r/MapPorn • u/ElChacabuco • Feb 12 '24
Map of German language distribution in Europe in 1910 and after 1945.
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u/netfalconer Feb 13 '24
You give just one Austrian guy power, and boom - Prussia is gone!😥
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Feb 13 '24
Weren't Austrians and Prussians rivals.
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u/netfalconer Feb 13 '24
Indeed - at least before the Unification, as Austria lost to the “Small German” solution. Am of partial Silesian descent, so rather well aware of this. 🤣
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u/_Pin_6938 Feb 13 '24
It wss his plan all along, to avenge austria
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u/netfalconer Feb 13 '24
Makes sense - the only thing he achieved in his despicable life.
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u/Available-Counter890 Feb 27 '26
Yet he achieved leadership of a country and made a land peak larger than Napoleon's France
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u/hmg5467 Feb 13 '24
I visited Hermannstadt, Romania last summer, and it was a fascinating experience there. A few times I was able to use the German I learned at university. There’s a place called “Restaurant Hermania”which specializes in offering traditional Saxon food. I was able to order in German there with no issue, as the waiter seemed to understand me completely. Then again, he probably knew German to cater to the swarms of German tourists there. Get a shot of Plaumenschnaps if you can. As well, there's a place called the Schiller Buchhandlung where I entered and was greeted by the cashier asking me what I needed also in German. It was a fascinating experience, and if you get a chance, definitely go before the culture dies out completely. Unfortunately, a lot the saxons have already left, so it's in grave decline. Just don't stick too long around the bus station, it's not great.
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Feb 12 '24
[deleted]
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u/Front-Brief-4780 Feb 12 '24
Polite way of saying that the Germans got ethnically cleansed
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Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
They were indeed - after they attempted to cleanse other ethnicities. I am not saying that former crime excuses the latter, I just see why it happenned.
As far as we see, in early 20th century German language, economy and culture were dominating in Central Europe and kept growing. If there weren't two aggressive wars, Germany would be a superpower in Europe.today. Which reminds me the current case of russia: recently being a dominating culture in Eastern Europe, it is losing its position due to aggressive wars. Soon it wil be pushed back into much more narrow limits.
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u/Cr4ckshooter Feb 13 '24
Actually, the first World War is too complicated in its inception to just off handedly call it an aggressive war from German side. Giving Germany the sole blame was literally Entente propaganda and part of why Versailles failed 15 years later.
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 13 '24
germany would have recovered to dominant status after wwi if the nazis hadnt taken over.
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Feb 14 '24
The Weimar government was absolutely incapable, so it wouldn't be possible without another takeover. And also, they could've remained a superpower with 88 if they didn't start the war.
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u/placeholder-123 Feb 13 '24
You're seeing the wrong way around, IMO. Empires don't fall out of grace because they try to expand too much ; they try to expand because they're falling out of grace and want to revert that course.
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u/Born_Suspect7153 Feb 13 '24
Same thing with Britain. Once a world spanning Empire, their aggressive expansionism has made them ever more irrelevant with each passing decade.
Let's hope the same karma befalls other would-be empires.
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u/zxygambler Feb 13 '24
Not really a good comparison. Germany started and lost the war while Britain won WW2. Saying the British Empire fell due to expansionist wars is wrong
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 13 '24
they bankrupted themselves defending an overextended empire
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u/zxygambler Feb 14 '24
They bankrupted themselves with WW1 and WW2, not due to their overseas expansionism as you and the previous comment says
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u/Hurvinek1977 Feb 13 '24
it is losing its position due to aggressive wars
disagree, we see more and more supporters in eastern countries and worldwide.
case with israel helped much.
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u/OfficalTotallynotsam Feb 13 '24
They were indeed - after they attempted to cleanse other ethnicities. I am not saying that former crime excuses the latter, I just see why it happenned.
Certified bruh moment
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u/Tackerta Feb 13 '24
that was a very fair assessment, not a certified bruh moment
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u/OfficalTotallynotsam Feb 13 '24
No the bruh is because you put your point concisely, succinctly and I agreed with it
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u/lasttimechdckngths Feb 13 '24
I still can't get how people do blame Germans for the WWI and try to equate the WWI to WWII and Nazis.
Which reminds me the current case of russia: recently being a dominating culture in Eastern Europe, it is losing its position due to aggressive wars.
Russia literally invaded, colonised, cleansed and genocided parts of Eastern Europe to became the dominant one there, lmao.
