Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)

Flight and expulsion of Germans
Part of aftermath of World War II
German expellees, 1946
Date1944–1950
LocationEastern and Central Europe
Motive
Deaths500,000 to 2.5 million
Displaced12 million to 14.6 million

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. 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. 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 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, 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), and from Czechoslovakia (about three million).

The areas affected included the former eastern territories of Germany, which were annexed by Poland, 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 up to 2.5 million according to the German government.

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. 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, which redefined the Central European borders and approved expulsions of ethnic Germans from the former German territories transferred to Poland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia. 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. The major expulsions were completed in 1950. 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.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.