Talk:German–Polish declaration of non-aggression

Untitled

Perhaps we could expand on the equal distance policy and the international situation surrounding the signing... Halibutt 05:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Redirect

Funny, this one doesn't redirect from a "Nazi-Polish Alliance", eh? Talk about double standards.

• Unlike during the negotiation phase of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, during the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact negotiations the goverments of germany and poland did not plan together the invasion and the partition of other countries. Mieciu K 18:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

What about Český Těšín with the surrounding area?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Being from area invaded by Polish forces I must support Paul Siebert's comment. Cimmerian praetor (talk) 09:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 18:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Polish invasion of Zaolzie in 1938

German policy changed drastically in late 1938, after the annexation of Sudetenland sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia and Poland became Hitler's next target.

This article fails to mention that this pact served vital role in Hitler's anti-Czechoslovak policy. He later got Britain's and France's backing in Munich in 1938 and could count on Polish and Hungarian forces to join him in case of invasion to Czechoslovakia, what in fact really happened. Beneš was facing war on 3 fronts in case he wouldn't surrender the borderland, and that was one of major reasons why the fully mobilised Czechoslovak army was ordered to stand down. Cimmerian praetor (talk) 09:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Section? :p

Maybe there should be a category for Polish historical blunders and or ironic acts? As an Austrian Jew I am saddened to learn of this collaboration. =( Hpelgrift (talk) 02:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Since France needed to be shamed by Britain to declare war on Germany after it invaded Poland, followed by the non-war--France was not going to take any action against Germany since Germany was right next door and could easily retaliate--Pilłudski was correct in his earlier assessment that France was not trustworthy, hence Poland signing this treaty to attempt to not be invaded in the future by Germany was a reasonable decision. There is a difference between attempting to normalize relations and aiding and abetting totalitarianism which perhaps you've missed here. This is not an example of "collaboration." PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I think there also needs to be differentiation between conflicts dating to the (re-)formation of the Polish state from having been partitioned out of existence and ascribing actions associated with those conflicts with the support of German aspirations. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Hitler's Stance, von Neurath signature

I think it should be addressed somewhere that although Hitler was "in power", he was only the chancellor at this time. He would not become the Führer until 2 August 1934. The treaty was signed by the German foreign minister Freiherr von Neurath. I think it's misleading to not include these things. (Jsourber (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC))

Treaty text

Re the English translation at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/blbk01.asp how can we summarize the major points in it to explain its terms? The "principles" basically? This article seems to focus on when the pact happened, what led up to it, why it ended, without spending much time explaining what it meant.

A major line appears to be:

In no circumstances, however, will they proceed to the application of force for the purpose of reaching a decision in such disputes.

The 26 January 1934 > 5 May 1934 span between this and the Soviet-Polish NAP seems significant enough (less than 3 months) that I'm also wondering if we should count the exact number of days it was between them. Have any sources commented on the significance May 5th had on the disintegration of the G-P pact? ScratchMarshall (talk) 16:14, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Title

Historians are pretty insistent that this was not a "pact" and the actual text of it also says it was not a "pact". A brief review of GScholar hits shows the "declaration" name is more commonly used as well. The reason for this is that the Germans insisted that it not be called a "pact" because they didn't want to imply that they were friendly or had no conflict with Poland. I've therefore made a bold move to the present title as I think it fairly uncontroversial, but feel free to WP:BRD if you disagree. FOARP (talk) 20:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I request a move back to the previous title at RM requests. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:59, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I think a move to "declaration" is pretty uncontroversial (e.g., for various reasons the Germans insisted on calling it a "declaration" rather than a "pact", it would be inconsistent to call it a "pact" in the title and then talk about how it was not called that in the article, "declaration" also appears to be the common-name). However if you insist we can of course have an RM discussion on this. FOARP (talk) 21:40, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The descriptor "non-aggression pact" is used sufficiently in RS in their own voice, rather than attributing it to the German side, to require discussion, IMO. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Gscholar hits for "Polish-German declaration" - 90, GScholar hits for "German-Polish declaration" - 56, GScholar hits for "Polish-German Pact" - 36, Gscholar hits for "German-Polish pact" - 67. Then there's the WP:CRITERIA considerations (particularly accuracy and clarity/disambiguation over a certain prominent non-aggression pact). Reasonable people can differ I guess, so let's do the RM. FOARP (talk) 22:04, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

If we are doing GScholar hits, then the full name of the proposed articles should be used, as e.g. "German-Polish declaration" is too general and likely captures other events, while "Polish-German Pact" is too limiting as it is not the most common use.