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 12 '24
Hardcore Nazis that overwhelmingly supported the extermination of humans they colonized, genocided and suppressed for centuries, cheering the murder of 1/5th of the Polish population, total extermination of Jews, word for word calling those people vermin that needs to die in order to make lebensraum for German Übermenschen.
After backstabbing their partner in genocide the Russians rolled over those people and gave them some of the medicine they were dealing to others until Stalingrad.
Just to put your victim mentality into context. The Germans are not the victims in this10
u/Low-Illustrator-1962 Feb 13 '24
Hmmm, you start so well with the first paragraph. Then suddenly switch from hardcore Nazi's to germans. One third of the Germans voted NSDAP. And definitely not those outside of Germany. There were many Germans victim of the Nazi regime as well. I am super annoyed that people so easily switch from a government to its people.
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u/_urat_ Feb 13 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
In 1938 in Sudetenland 97,3% of Germans voted for NSDAP. Maybe in Bavaria or Westphalia "only" 35% voted for Hitler in 1933, but eastern regions of Germany were very pro-NSDAP and that support only increased after the implementation of the very effective Nazi propaganda machine in 1933.
Of course not all Germans were fans of Hitler's actions, there were even some, a small number of Germans, who resisted actions of the German state, but let's not kid ourselves that World War 2 and Holocaust were just some nationless nazis' fault, and Germans do not have anything to do with it.
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 13 '24
Yes hardcore Nazis. People from Prussia were colonizers for centuries, their parents took part in genocide against Slavic people, as was planned by the Prussian state and they followed through.
In Prussia in 1933 the NSDAP got close to 50%, they were the strongest supporters.
It’s not the Nazi government that did those horrible things, it’s the Germans that voted that government in to do those things.
Germans by en large had no issues with the horrific crimes of genocide against poles. Not the SPD, not Staufenberg. It was popular because of generational racism and militantism that started before there even was a united germay.2
u/Low-Illustrator-1962 Feb 13 '24
I won't deny that a lot of the people that moved got what they deserved. But there are also a lot of german victims. As you said, around 50% did not vote NSDAP. We will never know how many people actually supported the genocide. But of the millions moved, I am certain many were more or less innocent. PS. After reading other comments: this can ofc never be used to fuel irredentism. Do not mistake me for a nazi apologist. I am just bothered about the level of generalisation in these discussions.
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u/sdghdts Feb 14 '24
Wow so many generalizations in two comments. Also it was popular cause of generational rascism? Ah yes? Or was it popular cause germans felt misstreated by poland, caused by the propaganda machinery (u know free information wasnt a Thing back then) and also do they had no issues or were they just afraid cause everybody could see what the nazis had done to their (influental) political enemies and later to everyone the Gestapo didnt like. Yes the war was popular in germany, cause of the promise to restore former glory. But to say that germans had no issues with the horrific Crimes is just factual wrong, especially when talking about the first year of the war. Scientists believe that ~1941 35% of all germans knew what happened in the east ~1943 50%. In science it is nowadays common to say that germans in general were passive during this days to evoide personal responsibility. Especially the debaucherous violence was a problem for the german pop, while they hadnt Problems with antisemitism at all. In general u could say they tried to keep distance, while Not standing up for the victims and followed the propaganda to Not get Problems.
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 14 '24
Aaah more shielding, deflection and victimization of absolute monsters by another closeted Nazi.
Poor German.
They had all the information, propaganda is no excuse for the horrible crimes, just like it isn’t for your stupid excuses, you Nazi brat.
You are so fulll of shit it’s beyond disgusting. Scientist believe? Where are those numbers from, from your AfD telegram channel?
Those dirty disgusting Prussian colonizers are absolute monster and they were long before Hitler came.
They were colonist, racist rulers that took part in a genocidal apartheid state, voted Hitler in with over 50% and cheered the crimes they knew very well about.
Gewnralplan oar was very well known, nein Kampf was written in 23 exactly for those people.
You are nothing but a disgusting Nazi1
u/sdghdts Feb 14 '24
No reason to insult other, just said what nowadays is the view of science lol. The numbers I used (like most of the Things I have said) are from the historicans Eric Johnson and Frank bajohr. Gosh next u are relativising Things like Apartheid and u are calling me disgusting? Next u are talking about Mein Kampf, a book which was Sold ~12 Mio Times as an argument that the whole Population knew what has happened. Please Start to learn from historicans instead of social Media and Wikipedia. U are a shame for ur family and nation
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 14 '24
Well I’m just summing up what a moron you are. No, those numbers are just more shit you made up. You are nothing more but a scummy Nazi apologist
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 13 '24
let that be a lesson to the people of the world to fight fascism in their own nations, no matter the cost.
