Not everyone who was in the German Army, or even in the Nazi party was evil! You people are quick to condemn the germans for what they did, for the torture, the starvation, and the murder, but where was all the concern when the german people were starving to death and many had to burn their money just to keep warm? Where was the United States then? You helped France and Britain defeat Germany and then quickly retreated back behind the wall of the Atlantic ocean and saw fit to look the other way as France forced Germany to sign that despicable treaty that left our country in poverty as the french stole half our land. All over a war Germany didn't even start. Maybe if someone had bothered to step in and offer aid, perhaps a man like Hitler would never have had the chance to come to power. Germany couldn't defend itself and couldn't even feed it's people. It got so bad that it's citizens were willing to do what ever it took to change what was happening. I will agree that many thought that the camps back then were the right thing and should be prosecuted for it, but as far as I'm concerned, Germany had every right to take back the land that was ours, and attacking france was also justified...
I'm not going to go in to any more, I think you get the gyst of it. Anyway, no one gave opinions against this, I was just wondering, especially the European members here, what your opinions on this are?
Well, there is a lot of truth to it, but there's also a lot of hyperbole - it's like killing someone, and saying you had every right to do it because he looked at you funny.
It is true that the peace treaties were horrible for Germany. One number is enough to put in perspective - 1988. That number, that's the year when Germany would finish paying off its war reparations as stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles. Now, remember, historically 1989 was the year when East and West Germany reunited and became sovereign again, with virtually no debts and a vastly improved economy. So, even in spite of WWII, in spite of the utter destruction of the country and further territorial losses, Germany ended up freeing itself of its WWI legacy only *one year* later than it would have, had it stuck faithfully to the peace treaty. This *clearly* means the treaty was far too harsh.
However... while the main party responsible for WWI is clearly and obviously France, it's disingenious for Germans to claim they "didn't even start it". Like France, Germany had been boisterously pushing for war for quite a while. Then, during the war, Germany turned down all proposals of third-party assistence in a negotiated peace. They most certainly did bear moral responsibility for most of the war - they didn't start it, but they wanted it, and once it started, they wanted to continue it as long as necessary to break France *and* gain more land in the east. You have to remember, Hitler's "lebensraum" policy was nothing new, it was based on the old "Mitteleuropa" concept (indeed, arguably, even today German policies remain based on those concepts - the main change being that instead of a military take-over, they seek to dominate Europe via the EU).
Territorial losses are another thing where Germans might have perceived themselves as victims, but in truth got off far too lightly after WWI. They were forced to return Alsace and Lorraine - boohoo. Yes, these places are inhabited by ethnic Germans... but gosh darn it, if the Tour de France was banned from going through Alsace and Lorraine prior to WWI because it triggered pro-French demonstrations, you have to wonder just how happy those Alsatians were under Prussian rule (and in any case, Prussian rule only begun in 1870, after taking these lands from France). Denmark? All the lands Prussia gave up in Denmark were given up under a referendum, where the locals made clear that they consider themselves Danish. Then, there's the east. Yes, Prussia ended up giving up a lot of territory to Poland - but gosh darn it, all of Greater Poland (as the name might hint) was inhabited by a Polish majority, so how do the Germans justify the claim that it's their land? Indeed, almost all the territory they surrendered in the east was merely a part of the lands that Prussia had taken *from* Poland at the end of the 18th century (the one exception being Upper Silesia - this country, also inhabited by a Polish majority, the Prussians had taken from Austria; this too, was an aggressive war of conquest). The true German lands, the places that had been ruled by Germans and inhabited by Germans for centuries prior to WWI, they all stayed within Germany. It's well worth noting the difference between Prussia and Germany. Prussia, one of the core states of Germany, suffered vast territorial losses, but still failed to give up all the non-German lands it had grabbed through war over the centuries. Meanwhile, outside of Prussia, Germany suffered no territorial losses whatsoever. Really, if the Bavarians or Saxons have an issue with the Treaty of Versailles, perhaps they should have stayed out of the German Empire - joining the rabidly militaristic, expansionist Prussia, they should've known war was inevitable.
(Austro-Hungary, now that's a different story - they truly were the victim of WWI)
And finally, "where was all the concern when starving Germans were burning money just to keep warm". Well... as a matter of fact, America very quickly gave up its share of German war reparations, and started giving aid to Germany - so, to utter this accusation in an American classroom is rather problematic. And the rest of the world? Gee, I do wonder why France didn't give any aid to Germany, having just lost over a million men, and having been deprived of the output of its most heavily industrialised north-east provinces for years to come, all due to the war.
