If we had joined Nazis and other controvercies

[Bonobo]

Feb 3, 2009 17:13:40 GMT 1 gigi said:

History repeats…
Created: 03.02.2009 16:11

The anti-fascist Nigdy wiecej (Never Again) organization has published comments made three years ago by a Polish historian, where he suggests that Poland should have been the capital of the Third Reich.

Adolf Hitler was an extraordinary politician and statesman of the 1939-1940 period, says historian Pawel Wieczorkiewicz in an interview he gave to the extreme right - wing publication Templum Novum.
In the three year old interview, Wieczorkiewicz regrets that Poland did not cooperate with the Third Reich, as both countries could have invaded the Soviet Union. The Nazis would then be able to unite Europe, with its capital in Warsaw, where Polish would be only one of three or four official languages.

I read a book by Jerzy Łojek, a known Polish historian. He claimed that Poles should have joined Nazi Germany instead of resisting them. The Polish army, armed by Germans, would help them smash Soviets in the East. The war would finish anyway in 1945 as the US developed the atomic bomb. If Germans refused to surrender, Munich and Hamburg would become certain symbols instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What effects would it have on Poland and its peoples?

6 million Poles wouldn`t die during the war.
Poland would be spared from war destruction, major cities would survive.
The liberation would come with Americans, not Soviets.

What about dishonour and shame?

Forget it. Does anybody remember today that some countries and their leaders openly and eagerly collaborated with Hitler? France, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, Finnland. And the Soviet Union in the beginning too.

Who cares about it today?

[valpomike]

I think Poland did the correct thing, what they had to do, even with it costing her much. If you ask the old timers, I think they will agree with me.

Mike

[tufta]

Feb 3, 2009 22:21:51 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Who cares about it today?

You do.

[tomek]

Poland with Germans? Imposible. Polish peoples didn`t never agree with this. Germans were enemies of Poland, they know it, and uniting two armys was imposible.

[valpomike]

What changes would there now be, if Poland joined with the Nazi Germany? Would you be better off? I know many would not be killed, and much would not be bombed, and hurt.

What do you think?

Mike

[Bonobo]

Feb 4, 2009 17:51:34 GMT 1 valpomike said:

What changes would there now be, if Poland joined with the Nazi Germany? Would you be better off? I know many would not be killed, and much would not be bombed, and hurt.
What do you think?
Mike

If the scenario went like I said in the first post, Americans, after atomically knocking Germans out of war, would have liberated the whole Europe, not just its Western part. The Marshall Plan would have been accepted by the Polish new democratic government (communists turned it down, fearing Western influence), Polish economy would develop steadily in capitalist system, without those socialist absurdities.
Today we would be as well off as Ireland or at least Spain.

And nobody would remember today that Poland fought by Nazis`side during the war.
We fought hard for the right cause and what did we get from it? Nobody, except for a few historians, knows about the Polish war effort. People even mistake Warsaw Rising 44 with the Warsaw Ghetto Rising 1943.

Feb 4, 2009 13:31:09 GMT 1 tufta said:

Feb 3, 2009 22:21:51 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Who cares about it today?

You do.

[valpomike]

I don't think this is what you do think, just stirring us up.


Mike

[tufta]

Feb 5, 2009 2:36:05 GMT 1 valpomike said:

I don't think this is what you do think, just stirring us up.


Mike

of course!


To sum up - if we woud have joined the Germans when they were nazists we would have been mass murderers, thieves, racists and barbarians.
But we didn't and now the Germans have joined us - the free, peaceful, civilized people. That's the better way.

[valpomike]

Poland should and must, all ways lead, not follow.

Mike

[justawoman]

Joining Germany would be a road to the yawning chasm.
Germany growing with Polish resources would realixe its plan to take over Britain firts of all. In the view of this new scenario American liberation of Europe is under question.

