HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pmI will list here some of the points that Tedor makes (truncated for brevity here, can be expanded upon if needed) and you should tell the forum why exactly Tedor is incorrect:
- 1918-21 Polish secret military organization, Polska Organizacya Wojskova (POW) staged 3 insurrections attacking German villages.
What does this have to do with the German-Polish conflict of 1938–39? The period immediately following World War I was marked by violence and ethnic cleansing. So? What's your point?
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- The 3rd insurrection was supplied with French weapons the insurgents organised an army of 30,000 men. LoN awarded a third of the territory to Poland. Based on the plebiscite the entire region should have went to Germany. This violated point 5 of Wilson’s own 14 points
Germany occupied and divided Poland with Russia in 1793, and during the Wilhelmine era, it attempted to Germanize Poland by erasing its original identity. In 1918, after losing the war it had started, Germany was in no position to make any demands. And, in any case, it doesn’t matter because this isn’t about World War I.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- The LoN instituted policies hostile to the ethnic German population with a quarter of Germans fleeing. 1930-32 Poland began military maneuvers and amassing on the border, with invasion plans also being drafted. Polish newspapers began calling for war
Blatantly false. In 1932, there was only one diplomatic crisis because von Papen came close to signing an agreement with France that harmed Polish interests, but that crisis did not lead to anything more serious. Danzig was governed by the Nazi Party—do the names Forster and Hermann Rauschning ring a bell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Free ... y_election
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- Germany responded by refusing to renew compacts approaching expiry. Poland retaliated by sending combat divisions to Danzig, and fortifying garrisions. Between Feb and Apr 1933 Poland asked Paris twice to join in a “preventative war” to invade Germany.
It has not been confirmed whether Pilsudski attempted to forge an alliance with France to wage a preemptive war against Germany, and in any case, it is irrelevant because Pilsudski died in 1935 and France simply did not accept such a proposal.
Poland signed the Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1932.[154] The Soviet–Polish Pact was considered at the time to be a major success of Polish diplomacy, which had been greatly weakened by the trade war with Germany, the renouncement of parts of the Treaty of Versailles and the loosened ties with France after it agreed to the Locarno Treaties. Critics of the pact stated that it allowed Stalin to eliminate his socialist opponents, primarily in Ukraine. The pacts were supported by advocates of Piłsudski's Promethean programme.[164] After Adolf Hitler rise to power in Germany in January 1933, Piłsudski is rumored to have proposed to France a preventive war against Germany.[165] Lack of French enthusiasm may have been a reason for Poland signing the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1934.[49][154][166][167] Little evidence has, however, been found in French or Polish diplomatic archives that such a proposal for preventive war was ever actually advanced.[168] Critics of Poland's pact with Germany accused Piłsudski of underestimating Hitler's aggressiveness,[169] and giving Germany time to re-arm.[170][171] Hitler repeatedly suggested a German–Polish alliance against the Soviet Union, but Piłsudski declined, instead seeking precious time to prepare for a potential war with either Germany or the Soviet Union. Just before his death, Piłsudski told Józef Beck that it must be Poland's policy to maintain neutral relatations with Germany, keep up the Polish alliance with France and improve relations with the United Kingdom.[154] The two non-aggression pacts were intended to strengthen Poland's position in the eyes of its allies and neighbors.[11] Piłsudski was probably aware of the weakness of the pacts, stating: "Having these pacts, we are straddling two stools. This cannot last long. We have to know from which stool we will tumble first, and when that will be".[172]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Pi%C5%82sudski
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- In Nov, Adolf Hitler offered Poland a non-aggression pact. Only after a 3rd unsuccessful bid to enlist France for their war against Germany, did Poland agree.
Irrelevant
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- Feb 1936, the German consulate reported the disproportionate transfer of German farms into Polish hands through state sponsored land reform: “As much German property as possible is to be broken up before expiration of the ten-year agreement."
Any evidence of this? In Poland, minorities such as Jews played a prominent role in commerce. Any evidence of discrimination against Germans?
