NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII

The flight and expulsion of Germans during and after World War II refers to the forced migration of German nationals (Reichsdeutsche) and some ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from various European states and territories 1943–1945 and in the first three years after World War II 1946–48. 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. ... 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...

Many Germans fled their areas of residence under vague and haphazardly implemented evacuation orders of the Nazi German government 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.^[1]

The majority of the flights and expulsions occurred in areas of today's Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. Others occurred in territories of today's Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region), Lithuania, Slovenia and other regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Anthem Serbia() on the European continent() Capital (and largest city) Belgrade Official languages Serbian 1 Recognised regional languages Hungarian, Croatian, Slovak, Romanian, Rusyn 2 Albanian 3 Government Semi-presidential republic - President Boris TadiÄ‡ - Prime Minister Vojislav KoÅ¡tunica Establishment - Formation 812 - Kingdom established 1217 - Empire established 1346 - Independence lost to... Vojvodina (red) is one of Serbias two autonomous provinces Capital (and largest city) Novi Sad Official languages Ethnic groups 2. ... Central Europe The Alpine Countries and the VisegrÃ¡d Group (Political map, 2004) Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... Pre-1989 division between the West (grey) and Eastern Bloc (orange) superimposed on current national boundaries: Russia (dark orange), other countries of the former USSR (medium orange),members of the Warsaw pact (light orange), and other former Communist regimes not aligned with Moscow (lightest orange). ...

By some accounts, 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 Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Actual cited research places the number expelled at just over 12 million, including all those who migrated, forcibly or otherwise, to both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany and to Austria.^[1] 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 as high as 3 million. 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.^[1] The debate about the number of deaths and their cause continues to be the subject of heated controversy. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Human migration denotes any movement of groups of people from one locality to another. ... The Western Allies were the democracies and their colonial peoples, within the broader coalition of Allies during World War II. The term is generally understood to refer to the countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations and Poland (from 1939), exiled forces from Occupied Europe (from 1940), the United States...

More than half a century later, relations between unified Germany and its East European neighbors remain somewhat difficult due to an often emotional controversy concerning the rights of expellees (German: Heimatvertriebene). Much of the controversy is spurred by contentious demands of some groups of the expellees or their descendants for revocation of expulsion decrees, official apologies, prosecution of perpetrators, or compensation for lost properties. Underlying this controversy are disagreements about who was responsible for the expulsions, what the motivations were, and whether the expulsions were morally justified. It should be noted here that no expulsions would have occurred at all except for the invasion and brutal occupation of most of Europe by Nazi Germany. This article is in need of attention. ...

Background

Part of the motivation behind the expulsions is based on events in the history of Germany and Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Colonization and migrations that took place over almost a millennium led to pockets of Germans existing throughout Eastern Europe as far east as Russia. The existence of these pockets was misused by German nationalists, most notably the Nazis, to justify the expropriation of extra-national territories in Eastern Europe, aggression which led directly to the German invasion of Poland and World War II.

During the German occupation of Europe, many ethnic Germans applied for German citizenship by registering with the Deutsche Volksliste, and some held important positions in the hierarchy of Nazi administration. The expulsion of German minorities from Eastern Europe at the end of World War II was part of a negotiated agreement among the victorious Allies. It was designed to redraw national borders and arrange for "orderly population transfers" to remove those Eastern Europeans of German descent whom the Nazis had used to rationalize their aggressive territorial demands, and thereby prevent any future German ultranationalists from using these populations as a trumped-up 'cause celebre' as the Nazis had done. 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. ...

A number of East European 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 East European Germans were motivated by the atrocities of the advancing Soviet army, whose soldiers exacted revenge for what German armed forces had done in their homeland. News of these atrocities were spread and exaggerated by the German propaganda machine.^{[citation needed]}

Some Soviet soldiers committed rapes (possibly as high as 100,000 in the city of Berlin alone) as reported in numerous German accounts, medical reports and ex-forced laborers' accounts. ^[2]^[3] It must be noted in saying this that, as with other German war-related complaints about property destruction and expropriation, civilian deaths, and the ill-treatment of PoWs, losses suffered by the Germans represent only a small fraction of those inflicted on other nations aggressively invaded by Germany.

Forced migrations were a central element of European history in the 20th century. The concept of "ultranationalism" which demanded 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 expulsion.

Initial evacuation by German authorities in 1943-1945

Main article Evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II 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...

