Talk:Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)/Archive 5

message: The image given in link is IMO misleading. Is it from before 1945? Well, in 1939 e.g. in Bromberg there were registered (in firs census organised by nazis) about 10% of population as German. How it is that suddenly in 1945 it is centre of German majority area? Maybe it includes the volksdeutsche, new settlers etc? If so, maybe also map presenting situation before 1939 should be given or explanation for the image given? Szopen 09:22, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The image 

message: The map of ethnic distrubution is very strange.
Here it states that it presents population from WW2 without mentioning that German population in WW2 was increased by settlement and expulsion of Poles from various regions during Poland's occupation by Germany.
The same map states on another page it is from 1937.
It is in conflict with data on on distrubution of Germans in Poland in 1921, 1931. 
I think it is very disputable map and it has no source given, perhaps it should be removed ?
--Molobo 12:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Map

message: deliberate abuse by milicians, deliberate malnutrition by Soviets and Poles, and because of senseless killing
Hmmm ? Polish people were deliberatly starving Germans ? That's very strange wording. More fitting would be Polish authorities, however I would like to see a credible source claiming that such actions were deliberate or in fact occured at all.
? The use of word senseless killing seems emotional and intendend to sensationalise rather then inform. I would prefer neutral wording. I would also  like to see sources confirming this.
--Molobo 12:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Headline disputable

message: Some were persecuted because of their activities during the war; most were persecuted solely because of their German ethnicity.
This is very POV. It would be more neutral to say that they were deported as a result of actions of their co-citizens which engaged in genocide.
--Molobo 12:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Further POV

message: The article states that some escaped from advancing Red Army.
This seems POV as the article is about situation after the war.
If this is included should I take that the losses written in  the article include also the war losses ? Shouldn't it be mentioned that death marches were ordered by Nazi officials ?
--Molobo 12:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More POV

message: Only 32% of Germans voted the national-socialist party into power, even some of the German victims of Dresden sheltered Jewish families from deportation, and at the end of the war German civilians also suffered from malnutrition.
While perhaps only 32% voted for Nazis's this seems an original research. It ignores the fact that there was also another party supportive of Hitler which gained votes-thus more people supported nationalistic aggressive ideology then 32%. Furthermore after the elections Hitler gained more popularity-this is also ignored. Another fact ignored is that the vote count for Nazis in territories subject to deportations was much higher then 32 % and in fact in some cases over 50%. Also another fact ignored is that for example even in 1947 over 50% of Germans supported National Socialism as "good idea" according to polls made by American authorities in their occupation zone. Thus the above quoted statement seems original research and a false one also.
--Molobo 12:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Support for Nazi's

message: That "expelled" also include people moved into occupied territory after 1939 ? Settlers ?
--Molobo 12:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you find anything like this, just remove the crap. And add the information that some of the "expelled" germans were settlers (find sources, know the proportion and add it to the article). The page was clearly edited by some german nationalist some time ago, who instead of precisely describing this event of ethnic cleansing (wich the expulsion was), tried to persuade the word that Germans, particularly Germans living in present Poland and Czech republic, were actually the poor victims terrorized by their Slavic governments before the war and then after the war. Not only ignoring the fact that German politicians participated in the "repressing" governments as ministers, but also using the nazi-propaganda arguments for annexing these territories. Remember, that the editor who added this crap probably didn't discuss anything with anyone before he added the information into the article and it went on without someone noticing it. It's a poor practice that anyone can add any crap to an article without mentioning it on the discussion page, but if it is to be removed, you have to discuss it with uneducated people who are from Canada and from reading wikipedia, they actually think that 10-19th century Bohemians as a nation were German and that the present Czechs are some late 19th/early 20th century slavic invaders. See above the discussion with Jadger for your reference. 85.70.5.66 17:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Does the article mention clearly

message: Do you really think that the map displayed at the Expulsions article is appropriate without a map that would reflect the pre-WW2 areas with german majority AND with a map that reflects the state under german occupation? I don't know anything about the extent, but I think that it is possible, that there was some new german expansion during WW2, therefore the map showing the land traditionally - I mean more than 2 centuries - inhabited by germans would be more appropriate. If we are talking expulsions, we talk about deporting people from their homes, not from the houses of polish Jews which they gained in WW2. I second the removal of the map from the article. You can RfC if you dont agree. 85.70.5.66 19:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't said anything about the map. But a map more or less clearly showing where Germans expulsed came from isn't inappropriate for the article about the expulsion of Germans. Maps that aren't copyrighted are hard to get and the article is in urgend need of images. Sciurinæ 00:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To scrucinae 

