True German borders?

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JohnnieCash
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#16

Post by JohnnieCash » 10 May 2005, 02:08

szopen: Okay I´m starting to get a picture of the "true borders", but how similar are these to the pre world war I borders? And you or any other doesn´t happend to know where to find a map over those "true borders" or a map pointing out the spreading of different races in Europe to give a helping hand understanding this issue?

Regards
Johnnie

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Topspeed
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#17

Post by Topspeed » 10 May 2005, 07:27

maxxx wrote:
Wos ma do hoit so deitsch nend, gö?
(translated into german: Was man hier eben so deutsch nennt, nicht wahr?)
Unheimlich schön ist das deutsch in Austria....almost like in Berlin; " Whad is dat denn ? " ( what is that then ? ).

I know one person who used say GÖÖÖÖ often in the office...only now do I know what it means !: ) :lol:
Last edited by Topspeed on 10 May 2005, 09:03, edited 1 time in total.


szopen
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#18

Post by szopen » 10 May 2005, 08:57

JohnnieCash wrote:szopen: Okay I´m starting to get a picture of the "true borders", but how similar are these to the pre world war I borders? And you or any other doesn´t happend to know where to find a map over those "true borders" or a map pointing out the spreading of different races in Europe to give a helping hand understanding this issue?

Regards
Johnnie
There are no "true" borders in Europe. POlish-German borders changed multiple times over the centuries. The most stable borders were line Oder-Neisse (I believe some 200-300 years), then line pre-partitions (i beleive roughly some 300 years).

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JohnnieCash
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#19

Post by JohnnieCash » 10 May 2005, 12:38

No, of course there are not any true borders, thats what i tried to mean with the this signs "". What I meant was I´ve heard pretty much of that the drawings of the borders after world war I were not fair to what the majority of some areas wanted and the areas majority of population. So I therefor wondered if there was any source to look at to gain a clue about the spreading of german and polish populations in these parts, preferably a map showing this information in an easy way.

Anyone who know by the way why Poland was stripped down and partionend between prussia, austria and Russia and then vanished in the end of the 18th century?

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Alp Guard
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#20

Post by Alp Guard » 10 May 2005, 14:51

maxxx wrote:
Topspeed wrote:
Maxx...Austria sounds interesting...sprechen Sie deutsch da ?

rgds,

Juke
Wos ma do hoit so deitsch nend, gö?
(translated into german: Was man hier eben so deutsch nennt, nicht wahr?)
Was me halt ebbe esoo dytsch nennt, gäll? (Basel-dytsch) :lol:

Just a piece of history to clarify things: Switzerland never was part of Germany, but of Habsburg-Austria, until 1291, when the first parts around the lake of Lucerne started to declare their independence ( and fought several battles for it). At the peace of Westphalia after the 30-years war (1648) ALL european kingdoms acknowledged this independence. Eternal neutrality was guaranteed 1815. The borders were not discussed or even changed since then.

Except Hitler no german leader ever had the wish to integrate this crazy bunch of mountain farmers. :lol:

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Alp Guard
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#21

Post by Alp Guard » 10 May 2005, 15:22

Topspeed wrote:
maxxx wrote:
Wos ma do hoit so deitsch nend, gö?
(translated into german: Was man hier eben so deutsch nennt, nicht wahr?)
Unheimlich schön ist das deutsch in Austria....almost like in Berlin; " Whad is dat denn ? " ( what is that then ? ).

I know one person who used say GÖÖÖÖ often in the office...only now do I know what it means !: ) :lol:
Berlin dialect is really nice

When the famous entertainer Harald Juhnke (the german answer to Frank Sinatra) died earlier this year, there was a burial object with the wiriting

"Harald, Mach et jut" = Mach es gut! (farewell, Harald) in this very typical dialect. I thought: What a charming last greeting!

