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The expulsion of Germans after World War II refers to the forced migration and ethnic cleansing of German nationals (Reichsdeutsche) and ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from Germany and parts of territory formerly claimed by Germany in the first three years after World War II. Image File history File links Vertreibung_1. ...
Image File history File links Vertreibung_1. ...
Sudetenland (Czech and Polish: Sudety) was the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the Western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...
Forced migration refers to the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region. ...
For the video game, see Ethnic Cleansing (computer game). ...
Imperial Germans is the common translation of the German word Reichsdeutsche (adj. ...
Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) is a historical term which arose in the early 20th century to apply for Germans living outside of the German Empire. ...
Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
The policy was one of a number of expulsions in various Central and Eastern European countries which displaced and relocated a number of nationalities in addition to the Germans. Stalin had made the westward shift of borders part of his demands and these had been acceded to by the U.S. and the U.K. Initially, the U.S. and the U.K. saw the expulsions as necessary to create ethnic homogeneity and to suppress ethnic violence originating from expansion of Germans towards the East. All three Allies had agreed to the policy of the expulsions, and the Soviet Union implemented the policy with U.S. and British acquiescence.[1] The policy had been agreed to by the Allies as part of the reconfiguration of postwar Europe. [2] World War II evacuation and expulsion refers to forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples spurred on by the hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the post-war settlement. ...
Evolution of German linguistic area from 700 to 1950 Settlement in the East (German: ), also known as German eastward expansion, refers to the eastward migration and settlement of Germans into regions inhabited since the Great Migrations by the Balts, Romanians, Hungarians and, since about the 8th century, the Slavs. ...
For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ...
As the Red Army advanced towards Germany at the end of World War II, a considerable exodus of German refugees began from the areas near the front lines. Many Germans fled their areas of residence under vague and haphazardly implemented evacuation orders of the Nazi German government in 1943, 1944, and in early 1945, or based on their own decisions to leave in 1945–1948. Others remained and were later forced to leave by local authorities. However, in no East European nation were all ethnic Germans forced to leave. Census figures in 1950 place the total number of ethnic Germans still living in Eastern Europe at approximately 2.6 million, about 12 percent of the pre-war total.[3] For other organizations known as the Red Army, see Red Army (disambiguation). ...
Plans to evacuate German population from the occupied territories in Central and Eastern Europe and from Eastern Germany were prepared by German authorities at the end of World War II. However, the evacuation in most of the areas was delayed until the last moment, when it was too late to...
The majority of the flights and expulsions occurred in Czechoslovakia, Poland and the European Soviet Union. Others occurred in territories of northern Yugoslavia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region), and other regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Vojvodina (red) is one of Serbias two autonomous provinces Capital (and largest city) Novi Sad Official languages Ethnic groups 2. ...
Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ...
Eastern Europe is a concept that lacks one precise definition. ...
The total number of the Germans expelled after the war remains unknown, as most of the past research provided a combined estimate, including those that were evacuated by German authorities, fled or were killed during the war. By some accounts[who?], this forced migration of ethnic Germans resulted in the transfer of between 13.5-16.5 million people and was the largest of several similar post-World War II migrations orchestrated by the victorious Big Three Allied powers.[citation needed] However, the actual cited research places the number at just over 12 million, including all those who fled during the war or migrated later, forcibly or otherwise, to both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany and to Austria.[3] Over the course of the sixty years since the end of the war, estimates of total deaths of German civilians have ranged from 500,000 to a high of 3 million.[citation needed] Although the German government's official estimate of deaths due to the expulsions stood at 2.2 million for several decades, recent analyses have led some historians to conclude that the actual number of deaths attributable to the expulsions was actually much lower - in the range of 500,000 to 1.1 million. The higher figures, up to 3.2 million, typically include all war-related deaths of ethnic Germans between 1939-45, including those who served in the German armed forces.[3] The debate about the number of deaths and their cause continues to be the subject of heated controversy. Human migration denotes any movement of groups of people from one locality to another. ...
This article is about the independent states that comprised the Allies. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
More than half a century later, a controversy is spurred by contentious demands of some organizations of the expellees or their descendants, e.g. the Prussian Trust, for compensation for lost properties. The Prussian Trust, or Prussian Claims Society, (German: ) is a corporation registered in Düsseldorf, founded in 2000 as Preußische Treuhand GmbH by some descendants of German expellees, and supported by some officials of the Landsmannschaft Schlesien organization. ...
Background  The position of the German language in Europe in 1910. By late 1944 the spread of Germans was still mostly similar. Population migrations were one of the central elements of the 20th century history of Europe.[4] The concept of "ultranationalism" which required ethnic homogeneity as a basis of political order became one of the most effective and powerful ideologies of the era. This ultranationalism presented the displacement of parts of the population as a legitimate political methodology, it rationalized the use of force against minorities and made millions of human beings into victims of arbitrariness, persecution, and, often, brutal expulsion. Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
(19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...
Ultra-nationalists are extreme nationalists or patriots. ...
German historical colonization of Eastern Europe that took place over almost a millennium resulted in a number of people of German descent living in other countries as far east as Russia. Their existence was misused by German nationalists, most notably the Nazis, to justify their aggressive territorial demands towards other countries, which led directly to the German invasion of Poland and World War II and to the Nazi genocide of Jews, Roma, and some Slavic populations. For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). ...
