On the one hand you have people who seek to push a very German-centric view of the Second World War ignore - by no fault of their own but the books they read - and they're left with the impression that anything which puts the German position into a reasonable perspective is 'apologism' or 'propaganda'. Often such people are anti-German and not willing to even consider that the truth is not black and white, that the National Socialists made claims that weren't verbose propaganda, and that they did indeed have cause to complain.
And on the other hand you have people who're so adamant about the reality of Polish atrocities, but lack any kind of specific knowledge about the topic, let alone sources.
Now I'm not claiming to be an expert, I'm not. But this thread will hopefully help to clarify the issue to some degree, if not get others to do research of their own. I would recommend anyone interested read the thread I previously made regarding John Wear and his flawed sources on the Polish Atrocities as this thread will be a partial follow-up to that one, because it will address one of the sources which he uses.
It needs to be said that the truth of any issue, so I've personally found, often lies in the middle. This isn't a unique observation of course, but I've certainly found it to be true. In regards to Polish Atrocities, they were real, they happened, they weren't propaganda but in some cases the conclusions, like particular numbers, were exaggerated. Those who seek to discredit the German complaints regarding Polish atrocities often cite the incorrect and certainly inflated figure of 58,000 Germans "missing or dead" as being reason enough to ignore the German White Book on this issue.
Hitler himself was actually deceived as to the correct number as well:
The Polish General Staff, in accordance with a decision by the Polish council of ministers, gave orders that the threatened western provinces be cleared of the Germans. The commanders of the local garrisons were ordered to carry out the evacuation. Local fighting and mass-evacuations were the result. in the course of which some 4,850 Germans (men, women and children) were reported killed. This figure appeared in the German official publication of documents relating to Poland, only it was altered by order of Ribbentrop for reasons of propaganda. A nought was added, so that the figure 4,850 became 48,500 which, in the official publication was rounded off to appear as 50,000. The bloodshed in Poland did not remain a secret. It became known through distorted and exaggerated reports which were submitted to Hitler. A.I. Berndt was the liaison between the German News Agency and Hitler. He told me, with his usual boastfulness, how Hitler reacted. "I myself," said Berndt, "gave the Führer the little shove that landed him in the war. I got the news that the Poles had killed 30,000 Germans. As I thought 30,000 were too few, I added a nought and laid a report before the Führer which made him suppose the Poles had killed 300,000. When Hitler read it, he roared like a bull and told me I was an infamous liar. I replied that the figures might be exaggerated but that there was certainly some truth in them. Hitler was speechless and then began roaring afresh: 'They'll pay for this! Now no one will stop me from teaching these fellows a lesson they'll never forget! I will not have my Germans butchered like cattle.'" According to Berndt's account, Hitler went to the telephone and, in his presence, gave Keitel the second order for the invasion of Poland. This account is confirmed by others. Hitler's roaring was overheard by Erich Kordt, the head of Ribbentrop's bureau and is described by him in his book Wahn und Wirklichkeit. Ribbentrop, Hewel, and other witnesses reported that Hitler suddenly changed round, threw up all negotiation, and without consulting any of his advisers gave orders for the invasion. The bloodshed in Poland threw him into a state of hysterical excitement. To Ribbentrop he said: "it is my right and my duty to defend all Germans. I will not allow anyone to touch one single hair on one single German's head." Hewel told me Hitler explained his volte face by saying that the English too, would understand that he could not abandon his fellow countrymen.
Fritz Hesse, Hitler and the English (Allan Wingate, 1954), Pp. 82-83.
That the number was inaccurate, is not proof that there weren't any atrocities at all. There were, and the Poles seemed hellbent on ethnically cleansing the land which belonged to Germany, and which was inhabited by mostly Germans.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Polish state was bent on the elimination of most of the German minority in Western Poland---by forced assimilation where possible, but mainly by coerced emigration. Moreover, this goal was well on the way to being achieved in 1939; the Pozanian wojewode reportedly assured his supporters that within three years there would no longer be any Germans in Poland. A study of the minority's actual political, cultural, and economic situation merely reinforces the pessimistic assessments of contemporaries cited above. The fact that Hitler took up the minority's case several months before he launched World War II was perhaps the overriding consideration at the time, but it does not make the fact of the minority's plight less compelling. Of course, any country faced with such an adversary might be justified in relegating consideration for a difficult minority to a back burner; even today, some will respond to this account of the minority's travails with a "So What?" in view of the larger issues at stake in 1939. The point, however, is that only a small proportion of the innumerable measures directed at the German minority in Poland, essentially those dating from after April 1939, can be attributed directly to Poland's anticipation of war with Germany. The bulk of the policies and attitudes that determined the living conditions of the minority in interwar Poland antedated 1939 (and 1933 too) and were unconnected to any immediate external threat. It hardly needs to be added that they did nothing to make Poland more secure when the mortal threat materialized. The fact is that Polish nationalism, motivated by the irrational but powerful compulsion to creation a nationally homogeneous society in it's western provinces, created a situation well before 1939 which was bad even by the unenlightened standards of interwar Eastern Europe. Moreover, it is hard to see how this situation would have been different had there never been a Hitler. The "plight" of the German minority in Poland, in other words, was real; it was not merely alleged or fabricated in the interest of Nazi propaganda. ----Apart from the macro political situation in 1939, however, the evidence above makes clear that Germans in Poland had ample justification for their complaints; their prospects for even medium-term survival were bleak; and no German government more principled than Hitler's would have been able to ignore their plight over the long run. Though it was not politic to make these points at the time, there is no reason why they cannot be accepted half a century later.
Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939 (The University Press of Kentucky, 1993), Pp. 236-237.
For Hitler to therefore cite the plight of the Germans in Poland as a reason to hasten negotiations and get Danzig and the corridor back into the Reich is justified. It was also justified for Hitler to take action to protect these minorities from the oppression of the Poles - even if it meant starting a small war with Poland. There was no need for this border conflict to be the nucleus for a world war. It only became one due to the intervention of powers like Great Britain, France and America who forced Hitler to seek a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and bring that country into the fray of hostilities. But keep in mind that Hitler only did this because he thought it would deter the West from fighting a war (Longerich, Hitler, p. 645.).
Keep in mind that in October 1938, Duff Cooper who was the First Lord of the Admiralty, held the belief that Britain should've gone to war with Germany, not because he cared about Czechoslovakia, but because he wanted to "prevent one country dominating the continent 'by brute force'" (A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945, p. 430.). Churchill was in the came camp as Cooper, men who detested "appeasement". Clearly Cooper wasn't aware of the irony in his statement that Britain should use brute force by going to war in order to defend Europe from the 'brute force' of Germany, that this was actually advocating for the very thing he claimed to be against.
That war was was seen to be a rational option (and still is today by historians who still hate appeasement) against the German nation who was redressing justified grievances that by all merits didn't need to involve Great Britain or anyone else, was bound to result in negative consequences. Britain cannot therefore be absolved of guilt. Those like Cooper and Churchill who were on the side of war from the beginning most certainly cannot in good conscience be absolved, for if they had their way, Britain would've been at war in 1938 simply because they didn't like the Germans. The biggest lie was that Britain was actively losing something in dealings with Hitler. Never did they once think to just step away and realise that they had nothing to lose all along. Instead they opted for war to the bitter end, whether it was necessary or not.
