Talk:Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)

Overmans

If there is some kind of discrepancy between Overmans' research and how it has been reported please discuss it here first. We have a Polish language source and a German language source. I've taken the trouble to translate the Polish language, so if there is some kind of objections it's only appropriate that a full translation - and how it contradicts Zurek - is provided before any major revisions are made.radek (talk) 23:08, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, this is something that Woogie10w could help us out with.radek (talk) 23:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Radek, in a nutshell, Overmans wrote that the official demographic statistic of 2 million has no concrete foundation and has been brought into doubt in recent years. He points out that hardly 500,000 are confirmed deaths, the balance being undetermined. He noted that his research on military casualties found an additional 344,000 military deaths in the region of the expulsions, he believes that this should reduce civilian deaths.

Radek, I am here if you need additional info. By the way, de:Theodor Schieder was a Nazi party member during the Hitler period. His report never mentions the crimes or victims of the Nazi era. Please note well that the demographic methodology of Schieder's report includes civilian deaths in the former German territories due to Nazi genocide and repression with “natural” deaths. But the Schieder report lists the civilian deaths due to allied bombing in the war on a separate line. Nazi genocide and oppression in the war included German Jews and German citizens of Polish ancestry. Dr. Schieder considered these “natural” deaths not worth mentioning. Another point about Schieder's report, he lists 1,381,000 ethnic Germans living in Poland prior to the war. The Polish census data from 1931 listed 740,000 ethnic Germans. Schieder's report lists 185,000 civilian expellee dead among his estimated 1,381,000 ethnic Germans in 1939 Poland.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

German Wikipedia has this to say about Schieder: During the war Schieder encouraged the expulsion of Jews in occupied Poland. He was active in the program to Germanize the East and to prevent the intermingling of ethnic Germans with the peoples in Eastern Europe. His recommendations were included in the Nazi Plan Ost. He was praised by the Nazi gauleiter Eric Koch for the confiscation of documents from Jewish Synagoues--Woogie10w (talk) 21:32, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no discrepancy. The 2-million-more-figure is for all German deaths, not for the expulsion area. I thought (and still think) it would make more sense to have only the latter included, as it is not related to this article how Wehrmacht deaths statistics for let's say Cologne have changed, only what has changed in the expulsion areas. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:12, 28 July 2009 (UTC)/23:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

No, not according to Overmans, who says 600,000. He is specifically disputing the 2 million + figure. Unless that by "all German deaths, not for the expulsion area" you mean expellees+German soldiers and others during the last two years of the war, in which case, there's no reason for it to be included. Obviously the numbers are related. Can you provide the direct German text of the Overmans source you're relying on and an adequate translation (since I've done the same)?radek (talk) 23:18, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I can give a full translation, but I ask for your patience until tomorrow. I have given the url in the source, but it is in German. I will translate tomorrow. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The 2-million-more is the additional overall Wehrmacht death toll (regardless of soldiers' origin) Overmans has computed. In the url to the Overman source you find a table on top of the page, that in its first columns names the different expulsion territories, in the second column the people who lived there and got KIA per Overmans, and in the third column you find the data Schieder had used. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, do it tomorrow. Thanks.radek (talk) 23:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Can you also articulate what you mean by "The 2-million-more-figure is for all German deaths, not for the expulsion area"? The 2 million + figure is presented as the number for the expellees, which is what this article is about - not for "all German deaths".radek (talk) 23:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding, with "2-million-more-figure" I referred to the surplus of overall German military deaths Overmans revealed, not to the expellee figure. Of this overall military deaths surplus, 344,000 are from the expulsion areas, so this number has to be substracted from the original figure issued by Schieder et al. (which is somewhat above 2 million). Skäpperöd (talk) 09:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

---

Translation of Overmans (2004). Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. pp.298-300:

4. Results

4.3. Relevance of the results

page 298

4.3.2. Expulsion losses

This is an aspect which in its content and method is closely tied to the research at hand. While the now concluded project focusses on the military losses, this does not mean that soldiers were the only victims of the war. Let aside the losses of [Nazi] Germany's enemies, there had to be abstracted the German civilian victims of aerial warfare, deportation to the Soviet Union and flight and expulsion resp. from the former eastern territories, to whom the present data compilations provide no information. Yet, there are relations which now will be investigated.

[*]The deaths during flight and expulsion concerned the Germans in the immediate postwar period as much as the fate of the missing soldiers, and similar efforts were made to clarify the fate of the missing civilians or bring families together. A huge scientific project reconstructed the events historiographically, the Federal Statistics Office (Statistisches Bundesamt), the refugees’ associations and the clerical search service did a lot with the financial support of the Federal Government to quantitatively assess the fate of those expelled as accurately as possible. The result can be summarized in the conclusion that about 2 million Germans had been killed during flight [pagebreak]

page 299

Table 71: Comparison: Military losses from the expulsion areas
Origin	Research at hand [Overmans data]	"Bilanz der Vertreibung" [Schieder data]
Former eastern territories [of Germany as of 1937]	910,000	690,000
Greater Germany's eastern territories [wartime annexed territories]	206,000	180,000
Eastern and Southern Europe [Southeast European Volksdeutsche]	328,000	230,000
Total	1,444,000	1,100,000

and expulsion - not including those from the respective territories who had died during military service.

[*]These casualty figures, however, which for decades have been an integral part of the respective serious literature, are the result not of a counting of death records or similar concrete data, but of a population balance which concluded that the fate of about 2 million inhabitants of the expulsion territories could not be clarified and that it must therefore be assumed that they had lost their lives in the course of these events. In recent years, however, these statements have been increasingly questioned, as the studies about the sum of reported deaths showed that the number of victims can hardly have been higher than 500,000 persons - which is also an unimaginable number of victims, but nevertheless only a quarter of the previous data. In favor of the hitherto assumed numbers it could always be said, however, that the balance didn’t say that the death of these people had been proven, but only that their fate could not be clarified.

At this point exactly the results from the research at hand show an effect. As has been shown in Table 71, the number of males from the expulsion areas who died in the course of the Second World War according to the conducted research amounts to 1.44 million deaths, i.e. it is about 330,000 higher than the authors of "Bilanz der Vertreibung" have calculated. The question how this discrepancy had come about is easy to answer. Lacking precise documents, the authors of "Bilanz der Vertreibung" had to make assumptions about the death quota of the soldiers which today turn out to be false. The consequence of the construction of the [statistical] investigation as a balance is now that the number of civilian deaths lowers at the same rate the number of military deaths rises - because the number of the unexplained fates decreases. There- [pagebreak]

page 300

fore the previously issued data can not be maintained anymore.

In addition, there is a second issue. The research of the fate of the civilian deportees - of only marginal interest here - which is closely tied to the fate of the prisoners of war, shows that to this day the quantitative denotation of this process is not yet sufficiently explored. Also from this issue, there are clues which might be an impetus to critically revise the assertions about the losses of flight and expulsion.[end of chapter]

[Note: The two paragraphs marked with an asteriks ([*]) are translations transcluded from the Demographic estimates subarticle. I tried to maintain the original structure of the chapter and to translate as literal as grammar rules permit for easy verification.] Skäpperöd (talk) 09:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)/09:53, 29 July 2009 (UTC)/09:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

---

Yes but this just confirms what I was saying earlier. Overmans states that the number of deaths is no higher ("can hardly have been higher than") than 500,000. The adjustment of 330,000 is to one particular number out of all the numbers. It is the correction of one of many problems in the 1950s study. This is how these studies are done - if you have a study that's weak methodologically usually it has a number of problems and different parts of a criticism are going to focus on different problems. But that doesn't mean there is only one problem, as the suggestion is being made here. Hence it is inappropriate to write the text as if the entire revision that Overmans is making is just the 330,000 rather than a revision from 2-3 million to 500,000 (or 600,000).

Also, it's pretty clear from all the sources provided that Overmans and other newer research supports a number of deaths that's either 500,000 or 600,000. The exact criticism of the older numbers are at a level of detail that properly belongs in Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans (and that article needs to be revised accordingly as well).radek (talk) 23:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Overmans' correction of the military deaths figure in the population balance and his research/support for "studies about the sum of reported deaths" (>500,000) are two different issues. I hope that comes out more clear with the improved structure of the section. Skäpperöd (talk) 11:00, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

All Overmans has done is to point out the estimated losses and their sources.

• The 1958 demographic study which lists losses of 2.2 million

• The 1965 Church Search Service accounting which lists 467,000 confirmed dead plus 1,906,000 missing

• The 1974 German Archives study which gave a figure of 600,000 dead

• Overmans DOES NOT take a position on which source is correct he points out their flaws and contradictions, he believes new research is needed to determine the fate of the missing persons.

• Source: Dr. Rűdiger Overmans- Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung. (A parallel Polish summary was also included, this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in Warsaw Poland in 1994), Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI-1994

--Woogie10w (talk) 01:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

?

What are "Wehrmacht-related deaths"? The "Thus Overmans says..." seems like OR since this is just one aspect of his research and only one way that the figures have been inflated. What he says is that the figures are at most "600,000" overall. 2-3 million minus 600,000 is way more than 334,000 so this appears to be admitting one aspect of his criticism just to ignore the others. Yes I know, this is ORing on top of somebody else's OR. But without a specific translation there is no way to make sense of this.radek (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

With "Wehrmacht-related death" I wanted to summarize deaths in German military service, maybe that could be put better.

Overmans says that from the Schieder figure, 330,000 have to be substracted. Of course, the figure will then still exceed <600,000, because the <600,000 figures are based on counting the positives, while the higher figures are based on excluding the negatives. Both methods have their obvious merits and flaws. What is left as the discrepancy between both methods' results is the number of fates yet unaccounted for. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

The "Thus Overmans says..." seems to be a pretty clear indication that this is an extrapolation, or in other words OR, since this is reffed to Overmans himself. An author would never refer to himself in the third person. This emphasizes a need for a direct translation. Woogie?radek (talk) 23:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Overman actually says so, see translation above. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

No, Overmans does not thus say "the Schieder figures have to be lowered by 334,000". What he is doing is illustrating a particular methodological problem - one of many - with the original numbers. Saying that he thus says that the Schieder figure of 2+ million has to be lowered by ONLY 334,000 is original research, and in fact, badly done original research as what he actually says is in fact that the actual number is 500,000 not 2+ million (2mill-500,000>334,000).radek (talk) 23:45, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Overmans is saying that hardly 500,000 deaths are confirmed and the fate of the other 1.5 million still need to be clarified. He also points out that he found 344,000 additional military dead that would reduce civilian losses.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:34, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is how see the numbers 1958 Report 2,225,000 less 515,000 equals 1995 Report 1,710,000 less 344,000 found by Overmans 1,366,000 less 600,000 confirmed dead from 1974 report gives us 766,000 still missing. These numbers do not include 310,000 Soviet Germans in the 1995 Report

Note well the 1958 Report claimed 1,381,000 ethnic Germans living in Poland in 1939, that is his basis to compute the figure of 185,000 expelee dead. The Polish census of 1931 lists 741,000. The math gets real fuzzy when Dr. Schieder is in charge!!--Woogie10w (talk) 03:25, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is a summary of the numbers:

• The the German government figure of 1958 using demographic methodology was 2,225,000, not including ethnic Germans in the USSR. They also estimated 1.1 million military deaths prior to the expulsions. Note well the 1950 figure for expellees living in the GDR was an estimate, since the GDR census figures did not include perons born after 1939 in the former eastern German territories with expellees.

• The German Church Search Service report in 1965 for losses in the area of the expulsions found 473,000 confirmed civilian dead and an additional 1,906,000 unsolved cases of persons missing persons after the war. They also found 972,000 other deaths prior to the expulsions, which includes military dead.

• The German Federal Archives in 1974 was able to confirm the deaths of 615,000 civilians.( 260,000 killed by Soviet military & their allies; 205,000 dead in USSR as forced laborers; 160,000 in the Expulsions) (400,000 in Poland; 130,000 in Czechoslovikia and 85,000in Yugoslavia)

• A revised demographic estimate from 1995 by Gerhardt Reichling was 2,020,000, including 310,000 of Soviet ethnic Germans not covered in the 1958 report. He also estimated 1.250 million deaths prior to the expulsions(including military). The introduction to the report was written by an official of the German government Statistical Office who gave the report his endorsement.

• Overmans found 1,444,000 military deaths in the area of the expulsions, 344,000 higher than the 1958 report

• Overmans believes new research is needed on the fate of the missing, he does not support any of the above sources to be the final word on the topic.

This is what the sources are saying, We should not give undue weight to one source. We should present each one of them them for readers to review--Woogie10w (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments by ANNRC

Use of figures in such matters contribute to both further clarification in some areas and to further confusion in other areas. The approach obviously has to employ quasi-legalistic terminology because of all the ambiguity. Since there were no Wehrmacht (& SS) veterans around during the expulsions, it is a matter of perspective that the "civilian" expellees were women, children, and old men. Mixing expellee originating "areas" obviously leads to further confusion - as an example, the partial or complete mixing of figures from such civilian expellee populations originating in (1) Southern East Prussia; (2) the 1937 borders of Poland (which obviously included German resettlements during the WW2 timeframe); (3) Danzig and the German 1919-39 areas between the Oder-Neisse Line and the Western Border of 1937 Poland; and (4) Northern East Prussia.ANNRC (talk) 00:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC) Of course, German expulsions from northern East Prussia were a wholly USSR undertaking with not a lot of patience for some future Final WW2 Peace Treaty (Note: Nowhere in the Potsdam Agreement is reference made to German population transfers from northern East Prussia -- only three country names are associated with German population transfers in the Potsdam Agreement: Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary). Northern East Prussia was the only one of the above posted itemized areas unaffected by Polish Communist Militias as expulsion "authorities".ANNRC (talk) 02:03, 31 July 2009 (UTC) Here is the Potsdam Agreement reference to northern East Prussia: "V. CITY 0F KOENIGSBERG AND THE ADJACENT AREA.

"The Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government to the effect that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement, the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg-Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic and East Prussia.

"The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the City of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.

"The President of the United States and the British Prime Minister have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement."