message: Historisches_deutsches_Sprachgebiet.PNG is irrelevant in this context, as it reflects german-speaking people, not ethnic Germans. There is a difference in this, as the Czechs who lived in towns were also german speaking - so the fact that many czech towns were german speaking doesn't make them German towns or towns with german majority. Even the mother of the first Czechoslovak president Tomas Masaryk, was German-speaking - that however doesn't make her or him German. Czech was at that time more of a peasant - language, and the educated czechs learned the czech language again in the 19th century, for reference see Czech_lands:_1648-1867. Moreover, the map doesn't specify the period of history, in which these areas were german speaking. 
So main points:
* not specific for one period of history
* related to the language, not nationality
* obviously reflects also the german speaking non-german nationals
ackoz  20:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is just sillynes. What the map shows is areas where the mother tongue of people is German. If your statement was correct, then Prague itself, the "centre" of "educated" Czechoslovakia, would be shown as a German language area. Since this is not the case, you must be wrong Stor stark7 21:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  No I am not. Czech the article for Prague and you will see that there was no german speaking majority just because Prague was always too diverse. PLUS there were areas in Prague that were german-speaking. Read first, call me silly later. ackoz  21:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrelevant map 

message: I have just come across this http://www.answers.com/topic/expulsion-of-germans-after-world-war-ii
webpage, with an old version of this article. It contains the text:
In the late summer of 1945 the Czech lands were the location of the most brutal attacks against German civilians. These crimes were primarily perpetrated by Czech nationalist and communist militiamen, who were tolerated by the Soviets, who had replaced the American allied forces after June of the same year. In Aussig an der Elbe militiamen publicly shot thousands of German men in the city square, afterwards throwing their corpses in the Elbe river, which became saturiated with blood and decomposing human remains. In the capital of Prague the Czech mob itself took revenge on the historically large German minority in the city. Reports were sent by perplexed Soviet soldiers of the mob burning ethnic German school children alive in the central squares of the city.
First off:
* Soviets did not replace the Americans on most of the Czech republic, Prague for instance was "liberated" by Soviets
* There are no other references except from this and the Answers webpage about ethnically German school children being burned alive in the central squares of Prague.
* Even German sources (serious ones) dont say that the number of victims in Usti / Aussig was in "thousands"
* The numbers in this texts are exaggerated, even when compared to German sourced and the text as a whole was / is unsourced, contains blatant lies (Americans being replaced by Russians) and is of questionable intent. 
The result is, that more webpages will contain this German nationalist propaganda, citing this Wikipedia article. 
It is a slap in the face of victims of WWII who are presented as the "Czech/Polish mob" that burns schoolchildren.
Because of this stupid wikipedia policy, that any nationalist idiot can add anything to an article and if you want to remove it, you have to discuss it on the talk page and reach consensus with other nationalist idiots there, Wikipedia will never be a reliable source.
That is why I added the the totallydisputed tag, so German boy please dont accuse Molobo, it was my work and the tag will stay.
I am also removing the map, as it doesnt describe the period it is related to, it is factually inaccurate. It could describe the german speaking territory from tenth century on, or just the nineteenth, but noone knows and its misleading. Moreover, you should be more sensitive about the nationalist subtones here. 
Cant add the signature as my keyboard top row doesnt work. Sorry Ackoz
"...disputed tag, so German boy please dont...". 
"Moreover, you should be more sensitive about the nationalist subtones here." 
I would say that this is a classic case of "venire contra factum proprium"  (213.70.74.164 12:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonsense 

message: I just reverted an unexplained deletion of text by anonymous user User:213.70.74.164.  Failure to win a POV dispute on the Talk Page should not be resolved by deleting the disputed text in the article.  Repeated incidents of this kind of behavior can lead to being blocked.
If you are unhappy with the text of the article, formulate a vote to determine consensus, issue a Request for Comment and THEN ABIDE BY THE RESULTS OF THE CONSENSUS.
Alternatively, insert text into the article that explains the nature of the POV dispute.
--Richard 17:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unexplained deletions of text 

message: I doubt very much. 
Xx236 13:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is 1986 book "recent'? 

message: Not true. Germans of Opole region are mostly peasants and they stayed to keep their farms. The miners in Eastern Upper Silesia spoke Silesian, a Polish dialect with German ~industrial vocabulary.
Xx236 07:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Likewise in the Opole/Oppeln region in Upper Silesia, German miners and their families were allowed to stay 

message: During the war millions of Poles lost their houses or flats, partially as the result of 1939 and 1944/1945 campaigns, partially as the result of German destruction of ghettos, anti-partisan actions (burning of villages), ban on construction works, destruction of Warsaw during and after the Warsaw Uprising. Other millions of Poles were expelled from Eastern Poland, annexed by the Soviet Union (Poland lost about 50% of the pre-war area and 20% after annexation of German lands. Poland was the only "winner", who lost lands and independence as the result of WWII). Millions of Poles had to emigrate, because they lost their working places and farms during the war. A number of ethnic Poles came from Western (mostly from France)and Southern (Bosnya, Romania) Europe.
I suggest to replace the paragraph (which contains errors) with my text. I don't have however the numbers.
Xx236 08:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Making room for the Poles 

message: My great Oma from Breslau stayed after the war in Poland- all she had to do was take on polnische citizenship. And here I am a proud ethnic Deutscher in Polen, with a German Fahne flapping in front of my Haus and German Staatsangehörigkeit with the right of return to boot. Where is the expulsion (seriously)? 83.5.242.116 09:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How the hell did my great Oma stay? 

