Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more?

My family history would second the above statement.

Mine wouldn't. We were hurt much more by Hitler.
The occupation in my region was very mild due to being thought of as German. So in that respect it might have been considered better than Russian there. However I don't think the families of ppl captured in łapanka or killed after the uprising or in the camps would be as eager to absolve Hithere as Dirk is.

@Dirk diggler
"Soviets were far worse than the Nazis there is a degree of truth to that."

@dolnoslask
"My family history would second the above statement."

Mine too.

I think you will find that dirk would be one of the last people on earth to Absolve them.

My family survived deportation to the Russian gulags and later had the honour to fight the Nazis in Europe.

Germans Russians of that time were all rapist murdering scum, they should have been eradicated off the face of the earth.

No I won't as I read already quite a lot of his posts on this matter.

My family was send to a camp and forced labour.


I will never agree to a statment putting such big group of ppl into one bag. It's illogical and childish

Soviets & Nazis, Jap fanatics . no problem.

Let's see if it's time again now for Russia to change.

@Jaskier

No one's absolving Hitler or the Nazi's fool. What myself and countless others who have ww2 survivors in our families and who live amongst us are saying that Soviets were worse than Nazis, not that the Nazis were angels. You've been brainwashed so much that you can't even objectively look at historical facts. I know communism is the new hip thing now so there's tons of whitewashing of Soviet atrocities but it won't change how polish ww2 survivors and polish people feel today. To the vast majority of poles, both survivors and not, the Soviets were far worse than Nazis. Again, not that the Nazis were angels, but nonetheless in general non combatants were treated far worse by Soviets


Same. By Soviets... for decades not a few months of years

Hitler certainly did hate Christianity with its ideals of love and forgiveness! He is known to have publically (as well as in MeinKampf) excoriated Christianity as having too much of a "Jewish conscience".

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_and_Elimination_of_Jewish_Influence_on_German_Church_Life

The Nazis understood that religion and a government controlled society could not coexist. So did the commies and Karl Marx. They both hoped that science and reason would 'overcome superstition.' Nonetheless they understood that totally doing away with christianity especially in a country where 99% of people are either Catholic or protestant was unrealistic.

true. that is why he experimented with Nazi-Islam on Bosnian Muslims during WWII. Back then Croatian `ustashe` were also part of experiment. Their alliance with Arab mujaheedines in this Civil War that happened in former Yugoslavia deepened their Nazi-Islam. That again confirms that EU, as sponsor to `ustashe` continuing where Hitler`s Third Reich stooped. One of reasons that Pope Francis, here in the region, turning to Serbians.

The Nazis, one might with equal veracity argue the Germans as well, were Pagan in their world view, a people belonging to a nation which never quite Christianized, but instead merely paid lip service to convenient Christian imagery or symbolism! Essentially, religion was the means which justified their ends, namely, the conquest of "inferior" races and peoples aka anybody who wasn't deemed a fit AryanLOL

Helmuth Plessner states the former point of view quite cogently in his famous (as yet untranslated) volume "Nationhood Deferred: On the Political Gullibility of the Bourgeoise Intellect".

More so the SS. But yes goebbels himmler and other Nazi leaders pushed for Germans to get back to their roots and embrace the old Germanic Norse paganism. But generally the german population retained their catholic/protestant identity.

"But generally speaking, the German populace retained their Catholic/Protestant identity."

On the surface so it seems. However, ask an Austrian historian about his or her countrymen's religious affiliations, and they'll probably reply neither "katholisch" (Catholic) nor

"protestantisch" (Protestant), but rather "Nationalkatholizistisch" aka "National Socialist Catholic":-)

Nominally, nearly all Germans were/are Christian, of course, the Jewish population being even back then a decided minority within the German-speaking world.
Plessner's point though is that one of any number of reasons why Hitler was able to sell the Germans (including Austrians) on his exterminationist ideology with such

apparent ease, was that there was little firm Christian underpinning in their society. Therefore, they were quickly sold, most of them, on the notion that the bigger, tougher, stronger, healthier, more mentally agile, were simply better than those less fortunate a la Darwin!

The concept of divine spirit, brotherly love, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount "And the meek shall inherit the earth" and so forth, remained essentially foreign to the historical German character, and hence utterly laughable to the arch-cynical Nazis.

Whether the average german citizen knew about the death camps is debatable. Hitler and especially himmler did their best to hide this. Actually most Germans didn't even want a continuation of war after the campaigns in Poland, Czechy, etc but they saw Hitler was on a winning streak so most reluctantly agreed.

And christian underpinnings are mostly gone in modern societies especially among younger people who look more towards science,.reason, etc. If everyone followed everything in the bible there would be no support for wars, no one would be wearing jeans with t shirts and there certainly wouldn't be the dog eat dog ruthless competition. Most people identify as Christians mainly out of tradition, not because they necessarily believe everything in the bible. Unfortunately Christians don't really have any sort of texts like the Talmud that offers a guide on how we should behave in a modern society and balance the real world with Christian ideals. The new testament offers parables and historical accounts but much of it is outdated. Even the regular Sunday church goes go and pray, confess whatever then the rest of the week they're doing the same sh1t - reopoing cars, denying people coverage, evicting poor tenants, ticketing homeless people, selling bullshit to make a commission, firing old people because a cheaper younger person is available or whatever their jobs are.

