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The fate of the Volksdeutche is one of the many depressing stories of World War II. The irony is that while NAZIs who set out to ethnically clense newly acquired areas of the Reich, it was the Germans that were ethnically clensed from Eastern Europe. Those Germans expelled are today referred to in Germany as " Vertriebenen " (expelled ones). Nearly all lived in countries invaded and occupied by NAZI Germany. Many but not all participated in NAZI genocidal or explotive programs to colonize the occupied East. As a result, both the Russian Army and partisans targetted them as the Wehrmacht was forced to retreat. Many wisely fled with the Wehrmacht. Others were reluctant to leave the farms and towns where their families had lived for generations. After the Wehrmacht withdrew and after the end of the War, millions of these ethnic Germans were murdered, deported or otherwise ethnically cleansed. Many first hand accounts describe the violence directed at those of German ancestry. A great deal of documentation was gathered by the German Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau. (Yes, the Wehrmacht was collecting evidence of war crimes.) There are many incidents of unimagined savegery. There were women crucified in Nemmersdorf and the wholesale murder of children. [De Zayas and Barber]
The fate of the Volksdeutche is one of the many depressing stories of World War II. The irony is that while NAZIs who set out to ethnically clense newly acquired areas of the Reich, it was the Germans that were ethnically clensed from Eastern Europe.
Throughout the Medieval era, Germans moved east and established communities as far east as the Volga. It is brelieved that well over 10 million Germans lived outside the Reich in eastern and southern Europe. Many of these Germans lived in separate communities and had separate schools and other institutions. Many of these Germans lived abrod for centuries. The German defeat in World War I resulted in large numbers of Germans being left outside the boundaries of the Reich against their will. Hitler made extensive political capital out of these Germans and used them to justify German demands on neighboring countries. There were also Germans in Western Europe. Various terms have been used for Germans, both Germans livibng within the Reich and Germans living in foreign countries. Some of these terms are difficult to translate. This is in part because the terms have taken on connotations not actually associated with the dictionary definition. This has especially been the case in the aftermath of World War II when NAZI officials perpetrated attrocities of apaling proportions. Local Germans in occupied countries played arranged of roles. Some collaborated with the NAZIs. Some assisted the resistance. Others avoid political involvement. We can not as this time just how common these different patterns were. The local hostilityb toward all Germans, however, was so intense that local Germans were often the targets of borth offical persecution and localized vigelante justice.
Those Germans expelled are today referred to in Germany as " Vertriebenen " (expelled ones). Nearly all lived in countries that were invaded and occupied by NAZI Germany.
In addition to the Volksdeutsche which were whole communities of Germans living in eastern and southern Europe, were Germans who as individuals moved to
neighboring countries.
Many Germans in Eastern Europe participated either actively or passively in NAZI genocidal or explotive programs to colonize the occupied East. Here there was considerable variation. Many of the Sudeten Germans had been politicized and were happy to be "liberated" by the NAZIs. When the NAZIs entered first the Sudeten land (October 1938) and then the rest of what remained of Czechoslovakia, the SS had lists of people to be arrested. We suspect that the Sudeten Germns help compile those lists and added to the lo
lists after the NAZI occupation. I suspect that many Sudeten Germans worked actively with the NAZIs. The Carpathian Germans were much less politicized. When the NAZIs entered Poland, the SS also came with lists of Poles to arrest. We do not know if Polish Germns helped prepare those lists. This is a topic that requires much needed research.
The expulsion of the Germans was decided and agreed at the Allied War Conferences of Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945) and sealed in Potsdam immediately after the War. The United States participated in the agreement) "in order to bring peace within the new boundaries and to solve the minorities problems once and for all". Winston Churchill said on December 15 1944 in the British Parliament: "The expulsion (of the Germans), as far as I can judge, is the most satisfying and durable remedy. There won't be any mixture in the population any more, so that we can avoid unpleasant situations like we had in Alsace-Lorraine. We need a clean sweep".
As a result, both the Russian Army and partisans targetted them as the Wehrmacht was forced to retreat. Of course the people targeted in most instances were not those who had committed war crimes.
Many wisely fled with the Wehrmacht. The NAZIs organized ships to take the German refugees from East Prussia. Memel and other Baltic ports were used. They were for women and children and the elderly. Men were susposed to stay and fight. Some of these ships were sunk by Soviet submarines with great loss of life.