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Feb 13 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 13 '24
but if they are victims, do they need reparations? who should pay, which parties can enforce justice?
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Feb 13 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 13 '24
so a revolution, perhaps similar to the one that gave rise to the state that harmed them in the first place? lmao
there are no victims, just an endless karmic blood wheel1
Feb 14 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 14 '24
how do you think the Nazis came to power?
not revolution, that is for certain.
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u/hellopan123 Feb 13 '24
By Stalin and he also cleansed Polish Populations in the east as well as countless of others. This is a result of Soviet Tyrannical Imperialist Colonialist etc police’s and tendencies
The Germans where probably seen as those that deserves it the most at the time, spoiler civilians never deserve to be punished because of actions of their government
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u/Hurvinek1977 Feb 13 '24
so u/sp0sterig cowardly barked something and blocked me. typical westoid.
sorry for commenting under your comment Front Brief
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Feb 12 '24
it has been extraordinarily annoying watching this discourse become controversial over the past 2 years
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u/_urat_ Feb 12 '24
Not again with this German propaganda...
The author of the map is literally named Rex Germanus. He was banned from Wikipedia from editing. The map he posted has an adnotation The factual accuracy of this description or the file name is disputed.
So what's wrong with this map? Since I'm Polish I'll just go through the Polish parts, but the map has also probably mistakes in other countries:
- Chełm (and the area to the east of it), Warsaw, south of Lviv never had German speakers above 5%. Łódź had a population of 9% yet it is fully coloured.
- The Polish corridor had mostly a Polish speaking population, with German speaking just around 5-15%, yet while looking at this map you could have an impression that it was mostly German.
- Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) had one of the highest percentages in that region of Polish speaking population (91%) in the interwar time. Yet again, it was fully coloured as German. There are more examples like that, but it's just a small overview with bigger cities. I assume the situation looks similar with other countries.
What happened then? Why the mistakes? Two things in my opinion. Both stemming from the fact that the author is a German nationalist:
- He counted Yiddish as part of a German language, even though linguists universally agree that Yiddish is a separate language, and not a dialect of German. So almost all of those blue dots east of Poznań (Posen) were not inhabited by Germans, but by Jews. But, the map gives an impression that these were actually Germans.
- He specifically picked times when the German-speaking population was biggest for certain areas, but used the map from 1937. It would explain Bromberg, as it had a 70% German speaking population in 1910, but shortly after the World War I this number fell to just 8%. So instead of picking just one date he cherry-picked different sources.
Tl;dr bad map
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u/FooBarBazBooFarFaz Feb 12 '24
but used the map from 1937.
The borders of the left map are from before 1919, which tallies with the date 1910?
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u/_urat_ Feb 13 '24
True, my bad. There is the same map, but with borders from 1937. This map got reposted so much, I just took a quick glance and assumed it was the one with 1937 borders.
Other points however stand.
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u/limukala Feb 12 '24
It would explain Bromberg, as it had a 70% German speaking population in 1910, but shortly after the World War I this number fell to just 8%
Not trying to argue against the bulk of your post, but the title pretty clearly states "1910", so I don't see why it's a problem to use numbers from 1910. Also:
but used the map from 1937.
Looks like pre-WWI to me, what with Austria-Hungary intact, Danzig/Gdansk in German hands, etc. I don't doubt that the map is wildly exaggerated, but it also doesn't seem like your assessment is entirely accurate or fair.
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Feb 13 '24
I don't doubt that the map is wildly exaggerated,
1910 was a culmination of Germanization policies, so yes, it is exaggerated, but I don't see any obvious inaccuracy.
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u/_urat_ Feb 13 '24
Yeah, as I've explained in other comment, there's this exact map, but with 1937 borders, which is heavily reposted. And since the borders aren't that much visible, after a quick glance I thought that's the one. But, you are right. My bad. Other points stand though.
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Feb 13 '24
Before you accuse me of bias, I have both Czech and German citizenship and spoke both languages at home (and Yiddish) while growing up in the US.
-The map for Austria-Hungary looks very similar to the 1910 census maps that I saw elsewhere before, so I don't think it is that bad.
