Wikipedia: Elblag/Talk

In 1945 Elbing was taken over by Poland, the native inhabitants were expelled and replaced by Poles. The city was renamed Elblag. After the fall of the Iron Curtain there is a small minority of original Elbinger inhabitants in Elbing/Elblag?? today, who are now allowed to speak their native language and use their none-Polish names once again.

What a mess. I have made the following stab at clarifying and NPOVing this paragraph:

1. The "Elbing/Elblag?" construction has been resolved to just "Elblag". The sentence containing it refers to post-1945, when the city was no longer named Elbing -- referring to it as so is disingenuous.

2. There's a logical contradiction in the final clause. If the "original Elbinger"s (more on that in a second) were expelled from Poland, the Polish government were obviously not in a position to keep them from speaking German. One or the other could have happened -- I assumed it was the expulsion.

3. "Original Elbinger" is also disingenuous. The city was founded in the 13th century, hence I would imagine all the "original" inhabitants died sometime before 1300 AD. Replaced with "the city's German-speaking inhabitants."

-- Paul Drye

: yep, all those are reasonable decisions. --MichaelTinkler

: I am somewhat uncomfortable (ok, very uncomfortable) with the whole "original" thing. It would be good to know:

Was the expulsion forcible? or did the 4 powers say to the German-speakers that they would henceforth be living in poland, so they could leave if they didn't like it?

How many of these German speakers had been sent in as colonists by the Nazi regime?

: we are by no means hearing the complete story here

For church records filmed by the LDS Latter Day Saints , Utah for Elbing, Westprussia, Prussia, Germany http://www.familysearch.com

Topic Germany, Preußen, Westpreußen, Elbing - Church records

Titles Kirchenbuch, 1625-1946 / Evangelische Kirche Sankt Annen Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1622-1827 / Evangelische Kirche Heiliger Leichnam Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1626-1831 / Evangelische Kirche Sankt Paulus Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1577-1816 / Evangelische Kirche Heilige Drei Könige Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1604-1877 / Evangelische Kirche. Sankt Marien Hauptkirche Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1642-1881 / Katholische Kirche Sankt Nikolai Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1744-1942 / Mennoniten Gemeinde Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1746-1809 / Preußen. Armee. Infanterie Regiment 04 Kirchenbuch, 1746-1868 / Preußen. Armee. Infanterie Regiment 14 Kirchenbuch, 1746-1920 / Evangelische Kirche. Militärgemeinde Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1871-1945 / Katholisch-Apostolische Gemeinde Elbing Kirchenbuch, 1840-1925 / Baptisten Gemeinde Elbing Record of members, 1900-1923 / Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Königsberg Branch (Ostpreußen) Record of members, 1901-1913 / Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Stolp Branch (Pommern) Record of members, 1901-1930 / Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elbing Branch (Westpreußen)

 Just to look at  , keep the url, you can check on any city

Original Elbinger are some citizens of Elbing, remaining in Eilbing after it was changed to Elblag by Poland . After the Iron Curtain fell, the Germans in Poland have minority right now, They have been able to restore their German names, The Elbinger German minority have a Elbing newspaper .

Besides, Poland had to sign a treaty, allowing German language to the Autochtones again. Maps in Europe are in both languages Danzig/Gdanzk? Elbing /Elblag? etc. H.Jonat

Can I point out that there is no evidence for such a place as Old Prussi Land, in the sense of anythig besides "here lie dragons" on any map? It's just part of some nationalist ideal to give Prussia some proto-national roots, and fits in with Prussian saga literature, which seems to be at least derived, if not downright stolen, from information we have about the Saxons and Friesians before their conversion. If you look at "Old Prussian" the language, it's a Baltic, i.e., SLAVIC language. So even if all of this Old Prussi stuff fits in, it certainly doesn't mesh with a Germanic heritage...J Hofmann Kemp

According to most popular theories, Baltic languages are not Slavic language. But of course it has nothing to do with Germanic languages. --Taw

Ok -- Let me be more specific. Baltic languages and Slavic languages both belong to the Satem stem of Indo-European languages, while the Germanic languages belong to the centum group. As such, Baltic languages aremuch more closely related to Slavic languages (and there is some linguistic argument that they are indeed offshoots, but TAW is correct, accepted theory sees them as two separate sub-groups). My point is that it's totally ridiculous to keep trying to tie the Old Prussians to Germanic roots -- which blows a lot of Helga's arguments in her "really belongs to Germany, not to Poland/Communist? East" entries. JHK