"The Polish Atrocities Against the German Minorities in Poland" pictures and review.

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

the previous topic here
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=996198

was closed due to the start of a flame war between members.

PLEASE do not make any political comment on this new topic about "who was wrong and who was right". The killed people were people before being "German" or "Polish".

Facts are that as usual, civilians (from all "nationalities") were the first victims of this war, which like any war is more or less political/racial.

In this new topic, on the suggestion of DouglasDwight, i will do a short review of the German book and the one published by the Allied Nations.

Below you will find pictures of the books from my collection.

As said in the previous topic, the original German title was "Dokumente polnisher Grausamkeit" (Documentation on the Polish cruaulty).
The book has around 460 pages (!), two third of it are reports of the various massacres., then you will find pictures of the victims, reports, newspapers with death notices.
Published in 1940, it was republished in a reduced 300-page book as "Die polnischen Greueltaten an den Volksdeutschen in Polen" (The Polish Atrocities against the German minority in Poland).
This is this second edition which was made available languages.
You will find the English (from which pictures are taken) and French editions (more probably exist).

The German book is giving the sources of the selected material used in it, and that it does not includes other war crimes (against German POW for example).

As for February 1940, around 13,000 German civilians were said to have been killed, and 42,000 are said to be "missing", for a total of near 60,000 civilians.
Those incredibly high numbers of killed civilians should be greatly be minored as it is very well explained on the wikipedia page below :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1939)

Also it is clear that many civilians (Polish or from the German minority) were killed by war operations, not especially by massacres.

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

now i will make a short review of the German book (2nd edition, in English).

The English translation seemed to be not perfect, and sometimes not very fluid.

Around 110 "stories" of killed German civilians are included in the first 200 pages of the book, including some "death marches".
I'm including below one example of the death of two civilians.
Please note that many testimonies are telling horrible stories.

It seemed that like in Belgique and France (cf the Degrelle story), many National civilians (here from the German minority) suspected to be "dangerous" were arrested by the Polish authorities, and many were killed soon after.
You will notice that the German will do the same in the days/weeks following the fall of Poland with Polish civilians, especially the intelligentsia.

In the remaining 100 pages, you will find incredibly graphic pictures that can't be posted here for obvious reasons.
Again, it is hard to say if the people were killed during fights, or during a massacres. Some autopsy reports are included though.

I'm including only two pictures said to shown killed German civilians.

The German book is overall very similar to the famous "Black Book" that was planned in the post-war months on the Extermination of the European Jews (book that was shelved by Staline but was mostly saved and published abroad).

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

the German book ends with death notices taken from newspapers (which again can include civilians killed during fights), and ads asking for infos about killed or missing persons.

No matter the veracity of some testimonies, the whole book is very hard to read due to the horrors that are described.

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

now here is the French book "L'invasion allemande en Pologne" (published in English as "The German Invasion of Poland").
The book has around 130 pages.
The fact that Poland (like many Western countries a few months later) was defeated in a few weeks implies that the Allied countries were unable to provide a similar work than the one published by the German propaganda.

However it is obvious that the French book is using a very old-fashioned way to condemn Germany and its "total war" against civilian populations (which was at the time not new, and which is still done today).
You can clearly see that the message of the book is less powerful and more similar to what was done during WW1.

The book starts by a few pages of diplomatic cables between Germany and other nations, a message from Edouard Herriot (president of the French House of Representatives), and aggressive Hitler speeches.

We should keep in mind that afterall it is Germany who attacked Poland without warning...

The book then lists various cities of Poland that were bombed, with testimonies of the damages and killed civilians.

There is a small report on the "Bloody Blomberg", which at the time of publication of the book (April 1st, 1940) is already telling what is now confirmed by German archives, the fact that German 5th column attacked the Polish army and civilians.
An interesting captured German document is presented (included below), which is briefly detailling the subversive warfare planned by the Abwehr/SD Ausland for the German minority.

Then there are dozen of pages showing the destruction due to heavy indiscriminating bombings in Poland, and many long testimonies of witnesses.

You will find more pictures of destroyed buildings than pictures of killed civilians.

This is an interesting book, but far less shocking that its German counterpart.

I don't know if other editions were published elsewhere.

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

here are some pictures of the bombings and killed Polish civilians.
The message is "less direct" than the horrible pictures of the German book...

See You

Vince