The nationality question has been a subject of various writings; an honoring controversy over the claim to the founder of our current world view is conducted between Poles and Germans, but as already mentioned nothing certain can be determined concerning the nationality of Copernicus' parents; the father seems to have been of Slavic birth, the mother German; he was born in a city whose municipal authorities and educated inhabitants were Germans, but which at the time of his birth was under Polish rule; he studied at the Polish capital, Krakau, then in Italy, and lived out his days as a canon in Frauenburg; he wrote Latin and German. In science, he is a man who belongs to no single nation, whose labors and strivings belong to the whole world, and in C. we do not honor the Pole nor the German, but the man of free spirit, the great astronomer, the father of the new astronomy, the originator of the true Weltanschauung (world view).
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Translation of the entry on Nicolaus Copernicus in the German Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1875), p. 465Nicolaus Copernicus
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Germans and Poles have bitterly disputed the question of Copernicus's ethnic origin, each national group claiming the distinguished astronomer for its own. Where does the truth lie in this controversy? Politically, Copernicus was a subject of the king of Poland; he remained loyal to the Roman Catholic church ; and he wrote chiefly in Latin, but a few of his private letters were composed in German.
Nicolaus Copernicus
The division of the seamless garment of Christendom into separate nations or sovereign states, which today we accept as a matter of course, was then only beginning. And the idea that people belong to all sorts of different races, with boasts of racial "purity" or "superiority", is something that has come up practically within the memories of people still alive. Hence if the astronomer had been asked concerning his race and nation, he might have replied that he was a loyal son of the Church, but otherwise would scarcely have understood the questions. Even for us today it is not an easy question to answer. Torun was founded by Germans; its leading citizens, like those of Cracow, were mostly Germans. Hence the astronomer may well have been of German extraction. The possible connection of the family on both sides with Silesia does not prove much either way for its population was a mixed one. On the other hand, the ancestors, especially on the father's side, must have lived for so many generations under allegiance to the King of Poland as to be, for all practical purposes, Poles. And Copernicus followed the family tradition in siding with the Poles against the Germans in times of crisis. In any case, it was Poland, and Cracow above all, that first nourished the youthful genius of Copernicus. And since his death it is chiefly the Poles who have gloried in their share in him, and have cherished the renown his achievements have brought to their heroic and ill-starred nation.
Nicolaus Copernicus
To be a Pole does not mean just to speak Polish or to feel close to other Poles, but to value the Polish nation above all else ... [A Pole] must accept everything Polish, both good and bad, and must accept every period of the nation's history, both strong and weak.
Roman Dmowski
I have to laugh when the English claim they are such a wonderful nation. Everyone knows that Englishmen are really Germans, that the English kings were German, and that in Russia the emperors were either of German origin or received their education in Germany.
Hermann Goring
Who can think that this eviction of Germans was undertaken only as a temporary experiment? Those who adopted the decision on the eviction of the Germans from these territories, and who understood that Poles from other Polish districts would at once move into these territories, cannot suggest after a while to carry out reverse measures. The very idea of involving millions of people in such experiments is unbelievable, quite apart from the cruelty of it, both towards the Poles and the Germans themselves.
Vyacheslav Molotov
Copernicus, Nicolaus
Copi, Irving
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