message: There is no fight on this page about whether there were murders and massacres during the expulsion. 
That is clear enough. What you shouldn't forget, is that the atrocities and expulsions and murders etc. would never happen without prior Nazi agression, and the fact should be stressed sufficiently in the article. These are primarily the consequences of the WWII, not of Czech / Polish / Russian nationalism. 
Your tendency to present the facts as "the Germans suffered the most in WWII" is apalling. They did suffer, but at least in Czechoslovakia, 80% of them voted for the Nazi party, which lead to destruction of the state and allowed much worse attrocities of Germans in the Czech lands. See Lidice for an example. Your claims that pre-war Germans have suffered from massive discrimination in pre-war Czechoslovakia are silly aswell, because if you really checked some mainstream German sources on this matter, you would see that Czechoslovakia not only had the most advanced minority-protection laws in that time, but that also German non-nationalistic politicians participated in governments of Czechoslovakia as ministers. 
Certain groups (S. Landsmannschaft) try to compare the Benes decrees to Norimberg laws and Expulsions to Holocaust, but there was no intent to conquer the world and exterminate the Germans by means of z.B. gas chambers in the Expulsion. I condemn these efforts to present massive, state-organised, lagre-scale genocide of Jews as comparable to expulsion, which was accompanied by excesses of individuals and unofficial militia groups.  
Moreover, my previous discussion with you, on the topic of your ideas like "Bohemians=Germans" and "Czechs = late 19th century slav invaders" and Premyslid = German etc. shows, that you have no idea about what you are writing about. A completely uninformed editor surely isn't someone to edit an encyclopedia article. Please restrain from contributing until you learn some more.
85.70.5.66 12:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jadger 

message: There is a revert war going on between User:Molobo and User:213.70.74.165.  It's true that the disputed text could be OR but it is rebutting text that is also arguably OR.  What we need here is some citations of verifiable sources.
Please stop edit warring by inserting text and reverting it.  This is going nowhere.
--Richard 17:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please stop the edit war... 

message: I have removed "In his famous Iron Curtain speech of March 1946, Churchill condemned the expulsions " from the paragraph Preventing ethnic violence, because it isn't about etnic violence. If you like the quote, put it somewhere.
Xx236 12:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Churchill 

message: I have written:
"In 1945 the future of Germany was unclear, rather neutralisation than division was expected. The Polish/Czech - German border was to be the western border of the Soviet camp. Szczecin and Świnoujście were needed to control Odra river. Świnoujście was to be a Soviet navy base, 300 km more West than Hel or Gdynia."
Stalin designed the Western border of his estate. It was the only natural border West from Vistula, based on Sudeten. Would you please prove that Stalin didn't care about strategy?
Xx236 14:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strategic border 

message: After the Holocaust, mass executions of educated Poles, mass emigration, destroied educational system in Poland during WWII - the majority of Poles in annexed Lands would have been arm and uneducated, the majority of Germans rich and educated. There were two options - Germanization of millions of Poles ( impossible shortly after the war) and/or social and national tensions. 
The ideal solution would have been to construct Poland in ethnic Polish lands, with ,say, 20 000 000 000 USD help. Unfortunately noone was able to help Poland at that time. 
I believ ethat even with little help poalnd would have better results like with German lands and Communism. Noone asked the Poles, what they wanted.
Xx236 14:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social differences between the Poles and the Germans 

message: What is the "Prussian Trusteeship"? --Richard 19:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd guess this:  --Wikimol 19:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polish-German relations 

message: Current text of the article has this line in the "German-Czech" relations section...
"The Benes decrees however continued to remain in force in Czechoslovakia."
What are the Benes decrees?
--Richard 21:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Beneš decrees and Pursuit of Nazi collaborators#Czechoslovakia --Wikimol 21:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What are the "Benes" decrees? 

