The
flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland was the largest of a series of flights and expulsions of Germans in Europe during and after World War II.
The German populationThe registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people according to a 2002 census..The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodship , where most of the minority resides...
fled or was expelled from all regions which are
currently within the territorial boundariesThe territorial changes of Poland after World War II were very extensive.In 1945, following the Second World War, Poland's borders were redrawn, following the decision taken at the Teheran Conference of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union...
of
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, including the former eastern territories of Germany and parts of
pre-war PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
.
The first mass movement of German civilians followed the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
's advance and was composed of both spontaneous flight driven by rumours of Soviet atrocities, and organised evacuation starting in the summer of 1944 and continuing through to the spring of 1945. About 3.5 million people were involved, mainly driven by fear of the advancing Soviet Army. In 1945, the eastern territories of Germany (most of
SilesiaSilesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in present-day Poland, with parts in the Czech Republic and Germany....
and
PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited...
, East Brandenburg, and East-Prussia) as well as
Polish areas annexed by Nazi GermanyThis article deals with territories annexed into Nazi Germany. For territories occupied in 1939 but not annexed, see General Government.At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed under German civil administration...
(especially Warthegau and
Reichsgau Danzig-West PrussiaThe Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was a Nazi German province created on 8 October 1939 from the territory of the annexed Free City of Danzig, the annexed Polish province Greater Pomeranian Voivodship , and the Nazi German Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia. Before 2 November, 1939,...
) were
occupiedBelligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
by the Soviet
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
and Polish military forces. Early expulsions in Poland were undertaken by the Polish Communist military authorities even before the Potsdam Conference ("wild expulsions"), to ensure the later integration into an ethnically homogeneous Poland as envisioned by the Polish Communists. Between seven hundred and eight hundred thousand Germans were affected. Germans were defined as either
Reichsdeutsche, people enlisted in 1st or 2nd
Volksliste groups, and those of the 3rd group, who held German citizenship. About 1.1 million German citizens of Slavic descent were "verified" as "autochtone" Poles, 900,000 of whom natives of
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
and
MasuriaMasuria is an area in northeastern Poland famous today for its 2000 lakes.In the 11th-13th century, the territory was inhabited by the Old Prussians, also called Baltic Prussians, an Baltic ethnic group that inhabited Prussia, the lands of the southeastern coastal region of the Baltic Sea, in the...
. Of those, most were not expelled, yet hundreds of thousands emigrated to Germany after 1950, including most Masurians.
The
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
transferred territories to the east of the
Oder-Neisse LineThe Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
to Poland in July 1945. All Germans were expropriated and placed under restrictive jurisdiction. Subsequent to this, under the authority of
Potsdam AgreementThe Potsdam Agreement was an agreement on policy for the occupation and reconstruction of Germany and other nations after fighting in the European Theatre of World War II had ended with the German surrender of May 8, 1945...
, most remaining Germans were expelled from pre-war Poland and the so-called "
Recovered TerritoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
" to the territories west of the Oder-Neisse line. From the spring of 1946 the expulsions gradually became better organised, and less lethal, affecting another three million people. Some German civilians, prior to their expulsion, were used as forced labour in Communist administered camps. Besides large camps, some of which were re-used Nazi concentration camps, numerous other forced labour, punitive and internment camps, urban ghettos, and detention centres sometimes consisting only of a small cellar were set up. An estimated million of Germans considered "indispensable" for the Polish economy were retained until the early 1950s, and all had virtually left by 1960. Close to 165,000 Germans were transported to the Soviet Union for forced labour where most of them perished.
The attitude of Polish civilians, many of whom
had experienced brutalitiesIn addition to about three million Polish Jews , 2.5 million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war...
only surpassed by the treatment of the Jews during the preceding Nazi occupation, was varied. Many engaged in looting, robberies, beatings and even murders and rapes. On the other hand, there were incidents when Poles, even freed slave labourers, protected Germans, for example by disguising them as Poles. The attitude of the Soviet soldiers was also ambivalent. Many committed numerous atrocities, most prominently rapes and murders, and did not always distinguish between Poles and Germans, often mistreated them alike. Other Soviets were taken aback by the brutal treatment of the Germans and engaged in their protection.
Thomasz Kamusella is citing estimates of 7 million expelled during both "wild" and "legal" expulsions from the "
Recovered TerritoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
" until 1948, joined by an additional 700,000 from areas of pre-war Poland. Overy cites approximate totals of those evacuated, migrated, or expelled between 1944–1950 from East Prussia: 1.4 million to Western Germany, 609,000 to Eastern Germany; from West Prussia: 230,000 to Western Germany, 61,000 to Eastern Germany; from the former German area East of the Oder-Neisse: 3.2 million to Western Germany, 2 million to Eastern Germany.
Historical background
German settlement in the former eastern territories of Germany and
pre-war PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
dates back to the medieval
OstsiedlungThis article covers the medieval eastward migrations of Germans. For a general view, see History of German settlement in Eastern EuropeOstsiedlung, literally "settlement in the east", also called German eastward expansion, refers to the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from...
.
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
used the presence and the alleged persecution of
VolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche is a historical term which arose in the early 20th century to describe ethnic Germans living outside of the Reich. This is in contrast to Imperial Germans , German citizens living within Germany...
as propaganda tools in preparation for the
invasion of PolandThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
in 1939. With the invasion, Poland was partitioned between
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
and the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
according to the
Molotov-Ribbentrop PactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in...
. This was followed by population exchanges, mostly Baltic Germans were resettled to occupied Poland.
Nazi Germany's
Generalplan OstGeneralplan Ost was a secret Nazi plan of genocide and ethnic cleansing to be realised in the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II...
strategy for Central and Eastern Europe envisioned the creation of a
Greater GermanyGroßdeutschland is a term referring to the concept of one German nation-state encompassing most or all of the Germanophone and/or Germanic population of Europe....
, which was to be built by means of removing a variety of non-Germans from Poland and other areas in Eastern Europe, mainly Slavs and Jews believed by Nazis to be
subhumanUntermensch is a term from Nazi racial ideology used to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Ukrainians and anyone else who was not an "Aryan" according to the contemporary Nazi race...
