There is a large amount of countries that are not at war despite no ethnic cleansing. The standard example being Switzerland. The key is fair treatment. All countries around Germany and Austria have German population areas, France and Spain and Britain and Netherlands, Belgium and so on have different ethnic groups and find a way to solve things peacefully.
No sure how much i would follow the ideas of war atrocities. The Axis and and the Allies made war and gave hell to their enemies. History shows "Bad" things are usually only done by the side that lost. The Allies bombed French, Dutch, Italian, German, swiss and many others not to mention Japanese cities then spent weeks strafing the civilian wagon trains of women and children leaving the destroyed cities. Also i read in Churchills books that he suggested to the allies British, American and Canadian that quarter not be given to single or small detachments of German soldiers. He wanted the maximum number of killings and unless the German Commander Generals bring the surrender the individual German soldier was not to be shown clemency. So ya............. I personally agree with the William T. Sherman philosophy of War. War is Hell, Do not try to make it comfortable just get it done quickly.
I always think it’s criminal how this channel isn’t far larger than it is. You would think with the professionalism of your scriptwriting, research and editing you would have 1M subscribers. Well done, another great video and I hope your channel continues to grow
3:26 we also had plans to annex parts of Germany but it was no where near what you Dutch and Belgians wanted to claim. Another great video Stefan! I LOVE it when you mention us. So thank you! Keep up the good work. And I hope you have a merry Christmas. 🙂
I know a bit about these post-war matters but didn’t know all! My dad did relief work in post war Germany (part of what would become East Germany full of those kicked out of other areas of Russia but also those who fled fearing life under Soviets). My dad delivered necessities of like and started paperwork on DPs so they were really happy to see him arrive! But my dad said these various groups were congregated into rather nationalistic groups; when we would announce his departure for another group DPs would get loud “ no don’t go see them. Forget about them. We need the help.). He sensed the strength of their nationalism which was so shocking to him since they’d all just come out of very nationalistic world war without learning anything!
Creating ethnic homogenous states artificially could've decreased the probability of ethnic conflict, perhaps. Nonetheless, I would like to point out that one of the major catalysts of the recent Balkan Wars were structural economic problems, e.g. the austere cuts in public spending due to IMF loans and the subequent tension that arose from said economic problems. Economics are not as "exciting" (for lack of a better word) or as easy to understand as religious/ethnic conflict, but in the 80's and 90's there was a lot more going on in Yugoslavia than just old ethnic/religious strife.
Unfortunately due to the ''patchwork Europe'' as it's called, which means enclaves and exclaves of different ethnicities living in territories - e.g. Slovenian and Croatian villages inside Austria proper (Carinthia, Styria and Burgenland) which are there to this day - and countless other examples of this which would take a thesis to list but also include Serb minorities inside Bosnia and Croatia, Hungarian minorities inside Romania and Slovakia, and so on, the only way to create an ethnically homogenous state would have been ethnic cleansing i.e. deporting the populus of those enclaves/exclaves, or killing them, which is never the right way to go.
I do believe economic problems were the direct cause of the Balkan conflict, but underlaying ethnic tensions were a main cause of the wars. I forgot to mention this in the video: Eastern Ukraine is a similar story.
That would kind of be more culturally similar than lumping Bavaria with the hated Saupreiss'n lol plus they would basically have the same language, which is unintelligible to North Germans (Piekfes)
Another great video, I really like Your delivery! A few additional points that I find interesting - i remember seeing a German map from the late 40's where the new Polish territories were described as "Polish Occupation Zone", which tells You something about the feeling of temporarity of Stettin and Breslau now belonging to Poland. This was still visible in Adenauer's speaches to the expelled Silesians in early 60's, and the cathedral square in Koeln, Adenauer's birthplace, was named "Breslauer Platz", as a tribute to the homeless and expelled. Definitely a topic to dig into more :) Also, the Poles comming to the so called "Reclaimed Terriories" of Silesia and Pomerania, as they became known in post-war Polish historiography, were mixing allong with still present Germans which is fascinating stuff. For example, German mailmen were vital in these early days, as they knew how to navigate foreign and hevily destroyed cities. Also, quite a few German families were allowed to stay because of the importance of their work for the new administraton and I happen to personaly know a few of them to this day. You can read more on this in a grat book by Gregor Thum "Wroclaw. An Alien City 1945". Again, a massive thumbs up and keep on hustlin'! :)
In the beginning of video there is stated that the bordercorrection of East Germany and East Poland was as harsh carried out is a good thing that brought lasting peace.... The only thing that made sure there was peace in Eastern Europe was Moskou and it's the Red Army that was every where in there Communist "allies"... About 2 weeks ago it was on the news that theres still bad feeling between Germany and Poland about the border .. It came to light with the problems about EU budget ....and did not help..