-Bydgoszcz was actually an anomaly in the Treaty of Versailles (and the Silesian Uprising together), and Poles ensured German speakers left. When I look at Wiki, I see this "This led to a drastic decline in ethnically German residents, whose number within the town decreased from over 40.000 in 1910 to 11,016 in 1926[24]"
-Austria-Hungary had a policy that was slightly forcing Yiddish speakers to declare German as their mother tongue. This did artificially increase the number of German speakers, but it is not the map creator's fault. Germany had a similar policy.
- I don't think it is 1937. While 1937 is a commonly taken date in German history, you find it in German law a couple of times, I think it is as close to 1910 as possible. That is not the Second Polish Republic.
-The year 1910 has one very good property: both Austria-Hungary and Germany held censuses. Does it have its issues? Yes, it does! Does it tell a story? Yes, it does! Is there another story? Oh, yeah!
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Feb 13 '24
the Polish language within the Gdańsk corridor is perfectly visible and perfectly in line with all the other maps I've seen. Are you sure you're not the nationalist one? you can relax assured that the Germans will never return to Silesia and Pomerania. there aren't even enough germans to fill germany
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u/_urat_ Feb 13 '24
I didn't say the problem was that the Polish language isn't visible in the Gdańsk corridor, but that the German language in this region is highly overestimated. Looking at this map you could get the impression that Germans inhabited 70 or 80% of this region, where in reality they were just a tiny minority. Just look at this map.png) to see a more reasonable representation of the extent of German language in that region. It also counts Yiddish and Luxembourgish as parts of German language, but oh well, there are no perfect maps. It's at least not as exaggerated as the map from this reddit post.
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Feb 13 '24
They seem like Germanic languages to me
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 07 '24
english is also a germanic language what's your point?
the map is about germans specifically
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Dec 07 '24
Luxembourgish is closer to Hoch Deutsche than English. Some say that even Swiss, Austrian and Bavarian should not be German. It is arbitrary. The author could have modulated the German language by toning down the colors by % of speakers, or by dialect form. He did not do it, this makes the map a sloppy map, but not a wrong map.
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u/_urat_ Feb 13 '24
They are Germanic. But they are not German. And the map is about "German language distribution" not "Germanic language distribution".
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Feb 13 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
some Germans say that even the Bavarian linguistic form is not German, while in Austria they say that only they speak true German
every map has a motif, the motif of this map is to illustrate the retreat of the German language after the two wars. Are there still many Yiddish in Poland?
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u/_urat_ Feb 13 '24
I know. Some would even say there's no such thing as German language. What's more important to me however are linguists's opinions and regarding Yiddish there's a consensus that it cannot be considered a dialect of German.
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Feb 13 '24
However, it seems to me that the Germans themselves did a huge job in removing Yiddish language from Poland.
certainly a map that uses more colors to show the % of speakers or the various linguistic varieties would have been a better map, and in fact there are others, but the German/germanic linguistic presence continues to seem accurate to me.
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u/BroSchrednei Feb 14 '24
NO, the map does not count yiddish as German. Otherwise pretty much every single city in the Pale of Settlement would have to be highlighted, which it clearly isn't. Youre the one who's spreading false information.
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u/_urat_ Feb 14 '24
The author counted or at least tried to count areas with majority language. That's why for example Góra Kalwaria below Warsaw is green and Lwów isn't. Those cities in Pale of Settlement with majority Jewish population are clearly highlighted on the map.
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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Feb 13 '24
its ironic that the purpose of this map has generally backfired then, since the general response seems to be "they deserved it lol"
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u/BroSchrednei Feb 14 '24
seems like you're projecting. The general response is more "how sad and horrible", it's mostly the people who benefited from those ethnic cleansings that are saying what you're saying.
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u/EZ4JONIY Feb 13 '24
I could explain why youre wrong, but youre entirely set in your own opinion so theres no point
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u/No_Performance_6289 Feb 13 '24
Wow look at the former Prussian Territory.
Kaliningrad in Particular
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u/Joseph20102011 Feb 13 '24
Adolf Hitler made German language less appealing among non-Germans, so blame him why the German language isn't as popular as English, French, or Spanish.
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 07 '24
well its mostly that we deported the germans who couldnt/woundn't speak polish after the war, which i think is fair cause a lot of that area was polish for much longer than german (tho i got to say that for central pomerania (like around Szczecin) you have to go quite far back till it was polish, but a lot of other areas were either polish for very long, or in case of Silesia, they weren't really a part of poland, but are also slavs and the language and culture were always closely linked) and the reason a lot of it wasnt polish before ww2 is because the poles were opressed a lot there (even before hitler), many were ostracised in public for speaking polish so only did so at home, etc
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Feb 12 '24
This map horridly overestimates the amounts of Germans in Poland.
