Why did the Nazis hate Polish people so much.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I've studied WW2 a bit before, but for some reason I either never read about or don't remember the answer to this question. According to Wikipedia, though, both Hitler and Himmler issued statements basically advocating for the ethnic Poles to be completely exterminated. Was this just because they were somehow identified with Jews, or something else...?

[Tovarisch]

That's because in the Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost a piece of land known as "The Polish Corridor", which was given to Poland. Hitler then started a campaign vowing to take the land that was "stolen" from the Germany, and messed with people's emotions by portraying Poland as an evil bully

[Bronco]

I think a lot of it goes back to the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, with it Poland gained independence and was given control of a lot of German land. The Polish Corridor was created to give them access to the Baltic sea which seperated off Eastern Prussia, giving the Poles a lot of control over Silesia, and meaning that the Germans lost control of Danzig (although it didn't fall into Polish hands I don't believe, it became a "free city" under the League of Nations control).

So you now had a lot of Germans under foreign rule and a lot of key land lost, and with the Nazi's pledge to overturn what a lot of the country considered an unjust treaty, it fuelled a lot of anti-Polish sentiment. Before Auschwitz-Birkenau was constructed as a "solution" to the Jewish question, there was another Auschwitz camp already existing where huge numbers of Poles perished, I think they were the first victims of the place. There were probably other factors as well going further back in history, and Poland having a large Jewish population, but I'd say the Treaty of Versailles was the main reason behind the Nazi's encouraging a hatred of the country

[Prometeo liberado]

From what I understand the Polish Communist were almost identical to the Bolsheviks in practice and potential. Therefore the nazis couldn't have that as a neighbor so exploiting ethnic hatred was the easiest and most effective route. Just on reason.

[Psy]

Basically the Treaty of Versailles where the Nazis saw the Polish as contaminating German culture on German land.

[LuckyStrikes]

I don't recall exactly but, as I remember, the Nazis were an Aryan group of course, which the Polish people were not. Hitler also advocated for a return to the old ways of the German empires. This, of course, means that they must conquer areas such as Poland, Austria, Switzerland, so on and so forth. That's what I either remember, or made up because I don't think I remember. :D

[Lanky Wanker]

Why did Hitler hate anyone? He was a sexually frustrated opium addict who even hated himself enough to commit suicide. What matters now is that Nazism is very appealing to a worryingly large number of Poles (...who don't seem to care about the fact that Hitler hated Slavs). Anyway, Eastern Europe as a whole being associated with communism probably didn't put them in his good books alongside the Treaty of Versailles situation.

[Bronco]

Why did Hitler hate anyone? He was a sexually frustrated opium addict who even hated himself enough to commit suicide. What matters now is that Nazism is very appealing to a worryingly large number of Poles (...who don't seem to care about the fact that Hitler hated Slavs). Anyway, Eastern Europe as a whole being associated with communism probably didn't put them in his good books alongside the Treaty of Versailles situation.

Bit of an odd statement, are you saying that his prejudices stemmed from sexual frustration and opium addiction, because I've never heard that claimed? And I wouldn't say he committed suicide because he "hated himself" either, more likely that a painless and quick death was considered far preferable to the fate he would have suffered at the hands of the Soviets

[Lanky Wanker]

Bit of an odd statement, are you saying that his prejudices stemmed from sexual frustration and opium addiction, because I've never heard that claimed? And I wouldn't say he committed suicide because he "hated himself" either, more likely that a painless and quick death was considered far preferable to the fate he would have suffered at the hands of the Soviets

Don't take that comment too seriously, it was just my mature side taking over. :cool: But in all seriousness, his drug use must have done something to his mind to mess it up even more. Apparently he drugged up his soldiers too...

[Ocean Seal]

I've studied WW2 a bit before, but for some reason I either never read about or don't remember the answer to this question. According to Wikipedia, though, both Hitler and Himmler issued statements basically advocating for the ethnic Poles to be completely exterminated. Was this just because they were somehow identified with Jews, or something else...?
Because it was convenient, and they needed to invade Poland which had a high Jewish population.

[Robespierre Richard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum

[Yugo45]

Well, the nazis did hate Slavs in general.. And Poles were the closest Slavic population to Germany (well them and Czechs and Slovaks).

