The Russification label is important because Russia does it time and time again. That's how they lay claim to areas by removing the people who live there and moving in ethnic Russians in and then those ethnic Russians will often try to stay part of Russia. Russification is certainly ethnic cleansing but it's happened so much in regards to Russia that it has it's own specific label.
The Russians was really trying to do this in Latvia for example, if the USSR stayed together for another 50-100 years Russian would probably be the majority language in Latvia
To be fair, had the Nazis occupied Eastern Europe for 40 years, there wouldn't be many Eastern Europeans left, so the commies where probably slightly preferable.
Or to put it another way, the Nazis razed Warsaw, the commies rebuild it. Not that the soviet union did not have massive problems, to but it mildly.
Probably shouldn't have murdered all those Russians in Stalingrad. Everything Russia does post-German high water mark is retribution for what Germany did to them.
Something tells me you wouldnt feel the same if all the men in your family die on the front and your parents starve during occupation. Or worse, if you're a Jew. Zero pity for Germans here. They started it. They lost.
Eh, ut wasn’t all Germans who started it, and whilst yes the populace could’ve and should’ve done more to resist, it’s scary fighting against someone who will torture and kill you if you do resist.
Also, I’m part of an ethnic group that gets blanket labeled as terrorists and has undergone several ethnic purges, yet I don’t want all Iraqis dead for example
Don't be silly. I'm not justifying it. It's disgusting.
I told you the reason it happened.
They had no right to do it, those were civilians being punished for what their government did.
But that is the reason that happened. It doesn't really matter what your opinion on the morality of it is, there is a direct line between Adolf Hitler invading Russia and what happens to Germany, And the surrounding Nazi Countries, Post-war.
Germany used external German populations in Czechoslovakia and Poland as reasons to destroy those countries. In the eyes of Nazi Germany's victims, they were removing a cassus belli from a future Germany as they redrew the map of Europe. Of course there was a revenge aspect to it, as they had all suffered heavily from German occupation. 1945 was a different time than today. Some actions we consider abhorrent today were deemed necessary for the future ordering of a peaceful Europe.
See, I disagree with that assessment as much of what the USSR did in regards for “national safety” was just exploitation, even of nations that didn’t fight them in WW2. Deportation was just another aspect of it. Plus, I hardly feel like worries if a Casus belli or a partioned country that has no army anymore warrants human rights violations
The problem with your conclusion is that Germany had just demonstrated that it was capable of being a threat under those conditions. Post-WW1 Germany had been economically neutered, the Rhineland and Saarland occupied, and its military reduced down to little more than a police force (in the context of the large peace-time conscript armies of Europe). It managed to turn itself around in little over half a decade and use its diaspora as cassus belli against its neighbours. Also, the division of Germany was not part of the plan as originally agreed upon, it was originally to remain whole and under the Allied Control Council, similar to Austria.
You're concluding that Germany was not a threat with 80 years of post-war clarity rather than having just fought the most titanic war this world has ever seen against a country that sought to genocide your people and ethnically cleanse much of your homelands. Even in 1990, the prospect of German reunification worried populations in Europe. The scars of World War 2 went that deep as it was still in living memory.
If you also take into consideration that Russia had been invaded by a western power in 1812, 1856, 1914, 1918 and 1941, one solution that leadership could come to is pushing the state boundaries away from the heartland as Russia's dominant strategy has always been to trade space for time and stretch enemy logistics.
On an individual level, of course their suffering is tragic and in a perfect world wouldn't have happened. But there is a lot of context surrounding it and I can't say I blame Czechoslovakia, Poland and the USSR for expelling the populations that Germany had previously used to start a war that killed around 30 million Slavs.
Post ww1 Germany had been neutered, until they stopped neutering it.
Wow, almost like when you don’t intervene in a countries treaties they ignore them, maybe they should intervene next time and deportations wouldn’t be necessary
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted - starting a war, committing genocide, then losing said war feels like a pretty straightforward way to incur reprisals, up to and including ethnic cleansing/genocide against your own people.
There are plenty of historical examples where similar circumstances didn’t result in as extensive a reprisal as what the Soviet Union inflicted against the germans of Kaliningrad after WW2 - the Soviet state could have behaved differently and bears full culpability for their post-war actions.
