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The expulsion of Germans after World War II was the mass deportation of people considered Germans (both Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche) from Soviet-occupied areas outside the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, and is a major part of the German exodus from Eastern Europe after World War II.

The process, which aimed to ethnically homogenize nation states, began before the Potsdam Conference, which would call for it to be conducted in an "orderly and humane manner". Due to the postwar atmosphere of chaos, famine, disease, cold winter, deliberate abuse by militias, and senseless killing, German civilian casualties during the expulsion were very high. The estimated number varies by source, from 500,000 to 3 million. The German deportation and migration according to Allied information sources revealed after 1990 affected up to 16.5 million Germans and was the largest of several similar post-World War II migrations orchestrated by the victorious Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which also included the resettlements and expulsions of millions of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews.

German citizens remaining after the war, some of whom had become German citizens during the war, and people considered ethnic Germans were expelled from historically Eastern German areas in present-day Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia (mostly from Vojvodina region), the German province of Eastern Prussia, the later Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly Königsberg area) of Russia, Lithuania, and other East European countries. Some were persecuted because of their activities during the war; most were persecuted solely because of their German ethnicity.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the relations of Germany and its East European neighbors has been colored somewhat by unresolved issues about the morality of the expulsions and the rights of expellees (Heimatvertriebene).

Background

Part of the motivation behind the expulsions are based on events in the history of Germany and Europe, especially Eastern Europe.

Ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe

The presence of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history. Prior to the rise of European nationalism in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Central and Eastern Europe was organized into many city-states which contained multi-ethnic populations.

Near the end of the Migration Period (300-900 AD) that brought the Germanic and Slavic tribes as well as the Huns, etc., to what is now Central Europe, Slavs expanded westwards at the same time as Germans expanded eastwards. The result was German colonization as far east as Romania, and Slavic colonization as far west as present-day Lübeck, Hamburg, and along the river Elbe and its tributary Saale further south. After Christianization, the superior organization of the Roman Catholic Church enabled further German expansion, known as the medieval Drang nach Osten.

At the same time, trade in the Baltic Sea and Eastern Central Europe became dominated by Germans through the Hanseatic League. Along the trade routes, Hanseatic trade stations became centers of Germanness with large, relatively wealthy German populations. It is important to note that the Hanseatic League was not exclusively German in any ethnic sense. Many towns who joined the league should not at all be characterized as "German".

Thus, over the course of several hundred years, groups of Germans established residence in the eastern Baltic, southern Russia, and what is now Romania, respectively. By the 1500s, much of Pomerania, Prussia, the Sudetenland, Bessarabia, Galicia, South Tyrol, Carniola, and Lower Styria had many German cities and villages. By the 1800s, every city of even modest size as far east as Russia had a German quarter and a Jewish quarter. Travellers along any road would pass through, for example, a German village, then a Czech village, then a Polish village, etc., depending on the region.

The rise of European nationalism

The expulsion of Germans after World War II must be interpreted in the context of the evolution of global nationalism in general and European nationalism in particular.

The latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century saw the rise of nationalism in Europe. Previously, a country consisted largely of whatever peoples lived on the land that was under the dominion of a particular ruler. Thus, as principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with peoples of many different ethnicities under his dominion.

The concept of nationalism was based on the idea of a "people" who shared a common bond through race, religion, language and culture. Furthermore, nationalism asserted that each "people" had a right to its own nation. Thus, much of European history in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be understood as efforts to realign national boundaries with this concept of "one people, one nation".

Much conflict would arise when one nation asserted territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of a common bond with the people living on that land. Another source of conflict arose when a group of people who constituted a minority in one nation would seek to secede from the nation either to form an independent nation or join another nation with whom they felt stronger ties. Yet another source of conflict was the desire of some nations to expel people from territory within its borders on the ground that those people did not share a common bond with the majority of people living in that nation.

It is useful to contrast the mass migrations and forced expulsion of ethnic Germans out of Eastern Europe with other massive transfers of populations, such as exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey and population exchange that occurred after the Partition of India. All three transfers were sanctioned and condoned by the governments involved. In all cases those expelled suffered greatly.

Territorial claims of German nationalists

By World War I, there were isolated groups of Germans or so-called Schwaben as far southeast as the Bosphorus (Turkey), Georgia, and Azerbaijan. After the war, Germany's and Austria-Hungary's loss of territory and the rise of communism in the Soviet Union meant that more Germans than ever were constituted sizable minorities in various countries.

German nationalists used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims. Many of the propaganda themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia and Poland claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in those territories were persecuted.

The Nazis negotiateed a number of population transfers with Joseph Stalin and others with Benito Mussolini so that both Germany and the other country would increase their homogeneity. However, these population transfers were not sufficient to appease the demands of the Nazis. The "Heim ins Reich" rhetoric of the Nazis over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war. Adolf Hitler used these issues as a pretext for waging wars of aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Support of Nazi invasion by German population in invaded countries

During the war the National Socialist (Nazi) party had classified Poles as "inferior to animals". Activists from Deutscher Volksverband and Jungdeutscher Partei before the war opposed any form of co-existence within Polish state, and condemned speaking in Polish or contact with Polish culture. Polish national events were boycotted and Germans who didn't act in required manner were branded as traitors and renagades by German minority organisations. Such organisations also distributed propaganda films and brochures with anti-Polish statements.