It also doesn't help that christianity is under attack from all sides in the modern world especially the us.

Posts about religion were moved:

Can be completely equalized? Not sure. To my knowledge Russians didn't level entire Polish cities (like Warsaw) to the ground, didn't send millions of ethnic Poles to die in camps just for been Polish and didn't carry the plans to eliminate Polish state and Polish ethnicity altogether. Even contra they've injected hundreds of billions of USD in Polish economy during 1945-1989 and even sent the first Polish cosmonaut to the space.

Yes in 1939 they bombarded and destroyed many Eastern Polish cities with artillery. Whole villages were burned and the inhabitants slaughtered and raped during the Soviet advance at the end of the war,

Yes the USSR deported hundreds of thousands of Poles, basically just for being Polish,

Soviet rule left Poland one of the poorest countries in Europe by 1989.

I like paganism. The true native european way...everything else is imported from far away lands! :)

Do you know of any Slavic gods from the now Eastern German territory? Or do you know of any Saxon gods from the now Niedersachsen Land?

They are all only sleeping...

Your 'knowledge' sounds like Soviet propaganda.. hmm in fact it is a soviet propaganda in a form of an opinion.


some post-romantic musings nought more..:)

By the way the Nazis shared your fascination and view on the subject. Not that I hold it against you. Just that you know.lol!

And yet I think they are still walking around us sometimes, but maybe only ... in my dream.

Have you heard of that wooden pole which the Saxon people believed keeps the sky above them up and once it was destroyed, the sky would crash onto the earth? And then the Franks came and conquered the Sachsen and destroyed the pole and they saw the sky ... was still there!

All this and other stories are compellingly described in the fascinating book "Barbarzyńska Europa" by Karol Modzelewski, a historian of the Middle Ages period (also the Polish "Solidariity" influential activist in the communist era), a book which was translated into many languages with German being one of them - "Das barbarische Europa".

Interesting book...

Hmm, would have to ck. it out, thanks:-)

German history though has always been particularly complex, nothing straightforward.
Then again, as a language, so its people.

According to wikipedia:

On the Polish side, 3,000-7,000 soldiers died fighting the Red Army, with 230,000-450,000 taken prisoner.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland#Aftermath
No number of a dead civilians is even mentioned in wikipedia. Can you provide any link?


There were many Polish citizens of other nationalities. Not sure there was any strict ethnic selection. Soviet government claimed they selected them for been members of a Polish officers families, intelligentsia, administrators etc. Those people who they believed were capable to engage in anti-Soviet activity or switch to the enemy side in the War. Many of these people died in Russia been unprepaired for harsh conditions, but many successfully returned back to Poland or decided to stay in Russia by the good will. I wonder what would be their fate if they would get into German occupation a year later.


Only Soviet fault? Haven't Eastern Germans, Czechs or Hungarians been subjected to a similar system? Did the live exactly like Poles did?


The thread was about the Russians, not the Soviets. And subsequently some crimes attributed to an "ethnic" Russians. No propaganda here. Only the facts taken from reliable sources that matter.

You post wasn't. So stop pretending to be some kind of a witty above average clever dude as clearly you are not.

I meant if some actions of Soviet government are used to represented them as a "Russian crimes" why not bring some facts just for objectivity? In any case USSR is long gone. Why to get scary with "Soviet propaganda"?

I am not sure where you are going with this. Do you think it somehow makes it better that the SU did not single out Poland but instead opressed half of Europe for 4 decades? Or that some regimes installed and kept alive by the SU might have been even worse in other countries (e.g. arguably Hungary) than in Poland?


Because the current leader of Russia openly voiced his regret about the SU's demise and his main ambition is to get Russia into a similar geopolitical position again. A position that would reduce Russia's neighbours to the role of vassals.

He wrote that Poland was one of the poorest in Europe in 1989. Is it one of the richest now?

You would be wondered but according to a modern sources the system that existed in Hungary in 1960-1980-th was one of mildest in Eastern and Central Europe of those times. According to some sources they didn't even have a truly guarded border with Austria and anyone who really wanted to trespass it, could do it. This is not a propaganda (don't get scared), but just a historical curiosity.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulash_Communism


With the same success he can regret about demise of Russian Empire in its 1866 borders.

What is typical to a leaders of a countries which were a large empires once. For example mongols praise Gengiz-Khan and built him a huge monument in Ulan-Battor.

Does it mean we need get scary of Russian monarchists and afraid of Mongol invasion?

Oh crap...what would happen if a german chancellor cries tears openly about the loss of the huge territory in the East and would like to have it all back!