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[Kot]

No, they didn't. As far as I'm aware, no country that took part in the ethnic cleansing of German territories in the East has ever given an official apology for the atrocities they committed. In fact, as recently as the late 90s, 86% of Czechs said they would reject apologizing to Germany for their part in the ethnic cleansing of the Sudetendeutsche.

Truly, they do it because they only hate the Germans and don't have an actual reason for this.

German minority is obnoxious as fuck, there had to be some after Soviets were finally gone, not to mention that I know a lot of cases where families are running into legal trouble because some fucks from Germany come and claim that it's their land.

It's historically German territory, so German "minority" is kind of misleading.

Bullshit. Historically, Lechitic Polabian Slavs lived on territories right up to the goddamn Elbe.
And if we were to go only by what actual countries were there, it was first rightful Polish clay too. It was actually one of main arguments that the Poland post-WW2 was returning to it's original borders. The only place where you could say Poles took would be Prussia, but even then it was the Teutonic Order (which, by the way, was totally a vassal of Poland after we kicked their ass so hard they went secular) who slaughtered the Pruthenians and said it was theirs.
It's not a real argument, of course, as there was no real Polish population (Note that this is due to earlier German Kulturkampf and other atrocities) there, but historically it's Polish clay. And Germans there are a minority because they are a fucking minority by the laws national and international, so it's not misleading in any way.

Downplaying... well, maybe? I don't really see how it would be downplayed, as everyone who wanted to be German went the fuck away and everyone who wanted to be Polish (of course, with exceptions made for people who helped Nazis and such) stayed.

Downplayed as in, Poland likes to claim the ethnic cleansing affected fewer people than it actually did, or downplaying the number of Germans who were killed, etc.

I told you, I don't see the cleansing affecting that much people if everyone and their dog has German roots. I mean, fuck, right, anyone who didin't want to accept being a Pole was kicked the fuck out, but a lot of people remained because they preferred to stay here and just adapt.

You're right, the atrocities are not excused by "they did it first" (though you could fuck off with the "rape" things, that's Red Army, Poles weren't even in state to commit true atrocities at this point especially considering that they basically went through the same shit as Germans did from Russians because it wasn't really that much difference to them), but they are excused by one tiny little nearly irrelevant detail...
Poland, at least in theory, won the war.

Victory doesn't excuse any atrocity (and anyway, saying Poland won the war is like saying the fly won the fight with the spider when it got crushed by a boot after the fly was entangled in a web).

Well, I said in theory. The whole thing was a fucking master move by Stalin though, not only he shut up Poles that they lost half their territory but also created (or rather, strengthened) a long-lasting antagonism between Poles and Germans so we would be cucked forever never really going to get our shit together and face the real enemy.
Germans are at least kind of sorry about the WW2 and you can deal with them, Russians not so much.

Except that's wrong

No.
Pilecki got caught in fucking 1940 and went to Auschwitz. Reports proably started to flow in by the end of the year, and in May 1941 Britain and France and Spain and America and literally everyone officially knew about all of it thanks to Sikorski who was literally begging for Allies to do something, to bomb the tracks or something. All he got from Churchill was promise to look into it. This is only one source, and there were previous incidents. Also, hell, why didin't they just read his goddamn fucking book, he says all the shit there. I am not even mentioning the fact that Allies knew about Ribbentrop-Molotov, Katyń or their rejection of preemptive war. Allies knew well about Holocaust but only thing they did was to bitch and then play big liberators when they arrived over five years late.

[Helgoland]

If you want to talk about a country pretending the past didn't happen, let's talk about how Poland treats the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Germany between 1945 and 1950.

I'm not gonna touch this whole discussion with a ten-foot broomstick, but I'd really, really prefer if you didn't refer to these territories as 'Eastern Germany'.

[Kot]

Try a ten-foot pole.

[Pwnzerfaust]

No, they didn't. As far as I'm aware, no country that took part in the ethnic cleansing of German territories in the East has ever given an official apology for the atrocities they committed. In fact, as recently as the late 90s, 86% of Czechs said they would reject apologizing to Germany for their part in the ethnic cleansing of the Sudetendeutsche.