German minority organisations assisted the German Reich in its invasion in Czechoslovakia and took part in the September 1939 Campaign in Poland. Selbstschutz and German nationalist organisations created in Poland and Czechoslovakia by Germans took part in various actions (sabotage, etc.) against Polish population. For example, Selbstschutz cooperated in the mass executions of Poles in Operation Tannenberg. According to one Polish historian, every tenth German living in Poland was a member of Selbstschutz and 25% of the German population belonged to Nazi-sponsored organizations aiding in the Nazi conquest of Poland.

While it is difficult to ascertain how many members of Selbstschutz actively aided the Nazi invasion of Poland, the critical factor was the perception of the general populace in Poland that the German minority in Poland had sided with the Nazis rather than with their Polish homeland.

To fully appreciate the strength of this enmity towards the German minority in Poland, it is important to be aware of the actions of ethnic Germans living in Poland after the German invasion of Poland.

Historians estimate that in areas that were incorporated to Reich 40,000 Poles were murdered and 20,000 sent to concentration camps during the so-called Intelligenzaktion. Only a few percent of those sent to concentration camps survived. In the early days of occupation, 90% of those who were sent to concentration camps were targeted by German nationals The overwhelming majority of those victims were selected by local Germans who identified them as enemies of Reich . Germans living in Poland made lists of Poles targeted for execution and hunted down and captured thousands of Poles.

In Czechoslovakia, most of the so-called Sudeten Germans were also active Nazi collaborators and supporters before and during the Second World War. In 1935, two years after Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, 60% of German voters enabled the Sudeten German Party, operating in the spirit of National Socialism, to become the most powerful German party in Czechoslovakia.

According to the 1920 Czechoslovakian constitution, German minority rights were carefully protected; their educational and cultural institutions were preserved in proportion to the population. Local hostilities were engendered, however, by policies intended to protect the security of the Czechoslovak state and the rights of Czechs. Border forestland, considered the most ancient Sudeten German national territory, was expropriated for security reasons. The Czechoslovak government settled Czechs in areas of German concentration in an effort to mitigate German nationalism; the policy, however, often produced the opposite effect. Minority laws were most often applied to create new Czech schools in German districts. Sudeten Germans, in possession of a large number of state-subsidized local theaters, were required to put these at the disposal of the Czech minority one night a week.

Sudeten German industry, highly dependent on foreign trade and having close financial links with Germany, suffered badly during the depression, particularly when banks in Germany failed in 1931. Czechs, whose industry was concentrated on the production of essential domestic items, suffered less. Tensions between the two groups resulted. Relations between Czechs and Germans were further envenomed when Sudeten Germans were forced to turn to the Czechoslovak government and the Central Bank (Zivnostenka Banka) for assistance. These authorities often made the hiring of Czechs in proportion to their numbers in the population a condition for aid. Czech workmen, dispatched by the government to engage in public works projects in Sudeten German territories, were also resented.

Sudeten German nationalist sentiment ran high during the early years of the republic. The constitution of 1920 was drafted without Sudeten German representation, and the group declined to participate in the election of the president. Sudeten German political parties pursued an "obstructionist," or negativist, policy in parliament. In 1926, however, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann of Germany, adopting a policy of rapprochement with the West, advised Sudeten Germans to cooperate actively with the Czechoslovak government. In consequence, most Sudeten German parties (including the German Agrarian Party, the German Social Democratic Party, and the German Christian Socialist Party) changed from negativism to activism, and Sudeten Germans accepted cabinet posts.

By 1929 only a small number of Sudeten German deputies--most of them members of the German National Party (propertied classes) and the Sudeten Nazi Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei)--remained in opposition. Nationalist sentiment flourished, however, among Sudeten German youth, who belonged to a variety of organizations. These included the older Turnverband and Schutzvereine, the newly formed Kameradschaftsbund, the Nazi Volkssport (1929), and the Bereitschaft.

On October 1, 1933, Konrad Henlein, aided by other members of the Kameradschaftsbund, a youth organization of romantic mystical orientation, created a new political organization. The Sudeten German Home Front (Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront) professed loyalty to the Czechoslovak state but championed decentralization. It absorbed most former German Nationals and Sudeten Nazis. In 1935 the Sudeten German Home Front became the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei--SdP) and embarked on an active propaganda campaign. In the May election the SdP won more than 60 percent of the Sudeten German vote. The German Agrarians, Christian Socialists, and Social Democrats each lost approximately one-half of their following. The SdP became the fulcrum of German nationalist forces. The party represented itself as striving for a just settlement of Sudeten German claims within the framework of Czechoslovak democracy. Henlein, however, maintained secret contact with Nazi Germany and received material aid from Berlin. The SdP endorsed the idea of a fuhrer and mimicked Nazi methods with banners, slogans, and uniformed troops. Concessions offered by the Czechoslovak government, including the transfer of Sudeten German officials to Sudeten German areas and possible participation of the SdP in the cabinet, were rejected. By 1937 most SdP leaders supported Hitler's pan-German objectives.

The Allies decide the postwar German-Polish border

As it became evident that the Allies were going to defeat Nazi Germany decisively, the question arose as to how to redraw the borders of Eastern European countries after the war. In the context of those decisions, the problem arose of what to do about ethnic minorities within the redrawn borders.

The Yalta Conference

The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US, Britain and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open; the western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland. The western Allies sought to place the border on the eastern Neisse, but Stalin refused to budge.

Germany originally was to retain Stettin, while the Poles were to annex East Prussia with Königsberg, as the Polish government had in fact demanded at the start of World War II, due to East Prussia's proximity and political and geographic inclusion within the historical Kingdom of Poland. Other territorial changes proposed by Polish government were the inclusion of Silesian region of Opole, Gdańsk, straightening the border in Western Pomerania and areas near Bytów and Lębork. Most of those areas had large Polish populations.

