Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)
| Part of aftermath of World War II | |
German expellees, 1946 | |
| Date | 1944–1950 |
|---|---|
| Location | Eastern and Central Europe |
| Motive |
|
| Deaths | 500,000 to 2.5 million[1][2][3] |
| Displaced | 12 million to 14.6 million |
| (demographic estimates) |
| Background |
|
| Wartime flight and evacuation |
|
| Post-war flight and expulsion |
|
| Later emigration |
|
| Other themes |
|
| History of Germany |
|---|
|
During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, Reichsdeutsche (German citizens) and Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside the Nazi state) fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and from the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and the eastern parts of Brandenburg (Neumark) and Pomerania (Farther Pomerania), which were annexed by Provisional Government of National Unity of Poland and by the Soviet Union.
The idea to expel the Germans from the annexed territories had been proposed by Winston Churchill, in conjunction with the Polish and Czechoslovak governments-in-exile in London since at least 1942.[4][5] Tomasz Arciszewski, the Polish prime minister in-exile, supported the annexation of German territory but opposed the idea of expulsion, wanting instead to naturalize the Germans as Polish citizens and to assimilate them.[6] Joseph Stalin, in concert with other Communist leaders, planned to expel all ethnic Germans from east of the Oder and from lands which from May 1945 fell inside the Soviet occupation zones. In 1941, his government had already transported Germans from Crimea to Central Asia.
Between 1944 and 1948, millions of people, including ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) and German citizens (Reichsdeutsche), were permanently or temporarily moved from Central and Eastern Europe. By 1950, about 12 million[7] Germans had fled or been expelled from east-central Europe into Allied-occupied Germany and Austria. The West German government put the total at 14.6 million,[8] including a million ethnic Germans who had settled in territories conquered by Nazi Germany during World War II, ethnic German migrants to Germany after 1950, and the children born to expelled parents. The largest numbers came from former eastern territories of Germany ceded to the Polish People's Republic and Soviet Union (about seven million),[9][10] and from Czechoslovakia (about three million).
The areas affected included the former eastern territories of Germany, which were annexed by Poland,[11][12] as well as the Soviet Union after the war and Germans who were living within the borders of the pre-war Second Polish Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states. The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions is disputed, with estimates ranging from 500,000[13][a] up to 2.5 million according to the German government.[14][15][16]
The removals occurred in three overlapping phases, the first of which was the organized evacuation of ethnic Germans by the Nazi state in the face of the advancing Red Army from mid-1944 to early 1945.[17] The second phase was the disorganised flight of ethnic Germans immediately following the Wehrmacht's surrender. The third phase was a more organised expulsion following the Allied leaders' Potsdam Agreement,[17] which redefined the Central European borders and approved expulsions of ethnic Germans from the former German territories transferred to Poland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia.[18] Many German civilians were sent to internment and labour camps where they were used as forced labour as part of German reparations to countries in Eastern Europe.[19][20][21][22] The major expulsions were completed in 1950.[17] Estimates for the total number of people of German ancestry still living in Central and Eastern Europe in 1950 ranged from 700,000 to 2.7 million.
-
German language area after the official census of 1910
-
Germans in each region of Poland as percentage of the total population before the flight and expulsion
-
German language areas in Poland, Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia), Lithuania, and Czech Republic before expulsion of Germansmajority Germanethnically mixed areas
-
German refugees moving westwards in 1945
- ^ Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus den Gebieten jenseits von Oder und Neiße, bpb.de; accessed 6 December 2014. (in German)
- ^ Christoph Bergner, Secretary of State in Germany's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in Deutschlandfunk on 29 November 2006.
- ^ Kammerer, Willi. Narben bleiben die Arbeit der Suchdienste – 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (PDF). Berlin Dienststelle 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2017. Retrieved 28 October 2017. The foreword to the book was written by German President Horst Köhler and the German interior minister Otto Schily.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
spiegelexpulsionwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
edenexpulsionwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Kamusella, Tomasz (1999). The Dynamics of the Policies of Ethnic Cleansing in Silesia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Budapest: Open Society Institute. pp. 322, 407.
- ^ Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt – Wiesbaden – Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958, pp. 35–36
- ^ Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims. Facts concerning the problem of the German expellees and refugees, Bonn: 1967.
- ^ Eberhardt, Piotr (2006). Political Migrations in Poland 1939–1948 (PDF). Warsaw: Didactica. ISBN 978-1-5361-1035-7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 June 2015.
- ^ Eberhardt, Piotr (2011). Political Migrations On Polish Territories (1939–1950) (PDF). Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences. ISBN 978-8-3615-9046-0. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 May 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
- ^ Eberhardt, Piotr (2015). "The Oder-Neisse Line as Poland's western border: As postulated and made a reality". Geographia Polonica. 88 (1): 77–105. doi:10.7163/GPol.0007.
- ^ Hammer, Eric (2013). "Ms. Livni, Remember the Recovered Territories. There is an historical precedent for a workable solution". Arutz Sheva.
- ^ Haar 2007, p. 278.
- ^ Kammerer, Willi. "Narben bleiben die Arbeit der Suchdienste – 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg" (PDF). Berlin Dienststelle 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2017. Retrieved 28 October 2017.the foreword to the book was written by German President Horst Köhler and the German interior minister Otto Schily
- ^ Christoph Bergner, Secretary of State in Germany's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in Deutschlandfunk on 29 November 2006, [1]
- ^ "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus den Gebieten jenseits von Oder und Neiße", bpb.de; accessed 6 December 2014.(in German)
- ^ a b c Gibney & Hansen 2005, pp. 197–198.
- ^ "Agreements of the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference, 17 July – 2 August 1945". PBS. Archived from the original on 31 October 2010. Retrieved 29 August 2009.
- ^ Gerhart Tubach; Kurt Frank Hoffmeister; Frederic Reinhardt, eds. (1992). Germany: 2000 Years: Volume III: From the Nazi Era to German Unification (2nd ed.). Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 57. ISBN 0-8264-0601-7. Retrieved 28 August 2009.
- ^ Norman M. Naimark (2001). Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-century Europe. Harvard University Press. p. 131. ISBN 0-6740-0994-0. Retrieved 28 August 2009.
- ^ Kacowicz, Arie Marcelo; Lutomski, Paweł (2007). Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study. Lexington Books. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-7391-1607-4. Retrieved 27 August 2009.
- ^ Tomasz Kamusella (2004). "The Expulsion of the German Communities from Eastern Europe" (PDF). EUI HEC. p. 28. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2009. Retrieved 27 August 2009.
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