Truly, they do it because they only hate the Germans and don't have an actual reason for this.

First you claim an apology was forthcoming, and now you say that of course an apology was never forthcoming? Way to shift the goalposts.

And kind of interesting. Of course they don't want to apologize, because then they might actually have to pay compensation for the atrocities they committed. The horror!

German minority is obnoxious as fuck, there had to be some after Soviets were finally gone, not to mention that I know a lot of cases where families are running into legal trouble because some fucks from Germany come and claim that it's their land.

It's historically German territory, so German "minority" is kind of misleading.

Bullshit. Historically, Lechitic Polabian Slavs lived on territories right up to the goddamn Elbe.
And if we were to go only by what actual countries were there, it was first rightful Polish clay too. It was actually one of main arguments that the Poland post-WW2 was returning to it's original borders. The only place where you could say Poles took would be Prussia, but even then it was the Teutonic Order (which, by the way, was totally a vassal of Poland after we kicked their ass so hard they went secular) who slaughtered the Pruthenians and said it was theirs.

Well alright, if you wanna go back thousands of years, then Germany should control France and half of Italy and Iberia, too.

It's not a real argument, of course, as there was no real Polish population (Note that this is due to earlier German Kulturkampf and other atrocities) there, but historically it's Polish clay. And Germans there are a minority because they are a fucking minority by the laws national and international, so it's not misleading in any way.

Sure, they're a minority because Eastern Germany was occupied and ethnically cleansed.

Downplaying... well, maybe? I don't really see how it would be downplayed, as everyone who wanted to be German went the fuck away and everyone who wanted to be Polish (of course, with exceptions made for people who helped Nazis and such) stayed.

Downplayed as in, Poland likes to claim the ethnic cleansing affected fewer people than it actually did, or downplaying the number of Germans who were killed, etc.

I told you, I don't see the cleansing affecting that much people if everyone and their dog has German roots. I mean, fuck, right, anyone who didin't want to accept being a Pole was kicked the fuck out, but a lot of people remained because they preferred to stay here and just adapt.

Not many people? Really? 14 million people expelled, two million dead, isn't many people to you? Fascinating, really fascinating.

If you want to talk about a country pretending the past didn't happen, let's talk about how Poland treats the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Germany between 1945 and 1950.

I'm not gonna touch this whole discussion with a ten-foot broomstick, but I'd really, really prefer if you didn't refer to these territories as 'Eastern Germany'.

I'll use the accurate terminology, thanks. Preußen, Pommern, Schlesien, and so forth are Eastern Germany. Vorpommern-Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen area is Central Germany.

[Loud Whispers]

No.
Pilecki got caught in fucking 1940 and went to Auschwitz. Reports proably started to flow in by the end of the year, and in May 1941 Britain and France and Spain and America and literally everyone officially knew about all of it thanks to Sikorski who was literally begging for Allies to do something, to bomb the tracks or something. All he got from Churchill was promise to look into it. This is only one source, and there were previous incidents. Also, hell, why didin't they just read his goddamn fucking book, he says all the shit there. I am not even mentioning the fact that Allies knew about Ribbentrop-Molotov, Katyń or their rejection of preemptive war. Allies knew well about Holocaust but only thing they did was to bitch and then play big liberators when they arrived over five years late.

Kot if you look at my link you'll see that your dates are correct. And by those dates you are wrong. During that time Britain was defending its core islands in the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic was reaching its height of intensity, the siege of Malta had begun, Hong Kong, Malaya and Burma were falling to the Japanese Empire, Italian and German forces fought British forces in North Africa for control over oil and the Suez e.t.c.

Relevant:

But whatever the Allies knew, US Holocaust historian David Wyman has questioned whether they could have done more to stop the mass murder. Leaders have often been accused of failing to respond quickly enough to the news. Some historians such as Wyman argue that moves like bombing the gas chambers of Auschwitz would have lessened the number of deaths, but others say it would have had no effect on the Nazi genocide. Large-scale rescue operations were considered but it was not clear to policymakers how this could be achieved.

Germany, Italy and Japan were on the offensive and the UK on the defensive, France having been knocked out of the war and the USSR likewise on the defensive. I don't know what more you expect the UK could've done

[Kot]

Truly, they do it because they only hate the Germans and don't have an actual reason for this.

