We'd have more power in EU if Germans hadn't 'reduced our population' in WWII, says Polish PM

Evening Standard ^ | June 21, 2007

[wolf78]

If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million.

Sure. And there would also be another 25 million Germans living in Pomerania and Silesia. Should these also be counted?



Pre-WWII German language area.

I mean, is it possible to be any more stupid than the Kaczynski twins?

[HEY4QDEMS]

They are bad guys for knowing their history, apparently.

No, they are just whiners for bitching about something that happened more than six decades ago.

[wideawake]

I mean, is it possible to be any more stupid than the Kaczynski twins?

The Kaczynski twins, even in the depths of their purported stupidity, probably wouldn't try to pass off a map of the German "language area" as a map of prewar Germany.

[1066AD]

Not just the Nazis, remember Katyn Forest.

[The Blitherer]

The Kaczynski twins, even in the depths of their purported stupidity, probably wouldn't try to pass off a map of the German "language area" as a map of prewar Germany.

lol, isn't that the tactic Hitler himself used? He wanted to "liberate" the German speaking peoples in the surrounding nations.

[thackney]

and move the borders back to their 1938 locations

Why stop at 1938? Europe has a long history of wars and its effects.

[CarrotAndStick]

As much as you’d want to wish the Polish well, I honestly don’t see a movement in this direction towards reparations/ power redistribution, etc., doing anything to improve the situation the parties involved, are in presently. Even if they did, what would the reparations consist of? Who determines how long it should go on? To whom? For how many generations?

The past was a bad mess. Anything done to change the wrongs of history would only seem to justify the actions of Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. IMHO.

[mngran]

Also, you mentioned Austria, couldn't an arguement be made to take away votes?

Exactly! That's why this proposal from Poland is dumb. Has a Polish person ever killed someone from another EU country (even, say in the last 60 years, which seems to be your cutoff)? Of course. So do we need to search for all cross-national murder convictions in the EU, extrapolate how many people were killed and the likely number of offspring they would have had and then run some algorithim to figure out what the populations of each nation would have been if there weren't evil in the world? Good luck.

You keep on about serial killers writing books, but we're not talking about writing books, we're talking about votes. Here's one for you: The Green River Killer murdered at least 48 women in Washington state in the '70s through '90s. He was from Utah. Should we try to figure out whether the addional population Washington would have had were it not for this murderous Utah resident would entitle Washington to extra votes in the electoral college? That's the kind of thing you're advocating.

[RobbyS]

The slaughter of the Poles is within living memory. The Poles are saying to the Germans: Who the heck do you think you are talking to!

[CarrotAndStick]

"There is a bit of a differance between killing somones family, and then trying to claim the benefits from doing so, and having great great great great grand papi killing someone elses great great great great grand papi, or segregation, which afforded no benefits to anyone, just mistreatment of one group."

So would the Germans argue. And the Blacks would claim benefits for "deprived opportunity to improve."

And from there, it would go nowhere.

I don't know how many exchanges it would take to admit that the past is the past, and nothing else can be done to change it. Non-quantifiable losses cannot be reparated, is what I'd think regarding the matter in question.

[wideawake]

Correct.

The territory of modern Poland which was part of prewar Germany was central Pomerania and part of Silesia.

That would be roughly 5 million people today.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

In a spectacularly undiplomatic outburst, he said his country was losing out in today's European Union as a direct result of the millions of deaths that followed its invasion by Germany in 1939.

The man does have a point...

[toddlintown]

They’re right.

[SolidWood]

Some people apparently don’t grasp the concept of genocide.

[PAR35]

Why stop at 1938?

I was keying off the current Polish complaints, and trying to reach a resolution to the current dispute. If they don't go for this proposal, we could always offer to roll the clock back 100 years to 1907 borders.

[thackney]

Why stop there? Previous wars effected population as well.

[RobbyS]

Oh come off it. I can still remember my aunts in Mississipi taling about “the war.” Like This or that thing happens during” the war.” This would be about 1942 and they weren’t talking about World War II, or World War I, or the Spani-sh-Americans War. They were talking about the events of the siege of Vicksburg by a Union Army. Their mother was a young child living in the caves cut in the side of a hill, and their uncvles, a Choctow indian named John Smith was killed during the siege after leaving her and her mothr with some food. Got his head blown off by a cannon ball or something. Once upon a time I could find his grave. Now that is history as people know it, not as history professors do.

[CarrotAndStick]

The man does have a point...

He indeed has a point. There is no doubt that the German actions lead to the disadvantages of Poland today. Barring a reversal of time, how would one go about settling past wrongs to 'right' the present condition? Reparations only worsen an already bad situation.

[wideawake]

I think your viewpoint is valid.

However, there is a fundamental disconnect in the European Constitution.

You have the European Parliament, analogous to our House and which is elected according to population.

Then you have the European Council which is analogous to our Senate.

However, unlike our Senate, the Council's 27 ministers (one for each country) have unequal, weighted votes.

If I were Poland I would demand that - as in the US Senate - each state receive one equal vote in the Council.

That would be far more useful than any sort of reparations.

[ozzymandus]

The Germans lost 7 million soldiers and civilians in WW2, and Poland got 40,000 square miles of German territory. Apparently the “history obsessed” twins aren’t aware of that. And how many Poles did the Soviets kill, hmm?