"W polskiej publicystyce historycznej pojawiają się czasem opinie, iż odrzucenie oferty Hitlera było jakoby gestem szaleńczym. Odwołujący się do realizmu politycznego autorzy tych opinii twierdzą, że należało przejść do porządku dziennego nad względami prestiżowymi i u boku Niemców wziąć udział w wyprawie na Związek Radziecki. Autorzy ci przeważnie w ogóle nie zdają sobie sprawy z tego, iż w pierwszej kolejności przymierze z Polską miało umożliwić Hitlerowi pokonanie mocarstw zachodnich. Żaden polski rząd nie był tak silny, by zmusić społeczeństwo do zaakceptowania przymierza skierowanego przeciwko Paryżowi i Londynowi. Trzeba poza tym pamiętać, że po pokonaniu Francji i zamknięciu Brytyjczyków na ich Wyspach rozbicie Związku Radzieckiego leżało w kręgu realnych możliwości. Druga wojna światowa mogła zakończyć się zupełnie inaczej, a wówczas Polska – z dywizjami wykrwawionymi na froncie wschodnim – zdana byłaby całkowicie na łaskę i niełaskę nazistowskiego dyktatora opętanego rasistowskim szaleństwem. Wydarzenia lat 1943–1944 pokazały, jak bezwzględnie hitlerowska Rzesza traktowała swych sojuszników. Przyjęcie oferty niemieckiej oznaczałoby dla narodu polskiego marsz w przepaść.
A reasonable article : www.polityka.pl/orzel-z-szakala/Lead30,1139,280013,18/

I've read it in Russian

[Bonobo]

Feb 5, 2009 17:00:49 GMT 1 justawoman said:

Joining Germany would be a road to the yawning chasm.
Germany growing with Polish resources would realixe its plan to take over Britain firts of all. In the view of this new scenario American liberation of Europe is under question.

Of course, each debate which deals with what if is purely academic and verges on wishful thinking.
It is true that the Polish government would have had immense problems trying to persuade Poles into an alliance with Germans. In public opinion the latter were seen as enemies greater than Soviets.
Besides, nobody had even expected what future war would look like. I don`t mean Blitzkrieg and warfare in general, but the treatment of civilians, Jews, Eastern nations, all Ubermenschen by Germans and class enemies by Soviets as well as total destruction of cities and countries.
However, I suppose that if the Polish government had known about it beforehand, they would have thought twice about their choices.......

A reasonable article : www.polityka.pl/orzel-z-szakala/Lead30,1139,280013,18/

I've read it in Russian

Hmm, I am not so sure if the German-Polish attack on Western Europe would have taken place as first. Remember that on 3 September Britain and France declared war on Germany after Poland had been attacked.
Having had Poles as allies, there was no reason for Germans to deal with Westerners as first. The Soviet Union was a better goal - its recources might have been used to continue war in the West.
Besides, the East was the direction that Poles would have advised Hitler to choose, and, as a new partner, they would have been heard. The combined German-Polish armies would have attacked the Soviet Union as first.

A reasonable article : www.polityka.pl/orzel-z-szakala/Lead30,1139,280013,18/

I've read it in Russian

Let`s not forget it is just one of opinions marked by what if.... ;D ;D ;D ;D And it has serious flaws too, though in the quoted fragment the author states that defeating the USSR by combined German-Polish armies was possible (did you miss it??? ;D ;D).
Yet, there is nothing about Americans, as if Europe had been left on its own and Americans hadn`t participated in the war.

Naturally, they had. And they had powerful weapon in 1945. Germans wouldn`t have had time to fulfill their mad racist dreams in Poland, their cities would have turned into nuclear ash, on a much more efficient scale than allied conventional carpet bombing could produce.

If the history could be repeated, what should the Polish government have done anew?
1. Accept the alliance with Hitler, give him a free hand in Gdansk, close an eye to the highway across the Polish territory to Northern Prussia.
2. Convince the Polish nation that the alliance is a necessary sacrifice to save Poland.
3. Convince Hitler that the Soviet Union posed much bigger threat than Western powers.
4. Send a powerful, brave army, equipped by Germans with modern armament, to fight in the Soviet Union to crush Stalin and communism.
5. Delay Hitler`s plans to attack Western Europe as long as possible.
6. Finally, wait for the atomic strikes on German cities and happily surrender to Americans.