. These non-Germans were targeted for slave labor and eventual extermination. While Generalplan Ost's settlement ambitions did not come into full effect due to the war's turn, some Germans mostly from Eastern Europe were settled by the Nazis to replace Poles removed or killed during the occupation. Nazi Germany deported millions of Poles either to other territories, to concentration camps or as slave workers. Many others were deported by the Soviet Union.
Allied decisions: Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences
Though initially hesitant to support widespread post-war population transfers, the British government began signaling approval already in late 1940, after
German bombing attacks on British citiesThe Blitz was the sustained bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, in World War II. While the Blitz hit many towns and cities across the country, it began with the bombing of London for 57 consecutive nights...
had radicalised British public opinion. But, British officials were sharply divided on the extent and speed of the transfers. In 1943, the
War OfficeThe War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
opposed the Foreign Office’s intentions to move Polish borders as far as the
Oder-Neisse lineThe Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
and deport the millions of Germans who would be left inside the new borders of Poland.
Such a move, the
Director of Military IntelligenceThe Directorate of Military Intelligence was a department of the British War Office.Over its lifetime the Directorate underwent a number of organisational changes, absorbing and shedding sections over time.- History :...
wrote,
would yield an overpopulated and revisionist Germany bordering an underpopulated and weak Poland, and would "sow the seeds of another war".
The Foreign Office countered with the argument that German salients in the East were even more dangerous and rendered Poland strategically vulnerable. Just as important, argued the Foreign Office, Britain had a moral obligation to Poland, which would have to be compensated for its losses to the Soviet Union.
Representatives of the
Polish GovernmentThe Polish government-in-exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union at the start of World War II...
were not present at any of those conference and felt
betrayed by their western AlliesWestern betrayal or Yalta betrayal are terms often used in some Eastern and Central European countries, which refer to the foreign policy of several Western countries between 1919-1968, which violated allied pacts and agreements made during the period from the Treaty of Versailles through World...
who have decided about future Polish borders behind their backs.
Following the
Tehran ConferenceThe Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference among the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
(November-December 1943)
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
and
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
made it clear that the Soviets would keep the Polish territories east of the
Curzon lineThe Curzon Line was a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, first proposed on December 8, 1919 at the Allied Supreme Council declaration. The line was authored by British Foreign Secretary, George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston...
and offered Poland territorial compensation in the West. The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward, preconditioning the expulsion of Germans, was made by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States at the
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D...
in February 1945, when the Curzon line was irrevocably fixed as the future Polish-Soviet border. The precise location of the Polish western border was left open and, though basically the Allies had agreed on population transfers, the extent remained questioned. Concerning the post-war western frontier of Poland, the agreement simply read: "
If a specific problem such as the frontiers of liberated Poland and the complexion of its government allowed no easy solution, hopes were held out for the future discussion of all outstanding problems in an amicable manner." Upon gaining control of these lands, the Soviet and Polish-Communist authorities started to expel the German population.
In July 1945, at the
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, the Allies placed most former eastern territories of Germany east of the Oder Neisse line under Polish administration. Article XIII concerning the transfer of Germans was adopted at the
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
in July 1945. It was an emergency measure, drafted and adopted in great haste, a response to the wild expulsions of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland, which had created a chaotic situation in the American and British zones of occupation. The
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
transferred territories to the east of the
Oder-Neisse LineThe Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
to Poland in July 1945. Subsequently, most of the remaining Germans were expelled to the territories west of the line.
President
Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice-president and the 34th Vice President of the United States, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
complained that there were now five occupation zones because the Soviets had turned over the area extending along the Oder and western Neisse to Poland and was concerned about Germany's economic control and war reparations. Churchill spoke against giving Poland control over an area in which some eight million Germans lived. Stalin insisted that the Germans had all fled and that the Poles were needed to fill the vacuum. On July 24, the Polish communist delegation arrived in Berlin, insisting on the Oder and western Neisse rivers as the frontier, and they vehemently argued their case before the foreign ministers, Churchill, and Truman, in turn. The next day Churchill warned Stalin: "The Poles are driving the Germans out of the Russian zone. That should not be done without considering its effect on the food supply and reparations. We are getting into a position where the Poles have food and coal, and we have the mass of (the) population thrown at us." To the Soviets, reparations were more important than boundaries, and Stalin might have sold out the Poles if they had not so vociferously protested when, in spite of his 'illness', he consulted with them during the evening of July 29.
Polish attitudes
As early as in 1941, Władysław Sikorski of the
Polish government in exileThe Polish government-in-exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union at the start of World War II...
insisted on driving "the German horde (...) back far [westward]", while in 1942 memoranda he expressed concern about Poland acquiring
Lower SilesiaLower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast. Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of medieval Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany. After 1945 the main part of the former...
, populated with "fanatically anti-Polish Germans". Yet as the war went on, Lower Silesia also became a Polish war aim, as well as occupation of the Baltic coast west of
SzczecinSzczecin - is the capital city of West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of the 2005 census the city had a total population of 420,638. In 2007 its population was 407,811.Szczecin is located on the...
as far as
RostockRostock is the largest city in the north German state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Rostock is located on the Warnow river; the quarter of Warnemünde 12 km north of the city centre lies directly on the coast of the Baltic Sea.-Geography:Rostock is located nearly centrally on...
and occupation of the
Kiel CanalThe Kiel Canal , until 1948 known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal, is a 61 miles long canal in the German Bundesland Schleswig-Holstein that links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of 250 nautical miles is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around...
. Expulsions of Germans from
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
and pre-war Poland had become a war aim as early as in February 1940, expressed by Polish Foreign Minister
August ZaleskiAugust Zaleski was a Polish economist, politician and diplomat. Twice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, he served as the President of Poland within the Polish Government in Exile.- Biography :...
.
After Sikorski's death, the next Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk in a letter to Roosevelt expressed his concerns about the idea of compensating Poland in the west. However, pressed by Churchill, he was forced to accept the Tehran decision, which was the direct cause of his resignation from his post.
The next Polish Prime Minister,
Tomasz ArciszewskiTomasz Arciszewski was a Polish socialist politician, a member of the Polish Socialist Party and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile in London from 1944 to 1947, presiding over the period when the government lost the recognition of the Western powers.-Early life:Tomasz Arciszewski...
made a stated that Poland did not "want neither Breslau nor Stettin".
Although the
Polish government in ExileThe Polish government-in-exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union at the start of World War II...
was recognised by the Allies at that time, the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
broke off all diplomatic relations with it in April 1943 after Polish government demanded the investigation of the
Katyn massacreThe Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass murder of thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war by Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps...