Organised evacuation started in 1943 with German occupied territories in the Soviet Union. Some of the guards and inmates of the Majdanek camp were evacuated starting on April 1, 1944 (see also Death marches (Holocaust)). Majdanek Memorial, containing the ashes of cremated victims Majdanek fence in the winter (2005) Majdanek (originally Konzentrationslager Lublin) is the site of a German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, roughly 2. ... Dachau concentration-camp inmates on a death march through a German village in April 1945. ...

Generally vague and ill-prepared 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 World War II. In most cases, however, 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". Several million people were involved in this movement. 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. ...

Several hundred thousand evacuees and expellees died of cold or hunger or in Allied bombardment, though hundreds of thousands of others soon made their way back to the areas only to be expelled later on. ^[4]

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. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Anthem Auferstanden aus Ruinen Capital East Berlin Language(s) German Government Socialist republic Head of State - 1949 â€“ 1960 Wilhelm Pieck - 1960 â€“ 1973 Walter Ulbricht - 1973 â€“ 1976 Willi Stoph - 1976 â€“ 1989 Erich Honecker - 1989 Egon Krenz - 1989 - 1990 Manfred Gerlach Head of Government - 1949 â€“ 1964 Otto Grotewohl - 1964 â€“ 1973 Willi Stoph...

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 or nationalisation is the act of transferring assets into public ownership. ...

It is worth noting that the expulsion was not always indiscriminate. In Czechoslovakia, large numbers of skilled Sudeten German workmen were forced to remain to labour for the country. ^[5] Likewise in the Opole (Oppeln) region in Upper Silesia, natives who declared themselves as belonging to Polish nationality were allowed to stay. In fact part of them (and not all of them) had uncertain national identity or considered themselves to be Germans. Their status as a national minority was accepted in 1955, alongside with the state's help in regard to economic assistance, and education.^[6] Opole ( ; German: ) is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River (Odra). ... Map of Upper Silesia, 1746 Upper Silesia (Polish: GÃ³rny ÅšlÄ…sk, German: Oberschlesien, Czech: HornÃ Slezsko) is the south-eastern part of Silesia, a historical and geographical region of Poland (Opole Voivodship and Silesian Voivodship) and of the Czech Republic (Silesian-Moravian Region). ...

Czechoslovakia

See also: History of Czechoslovakia, Beneš decrees, Sudetenland, Ústí massacre. 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... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... 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... 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 ÃšstÃ nad Labem in the Czech Republic The ÃšstÃ massacre (Czech: ÃšsteckÃ½ masakr) was a mass lynching of ethnic Germans in ÃšstÃ nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a city in northern Czechoslovakia in post-World War II Europe, on July 31, 1945. ...

Before the 1938 German annexation of the Sudetenland, roughly 20% of the population in Czechoslovakia had been ethnic Germans.^[7] == 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.^[8] 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. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... 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. ... A representation of the changes in territory controlled by Allies and Axis powers over the course of the 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, "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.^[9] Several thousand died violently during the "wild" expulsion and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence thereof. 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 (in what would become East Germany). ^[10] About 250,000 ethnic German anti-fascists and those ethnic Germans crucial for industries were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia.^[11]

Estimates of casualties range between 20,000 and 200,000 people, depending on source.^[12] These casualties include violent deaths and suicides, deaths in internment camps^[13] and natural causes.^[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. ...

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. The land was then populated with 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. ... 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, Soviet and allied troops, as well as native populations and militias, 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. Nemmersdorf, in German East Prussia (todays Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast) was one of the first German villages to fall to the advancing Red Army on October 21, 1944 at 07:00 hours. ... Julius Streicher at the Nuremberg Trials. ... Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (Russian: IPA: ), January 27 [O.S. January 15] 1891 (Kiev, Ukraine) â€“ 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: ÅšlÅ¯nsk) 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. ... East Prussia (red}, within the Kingdom of Prussia (blue), within the German Empire (black). ... Belligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory belonging to a state passes to a hostile army. ... After World War II terms, expulsion was a euphemism for ethnic cleansing of territories settled by Germans. ...

