Talk:Drang nach Osten

Military history
Drang nach Osten maybe propaganda slogan, but it was more connected with military invasions then with peacefull colonisation. This is completely missing from the article. There should be mentioned military history regarding Polabian Slavs, Teutonic Order, Grunwald and Peipus battles and Stalingrad as final accord. Cautious (talk) 01:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

those Slavic peoples
"However, to those Slavic peoples who also used the German language and learned German concepts at the time, perceived the idea as a major threat to their national security. The idea, as put into practice, diverged from its historical roots."

Huh!

This article should be really revised, probably from someone who is wether German nor Slavic (I´m both). But at least some remarks have to be made:

1. "Drang nach Osten" never was a plan or a programme. It is just what modern historians call in retrospect what happened between the 9th an 16th century in Central Europe.

2. It was far more a fight between Christianity and pagan societies than ethnic conflict, with Germany (to be more exact: The Holy Roman Empire) being on the frontier of Christianity. As soon as pagan principals conversed to Christendom they were integrated and became principals of the HRE like the pommeranian dukes. That the HRE was by far predominantly German and the tribal societies were gradually Germanized is a fact but it was not necessarily commanded. German clergy, merchants and peasants moved in, founding numerous cities and thousands of villages and mixed with the slavic inhabitants.


 * Huh? You mean migratory pressure of expanding population of HRE and (especially) colonization drive by knights -- "third sons" and other lumpen-"nobility" of W.Europe into both pagan and Christian (like Poland) lands alike is a religious conflict?
 * Collapse of the Wendic state was indeed an "invitation" to all these elements to move in under Christian banner. But the pressure was then shifted onto Poland, a state "as catholic as it gets" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.123.123.129 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

3. The "Ostsiedlung" (Eastern migration) ended in the 16th century with the ethnic pattern reaching the state it had up to 1945. To confuse Hitler with something which happened 500 years before is not serious.


 * So, the records of Luzhic and other polabian languages swiftly disappearing in many germanizing areas in 17-19th centuries are fraudulent? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.123.123.129 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, as far as I know, Hitler was talking about stopping the thousands years old drive of the Germanic people to the south (sic!, towards the Roman Empire) and to turn it to the east. He had plans of colonizing e. g. even the Crimean Peninsula with German people, but he had plans to resettle all the Jewish people in Madagascar too and to ally with the British Empire to fight the United States of America. So with his plans and sayings you can probably proof everything and the opposite too.

Interestingly, one of the few slavic words which made it into Standard German is the word for border or frontier: "Grenze" from slavic "granica". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.144.59.18 (talk • contribs) 09:50, 11 July 2005  (UTC)

Obsrvation by [Hartmut Pilch http://a2e.de/phm] The purpose of this article seems to be in the justification of ethnical cleansing committed against 15 million Germans after the second world war. I'll try a proposal for rewriting the sentence that justifies the massive human rights violation by the Potsdam Conference to relativise it and make it less reprehensible.


