Covering World War II: Twenty-first Century Style II

(AP) Polish fighter-bombers today pounded refugee camps in the German town of Guben, after militants fired rockets across the border into the Polish town of Gubin, killing one Polish woman and wounding three children. The Polish government called the air strikes, conducted by American-built F-16s, acts of “self-defense” following years of rocket fire from within the Guben refugee camps across the border by militants of the Deutchen der Widerstand die Bewegung, more commonly known as Heimat. A spokesperson for Heimat claimed that the Polish strikes killed nine women and children. A SPRP (Polish Air Force) acknowledged that the strikes may have hit civilians, but were targeted at known Heimat weapon storage sites and had killed at least five Heimat militants.

“These were acts of barbarity and genocide,” Hans Hitlerson announced. “The Poles are occupying our territory,” Dieter Himmlerson declared. “We have the right to resist!”

“It’s a holocaust for the people in the Guben refugee camps,” one UNRWA spokesperson lamented. Since 1945 the UNRWA has run the Guben refugee camp, and scores of other camps along the border filled with refugees who fled the advancing Russian army. “The UN has looked after these poor refugees, and their descendants, for more than a half-century,” John Scott, head of the UNRWA organization in eastern Germany, informed this reporter.

Professor William Muller, who teaches German history at San Francisco State University, organized a march through the streets of that city in support of the Germans in the Guben camps and Heimat. “Guben was once a beautiful German town,” he informed the crowd gathered in support. “All Germans demand the right to return—to Guben, Danzig, Konigsberg, and thousands of other towns and cities lost to the Polish Entity during the Katastrophe. we are witnessing genocide and a new holocaust!" As Muller spoke, several protesters yelled “Death to Pollocks!”

Muller, who last year was tired but not convicted of funneling money to Heimat, an internationally recognized terrorist group, continued his speech:

After the war the Communists conducted a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign. Twelve million Germans were made refugees by the advance of the Red Army. Two million Germans died during this Katastrophe. Our women were gang raped. Our elders and little children were slaughtered like animals. The ten million survivors to this day live in desperate conditions in refugee camps. The Russians, British, and Americans redrew the borders. Land that had been German for centuries was now suddenly “Polish.” They drew the border right through Guden, leaving the other and Polish half of the town called Gudin. My parents were from Guden. I can go there and look across the border and see our family home, flying a Polish flag from its roof. Heimat will never accept that these historic German lands are now Polish. We refuse to recognize the existence of the Polish Entity. We have a right to resist this occupation, despite what the United States and the United Nations says.

“Pollocks are Untermenschen!” the crowd roared.

In a post-march interview, reporters asked Muller why over a half-century after the war Germans are still living in refugee camps. “Why haven’t they been absorbed into the rest of the German population?” I asked. “Germany lost the war; the UN redrew the borders; why haven’t these people been resettled? Aren’t you keeping them in these horrid camps for political purposes? Germany is a rich country. Surely these people could have been resettled. And don’t the Poles have a right to defend themselves from the Heimat rocket attacks?” another reporter inquired.

Muller slammed his fist onto the table. “The Polish-controlled American media is always trying to turn the oppressors into the victims.”

“Do you really think that the Poles control the American media?” I asked.

“Look at your new president, Obama. Where’s he from? Chicago—a city with one of the largest Polish populations in the world. We might as well call him Obamski! He’s a pawn of the Poles.”

“What about resettlement?” I asked.

“The refugees in these camps came from East and West Prussia, Silesia, and the Sudetenland. They don’t wish to live in Thuringia, Hesse, or the Palatinate. They demand to live where their ancestors lived. On ground that is sacred and German. The German refugees demand the right to return to their homes. No one had the right to take their homes and give them to the Poles. The German people have a right to fight the oppressor.”

“Does that include shooting missiles blindly into Polish towns, hitting innocent people?” I inquired.

“If the international community and the Poles would lift their sanctions against us and allow us to buy more accurate missiles, we would be happy to target Polish military installations. But this is the best we can do with our homemade “Wolf” rockets. Moreover, who is innocent? Not the Poles who live in our homes. They are occupiers and oppressors.”

Earlier in the day the United Nations passed yet another resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The United States vetoed a more strongly worded draft resolution that condemned the Poles for the air strikes.

UN General Secretary Ban ki-Moon called for a prompt end of “the cycle of violence.” A Polish government spokesperson released the official response to the UN resolution: “We will be happy to end the strikes when Heimat agrees to recognize our right of Poland to exist and stops firing the “Wolf” rockets.” Heimat declared its refusal to halt its “resistance” until “all former German lands are evacuated and returned to their rightful owners.”