Fuehrer: lets bring Federal Republic of Germany to an end

[Ben Kenobi]

Actually the Teutonic Knights exterminated the Prussians. After the initial conquest, in which large numbers were killed, they took the remaining population as slaves and forbade them to breed. Needless to say they quickly died out and were replaced by settlers from Germany.

Very true. Now where does Poland have a claim?

Anyway, the borders were settled by the allied forces and the United Nations 60 years ago, so that's that.

Allies wanted Poland in the east, particularly Churchill. It was Stalin, for obvious reasons, who wanted Poland in Stettin, and took away the eastern half of Poland.

I have no beef with the Poles, but they don't have a claim to Pomerania, or to East Prussia as a whole.

Consider the loss of territory to be a lesson to the Germans about the whole eastward expansion thing.

Eastern expansion? Koenigsberg has been German for a very long time well prior to the second world war. I can understand the desire to punish Germany, but that's not the same as saying the Poles have a legitimate claim over East Prussia. They don't, and neither do the Russians.

Ned ..... uh, I mean Ben. The area belongs to the Russian because the rest of the world says so.

Why should Russia own an exclave that has no historical connection to them prior to Stalin?

When someone claiming German ancestry proclaims Germany's right to it we should look on that proclamation in the same light as we would look on a proclamation of 'Anschluss' - a threat to world peace.

When a nation razes Koenigsberg to the ground, destroying all the historical buildings, and when a nation engages in ethnic cleansing of Germans, they should expect there to be long term consequences for those actions.

We must unite as one to repell the hunnish thug ands send him back to the dead pages of past history. We must invoke the ancient Paladins who led the fight against our once dread foe - Eisenhauer, Patton, Montgomery, Churchill, Roosevelt, Malinkov. We must vanquish this evil forever.

I fail to see what the western allies had anything to do with the east. I wish the west had taken Koenigsberg, because the Germans would have been preserved. Just because the Germans engaged in ethnic cleansing, doesn't justify the allies engaging in the same.

[Heraclitus]

Ben no matter how you spin this, you can't deny the historical reality of the situation.

Germany lost.

When countries lose a war they normally also loose teritory.

And not only did it loose a war, it lost a war Germany started. It is no one's fault but that of the German people (who supported the Nazi regime) that they lost their eastern territories.

[DinoDoc]

What's a little ethnic cleansing between friends?

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben no matter how you spin this, you can't deny the historical reality of the situation.

Germany lost.

Yes, they did.

When countries lose a war they normally also loose teritory.

Ok.

Why then did Russia gain eastern Poland? Why didn't they restore the polish borders antebellum, before the Soviet Union dismembered Poland along with their Nazi allies?

Why didn't France and Britain take German territory in the west?

I think it's despicable and Churchill thought so too, that Russia was rewarded for allying with Hitler and dismembering Poland.

Secondly, how does winning a war justify ethnic cleansing of Germans?

And not only did it loose a war, it lost a war Germany started. It is no one's fault but that of the German people (who supported the Nazi regime) that they lost their eastern territories.

Was it their fault they were ethnically cleansed?

[BeBMan]

Meh, Stalin had the say in the east and the western powers knew they couldn't do **** about it, and Germans had done their best not to win sympathies before. That's basically it.

Anything else is indeed historic reality now and not going to change in any foreseeable future, if we like it or not.

[curtsibling]

Polish is a language with longer and prouder history than that silly germanic dialect known as english

I salute Poland's glorious history, but cannot understand the lingo!

Can you provide something for us poor Norman/Germanic offshoots to read?

[Provost Harrison]

Oh don't bloody encourage him. Here, Polish is the language of the sanitation staff

[curtsibling]

Oh don't bloody encourage him. Here, Polish is the language of the sanitation staff

In Glasgow, our Polish cousins bring vibrant Eastern fashion and unmatched style to the drab city streets.
Where else can you see crappy mobile phone shop staffed by a 6-foot blonde Polish amazon wearing an
eye-gouging gold cheetah skin business suit? We are not the "city of culture" for nothing...

[Provost Harrison]

In Glasgow, our Polish cousins bring vibrant Eastern fashion and unmatched style to the drab city streets.
Where else can you see crappy mobile phone shop staffed by a 6-foot blonde Polish amazon wearing an
eye-gouging gold cheetah skin business suit? We are not the "city of culture" for nothing...

I thought you were a city of culture in the same way Liverpool is a city of culture...ie...no f**king idea how

[curtsibling]

We are city of bacterial cultures!

Although not quite as bad as Liverpool.

