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. Germans expelled from the Sudetenland // The expulsion of Germans after World War II refers to the forced migration of people considered Germans (Reichsdeutsche and some Volksdeutsche) from various European states and territories during 1945 and in the first three years after World War II 1946-48. ...

Before the 1938 German annexation of the Sudetenland, roughly 20% of the population in Czechoslovakia had been ethnic Germans.^[1] == 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 (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in 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 revenged the assassination on Heydrich, most of the Czech resistance groups demanded the final solution of 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.^[2] The final agreement for the transfer of 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. ... Czech resistance during the Second World War 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. ... The Allies of World War II were the countries officially opposed to the Axis powers during the Second World War. ... Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the Potsdam Conference on July 18, 1945. ...

In the months following the end of the war the "wild" expulsion happened from May till August 1945. These "wild" expulsions were encouraged by polemical speeches made by several Czechoslovak statesmen. The "wild" expulsions were executed by order of local authorities mostly by groups of armed volunteers. However in some causes was initiated or pursued by assistance of regular army.^[3] Several thousand died violently during the "wild" expulsion and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence. The regular transfer according the Potsdam Conference proceeded from 25 January 1946 till October of that year. An estimated 1,6 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). [1] About 244,000 Germans were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia.

Estimates of casualties range between 20,000 and 200,000 people, depending on source.^[4] These casualties include violent deaths and suicides, deaths in internment camps^[5] and natural causes^{[citation needed]}.^[6] 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. ...

Background

See also: Sudetenland

There had been a German minority in Bohemia and Moravia ("Czech lands") for centuries. They had started coming, on the invitation of Bohemian kings as early as the 11th century. Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...

The regions later called Sudetenland were situated on the borders of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which also consisted of Moravia (and later Silesia) and was in turn part of the Holy Roman Empire. After the extinction of the Czech Přemyslid dynasty, the kingdom was ruled by the Luxemburgs, later the Jagiellonians and finally the Habsburgs. Starting from the 13th century onwards the border regions of Bohemia and Moravia, called Sudetenland in the 20th century, were settled by Germans, who were invited by the originally Slavic Bohemian nobility. Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ... Flag of Bohemia Bohemia (Czech: ; German: ) is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic. ... The extent of the Holy Roman Empire in c. ... PÅ™emyslid coat of arms. ... The House of Luxembourg was a medieval Holy Roman Empire noble family. ... The Jagiellons were a royal dynasty which reigned in some Central European countries between the 14th and 16th century. ... Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy; also used as the flag of the Austrian Empire until the Ausgleich of 1867. ... (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ... Bohemia, Moravia, Austrian Silesia - 1892, then part of Austria-Hungary Bohemia and Moravia-Silesia within Czechoslovakia in 1928 The Czech lands (in Czech: české zemÄ›) is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. ...

Until the so-called "renewed constitution" of 1627, the German language was established as a second official language in the Czech lands. The Czech language remained the first language in the kingdom. Both German and Latin were widely spoken among the ruling classes, although German became increasingly dominant, while Czech was spoken in much of the countryside.

During the Habsburg Monarchy, especially from the 17th century onwards the German-speaking population became the privileged ethnic and linguistic group, while Czechs felt increasingly sidelined.

The Habsburgs integrated the Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia into their monarchy, of which it remained a part until the modern nationalism gained power in the 19th century: conflicts between Czech and German nationalists emerged, for instance in the Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas: while the German-speaking population wanted to participate in the building of a German nation state, the Czech-speaking population insisted on keeping Bohemia out of such plans. Anthem: Volkshymne (Peoples Anthem) Capital Vienna Language(s) German Religion Roman Catholic Government Monarchy History  - Established 1804  - Disestablished 1867 Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy The Crown of the Austrian Emperor The Austrian Empire (German: ) was an empire centred on what is modern day Austria that officially lasted from 1804... Eugène Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, symbolising French nationalism during the July Revolution. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... From March 1848 through July 1849, the Habsburgs Austrian Empire was threatened by revolutionary movements. ...

