History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]

What you write is correct. I stated in my post that there is a slight but important difference in the treatment of Germans by the Polish and Czechoslovakian government in the aftermath of WW2. The Polish government didn't impose a collective guilt on the Germans that were expelled unlike the Czechoslovakian government did with Sudeten Germans.


You are right here, too. During WW1 the future President of the first Czechoslovak Republic Tomas Masaryk, when negotiating with French, British and American officials about the future borders of Czechoslovakia, stated several times that it is impossible to divide the Czech lands at the German-Czech language border. He asked the important question what would be more fair: "3 million Germans under Czech rule oder 6.5 million Czechs under German or German-Austrian rule?".

So after WW1 Sudeten Germans were not asked about their future. I hope you understand this caused resentment and bitterness among Sudeten Germans. There were several demonstrations for self-determination among Sudeten Germans around 1918/1919 that were violently dispersed by shooting at them by the Czechoslovak army.

The borders of the Czech lands didn't really changed for almost a millenium (except the fact that Silesia got lost), this is correct, but the ethnic mix-up of the Czech Lands was a bi-national one - Czech and German. And this fact was not taken account of when Czechoslovakia was founded, which alienated Bohemian and Moravian Germans even more. There lived more Germans than Slovakians in the CSR until 1938.

As a Pole you are probably in favor of the fact, that Upper Silesia got divided into a Polish and a German part in 1923 after the plebiscite I guess? Please note that Upper Silesia also never was divided before.

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]

Facts were made in 1945 and this can't be changed anyway. The ironic thing is that the average Sudeten German (respectively their descendants in Germany and Austria) now have a higher standard of living as the average Czech.

They were a real blessing for Germany. Well educated, good working morale, good entrepreneurial spirit. They came to Germany as have-nots but managed to become anew very soon. More than 2.000 medium-sized companies in Germany were founded by Sudeten Germans.


Dear Frantisek,

just a question, because I am curios. Does is play a role in present Czech history discurses that the Czech Lands were part of the Holy Roman Empire and that the Czech Lands from the Middle Ages until 1945 were bi-national (Czechs, Germans) if not tri-national (Czechs, Germans, Jews) by population?

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]


So, all of them wanted that? Are you really sure about this statement? You say all Sudeten Germans, even the children were guilty of treason? What about Sudenten German Social Democrats like Wenzel Jaksch who fiercly fought against National Socialism, escaped to Great Britain and were forbidden to return to their home country after 1945 and furthermore were dispossed by Czechoslovak authorities?

Come on pal, Sudeten Germans were Czechoslovakian citizens, and guilt is something individual and can't be imposed on a group! This means after WW2 Czechoslovak authorities should have looked for the Nazis among Sudeten Germans, there were plenty of them, and leave the others alone, instead of imposing a collective guilt on them. This just leaves the bitter aftertaste that Czechs just wanted to get rid of an inconvenient minority. This is something the Polish state never did with Germans in their territory by the way, imposing a collective guilt on them. Polish authorites just told Germans: "Due to the Potsdam Agreement the German-Polish border was shifted to the rivers Oder and Neisse and all Germans citizens have to move westwards.". Czech authorites told Sudeten Germans: "You all are guilty of treason, we take your property, deprive you of all human rights and transport you to Germany.". Czechoslovak authorites transported their own citizens to another country after stealing all of their possessions, this is what happened!

Besides that, who asked the Sudeten Germans in November 1918 if they wanted to be a part of Czechoslovakia in the first place? How can expect loyality from people that were treated like strangers in their country in spite of the fact many of them had ancestors that lived in Bohemia and Moravia for more than 700 years?

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]


What do you mean by that, Iron?

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]


This is correct. But Poland had the right to represent the Free City of Danzig in foreign affairs, additionally Poland's army had the right to build facilities on the Westerplatte and there was a Polish post office within Danzig's city limits.