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, the first time I ever went to Liverpool, just stepped out of the car, and someone hurled an insult at me from the car. Fortunately, due to their accent, I had no idea what they'd said, and even if I could, it was so high pitched that only dogs would have been able to pick it up.

[Dr Strangelove]

I fail to see what the western allies had anything to do with the east. I wish the west had taken Koenigsberg, because the Germans would have been preserved. Just because the Germans engaged in ethnic cleansing, doesn't justify the allies engaging in the same.

You'd have asked a hell of a lot from my dad wouldn'cha? Oh, and this just in:

"Canadians give swine flu to pigs!"

[curtsibling]

Yeah, the first time I ever went to Liverpool, just stepped out of the car, and someone hurled an insult at me from the car. Fortunately, due to their accent, I had no idea what they'd said, and even if I could, it was so high pitched that only dogs would have been able to pick it up.

There should be a law where we can just lethally taser such sub-humanoid creatures.

[Heresson]

Nope. Half of Belarus should be Polish. Pushing Poland west was an invention of Stalin, and I cannot see why any Polish nationalist would want to have anything to do with the borders as decided by Stalin, who had no love whatsoever from your people.

While Poles tend to glorify Roosevelt and Churchill, Stalin was more generous to Poland than they were: Churchill and Roosevelt insisted on Nysa Klodzka river to be the border of Poland, while Stalin decided it'd be Nysa Luzycka river, giving us entire Lower Silesia. He also gave us Szczecin. True, he did take eastern half of pre-war Poland, but Churchill and Roosevelt did nothing to stop that, and Stalin at least wanted to give us large recompensation, while Churchill did not. Churchill said "do not stuff the polish goose" (with german territory).


[quote[
My family were German Catholics in Allenstein, which is somewhat odd. The area was primarily German speaking, voted something like 95-5 to stay with Germany after the first world war. As you've said, it was a part of the Teutonic Knights, and Poland only had a claim to Warmia, after 1466, and only until 1772, where the area remained primarily German.
[/quote]

Well, not exactly. First, when it comes to the plebiscite you've mentioned,
the area of Olsztyn voted like 15% for Poland, as well as Powisle region - it was the protestant Masurians that voted for Germany en masse.
Secondly, do not forget that:
1) During the plebiscite, unlike the plebiscited in Schlezwig or Saar or Malmedy, German administration was left intact. Needless to say, all administration were in hands of ethnic Germans, not polish peasants. While in Silesia Poles were strong enough to battle it to demand for example that only half of policemen should be German, in Warmia/Ermland, Mazury/Masuren they were too weak. Polish activists were persecuted, and killed by German authorities.
2) The plebiscite was held during the time of greatest success of Red Army, which controled then nearly entire Polish-Prussian border and was just outside Warsaw. German press was already calling Poland dead, and not without any reason. Voting for Poland might have seemed a suicide.
3) The voting cards were very specific. There was no choice between Poland and Germany, but between Poland and Eastern Prussia, which was sort of wrong already, but to add to that Poland was printed with latin font, which the local population did not know, while Ostpreussen was printed in gothic font.
Poland was a newly created country, a great enigma, catholic at that, and it seemed it was just about to be crushed.

http://www.zgapa.pl/zgapedia/data_pictures/_uploads_wiki/p/Polska1912.jpg

Here is a map. It is polish, but based on official censuses by Russia, Austria and Prussia. In fact is it biased against Poles, the most in Russia (almost all the Poles east to Congress Kingdom were counted as catholic Belarusians in Russian Empire), but also in Prussia, where the people declaring both german and polish language were counted as Germans.
Despite that, the Allenstein county has 50,7% polish population. And it must have been much more before the partages.
It is very probable you have some polish origin aside german, Ben.

After that it was German again for 150 years. I really don't see why Poland has a claim over areas that were settled by Germans, just because Stalin said so.

Most of these lands are less than 1% german now. A couple of generations were born there already. I myself was born in pre-ww2 german territory.
It is simple too late to change that. Poland is not to blame: polish gouverment in London didn't want entire Western Pomerania, it didn't want Lower Silesia, it didn't want mass expulsions.
Neither did want many of the people settled there to do so.
Some did. But many were:
1) Expelled from USSR
2) Brought, sometimes by force, from the West, especially from France as "expatriants".
My own grandpa until his death wanted to come back to his hometown in modern Ukraine.
But while I am fond of my eastern ancestry, I find Silesia as my home region.
And I do not have any links with Podolia region in Ukraine.
It's 64 years after the war. It's too late to change anything. Do you want to expel people living there? By what right? Most were born there. Do you want Poland to give up Silesia and Western Pomerania as well as Warmia and Mazury? Why should it do so, especially since it's lost much bigger lands in the east, and got Silesia, Pomerania etc completely devastated?