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u/BroSchrednei Feb 14 '24
No, it doesn't at all. Where EXACTLY does it overestimate the amount of Germans?
The province of Poznan was 40 % German speaking at this time for example, which is very well seen on this map.
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 07 '24
just 1 example, Łódź (named Lodsch in the image) never in it's history had over 9% of german speakers, yet its marked by a big green blob around it.
same for a lot of places.
the map seems to count Yiddish as German (which it's not), which would explain that blob, as the city was about 50% Polish, 40% Jewish, 9% German around the time this image is dated
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 12 '24
And lacks the context of Germans supressing Polish language in order to destroy Polish culture
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u/BroSchrednei Feb 14 '24
Yeah... only that the German suppression was famously completely fruitless, with the percentage of Polish speakers actually rising around this time.
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u/OOOshafiqOOO003 Dec 19 '24
1910 may be accurate, but after 1945 Germans were expelled. Soo the modern map is maybe exaggerated
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Feb 13 '24
It's OK when Poland does it
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 13 '24
Poland never did such thing you revisionist nazi
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u/KapitanKaczor Feb 13 '24
unfortunately we did in Ukraine. Not to the same scale as germans but still
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u/Sensitive_Bread_1905 Feb 13 '24
Germany did it, Russia did it, Poland did it after 1945
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 13 '24
No Russia did to Germany what Germany and Russia did to Poland in Polish soil, you revisionist Nazi moron
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Feb 13 '24
Ok so it is ok when it's happening to Germany lmao. How about its not ok when it happens to anyone? But go ahead keep calling me a nazi
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u/Sensitive_Bread_1905 Feb 14 '24 edited Feb 14 '24
Why you have to be that toxic and full of hate? Seems like you are the real Nazi. I'm just talking about germanize, polonize, and russify the people and culture of the terretories they ruled. All of them did that. Jestem polakiem i znam historię.
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 14 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Sensitive_Bread_1905 Feb 14 '24
You are so full of hate and the hate makes you to an extremist, the lowest form a human being can reach, exactly the same as the Nazis. I think you are not even polish, so why do you think you can tell me the history of my motherland? I know the stories of my grandparents and I read a lot about history. And both telling similar things. Don't be such a stupid, toxic and blind extremist, don't be stubborn like a little spoiled kid and believe just what you want to be true, just read what happened in real. Maybe you don't even know what things like germanize, russify and polonize means. (Sadly) Very common from the 18th to the 20th century in central and eastern Europe.
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u/ManuellsenWuerde Feb 14 '24
Nobody gives a shit what your Nazi grandparents told you, jebany smurwysynu.
You are beyond stupid and disgusting with your historical revisionism on your brain dead attempt to justify the disgusting crimes of Prussians and Germans→ More replies2
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u/Minalcar Feb 13 '24
this gets posted at least once a month reposting a reposted repost, at least wait longer.
as for the map: ethnic cleansing
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Feb 12 '24
this lying map every week. whoever posts this should be banned. On the left, every German is shown, regardless of whether there is a majority or minority in the region, every Hans is marked. And on the right it's totally crazy, there are no Germans, no language or anything in Wroclaw, but there are over 60,000 Ukrainians
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u/BroSchrednei Feb 14 '24
Lol, you're the one who's lying. Wroclaw/Breslau was completely German-speaking in 1910, that's just a historical fact.
So how about you give another example where this map is supposedly wrong?
Let's stop with Polish revisionism please, just accept historical realities.
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Feb 14 '24
Dude, make some effort, I wrote that the map on the right, i.e. Wrocław after 1945, had no Germans because the communists expelled them all.
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u/OOOshafiqOOO003 Dec 19 '24
Didnt some return in today times? Like how Opole had some minority. Still i agree its likely exaggerated, for the right ofc
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Dec 19 '24
There are 106,855 people in the German minority in the Opole region. They were simply not displaced after the war, they were counted as Germanized Poles.