Just a thought.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If you're going to invade someone, you have to dehumanize them first. Why do US right-wingers make statements about Sharia law and how you can't negotiate with Islam, that it's a clash of civilizations? These arguments help the US in it's goals of bombing places in South Asia and the Middle East as well as fight for influence in Africa.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yeah but at the same time I don't think that the Nazis made such extreme comments about other countries they invaded. Poland seemed to have a special place on Hitler's shit list.



The concept culminated in Nazi extermination camps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_extermination_camp), instituted to systematically kill those who were unworthy to live according to Nazi ideologists. It also justified various human experimentation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation) and eugenics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics) programs, as well as Nazi racial policies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policies_of_the_Third_Reich). The policies included ethnic Poles, with Adolf Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler) writing to his generals in the Eastern Front to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language", and Heinrich Himmler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler) writing, "All Poles will disappear from the world. [...] It is essential that the great German people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_people) should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles."[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life#cite_note-3)

[Tommy4ever]

They were not only Slavs, but they also lived in a lot of the same places as ethnic Germans did. The Poles also inhabit the first territory to the East of Germany - making their lands an obvious first target for 'Lebensraum'.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah but at the same time I don't think that the Nazis made such extreme comments about other countries they invaded. Poland seemed to have a special place on Hitler's shit list.Well I don't think it's always a cold calculation - at least not consciously - and there are probably a lot of cultural and other things at play. I'm sure national "humiliation" after WWI and loosing Polish territory played a big part.

But for the practical strategic reasons for such rhetoric, the NAZIs needed to carve up Poland and create a new local "German" ruling class, they wanted to isolate and get rid of the large Jewish population in places like Warsaw and so the rhetoric was much more severe that it was towards countries where they rolled in and let the local flunkies rule for them. They also needed to "shock and awe" Europe and Russia since invading Poland was calling the UK's demand to not invade Poland and would put German and Russian forces at eachother's doorsteps. So there was blitzkreig and then foot-soldiers were given carte blanche to indiscriminately kill, burn houses and villages, rape, and so on - all of which mostly happened at the start of the invasion while most of the rest happened during retreat to my understanding. So a brutal invasion of Poland was needed as a warning to the UK that Germany was serious and a warning to Russia to step back (or possibly to say, "we merely have contempt for Pols, we HATE Russians, just think what we'll do to you").

[Bronco]

Well I don't think it's always a cold calculation - at least not consciously - and there are probably a lot of cultural and other things at play. I'm sure national "humiliation" after WWI and loosing Polish territory played a big part.

But for the practical strategic reasons for such rhetoric, the NAZIs needed to carve up Poland and create a new local "German" ruling class, they wanted to isolate and get rid of the large Jewish population in places like Warsaw and so the rhetoric was much more severe that it was towards countries where they rolled in and let the local flunkies rule for them. They also needed to "shock and awe" Europe and Russia since invading Poland was calling the UK's demand to not invade Poland and would put German and Russian forces at eachother's doorsteps. So there was blitzkreig and then foot-soldiers were given carte blanche to indiscriminately kill, burn houses and villages, rape, and so on - all of which mostly happened at the start of the invasion while most of the rest happened during retreat to my understanding. So a brutal invasion of Poland was needed as a warning to the UK that Germany was serious and a warning to Russia to step back (or possibly to say, "we merely have contempt for Pols, we HATE Russians, just think what we'll do to you").

But Germany and the USSR had agreed to divide up Poland between themselves beforehand, so how would the Germans invasion serve as a warning to Russia?

[Omsk]

A simple question with a long answer:

There are a number of reasons of different types - some strategic,some based on Nazi ideology.The "Polish Corridor" created by the Treaty of Versailles was probably one of the reasons on the strategic level.The fright effect was all ready there,in the Spanish Civil War.Another reason was the Polish control over the city of Danzig.Plus another element existed,the element of hatred toward the Poles because the Polish state came into existance after Germany lost WW1.Plus,the Nazis used the century long history of conflicts between Germany and Poland to present their actions as just in the eyes of their supporters.
Poles were also Slavs,the lower men by Hitler.So his rascism and hatred toward Slavs was also an obvious factor,and he did need an unifying enemy,in this case,the main enemies were - Slavs,Jews,Bolsheviks.Poland was both Slavic,and had a big number of Jews,so it made her a natural first target.Hitler also believed that the Polish had "good relations" with the Jews.His insanity and hatred toward "Untermensch" resulted in the horrible brutality of the Nazi troops toward Slavs and Jews.

