Re: WW2
- From: Earl <neptune@xxxxxx>
- Date: 11 Jul 2006 21:19:59 GMT
"George Z. Bush" <georgezbush@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:%rTsg.54$Bq1.19@xxxxxxxx:
Earl wrote:
El Castor <anyonethere@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:bLydnR-O1OtQeS7ZnZ2dnUVZ_v2dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx:
Biggest lesson? Really? I thought the biggest lesson was
Chamberlain stepping off the plane waiving his piece of
paper and declaring "peace in our time". Didn't
Chamberlain teach us that appeasement in the face of
aggression only invited more aggression?
Chamberlain took a bum rap.
All his military advisors told him that the British
military was incapable of standing up to Germany at that
time. They had a massive procurement program in the works
but they needed time.
So in order to buy the time England had to abandon an ally.
Which was then dismembered by all the aggressive countries
around -- INCLUDING POLAND!!
(but like all international problems, there did exist some
truth to the German claims. German nationals were being
mistreated in Cz and Poland. This was a time when it was
considered acceptable to engage in ethic cleansing, and
isolated German minorities were fair game)
Would you mind producing some reliable evidence to that
effect? Having fought through that war, I don't remember
that ANYBODY thought that the German claims of mistreatment
of their people in Poland and in the Sudetenland was
anything more than overt propaganda put forth only to
justify the aggression that they intended to pursue. But
you accept it as true over a half century later? The Poles
and the Czechs did nothing more to Germans living within
their borders than did the Germans to Poles and Czechs
living in their country; AAMOF, it was probably less, since
those countries did not incarcerate ethnic Germans in
concentration camps as did the Germans.
(Snip)
Let us start at the beginning of the Czech Republic.
The Sudeten region, Bohemia, (plus Moravia, Selisia etc) was
composed mostly of ethnic Germans with about 10% Czech.
It wished to be part of Austria, or at least Germany because of
ethnic ties and the fact that almost all its business was to
Austria or Germany.
For a brief period after WW1 it actually was part of Austria,
until conquered by the Czech army.
The ethnic Germans were not represented (though they constituted
25% of the eventual country) in the Constitution of 1920 that
established Czech as the only language. The Constitution
supposedly guaranteed the rights of minorities, but we must
remember that the Constitution of the Soviet Union guaranteed
more peoples rights than that of the US.
So here we have a region that is split from its cultural
heritage, denied the use of its language, had its land
nationalized for "national defense' , had the land expropriated
and settled by foreigners (czechs), had the bank accounts seized
in the name of fiscal reform.
Government bureaucrats were sent in to run a controled economy,
they were all Czechs. Foreign trade was curtailed (the Sudeten
German jobs) while local Czech production was encouraged (with
Czech employees). During the Depression the Germans suffered
unemployment disproportionately compared to the Czechs.
So from 1918 on there had been an active effort to separate
themselves from what they reguarded as the yoke of foreign
oppressors. An effort was even made to get the League to grant
them the right to a Plebecite like any other people. At a
minimum they wanted to be an autonomous zone where German
culture was respected and not subject to government suppression.
But the area was too wealthy in minerals raw materials and
industry and the Czechs wanted the land (but not the people --
after ww2 the Czechs were allowed to ethnicly cleanse the area
of its majority German population). This was a constant issue in
Czech politics.
With the rise of Germany and the Anschluss the population (aided
with support from Germany) shifted to active resistance, and the
Czech army went in and had many clashes with the population.
It was the casualties in this liberation movement (and in the
civilians who were innocent victims of the Army fights) that
provided the basis for the German claims on a casualyy basis,
the whole region having been looted for the previous 20 years
for the benefit of the Czechs.
The Sudeten accord shifted about 1/3 of Bohemia to Germany with
2.5 million Germans, 250,000 Czechs leaving 250,000 Germans in
the rest of the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans_in_Czechoslovakia_%281918-
1938%29
In 1939 with the formation of the Sovakian Republic, the whole
region collapsed, Germany picking up the remainder of Czech
lands, with Slovakia being partitioned by its neighbors
including "peaceful" Poland.
.
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