Russians blame Poland for start of WW II

[Jaga]

Russian military historian blames Poland for WWII
By MIKE ECKEL – 5 hours ago

MOSCOW (AP) — As the Kremlin presses a campaign to recast Russia's 20th century history in a more favorable light, a research paper published Thursday on the Defense Ministry's Web site blamed Poland for starting World War II.

The unorthodox reading of history appears to be the latest effort by Russian historians to defend the Soviet Union and its leaders, especially their role in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

Russia has angrily rejected claims that a Stalin-era famine in Ukraine amounted to genocide, and Russia's Supreme Court recently turned down an appeal to re-open an investigation into the massacre by Soviet secret police of Polish military officers and intellectuals in Russia's Katyn forest during World War II.

The generally accepted view is that Poland was a victim rather than the aggressor in the conflict, and that Adolf Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland marked the start of the war.

Many Western historians believe Hitler was encouraged to invade by the treaty of non-aggression signed by Moscow and Berlin, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which secretly divided eastern and western Europe into spheres of influence.

Hitler's pact with the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was signed on Aug. 24, 1939. Germany invaded Poland Sept. 1.

Blaming Poland would deny Russia played a role in starting the war by sealing the secret accord.

The research paper posted on Russia's Defense Ministry Web site is not an official government statement. But the author is listed as Col. Sergei Kovalyov, director of the scientific-research department of military history, part of the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense.

A person who answered the phone at the Defense Ministry press office refused to comment, but said a statement would be posted on the Web site soon.

Ministry spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky told the Interfax news agency that analytical articles posted on the ministry's Web site do not necessarily reflect the ministry's official position.

The paper, titled "Fictions and Falsifications in Evaluating the USSR's Role On the Eve of World War II," recounts how in the run-up to Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Hitler demanded that Poland turn over control of the city of Danzig as well as a land corridor between Germany and the territory now known as Kaliningrad.

"Everyone who has studied the history of World War II without bias knows that the war began because of Poland's refusal to satisfy Germany's claims," he writes.

Kovalyov called the demands "quite reasonable." He observed: "The overwhelming majority of residents of Danzig, cut off from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, were Germans who sincerely wished for reunification with their historical homeland."

Kovalyov, who works in St. Petersburg, could not be immediately located for comment.

Arseny Roginsky, a historian with the rights group Memorial, said Kovalyov was entitled to his opinion "and he shouldn't be thrown in prison for that."

"But if this indeed reflects the position of the government — in as much that it appeared on the Web site of the Ministry of Defense — then this is indeed dangerous and shameful," he said.

Polish government officials had no immediate comment; much of the country on Thursday was marking the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Poland.

Last month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the creation of 28-member commission to investigate "the falsification of historical facts and events aimed to disparage the international prestige of the Russian Federation."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party is drafting legislation that would make it a crime to belittle the Soviet contribution to victory in World War II.

Both moves were widely criticized by liberals as efforts to whitewash Soviet era abuses.

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5irhXt4Sm499ylfgjcz4oiShe9xhgD98JU99G4

[wayneprice]

Jaga,

When I read this on the Radio Poland site today ( , at first I was wondering WHY? And then once I read, "“Everyone who studies the history of WW II without prejudice knows that the war started because Poland refused to satisfy German claims. However, not everyone knows what exactly Adolf Hitler wanted from Poland. His claims were rather moderate: to incorporate the Free City of Danzig (currently Gdansk) into the Third Reich and to let Germans build exterritorial motorway and a railway [through Poland] which would join East Prussia with the rest of German territory,” writes the Russian historian. In his opinion, “it is hard to regard these claims as unjustified”.
"Kovalyov called the demands "quite reasonable." He observed: "The overwhelming majority of residents of Danzig, cut off from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, were Germans who sincerely wished for reunification with their historical homeland."

At what point in time are these very same arguments going to be used to cross from Mother Russia, via an "exterritorial motorway and a railway" to the captive city of Kaliningrad? SAME situation, just a different era! When does Russia's demand start?

[pieter]

Jaga,

Russia or the Russian Federation has the "Old empire" syndrome!
Like other former imperialist, colonial, militaristic empires Russia longs
for it's "great past" (In Russian eyes) as Czaristic and Sovjet empire.