As far as the original article name goes, "polish-german non-aggression pact" produces 94 results, and "german-polish non-aggression pact" returns 180 mentions. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:03, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 14 February 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

---

German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact → Polish-German Declaration of Non-Aggression OR German-Polish Declaration of Non-Aggression – WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CRITERIA, and WP:POVNAME. Specifically:

-Gscholar hits for "Polish-German declaration" - 90, GScholar hits for "German-Polish declaration" - 56, GScholar hits for "Polish-German Pact" - 36, Gscholar hits for "German-Polish pact" - 67. A review shows all these hits refer to the agreement of 1934. "Declaration" is the common name for the agreement. Importantly these are all sources discussing the agreement at some level of detail, and not just sources referring to a "German-Polish non-aggression pact" in passing. Notably also of the 15 references cited in the article all but Rothwell (which calls it a "friendship treaty") and "Poland's role in the Holocaust" (which calls it a "pact") calls it a "declaration". "Declaration" is clearly the name preferred by higher-quality sources.

-This is a rare case when the most reliable sources actually tell us that the present name is wrong - see especially p.1 here and the review here where it is included in a list of errors ("the declaration of non-aggression between Poland and Germany was not a treaty")

-The present name is a WP:POVNAME representing the view that this was a pact/alliance of sorts between Germany and Poland. The official title, in contrast, is more neutral.

-Accuracy. This is not just about this being the official name, but again that this agreement was not an alliance (a claim made for propaganda purposes in some places) and did not settle the border dispute.

-Consistency with the article - specifically it makes no sense to have a (necessary) section on why the Germans didn't want to call it a "pact" and then to refer to it as a "pact" in the title.

-WP:CRITERIA, specifically the proposed name is more precise and better disambiguates the agreement over certain Nazi-[Country] Non-Aggression Pacts. FOARP (talk) 13:44, 14 February 2021 (UTC) —Relisting. — Paper9oll (📣 • 📝) 12:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The country name should be in alphabetical order regardless whether it should be named "pact" or "declaration" and whether it has POV issue. For example if there are relation between Germany and Poland, Germany should be taken first, whereas Poland should be taken second, so it named as German-Polish. Same as true for Israel-Pakistan, India-Pakistan, China-Japan, France-Germany, etc. 36.76.235.92 (talk) 14:55, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

German-Polish Declaration of Non-Aggression is equally acceptable to me. FOARP (talk) 15:16, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support (with qualification) Agree that should be German–Polish, not Polish–German (NB: it should use an en dash, not a hyphen). But also, I think the very first sentence should say that it is also known as the German–Polish Non-Aggression pact, bcause it is also known as that, despite it not being formally correct. Note that 'pact' is not capitalised, because the word is not part of a proper name but is being used informally to describe the agreement between the two countries. Dubmill (talk) 15:20, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Very happy with all of these caveats/qualifications. FOARP (talk) 10:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose the over-capitalization – There is obviously no proper name here. German–Polish declaration of non-aggression would be OK. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Very happy with German–Polish declaration of non-aggression, and I expect the other !voters would be as well - Dubmill? FOARP (talk) 08:08, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Agree, probably. But, when the agreement was made, presumably there was an actual document consisting of one or more sheets of paper, with added signatures. Did it have a heading at the top, a title or name that was equivalent in both German and Polish? If so, did it readily translate into English, to the extent that 'Non-Aggression' and 'Declaration' are direct translations? If so, capitalisation of those might be justified. But if they are just descriptive, and not direct translations of words in the document title, then should not be capitalised. Dubmill (talk) 10:02, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

google translation of the Polish version given in Ext links "Declaration between Poland and Germany on non-violence.". British record it as "[TEXT OF] GERMAN-POLISH AGREEMENT OF JANUARY 26, 1934." GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Someone's having a war against en dashes? Not a proper name, so not capped. Tony (talk) 10:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, for several reasons:
  • If we are doing GScholar hits, then the full name of the proposed articles should be used, as e.g. "German-Polish declaration" is too general and captures other events. The results of GScholar search presented in the nominations include 1937 and 1989 documents:

• The November 1937 Polish-German declaration on national minorities did not result...
• The Joint Polish-German Declaration (the so-called Mazowiecki-Kohl Declaration) of 14 November 1989, signed immediately after ...

• As far as the original article name goes, "Polish-German non-aggression pact" produces 94 results, and "German-Polish non-aggression pact" returns 180 mentions. If we add the "Polish-German pact" and "German-Polish pact" search results (since it does not appear that there were any other "pacts" between the two countries), then the the preponderance of what's available in GScholar favours the current name, 380 results for "pact" and 150 for "declaration", which also includes other events.
• The current name of the article is WP:COMMONNAME, while "German-Polish Declaration of Non-aggression" appears to be the official name of the document. If we follow this logic, then we should have articles called "Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", not the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, etc.
• I disagree that the contention the most reliable sources actually tell us that the present name is wrong supports renaming the article. Instead, it refers to the sensitivities of the German foreign policy at the time, for example in Peter Longerich (2019). Hitler: A Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198796091., page 365.:

• The [1933] communique made it clear that both states were planning to negotiate a non-aggression pact. The Foreign Ministry was skeptical since a formal non-aggression pact could be seen as Germany renouncing a revision of the eastern border. Thus, Hitler agreed that the planned pact should take the form of a joint statement.