1250 -1466 (216 years) + (1772-1945) 177 years = 393 years, almost 400 years.

It's been Polish for 1466-1772 = 306 years. 306 + 65 = 371 years.

Germans
1250-1409 = 59
1411-1454 = 43
1772-1945 = 245+28=273
altogether = 102+273=375

Poland
1410
1454-1772 = 318
1945-2009 = 64
altogether 383

if you live out 1410 and 1454-66, it will be 370.

My bad, but it's been polish and german for similar lenght of time.

[quote]
Prussians weren't Polish whatsoever. They were slavic before the Germans came, but they weren't Poles whatsoever.
[quote]

They weren't Slavs actually, they were Baltic tribes, related to Lithuanians, Latvians etc.
But You've misread my post. I claimed Powisle region was inhabited by Poles, not entire Prussia. Powisle are the parts of Prussia next to Vistula river.
Pomezania.

Masurians were Catholic Germans, not Poles. Poles are almost exclusively Catholic, and the Germans in the south part of East Prussia were Catholic too.

Nope, my love. Masurians were actually 75% protestant, like the rest of Eastern Prussia except for the part that belonged to Poland before 1772. Warmia/Ermland, including Olsztyn/Allenstein, is the largest catholic region in Prussia proper.

The origins of East Prussia have nothing to do with the Hohenzollerns. As you said the Teutonic Knights settled the area. Poland has no claims to the area at all. The Hohenzollerns are completely foreign to the area.

Uh. Short history of Prussia since XIII century:
1226 Conrad of Masovia invites Teutonic Knights to Ziemia Chelminska region, adjactent to Prussia. They are supposed to conquer Prussia as his fief. Yet they falsify documents, get independant and start bullying Poles, leading crusades against them, instead of helping them.
1410 Grunwald
1454-66 Prussian cities and gentry invite Poland to take over Prussia and Pomerania, that TK took from Poland in 1309. Eventually, Prussia is divided. Some is directly annected, some become a fief.
1520-5 another war, between the Grand Master Albrecht Hohenzollern, and king Sigismund I. Sigismund crushes Albrecht completely, but Albrecht is his nephew, so he let him reign as a duke of Prussia. Albrecht is the first ruler to convert to protestantism.
Brandenburg line of Hohenzollerns is excluded from heritage, but, for money, polish kings give them the right to take care of mentally ill son of Albrecht, and later, to take over Prussia.
1655-60 war between Poland and Sweden. Hohenzollerns despite their vassal duties not only do not side with Poland, but support Sweden.
1657 to achieve peace, Poland resigns of almost all vassal duties of Prussia. According to this very treaty, Prussia should return to Poland once Hohenzollerns die out.
Internal opposition in Prussia protests. In a letter sent to Poland they claim "they are not apples to be sold on a bargain". The leader of the opposition is kidnapped from Warsaw and executed in Klajpeda/Memel. He orders his wife to take his children and bring them up as Poles. They still live in Poland. Lately I've read a very sad story about this guy's descendant during ww2.
1701 or so Kingdom in Prussia established.

If not Brandenburg Hohenzollerns, Prussia would be today a province of Poland.

Secondly, how does winning a war justify ethnic cleansing of Germans?

Most didn't have to be expelled - they were evacuated by german authorities, or fled themselves during ww2.

You may frown upon expulsions, and not without a reason, but it's definitely spared us having another Balkans here.

Especially that during ww2, so much was done, that I can hardly imagine a majorly german area administered by Poland or USSR.

Take a look at this map, as well

I have no beef with the Poles, but they don't have a claim to Pomerania, or to East Prussia as a whole.

These lands are majorly polish. They used to belong to Poland for much of their history. It's better than USA's claims to its entire territory.

Why should Russia own an exclave that has no historical connection to them prior to Stalin?

Why should Germany hold an exclave made of people of completely other nationality and religion, especially since it was the existance of the very same exclave that caused ww2?

Kaliningrad should either stay as it is, get independant, or be given to Poland.

I fail to see what the western allies had anything to do with the east. I wish the west had taken Koenigsberg, because the Germans would have been preserved. Just because the Germans engaged in ethnic cleansing, doesn't justify the allies engaging in the same.

Actually, there was consensus that East Prussia should be given to Poland.
And I doubt any allies would have let german refugees back in.

[Provost Harrison]

Now, now, Boris Johnson went there before and look what happened...

...he was elected Mayor of London

You don't want something horrible like that to happen, do you?