NationStates Jolt Archive

Background:
What the Germans did to Europe was appalling, and Eastern Europe bore the brunt of it. Needless to say, when they had the chance, the oppressed turned on their oppressers and anyone that was associated with them.
Germans were driven from their homelands (my grandfather, for instance, fled his home Königsberg in 1942 at age 6, and hasn't set foot there since; the city is now called Kaliningrad). The Poles, Russians, and Czechs were the most involved, since they all now hold territories which had substantial German populations at the time.
This is not some thread about "We were bad, but so were they." Nothing can excuse or equate the suffering that the NS Regime brought upon Europe. But as a German, I've always felt a bit annoyed that the mistreatment of German civilians was excused by this. There are particular difficulties with the Czech Republic, and the Benes (beh-nesh) decrees that disowned the Sudeten Germans. There have been calls for some form of apology from all parts of society, the respectable ones and the ones wanting to reduce the guilt we have laden upon ourselves.

Anyway, I just saw (which is why there are no articles on it) that this proposal (http://www.radio.cz/en/article/68443) by Jiri Paroubek, the PM of the Czech Republic has been pulled through:
The expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II remains a live issue, with calls from Sudeten Germans for the return of their property regularly dismissed by Czech politicians; they say the expulsions were legal and demands for compensation have no validity. But now the Czech prime minister, Jiri Paroubek, is planning to make a gesture towards the Sudeten Germans - or at least the minority who actively resisted the Nazis.I applaud that move wholeheartedly! :)

Background:
What the Germans did to Europe was appalling, and Eastern Europe bore the brunt of it. Needless to say, when they had the chance, the oppressed turned on their oppressers and anyone that was associated with them.
Germans were driven from their homelands (my grandfather, for instance, fled his home Königsberg in 1942 at age 6, and hasn't set foot there since; the city is now called Kaliningrad). The Poles, Russians, and Czechs were the most involved, since they all now hold territories which had substantial German populations at the time.
This is not some thread about "We were bad, but so were they." Nothing can excuse or equate the suffering that the NS Regime brought upon Europe. But as a German, I've always felt a bit annoyed that the mistreatment of German civilians was excused by this. There are particular difficulties with the Czech Republic, and the Benes (beh-nesh) decrees that disowned the Sudeten Germans. There have been calls for some form of apology from all parts of society, the respectable ones and the ones wanting to reduce the guilt we have laden upon ourselves.

Anyway, I just saw (which is why there are no articles on it) that this proposal (http://www.radio.cz/en/article/68443) by Jiri Paroubek, the PM of the Czech Republic has been pulled through:
I applaud that move wholeheartedly! :)


Better late than never. How will Paroubek decide what defines 'resistance'. What about those who genuinely could not resist?

Better late than never. How will Paroubek decide what defines 'resistance'. What about those who genuinely could not resist?
No clue. This is a turnaround from usual Czech politics that stated that there wasn't much wrong with the Benes Decrees that disowned every German. Simply an apology is already more than I'd hoped for.

Background:
What the Germans did to Europe was appalling, and Eastern Europe bore the brunt of it. Needless to say, when they had the chance, the oppressed turned on their oppressers and anyone that was associated with them.
Germans were driven from their homelands (my grandfather, for instance, fled his home Königsberg in 1942 at age 6, and hasn't set foot there since; the city is now called Kaliningrad). The Poles, Russians, and Czechs were the most involved, since they all now hold territories which had substantial German populations at the time.
This is not some thread about "We were bad, but so were they." Nothing can excuse or equate the suffering that the NS Regime brought upon Europe. But as a German, I've always felt a bit annoyed that the mistreatment of German civilians was excused by this. There are particular difficulties with the Czech Republic, and the Benes (beh-nesh) decrees that disowned the Sudeten Germans. There have been calls for some form of apology from all parts of society, the respectable ones and the ones wanting to reduce the guilt we have laden upon ourselves.

Anyway, I just saw (which is why there are no articles on it) that this proposal (http://www.radio.cz/en/article/68443) by Jiri Paroubek, the PM of the Czech Republic has been pulled through:
I applaud that move wholeheartedly! :)


There's bad, and then there's evil. Bad is kicking people out of their homeland. The Czechs were bad.

Evil is exterminating millions of civilians in concentration camps. The Germans were evil.

The two crimes aren't even comparable in my book.

The Poles did this too, did they not? When the Polish state was redrawn after WWII, all the Poles living in former Polish territory turned USSR territory were resettled on the inherited German territory, and the Germans native to that land expelled to Germany.

I was always very aware how Germany got its borders squeezed, the USSR effectively moving Poland 100km or so westwards, and keeping the old Eastern Polish bits, and some of what was Prussia back in the day. The fortunes of war, really. My grandfather played a leading role in the flattening of Koenigsberg actually, returned to Kaliningrad 10 years later, and on the basis of his memoirs, I doubt many people would have wanted to return, given the chance. They really worked the place over. :(

It's not just in Eastern Europe that such things happened though, inside Russia, Stalinist policies moved entire nations in the inter-war years and during the war itself, the whole Chechen people, for example. Can't remember where they ended up for the duration of the war, Kazakhstan I believe. I find it unimaginable how ethnic cleansing appears so difficult to do today, but was so easily done at the time. I guess we have learned to voice our opposition a bit better, when we see it taking place. :)

Not that it helps Africa much.

I doubt Russia will ever admit to its excesses in my lifetime, but I think the US has at least seen fit to make a few encouraging noises about its internment of Japanese civilians, similarly the UK about its colonial past. We have yet to hear anyone in power speak frankly about the genocide against Native Americans or Aboriginal peoples, let alone Armenians, but I guess there's a time and place for everything.

The 19th and 20th centuries probably contain too many outstanding apologies to list. :(

There's bad, and then there's evil. Bad is kicking people out of their homeland. The Czechs were bad.

Evil is exterminating millions of civilians in concentration camps. The Germans were evil.

The two crimes aren't even comparable in my book.Which is exactly what this thread isn't about.
It's about the fact that I admire that the Czechs are making an apology for the wrongs they did.
The Poles did this too, did they not? When the Polish state was redrawn after WWII, all the Poles living in former Polish territory turned USSR territory were resettled on the inherited German territory, and the Germans native to that land expelled to Germany.The Russians did this too. Half of the state of East Prussia was handed to the Poles, the other half remained Russian. But this isn't a thread about either of them. It's about the Czechs.