That's the first time I've heard about the earlier plan to divide Germany into North/South, with a western ''international zone''. I actually think that what did happen was more unfair, since Germany lost 25% of it's territory permanently. Another 25% was behind the iron curtain i.e. the GDR until 1990, and millions left to the West prior to the Berlin Wall being built in 1961, indeed that was the primary reason Ulbricht ordered it built. So I'm pretty sure that if you count the millions who had to leave East Prussia, Pomerania, rest of Prussia and so on post 1945, the millions who left the GDR, and the remaining 16 million fenced in and prevented from leaving by armed guards with orders to shoot to kill, that's a lot more than 25 million who lost their Heimat (roughly translated: homeland) or freedom. Also that division makes a lot of sense culturally. Bavaria had been a separate kingdom for centuries before and had even fought against Prussia together with Austria not long before Bismarck lumped them together with the other German states. Even nowadays Bavaria calls itself ''Freistaat'' and Bavarians describe themselves as such when travelling abroad, all other Germans just say ''I'm from Germany'' and not for example ''I'm from Lower Saxony''. The Western division also kind of makes sense as the people from these regions are more open to the rest of the world and have a more relaxed, less manic personality than those from north-central Germany, in my experience. These are traders rather than farmers, who are more similar to the Dutch and Danes in outlook and personality.
Regarding the great forced population transfer after the war, it might be added that the Ukrainians (including Lemkos and Boykos) from south-eastern Poland were also victims of it, either deported to Ukraine or dispersed in the newly-acquired western territories during the 'Operation Vistula'. What's more, the separation wasn't complete - there is still a German minority in Silesia (maybe small but locally significant enough to put at least one representative in Parliament in every election since 1991) and significant Polish minorities in Belarus and Lithuania, particularly in Grodno and Vilnius regions. I'd say (after Timothy Snyder) that some role in keeping peace in the region after the disillusion of the USSR can be attributed to the Giedroyc-Mieroszewski doctrine formulated by Polish émigré publicists and adopted by pretty much all Polish governments since 1989 in their policy. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giedroyc_Doctrine
Another curiosity might be the fact that the year 1945 was not the last time Poland's borders were changed: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_territorial_exchange
@@HistoryHustle even more clearly: how would you have judged the shooting at Dam Square if you just would have to take the official sources without the eyewitnessreports of our grandpa ?
@B A Oh I take away that your family was victim of reprisals due to partisan actions. This for me would be the context. "The first year" they were treated well". Exactly what I heard from everyone I talked IN PERSON". My family by the way was victim of Polish atrocities but In can put in the context of Communist policy.
Superb video as always Stefan. The “Peace” after the War is always so damn complicated. Good point made about homogenisation. I am missing our friend @luxembourgish empire today?
Great job! Could you do a video on the 'average' NKVD agent's background? We know tons of the SS's background, but the NKVD agents are shrouded in mystery. Many could read and were middle or working class, as well as mostly Jewish. A video of this would be awesome. I saw your comment on Indy and Spartacus's video on the same topic on World War Two.
Genrikh Yagoda was Jewish and supposedly has at least 10 million deaths under his name when he was the head of the NKVD. Naftaly Frenkel was a jew from Haifa in the Ottoman Empire who introduced the "you eat as you work" scheme to the gulag system and was a member of the Cheka. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Yezhov's wife, Eisenberg and of course Trotsky were all jewish among many hundreds of high ranking early Bolsheviks. In total around 19500 Jews were original Bolsheviks. 6% of the highest offices in the Soviet Union were occupied people of Jewish origin, maybe of them foreigners from outside of Russia. And don't get me started on the Young Turks in the Ottoman empire, the cabinet of the Weimar Republic and Churchill's financial backers. It's fascinating stuff if you ever really look into it.
I'm glad you talked about a not often talked about part of WW2, considering that the end of WW2 was just as fascinating as the war itself. Can you talk about Hitler's many peace proposals to Churchill in 1939 and 1940 (pre-holocaust and pre-Operation Barbarossa) and how Churchill refused every single one of them. In hindsight it is easy to say that Churchill did the right thing by never giving up against Hitler because he's an evil genocidal maniac, but if you actually look at what Hitler was proposing at the time before WW2 got really crazy, you might surprised at why WW2 took the extremely bloody course it did when maybe it could've been avoided.
You are very excellent history teacher!! I am relearning so many things about the Segunda Guerra that i did not know before. I am addicted to your channel! Gracias!
I hear/read so many references to ‘Germany’s War of Extermination’. Perhaps a read of A J P Taylor’s ‘Origins of the Second World War’ may restrain from this error if read. Taylor is one, probably the most highly esteemed and recognised English historian of the 20th century. Definitely not pro-German or pro-Hitler.
Taylor's work received much criticism, among which: "Taylor finds excuses for Hitler and reasons to blame nearly everybody else...In Taylor's view it was always somebody else who put poor, passive Hitler in a mood to fight...With scholarly detachment, Taylor states the case for appeasing Hitler and for resisting him, but his sympathies obviously lie with the appeasers...Taylor insists that Hitler was no fanatic. 'Hitler was a rational, though no doubt a wicked statesmen,' writes Taylor primly...his nationalism, far from being the common variety, was the most virulent racism the world has ever known...'A Study of history is of no practical use in the present or future,' Taylor, who likes to be whimsical, once said. As far as Taylor himself is concerned, his book proves his point."
Love your videos, very informative & right to the point without 2minutes of ads b4 the video. Keep up the good work & thank you. Didn't know this bit of important history.
