Talk:Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)/Archive 4

message: I added this text to the "discussion of the reasons" but user Molobo promptly removed it without stating reason.
I feel at least one of the reasons for why germany was carved up should be presented, and not just some random remarks about Russia wanting to keep its piece of Poland. The text below presents a case for discussions of the removal of the eastern parts of Germany that goes back to at least 1944. It refers to the Morgenthau Plan that albeit its wikipedia page might need a lot of polishing still presents a credible and verifiable case that at least the removal of Silesia from Germany was planned by the americans quite early, years ahead of the actual expulsions.
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It was a direct consequence of the partly implemented plan by the Allies to completely remove Germanys capacity to pose a military or economic threat to them ever again. This was to be achieved by reducing Germany to a “pastoral state” with a reduced population. Part of this was to be achieved by the removal from German control of her main centres of industry and main coal and iron deposits; Silesia in the east and the Ruhr Area and the Saarland to the west. This plan is commonly known as the Morgenthau Plan after its author Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Secretary of the Treasury of the United States during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although the plan was never made official policy it ended up heavily influencing U.S. policy in the later years of the war and in the years immediately following the German surrender.
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Stor stark7 16:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for the partitioning of Germany 

message: Most Heimatvertriebene accept the territorial changes of 1945 and consider the Poles now living in former East Germany as friends and neighbors in the European Union.
I would like to see a source with a poll made among members of all those organisations showing that it is indeed true and not a POV.
--Molobo 13:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed segment

message: There is a section in this article about the Germans in Poland and  Czechoslovakia. There should be one for Russia, as well. The Kaliningrad region in Russia was once part of Germany, the state of East Prussia. Germans were expelled there, too. Can someone fix it? 24.1.246.29 00:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russia? 

message: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/cab_195_3_transcript.pdf
C.M. 18(45). 7th August, 1945.
Review of Foreign Affairs.
*E.B. 
Berlin Protocol.
a) C.F.M. Vital need = good Secretariat.
e) War Crimes: Agreemt. to be signed to-morrow. Hope trials
h) Balkans: Commn on oil equpmt: powers of B. & U.S. repns on
b) Reparations. R. removals v. drastic. On percentages – had to
yield to R. pressure, largely because U.S. willing to make
concessions.
c) German Fleet. Subs. – satisf. solution.
Merchant Fleet: 1/3rd subject to U.S.S.R. satisfying Polish
claims.
d) Koenigsberg: Final settlement reserved to Peace Settlement:
but will be fait accompli before then.
will go on.
U.S.’s anxieties about Hess.
f) Austria: no reparations agreed.
g) Poland W. Frontier: discussions with repns of P.P.G. Want to
talk with C/R. & B/T. – insist tht. Poles live up to undertakgs: then trade ?exch will open from that area.
C.C.’s must see this new formula is carried out.
i) Transfer of Populations. V. serious problems. Conduct of
D.P.’s.
j) Inland Waterways. R. reluctant to duscuss. U.S. & B. think it important. But R agreed to serve on I.T.O.
*P.M. 
Was there throughout. Not much done before our return. E.B. did v.
well at short notice inpickg. up unknown threads. Diffy –
whatever your ideas the facts keep moving on – e.g. Poland’s W.
Frontier.R. ideas of repns – same delusions as we had in 1918. Don’t care,either, what happens to W. Europe.Not done too badly.
*E.B. 
R. pressure tht. Ruhr be declared part of Germany.
Many ideas about that – considered on A.P.W. Cttee.
Now to be examined by C.F.M. We shall have to watch our
security.
*E.Sh. 
Moscow agreemt. tht. 8 yrs. 50 m. tons G. coal to be ready for export.
Shall have to raise that issue.
*P.M. 
Food & fuel for Berlin this winter. Surplus food areas & Silesian
mines both under R. control. Got nearer to agreemt. with R. on
this – thro’ decision to treat G. as economic whole.
*A.B. 
Brutal behaviour by Czechs. in clearing out Germans.
*P.M. 
Cdn’t do more than we did on this – askg. Govts. to hold their hands.
Stor stark7 13:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brutal behaviour of Czechs in clearing out Germans 

