Why did the Germans hate the Polish in World War 2?

Answer 1

Answer 1

Germans didn't 'hate' Poles. They had an international territorial dispute over Danzig which was resolved by war. Generalisations about 65 million German people based on the opinions, actions and Propaganda of a few score thousand political activists and powerbrokers are not valid. We should not tar the majority of people with the brush of a minority.

Answer 2

German (Nazi) hatred for Poles was not distinct from their hatred of Slavs in general. The Slavs were considered a "non-Aryan" people. Unlike Jews and Romani, they were not subhuman, but they were "less human" than Germans. Additionally, many Poles were either nationalistic and/or helped the Jews avoid the ghettos and concentration camp. In both ways, they opposed the Nazi agenda in Poland are were thus hated.

Answer 2

The term Polish Jew is a misnomer and a source of much of the confusion. There were Jews who lived in Poland, but they were not considered (either by themselves or by Catholic Poles) to be true Poles. They were "just living there" as if by accident. The Jews of Poland were hated for a number of anti-Semitic reasons:

1) Poverty: In contrast to most Jews in history, the Jews of Poland were incredibly destitute. They had few changes of clothes, had decrepit towns, few proper streets and thoroughfares, and were generally seen in much the same light as the homeless are seen by many city-folk today. The thought percolated "why do these poor people have to bother me with their poverty and smelliness?"

Note: This is the Law of Averages. There were certainly wealthy Jews in Poland (especially in Warsaw), but these were a small percentage and were not the intended target of Anti-Semitic ridicule.

2) Strangeness: Jews in Poland did not live their lives alongside or in parallel to Catholic Poles. They observed, what seemed to Catholics, to be odd practices such as weird food taboos, an incomprehensible language (Jews in Poland primarily spoke Yiddish, not Polish), odd dress patterns, beliefs in quasi-magical Rebbes, and would not associate with them. Rather than try to understand the root and purpose of these difference, Poles seemed much more content to point and jeer.

3) Church Propaganda: The Anti-Semitic Blood Libels and other Anti-Semitic Propaganda promulgated lies, such as the fictitious and incendiary claim that Jews would sacrifice Christian children to derive the blood necessary to make matzah (all things in gross violation of true Jewish doctrines). Jews were also accused of devil-worship and of being Christ-killers. As a religious people, the Catholic Poles were angered by this propaganda and followed it to its logical conclusion: hatred of the Jews.

4) Growth: The Jewish population in Poland was one of the largest and fastest-growing Jewish communities in the world. In 1939, the Polish and Russian Jewish communities together outweighed the sum of all other Jewish communities worldwide. Whenever a misunderstood minority seems to be growing out of control, people become galvanized to oppose their ascent. (Take the example of the Hispanics in the United States.)

Answer 3

In the period from about 1945 onwards, many Poles saw the Jews are Communists trying to gain control of Poland.