The relationship between the German-speaking and Czech-speaking populatons radically changed after World War I when independent Czechoslovakia was established. The ultimately successful Czechoslovak demands for the German majority territories were viewed favorably by France and the UK, but negatively by the U.S. who favored the Sudeten German demands for self-determination. Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...

In view of the continuous discrimination the German minority was subjected to in the new state that they had been forced to join, the Germans eventually came to see hope for their plight with the rise to power of Nazi Germany. This eventually led many of them to join the Nazi party.

Before the 1938 German annexation of the Sudetenland, more than 20% of the population in Czechoslovakia were ethnic Germans, in the Czhech lands they constituted more than 30% of the population.^[1] Ethnic German nationalists backed by Hitler demanded the union of German-speaking districts with Germany. Threatening war, Hitler seized through the Munich Agreement in September 1938 the cession of the Bohemian, Moravian and Czech-Silesian borderlands - Sudetenland. In November 1938, Czechoslovakia was forced by Germany and Italy to also cede southern Slovakia (one third of Slovak territory) to Hungary. The Czechs in the greatly weakened Czechoslovak Republic were forced to grant major concessions to the non-Czechs. Eventually Germany seized all of Czechoslovakia. == 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 (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ... For the annual global security meeting held in Munich, see Munich Conference on Security Policy Chamberlain holds the paper containing the resolution to commit to peaceful methods signed by both Hitler and himself on his return from Germany in September 1938. ... Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ...

Plans to expel the Sudeten Germans

The principle of “population transfer” of Germans in the West was first advocated by exiled Czech politician Eduard Benes, after the Munich Agreement of 1938 and even before the outbreak of the Second World War. Almost as soon as German troops occupied the Sudetenland in October 1938, Edvard Beneš pursued a two-fold policy: the restoration of Czechoslovakia in its pre-Munich boundaries and the removal, through a combination of minor border rectifications and population transfer, of the state’s disloyal German minority. Although the details changed along with British public and official opinion and pressure from the Czech underground, Beneš’s broad goals remained the same throughout the war.

The pre-war policy of minority protection was now seen as useless and contraproductive (and the minorities themself were seen as the source of unrest and instability), because it led to the destruction of democratic regime and whole Czechoslovak state. Therefore the Czechoslovakian leaders made decision to change the multiethnical character of the state to the state of 2 or 3 nations (Czechs, Slovaks and initially also the Ruthenians). This goal was to be reached by the transfer of the major part of minorities members and the succesive assimilation of the rest. Because almost all people of German and Magyar ethnicity gained German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the transfer could be legalized as the banishment (in German "Ausweisung") of the foreigners."^[7]

On June 22, 1942, after plans for the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans had become known, Wenzel Jaksch (a Sudeten German Social Democrat in exile) wrote a letter to Dr. Edward Benes, the Czech President in exile in London protesting the proposed plans.^[8]

During the course of the war, in his discussions with Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, Benes made the forced resettlement of the Germans of the Sudetenland his primary war aim. Initially only a few hundred thousand Sudeten Germans were to be affected, people who were perceived as disloyal to the Czech State and who, according to Benes, had acted as Hitler's "fifth column." Gradually Benes's demands for expulsion included more and more Germans, without any inference of guilt on their part, but simply because the Czech State did not want to be burdened in future with a sizable German minority.

During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, especially after the Nazis reprisal for the assassination on Heydrich, most of the Czech resistance groups demanded the final solution of 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 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. ... Czech resistance during the Second World War 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. ... The Allies of World War II were the countries officially opposed to the Axis powers during the Second World War. ... Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the Potsdam Conference on July 18, 1945. ...

Controversy over 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 affected countries and historians, perceive the reasons for the Potsdam decision and subsequent transfers differently. The key issues that motivated the expulsions include:

1. Compensation to Poland for territories occupied by the Soviet Union
2. A desire to consolidate the new borders by creating ethnically homogeneous nation states
3. Distrust of and enmity towards German communities
4. Prevention of ethnic violence between majority populations and German minorities
5. A desire to punish ethnic German minorities for activities in support of the Nazi invasion
6. A desire to expel ethnic Germans in the hopes of invalidating German territorial claims
7. Making room for Polish returnees
8. Making the future Polish state dependent on Soviet Union
9. Appropriation of German property left behind by the expellees
10. An attempt to restore pre-Nazi demographics in the areas where native populations were displaced by Nazi ethnic cleansing and expansion.