message: I hate to sound like a total deletionist, but this article is horrible, and may need to be obliterated and totally started over. Not only is it written in disjointed english that seems to lack any encyclopedia-style grammar, but virtually every fact is disputable by both sides of the argument. I got almost NO information from it, aside from the fact that at some point, people were forced from one country to another. 
I think this article should either be completely re-written, or deleted. Even started over as a stub with a basic outline. But this version has got to go.
--L.A.F. 08:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully agree. The current state is result of people who have low ability to write coherent text but absolutely must present their truth here. Pavel Vozenilek 01:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In the coming week I am going to try to sort through the text here and see if I can render something readable out of it; If it works I may try to do an edit. I hope I can please everyone, stay neutral, and remove this sorry excuse for an article at the same time. 
--L.A.F. 02:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Great, thank you for the offer - I hope you will succeed. There are lots of other articles connected to this, some of which could be merged/redirected here, see here for a partial list of the issues relating to Poland and Germany. Kusma (討論) 04:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Two thumbs up. I'll try to do something about the Polish section tonight. Halibutt 13:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Do Something About This

message: A relevant fact that I do not know where to include in the article as it is. Yugoslavia did expell ethnic Germans after WWII, but an exception was made for the minority of ethnic Germans that actively supported the resistance, and a substantial number of Germans remained in the country. Zocky | picture popups 10:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A relevant fact 

message: What is this all about? 
Xx236 14:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russia 

message: Both redirect to the same article.
Xx236 14:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the later Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly Königsberg) 

message: The Introduction ignores the historical context. One day the cruel Polish people started to expell and let starve good German people. I believe that German occupational policy, collaboration of the local German population with the Nazi authorities, exploitation of East European nations and  expulsions should be mentioned.
Xx236 14:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Introduction 

message: Which part of Hungary or Slovakia was historically German?
Xx236 16:09, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  historically Eastern German areas in present-day Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia 

message: This article claims that thousands of men were shot, etc.. german nationalist propaganda in my POV. The Ústí massacre article states that 80-100 victims are estimated, 43 victims were confirmed. Could anybody provide source for the figures? If noone provides relevant information, I will delete the entire section. I respect the importance of such events to the germans, but I would not consider killing 100 people a special event in the context of the whole WWII, even if they were germans. ackoz 14:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And is there any evidence that the "Czech mob" was burning ethnically german school children in the main squares of the city? That's crazy. ackoz 14:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Explanation: I changed the POV tag to POV-check because this creepy piece of (in my POV) disinformation has obviously been here for a long time and noone disputed it. If anyone is willing to discuss this matter do change the POV-check tag to POV and post your ideas here. I will not change the article before someone else writes something. ackoz 17:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Wrong statement as I did NOT substitute anything for anything. I just excluded all the unnecessary information about events, that are disputed even by serious historians. The article contained one POV, and there are at least two national POVs, and maybe more POVs from some other people. All of them should be listed and clearly marked as POVs (not facts). I excluded the POV from the article so YOU, being lazy enough not to even check the history to see that I did not substitute anything should not be accusing me of pushing my POV. Greetings ackoz 18:20, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the fact that there were Czhech massacres and pogroms against Germans should be mentioned. Not mentioning it at all seems in fact POV. Unless anyone has a good source for burning German children I expect we can leave that out... But the rest deserves mentioning in my opinion. se the following:
This paper The Expulsion of German Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the second World War European University Institute, Florense. Makes an exhaustive description of the expulsions. It also deals with the Usti masacre, and gives references to a bunch of Books dealing with the subject, most in Czech.
If you want to make the article more accurate, and reference it, this would be an excellent starting point. (The paper does not allow copy-paste, so I had to transcribe by hand, hence some errors)
<Blockquote>
The anti-German atmosphere is dramatised by particular incidents, involving localised massacres of the German population. On the night of 18-19 June 1945 in Prerov in the Moravian lands the Czhechs organised a pogrom of the German population. 71 men, 120 women and 74 children were killed. On 30 May 1945 30 000 Germans from the second biggest Czhech town, Brno were forced to leave their homes. During the death march to the labour camps, located close to the Austrian border, they were brutally beaten. We do not know how many died during this march, however the estimates speak of several hundred people.
</Blockquote>
<Blockquote>
Another violent incident took place on 31 July un Usti nad Lebem. It was triggered by a series of explosions in the local munitions warehouse, that killed 28 people and wounded 39. The explosions were blamed on Werewolf organisations - gangs of German youngsters who alledgedly sabotaged Czhech installations and plottet to assasinate Czhech officials. Although there were no proof confirming this thesis, the Czhech militia and civilians initiated a real massacre in the town. Some women and children were thrown of the bridge into the elbe River and shot. Estimates of the numbers killed vary widely, even today, from 30-50, through to 200-400, and even as high as 600-700 civilians.
</Blockquote>
Stor stark7 19:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ústí massacre 