ANNRC (talk) 20:55, 31 July 2009 (UTC) Caveat: "East Prussia" is referenced in the Agreement above rather than stipulating "the area of East Prussia under temporary Polish Administration pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement."ANNRC (talk) 21:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

ANNRC could you stop writting these long, boring off-topic rants? wikipedia is not a discussion forum. thanks. Loosmark (talk) 21:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, you must be an expert in German expulsion statistics in order to find background material boring. How many German civilians were killed by the expelling Polish Communist Militia "authorities"? Somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000? Or maybe more? You once said that if the Germans in general had acted nicer towards the Poles during WW2 that not as many Germans would have been expelled. Since the Polish Communist Militia "authorities" were so-called "acting in the name of the Polish People and Nation" as the expellers, does this mean that Polish Communist Militias contained many hundreds of altruists?ANNRC (talk) 01:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yawn. Loosmark (talk) 16:12, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, maybe a compromise is in order. What about a figure of 75,000 German civilian expellees killed by Polish Communist Militias?ANNRC (talk) 02:40, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

LOOSMARK: Such personal and judgmental attacks are not conducive to a rational and dispassionate discourse on what should be a serious topic of discussion. No matter their nationality, any episode of (state-sanctioned) mass killings resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of people deserves a full and complete evaluation; your comments seem to have been made with the intent of stifling further discourse, and are not appropriate here. See WP:PA " Comment on content, not on the contributor." NDM (talk) 07:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Structure of the casualties subsection

To avoid unnecessary conflicts and further misunderstandings, I restructured and expanded the casualties section as follows:

• Subsection "Research employing population balances": Here, all data (without interpretation etc, just the actual research) involving population balances is listed, in chronological order.
• Subsection "Research tracing individual fates": Here, all data (again without interpretation) resulting from mutual addition of the tracing/confirmation/verification of individual fates is listed, in chronological order.
• Subsection "Current citation and criticism of estimates": Here, it is listed how the data derived from either methods are cited in literature, interpreted and criticized.

This structure allows data to be sorted both according to how they were compiled and in chronological order (subsections 1-2) and separates uncontroversial stuff (listing of data) from potentially controversial stuff (interpretation of data). I hope that we shall soon come to a stable version that way.

I encourage Woogie10w to compare his above list to the data already included, and add the missing as well as give additional sources to what is already in there. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

There are several problems with your restructuring.

• There already is an article on Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans where this sort of level of detail belongs. This article should present general numbers.

The numbers as well as the criticism is not understandable without the methods used to get these numebrs. The dedicated article has this in much more detail already. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok sure but it should be clear that the 2+ million numbers found by the population balance method represent(ed) unaccounted for cases, not deaths.

• At the end of the day Overmans says no more than 500,000. Explaining in detail his methodology while misrepresenting his conclusion ("Thus, Overmans says, the population balance figures have to be lowered by 334,000") is not going to avoid (necessary) conflicts and it's OR - what he says is that this is ONE of the problems with the original numbers and this is only ONE of the reasons why the population balance figures have to be lowered. Presenting this as the final conclusion of his research is misleading.

Overmans is doing two different things: He says that the military deaths figure in the population balance has to be raised, and he is summarizing the number of verified deaths. One has nothing to do with the other. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

No, Overmans explicitly states that the lower number (400,000-600,000) is the best estimate of deaths available with current data. He does NOT state that "thus the pbf have to be lowered by 334,000" - he thinks it's 400,000-600,000 not 2+million-334,000.radek (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• There is no reason why the "population balance methods" section should be given prominence. Scheider's numbers should probably be mentioned first for chronological reasons but that only suggests that the kind of organization you implemented is not the best way to discuss the issue.

The population balance method's results are the ones most abundantly cited in literature, so it deserves prominence. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a source which says they are the most abundantly cited in literature or is this more OR? They do seem to be cited a lot by some politicians and in some newspapers but I doubt, based on Overmans and Haar, whether they're taken seriously in the academic literature. Please note also that half the refs given for "they're cited in the literature" (which I changed to "discussion") only cite these numbers in order to criticize them. This is sloppy mis-characterization of the situation at best.radek (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• Likewise, moving Scheider's Nazi past and views way way down the section, rather than keeping it up front when his commission is first mentioned seems merely like an attempt to bury this fact where no one where read it. First time Scheider is mentioned should be the first time his Nazi past is mentioned. Both the sources I provided and a half dozen others which I can easily provide consider his Nazi past to be relevant to his historical work.

Schieder was the head of the commission, and he had a Nazi past. Yet there were also other people in the commission with not such a past, eg Oberländer had broken with Koch already in 1938, and Lukaschek was in the anti-Nazi resistance. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes but Schieder was head of the commission. Regardless, reliable sources deem it important enough to mention his Nazi past but not the past of others. We follow reliable sources. There's also apparently quite a discussion in academic literature on Schieder's past and its links to his subsequent work as a historian.radek (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• What exactly was wrong with my version? Did it misrepresent anything? Was it unsourced? Did it have OR in it? No? But all these problems are present in the present version and the new organization and level of detail are unwarranted and unhelpful to this particular article.
• Yes there are other sources which repeat the Scheider figure. But it should be made explicit that that is what they're doing. Also not all these sources given (should I really include every single source out there for the fact that Scheider was a Nazi?) cite these numbers commendably - some are citing the numbers in order to criticize them.

Basically, the restructuring has negative value added. It introduces OR into the article. It makes the issue more difficult to understand (by discussing methodologies rather than conclusions). It introduces an unwarranted level of detail. It misrepresents some of the conclusions. It tries to bury unpleasant facts or relegate them to the tail end of the section. It fails to present the sources in a balanced way.radek (talk) 11:18, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The intend was to eliminate OR and SYNTHs, and it would be nice if you point out what exactly you think is OR. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I already did. Saying that Overmans' adjustment to Wehrmacht figures is the only necessary adjustment to the 2+ million is OR. Saying that the 2+ million is "the most cited in the literature" is another instance. Saying that the difference between the 2+ million and the "best estimate available" (Overmans) of 400-600 thousand represents deaths due to hunger, disease and allied bombing - where as this is not actually true and appears to be based on a non-academic work of an extreme far right author, described by German historian Martin Broszat as "polemical work written from a far-right nationalistic point of view, which have ridiculously exaggerated the number of deaths" - without attributing where this "misinterpratation" comes from and presenting it without qualification is also OR.radek (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

And we even haven't gotten yet to the Haar criticisms which include the fact that the 2million + figure includes German Jews and other individuals killed by the Nazis who were then counted among the dead-by-expulsion.[1] radek (talk) 11:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

If I understand your stance correctly, you are saying that the population balance is old outdated stuff and that the current state-of-the-art is the counting method.

In an perfect setting, both the population balance and the individual-deaths-counting would turn out exactly the same result. That they do not is because the settings of both are not perfect:

• The population balance is based on exclusion of all other factors until only the civil deaths are left. It is thus prone to turn out false positives if any of the assumptions about the factors that are to be excluded is too low. This is what Overmans' chapter translated above is about - one specific factor (military deaths) was assumed to be 344,000 lower than it actually was, so the result of the balance included 344,000 false positives.
• The counting methods are not very likely to include false positives, as this can only happen by multiple counts of the same person or a mistaken verification. This method however is prone to be too exclusive, because it ignores deaths that have gone unnoticed.

Research is done to close the gap between the results of either method already. It is possible that some or even all the ~1.5 million difference are false positives of the balance. It is also possible that the death count rises if additional data becomes available, and that the number of verified deaths will approach the number of the balance. The in my view most possible scenario is that the actual death count will rise a little, the balance will be further adjusted a little, and that the difference, though smaller than it is now, remains uncertain and unaccounted. The way to go for the article should just be to document that, and not tell the reader what method is right and what method is wrong. We should rather document how the results of both methods changed over time due to respective research. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)/14:32, 30 July 2009 (UTC)/14:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

In the 1.5 million missing figure there are "Germans" that exist on paper only. Schieder claimed 1.381 million Germnans in 1939 Poland of whom 185,000 are counted in the 2.2 million figure, yet the 1931 Polish census put the figure of ethnic Germans at 740,000. Overmans touches on this issue in his article in the Polish Journal. Schieder has an interesting resume. In 1943 Schieder was on the Plan Ost team to Germanize the east, ten years later he was head of Expellee investigations.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:45, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

We should present the methods, but also present the criticisms of the methods made by respectable scholars. The thing is that the population balance figure do not just include deaths that have gone "unnoticed" but rather include: Wehrmacht soldiers, German Jews killed by the Nazis, people who never existed, expellees who arrived in East Germany rather than West, etc. This is all in the sources and it most definetly should not be excluded.radek (talk) 20:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Schieder's Nazi Background

de:Theodor Schieder was a Nazi party member during the Hitler period.

German Wikipedia has this to say about Schieder: During the war Schieder encouraged the expulsion of Jews in occupied Poland. He was active in the program to Germanize the East and to prevent the intermingling of ethnic Germans with the peoples in Eastern Europe. His recommendations were included in the Nazi Plan Ost. He was praised by the Nazi gauleiter Eric Koch for the confiscation of documents from Jewish Synagoues

The respected German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had this to say about Schieder.

In 1939 Dr. Schieder was a proponent of ethnic cleansing in the Polish regions annexed by Nazi Germany.

"Volksgeschichte" entwarf er Ende Oktober 1939 eine Denkschrift, welche die "brutale Entdeutschungspolitik der Polen" in Westpreußen und Posen dank des deutschen Sieges mit "Bevölkerungsverschiebungen allergrößten Ausmaßes" zu korrigieren forderte. Dazu gehörten für ihn, der in Berlin als ihr "eigentlicher Bearbeiter" galt, die "Enteignung", "Ausweisung aller zugewanderten Polen", die "Wiedereindeutschung" und "Entjudung Restpolens", um den "Aufbau einer gesunden Volksordnung" [2] --Woogie10w (talk) 00:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Rhode

The sentence "Also in 1953, Gotthold Rhode estimated the casualties to be 3.14 million", sourced to Haar, has been tagged as "clarification needed", yet it remains unclear what needs to be clarified. Skäpperöd (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide the passage (in English) where Haar discusses Rhode? Does he say anything about his estimate?radek (talk) 02:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Haar in Herausforderung... p.271 (as sourced in the footnote): "Gotthold Rhode, who had issued the first balance of expulsion losses with 3.14 million victims [28], ...", where footnote [28] reads "Rhode 1953, 387"

Yes, but can you provide a translation of the whole passage (paragraph or two) for context? In other words, what are the "..." about and what comes before it. This is why it's a clarify not a verify tag.radek (talk) 10:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

He was referring to the preliminary estimates of the Church Search Service.--Woogie10w (talk) 00:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, fine. Can you just GIVE say the ten sentences preceding and ten sentences following the sentence that you're reffing? In German is fine, I'll get it translated myself. But I want to see the actual text, not your description of it.radek (talk) 16:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Nawratil

Heinz Nawratil was attributed in the article as "the extreme far-right nationalistic author". This is a strong claim that needs to be sourced well or left out. Mind the BLP policy. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's already well sourced to Haar. Specifically, Haar, invokes the renowned German historian Martin Broszat's view of Nawratil's work:

(It is a) ""Polemical discussions, written from a right wing nationalist point of view which through absurd methods tries to exaggerate the extent of crime associated with expulsion of Germans (Broszat's scare quotes)". Broszat has a complete right to judge the quality of these studies and also the political danger associated with them. It was he, together with Hans-Ulrich Wehler, as editor of a Romanian edition of "Documents of Expulsions" who broke with the usual practice (among some German statisticians), instituted by Wilfried Kraller, former statistician of the SS, later working for the West German government, of adding to the casualties of expulsions, a number of Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust."

(Yes, the 2+ million number DOES include many Jewish victims of the German Nazi Holocaust, counted as if they were Germans who died at Polish hands)

Then Haar gives an example of Erika Steinbach approvingly quoting Nawratil - and at the same time mischaracterizing what the actual scientific research on the number of deaths from the expulsions says, "even though the exaggerated numbers of Nawratil have been rejected" (Haar). More explicitly he says in reference to Nawratil:

"Undoubtedly the president of the Federation of Expellees (Erika Steinbach) uses this mistaken interpretation of numbers, compiled by a man (Nawratil) who is not an expert, and who is associated with the extreme far right only because she finds such numbers convenient (for political purposes - here there's an idiom).

So all four of "extreme right", "nationalistic", and "author" are directly in this reliable source.radek (talk) 21:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

So far, we have one translation of one work by Haar where he says Nawratil "is associated with the extreme far right". A google book search with nawratil rechtsextrem OR far-right gives one hit that does not put the words into a context. The Broszat evaluation is from the same source, so it is "the translation says Haar says Broszat says Nawratil is supposed to be".