Eventually, however, Stalin decided that he wanted Königsberg as a year-round warm water port for the Soviet Navy and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead. The pre-war Polish government in exile had little to say in these decisions, but did insisted on retaining the historic Polish city of Lwów (now L'viv) in Galicia. But Stalin refused to give it up and instead offered Lower Silesia with Breslau. (Incidentally many people from Lwów would later be moved to populate Wrocław and Gdańsk .)

It should be also noted that the border isn't the most far reaching territorial change that was proposed. They were also plans to include areas of Slavic settlement that were settled by German colonists in Ostsiedlung, which would put the Polish border further West, quite near the city of Berlin, so that the Polish state could include the population of Slavic Sorbs

The Potsdam Conference

At the Potsdam Conference the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union placed the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line (Poland referred to by the Polish communist government as the "Western Territories" or "Regained Territories") as formally under Polish administrative control. It was anticipated that a final peace treaty would follow shortly and either confirm this border or determine whatever alterations might be agreed upon.

The final agreements in effect compensated Poland for 187,000 km² located east of the Curzon line with 112,000 km² of former German territories. The northerneastern third of East Prussia was directly annexed by the Soviet Union and remains part of Russia to this day.

It was also decided that all Germans remaining in the new and old Polish territory should be expelled, to prevent any claims of minority rights. Among the provisions of the Potsdam Conference was a section that provided for the Orderly transfer of German populations. The specific wording of this section was as follows:

The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.

Purported reasons for the expulsion

Given the complex history of the region and the divergent interests of the victorious Allied powers, it is difficult to ascribe a definitive set of motivations behind the expulsions. Various groups, including the public in affected countries and historians, perceive the reasons for the Potsdam decision and subsequent transfers differently. The key issues that motivated the expulsions include:

1. Distrust of and enmity towards German communities
2. Preventing ethnic violence between majority populations and German minorities
3. A desire to punish ethnic German minorities for activities in support of the Nazi invasion
4. A desire to expel ethnic Germans in the hopes of invalidating German territorial claims
5. Compensating Poland for territories occupied by the Soviet Union
6. Making room for Polish returnees

Distrust of and enmity towards German communities in Poland

There was an expressed fear of disloyalty of German minority based in part on the pro-Nazi activities of members of the German minority during the war and even after the end of the war. As a result of these activities, there wasn't a political party that would agree with German minority staying in Poland. To Poles, deportation of Germans was seen as an effort to avoid such events in the future and as a result Polish authorities proposed population transfer of Germans already in the late 1941. Among the reasons that Polish representatives advocated such measures was the fact that there wasn't a Polish family that didn't suffer material or family loss as a result of German aggression. Thus, splitting up the two extremely hostile populations was seen by some as a sensible solution to avoiding future conflict.

Preventing ethnic violence

The Allied participants at the Potsdam Conference asserted the expulsions were the only way to prevent ethnic violence. As Winston Churchill expounded in the House of Commons in 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions…" From this point of view, it may be possible to conclude that the policy achieved its goals: the 1945 borders are stable and ethnic conflicts are relatively marginal, although this stability can also be explained by the rigidity of Soviet control of Eastern Europe during the Cold War era.

Retribution

One justification offered was that the actual purpose of the policy was to punish the Germans for Germany's actions during World War II, including its expulsion of Poles and Czechs from territories annexed to Nazi Germany; and at the same time to create ethnically homogeneous nation states that would not give rise to the kind of ethnic tensions that had preceded the war.

From this perspective, the expulsions were an "act of historical justice", because, for example, Sudeten Germans strongly contributed to the destruction of pre-war Czechoslovakia. The Czech public opinion saw this act as betrayal.

Also, there was little empathy for German victims after the World War II experience, especially since the German government had itself ethnically cleansed a large number of areas (e.g. Reichsgau Wartheland) during the war.

Invalidating future German claims to territorial expansion to the east

According to one argument, the purpose of expelling Germans from Poland and other Eastern European countries was to invalidate German territorial claims to land in Poland, Czechoslovakia and other countries.

Compensation for territories lost to the Soviet Union

Poland lost 43 percent of its pre-war territory due to the fact that the Soviet Union insisted on keeping what it had annexed as a result of the partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. While some cities, like Gdansk (then Danzig), were transferred to Poland as part of the "clean sweep" (see below) that eliminated minorities and strategically risky borders, other cities, like Wroclaw (Breslau) or Szczecin (Stettin), would hardly have been transferred to Poland had it not lost Vilnius (Wilna, Wilno) and Lwiw (Lemberg, Lwow).

One can thus say that one of the reasons, seen from the Polish, Communist and Western-Allied view point, for the expulsion of the Germans was the territorial compensation of Poland for what was kept by the Soviet Union. Of course, this was ultimately a decision not only of Stalin, but with the tacit consent of Great Britain and the United States.

Making room for Polish returnees

Even before former German territories were captured by the Red Army, around 2 million Poles from eastern Poland (behind the Curzon line) were expelled by the Soviets to western Poland or deported to gulag camps in Siberia. Additionally, an estimated 800,000 people from Warsaw were deported by the Germans to special work camps. After the end of the war, these people returned and needed housing in a country devastated by war. According to this line of reasoning, Germans were expelled to make housing available fore the returnees.

Chronicle of the expulsion

Czech Republic and Slovakia

See also: History of Czechoslovakia, Beneš decrees, Sudetenland, Ústí massacre.