The Netherlands did return the town (village) of Elten in 1963. There is, however, one tiny piece of German land that the Dutch actually annexed for good, the Wylerberg (or Duivelsberg in Dutch). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duivelsberg It is remarkable that Denmark wasn't able to reclaim the territories it had lost to Prussia after the Second Schleswig War in 1864, not even the parts that are to this day settled by ethnic Danes.
Good question. I think this was due to the following: initially France wouldn't have its zone, but the western allies pushed for it (to have another strong ally - France - against the USSR) and thus the French gained a zone, but this was kinda last minute I believe. This might explain it.
Do you also think that America had to re-zone the Natives into smaller boarders so not to entice another American vs Natives war, with many of them also dying en route to the areas told to them by the victorious?
Stalin kept Volga or Black Sea Germans that he sent to Siberia in 1940/1941. Many of them had been in Russia since the czarist times. Some of them returned to Germany after the fall of the USSR.
In 4:12 you say that "Germans had to go to Germany" except they already were in Germany. It's almost as if your saying Prussia isn't German. It would be like kicking Germans out of Berlin and giving Berlin to another country. Those areas were part of the Weimar republic and were majority German anyway, they were just as German as Berlin or Munich is, after all Konigsberg is 800 years old. You justify ethnic cleansing by saying there was a "lasting peace", but discount the denazification, West Germany becoming Democratic and Germany being occupied and Nazism being defeated. Ethnic cleansing wasn't responsible for the lasting peace. Peace would have happened had the borders not changed as those areas were majority German. Prussia is nothing like Yugoslavia. It's not as if Prussia was majority Polish during the Weimar Republic. There is no justification for ethnic cleansing. The parts of Prussia that Germany lost after World War 1 were given to Poland because those territories were majority Polish, apart from Danzig, other than that Prussia was as German as Bavaria is during the Weimar Republic. We can only look back and say what happened was wrong and not attempt to make excuses for it and not to repeat it. The allies won the war and they get to commit crimes without punishment.
Why did most East Germans remain in the GDR? What incentive what there for them to remain in the GDR? Was the GDR a better place than the western zones/Federal Republic of Germany in the 1940's and 1950's?
History is not written by the victors, but written by those with the most consistent and compelling arguments based on the evidence, backed by a healthy dose of rational logic and passion for debate. The key is not to apologize for any side but to take a firm stand for what's right and what's wrong.
I think it would be neat to see all Germanic countries unite Norway Sweden Switzerland Liechtenstein Germany Austria And the Benelux But the chances of this don’t look very good
I feel the same for all the Latin states, but most people don't think in the bigger picture. Many people don't even know about these shared origins, it would take years of propaganda to even build the public support for such a project in one single nation.
I feel sorry for Luxembourg being absorbed when it didn't need to be as it didn't start the war. ☹️ On the other hand though, seeing how Germans dislike the former East German regime which shows how ungrateful we were when we liberated them shows how we should probably of just annexed all of Germany into Russia. And then grant it independence after 25 years.
France: "I'm sure there would be no bad long-term term effects if we annexed the Saar region!" Also France: "You mean like when Germany annexed Alsace and Lorraine?" France:".... Fine, Germany can have it back."
You dutch also got a mountain that you still occupy to this day. Please give it back, it is far to dangerous for you. Safety first, return the Duivelsberg :D
@@HistoryHustle unfortunately I never met him. he was drafted into the wehrmacht for not joining the party being a business owner. I was told that once their wehrmacht issue boots wore out they were given wooden clog like shoes to work down the mine, food was also in short supply, wrathful guards etc. On release the Soviets marched them on foot from the urals back to the west.
I think I asked about your possible delving more into Luxembourg specifically the use of the Radio station first by Nazis then the Americans for their various propaganda schemes. How did the USA get control of station & I hear it was August or Sept 1944?? How could that be? We’re there some American troops who had gotten that far before main troops? Who were they! I ask because my uncle sent my mother 2 little pins - one stuck behind the other in his letter. One a Duchy of Luxembourg and the other a Radio Luxembourg pin with the nazi lightening strikes out from the radio tower, was this last one a nazi pin? Or American pin since they used station in a more mysterious way to support last pushes of the war- get Germans to surrender. My uncle was in the 9th army but I try to search about where he was in the Battle of the Bulge but seems some of the 9th ended up with the British at some point. My uncle did special map reading etc so he did seem to know what was going on in the fighting if he himself was not actively engaged at this time. Any info you can find & share would be great! Thank you.
The border between Poland and Germany should become the Oder-Neisse until a peace treaty.(east of a line running from the Baltic sea through Swineműnde and thence along the Oder)Stettin which is west of that border a communist German administration was running.Yet the Poles sent Administrators.Two times they were sent away from the Sovjets.Suddenly the Sovjets changed their mind.Ulbrich and Piek were so outraged that they nearly started an armed resistance
@Fabian Kirchgessner read about the Schweriner Grenzvertrag Wikipedia Thats the quickest I could find for you.Under 'Operationsgruppe Stettin' you find further information.