As Nazi Germany invaded first Czechoslovakia and later Poland and other European nations, some members of the ethnic German minorities in those countries aided the invading forces and the subsequent Nazi occupation. These acts caused enmity against the Germans, and would later be used as part of the justification for the expulsions.[5] Many of the citizens of German descent in the German-occupied countries applied for German citizenship by registering with the Deutsche Volksliste, thus directly supporting the occupation. Some of them held important positions in the hierarchy of Nazi administration. Eventually, numbers of ethnic Germans had been complicit in the crimes of the Nazi invaders. As the Nazi regime crumbled in the face of the advancing Allied armies, they feared being targeted in reprisal for their crimes and so sought to flee to Germany proper. Other ethnic Germans were motivated by atrocities perpetrated by some in the advancing Soviet army, generally by soldiers exacting revenge for what German armed forces had done in their homeland. Some Soviet soldiers committed rapes as reported in numerous German accounts, medical reports and ex-forced laborers' accounts. News of these atrocities were exaggerated and spread by the German propaganda machine. The Deutsche Volksliste (German Peoples List) was a Nazi institution whose purpose was the classification of inhabitants of Nazi occupied territories into categories of desirability according to criteria systematized by Heinrich Himmler. ...
Evacuation by German authorities during the war -
The plans to evacuate some German populations westwards from Eastern Europe and from some cities in the Eastern Gaue of Greater Germany were prepared by various Nazi authorities towards the end of the war. In most cases, however, their implementation was either delayed until Soviet and allied forces had already advanced into the areas to be evacuated, or it was prohibited entirely by the Nazi apparatus. The responsibility for leaving millions of Germans in these areas until combat conditions overwhelmed them can be attributed directly to both the draconian measures taken by the Nazis towards the end of the war against anyone even suspected of 'defeatist' attitudes [such as evacuation was considered] and the fanaticism of many Nazi functionaries in their witless support of useless 'no retreat' orders. The first mass movement of German civilians in the eastern territories was composed of both spontaneous flight and organized evacuation starting in the summer of 1944 and continuing through spring of 1945. Most of the evacuation efforts commenced in January 1945, when Soviet forces were already at the Eastern border of Greater Germany. About six million Germans were evacuated from the areas east of the Oder-Neisse line before Red Army and Polish Army took control of the region. Plans to evacuate German population from the occupied territories in Central and Eastern Europe and from Eastern Germany were prepared by German authorities at the end of World War II. However, the evacuation in most of the areas was delayed until the last moment, when it was too late to...
Former eastern territories of Germany (German: ) describes collectively those provinces or regions east of the Oder-Neisse line which were internationally recognised as part of the territory of Germany after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. ...
Grossdeutschland (literally Greater Germany) is a term that has been used in two separate contexts over history. ...
Former eastern territories of Germany (German: ) describes collectively those provinces or regions east of the Oder-Neisse line which were internationally recognised as part of the territory of Germany after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. ...
Grossdeutschland (literally Greater Germany) is a term that has been used in two separate contexts over history. ...
The Oder-Neisse line (Polish: , German: ) marked the border between German Democratic Republic and Poland between 1950 and 1990. ...
For other organizations known as the Red Army, see Red Army (disambiguation). ...
The Piast eagle worn by LWP soldiers. ...
Flight and expulsion after the defeat of Germany The next phase consisted of so-called "wild" expulsions conducted by military and civilian authorities in summer 1945. These actions gave way in spring 1946 to a series of larger, better organized, and less lethal "forced resettlements" which continued through 1947. A final major wave of resettlement resumed in 1948 and 1949.
Chronology of the expulsions If the participants of the Potsdam Conference envisioned "orderly population transfers", the reality on the ground turned out to be anything but that. Any transfer of millions of people is likely to be difficult even in the best of circumstances. Attempting a forced transfer amidst the chaos, destruction and privation of postwar Europe could only result in a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Potsdam Agreement called for equal distribution of the transferred Germans between American, British, French and Soviet occupation zones in the post World War II Germany. In actuality, nearly twice as many expelled Germans found refuge in the occupation zones that later formed "West Germany" than in "East Germany" (Soviet Zone), and large numbers of German expellees eventually went to other countries of the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Spain. The Potsdam Agreement, or the Potsdam Proclamation, was an agreement on policy for the occupation and reconstruction of Germany and other nations after fighting in the European Theatre of World War II had ended with the German surrender of May 8, 1945. ...
CCCP redirects here. ...
This article is about the state which existed from 1949 to 1990. ...
As part of the nationalization that all citizens in Communist countries faced, property in the affected territory that belonged to Germany and Germans was confiscated and transferred to the Soviet Union, nationalized or redistributed among the local population. Nationalization, also spelled nationalisation, is the act by which a nation takes possession of assets without requiring the owners consent, with or without payment of compensation. ...
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 labor for the country.[6] Likewise in the Opole (Oppeln) region in Upper Silesia, natives who declared themselves as belonging to Polish nationality were allowed to stay. In fact, some of them (though not all of them) had uncertain national identity or considered themselves to be Germans. Their status as a national minority was accepted in 1955, along with state help in regard to economic assistance and education.[7] Opole ( ; German: ) is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River (Odra). ...