Gains:
1. Not 6 million dead in Poland but much fewer, mainly in the Eastern front.
2. Poland isn`t destroyed in 38%. Warsaw and major cities remain untouched.
3. Communism isn`t installed in Poland.

Possible drawbacks of the theory.
1. Poles are forced to participate in the extermination of Polish Jews.
2. Germans develop their own atomic bomb and threaten the West with it. Americans are helpless, the war goes on for decades.
3. As a Nazi ally, we are deprived of our Eastern lands (today`s Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania) but are not granted new territiories in the West at the cost of defeated Germany. No Wrocław, Szczecin, and many other cities for Poland.

[Bonobo]

Feb 5, 2009 13:46:03 GMT 1 tufta said:

Feb 5, 2009 2:36:05 GMT 1 valpomike said:

I don't think this is what you do think, just stirring us up.
Mike

of course!

To sum up - if we woud have joined the Germans when they were nazists we would have been mass murderers, thieves, racists and barbarians.
But we didn't and now the Germans have joined us - the free, peaceful, civilized people. That's the better way.

Not necessarily. Poles have always been moderate. They would have imposed some element of common sense into German madness. Germans would have had to deal with Poles in velvet gloves, having a big Polish army by their side.
Don`t forget about 6 million Poles massacred during the war and the razed Warsaw.

[valpomike]

The Polish people could not have done, what the Germans did. Kill so many without reason. Burn things down, and in-prison so many.

Mike

[justawoman]

Of course, each debate which deals with what if is purely academic and verges on wishful thinking.
It is true that the Polish government would have had immense problems trying to persuade Poles into an alliance with Germans. In public opinion the latter were seen as enemies greater than Soviets.
Besides, nobody had even expected what future war would look like. I don`t mean Blitzkrieg and warfare in general, but the treatment of civilians, Jews, Eastern nations, all Ubermenschen by Germans and class enemies by Soviets as well as total destruction of cities and countries.
However, I suppose that if the Polish government had known about it beforehand, they would have thought twice about their choices.......

I belive "if the Polish government had known" they would also have an option:

1- to persuade Poles to join Germans reviving the idea of Great Poland from the sea to the sea and fight against communism
2- to become a conscious supporter of creation of Easter Military Security Block with the USSR as an equal partner.

In case of the first option Poland would come through the civil war inside the nation. A part of it would never agree being a Nazi accessory, they would start resistance. Another part would assist Nazi to send their compatriots to the concentrated camps. Considering anti-Slavic and anti-Polish feelings of Hitler Poland would come through severe repressionsregardless cooperation. It would help Hitler to save the Nordic soldiers not sending them to the Eastern front. Poles would consist a significant part of German losses of the Eastern front.

The second option probably would not save Poland from the communist experience but this does not mean that USSR would inevitably occupy Poland ( in this case there would not be the blessing of Britain and USA as it was in Yalta) Viewing a strong coalition Hitler would probably not start the war, because there would be the balance of forces. Most probable it would be a Cold war for some time between two blocks.

[justawoman]

Hmm, I am not so sure if the German-Polish attack on Western Europe would have taken place as first. Remember that on 3 September Britain and France declared war on Germany after Poland had been attacked.
Having had Poles as allies, there was no reason for Germans to deal with Westerners as first. The Soviet Union was a better goal - its recources might have been used to continue war in the West.
Besides, the East was the direction that Poles would have advised Hitler to choose, and, as a new partner, they would have been heard. The combined German-Polish armies would have attacked the Soviet Union as first.

In case Poland became Nazi's Ally voluntary it would fall in confrontation with Britain and France.
Those two had also the options ( at least two of them)
1. To make a military block with the USSR
2. To become the Allies of Nazi Germany.