A far better alternative to ethnic cleansing is to overcome ethnic nationalism and replace it with a patriotism derived from concious loyalty to a state and its ideals and culture. Thats the concept that defines e. g. the multiethnic nation of Switzerland, a country far more developed, prosperous, stable and peaceful than even Germany and France. In interwar Poland the sanacja government under Marshal Piłsudski stood for similar values. Not to speak of the UK and the USA. But of course that wasnt possible after WW2 with a German population of mostly former Nazi supporters and collaborators and the equallly evil Soviet communism taking over half the continent. Between 1914 and 1991 there was no political normality in Europe, even if it seemed so in the years between the wars... for people that hadn't to suffer life in Weimar Germany or Soviet Russia that is, nations that were transformed into time bombs by WWI.
Because they believed their righteous land was located in the Middle East and because they wanted to get away from the continent that caused them so much harm.
The Jews got the Reichenbach then named Rychbach county in Lower Silesia let by Jakup Egit 1945-48 a 50 000 community. They buildet socialist kibbutzin .After the antisemitic policy of the new Poland they decided then to immigrade to Palestine.In the town I live now 8000 Jews got militair trained let by a former Partisan Major from Sovjetunion ' to fight for their new homeland'.Israel. The trenches are still existing.After witnesses they were trained in the coldwar in American uniforms !? The Jews write: the Poles knew what we were doing and we knew what they were doing.What ever they want to say with this.
I'm not totally sure, good question actually! I think this had to do with the fact that it was the capital and however heavily destroyed by war it remained the administrative centre of the country.
East Prussia Nostalgic 😊 put out the war east Prussia has some big cultural buty , A Hitler Destroyed Germany and it heritage and Poor Prussians lost all because of his Madness and Staline Crimes ...
Last Summer I did travel to Mazury, Poland, former southern part of East Prussia. I did record severa video's there. In case you're interested: czcams.com/video/6JZZ-BV5KoI/video.html
Q & A soon! Ask your question via the community tab below the topic:
czcams.com/users/HistoryHustleNLcommunity
There is a large amount of countries that are not at war despite no ethnic cleansing. The standard example being Switzerland. The key is fair treatment. All countries around Germany and Austria have German population areas, France and Spain and Britain and Netherlands, Belgium and so on have different ethnic groups and find a way to solve things peacefully.
No sure how much i would follow the ideas of war atrocities. The Axis and and the Allies made war and gave hell to their enemies. History shows "Bad" things are usually only done by the side that lost.
The Allies bombed French, Dutch, Italian, German, swiss and many others not to mention Japanese cities then spent weeks strafing the civilian wagon trains of women and children leaving the destroyed cities.
Also i read in Churchills books that he suggested to the allies British, American and Canadian that quarter not be given to single or small detachments of German soldiers. He wanted the maximum number of killings and unless the German Commander Generals bring the surrender the individual German soldier was not to be shown clemency. So ya.............
I personally agree with the William T. Sherman philosophy of War. War is Hell, Do not try to make it comfortable just get it done quickly.
I doubt ethnic cleansing brought peace.
I think Europe knows wars are unwinnable due to the damage done to yourself and the territory conquered.
Stefan did you really just advocate for an ethno-state?
That's the other extreme.
I always think it’s criminal how this channel isn’t far larger than it is. You would think with the professionalism of your scriptwriting, research and editing you would have 1M subscribers.
Well done, another great video and I hope your channel continues to grow
100% agree! This channel is top notch. Content is always well researched and presented in an informative manner.
He is already halfway there
FEEL FREE TO SHARE :)
I appreciate you painting a full picture with German, Polish and Soviet perspective included. Great episode
Many thanks, Jan!
3:26 we also had plans to annex parts of Germany but it was no where near what you Dutch and Belgians wanted to claim. Another great video Stefan! I LOVE it when you mention us. So thank you! Keep up the good work. And I hope you have a merry Christmas. 🙂
Thanks again for your reply. Great to hear from you again. Happy holidays! :)
I know a bit about these post-war matters but didn’t know all! My dad did relief work in post war Germany (part of what would become East Germany full of those kicked out of other areas of Russia but also those who fled fearing life under Soviets). My dad delivered necessities of like and started paperwork on DPs so they were really happy to see him arrive! But my dad said these various groups were congregated into rather nationalistic groups; when we would announce his departure for another group DPs would get loud “ no don’t go see them. Forget about them. We need the help.). He sensed the strength of their nationalism which was so shocking to him since they’d all just come out of very nationalistic world war without learning anything!
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
Creating ethnic homogenous states artificially could've decreased the probability of ethnic conflict, perhaps. Nonetheless, I would like to point out that one of the major catalysts of the recent Balkan Wars were structural economic problems, e.g. the austere cuts in public spending due to IMF loans and the subequent tension that arose from said economic problems. Economics are not as "exciting" (for lack of a better word) or as easy to understand as religious/ethnic conflict, but in the 80's and 90's there was a lot more going on in Yugoslavia than just old ethnic/religious strife.
Unfortunately due to the ''patchwork Europe'' as it's called, which means enclaves and exclaves of different ethnicities living in territories - e.g. Slovenian and Croatian villages inside Austria proper (Carinthia, Styria and Burgenland) which are there to this day - and countless other examples of this which would take a thesis to list but also include Serb minorities inside Bosnia and Croatia, Hungarian minorities inside Romania and Slovakia, and so on, the only way to create an ethnically homogenous state would have been ethnic cleansing i.e. deporting the populus of those enclaves/exclaves, or killing them, which is never the right way to go.