. On April 20, 1944, in Moscow, the Soviet sponsored Polish Communist cell founded the
Polish Committee of National LiberationThe Polish Committee of National Liberation , also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional government of Poland, officially proclaimed 21 July 1944 in Chełm under the direction of State National Council in opposition to the Polish government in exile...
(PKWN) on Stalin’s initiative. Just one week later the representatives of the PKWN and the Soviet Union signed a treaty regulating the new Polish-Soviet border. A year later, before the
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, the western Allies followed Stalin, recognized the Soviet-sponsored government, which accepted the shift of the borders westwards, and withdrew their recognition for the Polish government in Exile.
When Stanisław Mikołajczyk joined the "Government of National Unity" as a deputy prime minister in 1945, he justified the expulsions of Germans by national terms following communist
Wladyslaw GomulkaWładysław Gomułka was a Polish Communist leader. He was a member of the Communist Party of Poland starting in 1926....
, but also as a revolutionary act, freeing the Poles of exploitation by a German middle and upper class.
Flight and evacuation following the Red Army's advance
After the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
had advanced into the eastern parts of post-war Poland in the Lublin–Brest Offensive, launched on 18 July 1944, Soviet spearheads first reached eastern German territory on 4 August 1944 at northeastern
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
and Memelland, causing a first wave of refugees. These refugees temporarily returned when the German army,
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
, was able to regain territory in
Operation DoppelkopfOperation Doppelkopf and the following Operation Cäsar were German counter-offensives on the Eastern Front late in 1944 in the aftermath of the major Soviet advance in Operation Bagration....
. On October 5, the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
launched the
Memel OffensiveThe Battle of Memel or the Siege of Memel took place when the Soviets launched their Memel Offensive Operation in late 1944. The offensive led to a three-month blockade of German forces in a small bridgehead in the town and its port....
, and eleven days later the Gumbinnen Offensive into
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
. In the same month,
VolkssturmThe Volkssturm was a German national militia of the last months of World War II...
units were formed out of the not yet drafted male population deemed fit for military service. While Nazi
GauleiterA Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Etymology:...
Erich KochErich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945, and Reichskomissar in Ukraine from 1941 until 1943. His orders caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.-Early life and First World War :Koch was born in Elberfeld, today...
refused to evacuate the civilian population,
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
and the East Prussian president (
Regierungspräsident) evacuated more than 600,000 people from a 30 kilometer wide strip behind the frontline, a measure which the Gauleitung finally approved in late October. When the
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
repelled the Soviet Gumbinnen Offensive throughout the fall of 1944, news were spread by the Nazi propaganda machine about a Soviet massacre in Nemmersdorf and other atrocities. People were now aware of the Soviet reprisals on German civilians and apprehensive regarding the pending Soviet takeover - "
Die Russen kommen!" ("Russians approaching!") became the desperate slogan of the time.
With the Soviet Vistula–Oder Offensive, launched on 12 January 1945, and the parallel
East Prussian OffensiveThe East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . It lasted from 13 January 1945 to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May...
launched on 13 January 1945, Soviet gains of pre-war German and
annexed Polish territoryThis article deals with territories annexed into Nazi Germany. For territories occupied in 1939 but not annexed, see General Government.At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed under German civil administration...
became permanent. With the subsequent
East PomeranianThe East Pomeranian Strategic Offensive operation was an offensive by the Red Army in its fight against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front...
, Lower Silesian and Upper Silesian Offensives in February and March, the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
seized control of virtually all territories east of the
OderThe Oder is a river in Central Europe. It begins in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...
river.
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
counter-offensives like
Operation SolsticeOperation Solstice , also known as Unternehmen Husarenritt or the 'Stargard tank battle', was a German armoured offensive operation on the Eastern Front, one of the last such operations....
and Operation Gemse were repelled, and only shrinking pockets like Breslau, Danzig,
HeiligenbeilThe Heiligenbeil Pocket or Heiligenbeil Cauldron was the site of a major encirclement battle on the Eastern Front during the closing weeks of World War II, in which the Wehrmacht's 4th Army was almost entirely destroyed during the Soviet Braunsberg Offensive Operation...
,
HelaHel Peninsula is a 35-km-long sand bar peninsula in northern Poland separating the Bay of Puck from the open Baltic Sea. It is located in Puck County of the Pomeranian Voivodeship.- Geography :...
,
KolbergThe Battle of Kolberg or Battle of Kołobrzeg was the taking of the city of Kolberg in Pomerania by the Soviet Army and its Polish allies from Nazi German forces during the World War II East Pomeranian Offensive...
,
KönigsbergThe Battle of Königsberg , was one of the last operations of the East Prussian Offensive during World War II. In four days of violent urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg . The siege started in late January 1945 when the Soviets initially...
, and Pillau remained German controlled. Soviet soldiers committed reprisal rapes and other crimes In most cases, implementation of the evacuation plans was delayed until Soviet and Allied forces had defeated the Nazi forces and advanced into the areas to be evacuated. The responsibility for leaving millions of Germans in these vulnerable areas until combat conditions overwhelmed them can be attributed directly to the draconian measures taken by the Nazis against anyone even suspected of 'defeatist' attitudes [as evacuation was considered] and the fanaticism of many Nazi functionaries in their execution of Hitler's 'no retreat' orders. Hitler and his staff refused to accept Soviet military superiority. Hitler called the Red Army "gleaned punks" and "booty divisions", who were not able to win decisive battles.
HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
called the preparation of the early 1945 Soviet offensive "the biggest bluff since Dshingis Khan".
The first mass movement of German civilians in the eastern territories was composed of both spontaneous flight and organized evacuation, starting in the summer of 1944 and continuing through the early spring of 1945. Conditions turned chaotic in the winter, when miles-long queues of refugees pushed their carts through the snow trying to stay ahead of the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
. From the Baltic coast, thousands were evacuated by ship in
Operation HannibalOperation Hannibal was a German military operation involving the evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from Courland, East Prussia, and the Polish Corridor from mid-January to May, 1945 as the Red Army advanced during the East Prussian and East Pomeranian Offensives and subsidiary...
