German exodus from Eastern Europe
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The German exodus from Eastern Europe refers to the exodus of the German populations to the east of Germany's and Austria's post-World War II borders. Several stages may be distinguished in this process.
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[edit] Background
Part of the background for the German exodus from Eastern Europe following World War II is based on events in the history of Germany and Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Migrations that took place over more than a millennium led to pockets of Germans living throughout Eastern Europe as far east as Russia.
The expulsions at the end of World War II were part of negotiated agreements between the victorious Allies to redraw national borders and arrange for "orderly population transfers" to remove ethnic minorities that were viewed as "troublesome".
[edit] Ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe
The presence of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history. Prior to the rise of European nationalism in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Central and Eastern Europe was organized into many city-states which contained multi-ethnic populations.
Near the end of the Migration Period (300-900 AD) that brought the Germanic and Slavic tribes as well as the Huns, etc., to what is now Central Europe, Slavs expanded westwards at the same time as Germans expanded eastwards. The result was German colonization as far east as Romania, and Slavic colonization as far west as present-day Lübeck, Hamburg, and along the river Elbe and its tributary Saale further south. After Christianization, the superior organization of the Roman Catholic Church enabled further German expansion, known as the medieval Drang nach Osten.
At the same time, trade in the Baltic Sea and Eastern Central Europe became dominated by Germans through the Hanseatic League. Along the trade routes, Hanseatic trade stations developed large, relatively wealthy German populations.
Thus, over the course of several hundred years, groups of Germans migrated to the eastern Baltic, southern Russia, and what is now Romania, respectively. By the 1500s, much of Pomerania, Prussia, the Sudetenland, Bessarabia, Galicia, South Tyrol, Carniola, and Lower Styria had many German cities and villages. By the 1800s, every city of even modest size as far east as Russia had a German quarter and a Jewish quarter. Travellers along any road would pass through, for example, a German village, then a Czech village, then a Polish village, etc., depending on the region.
[edit] The rise of European nationalism
The latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century saw the rise of nationalism in Europe. Previously, a country consisted largely of whatever peoples lived on the land that was under the dominion of a particular ruler. Thus, as principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with peoples of many different ethnicities under his dominion.
The concept of nationalism was based on the idea of a "people" who shared a common bond through race, religion, language and culture. Furthermore, nationalism asserted that each "people" had a right to its own nation. Thus, much of European history in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be understood as efforts to realign national boundaries with this concept of "one people, one nation".
Much conflict would arise when one nation asserted territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of a common bond with the people living on that land. Another source of conflict arose when a group of people who constituted a minority in one nation would seek to secede from the nation either to form an independent nation or join another nation with whom they felt stronger ties. Yet another source of conflict was the desire of some nations to expel people from territory within its borders on the ground that those people did not share a common bond with the majority of people living in that nation.
The expulsion of Germans after World War II must be interpreted in the context of the evolution of global nationalism in general and European nationalism in particular. It is also useful to compare the mass migrations and forced expulsion of ethnic Germans out of Eastern Europe with other massive transfers of populations, such as exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey and population exchange that occurred after the Partition of India. In all cases those expelled suffered greatly.
[edit] Territorial claims of German nationalists
By World War I, there were isolated groups of Germans or so-called Schwaben as far southeast as the Bosphorus (Turkey), Georgia, and Azerbaijan. After the war, Germany's and Austria-Hungary's loss of territory and the rise of communism in the Soviet Union meant that more Germans than ever constituted sizable minorities in various countries.
German nationalists used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims. Many of the propaganda themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia and Poland claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in those territories were persecuted.
The Nazis negotiated a number of population transfers with Joseph Stalin and others with Benito Mussolini so that both Germany and the other country would increase their ethnic homogeneity. However, these population transfers were not sufficient to appease the demands of the Nazis. The "Heim ins Reich" rhetoric of the Nazis over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war. Adolf Hitler used these issues as a pretext for waging wars of aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland.
[edit] Support of Nazi invasion by German population in invaded countries
As Nazi Germany invaded first Czechoslovakia and later Poland, some members of German minorities in those countries aided the invading forces and the subsequent Nazi occupation. These acts would cause enmity against Germans and later be used as part of the justification for the expulsions.