I do believe economic problems were the direct cause of the Balkan conflict, but underlaying ethnic tensions were a main cause of the wars. I forgot to mention this in the video: Eastern Ukraine is a similar story.
I think there was also a plan to create a buffer state between West and East by unifying Bavaria with Austria
Could be!
That would kind of be more culturally similar than lumping Bavaria with the hated Saupreiss'n lol plus they would basically have the same language, which is unintelligible to North Germans (Piekfes)
Another great video, I really like Your delivery!
A few additional points that I find interesting - i remember seeing a German map from the late 40's where the new Polish territories were described as "Polish Occupation Zone", which tells You something about the feeling of temporarity of Stettin and Breslau now belonging to Poland. This was still visible in Adenauer's speaches to the expelled Silesians in early 60's, and the cathedral square in Koeln, Adenauer's birthplace, was named "Breslauer Platz", as a tribute to the homeless and expelled. Definitely a topic to dig into more :)
Also, the Poles comming to the so called "Reclaimed Terriories" of Silesia and Pomerania, as they became known in post-war Polish historiography, were mixing allong with still present Germans which is fascinating stuff. For example, German mailmen were vital in these early days, as they knew how to navigate foreign and hevily destroyed cities. Also, quite a few German families were allowed to stay because of the importance of their work for the new administraton and I happen to personaly know a few of them to this day. You can read more on this in a grat book by Gregor Thum "Wroclaw. An Alien City 1945".
Again, a massive thumbs up and keep on hustlin'! :)
VERY interesting additional information! Thanks for taking the time to write this down. Just looked for the book, the English titel is UPROOTED I see.
Thank you for another excellent video. .BZ
Thanks!
In the beginning of video there is stated that the bordercorrection of East Germany and East Poland was as harsh carried out is a good thing that brought lasting peace.... The only thing that made sure there was peace in Eastern Europe was Moskou and it's the Red Army that was every where in there Communist "allies"... About 2 weeks ago it was on the news that theres still bad feeling between Germany and Poland about the border .. It came to light with the problems about EU budget ....and did not help..
We'll see what the future brings..
That's the first time I've heard about the earlier plan to divide Germany into North/South, with a western ''international zone''. I actually think that what did happen was more unfair, since Germany lost 25% of it's territory permanently. Another 25% was behind the iron curtain i.e. the GDR until 1990, and millions left to the West prior to the Berlin Wall being built in 1961, indeed that was the primary reason Ulbricht ordered it built. So I'm pretty sure that if you count the millions who had to leave East Prussia, Pomerania, rest of Prussia and so on post 1945, the millions who left the GDR, and the remaining 16 million fenced in and prevented from leaving by armed guards with orders to shoot to kill, that's a lot more than 25 million who lost their Heimat (roughly translated: homeland) or freedom.
Also that division makes a lot of sense culturally. Bavaria had been a separate kingdom for centuries before and had even fought against Prussia together with Austria not long before Bismarck lumped them together with the other German states. Even nowadays Bavaria calls itself ''Freistaat'' and Bavarians describe themselves as such when travelling abroad, all other Germans just say ''I'm from Germany'' and not for example ''I'm from Lower Saxony''. The Western division also kind of makes sense as the people from these regions are more open to the rest of the world and have a more relaxed, less manic personality than those from north-central Germany, in my experience. These are traders rather than farmers, who are more similar to the Dutch and Danes in outlook and personality.
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
Ps. Congrats on 50k subs, nice Christmas gift
Yes,indeed:)
Wow! How far your channel has come from my early views-content always good but production values & number of vids increasing! Kudos!!
Thanks, Rebecca!
Looking sharp again! 😎 nice video 👍🏻
👍
Regarding the great forced population transfer after the war, it might be added that the Ukrainians (including Lemkos and Boykos) from south-eastern Poland were also victims of it, either deported to Ukraine or dispersed in the newly-acquired western territories during the 'Operation Vistula'.
What's more, the separation wasn't complete - there is still a German minority in Silesia (maybe small but locally significant enough to put at least one representative in Parliament in every election since 1991) and significant Polish minorities in Belarus and Lithuania, particularly in Grodno and Vilnius regions.
I'd say (after Timothy Snyder) that some role in keeping peace in the region after the disillusion of the USSR can be attributed to the Giedroyc-Mieroszewski doctrine formulated by Polish émigré publicists and adopted by pretty much all Polish governments since 1989 in their policy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giedroyc_Doctrine
@Fabian Kirchgessner Yes indeed. Thanks for adding, Artur.
Another curiosity might be the fact that the year 1945 was not the last time Poland's borders were changed: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_territorial_exchange
@@JohnSmith-zs9vr True.
Germany lost lands that had belonged to it since the middle ages. Big loss for all countries. thanks for sharing.
"Big loss for all countries"? How is it a loss for the countries other than Germany?
Losing two world wars takes its toll.
@Fabian Kirchgessner yes youre so good at taking land that now youre crying about losing it
I’m always happy when you upload
:D
Great Video!
