Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#61

Post by GregSingh » 24 Dec 2015, 06:35

michael mills wrote:Thorn was an ethnically German city, where being linguistically German was a requirement for citizenship. Since the family of Copernicus were citizens, we know that he was ethnically German and German was his native language.
Only requirement for citizenship in the time of Copernikus in Thorn was paying local taxes, not being linguistically German. That was the whole idea behind an autonomous state of Royal Prussia. Lower taxes caused enormous migration of skilled people to the area, Copernicus father was one of them.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#62

Post by Gorque » 24 Dec 2015, 06:53

I agree Michael, Copernicus was of mixed heritage, but he had more of a German upbringing.

I tend to think of Copernicus as having a Baltic heritage, much like myself. :) My mother was born and raised in a German enclave near Jurbarkus (Georgenburg), while my father and I were born in Bad Schwartau, that's just west of Lübeck. I seem to recall that Copernicus regarded himself in a similar fashion, neither Polish nor German, but as being from the Baltic region.


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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#63

Post by Jan-Hendrik » 24 Dec 2015, 13:20

White Russians, and Ukrainians were subjected to policies of annihilation from the moment German troops crossed the Soviet boundaries in 1941.
When, where?

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#64

Post by sarahgoodson » 25 Dec 2015, 03:38

Jan-Hendrik wrote:When, where?

Jan-Hendrik
The sources given for the claim is:

25. On White Russia see Bernard Chiari, "Deutsche Zivilverwaltung in Weissrussland, 1941-1944: Die lokale Perspektived er Besatzungsgeschichte,"M ilitdrgeschichtliMchiett eilungen 52, no. 1 (1993): 67-89; on Russia and Ukraine: Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia 1941-1945 (New York, 1980); Gerald Reitlinger, The House Built on Sand: The Conflictso f GermanP olicyi n Russia 1939-1945 (London, 1960); Ihor Kamenetsky,H itler'sO ccupationof Ukraine(1 941-1944): A Studyo f TotalitariaInm perialis(mM ilwaukee,1 956);J ohn A. Armstrong, UkrainianN ationalism,1 939-1945 (New York, 1955); Ryszard Torzecki, Kwestiau krainska w polityce III Rzeszy (1933-1945) (Warsaw, 1972). Valuable specialized studies include Theo J. Schulte, The GermanA rmy and Nazi Politicsi n OccupiedR ussia (New York, 1989); Timothy PatrickM ulligan, The Politicso f Illusiona nd Empire:G ermanO ccupationP olicyi n the Soviet Union, 1942-1943 (New York, Westport, London, 1988). For a summary of re? search and extensive bibliography see Rolf-Dieter Miiller and Gerd R. Ueberschar, Hitler's War in the East 1941-1945: A CriticalA ssessment( Providence, Oxford, 1997).

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#65

Post by michael mills » 25 Dec 2015, 10:25

Only requirement for citizenship in the time of Copernikus in Thorn was paying local taxes, not being linguistically German.



I derived my information from this book:


"The Other Prussia : Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569-1772", by Karin Friedrich ( Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Friedrich states that until 1570, the ability to speak German was a requirement for citizenship of the Royal Prussian cities. In that year, that requirement was rescinded, subsequent to the full integration of Royal Prussia into the Kingdom of Poland in 1569 in the context of the Union of Lublin.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#66

Post by michael mills » 25 Dec 2015, 10:36

White Russians, and Ukrainians were subjected to policies of annihilation from the moment German troops crossed the Soviet boundaries in 1941.
Most certainly not because of their ethnicity. In cases where White Russians and Ukrainians were killed by German forces, it was for political reasons, e.g. in the context of anti-partisan warfare where villagers were suspected of aiding partisans. If they had not offended the Germans in some way, they were not killed.

One need only look at Report 51 from Himmler to Hitler, detailing the results of anti-parians warfare (Bandenbekaempfung) in Bialystok, Ukraine and South Russia in the period August-November 1942. That report records some 360,000 Jews killed as "bandit helpers", while the numbers of non-Jews killed for that reason were far smaller. In other words, Jews were automatically assumed to be "bandit helpers", whereas non-Jews were not, and were only killed if there was good reason to suspect them.

