How would YOU carve up Germany?

For all of the people on here who want to cut Germany down to the smallest possible state that is possible here is some logic for you.

Do you really want Stalin to just be able to march right trough the ruins of western europe and have the Commies dominate europe? (minus Britain)

I personally dont believe that massive ethnic cleansing was required after the war to have peace. I also believe that WW2 could have been avoided.

Now again, for all of the people who say expel millions of german civilians from there homes, you should read the book: AFTER THE REICH. The book describes how the expulsions were achieved and the process of how they began. It is a terribly sad and wonderfully informative book that should open your eves to one of the greatest crimes that has been perpetrated in human history.
 

Typo

Banned
For all of the people on here who want to cut Germany down to the smallest possible state that is possible here is some logic for you.

Do you really want Stalin to just be able to march right trough the ruins of western europe and have the Commies dominate europe? (minus Britain)

I personally dont believe that massive ethnic cleansing was required after the war to have peace. I also believe that WW2 could have been avoided.
Oh noes the commies are gonna take over
Now again, for all of the people who say expel millions of german civilians from there homes, you should read the book: AFTER THE REICH. The book describes how the expulsions were achieved and the process of how they began. It is a terribly sad and wonderfully informative book that should open your eves to one of the greatest crimes that has been perpetrated in human history.
To be fair, the displaced Germans actually ended up pretty well, certainly better than the Poles and Czechs they were killing during the war
 

Deleted member 1487

Oh noes the commies are gonna take over
To be fair, the displaced Germans actually ended up pretty well, certainly better than the Poles and Czechs they were killing during the war

The issue isn't that people were displaced per se, rather that they were innocent civilians that were murdered and raped in the millions during the ethnic cleansing. They weren't just displaced, but also murdered and driven into the snow where tens if not hundreds of thousands froze to death. The Poles and Czechs were also involved in this during and after the war, in fact film of such executions in Prague were recently releases of German men and women, civilians, being executed after the war. The camera man was harrassed and threatened, but refused to tell the authorities where the film was hidden, finally passing it off to the people who released it.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,698060,00.html

Obviously this doesn't diminish what the Germans did to the Russians, Poles, Czechs, or Jews, but their actions do not justify retaliations against civilians. I have no sympathy for any of the German perpetrators of war crimes if they had retribution taken against them after or during the war, but at the same time ethnic cleansing and brutality against civilians for what people of the same ethnic group did is not supportable.
 
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To be fair, the displaced Germans actually ended up pretty well, certainly better than the Poles and Czechs they were killing during the war

I don't want to offend anyone, but I think perhaps we are all (me too, I said that before, if not here, then in other places, but now I think I've blown it out of proportion) overestimating how much of a crime "forced relocation" (term's as good as any other) of people really is. See, my family was "forcefully relocated" too, from Volhynia. They didn't end up in Silesia or somewhere else, but in the even less developed region previously inhabited by Ruthenian/Ukrainian highlanders, Boykos. Still, neither of us (me and my family that is, and probably everybody I know from that place) wouldn't have it any other way (not the expulsion of the Boykos that is, but their arrival here), even most of the older people - and it's not the standard of living, since the place was, like I mentioned, even more underdeveloped.

Don't get me wrong, I still very much regret my country has the cleansing of Germans on it's account, especially because I saw what this does with the land, a tiny detail as an example: tourists come, and they want something regional in a restaurant. Well, they won't get it, because local cuisine comes from the people, and the people are all in Silesia, Pommerania or East Prussia - they don't really return here though, although not much is stopping them now. They won't get any local gadgets either, because there aren't any, it's a land with no identity, even if it's nature is so beautiful. I imagine it's the same elsewhere. Not to mention the former villages, where you can see foundations of the churches, or gardens of the expelled inhabitants even now.

My point is, this is bad but not the next worst thing after a genocide, and perhaps sometimes it's better than the alternative especially if this alternative is like what happened in the 40s both here and in Volhynia (the latter was a scene of pogroms of Poles and counterpogroms of Ukrainians during the war, the former - an UPA uprising after the war, with similar pogroms, which ended in expulsion of the local populace to the West and North).

wiking said:

That's not surprising for me to be honest... You probably know this, but if not, there were actual labour camps with mostly German and Silesian inmates in Poland after the war. I know it's a Wikipedia link, I lack time to search for something better, but if even Wikipedia has an article on something this bad the Poles did, it has to be true. The worst thing is, it's going to be a long time before people here realize this.