Map of Upper Silesia, 1746 Upper Silesia (Czech: ; German: ; Latin: Silesia Superior; Polish: ; Silesian: Gůrny Ślůnsk) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. ...
Czechoslovakia -
- See also: History of Czechoslovakia, Beneš decrees, Sudetenland, Ústí massacre, Brünn death march
Before the 1938 German annexation of the Sudetenland, roughly 20% of the population in Czechoslovakia had been ethnic Germans.[8] Germans expelled from the Sudetenland // The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. The primary rationale for the expulsions was a collective punishment of ethnic German for their collaboration with...
With the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia (Slovak: ÄŒesko-Slovensko, Czech: ÄŒeskoslovensko) was formed, encouraged by, among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. ...
The Beneš decrees (Czech: ; German: ; Slovak: ; Hungarian: ) refers to a series of laws enacted by the Czechoslovak government of exile during World War II in absence of Czechoslovak parliament (see details in Czechoslovakia: World War II (1939 - 1945)). Today, the term is most frequently used for the part of them...
Sudetenland (Czech and Polish: Sudety) was the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the Western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...
Location of Ústà nad Labem in the Czech Republic The Ústà massacre (Czech: Ústecký masakr) was a mass lynching of ethnic Germans in Ústà nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a city in northern Czechoslovakia in post-World War II Europe, on July 31, 1945. ...
== On the same day, Hitler met with Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden and demanded the swift return of the Sudetenland to the Third Reich under threat of war. ...
Sudetenland (Czech and Polish: Sudety) was the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the Western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, especially after the Nazis' bloody reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, most of the Czech resistance groups demanded a solution to the "German problem" which would have to be solved by transfer/expulsion. These demands were adopted by the Government-in-Exile which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies for this proposal.[9] The final agreement for the transfer of the German minority however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of Potsdam Conference. The Munich Agreement and the first Vienna Award After the Austrian Anschluss, Czechoslovakia was to become Hitlers next target. ...
Reinhard Heydrich, the target of Operation Anthropoid. ...
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, chief of the Reich Security Main Office (including the Gestapo, SD and Kripo Nazi police agencies) and Reichsprotektor (Reich Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. ...
Czech resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance. ...
== On the same day, Hitler met with Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden and demanded the swift return of the Sudetenland to the Third Reich under threat of war. ...
This article is about the independent states that comprised the Allies. ...
Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the Potsdam Conference on July 18, 1945. ...
In the months following the end of the war, "wild" expulsion occurred between May and August 1945. These "wild" expulsions were encouraged by polemical speeches made by several Czechoslovak statesmen. The "wild" expulsions were generally executed by order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers. In some cases, though, they were initiated by or conducted with the assistance of the regular army.[10] The regular transfer according the Potsdam agreements proceeded from 25 January 1946 until October of that year. An estimated 1.9 million ethnic Germans were expelled to the American zone of what would become West Germany. A little over 1 million were expelled to the Soviet zone (which later became East Germany).[11] About 250,000 ethnic German anti-fascists and those ethnic Germans crucial for industries were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia.[3]
Estimates of casualties among the expellees range between 20,000 and 200,000 people, depending on source.[12] These casualties include violent deaths and suicides, deaths in internment camps[12] and natural causes.[13] Of these, several thousand died violently during the "wild" expulsion and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence thereof. A concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ...
Eastern territories of Germany At the Yalta Conference, the Allies agreed to place certain territories that had been part of Germany prior to 1937 under Polish and Soviet administration. Upon gaining control of these lands, the Polish and Soviet authorities started to expel the German population from the so-called Regained Territories. The Polish minority in those territories(1,3 million Poles in 1939, increased during the war by millions of Polish slave workers taken by Germany[14] was then increased to majority by moving in Polish citizens who had been expelled from the former eastern territories of Poland (Kresy Wschodnie), which had now been annexed by the Soviet Union. The Big Three at the Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. ...
Former eastern territories of Germany (German: ) describes collectively those provinces or regions east of the Oder-Neisse line which were internationally recognised as part of the territory of Germany after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. ...
Note: although the term recovered territories has a clear meaning in Poland and Polish historiography, it is not a widely accepted term or concept in English speaking nations. ...
The name Kresy (Polish for borderlands, or more correctly Kresy Wschodnie, Eastern Borderlands) is used by Poles, mostly in historical context, to refer to the eastern part of Poland before the II World War. ...
Advance of the Red Army Throughout 1944 and into the first months of 1945, as the Red Army advanced through the countries of Eastern Europe and the provinces of Eastern Germany, some Soviet and allied troops (as well as nationalist militias and native populations who had suffered under the Nazis) exacted revenge on ethnic Germans and German nationals. While many Germans had already fled ahead of the advancing Soviet Army, millions of Reichs- and Volksdeutsche remained in East and West Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, the Sudetenland, and in pockets throughout Central and Eastern Europe. For other organizations known as the Red Army, see Red Army (disambiguation). ...