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, Russian 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-Niesse: 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. December 22 is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... 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... BudaÃ¶rs is a town in Pest county, Hungary. ... January 19 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 Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE1 Capital Stuttgart Prime Minister GÃ¼nther Oettinger (CDU) Governing parties CDU / FDP Votes in Bundesrat 6 (from 69) Basic statistics Area 35,752 kmÂ² (13,804 sq mi) Population 10,741,000 (11/2006)[1] - Density 300... 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 (CDU) Governing party CDU Votes in Bundesrat 5 (from 69) Basic statistics Area 21,100 kmÂ² (8,147 sq mi) Population 6,077,000 (08/2006)[1] - Density... Migrations of the SzÃ©kelys The SzÃ©kelys 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 (mis)treated them alike.^[19] Of a 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. Compared to the German depredation of the Polish population, losses by ethnic Germans in Poland were remarkably small. 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...

Yugoslavia

After the second world war and the resultant "expulsion" of Germans from eastern Europe, the majority of German-speaking people living in Yugoslavia left for Austria and West Germany. However, some remained, 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... 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. ...

In 1944, and following World War II, these Danube Swabians (German: Donauschwaben) were driven from their homes and homeland. They were expelled, suffered persecution, and sustained great personal and economic losses. Many perished. Most survivors ended up in Germany and Austria, and after 1950, thanks to the "displaced persons" act (of 1948), also in the United States of America. 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] The Danube Swabians (German: Donauschwaben, Hungarian: Dunai-SvÃ¡bok or Dunamenti nÃ©metek, Romanian: Åžvabi or Åžvabi DunÄƒreni, Serbian: Dunavske Å vabe or Ð”ÑƒÐ½Ð°Ð²ÑÐºÐµ Ð¨Ð²Ð°Ð±Ðµ, 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. ... AVNOJ (AntifaÅ¡istiÄko V(ij)eÄ‡e 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.^[21] Given these numbers, it seems likely that many of those covered under 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: SiebenbÃ¼rger Sachsen; Romanian: SaÅŸi, Hungarian: SzÃ¡szok) 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 (ÐŸÐ¾ÑÑ‚Ð°Ð½Ð¾Ð²Ð»ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ðµ â„– 7161cc Ð“ÐšÐž Ð¡Ð¡Ð¡Ð ) 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

Russia

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 PreuÃŸenlied, 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 â€” 1713 Frederick I (first) - 1888 â€” 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: KrÃ³lewiec; 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. ... â€œKantâ€ 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. Those who remained suffered the terror of the Soviet occupation. 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.

Today, the area, named Kaliningrad Oblast, is an exclave of Russia, separated from the rest of the country by Lithuania and Belarus. 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 sea port, 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. ... Location Ethnographic region Lithuania minor County KlaipÄ—da County Municipality KlaipÄ—da city municipality Coordinates Number of elderates 1 General Information Capital of KlaipÄ—da County KlaipÄ—da city municipality Population 187,316 in 2006 (3rd) First mentioned 1252 Granted city rights 1254 or 1258 (LÃ¼beck); 1475 (CheÅ‚mno... 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. ... Motto Gott mit Uns (German: God with usâ€) Anthem Heil dir im Siegerkranz (unofficial) Territory of the German Empire in 1914, prior to World War I Capital Berlin Language(s) Official: German Unofficial minority languages: Danish, French, Frisian, Polish, Sorbian Government Constitutional monarchy Emperor - 1871â€“1888 William I - 1888 Frederick... 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 the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. ...

After the war, the area belonged to 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. Ethnic Lithuanians and Russians from other areas of the Soviet Union replaced the German population. Unverified rumors state that a number of orphaned German children were too small to go on the long trek as refugees on their own, and thus 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 3691 Germans (less than 15 percent of the 25,000 total population of Germans in the Netherlands) were expelled, their possesions 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. ... Nickname: Motto: Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig (Valiant, Determined, Compassionate) Location of Amsterdam Coordinates: , Country Province Government - Mayor Job Cohen (PvdA) - Aldermen Lodewijk Asscher Hennah Buyne Carolien Gehrels Tjeerd Herrema Maarten van Poelgeest Marijke Vos - Secretary Erik Gerritsen Area [1][2] - City 219 kmÂ² (84. ... 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.

