Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia

Expulsion of Sudeten Germans following the end of World War II
Flight and expulsion of Germans during
and after World War II
(demographic estimates)
Background
Wartime flight and evacuation
Post-war flight and expulsion
Later emigration
Other themes

The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of evacuations and deportations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.

During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Czech resistance groups demanded the deportation of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. The decision to deport the Germans was adopted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies for this proposal.[1][2] The final agreement for the expulsion of the German population however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of the Potsdam Conference.

In the months following the end of the war, "wild" expulsions happened from May until August 1945. Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš on 28 October 1945 called for the "final solution of the German question" (Czech: konečné řešení německé otázky) which would have to be solved by deportation of the ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia.[3][4]

The expulsions were carried out by order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers. However, in some cases it was initiated or pursued with the assistance of the regular army.[5] Several thousand died violently during the expulsion and more died from hunger and illness as a consequence. The expulsion according to the Potsdam Conference proceeded from 25 January 1946 until October of that year. Roughly 1.6 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone (West Germany), and an estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (East Germany).[6]

The expulsions ended in 1948, but not all Germans were expelled; estimates for the total number of non-expulsions range from approximately 160,000[7] to 250,000.[8]

The West German government in 1958 estimated the ethnic German death toll during the expulsion period to be about 270,000,[9] a figure that has been cited in historical literature since then.[10] Research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians in 1995 found that the previous demographic estimates of 220,000 to 270,000 deaths were overstated and based on faulty information; they concluded that the actual death toll was at least 15,000 persons, and that it could range up to a maximum of 30,000 dead if one assumes that some deaths were not reported. The Commission statement also said that German records show 18,889 confirmed deaths including 3,411 suicides. Czech records indicated 22,247 deaths including 6,667 unexplained cases or suicides.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

The German Church Search Service was able to confirm the deaths of 14,215 persons during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia (6,316 violent deaths, 6,989 in internment camps and 907 in the USSR as forced laborers).[18]

  1. ^ "Prozatimní NS RČS 1945–1946, 2. schůze, část 2/4 (28. 10. 1945)". Psp.cz. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  2. ^ Československo-sovětské vztahy v diplomatických jednáních 1939–1945. Dokumenty. Díl 2 (červenec 1943 – březen 1945). Praha. 1999. (ISBN 80-85475-57-X)
  3. ^ "Bohumil Doležal". Bohumildolezal.lidovky.cz. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  4. ^ The Routledge history of genocide. Maguire, Richard, 1966–, Carmichael, Cathie. London. 2015. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-415-52996-9. OCLC 908389544.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. ^ Biman, S.; Cílek, R.: Poslední mrtví, první živí. Ústí nad Labem 1989. (ISBN 80-7047-002-X)
  6. ^ "Memories of World War II in the Czech Lands: the expulsion of Sudeten Germans – Radio Prague". Radio.cz. 14 April 2005. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
  7. ^ Piotr Eberhardt, Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis M.E. Sharpe, 2002 ISBN 0-7656-0665-8
  8. ^ Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt – Wiesbaden. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958
  9. ^ Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt Wiesbaden. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958
  10. ^ Alfred M. de Zayas: A Terrible Revenge. Palgrave/Macmillan, New York, 1994. p. 152.
  11. ^ "Odsun – počet úmrtí". Fronta.cz. Retrieved 29 September 2015. Beneš, Z. — Kuklík, J. ml. — Kural, V. — Pešek, J., Odsun — Vertreibung (Transfer Němců z Československa 1945–1947), Ministerstvo mládeže a tělovýchovy ČR 2002, pp. 49–50.
  12. ^ Haar, Ingo (2009). "Die deutschen "Vertreibungsverluste": Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme". In Mackensen, Rainer (in German). Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts "Bevölkerung" vor, im und nach dem "Dritten Reich": Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissenschaft. VS Verlag. p. 371. ISBN 3-531-16152-0.
  13. ^ Hoensch, Jörg K. und Hans Lemberg, Begegnung und Konflikt. Schlaglichter auf das Verhältnis von Tschechen, Slowaken und Deutschen 1815–1989 Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung 2001 ISBN 3-89861-002-0
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference tschechien-portal.info was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "Deutsch-Tschechische und Deutsch-Slowakische Historikerkommission". Dt-ds-historikerkommission.de. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  16. ^ P. Wallace (March 11, 2002). "Putting The Past To Rest", Time. Accessed 2007-11-16.
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReferenceB was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Spiegel, Silke. ed. Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Erlebnisberichte.. Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen. (1989). ISBN 3-88557-067-X. p. 47.