The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by Bratwurst Boy  

Joined: 2 Apr 2007 / Male ♂
Warnings: 1 - Q
Last Post: 4 hrs ago
Threads: Total: 8 / Live: 4 / Archived: 4
Posts: Total: 11840 / Live: 4095 / Archived: 7745
From: Berlin, Germany
Speaks Polish?: No
Interests: his helmet

Displayed posts: 4099 / page 120 of 137
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Bratwurst Boy   
31 Jan 2010
Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

FURMAN: from German Furhmann (carter, waggoner); could be a Jewish name but not necessarily.

It's most probably "Fuhrmann" if I'm allowed to help...

Fuhrmann
mittelhochdeutscher Berufsname "vuorman" => "Fuhrmann, Schiffsmann"
Erstes bekanntes Vorkommen:
Furman (um 1350)

Bratwurst Boy   
31 Jan 2010
History / Communism fell 20 years ago, Poland led the fight since WW2 [339]

...
On the night of 20-21 August 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from four Warsaw Pact countries — the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary—invaded the ČSSR.[35][36]

Note, no Germans! ....this time.... ;)

...
That night, 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country.[37] The troops first occupied the Ruzyně International Airport, where air deployment of more troops was arranged.
The Czechoslovak forces were confined to their own barracks and were surrounded until the threat of a counter-attack was assuaged. By the morning of 21 August Czechoslovakia was occupied.[36]

Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

I think people seem to forget that innocent Germans died in WWII too.

Who dishes out should take it...
The real problem I have is that many people want to have it as if the Germans woke up one morning and decided to run amok...it wasn't that way!

I still believe we Germans had just and fair reasons to be pissed off....I'm not judging my ancestors.

Well, we should say thanks, our bobsleigh team use them to practice (you couldnt make it up if you tried!) also one guy has turned another tunnel into a fish farm...so they've been useful :D

Our pleasure! :)
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

we lost many of our provinces and major cities - just like Hungarians did.

Eh...Poland got land - Hungary and Germany lost land last time I looked.

some German allies ;)

Well, yes, they were! ;)
Since 1879

wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Dual_Alliance_Between_Austria-Hungary_and_Germany

It was to honor our alliance with Austria-Hungary that Germany got to war 1918.
It was Polands allies who defeated us and took land away from Germany AND Hungary as punishment.
This grudge (between others) led to a new alliance between Germany and Hungary in WWII, to regain what was stolen.

How you are able to build from that an eternal friendship between Poland and Hungary is beyond me...

But maybe it's a slavic, romantic-polish thing! ;)

I'm leaving now....

A beer for all brave participants!
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

That is quite possible (but you would still be stealing our football players ;)).

Probably...:)

Well, if Martians invaded Ethiopia and great snow avalanche fell on Hollywood while
the Chinese emperor was having his lunch... ;)

What lunch!

*get's hungry*
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

The friendship was, is and will always be very
much real.

I tell you what Torqi....if Germans and Poles were not such close neighbours we would probably too be best friends - on the other hand if Hungary had lost huge towns and big stripes of land to Poland after the war they would barely regard you as friends nor wouldn't you any hungarian group remembering their lost lands watch and observe with hate and suspicion.

That is a given!

It was the same grudge as the Germans felt what made the Hungarians natural german allies...I find it always curious that your "understanding" of Hungarians is sooo great....just exchange the names, Hungarians and Germans have much more in common than Poles and Hungarians! ;)

Turkey never acknowledged the partitions of Poland. Archenemy from the past
had more decency than our dear, Christian neighbours.

Another far away country...isn't it interesting that your bestest friends where always from "far away"????
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

As for Mandel i can understand his point of view thought it would have been different if he was Polish,

Well...that is a universal statement, isn't it!
It's hard to exchange your own viewpoint stemming from your own heritage and past with another one...

Austro-Hungary is wholly different and more complex.

Why? Because Hungarians and Poles never shared disputed borders? Could hence uphold their "friendship"?

Real interest here...

And you have cheap-tasting white wine too!!!

Oh, now you are getting mean!
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

This is important because there's a big difference between Poland being given its independence and taking it, Poles took their independence back by themselves with very limited foreign aid, otherwise no one would give it to them, Versailles only acknowledged the end result.

It wasn't through a war with Germany that Poland got their independence...quite to the contrary many Poles fighted WWI on the sides of the partitioners.

On the outbreak of war the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of Germany, Austria and Russia, and forced to fight each other in a war that was not theirs. Although many Poles sympathized with France and Britain, they found it hard to fight for their ally, Russia. They also had little sympathy for the Germans. Total deaths from 1914-18, military and civilian, within the 1919-1939 borders, were estimated at 1,128,000.[147]

Well, the new borders where drawn in Versailles, not in Warsaw.
The french send troops to support them...the german side was forced to subscribe to the treaty (or else the blockade would not had ended, killing even more than the already starved to death 600.000 people).

I think we can say that in the mainstream history it's this treaty which destroyed the german and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and carved out of them new countries....

Ask the Hungarians, they feel the same!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon

....
The territory of Hungary was reduced from 325,111 km2 to 93,073 km2 and its population from 20.9 million to 7.6 million.[9]
Hungary lost five of its ten most populous cities as well.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland#Formation_of_modern_Polish_society_under_foreign_rule

...
Polish independence was eventually proclaimed on November 3, 1918 and later confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
The same treaty also gave Poland some territories annexed by the Germans and Austrians during the partitions (see Polish Corridor). The post-war eastern borders of Poland were determined by Polish victory in the Polish-Soviet War.