Here is a link to a facsimile of the first page of Report 51, giving the statistics of the number of "Bandenhelfer" (= bandit accomplices) executed:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... report.jpg

As is seen, 363,211 Jews were executed as "Bandenhelfer", but only 14,257 non-Jews, despite the fact that the non-Jewish population of the area covered by the report was vastly greater than the Jewish. That shows that Ukrainians and White Russians were not killed as such, unlike Jews, but only if they were suspected of engaging in opposition to the German occupation.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#67

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 25 Dec 2015, 12:41

As for Royal Prussia (later - with slightly modified boundaries - renamed West Prussia):

German author Dr. Georg Hassel in his book titled "Statistischer Umriß der sämmtlichen europäischen und der vornehmsten außereuropäischen Staaten, in Hinsicht ihrer Entwickelung, Größe, Volksmenge, Finanz- und Militärverfassung, tabellarisch dargestellt", Erster Heft, "Welcher die beiden großen Mächte Österreich und Preußen und den Deutschen Staatenbund darstellt", published in Weimar in 1823, on page 42, described the ethnic structure (Nationalverschiedenheit) of West Prussia in year 1819 as follows:

Polen -------- 327,300 (52%)
Deutsche ---- 290,000 (46%)
Juden -------- 12,700 (2%)

Total pop. --- 630,077 (100%)


Fragment of original text from Hassel's book below (click to enlarge):
West Prussia.png
That was the total population in 1819 - while in 1817 the total was 581,971 - of whom 167,059 lived in 56 Städte (including also very small Städte numbering fewer than 1000 inhabitants). Below I will quote data on population and urban population in 1817 Prussia.*

Another German book by Karl Andree, titled "Polen: in geographischer, geschichtlicher und culturhistorischer Hinsicht", published in year 1831 in Leipzig, quotes ethnic figures previously given for West Prussia by a Polish author Stanislav Plater in his 1825 book:

Polen -------- 350,000 (50%)
Deutsche ---- 330,000* (47%)
Juden -------- 20,000 (3%)

Total pop. --- 700,000 (100%)

*Including 10,000 Mennoniten.


As we can see, according to German author Georg Hassel, West Prussia was 52% Polish, while according to Polish author Stanislav Plater - as well as German author Karl Andree who relied on Plater's data - it was 50% Polish.

Of course these figures refer to the last decade of the 1st quarter of the 19th century. At that time % of Germans among the inhabitants of West Prussia was already higher than immediately after the Partitions of Poland.

=====================================

*As promised above - entire Kingdom of Prussia counted 10,536,571 people in the census of 1817, including:

Provinz Schlesien ------------ 1,992,598
Großherzogtum Posen -------- 847,800
Provinz Westpreußen --------- 581,971
Provinz Ostpreußen ----------- 919,580
Provinz Pommern ------------- 700,756
Provinz Brandenburg --------- 1,297,795
Provinz Sachsen -------------- 1,214,219
Provinz Westfalen ------------ 1,074,079
Provinz Jülich-Kleve-Berg ---- 935,049
Großherzogtum Niederrhein -- 972,724

And urban population (including also very small Städte with fewer than 1000 inhabitants each) in 1817 was:

Provinz Schlesien ------------- 399,846 in 139 Städte
Großherzogtum Posen -------- 240,685 in 149 Städte
Provinz Westpreußen --------- 167,059 in 56 Städte
Provinz Ostpreußen ----------- 211,230 in 67 Städte
Provinz Pommern ------------- 201,856 in 72 Städte
Provinz Brandenburg --------- 533,595 in 141 Städte
Provinz Sachsen -------------- 416,101 in 141 Städte
Provinz Westfalen ------------ 259,732 in 128 Städte
Provinz Jülich-Kleve-Berg ---- 276,099 in 66 Städte
Großherzogtum Niederrhein -- 189,615 in 65 Städte

TOTAL ------------------------ 2,895,818 in 1024 Städte
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#68

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 25 Dec 2015, 13:31

sarahgoodson wrote:
Gorque wrote:Hi Sarah Goodson:

Thanks for the time and effort regarding the prior two posts. From what you posted, German policy towards the Slavs was, to coin a word, a "Mischlingsstrategie". :)
No problem.