Long live the dialects!!!

nedz
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#22

Post by nedz » 12 May 2005, 03:08

Less well known is what happened in Luxembourg. This small duchy was incoporated into the Reich and a plebiscite was organised by the local puppet leader. I've found this referred to on a couple of sites, one of which is given here:

"October 10 97% of Luxembourgers reject German nationality in a census conducted by Gauleiter Simon "
Source : http://worldatwar.net/nations/luxembourg/timeline.html

This was held after the invasion, and after quite a few people had fled.

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JohnnieCash
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#23

Post by JohnnieCash » 13 May 2005, 00:33

Intresting post there nedz. Never really thought about Luxembourgs role in the war, less about their incorperation to the third reich.
Howcome Luxembourg has survived so long as an independent state, anyone to answer? laying between giants as france and germany there has to been several attempts to incorperate this country.

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#24

Post by Human beaing » 14 May 2005, 18:33

szopen wrote:...Upper Silesia: there was plebiscite...
Hi Szopen,

and who won the plebiscite, please?

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#25

Post by szopen » 16 May 2005, 08:44

Human beaing wrote:
szopen wrote:...Upper Silesia: there was plebiscite...
Hi Szopen,

and who won the plebiscite, please?
Germans overall (using imported votes), Poles in many districts. Germans however wanted to keep whole Silesia.

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#26

Post by Human beaing » 25 May 2005, 18:40

Thank for your answer Szopen.

Could you give some statistics about this plebiscite? Are you sure that germans have imported votes, and who said that?

Regards

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RCW Mark
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#27

Post by RCW Mark » 25 May 2005, 20:30

You'll start a HUGE argument if you are not careful -- this is still the subject of much anger between the less well adjusted nationalistic elements of Poland and Germany.

Try this site:
http://raven.cc.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/lect11.htm

Mark

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#28

Post by Molobo » 25 May 2005, 21:06

The Versailles Treaty mandated a plebiscite within two years in the whole of Silesia, although the Polish government only wanted one East of the Oder. Meanwhile, the German administration and police were left in place. Poland and Germany used the intervening period for intensive propaganda. The Germans told the workers that they would lose their jobs and old age pensions if they voted for Poland. Furthermore, troops of the German "Freikorps" (Free Corps), made up of veterans of the former German army, terrorized those Silesians who favored voting for Poland. Polish propaganda stressed that if Poland won the plebiscite, Silesian Poles would no longer be oppressed or treated as second class citizens as they were in Germany, and they would not lose their old age pensions.

In August 1919, the Silesian Poles revolted, demanding that the police and local government authorities be both German and Polish.
In February 1920, an Allied Plebiscite Commission arrived in Upper Silesia, made up of British, French, and Italian forces, but it was too small to maintain order. In any case, the British and Italians favored the Germans, while the French favored the Poles.
In August 1920, German rumors of a Polish defeat by the Red Army led to German attacks on Poles, and sparked a second Polish uprising.
Finally, the plebiscite took place on March 20, 1921. The result appeared to be a smashing victory for Germany:


Total German vote

707,605
" Polish "

479,359
German majority:

228,246

[This was the vote cast in the whole of Upper Silesia; Blanke gives the vote only in the part that was awarded to Poland, that is, Polish Upper Silesia].

However, German outvoters brought in from Germany numbered 179,910. If we deduct them from the German total, it is reduced to 527,000. Silesian born Poles working in the Ruhr were not allowed by their German employers to go and vote. There were 10,000 Polish outvoters from Poland, so the real totals were 527,695 German resident votes and 469,359 Polish resident votes, or a German majority of 58,336 instead of 228,246. The Polish majority would have been much larger if the Silesian Poles working in the Ruhr had been allowed to vote, or if the plebiscite had been held only East of the Oder river. However, it was held in all of Upper Silesia, including the preponderantly German speaking areas West of the river.*

*[source: Sarah Wambaugh, Plebiscites since the World War, 2 vols. Washington, D.C., 1933, background and detailed figures, vol. I, pp. 209 ff. For a breakdown of the population figures and votes in Polish Upper Silesia (the part East of Oder River awared to Poland in Oct.1921), by county, see: The Population in Western Poland in Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles, above. The German vote figures for the plebiscite of March1921, are higher than the German population figures in the Prussian Census of 1910 due to German Outvoters].