I think you also missed this one [3] which does hit for Nawratil and rechtsradikale and neofaschistishe". Could Woogie or someone else fluent in German help with translation here - I'm doing it from Babel and it's slow going (especially since you can't cut and paste) - especially the first paragraph on page 35, starting with "Nawratil publizierte auch mit Jorg Haider..." (That does say what I think it says, don't it?)radek (talk) 14:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I will remove the association again, and propose raising this issue at the BLP board if there is any, or ask a BLP specialist how to proceed. The claim is strong, and the source is an isolated translation. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I have asked at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Heinz_Nawratil. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Umm, I think he also writes stuff for the Institute for Historical Review [4]radek (talk) 22:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Between writing for IHR and the earlier sourcing, this seems like enough sourcing. JoshuaZ (talk) 14:45, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there another, related, article on...

the expulsion of Poles after World War II? Part of the reason Poles were given German territories by the Allies was the unwillingness of Stalin to give Poland back the territories taken in the east by the USSR in 1939. The Poles that left areas like Grodno, Wilno, Lwow, Tarnopol, etc. went to places like Breslau, Oppeln, Stettin, Allenstein, etc. I'm not trying to open a pandora's box hereBold text. I just want to know if this type of article exists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kochamanita (talk • contribs) 03:26, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There is Polish population transfers (1944–1946) and there has been/is some discussion as to standardizing the terminology ("population transfers" vs. "expulsions" vs. "repatriation") for this, that, and other articles.radek (talk) 16:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There's also Nazi–Soviet population transfers.radek (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Re "Part of the reason Poles were given German territories by the Allies was the unwillingness of Stalin to give Poland back the territories taken in the east by the USSR in 1939": Those "territories taken in the east" were the areas in 1937 boundary Poland east of approximately the Curzon Line. In that territory people of Polish ethnicity comprised approximately 40% of the population (the balance was composed of ethnic Ukrainians, Lithuanians, etc.). So, the 3-4 million Poles transferred out of that territory into the eastern German territories (which, per the Potsdam Agreement, were under temporary Polish administration pending the final Peace Treaty ending WW2) replaced (pick a number) 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 million Germans, who were expelled from eastern German lands.ANNRC (talk) 11:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC) Also, the Potsdam Agreement mentions nothing about transfers of ethnic Polish populations. Accordingly, nothing is mentioned about transfers of ethnic Polish populations from ANY areas east of the Curzon Line.ANNRC (talk) 11:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

From Polish population transfers (1944–1946): "The document regarding the resettlement of Poles from Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR to Poland was signed 9 September 1944 in Lublin by Nikita Khrushchev and the head of the Polish Committee of National Liberation Edward Osóbka-Morawski (the corresponding document with Lithuanian SSR was signed on 22 September)." Note: Since, as stated, the document was signed 9 September 1944 the reference of resettlement to "Poland" in the provision referring to "the resettlement of Poles from Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR to Poland" means the 1937 boundary area of Poland west of the approximate location of the Curzon Line. In September, 1944 no one knew when the war would end, nor when even an "interim Victory Conference" (such as Potsdam) would be held, much less a Final WW2 (European Theatre) Peace Treaty Conference.ANNRC (talk) 10:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

personal attacks

Jan Hofmann i'd suggest you stop launching sickening personal attacks on radeksz as this one: [5]. thanks. Loosmark (talk) 02:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

And please note that it's not Haar who describes Nawratil as "extreme right wing" but Martin Broszat who most definetly DOES have the authority to define him as such. The fact that Nawratil writes for the #1 Holocaust denial organization in the world doesn't help his case either.radek (talk) 13:45, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Nawratil's Right Wing Background

In the Journal of Historical Review Nawratil refers to the Holocaust as the Bundesrepublik's regnant taboo, the extermination myth[6]The Journal of Historical Review is a soapbox for Holocaust deniers--Woogie10w (talk) 11:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I've re-posted the matter at the BLP board: [7]radek (talk) 15:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Schwarzbuch by Nawratil

• Let's don't discuss Nawratil as a person but rather his texts. Here is an academic opinion about the Schwarzbuch... [8].
• According to the Polish translation of Ingo Haar's article - Broszat described Nawratil's methodology as absurd. Xx236 (talk) 11:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes I've included both of these in the BLP report [9]. The fact that Nawratil has written for Holocaust denying publications is also noteworthy.radek (talk) 11:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

German state propaganda is anti-Polish. If Nawratil is Nazi or leftist doesn't change anything.Xx236 (talk) 12:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

lol at taht sentiment. anyway there are good arguments towards nawratil being someone catering towards the right wing. but he himself took an acceptable stance on the german wikipedia. maybe one should include this into his page? Kalifat (talk) 16:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalifat (talk • contribs) 16:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"German state propaganda" . . . is that concept similar to "Collective Guilt" or "Collective mentality" or "Collective outcome" or "DNA controlled behaviour"?ANNRC (talk) 23:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"German government propaganda" is O.K.?Xx236 (talk) 06:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

How can the German government be anti-Polish when they pushed (when others didn't) for Poland's membership in NATO? Please spare me a "conspiracy theory" answer (example of a conspiracy theory: the German capitalists saw a bonanza in selling military equipment to the Poles after Poland was to be accepted in NATO, since the Poles needed to change out much equipment to become fully NATO qualified). Also, I don't think the Germans were too concerned about having Poland as a NATO buffer from an attack by Ukraine.ANNRC (talk) 10:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Have I written that "the German government be anti-Polish"? Where exactly? There are different aspects of German politics toward Poland.

Several German governments after WWII supported the "Vertreibung" ideology. In 2006 Christoph Bergner (CDU), Staatssekretär im Bundesinnenministerium, answered Ingo Haar [10] that the German government still knows better than historians.

Poland is allegedly the main guilty. If it isn't anti-Polish propaganda - what is it?

Xx236 (talk) 12:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

1. There was no Final Peace Treaty immediate follow-on to the Potsdam Conference, so years of tentativity ensued. The reference to territorial "administration" is a conditional reference, not intended to be permanent (again, this focused on some assumed impending Final Peace Treaty follow on from the Potsdam Conference).

2. Identification of land areas having a 700 year intervening period as somehow being "Recovered Territories" is both absurd and borderline stupid. Why would such an absurd position deserve respect????? Why not instead call them "Compensatory Territories"?? (at least, that is being realistic)ANNRC (talk) 11:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

My point is different - Germany describes flight, war and expulsion of Germans in the East as "Expulsion" ignoring comparable facts is the West. The main criminal was allegedly "Poland" (what was Poland in 1944 or 1945?), even if the Red Army committed more than 50% of the crimes. This propaganda returned after the 4+2 treaty.

700 years? Silesia was part of Prussia 200 years, Dazig about 100 years. BTW "Recovered" was Communist propaganda, no serious writer uses the word today. Xx236 (talk) 06:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Are you saying that the Poles constructed the cities of Breslau, Stettin, Danzig, Koenigsberg?

2. Did the Poles or did the Russians expell the 4,5,6, or 7 million Germans from Silesia, Pommerania, Danzig, southern East Prussia? Please spare me the business about how all 7 million of those Germans "ran away" before the war was over. It appears that the resettled Poles in those territories numbered about half of the original German inhabitants.

3. Does any "serious writer" today use the correct term "Compensatory Territories"? (Please, for example, provide a name of a recent Polish respected author using such a term.)ANNRC (talk) 22:35, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

1.Koenigsberg is in Russia. Wratislav was created by Czech prince and local Slavs and Gyddansk by Slavic Pommeranians. I don't know much about Szczecin.

2.I'm not going to "spare you" the German flight, including thousands of dead Breslau people or Gustloff victims.

3. Did UNESCO or EU decided that your "Compensatory Territories" is the only valid name? Xx236 (talk) 06:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Koenigsberg was never in Russia prior to 1945. Breslau, Stettin, Danzig and Koenigsberg were all completely of German architecture until 1945. Overwhelming majority of Germans had lived in those cities for hundreds of years.

2. The dead civilians of Breslau & the torpedoed Gustloff victims were just a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of German civilians remaining east of the Oder-Neisse line in Spring 1945. Some Silesian Catholic Germans remained, but hundreds of thousands of Germans were "deported" by the Russians and the Poles; mostly by the Poles. How about a figure of 400,000 to 600,000 deaths during the so-called "Wild" expulsions?

3. "Compensatory Territories" were invented by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at the Tehran Conference in November, 1943. See the book "World War II: Behind Closed Doors" by Laurence Rees, London: BBC Books; NY: Pantheon, 2008.ANNRC (talk) 08:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

1.Still, you haven't explained what is the connection between Koenigsberg and me.

2.How about stopping your fantastic stories? 600 000. Where exactly did the nasty Poles kill the 600 000? How? Why do you write 75 000 in another place?

3.I'm sorry that the world doesn'y use the "Compensatory Territories" name. Xx236 (talk) 08:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I made the comment about English usage as it relates to interpretations of context. Such interpretations involve nuances. I will try this another way: all of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were considered "war prizes". They were parceled out as SU and Polish "administered" territories. As such, they were considered compensatory territories i.e., in compensation for "something else" that happened in the SU and in Poland during the war (that "something else" varies). Caveat: It is doubtful that the implied and assumed impending Final Peace Treaty following the Potsdam Conference would have expanded the size of the ultimate disposition of those territories to the SU and to Poland, although there was an expectation by some in the West beyond Germany (& obviously by many Germans also) that the final land-transfer codified by a 1945 or 1946 Final Peace Treaty would have been less in places than the full size of the combined Polish & SU "temporarily administered" territories.

Look at the context: I didn't say the Poles killed 600,000 German refugees. I said "hundreds of thousands of Germans were 'deported' by the Russians and the Poles; mostly by the Poles. How about a figure of 400,000 to 600,000 deaths during the so-called 'Wild' expulsions?" It does not imply or state that because the Poles expelled more Germans than the Russians (Soviets), that the Poles killed more German refugees than did the Russians (Soviets). There were hundreds of thousands of German refugees easily available for killing by both the Soviets and the Poles.

I assumed you were knowledgeable that the Duchy of Prussia was once a Polish fiefdom, since one of the mentioned in passing subjects above involved Polish historical claim to territories to the north and west of the 1937 Polish border.ANNRC (talk) 09:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT Xx236 (talk) 11:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC) WP:TALKXx236 (talk) 11:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Copy from BLP Noticeboard:Heinz Nawratil (again), per suggestion made there

There was a suggestion made at BLPN that there was too much information in this discussion for it to disappear in BLPN archives and that it should be placed here as well. Doing so accordingly.radek (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I am re-posting this request for comment relating to Heinz Nawratil in the Expulsion of Germans - last time it was here [11] but it didn't manage to attract much attention. Now the page has been protected pending the resolution of the BLP issue.

There are two questions here. 1) Can Nawratil be described as "extreme right wing author" (or "nationalist") and 2) can it be mentioned that he has written articles for the Holocaust denial/revisionist Journal of Historical Review, published by the Institute for Historical Review (which has been described as a "an antisemitic "pseudo-scholarly body" with links to neo-Nazi organizations").

Sources

Ingo Haar and Martin Broszat

The "extreme right wing" is sourced to an article by Ingo Haar, a respected German historian. Haar in turn is relying on Martin Broszat, one of the most well known and prominent German historians of the post war period. The article is in Polish (though the author is German) and I have provided the relevant translation at the talk page. The source itself is here: [12] (pdf). The claim has been made that this is only an "indirect connection" and not enough for a BLP statement.

Writing for Holocaust denial journal

One of Nawratil's articles for the Journal of Historical Review is here [13]. In the article Nawratil refers to the Holocaust as "the Bundesrepublik's regnant taboo, the extermination myth" (this should probably be enough to call Nawratil a Holocaust denier)

So far the only outside comment has stated that this is enough to source the claim and not violate BLP.

I would very much appreciate it if further outside editors could take a look at the provided links and sources and comment on the articles' talk page or here.radek (talk) 15:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a BLP problem. Sourcing being in other languages is not a problem under WP:V. The sourcing is clear and sufficient. The matter is also relevant to the subject at hand. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Nawratil is misquoted above, the "quotes" from the Journal of Hist. Rev. are taken from the (italicized) introduction clearly not written by Nawratil, as the intro is referring to him as a third person. Further, I don't either see a problem with the language of the source, my problem is that if Nawratil is a neo_nazi, then many sources should say so, not just one. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Still, he is writing for the major Holocaust denial journal/institute and praising a Holocaust denier. And we're not writing that he is a neo-nazi, rather that he is associated with the extreme right, which he obviously is, as the sources show.radek (talk) 17:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, I'd like to note that we are not putting in the article that Nawratil is a 'neo-nazi' - since the sources don't say that. What is proposed that in the article he is referred to as 'associated with the extreme right' and a 'nationalist' - which the sources DO say, and that he writes for a Holocaust-denying journal - which he clearly does.radek (talk) 10:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, the German "nationalist extreme far-right" is exactly what is colloquially referred to as (neo-)Nazis. I agree that in the far-right there are people believing in all kinds of fringe stuff, not only the verbatim Nazi ideologies. Yet, at least in German media, "far-right"/"extreme-right" etc and "neo-Nazi" are redundant terms. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes but we are not proposing to put anything about the colloquial use of the word "neo-Nazi" in the article - we are proposing to put in the article that he is a associated with the extreme right, a nationalist, and a revisionist who writes for Holocaust denial journals which is what the sources say - readers can draw their own conclusion as to whether this makes him a neo-Nazi or not.radek (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

h-net.org/reviews

Here is another source which clearly takes a similar view of his writings [14]: By far the most cited secondary source for the DVD-ROM's "background" passages is Heinz Nawratil's Schwarzbuch der Vertreibung 1945 bis 1948, first published in 1982 and re-issued almost annually ever since. It is an unabashedly partisan catalog of German victimization. An excerpt titled "Prelude to Expulsion," for example, placed in the midst of video clips about the fall of Breslau, provides an account of German-Polish relations from 1918 through 1939 that consists exclusively of Polish mistreatment of Germans. The bibliography provided by the DVD-ROM is taken directly from the (then) most recent addition of Nawratil's Schwarzbuch. It includes quite a few publications by the National Socialist regime but none published in eastern Europe, either before or after 1989. Read as a text document, in other words, Die Grosse Flucht is jarringly dated and one-sided, a kind of time capsule of the rhetoric of the Bund der Vertriebenen circa 1955radek (talk) 10:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The source is a review of a Guido Knopp documentary that used one of Nawratil's books as a source. The reviewer says that this book is an "unabashedly partisan catalog of German victimization", not that Nawratil is far-right. That Knopp used Nawratil as a source indicates that Knopp consideres him reliable. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is a review of Knopp's. But it says that Nawratil's book includes quite a few publications by the National Socialist regime'.11:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

gew-huf-kassel.de and Grabert website

My German's next to non existent but thanks to the wonders of technology and babel fish a few relevant German language sources can be added here. For example this [15]. As far as I can make out on page 35 it states that Heinz Nawratil published together with Jorg Haider (who, according to Wiki's own article was known "for comments that were widely condemned as praising Nazi policies or as xenophobic or anti-Semitic") and Gerhard Frey ("politician and chairman of the far-right party Deutsche Volksunion, which he founded in 1971") through a publishing house of Grabert (here's google translation of German wiki on what is "one of the largest and most well-known extreme right-wing publishing houses in the Federal Republic of Germany" [16] and which as it happens, also launched the career of David Hoggan who's the guy who brought Holocaust denial to America) and which is described as a "central organ for revisionists" (i.e. Holocaust deniers) and something of a platform for writers of the "spectrum from radical right to neo-fascist". That last part I could use some help with if we have anyone who's fluent in German, but it's pretty clear what the gist is.

