Was WWII Worth It?

[Laurent Daniel]

Hi Schultz,
I won't comment about Chirac being a socialist, first it is off-topic here and second it seems that it is a pure question of definition, of vocabulary, a bit like "Republican" that, and this one I am sure, don't have the same meaning in the USA and in Europe.

Concerning the Poles joining the Germans during WW2, I read the pages of Jason Pipes and posted few things to solc.culture.polish to cross check. I got there many replies, all oriented the same way:

They say that there were in fact 2 type of people in Poland when the Germans invaded: Slavs and what they call "allemanic", i.e. Volkdeutsche.

The Slavs were mistreated, they resisted, fled away or whatever they could but didn't help the Reich.
The Volkdeutsche joined massively.
There are individual exceptions but they told me that they are "the exceptions to confirm the rule".
Nothing to see with France, Belgium, Netherland and Denmark where a very sizeable number of nationals joined as volunteers while not being "Volksdeutsche".

My 2 zlotys

[Schultz]

Funny everyone after says they where opposedhttp://website.lineone.net/~thevoluntee ... Schultz

[Torquez]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksdeutsche
n Poland during World War II, Polish citizens of German ancestry, who often identified themselves with the Polish nation, were confronted with the dilemma of whether to sign the Volksliste, the list of Germans living in Poland. This included ethnic Germans whose families had lived in Poland proper for centuries, and Germans (who after 1920 became citizens of Poland) from the part of Germany that had been given to Poland after World War I.

Often the choice was either to sign and be regarded as a traitor by the Polish, or not to sign and be treated by the Nazi occupation as a traitor of the Germanic race. After the collapse of Nazi Germany, these people were tried by the Polish authorities for high treason. Even now, in Poland the word Volksdeutsch is regarded as an insult, synonymous with the word "traitor".

In some cases, individuals consulted the Polish resistance first, before signing the Volksliste. Volksdeutsche played an important role in intelligence activities of the Polish resistance, and were at times the primary source of information for the Allies. Having helped the Polish non-communist resistance didn't help in the eyes of new Communist government installed by the Soviet Union after 1945; therefore, some of these double agent Volksdeutsche were also persecuted.

In occupied Poland, the status of "Volksdeutscher" gave many privileges, but one big disadvantage: Volksdeutsche were conscripted into the German army. The Volksliste had 4 categories. No. 1 and No. 2 were considered ethnic Germans, while No. 3 and No. 4 were ethnic Poles who had signed the Volksliste for different reasons. Volksdeutsche of statuses 1 and 2 in the Polish areas annexed by Germany numbered 1,000,000, and Nos. 3 and 4 numbered 1,700,000. In the General Government there were 120,000 Volksdeutsche. Volksdeutsche of Polish ethnic origins were treated by the Poles with special contempt, but were also committing high treason according to Polish law.

Both those who became Volksdeutsche by signing the list and Reichsdeutsche retained German citizenship during the years of Allied military occupation, after the establishment of East Germany and West Germany in 1949, and later in the reunified Germany.


In many cases those people were forced to sign the list in order to provide troops:

Alojzy Lysko – Losy Górnoślązaków przymusowo wcielonych do Wehrmachtu"
"Alojzy Lysko-The Fate of Upper Silesians forced into Wehrmacht"
The author also mentions that around 100-120.000 Poles who refused to sign, were conscripted against their will
:Najgorsze
byly przesluchania. Okropnie nas tam bito. Lecz wtedy bylem siedemnastolatkiem i to bicie
jakos; wytrzymalem. Matka siedzial;a pól; roku. Mnie po trzech miesiacach wypuszczono,
bez zadnego pytania wpisano na volkslise; »trzy« i wcielono do Wehrmachtu […]”.

"The hearings were the worst. We were beaten savagely. But then I had seventeen years and I endured them somehow. My mother was imprisoned for half a year. I was relased after three months, without being questioned writen down on volkslist number three and conscripted into Wehrmacht"



German Reich hated Poles to such extent that when some marginal fascists came to cooperate in September 1939 they were either executed or imprisoned.One of them even turned his organisation into one of many resistence movements.



http://website.lineone.net/~thevolunteers/

Shultz -there is no mention of Poland there.