All in all, I have a lot of sympathy for Germans. I understand why they felt humiliated after WWI, and I understand why they desperately wanted a revision of the treaties, even if it meant another war. But there's a difference between understanding, and considering to be justified. The common people of Germany suffered a lot - someone who had been born to a German family in Posen and then left his home because it was transferred to Poland could certainly feel sore about it. But the only way this would actually justify Hitler's rise to power is if these losses had been unjust. And they weren't - all things considered, the treaty with Germany was remarkably kind and equitable (...as opposed to the treaties with Austria and Hungary - they were criminal!).
The same kind of "at least people had food and medicine" statements were abound in Poland when I was younger. At least from older folks that I had contact with... [...]
I know my parents went through college for free (albeit some schmoozing/bribery was involved to gain attendance), and my dad got a pilots license for free. Well, he had to pay for the bus to go back and forth...
I haven't heard stories of anything atrocious done by the Russians to the people in my circle of friends/family. Not to say that it didn't happen elsewhere, I just personally don't know any first hand accounts. I have heard plenty of stories about how generally annoying they were.
Here's the thing. Communism as a system was literally built on corpses. The years immediately after the war, they were a bloodbath. Anyone who had been involved with the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) or with the Polish Armed Forces in the West was constantly at risk of death. Ironically, probably the safest places for people like that were the Russian concentration camps in Siberia. They *were* utter hell - but at least, once you were in such a camp, you would be forgotten by the rest of the system. You were likely to die of malnutrition, exhaustion, cold... but no one would come and execute you. On the other hand, people in Poland who made themselves known to the authorities (the government promised them amnesty - for God knows what crimes - but it frequently broke its promises) risked being arrested by the security services, in which case they could die during interrogation, be executed without trial, or be tried on trumped-up charges and get executed anyway.
Now, all this stopped pretty abruptly after Stalin's death. I know of at least a few cases where highly decorated soldiers returned from the United Kingdom to Poland after the war, got arrested, spent a year or two in prison, were released but harassed (denied housing, work, et cetera) for a few years... and suddenly, after Stalin's death, reinstated into the armed forces and promoted.
After 1953, and especially after 1956, the system worked on more or less bloodless repressions (the exceptions being the various strikes, which were repressed), which meant that anyone who kept quiet was left in peace. Though you do have to keep in mind that everyday lives under communism *were* repressions enough - food rationing was constant, and frequently (more and more frequently as the system approached collapse) total absence of some basic commodities. People waited in lines for everything - meat, toilet paper, and so on.
But yes, most people did not suffer active repressions (which is not to say repressions had stopped - they were simply limited to certain groups in society, priests, students, scientists, artists...). And, furthermore, the Russians were *never* the source of repressions. They were the ones in charge - but they made sure that it was their Polish representatives that were responsible for all the repressions. A Russian general might suggest that someone should be "dealt with", but it would be the Polish security services that actually took care of it.
This is the reason why there's such a discrepancy between the stories of the people you know, and the general, wider reality. They'd have to be pretty old to experience beatings, interrogation and torture (they'd have to be pretty dead to experience executions). The system they did experience was indeed a weird cat-and-mouse game, where the government was no longer trying to destroy society, but instead to preserve the society it had created - and was too utterly inept and corrupt to support its own people, which meant that for a lot of people, the real struggle in life was to "outwit" the government - find out who you have to bribe, what organisation you have to join (and then how to weasel out of actually doing anything in that organisation) in order to get the benefits of being "inside" the system. This may seem laughable, it may seem harmless, but don't let that fool you - even people who had never been touched (and remember, there were people getting beaten up or even killed by the security services right up to 1989) could certainly claim to have been victims of repression. Hell, I reckon the fact that I had to use newspapers instead of toilet paper on several occasions makes me a victim of communist repressions
.
Then again I've also heard people complain about how privatization ruined the industries that they initially had (whoever got them sold them off to foreigners so they could go to the alps and brag about their vacation when they got back).
The problem isn't privatisation as such. That was, and is, a necessity - there's nothing more economically inept than government-owned companies. The real problem is that the govenment is selling off stolen property - it's "privatising" companies that often had a long history of private ownership, and were nationalised by the communists. Instead of returning them to their rightful owners, the government is selling them. That's a crime - or at least, it would be considered so, in any normal system...