The Germans, British and French had it before, when they lost their
reich and colonies in the early and second half of the 20th century.
With the French you see this stil in Africa, the Middle east and Asia
where they compete with the Americans, Russians and Chinese over
influence in militairy, economical and political (diplomatic) sense.

Many Russians can't coap with the fact that the Sovjet-Union is gone,
and therefor they interfear in internal matters of former Sovjet republics
which became independant (Ukraine, Baltic states and Georgia) and
former East-block states that came under Sovjet influence during the
cold war. Poland in their view is stil a Russian influence zone, because
the Slav states of Central- and Eastern-Europe belonged to the Pan-slav
Russian Communist system. Russian communism became Russian
Nationalism, Nationalism with a strong Sovjet nostalgia element.
In 70 years of Communism in Russia the Sovjet human being was created,
that being will not be destroyed in just two decades.

A lot of the leaders, bureacrats, militairy, politicians, businesspeople
and ordinairy Russians were born, raised and settled in the Sovjetsystem,
and many of them long for, hope for or work for the re-establisment of
the Sovjet state in a New National capitalist National democracy which
Russia is in fact today. Historical revisionism (deliberate neglectance
or distortion of history) is an essential part of the strategy and tactics
of these people.

Poland and the other states therefor should stand firm and cooperate
to counterballance the Russian strategy of misinformation and inter-
fearance in the Polish historical society of Historians.
Poland luckily is firmly rooted in the European Union and NATO now
and has close political, social-cultural and economical ties with many
European and Northen-American countries.

Pieter

[cfn]

I think WaynePrice is right (sounds like an old American game show, "The Price is Right!"). I had never heard of Kaliningrad, so looked it up. It strikes me that Russia may be trying to extend its reach now. We know they have made their presence felt in Ukraine and Georgia ("We'll turn your energy supply off" or "We are so worried that you are oppressing a minority, we'll back their militias"). Maybe now they want Poland and the Baltic republics to feel some pressure. I am sorry that this rewriting of history is taking place, regardless of the reason.
Also, let me hasten to add: We don't hate the Russian people, we just hate oppression.

[tuftabis]

Jun 4, 2009 14:57:53 GMT -7 pieter said:

Like other former imperialist, colonial, militaristic empires Russia longs
for it's "great past" (In Russian eyes) as Czaristic and Sovjet empire.

Pieter, you are of course perfectly write in what you wrote, part of which I cite above. I would say - they are living in the past and apply the past methods to fullfill past ideas, unreachebale and openly ridiculous today - and this is the main source their role is slowly getting diminished. No country - alone- except the most populated perhaps, like China or India, and not in thenearest future, is capable to reach for what the Russian political elites seems to look for. But not just Russian. If we look westwards from Poland we can see Germany, which is a perfect example of a country that did abandon the past ideas and adjusted present policies to modern world. Thus success and growing influence. A good example to follow for the Russians... and for the French, more westwards from Poland. They seem to be still longing for something unreacheable. Although, yes, they have realized already that they can't reach for it alone... Look at what Michel Rocard, French leftist ex-PM said very recently.


Nous sommes nombreux à avoir porté le rêve d’une Europe fédérale. Nous, Français, ainsi peut-être qu’une majorité de la population des pays fondateurs de l’Europe, afin de renouer avec nos passés glorieux de leadership planétaire, nous avons vu dans l’édification européenne le moyen de redonner à notre art de vivre et à notre civilisation un rôle mondial dominant. Seulement voilà, l’Europe fédérale est morte. Elle a été achevée par l’élargissement. Les «petits» pays qui ont adhéré n’ont jamais dominé le monde. Ils ne cherchent pas à se mêler des affaires du monde mais à s’en abriter. Ils n’ont que faire de notre Europe puissance.

Mais l’Europe fédérale a d’abord été tuée dès 1973, lors de l’adhésion du Royaume-Uni et du Danemark.

www.liberation.fr/politiques/0101570783-elargissement-quel-scenario

Short summary in English. "We have dreamed of federal Europe. We, meaning the French, and perhaps most of the peoples of the founding nations of Europe. We saw European construction as a way of securing a dominant global role for our civilisation, for our way of life. The idea was: giving new life to our past glories, to the time when we led the world. Except that federal Europe died. It was killed by enlargement. The "little" countries that joined the union never run the world. They were not looking for global problems, but for a shelter. They had no need of our "Europe of strength"."
But the federal Europe was already dead in 1973 when United Kingdom and Dennmark joined"

Putting it another way France is dreaming of ruling the world but the 'little countries' has killed that idea (already killed by the Brits and Danes) ;D ;D ;D There are many possible ways and points over which this article may be critisized, or even ridiculed, but , for now, I will use only one, and the ironic one. How "France by Michel Rocard" wants to rule the world if she is not capable to win own ideas over some 'little countries' ?