A desire to create ethnically homogeneous nation states

This was presented as the key reason for the official decisions of the Potsdam conference and previous allied conferences involving the Czech exile government, as cited in this article.

There is a longer history of the Czech nation trying to assert 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. This does not cite its references or sources. ...

The territories that had been handed over to Czechoslovakia by the Versailles treaty caused particular trouble to these states. Especially the Czech exile government in London insisted on a bitter lesson it had learned in 1938: no stability without ethnic homogeneity. The utter military and moral defeat of Germany provided a chance for achieving ethnic homogeneity by means normally not available. In case of Czechoslovakia, not only the Sudeten Germans but also the Hungarians of Southern Slovakia became victims of the postwar ethnic cleansing campaign. the german inhabitants of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. ...

Distrust of and enmity towards German communities in the Sudetenland

There was an expressed fear of disloyalty of Germans in the Sudetenland based in part on the pro-Nazi activities of members of the German ethnic group during the war and even after the end of the war. Expelling the German-speaking population was advocated as a necessary means of achieving inter-ethnic peace.

Preventing ethnic violence

The 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 the policy achieved its goals: the 1945 borders are stable and ethnic conflicts are relatively marginal. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was an English statesman, soldier, and author. ... The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ...

Retribution

One justification offered for the expulsions is 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. 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. ... A nation-state is a specific form of state, which exists to provide a sovereign territory for a particular nation, and which derives its legitimacy from that function. ...

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. The Czech public opinion saw this act as betrayal. 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. ...

Paradoxically, the transfer saved many Germans (and also others) from sentence of imprisonment. According to the report of Ministry of Justice, in about 14,000 less serious cases the prosecution was stopped to enable the repatriation or transfer of the defendant.[2] Moreover, in early 50's most of German war criminals with long-time or life- sentence were released because of the transfer priority.

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. Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen) was the name given by Nazis 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. ...

Invalidating German territorial claims

According to one argument, the purpose of expelling Germans from areas now belonging to other countries was to invalidate German territorial claims to the land. The purported objective was to prevent a repetition of what happened in the Sudetenland where the Nazis based territorial claims based upon the large number of ethnic Germans living there. Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Germans. ...

A restoration of pre-Nazi Eastern European demographics

Further information: Generalplan Ost

Part of Nazi Germany's long term policy for Central and Eastern Europe was to create a "Greater Germany" which was to be built by means of removing a variety of non-Germans from Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other areas in Eastern Europe. Some Germans living in these areas were placed there as part of the Nazi settlement policies (particularly in Eastern Poland), and had replaced those who were removed or killed by the Nazis during the occupation. However, many Germans had lived in Eastern Europe for centuries and the ones settled during the war were in fact a minority which mainly consisted of those who were forced to leave the territories occupied by the Red Army in the course of the execution of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Generalplan Ost (GPO) was a Nazi plan to realize Hitlers new order of ethnographical relations in the territories occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II. It was prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942. ... Generalplan Ost (GPO) was a Nazi plan to realize Hitlers new order of ethnographical relations in the territories occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II. It was prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942. ... National assembly meeting in St. ... Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. ...

Evacuation

On Himmler's orders, the majority of the roughly 120,000 Carpathian Germans from Slovakia were evacuated to the Protectorate and the occupied Šumava region. Bohemian Forest in the afternoon Bohemian Forest at noon The Bohemian forest is a low mountain range in Central Europe. ...

Conditions in postwar Czechoslovakia

Developing a clear picture of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia is difficult because of the chaotic conditions that existed at the end of the war. There was no stable central government and record-keeping was non-existent. Many of the events that occurred during that period were spontaneous and local rather than being the result of coordinated policy directives from a central government. Among these spontaneous events was the removal and detention of the Sudeten Germans which was triggered by the strong anti-German sentiment at the grass-roots level and organized by local officials.

