Slavs and the Nuremberg Laws

[sarahgoodson]

The last two chairmen of the association of Lower Silesian "Vertriebene Germans" have been - and I'm now rolling on the floor and laughing while reading their surnames - Hubert Hupka and Rudi Pawelka. Can people with "Slavic to the core" surnames such as Hupka or Pawelka, coming from historically Slavic region, claim to be "ethnic" Germans? Obviously they are just trolling - what do you think about this?

Totally irrelevant and is not what this forum is used for.

3. Opinions

Since the purpose of this section of the forum is to exchange information and hold informed discussions about historical problems, posts which express unsolicited opinions without supporting facts and sources do not promote the purposes of the forum. Consequently, such posts are subject to deletion after a warning to the poster.

The same reasoning applies to opinion threads.

http://forum.axishistory.com/app.php/rules

[history1]

[...]
Leon Stanisław Pinecki (1892-1949), on the other hand, was persecuted for his Polishness and forcibly conscripted to a labour company:
[...]

I don´t see your claim supported in your links. And the vid is funny as hell, try this with a real elephant and not a tame one from a circus who lays down if someone is pushing him from the side.

[...] występował w barwach Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, państwa, którego nie był obywatelem iw którym nie mieszkał na stałe.] = he performed in the colours of the Polish Republic, a country where he never was a citizen from nor did he live there forever

Source: https://translate.googleusercontent.com ... 05apfmibEg

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

I don´t see your claim supported in your links.

It is supported there, just Google translate entire websites, not fragments:

http://free-website-translation.com

He was persecuted in Germany for his ethnic Polish identity (by "Polishness" I obviously do not mean a piece of paper / citizenship). BTW - he was born in an area which belonged to Poland before the Partitions, but was not returned back to Poland after World War 1.

Totally irrelevant and is not what this forum is used for.

But I wanted to know your professional opinion, with all the supporting facts, sources and supporting evidence.

You've claimed to be an expert racial anthropologist, I thought you would know ethnicity of Hupka and Pawelka.

[michael mills]

I have read translations of the two articles on Pinecki, and in my opinion they do not provide enough information to form a conclusion as to the reasons why he was subject to police attention and eventually interned during the war.

For example, was he involved in some sort of activity in support of Poland that was considered hostile to Germany? I note that one of the articles states that he was suspected of espionage, but nothing could be proved against him.

Furthermore, we are left in the dark about exactly when the various actions against him took place, and the context in which they took place.

It is not at all unusual in Western countries today for citizens belonging to certain minority groups to be subjected to police surveillance in a context where there is a conflict with the nationalities to which those minority groups belong. For example, if a Muslim citizen of Germany did something like displaying the ISIS flag, he would immediately come under suspicion of being a supporter of Islamic terrorism, and might even be put into preventive detention.

In short, the two articles do not demonstrate conclusively that Pinecki was subject to discrimination purely because of his Polish ethnic origin, rather than because of some activity of his.

[sarahgoodson]

On one occasion, Oswald Rothaug sentenced a Polish slave labourer named Lopata to death for sexual relations with a German woman which was an attack "against the purity of the German blood" and his judgement was because of his "Polish subhumanity":

At the Nuremberg Trials Rothaug was asked:

Q. In its opening statement the prosecution quoted the following sentence from the judgment: "The inferiority of the defendant lies in his character, and the reason for it evidently is that he belongs to the subhuman race of the Poles." Is that quotation correct ?

Rothaug answered:

A. Well, there is a typing error here which rather distorts matters because actually it says in the judgment-it doesn't say "the subhuman race," but it means the subhumanity of [Polnisches Untermenschentum], and that is something essentially different. We have subhumanity in Germany and we have developed our own laws against that and when we speak of Polish subhumanity we do not mean the Polish people as such; that is what we would have meant if we had spoken of the subhuman Polish race, and for that idea and opinion there is a concrete reason. In many cases we had found that among the Poles who had been brought to Germany there was a considerable number of highly criminal types from Poland. The agencies which dealt with getting labor from Poland did not select properly and thereby created a great danger. We discovered people who had been previously convicted for murder and had been sentenced to penitentiary for life, but who on account of the outbreak of war had been set free, and who had now come to Germany. That point of view played a part in considering all these questions. That is to say, we did not speak of the subhuman Polish race but we spoke of the subhumanity in Poland.

https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law ... ol-III.pdf

So according to Rothaug, he wasn't speaking about him being subhuman because he was a Pole but because he was a criminal and the sexual relations between a German and a Pole was against the purity of the German blood.