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

Denmark

In the final weeks of the war, between February 11 and May 5, 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 Oksboll, on the west coast of Jutland, held 37,000 refugees. Jutland Peninsula Jutland (Danish: Jylland; German: JÃ¼tland; Frisian JutlÃ¢n; Low German JÃ¶tlann) 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. In 1945 alone, more than 13,000 people died, among them some 7,000 children under five. ^[22]

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). See also Marocchinate (Polish soldiers in western Germany reported rapes committed by French soldiers in retaliation for abuses against the French during their 4 years of occupation by Germany). (New region flag) (Region logo) Location Administration Capital Regional President Departments Bas-Rhin Haut-Rhin Arrondissements 13 Cantons 75 Communes 903 Statistics Land area1 8,280 kmÂ² (??? mi) kmÂ² Population (Ranked 14th) - January 1, 2006 est. ... 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-WÃ¼rttemberg. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Controversy over the 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 for territories lost to the Soviet Union

Poland lost 43 percent of its pre-war territory due to the fact that the Soviet Union insisted on keeping what it had annexed as a result of the partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. While some cities, like 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. ... Motto: Nec temere, nec timide (No rashness, no timidness) Coordinates: , Country Poland Voivodeship Pomeranian Powiat city county Gmina GdaÅ„sk Established 10th century City Rights 1263 Government - Mayor PaweÅ‚ Adamowicz Area - City 262 kmÂ² (101. ... Motto: Miasto spotkaÅ„ (the meeting place) Coordinates: , Country Poland Voivodeship Lower Silesian Powiat city county Gmina WrocÅ‚aw Established 10th century City Rights 1262 Government - Mayor RafaÅ‚ Dutkiewicz Area - City 292. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Location Ethnographic region AukÅ¡taitija County Vilnius County Municipality Geographic coordinate system Number of elderates 20 General Information Capital of Lithuania Vilnius County Vilnius city municipality Vilnius district municipality Population About 600,000 in 2006 (1st) First mentioned 1323 Granted city rights 1387 Not to be confused with Vilnius city... Hrodna City emblem Hrodna (Belarusian: ; Russian: ; Polish: ; Lithuanian: ; Yiddish: Grodne; German: ) is a city in Belarus. ... â€œLvovâ€ 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 1919â€“20. ... â€œThe Great War â€ redirects here. ...

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 Polish and Czech exile governments, as cited in this article. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 445 Ã— 600 pixelsFull resolution (668 Ã— 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 Ã— 600 pixelsFull resolution (668 Ã— 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.^{[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 ჯუღაშვი&#4314...

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.^[23]

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…". From this point of view, the policy achieved its goals: the 1945 borders are stable and ethnic conflicts are relatively marginal. â€œChurchillâ€ redirects here. ... Type Lower House Speaker of the House of Commons Leader of the House of Commons Michael Martin, (Non-affiliated) since October 23, 2000 Harriet Harman, QC, (Labour) since June 28, 2007 Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Theresa May, PC, (Conservative) since December 6, 2005 Members 646 Political groups...

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. 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 Bolshevists, 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 Germans from areas in other countries was to invalidate spurious German territorial claims to the land of other nations. The purported objective was to prevent a repetition of what happened in the Sudetenland where the Nazis based territorial claims upon the 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 â€“ often simply called Germans â€“ 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 returnees

Even before former German territories were captured by the Red Army, around 2 million Poles from eastern Poland (behind the Curzon line) were expelled by the Soviets to western Poland or deported to gulag camps in Siberia. Additionally, an estimated 800,000 people from Warsaw were kidnapped by the Germans as forced labor. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Poles were taken to Germany as forced labor. About 600,000 of them worked on German territories ceded to Poland. Many thousands more Poles were war emigrees in Western countries and in the Polish army in the West. After the end of the war, these people returned and needed housing in a country devastated by war, where the housing stock in urban areas had been virtually destroyed during the war and by purposeful German destructive actions (e.g. Warsaw in 1944-1945) on a scale unknown in Western European countries. According to this line of reasoning, Germans were expelled to make housing available for the returnees. The same trains which carried expelled Germans to the West carried Poles from Western countries home. While the scale of Polish migrations may have been comparatively no less than that of Germans after 1945, it must also be borne in mind that the Germans murdered approximately 6 million Polish civilians, a number twice that of German civilian deaths by all war-related causes. 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 1919â€“20. ... Gulag ( , Russian: ) was the government body responsible for administering prison camps across the former Soviet Union. ... â€œSiberianâ€ redirects here. ... Motto: Contemnit procellas (It defies the storms) Semper invicta (Always invincible) Coordinates: , Country Poland Voivodeship Masovia Powiat city county Gmina Warszawa Districts 18 boroughs City Rights turn of the 13th century Government - Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz (PO) Area - City 516. ...