Records of food rationing coupons show approximately 3,325,000 inhabitants of occupied Sudetenland in May 1945. Of these, about 500,000 were Czechs or other non-Germans. Thus, there were approximately 2,725,000 Germans in occupied Sudetenland in May 1945.

Chronology of the expulsions

After six humiliating and deadly years of Nazi occupation, Czechs took vengeance on Czechoslovakia's three million ethnic Germans in two waves. In the four months after liberation in early May 1945, Czech paramilitaries, army units, and local vigilantes drove hundreds of thousands of Germans from their homes and across the borders of occupied Germany and Austria, brutalizing and killing many in the process. Euphemistically dubbed the "wild transfer" in subsequent Czech historiography, this stage ended soon after the allied powers approved of an "organized transfer" at the Potsdam conference in August 1945. Part two of the expulsion process began in January 1946, with most of Czechoslovakia's remaining two million Germans making a forced, but relatively orderly, exit on special trains to occupied Germany.

At the end of World War II, Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš advocated a policy of "no mercy" toward the Germans and indicated the "German problem" would have to be solved by transfers/expulsion. Warning: Value not specified for common_name Motto: Czech: Pravda vítÄ›zí (Truth prevails; 1918-1989) Latin: Veritas Vincit (Truth prevails; 1989-1992) Anthem: Kde domov můj and Nad Tatrou sa blýska Capital Prague Language(s) Czech, Slovak Government Republic President  - 1918-1935 Tomáš Masaryk  - 1989-1992 V... Edvard BeneÅ¡ Edvard BeneÅ¡ with wife 1921, autochrome portrait by Josef JindÅ™ich Å echtl Edvard BeneÅ¡ (May 28, 1884 - September 3, 1948) was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement and the second President of Czechoslovakia. ...

From London and Moscow, Czech and Slovak political agents in exile followed an advancing Soviet army pursuing German forces westward, to reach the territory of the first former Czechoslovak Republic. Benes proclaimed the program of the newly appointed Czechoslovak government on April 5, 1945, in the northeastern city of Kosice ( Kassa, Kaschau), which included oppression and persecution of the non-Czech and non-Slovak populations of the partially restored Czechoslovak Republic. After the proclamation of the Kosice program, the German and Hungarian population living in the reborn Czechoslovak state were subjected to various forms of persecution, including: expulsions, deportations, internments, peoples court procedures, citizenship revocations, property confiscation, condemnation to forced labour camps, involuntary changes of nationality and appointment of government managers to German and Hungarian owned businesses and farms, referred to euphemistically as “reslovakization.”

Role of the Czechoslovak army

The Czechoslovak army played a major, if not central, role in the expulsions. General Zdeněk Novák, head of the Prague military command "Alex", issued an order to "deport all Germans from territory within the historical borders".

The "Ten Commandments for Czechoslovak Soldiers in the Border Regions" directed soldiers that "The Germans have remained our irreconcilable enemies. Do not cease to hatae the Germans...Behave towards Germans like a victor... Be harsh to the Germans...German women and the Hitler Youth also bear the blame for the crimes of the Germans. Deal with them too in an uncompromising way."

On June 15, a government decree directed the army to implement measures to apprehend Nazi criminals and carry out the transfer of the German populaton. On July 27, the Ministry of National Defence, issued a secret order directing that ht etransfer should be carried out on as large a scale as possible and as expeditiously as possible so as to present the Western powers with a "fait accompli". British and American representatives were already calling for discussions about the timing and means by which the transfer was to be conducted. The Anglo-American vision was for the resettlement to start in about five years. In the interim, they envisioned only partial, internal transfers of the German population who were to be subjected to forced labour.

Beneš decrees

Main article: Beneš decrees

Between 1945 and 1948, an series of discriminatory anti-German and anti-Hungarian presidential decrees, edicts, laws and statutes were proclaimed by the president of the republic, the Prague-based Czechoslovak Parliament, the Slovak National Council (parliament) in Bratislava (Pressburg) and by the Board of Slovak Commissioners (an appendage of the Czechoslovak government in Bratislava). 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...