. Since February 11, refugees were shipped not only to German ports, but also to Nazi occupied
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, based on an order issued by Hitler on 4 February. Of 1,180 ships participating in the evacuation, 135 were lost due to bombs, mines, and torpedoes, an estimated 20,000 died. Between 23 January 1945 and the end of the war, 2,022,702 people were transported via the Baltic Sea, between 200,000 and 250,000 of them to occupied
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
.
Most of the evacuation efforts commenced in January 1945, when Soviet forces were already at the eastern border of Germany. About six million Germans had fled or were evacuated from the areas east of the
Oder-Neisse lineThe Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
before
SovietThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
and the attached
Polish ArmyLudowe Wojsko Polskie ; lit: People's Army of Poland, LWP) was the second formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East and later the armed force of the Polish communist government of Poland .-Name:The name Ludowe Wojsko Polskie was commonly used by communist propaganda, although...
took control of the region. Refugee treks and ships which came into reach of the advancing Soviets suffered high casualties when targeted by low-flying aircrafts, torpedoes, or were rolled over by tanks. The most infamous incidents during the flight and expulsion from the territory of later Poland include the sinking of the refugee liner MV Wilhelm Gustloff by a Soviet submarine with a death toll of some 9,000 people; the USAF bombing of refugee-crowded Swinemünde on 12 March 1945 killing an estimated 23,000 to 25,000; the desperate conditions under which refugees crossed the frozen Frisches Haff, where thousands broke in, froze to death, or were killed by Soviet aircrafts; and the poorly organized evacuation and ultimative sacrifice of refugee crowded Breslau by the
local Nazi authoritiesA Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Etymology:...
headed by
Karl HankeKarl August Hanke was an official of the National Socialist German Workers Party . He served as Governor and Region Leader of Lower Silesia from 1941 to 1945 and as the final Reichsführer-SS for a few days in 1945.- Early life :Hanke was born in Lauban in Silesia, on 24 August 1903, the son of a...
.
The Nazi German Ministry for Inner Affairs passed a decree on 14 March 1945 allowing abortion to women raped by Soviet soldiers.
After the Soviet and Polish take-over
Many refugees tried to return home when the fighting in their homelands ended. Before June 1, 1945, some 400,000 crossed back over the Oder and Neisse rivers eastward, before Soviet and Polish communist authorities closed the river crossings; another 800,000 entered Silesia from Czechoslovakia.
Soviet troops, as well as Polish civilians and militias exacted revenge on ethnic Germans and German nationals. While many Germans had already fled ahead of the advancing Soviet Army, millions of Reichs- and Volksdeutsche remained in East and West Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, the Sudetenland, and in pockets throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
The Polish courier
Jan KarskiJan Karski , was a Polish World War II resistance fighter and scholar at Georgetown University. In 1942 and 1943 Karski reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and the extermination...
warned US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the possibility of Polish reprisals, describing them as "unavoidable" and "an encouragement for all the Germans in Poland to go west, to Germany proper, where they belong".
Deportation to the Soviet Union
On February 6, 1945, Soviet
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
ordered mobilisation of all German men (17 to 50 years old) in the Soviet-controlled territories. Many of them were then transported to the Soviet Union for forced labour. In the former German territories the Soviet authorities did not always distinguish between the Poles and Germans and often treated them alike. Some 165,000 Germans were rounded up randomly and deported in 1945, they were not allowed to "return" (that is, not to their former homes but to either East or West Germany) until 1955; most of them perished.
Internment and forced labor in Poland
In territories that belonged to Poland before the war, Germans were treated even more harshly than in the former German territories. Deprived of any citizen rights, many were used as forced labor prior to their expulsion, sometimes for years, in labor battalions or in labour camps such as Glaz,
MilecinMilęcin is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Brwinów, within Pruszków County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland....
,
GronowoGronowo may refer to the following places:*Gronowo, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship *Gronowo, Braniewo County in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship *Gronowo, Działdowo County in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship...
, Sikawa,
Central Labour Camp JaworznoCentral Labour Camp Jaworzno was a concentration camp in Jaworzno, Poland. It operated from 1943 until 1956, first run by Nazi Germany and then by the Soviet Union with the People's Republic of Poland...
,
Central Labour Camp PotuliceCentral Labour Camp Potulice was a detention centre for Germans and anti-communist Poles established by Polish Communist authorities after the end of World War II in Potulice, in place of the former German Nazi Potulice concentration camp. The camp was in operation since 1945 until 1950.A total of...
, Łambinowice (run by Czesław Gęborski),
Zgoda labour campThe Zgoda labour camp was a concentration camp for Germans and Silesians in Communist Poland operated in 1945 in Świętochłowice, Silesia, ....
and others. The death toll was between twenty and fifty percent, and as the guards were not paid regular salary they forcefully extracted their wage from the inmates. When Geborski was tried by the Polish authorities in 1959 for his wanton brutality, he stated his only goal was to exact revenge for his own treatment during the war.
Zayas states that "in many internment camps no relief from outside was permitted. In some camps relatives would bring packages and deliver them to the Polish guards, who regularly plundered the contents and delivered only the remains, if any. Frequently, these relatives were so ill-treated that they never returned. Internees who came to claim their packages were also mistreated by the guards, who insisted the internees should speak Polish, even if they were Germans born in German-speaking Silesia or Pomerania."
Among the interned were also German POWs. Up to 10% of the 700,000 to 800,000 POWs of the respective battlegrounds were handed over to the Poles by the Soviet military for the use of their work force. Their number in 1946 was 40,000 according to the Polish administration, of whom 30,000 were used as miners in the Upper Silesian coal industries. 7,500 Germans alleged of crimes against Poles were handed over to Poland by the Western Allies in 1946 and 1947. A number of German Nazi war criminals were imprisoned in Polish jails, at least 8,000 remained in jail in 1949, many of them also being POWs. (see also
Supreme National TribunalThe Supreme National Tribunal was a war crime tribunal active in Poland from 1946 to 1948, with jurisdiction over fascist-hitlerite criminals and traitors to the Polish nation....
)
Pre-Potsdam "wild" expulsions (May - July 1945)
In 1945, the former eastern territories of Germany (
SilesiaSilesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in present-day Poland, with parts in the Czech Republic and Germany....
, most of
PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited...
