Polish minority in Germany in the 1930s

[daveshoup2MD]

Makes one wonder how the Nazis explained away the number of German officers whose surnames ended in "ski"...

[wm]

But Germans weren't identified by their surnames or even looks (even Hitler disproved that blue eyes and blond hair thing) but by "language and culture of German origins."
Polish minority members were German citizens and as such were drafted as everybody else. If they behaved as expected (proving that they were culturally German) they didn't encounter any problems.

btw In the thirties, many Germans believed the Poles (those in Poland) were lesser people, especially if they lived close to the border with Poland.
Many believed that post-war and some even today.
But that didn't mean that they hated them. Hate has nothing to do with the conviction that you're better than the other guy.

[daveshoup2MD]

The mental gymnastics required to underlay the racial principals of German national socialism are perhaps only comparable to those among the political elite in the slave-holding states of the American south in the antebellum era.

[George L Gregory]

But Germans weren't identified by their surnames or even looks (even Hitler disproved that blue eyes and blond hair thing) but by "language and culture of German origins."
Polish minority members were German citizens and as such were drafted as everybody else. If they behaved as expected (proving that they were culturally German) they didn't encounter any problems.

Well that’s just total nonsense. The origins of surnames were indicators of people’s origins. Good luck with a ‘German’ with a surname like Goldberg , Friedman of other typically Jewish surnames trying to pretend to be “Aryans”. Genealogy was a massive thing during the Third Reich.

Why do you think Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski removed them “Zelewski” part of his surname in 1940?

btw In the thirties, many Germans believed the Poles (those in Poland) were lesser people, especially if they lived close to the border with Poland.
Many believed that post-war and some even today.
But that didn't mean that they hated them. Hate has nothing to do with the conviction that you're better than the other guy.

So what do you think “hate” means???

[wm]

SS-Sturmbannführer Alexander Piorkowski
SS-Sturmbannführer Paul Radomski

SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Chmielewski

SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Kloskowski

[George L Gregory]

SS-Sturmbannführer Alexander Piorkowski
SS-Sturmbannführer Paul Radomski

SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Chmielewski

SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Kloskowski

Strawman argument.

I thought surnames didn’t mean anything. Make up your mind wm.

You didn’t address my response.

No one denies that there were people of Polish descent during the Third Reich. Even Hitler’s secretary Gerda Daranowski who married Eckhard Christian was clearly of Polish descent. So what?