First you claim an apology was forthcoming, and now you say that of course an apology was never forthcoming? Way to shift the goalposts.[/quote]
This is Czechs and Slovaks. I don't know about them really, but that's what I found on the internet. As for the Polish apology, you're right in that I can't find official government apology, but as I said, Germans get their shit back a lot and that's when they're apologized, but they first need to come here, ask for it and prove it's theirs.

And kind of interesting. Of course they don't want to apologize, because then they might actually have to pay compensation for the atrocities they committed. The horror!

...

This plan was suggested to the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency (IARA) in 1945, but because of the advent of the Cold War was never confirmed by any treaty with Germany. The IARA ended its activity in 1959 and the status quo is as follows: Czech Republic kept the property of expelled ethnic Germans while Germany did not pay any reparations (only about 0.5% of Czechoslovak demands were satisfied [39]). For this reason, every time the Sudeten Germans request compensation or the abolition of the Beneš decrees, the Czech side strikes back by the threat of reparation demands.

The other way around, really. They don't want to apologize because Germany doesn't want to compensate for atrocities they commited. Makes me think if that might be the reason why Poland never apologized, as we didin't get paid either. And it's us who pays fucking Jewish families from Polish territories reparations too.

Well alright, if you wanna go back thousands of years, then Germany should control France and half of Italy and Iberia, too.

>Germany = Holy Roman Empire. Haha wat.
This isin't even how this shit works, the Emperor was Emperor, which means he ruled over Italy, France, Iberia, and whateverfucktonofGermanstates and what not but not as one, unified, German country, but rather as some sort of proto-UE. Feudal ladder is pretty easy.

Not many people? Really? 14 million people expelled, two million dead, isn't many people to you? Fascinating, really fascinating.

The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000, maintaining that the figure of 2 million deaths in the previous government studies cannot be supported. The current official position of the German government is that the death toll resulting from the flight and expulsions ranged from 2 to 2.5 million civilians.

In accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, at the end of 1945 – wrote Hahn & Hahn – 4.5 million Germans who had fled or been expelled were under the control of the Allied governments. From 1946–1950 around 4.5 million people were brought to Germany in organised mass transports from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. An additional 2.6 million released POWs were listed as expellees.

In 2006, Haar called into question the validity of the official government figure of 2 million expulsion deaths in an article in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Since then Haar has published three articles in academic journals that covered the background of the research by the West German government on the expulsions.

Haar maintains that all reasonable estimates of deaths from expulsions lie between around 500,000 and 600,000, based on the information of Red Cross Search Service and German Federal Archives. Harr pointed out that some members of the Schieder commission and officials of the Statistisches Bundesamt involved in the study of the expulsions were involved in the Nazi plan to colonize Eastern Europe. Haar posits that figures have been inflated in Germany due to the Cold War and domestic German politics, and he maintains that the 2.225 million number relies on improper statistical methodology and incomplete data, particularly in regard to the expellees who arrived in East Germany. Haar questions the validity of population balances in general. He maintains that 27,000 German Jews who were Nazi victims are included in the West German figures. He rejects the statement by the German government that the figure of 500–600,000 deaths omitted those people who died of disease and hunger, and has stated that this is a "mistaken interpretation" of the data. He maintains that deaths due to disease, hunger and other conditions are already included in the lower numbers. According to Haar the numbers were set too high for decades, for postwar political reasons.

In 2001, Polish researcher Bernadetta Nitschke puts total losses for Poland at 400,000 (the same figure as the German Federal Archive study), she noted that historians in Poland have maintained that most of the deaths occurred during the flight and evacuation during the war, the deportation to the USSR for forced labour and after the resettlement due to the harsh conditions in the Soviet occupation zone in postwar Germany. Polish demographer Piotr Eberhardt found that, "Generally speaking, the German estimates…are not only highly arbitrary, but also clearly tendentious in presentation of the German losses." He maintains that the German government figures from 1958 overstated the total number of the ethnic Germans living in Poland prior to war as well as the total civilian deaths due to the expulsions. For example, Eberhardt points out that "the total number of Germans in Poland is given as equal 1,371,000. According to the Polish census of 1931, there were altogether only 741,000 Germans in the entire territory of Poland."