[edit] Czechoslovakia
According to the 1920 Czechoslovakian constitution, German minority rights were carefully protected; their educational and cultural institutions were preserved in proportion to the population. Local hostilities were engendered, however, by policies intended to protect the security of the Czechoslovak state and the rights of Czechs. There were also economic tensions, as Sudeten Germans suffered more during the Great Depression, because they were more dependent on foreign trade and economic conditions in Germany.
Sudeten German nationalist sentiment affected their politics during the early years of the republic. In 1926, however, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann of Germany, advised Sudeten Germans to cooperate actively with the Czechoslovak government. In consequence, most Sudeten German parties changed from negativism to activism, and a number of Sudeten Germans accepted cabinet posts. By 1929, only a small number of Sudeten German deputies--most of them members of the German National Party (propertied classes) and the Sudeten Nazi Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei)--remained in opposition.
On October 1, 1933, Konrad Henlein created a new political organization, the Sudeten German Home Front (Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront) professed loyalty to the Czechoslovak state but championed decentralization. It absorbed most former German Nationals and Sudeten Nazis. In 1935 the Sudeten German Home Front became the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei - SdP) and embarked on an active propaganda campaign. In the May election the SdP won more than 60 percent of the Sudeten German vote at the expense of the German Agrarians, Christian Socialists, and Social Democrats who each lost approximately half of their constituencies. [1]
The SdP became the fulcrum of German nationalist forces. The party represented itself as striving for a just settlement of Sudeten German claims within the framework of Czechoslovak democracy. Henlein, however, maintained secret contact with Nazi Germany and received material aid from Berlin. The SdP endorsed the idea of a führer and mimicked Nazi methods with banners, slogans, and uniformed troops. Concessions offered by the Czechoslovak government, including the transfer of Sudeten German officials to Sudeten German areas and possible participation of the SdP in the cabinet, were rejected. By 1937, most SdP leaders supported Hitler's pan-German objectives. [2]
[edit] Poland
Some ethnic Germans living in Poland were activists in the groups Deutscher Volksverband and Jungdeutscher Partei, and before the war opposed any form of co-existence within Polish state, and condemned speaking in Polish or contact with Polish culture. Polish national events were boycotted and Germans who didn't act in required manner were branded as traitors and renagades by these German minority organisations. Such organisations also distributed propaganda films and brochures with anti-Polish statements.
One Polish historian estimates that 25% of the German population in Poland belonged to Nazi-sponsored organizations that supported the Nazi conquest of Poland.[3] Selbstschutz and German nationalist organisations created in Poland and Czechoslovakia by Germans took part in various actions (sabotage, etc.) against Polish population. For example, Selbstschutz took part in and conducted itself mass executions of Poles in Operation Tannenberg. As Selbstschutz counted 82,000 members out of 741,000 Germans living in Poland, over 10 % of Germans living in Poland were members of this organisation.
Polish historians estimate that, in areas that were incorporated to the Third Reich, 40,000 Poles were murdered and 20,000 were sent to concentration camps during the so-called Intelligenzaktion, in which Selbstschutz also took part. Only a few percent of those sent to concentration camps survived. In the early days of occupation, 90% of those who were sent to concentration camps were targeted by German nationals [4] The overwhelming majority of those victims were selected by local Germans who identified them as enemies of Reich <ref name="Ward">(Polish)Polacy - wysiedleni, wypędzeni i wyrugowani przez III Rzeszę" Doctor Maria Wardzyńska Warsaw 2004" Created on order of Reichsfuhrer SS H.Himler from German minority, terrorist organisation called Selbstschutz co-worked in mass executions during „Intelligenzaktion”, made alongside operational groups of security policy, by pointing out local Poles and interning them </ref>. Germans living in Poland made lists of Poles targeted for execution and hunted down and captured Poles. <ref name="Ward">(Polish) "Polacy - wysiedleni, wypędzeni i wyrugowani przez III Rzeszę" Doctor Maria Wardzyńska Warsaw 2004 </ref> At the time of expulsions many Germans still supported Nazism. For example according to polls conducted in American Zone of Occupation among Germans from November 1945 till December 1947, the percentage of German population that supported the view that "National Socialism was a good idea, but badly implemented" was on average 47%, while in August 1947 the percentage increased to 55% <ref name="Rocznik">Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki Tom I "Polska a Niemcy; ludność, odbudowa, przemiany polityczne w pierwszych latach powojennych" Edmund Dmitrów Warszawa 1992</ref>
[edit] Nazi-Soviet population transfers
Main article: Nazi-Soviet population transfers.