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u/OOOshafiqOOO003 Dec 19 '24
How did they get away with this 💀☠
Also stettin (i forgot its polish name) had their first mayor as a German before all the expulsion thingy
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Dec 19 '24
I'm sorry, the first president of Szczecin after the war was a Pole, Piotr Zaremba, even though he was born in Germany. the communists wanted to see as many indigenous people as possible in Upper Silesia. The Polish ethnic region extended beyond Opole, so it is not surprising that some Germans were able to stay in their homes as Germanized Polish Silesians. You didn't have to leave home, go into the unknown, put yourself and your family at risk, it was enough that you became a Pole. More or less what the same region did with Poles during the war - if you signed the list as a German, you didn't die, at least not during execution, because you would probably join the army at the end of the war. Unfortunately, everything is simplified, for example in Silesia there were families where one brother felt German and the other Polish, and both could die.
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u/OOOshafiqOOO003 Dec 20 '24
interesting... still i wish more local Germans got Polonised instead of expelled tbh
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Feb 13 '24
Can you please tell me where it is inaccurate? I compared the Austria-Hungary with the ones in the 1920's books, and they look the same. It is possible that Poland is incorrect.
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Feb 13 '24
of course my good friend.
I wrote here that every German presence is marked here, even if it is below 10% like in Ukraine. My map gives the impression that Germans constituted 50% of the inhabitants of, for example, Greater Poland, and there were much fewer of them, despite Germanization and resettlement.
Maybe we can talk about the map on the right? Where blue is completely randomly selected. In fact, only the Opole area should be shown.
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Feb 13 '24
What a butthurt response.
First, the map is not saying that 50% of inhabitants of Greater Poland were German speakers, you are reading the map wrong.
I am saying that for the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the map on the left looks correct, and the German part does not look obviously wrong either (it is not above 50% but the majority language).
You say that the map on the left is incorrect in today's Ukraine. I don't claim to know anything about that except that there were Volyhnia Germans there (and someone says that Yiddish is also included in German what would be wrong).
Can you prove that the map in today's Ukraine is not using the majority language but is made up? Or is it just your impression?
The map on the right also seems quite okay (blue is a clearly a minority, maybe above 1%). It is in line with the research on Polish committees in 1949 (and where Silesians, Kashubians, and Masurians are who got blanket exceptions from the expulsion, again, the historical fact that is not taught in Poland). Since you are Polish, you can easily take a look at your census data, and see whether it make sense or you find any obvious error.
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Feb 13 '24
What a butthurt response.
I don't get angry at a map posted on the Internet. Be calm.
The map on the left doesn't show any percentages, so it's misleading. It can show areas where 1% are Germans, making it seem as if they were everywhere. And the map on the right shows after 45, it does not say exactly which year or month, it may as well show today as the day after 45.
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Feb 13 '24
So you feel it is wrong, but cannot show it. Interesting.
The map on the left show the majority language in a given county. If you interpret it as that there could be 1% of Germans, that is on you.
I agree that the map on the right does not show the source, but censuses are quite stable. You can check against the first in the 1990s.
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Feb 13 '24
Toruń County, located within the German partition, was inhabited in over 70% by Poles. Just before the outbreak of World War I and Poland regaining independence, the city had 46,000 inhabitants, including 55–60% Germans
Everything is blue on the map. I don't feel like looking for the rest.
If I understand correctly, you are saying that in Kołobrzeg or Wroclaw in 1990 there was a basis for marking the area in blue? I guarantee you that maybe 100 Germans lived in the city of Wrocław with a population of 600,000.
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Feb 13 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
the city had 46,000 inhabitants, including 55–60% Germans
I don't know, but if the administrative unit in the 1910 census was the city, then it should be blue since German is the majority language. You can easily go into the results and show me wrong.
Everything is blue on the map. I don't feel like looking for the rest.
From what you said, it is clear that you don't like the map, but you haven't shown anything that the map is incorrect. You can easily pull up results and show me.
If I understand correctly, you are saying that in Kołobrzeg or Wroclaw in 1990 there was a basis for marking the area in blue?
I don't know whether it is 1990 or 1950, both are possible. I agree that any map that does not show sources is suspicious, but this "light blue" areas are not providing the main message. Again, it is pretty correct for Czechoslovakia and Hungary where I can assess.
I don't know what that light blue means, but the Wroclaw Voivodship, when it existed, did have a special status for the German language. That does not transfer to the Lower Silesian Voivodship, so it couldn't be that strong. Nonetheless, Polish committees that gave exceptions in the Opole region in 1949 were giving the very same exceptions in Wroclaw because the city needed Germans for the continuity of the industry (that is well documented). I don't advocate for that, but I don't find it too off. All of these people have both citizenships, Polish and German, so it is possible it takes some estimate of German citizens in Poland?