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]

No Harry, you are wrong! I read a lot about that. Problem is after the devour of Czechoslovakia Hitler was determined to destroy Poland. Since he knew the Poles were too proud and too stubborn to give up Danzig he ignited some propaganda smoke grenades for the international media in the form of "We only want free access to East Prussia and self-determination for the inhabitants of Danzig", because he hoped somehow this would give reason to lay the blame for the beginning of WW2 on the doorsteps of Poland.

It's not that the Poles did everything right before WW2, but this does not change the fact that Hitler wanted to go to war to Poland. There are plenty of documents that prove that Hitler was determined to go to war with Poland in 1939. Do you speak any German? I could send you some links in German language.

Or you should read again the discussion from February and March we all had this year regarding Gdansk/Danzig: Poland did reasonably well in land terms out of the postwar settlement

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]

When I was in Poland in 2010 we were driving through some villages in Western Pomerania. I notized that practically every house was rearranged. A former window was made a door while the original door was bricked up. The original external wall was amended and stuff like that.

I guess this is what a person has to do in order to acquire a new home emotionally, when you were transplanted there against your will.


The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein started to fire at Westerplatte and German airforce assaulted the city Wieluń in the middle of the night without a formal decleration of war. What is there to negiotiate in such a case?


This was just whistling in the dark. Don't you think?

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]

May father's family is from Weiden/Oberpfalz in Eastern Bavaria, only 30 kilometers from the Bohemian/Czech border. We just were there last weekend and took the opportunity to make a one day trip to Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad) and some neighbouring villages. It is striking how deserted many villages in the Czech borderland still appear. Many houses looked like they were empty since 1945.

History / Czech and Polish character in World War two [81]

Poland did not necessarily chose to fight, but German troops attacked Poland on September 1st 1939, from the North (East Prussia), the West (Germany proper) and the South (Slovakia) so Poles did not have an alternative but to try to defend themselves.

When Nazi Germany absorbed the "Rest-Tschechei" in March 1939 Czechoslovak President Hácha was in Berlin a couple of days before the German invasion and tried to negotiate with Hitler. So he really had a chance to decide whether to go for war a not. Since he knew other European countries would not support the Czech state it was wise not to resist the Nazi invasion because it would have been futile.

This is a privilege the Poles did not have. But as far as I know the Poles they would have never accepted the destruction of their country without a war anyway.

Regarding the losses of Czechoslovak population you forgot to substract the more than 3 million German speaking Bohemians and Moravians that were driven out of their country or killed after May 1945. Since the Munich agreement was declared null and void they were proper Czechoslovak citizens and should be treated as such.

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [72]

This wouldn't have slowed down the Manhattan Project (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project). If the Americans had feared to lose the war they probably would have spent even more money and resources for their atom bomb program and it could have been ready earlier.

And with only three or four dropped atom bombs the war would have been over. The impact on moral would have been so devestating even the unscrupulous Nazis leaders couldn't have continued the war for much longer. No Nazi propaganda would have taken away the fear of such a deadly weapon.

It only took two atom bombs until the Japanese government surrended to the USA unconditionally, and there was not one American ground force soldier on Japanese soil.

Of course it would have been a terrible slaughter of German civillians but what is better? Up to 500.000 dead German civillians in a couple of German medium-cized cities? Or millions of tortured, mistreated, raped and starved to death civillians that fell into the hand of the Soviets as happened in the German east in 1945? I know this is a cynical question but I confess I am not sure myself what would have been the better alternative.

Fact is under American patronage West Germany in 1955, only ten years after the war, was a progressing and optimistic country, while in East Germany people still lived on food stamps.

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [72]


Are you sure about that?

The Soviets payed the highest death toll in WW2, that's for sure, but don't forget with or without Soviet help the USA would have developed the atom bomb anyway!

The bomb was ready in August 1945 and hadn't the war with Germany be over for three months already, the Americans would have dropped the bomb over Mannheim. And then they could have dropped another bomb over Dresden, then over Wiesbaden and other still undestroyed German cities and the war would have been over soon!

History / The story about German- Polish reconciliation [194]

Very important remark.