message: This article is getting on the long side (57kb) which is just above the article size range of 30-50kb recommended by Wikipedia:Article size.  This is not excessively long but I do have concerns about readability and whether emphasis is placed in the right areas.
I am the reason the article has grown so dramatically in the last few days.  I wanted to provide the rationale for one of the major expansions that I have made, the "Background" section, and solicit your thoughts about whether the length and level of detail is appropriate or if this section should be scaled back.
When I began editing this article, there was little or no historical background in this article.  The article just dove in and assumed that the reader was familiar with the German colonization of Eastern Europe ("Drang nach Osten"), the rise of European nationalism and the "Heim ins Reich" rhetoric of Hitler's Nazi Party.  Of course, there were links to the Ethnic German, nationalism and Adolf Hitler articles but my feeling is that the reader is not given adequate historical context to understand the core material of the article.
Of course, it is difficult to understand the reasons for the expulsions without understanding this historical context.
My questions are: Does the "Background" section do an adequate job of providing the historical background?  Is this overkill or does it help?  Should the "Background" section be trimmed further and, if so, how?
--Richard 16:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions about length of this article and the "Background" section 

message: I have made so many changes to this article in the last couple of days that it won't be immediately clear that I have made some significant and substantive changes to the content itself.
I wanted to draw attention to and provide an explanation for this particular change because I hope that others will agree and not reinsert text along these lines.
I was bothered by the distinction made between "rational" and "emotional" reasons.  To label some reasons as "rational" and others as "emotional" makes a value judgment.  "rational" implies reasonable and "emotional" suggests that these reasons were irrational, unreasonable, unfounded or exaggerated.  I don't know if that's what the original author intended but that's the impression that I read into the text that made this distinction.
I think it is inappropriate to make these kinds of moral judgments from the perspective of the Wikipedia editor.  In other words, it is not for us to say that one reason is "rational" and another is "emotional".  Now, if you can find a reliable source who makes this distinction, I suppose we can use the distinction although I really would prefer not to.
Me personally, I don't think any of the reasons are "rational" so I would prefer not to make any distinction at all.  Saying that one of the reasons was "rational" lends a legitimacy to that reason and implies that the expulsions were justified by that "rational" reason.
If you re-read the whole article as I have reorganized and rewritten it, you should be able to see an argument that the expulsions are understandable in the context of German and Polish nationalism and the pro-Nazi activities of some members of German minorities.  However, I try to stay away from any judgment that the expulsions were justified.  The article doesn't really say that the expulsions weren't justified.  
I hope I have met my goal of presenting the events and explaining why they happened while still avoiding passing moral judgment on them.
--Richard 14:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rational and emotional reasons 

message: Trains from Ukraine (including Lwów) went to Silesia rather than to Gdańsk. Are there any proves that many Lwó people settled down in Gdańsk?
Xx236 14:16, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lwów migrants 

message: Concentration camps in Communist Poland were run by Polish-Communist security police and NKVD 1944-1956. They were for Poles, Ukrainians and Germans. Many camps for Germans, some of them very harsh, existed only during several months. Morel committed many crimes, but he was a Communist officer, not a criminal persecuted by the state. His crimes were accepted by his superiors. The USA and GB allowed Soviet crimes in Poland against anyone, not only the Germans.
Xx236 14:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Probably one of the worst examples of the latter was run by Salomon Morel 

message: ...in fact, I would argue that it is far better shape now than it was before.  Of course, I would think so, I am responsible for the recent massive reorganization.  ;^)
I was wondering when people would notice the changes and what they would think.  
Personally, I think the article was a mess before my reorganization.  This was, in large part, because it tried to bring out the POV stuff as a debate.  I tried to get rid of the "debate" style of narrative.  I don't think I've fully succeeded so, to the extent that this "debate" style of writing still exists in the text, the criticism is fair and should be addressed.
However, the preferred Wikipedia style is not to present side A in its complete presentation and then side B in its complete presentation.  (The extreme form of this would be to have two separate articles, one of which is a POV fork).  The preferred Wikipedia style is to have a single integrated narrative in which multiple points of view are represented.  This is what I have tried to do.
By "debate style" of writing, I mean that there should not be a "back and forth" conversation between editors in the article itself (the "back and forth" should be on the Talk Pages").  Thus, the text should not say "A is true.  But some people say B is not true because X is true.  However, X is not true because Y is true.  Y is not true because Z is true."  This would be a debate taking place in the article text and it makes for confusing reading.
I disagree that the "Background" section has stuff that should be in the "Reasons" section.  As far as I am concerned, most of the "Background" section provides historical information that provides the context in which the decisions were made.  I agree that some of information at the end of the "Background" section could be put into "Reasons".  However, I have tried to put indisputable facts into "Background" and leave stuff that can be debated into "Reasons".  I'm assuming that no one can dispute that the Nazis laid claim to territories outside their borders, that they called Poles "less than animals" and that organizations such as "Selbstschutz" and "Werwolf" existed.
However, none of these facts constitute a "reason" for the expulsions.  The "reasons", justifiable or not, are based on reactions to the facts stated in the "Background" section.
I am happy to debate, defend or change text in response to specific criticisms.  I did, however, want you to understand the underlying philosophy for the recent reorganization.
--Richard 16:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I disagree that the article is "completely broken" or even "broken"