Why did the Germans hate the Poles?

Every now and then when reading WW2 books a bit of nastiness about Germany's dislike of Poland surfaces. Did the Germans have a wide-spread and general hatred of the Poles or was it just the typical jealousy that arises from neighbouring states? Was there some serious bitterness between the two, perhaps from centuries old conflicts, or was this exaggerated?

 

G'day kulgion. The answer to your question goes back quite a way in history.

Back in the mid 1700's Poland was a country racked by internal strife and politics, so much so that the country virtually ceased to function as such.

Prussia (Germany), Austria and Russia took advantage of all this to gradually partition the country between themselves. First in 1772, they took a little bit each, then in 1793 they took over half of Poland for their own, then in 1795 they split up what remained, and Poland ceased to exist.

Then in 1806, after Napoleon had beaten these countries, he created the Duchy of Warsaw. Unfortunately after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the Duchy of Warsaw was again absorbed, and Poland again ceased to exist, with various parts being run by Prussia, Austria and Russia.

During WW1 Poles were forced to fight with both the Germans and the Russians. Basically Poles fighting Poles on behalf of their respective controllers. During this time, Germany, Austria and Russia all promised to create an independent Polish state, but when Tsarist Russia collapsed, Germany and Austria forgot about their promises.

Then, after the Axis powers were beaten in 1918, under the Treaty of Versailles the independent state of Poland was finally resurrected.

Also under the Treaty, Poland was granted access to the Baltic Sea. This created the "Polish Corridor" splitting off a portion of Germany from the western half, and as well Danzig (now Gdansk), was declared a Free City, under the control of the Poles. Something the Germans in the city didn't appreciate.

These changes caused a lot of friction between Germany and Poland, more so when Hitler came to power, since it was one of the key points he always used to denigrate the Poles and the Treaty of Versailles. And it was basically the main excuse he used for his invasion of Poland. "Re-unifying Germany and German peoples"

So you can see, there has always been some friction between Poles and Germans, Poles and Russians, etc. Unfortunately with the likes of Adolf Hitler and his cronies continually stirring up trouble back in the thirties, the animosity between the two countries grew.

So I think you can see why you'll read occassionally about the hatred between Poles and Germans, especially during the war years.

Hopefully all that has now settled down to the normal state of affairs between different peoples, i.e. the majority of people no matter what country they live in don't care where you're from, only a minority keeping the old hatreds alive, and that's only because they have nothing better to do.

Hope this brief summary of Polish history ahs helped.

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I cannot help feeling that it were better to perish honourably than accept a disgraceful peace.
- Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, letter to Friedrich Ebert before the Treaty of Versailles, 1919

 

Thanks for the insight Sniper.

It would seem that the Poles would have an excuse for not liking the Germans, Russians, and everyone else. But, I'm still not sure why the German's disliked the Poles more than say, the French, or British. I read some accounts that the Germans may have considered getting rid of all Poles, but I don't know if this is true.

 

Most of it comes from Nazi propaganda against the Poles.

The Nazi's saw a way to unite the German people by having a common enemy. Initially it was the Poles, because of the "Polish Corridor" created by the Treaty of Versailles, and the Polish control over the German city of Danzig. Nazi propaganda said that ethnic Germans in these areas were being persecuted by the Polish authorities. So they built up the people's hatred for losing WW1, and the harsh conditions of the Versailles Treaty, into a hatred of the Poles, whose country had only come into being because Germany lost the war. So, basically, they told the German people that in order to "rescue" their fellow countrymen from persecution, and to right one of the wrongs of the Versaille Treaty, Poland had to be eliminated from the world stage.

The Poles were considered (in the eyes of the Nazi's) equal to the Russians, i.e. less that men, only fit for manual labour in forced labour camps and extermination.

The easiest way to unite any disfunctional society or people is to provide a common enemy that all can hate. The US and Russian governments used the same technique during the Cold War. George Bush has tried to use the same technique with Osama Bin laden and the El Quaida network.
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In starting and waging war, it is not right that matters, but victory - Adolf Hitler

 

Sniper, that was to the point and educational. I would like to add that during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations, surveys of ethnic populations and national expectations were considered. Danzig at the mouth of the Vistula was 96% ethnic German, and couldn't be handed to Poland except by a gigantic hypocricy BUT the population of the coastal fringe of the West Vistula delta was almost all Pole or else inhabited by people who considered themselves Polish-first, despite surnames like Klein. The Polish government had so much trouble with Danzig that they began building the now major port of Gdynia only a few kilometers from Gdansk (Danzig).