Also, once again, I'm not defending ethnic cleansing (in case I didn't make it clear enough) and most definitely I'm not defending treatment like what's in wiking's link, or those labour camps from mine. I just think maybe some of us, myself in the past included, are blowing it out of proportion (relocations alone, not executions or labour camps, there are no excuses for that, obviously).
 
Realistically, nothing but "Southern Germany" is probably viable. The Allies (especially Roosevelt) were under the delusion that they just could remove German national identity from one day to the other and things would stick that way, and especially the idea if you keep "Germany" out of the name doesn't make things better... :eek:

Add Austria into the mix, and things get crazy.
 

Lucian

Banned
The issue isn't that people were displaced per se, rather that they were innocent civilians
Actuallymajority of them were Nazi supporters. After the war they even included mass murderers like Hans Kruger to be their politicians.Many of the expellees leaders were previously dedicated Nazis, for example Oberlander who made statements like :
The struggle for ethnicity is nothing other than the continuation of war by other means under the cover of peace. Not a fight with gas, grenades, and machine-guns, but a fight about homes, farms, schools and the souls of children, a struggle whose end, unlike in war, is not foreseeable as long as the insane principle of the nationalism of the state dominates the Eastern region, a struggle which goes on with one aim:extermination! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Oberländer#cite_note-Eastwards-3

So, yes very innoncent indeed as seen by their political choices.Oh and German law is formulated in such way that people like Fritz Ries, who was sent to occupied Poland to oversee Jewish slave labour succesfully claimed expellee status.


As to carving up Germany, it was obvious that Gdansk and Upper Silesia and parts of Pomerania will be Polish once the war is over. Gdansk for obvious issues, Pomerania to make the border more defensive and Upper Silesia to deny Germans one of their major industrial regions useful in armament. If France and Britain would defeat Germany in 1939 then it is also possible that East Prussia would become Polish as well.
But overall for strategic regions its really doubtfull if Germany had any chance of keeping them after WW2 started.
Oder Line due to defensive value was also rather unavoidable in later parts of the war the question was Oder-Nysa or Oder-Nysa Klodzka, which would leave larger parts of Lower Silesia in German hands. Maybe if Poland would be allowed to keep Lviv that would happen.
It's quite certain though that East Prussia would be Soviet once Soviets gained upper hand-Russia had it before, and they desired a warm water port in Baltic.



As to how I would carve up Germany? Eradicate Prussia completely and recreate old states alongside with cultural restoration of unique identities. Oder-Nysa line stays, but Sorbs are given their state as well. Germany is broken up into several smaller states like Bavaria, Hannover, Branderburg, Saxony. Break up southern states from northern ones by two seperate economical organisations and integrating southern ones with Balkan and Czech area.
 
As to how I would carve up Germany? Eradicate Prussia completely and recreate old states alongside with cultural restoration of unique identities. Oder-Nysa line stays, but Sorbs are given their state as well. Germany is broken up into several smaller states like Bavaria, Hannover, Branderburg, Saxony. Break up southern states from northern ones by two seperate economical organisations and integrating southern ones with Balkan and Czech area.


To what purpose?

Once the dust settles in 1945, Germany is no longer the problem, Russia is. How do any of the changes you propose help strengthen the Western world vis a vis Russia?

Afaics, what happened OTL was pretty near ideal from a Western pov. Most of the expellees ended up in West Germany, so the West got the benefit of them, while the Soviet Zone (later GDR) was limited to a small rump, which could be absorbed and assimilated by the West if and when reunification came. This would have been a far bigger job had the GDR still included Silesia and Pomerania. All in all, I don't think I'd change anything.

How, BTW, would any part of Germany be integrated with the Balkans? There was and is no common border. Or did you mean Austria? Even then, I can't see how the West benefits, since all the Balkan states except Greece were communist.
 
Actuallymajority of them were Nazi supporters. After the war they even included mass murderers like Hans Kruger to be their politicians.Many of the expellees leaders were previously dedicated Nazis, for example Oberlander who made statements like :
The struggle for ethnicity is nothing other than the continuation of war by other means under the cover of peace. Not a fight with gas, grenades, and machine-guns, but a fight about homes, farms, schools and the souls of children, a struggle whose end, unlike in war, is not foreseeable as long as the insane principle of the nationalism of the state dominates the Eastern region, a struggle which goes on with one aim:extermination!