Others were reluctant to leave the farms and towns where their families had lived for generations.
After the Wehrmacht withdrew and after the end of the War, millions of these ethnic Germans were murdered, deported or otherwise ethnically cleansed. Many first hand accounts describe the violence directed at those of German ancestry. A great deal of documentation was gathered by the German Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau. (Yes, the Wehrmacht was collecting evidence of war crimes.) There are many incidents of unimagined savegery. There were women crucified in Nemmersdorf and the wholesale murder of children. [De Zayas and Barber] Estimates vary, but one source estimates that about 2 Million "Volksdeutsche" died during these expulsions. The attitude at the time in the acrimonious atmosphere following the War and with menories of the NAZU attrocities still fresh was (and often still is): "They deserved it".
The circumstances and pattern of the expullsions varied some what in the different liberated countries after the War. At this time we have few details.
As a result of Hitler's "Back to the Reich" order in 1939, there were few Baltic Germans left in the former Baltic republics.
After World War I Belgium got a piece of German land at the Eastern border, the region of Eupen-Malmedy, where most of the people were German-speaking. When NAZI Germany invaded Belgium in 1940 Eupen-Malmedy was anexed back to the Reich. The people there received automatically German citizenship, meaning that the men were drafted into the Wehrmacht!
In 1945 the area became Belgian again, but the people were looked upon with contempt and suspicion by the other Belgians. Some of these German Belgians were forced to leave, but most of them could stay and through the years they changed into valuable citizens after the Common Market was created on account of their language skills. They all spoke French, and often Dutch and German was their mother tongue, which was very important in
the new European Union. Eupen-Malmedy is pretty much autonomous and German now is an official language in Belgium. [Stueck]
The first NAZI aggression against a foreign country was against Czechoslovakia. Hitler had used the Sudeten Germans as the basis for his demands at Munich (1938). The Czechs were thus understandably anxious to remove this possible future source of tensions.
President Benesch in his London exile in 1941 demanded the complete expulsion of the 3.5 million Germans from Czechoslavakia. After the War the Czechs passed a law concerning the deportment of Germans--the Law of Liberation from Nazism and Militarism (March 5, 1946). We do not yet have details but note that the Panzer Prince was no affected, probably because of his Czech mother.
Also Denmark has a German minority. After the war with Prussia (1864), a sizable part of North Schleswig became German territory. Many Danes lived in that area, but also German-speaking farmers. Towns like Aabenra (Apenrade) and Haderslev (Hadersleben) had a mixed population. After World War I the border shifted to the south just north of Flensburg until 1940 when the Germans occupied Denmark. Then again, in 1945 the region became Danish. The German minority north of the border had initially a hard time, but things had to be worked out, because West Germany also had a sizable Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein, who wanted their own schools, libraries, church services and soccer clubs. A deal was made and the German-speaking minority in Denmark now also has its own schools, newspaper, clubs, etc. An interesting aspect here is that one cannot tell by the last name who is German or Danish, because most of the people have names like Hansen, Larsen and Christiansen.
The situation in France in regard to its German-speaking minority is substantially different from that in neighboring Belgium. Although Alsace-Lorraine has a Germanic background and culture (Alsace more than Lorraine) and the people speak an Alemannic dialect, the inhabitants feel French. That was not always the case, but since King Louis XIV took the cities of Metz and Strasbourg and declared all the land west of the Rhine river to be French territory the Alsatians became attached to France. However, they kept on speaking their own language at home and preserved many German characteristics in the way they built their houses and cooked their meals. After the Franco-Prussian War provinces of Alsace-Loraine were made Reichsländer in the newly declared German Empire (1872). If the Germans had given them some autonomy they might have developed some sympathy for Germany, but the area was ruled with an iron fist. When Alsace-Lorraine became French again in 1919 most of the people were happy about it. It did not last long, because in 1940 lsace-Lorraine was made part of the Third Reich and young Alsatian men were drafted into the German army or forced to work in German factories. The liberation in 1945 was greeted with tremendous
enthusiasm. As far as I know no action was taken against German speakers that could claim French citzenship and did no collaborate. Now of course the people are again French for nearly 60 years, and the hatred between the two countries is gone and they all feel that they understand each other better as good Europeans.
