70 years on, Poland's WWII wounds haven't healed

"Back home in Germany, Erika Steinbach is hardly a household name. But in neighboring Poland she is a national hate figure, caricatured on magazine covers as a Nazi in SS uniform.

Her offense, in Polish eyes, is that she claims to speak for the millions of ethnic Germans who were expelled from their homes in Poland and elsewhere in eastern Europe after World War II. These accusers say she is revising history and drawing a moral parallel between the cruelties the Germans inflicted and the sufferings they later endured.

The recriminations go to the heart of the resentments that still bubble up from the war that broke out with Hitler's attack on Poland on Sept. 1, 1939.
Today, as Polish, German and Russian leaders join on Tuesday to mark the anniversary, Polish-German relations are at one level an idyll of open borders and shared membership in the prosperous, democratic European Union."

Read more here:

70 years on, Poland's WWII wounds haven't healed - Taiwan News Online

 

This sort of Russian nationalism doesn't help "calm the waters" much.

MOSCOW – Russia's president defended Moscow's role in World War II before the 70th anniversary of its outbreak, saying in an interview broadcast Sunday that anyone who lays equal blame on the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany is telling a "cynical lie."

Dmitry Medvedev's remarks were the latest salvo in Russia's bitter dispute with its neighbors over the war and its aftermath. The Kremlin has launched a campaign for universal acceptance of its portrayal of the Soviet Union as Europe's liberator.

See:

Medvedev: blaming Soviets for WWII a 'cynical lie' - Yahoo! Philippines News

I know the they are attempting to "refurbish" the legacy of the former Soviet Union, but really! This ignores the over a year and a half of Stalin aiding the Nazis with grain, alloys, and POL does it NOT?

 

I completely agree!

 

Ill agree with that clint.. And im no defender of uncle joe's... But it riles me on occasions when some make the nazi and soviet attrocity link. The nazi's had genocide as a planned policy. Soviets could be cruel and murderous too.. But as a planned policy there were major differences.. Although if you were a pole at katyan, i suppose its semantics.

 

The Soviets before the war did some horrible stuff, including the liquidation of the Kulaks, estimated at 10 million. After the war they also did some horrible things to their own captured soldiers. They imprisoned most Soviet POW's under the pretext that they were traitors since they had not died.

Honestly one must look at the 'alliance'(Between USSR,USA,UK) as a one of mere convenience. As Harry Truman said before the war(I'm paraphrasing slightly here no doubt), 'If the Germans are winning the war in Russia, we need to send the Soviets supplies of weapons, tanks, etc... If the Soviets are winning we need to send the supplies to Germany.', He concluded by saying 'let them fight it out'. In the end the Soviets and Nazis although different in ideology had the same goals: repression of freedom, liberty, justice, and humanity.

I hope I did not start a war.

Yours,

Bill

 

Leaders mark 70th anniversary of World War II


At least 20 world leaders gathered Tuesday in Poland to commemorate the start of World War II 70 years ago -- a conflict in which 6 million Poles died.

Leaders mark 70th anniversary of World War II - CNN.com

 

And this...
It was almost the 'sorry' that Poland has waited seventy years for.
But just as Vladimir Putin inched towards an apology for Russia's invasion of Poland in the wake of the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939, he pulled back from the precipice, placing the blame for the outbreak of the Second World War squarely on Britain and France.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210264/Putin-condemns-Moscow-signing-1939-treaty-Berlin--blames-Britain-wartime-pacts-Nazi-Germany.html#ixzz0PrFEVwRu

 

and more.....Few are alive to tell how the German cruiser Schleswig-Holstein bombarded 280mm and 170mm shells at a Polish fort over the Westerplatte peninsula on 1 Sept 1939. Ignacy Skowron, one of the 182 Polish soldiers at the military depot, recalls: "I took the telescope and looked out at the cruiser... At that moment I saw a flash of red and the first shell hit the gate. I grabbed a machine gun. We got the order and we started to fight back... They started to dive-bomb us." After the 7-day battle the German commander Gen Friedrich Eberhardt allowed the Polish commander Maj Sucharski to keep his sabre, saying that "If he had such an army he could fight the whole world."

BBC NEWS | Europe | Watching the start of World War II

 

Grow up will you...What is the matter with some people.

Russia and Poland trade insults on 70th anniversary of World War Two - Telegraph

 

Stalin probably killed far more Russians than the Germans ever did. The purges he carried out in the Red Army in the 1930's, for no real reason other than his own paranoia, are well known. More then half the officers at all levels, from lieutenant on up, were either killed or tortured and thrown into prison. The charges were almost always false and a fabrication but with Stalin, mere suspicion was enough to destroy someone. These purges were key to Hitler's decision to attack Russia in 1941, because in his words "the armies are leaderless." At the time, he was right - it would take the Red Army several years to recover its cadre to a competent officer corps.

Your comment about Russian POW's being imprisoned is absolutely correct. Alot of Russian POW's who would up in American or British hands, did not want to go back at the end of the war because they knew what their fate would be. Most Russians repatriated from German POW camps were immediately sent on to Russian prison camps. Stalin's bizarre logic had two reasons, first Stalin thought they had been "contaminated" by contact with the west and needed re-educating, in a Siberian ghulag. And second, they were all traitors to Russia because they surrendered instead off fighting to the death.

The last group of WW2 veterans is slowly fading way and thats sad, because all the hard-won lessons they have to share fade with them. At least WW2 brought one good thing: the years 1945 to present is one of the longest periods of peace in European history. Hopefully the present generation will put the old resentments aside someday, somehow, and the peace will continue for a while longer at least-

 

There is plenty of blame to go around regarding Hitlers rise to power, re-arming, appeasing and supplying his war machine. The blame for this conflict and atrocities which followed however, ultimately rest on Hitlers shoulders and no one elses.

To single out any one nation for helping Hitler either rise to power or start the largest and deadliest conflict the world has ever seen, is dishonest and a distortion of historical facts. Such a move is a convenient way for some to rinse their hands of all the blame which they too share. Such a move is not a friendly one nor constructive in developing relations when discussing the darkest time in modern history.

The rise of Hitler and his war machine was a result of multiple nations acting in their own best interests. The defeat of Hitler took the very same nations to work together and correct their previous mistakes.

 

No he did not, and when comparing the two body counts perhaps it would be best that a timetable be included? Stalin killed 20-25 million of his own people in a span of 30 years? Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 28 million Russians along with virtually all of Western Russia in a span of 6.

 

Exactly!

"Our country has condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. We have the right to expect other countries that made deals with the Nazis to do the same".

Russia urges West to condemn all pre-WWII deals with Nazis | Top Russian news and analysis online | 'RIA Novosti' newswire

(Its almost is if our discussion is heard around the world!)

 

Not to be contrary, but what difference does it make about how long it takes for a dictator to rack up a body count?

Yes, Germany and Japan are ultimately to blame for World War II, I agree Slon that they world allowed these two nations to commit the acts they did.

Yours,

Bill

 

70th anniversary of the Invasion of Poland, WWII in two days.

RIP all people who were killed in this terrible war