Making the Polish state dependent on the Soviet Union

Never stated as an official reason, there is one theory put forth that part of the Soviet Union's motivation for supporting the expulsions was to make the resurgent Polish state dependent on their protection against possible future German demands.

Property compensation in Eastern European countries

No Eastern European nation has ever been compensated for war damages by German aggression to private or public property. According to this rationale, the property of Germans expelled after WW2 was used to compensate war victims.

For example, the Polish Communist administration sometimes purposefully did not inform Germans slated for deportation about their scheduled transport time until 24 hours before departure. It has been alleged that the reason for this was to make it more difficult for the Germans to organize the transport of their property.^[24]

Even so, many people were never directly compensated for war damages by any government, even if the confiscated or abandoned property of Germans was available to that government.

An attempt to restore demographics in areas previously occupied by the Nazis

Part of Nazi Germany's long term policy for Central and Eastern Europe was to create a "Greater Germany" which was to be created by forcibly removing or enslaving all non-Germans from the Sudetenland and, indeed, all of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and all other Slavic areas of Eastern Europe up to the line Archangel-Astrakan. Some Germans living in these areas were placed there as part of the Nazi settlement policies (particularly in Eastern Poland), and had replaced indigenous nationals who were expelled or killed by Nazi Germany during the occupation. As noted, there were communities of ethnic Germans who had lived in Eastern Europe for centuries. In addition to emigrants from Germany who settled in Eastern Europe as a result of Nazi policies during the war, numbers [approximately 295,000] of ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe nations occupied by the Soviet Union were resettled in Western Poland,^[25] in accordance with the terms specified by the Nazi government in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... National assembly meeting in St. ... Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. ...

During the German occupation of Poland, it is estimated that between 1.6 and 2 million Polish people [1] were expelled. In many instances, Poles were given between 15 minutes and 1 hour to collect their personal belongings (usually no more than 15 kilograms per person) before they were thrown out of their homes and transported east. [2] On top of that, about 3 million Poles were deported to Germany for forced labor in German farms and factories and 5 million incarcerated in German concentration camps. All in all, approximately 6 million Polish civilians were murdered by Germany during the war. All of these actions resulted in significant changes in demographics at the end of the war. See also the related article on Nazi concentration camps The following is a list of German concentration camps during World War II. are marked with pink, while major concentration camps of are marked with blue. ...

The results

During the period of 1944/1945 - 1950, possibly as many as 14 million Germans were forced to flee or were expelled as a result of actions of the Red Army, civilian militias, and/or organized efforts of governments of the reconstituted states of Eastern Europe. For other organizations known as the Red Army, see Red Army (disambiguation). ...

The areas from which the Germans escaped, or which were expelled, were subsequently re-populated by nationals of the states to which they now belonged, many of whom were expellees themselves from lands further east.

In the first few decades after the end of the war, estimates of deaths associated with the expulsions were in the range of 2-3 million. Since the 1970s, however, some historians have suggested downward revisions to 500,000 to 1.1 million. However, some historians still support estimates of 2 million deaths. The higher numbers are now considered to include deaths from all war-related causes, not simply as a direct result of the flight and expulsions.

Many of these deaths were the result of ill-prepared German evacuation plans, Nazi fanaticism, and chaotic flight. Some were senseless killings by opportunistic mobs and individuals. Other deaths were caused by the privations of a forced migration in a postwar environment characterized by crime, chaos, famine, disease, and cold winter conditions. There were also incidents of direct, intentional actions of violence by militias. It is almost impossible to attribute accurate proportions of deaths to specific causes.

Due to a lack of accurate records, many estimates of population transfers and associated deaths depend upon a "population balance" methodology. Estimates of total populations expelled and deaths during the expulsions often include figures from the evacuation, because these people were not allowed to return, thus making it difficult to arrive at an accurate and undisputed estimate of population movements and deaths due solely to the expulsions.

Timing and causes of deaths

More importantly, these deaths are often reported as being "the result of the expulsions" but are arguably better characterized as "happening contemporaneously with the expulsions but not necessarily caused by the expulsions".