Thus, it was Nazi Germany that insisted that the official name was that of "Declaration", not modern historians, who describe a "pact", such as Longerich above. Also in: Müller, Rolf-Dieter (2015). Enemy in the East: Hitler's Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union. London: I.B. Tauris.:

• The signing of the non-aggression pact on 26 January 1934 represented the crowning moment of the German-Polish rapprochement. Page 35.

All of the above suggests that COMMONNAME is satisfied by the present name of the article. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:48, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, COMMONNAME is satisfied. But it would still be satisfied if we fixed the over-capitalization and put the countries in alphabetical order, as is our style, or if we took the hyphen out of nonaggression. All of these variations are quite common and pretty much interchangeable in sources. But yes, on further checking I definitely agree with you that nonaggression pact is much more common than declaration of nonaggression, so I'd say everything about the proposal is wrong. The dash, the caps, and the commonname. Better to just fix the caps; and maybe the country order. I could go either way on the hyphen. Dicklyon (talk) 06:00, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Yes, if the current RM does not result in a move to a new name ("Declaration"), then I would not object to removing over-capitalisation from "Non-Aggression Pact", or could even move it myself. It appears to be a descriptive, rather than a proper, name anyway. My preference would be for German–Polish non-aggression pact, to be internally consistent with Wikipedia's article on the topic, Non-aggression pact. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:39, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

On the subject of the common name, simply adding the figures for individual searches together is not ideal, as some sources will use both of the search terms and thus be double-counted. Using an "or" function to combine the searches is better. As there was no official name the specific word-order can cause problems so it is better to search the most basic form of the agreement name to see whether "pact" or "declaration" dominates. Also, you have to page all the way to the end of the results otherwise the count you will get may be wildly inaccurate. The GScholar hits I get for "Polish-German pact" OR "German-Polish pact" I get 100 hits. For "Polish-German declaration" OR "German-Polish declaration" I get 142 hits. A review of these hits does not show a significant number of sources referring to any other declaration (e.g., adding the requirement that they mention 1934 1 2, or removing all references to 1937 and 1989 3 4, did not significantly change the overall result). Additionally the WP:POVNAME issue has not been addressed.

PS - in the Longerich quote above, the author goes on directly to refer repeatedly to the agreement as a "statement" (i.e., a synonym of "declaration") and a reference to it as a "pact" is qualified as "so-called" - why wasn't this section included in the quote for full candour? They appear to have searched for references to the agreement as a "pact" only to find an eminent historian telling us that this is not how it should properly be referred to. FOARP (talk) 11:47, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Use "German–Polish declaration of non-aggression", though "German–Polish non-aggression pact" or "... declaration" would be more concise. Whatever the sources seem to prefer, if there's a strong preference in them. However, this is not a proper name regardless, so do not over-capitalize it. And, yes, it should have an en dash, not a hyphen, per MOS:DASH.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:16, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose in accordance with K.e.coffman's excellent analysis of the common name here, which the present title satisfies. The degree of capitalization should be reduced.--Bob not snob (talk) 09:41, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support move to something that includes "declaration" or "statement" as that seems to be both accurate and Neutral. Parallel with modern era "talks about talks". GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:31, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Graeme. Go with the source, rather than doing original research and baking logic pretzels to justify it. Volunteer Marek 19:23, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. False claim that the suggested title is the translation of document title. The current title is clear and concise. Lembit Staan (talk) 02:37, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

  P.S. In an attempt to wisen, I perused "Aggression" and found the article thoroughly useless to the subject in question here. Lembit Staan (talk) 02:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

What makes it a false claim? So far as the Polish is concerned Deklaracja między Polską a Niemcami o niestosowaniu przemocy, podpisana w Berlinie dnia 26 stycznia 1934 r. appears to be the "title". The contemporary reference to the subsequent repudiation refers to it as a 'Declaration of non-agression' "The German note to Poland and presumably there is bit of flexibility in word order. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:01, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support - after reading the support and oppose comments. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:59, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Paper9oll. Gnominite (talk) 18:01, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

obvious gap in article

Th article discusses what leads into the agreement, and what happens after. But what it doesn't say is what the agreement actually said. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. CIENCIAŁA, ANNA M. “POLISH FOREIGN POLICY, 1926-1939. ‘EQUILIBRIUM’: STEREOTYPE AND REALITY.” The Polish Review, vol. 20, no. 1, 1975, pp. 42–57 looks like a good ref to write based on for this, especially the description from p.49 onwards. I don't have access to ProQuest so I can't read the rest of the Cienciala article specifically analysing the declaration. FOARP (talk) 16:17, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Denunciation section

I assume that it's uncontroversial that the context of the collapse relations between the two countries is the failure to resolve the Danzig question but highly pertinent to this is the two conversations Lipski had on 20/24 September with Hitler and Ribbentrop on German objections to the Polish annexation of Teschen. Obviously Hitler thought he had a quid-pro-quo to resolve Danzig. I've therefore mentioned this in the denunciation section. (Dughall 11th May '24) 147.147.149.103 (talk) 14:01, 11 May 2024 (UTC)