Schieder commission
Encyclopedia
Documents on the Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern-Central Europe is the abridged English translation of a multi-volume publication that was created by a commission of West German
historians between 1951 and 1961
to document the population transfer of Germans
from East-Central Europe
that had occurred after World War II
. Created by the Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims
, the commission headed by Theodor Schieder
consisted primarily of distinguished historians with a Nazi past.
The huge numbers of expellees from the east who arrived in the western zones of post-war Germany created an enormous logistical problem for the authorities at a time when cities were in ruins, housing was scarce and food rationed. Initially conceived as a tool for reversing the loss of German territories in the east, the detailed documentation of the population movement was ground-breaking through its relative objectivity and its innovative combination of archive material with eye witness reports. Far from serving its original purpose, the documentation became increasingly open about the expulsions' dual nature as both counter-reaction and continuation of the atrocities committed in the same area by Germans during the war. Motivated by the Lebensraum
ideology, some of the historians themselves had played an active role in these war crimes
. Due to its relative frankness, the final summary volume was suppressed for political reasons and was never finished.
Implementing the earlier Lebensraum
concept, from 1938/1939 Nazi Germany
expanded its territory far into the east, annexing parts of Czechoslovakia
and Poland (Sudetenland
, Warthegau). This was intended as only a first step towards establishing the so-called A-A line
from Arkhangelsk
to Astrakhan
(both located in Russia) as Germany's new eastern border. Parts of Poland were "Germanized"
by force, the local Polish majority population being subject to mass executions and murder as well as expelled
into other parts of Poland . The Jews were systematically killed. In some cases German historians were involved in determining the fate of villages based on racial criteria. Ethnically German minorities from further east and settlers from within Nazi Reich were invited to settle in the annexed areas. Thousands of children from the occupied territories were kidnapped
and examined according to racial criteria. Those who were eventually considered "Aryan
" were given German names and thoroughly Germanized, but most were sent to orphanages, died from malnutrition or were killed in Auschwitz
.
. A comprehensive, objective scientific account of suffering by Germans, in particular as caused by the Red Army
, was hoped to balance the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and create international sympathy for claims to formerly German territories. These motivations were fully endorsed by Schieder and other commission members such as Diestelkamp, who felt that Germany had missed a similar chance after it lost the First World War
, and that a related Polish project needed a counter-weight. Domestically, the documentation of the expelled persons' fate was meant to support their integration into West German society.
. Its other members were Peter Rassow, Hans Rothfels
, Rudolf Laun as well as Adolf Diestelkamp, who died in 1953 and was replaced by Werner Conze
. Apart from international law
expert Laun and archivist Diestelkamp, all were distinguished historians. The monumental project is an important link, and an example of remarkable continuity, between German historical research before and after the Second World War.
The commission was created in 1951 by Hans Lukaschek, the Minister for the Expelled, who after the First World War served as German propaganda
chief throughout the Upper Silesia plebiscite
. Schieder chose as members of the commission, individuals such as Werner Conze
, who had previously advocated "dejewification" of territory occupied by Nazi Germany. During the Nazi era in Germany, both Conze and Schieder had devoted their attention to the issue of Nazi settlement policies, including the matter of "depopulating" Poland of its Jewish population. Schieder was also one of the primary authors of a document entitled Generalplan Ost
which called for creating "Lebensraum
" (living-space) for Germans in Eastern Europe by enslaving or starving to death the Slavs, and killing all the Jews who lived there. Another person chosen was Hans Rothfels
. Rothfels, while opposed to the Nazi regime and forced to emigrate from Germany during World War II, was also a German nationalist who in the interwar period advocated German domination of Eastern Europe and making its population into serfs.
As such, according to Hughes, the members of the commission were "consciously committed to ... propagandist activity in their government's service". The propagandist aims of the German government at the time were to utilize the commission's work to keep the question of the territories lost by Germany as a result of World War II open. Adolf Diestelkamp, another member of the commission, expressed the hope that the work of the commission would be a "decisive factor in our fight to win back the German east", that is, territories which Germany ceded to Poland after World War II. The commission relied heavily on interest groups, including expellee organizations
, to collect their sources.
Rothfels was the one who had originally proposed Schieder as head of the editorial staff, having been his teacher and a key intellectual influence during the Nazi period. Younger historians, such as Martin Broszat
(who researched Yugoslavia
) and Hans-Ulrich Wehler
(who helped research Romania), who were later to break with the tradition of Schieder and Conze, served as research assistants (see also Historikerstreit
).
In the immediate post war period the commission was regarded as composed of very accomplished historians.
had lived in Königsberg
in East Prussia
since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder was known as one of a group of conservative historians with little sympathy towards the Weimar republic
Once the Nazis seized power, Schieder directed a regional center devoted to the study of East Prussia and World War I. According to Robert Moeller, after 1945 Schieder merely transferred his ideas about one German defeat to the study of another. In 1937 he joined the Nazi party himself. Schieder enthusiastically supported Hitler's invasion of Poland and wrote academic papers on Germany's role as a "force of order" and a "bearer of a unique cultural mission", in Eastern Europe. During World War II he advocated the "dejudaization" of territories occupied by Germany. As one of the prominent proponents of German racism
, he advocated maintaining German "race purity" by not mixing with other, "inferior" nationals. The aim of Schieder's research was to justify alleged German supremacy over other peoples. He fled Königsberg when the Red Army
approached it December 1944.