Before the German annexation of Sudetenland, roughly one-third of the population in the Czechoslovakia had been ethnic Germans. After the war, the Germans living in the border regions of Czechoslovakia were expelled from the country in late 1945. Many thousands died violent deaths during the expulsion and many more died from hunger and untreated illnesses contracted during or after the massive exodus. In 1946, an estimated 1.3 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany).

In the summer of 1945 there were a number of incidents and localised massacres of the German population. The following examples are described in a study done by the European University Institute in Florence.

• In Prerov case, 71 men, 120 women and 74 children, who were Slovak Germans just passing through Prerov railway station, were taken out of the train, taken outside of the city to a hill named "Svedske sance", there they were forced to dig their own graves and all were shot.
• 30,000 Germans were forced to leave their homes in Brno for labour camps near Austria. They were bruatally beaten and it is estimated that several hundred died in the death march.
• Estimates of killed in the Ústí massacre range from 30 - 50 to 600 - 700 civilians. Some women and children were thrown off the bridge into the Elbe River and shot.

Another source also tell of a massacre in Postoloprty and a neighbouring area, where 763 people were shot, and estimates the victims from Brno to 800.

Approximaly 10,000 died in "internment camps" in the years 1945-1948

Hungary

In Hungary the persecution of the German minority began in 22 December 1944 when the Soviet Commander-in-Chief ordered the deportations. Five percent of the German population (appr. 20 000 people) had been evacuated by the Volksbund before that. They went to Austria, but many of them returned to their home next spring. In January 1945 the Soviet Army collected 32 000 ethnic Germans and deported them to the Soviet Union to do slave labour (malenkiy robot). Many of them died there because of the hardships and cruelties. On 29 December 1945 the new Hungarian Government ordered the deportation of every people who declared him/herself German in the census of 1941 or was a member of the Volksbund, the SS and any other armed German organisation. According to this decree mass deportations began. The first wagon departed from Budaörs (Wudersch) on 19 January 1946 with 5788 people. 185-200 000 German-speaking Hungarian citizens were deprived of their rights and all possessions, and deported to West Germany. Until July 1948 a more 50 000 people went to the eastern zone of Germany. Most of the deported Germans found a new home in Baden-Württemberg, Bayern and Hessen. In 1947 and 1948 a forced population exchange happened between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Some 74 000 ethnic Hungarians were deported from Slovakia in exchange for about the same number of Slovaks from Hungary. They and the Székelys of Bukovina were settled in the former German villages of southeastern Transdanubia. In some parts of Tolna, Baranya and Somogy counties the original population was totally replaced by the new settlers. In 1949 only 22 455 people dared to declare themselves German, but the real numbers were certainly higher. Probably half of the German community was able to survive the dark years between 1944 and 1950 in Hungary.

Russia

Ethnic Germans living in a small section of Russia were deported after the war. The Kaliningrad area of Russia, now a small exclave separated from the rest of Russia by Lithuania and Belarus, was part of Germany for most of its history. Kaliningrad's former German name was Königsberg, and it was an important city in the history of Germany, as it was the capital of Prussia. Immanuel Kant, the famous German philosopher, was in fact born there, in the present-day Russian exclave. Along with a section of Poland and a very small section of Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave formerly formed the German province (under the Nazis: Gau) of East Prussia, which from 1918 to 1939 had been an exclave too, but of Weimar Germany rather than of Soviet Russia. After the war, the remnant of Germans still living there were expelled and replaced by ethnic Russian settlers and the families of military staff. The expelled Germans mostly headed to Western Germany. Today, in Germany many descendants of Germans who were expelled from the former city of Königsberg are still alive. Though the deportation of Germans from this northern part of former East Prussia often was conducted in a violent and aggressive way by Soviet officials who sought to revenge the Nazi terror in Soviet areas during the war, present Russian inhabitants of the Kaliningrad sector (northern East Prussia) treat history less complicated. German names are even revived in commercial Russian trade. In future the name of Kaliningrad might be changed to the old Königsberg again. Because the exclave during Soviet times was a military zone which nobody was allowed to enter without special permission, many old German Prussian villages are still intact, though they have become dilapidated over the course of time. The city centre of Kaliningrad however was entirely rebuilt, as British bombs (1944) and the siege of Königsberg (Festung Königsberg in 1945 siege) had left it in ruins.

Lithuania

An extremely small portion of Lithuania was part of Germany for the length of its history until after the war. The entire modern-day Lithuanian portion of Germany, like the entire Russian portion, was part of the German province of East Prussia before 1918 and from 1939 to 1945. However, this small section that may otherwise have seemed insignificant included Memel, Germany's northeasternmost city and an important port of the old Prussia. This city was the birthplace of philosopher Immanuel Kant's father and grandfather, as well as of many German politicians and scientists. After the war, the area was ceded to Lithuania, like had been done in 1919 though with a period of French control. Most Germans fled to Germany, joining the exodus of the others from Königsberg and other cities south of the area. German civilian remnants were put on deportation trains in 1946. Ethnic Lithuanians from crowded villages replaced the former German population of Memel and surrounding formerly mixed German-Lithuanian areas. Memel was renamed Klaipėda definitively. You can still find descendants of Germans expelled from Lithuania. They are mostly found in former West Germany, like the Germans who fled from the rest of East Prussia. The fact that the section of Germany now in Lithuanian hands was small but important is reflected in the German national anthem - Von der Maas bis an die Memel ("From the Meuse to the Neman") is part of the song, referring to the Neman River (German: Memel or Memelfluss) that flows near Klaipėda.

