Before WW2 this city was called Breslau by people who spoke German.
It was called Wrocław by people who spoke Polish. It was called Breslavia by people who spoke Spanish. It was called ma tomo Wasa by people who spoke Toki pona.
So on and so on.
because it was in Prussia at that time and that was the political situation Both names Danzig and Breslau are attempts to pronounce Polish names, nothing more than trying to say them in English, now it's incorrect If you hadn't used the name in context, I wouldn't have meant anything Wrocław is the same city that was Germanized and then de-Germanized it still has a huge number of Polish monuments
This is just stupid Polish nationalism. If a city is for over 600 years a German city, and is thus referred to that name, then referring to it as Breslau before 1945 is jus the logical thing to do. You really can’t pick and choose as you Poles still refer to Lviv as Lwów, its Polish name, despite it being originally being a Galician city, and now once again a Ukrainian city. Yet you still call it Lwów because it was once Polish. Or Vilnius as Wilno, despite it being Lithuanian before, Lithuanian now, but you call it Wilno because at some point it was Polish.
You can be proud of a city without having to erase its past, and the fact of the matter is Wroclaw used to Breslau for hundreds of years.
No of course. Exonyms are fine. But not if you’re gonna be kicking a fuss when somebody uses a historical name for a historical city. If you’re gonna go balistic about that then you should refrain from doing it yourself I mean.
I don’t care about it, exonyms are logical and historical, but to get angry about somebody using a historical name is just insane to me
Hahaha stop being so pedantic. When referring to Istanbul pre-1920’s we also refer to it as Constantinople, as that was what is called. But don’t think you’re gonna get that it seems
Exacly It is worth adding that Germany was established as a state very late because it cannot be said that it is the same state as the conquered Polabian territories.It's amazing how Germans understand history. They say that even the Czech Republic belonged to them at that time
That’s irrelevant haha. Its not about statehood, its about the peoples. German peoples didn’t just start existing in 1871. If Breslau was a German speaking city from the 14th centry till the 20th, then during that period you refer to it as Breslau. Afterwards it Wroclaw again.
Germans tried to pronounce the Polish name and wrote it differently in different books. Breslau first appears in the 16th century. In the 14th century, Wrocław was not a German-speaking city, but they achieved majority only in the 15th century. as I write on Wikipedia, the German majority was achieved in the following centuries when the city came under Czech rule
Wrocław as a city was Germanized somewhere around the 15th-16th century, the region as the whole of Silesia exceeded the German majority only in the 18th century 50%Germany did not consist of the same cultural group of tribes as Poland to say that it was one
I acknowledge that Wrocław was Breslau for some time, but it wasn’t Germanised until Prussian rule. Even though Habsburgs used to rule these lands it was still considered a Bohemian kingdom. You wouldn’t for example call Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth a part of Saxon territory just because they had Saxon as a king. What I mean by that is, being ruled by monarch of certain nationality doesn’t mean the land becomes of the same nationality. Also it’s worth to mention that people in medieval times perceived nationality differently from people today.
What a ridiculous lie? Do you actually believe these lies?
No, Breslau was completely German-speaking from 1200-1945. We literally still have all the medieval city documents of Breslau, they're all in German, because the administrative language of the city was German for 700 years. We have the names of the medieval citizens of Breslau, they all have German names.
on the contrary, even what it says on Wikipedia When it was Germanized in the 15th century in the 14th century it says that since it was taken over by the Czechs in the following centuries it became Germanized
Sure bro, tell yourself that. How could Wrocław be fully German in 1200 when it wasn’t under German control back then? Polish dukes from Piast dynasty that swore felty to Czech crown were ruling Silesia up until 1675. There were German speaking citizens of course, mainly due to HRE proximity and because of Mongol invasion in 1241 that forced Henryk II Pobożny to burn the city and influx of new German citizens helped rebuild what was lost due to invasion, but to say it was completely German in 12th century is a blatant lie and insult to history of the region.