In the first case they would proclaim the war against Hitler after the attack on the USSR. The end would be possibly the same with more losses ( including Polish soldiers losses on the Eastern front)
and the later division of Poland between the victorians.
In the second case the France would be inevitably gulped as well as the other parts of Europe ,Europe would be cleansed of liberal minded people.
Check this:
"...the important point here is that, with Russia eliminated, Britain would have had no hope. That was also true in 1914. It was still true in the late 1930s, this despite some ill-considered speculation in Britain’s government and press about how wonderful it would be if Hitler went East, in the end the British (and French) were sane enough not to encourage him to do so. He would probably have won, and the position of France and Britain would have become untenable, even without an invasion. "
www.johnreilly.info/churchitler.htm

[justawoman]

Let`s not forget it is just one of opinions marked by what if.... ;D ;D ;D ;D And it has serious flaws too, though in the quoted fragment the author states that defeating the USSR by combined German-Polish armies was possible (did you miss it??? ;D ;D).
Yet, there is nothing about Americans, as if Europe had been left on its own and Americans hadn`t participated in the war.Naturally, they had. And they had powerful weapon in 1945. Germans wouldn`t have had time to fulfill their mad racist dreams in Poland, their cities would have turned into nuclear ash, on a much more efficient scale than allied conventional carpet bombing could produce.

I do not miss the fact that USSR could be defeated. In this case Britain and USA had no chances to win over since the military block of continental Europe and naval Japan would grab all the colonies they dreamt about, capturing the most of the world resources.

USA would have to start the war after Pearl Harbour but it does not mean that Americans would be ready to sacrify on the European continent. It is probably that they would try to reach some balance of forces . That would not provide them with any possibilities to develop into a super power without cooperation with neutral at that time Latin-American countries and Canada. But this would be another history and another World

P.S.

If the history could be repeated, what should the Polish government have done anew?
1. Accept the alliance with Hitler, give him a free hand in Gdansk, close an eye to the highway across the Polish territory to Northern Prussia.
2. Convince the Polish nation that the alliance is a necessary sacrifice to save Poland.
3. Convince Hitler that the Soviet Union posed much bigger threat than Western powers.
4. Send a powerful, brave army, equipped by Germans with modern armament, to fight in the Soviet Union to crush Stalin and communism.
5. Delay Hitler`s plans to attack Western Europe as long as possible.
6. Finally, wait for the atomic strikes on German cities and happily surrender to Americans.

I think it is a conceit to think that Polish leaders would have any influence on Hitler's mind and his policy. Poles advisors to Hitler? Impossible

[valpomike]

You are 100% per cent correct.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Feb 6, 2009 17:14:01 GMT 1 justawoman said:

I think it is a conceit to think that Polish leaders would have any influence on Hitler's mind and his policy. Poles advisors to Hitler? Impossible

Countries`and their leaders` importance is usually measured by the military power they possess. The bigger and more efficient army Poles would have created, the more equal the Polish German partnership would be.

Feb 6, 2009 16:01:56 GMT 1 justawoman said:

I belive "if the Polish government had known" they would also have an option:

1- to persuade Poles to join Germans reviving the idea of Great Poland from the sea to the sea and fight against communism
2- to become a conscious supporter of creation of Easter Military Security Block with the USSR as an equal partner.

In case of the first option Poland would come through the civil war inside the nation. A part of it would never agree being a Nazi accessory, they would start resistance. Another part would assist Nazi to send their compatriots to the concentrated camps. Considering anti-Slavic and anti-Polish feelings of Hitler Poland would come through severe repressionsregardless cooperation. It would help Hitler to save the Nordic soldiers not sending them to the Eastern front. Poles would consist a significant part of German losses of the Eastern front.

The second option probably would not save Poland from the communist experience but this does not mean that USSR would inevitably occupy Poland ( in this case there would not be the blessing of Britain and USA as it was in Yalta) Viewing a strong coalition Hitler would probably not start the war, because there would be the balance of forces. Most probable it would be a Cold war for some time between two blocks.

It means there was no choice, really, but to fight and die honourably.

Feb 6, 2009 17:23:40 GMT 1 valpomike said:

You are 100% per cent correct.

Mike

;D

[justawoman]

Feb 6, 2009 17:23:40 GMT 1 valpomike said:

You are 100% per cent correct.

Mike

I am content with 90%

Elena

[Bonobo]

Feb 6, 2009 23:10:47 GMT 1 justawoman said:

Feb 6, 2009 17:23:40 GMT 1 valpomike said:

You are 100% per cent correct.

Mike

I am content with 90%

Elena

Watch out. Mike is a known распутник. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D He may break your heart. You won`t even notice when you fall for him.

