[Jim O]

Klaus,

I hear your frustration and cannot help but empathize. It is one thing to know the past of one's country, and to learn from it. To me that's the point of history, and the point of this site. You are no more to blame for the war than I am for the extermination of the American Indians or for the importation of African slaves to the US. When I hear such talk, I ask "What is your excuse today?". I have no desire feel guilt or to pay reparations with my tax dollars for events that occurred before my birth and in those cases, before my family even came to America.

I hope that of one thing is learned from the tragedy that was World War II it is that it not be repeated. It ended more than 60 years ago. Let's study it as intellectuals and as amateur (and professional) historians. But let it be over.

The losers paid a heavy price, particularly Germany and the German people. Others suffered too. But it was a long time ago and most of the real perpetrators are dead, as are most of the direct victims (not all, but most).

Back to this issue, ethnic Germans were not the only ones who were forcibly resettled after the war. The Soviets moved many people around (and were mainly to "blame" as they insisted on moving Poland's frontiers), with the other allies fully complicit. Of course who could blame Poland for not wanting an ethnic German minority in 1945 or even in 1955? But this is 2006.