Not a RS: The source is an anti-fashist subgroup of a student organization. --> SPS not to be used as RS regarding 3rd persons. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually the fact that they are an anti-fascist German watchgroup does not make them unreliable since that's the most likely source to list this kind of organization.radek (talk) 11:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the ASTA is the Allgemeine STudentenAusschuss, the elected representative body of all the students at a University, not just any student organization. Zara1709 (talk) 12:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, the website of Grabert publishing house (the major publisher of Holocaust denial in US and similar materials in Germany, see above) confirms the fact that Nawratil, Jorg Heider and Gerhard Frey all published from it in the same volume, together with the ALFRED Schickel we keep running into here (the guy who called the Holocaust "the extermination myth"): The Genocide of the Germans with foreward by Jorg Haider, chapters by Nawratil, Alfred Schickel, Gerhard Frey and Rolf-Josef Eibicht (according to German wiki an author from the extreme right wing spectrum. I'm sure other names on that list have some nice pedigrees as well.radek (talk) 11:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

imi-online.de

Since I'm doing this through online translators it's slow going but there's also this [17] (crappy google translation here [18] - but you can copy paste relevant passages into babel fish) - on page 18 it says (translated through Babelfish) apparently that Nawratil used to belong to the Wiking-Jugend ("a German Neo-Nazi organization modelled after the Hitlerjugend") and is listed among "the names of constituted right-wing extremists".

If anyone fluent in German wishes to provide more exact translation, I'd very much welcome it, but I think it's pretty obvious that if anything, the description that is being considered in the article text UNDERSTATES the degree of this guy's involvement with the extreme right.radek (talk) 15:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

the IMI source (an NGO) counts Nawratil as a "known right-wing extremist", and says he was an official in the Wiking-Jugend. Rd232 ^talk 16:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Right. Does the other one say that he wrote articles with Jorg Haider for a Holocaust denying publisher?radek (talk) 17:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The other source [19] says Nawratil published with Haider and Frey in the "50 years of expulsions" book published by the Grabert Verlag. It adds that Grabert Verlag published "Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart", which the source describes as the "central organ" (sometimes trans "mouthpiece") of revisionism in Germany. The document gives as a source for these claims the Handbuch deutscher Rechtsextremismus, p412. Note that the book "50 years of expulsions" [20] is a collection of work by different authors, so Nawaratil didn't collaborate with Haider and Frey, only publish in the same collection. Rd232 ^talk 11:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Not a RS: The source is an organization dedicated to unveal the "creeping militarization of Germany" (self-identification at http://www.imi-online.de/). --> SPS not to be used as RS regarding 3rd persons. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, the fact that this is an NGO does not disqualify it from being a RS. Please note that the source does not engage in any hyperbolic claims, merely notes that Nawratil used to be in Wiking-Jugend.radek (talk) 11:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

apabiz.de and Nawratil's publisher

Oh, and here's another one. Apparently Nawratil works for Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungsstelle Ingolstadt as can be seen on this website: [21]. The ZFI is, according to Wiki, "a historical revisionist association", which of course means Holocaust denial and it "is regarded as one of the intellectual centers of far right historical revisionism in Germany. On conferences and meetings, Nazism is presented systematically as innocent, and the German guilt for the Second World War is denied". And out of the three functionaries of the association the other one is no other than the Dr. Alfred Schickel that we've met above, the same guy who talks about the "extermination myth" and whom Nawratil praises in the pages of the IHR journal. Again, someone fluent in German may wish to provide of the organization's mission statement as found under "Aktivitäten" on their website.radek (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The link you give is not the website of the ZFI, it's of an anti-fascist NGO [22] which lists Nawratil as a board member of the ZFI in its profile of the ZFI. I can't find a website for the ZFI. Rd232 ^talk 16:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right it's not their website - I caught that and corrected my statement above. It looks like a site that keeps track of right wing extremists and groups.radek (talk) 17:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

In a nutshell the website says that the ZFI is a right wing think tank dedicated to the trivialization of Nazi war crimes. They also research war crimes against the Germans in the expulsions. I am busy now, let me check this out on the German internet later today--Woogie10w (talk) 18:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Pointer, since the Nazis and Holocaust denial are illegal in Germany, these folks set up front organizations that use code words to communicate with the extreme right.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This link is informative, the ZFI is apparently mainstream in Bavaria, kein wunder!! A SPD delegate in Bavaria, a stronghold of the CSU, is questioning why the ZFI is not being sanctioned by the government. He questions why government officials sent greetings to the ZFI [23]--Woogie10w (talk) 20:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Not a RS: The source is a self-identifying anti-fashist information center. --> SPS not to be used as RS regarding 3rd persons. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm starting to get a feeling that any source I provided will be called not RS. Again, there's no extreme claims made here, just that Nawratil works for ZFI.radek (talk) 11:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

And again, it turns out that Nawratil's own book was published by ZFI ("one of the intellectual centers of far right historical revisionism in Germany"): [24], so he's clearly associated with them.radek (talk) 11:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Redrawing nations

This source clearly states Nawratil has produced "nationalist writings": Redrawing nations: ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948, by Phillip and Siljak.radek (talk) 11:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Expelling the Germans

This source clearly states that Nawratil is a "revisionist", which of course means here what it usually does: Expelling the Germans: British opinion and post-1945 population transfer in context, by Matthew James Frank.radek (talk) 11:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Extreme right wing fraternity

According to its own web page Nawratil is listed as an associate of the student organization de:Burschenschaft Danubia Munich which German wikipedia describes [25] as "often associated with the extreme right spectrum": [26].radek (talk) 11:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

He's listed as a speaker, not an "associate". That's an informal form of association, I guess, but not a formal one. Rd232 ^talk 11:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment

(There are so many minor headings here that I can't leave a comment without adding a new one.) "Extreme right wing" may well be an accurate description, but I don't think there is anything close to a consensus in German society to call him that. Otherwise it would be reflected somehow in a German Google News search or the German Wikipedia. (He complained about his biography there, but his complaints were very minor compared to calling him an extremist.)

I believe there is a general consensus in German society to be antifascist in principle although not necessarily in practice, and not to talk too much about it. And there is a similar general consensus to be anti-Vertreibung (i.e. expulsion [of Germans from formerly German areas after WW2]) in principle although not necessarily in practice, and not to talk too much about it. The media observe this quite carefully, especially the part about not talking too much – presumably because they would lose a part of their audience otherwise. As a result there is a large political spectrum of opinions which somehow form part of this "consensus", in spite of any contradictions. People at either end only begin to be seen as extremists if they start doing something or at least come with specific demands.

Nawratil may well be operating right at the border between respectability and just representing this "consensus", and being a right-wing extremist. If this is the case, then talking about it involves breaking the taboo, i.e. organisations that talk about it are automatically considered left-wing extremists. In this case the sources seem to be things like an AStA (official students representation of a university, traditionally ranging from mildly socialist to sending money to revolutionary groups, now sometimes being taken over by right-wing extremists; this is all related to extremely low voter turnout) and a peace group.

All of this doesn't answer the question what to do here, but perhaps it gives some perspective. Scholarly sources or sources from outside Germany might help to get a more neutral view. Hans Adler 12:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! For the purposes of this discussion it's of course not necessary that a consensus in German society exist that he is an extremist - just that there are reliable sources that call him that. I want to note that we do have German reliable sources - Martin Broszat - that refer to him specifically in that way, as well as non German ones, we also have evidence based on his own writing for JHR and ZFI and we have the sources cited to the student organizations and NGOs which document further links (some of which have been independently confirmed here). I think for calling him an extremist we have more than enough.radek (talk) 14:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok. It looks to me like there's clearly enough sourcing to label him a right-wing extremist. I don't know if there is enough sourcing at this point to label him a holocaust denier. It may make more sense for now to just quote him directly. JoshuaZ (talk) 12:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment: This discussion should be moved to the article talk page, or at least to an archive of it. There's too much info here, I think, to let vanish into the BLPN archives. Rd232 ^talk 12:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it ok if I just copy and paste all but this comment and your suggestion?radek (talk) 14:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Not really a BLP issue

This is not a BLP issue. What we have is a controversial topic, Expulsion of Germans after World War II, where one would have to expect that at least some literature is written from a partisan poin-of-view. We have one author (Heinz Nawratil) who has written about the topic; if this author has a partisan view, this is directly relevant for the article. Disputes over this should be directed to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard or Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, however, I think, the case is clear. If h-net describes a work of Heinz Nawratil as "an unabashedly partisan catalog of German victimization" H-Net Review, and other source say something similar, then the article has to make clear that Nawratil has a partisan view, everything else would violate wp:NPOV.

Just as illustration: A BLP issue would be a case of an article on a person notable for something a-political, say an actor or athlete. If this person had been, in his youth, a member of a far-right group (Viking Youth or whatever), then we would have to discuss whether this belongs into that person's article. But here we have a case of someone who has written a non-fiction work. If every time we have to discuss the reliability of a source and the due weight that it deserves someone would make a BLP issue out of that, this noticeboard would be stuffed. Not that is isn't anyway, but we would have even more cases here. Zara1709 (talk) 12:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Nawratil doesn't write "opinions", he pretends to write historiographical books, even if he isn't a historian and he uses "absurd" methodology. I haven't found any academic review of his books, it proves that he is a hobby writer. He shouldn't be quoted in this Wikipedia as a serious author, but rather in "Far righ in Germany" or "German nationalistic propaganda after WWII". Such discussions have been continuing here since several years. Either this Wikipedia is serious or a place for anyone to write anything.Xx236 (talk) 06:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Ingo Haar

Ingo Haar is a revisionist, and his extreme views are rejected by any serious sources[27]. Citing Ingo Haar in this article is equal to cite people who argue that only one million Jews died during the war. UweBayern (talk) 13:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

As I have written - a German official "knows" better than a German historian.Xx236 (talk) 06:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

That German source does not support the claim that Haar is a "revisionist", has "extreme" views, or is rejected by "any serious sources". The link documents a radio debate which seriously (though not in any depth) discusses Haar's claim that the numbers have been inflated by poor methodology, including Haar's claim that it rests partly on estimating population numbers before and after, numbers arriving in post-war Germany, and assuming all the rest died. It suggests that Haar focusses on the numbers directly killed (c 400,00 - 600,000), while the conventional number of 2m includes those killed by disease, starvation, etc. Rd232 ^talk 14:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Second that. Though Haar questions methods and motives of other scholars, "revisionist" is not the best term to describe him because of its negative connotation. Haar's style is sometimes provocative, but that does not make him an extremist, and he does back up his positions very well. He does not cross the line of what is regarded acceptable. To apply terms like revisionist and extremist to Haar (or anyone), you need good sources. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

He clearly aims to diminish the number of victims of The Expulsion, claiming the conventional number of 2-2,5 million victims is "exaggerated". As such, he is by definition a revisionist (Holocaust deniers employ exactly the same methods, by questioning conventional numbers and claiming the number of victims is "exaggerated"). The point is that Wikipedia should rely on mainstream sources, not on fringe views. The mainstream view in this case happens to be that 2-2,5 million died during The Expulsion. The excessive use of Ingo Haar as a source is inappropriate. Furthermore, the source is in Polish and is not really a source in an English-language encyclopedia because non-Poles are not able to understand its content. UweBayern (talk) 14:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

UweBayern i'd politely ask you stop comparing a respected historian with holocaust deniers. Also please stop attacking Polish sources, if they are reliable as is the case here, they are good for the project. Loosmark (talk) 15:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

He's not a respected historian, he is someone who pursues a political agenda. He is not a reliable source, he represents a fringe view. UweBayern (talk) 15:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

"He clearly aims to diminish the number of victims ... As such, he is by definition a revisionist"??? What a weird definition of "revisionist". If the claim made were that he aims to diminish the number for biased, ideological, reasons, that might be a reasonable conclusion, but to define the word "revisionist" as including anyone who thinks the numbers have been exaggerated, irrespective of their grounds for doing so, is bizarre, and quite clearly tends to introduce a bias. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, a person who attempts to revise history is by definition a revisionist. And I think it's agreed that the mainstream view is that there were 2-2,5 million victims. A person who claims something else hence is a revisionist. UweBayern (talk) 15:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree that the ~2 million number is the "mainstream" one, but I think the other one is an equally valid result calculated with a valid method. Both methods have pros and cons. I think that the way these numbers are presented right now is biased, as it implies that the population balance is not a valid method, and that the verified deaths only counting method is the state of the art. I'd prefer to have both methods presented that way, and not label either one as invalid. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Erm no, 2-2.5 million is not a "mainstream" number (maybe in some circles in Germany). Just think a bit about it, during the hollocaust the Nazis killed around 3 millions Polish Jews and everybody knows that the Nazis had by far the most perfected killing machine in history. Now are you really trying to claim that the Soviet and Polish authorities managed to kill roughly the same amount of people on roughly the same teritory in just a couple of months? Such a claim is completely out of this world and downright absurd. Loosmark (talk) 15:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Nobody attributes these DEATHS directly to being KILLED by Poles and Soviets. The amount of 2 million losses of lifes includes results of the expulsion, afaik. I think that your statement is mixed up. Kalifat (talk) 15:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, according to mainstream historians and demographic historians Ingo Haar, Overmans, as well as folks like Broszat, the ~half-a-million figure ALREADY INCLUDES deaths from disease, malnutrition and so on, as well as those killed directly (per sources given in article). What it DOES NOT INCLUDE - that is included in the 2-3 million number - is German Jews who were actually killed by the Nazis, people who were never born (due to lower wartime fertility), people who wound up in East Germany rather than West but lived, Wermacht deaths during the last two years of the war and so on.

To clarify further, "official" and "mainstream" is not the same thing. Up until the mid 70's or so, the 2-3 million figure, first constructed in the 50's by a commission composed and headed mostly by ex-Nazis (who before the war agitated for "removal" of Poles and Jews from occupied territory) was more or less "official" (while other more realistic estimates were buried for political reasons). Starting in the late 70's this started to change and especially after 1989, in the 90's the 2-3 million figure was neither "official" nor "mainstream". Currently, again for political reasons, SOME German politicians have brought back the 2-3 million figure, as if it had never been sucessfully challanged by genuine scholarship, and have tried to make it "official". But even then, that does not make it "mainstream".

