Wikipedia: Silent Ethnic Cleansing/Talk

This page seems to completely lack a neutral point of view. I know not enough of the period to correct it. Someone?

: Tsja

One minute later: article is already erased by someone else. Tsja

Who uses this term "silent ethnic cleansing"? What is the source for this information? --LMS

A quick search on Google turns up the term almost exclusively on pages devoted to the usual suspects -- Serbian nationalists, Nazi apologists, and extremists on both sides in Northern Ireland. I am getting a very itchy trigger finger again, though I'll restrain myself for a while to see if someone can demonstrate why this shouldn't go entirely. -- Paul Drye

I guess the editing of The Cunctator already helpel a lot. -- Tsja

It's not just the content of the page, though, Tsja. The title itself appears to be one of those wonderful code phrases so beloved by political extremists. Punch "Silent Ethnic Cleansing" into Google and examine the lovely list of wingnuts that appears. I'm hoping this is persuasive enough that I won't have to be the one to blow it away again....-- Paul Drye

The previous notes show ignorance of the millions of people killed due to the Potsdam agreement and the allies at that time going along with communist brutality . For the written instructions to keep on with the ethnic cleansing, as uncle Stalin understood it ,or rather to stop them , as the allies lamely put on paper , read the complete wording of the Potsdam Agreement : Potsdam Conference

i dont think 'looking on google to see if wackos talk about it' is a good way to determine whether something makes a good encyclopedia artcile.

hopefully if the original author cares enough, they will put more into the entry.

--- Oh my...I go away for a few hours...It's amazing what you can find on google, if you look for the right things. How about sending this to Alternate History? JHK --- actually, I was thinking about looking under certain authors...JHK

The origin of the term as explained in the original version of the article is clearly untrue. A bit of digging has turned up earlier uses of the term, all concerned with supposed ethnic cleansing of Serbs by Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

I remain extremely dubious about the usefulness of this article, but I have explained the term as neutrally as I can based on what I've seen. -- Paul Drye

Helga Jonat Hecht:

I cannot speak for other Wikipedia members, only for myself. However, my conscience will no longer allow me to refrain from saying this in order to be polite. I think that your personal situation (and that of others like you) is tragic. It is, in fact, one of the tragic results of one the most horrific periods in human history. The plight of the Heimatvertriebene should be something that people are aware of; to an extent, I think that many people do know about the general circumstances, since it has been common knowledge for years that Stalin's government was responsible for the deaths of approximately 25 million people.

You seem to be a very well-meaning person, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. What road, you ask? I suggest that your writings, here and elsewhere on the WEB (for example the site on Allied War Crimes in Norway) come very close to denying the evils of the National Socialist regime, if not actually presenting an apologia for it.

Most of the major wars to have taken place in the modern world, especially in Europe, have resulted in huge movements of refugees. By focusing only on the Germans expelled from their homes (homes that, for many, were granted to them as colonists after Hitler forced out Poles and Jews and put them in camps), you cheapen the experiences of every other group that suffered during and after the war. You may have forgotten that Hitler's government murdered 9 million people (6 million of them Jews). The rest of the civilized world hasn't. When I lived in Germany, I knew no one who denied this tragedy, nor who failed to accept that much of Germany's current situation was the DIRECT RESULT of the actions of the Third Reich. They also are some of the first people to speak out against crimes against humanity and in encouraging others to know what their governments are doing, because they understand the burden of national guilt.

You have included the Potsdam agreement on this page. I suggest that you look at any other treaty and tell me how this is so different. I am certain you will find that those differences are a response to the enormity of evil perpetrated by the Nazi's and a true attempt to keep that kind of thing from happening again. You might also be honest enough to mention that the Marshall plan helped restore to West Germany a standard of living and place of leadership in the west that could hardly be expected from reading the potsdam treaty.

Finally, let me be really blunt: Whether or not you like it, or even believe it, Germany was the bad guy here. Hitler did not force the German people to support him, they did it quite voluntarily (and, to be fair, I do believe that many Germans had no idea that they had sold their souls to the devil -- or at least of the extent of their government's perfidy) and did virtually nothing to stop him. Germany lost the war, thus losing its right to immediate self-determination. As more and more evidence became public, the rest of the world cried out for justice and retribution. Potsdam tried to answer these demands. It's tragic that many innocent Germans were also punished by these actions, but Germany gambled and lost. That's the price you pay.

In closing, I ask again -- why don't you write sensible, balanced articles in their appropriate places, and stop turning every topic you can think of into a vehicle for your own biased hobbyhorse? (mixing of metaphors intended).