 * Nice to know where the current state of the page comes from. Feketekave (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Article revision
This article needs to be revised really urgently. It distinguishes poorly between actual historical events spanning almost a whole millennium, and the late 19th century propagandistic slogan-concept "Drang nach Osten", which by the way was not coined by German nationalists, but Polish and Russian intellectuals. The idea itself was indeed used affirmatively by German politicians and scholars later on, but neither in the German nationalist nor in its original panslavistic anti-German guise is it any adequate description of complex and disparate historical developments. To conflate the medieval eastward migrations of German settlers (cf. link to "Deutsche Ostsiedlung") and details about the Warsaw Uprising is completely absurd and betrays this article's origin in 1950s-style anti-German propaganda. There should actually be two articles - one about the actual history of German eastward expansion, and another on the ideology of "Drang nach Osten" as employed by 19th/20th century nationlists in Germany, Poland, and Russia. --Thorsten1 16:42, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As a first step to revise and extend this article, I moved the description of the wargame Drang nach Osten to a new article of its own, as I believe the explanation of the concept and the description of the game should not be within the same article. Whether the game is significant enough in itself to have its own article is open to debate, of course. --Thorsten1 12:00, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ostsiedlung
Ok, I agree with some of your criticisms and I started a Ostsiedlung page in English. Can you translate some of the German material? Then we can work out how Ostsiedlung fits in with Drang nach Osten, history of Germans being invited (yes, invited sometimes) into Eastern regions, history of the Teutonic knights, Austrian and Prussian expansionism etc., and views of Germans and non-German peoples, all the while try to be NPOV. --Jpbrenna 06:51, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Hello Joseph, thanks for taking the initiative on this and writing a level-headed stub. As you can see above, I have been itching to set this mess straight for a few months now, but I never seem to find the time... I had planned to write a separate artice on the history of "Drang nach Osten" as a concept first, but to keep things going I'll be glad to contribute something to the history of "Ostsiedlung" itself. However, I'm travelling at the moment and on a slow and expensive dial-up connection, so I can't start right away. I just wanted to add that the corresponding German article "Deutsche Ostsiedlung" has to be read and translated with some caution, as it is not free of national bias, either, even when this is not as obvious as in Drang nach Osten. And I'm not sure as to the new article's title - is Ostsiedlung really an established historical term in the Anglophone world? In a quick Google search, there are only 134 results for "Ostsiedlung" on English-language pages (including German book titles in bibliographies), but 7,260 results for "German eastward expansion". Personally, I think that "(Medieval) German eastward migration" might be suited best in terms of historical correctness, even though it has just 4 hits in Google. --Thorsten1 13:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is established in English. The text we are using in one of my current history classes employs the term, although it is spelled incorrectly (one of their many errors; my professor and I are working on a list to send to the publisher). I have also seen it employed in a few other sources, although I agree that "German eastward expansion" is more commonly used; however, Ostsiedlung satisfies two important needs of academics: a) it enables them to sum up a concept in a convenient, one-word term and b) it provides a pretentious German word for English-speaking academics to throw around, along with zeitgeist, zeitzuleben, realpolitik et al.  This is a favorite activity of professors in America, thus, the use of Ostsiedlung can only increase in English.

The issue is not whether Ostsiedlung is established in English, but whether it has been used in refrence to later medieval and modern eastward migrations of German-speaking peoples. I don't have any references to that. For now, I'm going to leave that information in the present article, but we might want to separate it into different articles for the diffeent phases. I'm also making a note that it can also be referred to as Ostkolonisation or "German eastward expansion. --Jpbrenna 17:20, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Ostsiedlung is not an established English word and should be replaced in this article. Philip Baird Shearer 17:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Title
The title "Drang nach Osten" should be changed to an English one. Philip Baird Shearer 17:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It is an accepted term in English language, similiar to Kulturkampf for example.No need to change it.--Molobo 23:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with Molobo. Way back in in 1952, it appeared at least twice in Christopher Buckley's Greece and Crete 1941.  I can get the book from the library again if you would like page numbers.  Buckley was a professional historian - an Oxford don, I believe - and his prose is sprinkled with Latin and Old French phrases that aren't very productive in lower registers of English.  Still, being rare doesn't make a word unestablished. Ostsiedlung is an established academic term and as I noted above, its use only seems to increase. --Joe 17:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Title should be changed
"Drang nach Osten" is a term that has been propagandized and used by the Nazis and like-minded historians. The Nazis tried to rewrite history and describe it as a permanent fight between Germans and their slawic neighbors in the East. It was their aim to sow hatred to get a basis for the planned conquest and enslaving of the Slawic nations. History was quite different. In fact in many cases it were slawic rulers who invited German settlers to settle down in their territories. And for several centuries there was a peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups. E. g., the citizens of Danzig (Gdańsk), although German, were loyal to the Polish King and even supported his struggle against the Teutonic Knights. On the other hand the Polish king granted them their local self-administration, their Lutheran confession (after the Reformation) and the German culture. The more neutral term "Deutsche Ostsiedlung", literally "German Eastern settlement" would be more appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.123.123.129 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