, East Brandenburg and East-Prussia) were
occupiedBelligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
by Soviet and Soviet controlled Polish military forces. Polish militia and military started expulsions already before the Potsdam Conference, referred to as "wild expulsions" , affecting between 700,000 and 800,000 Germans. The Polish communists ordered the expulsion of Germans: "We must expel all the Germans because countries are built on national lines and not on multi-national ones" was demanded by participants of a Plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party in May 20-21, 1945. On the same Plenum, the head of the Central Committee,
Wladyslaw GomulkaWładysław Gomułka was a Polish Communist leader. He was a member of the Communist Party of Poland starting in 1926....
, ordered: "There has to be a border patrol at the border [Oder-Neisse line] and the Germans have to be driven out. The main objective has to be the cleansing of the terrain of Germans, the building of a nation state". To ensure the Oder Neisse line would be accepted as the new Polish border at a future Allied Conference (
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
), up to 300,000 Germans living close to the rivers' eastern bank were expelled subsequently. On May 26, 1945, the Central Committee ordered all Germans to be expelled within one year and the area settled with some 3.5 million ethnic Poles; 2.5 million of them were already re-settled by summer.
Germans were defined as either Reichsdeutsche or
VolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche is a historical term which arose in the early 20th century to describe ethnic Germans living outside of the Reich. This is in contrast to Imperial Germans , German citizens living within Germany...
resembling the 1st or 2nd category in the Nazis'
VolkslisteThe Deutsche Volksliste was a Nazi institution whose purpose was the classification of inhabitants of Nazi occupied territories into categories of desirability according to criteria systematized by Heinrich Himmler. The institution was first established in occupied western Poland...
, people who had signed a lower category were allowed to apply for "verification", that was to determine whether they would be granted Polish citizenship as "autochtones". Polish military drove 400,000 Germans across Poland's new western border in June and July.
Many Germans evacuated during the war were not allowed to return to their homes. Before June 1, 1945, some 400,000 managed to cross the Oder and Neisse rivers eastward before Polish authorities closed the river crossings, another 800,000 entered Silesia from Czechoslovakia, bringing up Silesia's population to 50% of the pre-war level.. This led to the odd situation of treks of Germans moving about in all directions, to the east as well as to the west, each warning the others of what would await them at their destination
Expulsions following the Potsdam Conference
After the
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, Poland was officially in charge of the territories east of the Oder Neisse line. Despite the fact that article 8 of Potsdam agreement from August 2, 1945 stated that "population transfer" should be performed in ordered and humane manner, and should not commence until after the creation of an expulsion plan approved by the Allied Control Council, the expulsions continued without rules and were associated with many criminal acts. While the Polish administration had set up a State Repatriation Office (
Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny, PUR), the bureau and its administrative subunits proved ineffective due to quarrels between Communists and opposition and a far too low equipment for the giant task of expelling Germans as well as resettling Poles in an area devastated by war. Furthermore, rivalry occurred between the Soviet occupation forces and the new installed Polish administration, a phenomenon dubbed
dwuwladza (double administration). The Soviets kept trains and German workmen regardless of the Polish ambitions and plans.
The waves of expulsions after the Potsdam conference must also be seen in the context of the contemporary, likewise unorganized, resettling of displaced or homeless Poles. Polish settlers,
who themselves had been expelled from areas eastRepatriation of Poles can refer to:*Repatriation of Poles *Repatriation of Poles...
of the
Curzon lineThe Curzon Line was a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, first proposed on December 8, 1919 at the Allied Supreme Council declaration. The line was authored by British Foreign Secretary, George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston...
, arrived with about nothing, putting an even higher pressure on the remaining Germans to leave. For the Germans, the Potsdam Agreement eased conditions only in one way - because now the Poles were more confident in keeping the former eastern territories of Germany, the expulsions were performed with less haste, which meant the Germans were duly informed about their expulsions earlier and were allowed to carry some luggage.
Another problem the Germans and, to a lesser extent, even the newly arrived Poles were facing was an enormous crime wave, most notably theft and
rapeWar rape describes rape committed by soldiers, other combatants or civilians during armed conflict or war. During war and armed conflict rape is frequently used as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. War rape is often systematic and thorough,...
, committed by gangs not only consisting of regular criminals but also Soviet soldiers, deserters or former forced laborers (Ostarbeiter), coming back from the west. In
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
, a party official complained about some Polish security forces and militia raping and pillaging the German population and a general loss of sense for right and wrong. Much abuse also came from
large Soviet contingents stationed in Poland after the warThe Northern Group of Forces was the military formation of the Soviet Army stationed in Poland from the end of Second World War in 1945 until 1993 when they were withdrawn in the aftermath of the fall of Soviet Union.-History:...
. A high number of crimes committed by regular Soviet soldiers - on both German and Polish populace - had been reported, as well as a high death toll of the few Polish officials who dared to investigate these cases. Yet, Soviet troops played an ambiguous role, as there are also cases where Soviets freed local Germans imprisoned by Poles, or delayed expulsions to keep German workforce, for example on farms providing Soviet troops (for instance in Słupsk).
The damaged infrastructure and quarrels between the Allied authorities in the occupation zones of Germany and the Polish administration caused long delays in the transport of expellees, who were first ordered to gather at one of the various PUR transportation centers or internment camps and then often forced to wait in ill-equipped barracks, exposed both to criminals, aggressive guards and the cold and not supplied sufficiently with food due to the overall shortages.
The "organized transfer" as agreed on at the Potsdam Conference only began in early 1946 and subsequently evolved in a process coordinated with British and Soviet authorities in occupied Germany in 1946 and 1947. Yet due to the lack of heating facilities, the cold winters of both 1945/46 and 1946/47 continued to claim many lives..
"Autochthones"
Another problem that Polish authorities were faced with was the disposition of the so-called "Germanized Poles" or "
autochthonAutochthon , or the anglicized adjective autochthonous or abstract noun autochthony may refer to:* The indigenous peoples of a place...
s". Of close to three million residents of
MasuriaMasuria is an area in northeastern Poland famous today for its 2000 lakes.In the 11th-13th century, the territory was inhabited by the Old Prussians, also called Baltic Prussians, an Baltic ethnic group that inhabited Prussia, the lands of the southeastern coastal region of the Baltic Sea, in the...
(Masurs),
PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited...
(
KashubiansKashubians/Kaszubians , also called Kashubs, Kaszubians, Kassubians or Cassubians, are a West Slavic ethnic group in Pomerelia, north-central Poland. Their settlement area is referred to as Kashubia ....