The Beneš decrees are most often associated with the population transfer in 1945-47 of about 2.6 million former Czechoslovak citizens of German ethnicity (see also Sudetenland) to Germany and Austria. However, they do not directly refer to the expulsions; its advocates argue that the German exodus from Eastern Europe was agreed upon by the Allied powers at the Potsdam conference. The BeneÅ¡ 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... Population transfer is a term referring to a policy by which a state, or international authority, forces the movement of a large group of people out of a region, most frequently on the basis of their ethnicity or religion. ... Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ... It has been suggested that Expulsion of Germans after World_War II be merged into this article or section. ... Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the Potsdam Conference on July 18, 1945. ...

Some of the decrees concerned the expropriation of wartime "traitors" and collaborators accused of treason but also all Germans and Hungarians. They also ordered the removal of citizenship for people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin who were treated collectively as collaborators (these provisions were cancelled for the Hungarians in 1948). This was then used to confiscate their property and expel around 90% of the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia. These people were collectively accused of supporting the Nazis (through the Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP), political party led by Konrad Henlein) and the Third Reich's annexation of Czech borderland in 1938. Almost every decree explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to anti-fascists although the term anti-fascist was not explicitely defined . Some 250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists, but also people crucial for the industry remained in Czechoslovakia. The pursuit of Nazi collaborators refers to the post-WWII pursuit and apprehension of individuals who were not citizens of the Third Reich at the outbreak of World War II and collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war. ... Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city or town but now usually a country) and carries with it rights to political participation; a person having such membership is a citizen. ... The concept of ethnic origin is an attempt to classify people, not according to their current nationality, but according to where their ancestors came from. ... Konrad Henlein as SS-Gruppenführer Konrad Henlein (May 6, 1898 - May 10, 1945) was the most important pro-Nazi politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists. ... 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. ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

On May 19, 1945, Decree No. 5 of the President of the Republic proclaimed Germans in Czechoslovakia to be a people on which the state could not rely. This decree established the basis for a series of measures that would relegate the Germans to the status of second-class citizens and restrict their freedom of action in everyday life.

Incidents

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:^[1]

• In the Prerov incident, 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.
• 20,000 Germans were forced to leave Brno to camps in Austria. Some sources report 800 deaths.^[10]
• 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. Principals of this massacre were arrested and imprissoned.^[11]

Other recorded incidents include: Location of PÅ™erov in the Czech Republic PÅ™erov is a city in Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. ... Coordinates: Country Czech Republic Region South Moravia Founded 1146 Area  - city 230. ... Location of Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic The Ústí massacre (Czech: Ústecký masakr) was a mass lynching of ethnic Germans in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a city in northern Czechoslovakia in post-World War II Europe, on July 31, 1945. ...

• 763 people were shot dead in Postoloprty and the immediate vicinity.^[10]
• June 18-19, 1945, 265 Germans from Dobšiná are murdered while being transported back to Slovakia by soldiers of the 17th Bratislava foot regiment.
• At the railway station in Horní Moštěnice near Přerov 265 people were shot dead, including 120 women and 74 children.

In September 1947 a Czechoslovak parliamentary commission investigated reports of mass graves scattered around the north Bohemian town of Postoloprty. In all, the investigation unearthed 763 German bodies, victims of a zealous Czechoslovak army detachment carrying out orders to "cleanse" the region of Germans in late May 1945. Expellees who survived the massacre estimated the number of their murdered neighbors at around 800. The surprise here is that the numbers came from a Czech source, indeed from an inquiry at the highest levels of government only months before the Communists eliminated democratic opposition in February 1948.

Internment camps

A large number of Germans, most but by no means all of them active Nazis, were interned immediately after the liberation of Czechoslvakia. 1,215 internment camps, 846 work and disciplinary centres and 215 prisons were established on Czechoslovak territory. According to German figures, about 350,000 of the 2,750,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia passed through one or more of these institutions.

By the autumn of 1945, there were more than 150,000 people living in the internment camps including more than 16,000 children age 15 and younger.