...I would like to add that I am utterly amazed at the racism on Wikipedia. Gdansk was a Polish port with many different peoples living within it. It is so sad, and so pathetic, to see this Nazi filth pervading Wikipedia. This "encyclopedia" is a waste of time. I urge all of you to abandon it and give up. It will always be nothing more than a cheap imitation bolstering racist sentiments. I am so sick of it, particularly of the German attempts at pushing some perverted and invented idea of their "ethnicity" (interestingly, German racism is still a HUGE problem, despite the myths and image of Germany having become "sensitive" to discrimination. Laughable!). Stop pretending to be historians. --71.233.248.90 20:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"that led to the World War I"
While it may be open to discussion whether something like a "Drang nach Osten" existed as a major political or demographic influence at the time before World War I, it was definately not the cause for it. It is not possible to use a single sentence to connect over a thousand years of history to such a complex historical incident as the start of WWI. If nobody objects, I will remove this sentence. Mannimstein 12:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

warsaw
i don´t think that the deportation of poles after the second uprise in warsaw has something to do with a drang nach osten (settelement in the east). there was no chance for a settlement at that time because the red army was standing on the other side of the river vistula already. maybe some crazy nazis were dreaming that but at that point of time this was completly unrealistic. just a short time later the red army started there vistula-oder offensive which brought them near to berlin. these deportations to my mind were mainly done to avoid a troop binding uprise on a main strategic point 5 km from the main frontlinie in warsaw-praga. the german side has had massive problems to just even hold the frontlinie. sorry they were not even thinking of preparing the ground for a colonization at that point in time. In the years before thats true but as a reason for these measurements, no i don´t think so, unrealistic.--131.173.252.9 08:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What are you talking about?
 * Drang nach Osten (German for "Drive towards the East") is a term used in Germany's history that means the expansion of Germany, German culture, German language, German speaking states and German settlement, that led to the conquest of former Slavic and Baltic areas by Germany starting during the Middle Ages until the end of World War II in 1945 when the Nazi German Wehrmacht were defeated by the Red Army of the Soviet Union.
 * An example of that is this
 * The Teutonic Knights became a Polish feud in 1466. After the partition of Poland by Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1772, 1793 and 1795 Prussia gained much of Western Poland. Russia and Sweden eventually conquered the lands taken by the Knights of the Sward in Estonia and Livonia. Which you removed
 * And this
 * Nazi officials used it as grounds for the expulsion of 800,000 Poles from Warsaw to concentration camps after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which caused 200,000 deaths. The city of Warsaw with millions of inhabitants was ordered to be completely demolished on Hitler's personal orders. Himmler stated that the Poles had been an obstacle to German Eastern expansion for the last 700 years, and that the aim was to remove that obstacle permanently.
 * This Nazi officials used it as grounds for the expulsion of 800,000 Poles from Warsaw to concentration camps after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which caused 200,000 deaths. The city of Warsaw with millions of inhabitants was ordered to be completely demolished on Hitler's personal orders. Himmler stated that the Poles had been an obstacle to German Eastern expansion for the last 700 years, and that the aim was to remove that obstacle permanently. Is a perfect example of Drang nach Osten

hey we are talking about the year 1944 close to the german defeat. be sure there was no settlement planing done at taht oint of time before yes at stage no. you need citations

why you don´t right somthing about the brual and rassist polnish Drang nach Westen.?--131.173.252.9 08:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Drang nach Osten vs. Ostsiedelung
The whole article gives an example of the propagandistic way both terms are still used!