The results

Up to 12.4 or even 16.5 million Germans of the postwar population were forced to leave. The estimates of people that lost their lives differ. According to Federal Statistics Bureau of Germany in 1958 more than 2.1 million had lost their lives during this process. The monumental statistical work of the Gesamterhebung zur Klärung des Schicksals der deutschen Bevölkerung in den Vertreibungsgebieten, Bd. 1-3, München 1965, confirms this figure. The standard study by Gerhard Reichling "Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen" concludes that 2,020,000 Germans perished as a result of the expulsion and deportation to slave labour in the Soviet Union. One German researcher, Rüdiger Overmans, has claimed that only 1,100,000 people lost their lives. These lower figures and the methodology for obtaining them are disputed by some scholars including Dr. Fritz Peter Habel and Alfred de Zayas, who maintain in the newest editions of their publications that the death toll was well over two millions. Czech and Polish sources give a much lower estimate (Czech historians arguing that most of the estimated population drop is because of the soldiers that were killed at the front). It is worth noting that the only detailed effort to count the casualties was made by ethnic Germans from Yugoslavia, who documented all their victims, resulting in a figure half the estimate of the Federal Statistics Bureau.

The deaths were caused by death marches ordered by Soviet officials, banditry, famine and widespread disease that accompanied postwar conditions in that part of Europe as well as appalling conditions in the concentration camps created to hold German civilians awaiting expulsion. Probably one of the worst examples of the latter was run by Salomon Morel.

A recent German source gives the following details of the population transfers. Population transfers included

• 7,122,000 from former eastern Germany,
• 279,000 from Danzig,
• 661,000 from Poland,
• 2,911,000 from Czechoslovakia,
• 165,000 from the Baltic states,
• 90,000 from the USSR,
• 199,000 from Hungary,
• 228,000 from Romania and
• 271,000 from Yugoslavia.

The expellee population, in total 11,926,000, increased to 12,400,000 in 1950 due to the natural growth in population. In line with nationalisation made towards all citizens in communist countries, property in the affected territory that belonged to Germany and Germans was confiscated and redistributed among the population.

Allied American numbers from 1957 give a number of about 16.5 million Germans who were subject to deportation. About 3 millions, according to this study, were 'lost on the way'.

The Potsdam Agreement called for equal distribution of the transferred Germans between American, British, French and Soviet occupation zones in Germany. In actuality, twice as many expelled Germans found refuge in the occupation zones that later formed "West Germany" than in the so-called "East Germany" (Soviet Zone), and large numbers of these Eastern German refugees went eventually to other countries of the world, including the United States, Canada and Australia.

It is worth noting that the expulsion was not always indiscriminate. In Czechoslovakia large numbers of skilled Sudeten German workmen were forced to remain to labour for the Czechs . Likewise in the Opole/Oppeln region in Upper Silesia, German miners and their families were allowed to stay, though the German language remained forbidden for the next forty years. Secretly German traditions and dialect survived however, to be slowly recognized since the late 1990s.

Summary of German expellee population

Notes:
Germany-The pre-war eastern German provinces that became Polish in 1945 and Kaliningrad region that became Soviet
Eastern Europe- Includes ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Danzig, the Baltic nations, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. Does not include the USSR.
Population in 1939- Includes bilinguals who were listed as Germans.
Military Losses 1939-45 Research by R. Overmans has increased this total by 360,000 thus reducing civilian losses.
Wartime Transfers In -Wartime evacuation of persons from western Germany.
Civilian Losses -Losses primarily during military campaign in 1945, also includes 270,000 dead in the USSR after being deported as laborers. This table reflects the research of Reichling and Overmans that has adjusted the estimate of civilian deaths downward from the 1958 German government estimate of 2.1 million dead.
Remaining in East Europe-Primarily bilinguals except in the case of Romania. Research by G. Reichling has increased this total by 230,000 thus reducing civilian losses

Sources:
Gerhard Reichling. Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen. Bonn 1986 ISBN 3-88557-046-7.
Rűdiger Overmans. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000. ISBN 3-486-56531-1 Fritz Peter Habel Dokumente zur Sudetenfrage Langen Müller, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7844-2691-3. Alfred de Zayas Die Nemesis von Potsdam Herbig, Munich 2005. ISBN 3-7766-2454-X. Newest statistical survey pp. 32-34.

Legacy of the expulsion

During the Cold War era, there was little public knowledge of the expulsions and thus scant discussion over the morality of the policy. Perhaps the primary reason for this is that Cold War geopolitics discouraged criticism of post-war Allied policies by the West Germans and of post-war Soviet policies by the East Germans. There was some discussion of the expulsions in the first decade and a half after World War II but serious review and analysis of the events was not undertaken until the 1990s. It can be surmised that the fall of the Soviet Union, the spirit of glasnost and the unification of Germany opened the door to a renewed examination of these events.

Cold War assessments of the expulsions

In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a memorable speech in Fulton, Missouri in the presence of US President Truman. Churchill made the USA aware of the Iron Curtain coming down "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic". In this speech, Churchill also emphasised the wrongful Soviet-directed Polish incursions into Germany (that is, the land east of the Oder-Neisse line) and the plight of millions of Germans refugees/expellees. However, taking into account his personal responsibility for and - though reluctant - acceptance of the decisions made in Potsdam, the sentence would seem to have been motivated by the contemporary political agenda.

In a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives on May 16, 1957, the Hon. B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee called the deportation and violent expulsion of German civilians "genocide". He charged that over 16 million Germans had been expelled from their homes east of the Oder-Neisse Line,resulting in over 3 million deaths.