[linamonsen]

The last two chairmen of the association of Lower Silesian "Vertriebene Germans" have been - and I'm now rolling on the floor and laughing while reading their surnames - Hubert Hupka and Rudi Pawelka. Can people with "Slavic to the core" surnames such as Hupka or Pawelka, coming from historically Slavic region, claim to be "ethnic" Germans? Obviously they are just trolling - what do you think about this?

Their Polish names didn't help them when they/their families were expelled by those in power in Poland at the time. Also, even though you have a Polish-origined name, you can be culturally German, and like most Germans and Poles they quite certainly have both Germanic and Slavic ancestry, and like most people from Silesia, they almost certainly have relatively recent ancestors who spoke German ("Germans") and ancestors who spoke Polish ("Poles").

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Their Polish names didn't help them when they/their families were expelled by those in power in Poland at the time.

In order to stay, they would need to apply for Polish citizenship and then prove their Polishness (many people succeeded in that - as in the census of 1950 there were about 1,2 million of such autochthons in areas annexed by Poland from Germany in 1945). If they did not even bother to apply for citizenship and to try staying, then they were going to be expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement signed on 2 August 1945 and the calendar of deportations established by the Allied Control Council for Germany. It is also possible that their families were either evacuated by the German authorities or fled on their own already before the Red Army occupied their homes - as did the majority of Germans in territories annexed by Poland, or around half of them if counting those who tried to return. According to Polish historian Piotr Eberhardt, in total 6,682,000 German citizens were evacuated or escaped on their own in 1944-1945 from the territories which were later incoporated into Poland - the pre-war population of which was around 8,500,000. So up to 80% of all German citizens escaped or were evacuated.* Of those 6,682,000 some returned (or tried to return), but in the end at least 50% escaped and did not try to return. When Polish administration first took over those lands from the Soviets, they already had just 1/2 of their pre-war population size. Eberhardt's figures are from his 2011 and 2006 publications:

2011: http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_1 ... grafie.pdf

2006: https://www.sendspace.com/file/t2akrp

*In reality probably less than 80% because while pre-war population was 8,500,000 - during WW2 the number of German citizens there increased, as many Germans were evacuated from cities in Western and Central Germany to areas of Eastern Germany in order to escape from Allied bombs. Those were not pre-war residents, they were there as refugees from the West, at the time when the Red Army was advancing.

Christopher Duffy estimates the number of those German refugees as about 7 million (not just from Poland, but in total):

See page 276, the beginning of chapter "The Experience of the Catastrophe" (links below):

https://archive.org/stream/Red_Storm_on ... 0/mode/2up

https://archive.org/stream/Red_Storm_on ... h_djvu.txt

https://archive.org/details/Red_Storm_on_the_Reich

Quote:

"(...) As early as 28 January 1945, the Wehrmacht calculated that 3.5 million German civilians were on the move in the East. By the end of the war the number of German non-combatants fleeing from the Russians had nearly doubled to about 7 million. Most of those who tried to stay in their homes were evicted after the war, a process which by 1950 brought the number of Germans displaced by the Russians and their clients to a final total of 11 million. (...)"

Also this website says that around half of all Germans escaped permanently (= did not even try to return after escaping):

http://www.transodra-online.net/de/node/1410

Vor dem Krieg hatten in den Gebieten, die in Potsdam Polen zugesprochen wurden, 8,5 Mio. Bewohner gelebt. Als die Front näherrückte, verließ die Hälfte von ihnen ihre Wohnorte und zog Richtung Westen. Dies war eine Folge der von den deutschen Behörden angeordneten Zwangsevakuierung sowie der panischen Flucht der Bewohner vor der Roten Armee. Nach Beendigung der Kriegshandlungen blieben noch etwa 2,5 Mio. Deutsche in Schlesien, 1 Mio. in Pommern, 550.000 in Ostpreußen, 350.000 im Lebuser Land und 200.000 auf dem Gebiet der ehemaligen Freistadt Danzig.