The Nazis also often tried to claim some famous people of Slavic nationality (e.g Polish, Czech, etc). Just like the man in your avatar, Copernicus, they dismissed any reference of him as a Pole and referred to him as a German. (Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards, p.279) In the same book just mentioned, Burleigh also speaks about how the Nazis also dismissed any reference to the Kashubians and Sorbs as Slavic and argued they were really just ethnic Germans speaking a Slavic language.
When it comes to Kashubians - as you can read for example in that 1823 German book by Dr. Georg Hassel, quoted in my previous post, all Kashubians living in West Prussia were considered to be Poles at that time. A German-made ethnic map from 1847 also shows Kashubians - and even Slovincians from Provinz Pommern - as part of ethnic "Polen / Lechen / Polacken". In fact the very first German reference to West Prussian Kashubians as a separate group - distinct from Poles - is from year 1861, and the very first explicit reference to them as "Kashubians" in an official German document is from year 1890 (before that, the name "Kashubians" was applied - interchangeably with other names such as "Wends", "Pomeranians" or "Slovincians" - only to Slavs living in Provinz Pommern - but not to any of those from West Prussia).

That division, implemented by the Germans in West Prussia only during the last decades of the 19th century, was just an artificial construct, especially considering that it was not consistently and systematically based on any objective criteria, such as for example dialectal differences. Let's quote what a prominent Polish-Kashubian ethnographer - Stefan Ramułt - wrote about that:
(...) The interest regarding the number of Kashubian population dates back to the middle of the 19th century. Numbers given at that time have only an estimated character. For example according to Russian scholar Alexander Hilferding, who in 1856 visited the region of Kashubia, in his work "Remnants of Slavs along the Baltic Sea coast", wrote that there were around 200,000 Kashubians at that time, maybe slightly more - as he added.

In Prussian statistics Kashubians as a separate linguistic group were counted for the first time only in the 1861 census. Before that they were counted as Polish-speaking people in all censuses. However, in officially published results of the 1861 census the column for Kashubian-speakers was not included. Instead of that, there was another column, named "other people who don't speak German". It has to be assumed, that the vast majority of people in that column were Kashubians. Only the 1890 census included Kashubian population in its officially published results. According to official data from that census, the number of Kashubians at that time was over 53,000. However, the results of that census were heavily criticized by a Kashubian scholar Stefan Ramułt. In his "Statistics on Kashubian population", published in Cracow in 1899, Ramułt concluded, that the results of the German 1890 census were basically falsified and were showing a false picture of real linguistic structure of the region. He illustrated his conclusion with several examples. It is worth to quote them:

"For example in village Parchowo, numbering 640 inhabitants, 6 people were reported as Polish-speakers, and 466 people as Kashubian-speakers (the rest of them were Germans and Jews). Also in Prokowo among 543 people there were reported 7 people who spoke Polish as their mother tongue, and 518 with Kashubian mother tongue. Similar situation was in Dzierżążno (Seeresen), where among 318 inhabitants 4 people were written down into the column for Polish language and 268 people into the column for Kashubian language. But on the other hand, in Żuromin from among 231 inhabitants, 230 were included in the column for Polish-speakers and nobody was reported as a Kashubian-speaker. In Skorzewo among 749 inhabitants only 1 person was reported as a Kashubian-speaker, while 697 as Polish-speakers. In Mściszewice among 768 people as many as 709 were included in the column for Polish language and only 5 in the column for Kashubian."

Author of "Statistics on Kashubian population" summarized those numbers as follows:

"But nobody should even think, that Slavic population living in Parchowo, Prokowo and Dzierżążno is speaking a different language, or even a different dialect, than inhabitants of Żuromin, Skorzewo and Mściszewice. (...) All of them (...) speak one and the same Kashubian dialect. (...) Because the number of people, whose mother tongue is literary Polish [= Standard Polish / High Polish] in that area, was in reality not even 100 individuals, compared to over 45,000 speakers of native Kashubian dialect, while according to the falsified official German data there were 22,309 Polish-speakers and only 16,964 Kashubian-speakers there."