Germans were resettled from territories which were occupied by Soviet Union in 1940 due to the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, notably Bessarabia and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, all of which traditionally had large German minorities. Notably, the majority of the Baltic Germans had already been resettled in late 1939, prior to the occupation of Estonia and Latvia by Soviet Union in June 1940. The Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) were then resettled in place of expelled Poles both in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany and in Zamość County in line with Generalplan Ost.
[edit] The Allies decide the postwar German-Polish border
As it became evident that the Allies were going to defeat Nazi Germany decisively, the question arose as to how to redraw the borders of Eastern European countries after the war. In the context of those decisions, the problem arose of what to do about ethnic minorities within the redrawn borders.
[edit] The Yalta Conference
The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US, Britain and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open; the western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland.
Originally, Germany was to retain Stettin while the Poles were to annex East Prussia with Königsberg. [5]. Eventually, however, Stalin decided that he wanted Königsberg as a year-round warm water port for the Soviet Navy and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead. The wartime Polish government in exile had little to say in these decisions. [6]
[edit] The Potsdam Conference
At the Potsdam Conference the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union placed the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line (Poland referred to by the Polish communist government as the "Western Territories" or "Regained Territories") as formally under Polish administrative control. It was anticipated that a final peace treaty would follow shortly and either confirm this border or determine whatever alterations might be agreed upon.
The final agreements in effect compensated Poland for 187,000 km² located east of the Curzon line with 112,000 km² of former German territories. The northerneastern third of East Prussia was directly annexed by the Soviet Union and remains part of Russia to this day.
It was also decided that all Germans remaining in the new and old Polish territory should be expelled, to prevent any claims of minority rights. Among the provisions of the Potsdam Conference was a section that provided for the Orderly transfer of German populations. The specific wording of this section was as follows:
- The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.
[edit] Evacuation
Main article: World War II evacuation and expulsion.
Nazi authorities were late to order the evacuation of areas close to the advancing front, before they were overrun by the Red Army. While both many citizens of Germany (German: Reichsdeutsche) and ethnic Germans (German: Volksdeutsche) were successfully evacuated (around 5 million people) by German Navy over the Baltic Sea, many lost their lives either because of severe winter conditions or when their vessels were torpedoed (as in the case of the Wilhelm Gustloff).
[edit] Expulsion
Main article: Expulsion of Germans after World War II.
The remaining German inhabitants were expelled or fled from present-day Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, today's Kaliningrad Oblast, and other East European countries. Up to 16.5 million Germans of the post-war population were forced to leave. Those who fled in fear of the Red Army were banned from returning. Even though some German dwellers were persecuted because of their activities during the war the only reasons for their expulsion was their ethnicity as Germans. They were sent to makeshift camps or cities in western Germany, mostly according to their Landsmannschaft.
According to some German sources, more than 2.5 million lost their lives during this process. Other German, Czech and Polish sources give a much lower estimate (Czech historians arguing that most of estimated population drop is because of soldiers killed at the front). The actual population transfer included about 7 million from former eastern Germany, 1.5 million from Poland in the borders of 1938 (total of 5.075 million from new borders, see Oder-Neisse Line), 2.5 million from Czechoslovakia, around 2 million from the Soviet Union, 240,000 from Hungary, 300,000 from Romania, and another 1 million from other Eastern European regions.
The eviction of Germans from Eastern Europe was tolerated by the Potsdam Agreement, but it stated that it should be undertaken in a "humane" and "orderly" manner. It didn't however create any detailed rules or supervision service to prevent the crimes.