Im Lebuser Land blieben etwa 30 Prozent der Deutschen in ihren Wohnstätten zurück. Meistens waren es Frauen, Kinder und Alte. Die Städte und Dörfer des Lebuser Landes waren stärker entvölkert als die Ortschaften in Ostpreußen, Schlesien oder Pommern. Die Zahl der gebliebenen Deutschen war aber in einzelnen Kreisen unterschiedlich. Die größte Entvölkerung war im Kreis Crossen / Krosno zu verzeichnen: Hier blieben nur acht Prozent der Bevölkerung. Im Kreis Glogau / Głogów waren es etwa neun Prozent, im Kreis Sorau / Żary zehn Prozent, im Kreis Frankfurt Oder siebzehn Prozent, im Kreis Sprottau / Szprotawa und im Kreis Sagan / Żagań fünfzehn bis zwanzig Prozent. Im östlich der Lausitzer Neiße gelegenen Teil des Kreises Guben / Gubin blieben etwa zwölf Prozent der deutschen Bevölkerung.

Nach Durchzug der Front kehrte ein Teil der Bewohner in ihre früheren Wohnorte zurück. Daher stieg die Zahl der Deutschen in einzelnen Städten und Dörfern am rechten Ufer von Oder und Neiße erneut an, wenngleich sie auch nicht annähernd den Vorkriegsstand wieder erreichte. Beispielsweise wohnten Anfang Juni 1945 im Kreis Sorau / Żary noch 51 Prozent der deutschen Vorkriegsbevölkerung, im Kreis Landsberg an der Warthe / Gorzów waren es 40 Prozent, im Kreis Meseritz / Międzyrzecz 25 Prozent, im Kreis Sprottau / Szprotawa und Sagan / Żagań 38 Prozent und im Kreis Frankfurt (Oder) 40 Prozent. Im Kreis Guben / Gubin lebten zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch 30 Prozent und im Stadtteil am rechten Neißeufer nur noch fünf Prozent der deutschen Vorkriegsbevölkerung.

Ein Teil der deutschen Staatsbürger in den Gebieten östlich von Oder und Neiße, die weder evakuiert worden noch vor der Front geflüchtet waren, waren Menschen polnischer Herkunft (sogenannte Autochthone). Polnische Behörden schätzten ihre Zahl auf ca. 1,2 Mio. (jeweils einige Hunderttausend in Oberschlesien, Ermland und Masuren). Im Lebuser Land sollen laut dieser Schätzungen etwa 20.000 Personen polnischer Herkunft gelebt haben. Insgesamt waren diese Zahlen jedoch wesentlich überhöht, obwohl gerade sie zu einem der Hauptargumente wurden, nach dem Krieg eine breitangelegte Verifikation der nationalen Zugehörigkeit durchzuführen. Es ging darum, diejenigen, die als einheimische polnische Bevölkerung galten, von den Deutschen zu trennen. Die einheimische Bevölkerung sollte repolonisiert und die Deutschen sollten aus Polen ausgesiedelt werden. (...)

Autochthons of pre-1945 German who remained in Poland numbered 1,2 million in 1950, including over 0,9 million in pre-1945 German Silesia (population of the Polish part of Upper Silesia is of course not included here as they were Polish citizens already before 1939).

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

There are many inaccuracies about those events being repeated all the time.