[justawoman]

Countries`and their leaders` importance is usually measured by the military power they possess. The bigger and more efficient army Poles would have created, the more equal the Polish German partnership would be.

The fact is that Hitler was flirting with Poland like a cat with a mice. True, he would appreciate the Army that Poland would be ready to move against the Soviet Army and Bolshevism . It would be a lavish present to the European dictator that could save the German Army.
However cooperation of Poles would not change Hitler's colonial policy regarding East of Europe, it would not change his racial views on Poles. Polish lands would be freed for representatives of Nordic race.
From the notes of Borman there was, for example the phrase:
"For Poles there should be only one master - a German. Two masters should not and could not exist, That is why all representatives of Polish elite should be exterminated. It sounds cruel but this is how a vital law works."

It means there was no choice, really, but to fight and die honourably.

I remember we have discussed this topic once and I wrote to you that POland was doomed.

[justawoman]

Feb 6, 2009 23:20:42 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Feb 6, 2009 23:10:47 GMT 1 justawoman said:

I am content with 90%

Elena

Watch out. Mike is a known распутник. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D He may break your heart. You won`t even notice when you fall for him.

Really? Great !

[valpomike]

Yes, I do like you, most all, the way you think.

Mike

[Bonobo]

OK, we have settled one controvercy. There was no choice for Poland in 1939 but to fight , though the defeat was obvious.

Now, here is a handful of new/old controvercies which I once posted in the old Polish forum. They are still there but I prefer to keep them here too, unfortunately without members` comments.
jagahost.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=2275&page=1

Why not start a thread about controvercial issues in Polish history and present.....

Controversy 1
""52,2 proc. Polaków uważa dawne Kresy Wschodnie z Wilnem i Lwowem za nadal polskie ziemie – wynika z badań Pentora przeprowadzonych na zlecenie "Wprost". 57,9 proc. żałuje, że Wilno i Lwów nie należą już do Polski - informuje serwis wprost.pl.
Bardzo podobne badania kilka tygodni temu przeprowadził w Niemczech instytut TNS na zlecenie tygodnika "Der Spiegel". Okazało się, że 24 proc. Niemców uważa Śląsk i Prusy Wschodnie (Warmię i Mazury) nadal za ziemie niemieckie. 40 proc. Niemców żałuje, że te tereny należą obecnie do Polski i Rosji."""

57.9% Poles regret that Eastern lands with Vilnius and Lvov, now belonging to Lithuania and Ukraine, are not Polish anymore. 52.2% believes those lands can still be treated as Polish. The survey was made by influential Wprost magazine.

This is a rally surprising survey. I thought Poles have dropped those stupid sentiments long ago. I never heard any of my acqaintances mention those lands. I remember in my youth under communist regime how we used to sing silly impudent songs: Jedna bombka atomowa i wrócimy znów do Lwowa. (One atomic bomb and we will return to Lvov). But that was young boys fooling around. I was sure nobody treated it too seriously.
It seems I was mistaken or there was some mistake in the survey.
If not, it means we have a longer way to go than Germans, 40% of whom regret their old lands are now Polish, and 24% consider these lands to be still German.



This map shows the lands which can be considered originally Polish. Everything what Poles acquired in the East after 10th century was taken at the advantage of Rus people, today Ukrainians.
Today Poland looks more or less like those old lands. And Poles shouldn`t complain.

Of course, nobody thinks of any reconquest. The lands that Poles once treated as theirs belong to other states legally and already historically and only some new war could change it. It is highly impossible.
The survey showed something else. That Poles still feel nostalgic for those Eastern lands. Too nostalgic, according to the survey. Polish nostalgia must be very unnerving to Ukrainians or Lithuanians, just like German nostalgia for once German lands belonging to Poland now annoys Poles so much.
The lands will never be Polish again. In fact, they were never Polish to the end. Poles didn`t contribute into their development in the same extent as Germans contributed into the development of Western Poland. To be honest, Poles did nothing valuable there. Their only "contribution" was the preservation of anachronic rule of local lords over peasants and it was the tsar who eventually had to free the latter.
Even the city of Lvov flourished because of its active Armenian residents.
The sooner Poles forget the lands, the better.