Both Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Lev Kopelev, during their Soviet military service, had objected to the brutal treatment of German civilians of East Prussia. Lev Kopelev wrote about the cruel events in post-1945 East Prussia in the autobiographical trilogy To Be Preserved Forever (Хранить вечно, Khranit' Venchno).

Expelled Germans in postwar Germany

After World War II many expellees (German: Heimatvertriebene) from the land east of the Oder-Neisse found refuge in both West Germany and East Germany. Refugees who had fled voluntarily but were later refused to return are often not distinguished from those who were forcibly deported, just as people born to German parents that moved into areas under German occupation either on their own or as Nazi colonists.

In a document signed 50 years ago the Heimatvertriebene organisations have also recognized the plight of the different groups of people living in today's Poland who were by force resettled there. The Heimatvertriebene are just one of the groups of millions of other people, from many different countries, who all found refuge in today's Germany.

Some of the expellees are active in politics and belong to the political right-wing. Many others do not belong to any organizations, but they continue to maintain what they call a lawful right to their homeland. The vast majority pledged to work peacefully towards that goal while rebuilding post-war Germany and Europe.

The expellees are still highly active in German politics, and are one of the major political factions of the nation, with still around 2 million members. The president of their organization is as of 2004 still a member of the national parliament.

Although expellees (in German Heimatvertriebene) and their descendants were active in West German politics, the prevailing political climate within West Germany was that of atonement for Nazi actions. However the CDU governments have shown considerable support for the expellees and German civilian victims.

Re-examination of the expulsions in the 1990s

In the early 1990s the Cold War ended and the occupying powers withdrew from Germany. The issue of the treatment of Germans after World War II began to be reexamined, having previously been in the shadow of German war crimes. The primary motivation for this change was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which allowed previously marginalised issues such as crimes committed by Russians during World War II to be raised.

In November and December, 1993, an exhibit on Ethnic Cleansing 1944-1948 was held at Stuart Center of De Paul University, in Chicago, where it was called an unknown holocaust, which had been forgotten about.

Reports have surfaced of both Czech-nationalist as well as Soviet Russian massacres of German civilians (see the book A Terrible Revenge). Also, some of the former German concentration camps were used as temporary camps for German civilians.

Polish-German relations

Although relations between Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany have generally been cordial since 1991, there remain disputes about the War, the post-War expulsion, the treatment of the current German minority in Poland and the treatment of German heritage in modern day Western Poland.

Since 1990, historical events have been examined by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Its role is to investigate the crimes of the past without regard to the nationality of victims and perpetrators. In Poland, crimes motivated by the nationality of victims are not covered by a statute of limitations, therefore the criminals can be charged in perpetuity. In a few cases, the crimes against Germans were examined. One suspected perpetrator of retaliatory crimes against expelled innocent German civilians, Salomon Morel, fled the country to Israel, which has denied Polish requests for his extradition.

Finalization of the Polish-German border

The Oder-Neisse line was officially considered completely unacceptable by the CDU controlled German government for decades. Even the Social Democrats of the SPD initially refused to accept the Oder-Neisse line. The 1991 Polish-German border agreement finalized the Oder-Neisse line as the Polish-German border. The agreement gave to minority groups in both countries several rights, such as the right to use national surnames, speak their native languages, and attend schools and churches of their choice. These rights had been denied previously on the basis that the individual had already chosen the country in which they wanted to live.

Polish criticism of German "revisionism"

Some Poles criticise that the current German historical view tends to move toward the opinion that Germans were victims rather than as perpetrators of the War.

Some German expellees, on the other hand, criticise that the official Polish outlook on the War and post War events is mostly based on a collectivist view (of mixed communist and nationalist ideas), that does not look at the individual suffering on both sides, but emphazises the ethnic background of each individual.

Such positions are viewed critically in Poland as it ignores widespread collaboration and support for Nazi Occupation by the German minority in the pre-1939 Polish Republic, and the fact that German people enjoyed privileged status during the war while Poles were classified as subhumans by German authorities.

One Jewish survivor Marek Edelman said

"They say they were evil and good Germans. But why didn't I have the luck during this whole time of finding a good one ? I didn't met a single good German, only those who hit me in the face. Yes I am sorry for the girl that died during expulsions. But I have no pity for the Germans as a nation. They put Hitler in power. German society lived for five years from occupied Europe; lived from me, and my friends. To me they gave two slices of bread, while Germans ate as much as they wanted. That is why it is important that they continue penance. Let them cry for long, long time - maybe then they will finally realise that to Europe they were the executionerThey don't deserve mercy, they deserve penance. And that for many generations, because otherwise their arrogance and haughtiness shall return

As evidence for the view that German "arrogance and haughtinuess" will return, some offer point to the high support for National Socialism in German society even after the German Reich lost the war. For example according to polls conducted in American Zone of Occupation among Germans from November 1945 till December 1947, the percentage of German population that supported the view that "National Socialism was a good idea, but badly implemented" was on average 47%, while in August 1947 the percentage increased to 55%

Restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners

In November 2005 Der Spiegel published a poll from Allensbach Institut which estimated that 61% of Poles believed Germans would try to get back territories that were formerly under German control or demand compensation,.

There are also some worries among Poles that rich descendants of the expelled Germans would buy the land the Polish state confiscated in 1945. It is believed that this may result in large price increases, since the current Polish land price is low compared to Western Europe. This led to Polish restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners, including Germans: special permission is needed. This policy is comparable to similar restrictions on the Baltic Åland Islands. These restrictions will be lifted 12 years after the 2004 accession of Poland to the European Union, i.e on May 1 2016. The restrictions are weak, they aren't valid for companies and certain types of properties.