) and
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
(
SilesiansSilesians , are the inhabitants of Silesia in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic....
) of Slavic descent, many did not identify with Polish nationality, were either bilingual or spoke German or Germanized dialects only. Large numbers of these had registered with the German Deutsche Volksliste during the war. While those who had signed
Volksliste category "I" were expelled, the Polish government aimed to retain as many as "autochthons" as possible, as they were needed both for economic reasons and also for propaganda purposes, as their presence on former German soil was used to indicate an intrinsic "Polishness" character of the area and justify its incorporation into the Polish state as "
recovered territoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
". "Verification" and "national rehabilitation" processes were set up to reveal a "dormant Polishness" and to determine which were redeemable as Polish citizens, few were actually expelled. "Autochthons" not only disliked the subjective and often arbitrary verification process, but they also faced discrimination even once verified. Polish settlers coveted autochthon property, and they resented and distrusted the verified autochthons. Many autochthons fled to occupied Germany in despair at their treatment, although the situation in Germany was little better. As one Silesian wrote, "In Poland, I'm a German. In Germany, a Pole. Perhaps they should create a state for us on the moon. There we might finally feel at home".
The verification procedure varied in different territories and was changed several times. Initially, the applicants had to prove their past membership in a Polish minority organization of the German Reich, and in addition needed a warrant where three Polish locals testified their Polishness. In April 1945, the
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
n voivode declared the fullfillment of only one of these requirements to be sufficient. In the areas like
Lower SilesiaLower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast. Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of medieval Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany. After 1945 the main part of the former...
and
PomeraniaThe Province of Pomerania was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 until 1946. Since then it has been part of Germany and Poland....
, where the Polish authorities suspected only Germans, verification was handled much more strictly than in the former German-Polish borderlands. Of the 1,104,134 "verified autochtones" in the census of 1950, close to 900,000 were natives of
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
and
MasuriaMasuria is an area in northeastern Poland famous today for its 2000 lakes.In the 11th-13th century, the territory was inhabited by the Old Prussians, also called Baltic Prussians, an Baltic ethnic group that inhabited Prussia, the lands of the southeastern coastal region of the Baltic Sea, in the...
.
"Rehabilitation"
While most of the ethnic German population of
pre-war PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
fled or was expelled, some were "rehabilitated" and offered their pre-war Polish citizenship back. "Rehabilitation" was offered to people who had been subject to forced labour before, spoke Polish and were rated as not constituting a threat. Once granted Polish citizenship, they were encouraged to Polonize their names, or to re-Polonize them if they had been Germanized during the war. Numbers of how many were offered to stay in Poland as Poles and eventually did are not available, but it is assumed that the vast majority had rather opted and left for Germany by 1960. Those of mixed descent from within or without the borders of pre-war Poland were also allowed to stay on the premise of Polonization, yet likewise no comprehensive data exists.
"Indispensable Germans"
Some Germans were exempted from expulsion and retained because of their professional skills, if no Pole was at hand to replace them. These Germans were treated second class regarding salary and food supply. So-called "abandoned wives", whose husbands found themselves in post-war Germany and were not able to return, were compelled to "seek divorce" and were not allowed to leave for Germany before 1950-1952. The other ones retained were not allowed to leave before 1956, these measures also included the families of the retainees or the parts thereof remaining with them. About 250,000 had been issued East German passports in the 1950s, ending their former statelessness. Many were concentrated in the areas of
WroclawWrocław is the chief city of the historical region of Silesia in south-western Poland, situated on the Oder river. Over the centuries the city has been part of Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany. Wroclaw is the capital of Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
(former Breslau),
WalbrzychWałbrzych is a city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland, with 125,773 inhabitants . From 1975–1998 it was the capital of Wałbrzych Voivodeship; it is now the seat of Wałbrzych County. Wałbrzych is by far the largest city in Poland that does not itself form a separate...
(former Waldenburg), and
LegnicaLegnica is a city on the Kaczawa river in south-western Poland. According to official figures for 2006, it has a total population of 105,485....
(former Liegnitz), all in
Lower SilesiaLower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast. Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of medieval Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany. After 1945 the main part of the former...
, and in
KoszalinKoszalin is the largest city of Middle Pomerania in north-western Poland. It is located 15 km south of the Baltic Sea coast. Koszalin is also a county-status city and capital of Koszalin County of West Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999...
(former Köslin) in
PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited...
. How many actually left is uncertain, though it is generally assumed that the majority emigrated. The German society of Walbrzych has maintained a continuous existence since 1957.
Repopulation
People from all over Poland moved in to replace the former German population in a process parallel to the expulsions. While the Germans were interned and expelled, up to 5 million settlers were either attracted or forced to settle the area. The settlers can be grouped according to their background:
- settlers from Central Poland moving in on a voluntary basis (majority)
- Poles that had been freed from forced labor in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
(up to two millions)
- Repatriants
Repatriation of Poles can refer to:*Repatriation of Poles *Repatriation of Poles...
- Poles expelled from the KresyThe term Kresy, meaning "Outskirts" or "Borderlands", is used to define the Polish eastern frontier. The term referred to the eastern frontiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the period of the Second Polish Republic, these territories roughly equated with the lands to the east of...
areas east of the Curzon lineThe Curzon Line was a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, first proposed on December 8, 1919 at the Allied Supreme Council declaration. The line was authored by British Foreign Secretary, George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston...
annexed by the Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, who made up for less than 10% of the overall Polish population, were preferably settled in the new western territories where they made up for 26% of the population (up to two millions)
- non-Poles forcefully resettled during Operation Wisla
Operation Vistula was the codename for the 1947 forced deportation of southeastern post-war Poland's Ukrainians , carried out by the Polish Communist authorities in order to crush the Ukrainian underground resistance...
in 1947. Large numbers of Ukrainians were forced to move from south eastern Poland under a 1947 Polish government operation, termed Operation Wisla, which aimed at dispersing, and therefore assimilating, the Ukrainian population, which had not been expelled eastward already, throughout the newly acquired territories. Belarusians living around the area around Białystok were also pressured into relocating to the areas vacated by fleeing German population for the same reasons. This scattering of members of non-Polish ethnic groups throughout the country was an attempt by the Polish authorities to dissolve the unique ethnic identity of groups like the Ukrainians, Belarusians and LemkosLemkos , one of several quantitatively and territorially small ethnic groups who also call themselves Rusyns , are one of the ethnic groups inhabiting the Carpathian Mountains...