And before any more crap about "Polish nationalism" or "Polish POV" gets slapped on this talk page, I'd like to remind everyone that these are respectable, mainstream, non-extremist, academic GERMAN historians and demographers who carried out the research that led to the ~half-a-million figure, not Poles.radek (talk) 19:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if the loss of life includes "the results of expulsions" the number is ridiculously high. The reality of the matter is a great number of those civilians were killed in the war because the Nazis foolishly prevented evacuations almost everywhere (even civilians were considered deserters). An example is here: Siege of Breslau, depending on the source 29.000 or 170.000s civilians killed during war operations just in Breslau. So basically it's clear that many of those included in the 2-2,5 million number were actually already killed in war operations before the mass expulsions even started. Loosmark (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not denying the possibility of your last statement. But is it our task to find the amount, or should this article explain the different perspectives and findings of historians and other involved parties?Kalifat (talk) 16:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the last months of the war were so completely chaotic that it is almost impossible to estimate the number of German civilians killed because the "war-zone" reached them so to say. IMO the best thing we can do is to make it clear that a large number of those 2-2,5 millions were killed in the war or to state that the 2-2,5 millions killed include those who died in the war. Loosmark (talk) 16:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagree, these killings were part of the Expulsion in its wider sense. Many people fled because of war-time war crimes committed by the Red Army. People murdered by the Red Army obviously were victims of the Expulsion as well. UweBayern (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

According to this POV, the USAAF participated in the expulsions bombing Germany, see Świnoujście.Xx236 (talk) 06:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

For you English as not your Mother Tongue'rs, the USAAF bombed Stettin & Dresden, and both cities were full of refugees. Whether the "originally from further east" component of those refugees had arrived in Stettin & Dresden as a result of any of the three alternatives, (1) flight immediately before the arrival of the Red Army, (2) "in-effect" expulsion by the Red Army, or (3) flight in anticipation of the eventual arrival of the Red Army, is moot.ANNRC (talk) 09:10, 26 August 2009 (UTC) Caveat: The refugees were likely in Stettin & Dresden as a result of some percentage combination of two or more of #'s 1, 2, 3 above.ANNRC (talk) 06:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Would you please explain, what do you mean? Why does the Świnoujście example suggest my English be wrong? Do you have any proves that the Red Army expelled Germans through the front line? Strange idea. The USAAF bombed and killed German refugees, it's a fact. The Soviets demanded some bombings, but they weren't responsible for any USAAF bomb.Xx236 (talk) 08:32, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

You must not be very wide-read on WW2: pushing refugees into the opposing army's front lines was a common tactic by both the Germans and the Russians.ANNRC (talk) 09:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOTXx236 (talk) 11:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Does it matter how they were killed? They were killed, that's the end result. UweBayern (talk) 16:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, obviously it matters, if somebody was already death when the expulsions started saying that he was killed in the expulsions is.. well false. Loosmark (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

According to Ingo Hass some numbers of Jewish victims of German Holocaust were added to numbers of victims of the "expulsion".Xx236 (talk) 06:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is a mess

This article seems to be a mess with dubious sources, many of them Polish nationalist propaganda, in Polish, and hence impossible to check for non-Poles, while other sources are representing revisionist fringe views aiming at diminishing the number of victims of The Expulsion, which is comparable to Holocaust denial. Someone would need to go through this article. Dubious sources should be replaced by quality sources, preferably official German sources. I think all sources should be in major languages like English and German. Sources in languages not widely understood (Polish) should be avoided. UweBayern (talk) 13:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

wow, do you have a clue how condescending and arrogant you sound in some of your statements? it doesnt actually help your cause or generate any sympathy. and one doesnt get the impression, that you really want to improve this article... --Kalifat (talk) 13:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I was about to write the same. I might add that for the average reader here, a German source is as Chinese as a Polish one. Instead of writing posts like "I am frustrated with your fringe propaganda sources, get a language", you can ask someone to verify/translate a source, or you can include sources that say something different. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:04, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Clearly there is, other things being equal, an advantage in using sources which are likely to be understood by a large proportion of users of Wikipedia. However, to suggest that Polish sources should be avoided and German sources should be preferred to all others would in itself suggest a possible bias, whether intentional or not; the suggestion that we should prefer to restrict ourselves to official German sources is difficult to read as anything other than a deliberate attempt to favour a particular point of view. If it is not deliberate then it is remarkably unperceptive. In a case like this, where there are different groups with differing points of view, and where there are certainly some people with biased nationalist approaches, it is essential to be able to consider sources from different backgrounds, and, despite the language difficulties, in order to be able to do this we cannot rule out sources in any particular language. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

"German sources should be preferred to all others", who said that? I prefer English sources, but if English sources aren't available, German sources would be OK. German is a major international language, Polish isn't. Sources in Polish are completely useless to anyone except the Poles. We write an English encyclopedia, not a Polish one, and the sources should be in a language other editors, and ideally readers, understand. Also, Polish sources on this topic are generelly known for their strong Polish nationalist bias/intellectual dishonesty (long experience). UweBayern (talk) 15:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Please stop with such nationalistic superiority claims. All other things being equal Polish sources are just good as the German ones. Loosmark (talk) 15:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Since this is an English encyclopedia, this should be the only preferred language which stands above all others. To impose a hierarchy on all the other languages seems arbitrary. How do you want to define what is a major language and what not? And especially at this topic - a topic that includes two different countries, with two different writings of history, perspectives and conflicts - it should be self-evident to include both perspectives - and thus both languages - into an article, if people are interested in producing a consensus somewhere in the future. Kalifat (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually it includes several countries. Some perspectives, including the pre-1989 official Polish perspective and the East German one are evidently propaganda. Also, the views of eg the post-1989 Polish and German far-right are, moderately put, problematic. Language/country should not be a determining factor here, but reliability of the author regardless of language used. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There are not two equally valid "points of view", just like there is only one acceptable view on genocide against other peoples. Ethnic cleansing, genocide, murder and crimes against humanity are never acceptable. Denial or justification of murders and crimes against Germans have no place in this article.

Mainstream German sources, like government publications, generally are quite neutral and scholarly, some might even argue they downplay the expulsion crimes to some extent. Polish sources, especially from before 1990 but to a large extent also many more recent ones (there are exceptions), generally take a strong Polish nationalist POV due to 50 years of strong anti-German propaganda by the communist regime. Scholarly, third-party English-language sources would be best. UweBayern (talk) 15:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

"Mainstream German sources, like government publications" create and support the "Expulsion" (German Vertreibung) ideology. They aren't in any way "neutral".

I agree that pre-1989 Polish texts are frequently unreliable. Exactly like the GDR ones.

It's not true that Polish texts printed after 1989 are generally nationalistic. In reality many Polish writers were at least partially supported by German institutions or worked in German academic institutions (Krasnodębski, Musiał). Many of them has some Communist background or published Communist-influenced texts (also in Germany - Borodziej).

I also want a neutral English language source. However contemporary English langauge texts are generally based on German sources. Western historian don't read Polish and don't know Eastern Europe (see Norman Davies' texts about the ignorance).

Summarizing - you are of course not right.Xx236 (talk) 06:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You are of course right, Skäpperöd, but in the end it boils down to a struggle between those two countries. A struggle of who dominates this discourse, this process of finding and generating 'the truth'. I simplified my statement to make clear, that i am in favour of giving at least these three languages of English, Polish and German a status of equality when it comes to accept them as a veritable source and that in this case here neither German nor Polish should be a reason for exclusion per se. Kalifat (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Rudi Rummel as a "source"

Rudi Rummel quotes German "sources", the same sources we perfectly know. You can probably still find somewhere his ignorant and biased "explanations". Please, don't destroy this article using your Hawaiian ally. Read German historians.Xx236 (talk) 13:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC) "largest mass expulsion of a population in history" - really? Germans expelled during WWII more people.Xx236 (talk) 13:14, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Off topic: the Poles suffered more than 12 million "mass expulsions" (both in the war and in the aftermath of the war) if the 12 million figure includes the 6 million Polish civilians killed in the war, half of them Jews (this of course uses a unique context for the term "expulsion").ANNRC (talk) 11:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Rudolph Joseph Rummel seems like an excellent English expert source. Please outline why exactly you think Rummel is not credible. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Well.."hold your horses" Skäpperöd, I will challenge your opinion on Rummel being an excellent English expert. According to Journal of Peace Research[28] he hardly used any sources to complete his work. I personally don't consider him credible AT ALL.--Jacurek (talk) 21:38, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Good grief, now the professor emeritus of political science from the University of Hawaii, is not credible AT ALL, because Tomislav Dulic, had issues with Rummel's work concerning Tito? Are you suggesting that it is improper to use him as a source? Are you sure? And really now, "Rudi", that's offensive. I don't think we should refer to Anna M. Cienciala as "Hanka" either. It would be in bad taste as well. Dr. Dan (talk) 02:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Rudi Rummel pretends to use mathematics in his works about the democides. He uses unrelable data and becomes unreliable results - "Garbage in, garbage out". Xx236 (talk) 06:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Sources? Anything justifying this [29] [30]? Skäpperöd (talk) 13:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Skapperod and his "work" on the article today

ok we are having difficult discussions about this difficult topic and i though we managed to hit a very delicate balance. But alas, today Skäpperöd makes 29 edits to POV-reshape the article. Loosmark (talk) 13:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC) Is it possible to ask for an arbitration? This article has been rewriten several times. Enough is enough.Xx236 (talk) 13:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC) [31]Xx236 (talk) 13:38, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Would you please outline what exactly you feel is wrong with the sources I added? Skäpperöd (talk) 17:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not the source but the way you reshaped the article. Loosmark (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd, you push German POV here- the "expulsion" (which in fact was mostly part of WWII) being an exceptional crime. Exceptional comparing to what? Not to the German crimes.Xx236 (talk) 06:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Please give the sentence(s) you refer to, and please outline what you think is the "German POV" pushed here - is it the sum of the POVs of Haar, Nawratil, and Horst Schlämmer from Grevenbroich? Or the median? Skäpperöd (talk) 07:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd, please discuss, don't impose your anti-Polish POV. Nawratil isn't any "source", it's propaganda. Xx236 (talk) 07:49, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

And where did I use Nawratil as a source? Skäpperöd (talk) 07:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

And where did I "impose an anti-Polish POV"?! Skäpperöd (talk) 10:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Please don't be patronising. We aren't Germans and this discussion is about the expulsion of Germans after WWII, not about hundreds of other subject including Horst Schlämmer. Xx236 (talk) 07:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I just exemplarily named three random Germans with opposite POVs to show that a "German POV" does not exist. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

So O.K. - "extremal German POV" as opposite to "rational German POV" represented by Haar.Xx236 (talk) 08:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd really like to argue further, but you did not answer any of my questions. Please do so and outline the POV dispute you see. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Wrong title of this article

The article is about the flight, war and expulsion, not about the expulsion only. Either the article will be edited according to the title or the title should be corrected.Xx236 (talk) 06:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

If someone is forced to flee/evacuate and prevented from returning they can consider themselves expelled. If someone is blocked while logged out he is still blocked. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Expulsion from France

Some GErmans were expelled from France and allowed to return only later. I believe the subject belongs here.Xx236 (talk) 07:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a source? This should definitely be included, but needs to be sourced. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

[32] Xx236 (talk) 08:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the link does not carry any information other than a book on the special fate of Kehl exists. Skäpperöd (talk) 08:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

[33] Xx236 (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Added, but not as "France", but as "Kehl" (AFAIK Kehl was never formally annexed to France). Thank you. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Children of German soldiers in Norway

Children of German soldiers in Norway were persecuted in Norway and some of the left the country. It's also "an expulsion".Xx236 (talk) 07:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Section "War children" covers this, feel free to add. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

respected historians,[115] including Werner Conze

Werner Conze was a Nazi, see de:Werner Conze. The quote shows the quality of your "sources" and your bias.Xx236 (talk) 10:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The source is a Hungarian German expert source. De:wiki (not a reliable source btw) indicates that he was not regarded to be involved in any evil Nazi stuff until recent research had disovered two sentences of him which follow the Nazi racial ideology. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Conze was a Nazi is easily verifiable (which is probably why German wiki doesn't even bother with it) - I'm sure, since unlike me you speak German, you'd have a much easier time finding the sources which confirm it. But here's the English language ones:

[34] "delibaretly ignoring the Nazi affiliations of their mentors, especially Theodor Scheider and Werner Conze" and "the ethnographic methods of Scheider and Conze, whose purpose was to justify German supremacy and expansion".

Or this [35]: "Scholars and institutions active in this field (i.e. Scheider and Conze) had supported the Nazi regime's expansionistic, colonial agenda in the east. They produced scholarship which was designed to validate German historical, cultural, and racial claims to the lands of the east and, perhaps more disturbingly, recommended drastic demographic measures be carried out against both Poles and Jews. Between 1937 and 1940 Conze published several articles in which he pointed to "dejewification" as one possible option for addressing the problems arising from the Jewish economic role (in areas to be occupied and annexed by Nazi Germany)". And that's just from the first two hits off of Google books. Respectable historians indeed!

But perhaps calling for "dejewification" of Poland, Belarus and Lithuania and recommending "drastic demographic measures" (which is a Nazi codeword for...) against both Poles and Jews does not qualify as being "involved in any evil Nazi stuff", or at least not evil enough.