German historians Hans Henning Hahn and Eva Hahn published a detailed study of the flight and expulsions that is sharply critical of German accounts of the Cold War era. The Hahns regard the official German figure of 2 million deaths as an historical myth, lacking foundation. They place the ultimate blame for the mass flight and expulsion on the wartime policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. The Hahns maintain that most of the reported 473,013 deaths occurred during the Nazi organized flight and evacuation during the war, and the forced labour of Germans in the Soviet Union; they point out that there are 80,522 confirmed deaths in the postwar internment camps. They put the postwar losses in eastern Europe at a fraction of the total losses: Poland-15,000 deaths from 1945 to 1949 in internment camps; Czechoslovakia- 15,000–30,000 dead, including 4,000–5,000 in internment camps and ca. 15,000 in the Prague uprising; Yugoslavia-5,777 deliberate killings and 48,027 deaths in internment camps; Denmark- 17,209 dead in internment camps; Hungary and Romania - no postwar losses reported. The Hahns point out that the official 1958 figure of 273,000 deaths for Czechoslovakia was prepared by Alfred Bohmann, a former Nazi Party member who had served in the wartime SS. Bohmann was a journalist for an ultra-nationalist Sudeten-Deutsch newspaper in postwar West Germany. The Hahns believe the population figures of ethnic Germans for eastern Europe include German-speaking Jews killed in the Holocaust. They believe that the fate of German-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe deserves the attention of German historians. ("Deutsche Vertreibungshistoriker haben sich mit der Geschichte der jüdischen Angehörigen der deutschen Minderheiten kaum beschäftigt.")

In 1995, research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians found that the previous demographic estimates of 220,000 to 270,000 deaths in Czechoslovakia to be overstated and based on faulty information. They concluded that the death toll was at least 15,000 people and that it could range up to a maximum of 30,000 dead, assuming that not all deaths were reported.

Overmans conducted a research project that studied the casualties of the German military during the war and found that the previous estimate of 4.3 million dead and missing, especially in the final stages of the war, was about one million short of the actual toll. In his study Overmans researched only military deaths, his project did not investigate civilian expulsion deaths; he merely noted the difference between the 2.2 million dead estimated in the 1958 demographic study, of which 500,000 have so far have been verified.He found that German military deaths from areas in Eastern Europe were about 1.444 million, and thus 334,000 higher than the 1.1 million figure in the 1958 demographic study, lacking documents available today included the figures with civilian deaths. Overmans believes this will reduce the number of civilian deaths in the expulsions. Overmans further pointed out that the 2.225 million number estimated by the 1958 study would imply that the casualty rate among the expellees was equal to or higher than that of the military, which he found implausible.

The German government still maintains that the figure of 2-2.5 million expulsion deaths is correct. In 2005 the German Red Cross Search Service put the death toll at 2,251,500 but did not provide details for this estimate.

And 14 million expelled is the total figure for expulsions from all the countries, it even includes the Germans who already "settled" on conquered land and the relased POWs. At best you could get only half of that from new Polish territories, which is 7 million (and I belive this is the figure which includes POWs) which, compared to 80 million Germans in pre-war Germany, doesn't really sound that bad. Compare to over 6 million Polish civilians killed by Germans during WW2.
But hey, everyone belives their own country nationalist propaganda.

I'll use the accurate terminology, thanks. Preußen, Pommern, Schlesien, and so forth are Eastern Germany. Vorpommern-Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen area is Central Germany.

This is the first time ever I actually meet a person so crazy to actually consider parts of other countries their rightful clay (>Schlesien), apart of myself of course.
But then, I am joking. I don't know if you are.

Germany, Italy and Japan were on the offensive and the UK on the defensive, France having been knocked out of the war and the USSR likewise on the defensive. I don't know what more you expect the UK could've done

>We didin't listen to stupid Polacks when there was time
>HURR DURR WE WERE ON DEFENSIVE THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO

[Wolfhunter107]

Then please, enlighten us with your wisdom and tell us what the allies could have done.

