I have no doubt about it, however choose any epoch of history and some will argue one thing and in another era some will have a counter arguement or claim over territory - one can point to several cities in the region that have been hotly contested over throughout history, and still are.Peter K wrote:Before the 20th century, Germans generally had no problems with acknowledging the Polish past of Silesia. For example:4thskorpion wrote:territorial rights (or counter-claims) are the subject of propagandists from all sides
Johann Gottlieb Schummel (1748-1813), in his "Schummels Reise durch Schlesien im Julius und August 1791" (published in 1792), wrote: "Let's not start a court trial for Silesia with the Poles. We will lose it in the Tribunal of History, both in the first instance and in higher instance."
But back to the subject of the thread, is it right for this particular monument to a Soviet general who was part of the Red Army that pushed the German occupiers out of the former Polish territories be removed in a purely political act with all the fanfare that such an act entails. Its removal on the "17 September" in such a public manner was designed to provoke a reaction from Russia. The aggrieved townsfolk could have taken it down at any time since the collapse of the Polish communist regime years ago but it chose not to do so. There seems to be no recognition that without the Red Army blood sacrifice "Poland" would have remained occupied by the Germans, probably forever and a day, despite claims of having the largest underground army in occupied Europe it remained ineffectual in removing the German's during 5 years of occupation. Indeed one occupier was replaced with another over which Poles had little choice but the anti-communist restistance was also ineffective in removing the new occupiers. Anders and the exile Polish government in London were living in hope of a Third World War between the US and its allies and the USSR in the vain belief that this war would rescue Poland from the Soviet's but this was never going to happen.