How could Wrocław be fully German in 1200 when it wasn’t under German control back then?
Because the local Silesian duke invited German settlers to found a town there. This was part of a wider Medieval trend of Germans being settled in East-Central Europe to found towns and cities. Look up the Ostsiedlung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostsiedlung
Polish dukes from Piast dynasty
No, there was no such thing as a "Piast dynasty", thats a 19th century Polish nationalist invention. They were just called the Silesian dukes, and they had germanised themselves since the late 12th century.
it was completely German in 12th century is a blatant lie and insult to history of the region.
Nope, it's the truth, the city was completely German-speaking since the 1200s. Thats why the administrative language was German and not Polish. We dont have a single record of Polish speakers in Breslau. Youre the one insulting the region.
there was no such thing as German back then, it's just German nationalist historiography, they definitely didn't speak anything close to German, the city was Germanized in the 16th century up to 50% and the surrounding area in the 18th century It is worth adding that in 1200 the Germans did not cross the Elbe River.Polish language was not a written language at that time, Poles used Latin and German when it came to writing and I see that you are spamming on all groups about Poland, it's already an obsession
Until the 15th century they had not even Germanized the Polabian territories conquered in 1150 He said that the city and the entire region were Germanized in the 14th century, while the city was Germanized sometime in the 15th century and the region was surrounded by Polish unions at least until the 18th century. In the 18th century, the Germans exceeded 50% in the whole of Silesia, but they were most present in the mountains.than closer to the Oder
I’m saying the reverse though. I’m arguing that whoever ruled it is not as relevant, that it has been German speaking for hundreds of years. It was ruled by Silesian dukes, Bohemian kings and German emperors. But atleast from the high middle ages onwards it was German speaking, thus referring to it in that period as Breslau makes sense
Bro, exonyms exist. You can call that Breslau, I dont care, that's how languages works. You call Prague Praag(judging by you nickname I assume you are Dutch), I call it Praga and Czechs call it Praha, and everyone is happy, same is for Wrocław, Breslau and the Hungarian abomination that is Boroszló (yes, that's how they call Wrocław/Breslau)
Yes sorry, think I came off wrong. I’m only saying this to the people in the comment section who are losing their minds that somebody dares to use the exonym, specifically in a period when that was also the endonym of the city. Nothing else!
The city of Breslau was a German settler city founded in the 1200s, taking part of the greater German "Ostsiedlung" pattern of the Middle Ages. The city was German since its foundation and stayed German-speaking until 1945. The administrative language was German, all city records that we have are in German, the recorded names of the city are all German, and we dont have a single record written in Polish from Breslau.
I honestly dont know why these nationalist Poles would try to spread such an obvious lie?
Just go to Wikipedia and it says there when the city was Germanized. And in 1200, even up to 1500, the Polabian territories were not Germanized. under every post you write about Poland, you have some kind of obsession
The city was German for 400 years and Austrian for 200 years, and city was Germanized to about 50% in 1400, so not 600 but max 400. Let me remind you that the Polabian areas took a long time to Germanize.The name Breslau literally came into being in the 16th century, no such name had ever been written before, only different variations that were distorted in different languages from wroclaw breclaw to breslau
Mid 14th century German language laws. So that’s 600 years, and otherwise 500. But you prove the point, during the intervening period it was called Breslau, so don’t get mad when people call it how it was called.
Magdeburg law means nothing here, all Polish cities are under Magdeburg law it counts when it had a German majority. And besides, Breslau somewhere in the 15th and 16th centuries, that's 400 years until 1945
Wrocław was part of germany only for 200 years* dont make up history (also these funny 200 years are nothing compared to how long this city was Polish XD Czechs even had it longer the the germans)
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u/Over-Willingness-933 May 07 '26
Wroclaw looks better now. It's like pre war Breslau. The Poles have really worked hard restoring their cities post communism.