In his book, "Our Threatened Values," (London 1946) Victor Gollancz described the conditions Sudeten German civilians were faced with in a Czech concentration camp: "They live crammed together in shacks without consideration for gender and age ... They ranged in age from 4 to 80. Everyone looked emaciated ... the most shocking sights were the babies ... nearby stood another mother with a shrivelled bundle of skin and bones in her arms ... Two old women lay as if dead on two cots. Only upon closer inspection, did one discover that they were still lightly breathing. They were, like those babies, nearly dead from hunger ..." Victor Gollancz (April 9, 1893–February 8, 1967) was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian. ... Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ... It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ...

According to Alfred de Zayas: Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (born 1947) is an American lawyer, writer, and historian. ...

One of the worst camps in post-war Czechoslovakia was the old Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Conditions under the new Czech administration are described by H. G. Adler, a former Jewish inmate as follows: ... in the majority they were children and juveniles, who had only been locked up because they were Germans. Only because they were Germans...? This sentence sounds frighteningly familiar; only the word 'Jews' had been changed to 'Germans'. [...] The people were abominably fed and maltreated, and they were no better off than one was used to from German concentration camps.

The civilian internees who survived to be expelled recorded the horrors of month and years of slow starvation and maltreatment in many thousands of affidavits. Allied authorities in the American and British zones were able to investigate several cases, including the notorious concentration camp at Budweis in Southern Bohemia. The deputy commander of this camp in the years 1945-6, Vaclav Hrnecek, later fled Czechoslovakia and came to Bavaria where he was recognized by former German inmates of the camp. Hrnecek was brought to trial before an American Court of the Allied High Commission for Germany presided by Judge Leo M. Goodman. The Court based an eight-year sentence against Hrnecek upon findings that the Budweis camp was run in a criminal and cruel way, that although there were no gas chambers and no systematic, organized extermination, the camp was a centre of sadism, where human life and human dignity had no meaning.^[12]

Conditions in in the internment camp near Kolin, in which internees were raped and beaten and two of them were killed were investigated by the Czechoslovak parliament. Fortress plan, 1869 Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) is name of former military fortress and garrison town in Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

According to a rough estimate by Tomás Staněk, approximately 10,000 people died in Bohemian and Moravian camps and prisons from 1945 to 1948. The causes of death included epidemics, undernourishment, overall exhaustion and old age, but also ill-treatment and executions.

Expulsions

Germans living in the border regions of Czechoslovakia were expelled from the country in late 1945. Several thousand died violently (some sources refers to 16.000 reported direct violent death including 6000 suicides^[13] during the expulsion and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence. 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). [3] 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday. ...

Law No. 115

On 8 May 1946 the Czech provisional National Assembly passed Law No. 115. It is one of the most controversial laws enacted in conjunction with the Beneš decrees as it specifies that "Any act committed between September 30, 1938 and October 28, 1945, the object of which was to aid the struggle for liberty of the Czechs and Slovaks or which represented just reprisals for actions of the occupation forces and their accomplices, is not illegal, even when such acts may otherwise be punishable by law." The BeneÅ¡ 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...

This law, which is still in force, has ensured that no atrocities against Germans during the time-period in question have been prosecuted in Czechoslovakia. .[4]

However, the Czech government did express its regret in 1997.

III. "The Czech side regrets that, by the forcible expulsion and forced resettlement of Sudeten Germans from the former Czechoslovakia after the war as well as by the expropriation and deprivation of citizenship, much suffering and injustice was inflicted upon innocent people, also in view of the fact that guilt was attributed collectively. It particularly regrets the excesses which were contrary to elementary humanitarian principles as well as legal norms existing at that time, and it furthermore regrets that Law No. 115 of 8 May 1946 made it possible to regard these excesses as not being illegal and that in consequence these acts were not punished."

Results

German sources estimate that between 3 million and 3.4 million German civilians were to be found in Czechoslovak territory at the end of the war.^{[citation needed]}

Estimates of casualties range between 15,000 and 270,000 people, depending on source.