Want to move on to the next on the list of the so called "respectable historians"?radek (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Vertribenenliteratur

Vertribenenliteratur has ... highly partisan, distinctly revisionistic flavour... [36], Examples - "Die Schwarzbuch...".Xx236 (talk) 11:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd imposes speculations by Rummel

Skäpperöd, don't do this. Xx236 (talk) 11:49, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Make a case that Rummel is not reliable. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd, I'm not going to play your games. You don't know the subject, you refuse to accept obvious facts, you want me to teach you. Learn the subject of German crimes during WWII and return to discuss with me.Xx236 (talk) 07:54, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

From Skäpperöd to me

You use the page Talk:Expulsion of Germans after World War II as a blog to air your personal grievances against me and several sources, without saying anything constructive. You don't point to any specific problems and make a case with these, but only make cryptic, general and defamatory comments. Please don't continue that. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd, I find you intensive editing of the article very controversial, and many sources quoted in the articile biased, presenting German nationalistic POV. P,lease explain your edits here, before you wage an editing war. Xx236 (talk) 12:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Anothing thing to consider is that Skapperod keeps adding stuff to the article which makes it grow out of proportions. Loosmark (talk) 14:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Removal of classification

[37] [[Rudolph Joseph Rummel]] describes it as the "largest mass expulsion of a population in history".<ref name=Rummel305>{{cite book|title=Death by government|authorlink=Rudolph Joseph Rummel|first=Rudolph Joseph|last=Rummel|edition=6|publisher=Transaction Publishers|year=1997|isbn=1560009276|url=http://www.google.de/books?id=N1j1QdPMockC&pg=PA305|accessdate=2009-08-27|page=305}}</ref> During the [[Cold War]], representatives of the expellee community in West Germany presented their plight as one of [[Josef Stalin|Stalin]]'s mass crimes. In the last fifteen years, it has been discussed by historians and politicians as well as scholars of international law as an example of "[[ethnic cleansing]]."<ref name=Rummel305/><ref>{{cite book|title=Expelling the Germans: British opinion and post-1945 population transfer in context. Oxford historical monographs|firt=Matthew James|last=Frank|publisher=[[Oxford University]] Press|year=2008|isbn=0199233640|page=5}}</ref> Some scholars, like [[Felix Ermacora]], consider it to be a [[genocide]] and [[crime against humanity]]<ref>http://www.ermacora-institut.at/wDeutsch/dokumente/pdf/gutachten_ermacora_1991.pdf</ref>. Rummel refers to the expulsions as a [[democide]].<ref name=Rummel306>{{cite book|title=Death by government|authorlink=Rudolph Joseph Rummel|first=Rudolph Joseph|last=Rummel|edition=6|publisher=Transaction Publishers|year=1997|isbn=1560009276|url=http://www.google.de/books?id=N1j1QdPMockC&pg=PA306|accessdate=2009-08-27|page=305}}</ref>

How the expulsions are classified (ethnic cleansing, genocide, democide etc) is an important info that must not be removed. It was sourced and attributed to schlolars saying so. Please outline why the sources are not reliable. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The classification you cite is not universaly agreed therefore it does not belong in the lead. Loosmark (talk) 15:17, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Additional sources classifying these expulsions as ethnic cleansing:

• Diner, Dan; Gross, Raphael; Weiss, Yfaat (2006). Jüdische Geschichte als allgemeine Geschichte. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 163. ISBN 3525362889.
• Gibney, Matthew J. (2005). Immigration and asylum: from 1900 to the present, Volume 3. ABC-CLIO. p. 196. ISBN 1576077969. {{cite book}}: Check |authorlink= value (help); External link in |authorlink= (help)
• Glassheim, Eagle (2001). Ther, Philipp; Siljak, Ana (eds.). Redrawing nations: ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948. Harvard Cold War studies book series. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 197. ISBN 0742510948.
• Shaw, Martin (2007). What is genocide?. Polity. p. 56. ISBN 0745631827.
• Totten, Paul; Bartrop; Jacobs, Steven L (2008). Dictionary of genocide, Volume 2. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 335. ISBN 0313346445.

Additional source classifying these expulsions as a genocide:

• Shaw, Martin (2007). What is genocide?. Polity. pp. 56, 60. ISBN 0745631827.

Skäpperöd (talk) 16:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Skapperod stop with manipulations please, the text was removed because it said it was the "largest mass expulsion of a population in history" which is clearly a german nationalistic POV. Loosmark (talk) 16:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Evidently not, it is sourced to Rummel, an American. And what other, larger mass expulsion of a population do you have in mind to prove Rummel wrong? One example is sufficient. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:17, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't have to prove anything, one source is not enough for your controversial claim. Loosmark (talk) 17:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Additional source classifying these expulsions as the "largest in history":

• Schissler, Yasemin Nuhoğlu; Soysal (2005). Berghahn Series. The nation, Europe, and the world: textbooks and curricula in transition. Berghahn Books. ISBN 157181549. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help); Text "page 55" ignored (help) "largest population transfer in history", citing
• Fink, Hans-Georg (1997). Geschichte kennen und verstehen. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. p. 12. ISBN 3486888544.

Skäpperöd (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Population transfer is not the same as mass expulsion. Loosmark (talk) 17:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You are right, population transfers do not only include mass expulsions, but also other things. Which does not make the statement wrong. The phrasing "mass population transfer" is used eg here

• Várdy, Steven Béla; Tooley, T. Hunt; Várdy, Ágnes Huszár (2003). Ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe. Social Science Monographs. p. 239. ISBN 0880339950. "the expulsion of the Germans constitutes the largest mass transfer of a population in history"

I do not object to use largest population transfer in history. Skäpperöd (talk) 18:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

According to your Rudi Rummel the biggest democides in history (in Europe) were committed by Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. So I object your absurd claimes about the "largest population transfer in history". Aren't you ashamed to write such lies?Xx236 (talk) 06:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Please provide sources that this was not the largest transfer of a population in history. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd, any fact can be described in many ways. The deportation of Germans, called here an expulsion, which is a German POV, was a part of WWII and post-war mass transfers. Claiming that tranfers of Germans were "special" means that you believe that German were Uebermenschen. It's a Nazi ideology. Xx236 (talk) 07:33, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Please be careful with Nazi allegations. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Removal of "ethnic Germans"

Ethnic Germans were also expelled. Why was that fact removed? The article has numerous sections on it (Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary etc pp). Skäpperöd (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It's back now.--Jacurek (talk) 15:37, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I moved it back to where it formerly was, because you accidentally moved "ethnic Germans" on the Reich's territory, and the definition of national vs ethnic Germans is that the nationals are in Germany, and the ethnic Germans are outside Germany. I think that was just an accident and you don't mind. Regards Skäpperöd (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Military personal and suspected Nazis

After recent changes, the Germans that were sent to labour camps and deported to the Soviet Union are now classified "Military personal and suspected Nazis". In fact, it were all kind of Germans.

• Kacowicz, Arie Marcelo; Lutomski, Pawel (2007). Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study. Lexington Books. p. 101. ISBN 073911607. Retrieved 2009-08-27. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
• Kamusella, Tomasz (2004/1). Prauser; Reeds (eds.). "The Expulsion of the German communities from Eastern Europe" (pdf). EUI HEC. p. 28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help) <mall>pg corr 29-->28. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd (talk) 16:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The German civilians were not round up on the street to be sent to the labour camps in the Soviet Union or Poland as the Nazis did with the Poles for example. To my knowledge most were military personnel or suspected Nazis. Was there any civilians in the labour camps for no reason, just because they were German? How did they get there if yes? It is hard to see clearly from the sources you provided.--Jacurek (talk) 21:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Without getting into any comparisons with the Nazis, yes the Germans were rounded up on the street and sent to camps. Maybe you confuse these camps with the NKVD special camps? In those camps, the Soviet indeed often justified internment with Nazi ties. I corrected the page number in the Kamusella paper (it was 28, not 29), additionally, you might to have a look here or here.Of course, most certainly there were "suspected Nazis" among the interned - after all, the Nazi Gleichschaltung and the allied collective guilt concepts made nearly every German a suspected Nazi. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Then in this case is has to be added to the article that the random civilians were arrested and sent to the camps as well. Can you do it? Backed up by the sources of course.--Jacurek (talk) 22:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

To be fair most Germans cooperated full throttle with the Nazis and supported their ideology and plans. Kudos to those who opposed the Nazis but they were few and far between. So while it is regretable that everybody was threated as a potential Nazi it is also understandable. And even so many Nazis managed to evade the "net" and escape to Argentina or even rebuilt their life in Germany after keeping a low profile for awhile. Loosmark (talk) 22:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

What does "most Germans cooperated full throttle with the Nazis and supported their ideology and plans" mean? Are there reference sources to your statement, or is it just a declaration or "appeal to common sense"? My belief is that most Germans, like "most Poles in Communist Poland" and "most Russians in Communist Soviet Union" were somewhat mentally removed from state ideology and plans, and did what was required of them in a totalitarian state, since it was easier to conform than have to be visited by the GESTAPO. Most Germans were either Roman Catholics or Evangelical German Church Protestants . . . I believe that "most Germans" maintained their somewhat compromised Christianity throughout Nazi times. To be a Nazi "Nut" as you describe (i.e., "full throttle") they would have had to become atheistic, or bought into Hitler's "German Nordic Church", ruled by Odin and Thor.ANNRC (talk) 06:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

The claim that the Germans did what was required because of some fear from the Gestapo is downright comical. Unfortunately the enthusiasm of a large part of the German population for the Nazi ideology is well documented. Anyway would explain sth to me, 109 out of your last 112 edits were made on this talk page, would mind explaining why do you have such a shocking obsession with this talk page? In 3 years of wikipedia I've never seen anything remotely similar. Have you joined wikipedia just to argue on this talk page or is there something more sinister at work here? Loosmark (talk) 08:52, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

You could say my "obsession" is with individuals who submit vague generalities, whether on purpose, or simply by happenstance or misunderstanding of semantics within the English language. Re your statements about the GESTAPO being comical and the "well documented" enthusiasm of "the German population for the Nazis" I must admit amazement, since I've not come across such specific reference examples. (I also noticed that you steered clear of commenting about German religious affiliation.) What is your education level? College degree? (major/minor?); post-bac or grad studies?ANNRC (talk) 11:04, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is your contribution on wikipedia limited to this talk page? 109 out of your last 112 edits were made on this talk page. Such abnormal behavior requires an explanation. Loosmark (talk) 12:12, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I am trying to read between the lines: your use of the term "abnormal behavior" leads me to believe your higher education was in psychology? Please provide even one reference example supporting the statement "most Germans cooperated full throttle with the Nazis and supported their ideology and plans".ANNRC (talk) 13:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Why are you avoiding to answer? Loosmark (talk) 14:45, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a Psychology forum, but you already knew that with your advance education in psychology.ANNRC (talk) 22:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not interested in the psychology behind your actions i just want to know why do you only edit this talk page which in conflict with usual wikipedia practices. The way i see it there are two possibilities, either you are only interested to argue on a talk page while your contribution to the project is a big fat zero.. or well we all know what is the second option. Perhaps there is some other reason i am missing and that's why i wanted to give you a possibility to explain before i bring this to the attention of the administrators. Loosmark (talk) 10:58, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, that's very decent of you to call this matter to my attention. Before you "bring [the matter] to the attention of the [Wikipedia] administrators", could you please provide even one reference example supporting the statement "most Germans cooperated full throttle with the Nazis and supported their ideology and plans". I say this because ca half the Germans were of the Roman Catholic Faith and the ca other half were Evangelical German Church Protestants. In order for them to "cooperate full throttle" with the Nazis, including "support[ing] their ideology and plans", they would have had to abandon Christianity.ANNRC (talk) 00:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Right and nobody supported the fascism in Italy because they were 99% catholic and neither the militaristic-expansionist mentality in Japan because they were all buddhists. Please spare me these 5 y.o. style arguments. Loosmark (talk) 01:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, is this as close as we're going to get to even one reference example supporting the statement "most Germans cooperated full throttle with the Nazis and supported their ideology and plans"? (This is within the above context that ca half the Germans were of the Roman Catholic Faith and the ca other half were Evangelical German Church Protestants. In order for them to "cooperate full throttle" with the Nazis, including "support[ing] their ideology and plans", they would have had to abandon Christianity.)ANNRC (talk) 02:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Because the christians never commit crimes, I mean hell they'd first have to abandon christianity, right? A totally laughable argument. Now if you don't mind i don't have time for these stupidities anymore, unlike you i actually do serious work on wikipedia. Loosmark (talk) 02:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark, you missed the point: in order for "most Germans" (your words) to, using your words, "cooperate full throttle" with the Nazis via support of "their ideology and plans" they would have had to join Hitler's non-Christian Aryan Church. "Full throttle" means buying into the racial extermination of the Jews and the Poles, etc. I can find no reference in sources such as, The Aryan Jesus: Christian theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany By Susannah Heschel indicating that German Christians supported racial extermination of the Jews and the Poles. For half the Germans, Poles were seen as fellow Catholics. Of course, the Catholic part of Germany (Bavaria, etc.) was separated by a considerable distance from Poland.ANNRC (talk) 04:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC) Caveat: Hitler's Aryan Church was to worship Odin and Thor. The focus of Heschel's book is on the Aryan Jesus concept, not on Hitler's Aryan Church.ANNRC (talk) 04:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Schreider

With this edit,

• In 1995, a joint German and Czech commission of historians revised the previous estimate of 250,000 civilian deaths in Sudetenland to between 15,000 and 30,000 deaths

was changed to

• In 1995, a joint German and Czech commission of historians revised the number of civilian deaths in Sudetenland, from Schreider's previous estimate of 250,00 down to between 15,000 and 30,000 deaths (or by a factor of 10), based on Overmans' earlier work

with the summary No, no, the sources very clearly refer to Schreider and explictly state the factor of 10 The source says

Inny niemiecki badacz dr Ingo Haar potwierdza w swoich publikacjach wnioski Overmansa i wskazuje na wyniki pracy Niemiecko-Czeskiej Komisji Historyków, powołanej przez rządy obu krajów. Po drobiazgowych obliczeniach w 1995 r. zweryfikowała ona liczbę niemieckich ofiar wysiedleń z Czechosłowacji z dotychczas w Niemczech funkcjonującej liczby 250 tysięcy do zaledwie 15 – 30 tysięcy, a więc dziesięciokrotnie. Ówczesny minister spraw zagranicznych RFN Klaus Kinkel z uznaniem wypowiedział się o wyniku prac komisji, ale znaczna część niemieckiej opinii publicznej ze Związkiem Wypędzonych na czele do dziś je ignoruje. (source)

Where does the source mention Schreider's numbers? Is Schreider a misspelling of Schieder, and if so, where is the connection in the source? Where does the source say 25000? Is it really necessary to explain to the reader that 250000/25000=10? Skäpperöd (talk) 09:14, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

The 250 thousand number comes from Schieder. Yes, it's a mispelling. Yes, it is useful to explain to the reader that it's a factor of ten. In these kinds of estimates being off by a factor of 2 is seen as pretty bad. This is much worse. It puts the overestimate in proper perspective.radek (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Where does the source attribute the 250,000 to Schieder? Why did you change 250,000 to 25000? Skäpperöd (talk) 04:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Haar and population balance - request for clarification

Can we get the relevant passage in which Haar objects to population balance methods in general (of course, translated into Engllish). From what I've read it's not that he objects to this approach in all cases, just when it's done badly, or twisted for political reasons.radek (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Second paragraph, first sentence starting with "Ohne Zweifel...": "Without doubt, the discussion about the number of Polish victims shows that the method of population balances is questionable."