German propaganda under Joseph Goebbels controlled and spun, at least partially, information regarding Red Army atrocities. A number of historians have expressed skepticism, backed up by historical study, regarding the extent of the so-called Nemmersdorf massacre in this context. The Nazi propaganda machine disseminated overblown descriptions of this event, in gruesome and graphic detail, to boost the motivation of German soldiers. Julius Streicher published The Horror in the East in Der Stürmer, #8/1945. Some historians also claim that the infamous leaflet Kill[citation needed] was faked by German propagandists, based on 1942 article by Ilya Ehrenburg. Nazi propaganda photograph, original caption Bodies of two German women and three children killed by the Bolsheviks (Soviets) in Metgethen, Germany. ...
Julius Streicher (February 12, 1885 – October 16, 1946) was a prominent Nazi prior to and during World War II. He was the publisher of the Nazi Der Stürmer newspaper, which was to become a part of the Nazi propaganda machine. ...
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (Russian: IPA: ), January 27 [O.S. January 15] 1891 (Kiev, Ukraine) – August 31, 1967 (Moscow, Soviet Union) was a Soviet-Jewish Russian writer and journalist whose 1954 novel gave name to the Khrushchev Thaw. ...
Pre-Potsdam deportations (May - July 1945) In 1945, the former German Silesian, Pomeranian and East-Prussian territories were occupied by Polish and Russian military forces. Early expulsions in Poland were undertaken by the Polish Communist military authorities even before the Potsdam Conference. To ensure territorial incorporation into Poland, Polish Communists ordered that Germans were to be expelled. "We must expel all the Germans because countries are built on national lines and not on multinational ones." a citation from Plenum of Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party, May 20-21, 1945.[15] Germans were defined as either Reichsdeutsche, people enlisted in 1st or 2nd Volksliste groups, and those of the 3rd group, who held German citizenship. Silesia (English pronunciation [], Czech: ; German: ; Latin: ; Polish: ; Silesian: Ślůnsk) is a historical region in central Europe, located along the upper and middle Oder River, upper Vistula River, and along the Sudetes, Carpathian (Silesian Beskids) mountain range. ...
Pommern redirects here. ...
The Province of East Prussia (red), within the Kingdom of Prussia, within the German Empire, as of 1871. ...
Belligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory belonging to a state passes to a hostile army. ...
The early expulsions were often more brutal than the organized population transfer that came afterwards. Sources suggest that the expulsions in Poland were not as brutal as those in Czechoslovakia.[16] However, one source, Russians in Germany states that, according to a Soviet soldier: "Polish soldiers relate to German women as to free booty".[17]
Historians disagree as to the number of Germans deported during this phase of expulsions. The estimates range from 300,000 to 500,000 people.[citation needed] Many Germans evacuated in the last phase of the war were not allowed to return to their homes.
Post-July 1945 expulsions The Soviet Union transferred territories to the east of the Oder-Neisse Line to Poland in July 1945. Subsequent to this, most Germans were expelled to the territories west of the Oder-Neisse Line. The approximate totals of those evacuated, migrated, or expelled from East Prussia between 1944-1950 are: 1.4 million to Western Germany, 609,000 to Eastern Germany; from West Prussia: 230,000 to Western Germany, 61,000 to Eastern Germany; from the former German area East of the Oder-Neisse: 3.2 million to Western Germany, 2 million to Eastern Germany.[18] The Oder-Neisse line (Polish: , German: ) marked the border between German Democratic Republic and Poland between 1950 and 1990. ...
Hungary In Hungary the persecution of the German minority began on 22 December 1944 when the Soviet Commander-in-Chief ordered expulsions. Three percent of the German pre-war population (appr. 20,000 people) had been evacuated by the Volksbund before that. They went to Austria, but many of them returned to their homes the next spring. In January 1945 the Soviet Army collected 32,000 ethnic Germans and expelled them to the Soviet Union for slave labor. Many of them died there as a result of hardships and ill-treatment. On 29 December 1945, the new Hungarian Government ordered the expulsion of every person who had declared him/herself German in the 1941 census, or was a member of the Volksbund, the SS or any other armed German organisation. In accordance with this decree, mass expulsions began. The first wagon departed from Budaörs (Wudersch) on 19 January 1946 with 5788 people. Some 185,000 to 200,000 German-speaking Hungarian citizens were deprived of their rights and all possessions, and expelled to the Western zone of Germany. Up to July 1948, a further 50,000 people were expelled to the Eastern zone of Germany. Most of the expelled Germans found new homes in the western provinces of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, and Hesse. In 1947 and 1948, a forced population exchange took place between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Some 74,000 ethnic Hungarians were expelled 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. The previous statement is somewhat suspect, as census data for 1950 identified 270,000 ethnic Germans in Hungary. About half of the German community in Hungary was able to survive the dark years between 1944 and 1950. is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ...
SS or ss or Ss may be: The Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary force Steamship (SS) (ship prefix) The United States Secret Service A submarine not powered by nuclear energy (SS) (United States Navy designator), see SSN A Soviet/Russian surface-to-surface missile, as listed by NATO reporting name Shortstop...
Budaörs is a town in Pest county, Hungary. ...
is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Location Coordinates , , Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE1 Capital Stuttgart Minister-President Günther Oettinger (CDU) Governing parties CDU / FDP Votes in Bundesrat 6 (of 69) Basic statistics Area 35,752 km² (13,804 sq mi) Population 10,741,000 (11/2006)[1] - Density...