For a glimpse of German Reich policy towards Poles/which makes more undertandable why collaboration was minimal/
http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm

Use to have a link to the site i just put on for you but there was another which had where people came from that volunteered to fight the Russians an there was a high number from Poland as compared to what the people say.

The number probably came from Silesian forcefully signed on and conscripted.

[Pirx]

Dear Schultz.
There is well known in Poland that it was free will to be "volksdeutsch" during ocupation. Volunteer needed only to proof "German roots". However it was not so "free will" as many people think. In "Warthegau" local gauleiter made ethnic cleansic, and simply extruded Poles to GG. But German settlement on this area was poor and economy quick goes down. In Pomerania gauleiter simply ordered sign volkslist. So you want it or not (many even didn't know about it) many Poles turned to Germans.
Occupants don't need any document to confirm "German roots".
It was looking like mass action of join to volkslist.
German goverment saw those people as Germans not Poles. So they must go to army becouse on documents they were "Germans".

1. Fact is that volkslist was long, and many people was on this list.
2. Only volksdeutsch could be conscript or volunteer to wehrmacht. Pole couldn't. That you are German or Pole decide document.
3. Volksdeutsch couldn't join SS. Only reichsdeutch could do that (Reichsdeutsch it was person who was German but had Polish citizienship to 1939). All Poles who served in wehrmacht got in papers "German".
4. Remember that 52% teritory of Poland was occupied by Russians. Russian occupant wasn't peacefull or nice for Poles.

[timobrienwells]

Trust us Laurent,Europe is as socialist as Karl Marx's underwear.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Pirx,

While it may be true that the USSR occupied 52% of Poland in September 1939, it did occupy anything like that proportion of ethnic Poles. According to the 1931 Polish census, Poles were in an overall minority in the area occupied by the USSR. Probably about 6 million ethnic Poles came under Soviet rule, while about four times as many were ruled by Germany.

Volksdeutsche could join the Waffen-SS. Balkan volksdeutsche were conscripted by the Waffen-SS en masse from 1943 and made up a high percentage of many Waffen-SS divisions. However, you may be right that ex-Polish volksdeutsche were not so easily accepted into the Waffen-SS.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Torquez]

However, you may be right that ex-Polish volksdeutsche were not so easily accepted into the Waffen-SS.

Poles that were deemed suitable for Germanisation-one of the categories in Volksdeutsche were forced into Wehrmacht.From all I know "lesser races" such as Poles weren't allowed in SS.[/quote]

[sid guttridge]

Hi Schultz,

I would be most surprised if any significant number of ethnic Poles volunteered to fight for Germany.

There are always a few erratic individuals who can be enlisted for any cause, but the number of ethnic Poles volunteering to fight in German uniform is probably so small as not to be of any historical significance.

I can find you tens of thousands of ethnic Poles compulsorily in German uniform by 1944, but if you think that there were significant numbers of ethnic Poles voluntarily in German uniform it is very much up to you to bring forward the evidence.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Sid,
I can suggest a detail, not of scientific origin but maybe useful.
My dentist, from Como, told me, when I was a child, that he encountered in Italy, at the beginning of 1943, when many groups of 88 mm guns arrived in Italy to implement her AA defences, many German Flack artillery men in German uniform, but Polish. They were not volksdeutche but Polish of lenguage and sentiments. He recalled them well as he was deeply catholic and meet them regoularly attending the religious services. They had no Polish symbol on their uniform but there were Polish NCOs among them too.

Bye

EC

[Kitsune]

Was WWII worth it?

Depends on wether the Nazi dictatorship would have developed to the coomonly assumed super totalitarian state or would have vanished. My belief is the latter. Also, Holocaust and astrocities were more the result of WW2 and not something that would have happened in any case.

My answer to the question is a definite: No, it was not.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

That seems possible to me. The Germans raised a Croat anti-aircraft brigade and tried to raise a Slovak anti-aircraft brigade, both for service in the Reich. They also took over the Vichy French anti-aircraft artillery, which served mostly in southern France. I believe that they also integrated Italian anti-aircraft units into their defences in Northern Italy in 1944-45. So there is no doubt that there was a substantial presence of non-Germans in the Flak.