[Bonobo]

Controversy 2

Can you enlighten me, are there many nations in the world who send children to battles and when they die, honour them?
Poland has a dubious tradition of children warriors. It started in 1920s when Poles and Ukrainians fought for Lvov, trying to make it an ethnically clean Polish or Ukrainian city. The so called Orlęta Lwowskie, Lvov Eaglets, were children, students of secondary schools. They created self-defence militia and successfully defended their city.
[img src="http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Kossak_W/Images/Orleta.jpg"]

Many were buried in the famous Lychakowski Cemetary.

When I was in high school, we used to sing patriotic songs, banned by communists, about them:

"O mamo otrzyj oczy, z uśmiechem do mnie mów
Ta krew co z piersi broczy, to za nasz polski Lwów
Ja biłem się tak samo jak starsi - mamo chwal
I tylko mi Ciebie mamo i tylko mi Polski żal..."

""Oh mother, open your eyes, look at me with a smile,
This blood flowing from my chest is for our Polish Lvov.
I was fighting like adults, mother, praise me for this,
I regret nothing but you and Poland""

""Oh mother, open your eyes, look at me with a smile,
This blood flowing from my chest is for our Polish Lvov.
I was fighting like adults, mother, praise me for this,
I regret nothing but you and Poland""

Or what about children fighters in Warsaw Uprising?
12 year old Tadek was killed in action.





There are monuments in Warsaw. One presents a baby insurgent whose combat helmet as as big as himself.


Did those children have to fight and die? Wasn`t there enough adult male fighters in Poland?

The tradition od children warriors is honoured even today.
[/i]


The problem with Polish children combatants is different. They weren`t pressed into the service. You can see smiling faces in those pictures. Those boys and sometimes girls were happy to fight for their country.

The problem is that nobody told them to drop the gun and go home, to parents. They were accepted by adults as fighters equal to adults. In Warsaw Uprising 12 year old boys became non-comissioned officers.
Is it simply stupidity or a crime to close an eye to children fighting?

Corporal Witold Modelski „Warszawiak” - born on 11 November 1932 so he was only 12 in 1944. For his outstanding courage he was awarded The Medal of Honour. He is killled in action on 20 September 1944 roku, defending one of the last stands -a house at 1 Wilanowska street


His grave


To see more photos click Children on this site.
www.warsawuprising.com/photos.htm

Apart from photos, there are multiple reports, documents and diaries from the time.

I know that teenagers were servicemen during WW II on both sides, but what reasonable adult would allow a CHILD to enter a combat zone?

That`s what happened and that`s why I put it in the thread Polish controvercies.


I don`t like throwing books away. Even the most boring and silly ones will always find their place on my shelves.

I have an old textbook for Polish classes in primary school. It was reprinted in 1975. I didn`t use it at school because we had newer publications. But I always liked reading it at home. Apart from a few openly socialist texts and poems (About Lenin, of course), the rest of the book was "neutral." I loved some of these texts, I used to read them very often.

One of them was "Giant" about a boy who fought in the Warsaw Uprising. Let me translate some passages:

""Those who lived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation surely remember this tall building on the corner of Independence Avenue and Odyńca Street. It was very popular, especially well- known among residents of Mokotów district during the Uprising. The house was chosen by a group of young insurgents for their defence post.
Several times during the day the tanks crept with a rattle towards the tall building, chipped the walls with shells and were pushed back by the boys who had just learnt how to use their arms. The tiny group of insurgents had Molotov cocktails, machine pistols and grenades as their only weapon against tanks. Tanks, artillery, rocket launchers and Stuka bombers.

Defenceless against machine fire, helpless under the hail of bombs dropped from planes - the insurgents held their post with stubborn perseverance, having their machine pistols and Molotov cocktails.

In the group there was a 14 year old boy. I don`t know his name. I don`t even know if he survived. They called him "Giant". You should know that he was short, skinny and had a high-pitched voice of a child.""