I remember when I went to the US for the first time with my parents in 1980, we seriously discussed beforehand that WWIII could break out and we would have had to stay with our American relatives in that case.

In our village we had a siren that was tested twice a year with different alarm signals for nuclear assault, assault with chemical or biological weapons, invasion of Soviet and East German ground forces and conventional airstrike. All bridges had attachments for bursters.

I remember one night I woke up because our house was shaking because hundreds of American tanks dashed through our village. The next day we found our neighbour's squished cat on the street. For more than one time I almost shitted my pants because strafers with an altitude of not more than 250 meters were flying over our playground. They were so fast you couldn't see them, only hear their incredibly loud noise.

As Central Europeans we can be more than happy those times are over!

History / The story about German- Polish reconciliation [194]


What a sad reason to learn German. Did you learn phrases like these ones:

History / The story about German- Polish reconciliation [194]


Not to forget Latin.

UK, Ireland / First proper "Polish" School in the UK - The Next Stage of Ghettoisation [283]

Sure! Agreed!

UK, Ireland / First proper "Polish" School in the UK - The Next Stage of Ghettoisation [283]


True, but it also needs to be said that the American New England states pushed all of its inhabitants that remained loyal to the British crown out of the country 200 years ago - most of them moved to "British North America" aka. "Canada".

UK, Ireland / First proper "Polish" School in the UK - The Next Stage of Ghettoisation [283]

Don't be so whiny Hudson! I just attacked you because you seem to be fond of dubios comparisons.

First you were mixing up modern with ancient Brits, then you blamed the Romans for a genocide against the Celts committed by Anglo-Saxons 400 years later.

Then you compare the immigration of English speaking people in other English speaking countries with people that are confronted with a language barrier.

Millions of Poles moved to Germany within the last three centuries and most of them became loyal Germans after some time or they returned to Poland.

UK, Ireland / First proper "Polish" School in the UK - The Next Stage of Ghettoisation [283]


So the English, Scots and Welshmen don't have any problems integrating in other English speaking Anglo-Saxon cultures?
Wow! What an accomplishment!
Seems to me that finally I met the true masters of adaption, adjustment and conversion.

But you do know that Great Britain was the archenemy of the United States until the late 1800s?

UK, Ireland / First proper "Polish" School in the UK - The Next Stage of Ghettoisation [283]


My point is that the example you chose does not make any sense at all!

First of all the Romans did not slaughter the "Old Britons", unlike Ceasar and his invasion army did with the Gauls in modern day France. In fact the Celtic culture flourished big time in Britain during Roman rule.

Secondly modern day Brits consist of Germanic immigrants for the most part, because the larger part of the Celtic "Old Britons" was slaughtered by Germanic Anglo-Saxons in the 5th and 6th century. Therefore modern Brits do not really care about what Romans did in Britain around Anno Domini.

What is a Brit anyway? It would make more sense to write about the English (almost purely Germanic by origin) and Scots and Welshmen (partly Celtic and partly Germanic by origin).


Agreed. There is no personal guilt that can be inherited! As a German I am pretty happy about the fact there is no vendetta or blood revenge in Europe, otherwise me and my countrymen would have a huge problem now I guess. But there is a moral responsibility for crimes committed by your ancestors that remains, at least this is my point of view!

UK, Ireland / First proper "Polish" School in the UK - The Next Stage of Ghettoisation [283]


Modern Brits only share their name with "native Britons".

History / The story about German- Polish reconciliation [194]


When I was a kid in Bavaria/West Germany, around 1980, we played "Americans against Russians", and nobody from us wanted to be the Russian.

Funny that we never thought about being German soldiers fighting for Germany. Although we still were too young to care about history and politics we already learned that there is something very odd about German soldiers.

History / What do Poles owe to Germans? [396]


Who the hell are "ethnic Prussians"? The Old Prussian language got extint in the 1600s and was replaced by the German dialects "Low and High Prussian" and all of them - decendants of "Old Prussians", decendants of German and Dutch/Flemish immigrants, Germanized Slavs, Polish speaking Mazurians and the remainder of Lithuanian speaking "Preußisch Litthauer" - got kicked out of their country or got killed in 1945.