For example English wikipedia article about the town of Striegau (Strzegom), says:

In 1742 Striegau became part of Prussia. On June 4, 1745 the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, an important victory for King Frederick II during the War of the Austrian Succession, took place near the town. In the 19th century considerable industrial expansion took place, with granite quarries playing a particularly important role in the town's economy. The first rail link to the town was opened in 1856. In 1905 the town of Striegau had 13,427 inhabitants. During World War II, Nazi Germany used an area close to the town as a subcamp of the nearby Gross-Rosen concentration camp. As a result of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Striegau became a part of Poland, and its German inhabitants were expelled. The town was renamed Strzegom by the People's Republic of Poland.

But according to Christopher Duffy, there was actually nobody left to be expelled from Striegau.

Because the Soviets had slaughtered the entire population of that town (except for a few survivors) - quote:

"(...) Again and again we hear of the Russian tank forces opening fire on trains, or driving straight down columns of civilian refugees, crushing people and animals and machine-gunning the survivors in the ditches and fields. Massacre, rape and plunder contributed to the very marked decline in discipline that was evident in the last ten days of January, when the Russians moved into German territory. The marshals were appalled, and in his ferocious order of 27 January [1945] Konev cited a number of spectacular lapses and gave a long list of commanders who had been consigned to penal battalions. One of his officers remarked on a tank battalion where the tanks were so tightly packed with loot and plunder that the members of the crew could not move inside and would have been unable to go into action in case of emergency. (...) The Russian way with German civilians first became known after the Germans recaptured the town of Nemmersdorf in East Prussia, which was the scene of a wholesale massacre of the population in October 1944. This experience was relived on every theatre of the Eastern Front, and on every occasion it provoked in the German troops an intense desire for revenge. In Silesia the grisly findings extended into March. At Sagan the Germans beat Russians to death with shovels and rifle butts; at Striegau, which was cleared by the 208th Infantry Division, the few surviving civilians were wandering around literally out of their minds. 'After Striegau there was no question of giving quarter. When the soldiers were asked to hold themselves back, they replied in words to the effect that: 'After what we saw and lived through at Striegau, you can't ask us to take prisoners' (Ahlfen, 1977, 169; see also Neidhardt, 1981, 379). (...)"

[history1]

I don´t see your claim supported in your links.

It is supported there, just Google translate entire websites, not fragments:
http://free-website-translation.com
He was persecuted in Germany for his ethnic Polish identity (by "Polishness" I obviously do not mean a piece of paper / citizenship).
[...]

Sorry, but I speak fluently Polish and don´t need an online translator. When I translate here something from Polish/German into English it´s to make sure that also other forum members can understand the text.
BTW, the fragment I translated is NOT from one of your links but from another website I found in the www.

[history1]

[...]
In short, the two articles do not demonstrate conclusively that Pinecki was subject to discrimination purely because of his Polish ethnic origin, rather than because of some activity of his.

Totally correct.

[history1]

[...] Oswald Rothaug sentenced a Polish slave labourer named Lopata to death [...]

Maybe not so important in this thread but not wrong to know: Łopata, not Lopata, if he was from Poland. It means "spade".

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

The brochure for the 1938 Nuremberg rally the Nazis announced Slavs as part of the "Indogermanic peoples":

Central and Northern Europe are the homeland of the Nordic race. At the beginning ofthe most recent Ice Age, around 5,000 BC, a Nordic Indogermanic Utvolk of the Nordic race [artgleicher nordrassischer Menschen] existed (...)

As I previously wrote, the Nordic type did not evolve in Central and Northern Europe, but in Russia. Central and Northern Europe were inhabited first by Cro-Magnid type hunters, then by Mediterranid type farmers. The earliest known morphologically Nordic types (characterized by long narrow skull and tall slim face) evolved in Northern Russia, perhaps in the Boreal Climatic Period (11,000 - 10,000 years ago), when climate in Northern Russia was warmer than today in the winter (-12°—8° C in January), but cooler than at present in the summer (6°-18° C in July). The 10,800 years old skull from Peschanitsa to the south of Lake Ladoga (in Lyubytinskiy Rayon of Novgorod Oblast) and a 10,300 years old skull from Popovo to the north east of Lake Onega (in Arkhangelsk Oblast) are among the oldest known specimen of Nordic type skulls. Around that time took place the first of several prehistoric colonizations of Scandinavia by immigrants from Russia (the last of which was the Indo-European invasion from the Russian Steppe). But those first migrants perhaps came from more southerly parts of the Russian plain:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... ode=sarc20