For other uses, see Bavaria (disambiguation). ...
Location Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE7 Capital Wiesbaden Largest city Frankfurt Minister-President Roland Koch (Acting) (CDU) Votes in Bundesrat 5 (of 69) Basic statistics Area 21,100 km² (8,147 sq mi) Population 6,073,000 (09/2007)[1] - Density 288 /km...
Migrations of the Székelys The Székelys of Bukovina are a minor Hungarian ethnic group with a special history. ...
This article is about Transdanubia, the region in Hungary. ...
Tolna is the name of: an administrative county (comitatus or megye) in present Hungary, an administrative county in the former Kingdom of Hungary, a town in Hungary. ...
Baranya (Hungarian, in Croatian and Serbian: Baranja) is the name of an administrative county (comitatus or megye) in present Hungary, and also in the former Kingdom of Hungary. ...
Somogy is the name of an administrative county (comitatus or megye) in present Hungary, and also in the former Kingdom of Hungary. ...
Poland -
On February 6, 1945, the Soviet NKVD ordered the mobilization of all German men (17 to 50 years old) in the Soviet-controlled territories, many of whom were then transported to the Soviet Union for forced labor. In the East German territories, which the Soviet authorities had put under Polish administration, the Soviets did not always distinguish between Poles and Germans and often mistreated them alike.[19] Of the pre-war ethnic German population of about 1.4 million: 420,000 migrated, evacuated or were expelled to Western Germany; 268,000 to Eastern Germany; and 431,000 still lived in Poland in 1950. The expulsion of Germans from Poland after World War II was part of a series of expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II. This article covers the expulsion of Germans from all regions which are currently within the territorial boundaries of Poland although...
The real estate property left by the expellees was nationalized by the communist government just like other private property regardless of ethnic background. Nationalization is the act of taking assets into state ownership. ...
Yugoslavia After the second world war, the majority of German-speaking people from Yugoslavia (mostly the Danube Swabians) left for Austria and West Germany, and after 1950, thanks to the "displaced persons" act (of 1948), also to the United States of America. Because of support to Nazi Germany (7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen), many suffered persecution, sustained great personal and economic losses, and many perished as revenge of local population and partisans. However, some remained in Yugoslavia, particularly those married to local partners. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
The Danube Swabians (German: Donauschwaben, Hungarian: Dunai-Svábok or Dunamenti németek, Romanian: Åžvabi or Åžvabi Dunăreni, Serbian: Dunavske Å vabe or ДунавÑке Швабе, Croatian: Podunavski Å vabe) is a collective term for Germans who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially in the Danube (Donau) River valley. ...
A displaced person (sometimes abbreviated DP) is the general term for someone who has been forced to leave his or her native place, a phenomenon known as forced migration. ...
National Socialism redirects here. ...
Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division SS-Freiwilligen-Division Prinz Eugen SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division Prinz Eugen 7. ...
The left property of those expelled was nationalized on the basis of the decision on the transition of enemy property into state ownership, on state administration over the property of absent persons, and on sequestration of property forcibly appropriated by occupation authorities of November 21, 1944 by the Presidency of AVNOJ[20] AVNOJ (AntifaÅ¡istiÄko V(ij)eće Narodnog OsloboÄ‘enja Jugoslavije), standing for Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, was the political umbrella organization for the peoples liberation committees that was established on November 26, 1942 to administer terrorities under their control. ...
Romania -
The expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II, conducted on Soviet order early in 1945, uprooted tens of thousands of Romania's Germans, many of whom lost their lives. Some expulsions were part of the Soviet plan for German war reparations in the form of forced labor, according to the 1944 secret Soviet Order 7161. Of a pre-war ethnic German population of 786,000, approximately 213,000 had been evacuated, expelled, or migrated to Austria or Western Germany, and 400,000 still resided in Romania in 1950.[3] It is claimed[citation needed] that many of those covered by Order 7161 had either been a part of, or complicit with, the Nazi or Fascist regimes in Romania during the war. The expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II, conducted on Soviet order early in 1945, uprooted tens of thousands of Romanias Germans, many of whom lost their lives. ...
In 1944 Romania was occupied by Soviet troops, who would not withdraw until 1958. ...
The Transylvanian Saxons (German: Siebenbürger Sachsen; Romanian: Saşi, Hungarian: Szászok) are a people of German origin who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards. ...
Not by Their Own Will. ...
This article is based on this book Order 7161 refers to the top secret USSR State Defense Committee Order no 7161ss (ПоÑтановление â„– 7161cc ГКО СССР) of December 16, 1944 about mobilisation and internment of able-Bodied Germans for works in the USSR. (The ss after the number is the Russian abbreviation for top...
Slovenia In Slovenia the German population at the end of the war was concentrated in Styria, more precisely in Maribor, Celje and a few other towns and in total numbered about 28.000 in 1931. The number was higher after 1941 as the Germans from the German ethnic enclave of Kočevje in southern Slovenia,at the time under Italian occupation, were transferred by the Italian and German occupying forces to German-occupied Styria. The majority of the German population, frustrated by the loss of overproportionate power in former Habsburg lands, has actively supported the new nazi regime and it's policy of forcible germanization through displacement of people, mass murder and concentration camps in the area.[citation needed] Thus most have fled the area together with the retreating German forces in fear of reprisals and the remainder was mostly expelled by the Liberation Front of Slovenia after it seized complete control in the region.