It's not that I like that! I am not a friend of ethnic cleansing, and as a German patriot I don't take masochistic pleasure from the fact that so much territory that was German speaking for centuries is lost. But if you look what happened in that area during WWII one has to admit it was the logic ending of Germany's attempt to create a Greater German Empire on the cost of all of its neighbours.

If you really are an Englishman, which I doubt because your English reads like you never spoke to a native speaker before, I appreciate your feelings for our countrymen that lived East of Oder-Neisse before 1945. They had to pay the price for Nazi Germany's crimes which is sad and unfair, but most of them are dead now. And most of their decendants adopted the local culture and styles of their new homes, therefore they are no longer existent.

If a decendant of a German Silesian, Pomeranian or Prussian should feel homesick he or she can move to Poland. I really mean it! Many people still haven't understood that the border is open now. All he/she needs to do is looking for a home and a job, learning Polish probably would help, and then he can move to Gdansk or Wroclaw.

Or do you honestly mean that the Poles that live in the former German territories for over 67 years now would leave their homes in order to move the Kresy territories? This is so far from reality that I don't want to get into that discussion.

History / What do Poles owe to Germans? [396]


And who should live there?

Life / West-East life in Poland? [35]


Thanks for uploding this interesting article. Seems to make perfect sense.

Life / West-East life in Poland? [35]

Great picture, Palivec, Haven't seen the borders of Germany from a hundred years ago for quite a while. ;-) .

History / Polish perspective of WW1: Germany, their Defeat & the Legend of the Stab in the Back [17]


That's what we learned in West Germany, too.

History / Polish perspective of WW1: Germany, their Defeat & the Legend of the Stab in the Back [17]


Interesting! I really didn't know that. Thanks for helping to close this gap in education.

History / Polish perspective of WW1: Germany, their Defeat & the Legend of the Stab in the Back [17]

The disturbing fact is that German antisemites from the far right blamed German Jews to have contributed to German defeat, besides the fact that 100.000 German Jews fought for the German Empire, 12.000 of them died in action and an above average part of them - in comparison with Christian Germans - received various decorations for bravery like the Iron Cross.

History / Polish perspective of WW1: Germany, their Defeat & the Legend of the Stab in the Back [17]

Pawian, You know the history of Polands western neighbour well! ;-)


Marcin,

The Imperial German Supreme Army Command [Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL)] considered the war unwinable in November 1918. As Pawian pointed out all German war efforts at the Western Front in 1918 failed. The Americans managed to transport hundreds of thousands fresh soldiers to the front. Besides that hunger revolutions among German civilians in several major cities broke out and several mutinies in the Army began to emerge, the most well-known example for instance was the Kiel mutiny that developed rapidly in the November Revolution of 1918:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiel_mutiny

So it was the OHL with Hindenburg and Ludendorff that convinced Kaiser Wilhelm to surrender to the Western allies because they felt like they were sitting on a steam boiler that is going to explode soon. The same Ludendorff is one of the investors of the "Stab in the back" theory, by the way.

I never heard about Germans seeking an alliance with Mexico in 1918. Do you have any quotations for that? If this is true the Mexicans were wise not to follow such a trail because the Americans would have made minced meat out of them.

Language / Polish language would look better written in Cyrillic Script? [212]


Actually old Anglo Saxons used the "Futhork" or Runic Alphabet before they got christianized in the 8th century, like all other Germanic tribes also did.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dalrunor.svg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes

Surely before the got baptized all West Germanic people didn't have much to write, therefore the old runic alphabet did not make much impact of the culture of present nations that speak a Germanic language.

The Latin based Antiqua script for me is the joining element of the Occident or Western World and I am happy to use it.

Imagine what huge problems we all had if every nation had its own script. I once got lost in a big city in Northern Thailand,nobody spoke English there and I wasn't even able to write down the name of my place to stay because I couldn't decipher Thai letters and they couldn't read Latin script.