So, yes very innoncent indeed as seen by their political choices.Oh and German law is formulated in such way that people like Fritz Ries, who was sent to occupied Poland to oversee Jewish slave labour succesfully claimed expellee status.


As to carving up Germany, it was obvious that Gdansk and Upper Silesia and parts of Pomerania will be Polish once the war is over. Gdansk for obvious issues, Pomerania to make the border more defensive and Upper Silesia to deny Germans one of their major industrial regions useful in armament. If France and Britain would defeat Germany in 1939 then it is also possible that East Prussia would become Polish as well.
But overall for strategic regions its really doubtfull if Germany had any chance of keeping them after WW2 started.
Oder Line due to defensive value was also rather unavoidable in later parts of the war the question was Oder-Nysa or Oder-Nysa Klodzka, which would leave larger parts of Lower Silesia in German hands. Maybe if Poland would be allowed to keep Lviv that would happen.
It's quite certain though that East Prussia would be Soviet once Soviets gained upper hand-Russia had it before, and they desired a warm water port in Baltic.



As to how I would carve up Germany? Eradicate Prussia completely and recreate old states alongside with cultural restoration of unique identities. Oder-Nysa line stays, but Sorbs are given their state as well. Germany is broken up into several smaller states like Bavaria, Hannover, Branderburg, Saxony. Break up southern states from northern ones by two seperate economical organisations and integrating southern ones with Balkan and Czech area.

Why doesn't Ian just ban his IP? I'm tired of this bullshit, and it's the same crap over and over again. I mean, those immature teenager types of trolls (like GMB or Rockingham) are at least remotely funny and they tend to grow out of trolling once they mature, but Hurgy has some serious mental issues that make him come here over and over again.
 
The basic point that a lot of people seem to be missing is that much of the reason why eastern Europe ended up the way it did was because Stalin was paranoid of a resurgent Germany trying a repeat of 1914 or 1941. It was also because the West gave Stalin a free hand to do what he liked in eastern Europe, to a large extent because the Red Army were already there.

What I would've done would be:

  • To make the 1939-40 Nazi-Soviet border the official western border of the USSR.
  • To turn Danzig over to the Soviets as a permanent Soviet base.
  • Turn all the pre-1938 German states into independent countries under a common customs union, except East Prussia.
  • All of East Prussia, including the Memel region, would be handed to Poland in compensation for the loss of eastern Poland to the USSR.
  • Austrian independence would've been reinstated as well as that of the Czechoslovakian state with all its pre-1938 territory restored.
 

Susano

Banned
I don't want to offend anyone, but I think perhaps we are all (me too, I said that before, if not here, then in other places, but now I think I've blown it out of proportion) overestimating how much of a crime "forced relocation" (term's as good as any other) of people really is. See, my family was "forcefully relocated" too, from Volhynia. They didn't end up in Silesia or somewhere else, but in the even less developed region previously inhabited by Ruthenian/Ukrainian highlanders, Boykos. Still, neither of us (me and my family that is, and probably everybody I know from that place) wouldn't have it any other way (not the expulsion of the Boykos that is, but their arrival here), even most of the older people - and it's not the standard of living, since the place was, like I mentioned, even more underdeveloped.

Oh come on, you dont really want to compare that to the ethnic cleansing of Germans. And yes, that just IS the term, anything ELSE is ideologcially motivated verbal revisionism. Again: If that wasnt ethnic cleansing, what then was? And "relocation" implies a deal of organisation that just wasnt there. In most cases it was simply "take what you can carry and off on the road with you". In any case, the Polish relocations were much more organised and much more humane then what happened to the German populations, which endured nearly 2.5m deaths during the ordeal (a number disorganised programs would I thinkc ertainly not have been able to reach by the way) and that is why I said you cant compare it. With all the apologetism for said ethnic cleansing here I really cant see how anybody can say its been overestimated!

Mulder: IP bans have no effect with proxies and dymanic IPs around. Ian already learned this on the Old Board with nonny and hence doesnt do IP bans anymore.
 
Oh come on, you dont really want to compare that to the ethnic cleansing of Germans. And yes, that just IS the term, anything ELSE is ideologcially motivated verbal revisionism. Again: If that wasnt ethnic cleansing, what then was? And "relocation" implies a deal of organisation that just wasnt there. In most cases it was simply "take what you can carry and off on the road with you". In any case, the Polish relocations were much more organised and much more humane then what happened to the German populations, which endured nearly 2.5m deaths during the ordeal (a number disorganised programs would I thinkc ertainly not have been able to reach by the way) and that is why I said you cant compare it. With all the apologetism for said ethnic cleansing here I really cant see how anybody can say its been overestimated!

