Post-war scramble
The end of World War Two brought in its wake the largest population movements in European history. Millions of Germans fled or were expelled from eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, survivors of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, sought secure homes beyond their native lands. And other refugees from every country in eastern Europe rushed to escape from the newly installed Communist regimes.
'The expulsions were ... conducted in a ruthless and often brutal manner.'
At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, British, American and Russian leaders agreed to '... recognise that the transfer to Germany of German populations ... remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken.' They also specified that '... any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.' The expulsions were, in fact, conducted in a ruthless and often brutal manner.
Some of the people who left those eastern countries were recent arrivals, who had been settled in German-conquered territories by the Nazis as part of their long-term plan for German domination of eastern Europe. But most of those being expelled came of stock whose ancestors had been settled in the eastern lands for generations, and who knew no other place as home.
The Volksdeutsche, as the Nazis had called them were, however, for the most part, victims of a calamity of which they were themselves part-authors. Not all were Nazis, but a majority had become supporters of Hitler.
Published: 2005-04-28
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