The British and French governments disagreed on the interpretation of the plebiscite. The main bone of contention was the "Industrial Triangle," that is the coal and steel producing district east of the Oder river bounded by the cities of Beuthen (Bytom), Gleiwitz (Gliwice) and Kattowitz (Katowice). The French wanted it to go to Poland, to give the latter an industrial base and weaken Germany; the British, supported by the Italians, wanted it to stay in Germany because the Germans claimed they could not pay war reparations without Upper Silesia. (Some British politicians also bought shares in German coal mines and steel mills at very low prices). However, the German need for Upper Silesia was not as great as it appeared at the time. Before 1914, 50% of the coal and industrial production of the region had been exported abroad, mostly to Russian Poland. Indeed, during the war, German industrialists had proposed German annexation of Russian Poland to secure it as a market for Upper Silesian coal and industry.

In late April 1921, rumors flew that the British and Italians would prevail over the French, so Upper Silesia would stay in Germany. This led to theThird Polish Uprising in May-July 1921. The Silesian Poles - aided by some Polish officers and arms supplies- occupied most of the region east of the Oder river. The French and British still could not agree, so Lloyd George proposed to French Premier Clemenceau that the issue be decided by the League of Nations, expecting it to award the Industrial Triangle to Germany. Clemenceau agreed, hoping for the best. As it turned out, the League appointed its own commission of inquiry which gathered its own data, interviewed Poles and Germans from the region, and made its decision on the basis of self-determination. On this basis, in October 1921, the League of Nations awarded most of eastern Upper Silesia, including the Industrial Triangle to Poland, to the great dismay of both Germany and Britain. Neverthtless, about half a million Poles were left in German Silesia, most of them in Oppeln [Opole].

NOTE: Some German and Polish historians today emphasize the "small fatherland" or regional ethnic indentity,and claim that most Silesians did not feel German or Polish, but Silesian. However, this fails to explain why the "Freikorps" terrorized Polish Silesians so they would not vote for Poland, and why so many of them joined the Third Polish Silesian Uprising of May-July 1921 to prevent their land being awarded by the Allies to Germany. Some, no doubt, did have a regional identity, but it is impossible to prove how many because of the destruction of documents, newspapers, private correspondence etc. in WW II.

In May 1922, the Upper Silesian or Geneva Convention, was worked out by the League of Nations to preserve the economic unity of the area. It also set up a tribunal to arbitrate disputes. Furthermore, since Germany claimed she could not do without Upper Silesian coal, she was allowed to import 500,000 tons per year at reduced prices. However, when the coal agreement ran out in 1925, Germany refused to import the coal, and tried to use this as economic pressure to make Poland agree to a revision of the whole Polish-German frontier. Then Germany started a tariff war with Poland with the same intent, but failed to reach her goal.*

*[For the Versailles Treaty decisions on Danzig and Upper Silesia and the working out of these settlements, see Anna M. Cienciala and Titus Komarnicki, FROM VERSAILLES TO LOCARNO. Keys to Polish Foreign Policy 1919-1925, Lawrence, KS., 1984, ch.2-4. For an exhaustive study of Polish problems at the Peace Conference see Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen, The Polish Problem at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study of the Policies of the Great Powers and the Poles, 1918-1919, Odense, Denmark, 1979. The author is very critical of Polish aims regarding Russia.

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Re: True German borders?

#29

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 15 Jul 2011, 15:44

When it comes to the Upper Silesian plebiscite in 1921:

As you can see just 50% of the area which actually voted for Poland, was in the end granted to Poland:
Upper Silesia 1921.jpg

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Re: True German borders?

#30

Post by nobodyofnote » 16 Jul 2011, 05:59

There is an interesting electoral map on bigthink of Poland following the 2007 legislative elections. Politically it follows the old imperial German-Poland borders prior to 1919.

http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/ ... esults.jpg

Source: http://bigthink.com/ideas/21401

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