This was possible because most individual tasks when manning a Flak gun are not very skilled. The skilled tasks are those of the fire controllers, who remained German. They would order the necessary fuse settings, elevation, etc., and the gunners would follow their instructions mechanically. Furthermore, as the flak was mostly well behind the front, and often within the Reich itself, desertion was not a major problem.

The gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia believed that most of the Polish inhabitants of his gau were actually Polonised ethnic Germans. As a result, he put hundreds of thousands of Poles who spoke no German on the volksliste. This made them eligible for conscription into the Wehrmacht. (Three of the four German prisoners taken by the Canadians at Dieppe in 1942 were actually Poles conscripted in this way). Assuming your source was correct, I would guess that this was the origin of your Polish flak gunners in Italy.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Torquez]

Also Poles in Silesia were often forced on volskdeutsche list.
The article in IPN journal about Poles in Wehrmacht for example lists a typicak village and post war situation in marriages-and two men are married to italian women.

Also, Holocaust and astrocities were more the result of WW2 and not something that would have happened in any case.

Extermination and atrocities in German Reich begun well before WW2 startred.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocau ... UPPEN.html

First Appearances.
Einsatzgruppen made their first appearance during the Anschluss, the incorporation of Austria into the Reich in March 1938. These were intelligence units of the police accompanying the invading army; they reappeared in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, in March 1939, and of Poland, on September 1 of that year. In the invasions of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the task of the Einsatzgruppen was to act as mobile offices of the SD and Sipo until such time as these formations established their permanent offices; they were immediately behind the advancing military units, and, as in the Reich, they assumed responsibility for the security of the political regime. In the Sudetenland, the Einsatzgruppen, in close cooperation with the advancing military forces, lost no time in uncovering and imprisoning the "Marxist traitors" and other "enemies of the state" in the liberated areas.

[Opa]

What you refer to in the Sudetenland is political oppression, not even mass-murder, (the arrested were generally not killed) and certainly not genocide (which came because of WW II). Yad Vashem always tried to push the enflate the definition, push it earlier, and raise the numbers. If this tendency continues, someday we'll trace its roots to the Cro-Magnons (they should have known--they're guilty).

But about Poles in Silesia--why would Poles who were ordinary German citizens (since the part of Upper Silesia remaining with Germany after the partition contained many Slonzaks) have needed to register on the Volksliste? Would not any Pole with a German passport have been able to join the Waffen-SS if he wanted to (and was accepted)?

[sid guttridge]

Hi Opa,

Before WWII the predecessors of the Waffen-SS recruited on strict racial grounds, requiring a German ancestry to be provable for several generations. Thus no Pole with pre-war German citizenship was eligible.

W-SS recruiting restrictions within the Alt Reich were relaxed during the war, but not to the point of allowing the entry of openly ethnic Poles.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Torquez]

What you refer to in the Sudetenland is political oppression

Racial discrimination began already on September 15, 1935
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/nlaw.htm

The Nuremberg Race Laws
At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights.

The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews.

For a brief period after Nuremberg, in the weeks before and during the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, the Nazi regime actually moderated its anti-Jewish attacks and even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the Games to another country. Such a loss would have been a serious blow to German prestige.

After the Olympic Games (in which the Nazis did not allow German Jewish athletes to participate), the Nazis again stepped up the persecution of German Jews. In 1937 and 1938, the government set out to impoverish Jews by requiring them to register their property and then by "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses. This meant that Jewish workers and managers were dismissed, and the ownership of most Jewish businesses was taken over by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by Nazis. Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law.

Like everyone in Germany, Jews were required to carry identity cards, but the government added special identifying marks to theirs: a red "J" stamped on them and new middle names for all those Jews who did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names -- "Israel" for males, "Sara" for females. Such cards allowed the police to identify Jews easily.

and certainly not genocide (which came because of WW II).

Poles to be murdered by German authorities in concentration camps were chosen well before start of WW2 in areas such Gdansk.