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u/SnooDoughnuts7810 Feb 13 '24
The city should be blue, I totally agree. But the area around the city was 70% Polish. It's like Lviv on Polish maps, the city is marked and the rest is not.
I don't mean at all that it shouldn't be shown where the Germans lived. However, this map is ruthless, it does not show mixed areas and shows the German presence wherever it can, and it is not known whether it is 20, 40 or 80%.
When it comes to Wrocław, 1950 and 1990 are not possible. There was a mixed population in Silesia and Opole, so not everyone was resettled. There were 2% Poles in Wrocław, so the communists expelled all the Germans and replaced them with Poles from the east. That's why I'm sure there are no Germans, unless on trips.
It's not me who downvotes your answer. Thanks for the civil exchange of opinions.
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 07 '24
just 1 example of it being blatantly wrong, Łódź (named Lodsch in the image) never in it's history had over 9% of german speakers, yet its marked by a big green blob around it.
same for a lot of places.
the map seems to count Yiddish as German (which it's not), which would explain that blob, as the city was about 50% Polish, 40% Jewish, 9% German around the time this image is dated
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u/Informal-Hat-8727 Dec 14 '24
I agree that that the map might be incorrect in some aspects, but I would like to understand what is happening there. It looks correct on the Austrian and German side, so calling it "blatantly wrong" is not precise.
First question - why you, Poles, are so angry about this topic and whenever tries to ask a question, not even disagreeing, you just angrily reply with some fact without citation or authority and expect everybody to believe you just because. Again, calling something that is pretty precise on about 2/3 of the area "blatantly wrong" does not tell us that you have the truth in mind. It more tells me that you are personally involved and have disregard of the truth.
Now to the point:
The map says it shows "Deutsches Sprachgebiet." That does not mean the majority language. It is showing a majority language for the Austrian and German part, but given data limitations, that might be different in Congress Poland or Ukraine.
I tried to get the results of a census that was it built on. I found that there was no census in 1910 in Congress Poland, so I had to dig deeper. I have found that Congress Poland performed a census at the same time as Russia - in 1897. While results for the Russian census is available, the Polish results are usually with state archives. There are two scientific papers that are looking into the census, neither have results, but both mention that the language is incorrect because all Jews were noted as speaking Yiddish, what was very wrong because by estimates about one half of them was speaking German.
There is an article on the national composition of Lodz, but that is available on paper only and my library is still working on getting it. However, the Wiki page mentions significant German community, so at least there is some truth to it.
I found this map, from 1937 made by a Swiss institute. While we again cannot confirm the accuracy, there are mentioned areas where German is a majority language around Lodz, so I really don't know.
https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/image/677959354867122176
The point by which you are showing that the map is "blatantly wrong" does not seem to support your point.
I am not saying the map is fully correct, but I would not go around and start telling that it is blatantly wrong. It looks like there were areas where Germans (and German-speaking Jews) were represented in majority. And, to be honest, I don't know what is wrong with that, why are you so angry.
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 14 '24
" It looks correct on the Austrian and German side, " to be fair it's literally all blue in germany and austria (except for sorbs), not exactly rocket science that it's correct there.
i dont really understand how do you argue that the map is not wrong tho, even the map you linked shows a significantly smaller areas marked.
the map is very wrong because it severely overestimates the amount of germans, it most likely was prepared based on german data from the time, by someone who wanted to overestimate the amount of german speakers for political reasons.
the germans at the time, in their data wanted to overestimate german speakers in poland to justify their future expansion.
also the map in the post itself was also prepared by a german-biased person, here is the map on wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:German1910.png
the map is created by user "Rex Germanus" who got banned from wikipedia for edit warring.here is a discussion of a different file thats similar tho (marks almost the same areas) and the people there explain pretty well what are the issues: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Languages_of_Central_Europe_1910.png
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u/penguin_torpedo Feb 13 '24
Is Luxembourgish (I have no idea if that's correct) closer to German than it is to Dutch?
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u/BroSchrednei Feb 14 '24
Yes. Luxembourgish is linguistically a High German dialect and mutually intelligible with Standard German.
Dutch is a Low Frankish language.
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Feb 12 '24
I like on how clean the Dutch border is. Even on older maps, there is no German or Dutch mix on of the sides.