And it wasn't only about purely polish territory, it was also about territory purely german in history and population.
After the fall of the empires it was a free for all and every nationality which could tried to grab as much land for itself as possible...

/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#Territorial_changes

Wilson's friend Edward Mandell House, present at the negotiations, wrote in his diary on 29 June 1919:

"I am leaving Paris, after eight fateful months, with conflicting emotions. Looking at the conference in retrospect, there is much to approve and yet much to regret.
It is easy to say what should have been done, but more difficult to have found a way of doing it. To those who are saying that the treaty is bad and should never have been made and that it will involve Europe in infinite difficulties in its enforcement, I feel like admitting it.

Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

I was thinking about Poland. I know that the rest of Europe is another story.

Well, for Germans it's the whole "wild East"....how can we make differences! ;)

But I know Poland was always a special case, one of the few pinned for annihilation, never given even a choice.
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

Like which countries?

You never read my links, don't you!;)

Denmark being the most glaring example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews

...
As a result of the rescue and Danish intercession on behalf of the 5% of Danish Jews who were deported to Theresienstadt transit camp in Bohemia, over 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust.

Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

Again you fail to grasp the military vs civilians question, a single infantry batalion of 800 men is enough to pacify a city quarter of 40 thousand by sheer superiority of training and arms.

That is only possible if the 40.000 are already pacified....if they would fight those 800 men have no chance!

But if it would be required the regular army could easily wipe out all major population centers in all of occupied Europe within months.

Well....it's hard to discuss lofty assumptions....why not stay with the reality!

Countries who didn't "deliver" their Jews were left alone.
Most helpers of the Germans were volunteers.
No, the Germans had never the men available in the occupied countries to shoot everybody.
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

The Germans had means to murder 80% of all Slavic people and more then 90% of Poles if Russia failed, German nazism was poised to extreminate any number of people who defied it and had the means to do it everywhere it did not have to oppose an equal enemy (ie Russian/Western militaries).

I didn't knew they had nukes???

And no, they didn't had the means....look at a map of Europe and then look a the numbers of Germans available!
There was a bloody war still going on, remember?

Tell me you are joking.

No, I'm not....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_collaborators

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Holocaust#Other_states

Although the Holocaust was planned and directed by Germans, the Nazi regime found willing collaborators in other countries, both those allied to Germany and those under German occupation.

The civil service and police of the Vichy regime in occupied France actively collaborated in persecuting French Jews. Germany's allies, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, were pressured to introduce anti-Jewish measures; with the exception of Romania, they did not comply until compelled to do so.
Bulgaria and Finland refused to co-operate, and all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews survived (though most lost their possessions and many were imprisoned), but thousands of Greek and Yugoslavian Jews were deported from the Bulgarian-occupied territories.

Yes, those Danish heroes who saved all their Jews. All 15 of them ...

Well, it had been some more and no Dane got killed because of it!
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

Nothing would change,

Unlikely....

Well one thing that would change would be a much higher casuality rate among non-Jewish populations since refusing to carry orders or giving a Jew a slice of bread typically earned a bullet for you and your family,

There were much more volunteers than the Germans needed, no need to force someone.

And countries where there was real unwill to deport their Jews were left alone mostly too...
The Germans knew very well that they had no means to force it if there was a wide spread "no"....they only had that many men available.
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

So no it was not an "European project" it was an all the way German project.

Imagine there had been no help...no pointing out of the Jews to the Germans, no hunting them for the Germans, no beating them and delivering them to the shootings, not rounding them up on the trainstations at german orders...
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

More than they actually did???
We are talking about 30.000 Jews here...

Also Ukrainians only herded people to the general location they didnt do the shooting, no one denies there was collaboration but it was not as you put it, an European project, it was planned extremination carried out by military elements of the German nation with loud or quiet approval of much of the nation itself.

Not only the german nation....that's the point here!
The Jews had not many friends as they needed them.
That's the main gripe I have with these McCoys of this world....
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

I've thought about that...take this movie about Babi Jar...a handfull of german soldiers with MG's against hundreds of hundreds/thousands of Jews and Ukrainians Auxiliaries...how many could they had shot if they had decided to fight?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II
Bratwurst Boy   
29 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

There was an auxillary unit of some sick Ukrainian f*cks, who took luggage from the Jews and some did kick those who walked slowly, but neither of them executed a single person.

Without them kicking and beating them, preventing them from fleeing, leading them straight to the Germans who shot them blah blah blah...

Again, I'm not the one denying our part!

but it doesn't mean that you have to carve out and twist facts to make your point.

No twisting necessary...

This is true to a certain extent, but it also has to be said that most of mainland Europe was occupied by Germany so in most if not all cases, the authorities didnt have much of a choice with regards to the deportation of Jews.

Look at a map of Europe Shelley,

The german army was busy fighting, the Germans had only so many people available for occupational duty...without willing helpers and collaborateurs everywhere they could have done not much!

The Germans were NOT the almighty "Übermenschen" ;)
Bratwurst Boy   
28 Jan 2010
History / remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [229]

Not only are you funny but also sweet!

I am NOT funny and I am NOT sweet!!! *stomps foot*

ask Torq

Given that Wiesenthal has incomplete records and goes after killers of Jews only thats woefully incomplete.

Well, that's about the Germans...as you have seen the institute has it's eyes on non-Germans still too!