That scholar also heavily criticized the Prussian category of "bilingual people". He considered that so called "bilingual people" should in fact be counted among the Kashubians, who speak also German as their secondary language, and are too timid to admit their full "Kashubianness". (...)
SOURCE:

"Historió Kaszebów" ("History of Kashubians"), topic 19: "Kashubians in statistics", published by "Kaszëbskô Jednota" - Kashubian Association.
michael mills wrote:Friedrich states that until 1570, the ability to speak German was a requirement for citizenship of the Royal Prussian cities. In that year, that requirement was rescinded, subsequent to the full integration of Royal Prussia into the Kingdom of Poland in 1569 in the context of the Union of Lublin.
The ability to speak English is required for membership of the Axis History Forum. But it doesn't mean, that we are all ethnically English. ;) Though that shows a strong influence of German language/culture until 1570, an effect of which was the process of Germanisation.
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#69

Post by sarahgoodson » 25 Dec 2015, 17:57

Michael Mills,

There is much debate about whether Copernicus was German or Polish.
There has been discussion of Copernicus' nationality and of whether, in fact, it is meaningful to ascribe to him a nationality in the modern sense. But there are some facts that should be considered when talking about Copernicus nationality.

Nicolaus Copernicus was born and educated in the Kingdom of Poland. His alma mater was the University of Kraków in Poland. He and his family for several generations considered themselves as subjects of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, they stood against enemies of Polish Kingdom and actively supported it during the conflicts. Father of Nicolaus Copernicus lent great amount of money to king of Poland for the needs of the war with the Teutonic Knights and securing Toruń during that war. Nicolaus Copernicus himself directed the defense of Olsztyn and Warmia by Royal Polish forces. He also represented the Polish side in the ensuing peace negotiations.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana, The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, The Oxford World Encyclopedia, and World Book Encyclopedia refer to Copernicus as a "Polish astronomer". Sheila Rabin, writing in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, describes Copernicus as a "child of a German family [who] was a subject of the Polish crown", while Martin Weissenbacher writes that Copernicus' father was a Germanized Pole.

Historian Michael Burleigh describes the nationality debate as a "totally insignificant battle" between German and Polish scholars during the interwar period.[136] Polish astronomer Konrad Rudnicki calls the discussion a "fierce scholarly quarrel in ... times of nationalism" and describes Copernicus as an inhabitant of a German-speaking territory that belonged to Poland, himself being of mixed Polish-German extraction.

Poet Czesław Miłosz describes the debate as an "absurd" projection of a modern understanding of nationality onto Renaissance people, who identified with their home territories rather than with a nation.

Similarly, historian Norman Davies writes that Copernicus, as was common in his era, was "largely indifferent" to nationality, being a local patriot who considered himself "Prussian".

Miłosz and Davies both write that Copernicus had a German-language cultural background, while his working language was Latin in accord with the usage of the time. Additionally, according to Davies, "there is ample evidence that he knew the Polish language". Davies concludes: "Taking everything into consideration, there is good reason to regard him both as a German and as a Pole: and yet, in the sense that modern nationalists understand it, he was neither."
Wikipedia section "Nationality".

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#70

Post by sarahgoodson » 25 Dec 2015, 18:03

Peter K,

I was referring to what the Nazis views on the Kashubians and Sorbs were, not what they actually are.

The Nazis dismissed any reference to them being considered Slavic and even the national identities of "Kashubians" and "Sorbs" were to be dismissed as they were to be considered part of the German people. Those who refused to give up their identity were sent to a concentration camp.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#71

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 26 Dec 2015, 00:50

Sarah Goodson,

As for Copernicus - I'm not sure if he was more Polish or more German, or whatever, but as a matter of fact, the vast majority of descendants and relatives of the Copernicus family live in Poland and in other Slavic countries today, as well as in the United States of America - while none or very few of them live in Germany or Austria. This can be checked using for example the following surname-searching tools:

http://forebears.io/surnames

http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org

http://www.verwandt.de/karten/

http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/

Using these websites above I have searched for over 20 spelling variants of surname Copernicus - including Polish and German spelling variants - and have found that there are practically no such people in Germany or Austria, while a lot of them in Poland or in the USA.