[edit] Emigration of Germans from Eastern Europe
Between 1950 and 1990, 1.4 million people emigrated from Poland to Germany claiming German ancestry (770 000 of them in the 1980s). Between 1970 and 1990 Communist Romania allowed the migration of ethnic Germans (Danube Swabians, Carpathian Germans and Transylvanian Saxons) to West Germany and Romanian Jews to Israel in exchange for hard currency. After the Romanian Revolution, this migration has continued.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, large numbers of Russian Germans (Wolgadeutsche) took advantage of Germany's liberal law of return to leave the harsh conditions of the Soviet successor states. By 1999 about 1.7 million former Soviet citizens of German origin had emigrated, mainly from Russia and Kazakhstan, to Germany. About 6,000 settled in Kaliningrad Oblast (former East Prussia).
[edit] The results
During the period of 1944/1945 - 1950, more than 14 million Germans were forced to flee or were expelled as a result of actions of the Red Army, civilian militia and/or organised efforts of governments of the reconstituted states of Eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans were detained in internment camps or sentenced to forced labor, some of them for years. The number of expellees and refugees, whose fate could not be ascertained, was estimated to be around 2.1 million, according to two major studies conducted in 1958 and 1965, which were commissioned by the German Bundestag. Millions of German women were raped (the process of escape and expulsion includes the actions taken by the Red Army against German civilians). Private property of the expelled Germans was confiscated. More than 4 million Germans were resettled in Germany from the end of the 1950s, joining the 14 million expellees and refugees.
A German Expellees source from the mid-1980's<ref name="Reichling">(German) Gerhard Reichling (1986). Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen. Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (Cultural Society of the German Expellees), 72. ISBN 3-88557-046-7.</ref> gives the following estimates of the population transfers.
| German Expellees | |
|---|---|
| Expelled from | Number expelled |
| Eastern Germany | 7,122,000 |
| Danzig | 279,000 |
| Poland | 661,000 |
| Czechoslovakia | 2,911,000 |
| Baltic States | 165,000 |
| USSR | 90,000 |
| Hungary | 199,000 |
| Romania | 228,000 |
| Yugoslavia | 271,000 |
The integration of expellees and refugees into German society required great efforts from the 1940s to the 1960s. In some areas, for instance in Mecklenburg, the number of inhabitants doubled as a result of the influx. Other areas, like Bavaria, which had been predominantly Roman Catholic before the war now had to deal with an influx of non-Catholic and non-Bavarian Germans from the East.
The areas, from which the Germans escaped, or which were ethnically cleansed, were subsequently re-populated by nationals of the states to which they now belonged, many of whom were expellees themselves from lands further east.
[edit] Legacy
During the Cold War era, there was little public knowledge of 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. It can be surmised that 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.
[edit] Cold War assessments of the expulsions
In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a memorable speech in Fulton, Missouri in the presence of US President Truman. Churchill made the USA aware of the Iron Curtain coming down "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic". In this speech, Churchill also emphasised the wrongful Soviet-directed Polish incursions into Germany (that is, the land east of the Oder-Neisse line) and the plight of millions of Germans refugees/expellees. However, taking into account his personal responsibility for and - though reluctant - acceptance of the decisions made in Potsdam, the sentence would seem to have been motivated by the contemporary political agenda. [citation needed]
During the Cold War, anti-Communists in the U.S. used the expulsions to excoriate the Soviet Union and its satellites for alleged cruelty and inhumanity of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. Because of the polemic nature of these allegations, estimates of deaths due to the expulsions tended to run higher than subsequent assessments by historians. For example, in a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives on May 16, 1957, the Hon. B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee called the deportation and violent expulsion of German civilians "genocide". He charged that over 16 million Germans had been expelled from their homes east of the Oder-Neisse Line, resulting in over 3 million deaths. [7]
Both Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Lev Kopelev, during their Soviet military service, had objected to the brutal treatment of German civilians of East Prussia. Lev Kopelev wrote about the cruel events in post-1945 East Prussia in the autobiographical trilogy To Be Preserved Forever (Хранить вечно, Khranit' Venchno).
[edit] Expelled Germans in postwar Germany
After World War II many expellees (German: Heimatvertriebene) found refuge in both West Germany and East Germany. Refugees who had fled voluntarily but were later refused to return are often not distinguished from those who were forcibly deported, just as people born to German parents that moved into areas under German occupation either on their own or as Nazi colonists.
In a document signed 50 years ago the Heimatvertriebene organisations have also recognized the plight of the different groups of people living in today's Poland who were by force resettled there. The Heimatvertriebene are just one of the groups of millions of other people, from many different countries, who all found refuge in today's Germany.