Hardly to prove "Drang nach Osten" (as a term of ultra nationalism) in documents prior to World War I., any continuity is verifiable. To establish a connection with "Ostsiedelung"  could have no other reason than to tell the story of an Polish-German enmity and to justify the violation of Human Rigths. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.199.8.128 (talk • contribs) 10:19, 18 September 2006 The Germans settlers were called into the country to "modernize" it. The term "Drang nach Osten" is historically wrong - it is used by nationalists. The German "Drang" - Drive - is more toward the South, to Italy and its old culture.--92.224.204.66 (talk) 19:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Drang
Doesn't Drang mean more something like Desire or Need? I know it (drang) does in Dutch language. Mallerd 18:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC) The translation would be drive.--92.224.204.66 (talk) 19:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Simply a propaganda slogan that still lives
I've added a section on its real origins, and what this article should focus on: the propaganda slogan and its uses. My source was this HNET review of the book "Drang nach Osten: Fortunes of a Slogan-Concept in German-Slavic Relations, 1849-1990". To some it might seem I did an excessive amount of direct quoting, but in my experience there are some editors with a tendency to introduce content creep by introducing what they phrase "minor corrections". Direct Quotes are better able to resist such activities.--Stor stark7 Speak 19:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Seems a bizarre fringe view. The author proposes a imaginary Slavic world, however Slavic tribes are long gone replaced by national groups of mixed ancestry that continue to use heavy modified slavic languages. To claim unity of ancestors of slavic tribes conflicts with modern view. I believe it is best to remove this fringe research
 * I.E:
 * Kundera emphasized that for a thousand years the Czechs never had any direct contact with Russia. In spite of their linguistic kinship, the Czechs and the Russians never shared a common world, neither a common history of common culture.(...) Joseph Conrad wrote that "nothing could be more alien to what is called in literary world "the Slavic spirit" than the Polish temperament with its chivalric devotion to moral constraints and its exaggerated respect for individual rights" History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change. Robert Bideleux. Routledge 1998.
 * --Molobo (talk) 20:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Your OR is completely off topic. The article Stor stark presented is well sourced (by contemporary sources). Just because you think that there is no such thing as a "Slavic world" does not mean the article is a "bizarre fringe theory". The use of the term "Slavic world" when referring to Slavic areas is absolutely OK. That does not imply that all Slavs are borg clones who just underwent Mao's revolution. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"your OR is completely off topic." I didn't write History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change. Robert Bideleux. Routledge 1998

The use of the term "Slavic world" when referring to Slavic areas is absolutely OK. Scholars and Kundera disagree to your private opinion.

That does not imply that all Slavs are borg clones who just underwent Mao's revolution. I don't understand ?

Oh and btw:Can you respond to your use of Galera ? I noticed he talks that Germans are seperated from other Europeans because they (Germans) are Herrenmenschen and other "races" are unfree. I would like your comment on reliability of such author.