And wait... what was the “Aryanization” of the economy? The Nazis did the same thing to other groups. If the 800,000 Germans living in Poland didn’t like it, they could simply pack their bags and leave.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pmIn March 1936, Beck informed France that Poland was ready to attack Germany. Rydz-Smigly visited Paris in September. France loaned Poland $500m and war materiel to upgrade the Polish army. RS ordered General Kutrzeba to draft a war plan against Germany to begin in 1939[/list]
Please provide the primary source that supports these claims
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- Diplomaticaly, Germany offered for Poland to join Germany in the Anti-Commitern Pact to protect Poland against the dangers of Bolshevism. Poland refused the entire deal in October 1938, and called the 96% of Ethnic Germans in Danzing “the minority”
Poland did not join the anti-communist pact because it had no interest in going to war against the Soviet Union. Polish foreign policy consisted of maintaining its independence from the USSR and Germany by forging close ties with France and England. To preserve its independence, Poland had to avoid getting too close to either the Germans or the Russians.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- After this refusal, ethnic persecution of Germans continued, with the British ambassador to Poland, Sir Howard Kennard formally documented abuses, and called for moderation between Poland and the UK.
Oh, that old lie about the poor ethnic Germans being persecuted by the evil Poles. I'll let the AI do its job:
**No, there was no systematic or large-scale ethnic persecution (of the ethnic cleansing or state-organized pogrom type) against ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in Poland before 1 September 1939.** There were interethnic tensions, administrative and cultural discrimination, isolated incidents of violence, and a growing climate of hostility in 1939—especially in the border regions (Polish Corridor, Pomerania, Upper Silesia, and former Prussian areas)—but the claims of “mass atrocities” or tens of thousands of deaths before the war were mainly exaggerated or fabricated Nazi propaganda used to justify the invasion.
### Interwar context (1918–1939)
After the Treaty of Versailles, Poland regained territories with significant German minorities (around 740,000–800,000 according to the 1931 census, ≈2.3% of the population). These communities (especially in the west) had previously been majorities or privileged under the German Empire and became a minority in a nationalist Polish state.
Polish policy toward the German minority was **restrictive and assimilationist**, not exterminatory:
- Restrictions on schools, the press, cultural organizations, and land ownership (especially in the “Corridor” and Pomerania).
- Preference for Poles in public employment and administration.
- Pressure for linguistic and cultural Polonization.
- In Upper Silesia (under the Geneva Statute until 1937) there were more international protections, but also friction.
Historians such as Winson Chu (*The German Minority in Interwar Poland*) and Albert S. Kotowski document “repressive policies” and administrative “Entdeutschung” (de-Germanization), but note that the German minority was internally fragmented, received subsidies and political support from Germany (especially after 1933), and that a large part remained loyal or pragmatic toward the Polish state until the late 1930s. This was not ethnic persecution comparable to what the Nazis later practiced against Poles and Jews.
### 1939: the pre-war climate
In the months leading up to the invasion (especially summer 1939), relations deteriorated rapidly due to:
- German demands regarding the Corridor and Danzig.
- Activity by German organizations in Poland (Jungdeutsche Partei, Deutsche Vereinigung, etc.) that collaborated with the Abwehr, SD, and NSDAP in espionage, sabotage, and the preparation of proscription lists of Poles (preparations for the *Selbstschutz* and Operation Tannenberg).
- Nazi propaganda accusing Poland of “terror” and “ethnic cleansing” against the Volksdeutsche.
There were real incidents of harassment, assaults, smashed shop windows of German businesses, and preventive arrests of suspected fifth columnists. Some ethnic Germans fled or were harassed. However, the death figures that German propaganda attributed to the months *before* 1 September (reaching claims of 62,000) are false. Later investigations (especially Karol Marian Pospieszalski’s *Sprawa 58 000 „Volksdeutschów”*, Instytut Zachodni, 1959) and postwar German revisions rejected them as propagandistic manipulation. Serious estimates of fatalities from interethnic violence *before* the war number in the dozens (not hundreds or thousands).
### What happened *after* 1 September (for context)
Mass violence against ethnic Germans occurred **during** the September campaign, not before:
- In the chaos of the Polish retreat, there were lynchings, arrests, and executions of suspected saboteurs (fifth column). The best-known case is Bydgoszcz/Bromberg (3–4 September, the so-called “Krwawa niedziela” / “Bromberger Blutsonntag”): IPN investigations and other historians confirm a German diversion/sabotage action (involving locals and agents sent from the Reich), followed by Polish reprisals. Deaths: approximately 100–300 Germans and 40–50 Poles according to moderate Polish estimates; Nazi figures were enormously inflated.