Some of the expellees were active in politics and belonged to the political right-wing. Many others do not belong to any organizations, but they continue to maintain what they call a lawful right to their homeland. The vast majority pledged to work peacefully towards that goal while rebuilding post-war Germany and Europe.
The expellees and their descendants are still highly active in German politics, and are one of the major political factions of the nation, with still around 2 million members. The president of their organization is as of 2004 still a member of the national parliament. Although the prevailing political climate within West Germany was that of atonement for Nazi actions, the CDU governments have shown considerable support for the expellees and German civilian victims.
[edit] Federation of Expellees
The Federation of Expellees (German: Bund der Vertriebenen (BdV)) is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans displaced from their homes in Historical Eastern Germany and other parts of Eastern Europe by the expulsion of Germans after World War II. ("Heimatvertriebene": "Homeland expellees").
It represents the diaspora of German citizens (today numbering approximately 15 million) who after World War II were transferred from Poland and the Soviet Union and former German territories, together with ethnic Germans who were transferred from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and other countries. The current president is CDU politician Erika Steinbach.
[edit] Centre Against Expulsions
The foundation Centre Against Expulsions has its registered office in Wiesbaden and is headed by CDU politician Erika Steinbach. One of Steinbach's main aims is to build the Centre Against Expulsions (German: Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen) in Berlin, a memorial dedicated to the victims of forced migrations or ethnic cleansing in Europe, particularly those of the Germans displaced after World War II.
It was initiated by the Federation of Expellees, with the support of the CDU/CSU faction in the German parliament and of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who intends to support the building of the centre.[citation needed]
The initiative has caused much controversy, both in Germany and abroad. Some critics of the Federation of Expellees criticize the movement to build a centre and monument against forced migration for focusing primarily on the expulsion of Germans rather than giving more weight to expulsions throughout all Europe. [citation needed]
Critics argue that this focus on German expulsions "risks de-contexualizing the past, thus breaking the causal relationship between the Nazi policies of radical nationalism and racial extermination on one hand and the flight and expulsion of ethnic Germans on the other hand" [8]. This line of criticism argues that the expulsion of ethnic Germans was indirectly a result of Nazi policies during World War II. It charges that the Centre Against Expulsions portrays expelled Germans as victims of the war and thereby downplays the German responsibility for the Holocaust, atrocities and the aggression leading to the outbreak of the war.
Other voices pointed out, that it is important to document every part of history in order to be accurate. Furthermore, some[citation needed] argue German responsibility for World War 2 is and will continue to be known, thus the fear is unsubstantiated.
[edit] Polish-German relations
Although relations between Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany have generally been cordial since 1991, there remain disputes about the War, the post-War expulsion, the treatment of the current German minority in Poland and the treatment of German heritage in modern day Western Poland.
Since 1990, historical events have been examined by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Its role is to investigate the crimes of the past without regard to the nationality of victims and perpetrators. In Poland, crimes motivated by the nationality of victims are not covered by a statute of limitations, therefore the criminals can be charged in perpetuity. In a few cases, the crimes against Germans were examined. One suspected perpetrator of retaliatory crimes against expelled innocent German civilians, Salomon Morel, fled the country to Israel, which has denied Polish requests for his extradition.
[edit] Finalization of the Polish-German border
The Oder-Neisse line as the Polish-German border was quickly accepted by the East German government but rejected as unacceptable by the all West German political parties (with the exception of the Communists). Since the 1960s this opposition mellowed, especially within the Social Democrats and the Liberals. The government declared the border an issue to be solved in a future peace treaty. The Oder-Neisse line was formally accepted by the Two plus Four treaty, effecting Germany's reunification in 1990, and a Polish-German border in 1991. The agreement also gave to minority groups in both countries several rights, such as the right to use national surnames, speak their native languages, and attend schools and churches of their choice.