 

Historically the Germans did not have much cause to hate the Poles - almost from the beginning Germany (Prussia and the Teuronic Knights) was the aggressor.

The Russians had a lot more reason. The joint Lithuanian\Polish state conquered a large portion of the Ukraine and Belorussia. Being Catholic the Poles converted many Ukrainians which is a bone of contention even today - the Western part of the Ukraine leans towards the West and the East (in the past predominately Ukrainian Orthodox) leaned east to Russia, giving hte present tensions in the Orange Revolution. Of course as late as 1920 there was war between the two. Also the dismemberment of Poland in the 1770's (as cynical then as in 1939) left the larger part under the control of Russia.

Another factor explaining the German dislike is simply that Poland was more backward, still a very agricultural country in 1940s. It is surprising how many German soldiers comment upon the wretched poverty of the Poles when they invaded.

 

To take the history back a little further, in 1618 the Hohenzollern Elector of Brandenburg became also Duke of Prussia by marriage to the daughter and heir of the previous duke. Prussia at this point was a province of Poland and was not geographically contiguous with Brandenburg, an antecedent of the Polish Corridor of 1919-39. Brandenburg-Prussia became progressively stronger, and when in 1701 the Elector was able to elevate himself to royalty, he took the title King of Prussia. One of the Hohenzollerns' ambitions was to unite their separated lands, which they achieved in the first partition of Poland in 1772. Versailles basically restored the situation which had existed prior to the partition. It's as if your neighbor on the left also acquired the property on your right and then decided he needed your property to remedy the 'injustice' of his two being separated.

 

Another thing to keep in mind was Hitler's version of the racial "ladder" as to which group fell on which rung, the Poles were only slightly above the Semites and (in Hitler's mind) only suitable to be un-educated workers for the German state in an almost slave mode.

On the first rung of his (Hitler's) racial ladder were the Nordic or Germanic races which for the most part consisted of the Germans, English, Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, some Swiss and "probably" the Albanians and the "hopelessly mixed" Greeks.

Second from the top was the "Latin race" which included the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

And third down in his list, were the "Slavic races" consisting mainly of the Russians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Bulgarians, and Poles.

From the Slavic rung on down, to the Semitic (Jews, Arabs…) on the bottom; these were the "Untermensch".

Adolf Hitler had a well thumbed 1920 two volume version of H.G. Wells’; The Outline of History, in his library which it appears he had owned since the middle twenties. His "racial ladder" closely followed the one put forward by Herbert G. Wells (he was not just a science fiction writer you know).

 

I'm polish born and I'm sot so sure that before Hitler and Goebbels, German people hated Poles. I always thought that Poles had more in common with the German people then Russians. Yes there were many wars between Poland and Germany (Tribes, and Tuetanics) for over a thousand years. But who didn't. Yes, there was many small battles between Poles and Germans after WW1, and many Polish uprisings during the Partition years. Anyway, I don't think there was true hatred between the two, untill Hitler/Goebbels. At least not hatred to the point of evil so terrible the result was a war so aweful that Satan himself would be squeamish.

 

Thanks Tom. The title of the thread may sound a bit clumsy as it generalizes the whole subjet, which you are rightfully pointing out. I'd maybe have called it "why did some of the Germans hate the poles". Poles and Germans were neigbours and many poles lived in German speaking zones of Silezia.
A large minority Germans on the other hand lived in West Prussia which had become polish in 1919. (Posen/Poznan area for instance) Danzig was a German speaking territory which was basically surrounded with Poles and other neigbour zones were mixed (Zoppot, Elbling etc...)

 

Hi Tom

Thanks for your input. I suppose that I also swallowed the obvious line that Germans and Poles hated each other. It is a bit similar to Irish and English - there a very few who hate but the vast majority don't. There is a recognition that a certain charming difference (well in the Irish at least) exists between each other.

I started a thread to examine the thoughts of a German writer who, whilst admitting that the Junker class were anti-Polish, believed that Hitler was as open to the Poles joining him as attacking them (and that the Polish Governments reactions were inept)- the problem for Hitler was the geographical position of Poland situated as it is between Germany and the people Hitler really wanted to attack - Russia. I stress this is the writer's views not mine but I thought they were worth examining.