Anyway statements by one author are not definitive on the subject. Also the excessive quoting enforces his POV, which should be avoided. I will remove the quotes and summarise this fringe view in proper place--Molobo (talk) 21:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Alright, you seem to not at all understand what I said, so I will rephrase it for you. The author uses the term "Slavic world" as a descriptive term for the "part of the world where the Slavs dwell". All else you associate with that term is only your perception. Scholars and Kundera disagree not with the use of the term, but with the view that Slavs belong to one ethnically and culturally homogenous nation. They do not promote a view pointing to Slavs having nothing in common. More clear? Also, Galera discussion is at WP:RS/N, not here. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Scholars and Kundera disagree not with the use of the term'' In spite of their linguistic kinship, the Czechs and the Russians never shared a common world'''--Molobo (talk) 21:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "Common world" is just as descriptive as "Slavic world". It is a descriptive term, not a scientific term. Everyone knows that the Slavs do not have their own world. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is a descriptive term, not a scientific term. In its description then incorrect, also your argument implies that the author uses non-scientific terms in alledgedly scholary work. Anyway he quotes are not the way Wikipedia is made, and need to be removed. Also the claim shortened as it is minority view in face of majority of views.--Molobo (talk) 22:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is just pointless. You can not judge on the basis of quoting two men. Joseph Conrad and Milan Kundera are just two writers, and their knowledge about history is very questionable. You can't make a point by quoting any few people who wrote a book, if they are not really acknowledged as high authorities in certain area. For instance, there is not, nor there ever was such a thing like "Polish chivalric devotion to moral constraints, and its exaggerated respect for individual rights". This is plain rubbish.Tivran (talk) 11:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "Slavic world" is a widely used descriptive term. Google gives about 30,000 hits for "Slavic world" as you can easily figure out by yourself. "Slavic world" is also used in scientific works, eg Byzantine Studies: Essays on the Slavic World and the Eleventh Century by Speros Vryonis, Jr. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Alexander the Great
What about Alexander, and his goal of going east to conquer the Persian and Indian empires? When I think of Drang nach osten, i think of alexander, not the nazis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.19.245 (talk) 18:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Horrible
This is one of the worst entries I have ever seen in Wikipedia. The slant is absolutely insane. This does not need to be edited, it needs to be completely tossed out and - as someone has suggested above - rewritten by a historian who is neither German nor Slavic. Bezzemek (talk) 09:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually the German wiki entry is more neutral then this one, that has been turned based on one sole minority view opinion into an attempt to argue against the idea. --Molobo (talk) 22:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Having read the German wikipedia page, I cannot but agree. The current version still relies too heavily on Meyer's views. The term "Drang nach Osten" was a mainstay of German nationalist discourse well before the Nazis came to power. I have inserted some citations from the German page. Feketekave (talk) 19:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

See my remark on the talk page of Morgenthau plan. This page needs to be either reverted to a much earlier version (to be polished thereafter if necessary) or rewritten from scratch. Feketekave (talk) 19:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Could someone explain, which part or content exactly is "horrible". 84.139.241.103 (talk) 07:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Um, most of it?

What we have is (a) a potentially useful term that describes an actually existing reality, viz., the gradual expansion of German-speaking populations eastwards by colonisation, conquest and colonial policy; (b) the use of the term in German nationalist discourse, and the role of this use in self-consciously nationalistic policy related to Germany's Slavic neighbours, before and during the Third Reich; (c) the use of the term in discourses opposed to German nationalism, including Polish discourses. Now, any term that has been instrumentalised can be problematised, and we can - as in the German wikipedia - have a discussion on (c) somewhere towards the end of the article. However, having an article mostly on (c) is completely out of proportion. If anything, it is the passage from (a) to (b) that is most interesting and merits detailed examination. Feketekave (talk) 22:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * "Drang nach Osten" does not "describe an actually existing reality, viz., the gradual expansion of German-speaking populations eastwards by colonisation, conquest and colonial policy". It is a nationalist slogan mixing up the History of German settlement in Eastern Europe with the respective nationalist agenda of the ones who use it, as it is explained and sourced in the article. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

This is your opinion, and rather a revisionist one. Majority of opinion is of opposite view, even if you find a minority voice supporting your OR, per Wiki standards it shouldn't be given undue weight.--Molobo (talk) 12:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This is what the sources say. Revisionist?! Skäpperöd (talk) 13:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed revisionist. Read the article on revisionism before you shout. It is a wide term describing changing established historic view. As to your sources-you can source everything, this is not how Wiki works. We use reliable souces and majority view. Obviously your view is not the mainstream one, even if suported by minority sources.--Molobo (talk) 13:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Stop insulting me. Skäpperöd (talk) 13:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please point to any insults and I will gladly delete them. Best regards.--Molobo (talk) 13:56, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Saying that somebody's opinion is revistionist should be backed up by clear explanation and references. That said, historical revisionism is not an offensive term/insult (like a Holocaust denial or antisemitism would be, for example).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I adressed the incivility at WQA and notified you at your talk page. I again ask you to withdraw your statements. My "fringe view" is supported by a lot of sources as you know, I think this additional one summarizes the problem quite well: "'The German settlement in Pomerania did, as the other migrations, not follow a certain ideology. In contrast, the settlement was characterized only by practical means. [...] Only national historiography, elapsed in the mid-19th century, in retrospect added a constructed Slavic-German clash to the Ostsiedlung process of the High Middle Ages. But that was 19th century ideology, not the ideology of the Middle Ages. [...] Called in were 'cuiuscunque gentis et cuiuscunque artis homines' (people of any ethnicity and profession).' (Werner Buchholz, Pommern, Siedler, 1999, p.17, ISBN 3886802728)" Skäpperöd (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Self-conscious nationalism, in the modern sense, is a phenomenon that started in the nineteenth century; this is the case across the board, in the entire region, for all nationalities. This does not mean that the underlying demographic reality to which pan-German nationalism later referred (and on which non-German discourses expounded) was not there. There was a clear colonising movement eastwards - sometimes as a result of peaceful events, sometimes not. We have to start the article discussing precisely what it is about. We can then discuss the origin of the term, how it was used in German nationalism, how it was used outside Germany, and what influence this sort of ideas had on German national policy (from Bismarck to Hitler, inclusive).