Regards Skäpperöd (talk) 04:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes but where does he say that he objects to this method "in general" rather than in that particular instance?radek (talk) 08:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

In the cited sentence, he already does object to the method in general - providing an example that "shows" his point does not reduce his point to this example. Furthermore, he puts the very word, population balances (=Bevölkerungsbilanz in German), in quotes in the chapter's title, and the chapter is not limited to the Polish balances, but primarily challenges the German population balances (didn't you introduce this source yourself? I thought so), and the Polish population balances are just used as the preface to illustrate how questionable Haar thinks population balances are (only first page of the chapter). Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The IPN has published recently a revised number of Polish victims, so a "historical" dispute of this problem shouldn't be included here.Xx236 (talk) 09:42, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

The very IPN is part of a national project going on in Poland right now (www.straty.org) to verify as many victims as possible - so no this is not "historical", and I have not heard of a "dispute" either, just of research and discussion. While historians have lowered their estimates to about five million war victims, research is not finished yet. Still an unbelievable number btw. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) said its researchers now put the figure at between 5.62 million and 5.82 million rather than the estimated figure 6.028 million used in communist-era Poland. 30/08/2009 [38]

• The figure of 5.0 million war dead includes only Jews & ethnic Poles, excluding ethnic Ukrainians & Belrussians. The IPN figure includes ethnic Ukrainians & Belrussians who were Polish citizens in 1939. The original discredited estimate from 1947 of 6.028 million war dead included only Jews & ethnic Poles, excluding ethnic Ukrainians & Belrussians. --Source explaining this is Czesław Łuczak, Szanse i trudnosci bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939-1945. Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI- 1994

• So we can say that the IPN estimates 5.6 to 5.8 million war dead, 1.5 million have been verified by the IPN, the balance being a demographic estimate. The German government estimates 2.0 million Expellee dead, 500,000 have been verified, the balance being a demographic estimate.--Woogie10w (talk) 02:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The name of the article, the introduction

• The article is about the flight, war and expulsion. Calling the evacuation or war crimes "an expulsion" is German government POV.
• The introduction is too long. Xx236 (talk) 07:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

National minorities and the European nation-states system‎ Jennifer Jackson Preece - 1998 uses the name "forced transfer". "Expulsion" is a direct translation of the German "Vetreibung". This is an English language Wikipedia, not a German propaganda division.Xx236 (talk) 07:29, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Germans?

The basic problem was, who was "German". Many expellees were Slavs (Silesians, Kashubs). Calling them "Germans" is German POV. People were sometimes imprisoned and/or deported from Poland because they had big farms/houses.Noone checked the ethnicity of Upper Silesian miners kidnapped by the Soviets.Xx236 (talk) 07:24, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have sources on how many of the expellees were non-Germans? Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The largest transfer

Stop yopur lies. The deportation of Germans (the word "expulsion" being German POV should be removed or introduced in any article about forced migrations) was the third in modern Europe after the Nazi deportations and Soviet ones. It wasn't even the biggest deportation of one ethnicity, because the idea of "Germans" as applied when selecting people to be deported was very fuzzy. Xx236 (talk) 06:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Please provide verifiable sources. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Wasserstein is misquoted in the article. He has written abouta transfer "between European countries", not universally. One of many manipulations and lies of the editors here. Xx236 (talk) 07:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Please outline how and where Wasserstein is misquoted. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW - which "countries"? If the "Recovered Territories" were German (under Polish administration), so the deportations were local, in Germany. Xx236 (talk) 07:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

You cannot eat the cake (Polish administration till the Peace treaty) and to have it (transfer between countries).Xx236 (talk) 07:24, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The expulsions have been classified as ethnic cleansing,[7] democide[8] and genocide.[9]

The deportations have been classified in many ways. The author selects German POV.Xx236 (talk) 08:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

In what other ways by which sources? Skäpperöd (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

By hundreds of sources not written from the POV of the BdV.Xx236 (talk) 07:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

• Vaclav Havel about the deportation of Sudetengermans from Czechoslovakia: http://old.hrad.cz/president/Havel/speeches/1995/1702_uk.html " a sad consequence of the evil which preceded it"Xx236 (talk) 07:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• expulsion for peace [39]Xx236 (talk) 07:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Joseph Stalin "the Germans run away and no Germans are left"Xx236 (talk) 07:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Eisenhower Telegram to the War Department, 18 October 1945 (National Archives, Washington, D.C., RG165)

States in part:

WAR DEPARTMENT

CLASSIFIED MESSAGE CENTER

INCOMING CLASSIFIED MESSAGE

TOP SECRET TOT

PRIORITY

From: CG US Forces European Theater Main Frankfurt Germany

To: War Department

Nr: S 28399..... 18 October 1945

S 28399 to for action War Dept for G 2 attn Major General Clayton Bissell from Hqs US Forces European Theater Main from Connor from Sibert sgd Eisenhower cite ETGBI. TOP SECRET.

Detailed reports from reliable observers including an officer from G 2 Div confirm indications of critical situation developing . . .

In Silesia, Polish administration and methods are causing a mass exodus westward of German inhabitants. Germans are being ordered out of their homes . . . Many unable to move are placed in camps on meager rations and under poor sanitary conditions. Death and disease rate in camps are extremely high. Germans who attempt to hold onto homes and land are terrorized into 'Voluntary' evacuation. Methods used by Poles definitely do not conform to Potsdam agreement. . . .

Due to mass migrations into Brandenberg and Saxony, health conditions in these regions tragically low. There is unprecedented lack of food, medical supplies, and doctors. Reasonable estimates predict between 2.5 and 3 million victims of malnutrition and disease between Oder and Elbe by next spring.

WAR DEPARTMENT

CLASSIFIED MESSAGE CENTER

INCOMING CLASSIFIED MESSAGE

TOP SECRET TOT

Page 2

From: CG US Forces European Theater, Main Frankfurt Germany Nr: S28399 18 October 1945

Breslau death rate increased ten fold, and death rate reported to be 75% of all births. Typhoid, typhus, dysentery, and diphtheria are spreading.

Total number potentially involved in westward movement to Russian Zone of Germany from Poland and Czechoslovakia in range of 10 million. Estimate 65 to 75 per cent already departed or on the road westward. No coordinated measures yet taken to direct stream of refugees into specific regions or provide food and shelter. Tendency of refugees is to move into cities, and cities of Saxony, especially are becoming dangerously over crowded. Attention is invited in this connection to serious danger of epidemic of such great proportion as to menace all Europe, including our troops, and to probability of mass starvation unprecedented scale.

Copies of special reports for your information are being forwarded by Mail Annex Nbr 3 to our Special Intelligence Bulletin Nbr 3 gives of preview of this problem.

End

ACTION : Gen Bissell

INFO: Gen Arnold, Gen Hull, C of S

CM-IN-8742 (18 Oct 45) DTG 181435A da

TOP SECRET —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.247.204 (talk) 09:50, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

What nerve! - to impose to Poles an administration and to criticise this administration as a "Polish" one.Xx236 (talk) 11:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

But they were Polish i.e., Polish Communist (even though a few Russians were wearing high ranking Polish military uniforms). For example, 10,000 ethnic Polish members of a Polish Communist region are 10,000 ethnic Poles, just as 10,000 ethnic German members of an East German Communist region are 10,000 ethnic Germans.ANNRC (talk) 23:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW - any TOP SECRET documents about Katyń or Nazi crimes in Poland?Xx236 (talk) 11:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I’ve often wondered how the East German Communists explained away the substance behind the Eisenhower telegram. Maybe they defined it as a fortuitous event gifted from their Polish Communist brethren, providing the EG Communists with 10 million more “converts”.76.14.247.204 (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Population Transfers in the Potsdam Agreement

Since, for example, the ultimate disposition of the Polish administered areas of eastern Germany was left at Potsdam to the presumed upcoming Final Peace Conference, the reference to "Poland" in the context of the Potsdam Agreement-related population transfers was to within the appropriate 1937 boundary areas of Poland.

Expulsions from Polish administered territories were against International Law, nor were the expulsions authorized by the Potsdam Agreement at any time prior to the pending Final Peace Treaty.

Expulsions from Soviet Union administered territory were against International Law, nor were the expulsions authorized by the Potsdam Agreement at any time prior to the pending Final Peace Treaty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.247.204 (talk) 02:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

And who did destroy the Europe allowing such moves possible? Xx236 (talk) 13:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Photo: "Marking the new Polish-German border in 1945"

Not quite sure what the picture caption represents. I assume it was taken either on the northern borderline or on the western borderline of the 1937 Polish border, since in 1945 the 1937 boundaries of Poland were reestablished. However, it may be that the picture was taken on the northern boundary or the western boundary of the Potsdam assigned Polish administrative areas of eastern Germany pending the final Peace treaty (the administrative assignment was temporary pending the Final Peace Treaty).ANNRC (talk) 09:29, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The latter. To avoid complications arising from de-jure vs de-facto (it is just an image caption), I altered the caption into Polish boundary-post at the Oder-Neisse line in 1945. Regards Skäpperöd (talk) 09:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Please cooperate

I have criticised the title and noone defended it. When I change the title, Skaperod knows better. Please, discuss here instead to waging edit wars and discussing in another forums.Xx236 (talk) 09:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

Expulsion of Germans after World War II → Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII — The article is about the flight and expulsion. It isn't about Expulsion only, the title "Expulsion" is a literal translation from German "Vertreibung". Xx236 (talk) 09:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed the new title seems better because the article covers everything: expulsions, flights, war-deaths.. etc etc etc. Loosmark (talk) 13:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• I like the old title. The majority of the article pertains to expulsions, and do many academic references and at 153 kb other topics should really be forked off into different articles. - Non-Dairy Creamer (talk) 13:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

In another words - let's continue the German propaganda, because it exists. The division between cultural Europe and wild Slavs is O.K. When French people kill lovers of Germans it isn't an Expulsion, but when Nazis run away from the East, it's an Expulsion.Xx236 (talk) 06:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep per Non-Dairy Creamer, sources in "Use in sources" section below, and my rationale in "Expulsion happened to the refugees, too" section below. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)/15:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - I note that a similar page move was discussed in March at Talk:Expulsion of Germans after World War II/Archive 15#Requested move, which may be of interest to editors participating in this discssion. I also note that there already is an article entitled Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II - is what is being proposed here a move or a merge? And, Xx236, please do not move the article until there is consensus to do so - much thanks. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:29, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support - since most of the German civilians actually fled the advancing Red Army I thing this could be renamed.--Jacurek (talk) 14:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

::There already is an article at the proposed target name. So when you say "support", what do you actually mean? Should the other article be renamed, so as to free up the title? Should this become Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII (Version 2)? Or should the two articles be merged? Are they too large to be merged, or is some of the content duplicated? Given the circumstances mentioned above, a simple comment in favour of a rename isn't particularly helpful. Please elaborate. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:42, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I support the proposal. Sorry I don't fully understand what are you after?--Jacurek (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. Sorry to be a bother. As Skäpperöd kindly pointed out to me, I was mixing up a redirect to this article and the article pertaining specifically to Poland. Your post made sense -- mine, not so much.... --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support - makes sense. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Use in sources

Google book search (publishing years 1980-2009):

• "expulsion+of+the+germans" 659 hits
• "The+expulsion+of+germans" 617 hits
• "flight+and+expulsion+of+the+germans" 17 hits
• "flight+and+expulsion+of+germans" 37 hits

The search indicates that as a headline or reference, expulsion is used for the whole process.

Books that use "expulsion" as a category including "flight":

• Johnson, Lonnie (1996). Central Europe: enemies, neighbors, friends. Oxford University Press US. p. 233. ISBN 0195100719.: "The expulsion of the Germans from East Central Europe took a number of forms. Many Germans [...] fled to avoid ending up behind the Soviet front. [...]"
• Gibney, Matthew J; Hansen, Randall (2005). Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present. p. 197. ISBN 1576077969.: "The expulsions took place in three broad phases. First, refugees fled East Prussia, Pomerania [...]" Gibney's website at Oxford

Skäpperöd (talk) 15:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

what point exactly are you trying to make? Loosmark (talk) 16:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Expulsion happened to the refugees, too

The refugees were expelled in absentia, since they were prevented from returning. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Correct--Jacurek (talk) 15:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Related major move proposal

Please see and comment at Talk:World_War_II_evacuation_and_expulsion#Better_name:_population_transfers. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

"including territories occupied by the Nazi Germany"

This phrase does not make sense to describe the expulsion area in the first sentence. Most of Europe was once occupied by Nazi Germany, and was not anymore occupied when the expulsions took place. I understood Jacurek's concern to be that some areas were annexed by Nazi Germany during the war. The paragraph below already details that:

The area from which the German population was expelled comprised pre-war German provinces transferred to Poland and the Soviet Union after the war (East Brandenburg, East Prussia and most of Pomerania and Silesia); pre-war Polish areas, during the war annexed or occupied by Nazi Germany; Czechoslovakia, re-created from pre-war Czechoslovak areas occupied during the war and the Sudetenland, annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938; Hungary, Romania, northern Yugoslavia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region), and other states of Central and Eastern Europe.

Nazi-occupied Europe is also linked already in the lead. Thus I see no need to keep that unspecific phrase in the first sentence. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)/14:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there anywhere Germans were expelled from that wasn't occupied by Nazi Germany? Perhaps some of the Volga basin... (If the answer is, as you suspect, that this is intended to distinguish Warsaw from Koenigsberg and Breslau and Carlsbad, then it fails; it should be removed as unclear and unidiomatic.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Some ares were pre war territories of Poland or Czechoslovakia and were annexed into the Nazi Germany with local population expelled or murdered[[40]]. Occupied lands were repopulated with German settlers over the course of the war. These German civilians also fled or were later expelled after the war. Why not having this in the lead? --Jacurek (talk) 14:39, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

So? The clause quoted does not convey either point to the reader; and, as Skäpperöd said, that many of these lands were not German in 1937 is already in the lead. (Some of them weren't in 1914) . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with you. Let's wait for others to state their opinions.--Jacurek (talk) 15:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Germans were expelled from Latin America and the U.S. in the wake of the Seccond World War and those terrirories were decidedly outside of the nazi empire. Non-Dairy Creamer (talk) 15:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Germans were expelled from the U.S. When did this happen? My mom had top secret clearance and worked on the Manhattan Project, my dad was a US GI--Woogie10w (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

1, 2, 3; We deported a couple thousand German Americans throughout the war, often in exchange for American internees or other interned allied nationals and then right after the war we deported a couple thousand more. Clearly the actions of the United States pale in comparison to the Soviets but we did some pretty shadey things, especially in Latin America. Non-Dairy Creamer (talk) 18:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Skäpperöd is right, Germans had lived in Poland for generations before the Hitler period--Woogie10w (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Though I didn't mention that here, it is correct.