And of course,he needed Poland under his control to launch attack on the CCCP.

[Jimmie Higgins]

But Germany and the USSR had agreed to divide up Poland between themselves beforehand, so how would the Germans invasion serve as a warning to Russia?I don't think either side saw that as a lasting agreement. Large powers do this sort of thing all the time where they work together while at the same time not trusting each-other. The US and USSR carved up the world after the war, but the US and USSR were still sending each-other signals to back the fuck off such as the US a-bombing Japan even though the USSR had agreed to help launch an attack on Japan previously.

The history of ruling classes is full of double-crosses like this and it doesn't mean they were driven by some irrational hatred of the people they are invading, it's generally tactical considerations. They're a warring band of brothers - or better yet a bunch of thieves in a bank heist movie. They sometimes need eachother to plunder the bank vault, but once they get the loot they try and cut-out or rob the other parties.


he did need an unifying enemy,in this case,the main enemies were - Slavs,Jews,Bolsheviks.Poland was both Slavic,and had a big number of Jews,so it made her a natural first target.That's a good point. How do you convince a population that it's in their interest to fight Europe and Russia a generation after loosing a similar fight and a huge chunk of the population in the process? Before WWI Germany was the biggest industrial power, but was constrained by a UK-led imperial status-quo and that is one of the main factors behind the conflict. After WWI, Germany was directly constrained by the post-war treaties as well as the larger issue of the world being carved up by Germany's imperial rivals. The crazy ideology of the NAZIs was useful for Germany because it could lead to overturning these conditions. It got rid of internal dissent and then promoted an insane ideology that could convince enough of the population of the benefits of taking on the UK-led system and Russia in a huge war.

[Luís Henrique]

I don't recall exactly but, as I remember, the Nazis were an Aryan group of course, which the Polish people were not.

Not in Nazi minds perhaps, but otherwise the Poles have always been considered Indo-European people.

But of course, Hitler's hatred of Poles wasn't anything exceptional: Slavs in general were considered an "inferior people", Russians or Czechs no less than Poles. That probably had to do with the fact that the regions that the Nazis considered to be Germany's Lebensraum were inhabited by Slavic populations.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

opium addict

Source please?


Anyway, Eastern Europe as a whole being associated with communism probably didn't put them in his good books alongside the Treaty of Versailles situation.

Poland was by no means "associated" with communism before WWII. No more than Germany itself, in any case.

Luís Henrique

[DarkPast]

The Nazis didn't kill the Poles because they "hated" them (to believe that is pure idealism). The extermination was done with a clear goal in mind: Lebensraum ("living space").

The idea was to build a Greater Germany, which would require additional land and resources. Since Germany had no colonies outside Europe, the only possible avenue of expansion was within Europe itself. Hitler also believed that the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe were poor and backward because they were populated by an inferior race (which also allowed a lot of Jews to live among them). Therefore, it would make sense to get rid of those "savages" and replace them with "Good Germans".

Hence the Nazis came up with a plan: Those Eastern Europeans who were descended from German families, or had at least one German parent, would be assimilated into the German nation. The rest would, according to what the Nazis judged to be their racial makeup, be either exterminated, deported to Asia, or enslaved.

It's important to note that the idea of Lebensraum predates the Nazis - the term was coined in 1901, and World War I-era Germany planned to do something similar (though not quite as radical) to a good part of Eastern Europe. The idea of extermination camps wasn't invented by Hitler either (there's a book about this, called The Kaiser's Holocaust).

Basically, it's a form of imperialism. Notice the moral dissonance when people are shocked by the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe, but at the same time downplay and make up excuses for the not-too-different atrocities committed by the colonial empires in America, Africa, Asia and Australia.

[Psy]

I don't think either side saw that as a lasting agreement. Large powers do this sort of thing all the time where they work together while at the same time not trusting each-other. The US and USSR carved up the world after the war, but the US and USSR were still sending each-other signals to back the fuck off such as the US a-bombing Japan even though the USSR had agreed to help launch an attack on Japan previously.

Yet Germany had no means to win a war against the USSR, strategically Germany's best hope was that the USSR remained neutral thorough out the war. Napoleon had a much better army the Hitler and Russia was much weaker then and even Napoleon got hit ass kicked in Russia.