, and broke the proximity and communication necessary for strong communities to form.
- Tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust-survivors, most of them being "repatriates" from the East
Repatriation of Poles can refer to:*Repatriation of Poles *Repatriation of Poles...
, settled mostly in Lower SilesiaLower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast. Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of medieval Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany. After 1945 the main part of the former...
creating Jewish cooperatives and institutions - the largest communities were founded in WroclawWrocław is the chief city of the historical region of Silesia in south-western Poland, situated on the Oder river. Over the centuries the city has been part of Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany. Wroclaw is the capital of Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
(Breslau, Lower Silesia), SzczecinSzczecin - is the capital city of West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of the 2005 census the city had a total population of 420,638. In 2007 its population was 407,811.Szczecin is located on the...
(Stettin, PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited...
), DzierżoniówDzierżoniów is a town in southwestern Poland. It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
(formerly Reichenbach)) and WalbrzychWałbrzych is a city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland, with 125,773 inhabitants . From 1975–1998 it was the capital of Wałbrzych Voivodeship; it is now the seat of Wałbrzych County. Wałbrzych is by far the largest city in Poland that does not itself form a separate...
(Waldenburg, Lower Silesia). However most of them later left Poland.
Polish and Soviet newspapers and officials encouraged Poles to relocate to the west - "the land of opportunity". These new territories - known in Poland as the Recovered or Regained Territories - were described as a place where opulent villas abandoned by fleeing Germans waited for the brave; fully furnished houses and businesses were available for the taking.. These were the just rewards for the hardships and bitter losses of the war. The papers urged, "Go! Tomorrow might be too late".
Formal end of the expulsions
After 1 January 1948, Germans were primarily shipped to the
Soviet occupation zoneThe Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II...
(after 3 October 1949, the
German Democratic RepublicThe German Democratic Republic was a Communist state that originated from the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin...
), based on a Polish-Soviet agreement. Most Germans had been expelled by the end of 1947. In entire 1948, a relatively small number of 42,700 were expelled, and another 34,100 in 1949. In 1950, 59,433 Germans were expelled following a bi-lateral agreement between the
People's Republic of PolandThe Polish People's Republic was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990.Although the Polish People's Republic was a sovereign state as defined by international law, its leaders were at the very least approved by the Kremlin...
and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), 26,196 of whom however headed for
West GermanyWest Germany is a common English name for the period of the Federal Republic of Germany between its' formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and the five states on its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany,...
. Between October 1948 and December 1950 all 35,000 German prisoners of war detained in Poland were shipped to Germany.
On 10 March 1951, the Polish "Bureau for Repatriation" (PUR) was disbanded; all further resettlement from Poland to Germany was carried out in a non-forcible and peaceful manner by the Polish state travel agency
OrbisOrbis, the Latin word for "circle", "ring", "sphere" or anything round or rotating, may also refer to:* Orbis, a Doctor Who audio play, starring Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith...
.
Demographic estimates
According Polish census in 1946, there were still 2,036,400 Germans in the "
Recovered TerritoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
", 251,900 in the pre-war Polish territories (primarily
eastern Upper SilesiaThe Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship was an autonomous region of Poland created as the result of the popular Upper Silesia plebiscite in 1921, the treaty in Geneva, three Upper Silesian Uprisings, and the partition of Upper Silesia between Poland, Germany and then-Czechoslovakia.-General...
,
PomereliaPomerelia is a historical region in northern Poland. Pomerelia was situated in eastern Pomerania on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, centered on the city of Gdańsk at the mouth of the Vistula...
and Wielkopolska) and the former
Free City of DanzigThe Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous, Baltic Sea port and city-state that was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919...
, and 417,000 in the process of "verification" as "new" Poles. The census data did not include former German citizens already "verified" as ethnic Poles, Germans in forced labor or detention camps and otherwise detained Germans, and Germans employed by the Soviet administration.
According to S. Banasiak, 3,109,900 Germans were expelled to the Soviet and British
occupation zonesThe Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during the period 1945–1949. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, American forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed...
and thereby registrated by Polish officials between 1945 and 1950. Registration by Polish officials was not exhaustive, especially in 1945. An unknown number left without formal registration or was expelled by Soviet military authorities without notifying Polish officials responsible for statistics. Also, especially in 1945, many Germans returned to their former homes and some were expelled more than once.
Thomasz Kamusella is citing estimates of 7 million expelled during both "wild" and "legal" expulsions from the "
Recovered TerritoriesRecovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
" until 1948, joined by an additional 700,000 from areas of pre-war Poland. Kamusella states that about 5 million had fled from the former eastern territories of Germany, and 500,000 from pre-war Poland in 1944 and 1945, that another 3.325 millions were expelled from the former German territories in 1946-1948, emphasizing these numbers are not exhaustive.
Overy cites approximate totals of those evacuated, migrated, or expelled between 1944–1950 from East Prussia: 1.4 million to Western Germany, 609,000 to Eastern Germany; from West Prussia: 230,000 to Western Germany, 61,000 to Eastern Germany; from the former German area East of the Oder-Neisse: 3.2 million to Western Germany, 2 million to Eastern Germany.
According to Nitschke, of around 12.4 million Germans residing within the lands of post-war Poland in 1944, 3.6 million were expelled, one million were certified as Poles, 300,000 remained in Poland as a German minority, and up to 1.1 million are unaccounted for and presumed to be dead (killed).
According to Kacowicz, about 3.5 million people had fled before the organized expulsions began, mainly driven by fear of the advancing Soviet Army, between seven hundred and eight hundred thousand Germans were affected by the "wild" expulsions, and another three millions were expelled in 1946 and 1947.
Post-war
In Communist Poland, the expulsions were not to be questioned, and ideologically defended by propaganda. The anti-German argument was an important element for the communists to gain acceptance with Polish population, large parts of which were anti-communist. The expulsions were perceived by many Poles as just with respect to the former Nazi policies, injustices were balanced off with the injustices during the contemporary
"repatriation" of PolesRepatriation of Poles can refer to:*Repatriation of Poles *Repatriation of Poles...