[karl]

Jun 4, 2009 16:45:17 GMT -7 cfn said:

I think WaynePrice is right (sounds like an old American game show, "The Price is Right!"). I had never heard of Kaliningrad, so looked it up. It strikes me that Russia may be trying to extend its reach now. We know they have made their presence felt in Ukraine and Georgia ("We'll turn your energy supply off" or "We are so worried that you are oppressing a minority, we'll back their militias"). Maybe now they want Poland and the Baltic republics to feel some pressure. I am sorry that this rewriting of history is taking place, regardless of the reason.
Also, let me hasten to add: We don't hate the Russian people, we just hate oppression.

Paul

I do trust you will not be angered of my intrusion within your very fine exchange with Wayne, for I do enjoy of both yours and of Waynes thoughts.

I wish only of addition for information for you. You have been curious of kaliningrad. The city is quite very interesting with a history. It is important to us, for it holds for us. It was originally Prussian capitol and ours.

The city was renamed by the Russian conquerers in the last war to Kaliningrad. The true name is: Königsberg.

There is a feature perhaps that of us as moderns, that has passed by. For it is of the mysterie of the 7 bridges {now only of 5}. For it is legend, that one may not cross all only once, but one bridge must be recrossed.

The following url will provide the proper description.

people.engr.ncsu.edu/mfms/SevenBridges/

Karl

[wayneprice]

Just a short up date. Today, after a note from the Polish Foreign Minister, the posting on Poland being responsible for starting WW2 by not giving in to Nazi extra territorial demands was removed from the Russian web site.

[Jaga]

Wayne is right, here is more about it:

Russia removes ‘anti-Polish’ article

The Russian Defence Ministry has removed an article about Poland being responsible for WW II from its official web site.



After protests from Poland’s Foreign Ministry, Russia’s counterpart writes that it seeks to distance itself from the claims included in the text and assured it is not an official stance of the ministry.



Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was contented that his ministry managed to defend Polish view of history and reveal the truth.



The article, written by Colonel Sergey Kovalov from the Institute of War History and entitled, History – against lies and falsification, wrote:



“Everyone who studies the history of WW II without prejudice knows that the war started because Poland refused to satisfy German claims.



However, not everyone knows what exactly Adolf Hitler wanted from Poland. His claims were rather moderate: to incorporate the Free City of Danzig (currently Gdansk) into the Third Reich and to let Germans build exterritorial motorway and a railway [through Poland] which would join East Prussia with the rest of German territory.”

www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/news/artykul109599_russia_removes_anti_polish_article.html

[cfn]

What were the territorial questions in the German-Polish-Soviet Union or Russia theater? I remember as a kid seeing East Prussia on the globe. It was separated from Germany by a sizable chunk of Poland. Now I think it is owned by Russia and Poland. I have a difficult time keeping this all straightened out. I am afraid I get mad, however, when as I keep learning I keep finding out that the Soviet Union took more places than even I realized. Please forgive my anger.

Also, did Poland used to be called Silesia? I am reading some books on Polish history, but maybe someone could give me the short version? I even saw that there was a war between Silesia and the Bolsheviks...and the Polish won? Is that true? That is something I never heard of, even though I've always liked history.

Thanks.

[Jaga]

Hi Paul,

here is a map of Poland before (blue contours) and after (red contours) the WW II.

As you can see there was a narrow land to the Eastern Prussia. Eastern Prussia was the area which belonged to Slavc Prussians but was later taken by Teutonic Knights which form the beginnings of the German Prussia.

Referring to Nazi demands - they were unrealistic, even in Poland would agree on the demands.... Nazi Germany would took the whole Poland. It is not true that people do no know about these demands, every Polish chuld knows. Do you remember that Germany asked Czechoslovakia for Sudeten land earlier on and then they took the whole Czechoslovakia.