message: The point is, whether kings of countries were Czech or German is not the issue.  Silesia, Pomerania, East Prussia, and the Swabian lands of the Danube were all ethnically German.  Bohemia (and the Bohemian forest, or Böhmerwald) were always Czech with significant German populations, much as Alsace Lorraine was always German with a significant French population.
:Well, not _totally_ right. Silesia had Polish minority in Opole region, while East Prussia tiny Polish minority and Masurian minority. Szopen 14:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry for being suspicious. Read the previous discussions and you will see that I already had some difficulties with persuading people that Bohemia was not a German land before the Czechs seized it around 19/20th century. If you decide to rewrite the article, I will be happy to help you. ackoz 13:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I never claimed Bohemian Kings were German 

message: I think this article needs some images to show that it was actual humans that this happened to, instead of just dry statistics.
I've added some links to images in the External Links section as I'm not sure of how their copyright can be handled.
A picture that probably can be used is the picture used in both the Hungarian and German article, showing Sudeten Germans being offloaded from the trains.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/4/41/Vertreibung_1.jpg
Stor stark7 01:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't let copyright paranoia get to you - I am sure those images classify as fair use. Btw, please give a link to the image page (which may have source and copyright info), not the image file itself.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but the point is mote in this case. The webpage is based on Flashplayer, which means that the link to the picture opens upp the whole page, and that the image cannot be downloaded, just viewed on screen (as far as I can tell, maybe someone else more knowledgeable would be able to download it) Stor stark7 19:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, then what you need is a little trick. I'll post a short 'how to' on your talk as this is OT here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: That's interesting. Would you have links to the article - and the book page (Google Print, perhaps)?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Its here page 215. In fact as I see now my memory also wasn't correct: from the caption, it's not clear if the murdered Czech were resistance fighters or normal civilians, and they were shot by SS, not by Gestapo. --Wikimol 17:17, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think I can see luggage lying next to them, which would suggest that this was civilians on the move that were shot. Doesn't the presense of luggage make it more likely that the victims are fleeing Germans? Stor stark7 17:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ask the authors. With some help of google the text is by Jiří Pešek and Zdeněk Beneš. Both seem to be reputable scholars. Contrasted to pure speculation based on the picture, I would say it is much more likely they are right. --Wikimol 18:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Will do so.Stor stark7 18:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

text: As notable scholars they deserve articles (Jiří Pešek, Zdeněk Beneš), unfortunately my Czech is not good enough for that :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: This seems to be a cool page to gain inspiration from.
Democide
Stor stark7 18:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inspiration