History / East Prussia - German Poles who lived in pre-second world war in this area [6]

Mazurians aren't Poles. The Mazurians in East Prussia were Slavs and, at the same time, staunch Prussians who voted for conservative German parties, and against Poland in the East Prussian plebiscite. After WW2, when this part of East Prussia was given to Poland, almost all Mazurians left for Germany.

Their story was completely rewritten in the PRP. They were turned into a lost Polish tribe who discovered his Polishness in the 19th century and was subsequently brutally suppressed by evil Germans. In truth it was a bit more complicated.

I highly recommend not to read books published before 1989, which are all crap.

History / Whom do the people in Poland hate more: Germans or Russians? [869]

Russians can travel, they can buy everything the world has to offer, they can freely move within their country, minorities have more rights than in most western countries, the freedom of religion is guaranteed (how many Western countries have Islamic universities?), the freedom of speech is as limited as in most Western countries.

You, like so many others, don't know what you are talking about. But I don't blame you, as the winner of the Cold War the West never had to question his beliefs, and Russophobia, based on ignorance and a deep lack of knowledge, is a accepted prejudice.

History / Whom do the people in Poland hate more: Germans or Russians? [869]

You witnessed a "ugly transformation of the Russian society"? In the Russia of the 90s police officers robbed you, professors begged on the streets, army officers sold their weapons to get food for their families, old people didn't get their pension and starved, Oligarchs controlled entire oblasts, the Mafia killed people on the streets, the health care system didn't work anymore... in fact, the situation was so abd that life expectancy dropped by 3 or 4 years during that time. And you witnessed "ugly transformation of the Russian society"???

Sorry, but you are just another Westerner without a clue about Russia. Who cares about election frauds and Pussy Riots when you are hungry? Putin is popular because he restored the Russian statehood, and people still vividly remember the horrors of the 90s.

News / GERMANS WANT TO GERMANIZE KOPERNIK (COPERNICUS)! OUTRAGE! [1016]

The Holy Roman Empire had 14 universities around 1500, among them Prague, Vienna, Cologne, Leipzig and Heidelberg. Names that immediately come to mind are Gutenberg, Luther, Agricola, Behaim, Dürer or Holbein.

History / Why is the Battle of Grunwald celebrated more than the Battle of Lubiszewo? [29]


It will be a glorious day when Poland finally arrives in the 21th century. But it still may take a while.

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]


~2 million Poles, 1,4 million Yugoslavs, and up to 6 million Russian Speakers live in Germany. I guess they are all masochists....

Genealogy / Where did most Germans live in Poland in the 19th century? [26]


... and it only took 60 years!
SCNR ;-)

Genealogy / Trying to find information about my grandad (Emil Wink) and possible family from Warsaw [10]

Wink in Poland: moikrewni.pl/mapa/wzgledny/wink.html

Wink in Germany: verwandt.de/karten/relativ/wink.html

Genealogy / Where did most Germans live in Poland in the 19th century? [26]

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Sprachen_Deutsches_Reich_1900.png

News / GERMANS WANT TO GERMANIZE KOPERNIK (COPERNICUS)! OUTRAGE! [1016]

This thread is so 19th century. No one in the Late Middle Ages cared for nationality. That's a concept of the 19th century, and only true nationalist fight over the nationality of someone like him.


Idiotic comment. He worked there because of his uncle, and Warmia/Ermland not only fought against the Teutonic Knights but also against Poland, because it was a semi-independent state between two bigger powers.

News / GERMANS WANT TO GERMANIZE KOPERNIK (COPERNICUS)! OUTRAGE! [1016]


So, Germans = Nazis?

Genealogy / How do I find burial records pertaining to the very old ruins of a cemetery in Szklarska Poreba? [3]

Films of the Protestant burial records can be found at the Saxon State Archive Leipzig (Zentralstelle Genealogie). Catholic church books at the Wroclaw episcopal archive. The Catholic church books from 1682-1920 were also filmed by the Mormons. The civil records are at the state archives Jelenia Gora.

What a big mess...

News / The US sends troops to Poland for drills [83]


The parliament building was surrounded by a violent mob, some members of the parliament were beaten, others couldn't enter the building, and during the votings some members pressed more than one button.

News / The US sends troops to Poland for drills [83]


1) the West started it, by forcing the Ukraine to choose between the EU and Russia in the treaty of association. The Russian offer of a free trade area didn't force the Ukraine to choose between East and West, but according to the EU the Ukraine couldn't be part of both.

2) you should get your facts straight, otherwise you could look like a fool.

Could all posters pay attention to the thread title please. Most of these recent posts are nothing to do with the US sending troops to Poland for drills.

News / The US sends troops to Poland for drills [83]


What exactly did Putin that can't get tolerated? Incorporating a territory that once belonged to Russia, after a democratic referendum? Wasn't the West in favor of the right of self-determination? After all we bombed Serbia when Kosovo tried to do the same?! Or are Russian troops on Russian territory the problem? News flash: there was a coup d'etat in the neighboring country. The democratically elected president was disposed by a Western supported junta, which now guns their own people. Usually the West isn't exactly in favor of such things, see Libya or Syria. But now it's of course totally different, because of all the Russian agent provocateurs. No one could prove a relation to the Russian government yet, but that's no problem, we don't remember the Kuwaitian child before the UN, the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Serbian Operation Horseshoe anyway, right? And why is this Obamas problem? No NATO country is in danger. The Ukraine is on the other side of the world.

To quote a famous artist: "I cannot eat as much, as I would like to puke".