They died in internment camps and on the roads.[5] Approximately 10,000 died in "internment camps" in the years 1945-1948^[14] 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. ...

Czech official records confirm the general outline of expellee memory, though Stanek convincingly discounts Sudeten German estimates of 250,000 deaths during the expulsions from 1945 to 1947. While no official death figures exist, Stanek puts the total of German deaths by suicide, murder, and disease at between 24,000 and 40,000.

Legacy

The character of the post-war deportations of Sudeten Germans has been the subject of long-running debate between Germans, Czechs and Slovaks. In 1991 President Vaclav Havel apologised, on behalf of his people, for massacres of Germans during the expulsion, and even suggested that former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech nationality to reclaim their lost properties. However, the Czech government never followed through on Havel's suggestion.

In the Czech Republic the Sudeten question still poisons the political atmosphere. The present Czech government will not repeal the Benes decrees, which provided the legal basis for the expulsion of three million Germans accused of collective collaboration with the Nazi regime and the confiscation of their property. Public opinion surveys indicate that the public is opposed to such measures.^[15] The Beneš decrees were 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 dealing with status of...

According to an article in the Prague Daily Monitor...

The Czech-German Declaration [of] 1997 has achieved a compromise and expressed regret over the wrongs caused to innocent people by "the post-war expulsions as well as forced deportations of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia, expropriation and stripping of citizenship" on the basis of the principle of collective guilt.

German politicians and the deported Sudeten Germans widely use the word "expulsion" for the events.

However, political representatives in both the Czech Republic and Poland, from where millions of Germans had to move after WW2, usually avoid this expression and rather use the word "deportation."^[16]

Compensation to expellees

Since the Czechoslovak government-in-exile decided that population transfer was the only solution of the "German question", the problem of reparation (war indemnity) was closely associated. The proposed population-transfer as presented in negotiations with the governments of U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R., presumed the confiscation of German's property to cover the reparation demands of Czechoslovakia; then Germany should pay the compensation to satisfy its citizens. This fait accompli should to prevent the Germany's evasion of reparation payment as it happened after World War I.[6] War reparations refer to the monetary compensation provided to a triumphant nation or coalition from a defeated nation or coalition. ...

This plan was suggested to the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency (IARA) in 1945, but because of the advent of the Cold war was never confirmed by any treaty with Germany. The IARA ended its activity in 1959 and the status quo is as follows: Czech Republic kept the property of expelled ethnic Germans while Germany didn't pay any reparations (only about 0,5% of Czechoslovak demands were satisfied[7]). For this reason, every time the Sudetengermans request compensation or the abolition of the Benes decrees, the Czech side strikes back by the threat of reparation demands. For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ...

Even during the preparation of the Czech-German declaration the German side avoided the Czech demand to confirm the status quo by the agreement. However, Germany adopted the Czechoslovak fait accompli and had paid the compensation to the expellees. It is a little known fact that, up to 1993 the German government paid about 141,000,000,000 DEM to the expelees.[8] This averages out to about 14,000 DEM for each expelled Sudetengerman (just for comparison: the still living prisoners who worked for Siemens as slave labor in Ravensbrück during the war, got only 1000 EUR(=cca 2000 DEM) as the compensation). But the total amount of money given to Sudetengermans by German state is uncertain. ISO 4217 Code DEM User(s) Germany, Montenegro, Kosovo ERM Since 13 March 1979 Fixed rate since 31 December 1998 Replaced by €, non cash 1 January 1999 Replaced by €, cash 1 January 2002 € = 1. ... View of the barracks at Ravensbrück Ravensbrück was a German concentration camp located 90 km north of Berlin. ... EUR is an initialism that may mean: Euro, the currency; Esposizione Universale Roma, a neighbourhood of Rome built for the World Fair Esposizione universale (1942). Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands) This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid...

