- Moderator
- #126
I didn't say they did, Malifice. I asked you.
The Austria-Hungarian Empire was an ally. That got carved up too. Austria ended up fighting alongside the Germans again in WW2.
Ally or not, Austria was never part of Germany (outside of Anschluss in WW2) and it wasn't part of Germany that the Germans lost as a result of the Treaty of Versailles (although the Treaty did forbid the two from merging). The Austrians were on the losing side of a power struggle for Germany with the Prussians (when the Prussians and the Austrians aligned in the German Confederation) until 1866, but it opposed the Prussians and Bismark and ultimately formed the AH Empire, outside of the German Reich.
Poland, Malifice, did not exist.
Czechoslovakia, Malifice, did not exist.
What complete and utter bullshit.
Poland has existed for literally centuries before WW1. In the centuries prior to WW1, it had been invaded and annexed by the Prussians, Russians and Austrians.
Poland - Wikipedia
You're not only posting apologist bullshit for the Nazis, you're also posting revisionist history denying the historical existence of Poland (and Czechoslovakia).
Polish before that? Sure. Back in the 1700's. Fairly long and storied history.
There we go. By 'fairly long and storied history' you mean a thousand years of constantly fighting off the Prussians (and the Teutonic Knights before them), Russians and Holy Roman Empire from constant annexations.
Go up to an Irish person and tell them Ireland didnt exist under British rule. See how far that gets you.
There have been a fair few of those sorts of places. Bit silly to magically will it back into being so that you've got some land to put Germans on, though, particularly when those Germans don't really want to be Polish.
The Germans were only there, for the same reasons Jewish settlers are currently living in the West Bank.
Their land was annexed, and settlers moved on in.
Of course at this point we could get into the subject of ethnicity clashing with nationality,
German Nationalism (like most forms of Nationalism) all boils down to ethnic nationalism. 'One Germany for all German speaking Germanic people'. If those German speaking peoples happen to live in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Belgium, France or wherever, then that land is fair game for annexation and incorporation into the Empire, while people living inside that land that are not 'Germanic' (Jews, Poles, Slavs, Africans, Romani etc) are forcibly expelled, stripped of legal rights and persecuted or worse.
The Treaty of Versailles forbade this from happening for precisely this reason (and also to ensure a resurgent Germany would not have another crack at establishing a European Hegemony).
The only Germanic speaking outlier was Switzerland. The only thing that stopped the Swiss from being annexed and invaded was Hitlers view that they were all a bunch of backwards Cow farmers, the difficulty of invading and annexing Switzerland (the mountains) and the fact a 'Neutral' Switzerland allowed the Nazis to operate financially and funnel a shitload of money through Swiss banks (plus being a useful place for diplomatic talks).
You're aware that even today, there are German speaking peoples in Switzerland and Austria that desire a 'unified Germany, for the German peoples, incorporating all German speaking peoples including Austria and Switzerland' and think Hitler was on the money? They're a minority, but they certainly exist.
You call those people German Nationalists. They're the ****wits that are responsible for shit like WW2.
The only reason you don't see the same shit in Poland and the Czech Republic is because the Allies enacted a genocide on the German speaking peoples in the East, and forcibly relocated them all Westwards.
I agree with your point that the Treaty of Versailles was fertile ground for German Nationalism to grow in. Coupled with the 'Stab in the Back' lie, rampant antisemitism (always a problem in Europe, but especially so in Germany) and the Great Depression it created ideal conditions for the rise of Far-Right wing ultranationalist government like the Nazis to emerge.
But you cant say the Treaty (which forbade the very annexations the Nazis engaged in) was the cause of the war. The cause of the War was German Nationalism.
You remove German Nationalism from the picture, and you dont get WW2 in Europe (and you also dont get WW1 for that matter).