Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "The Present Past"
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@gerardsotxoa The Polish names are the original names, in continuous use for a millenium. It makes zero sense for us to use the German mispronunciation of them. You can do whatever you like in your own language, we have no say over it.
Regarding the supposed "genocide", nothing like that happened. We asked for evidence and the Germans came up with literally nothing.
For the most part, Germans left out of their own free will. It may seem surprising, but they didn't want to live under Soviet control. It was the same story with the Poles in Soviet Union, who also left on mass, while the Ukrainians in Poland didn't want to move there, even despite multiple incentives.
Anyway, some German communities stayed and they are still around. At worst they can be witnesses of the supposed abuse, not? I never heard of them raising this issue, and they do have parliamentary representation.
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@lisamirako1073 " Middle Ages, there were no nation states "
There was always a huge difference between Slavic and Germanic dialects. The borders reflected that difference quite well.
" since the 13th century "
Wrocław existed as a city for 300-350 years already. They minted coins, for example.
" it was inhabited and developed almost exclusively by Germans "
Even in the XVIIth century there was a divide line in Silesia, between dominant German and dominant Polish language. Wrocław was on the Polish side of the said line.
You see, very many cities in Poland were developed by the Germans. They all Polonized very quickly. Wrocław was not that different, even if technically it belonged to the HRE.
" no direct connection to the modern history of Poland "
Why did you use two qualifiers, the "direct" and "modern"? It's hard to know what they mean.
" Breslau has always been part of German history "
Oh, that's why? No, it wasn't.
I obviously agree, that at the end of WW2 it was a German city. It was that for at least a hundred years already, likely some more than that. But what you write is simply not true. Not my fault.
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@m.s.8927 " *It was longer in german hands than the polish ethnicity itself existed * "
I'm not sure what you mean, but let me sketch a rough picture, so we know where were are, alright?
So, the heartland of Poland is Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. Silesia lies right beside both of those regions. There was never a Silesian king of Poland, but at least one of them came pretty close.
Yes, they floated their grain down the Odra river, so it made more sense for them to become friends with people who controlled the estuary, but ethnically speaking, they were us.
In light of that, what do you mean?
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@tollictollic3610 " the city itself had a German population "
It was like that all over XIIIth century Poland, and those people Polonized on mass. Why should Wrocław be any different? Even Thorn (Toruń) was largely Polonized by as early as XVth century, and this city had absolutely no Slavic roots and no original Slavic population.
Let me paint you a picture. The German settlers were craftsmen and tradesmen. The absolute majority of the population back then were peasants, who all spoke Polish, and they were pretty much their sole customers.
You are a german carpenter, for example. If you are not hired by the Poles, you got nothing to feed your family. What do you do, when you see your son playing with Polish kids?
Well, a considerate father would rather encourage it than discourage, wouldn't he? He's gonna take over your business at some point, and you want him succeed, so he needs to speak the language of his customers.
I have absolutely nothing against those German settlers. They taught us a lot. We needed them. But they needed us too!
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@tollictollic3610 " who told you that only 2% of the region spoke German "
Before Germans settled in the city, everybody spoke Polish. That's XIIIth century, where you started.
" lower Silesia which was almost exclusively German speaking "
That's not true.
" for a long time "
Even in the XIXth century, during very aggressive germanization and laws which prevented the use of Polish, there are plenty of official documents in this language, simply because the Prussians were forced to use the language which people could actually understand.
Even then, people outside Breslau (which did become a German city), still spoke Polish.
In the XXth century, it's a different story. But that's not "a long time" before 1945.
" german spekaing city "
That's XIX-th century, when Breslau grew by an order of magnitude (predominantly due to German immigration). Yes, in the XIXth century it was a german speaking city. German was often used before that, but at the beginning of the XIXth century it was still a bilingual city .
There are documents which state just that. Do you understand that it's not just an opinion? We have evidence for it.
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@tollictollic3610 " 80 % of the Slavic Population in Silesia was killed by the Mongols "
That's silly talk. Maybe 8% loss during a single raid? That's believable.
For comparison, Eastern Poland suffered from Tatar raids for centuries. It did lower the population density and the development of the area, but people still lived in there.
" Every source I can find contradicts what you are saying "
There are plenty of German sources which support my position. Like, what to choose?
Well, a German printed Polish-German dictionary? "Wegweiser zur polnischer und deutschen Sprache" They say there, that both nations live together and relay on each other, like dear neighbors or brothers, and need to constantly communicate in matters of trade, everyday life, buying and selling.
That's 1648.
" it is made up by post WW2 propagandists to somewhat justify the annexation "
The commies printed the aforementioned dictionary?
You are acting like the commies had a monopoly on propaganda, while in the West effectively the Germans did enjoy such a monopoly for a long time. Only recently we are capable of presenting our side of the story.
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@tollictollic3610 " For example how many Slavs were killed by the Mongols. "
Man, if your numbers made any sense, Poland would become a vassal state of the Mongols, just like Kievan Rus.
And even Mongols wouldn't go that far, because much lower losses would be entirely sufficient to subdue the whole state, and you can't extract tribute from corpses.
Besides, there were up to 30K Mongols in the whole raid. How do you imagine they could manage to genocide literal millions? With bow & arrow technology?
I'm sorry, but it's just silly to think that could have happened.
Anyway, Wikipedia claims that Polish losses amounted to about 22 000 people. 10K lost in battles, 10K lost civilians and about 2K taken as slaves.
It may seem low, but we couldn't have lost many more fighters, because we simply didn't have that many. The civilians mainly ran away into the woods. Hunting them down was not only tedious, it was outright dangerous for the Mongols, so low losses there do make sense too. The low number of slaves captured is a consequence of the above.
That's for all of Poland, not only Silesia.
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@Icetea-2000 " Millions of germans were forcefully expelled "
Where are the bones? I used to think that it might be true, but when asked for evidence, Germans came up with nothing.
Nobody wanted to stay under the Soviet rule, as illustrated with Poles in Soviet Union and Ukrainians in Poland. The Poles had to leave everything behind, while the Ukrainians were offered sizable compensations and they still did not want to go there.
Anyway, we did forcefully resettle the Ukrainians to Western Poland. Not to the SU, though. We weren't that cruel.
" what a disgusting thing to say "
The disgusting thing was to imply parity of guilt, "we did you wrong, but you did us wrong too". We do have tonnes of archived material which documents German antics, they have nothing, but they used to claim it was all somehow equal.
It all ended when we asked for evidence.
" because you’re polish "
I was Polish when living behind the iron curtain too, but back then we had no voice, and that's how Germans could pull it all off for so long.
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