- Overall, during September 1939 roughly 3,000–4,500–5,000 ethnic German civilians died in Poland (many due to participation in sabotage actions or in combat; Pospieszalski calculated ≈3,257 civilians, of whom ≈2,000 were linked to diversion). Nazi propaganda raised this to 58,000 (12,857 identified + 45,000 “missing”), a figure rejected even by postwar German historians.
This real violence (though limited and in a wartime context) was propagandistically exploited to justify the invasion and, above all, the subsequent massacres of Poles by the Wehrmacht, Einsatzgruppen, and *Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz* (which killed tens of thousands of Poles in 1939–1940).
### Balanced conclusion
- **Before 1 September 1939**: state discrimination, assimilationist pressure, local incidents of violence, and a growing climate of hostility, but **no** systematic ethnic persecution or state-organized massacres by Poland. Nazi accusations of large-scale “ethnic cleansing” were propaganda.
- The German minority was not a homogeneous group of innocent victims: significant sectors actively collaborated with the Third Reich in subversive activities.
- After the invasion, violence was bidirectional in the first days, but the scale and systematic character of Nazi atrocities against Poles (and Jews) were incomparably greater.
Key sources for further reading: Winson Chu (*The German Minority in Interwar Poland*), Pospieszalski’s works (Instytut Zachodni), IPN research on Bydgoszcz, and analyses of Nazi propaganda (USHMM and historians such as Doris Bergen). Serious historiography (Polish, German, and Anglo-Saxon) agrees in rejecting the Nazi propagandistic figures and in placing the mass violence after the outbreak of war.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- In Nov 1938 Memel (formerly Germany, but lost to Lithuania) voted 87% in favour to return to Germany. They previously voted 94% to return in 1925 but this was ignored. Rydz-Smigly accused Germany of attempting to invade Poland, and began military mobilizations.
- Poland made a military threat to von Ribbentrop “Any further pursuit of these plans, especially as far as the return of Danzig to the Reich is concerned, will mean war." This threat, together with Rydz-Smigly’s partial mobilization against Germany, violated the 1934 treaty.
- Off the back of this threat, England allied Poland, with Beck visiting London. One month later, Poland mobilised a further 334,000 military reserves, again in the absence of any German cause.
- Because Poland broke the pact, Germany gave official notice it was now considered voided based on their actions. The press in Poland became more aggressive in pushing for war. Adolf Hitler maintained a strict policy of no warmongering in his Foreign Office
Tedor is either lying or being extremely dishonest here. The Polish mobilization took place after Ribbentrop threatened Poland, saying that if Germany strengthened its ties with Russia, the Polish state might cease to exist.
Initially, Germany hoped to transform Poland into a satellite state, with Ribbentrop and Japanese military attache Hiroshi Ōshima trying to convince Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact.[131] By March 1939, German demands had been rejected by the Poles three times, which led Hitler to decide, with enthusiastic support from Ribbentrop, upon the destruction of Poland as the main German foreign policy goal of 1939.[132] On 21 March 1939, Hitler first went public with his demand that Danzig rejoin the Reich and for "extra-territorial" roads across the Polish Corridor. That marked a significant escalation of the German pressure on Poland, which until then had been confined to private meetings between German and Polish diplomats. The same day, on 21 March 1939, Ribbentrop presented a set of demands to the Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski about Poland allowing the Free City of Danzig to return to Germany in such violent and extreme language that it led the Poles to fear their country was on the verge of an immediate German attack. Ribbentrop had used such extreme language, particularly his remark that if Germany had a different policy towards the Soviet Union then Poland would cease to exist, that it led to the Poles ordering partial mobilisation and placing their armed forces on the highest state of alert on 23 March 1939.[133]