Thanks Kevin.
The most unbiased history channel about WWII beside of course some biases due to the "source problem".
Please explain.
@@HistoryHustle even more clearly: how would you have judged the shooting at Dam Square if you just would have to take the official sources without the eyewitnessreports of our grandpa ?
@B A "secondary sources", as all eywitnesses have now passed away.
@B A "treated badly": specify as detailed and contextually as possible.
@B A Oh I take away that your family was victim of reprisals due to partisan actions. This for me would be the context. "The first year" they were treated well". Exactly what I heard from everyone I talked IN PERSON". My family by the way was victim of Polish atrocities but In can put in the context of Communist policy.
Good video stefan
Thanks!
Never forget that we have permanently annexed the Duivelsberg. Five years of suffering in exchange of a tiny hill near Nijmegen hell yeh💪💪
👍
you are best historian on low countrise
Thanks!
Superb video as always Stefan. The “Peace” after the War is always so damn complicated. Good point made about homogenisation.
I am missing our friend @luxembourgish empire today?
Thanks again for your reply. And yes, I hope he'll be here soon!
Again a great video mate !
👍
Great job! Could you do a video on the 'average' NKVD agent's background? We know tons of the SS's background, but the NKVD agents are shrouded in mystery. Many could read and were middle or working class, as well as mostly Jewish. A video of this would be awesome. I saw your comment on Indy and Spartacus's video on the same topic on World War Two.
Yeah I have to dive into that. I actually do know more about the Cheka than NKVD.
Genrikh Yagoda was Jewish and supposedly has at least 10 million deaths under his name when he was the head of the NKVD. Naftaly Frenkel was a jew from Haifa in the Ottoman Empire who introduced the "you eat as you work" scheme to the gulag system and was a member of the Cheka. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Yezhov's wife, Eisenberg and of course Trotsky were all jewish among many hundreds of high ranking early Bolsheviks. In total around 19500 Jews were original Bolsheviks. 6% of the highest offices in the Soviet Union were occupied people of Jewish origin, maybe of them foreigners from outside of Russia.
And don't get me started on the Young Turks in the Ottoman empire, the cabinet of the Weimar Republic and Churchill's financial backers. It's fascinating stuff if you ever really look into it.
I'm glad you talked about a not often talked about part of WW2, considering that the end of WW2 was just as fascinating as the war itself.
Can you talk about Hitler's many peace proposals to Churchill in 1939 and 1940 (pre-holocaust and pre-Operation Barbarossa) and how Churchill refused every single one of them. In hindsight it is easy to say that Churchill did the right thing by never giving up against Hitler because he's an evil genocidal maniac, but if you actually look at what Hitler was proposing at the time before WW2 got really crazy, you might surprised at why WW2 took the extremely bloody course it did when maybe it could've been avoided.
Sure something to cover in the future.
You are very excellent history teacher!! I am relearning so many things about the Segunda Guerra that i did not know before. I am addicted to your channel! Gracias!
Great! Thanks for your message 👍
I hear/read so many references to ‘Germany’s War of Extermination’. Perhaps a read of A J P Taylor’s ‘Origins of the Second World War’ may restrain from this error if read. Taylor is one, probably the most highly esteemed and recognised English historian of the 20th century. Definitely not pro-German or pro-Hitler.
Taylor's work received much criticism, among which:
"Taylor finds excuses for Hitler and reasons to blame nearly everybody else...In Taylor's view it was always somebody else who put poor, passive Hitler in a mood to fight...With scholarly detachment, Taylor states the case for appeasing Hitler and for resisting him, but his sympathies obviously lie with the appeasers...Taylor insists that Hitler was no fanatic. 'Hitler was a rational, though no doubt a wicked statesmen,' writes Taylor primly...his nationalism, far from being the common variety, was the most virulent racism the world has ever known...'A Study of history is of no practical use in the present or future,' Taylor, who likes to be whimsical, once said. As far as Taylor himself is concerned, his book proves his point."
Well done, stefan. Ga zo door.
Dank!
Love your videos, very informative & right to the point without 2minutes of ads b4 the video. Keep up the good work & thank you. Didn't know this bit of important history.
Thanks.😊
Good video. I always learn something new and gain a better understanding of these historic events.
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CZcamss best channel: History Hustle
😎👍
You are so very smart. Thank you for taking the time to do these videos.
You're welcome 👍
Hello from Luxembourg.
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The Netherlands did return the town (village) of Elten in 1963. There is, however, one tiny piece of German land that the Dutch actually annexed for good, the Wylerberg (or Duivelsberg in Dutch).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duivelsberg
It is remarkable that Denmark wasn't able to reclaim the territories it had lost to Prussia after the Second Schleswig War in 1864, not even the parts that are to this day settled by ethnic Danes.
Thanks for the additional information. I did cover some of it in this video:
czcams.com/video/uj9Vet6KH3c/video.html
Your channel fucking underrated !!
Feel free to share.
I wish Germany was thick again
@Bajan: please explain.
@@HistoryHustle i wish it lookeds like it did during Kaiserreich
Why?
