Why the negative attitude towards Slavs/Poles?

[Siegfried]

Are you sure? Are you sure? It does not look on the polish work ...

As far as I know, a lot of these countries have a lot of Polish immigrants.

It was even the Polish ambassador who stated this, not some random German.

[Contra Mundum]

Never met someone from Poland, but knew a few Americans of Polish descent and liked them all.

[Aces High]

I'd never spoken a word to the guy before or since.

Your honour....members of the jury.......may i put it this way to you.

Liar...liar....your bums on fire.

[Sultan Suleiman]

It's just jealousy of lesser races

[exceeder]

Can't speak for other european states, but I know poles are relatively well seen here. I think one of the bigger 'stereotypes' of polish people is that they are rather eccentric but very smart (Marie Curie, Coppernicus, Chopin, etc.). They are also perceived as being very attractive (women especially).

I know there have been some poles who have played very significant roles in american history, and most americans of polish background have been very well integrated so as far as I know, they are seen as anyone else.

Where Poland may have had a bad rep with most of its neighbours, I know France has generally had good relations with Poland (both historically and contemporarily) and as far as I know, Poles are well liked in France.

As someone who is half polish, I have never encountered any real negativity towards Poles, except maybe once when I was talking with a friend of mine who is an english policeman, who was saying many spousal abuse cases in England (where a drunk husband beats his wife) were done by Poles. Outside of that case, I can't say I have ever heard negative things about Poles anywhere else.

[Horseman]

As far as I know, a lot of these countries have a lot of Polish immigrants.

It was even the Polish ambassador who stated this, not some random German.

As far as I know a lot of Poles in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands. Of these countries only the United Kingdom is in the forefront - highlighted on the map

[Beethoven]

Germans/Nazis - killed 30 millions of slavs during WW2 but lost 6 millions of their own ppl.

Nazis during WW2 was calling slavs "sub-humans that are worse then animals and only jews are worse then them"

I seen many germans they hate slavs - especially they hate polish and eastern slavs. But i dont think other western ppl hate slavs - i dont think that celtic countrys like Belgium,France,Ireland,UK,Canada have many ppl that hate slavs.

I also seen russians that hate their slavic brothers poles and ukrainians more then any one else.

I also heard that finnish and estonian people hate russians but im not sure.

[Siegfried]

As far as I know a lot of Poles in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands. Of these countries only the United Kingdom is in the forefront - highlighted on the map

Norway and Sweden are starting to have an increasing number of Poles as well.

[derLowe]

Never met someone from Poland, but knew a few Americans of Polish descent and liked them all.

Most of the Polish people I know in South Africa are nice, well educated and very rich, however some of my friends in the UK have commented that the British immigrant Poles they met are very coarse and crude.

Other Slavs that I met had very crude behavior.

[GeistFaust]

I think a lot of it might have a combination to do with more recent events in the modern era, and the history between these people going back to the Middle of the Middle Ages. Its a very complex ordeal, and I don't think all Westerners are negative towards Poles and Slavs. I have seen and met some very nice Polish people, but they just seemed foreign and different to me, and there was nothing wrong with it. I just did not agree with their degree of a foreign feeling and difference, and I found them to be a bit simplistic and naive.


This might be a misperception of my own, and I definitely do not hate any other European peoples. I try not to generalize or make broad assumptions about specific groups of people, but certainly I think some are partially true or some semblance of truth attached to them. My dad's family came from an area of many Southern and Eastern Europeans, but there were also many British Islander and German descended people.


The German descended people especially saw the Southerners and Eastern Europeans as being rather lowly, drunken, slovenly, unkempt, and loud. There are many Polish festivities in the area, and many of the German descended people would criticize the lowliness of the whole affair, but oddly enough they attend their festivities for the sake of it.


I have even heard instances of the German descended people in my dad's area criticizing and poking fun at Southern and Eastern European peoples for being inferior, and not having good German blood like them. I have never read or seen much anti-Polish/Slavic rhetoric amongst British people until more recently with all the most recent immigrants, although there were certainly some negative comments that I have seen historically from this side of the aisle.


Slavs and Polish people in general have always seen as barbarian peasants, who did not have a proper understanding of true and authentic culture. There has been anti-Slavic/anti-Polish feelings going back to the time of the Teutonic knights, and it would escalate later on in the Middle Ages. A lot of it was political and territorial in nature, but there were also descriptions that the Polish were lazy and uncultured peasant barbarians, who were ignorant and simplistic.


When Prussia would come to dominate, although their were even some mixing among the aristocracy with Polish nobility, their generally was some negative sentiment towards Slavs, but it was not as marked or distinct as it would become later. The Poles were basically the serfs for the German Burghers, and they of course saw themselves as more disciplined, cultured, and politically structured than the Polish.


German and Austrian historians would blame the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian government on the Slavic/Polish peoples, because they were too disorganized and unstructured in a cultural sense. Now anti-Slavic/Polish behavior would really ramp up during the time of the Romantics, and Ernst Mortiz Arndt would claim that the Polish/Wends have not offered a single notable accomplishments or achievement to culture or the intellect.


There was also plenty of other negative rhetoric from German nationalists and intellectuals during this time period, and clearly German had transcended Polish/Slavic cultures to the nth degree when it came to quality of intellectual and cultural datum distilled.


There are many different causes and reasons behind anti-Slavic/anti-Polish behavior due to historical reasons going back to the Middle Medieval period and in more recent times. Anti-Slavic behavior in the U.S. tends to be refined to a few German communities, and people of German descent, such as in the Midwest and parts of Pennsylvania Dutch country.