Silesia is just the region in Southwestern Poland. There was never Silesian-Bolshevik war there was Polish-Bolshevik war in 1920.

[Eric]

Jun 6, 2009 23:44:13 GMT -7 cfn said:

What were the territorial questions in the German-Polish-Soviet Union or Russia theater?

Karelia: Western Karelia was ceded to the USSR. It joined eastern Karelia, already part of the RSFSR, and became the Finno-Karelian Soviet Socialist Republic, the short-lived 16th republic in the USSR. In the 1950s, its status was changed to an autonomous republic within the RSFSR. Today, it is the Republic of Karelia in the Russian Federation.

East Prussia: Most of East Prussia became Kaliningradskaya oblast within the RSFSR. Smaller parts were transferred to the Lithuanian SSR and Poland.

Poland: Territories in eastern pre-war Poland were transferred to the Belarussian and Ukrainian SSRs. In exchange for this, territory from eastern Germany was transferred to Poland, so Poland was moved on the map a little to the west.

Vilnius: In the early 20th century, the city of Vilnius (Wilno) was fought over between Lithuania and Poland. With Soviet assistance, it was restated to Lithuania, and, in 1940, it became the capital of the Lithuanian SSR, and it remains the Lithuanian capital today.

[justjohn]

From the UK - -




Russia wheels out the evil weapon of history

Distorting the facts about the Second World War may well be a prelude to a battle over a land corridor through Poland, writes Simon Heffer.


By Simon Heffer
Published: 4:24PM BST 06 Jun 2009


Russians march with a poster of Stalin


Facing the future: Russians march with a poster of Stalin Photo: AFP/Getty

There are few things more dangerous or terrifying than when a nation, or the state apparatus that controls it, falls into the grip of a collective delusion. Such was the case in Nazi Germany, when a straightforward decision was taken to scapegoat Jews, Communists and, in the end, anyone else who didn't agree with the prevailing madness, and persecute them to the point of mass murder. Stalin, in his own pursuit of totalitarianism, behaved similarly.

Some of us hoped that, in Europe at any rate, such absurdities were over; but a dispatch from The Daily Telegraph's Moscow correspondent last week showed that the madness is back, in Russia at least, and with it the determination to abuse and manipulate history.


A research official in the Russian defence ministry has published an essay saying that Poland effectively started the Second World War by refusing to accede to Germany's "modest" demands. We may take it that this man's view reflects that of the Russian state; it is certainly widely interpreted as such.

Russia has been struggling with its idea of itself since the international humiliation of losing its empire nearly 20 years ago. For a time its sudden wealth – thanks to a high oil price and the value of other of its minerals – restored its amour propre. Although its rulers locked up people who sought to push democracy to its natural conclusions, such as the former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, poisoned troublemakers and threw the odd journalist out of windows, the money enabled it to offer the pretence of being a dynamic and powerful economy. Rolexed men in expensive suits climbed in and out of BMWs all over Moscow, and an idea was perpetuated that Russia could feel good about itself.

Then the oil price collapsed, soon after the militarily successful but diplomatically disastrous war with Georgia last year. Once more Russia was poor – with many of its greatest businessmen broke – and an international pariah. So now history, that much-abused weapon, is brought out of the armoury.

To the rest of the world, the Stalin era is one of shame for Russia. The country is seeking to change this. The cynical pact with the Nazis, concluded between Molotov and Ribbentrop a little more than a week before the outbreak of war, is now defended as an essential prelude to the defence against the "inevitable" attack by Hitler. It enabled Russia to occupy half of Poland and the Baltic States.

As the genocide or occupation museums in Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn all show (and I have visited them all), the miseries inflicted by the Communist occupier on Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians were vicious, bloody, murderous and had nothing to do with protection against Hitler. They were about the Sovietisation of Eastern Europe, a process interrupted by the Nazi invasion of 1941 but pursued with ruthless savagery after 1944-45. Oh, and by the way, Stalin was so reconciled to the "inevitable" Nazi invasion for which this occupation was a "preparation" that he ignored all warnings that it was coming.

The Russian view now is that if only Poland had let Germany have a land corridor to Danzig – then a "free city" but effectively German, with a strong Nazi organisation and surrounded on three sides by Poland in its new, post-Versailles boundaries – there wouldn't have been a Second World War. That is such idiotic nonsense that only a regime founded on lies, as Putin's and Medvedev's is, could seriously attempt to peddle it. Whatever Poland had done, Hitler would have annexed it. It had been his plan since Mein Kampf. It was where Germany's Lebensraum was to be. The Czechoslovaks had made concessions to him (forced by us, not least), and they were not deemed enough: occupation followed.