I am writing about this to show that even cummunist rule didn`t change certain Polish concepts on children in war. It seems that Poles for a long time during 20th century considered children warriors as something patriotic and normal. The motherland in need required sacrifices, even from children.

I was brought up in the same romantic atmosphere, I was infected with those concepts too. It took me a lot of time to reason it out with myself but some traces of the infection still remain in me, I am afraid.

The illustration from the book.
[/quote]


My final opinion on Rising.
The Warsaw Rising is just another rebellion which Poles started happily without thinking of consequences. The former rebellions ended with failures and oppression which were still bearable.
The Warsaw Rising ended with the traumatic slaughter.
It deeply influenced Poles` perception and way of thinking after the war.
So, it wasn`t only communists who persuaded people about the nonsense of such acts. It was pure survival instinct.
Even the Church, in breaking moments, advised caution and prevented people from heroism, because the result could be only slaughter again. It happened in 1981, after the martial law was declared and many people were angry at the bishops because they practically ordered people to obey the regime.
The wisdom of such action surfaced only a few years later.
I come from the intelligentsia family. It was imbued in my mind that the primary aim of a nation is to save its life substance first, then to avoid the massacre of the most valuable people who lead the nation. Avoid throwing pearls to swine, even if it is connected with certain dishonour.
There were still many great men who survived 5 years` occupation in Warsaw. In 1944 they were sent to fight tanks.
Yes, during the Rising, poets and students were fighting against German criminals - thieves, poachers, murderers.
After the Warsaw lesson Poles fought their battle against communism without heroic deeds. Yes, there were a few when people got killled by communist police or army but the individual victims only gave fuel to more resistance. Overall, there was a peaceful resistance, the civil disobedience like in India, for which I admire Poles so much.

[locopolaco]

yes, not enough adults during the warsaw uprising.

this is definitely not unique to poland. when people are under siege and kids witness the bloodshed, they step up to fight the enemy. look at palestine.. same thing goes on there.

[Bonobo]

Feb 22, 2009 4:56:20 GMT 1 locopolaco said:

yes, not enough adults during the warsaw uprising.

this is definitely not unique to poland. when people are under siege and kids witness the bloodshed, they step up to fight the enemy. look at palestine.. same thing goes on there.

Very good point.

[locopolaco]

Feb 22, 2009 8:48:26 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Feb 22, 2009 4:56:20 GMT 1 locopolaco said:

yes, not enough adults during the warsaw uprising.

this is definitely not unique to poland. when people are under siege and kids witness the bloodshed, they step up to fight the enemy. look at palestine.. same thing goes on there.

Very good point.

i think kids also fought to free Paris and possibly other western european places.

the other instances of modern warfare using children was Iran/Iraq war and the wars in South Africa. (look into Lord Baden Powell)

i think before that, adult-child was defined a bit differently... young adults were basically adults and i think that distinction was somewhere around mid teens.. 14-15 years old perhaps.

[Bonobo]

The author of this article is a minor American publisher yet I suppose his views have been shared by a greater number of people in Britain.


The Greatest Blunder in British History
Written by Laurence M. Vance
thenewamerican. com
Monday, 30 March 2009

It was 70 years ago on March 31 when Great Britain committed the fatal blunder that led to World War II: issuing a war guarantee to Poland. This was the war, as Pat Buchanan says in his recent book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, that "led to the slaughter of the Jews and tens of millions of Christians, the devastation of Europe, Stalinization of half the continent, the fall of China to Maoist madness, and half a century of Cold War." Buchanan's book is essential for understanding why World War II was so unnecessary.

Poland was a creature of the Versailles Treaty. After being partitioned several times in history by Prussia, Russia, and Austria, Poland was reconstituted after World War I at the expense of a defeated Germany. But as Buchanan says: "Versailles had created not only an unjust but an unsustainable peace." To give Poland a port on the Baltic, the city of Danzig, which was 95-percent German and had never belonged to Poland, was detached from Germany and made a Free City administered by the League of Nations. A "Polish Corridor" connected Poland to the Baltic and severed East Prussia from Germany.