The attempts by German organisations to build a Centre Against Expulsions dedicated to German people's alleged suffering during World War II has led Polish politicians and activists to propose a Center for Martyrology of Polish Nation (called also Center for the Memory of Suffering of the Polish Nation) that would document the systematical oppression conducted on Polish people by German state during World War II and which would serve to educate German people about atrocities their state and regime conducted on their neighbours. However this proposal was attacked and rejected by German politicians.

Claims for indemnity

The officially proposed policy of the Heimatvertriebene is not to repeat the post-war expulsions with new persecutions, annexations and population transfers. Most Heimatvertriebene accept the territorial changes of 1945 as far as territorial claims are concerned and consider the Poles now living in former East Germany as friends and neighbours in the European Union. However, many of them demand compensation from the Poles and they support the Prussian Trusteeship. The majority of Poles have not received any compansation from the Soviet Union or Germany for losses suffered during World War II.

At the end of August 2004, a heated debate took place in the Polish Sejm over a proposed bill calling upon the Polish government to enforce Germany's payment of reparations for damage inflicted on Poland during World War II.

The issue of German reparations was raised in response to signals coming from Germany, or rather from certain German circles which in civil legal proceedings wanted to lay indemnity claims for property left behind in the postwar territory of Poland. The Polish nation had reacted strongly to statements made by Erika Steinbach, chair of the Union of the Expelled (BdV), and claims made by m members of the Prussian Trusteeship. Polish politicians asserted that only a response in the form of Poland's reparations claim could suppress endeavors of German citizens and their political advocates who are attempting to claim indemnity from Polish citizens in civil proceedings.

Status of the German minority in Poland

The remaining German minority in Poland (152,897 people according to the 2002 census) is still awaiting formal recognition of minority rights as a minority law has not been introduced by the Polish parliament yet. There are German speakers throughout Poland, but only the vojvodship of Opole/Oppeln has a larger concentration. There are a few inofficial bilingual signs in some of the smaller towns of the Opole/Oppeln region. In addition there are some bilingual schools and in a few towns German can sometimes be used besides Polish in dealings with officials on a lower level at the discretion of local council officials. However Western European standards of minority protection including universal bilingual topography, use of the language in courts and in dealings with all government officials as well as bilingual education for the entire population remain unfulfilled.

Czech-German relations

On 28 December 1989, Václav Havel, at that time a candidate for president of Czechoslovakia (he was elected one day later), suggested that Czechoslovakia should apologise for the expulsion of ethnic Germans after World War II. Most of other politicians of the country didn't agree, and there was also no reply from leaders of Sudeten German organizations. Later, the German President Richard von Weizsacker answered this by apologizing to Czechoslovakia during his visit to Prague on March 1990 after Václav Havel repeated his apology saying that the expulsion was "the mistakes and sins of our fathers". The Beneš decrees however continued to remain in force in Czechoslovakia.

In Czech-German relations, the topic has been effectively closed by the Czech-German declaration of 1997. One principle of the declaration was that parties will not burden their relations with political and legal issues which stem from the past.

However, some expelled Sudeten Germans or their descendants are demanding return of their former property, which was confiscated after the war. Several such cases have been taken to Czech courts. As confiscated estates usually have new inhabitants, some of whom have lived there for more than 50 years, attempts to return to a pre-war state may cause fear. The topic comes to life occasionally in Czech politics. Like in Poland, worries and restrictions concerning land purchases exist in the Czech Republic. According to a survey by the Allensbach Institut in November 2005, 38% of Czechs believe Germans want to regain territory they lost or will demand compensation.

Recognition of Sudeten German anti-Nazis

In 2005 Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek announced an initiative to publicise and formerly recognise the deeds of Sudeten German Anti-Nazis. Although the move was received positively by most Sudeten Germans and the German minority, there has been criticism that the initiative is limited to Anti-Nazis who actively fought for the Czechoslovak state, but not Anti-Nazis in general. The German minority in particular also expected some financial compensation for their mistreatment after the War.

Status of the German minority in the Czech Republic

There are about 40,000 Germans remaining in the Czech Republic. Their number has been consistently decreasing since World War II. According to the 2001 census there remain 13 municipalities and settlements in the Czech Republic with more than 10% Germans.

The situation in Slovakia was different from that in the Czech lands, in that the number of Germans was considerably lower and that the Germans from Slovakia were almost completely evacuated to German states as the Soviet army was moving west through Slovakia, and only the fraction of them that returned to Slovakia after the end of the war was deported together with the Germans from the Czech lands.

The Czech Republic has introduced a law in 2002 that guarantees the use of native minority languages (incl. German)as official languages in municipalities where autochthonous linguistic groups make up at least 10% of the population. Besides the use in dealings with officials and in courts the law also allows for bilingual signage and guarantees education in the native language. The law so far only exists on paper and has not been implemented anywhere, neither in the Polish speaking Tesin/Cieszyn area nor in Western and Northern Bohemia where a hand full of towns still have in excess of 10% German speakers.

The remaining tiny German minority in the Czech Republic has been granted some rights on paper, however the actual use of the language in dealings with officials is usually not possible. There is no bilingual education system in Western and Northern Bohemia, where the German minority is most concentrated. The Czech authorities have enacted a unique hurdle in their minority act.

Many representatives of expelees organizations support the erection of bilingual signs in all formerly German speaking territory as a visible sign of the bilingual linguistic and cultural heritage of the region. While the erection of bilingual signs is technically permitted if a minority constitutes 10% of the population, the minority is also forced to sign a petition in favour of the signs in which 40% of the adult minority population must participate.