German farmers, merchants and craftsmen had settled in Hungary since the Middle Ages. The law books of many Hungarian cities were written in German, incl. Ofen (later called Budapest). The Germans in Hungary and Yugoslavia were called " Swabians". Many famous Hungarians, like Franz Liszt and Ignaz Semmelweisz, were actually Swabians. Liszt for example never learned to speak Hungarian. As in other countries with large German settlements the Swabians had their own schools and organizations. Hungarey since the Middle Ages had been a Hapsburg-ruled kingdom. (The last Hungarian king had been killed in fighting with the Turks.) Thus Hungary for centuries was ruled by the Germans (Austrians). After World War II many Germans were expelled, but not all, like in Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia. A sizeable number was allowed to stay and
maintain their identity. Even the Communists published newspapers and books in German for the Swabian communities.
There was a small German community in northern Italy. The Allies had rewarded the Italians for coming over to the Allies rather than honoring their treaty with the Central Powers in World War I (1915). The Italians received a beautiful area in the North. That was the Austrian province of South Tirol. The only trouble was that the people spoke German and actually looked down on Italians. They were a stubborn people, staunchly Catholic and proud of their own ways. Things became bad under Mussolini. He settled hundreds of Italians from Calabria and Sicily in the cities of Bolzano and Merano to increase the Italian element. German schools were closed and street signs had to be written in Italian only. This was the one German community in Europe that Hitler did not use to stir up trouble. Hitler knew about the oppression of his people there, but never said anything, because he needed the Duce as his Axis ally in his future endeavours. Hitler tried to get the Tiroleans to move to Germany, but very few went. They just waited for better times to arrive. Italy was of course a German ally until late 1943. The Germans after late 1943 seized control of mich of Italy and a number of attrocities were reported, although not on the scale perpetrated in Eastern Europe. As far as I know, the Italians took no action against the Germans in South Tirol. After considerable effort the South Tiroleans got autonomy about 10 years after World War II. All signs are bilingual, people are allowed to have their own organisations, German-language papers, and libraries. The area is very mountanous and tourism is a large source of income. Especially Germans come on vacation. The best Italian skiers, and bobsledders are Tiroleans and when Gerhard Plankensteiner or Oswald Hasenrieder are winning a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, the Italian announcers are not able to pronounce the names of their heroes.
A Dutch reader tells us, "In Holland there always were many Germans. Most of them stayed and became Dutch citizens (like my father). Actually the Dutch royal family, Orange-Nassau, is more than 90 percent of German descent. Not only was the founder of the Netherlands, William of Nassau, born in Germany, but nearly all Dutch rulers kept marrying Germans until now. Our national anthem starts with the words: "Wilhelmus van Nassouwe, ben ick van Duytschen bloet" (Old Dutch, it means " William of Nassau, I am of German blood"). The Dutch tried to change the words during and after World War II, but tradition won over fanatism, so nothing changed. The Germans in Holland never lived in certain areas, but most of them were in the cities. Many who were German citizens left for Germany in September 1944 as the Allied armies surged north into Belgium and the Netherlands. Others were imprisoned or sent back to Germany after the War. It all depended to what degree they had been involved with the NAZI occupation authorities. Their property was then confiscated by the Dutch authorities." [Stueck]
Following World war II, the Soviets pushed the Poland west. The new Polish state included areas that had been German for centuries. Most Germans living in the areas taken over by Poland had fleed with the retreating Wehrmacht. Wether they were officialy urged to flee – this would be deportation, isn`t it? – I don´t know. Many were fleeing when the German army had to leave these areas as they were anxious what the Soviet Russian army and soldiers would do; asking for the „Uru, Uru“ („Uhr“ in German for watch) by Russian soldiers certainly was harmless; but people were more anxious – and had some reason for it. Soviet troops in Germany engaged in widespread looting and raping. I assume this began with the Germand that they encounterd in Poland. Most Germans remaining were forced to migrate west to Germany without any assistance in doing so. Russian policy was to drive the Germans further west out of the new Poland. One account reported, "... the Russians are acting little better than thugs. They have wiped out all the liquid assets. No food cards are issued to Germans, who are forced to travel on foot into the Russian zone, often more dead than alive. An iron curtain has descended over the fate of these people and very likely conditions are truly terrible. The promises at Yalta to the contrary, probably 8 to 10 million people are being enslaved." [Dulles] It was not just the Russians forcing the Germans west. Poles who had been terribly abused by the Germans during the War, now took revenge on any Germans who tried to remain. The Polish Government reportedly mprisoned about 100,000 Germans, mostly civilians, who were judged to be threats to the state. The conditions were similar to those in NAZI concentration camps. About 15,000 are believed to have died from ill-treatment. Some of these Germans were not released until 1950.