The regime in Poland, according to contemporary British historian Niall Ferguson, was "every bit as undemocratic and anti-Semitic as that of Germany." Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the dictator in Poland who had come to power in a coup, considered making a preemptive strike against Germany before signing a 10-year nonaggression pact with Hitler in 1934. Poland had joined in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement, seizing the coal-rich region of Teschen. Hitler's offer to Polish foreign minister Jozef Beck — a man known for his duplicity, dishonesty, and depravity — to guarantee Poland's borders and accept Polish control of the Corridor in exchange for the return of Danzig and the construction of German roads across the Corridor was rebuffed.

Britain did not object to Danzig being returned to Germany, knowing that a plebiscite would result in an overwhelming vote in favor of return. Lord Halifax, the British foreign secretary, deemed Danzig and the Polish Corridor to be "an absurdity." Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland, not war. He issued a directive to his army commander in chief: "The Fuehrer does not wish to solve the Danzig question by force. He does not wish to drive Poland into the arms of Britain by this."

But then, after false alarms about an imminent German attack on Poland, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain addressed the British House of Commons:

I now have to inform the House that ... in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to that effect.

It was March 31, 1939. Germany terminated its nonaggression pact with Poland on April 24, and Poland would cash this "blank check" on September 1, when Hitler invaded Poland. Chamberlain had repeated the blunder made by Kaiser Wilhelm on the eve of World War I.

Former prime minister Lloyd George considered the war guarantee "a frightful gamble" and "sheer madness." The British army general staff "ought to be confined to a lunatic asylum" if they approved this, said Lloyd George. Former First Lord of the Admiralty Cooper recorded in his diary: "Never before in our history have we left in the hands of one of the smaller powers the decision whether or not Britain goes to war." It was "the maddest single action this country has ever taken," said a member of Parliament. Newspaper military correspondent Liddell Hart wrote that the Polish guarantee "placed Britain's destiny in the hands of Polish rulers, men of very dubious and unstable judgment." Only the warmonger Churchill seemed to think the war guarantee was a good idea, foolishly asserting: "The preservation and integrity of Poland must be regarded as a cause commanding the regard of all the world." Buchanan simply calls it "the greatest blunder in British history."

Buchanan refers to modern British historians Roy Denman, Paul Johnson, and Peter Clarke about the folly of the Polish war guarantee:

The most reckless undertaking ever given by a British government. It placed the decision on peace or war in Europe in the hands of a reckless, intransigent, swashbuckling military dictatorship.

The power to invoke it was placed in the hands of the Polish government, not a repository of good sense. Therein lay the foolishness of the pledge: Britain had no means of bringing effective aid to Poland yet it obliged Britain itself to declare war on Germany if Poland so requested.

If Czechoslovakia was a faraway country, Poland was further; if Bohemia could not be defended by British troops, no more could Danzig; if the democratic Czech Republic had its flaws, the Polish regime was far more suspect.

Britain could not save Poland any more than it could have saved Czechoslovakia. As Buchanan wrote elsewhere:

Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe. The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism.

Neither Britain nor France had the power to save any nation of Eastern Europe. Yet, Britain was willing to go to war rather than allow Germany to dominate Europe economically, unaffected by a British blockade.

It is the Polish war guarantee for which Neville Chamberlain should be forever judged harshly, not the Munich Agreement for which he is often castigated. (The Munich Agreement essentially ceded to Hitler large sections of Czeckoslovakia in order to reduce the possibility of a European War. This has often been referred to as Chamberlain' s "appeasement" of Hitler. Many believe this agreement gave Hitler the resolve to invade Poland, setting off WWII.) It is March 31 that ought to be a day that will live in infamy. The bloodiest conflict in human history was neither good nor necessary.

[tomek]

Apr 4, 2009 20:57:15 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe. The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism.

Man written this is a layar. Tis is all boollshit. Britian lose theirs empire, France lose their empire bikoz they hadn not helped Poland in 1939. Poland was battling against Germabns, everything Germans had they transported to Poland for fight, they had nothing good troops in west! When Britain and France attack energetical in west, Germany is lost war bikoz no possible transporting German army to west in quick time.
Britain and France lost war and empire on their wish. Funny war it is called. Or sitting war they were runing in 1939.
And good! Empires are bad!