Talk:Poles in Germany

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Tino Cannst in topic Numbers of Poles

People should not be included on this list just by virtue of their last name. Some other aditional connection to Poland should exist, otherwise you will end up declaring that Pierre Littbarski is Polish and Leszek Miller and Václav Klaus are German - which whould be rather silly. Travelbird 23:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

"Polish-Germans refers to German citizens of Polish descent." edit

No one calls a German Polish-German just because he happens to have a Polish ancestor. To be considered Polish-German you either have to have immigrated from Poland to Germany or otherwise have strong connections to Poland. Last but not least we should look whether someone sees himself as "Polish German" or not.--217.85.127.78 00:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

German Poles edit

How about German Poles ? --Lysytalk 17:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Polish minority in Germany and German minority in Poland are much less confusing terms, I think.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

not realy,
1 Poles are not a recognized minority in Germany
2 German authorities only differentiate between Germans (people with German passport) and foreigners (people without German passport)
so it doesn't fit - at least from German POV —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.229.33 (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

I am for a move to a new lemma, too. There simply is no minority of Poles in Germany, just like there is no minority of Turks in Germany. Maybe a vote should be started? I would prefer the term Polish presence in Germany. Kalifat (talk) 08:07, 18 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Info edit

1.5 million people in Germany has the polish citizenship and the german citizenship, too.[1]

Famous Polish-Germans edit

   * Daria Bijak, Gymnast.
   * Miroslav Klose, football player.
   * Dariusz Michalczewski, former boxer
   * Lukas Podolski, football player.
   * Ernst Pohl, former football player
   * Marcel Reich-Ranicki, former literary critic
   * Dariusz Wosz, football player.

So, next to Marcel Reich-Ranicki, only football players, boxers and the like? The article looks strange in general. Most of present-day "Polish Germans" were part of the Aussiedler, so they were formerly part ... of the German minority in Poland. Yes, it's a difficult topic! --DaQuirin 21:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Reply


The title Poles in Germany only pertains to actual Polish people with Polish passport, who live and work in Germany. However the article lumps in a number of different groups all under one incorrect title of Poles in Germany. I started rewriting a bit to point this out.

Removed Fritz Szepan from the list. Why was he on the list?

By the way the list shows nearly all Germans/German descendents from Silesia, 1 from Danzig, only under Poland since 1945.

An Observer (70.133.74.161 (talk) 23:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC))Reply


Agreed. The article as it currently stands seems biased, it may even contradict itself:
With the westward drift of Poland's borders after the Second World War, all territories with an autochthone Polish population now belonged to Poland. The German government today doesn't acknowledge any Polish minority in Germany.
Does the author of th aarticle not recognize, or care, that these two claims are contradictory? With the annexation of formerly German territories, there was no more national minority left in the previously used sense of the term. Poles who remained in Germany after WW2, or have entered it since, are not kept there against their own will.
Who is the German government supposed to recognize as Polish minority: simply all people with Polish family names? Cross border commuters? Temporary workers during their stay?
"... up to three million people living that might be of Polish descent, although many of them have lost their ancestors identity.
To constitute a minority in the usual sense of the term, should these citizens not at least identify themselves as Polish? The author does not grant them this choice, to him they have merely "lost their identity." And as "an Observer" mentions, no allowance is made for those who were expelled from post-WW2 Poland, or later resettled to Germany as Aussiedler. Obviously, Poland did not consider them Poles, and neither did they themselves. Textor (talk) 14:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Polish minority edit

The pre-WW2 Polish minority in Germany was divided in five regions:

  • Region I: Silesia
  • Region II – Berlin, Hamburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania
  • Region III – Rhineland and Westphalia (Poles made about 20% of Ruhr population)
  • Region IV – East Prussia
  • Region V – borderland and Kashubia

Regions I, V and part of IV belong to Poland now. What about the minority rights of the Poles who remained in Regions II and III ? --Lysytalk 19:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Numbers of Poles edit

In 2011, 468.481 people with Polish citizenship were living in Germany ([2]). I wonder where the number of 2 million comes from.

Some numbers appear to be not substantiated. On the web page of the Polish embassy in Germany (in German) you can read that the number of Poles in Weimar Republic was about 2 millions. However, when you look at the election results (and during Weimar times these were undoubtedly free and democratic elections) Polish political parties hardly got 100.000 votes in any election. One gets the impression that many people counted as "Poles" here did or do not feel as such. Not every person with a Polish family name is a Pole. Just imagine how many "Germans" would live in todays Czech Republic if you counted every person with a German family name. --Furfur (talk) 11:02, 14 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Should I laugh about the last edits? The used source of the German Census only says, that 2 million people have migrated from Poland to Germany (this includes also the Aussiedler). It even don't mention any ethnic backgrounds. But thanks for making all of these people into "Poles". Maybe you should change next the population of Poland into 100% Poles, like in good old communist times. Or should I cry, because actually nobody reverted that manipulating edits? --Jonny84 (talk) 00:01, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Issue is still not solved, so POV issue. The census data had migration data -- birthplace Poland does NOT indicate Polish ethnicity. --Tino Cannst (talk) 13:22, 8 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

some confusions about the number of poles edit

So,in the common research,figure out there are 2 million residents were from poland,most of them are immigrants or have migrate background(came to germany after 1955),but there also said about 2-3 million may be of polish ancestry(from english wiki),so is that means the total population of poles in germany is around 4-5 million? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nero011 (talkcontribs) 11:48, 27 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

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