rampant Germanic settlements in the present day Poland - please do share

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


hehhe a good one Koala - Bratwurst is funny sometimes - but scary at the same time when you think that perhaps most Germans think the way he does (give beck the lend - it is unser ;) (or pay compensations (a nice German) - come and get it nice German person - I won't pay you a single penny :P:P:P

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


no Lusatians (or rather Lusatian culture were natives) according to this map too
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germanic_tribes_%28750BC-1AD%29.png

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


if you knew a thing or two about linguistics you wouldn't connect some Budorgis (with not so precise location - next to Calisia and where is Calisia? ) with Bydgoszcz (i don't say it is not possible but is definitely obvious as you probably think )


and you possibly know where it is? or where it was? - how come we were to know it's heritage if we don't know a thing about it?

was Ptolemy ever in the lands by the way - btw doesn't it possibly show that the town was no longer in existence in 600 AD (Ptolemy's map is from around the border of the milleniums, isn't it?

my goodness - Bromberg - how old is the name Bromberg by your guess - and how come it is connected with Budorgis - care to explain - I am of an impression you hardly know a thing about linguistics - btw what does Bromberg mean in German (Lehmberg means something very specific so I expect Bromberg does too)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


what towns? - where do you see their remains? - were they 50 000- poeple towns? - or rather like 2000 or less inhabitants completely wooden towns - and villages - a couple of huts here and there probably - the agriculture back then would not allow for greater populations BB if you don't know it yet - again Vandals (perhaps the whole tribe - perhaps the greater majority of them left south eastern Poland in the Migration Period - I don't know the exact reasons - by they had some if they ever considered leaving - was it because of harrasement by the Huns- was it because the Roman Empire was collapsing and Germanic tribes moved into its borders which started the westward movement of all Germanic tribes - perhaps - I am not that informed - I just read here and there - and some things make more sense than others - maybe some plague was involved - American settlers in the US settled largely depopulated areas (or very sparsely populated areas) because plagues brought by Europeans (infectious diseases decimated the previous native populations

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


who said there was no German history and contribution to these lands - me? - no I haven't - it is you who can't believe in most obvious concepts because they don't fit your view - (Germans always present in Silesia - hmm where's the trace between 600 - 1200 AD - and how logical it is given known different historical facts (Slavs inhabiting all lands around) )

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


what period are you talking about - before 600 AD? ever heard of the Migration Period? ever heard of the Hunnic Invasion? Slavs were not a power enough in 600 AD to conquer anything - the areas of the present day Poland must have been severely depopulated (Vandals started their migration from southeastern Poland and ended up in Algeria and Tunisia - have they left any settlements along the way? (I mean any resident populations) - they were perhaps accompanied by the Sillingians from the Silesia (yes the Slavic name of Śląsk comes from the name of the Germanic tribe who inhabited the area)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


still where - and who - some Germanic vampires?? survived 1400 years in caves around Tarnowskie Góry (wonder what Tarnowskie Góry was called under Prussian rule)

have you ever heard of Germanized Poles/Slavs in Silesia - because i can tell you most of those who remained in Silesia after the WWII were Slavs not nearly thoroughly germanized (there were true Germans left (who spoke no Slavic) but their number in the matter of whole Poland was maybe 100 thousand (at the very most) and guess what - they were not indigenous people dating back to 600 AD )

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


so where do you see of those Germans (you sure Germans not Germanics?) between 600-1200 in Silesia?? in the palms of your hands??