Question, why didn't the French Zone include Stuttgart, Ulm and Hitler's mountain retreat, they conquered those cities
Good question. I think this was due to the following: initially France wouldn't have its zone, but the western allies pushed for it (to have another strong ally - France - against the USSR) and thus the French gained a zone, but this was kinda last minute I believe. This might explain it.
Insightful & smart. Thanks 🙏
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Do you also think that America had to re-zone the Natives into smaller boarders so not to entice another American vs Natives war, with many of them also dying en route to the areas told to them by the victorious?
P.s. I love your channel and I’m not trying to sound combative just curious if there’s a connection?
You mean on the American continent? I have not much knowledge about this.
@@HistoryHustle that’s alright, was just curious. Keep up the good uploads! 👍🏻😉
Stalin kept Volga or Black Sea Germans that he sent to Siberia in 1940/1941. Many of them had been in Russia since the czarist times. Some of them returned to Germany after the fall of the USSR.
I saw some news items about this recently.
In 4:12 you say that "Germans had to go to Germany" except they already were in Germany. It's almost as if your saying Prussia isn't German. It would be like kicking Germans out of Berlin and giving Berlin to another country. Those areas were part of the Weimar republic and were majority German anyway, they were just as German as Berlin or Munich is, after all Konigsberg is 800 years old. You justify ethnic cleansing by saying there was a "lasting peace", but discount the denazification, West Germany becoming Democratic and Germany being occupied and Nazism being defeated. Ethnic cleansing wasn't responsible for the lasting peace. Peace would have happened had the borders not changed as those areas were majority German. Prussia is nothing like Yugoslavia. It's not as if Prussia was majority Polish during the Weimar Republic. There is no justification for ethnic cleansing. The parts of Prussia that Germany lost after World War 1 were given to Poland because those territories were majority Polish, apart from Danzig, other than that Prussia was as German as Bavaria is during the Weimar Republic. We can only look back and say what happened was wrong and not attempt to make excuses for it and not to repeat it. The allies won the war and they get to commit crimes without punishment.
Did not know about the Norwegian, Belgium and Luxembourg zones! Thank you.
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2:39 ,what is Gordon Brown(UK MP)doing stood next to Truman back in 45`?
Haha, lol.
Haha I thought exactly the same. How bizarre. What a doppleganger
Why did most East Germans remain in the GDR? What incentive what there for them to remain in the GDR? Was the GDR a better place than the western zones/Federal Republic of Germany in the 1940's and 1950's?
Winners write History.
Good
History is not written by the victors, but written by those with the most consistent and compelling arguments based on the evidence, backed by a healthy dose of rational logic and passion for debate. The key is not to apologize for any side but to take a firm stand for what's right and what's wrong.
I think it would be neat to see all Germanic countries unite
Norway
Sweden
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Germany
Austria
And the Benelux
But the chances of this don’t look very good
It was tried in WWII, no success.
I feel the same for all the Latin states, but most people don't think in the bigger picture. Many people don't even know about these shared origins, it would take years of propaganda to even build the public support for such a project in one single nation.
Also denmark, i feel like if this was to happen though belgium would probably stay independant.
Defeat is a terrible 😪 thing.
Depends. If I get defeated in sports its okay.
@2.46 The 6th from the left, 4th from the right is ex PM UK Gordon Brown, i did not know he was that old.
Nah, he was from 1951.
It always seems like a sick joke seeing Stalin at those talks.
A winner of the war. What else can we say...
why joke?
I feel sorry for Luxembourg being absorbed when it didn't need to be as it didn't start the war. ☹️
On the other hand though, seeing how Germans dislike the former East German regime which shows how ungrateful we were when we liberated them shows how we should probably of just annexed all of Germany into Russia. And then grant it independence after 25 years.
Luxembourg did survive in the end!
@@HistoryHustle 🙂 Good!
I was born in the British sector due to my father being an officer in Weiden headquarters. 1961
Interesting! How was growing up there? Love to know about your experiences.
Last I was this early Germany was an empire
No longer...
Small mistake on the map, Saarland was not part of the Trizone.
I see.
France: "I'm sure there would be no bad long-term term effects if we annexed the Saar region!"
Also France: "You mean like when Germany annexed Alsace and Lorraine?"
France:".... Fine, Germany can have it back."
Lol
You dutch also got a mountain that you still occupy to this day. Please give it back, it is far to dangerous for you. Safety first, return the Duivelsberg :D
Indeed.. 😬
my omi was lucky enough to get back to the west. my ompa did 10 years in the soviet gulags and got home in 1955.
Thanks for sharing. Can you share some of your grandfather's experiences in the Gulag? How did he reflect on it after the war?
@@HistoryHustle unfortunately I never met him. he was drafted into the wehrmacht for not joining the party being a business owner. I was told that once their wehrmacht issue boots wore out they were given wooden clog like shoes to work down the mine, food was also in short supply, wrathful guards etc. On release the Soviets marched them on foot from the urals back to the west.
Many thanks for sharing!
WHY THE HELL DOES HOLLAND GET ALL THAT TERRITORY IN THAT PLAN? Give some for Denmark man.
It was the wet dream of some Dutch politicians.
It sure was...
About the Homogenization: aren't a lot of problems in former SU-states caused by a russification attempt?