German minority in Hungary

Today the German minority in Hungary have minority rights, organisations, schools and local councils but spontaneous assimilation is well under way. Many of the deportees visited their old homes after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990.

See also

• Berihah
• Centre Against Expulsions
• Human migration#Post-World War II Migrations
• Federation of Expellees
• Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
• Evacuation of East Prussia
• Children of the Nazi era
• Minorities in Poland after the War
• Victor Gollancz in German Misplaced Pages
• Victor Gollancz
• Red Army atrocities

Notes

1. ^ Template:Pl iconPolacy - wysiedleni, wypędzeni i wyrugowani przez III Rzeszę" Doctor Maria Wardzyńska Warsaw 2004 Cite error: The named reference "Ward" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
2. The Czech Republic: From Liberal Policy to EU Membership By Dušan Drbohlav Charles University
3. Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War European University Institute, Florense. HEC No. 2004/1. pg. 18.
4. Z. Beneš, et. al Facing History - The evolution of Czech and German relations in the Czech provinces, 1848-1948 pg. 221
5. Z. Beneš, et. al Facing History - The evolution of Czech and German relations in the Czech provinces, 1848-1948 pg. 223
6. Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen. Gerhard Reichling. 1986 ISBN 3-88557-046-7
7. Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki Tom I "Polska a Niemcy; ludność, odbudowa, przemiany polityczne w pierwszych latach powojennych" Edmund Dmitrów Warszawa 1992

References

• Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen. Gerhard Reichling. 1986 ISBN 3-88557-046-7
• Report on agricultural and food requirements of Germany (February 1947, provides statistics about population transfer)
• German statistics In 1966, the West German Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons published statistical and graphical data illustrating German population movements, whether voluntary or enforced, in the aftermath of the Second World War.
• The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War European University Institute, Florense. EUI Working Paper HEC No. 2004/1, Edited by Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees
• Facing History - The evolution of Czech and German relations in the Czech provinces, 1848-1948, Z. Beneš, D. Jančík, J. Kuklík, E. Kubů, V. Kural, R. Kvaček, V. Pavlíček, J. Pešek, R. Petráš, Z. Radvanovský, R. Suchánek, Gallery, Prague, ISBN 80-86010-60-0 online downlown in PDF format from Czech governmental website
• Silesian Inferno, War Crimes of the Red Army on its March into Silesia in 1945 , Karl F. Grau, The Landpost Press, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 1992, ISBN 1-88-088109-8

External links

• Refugees camp 1950 Image
• Refugees Image
• Statistics Of Poland's Democide Democide Addenda By R.J. Rummel
• THE EXPULSION: A crime against humanity, By Dr. Alfred de Zayas A transcript of part of a lecture on the Expulsion given in Pittsburgh in 1988.
• Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes by William A. Schabas "genocidal intent .. at Potsdam"

Further reading

• Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered (Eastern European Studies, 18) Luisa Lang Owen and Charles M. Barber, Texas A&M University Press, January, 2003, hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 1-58-544212-7
• God's Playground. 2 vols, Davies, Norman, 1982 and several reprints. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. ISBN 0231053533 and ISBN 0231053517.

The following publications might shed a different light on what is presented in the article above:

• "Documents on the Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern & Central Europe" compiled by a professional editorial board headed by Professor Theodor Schieder, of the University of Cologne. Published by the Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees, & War Victims, Bonn:

vol.1: "The Expulsion of the German Population from the Territories East of the Oder-Neisse Line" (1959). vol.2/3:"The Expulsion of the German Population from Hungary and Rumania" (1961). vol. 4: "The Expulsion of the German Population from Czechoslovakia" (1960) (Dates may indicate the year of the English translations rather than the original publication).

• "Speaking Frankly" by James F.Byrnes, New York & London, 1947.
• "Nemesis at Potsdam - The Anglo-Americans & the Expulsion of the Germans", by Dr. Alfred M. de Zayas, London, 1st published 1977, revised edition 1979.
• Germany and Eastern Europe since 1945" - Keesing's Research Report, New York, 1973.
• Four-Power Control in Germany and Austria 1945-1946" by Michael Balfour and John Mair for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Oxford University Press, 1956.
• "In Darkest Germany" by Victor Gollancz, London, 1947.
• "Thine Enemy" by Sir Philip Gibbs, London, 1946.
• "The Home Front:Germany" by Charles Whiting, Time-Life Books, Virginia, 1982.ISBN 0-8094-3419-9.
• "The Aftermath:Europe" by Douglas Botting, Time-Life Books, Virginia, 1983.ISBN 0-8094-3411-3
• "Hour of the Women" by Count Christian von Krockow, Stuttgart,1988, New York, 1991, London, 1992. ISBN 0-571-14320-2,
• "Crimes and Mercies - The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation 1944 - 1950" by James Bacque, London, 1997. ISBN 0-316-64070-0.
• "Memoirs - 1945:Year of Decisions" by Harry S.Truman, 1st pub.,by Time Inc.,1955, reprint New York 1995. ISBN 0-8317-1578-2.
• "Memoirs - 1946-52:Years of Trial & Hope" by Harry S.Truman, 1st pub.,by Time Inc.,1955, reprint New York 1996. ISBN 0-8317-7319-7.
• A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950 - Alfred-Maurice de Zayas - 1994 - ISBN 0-3121-2159-8

• Deportation
• Forced migration
• Great migrations
• History of Germany
• Aftermath of World War II
• German diaspora