Koala after some reasoning it is stupid (at least now) to demand minority rights for Poles in Germany - as far as I know there is little call for that from the said minority actually - so why bother create yet another tension in German-Polish relationships

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


Blaskowitz is not a Polish surname - it is a place name derived surname but not Polish - however the place name (Blaskowitz) could have been Polish (but could have also been Pommeranian, Weletian, Sorbian or even Polabian)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


what unhistorical I have stated - please point out and elaborate if you please (even if just a bit)


where do you see that German presence between 600 - 1200 AD - and how come the German presence in upper Silesia was strong between 1200 - 1600? please explain

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


and not like 40 per cent? I don't know just ask

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


sorry what I have written are historical facts - if facts are so distracting to you you should not bother with history at all - what is so antigerman in stating that between 600 and 1764 AD there was hardly any Germanic-speaking population in the lands we are talking about (most Upper Silesia - especially the most industrialised region)

do I deny that there were some Germanic tribes in Silesia (and generally whole Poland before 600 AD) - no - but we know not so much about them - for example you wouldn't call Goths Germans at all - they were much more closely related to Scandinavians - this is where they came from after all) - and still before Germanic tribes settled various regions of the present day Poland it was inhabited by yet different people (who spoke non-Indoeuropean language most-probably) - are we supposed to give the land to the Basques because of that?


as I said - it is most probably not very wise (completely stupid) for the Polish side to raise the question of Polish minority also for the reason you stated (that Germany cannot afford to give minority rights to the Turks - at least the Germans think so and we should take it into consideration

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


what do you mean by towns - and what is left of these towns then btw the time between 200 AD and 600 AD is a long time - how do you now there wasn't some serious internal strife in these lands that left the land much more sparsely populated - I know some (perhaps a great deal of) Polish archeology should be revised - but I haven't actually heard of major Germanic sites in Silesia in general (except the Ślęża mountain - but I don't know the German name of the mountain (big lonely thing south of Wrocław)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


there was no German presence there whatsover between about 600 and 1200 AD - and until 1600 Germans never formed even a significant minority in the area we are talking about - serious German immigration started after the start of exploitation of coal deposits in the late 18th century - furthermore German administration pursued active policies of germanization of local inhabitants - and various German immigrants kept flowing into the area all through the 19th century and then untill the Great War (almost 400 000 newcomers to the area between 1985-1918 - one whole big city if not several cities in that time)

btw before 600 there were no Germans as such just some Germanic tribes who probably spoke something very different to contemporary Hochdeutsch

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


Germans in upper Silesia on the break of centuries were also mostly immigrants - in cities like Gleiwitz - Gliwice, Koenigshuette (now Chorzów), Hindenburg(or whatever it was called before - now Zabrze), Beuthen- Bytom (before Beuthen and now) - it didn't make Germans surrender those cities to Poles in 1921


I guess there is a Polish school there because of the diplomatic corps presence (now and back in the DDR times)

I was not saying there are no Polish schools in Germany at all - I was merely saying I haven't heard voices to establish such

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


Poles are not concentrated anywhere in Germany - there is no call for schools with Polish language as far as I know - so perhaps it is not so very wise to raise the issue

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


plus geography - but it is not that bad I'd say eventually

ok you are right about that - one source (polskie radio site) states majority subjects in the first paragraph of their article about the topic - but it is just bad journalism I guess

still the question of the 'optimisation' is valid - minority schools (including Polish) in smaller places will be closed and only Lithuanian language schools will stay - some 60 (half of the present number) of Polish schools are endangered

I wonder if Lithuania would allow to let these schools be run by local communities (perhaps with financial support from Poland - be it state or charity funding)

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]

the new Lithuanian law passed in March requires most of the subjects in all schools to be taught in Lithuanian - this will probably lead to the closure of most Polish schools in Lithuania - in comparison Lithuanian minority in Poland enjoys the right for most subjects in school to be taught in their native Lithuanian tongue (German minority enjoys similar rights but they mostly don't use the right to the utmost) - other than that the new law introduces 'optimization' of school network - Polish minority in Lithuania estimates that up to a half of present 120 Polish schools can vanish as a result of this 'optimization'

Travel / Quiet places to visit outside of Krakow [15]

btw - there is less and less 'English louts' visiting Kraków in these day from what I have read here in the forum

Language / Adjective endings and masculine-personal in the Polish language [22]

perfect job

News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]


hehhe - like Germany and France for subsidising their ship-building industries :)

News / Do Poles take Kaczynski seriously!? [199]


well, I'm quite used to the one I have but maybe it is wise to have a spare one :P