Poland's biggest historical blunder?

why the League of Nations let Hitler arm his army on the first place?why did they let off the reparations?it wasnt tactics,it was weakness and unwillingness. In 1933 Hitler wasnt powerful, the appeasement was not necessary

Whatever. Talking, no talking, not important. Uk and F fukkked up big time, ok, Germany lost the war, but was there any help from f or uk?

Call it what you want. They messed up, reason not important. Result counts. No rationalisations pls.

According to Kant, a nation that was defeated and destroyed in war needs possibilities to rebuilt and reinvent itself. If that possibility is denied, there is a new war threat. When you look at the Weimarer Republik, it was a very unruly place. The poverty and the split in the workers movement were a great opportunity for someone like Hitler to become a dictator, even before Hitler became a household name. And yes, peace was the topic of the day, therefore the western countries tried to help Germany get on it's feet. It was also one of the motivations for Marshall Plan after the WWII was over.

Yap, and Kant happens to be German. Coincidence? ;)


Weimarer Republik had a lot of opportunities, but unfortunately Germans decided then for the worst possible.


Marshall plan was for Germans help, yes, but a strong West German prooved to be necessary against the USSR and its satelites. That was the main goal.

Except he never lived to see the mess of the 20th century.


Yes to all that, but it supports Kant's theory that a desperate county is a threat to peace. If the hunger and poverty situation was left unattended, who knows, maybe the communists would gain too much power and we would have had just one socialist German country.

All I am saying that W. Republik had its chances gambled for a nuttts austrian. I feel personally sorry for that.


;)

The Marshall plan was offered to the USSR and its satellites too, but there was a refusal as you know. It shows at least initial intent which contained no confrontation. The plan had in mind not specifically the West Germany or the Good Old West only. The US had the money and the businesses flourishing after WWII. To sustain the growth you need partners. Rebuilding Europe and Japan and creating a nice market here and there was very important for the US. Of course, it wasn't all that sweet and having the tenticles in other countries was definitely in the agenda too.


They should have devised reparations in a civilized way, letting the country first to rebuild, feed its people and then establish something to cover the damages. They did the other way around: drained the country when it was on the verge of collapse and then when it was too late started to soften up in front of an accelerating development of WWII. Look at the Weimar elections in 1928 Nazis had only 3% support. What usually happens is the politicians screw up the fighting countries, then they screw up the defeated one and then they screw the victors until everyone is destroyed and no one wants the war anymore. We are the most retarded animals of all.

Not true at all. Poland knew very well what Hitler was doing, actually Poland proposed France joint attack on Germany soon after Hitler won elections, which for some nazi like Gerries is making the 39 attack justified. Poland made many mistakes prior to WW2 including full trust in allies but definately It wasn't that It didn't see what Hitler is going to do.

That alleged Piłsudski visit was never archived, Greg. I was pulling Sok's leg but the blunder was in not mobilising by ignoring France and GB.

My bad and i'm sorry for insulting you, guess i had it coming after the times i baited you didnt i.


It never happened, he sent some officer to scout out the mood in France, after that he was positive France would f*ck us in the backside.

No worries, Sok. It's good to see your input on the board.

His death was untimely to say the least. One man couldn't have changed much but his fighting spirit would have inspired many. A strong General at the helm!

the biggest historical blunder
1. not including Ukrainian and Belarus people in union
2. helping in Vienna battle ( I would wait then attack looser and the take on winner of it )

Start modernizing and building lots of everything right after the Russian-Polish war. But I see the mistakes with this as well.

You know what forget what I said. Pretend I never said anything its just confusing and it would not have made a difference in the end.


Heh. I thought of that also. Maybe Germany and/or Prussia wouldnt have been so strong and invade us in the partitions.

We are talking about Polish historical blunders, are we not? So I would maintain that Poland's biggest historical blunder has been the constant urge to rewrite history, e.g. the alleged insult of not being invited to the London parade, the supposed sale to the USSR at Yalta, the treaty of Riga being reasonable, all the invasions of Czechoslovakia being justified, that Poland never broke even a single treaty in the interbellum, that Poland has never run concentration camps. When history is rewritten, it becomes almost impossible to learn from the mistakes of history and so one repeats the mistakes (e.g. the current alliance with a nation that will be unable to do almost anything if Poland is attacked, the operation of an illegal detention centre, etc).

if Poland was rewritting history then it would be current affairs not historical blunder-so, as I said before Your input is irrelevant.
I explained to You the treaty of Riga, I have seen people explaining You Czechoslovakia, but You ignore everything, and come back to it in every single topic, Why is that?what was wrong with my explanation of treaty of Riga that You didnt understand?