It is impossible to determine how many deaths happened "before" versus "after" the end of the war (i.e., before vs. after May 8, 1945). Any estimate of the number of deaths must be based on either a gross "population balance" methodology or on the examination of actual death records. The "population balance" methodology relies on census data that was taken years before the end of the war and years after the end of the war and thus cannot provide this kind of "before and after" comparison. Many deaths went unrecorded and thus actual death records substantially underestimate the actual number of deaths. The difficulty is that no one can say by how much the actual death records understate the actual deaths. Thus, it will never be possible to determine with certainty how many deaths happened before the war ended and how many afterwards. This question is important because it affects how many deaths should be attributed to evacuation, flight, pre-Potsdam "wild" expulsions, and expulsions that occurred after the Potsdam Agreements, which is seen by some as a general sanction for the expulsions.

Other people assert that the Potsdam Agreements called for suspending further expulsions and bringing them under Allied control. ^[26]

It is also difficult, when using the "population balance" methodology, to attribute the number of deaths to specific causes (e.g. wartime bombing, evacuation casualties, disease in refugee camps). For example, at the time of the Allied bombing of Dresden, there were estimated to be between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees from the Eastern front taking refuge in the city. There is no official record of how many of those refugees perished as a result of the Allied bombing. In addition, typhus epidemics continued to kill many Germans after they reached refugee camps inside the new borders of Germany.^{[citation needed]} The bombing of Dresden in World War II by the Allies remains controversial after more than 50 years. ...

Controversy over responsibility for the expulsions

There is considerable contentious debate over how much blame for the deaths and suffering of the expelled Germans should be placed on the shoulders of the nations who expelled the Germans. Whether the actual death toll was 0.5 million or 1.1 million, it is clear that the blame must be shared among: the Allied powers who made the decision to authorize the population transfers; the Soviet Union, which had effective military control over the countries involved; the national governments which put the expulsions into motion; and the paramilitary organizations and local civilians who took advantage of the opportunity to rob, rape, torture, and murder expellees as they transited out of their homelands. A large measure of blame for the deaths must also be laid at the door of Nazi Germany itself: for ineffectual and incomplete evacuation planning; for equating evacuations with "defeatism", thereby ensuring that many plans were not implemented at all, or too late to be of any use; and for their aggressive and brutal invasions of the nations of Eastern Europe in the first place, in many cases using ethnic Germans as pawns in their twisted version of power politics.

In addition, though collectively referred to as "Germans", many of those expelled, like the Baltic and Volga Germans, had lived in these respective regions before they even were nation-states, and could hardly be described as "Germans" any more than German-Americans could be. Furthermore, the annexation of eastern German provinces, such as East Prussia's incorporation into Poland and Russia, which was occupied by the Red Army at the time, are takeovers of what was clearly, for the last thousand years, a German region. The historical dualism between Prussia and Vienna is argued by some to be one of the main forces behind what became the German national identity, and therefore of Germany itself. East Prussia was of course in eastern Germany, but being the cradle of German militarism didn't help keep it from being annexed, either.

A natural assumption would be to put the blame for these deaths, whatever their number, on the people and governments of the countries that sanctioned the expulsions. However, a countervailing perspective argues that there were only two forces orchestrating the new order after the Second World War: the United States and the Soviet Union. Thus, this perspective argues that the responsibility for all the expulsions (Germans, Poles, Ukrainians etc) rests on those two allies and that the countries that the policies were implemented in had no say in this. Other perspectives suggest that, while these two countries may have planned, sanctioned, and even facilitated the expulsions, some responsibility must be charged to the national and local authorities in the countries where the expulsions took place. It should also be remembered that the government of Poland was imposed on the nation not only by the Soviet Union, but also by the USA and UK, who withdrew their recognition of the Polish government in exile on July 6, 1945. 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 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. ... is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ...

In particular, a lot of blame is placed on the Soviet regime at the time (in particular Josef Stalin) for its program of the ethnic cleansing of the German people from the Soviet Union and Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe. Many of the deaths were caused by death marches ordered by Soviet officials, banditry, famine, widespread disease, and the overall poor living conditions that prevailed in that part of postwar Europe. (Russian, in full: Ð˜Ð¾ÌÑÐ¸Ñ„ Ð’Ð¸ÑÑÐ°Ñ€Ð¸Ð¾ÌÐ½Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ‡ Ð¡Ñ‚Ð°ÌÐ»Ð¸Ð½ [Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin]; December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] â€“ March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953...