The First Eastern Migrations of People and Knowledge into Scandinavia: Evidence from Studies of Mesolithic Technology, 9th-8th Millennium BC

Abstract:

In this paper a team of Scandinavian researchers identifies and describes a Mesolithic technological concept, referred to as ‘the conical core pressure blade’ concept, and investigates how this concept spread into Fennoscandia and across Scandinavia. Using lithic technological, contextual archaeological and radiocarbon analyses, it is demonstrated that this blade concept arrived with ‘post-Swiderian’ hunter-gatherer groups from the Russian plain into northern Fennoscandia and the eastern Baltic during the 9th millennium bc. From there it was spread by migrating people and/or as transmitted knowledge through culture contacts into interior central Sweden, Norway and down along the Norwegian coast. However it was also spread into southern Scandinavia, where it was formerly identified as the Maglemosian technogroup 3 (or the ‘Sværdborg phase’). In this paper it is argued that the identification and spread of the conical core pressure blade concept represents the first migration of people, technology and ideas into Scandinavia from the south-eastern Baltic region and the Russian plain.

In any case, the idea of the Nazis that Nordic type Russians were all "descendants of Germanics who went East" was utterly wrong. It was the other way around, Nordic type Scandinavians had ultimately originated from Russia, where the presence of Nordic anthropological type has preceded its presence in Scandinavia (even if perhaps modern Scandinavians have slightly higher frequency of it today). Aboriginals of Scandinavia had originally represented a very Non-Nordic anthropological type, similar to modern Lapps / Sami people.

The oldest known to date example of a genetic mutaton causing blonder hair (one of several such mutations in existence), has also been discovered in DNA extracted from bones of a hunter who lived in Samara Oblast of Russia ca. 7,600 years ago (map):

[sarahgoodson]

Peter K,

Do you actually even bother to read all of my posts? I've told you before and I'll continue to keep telling you until you finally understand, try and comprehend what I quote and what I actually post myself.

I have no clue why you continue to keep quoting things from my post which I myself have not even said but have quoted from a source and then go off on one of your tirades to prove you're always "right", it's actually getting rather tedious.

I actually think you're just posting these type of posts to try and wind people up and get a reaction.

You seem to have it the wrong way around.

The source you use "The First Eastern Migrations of People and Knowledge into Scandinavia: Evidence from Studies of Mesolithic Technology, 9th-8th Millennium BC" does not even claim what you're saying it does. A typical non-sequitur tirade from you, nothing new.

The Germanic tribes (Nordic type) had already settled in Scandinavia before the 8th or 9th BC and the Germanic tribes are much older than the Slavic tribes of Russia.

The abstract makes no mention of arguing that the Nordic race originated in Russia and then migrated to Germanic countries e.g Norway nor does it say that the people of Scandinavia originate from the peoples of Russia.

The oldest known to date example of a genetic mutaton causing blonder hair (one of several such mutations in existence), has also been discovered in DNA extracted from bones of a hunter who lived in Samara Oblast of Russia ca. 7,600 years ago (map):

Can you provide some sources? A search for the map you used brings up no results.

It won't prove much anyways, Germanic tribes had expanded and settled into Russia by then, does the Rus' people not ring any bells?

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

and the Germanic tribes are much older than the Slavic tribes of Russia.

All tribes are equally old, dating ultimately to the first group of anatomically modern humans which evolved in Africa.

There is no such thing as "older and younger" tribes - ancestors of all humans date back to the same point in time.

Or perhaps you think that some humans "suddenly, magically, emerged from nothing" later than others? LOL.

Can you provide some sources?

Sure, see below (photos from Russian anthropological journals):

Nordic type Hunter-Gatherer skulls from Russia (dates range from the 9th millennium BC to the 2nd millennium BC):











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

At that time Central Europeans (here: Luxembourg) and Western Europeans (here: Iberia) looked like this:

Also, genes show that Hunters in Russia had White Skin, while those in Luxembourg had Brown Skin (as depicted below):

Loschbour = Luxembourg
La Brana = Iberia

nor does it say that the people of Scandinavia originate from the peoples of Russia.