Russia - See also: Evacuation of East Prussia
Having been the capital of Kingdom of Prussia, Königsberg (now renamed Kaliningrad) was an important city in the history of Germany, also being where Immanuel Kant lived all his life. Under the Nazis, it belonged to the German province (Gau) of East Prussia, which itself had been an exclave of Weimar Germany between 1918 and 1939. The Evacuation of East Prussia refers to the events that took place in East Prussia, especially the evacuation of German population from that area as well as from other Prussian lands in 1944 and 1945. ...
Anthem Preußenlied, Heil dir im Siegerkranz (both unofficial) The Kingdom of Prussia at its greatest extent, at the time of the formation of the German Empire, 1871 Capital Berlin Government Monarchy King - 1701 — 1713 Frederick I (first) - 1888 — 1918 William II (last) Prime minister - 1848 Adolf Heinrich von Arnim...
Former German name of the city of Kaliningrad. ...
Kaliningrad (Russian: ; Lithuanian: KaraliauÄius; German , Polish: Królewiec; briefly Russified as Kyonigsberg), is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. ...
Kant redirects here. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
East Prussia (German: Ostpreu en; Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Russian: Восточная Пруссия — Vostochnaya Prussiya) was a province of Kingdom of Prussia, situated on the territory of former Ducal Prussia. ...
Many of the Germans from East Prussia were evacuated by Nazi authorities or fled in panic before the Soviet Army approached. After the war, all of the surviving Germans were expelled and the region was settled by ethnic Russians and the families of military staff. The expelled Germans mostly headed to West Germany. Thousands of German children were left unattended or with their parents killed during a harsh winter without any food, forming wolf children gangs. Today, the area, named Kaliningrad Oblast, is an exclave of Russia, separated from the rest of the country by Lithuania and Poland. A feral child is a child who has lived isolated from human contact starting from a very young age. ...
Kaliningrad Oblast (Russian: , Kaliningradskaya Oblast; informally called Yantarny kray (, meaning amber region) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) on the Baltic coast. ...
D is Bs exclave, but is not an enclave. ...
Lithuania A part of western Lithuania along the seacoast was annexed by Nazi Germany as Memelland in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. The area, including Klaipėda (German: Memel), an important Baltic seaport, had been part of East Prussia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and then German Empire until the Treaty of Versailles. Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...
Klaipėda Region (Memel Region, Memelland) is the name of the coastland of Lithuania around Klaipėda (formerly known as Memel) and the Curonian Lagoon, on the right bank of river Nemunas. ...
Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Nickname: Location of KlaipÄ—da Coordinates: , Country Lithuania Ethnographic region County KlaipÄ—da County Municipality KlaipÄ—da city Number of elderates 1 Capital of KlaipÄ—da County KlaipÄ—da city municipality First mentioned 1252 Granted city rights 1254 Population (2007) - Total 185 899 - Rank 3rd Time zone EET (UTC+2...
East Prussia (German: Ostpreu en; Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Russian: Восточная Пруссия — Vostochnaya Prussiya) was a province of Kingdom of Prussia, situated on the territory of former Ducal Prussia. ...
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
For German colonial territories, see German Colonial Empire. ...
This article is about the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, which ended World War I. For other uses, see Treaty of Versailles (disambiguation) . The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was a peace treaty that officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. ...
After the war, the area was claimed by the Soviet Union, (which included annexed Lithuania). Most of its German inhabitants fled to Germany, joining the exodus of those from Königsberg and other Eastern Prussian cities. German civilian remnants were put on deportation trains in 1946. Many Ethnic Germans from rural areas fled their homes by wagon, taking only a few essentials and non-perishable food items. They traveled for weeks in wagon train-like formations. Many made their way to the Baltic Sea, and horrifying accounts exist of wagons trying to cross the Baltic to escape to Germany, only to fall through the ice. Others turned back and made their way to port cities like Pillau, where they boarded overcrowded ships going to places like Denmark or Kiel. These ships then navigated the mine-strewn waters, a few falling prey to aircraft or submarines. Once there, many spent the rest of the war in refugee camps. Illnesses such as dysentery were not uncommon during this time, and many of the young and elderly died on foreign soil. Ethnic Lithuanians and other Soviet citizens replaced the ethnic German population. Unverified rumors state that a number of orphaned ethnic German children too young to go on the long trek as refugees were taken in by Lithuanian families. Former German name of the city of Kaliningrad. ...
Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Netherlands -
After World War II the Dutch wanted to expel 25,000 Germans living in the Netherlands. The Germans (who often had Dutch wives/husbands and children) were called 'hostile subjects' (Dutch: vijandelijke onderdanen). The operation started on 10 September 1946 in Amsterdam, where Germans and their families were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and given one hour to collect 50kg of luggage. They were allowed to take 100 Guilders with them. The rest of their possessions went to the Dutch state. They were taken to internment camps near the German border, the biggest of which was Mariënbosch near Nijmegen. In total, about 3,691 Germans (less than 15 percent of the 25,000 total population of Germans in the Netherlands) were expelled, their possessions confiscated by the Dutch state.[citation needed] Operation Black Tulip was a plan in 1945 by Dutch minister of Justice Kolfschoten to evict all Germans from the Netherlands. ...