Mulder: IP bans have no effect with proxies and dymanic IPs around. Ian already learned this on the Old Board with nonny and hence doesnt do IP bans anymore.

I'm pretty sure that when it comes down to the crunch that the Poles felt the Germans deserved whatever they got immediately following the Second World War. Let's not forget that Poland lost over six million of their people (2.9 million of whom were Jews) at the hands of the Germans. Considering that Poland's pre-war population was 32.1 million people you don't need a calculator to work out that, proportionately, the Poles suffered a hell of a lot worse than the Germans did.

Ethnic cleansing is never right. It's repugnant. However, in light of the horrors inflicted by the Germans that had intruded upon the lives of every Pole that was still very fresh in their minds, the manner in which the Poles treated the Germans after the Second World War is perfectly understandable.

I'm pretty damned sure that if had been subjected to six years of being afraid to do or say anything least I get shot or deported to a concentration camp and seen unspeakable acts done to my family, friends and neighbours by the Germans I sure as hell doubt that I would have hesitated to do the same to them the moment the tables were turned. All things considered the Germans got off lightly.
 
It's so easy to dehumanize people by lumping them into categories like "Germans" or "Poles". Justifications against any group to me is just grasping at straws since it's not like there's a coherent logic of morality that you can pull out, read and derive appropriate responses from. You just pull it out of your ass.

If I was to "carve up" Germany I'd probably want to even out some of the economic terms between Poland and Germany. At the most extreme, I'd want them to keep Weimar-borders + Danzig because the alternative is to deport thousands of Germans. At the other extreme, modern German borders didn't turn out so horrible, but I'd want to see them keep Stettin. I wouldn't be right anyway but that's what I would've done as me. Had I been born in the time, I probably wouldn't be as much like me, so I'd probably make a different decision.
 
Ethnic cleansing is never right. It's repugnant. However, in light of the horrors inflicted by the Germans that had intruded upon the lives of every Pole that was still very fresh in their minds, the manner in which the Poles treated the Germans after the Second World War is perfectly understandable.

The usual rule is "disregard everything before "but" or "however""

Anyway, riots, lynchings, etc. might be "understandable" from the point of view you describe. The decision for ethnic cleansing was not a spontaneous decision borne out of wartime suffering - it was designed and implemented by people mostly outside of Poland, though of course with significant Polish support.
 

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I'm not trying to whitewash anything, especially how the Germans were treated, even if memories of being oppressed were fresh in the minds of the Poles (or Czechs, or whoever). I'm not trying to justify the annexations, and i really loathe the concept of taking revenge on defenceless civilians, and, most of all, I'm ashamed because our government won't even begin to speak about it loudly in the foreseeable future, and yours won't press it.

But yes, I do think that the act of relocating people, and that alone, is overestimated, there are much worse things. I specifically noted, that I'm still very critical of how it was done (and that's an understatement, because I obviously think it was a crime), and I'm also critical of the scale of annexations (thank goodness I'm anonymous). Also, relocations of Poles were drastic too, at least in our case: my family had to leave everything they owned (wasn't much especially after a trip to Irkutsk in 1940), and were assigned to a hovel completely empty, with only walls. Well, the settlers in Silesia had it better, obviously, but that wasn't an example showing how "we" had it bad too, but that it's NOT that bad after all. The act of forceful moving people to another location that is. Because sometimes, it could save them from future ethnic strife. Today we know such strife, at least here, didn't happen, but back then, they couldn't know it (and TBH, even we can't be sure if it wouldn't resurface in the 1990s if the people stayed) Sometimes, I think it is the lesser evil. And that's all I was saying, that, for me, perhaps, ugh, i don't want to say that expelling the Germans form Upper Silesia was acceptable, but given the circumstances, I can understand it. Lower Silesia however, or Stettin, are different cases.

Finall, for the record, yes, obviously ethnic cleansing is the term to call the fate of Germans in what is now Poland (and also other territories where they lived that ended up east of German and Austrian borders) And what the Germans did before doesn't change that.

I'm sorry if I offended you, it wasn't my intention.
 
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