According to this chart (from "Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe" study), around half of modern Norwegian ancestry is from Yamnaya people, who lived in Russia (between the Volga River and the Black Sea):

Skull of Yamnaya male from Russia: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/wp-conten ... 0x1067.jpg

As you can see (click the link above), that skull is very similar to skulls of earlier Hunter-Gatherers from Russia. That skull is red, because it was covered in ochre. Using ochre in burial rituals was practiced in Russia and Finland long before Yamnaya culture emerged - links:

http://mikroarkeologi.se/publications/ch11_Ilga.pdf

https://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/1 ... in_the.pdf

Indeed, Yamnaya people were descended from a mix of Russian (over 60%) and Georgian (up to 40%) Hunter-Gatherers.

Lithuanians also derive half of their ancestry from those people:

Link to the study in question: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v5 ... 14317.html

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

^^^
Modern Europeans are descended (in various proportions, depending on which European nation we are talking about) mainly from 3 prehistoric populations - aboriginal Western Hunters (blue bar in Figure 3 above), Early Farmers who colonized Europe from Anatolia (orange bar) and immigrants from Russia, Proto-Indo-Europeans (green bar). Those "Russians" settled nearly all of Europe, except for Sardinia.

Yamnaya people (green bar in Figure 3 above) were one of Russian Steppe cultures characterized by burrying their chiefs in individual burials (unlike the Western Hunters and Early Farmers of Europe, who used collective burials and did not believe in individual achievement). The study above, "Massive Migration from the Steppe...", shows that large part of European ancestry today - especially in Northern and Eastern Europe (to a lesser extent in Southern Europe - and not at all in Sardinia) comes from Yamnaya and related Steppe groups. Not all of this ancestry is necessarily just from Yamnaya, because there existed also ethnically related, nearly identical kurgan groups in the Steppe.

These new findings confirm the hypothesis of late Lithuanian scholar Marija Gimbutas, according to which Indo-European patriarchal societies from the Russian Steppe migrated westward and invaded Europe, replacing more matriarchal and egalitarian local societies.

The Germanic tribes (Nordic type) had already settled in Scandinavia before the 8th or 9th BC

Nope - read Helena Malmström's study "Ancient DNA Reveals Lack of Continuity in Scandinavia" (= mass immigration of new people):

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abs ... 09)01694-7

So, there is no "unmixed continuity" between Scandinavians of the 8th or 9th millennia BC, and modern Germanic Scandinavians.

Proto-Germanic tribes expanded to Scandinavia only in the 3rd millennium BC and early 2nd millennium BC. Their arrival was recorded by Aboriginal Scandinavians in their rock carvings, which used to show only hunting-gathering etc. scenes before Indo-European invaders showed up (see below). Stone Age Scandinavians used to record their primitive world by rock carvings such as these at Alta in Norway. The earliest of such rock carvings date back to at least 6500 years ago, and their "artistic style" remained very similar for the next 4 thousand years (!):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_carvings_at_Alta

http://www.rockartscandinavia.com/frontpage.php

1) This rock carving was made before the arrival of Indo-Europeans, it shows only scenes from daily life of Scandinavian Aborigines:



But at some point in time, aboriginal rock carvings started to depict "strange" things - unlike anything that was known to them before!

It is clear that they recorded the arrival of new groups of immigrants, arriving on ships, in fleets, carrying weapons such as battle axes, and carrying sun disks - those were sea-faring groups of Indo-European speakers. These petroglyphs are found all over Scandinavia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Carvings_in_Tanum

2) This one was made by aboriginals AFTER the arrival of Indo-Europeans across the Baltic Sea, it shows the "strange" newcomers:









Non-IE aboriginals of Scandinavia even depicted themselves next to new immigrants, and their interactions - see below:



Those people were known as the Battle Axe (alternatively: Corded Ware) culture:

http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=89

The dawn of the Scandinavian Bronze Age has been traced back to the 16th century B.C and lasted for a thousand years before it was gradually evolved into the Iron Age of the fifth century B.C. The population of Scandinavia of that time is supposed to have consisted of a fusion of groups native to the area from the earliest Neolithic period and of immigrant groups known as the “Battle Axe people” who apparently emerged from east-central Europe and who settled in the Baltic and in Scandinavia (...) Hallmarks of their culture were the battle-axes and individual burials.