There is no point trying to reason with the Russians about how they ought to know this. They don't want to know it. Reason doesn't come into it.

Further proof of the madness comes in the suggestion by the Russian government that it is planning to pass a law to make it an offence for Russians (and, more sinisterly, for foreigners – though how that would work remains to be seen) to describe what happened in Poland and the Baltic States between 1939 and 1941 as an "occupation". If you still cannot grasp how evil this proposal is, imagine if the German government were to do the same – saying that it would criminalise the statement that Nazis had occupied Poland (or France, or the Low Countries, or anywhere else) during the last war. Germany would become a pariah state overnight.

So why are we not exercised by Russia's wicked distortion of the past? And what else is to come? Are we to expect a further revision of the view about the Katyn massacre of 1940, when, on Stalin's specific order, 6,000 Polish soldiers were murdered by Soviet executioners? It is only in the last few years that the Russians have owned up to doing this, having hitherto blamed the Germans. Perhaps now they will blame the Poles for this too, possibly even speculating that it was a collective suicide.

In history there is a distinction between revisionism and distortion. The former makes a sensible reinterpretation of known facts, often with the support of additional and uncontestable evidence, such as newly unearthed contemporary documents. Distortion requires no new evidence, but can require the disregarding of facts we already know. It is clear what the Russians are doing: and I fear it is not merely to make themselves look good, or to rehabilitate Stalin and his ideas, or to use history to seek to humiliate a troublesome and fiercely independent neighbour.

When the Baltic States threw out the Russian occupier in 1991, a part of the former East Prussia annexed by Stalin – Kaliningrad, the former city of Königsberg – remained Russian. However, like that other Baltic city, Danzig, it now finds itself landlocked away from its motherland. Poland is to its south and west, Lithuania to its east. Are the Russians trying to tell us something? Is Russia about to make a demand for a land corridor through Poland to Kaliningrad, for the same reasons that Hitler sought one to Danzig 70 years ago? If so, is Russia intending to argue that the denial by Poland of land access to Königsberg could provoke a big international fight, and possibly terrible destruction, and that it would be Poland's fault for not giving into a "modest" demand?

I simply don't know. But when people start twisting history and wielding it as a blunt instrument without any provocation, we are wise to start asking ourselves why.


_{(Interesting point he makes about a land corridor.)}

[wayneprice]

JJ,

I think that asking for the land corridor is a very real possibility, or at least asking for one. Now, based on the theory that it was a reasonable request for a Nazi corridor to Danzig, wouldn't it be reasonable for Russia now to ask for one for Kaliningrad?

I suggest this possibility in my 4 Jun posting.

[tuftabis]

Jun 8, 2009 5:16:47 GMT -7 @justjohn said:

Is Russia about to make a demand for a land corridor through Poland to Kaliningrad, for the same reasons that Hitler sought one to Danzig 70 years ago?

I don't think so


BBC is doing worse and worse
Germany demanded a corridor to Eastern Prussia not to the Free city of Danzig.

Russia at present has neither plans nor capabilities or, actually logical needs, to further territiorial demands to Poland. Opposite to Germany in the thirties.

Russia does not have a frontier with Poland, apart from Królewiec or Kaliningrad region in question, so the corridor would have to involve at least one another country - Belarus, and MOST probably Lithuania, which is regrettably still almost totally dependent on Russian energy. Lukashenka may seem a little strange to western observers but he is not nuts to agree. Well, he would agree if the Russians would agree that Lukashenka becomes the next czar in Moscow in place of Medvedev. But Russians are not nuts either. They just hold the gas taps, mesmerise Germans, and IF they would need a corridor they would start with the most vulnerable spot which is not Poland there. Check the map

Finally, opening a debate of the frontiers creates a risk that the region would change affiliation again and intead of having an exteritorial highway they would loose a handy military base.

Just like the Germans - instead of acquiring the extraterritorial highway they have lost territories won from Poland in previous wars.

[Eric]

Posters of Stalin are nothing new. His posters are usually carried through the streets of St. Petersburg every year on Victory Day.