Also yes.
Stalin didnt come up with the plan to move westwards polish western border. It was Sazonov plan from I WW. Check Sazonov plan and the map proposed
Interesting.
I think I asked about your possible delving more into Luxembourg specifically the use of the Radio station first by Nazis then the Americans for their various propaganda schemes. How did the USA get control of station & I hear it was August or Sept 1944?? How could that be? We’re there some American troops who had gotten that far before main troops? Who were they! I ask because my uncle sent my mother 2 little pins - one stuck behind the other in his letter. One a Duchy of Luxembourg and the other a Radio Luxembourg pin with the nazi lightening strikes out from the radio tower, was this last one a nazi pin? Or American pin since they used station in a more mysterious way to support last pushes of the war- get Germans to surrender. My uncle was in the 9th army but I try to search about where he was in the Battle of the Bulge but seems some of the 9th ended up with the British at some point. My uncle did special map reading etc so he did seem to know what was going on in the fighting if he himself was not actively engaged at this time. Any info you can find & share would be great! Thank you.
Can't tell, sorry.
The border between Poland and Germany should become the Oder-Neisse until a peace treaty.(east of a line running from the Baltic sea through Swineműnde and thence along the Oder)Stettin which is west of that border a communist German administration was running.Yet the Poles sent Administrators.Two times they were sent away from the Sovjets.Suddenly the Sovjets changed their mind.Ulbrich and Piek were so outraged that they nearly started an armed resistance
@Fabian Kirchgessner read about the Schweriner Grenzvertrag Wikipedia Thats the quickest I could find for you.Under 'Operationsgruppe Stettin' you find further information.
I see, never heard of it.
I recently came across your channel and I love it! And With all due respect, I think you are really hot 😅 Great content ❤️
Thanks. Welcome to the channel.
1:02 if it was like this, and they united they would keep a little more land
Yes.
@@HistoryHustle imagine another person failed artschool with those borders🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐
A far better alternative to ethnic cleansing is to overcome ethnic nationalism and replace it with a patriotism derived from concious loyalty to a state and its ideals and culture.
Thats the concept that defines e. g. the multiethnic nation of Switzerland, a country far more developed, prosperous, stable and peaceful than even Germany and France.
In interwar Poland the sanacja government under Marshal Piłsudski stood for similar values.
Not to speak of the UK and the USA.
But of course that wasnt possible after WW2 with a German population of mostly former Nazi supporters and collaborators and the equallly evil Soviet communism taking over half the continent.
Between 1914 and 1991 there was no political normality in Europe, even if it seemed so in the years between the wars... for people that hadn't to suffer life in Weimar Germany or Soviet Russia that is, nations that were transformed into time bombs by WWI.
Never been in Switzerland yet!
My question is why didn’t they give a European homeland to the Jews?
Because they believed their righteous land was located in the Middle East and because they wanted to get away from the continent that caused them so much harm.
The Jews got the Reichenbach then named Rychbach county in Lower Silesia let by Jakup Egit 1945-48 a 50 000 community. They buildet socialist kibbutzin .After the antisemitic policy of the new Poland they decided then to immigrade to Palestine.In the town I live now 8000 Jews got militair trained let by a former Partisan Major from Sovjetunion ' to fight for their new homeland'.Israel. The trenches are still existing.After witnesses they were trained in the coldwar in American uniforms !? The Jews write: the Poles knew what we were doing and we knew what they were doing.What ever they want to say with this.
Hi
Hey!
why was berlin divided. it was in the soviet sector...
I'm not totally sure, good question actually! I think this had to do with the fact that it was the capital and however heavily destroyed by war it remained the administrative centre of the country.
So when did the allies and the soviets léave?
Actually that happened after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Ik snap echt niet hoe jij maar zo weinig subs nog kan hebben man maar 1 ding weet ik zeker jij komt er wel👏🏼
Dank! Je kunt me helpen door mijn video's te delen met anderen :)
Uncomplete! NO word about the seperation of the Ostmark and the Sudetenland, let alone Elsaß-Lothringen...
As there is no word about the separation of Denmark, Kurland, Norway and the Netherlands.
Why didn't the Dutch got a big piece.😩 The whole Ruhr would be had Nice haha
A new Dutch empire I guess... but hey, do understand that we only would get devastated towns and cities..
I'm glad, not more German territory was ripped apart
They did.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfkant
@@saulenfischbearn7470 thank God they completely ripped of Prussia
@@mikehydropneumatic2583 That was not a big piece and also it was later transferred back to Germany
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks!
Where is Western Prussia
That is basically the area surrounding Berlin.
Cool, Stunde nul and beyond.
And beyond.
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Ich Bin Ein Berliner💖💖💖
Ok.
East Prussia Nostalgic 😊 put out the war east Prussia has some big cultural buty , A Hitler Destroyed Germany and it heritage and Poor Prussians lost all because of his Madness and Staline Crimes ...
Last Summer I did travel to Mazury, Poland, former southern part of East Prussia. I did record severa video's there. In case you're interested:
czcams.com/video/6JZZ-BV5KoI/video.html
@@HistoryHustle thank you , yes i watched it
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Germania delanda est
I see.
i am early
Great!