Also Britain was a much easier intimidate threat to defeat then Russia, if Germany occupied Britain it would have made it near impossible for the US to operate in the European theater and allow Germany to really open up the Atlantic for the German Navy to lock horns with the US Navy in hopes of stretching the US Navy thinly across two vast oceans.

[GatesofLenin]

Hitler wasn't blond and blue eyed. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Os Cangaceiros]

The Nazis didn't kill the Poles because they "hated" them (to believe that is pure idealism).

(shrug) I imagine there must have been some animosity in the Poland-German relationship, although of course I don't credit that with Poland's ultimate fate.

[Rocky Rococo]

The Polish mother of my best friend when I was a kid had spent her teenage years in Ravensbruck concentration camp, so I was aware of this history since I was a very small child.

[A Marxist Historian]

I've studied WW2 a bit before, but for some reason I either never read about or don't remember the answer to this question. According to Wikipedia, though, both Hitler and Himmler issued statements basically advocating for the ethnic Poles to be completely exterminated. Was this just because they were somehow identified with Jews, or something else...?

Actually Hitler had nothing in particular against Poles. He quite liked Marshal Pilsudski, and said nice things about him in Mein Kampf. He particularly liked Polish anti-Semitism. Poland until Hitler took power was a much more anti-Semitic country than Germany, with all sorts of anti-Jewish policies which Hitler admired. It was Russia and "Judeo-Bolshevism" he hated, and France.

The reason for the mass killings of Poles, which bordered on extermination, were not because of Nazism, but because of traditional German hatred and contempt for the Poles, going back way, way before WWI and the "Polish corridor." It was the army and the German nationalists who wanted to kill off Poles to make "lebensraum" for German, not Hitler and his Nazis.

From Hitler's POV, he gave the Poles a fair chance to join the Axis and plunder Russia jointly with him, but they refused, vouldn't even let him have Danzig and the Polish corridor back, so they had to take the consequences. Also, by making the generals and the non-Nazi German nationalists happy by killing Poles, that made them more willing to go along with his idea of killing all the Jews.

A win-win situation from Hitler's POV.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

The Nazis didn't kill the Poles because they "hated" them (to believe that is pure idealism). The extermination was done with a clear goal in mind: Lebensraum ("living space").

The idea was to build a Greater Germany, which would require additional land and resources. Since Germany had no colonies outside Europe, the only possible avenue of expansion was within Europe itself. Hitler also believed that the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe were poor and backward because they were populated by an inferior race (which also allowed a lot of Jews to live among them). Therefore, it would make sense to get rid of those "savages" and replace them with "Good Germans".

Hence the Nazis came up with a plan: Those Eastern Europeans who were descended from German families, or had at least one German parent, would be assimilated into the German nation. The rest would, according to what the Nazis judged to be their racial makeup, be either exterminated, deported to Asia, or enslaved.

It's important to note that the idea of Lebensraum predates the Nazis - the term was coined in 1901, and World War I-era Germany planned to do something similar (though not quite as radical) to a good part of Eastern Europe. The idea of extermination camps wasn't invented by Hitler either (there's a book about this, called The Kaiser's Holocaust).

Basically, it's a form of imperialism. Notice the moral dissonance when people are shocked by the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe, but at the same time downplay and make up excuses for the not-too-different atrocities committed by the colonial empires in America, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Yes. "Lebensraum" is often seen as the Nazi program. It wasn't really, though they were certainly happy to go along with it to gain popularity. Rather, it was the program of the German nationalists, the German capitalist class, and the generals. Formulated into actual plans for "ethnic cleansing" by the army command during WWI, Ludendorff etc., who were the ones really in charge of Germany during WWI.

Hitler's guiding obsession was the fight against "Judeo-Bolshevism," i.e. Jews and communism, which he saw as basically the same thing. Communism being an puppet invention of the Jewish conspiracy to control the world.

He explains this in Mein Kampf. In Austria where he grew up, it so happened that the leaders of Austrian Social Democracy were almost all Jewish. He says at one point that "the scales fell from his eyes" when he realized Marxism was a Jewish plot vs. the German people.

-M.H.-

[Commissar Rykov]

Hitler wasn't blond and blue eyed. :laugh::laugh::laugh:
Actually Hitler did have blue eyes but he was most definitely not blond though. Though Nordicism comes from Himmler not Hitler. Hitler typically attacked Himmler for his obsessions with blond hair and blue eyes. Hitler typically took the view that there are many different "native" German looks that he never bothered too much with it other than genealogy.