Reader Response

The following comments reflect the views of our readers. Not all reader comments have been published. DW-WORLD.DE reserves the right to edit for length and appropriateness of content.

I think the German government and the Polish government should work together to get both countries' borders reinstated to the way they were before 1939. Then, and only then, will everyone be happy. It is unfortunate what the Germans did to the Polish, but it is equally unfortunate what the Allies did to Germany. Countries can't heal until the past is resolved. -- Sean

My parents are Germans who fled Silesia after the war. My mother comes from Niesse and father near Opolen. All we can do on a trip to my mother's home now is stand at the gate and look at a house and yard which was once in our family. The Polish people who have lived there since the war have done very little to maintain the buildings and surrounding land. The land was once a very productive agricultural area -- today it barely supports a small family. My father's family home has, in the 12 months, been illegally sold without our family's consent. We are 11 cousins, some of whom live close to the family farm in Poland. It was taken over by the neighbor who sold it unlawfully when my old aunt died in 2004. How can this occur today? He sold it to a stranger and the neighbor took the money. It was stolen from our family. His family tried to convince three of my cousins to sign the house over, but they refused. He still managed to convince the government that the house was his. No wonder there are Germans today who are still being cheated by the Polish government. They should not be allowed to enter the EEC if their laws are unjust. -- Carol Carter

It seems to me that there have been many groups requesting compensation as a result of World War II, and many have been successful to a certain degree. By not supporting this claim, is the German government just being "politically correct" at the expense of its own nationals? It's time to forget the guilty feeling of what happened in the 1930s and 40s by a past generation, correct what can be corrected (like these claims) and get on with the country's progress. -- William Bryant, USA

The matter is between Germany and Russia, as the property in question was illegally taken from Poland, which then forced Poland to take property from Germany in 1945. War is no excuse for the forcible taking of property, even if the victors agree amongst themselves to abrogate the borders existing by treaty. In this case, the 1919 treaty ending World War I set the proper borders, which were agreed to by all parties. This is still the legal border, so by definition these lands, such as former East Prussia, are part of the current Germany. The unilateral drafting of borders by the Soviets at gunpoint before the end of hostilities was not a binding transfer of territory either against Poland as it existed in 1918 or against Germany as it existed in 1945. The so-called agreement, or, really, assent of the US, UK and USSR, cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. -- Paul E. Lang

Although I don't agree with Nazism and, in particular, some of the genocidal attitudes that Hitler had against Slavic peoples, which he fortunately was not able to carry out, I do not agree with the bad treatment of Germans after the war in such cases as the treatment of POWs and Volksdeutschen. There needs to be understanding and willingness to admit wrongs on all sides, regardless of who won or lost the war, or how it started and whose theory that is based on. If a person looks at how similar European cultures and histories are from an objective point of view, barbarities of the past appear more senseless. -- Philip Roslin