[dfwgator]

The Russians solved this problem neatly in 1945. Today, there are no Germans in Danzig, Pomerania or Silesia. Nor are there any Poles in what used to be Polish territory, but is now western Belarus and Ukraine. The means involved were to create millions of what were known as “displaced persons” although the much of the German populace preemptively aided the Russians by fleeing in terror before the advance of the Red Army.

And history has shown over the long-run, while brutal, it was the correct thing to do, as it has granted the longest period of peace in recent European history. In the immortal words of The Offspring, "You gotta keep 'em separated."

[henkster]

We’ll probably have to agree to disagree about Danzig; it was founded by Germans as a Hanseatic League port, While it had a substantial Polish minority and may have had Polish sovereignty from time to time, it was always ethnically and culturally a German city.

As for “keeping the peace” in Europe, the NATO/Warsaw Pact standoff, nuclear weapons and lingering memories of the horrors of WW2 had as much to do with the lasting peace as anything else. The French were once considered a martial people...until Verdun. The Germans were considered a martial people...until Stalingrad.

The 1945 Polish/German resettlement had much more to do with Stalin wanting to punish Germany, and push the Poles west to create more buffer space. He was not so concerned with creating “fair” ethnic boundaries. Not that it was unusual; Stalin’s regime was infamous for re-settlement of entire ethnic populations, such as the Volga Germans, Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, etc....