World War II : German Refugee--Displacement of Germans
Figure 1.--Millions of Germams were displaced by World War II. Not only was the country in ruins, but some 10 million Germans from the East flooded into the new borders of Germany. Itbwas difficult to even feedvthem. There was no where to house them. Large numbers of Germans had alreaasy beenb deg=housed by the Allied Strategic Bombing Campaign. Mamy Germans werevliving in the ruins of their bombed out cities. Camps were created for the refugees in palves like former armt baracks. Here after the War refugees are gettung parcels. We are not sure where the presents came from.
The problem for the Germans is that Hitler lainched the War with a country that did not have the capacity and resources to accomplish his horific goals. The German Wehrrmacht virually invented modern war and achieved major victories, especially the defaat of France (June 1940). But even before the fiurstbyear if wae was oiverm the vaunted Luftwaffe had been defeated in the Battle of Britain, meaning British industry and technology had bettered the Germans (September 1940). This was disasterous in that Hitler had led the vGermans into a war with nkarger more populace countries with grater resources. His only nhope of victoiry was superior technology and will. The vBritish bhad demobstrated that had neither. And then only a little over a year later the Germans failed to defeat the Red Arny before Moscow (December 1941). The Red Army iaunnched a massive Winter Offensive dealomg the Germans losses in mean and material losses they could bever replace. Barbaross was Germany's nest chance to win the War and they failed. The next year, the British begam thev stratehic bombing of Germany ctrating internal regugees (1942) soon rtbe joined by the Americans neriuvabs (1943). The Soviets after Stalingrad becan the liberation of thrir couuntry (1943). The Soviets soom began reaching atras with Germanscibiliamd (early 1944) and finally areas oif the Reich itself (late-1944). Millions of terrified Germans, mistly women , children and old mnen, abandoned by their NAZI leaders. trdging on foot west to a shrinking Reich in the worst winter in mineory--many falling along the road, disappering in the snow. Thus a milirary camapign aimed at driving non-Germans out of much of Europe would result im Gerams being driven out of areas where they had lived for centuries, often with the violence which they had inflicted on others, but without the same genocidal vigor. .
Large numbers of ethnic Germans lived throughout Eastern Europe, as far east as the Volga. This was a pricess began in the Middle Ages. After World War I with the break up of the Austrian, German, and Russian empires, many Germans found themselves in new countries with highly nationalist agendas. Many had previously been in the German mpire or ruled by the Austrian Hapsburgs. The NAZI-controlled media before World War II gave considerable play to the suposed mistreatment of ethnic Germans in neigboring states, especially Czechoslovakia and Poland. There were no significant numbers of refugees from these countries as Hitler preferred that they stay in these countries and cause incidents which can be used to justify German intervention. Some Germans were attacked by the Poles after the German invasion (September 1, 1939) before Wehrmacht troops arrived. As far as I know, these Germans were not allowed to seek refuge in German. Rather the focus was on deporting Poles to the General Government and replacing them with ethnic German settlers.
The first German refugees were the ethnic Germans in the Baltics and the areas of Romania (Bessarabia, Bukovina and Volhynia) to be seized by the Soviets (1939-40). Hitler ordered them "Home to the Reich" NAZI negotiators met with Baltic officials and the NKVD to work out both the population transfer as well as property and tax issues. About 0.5 million Germans were involved. [Burleigh, p. 448.] Despite the propaganda iamge, these people were not rreceived with open arms. The ethnic German Home to the Reich HHermans were treated with suspicion. The SS was comverned that elements that were not pure Germans racially nor culturally might enter the Reich as well as individuals who were not committed NAZIs. The Home to the Reich refugees were housed in dreary camps while they were evaluated. The SS organized an exhaustive and long screening ffort/ The NAZIs used them to resettle the areas of Poland annexed to the Reich and were being cleared of Poles. Some refugees also came from the areas of Romania annexed by the Soviets (1940).
The Soviets when the Germans invaded tranported the Volga Germans and other ethnic Germans east beyound the reach of the invading Wehrmacht. 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 Givernment 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.