The Dutch (Ethnonym: Nederlanders meaning Lowlanders) are the dominant ethnic group[1] of the Netherlands[2]. They are usually seen as a Germanic people. ...
For other uses, see Amsterdam (disambiguation). ...
The guilder (Dutch gulden), represented by the symbol ƒ, was the name of the currency used in the Netherlands from the 15th century until 1999, when it was replaced by the euro (coins and notes were not introduced until 2002). ...
Country Netherlands Province Gelderland Area (2006) - Municipality 57. ...
The Allied forces that occupied the Western zone of Germany opposed this operation for fear that other countries might follow suit and the western zone was not in an economic condition to receive such large numbers of expellees. The British troops in Germany reacted by evicting 100,000 ethnic Dutch in Germany to the Netherlands.[citation needed]
The operation ended in 1948. On 26 July 1951, the state of war between the Netherlands and Germany officially ended, and the Germans were no longer regarded as state enemies. A Declaration of War is a formal declaration issued by a national government indicating that a state of war exists between that nation, and one or more others. ...
Norway - Further information: War children
For the mass evacuation of children from Finland during the Continuation War, see Finnish war children. ...
Denmark In the final weeks of the war, between February 11 and May 9, about 250,000 German refugees fled across the Baltic Sea, fleeing the advancing Soviet Army. For the most part, the refugees were from East Prussia, Pomerania, and the Baltic states. Many of the refugees were women, children, or elderly. A third of the refugees were younger than 15 years old.
The refugees were interned in hundreds of camps from Copenhagen to Jutland, placed behind barbed wire and guarded by military personnel. The largest camp, located in Oksbøl, on the west coast of Jutland, held 37,000 refugees. Jutland Peninsula Jutland (Danish: Jylland; German: Jütland; Frisian Jutlân; Low German Jötlann) is the western, continental part of Denmark as well as one of the three historical Lands of Denmark, dividing the North Sea from the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea. ...
In the camps, food rations were meager and medical care was inadequate, as they were for everyone in Europe in 1945-46. In 1945 alone, more than 13,000 people died, among them some 7,000 children under five.[21]
There were no expulsions of Danish citizens of German ethnicity.
France A number of Germans were expelled from Alsace and Lorraine. Some inhabitants of Kehl were forced to leave, when the city was French (1945-1949). Elsaß redirects here. ...
Lorraine coat of arms location of the Lorraine province Lorraine (French: Lorraine; German: Lothringen) is a historical area in present-day northeast France. ...
Kehl is a town in southwestern Germany in the Ortenaukreis, Baden-Württemberg. ...
Reasons and justifications for the expulsions 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 the affected countries, as well as historians, perceive the reasons for the Potsdam decisions and subsequent transfers differently. The key issues that motivated the expulsions are thought to include: - Compensation to other countries for their territories lost to the Soviet Union
- A desire to create ethnically homogeneous nation-states
- Distrust of and enmity towards Nazi-influenced German communities
- Prevention of violence between majority populations and German minorities
- Punishment of ethnic German minorities for activities in support of Nazi aggression
- Removing any basis for future extra-territorial claims by Germany
- Making room for Polish expellees and returnees
- Making the Polish state dependent on Soviet Union
- Property compensation in Eastern European countries
- An attempt to restore demographics in areas previously occupied by the Nazis.
Compensation to other countries for their for territories lost to the Soviet Union
 Poland's old and new borders, 1945 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 the beginning of the war. While some cities, like Gdańsk (Danzig), were transferred to Poland as part of the "clean sweep" (see below) that eliminated minorities and strategically risky borders, other cities, like Wrocław (Breslau) or Szczecin (Stettin), would hardly have been transferred to Poland had it not lost Vilnius (Wilno), Hrodna (Grodno) and Lviv (Lwów). Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
For alternative meanings of Gdańsk and Danzig, see Gdańsk (disambiguation) and Danzig (disambiguation) Motto: Nec temere, nec timide (No rashness, no timidness) Coordinates: , Country Voivodeship Powiat city county Gmina Gdańsk Established 10th century City Rights 1263 Government - Mayor Paweł Adamowicz Area - City 262 km² (101. ...
Motto: Miasto spotkań (the meeting place) Coordinates: , Country Poland Voivodeship Lower Silesian Powiat city county Gmina Wrocław Established 10th century City Rights 1262 Government - Mayor Rafał Dutkiewicz Area - City 292. ...
Stettin redirects here. ...
Not to be confused with Vilnius city municipality. ...
Hrodna City emblem Hrodna (Belarusian: ; Russian: ; Polish: ; Lithuanian: ; Yiddish: Grodne; German: ) is a city in Belarus. ...
“Lvov†redirects here. ...
Thus, from the perspective of the Polish, Communist, and Western Allies, one justification for the expulsion of the Germans was compensation of Poland for territories taken by the Soviet Union.