In a protest note at Ribbentrop's behaviour, Poland's Foreign Minister Józef Beck reminded him that Poland was an independent country and not some sort of German protectorate that Ribbentrop could bully at will.[134] Ribbentrop, in turn, sent out instructions to the German Ambassador in Warsaw, Count Hans-Adolf von Moltke, that if Poland agreed to the German demands, Germany would ensure that Poland could partition Slovakia with Hungary and be ensured of German support for annexing Ukraine. If the Poles rejected his offer, Poland would be considered an enemy of the Reich.[135] On 26 March, in a stormy meeting with the Polish Ambassador, Józef Lipski, Ribbentrop accused the Poles of attempting to bully Germany by their partial mobilisation and violently attacked them for offering consideration only of the German demand about the "extra-territorial" roads.[136] The meeting ended with Ribbentrop screaming that if Poland invaded the Free City of Danzig, Germany would go to war to destroy Poland.[136] When the news of Ribbentrop's remarks was leaked to the Polish press, despite Beck's order to the censors on 27 March, it caused anti-German riots in Poland with the local Nazi Party headquarters in the mixed town of Lininco destroyed by a mob. On 28 March, Beck told Moltke that any attempt to change the status of Danzig unilaterally would be regarded by Poland as a casus belli. Although the Germans were not planning an attack on Poland in March 1939, Ribbentrop's bullying behaviour towards the Poles destroyed any faint chance of Poland allowing Danzig to return to Germany.[137]
The German occupation of the Czech areas of Czecho-Slovakia on 15 March, in total contravention of the Munich Agreement, which had been signed less than six months before, infuriated British and French public opinion and lost Germany any sympathy.[138] Such was the state of public fury that it appeared possible for several days afterwards that the Chamberlain government might fall because of a backbench rebellion.[139]
Ribbentrop openly threatened the Poles, and the Poles reacted. A victim of a bully does not become a bully just because they put a stop to the bully's behavior.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- English Ambassador Henderson confirms to London, that German proposals were beyond reasonable, and that his colleagues in diplomatic circles agreed. He re-iterates that Polish rejection of these offers caused concern in diplomatic circles.
Henderson was on the verge of coming to blows with Ribbentrop because Henderson had done everything in his power to help Germany and Poland reach an agreement, and his efforts had been in vain due to the invasion on September 1. Henderson was simply trying to calm things down.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- English Foreign Office report in June warmongering in Poland. English General Sir Edmund Ironside visits Poland. English Ambassador documents the severe abuse against Germans including castration. Germans were rounded up and send to concentration camps
The anti-German incidents were the result of the German government's own actions, and as incidents, they were isolated and occasional. Nazi propaganda falsely exaggerated them.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- Both Lord Halifax and Roger Makins in the British Foreign Office, in seperate letters and cables, confirm Germany’s intent to avoid hostilities.
Provide the primary source that supports these claims
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- The Polish military:
-shut traffic & food entering into Danzig
-opened fire on civilian planes over the Baltic Sea
-fired on Germans attempting to flee
-26 Aug launched an attack on Neidenburg in East Prussia and were repelled on sovereign German territory leaving 47 dead
- Germany demanded Polish diplomats to begin negotiating peace talks. In Poland Beck, Rydz-Smigly and the defense minister, Tadeusz Kasprzycki instead decided to declare general mobilization of their full army.
- August 30th 1939 Germany drafted the 16-point Marienwerder proposal to resolve the issue. Poland refused, with England commenting “Here was proof to the German Government of Poland’s delaying tactics and refusal to negotiate seriously”
- Germany made two last attempts at a peaceful solution: Herman Goring met with Henderson, and Von Ribbentrop met with Lipski. Both negotiations failed.
- Hitler cites 30 violations in his Reichstag speech on 1 Sep1939.
“Aug 25 to Aug 31 inclusive, there occurred besides innumerable attacks on civilians of German blood, 44 perfectly authenticated acts of armed violence against German official persons and property
There is nothing unusual about Poland’s behavior, considering that Europe was a powder keg during those days in August due to the unrest in Germany.
Ribbentrop read the 16 points to Henderson but REFUSED to hand him the document, and by the time the British were rushing to Warsaw to try to salvage the situation, it was already too late because Hitler had begun the invasion. Since April 1939, Ribbentrop had been giving Polish diplomats the cold shoulder because he didn’t want an agreement—he wanted war.
HansHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 12:58 pm- A Telegraph was seized from the German Foreign Office by the US military demonstrating two top Polish officials reveal Poland deliberately sought war because their belief in British military support (which never came). The significance of these admissions is obvious
Can you share that magical revisionist document that exonerates Hitler for his actions and will make us “see the truth”?