History /
How come Poles like Russians but not Germans? [216]
Since even longer before WWII, Germany has muscled her way into Eastern Europe, both militarily (The Polish Corridor) as well as culturally (German was made a semi-official language of the Polish intelligentsia - after French, of course), leaving the distinct feeling, much like today, e.g. in the eyes of little Greece, that Big Brother Germany is shoving her weight around ONCE AGAIN!
Russian hegemony was more or less a matter of course. Her land mass for one thing and her common Slavic roots for another, always made Russia a place which Poles might have been in awe of, yet sensed a historic link. Such a link was far less so with the Germans, even though curiously, the Poles have considerable Germanic mixed with their Slavic makeup:-)
Hitler, as with many other German speakers, then and now, called the Poles "peasants", "stupid, drunken simpletons", going so far as to call them "Untermenschen", lit. "sub-humans". Although his feeling for the Jews was especially venal, he wasn't crazy about the Poles either. This feeling sadly is shared even today by even a lot of younger Germans I've encountered, whose nickname for Poles is, unfortunately, "Dodelkoenig" i.e. king of slowpokes:-)