We have only limited information on Romania. Germans began settling in Transsylvania in the 13th century. The Germans that settled in Transsylvania were called "Saxons", because many came from Saxony. Of the 500,000 Saxons before the advent of World War II, about 100,000 still remain in Transsylvania
The largest German population in the Soviet Union was the Volga Germans. I do not know if the NAZIs tried to get Stalin to allow them to return to the Reich after the NAZI invasion (June 1941). This was one group that was forced back to Germany after the War. The Volga Germns were one of several nationalities Stalin deported to isolated areas of the country.
The Soviet Government ordered the total deportation of Germans from the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans (August 28, 1941). The deportations was conducted during the first two weeks of September 1941. Most of them were transported to a variety of locations in Siberia
Most of the exiled Volga-Germans were at first put to work on kolkhozes (collective farms). Because of the military emergency most by early 1942 weee foeced into the "Trud-Army" (Labor Army). Many were used in forestry. Women except those who had many children and juveniles were transported north to various settlements to work in the fishing industry (Summer 1942). Soviet authorities next began assgning juveniles to the "Trud-Army" (1943). They worked at the oil and natural gas hauling plants in the South-Ural. The Volga-Germans who had survived the ardous cinditions in the "Trud-Army" were relaeased 1946. The "release"
actually meant internal exile mostly in Siberia. They were not allowed to return to their former homeland. The KGB issue "personal exile files" on all adult Volga-German deportees (1946-47). Many were put under "special registration" wjoch meant having to appear for registration and periodic checks. Soviet officials released the Volga-Germans (as well as other German exiles)from exile (February-March 1956). They were not, however given any right to return" home. Many were not allowed to leave their internal exile until the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)
An estimated 12 million Germns got back to Germny allive. Most arrived with little more than the clothes on their back. Most went to Western occupation zones and the Soviets for the most part permitted this. The integration of these Germans into West German society actually is a success story. When they arrived the country was in ruins and occupied by the Western Allies. Many people had no home, bu the ones who had a roof over their head were forced to share it with refugees from the East. Not until 1949 things were becoming "normal" and settled.
Itvwas not just the Germans that experienced ethnic clensing after the War. The Soviets forcibly expelled large number of Poles from Lithiania, Belarus, and the Ukraine to the new Polish state, much of whivh had been carved out of former German areas (Silesia and East Prussia). The expulsion of the Poles from the East of Poland by the Soviets was O Kd by the Western Allies as was the forced repatriation of displaced persons of Ukrianian and Russian origin back to the Soviet Union. The old Western traditions of asylum and human rights were being ignored. Only when the Cold War began was there any resistance from the part of the United States and Britain to Stalin's actions, but for most of the DPs it all came too late.
Millions of people had been expelled, imprisoned or killed.
Substantial numbers of men from the Baltics and the Ukraine as well as other areas of the Soviet Union and fought with the Germans on the Eastern Front. Having experienced Stalin's barbarity, these men saw the Germns as liberators. Just before the NAZI invasion, the NKVD in the Baltics had begun massive arrests and deportations of whole families. Some fought in virtually every German unidorned service, including the Wafen SS. Among those whose goal was liberation of their countrty from Stalin were some who served in SS units, including concentration camps guards. As the Red Army pushed the Wehrmacht back on the Eastern Front, many of those whichbhad fought with the Germans fleed along woth their family back to Germny. Stalin at Yalta demanded their forcible repatriation. The Allies after the War complied. Those who fought with the Germans were mostly shot. I'm less sure what happened to their families. Even Soviet POWs and slave laborers in Germany were often arrested and committed to the Gulag when they returned to the SovietvUnion. There were, however, massive deportations in the Baltic.
De Zayas, Alfred-Maurice and Charles M. Barber. A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950.
Dulles, Allen W. "That was then: Allen W. Dulles on the occupation of Germany" Foreign Affairs (November/December 2003).
Stueck, Rudi. E-mail message, April 14, 2004.
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