[edit] Polish criticism of German "revisionism"
Some Poles criticize the recently revived German interest in Germans Expulsion victims and their suffering as trying to deflect from German responsibility for war crimes.[citation needed] Such positions of an admission of "Polish guilt" are viewed negatively in Poland, especially amongst politicians who certain Germans claim play the anti-German card for political reasons. The experience of World War II is part of the national consciousness in Poland and like in Russia not to be taken lightly. Due to the horror of the Polish experience at the hands of the Germans, it was considered a taboo topic until the early 1990's and German Reunification. It is alleged that the German critics of Polish policy towards the expellees ignore the widespread collaboration and support for the Nazi movement that the German population in the Former German Oder-Neisse territories gave to Hitler and his ambitions in Poland. The invasion, occupation and annexation of most of Poland by the German military was widely supported by the Germans in Silesia, East Prussia and Pomerania in 1939 during the Second Polish Republic. The classification of Poles as sub humans by German authorities and the killings and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of Polish insurgents and members of the resistance to German rule in the occupied parts of the nation is bitterly remembered.
[edit] German criticism of the Polish "collectivist view"
Some German expellees criticize what they see as the official Polish perspective on the War and the post-War events being mostly based on a collectivist view (of mixed communist and nationalist ideas) that emphasizes the ethnic background of the individuals, in addition to German society’s general collaboration with the Nazi Movement and its negative historical ramifications and ignores the individual sufferings of victims on both sides.[citation needed] Legal arguments from the German perspective also point out that the expulsion, while legally sanctioned by the Allies, in the Potsdam Agreement, was in effect a violation of the original United Nations charter that claimed that the Allies had no territorial claims on Germany what so ever. By the end of the war, Stalin had filled the power vacuum in East-Central Europe left by Nazi Germany, and the Red Army’s troop presence there presented a new reality for the Anglo-American forces and their respective governments. Therefore, Roosevelt and Churchill did little to nothing at Yalta to prevent Stalin from implementing the Oder-Neisse line as a new political and ethno-linguistic frontier. Ignoring the reality of over 700 years of the dominant presence of German culture and population in these areas, the Allies thus gave into a long held dream of Polish nationalist extremism that wanted to reincorporate the Oder-Neisse lands into Poland at the cost of the native German population. Lastly, they point out that also legally, the Former German Territories did not become part of Poland until 1990, with the signing of the German Reunification Treaty (2+4), as they were only placed under “Polish and Soviet Administration”. Modern day parallels can be drawn with the Israeli administration of the Palestinian Territories and the Moroccan administration of the former Spanish African colony of Western Sahara, which are very much politically and legally undecided, whereas the demographics on the ground have been changed radically due to resettlement policies on the part of the occupying powers. In all effect they claim, the Oder-Neisse lands became part of Poland and the Soviet Union, in their respective parts, in 1945, after the expulsion of the native populations. However, this does undo the fact that war crimes[citation needed] were committed upon the expellees by the Soviets and the Polish nation nor the legal reality that the lands were not ever “officially” or “legally” part of Poland or the Soviet Union until 1990.
[edit] Restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners
In November 2005 Der Spiegel published a poll from Allensbach Institut which estimated that 61% of Poles believed Germans would try to get back territories that were formerly under German control or demand compensation[9],[10].
There are also some worries among Poles that rich descendants of the expelled Germans would buy the land the Polish state confiscated in 1945. It is believed that this may result in large price increases, since the current Polish land price is low compared to Western Europe. This led to Polish restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners, including Germans: special permission is needed. This policy is comparable to similar restrictions on the Baltic Åland Islands. These restrictions will be lifted 12 years after the 2004 accession of Poland to the European Union, i.e on May 1 2016. The restrictions are weak, they are not valid for companies and certain types of properties.
The attempts by German organisations to build a Centre Against Expulsions dedicated to documentation of, among other subject matter, the Expulsion of Germans after World War II has provoked strong reactions in Poland. A proposal by Polish politicians that Germany should instead build a Center for the Memory of the Suffering of the Polish Nation (called also Center for the Memory of Suffering of the Polish Nation) was rejected by German politicians [11], who argue that this suffering has already been documented in memorial centers and expositions while that of the expelled Germans has not.
[edit] Indemnity Claims
The officially proposed policy of the expellees is not to repeat the post-war expulsions with new expulsions, annexations and population transfers. Most expellees accept the territorial changes of 1945 as far as territorial claims are concerned and consider the Poles now living in former East Germany as friends and neighbours in the European Union. However, a few of them demand compensation from the Poles and support the Prussian Claims Inc.