We can draw our facts from many sources, but we have no duty to follow the slant of, yes, revisionist German-language sources. "Revisionism" in history simply means going back and attempting to reverse previous trends in the study of history; it is not an insult. It is only to be expected that some sources would attempt to disaggregate certain trends, but we can do our disaggregation ourselves. Feketekave (talk) 00:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, lets first point out the things we have consensus about. Your sentence: "We can then discuss the origin of the term, how it was used in German nationalism, how it was used outside Germany, and what influence this sort of ideas had on German national policy (from Bismarck to Hitler, inclusive)." This is exactly the scope of the article and is covered already. I absolutely agree on that one. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Now the disagreements:
 * Disagreement (1): You stated: "There was a clear colonising movement eastwards - sometimes as a result of peaceful events, sometimes not." The point we obviously disagree with is how "colonizing" is interpreted. Colonization in the sense of settling/developing/making new farmland available - yes. Colonization in the terms of national interests - no. But the latter is exactly what the slogan "Drang nach Osten" is about - grouping the medieval colonization with imperial colonization of the Modern Age nation states. The actual colonization is covered in many articles here and should not be the scope of this one, it is sufficient if History of German settlement in Eastern Europe and Ostsiedlung are linked. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Disagreement (2): You stated: "We can draw our facts from many sources, but we have no duty to follow the slant of, yes, revisionist German-language sources." Now point out which sources are revisionist and why. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * @Feketekave
 * The settlement of Germans in Eastern Europe is described at History of German settlement in Eastern Europe. The term "Drang nach Osten" was used to describe these events as a somehow "natural", eternal desire of Germans to go to (rather conquer) the East. The term was first used in the 19th century and that's the point an article should start. To use it synonymical with the "History of German settlement" starting in the 12th century is exactly, what 19th century historians did. The current version quotes the modern view of the term, distanced from the 19th century POV. I can't see how this is "revisionist".HerkusMonte (talk) 09:28, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. The term "Drang Nach Osten" was in usage throughout the twentieth century, in part thanks to its use in German nationalist discourse. "Revisionist" means precisely "going against a previous consensus". The term was used both in Germany and in Poland. The article should start by recounting the historical events it refers to, and leave criticism of the term to the end. Feketekave (talk) 09:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed controversial source
I removed claims from Junge Freihait. This certainly isn't a objective source:


 * ...the right-wing extremist weekly Junge Freiheit - the repository of contemporary völkisch thought...
 * the neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit
 * Nolte's most consistent advocates are periodicals such as the newspaper Junge Freiheit which describes itself as a newspaper in Germany for “patriotic right-wingers.” 
 * ...the extreme-right weekly paper Junge Freiheit...The Junge Freiheit paper is regarded as the leading mouthpiece of the so-called “new right” in Germany and has, as a result, been put under surveillance by the intelligence services of another German state, Baden-Württemberg....
 * ...Junge Freiheit (for which I write regularly) ...Junge Freiheit has annoyed both the political Left and the bogus Right-Center, both of which endorse the curbing of “fascistic” publications. In Germany and in other European countries, “fascist” means that which the Left does not want said. Enlightened Germans hurriedly bring up the Nazi past whenever conversation turns to a politically-unfashionable topic...Junge Freiheit says that “extremist” actually means “rechtsaussen [anything thought to be right of right-center].”...To its credit, Junge Freiheit has responded to this anti-fascist bullying by seizing the banners of freedom and German national dignity both at the same time...Junge Freiheit is defending itself by retaining a distinguished jurist and longtime public servant, Alexander von Stahl, ..  Paul Gottfried
 * In the last couple of weeks I was in touch with several German friends about these issues. First they all said that Junge Frieheit is almost universally seen as an extremist neo-Nazi group that plays very carefully with the words it uses so as to get it’s message out without having to be too explicit....My main point is that everyone who knows about such topics in Germany knows that Junge Freiheit is a very antifreedom newspaper and that they play a game with the public, to broadcast the racist and extremist ideas of the German past but without being too closely tied to them. Tom G. Palmer

Too controversial source to use. --Molobo (talk) 21:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing concerns
A contributor pointed out at my talk page that this article is using material from Transgression as a Rule by Ulrich Best in a problematic way, in accordance with our copyright policy and our policy regarding non-free content. The most serious remnant seems to be:


 * In Poland, the term ties in with national discourse that put the Polish nation in the role of a suffering nation, particularly at the hands of the German enemy in the article while on the German side the slogan was part of a wider national discourse celebrating achievements like the medieval settlement in the east and the inherent idea of the superiority of German culture.'' (from the article; cited, but without quotation marks)
 * In Poland, the slogan ties in with nationalist discourse that put the Polish nation in the role of the suffering nation, in particular at the hands of the German enemy...On the German side, the slogan was employed in the first instance as part of wider national discourse celebrating "achievements" like the medieval settlement in the east, and the inherent idea of the superiority of German culture. (from the source, p. 58)

This is minimally altered in the beginning particularly, with the ending just sewn on. This content needs to be rewritten or converted into a quote. There are other snippets of text remaining that have been copied with no or minimal change from the source, and while these are all cited, they are not attributed inline or quoted: "a continous historical trend since 1000 AD"; "also tied in with Pan-Slavist ideas". There may be more.

I'm tagging the article in the hopes that regular contributors, who are familiar with the subject, might be able to best rewrite problematic content and also to ask you to consider whether other sources may be likewise followed closely or copied in part without quotations. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have removed the tag and the contested content attributed to Best. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Laughably biased, crappy article
Others have stated this before of course, but i'm going to restate it again:

Not only is this article horribly biased in nature from a "Slavic" point of view, it's also poorly sourced and written. Imho it does NOT fullfill wikipedia standards by any means. It's downright laughable in its current state and does neither historically nor factually represent any actual historical circumstances.

Wikipedia should not serve as a stage to falsify history and vilify certain ethnic groups based on false presentations of historical themes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.254.30.172 (talk) 08:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Fully agree. This is the usual Polish anti-German rant and falsification of history. Sadly there are literally volumes of these on Wikipedia. Caption for the picture is questionable (no source offered) and also quietly avoids the in excess of 100,000 enthic Germans who were driven from their homes by the Poles between 1919 and 1939 from provinces given to Poland by the Allies.86.170.115.79 (talk) 14:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

How does one get such horrible racist propaganda like this on wikipedia? Is there a payment by credit card? Or wire transfer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:804:8401:E4A0:C45C:2BBD:15C9:68C3 (talk) 03:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Section "Drang nach Osten in Polish and Panslavic discourse" a misnomer
Most of this section is occupied by a rather lengthy citation from a German "scholar", Henry Cord Meyer, and his personal (obviously biased, blatantly anti-Polish) opinion. Where's the alleged "Polish and Panslavic" discourse in this?--94.254.251.95 (talk) 18:30, 2 March 2017 (UTC)