Page 1 of 1

GS: Why is Poznan called Posen?

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 6:57 pm
by borsook79
Why in English version is Poznan called by its German name? Considering it being a Polish city, it should not be so. I'm not the one to be "patriotically offended" by this is just not right, it sounds strange...

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 7:57 pm
by Peter Stauffenberg
The reason is that Poznan and Danzig became part of greater Germany after the occupation. Those areas were part of the Imperial Germany until 1918. So Danzig and Poznan are different because they can actually be used to place German units and they give full production for the Germans.

If you study the German recruitment centers you will see that Poznan (Posen in German) and Danzig both were important centers.

Posen was the capital of reichsgau Wartheland in greater Germany:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsgau_Wartheland

Here is info about Poznan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84

Look here for map of the German gaue:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... be/GDR.png

Danzig was the capital of reichsgau Danzig - Westpreussen

More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsgau_ ... st_Prussia

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 8:15 pm
by borsook79
Stauffenberg wrote:The reason is that Poznan and Danzig became part of greater Germany after the occupation. Those areas were part of the Imperial Germany until 1918. So Danzig and Poznan are different because they can actually be used to place German units and they give full production for the Germans.

If you study the German recruitment centers you will see that Poznan (Posen in German) and Danzig both were important centers.

Posen was the capital of reichsgau Wartheland in greater Germany:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsgau_Wartheland

Here is info about Poznan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84

Look here for map of the German gaue:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... be/GDR.png

Danzig was the capital of reichsgau Danzig - Westpreussen

More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsgau_ ... st_Prussia
Still, Gdańsk was a special case, being a theoretically independent and bilingual state the name Danzig was used. In the interwar period Poznań was a fully Polish city. Whatever happened after 1939... it just seems strange seeing this name in situation before the fall of Poland is strange.

BTW an argument about what was before 1918 is a slippery one, using this logic we should have only German and Russian names used for Polish cities...

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 8:24 pm
by Peter Stauffenberg
German troops were recruited from their military districts (Wehrkreise). Look here for details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_d ... _(Germany)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wehrkreise.jpg

Here you see that Danzig and Posen were added as Wehrkreise after the fall of Poland. Vienna (Wehrkreis XVII) and Salzburg (Wehrkreis XVIII) in Austria were already part of the German military districts before the start of the war.

Prague were also added as a Wehrkreis (called Böhmen und Mähren). Even the rest of Poland were added as a Wehrkreis (General Gouvernement).

So I think we have good reasons for calling Poznan for Posen. for all turns except the first 2 the city will serve as a German recruitment city where you can add reinforcements. The same applies to Danzig. Since the Germans called Poznan for Posen it doesn't feel right to use the Polish name on the city since it behaves like a German home city. With the name Posen you get a hint that this city is actually NOT Polish, but German in the game.

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 8:27 pm
by Peter Stauffenberg
Borsook wrote:BTW an argument about what was before 1918 is a slippery one, using this logic we should have only German and Russian names used for Polish cities...
I think you miss the point here. Posen and Danzig were annexed into greater Germany and military districts were formed there to be used as recruitment centers. Polish people in the areas were driven away and Germans moved in. So many German soldiers were actually recruited from the cities. So for the game purposes Posen is a GERMAN city and not a Polish city.

Here is some info about what the Germans did with Wartheland:
After the invasion of Poland, the conquered territory was partitioned among four different Reichsgaue and the General Government area further east. Militärbezirk Posen was created in September 1939 and as Reichsgau Posen annexed by Germany on 8 October 1939, with SS Obergruppenfuhrer Arthur Greiser as the only Gauleiter. The name Reichsgau Wartheland was introduced on 29 January 1940.

The Wehrmacht established Wehrkreis XXI based at Poznań. This Wehrkreis was under the command of General der Artillerie Walter Petsel, and its primary operational unit was the XXXXVIII Panzer Korps. Poznań was responsible for the Militärische Unterregion-Hauptsitze at Poznań, Leszno, Inowrocław, Włocławek, Kalisz, and Łódź. It maintained training areas at Sieradz and Biedrusko.

In the Wartheland, the Nazis' goal was complete "Germanization", or political, cultural, social, and economic assimilation of the territory into the German Reich. In pursuit of this goal, the installed bureaucracy renamed streets and cities and seized tens of thousands of Polish enterprises, from large industrial firms to small shops, without payment to the owners.

The Germanization of the annexed lands also included an ambitious program to resettle Germans from the Baltic and other regions on farms and other homes formerly occupied by Poles and Jews. By the end of 1940, the SS had expelled 325,000 Poles and Jews from the Wartheland and the Polish Corridor and transported them to the General Government, confiscating their belongings. Many elderly people and children died en route or in makeshift transit camps such as those in the towns of Potulice, Smukal, and Toruń. In 1941, the Nazis expelled a further 45,000 people, and from autumn of that year they "began killing Jews by shooting and in gas vans, at first spasmodically and experimentally."[1] Greiser wrote in November 1942: "I myself do not believe that the Führer needs to be asked again in this matter, especially since at our last discussion with regard to the Jews he told me that I could proceed with these according to my own judgement."[2] By 1945 nearly half a million Volksdeutsche Germans had been resettled in the Gau.

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 8:40 pm
by Peter Stauffenberg
What's important is that the Germans used the areas (Posen and Danzig) to recruit many German military units. That was not common with other areas they occupied. I know that some countries contributed soldiers to the SS, but that's different. The occupied countries still had their cultures and languages. In Danzig and Wartheland the Poles were driven out and replaced by Germans. So there was no difference between e. g. Danzig and Königsberg about the capacity for recruiting German soldiers to the Wehrmacht.

One can say that the other areas annexed into Germany, Elsass and Lothringen (Alsace and Lorraine) could have been changed to German control too (Strasbourg), but I consider this different because Elsass was added to Wehrkreis V with Stuttgart as the capital and Lothringen to Wehrkreis XII with Wiesbaden (close to Frankfurt) as the capital. Danzig became the capital of Wehrkreis XX and Posen the capital of Wehrkreis XXI. That shows something about the importance these cities had for the German recruitment of new soldiers.