Did you? A search shows that this thread is the first time you have even used the word 'Riga' on PolishForums.

What????


Poland ran a concentration camp... for Polish nationalists mostly. It's still sad and a clear case of breaking human rights, but it's not comparable to the camps organized by our direct (Germany, Russia, Ukraine) or less direct (Balkans) neighbours.

Ain't necessarily so. PF search functionality is by title only, IIRC. Only Google does whole-text.

The CIA black site in Szymany.


Plus the post-war ones for ethnic Germans and anybody who annoyed the government.


No, there is an option to search the content of messages (although the default is indeed titles only).

Rampant speculation.

What was I saying about not learning from the mistakes of the past?

Rampant speculation is rampant. Six CIA flights passed through Szymany, the rest about is pure speculation, nothing is documented or was ever even reported by the local people about suspicious places that could serve as a detention center. And believe me, people in small towns know everything about everything.

did it do anything?why sign a treaty?to do NOTHING?


Yes, mostly Polish patriots, is there any logic in You?


here You have it(from Poland A and Ukraine B): it is unfortunate, and I always believed that Poland should apologised for that( as opposed to Vistula action), the thing is Ukraine was useless, they didnt manage to do anything, and Piłsudski who signed the treaty with Ukr was removed from power just after the war, Dmowskis conception of Poland and allies was totally different. As far as I know Piłsudski did apologise to Petluras soldiers, but he was just unable to do anything else. I agree with You on that- a big shame.

so, what do You think about that?You didnt answer, and just kept going with Your nonsense


coming form You? a good one Harry

It is simple what Poland should have done.In June 1939 Stalin sent a secret delegation to Poland to achieve an alliance pact between Poland and USSR.The allies pressed polish government to reject the soviet offer giving guarantees of intervention in case of german attack.Only when the soviet offer was rejected by Poland and the allies did Stalin send Molotov to sign the treaty with Ribbentrop in August 1939.If Poland had accepted the soviet proposition the West would have shat in its pants because this meant that Hitler would attack the West first scared about opening a front with SU at the East.

Well...then Poland had the choice to become part of the anti-comintern pact before...making it an ally of Germany and others.

Choices, choices....

I think we can assume that Polands decision to ignore all alliance offers by it's neighbours but to trust far away countries who were not able to be of great help is surely something what could be called a "blunder"....only with hindsight of course.

Actually it did do things. The question you keep ignoring (in the traditional Polish way) is this: exactly what could Britain have done in September 1939 which Britain did not do?


The actions of the Polish government then were utterly indefensible. But at least I call those camps what they were and don't stick to the official Polish line and insist that they were 'labour camps'.


It is more than just "unfortunate": it is utterly disgraceful.


I think that Poland's actions were (as with a number of treaties signed by Poland during the interbellum) utterly disgraceful. I furthermore think that even if the British had failed to keep their treaty obligations to Poland (the reality of course is that Britain did meet her treaty obligations to Poland), Poland would have had no right to complain, given the way that Poland so spectacularly failed to meet her treaty obligations to Ukraine, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania.


Do feel free to go into detail about the questions which I have failed to answer. But perhaps before you do that you could go into detail about what could Britain have done in September 1939 which Britain did not do?

Basically the goals of each party were quite clear.English and French wanted to turn Hitler to attack to the East SU wanted to spare itself from a german attack and Hitler wanted to avoid opening two fronts simoultaneously.

That's not even a blimp on Poland's history, and even less significant to Poland's standing than British government's theft of British children from their poor parents and sending them to the colonies, where in many cases their status was de facto that of slaves. I met a few Britons like that here in Canada. Uprooted and broken lives and destroyed families. Few of Poland's blunders come even close to the colossal fukcup that is now the legacy of the British rampage around the world that lasted a few centuries, and the world is still paying the price.

In my view, the Poland's greatest blunder was annihilating Turkish forces at the time of the Siege of Vienna.
Poland should have played it out, ironically, the British way - divide and rule and use others to fight your wars.

Poles should have waited for Vienna to fall, and for Turks to move on much further West, destroying some decently large patches of German and France. Polish attack should have been delayed, perhaps to when Paris was just about to fall, or shortly thereafter. Shortly thereafter would have been better since less French would have remained. Turkish would have perhaps chopped off a few of the Western royals' heads and the resulting balance of power might have prevented Poland's partitions from ever occurring.

Ah, the classical approach to Polish history: blame the British and/or the Jews for everything, what a refreshing change.

They asked the communist puppet government in Poland to attend victory celebrations. This government was not repressentative of the people.


You have to admit that the British are history's biggest butchers.