In fact whilst lacking the barbarism of the Nazi and the desire of foreign conquest, the Polish regime was rather similar to that of the Axis. There was in his view a possibility of building on the Polish\German non-aggression treaty for Poland to side with Germany in a conflict with Russia.

On the surface, it seems to me that Hitler could have more reason to dislike the Italians - racially non-Aryan, with a significant repressed German minority in the Tyrol and long standing antagonism between Austria and Italy as well as a recent disagreement over Austria and Mussolini's involvement in the Stresa Front.

Besides Hitler was a pragmatist at times, Japanese, Hungarians and Roumanians are hardly Nordic Aryans, yet he welcomed their assistance in the crusade against Bolshevism.

 

HG Wells racial theories then too? I also understand that Hitler's model for the plantation system he was going to set up in Eastern Europe came from the antebellum American South. I don't think Sir Richard Burton or Jefferson Davis would have approved of the murderous extremes to which Der Fuhrer was willing to take it all. There is a huge lack of scientific basis for all these xenophobic ideologies but it took Herr Hitler to really turn these questionable world views into something truly malignant.

 

I don't know that antebellum Americans were the first to create estates supported by slave labor; the idea had been around at least since the Roman latifundia. Most of the things Hitler did had precursors in history; aggression and conquest certainly did. Although humanity was making progress, in his day it was taken for granted - at least by Europeans - that they had a literally God-given right to rule vast empires of 'inferior' people. For most of history conquerors didn't even consider it necessary to make up rationales like eugenics; that was just the way life was. Even most of the downtrodden wished more that they could be the ones on top than the whole system of empire and exploitation did not exist.

 

Don't forget that Hitler had a model for his euthanasia program - he was aware of the American's sterilization of "feeble-minded" and mentally retarded people which took place in the 20's and 30's.

 

The main thing was the Germans never accepted the Versailles treaty, Poland represented the fall of the German empire and to overturn that treaty was paramount. It was the same as the French desire to recover Alsace/Lorraine.

 

While not going so far as to say the two hated each other from the start there have been many generations of "bad blood". The Teutonic Knights immediately come to mind when speaking of early major conflicts. The very same ones which the highest of the Nazis admired and wanted to resemble when speaking of clensing the un-worthy... Marienburg which now sat on the lands of Poland must have infuriated many of them.

 

One thing to keep in mind here is that the idea for exploiting the Poles was more patterned after the Irish Plantation concept of three centuries (Henry VIII) previous than the antebellum south of America. In that the indigenous Celtic Irish lost their land due to military conquest, and then to foreign absentee landlords, and were put to work on what used to be their own land to work it for others.

In the Antebellum south, the indigenous Amerindians were thrown off their land by dishonest methods, and then slaves imported to work the land. Adam Smith had argued that slave labor was a losing proposition, and for good reason. He believed that indentured servitude would produce a better result with less sabotage, less revolts since it was for a set period of servitude and the chance to go off and start your own living on your own land, and better production with less oversight. This proved true north of the Chesapeake Bay, where indentured servants could survive their indenture time. The only problem with Mr. Smith's concept was it didn't take into account the newly introduced malaria in the south, which came over with the new European settlers.

Malaria had never existed in the Americas before that, the mosquitoes that could carry the parasite did exist, but the parasites didn't. The Africans had a better chance of surviving more than three years in the American south, due oddly enough to their sickle cell trait. After that time period imported African slaves rather than indigenous workers, or indentured servants were more cost-effective. Follow the money.

 

Worried eyes in the Hapsburg Empire looked east at the rapidly expanding Polish Empire with much consternation.

 

Perhaps one resemblence to America was that the average German of the period did not see Poland as a legitamate country/nation, much as many American's did not see the AmerIndian nations as legitimate nation states even though they created treaties with them that implied such. Nor was this all that different from other european colonial powers and their conquests.

Yes they had a laguage and culture, but this was seen as being inferior to the more advanced state. It should also be remembered that Russia (Czarist and Communist) had very similar feelings about Poland.

 

What do you think is exacly similarities between Poles and Germans and differences between Poles and Russians?Could you explain it in detail?Do you mean genetical,cultural,linguistic or something else?..