News / The US sends troops to Poland for drills [83]


I think Putin couldn't care less. He achieved his goal, controlling the Black Sea, and everything else is a bonus.
I think the country that trembles in fear is the USofA, which can't do anything against SPIMEX (google it) and tries to use the Ukrainian crisis to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe. A energy market from Spain to China without the dollar is the end of the American century. You can force Iraq and Libya to use the dollar, but not Russia.

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]


No Germans, German heritage largely destroyed, bad infrastructure, millions of new Polish citizens... Germans are much to rational for costly adventures like this. The Russians offered them East Prussia in the early 1990, and they refused.

And for the same reasons most Poles wouldn't want former Eastern Poland back. Millions of poor Ukrainians who are looking for jobs, don't speak the language and aren't Catholic. All this because Lwów sounds better then Lwiw?

News / Poland and Kresy being reunited? [162]


These numbers are based on church books about the Peter's Pence, which only the Poles/Slavs in Silesia had to pay, while the Germans were excluded.

News / Poland and Kresy being reunited? [162]

OK, the topic is silly, but let's talk about history:

1) Germany didn't exist before 1871. The predecessor of Germany was the Holy Roman Empire, of which both Bohemia and Silesia were a part since the Middle Ages.

2) Bohemia was a multiethnic country of Czechs and Germans. When Bohemia acquired Silesia the Czechified king of Bohemia (whose family came from West Germany) ruled over Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Upper + Lower Lusatia and Brandenburg. The majority of this kingdom was German.

3) Lower and Middle Silesia had a German majority since ~1350, the Slavic linguistic enclaves dissapeared in the 17th (Thirty Year's War) and 18th (Prussian centralization) century. In Upper Silesia it was a bit more complicated, but at least with the industrialization it became mostly Polish.

And back to topic: Silesia is Polish, because Poles live there. And the Western Ukraine is Ukrainian, because Ukrainians live there. Period.

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]


The same actually happened in Poland, and the issue is unresolved too. Until the early 50s trains full of artworks from the former German territories were sent to Inner Poland to fill the museums and churches there. The National Museum in Warsaw for instance houses the biggest collection of medieval Silesian art (which is mostly not shown), while Silesias museums are almost empty (which was no problem during the Socialist era). But there are requests mostly from Wrocław now to return these artworks, but Warsaw refuses and sees them as war reparations. Ironically then the same people, this was striking during the Kaczyński era, forget these artworks from Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia and refuse to give the Berlinka or other collection back to Germany, citing the heavy cultural losses of Poland and the lack of reparations by Germany... while at the same time demanding the return of Polish works of art from Russia.

Basically, it's all a big mess.

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]

Hardly, since his father mostly collected German and French expressionists, and the collection was known to art historians.

History / Poland must get back Lwow, Wilno and Brest back [318]


OK: of the ~150 listed castles and palaces 23 are in good shape (restored and used), 60 are in ruins, the rest is in various states of decay.

History / Poland must get back Lwow, Wilno and Brest back [318]


Poles have to live with the result of Polish nationalism, not Germans. They just can't find the graves of their families anymore.
Interesting how people always defend the action of the Polish Commies in the "recovered territories", who acted just like the Taliban a few decades later.

History / Poland must get back Lwow, Wilno and Brest back [318]


Hmm, lets see: in German Silesia we had Slavic and German place names, Germans, Poles, Czechs and Jews, and Catholic + Protestant churches and Jewish synagogues. Now we have Polish names, Polish people and Catholic churches. The rest fled,was expelled, destroyed, leveled. Looks like Polish nationalism was way more effective than German Nazism in Silesia.

History / Poland must get back Lwow, Wilno and Brest back [318]


No, almost all cities to the left of the Odra survived WW2 without damages. Nysa, Legnica, Kłodzko or Jelenia Gora were destroyed in the 60s and 70s. Even Wrocław was further destroyed after the war before parts of the city were reconstructed.

Thankfully Ukrainians cared much better for Polish cities.


And medieval Poland took Silesia from Bohemia. Who's clever now?

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]


Try Fourme d'Ambert. A bit more salty and creamy, and with a more refined taste than Gorgonzola, but just as mild. Or Saint Agur, which is easier to get.

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]


Haha, I was just waiting for this... someone from England complaining about local cheeses, and the first cheese he comes up with is Cheddar. LOL! :D


Ever tried Cabrales or Fourme d'Ambert? Gruyère, Munster or Taleggio? Harzer, Casar or Tilsit? Europe is full of great cheeses, and I can't say that England stands out, neither in quality nor quantity.

History / Slavic vs Germanic thinking.... and the philosophical differences [251]


Huh? I'm not German. And isn't this thread about feeling superior to Germans???

History / Slavic vs Germanic thinking.... and the philosophical differences [251]


Yeah, right. Western music without leitmotif (or the hymn of Europe), Western philosophy without the categorical imperative and Marxism, Western sociology without the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, mathematics without Gauss, Western history without Protestantism.

Some of you are seriously deluded.

BTW: what exactly did Poland contribute to the Western civilization if these people don't count? Was Poland ever a civilized culture or just a peasants society?

History / Slavic vs Germanic thinking.... and the philosophical differences [251]

This thread is hillarious...
So, Germany isn't a civilized culture and became a part of the West only after 1945. I wonder in what environment people like Bach, Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Leibniz, Duerer, Kepler, Gauss, Nietzsche, Hegel, Gutenberg, Marx, Benz, Planck, Luther, Weber, Humboldt, Wagner, Brecht or Schopenhauer could develop. And how Western civilization would look without them.