Some ethnic Germans were reached in the western Ukraine and eastern Poland before the NKVD could deport them. Generally NAZI policy was not to repatriate ethnic German populations in Poland and the Soviet Union, but rather to use them as part of the occupation regime. This of course changed when the tide if battle went afainst the Wehrmacht. Ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe followed the Wehrmmcht as it retreated east toward the Reich. After the War, the various countries involved expelled Germans who tried to remain. Some of this was orgnized. Some of it was extrodinarily brutal, not surprising given the attrocitities the Germans perpetrated througout the War. The refugee flow and expulsion after the war created one of the largest refugee problems in history.
Initially the success of German arms created refugees in the countries bordering Germany in all directions. east, north, west, and south. As the War progressed, especially after the Soviet Red Army survived the blow of Barabarossa, the Germans themselves began to experience the dislocations they had inflected upon other countries. The first were the people displaced by the Allied strategic bombing campaign. At first the British strategic bombing campaign had little impact, but with the arival of the British Avro Lancaster (1942) and the beginnng of the Around the Clock bombing campaign with the Americans (1943), large numbers of Germans were dehoused and made internal refugees. An excellent civil defense effort limited casualties, but the destruction in the cities began to create increasing numbers of internal refugees. The Red Cross and German welfare organizations cared for these people and found housing and basic necesities for them. The children were evacuated from the cities as part of the KLV program. The War effort meant that many civilians, including the KLV children, were posted far away from home. And after the D-Day break out (August 1944), the strategic bombing campaign resumed with an intensity unknown in history. As a result of the destruction of the Luftwaffe, there was very little limit on the steady stream of bombers flowing out of American and British aircraft plants. American and British bombing strategy differed somewhat, but as most of German indistry and transportation nodes was located within cities, those cities became the primary targets. And as targeting technolgy plants and facilities were tasrgetted, who cities absorbed grevious damage. This emense destruction created a refugee crisis that the German welfare organizations struggled to deal with and were eventually overwealmed. With German cities reduced to rubble, adequate housing was no available and with refugees flowing in from the East, it swould be left to the occupying powers to deal with it. One of the immediate problems was to get the large numbrs of Germans dispersed by the War effort home, if home still existed. Given the destruction of the German rail system, this often had to be dne on foot. The Soviets refused to accept the refugees flowing in from the East. Thus this became a problem for the Western Allies. At first the refugees were women, children, and the elderly, but as the Western Allies began releasing POWs, more men became part of the regugee crisis. Relatively few men ever returned from the Soviet POW camps.
KIA Children<.h2>
A special class of refugees were the German children evacuated from the cities when the Allied bombing intensified.
Fleeing the Red Army in the East
When we talk about World War II, too pften we think about Europeans fleeing the Germans. Another group of refugees get much less coverage. They are the refugees headed the other way--over 10 million Germans from the countries that were seized in the East by the resurgent Red Army. ne of the ironies of history was the NAZI policy of remaking the ethnic map of Europe (Generalplan Ost) resulted not in expanded German populations in the East, but being driven west from areas where they had lived for centuries. And the numbers of German refugees from the East were swelled by the Germans whose homes were destroyed by the Allied bombing or fleeing Soviet rule. Many Germans from Eastern Europe wisely fled the advancing Red Army as the Wehrmacht retreted west.
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]
And at the end of the war, refugees began to come from areas of Germany that had been German for centuries. These were areas that were seized by the Soviet Union such as Köninsberg (Kalinigrad) or transfrred to Poland (such as Danzig, Pomerania, and Silesia).
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Foreign Refugees
Europe especially Germany was awash with refugees at the end of World War II. They were in a pitiful state, but they were actually the lucky ones--they had survived. There were two groups. The first group was the slave and forced laborers broughtb into the Reich. There was a mix of over 10 million foreign slave and other forced laborers trying to get home as well as several million POWS. A much smaller number of Jewish survivors, many of which could not go home. These non-German refugees are the ones which most commonly come to mind when people think of World War II refugees. The second grioup was smaller. They were foreigners who had cooperated with the Germamns and were attemptung to escape the rath of the advancing Red Army and NKVD. They had no illusions as theor fate had they remained in their country.
Scandinavian Refugees
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Soviet Zone
And adding further to the dislocation and tumault were Germans in the Soviet occupation zone that decided to live in the west. The German learned of the various occuopation zones after Yalta. The popuolation in generak may nitb have knowm, nut many in eastern Germany nwantedv to be as far aaway from the Red Armjy nas possinble.a