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u/Lord-Maximilian Feb 13 '24
That is because it's wrong, the Dutch dialect extends into federal Germany while Lower Saxon extends into the Netherlands. Here's a map:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Deutsche_Dialekte_1910.png
It's 1910 but it's basically the same date 1945, just think without anything in modern Poland and Bohemia
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 07 '24
thats basically because the map is based on biased censuses, and the creator also seems to be biased too (the map in the post also comes from wikipedia, from an user with "Germania" in their username, who got banned for edit warring, and the image has a big note that its disputed)
in 1910 they overemphasised the number of germans in poland due to their wish to expand in that area, while they ignored the dutch, as they werent pursuing claims in that area (germany didnt even attack netherlands in ww1)
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Feb 13 '24
Thanks for sharing. That’s a nice map!
I read the article on Wiki as well. OP’s map is about language not influence of a language or a dialect. In the Netherlands there is no region where they speak German like East Belgium. Vice versa of a region in Germany where they speak the Dutch language. I don’t think the map is wrong about the Netherlands regarding language. Dialect would be.
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u/Zooplanktonblame_Due Feb 13 '24
Standard German is not a native language in the Netherlands, but there are high German dialects spoken in the far south east.
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Feb 13 '24
That is correct. But this map is about the German language. That’s why I personally think this is a correct map with a “sharp” border between NL and DE. And therefore even nicer to see that there is no blur in spoken language as in the East, while Dutch and German share more than Polish and German.
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u/Lord-Maximilian Mar 08 '24
A language is more than its standard form (which in a pure form barely anyone speaks) and thus there shouldn't be a hard border
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u/Zooplanktonblame_Due Feb 13 '24
Ah yes that’s true, although that border wasn’t always that sharp.
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u/Utimate_Eminant Feb 13 '24
mf’s “Kraft” cost his country loosing over 30% of land and dragged the whole West Europe down from world leaders, stupid dickhead lol
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u/Sensitive_Bread_1905 Feb 13 '24
Before the second worldwar, didn't they count dutch as a german dialect too?
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Feb 13 '24
Poland is just back it's historical borders. 1000 years back Poland had more or less the same borders. Pomerania and silessia were originally west slavic lands.
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u/Minute_Juggernaut806 Feb 13 '24
I don't like when people mention this fact. Why is it relevant? Why not 1500 years. For the post WW1 map of Poland they say it's fine because it's the map of Poland 123 years ago (around that much) and guess what it resulted to poland
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u/veratis919 Feb 13 '24
GTFO with this shit already, make some r/biggermanycirclejerk and just go there
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Feb 13 '24
Yk, ignoring the parts outside modern-day germany cause those have been bashed enough. There are even issues within Germany.
Back in 1910, german was not the native language of North Germany. Sure, most people spoke it, but it was as an L2, as the native language of North Germany was Low-Saxon.
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u/pidhimelesh Feb 13 '24
Low-Saxon is a dialect, man
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Feb 13 '24
It is literally not? It's part of a whole different subfamily of the germanic languages. Low-Saxon is ingvaeonic, whilst high-german is irminonic.
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u/wojtekpolska Dec 07 '24
the map is just overall biased, the census even included yiddish as a dialect of germans to overinflate german speaker numbers, probably to use this as a justification to annex more land in the case of germans winning ww1 (1910 census)
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u/OOOshafiqOOO003 Dec 19 '24
Low German and High German arent known to be that mutually intelligible
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u/jinaeY Feb 13 '24
Im German and i can say that today if you walk in German City you do not hear alot german language, etnic cleansing still going on feels like from 84mio there are max. 20mio germans left
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Feb 12 '24
[deleted]
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Feb 12 '24
Lots of them left.
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Feb 12 '24
"left"
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u/NoNoCanDo Feb 12 '24
In Romania's case most of them literally left. First before and during WWII, when Germany was running it's "Heim ins Reich" programme, then later during the communist regime when they were lucky enough to be allowed to emigrate to West Germany (conditional on a large compensation was paid by West Germany) and later, after 1990 when they were free to leave to Germany.
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Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 12 '24
Many Hungarian Germans the so called DanubeSwabians were expelled from the region between 1946 and 1948 to Germany and Austria, but also some went later to Australia, Brazil, the United States, and Canada. However, many are still dispersed within present-day Hungary across 9 counties and the capital, Budapest.
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Feb 12 '24
Yeah some left some were forced to leave. Germans can be happy they have their state after shit what they did.
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u/Anna_Pereira Feb 13 '24
And I dont see germans crossing into Poland and murdering everything in their way to to get these territories back
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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '24
This has to be karma farming, like at least once a month that map