At the end of August 2004, a heated debate took place in the Polish Sejm over a proposed bill calling upon the Polish government to enforce Germany's payment of reparations for damage inflicted on Poland during World War II. The issue of German reparations was raised in response to signals coming from Germany, or rather from certain German circles which in civil legal proceedings wanted to lay indemnity claims for property left behind in the postwar territory of Poland. The Polish nation had reacted strongly to statements made by Erika Steinbach, chair of the Union of the Expelled (BdV), and claims made by Prussian Claims Inc. Polish politicians asserted that only a response in the form of Poland's reparations claim could suppress endeavors of German citizens and their political advocates who are attempting to claim indemnity from Polish citizens in civil proceedings. The majority of Poles have not received any compensation from the Soviet Union or Germany for losses suffered during World War II. However, recently Erika Steinbach has sharply rejected any compensation claims[citation needed] and distanced herself from the Prussian Claims Inc.[citation needed]
[edit] Czech-German relations
On 28 December 1989, Václav Havel, at that time a candidate for president of Czechoslovakia (he was elected one day later), suggested that Czechoslovakia should apologise for the expulsion of ethnic Germans after World War II. Most of the other prominent politicians disagreed with this proposal. There was also no reply from leaders of Sudeten German organizations. Later, the German President Richard von Weizsäcker answered this by apologizing to Czechoslovakia during his visit to Prague on March 1990 after Václav Havel repeated his apology saying that the expulsion was "the mistakes and sins of our fathers". The Beneš decrees, however, remain in force in Czechoslovakia.
In Czech-German relations, the topic has been effectively closed by the Czech-German declaration of 1997. One principle of the declaration was that parties will not burden their relations with political and legal issues which stem from the past.
However, some expelled Sudeten Germans or their descendants are demanding return of their former property, which was confiscated after the war. Several such cases have been taken to Czech courts. As confiscated estates usually have new inhabitants, some of whom have lived there for more than 50 years, attempts to return to a pre-war state may cause fear. The issue is revived periodically in Czech politics. As in Poland, there are restrictions in the Czech Republic on land purchases by foreigners. According to a survey by the Allensbach Institut in November 2005, 38% of Czechs believe Germans want to regain territory they lost or will demand compensation.
[edit] Recognition of Sudeten German anti-Nazis
In 2005 Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek announced an initiative to publicise and formerly recognise the deeds of Sudeten German Anti-Nazis. Although the move was received positively by most Sudeten Germans and the German minority, there has been criticism that the initiative is limited to anti-Nazis who actively fought for the Czechoslovak state, but not to anti-Nazis in general or non-Nazis. Some also expected some financial compensation for their mistreatment after the War. [12]
[edit] Status of the German minority in the Czech Republic and Slovakia
There are about 40,000 Germans remaining in the Czech Republic. Their number has been consistently decreasing since World War II. According to the 2001 census there remain 13 municipalities and settlements in the Czech Republic with more than 10% Germans.
The situation in Slovakia was different from that in the Czech lands, in that the number of Germans was considerably lower and that the Germans from Slovakia were almost completely evacuated to German states as the Soviet army was moving west through Slovakia, and only the fraction of them that returned to Slovakia after the end of the war was deported together with the Germans from the Czech lands.
[edit] The German minority in Hungary
Today the German minority in Hungary has minority rights, organizations, schools, local councils, and spontaneous assimilation is well under way. Many of the deportees have visited their old homes since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990.
[edit] Russia
Many descendants of Germans who were expelled from the former city of Königsberg can be found today in Germany. The deportation of Germans from the northern part of what was formerly East Prussia often was conducted in a violent and aggressive way by Soviet officials who sought to exact revenge for the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Soviet areas during the war. However, the present Russian inhabitants of the Kaliningrad sector (northern East Prussia) have much less animus against Germans. German names have even been revived in commercial Russian trade. Thus, it is possible that, in the future, the name of Kaliningrad might be reverted to the original name, Königsberg. Because the exclave was a military zone during Soviet times and nobody was allowed to enter without special permission, many old German Prussian villages are still intact, though they have become dilapidated over the course of time.
[edit] See also
- Danube-Swabians
- Population transfer
- Regained Territories
- Volga German
- History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
[edit] Notes
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