[Dorsidwarf]

ITT: War crime and 5 crazy ethnic cleansings you probably haven't heard of , obligatory nazi scapegoats and clay reclamation initiatives.

[Loud Whispers]

>We didin't listen to stupid Polacks when there was time
>HURR DURR WE WERE ON DEFENSIVE THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO

Every mistake in the past is rendered stupid with the benefit of hindsight. The French and British agenda explicitly included avoiding a world war; there would have been no way to avoid such a world war by launching an attack. Moreover the war-weary populations wouldn't allow their leaders to do so, especially before rearmament had been completed - nor did high command want to launch an attack before reasonable rearmament. If troops were withdrawn from across the vast Anglo-French Empires and sent to fight Germany, that meant their territories were undefended and open to Italian or Japanese attacks. If they attacked unprepared, they would have a much higher chance of being defeated, than if they pursued a defensive strategy and levied the vastly superior resources of their Empires to guarantee victory. Not knowing the nature of modern warfare having changed from the static nightmare of WWI, this all went down the toilet with Dunkirk and the fall of France.
Look at it this way, if the allies had left their fortifications and attacked Germany, with the attack stalling and causing the Italians and Japanese to strike the allies and cut off their supplies, forcing their surrender - we'd chastise them for attacking unprepared and leaving their defences wide open.

[Helgoland]

Try a ten-foot pole.

I'm not Napoleon. And also that would not work as a joke about the German army.

I'll use the accurate terminology, thanks. Preußen, Pommern, Schlesien, and so forth are Eastern Germany. Vorpommern-Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen area is Central Germany.

Germany is the Bundesrepublik. There's no disputing that. If you consider Silesia to be German, you're a revisionist of the worst kind - a shame to Germany and its people, and a danger to Europe and its peoples. You're essentially placing yourself outside the bounds of civil society.

But okay, convince me: What definition of 'Germany' do you use that a Polish-inhabited, Polish-governed and recognized-as-Polish area is considered German? What does your definition say about the status of, oh, Alsace and Lorraine, or maybe Königsberg? What about the Baltics, maybe?

Spoiler: Or maybe Nice? (click to show/hide)

[TheDarkStar]

But okay, convince me: What definition of 'Germany' do you use that a Polish-inhabited, Polish-governed and recognized-as-Polish area is considered German? What does your definition say about the status of, oh, Alsace and Lorraine, or maybe Königsberg? What about the Baltics, maybe?

Spoiler: Or maybe Nice? (click to show/hide)

all of that is germany

so is the rest of the world

[smjjames]

Try a ten-foot pole.

I'm not Napoleon. And also that would not work as a joke about the German army.

I'll use the accurate terminology, thanks. Preußen, Pommern, Schlesien, and so forth are Eastern Germany. Vorpommern-Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen area is Central Germany.

Germany is the Bundesrepublik. There's no disputing that. If you consider Silesia to be German, you're a revisionist of the worst kind - a shame to Germany and its people, and a danger to Europe and its peoples. You're essentially placing yourself outside the bounds of civil society.

But okay, convince me: What definition of 'Germany' do you use that a Polish-inhabited, Polish-governed and recognized-as-Polish area is considered German? What does your definition say about the status of, oh, Alsace and Lorraine, or maybe Königsberg? What about the Baltics, maybe?

Spoiler: Or maybe Nice? (click to show/hide)

Silesia was part of the HRE though, once...... before it got eaten by Bohemia or somethng. Ignore me, I'm a silly American.

[Loud Whispers]

Being a part of the HRE =/= Germany
Bohemia itself was a part of the HRE, so were the low countries and northern Italy

[Culise]

But okay, convince me: What definition of 'Germany' do you use that a Polish-inhabited, Polish-governed and recognized-as-Polish area is considered German? What does your definition say about the status of, oh, Alsace and Lorraine, or maybe Königsberg? What about the Baltics, maybe?

Ooh, ooh, pick me.  I choose...D - all of the above, plus the Siebenburgen for good measure. And you'd better not forget to ensure territorial continuity, in the name of security. 

[Rolepgeek]

Cordoba rightful Moorish land

Spainese just go