In contrast to Germany, the issue of compensation of expellees was, at least nominally, closed by several treaties with Austria and Hungary.[9] The most important follows:

• Treaty of 19. December 1974. According to this treaty Czechoslovakia pledged to pay 1,000,000,000 ATS to cover the property demands of Austrian citizens and waived all former territory and all other demands of country or individuals against the Austria. The Austrian side waived all demands angainst ČSSR and pledged to not support any demands of individuals against the ČSSR related to expulsion.
• Treaty of 3. Februry 1964. According to this treaty Czechoslovakia pledged to satisfy all demands of Hungary and Hungarian citizens related to confiscations by paying 20,000,000 Kčs.

The Schilling was the currency of Austria until 1999, when the Euro was introduced at a fixed parity of €1 = 13. ... ISO 4217 Code CSK User(s) Czech Republic Slovakia Inflation 57. ...

Historiography

The expulsions--both wild and organized--of Sudeten Germans have long been a popular topic among German historians, many of them expellees or their descendents, and the subject is finding increasing interest among Czechs. For the most part, however, these histories have had a polemical edge, with each side stressing the crimes and culpability of the other.

See also

• History of Czechoslovakia
• Beneš decrees
• Expulsion of Germans after World War II
• German exodus from Eastern Europe
• Demographic estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe
• Sudetenland
• Ústí massacre

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... 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... Germans expelled from the Sudetenland // The expulsion of Germans after World War II refers to the forced migration of people considered Germans (Reichsdeutsche and some Volksdeutsche) from various European states and territories during 1945 and in the first three years after World War II 1946-48. ... It has been suggested that Expulsion of Germans after World_War II be merged into this article or section. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Sudetenland (German; Sudety in Czech and Polish) was the name used in the first half of the 20th century for the regions inhabited mostly by Germans in the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia. ... Location of Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic The Ústí massacre (Czech: Ústecký masakr) was a mass lynching of ethnic Germans in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a city in northern Czechoslovakia in post-World War II Europe, on July 31, 1945. ...

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War, Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, European University Institute, Florense. HEC No. 2004/1. pg. 18.
2. ^ Československo-sovětské vztahy v diplomatických jednáních 1939-1945. Dokumenty. Díl 2 (červenec 1943 – březen 1945). Praha. 1999. (ISBN 808547557X)
3. ^ Biman, S. - Cílek, R.: Poslední mrtví, první živí. Ústí nad Labem 1989. (ISBN 807047002X)
4. ^ P. WALLACE/BERLIN "Putting The Past To Rest", Time Magazine Monday, Mar. 11, 2002
5. ^ P. WALLACE/BERLIN "Putting The Past To Rest", Time Magazine Monday, Mar. 11, 2002
6. ^ Z. Beneš, Rozumět dějinám. (ISBN 80-86010-60-0)
7. ^ Trávníček, Miroslav: Osidlování s hlediska mezinárodního a vnitrostátního právního řádu. Časopis pro právní a státní vědu. XXVII/1946
8. ^ http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/sginferno/sgi04.html#jaksch
9. ^ Československo-sovětské vztahy v diplomatických jednáních 1939-1945. Dokumenty. Díl 2 (červenec 1943 – březen 1945). Praha. 1999. (ISBN 808547557X)
10. ^ ^{a b} Z. Beneš, et. al, p. 221
11. ^ Z. Beneš, et. al
12. ^ Alfred M. de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1977 ISBN 0710084684 pp. 124ff.
13. ^ Z. Beneš, et. al
14. ^ Z. Beneš, et. al, p. 223
15. ^ Pätzold, Brigitte. "The German exodus" Le monde diplomatique March 2004
16. ^ Czech Foreign Min calls Germans' postwar deportations "expulsion". Prague Daily Monitor, 2 April 2007

(Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ...

Other resources

• Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans Survivors speak out. Self-published by the Study Group for the Preservation of Sudeten German Interests, 1951

Translation © 2002 by The Scriptorium.

• Memories of World War II in the Czech Lands: the expulsion of Sudeten Germans Article from Radio Praha 14-04-2005 By Brian Kenety
• Alfred de Zayas, "Anglo-American Responsibility for the Expulsion of the Germans, 1944-48", (Pittsburg lecture, published in Vardy/Tooley "Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe" pp. 239-254), (deals with the culpability of Czechoslovak President-in-exile, Eduard Beneš).