Yet another perspective argues that the expulsions were not driven primarily by ethnic hatred against the ethnic Germans. Instead, it is argued that blame must be shared by Nazi Germany and the ethnic Germans who supported them, because of the brutal and uncivilized way Germans treated the citizens of conquered nations. This perspective argues that the expulsions were motivated by an animus engendered by the war crimes, atrocities, and uncivilized rule of the German conquerors.^[27] Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to sentiments and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group in various degrees. ... Ethnic Germans â€“ often simply called Germans â€“ 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. ...

Legality of the expulsions

The view of international law on population transfer underwent considerable evolution during the 20th century. Prior to World War II, a number of major population transfers were the result of bilateral treaties and had the support of international bodies such as the League of Nations. 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. ... 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 League of Nations was an international organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920. ...

The tide started to turn when the charter of the Nuremberg Trials of German Nazi leaders declared forced deportation of civilian populations to be both a war crime and a crime against humanity, and this opinion was progressively adopted and extended through the remainder of the century. Underlying the change was the trend to assign rights to individuals, thereby limiting the rights of nation-states to impose fiats which adversely affected them. For the 1947 Soviet film about the trials, see Nuremberg Trials (film). ...

There is now little debate about the general legal status of involuntary population transfers: Where population transfers used to be accepted as a means to settle ethnic conflict, today, forced population transfers are considered violations of international law. (Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Spring 2001, p116). No legal distinction is made between one-way and two-way transfers, since the rights of each individual are regarded as independent of the experience of others.

Thus, although the signatories to the Potsdam Agreements and the expelling countries may have considered the expulsions to be legal under international law at the time, there are historians and scholars in international law and human rights who argue that the expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe should now be considered as episodes of ethnic cleansing, and thus a violation of human rights. For example, Timothy V. Waters argues in "On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing" that if similar circumstances arise in the future, the precedent of the expulsions of the Germans without legal redress would also allow the future ethnic cleansing of other populations under international law.^[28] Ethnic cleansing refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory in order to create a supposedly ethnically pure society. ...

There are some writers, such as Alfred de Zayas, who argue that the expulsions were war crimes and crimes against humanity even in the context of international law of the time. De Zayas writes:

The longtime status of Netherlands as a largely neutral nation in international conflicts and the corresponding ascendance of The Hague as a primary location for diplomatic and international conferences has led to several negotiated conventions over the years being termed the Hague Convention: The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907... The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitues a war crime. ...

Legacy of the expulsions

During the Cold War era, there was relatively little public awareness in the west about the expulsions, and thus scant discussion over the morality of the policy. Perhaps the primary reason for this is that Cold War geopolitics discouraged criticism of post-war Allied policies by the West Germans and of post-war Soviet policies by the East Germans. There was some discussion of the expulsions in the first decade and a half after World War II, but serious review and analysis of the events was not undertaken until the 1990s. For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ...

The fall of the Soviet Union, the spirit of glasnost and the unification of Germany opened the door to a renewed examination of these events. In the early 1990s, the Cold War ended and the occupying powers withdrew from Germany. The issue of the treatment of Germans after World War II began to be reexamined, having previously been overshadowed by Nazi Germany's war crimes. The primary motivation for this change was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which allowed for a discussion of issues that had previously been marginalized, such as the allegations of crimes committed by the Soviet Army during the World War II and the expulsion of Germans from Eastern and Central Europe. There has, however, been little discussion of the responsibility of the U.S. and U.K. in sanctioning the expulsions through their being signatories to the Potsdam Agreements. The rise of Gorbachev Although reform stalled between 1964–1982, the generational shift gave new momentum for reform. ... // (Russian: IPA: ) is politics of maximal openness, transparency of activity of all official (governmental) institutes, and freedom of information. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ...

Writers have played a role in stimulating and shaping the debate. Günter Grass dealt with the exodus in Crabwalk, the story of the vessel Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine on 30 January 1945 while sailing blacked-out under the command of the German Navy. Somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 refugees and soldiers fleeing the Red Army died in the icy Baltic. GÃ¼nter Wilhelm Grass (born October 16, 1927) is a Nobel Prize-winning German author. ... Im Krebsgang (Crabwalk) book cover Crabwalk (from the German Im Krebsgang) (2002) is a novel by Danzig-born German author GÃ¼nter Grass (who had earlier received the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature). ... The Wilhelm Gustloff slides into the water during launch ceremonies. ...

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