@Jacurek: "Why not having this in the lead" - That the expulsion areas were occupied by Nazi Germany during the war, just like most of Europe is in the lead, maybe you missed it in the paragraph quoted above?: pre-war Polish areas, during the war annexed or occupied by Nazi Germany; Czechoslovakia, re-created from pre-war Czechoslovak areas occupied during the war and the Sudetenland, annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938 - and Nazi-occupied Europe is also linked. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:46, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I have rephrased and clarified the phrase, I hope. Does this meet your objections? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Not really. Though it is now more factually correct, it is still not suitable for a first sentence to include that information:

• How these areas were occupied by Nazi Germany during the war is already detailed in the second para of the lead, and also referred to in other places in the lead.
• That these areas were occupied by Nazi Germany during the war is not a distinct feature of these areas, nearly all Europe was.
• The expulsions of Germans are a feature of Europe under Allied occupation, not of Europe under Nazi occupation. The Nazi German occupation had ended before the expulsion started. Evacuation and first spontaneous flights occurred when Nazi German occupation/administration broke down.

I thus object to having half of the first sentence of the article dealing with Nazi occupation. The first sentence should give the reader an idea what the article is about.

What about changing

(current) The flight and expulsion of Germans (German: Die Vertreibung or Flucht und Vertreibung) was the mass migration of German nationals from the former eastern territories of Germany and ethnic Germans from territories across Europe (including many of the lands occupied by Nazi Germany during the war) to the western and central areas of Germany towards the end and in the aftermath of World War II.

into

The flight and expulsion of Germans (German: Die Vertreibung or Flucht und Vertreibung) was the mass migration of German nationals from the former eastern territories of Germany and ethnic Germans from territories across Europe to the western and central areas of Germany towards the end and in the aftermath of World War II, when Allied administration and occupation replaced the former Nazi German one.

? Skäpperöd (talk) 06:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

There's some POV problems with that proposal. First "Allied administration and occupation replced the former Nazi German one" equivocates between Allied "administration and occupation" and Nazi "administration and occupation". The word "occupation" has or at least should have a completely different meaning here. The two were not equivalent and should not be linked together in such a manner. Second, there's still no mention of the numerous colonists that moved to previously Polish or Czech areas, or even the GG (including families of Wemrmacht soldiers and other services which were stationed there as part of the occupying forces) who were also "expelled" (or rather, more accurately "force to return").radek (talk) 17:41, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't you think the average reader will know the difference between "Allied" and "Nazi"? Anyways, ANNRC and Jacurek already agreed on another wording. Regarding the colonists, see below. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe they will or maybe they won't, but either way, that's no excuse for the article to deliberately confuse the two.radek (talk) 21:53, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What about, " . . . western and central areas of Germany towards the end and in the aftermath of World War II, into the Allied Occupation Zones of Germany which replaced the Nazi administration." This change is suggested in view of one of the Allies, namely the SU, having an administrative zone (Northern East Prussia) from which it was illegally deporting Germans.ANNRC (talk) 10:38, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

It is fine this way but I still have a problem with with not mentioning the German settlers on occupied Polish territories incorporated into the Third Reich after the invasion of Poland. Remember, millions of Poles and Jews were expelled by the Nazis into GG and replaced with German settlers. I don't think I will ever be confident not having this mentioned in the lead.--Jacurek (talk) 15:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, 250,000 Poles and 110,000 Jews from the annexed territories were deported to the Generalgouvernement. Another 400,000 Jews from these areas were later sent to extermination camps, and some 200,000 Poles were subjected to forced labour. There were plans to expell more Poles later, but this "later" fortunately never came. The settlers were for the most part ethnic Germans who fell victim to the Nazi-Soviet population transfers, most of them from just east of the Curzon line and thus covered in the "Soviet Union" section. Regards Skäpperöd (talk) 17:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I 'm not sure if you are right with your numbers, look at this...[[41]]

What is your source for these claims, or more specifically, numbers?radek (talk) 21:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Per Luczak 923,00 Poles were deported from Annexed Territories and another 788,000 deported from General Gov as forced laborer--Woogie10w (talk) 22:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Luszak, who published his book in 1979 in a country subject to a totalitarian Communist regime (censorship and propaganda alarm), gave 923,000 as his estimate of all those who had to leave their homes in the annexed territories. Not all of these were deported to the GG or to the Altreich, many spent the war years in "Polenlager" camps. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What about Jewish Poles? Now we talking millions.--Jacurek (talk) 22:15, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Nazis murdered millions of Jews. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: The settlers were for the most part ethnic Germans who fell victim to the Nazi-Soviet population transfers, most of them from just east of the Curzon line and thus covered in the "Soviet Union" section. - They were settled in Poland not in Soviet Union, so information about them should be also covered in the Poland section. There's also no mention or estimates of the numbers involved. And these are that there were about 400,000 to 500,000 Germans who were involved in the administration of the occupation of Poland and that by 1942, up to 2 million Germans had been settled in these areas (Polish_areas_annexed_by_Nazi_Germany#German_colonization_and_settlement).radek (talk) 22:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Well...that is A LOT of people, this has to be included in the lead, we can not just ignore it and I don't think this fact will take anything away from another fact that there were a lot of other Germans who suffered legitimate expulsions from their lands and houses they owned for centuries.--Jacurek (talk) 22:12, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The 2 million "settlers" figure includes those who already lived there, many since the Middle Ages, those who had been displaced there by the Nazis, and the estimated 400,000-500,000 who actually moved there from pre-war German areas. It must however be taken into account that about 600,000 Germans had left the very same area only in the decade before, when the area became Polish. Do you know how many of the estimated 400,000-500,000 settlers from pre-war Germany were actually returnees? Skäpperöd (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, what is your source for the claim that most of the 400,000-500,000 were "returnees"? Even that term is very POV. Nothing in the source indicates that this was indeed the case, so this is basically OR. It's actually pretty bad OR at that since most of the 400,000-500,000 were administrators and Nazi party officials who were involved in occupation of Polish territory rather than the farmers and regular people who may or may not have left this area during the interwar period. So first, the 600,000 figure is unsourced and sketchy. And even if, these were not the same people as the Nazi bureaucrats and personnel that the text is referring to. At this point it sounds like you're just making stuff up (at least I'm not seeing any reliable sources to back these claims up).radek (talk) 23:49, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

First, I did not "claim that most of the 400,000-500,000 were 'returnees'". The 600,000 figure is on the lower edge of a range of up to a million, see here for more estimates. Skäpperöd (talk) 06:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Germans from Reichsgegiet(like Erika Steinbach) made up 560,000; and 1,320,000 ethnic Germans from other nations (mostly Soviet territory ie. Romania, Baltic States USSR & Eastern Poland) per Gerhard Reichling--Woogie10w (talk) 23:12, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The ethnic German figure most probably also comprises the Germans who already lived there? Estimates of several German and Polish scholars put the number of native German residents in the annexed areas at about 600,000. Skäpperöd (talk) 06:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Pointer: included in the figure of 2 million Expellee dead, supported by the German government, are 108,000 Germans resettled in Poland by the Nazi's.

Pointer: included in the figure of German born persons in the US in 1940 are legal residents who were not US citizens as well as US citizens born in Germany. Note well that 1940 figure includes German Jewish refugees that fled Hitler Germany.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:46, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course for every sane person "German" includes "Jewish German", only the Nazis had their own definition of "German" which we don't want to follow here. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

That whole section on German Americans is borderline trivia, the issue never comes up in the historical liturature on the Expulsions, only on Wikipedia are the two issues linked together. OR or not? You tell me.--Woogie10w (talk) 17:08, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

You wrote Of course for every sane person "German" includes "Jewish German", German Jews I have known over years in New York always considered themselves Jews and would be highly offended if you called them a German.--Woogie10w (talk) 17:15, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

You are talking about Jewish Americans with roots in Germany who don't self-identify as Germans. I was talking about Jewish Germans. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I am taliking about a friend who survived Auschwitz, he lost his whole family, his father who was gassed at Auschwitz was a decorated soldier in the WW1 German Army. --Woogie10w (talk) 21:52, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

And I am pretty sure his father first could not believe that the Nazis did not accept him as a German and redefined him as an alien, and when he realized what was going on, it was too late to get out. That was a common and very sad experience. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Germans actively participated in Nazi crimes in Poland since September 1939. Very many of them preferred to live in Germany after the war, to not be punished. SO much about gthe unhappy "Orphans of Versaille".Xx236 (talk) 09:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing debate about classification?

This [42] edit states that "There is an ongoing debate as to the classification of the nature of the events". That is OR. Please show where there is a debate, and show that the classifications are mutually exclusive. The sources used for different classifications are sometimes the same, showing that the classifications are not mutually exclusive and that there is no debate. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Every single one of those is sourced which itself shows that a debate exist.radek (talk) 23:38, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. No source points out a debate, and "population transfer" and "ethnic cleansing" etc pp is not mutually exclusive. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The question as to whether or not it was 'genocide' is most certainly under debate and not representative of most sources. This needs to be noted.radek (talk) 21:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The Potsdam Agreement borrowed from the Nazis style of racial classification: In giving authority to the "authorities" in such places as Czechoslovakia and the appropriate area of 1937 boundary Poland to define who/what constituted an "ethnic German", such "local authorities" had the power to define, for example, a person with one German greatgrandparent as an "ethnic German" and therefore suitable for expulsion. The Potsdam Agreement empowered such "local authorities" not only with such power of "racial determination", but also with the power to expell virtually 100% of those so-determined.ANNRC (talk) 22:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Comparing the Potsdam Agreement (flawed as it might be) with the Nazis style racial classification is simply sick. In the real world such things would be unthinkable but i've learn that lots of people use wikipedia as some sort of valve to release every kind of weirdness. Loosmark (talk) 22:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

That comparison comes from an academic source (i.e., a source, right or wrong, from a university library). The Communist militias took strength from the Potsdam Agreement, to include justifying various actions they had taken prior to the Potsdam Agreement. I agree that lots of people, including many who have learned English as a second language, tend to use Wikipedia as a platform to battle what they apparently perceive to be vestiges of Nazi thinking. Part of the shared technique in such matters is to challenge much, but not get involved in responding to too many specifics, since the focal point seems to be in a constant flux (almost an hourly flux at times), and thus the claim can be made that it is unproductive to respond to a superceded comment or question i.e., superceded by simply more word flow.ANNRC (talk) 02:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Ya, but comparing ANYTHING to what the Nazis have done will set up "fireworks". You just made a mistake equaling Potsdam Agreement with the Nazi polices, you can't compare these two things.--Jacurek (talk) 03:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

As stated, I wasn't the original source for that assessment - it was in an academic work & was used primarily as an analogy in that work. Obviously what the Nazis did was on a much greater scale than what happened to the Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland after the war. The latter includes Germans having to wear the letter "N", and Nazi concentration camps re-used for, in cases, ordinary German civilians. Some Germans who refused to vacate their premises were forcibly taken to camps.ANNRC (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I understand everything, but again, NOTHING can be compared to Auschwitz-Birkenau, just to give you one example. Not even so tragic events such as mass rape of German woman by the Soviet troops. Therefore it will never be easy to find sympathy for the German civilian hardship and there will be always accusations that by emphasizing this suffering one is trying to turn the German Nation into the victims of the war rather than the oppressors. Of course the facts of German civilian suffering should be told and should be acknowledged but because there is such a fragile line between recognition of these facts and historical revisionism, editors, especially the German ones should be more than careful while editing pages on the subject. I hope you understand.--Jacurek (talk) 09:08, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Rapes of German women in the future GDR are rapes, but rapes of German women in future Poland belong to the "Expulsion". Jewish vengeance in Germany proper is Jewish vengeance, Jewish vengeance in Poland is the "Expulsion". Poles transported to Soviet camps in Siberia aren't mentioned in this Wikipedia, Upper Silesians transported to Soviet mines are classified as "Germans" and included in the "Expulsion", punished Nazis are qualified as victims of the "Expulsion". German occupants running away from Poland are "expelled", eg. Erika Steinbach's family, the same for Czechoslovakia. German people running away from Paris aren't "expelled". This Wikipedia shouldn't present German POV as a "fact". The "Expulsion" was a part of post-war population transfers. German editors are active, write fluent English and they create the image of German victims of WWII. Millions of Slavs were mistreated after the war in DP camps, transported to Soviet Union, raped and murdered. Their fate isn't described by academic historians or not described here. The "Expulsion" wasn't the biggest population transfer in Europe, shame on editors who push such propaganda. It was however the biggest liberation of people, who were able to impose their POV till today. Xx236 (talk) 09:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

What was the biggest ethnic population transfer in Europe? (caveat: "population transfer" is a term which could describe either a singular ethnic population, or it could be used to describe mass movements involving more than one ethnic group.)

Since most of the German expellees ended up in the DDR how can that be called a liberation?ANNRC (talk) 11:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The "local authorities" in Poland were Communist, not Polish. The ones created by the governement-in-exile were persecuted like Germans and sometimes imprisoned with Germans.Xx236 (talk) 09:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The "local authorities" in post-war Poland were a mix of SU & Polish communists, with of course the SU having the ultimate power. Understood about the persecution of members of the Polish government-in-exile who left London for the meeting in Moscow; and also for London Poles who went to Warsaw.ANNRC (talk) 11:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• Many "expelled" weren't allowed to emigrate till 1970ties.
• Many "expelled" were transported to Soviet Union, later liberated and transported to Germany. They never demanded to return to their homeland and never met a Polish or Czechoslovak "expulsor".Xx236 (talk) 09:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Academic libraries have "Mein Kampf", it doesn't make the book "academic".Xx236 (talk) 09:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me repeat once again: the expulsions cannot be compared with the horrible attrocities commited by the Nazis. That's a point that's not even debatable. Loosmark (talk) 12:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

BdV propaganda in the article

Ústí massacre doesn't support your 1000 victims story. This is one Wikipedia, not a BdV division. It's one of several examples of the strategy - lets write so many lies as possible and maybe they won't find our lies. Xx236 (talk) 13:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)