Objections to this theory argue that the territories Stalin took from Poland in the east, were actually behind the Curzon Line, which was proposed as the border after World War I by the Western Allies in that war, and which Poland had taken from the Soviet Union in 1920-22. Objections to this argue that the Curzon line was an Anglocentric arbitrary line (in fact two lines) not based on ethnic data, which was not either agreed to or respected by the Soviets, who revised it by annexing ethnically Polish lands near Grodno. The Curzon Line was a demarcation line proposed in 1919 by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, as a possible armistice line between Poland, to the west, and Soviet Russia to the east, during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–20. ...
“The Great War †redirects here. ...
A desire to create ethnically homogeneous nation-states
 Dominating nationalities in Poland around 1931. This was presented as the key reason for the official decisions of the Potsdam conference and previous Allied conferences involving the Polish and Czech exile governments, as cited in this article. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 445 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (668 × 900 pixel, file size: 233 KB, MIME type: image/png) version of File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 445 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (668 × 900 pixel, file size: 233 KB, MIME type: image/png) version of File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
There is a long history of the Polish and Czech nations trying to protect themselves against German eastward expansionism (see also Drang nach Osten article), as well as the late compensatory nationalism of newly independent Eastern European nation-states. The border on the Oder-Neisse line was actively pursued by the Polish government in exile, which, under the pressure from the Soviet Union and its Western allies, was looking for possible compensation for the Soviet-occupied eastern regions which Stalin was not willing to give back, in part based on the majority of the population being Ukrainian/Ruthenian and Belorussian.[citation needed] This does not cite its references or sources. ...
The Oder-Neisse line (Polish: , German: ) marked the border between German Democratic Republic and Poland between 1950 and 1990. ...
The Government of the Polish Republic in Exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union during September-October 1939. ...
Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ...
The territories that had been handed over to Poland and Czechoslovakia by the Versailles treaty caused particular trouble to these states. Especially, the Czech exile government in London insisted on a solution to the bitter lesson forced on it in 1938: no stability without ethnic homogeneity. The utter military and moral defeat of Germany provided an opportunity for achieving ethnic homogeneity by means heretofore only used on a large scale by the Germans themselves. In the case of Czechoslovakia, not only the Sudeten Germans but also the Hungarian minority of Southern Slovakia became caught up in the postwar population displacements. the german inhabitants of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. ...
Distrust of and enmity towards Nazi-influenced German communities There was an expressed fear of disloyalty of Germans in Silesia and Pomerania based on the Nazi activities of numbers of ethnic Germans during the war, and even after the end of the war. As a result of these activities, there was no political party which would agree to Germans continuing to live in Silesia and Pomerania. To Poles, expulsion of Germans was seen as an effort to avoid such events in the future and as a result, Polish exile authorities proposed a population transfer of Germans as early as 1941.[22]
Transferring the ethnic German population to the west was advocated as a necessary means of achieving inter-ethnic peace.
Prevention of violence between majority populations and German minorities The participants at the Potsdam Conference asserted that 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, insofar 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…".[23] From this point of view, the policy achieved its goals: the 1945 borders are stable and ethnic conflicts are relatively marginal. Churchill redirects here. ...
Type Lower House Speaker Michael Martin, (Non-affiliated) since October 23, 2000 Leader Harriet Harman, (Labour) since June 28, 2007 Shadow Leader Theresa May, (Conservative) since May 5, 2005 Members 659 Political groups Labour Party Conservative Party Liberal Democrats Scottish National Party Plaid Cymru Democratic Unionist Party Sinn Féin...
Punishment of ethnic German minorities for activities in support of Nazi aggression One theory offered for the expulsions is that the actual purpose of the policy was to punish 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. Czechs (Czech: Češi) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. ...
Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...
The term nation-state, while often used interchangeably with the terms unitary state and independent state, refers properly to the parallel occurence of a state and a nation. ...
From this perspective, the expulsions were viewed as an act of historical justice, because, for example, some Sudeten Germans strongly contributed to the destruction of pre-war Czechoslovakia. Czech public opinion saw this act as a national betrayal. Nazi occupation forces had planned to kill, deport, or enslave the entire Polish, Russian, and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior (Untermensch), and to repopulate all of Eastern Europe with Germans. All urban populations in the German-occupied "lebensraum" were to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing the replacement of those governments by a German ruling class. the german inhabitants of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. ...
The Munich Agreement and the first Vienna Award After the Austrian Anschluss, Czechoslovakia was to become Hitlers next target. ...
Untermensch (German for under man, sub-man, sub-human; plural: Untermenschen) is a term from Nazi racial ideology used to describe inferior people, especially the masses from the East, that is Jews, Gypsies, Soviet Bolsheviks, homosexual men, and anyone else who was not an Aryan (i. ...
As a result, 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. Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen) was the name given by Nazi German government to the largest subdivision of the territory of Greater Poland which was directly incorporated into the German Reich after defeating the Polish army in 1939. ...
Removing any basis for future extra-territorial claims by Germany One purpose of expelling ethnic Germans from areas in other countries was to invalidate German territorial claims to land in those nations. The purported objective was to prevent a repetition of what happened in the Sudetenland, where the Nazi government based territorial claims upon the presence of an ethnic German minority living there. Sudetenland (Czech and Polish: Sudety) was the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the Western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...
Ethnic Germans – often simply called Germans – are those who are considered, by themselves or others, to be ethnically German but do not live within the present-day Federal Republic of Germany, nor necessarily hold its citizenship. ...
Making room for Polish expellees and 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 |