Of course it does not necessarily tell us about the ethnicity of the astronomer - just about the ethnicity of his modern descendants. For example when I searched for the surname of my maternal grandfather - Meller - I found that there are more Mellers in Poland than in any other country, yet the surname is clearly of German origin, and there are also a lot of Mellers in Germany (unlike in case of Koperniks):

Meller surname in parts of Europe (data from forebears.io):
Meller2.png
Meller surname in the world (according to worldnames.org):
Meller1.png
So my mom's maiden name Meller is most common in North-Western Poland, Germany, the USA, Brazil, Israel, Russia, etc. - all places where historically confirmed immigration from the HRE or from Germany took place. Also interesting is the Flanders / Wallonia dichotomy in Belgium (present in Flanders, absent from Wallonia). This is in accordance with what I've read about the origins of the surname.

But, unlike in case of Meller, in case of Copernicus - there is no any correlation with Germans, at least not today.

==============================

Edit:

Sarah - and your surname, Goodson, is more frequent in the USA than in England - both in terms of absolute numbers, and in terms of frequency per million inhabitants. Of course, there was no American colonisation of England, but English colonisation of North America:

http://forebears.io/surnames/goodson

This confirms, that high frequency doesn't always indicate the place of origin - just like in case of the Meller family as well.
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#72

Post by GregSingh » 26 Dec 2015, 11:45

Copernicus case is surely interesting, but probably far too away from original topic, unless we want to speculate what Copernicus would have done if he had lived in Thorn in 1940!
His paper on currency debasement is far more intriguing than question of his nationality...

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#73

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 26 Dec 2015, 12:48

Peter K wrote:As for Royal Prussia (later - with slightly modified boundaries - renamed West Prussia):

German author Dr. Georg Hassel in his book titled "Statistischer Umriß der sämmtlichen europäischen und der vornehmsten außereuropäischen Staaten, in Hinsicht ihrer Entwickelung, Größe, Volksmenge, Finanz- und Militärverfassung, tabellarisch dargestellt", Erster Heft, "Welcher die beiden großen Mächte Österreich und Preußen und den Deutschen Staatenbund darstellt", published in Weimar in 1823, on page 42, described the ethnic structure (Nationalverschiedenheit) of West Prussia in year 1819 as follows:

Polen -------- 327,300 (52%)
Deutsche ---- 290,000 (46%)
Juden -------- 12,700 (2%)

Total pop. --- 630,077 (100%)


Fragment of original text from Hassel's book below (click to enlarge):

Image
And here similar data on Provinz Pommern - from the same 1823 book by Georg Hassel, page 31 (click to enlarge):

In West Prussia there were only "Polen", while in Prov. Pommern only "Wenden und Kassuben, mit eignem Dialekte":
Provinz Pommern.png
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#74

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 27 Dec 2015, 17:26

Eastern regions of Prussia ethnolinguistic groups 1816-1831:

FULL SIZE OF THE MAP

Image
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Fate of the Slavs and Poles if the Nazis won?

#75

Post by michael mills » 29 Dec 2015, 03:14

The ability to speak English is required for membership of the Axis History Forum. But it doesn't mean, that we are all ethnically English. ;) Though that shows a strong influence of German language/culture until 1570, an effect of which was the process of Germanisation.
The German-speaking population of Royal Prussia consisted partly of immigrants from Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) and partly of native Pomeranians who had become linguistically and culturally germanised. Which category the family of the mother of Copernicus belonged to I do not know; quite probably her family was a mixture of German immigrants and germanised Pomeranians.

But the most relevant point is that citizenship of the Royal Prussian towns was not dependent on an individual's descent, but on his linguistic and cultural status. Thus a person like the father of Copernicus who probably had no German ancestry could become a citizen of Thorn through his acquisition of German language and culture.

Of course, the rural population of Royal Prussia remained to a large extent ungermanised. German-speaking citizens of the Royal Prussian cities made a habit of sending their sons to live for a time in the surrounding villages to learn the local Polish dialect so that they could do business with Poland in future. So it is quite possible that Copernicus learned to speak a Polish dialect.

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