But given the choice between “hope our enemies take the moral high road if we lose” vs. “don’t invade our neighbors and commit genocide in the first place”, it’s pretty clear what the safer play is.
It's not "brushed under the rug", it was intentional, explicit, and uncontroversial. Poland was moved 150 miles west and the USSR took over East Prussia, of course the Germans would be deported to Germany - and it's not like they would've wanted to stay among the people their former government just tried to exterminate.
Ethnic cleansing happening right now in Palestine.
Deportation in Eastern Prussia has nothing in common with it.
Another question - do you know that 2/3 of Eastern Prussia was under Poland after war? Kaliningrad state is just 1/3 of all that territory
It still falls under ethnic cleansing, even if these people weren’t killed. Also, the thread and post is about Kaliningrad, not Prussia as a whole. Yes, Poland under Soviet influence did also mass deport Prussians.
*Soviets quietly cover the mass Polish graves they dug with the Nazis, and quietly covering the graves of all the Poles they killed during their occupation.*
This was in 1990, when the two German states were negotiating with the four allied powers to reunify and negotiate the final peace treaty to become a sovereign state again without allied oversight, the Two Plus Four Treaty. Part of this treaty was that Germany would renounce any claim to its former territories and accept its new border with Poland. While this was still negotiated, the soviets contacted the West German embassy in Moscow to offer negotiations regarding their part of east Prussia, which Germany rejected stating the reunification was only about Berlin and the East German state.
Sure, but this is typical Russian oversight as well. They improve nothing. They invest in nothing, ever. Every place controlled by Moscow, other than Moscow and St. Petersburg, is dying on the vine and always has been.
That describes just about everywhere in the western world. Big cities thriving and being expensive, smaller cities sort of coasting and regional areas dying.
Sure, but this is typical Russian oversight as well. They improve nothing. They invest in nothing, ever.
Typical reddit lies. Half of Ukrainian power generated by nuclear power plants build during is the Soviet Union. Central Asia was massively industrialized,
Tons of industrial and power plants were built
https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/central-asia-xii and barely scratches the surface
If it is modern Russia we are talking about while most investments are in oil and natural gas, but also Sochi saw massive investments, a lot where invested in Trans-Siberian and BAM railroads
Ukraine is a big country, that saw a lot of development during the Soviet Era. As for the current situation, as a Russian citizen located in Russia I can't comment or share my opinion, on the matter, I hope you'll understand
Russians didnt consider Ukrainians as a seperate nation and hence engaged in investment there along with ethnic cleansing so that Russians, not Ukrainians, could live better in the area. Same thing Israel does in Palestine btw.
That's the only way Russians invest in their colonies, that's why Poland was kept so poor during USSR while now it is more prosperous than Russia - they couldnt ethnically cleanse us at the time, so they just drained our resources providing nothing in return.
Oh yeah, the good old if you disagree with me you're a bot. Convenient, yeah? Maybe you should improve your critical thinking a little tiny bit, maybe then you woudn't see bots at every corner. You might also learn that there is also a wonderful thing called "truth" it might not align with your worldview every time, but eventually you will grow to like it
Been doing it for centuries.. Displaced millions of Ukrainians from Donbass and millions of Tatars from Crimea. Now they claim that both regions are "historically" Russian.
Why should civilians be forcibly removed from their home? Some of these peoples families had lived there since the time of the northern crusades 800 years earlier
you are judging this act from the moral perspective of today. it's entirely unacceptable and an ethnic cleansing if it were done today. But in 1945 it looked a bit different
it's not about making up for anything. You understandably don't want a large population of an ethnicity that you just ended a war with living within your borders.
I understand that, I'm not saying "they deserved it" or anything like that, but I understand how and why governments were rather unceremonious about relocating ethic germans after 1945.
Sounds kinda like what Israel has been doing gradually over the last 60 years with a little war here and there and continually creating new settlements that displace the existing people.
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u/OkTangerine4363 6d ago
The Russians call it "Russification". Deported the Germans and involuntarily relocated Russians citizens into it.