Via the Chronicle of Higher Education, a history lesson.
[I]t took place by order of the United States and Britain as well as the Soviet Union, nearly two years after the declaration of peace. Between 1945 and 1950, Europe witnessed the largest episode of forced migration, and perhaps the single greatest movement of population, in human history. Between 12 million and 14 million German-speaking civilians—the overwhelming majority of whom were women, old people, and children under 16—were forcibly ejected from their places of birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and what are today the western districts of Poland. As The New York Times noted in December 1945, the number of people the Allies proposed to transfer in just a few months was about the same as the total number of all the immigrants admitted to the United States since the beginning of the 20th century. They were deposited among the ruins of Allied-occupied Germany to fend for themselves as best they could. The number who died as a result of starvation, disease, beatings, or outright execution is unknown, but conservative estimates suggest that at least 500,000 people lost their lives in the course of the operation.
Most disturbingly of all, tens of thousands perished as a result of ill treatment while being used as slave labor (or, in the Allies' cynical formulation, "reparations in kind") in a vast network of camps extending across central and southeastern Europe—many of which, like Auschwitz I and Theresienstadt, were former German concentration camps kept in operation for years after the war.Emphasis added. Read the rest. The Chronicle is a respectable publication: you may trust, though you may not like, what you read.
Is this a reversal of the "Lebensraum" justification for the invasion of these countries by Germany?
ReplyDeleteJust askin'. I notice that the article doesn't deal with this aspect of the action.
That anonymous was me.
ReplyDeleteValerie
My father, a second-generation American, was utterly contemptuous when speaking of Churchill.
ReplyDeleteNow I know why. His 'folk' were from Southern Germany and most likely knew--through the grapevine--about these actions.
The comments there are a mess of various biases and theories, each with their own view of who's to blame and what was worse, but the consistent thing is that if you're culture is based on blood (or language to the extent that it's taken to indicate blood), then much of it will be spilled, because it's sure that eventually something will pop up that will find two groups on opposite sides with no easy resolution. Periods of comfortable integration in European history are just priming the pump for conflict later, with an easy scapegoat when the time comes.
ReplyDeleteI'd heard of the 'repatriation' of ethnic Germans from Silesia, but the 500,000 number is a new one. One comment did indicate that you had to weigh this against the ethnic Germans staying in places where they were likely to be the next scapegoat. How many would have died staying where they were? There were an awful lot of grievances waiting for some way to settle them.
Reading that (and the comments), just made me appreciate this place where liberty is the principle that guides us and it's what a man does that matters, and not his bloodline, last name, or native language.
Is this a reversal of the "Lebensraum" justification for the invasion of these countries by Germany?
ReplyDeleteAnd
...weigh this [forced relocation] against the ethnic Germans staying in places where they were likely to be the next scapegoat.
Another idea, related to the first above, that I haven't seen widely discussed is that this was simply to eliminate an excuse for invasion that then just-defeated Germany had nakedly used as an anschluss and then invasion pretext.
This pretext has since been used by the Russians in their attacks on the Baltic nations and the nations on the western periphery of the late Soviet Union--including the Russians' invasion and partition of Georgia: "You're not taking care of my people, so I'm going to move in and take over."
Eric Hines
Douglas, most of the ethnic Germans who stayed in the state of Prussia died. The Poles and Russians were particularly determined to clean out that area for the same reason that Russia refuses to turn loose of Königsburg/Kaliningrad - can't have the Junkers or Hohenzollerns returning. Two books of interest are "The Vanished Kingdom" about Prussia (and about how history is remembered) and the newer work "Bloodlands." Don't touch Bloodlands if you are already feeling depressed; it is as cheerful as "The Black Book of Communism" (and almost as long).
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
Wow, "The Vanished Kingdom" sounds like a terrific book. Thanks, LR1.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea, related to the first above, that I haven't seen widely discussed is that this was simply to eliminate an excuse for invasion that then just-defeated Germany had nakedly used as an anschluss and then invasion pretext.
ReplyDeleteThat's almost assuredly what it was about. And while I don't normally like ascribing motivations to other people, I cannot help but feel if that fact was left out of the article entirely (and I believe it was) then the author did so intentionally to make it seem even more of an atrocity. Without the context of WHY a thing was done, everything seems so much worse. God allows his only begotten Son to be tortured to death. If that's all you know, then Christianity is just some weird death cult.
Grim, you are very welcome. If I ever teach a course on History and Memory, it is one of the books I'm going to use for reading and discussion. It is well written.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
I thought it was millions that died. (Maybe if you count the Volga Germans--but I think they'd been persecuted already before WWII)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, a solution seriously looked at was to "deindustrialize" Germany and basically turn the place back into a pastoral society so that the Germans could never again put an army together. I think Marshall talked Truman out of it.
The name "Prussia" was abolished in 1962.
Now, what I find amusing is that there are Poles who are reenacting Prussian regiments from the Seven Years War, because their recruiting areas were place like Breslau and other towns now in Poland. Wierd.
Like I said before, there's always more history.
Echoing Grim, thanks LR1.
ReplyDeleteEric, I was thinking strictly of the ethnically German residents of the state of Prussia, rather than including the Slavic peasants in the region (high mortality), the Jews (higher mortality), or Germans from other areas. Yes, the Volga Germans got roughed up beginning even before WWI, when conscription became mandatory in Russia. That's when the Americas gained so many Mennonite settlers. The second wave came after WWI, and then a third after WWII.
ReplyDeleteIf you are ever in Brandon, Manitoba, the Mennonite Heritage Centre has fascinating information about the Mennonites and some about the other Volga Germans. There are also Volga German heritage groups in Kansas, among other places.
LittleRed1