. Except for the use in official anti-German propaganda, the expulsions became a
tabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. The term comes from the Tongan language, and appears in many Polynesian cultures...
in Polish politics, public, and education for decades. German expellee organizations who did not accept the post-war territorial and population changes fueled Communist propaganda dismissing them as far-right revanchists.
In the first years after the war, the bishop of Katowice Stanisław Adamski criticized the expulsion of Germans as inhumane. In 1965, a group of Polish bishops made a particularly important overture by sending
a letter to their German counterpartsThe Pastoral Letter of the Polish Bishops to their German Brothers was a pastoral letter sent on 18 November, 1965 by Polish bishops of the Roman Catholic Church to their German counterparts. It was foremost an invitation to the 1000 Year Anniversary Celebrations of Poland's Christianization in 1966...
in which they asked forgiveness for the wrongs perpetrated during the expulsion and at the same time offered forgiveness for German war crimes. Attempts were made by Znak, a group of Catholic members of parliament, and the oppositional Clubs of Catholic Intelligentsia (Kluby Inteligencji Katolickiej, KIK) to attain a somewhat less ideologized picture of the Germans. This new perspective also meant dealing critically with the question of how the expulsion of Germans was to be incorporated into the self-image of Polish society.
According to Philipp Ther, pre-1989 Polish historiography has in general either under-estimated or concealed the role of force during the expulsions. Ther says that this was caused on the one hand by censorship, and on the other hand by the interpretation of the registration forms the expellees had signed as acquiescence to "voluntary emigration".
Post-communist (1989-present)
Since the beginning of the 1990s, there has been a lively debate in Poland regarding the post-war expulsion of the Germans. The Polish role in the expulsions could not be contemplated in Poland until the end of the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
. After the signing of the
German-Polish treaty on borders and neighbourly relationsThe Polish–German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation was signed between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland on 17 June 1991...
as well as the visible congruence of Germany's and Poland's interests in a Europe which was reuniting in the first half of the 1990s, it was not only Poland's political and intellectual elites who dealt with the Polish role in the expulsions, but also larger parts of the general public. In regions from which the Germans had been expelled, Polish citizens began looking for traces of German cultural heritage and German traditions (as, for instance, a German-Polish network set up in the border regions).
In the Polish-German border and neighborhood treaties of 1990 and 1991, the term "expulsion" for the first time replaced the old and euphemistic Communist term "resettlement" or the
PotsdamThe Potsdam Agreement was an agreement on policy for the occupation and reconstruction of Germany and other nations after fighting in the European Theatre of World War II had ended with the German surrender of May 8, 1945...
term "population transfer", which were used by Polish officials before. Though "
Wypędzenie", the Polish term for "
expulsion", is since widely used officially, in regular linguistic practice it is still an emotionally loaded term, not as it were, something that is being acknowledged, and closely attached to the question of "right" or "wrong". Polish and joint German-Polish scholary research and public debates in Poland were now concerned with issues like moral examination of the expulsions, responsibility for the inflicted suffering, terminology, numbers, and whether the expellee's status was that of a political subject or object.
In 1995, Polish foreign minister Władysław Bartoszewski expressed regret about the suffering of innocent Germans during the expulsions in a speech held before German
parliamentThe Bundestag is the parliament of Germany. It was established with Germany's constitution of 1949 and is the successor of the earlier Reichstag...
and
federative councilBundesrat means federal council and may refer to:* Bundesrat of Germany* Federal Council of Austria* Swiss Federal Council...
. In 1996, Polish public opinion research institute CBOS polled public opinion about a phrase in the letter of reconciliation the Polish bishops wrote in 1965: "
We forgive and ask for forgiveness": 28% agreed; 45% agreed with the offering of forgiveness, but rejected that the part that asked for forgiveness; 22% disagreed altogether.
However the desire for reconciliation was tempered when shifts in German remembrance culture became evident at the turn of the millennium. When members of organizations like Preussische Treuhand prepared law suits aiming at compensation to the expelled and their descendants, many Poles feared that the importance attached to
Nazi war crimes in PolandIn addition to about three million Polish Jews , 2.5 million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war...
and the related Polish suffering might decrease, and that Poland would be liable for reclaimed property worth billions of
euroThe euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 Member States of the European Union . The states, known collectively as the Eurozone, are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain...
s.
In addition, anxiety is growing in Poland about the legal and moral claim to Poland's post-war territorial gains. The legal aspects have been investigated by various international law experts coming to different conclusions, prompting both Germany and Poland to employ a joint expert team that gave an overall negative answer to chances for such legal challenges. Polish government made some efforts to sue Germany for damages inflicted on Poland during World War II in return. The advancing German project of erecting a
Centre against expulsionsThe Centre Against Expulsions is a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the Expulsion of Germans after World War II. The centre will open in the Deutschlandhaus building, Berlin-Kreuzberg....
depicting the fate of German expellees is controversially discussed in Poland, and was described by former Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński as "equating the victims with the persecutors". The Polish reaction was severely criticized in Germany.
Nevertheless the personal relations between the former and the modern inhabitants of these areas are often exceptional good, e.g. active members of refugee organisations are honorary citizens of their birthtowns.
See also
- Expulsion of Poles by Germany
The partitions of Poland had ended the existence of a sovereign Polish state in the 18th century. With the rise of German nationalism in the late 19th century, Poles faced increasing discrimination. The first deportation of 30,000 Poles from the German Empire took place in 1885...
- Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946)
The flight and expulsion of Poles refers to forced migration of Poles from the former eastern territories of Poland towards the end and in the aftermath of World War II. More specifically it targeted over a million of inhabitants of Kresy, the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union to the...
- Polish-German relations
- World War II evacuation and expulsion
Forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the pre-war settlement...
- Territorial changes of Germany
The territorial changes of Germany refer to the changes in the borders and territory of Germany. Modern Germany was formed in 1871 when Otto von Bismarck, who then became Chancellor of the German Empire, unified a number of German states into the German Empire. After the First World War Germany...
- Territorial changes of Poland
The territorial evolution of Poland over the history of Europe has taken many forms. As most nations emerged from the Middle Ages, they moved as nations or ethnic groups throughout Europe. The Polish people, however, remained in their settlements along the Vistula river, from the river's sources...
Sources
- Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7
- James L. Gormly: From Potsdam to the Cold War. Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947. Scholarly Resources Inc. Delaware, 1990 (ISBN 0-8420-2334-8)