It is possible that these were the people who brought with them the Indo-European language and culture to Scandinavia (...) Indo-European language and culture was certainly dominant in Scandinavia by the time of the Iron Age.

That it was so even in the Bronze Age seems very plausible, also that there were certain likenesses in culture between the Scandinavian upper classes and those of southern Europe such as the aristocratic Greeks who produced the heroic poetry of the Iliad and the Odyssey. There was certainly a great deal of trade and travel between the North and South during the Bronze Age, and even ideas and cultic practice were being exchanged.

The reason why there were such cultural similarities between upper classes in Scandinavia and aristocracy in Ancient Greece was because both groups had common, foreign, origin. Both were descended from Indo-European invaders who came from the Russian Steppes.

Here we can see such a foreigner (perhaps a person of Indo-European priestly class - similar to Celtic Druids, Indo-Aryan Brahmins, etc.) wielding an axe, perhaps presiding over a wedding of a couple of Aboriginal Scandinavians; the image is described as "god with axe". Scandinavian aboriginals worshipped those Indo-European immigrants from Russia as their new gods or masters. So figures such as Thor (axe-wielding god) from Scandinavian myths, are actually based on real-life immigrants from Russia. See the "Battle Axe" (or "Boat Axe") culture:

Check this article about Corded Ware culture and its Scandinavian branch - Boat Axe - because they arrived in boats, with battle axes:
(see also Figure 3 from my previous post - Corded_Ware_LN people were "pure" Yamnaya immigrants, only slightly mixed with locals):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Wa ... xe_culture



So as you can see, "conquering hordes from Russia" came not just in 1945, but already in the Copper / Early Bronze Age!

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Proto-IE people originated from the Volga River Steppe in Russia. From there they spread to Scandinavia, Greece, Kazakhstan, etc. This is why early IE Scandinavian upper classes, Ancient Greek upper classes, and those of Scythians of Kazakhstan, etc., all had similar culture:

They buried their prominent dead in individual graves (usually in shape of kurgans / tumuli / mounds), unlike most of Non-IE cultures:

http://astanatimes.com/2015/02/scandina ... hstan-dna/

The Kurgan hypothesis posits that the speakers of proto-Indo-European, the hypothesized common ancestor of the massive Indo-European language group, originally lived on the Pontiac-Caspian steppe, an area of land stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and including parts of Russia, Ukraine and northwest Kazakhstan, beginning around the fifth millenium B.C. The hypothesis describes the spread of the language family from the steppe in every direction. “Kurgan” is a term for a type of burial mound common in the Caucasus, across Kazakhstan and beyond.

“Two thousand years ago, we started having Kurgan graves in Scandinavia,” said Ellingvag. The commonalities between burial mounds in Norway and Scythian/Saka mounds in Kazakhstan are striking, he said. “[The Scythian people] had these ornaments, these animal ornaments, which are very, very important in Scandinavian art … and the ornaments are actually quite similar, which is striking, it’s very special.”

The Kurgan hypothesis has been somewhat substantiated by genetic evidence so far, according to a press release by the Kon-Tiki Museum on the project, and advances in the technology for doing historical DNA research over the past few years means it is now possible to get closer to finding this genetic and linguistic starting point for most of the peoples of Europe.

Indo-European migrants came from Russia to Central, Northern and Western Europe as Corded Ware and later also Bell Beaker (it is not yet certain if Corded folks and Beaker folks were originally one group, or travelled separately as two branches of IE immigrants):

Their most powerful weapons were not horses, wagons, metals and alcohol - but an idea (as this video explains):