After World War II Schieder was "deNazified
" and kept publicly quiet about his past. As a result, despite his Nazi membership, and his enthusiastic support for Nazi policies in Eastern Europe, Schieder's career took off in post War Germany. He was appointed to a chair in modern history at the University of Cologne
in 1947, and in the 1950s edited one of the most known historical journals in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, personal correspondence with Werner Conze from this time, revealed that they still held old antisemitic prejudices.
was a doctoral student of Rothfels in Königsberg under the Nazis, where he claimed in his research that Germans had a positive role in the development of eastern Europe. Just like with Schieder's, the goal of his research was to justify alleged German supremacy over other nations and their right to take over new territories. With the Nazis taking power, Conze, together with Schieder and Rothfels helped to institutionalize racial ethnic research in the Third Reich. According to German historian Ingo Haar
, "the Nazis made use of (this) racist scholarship, which lent itself gladly". While working for German espionage
, in 1936, Conze prepared a document which portrayed Poland as backward and in need of German order and which recommended the exclusion of Jews from the legal system as Conze considered them outside the law. In further work issued in 1938 Conze continued in similar vein, blaming lack of industry in Belarus
on "Jewish domination"
During the war Conze fought at the Eastern Front
. In the meantime his family fled west. At the end of the war Werner Conze ended up in a Soviet POW camp. After the war, Conze moved to Munster
, then to Heidelberg
.
. To that end, substantial excerpts from the five volumes published by the commission were made available in English language translation.
to revise their position with regard to Germany's post war eastern borders with Poland
. In doing so Schieder endorsed the ties between work of his historians and the Federal Republic's desire to for revision of post-war boundary settlement, being fully convinced such result would outweigh the problem of responses from Eastern Europe.
While the commission was aware that first person accounts of the expulsions were often unreliable, the members believed it was necessary to utilize these in their work, as they did not trust either Nazi era sources, nor those published by post war communist governments. The use of personal testimonies was part of the "modern history" approach developed earlier by Rothfels and applied in practice by the commission. Both Rothfels and Schieder were concerned with the accuracy of these accounts. As a result Rothfels insisted that the relevant documents were subjected to "historical standards of measurement" that characterized other historical research. Schieder insisted if an account failed to pass official "testing procedures" set up by the commission, then the account would be completely excluded. As a result, the commission claimed that their methods "transform(ed) subjective memory into unassailable fact".
and as many aerial warfare casualties. In 1958, the commission issued its final report, estimating a total of some 2.225 million deaths.
The five volumes produced by the commission were entitled Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa (Documents on the Expulsions of Germans from East-Central Europe). The first volume dealt with former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, the second with Hungary
, the third with Romania, the fourth with Czechoslovakia
and the fifth with Yugoslavia. Additional three volumes included the documents used in the work of the commission.
The estimates of deaths due to expulsions have been criticized by subsequent researchers. For example according to the German demographer Rüdiger Overmans it is only possible to establish the deaths of 500,000 individuals and there is nothing in German historiography which could explain the other 1.5 million supposed deaths. A 1969-1974 study by the German Federal Archives
found 630,000 deaths, including 400,000 in the Oder-Neisse territory after excluding 600,000 Soviet Volksdeutsche
deported within the Soviet Union.
Overmans and Ingo Haar state that confirmed deaths result in a number between 500,000 and 600,000. Both believe that further research is needed to determine the fate of the estimated additional 1.5 million civilians listed as missing However, according to Overmans the 600,000 deaths found by the German Federal Archives are as close to the truth as can be established with present data. Haar has said that all reasonable estimates of deaths from expulsions lie between around 500,000 to 600,000.
According to Overmans the difference between the more than two million missing persons estimated by the Schieder commission and the some 500,000 deaths that so far could be verified included people who never existed or were never born (due to lower wartime fertility), German Jews who had been murdered by the German state, and individuals who were deported to the Soviet Union. He also stated that the commission's 2.225 million number relied on improper statistical methodology and incomplete data, particularly in regard to the expellees who arrived in East Germany after the war.
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
historians between 1951 and 1961
to document the population transfer of Germans
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
from East-Central Europe
East-Central Europe
East-Central Europe – a term defining the countries located between German-speaking countries and Russia. Those lands are described as situated “between two”: between two worlds, between two stages, between two futures...
that had occurred after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Created by the Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims
Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims
The Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims was part of the West German federal government from 1949 till 1969.Before the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany on the territory of the three western allied zones, the individual state governments were in charge of...
, the commission headed by Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder was one of the most influential German historians of the 20th century.Schieder was born in Oettingen and lived in Königsberg in East Prussia since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder became a part of a group of German conservative historians antagonistic towards the Weimar...
consisted primarily of distinguished historians with a Nazi past.
The huge numbers of expellees from the east who arrived in the western zones of post-war Germany created an enormous logistical problem for the authorities at a time when cities were in ruins, housing was scarce and food rationed. Initially conceived as a tool for reversing the loss of German territories in the east, the detailed documentation of the population movement was ground-breaking through its relative objectivity and its innovative combination of archive material with eye witness reports. Far from serving its original purpose, the documentation became increasingly open about the expulsions' dual nature as both counter-reaction and continuation of the atrocities committed in the same area by Germans during the war. Motivated by the Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
ideology, some of the historians themselves had played an active role in these war crimes
German war crimes
The government of Germany ordered, organized and condoned several war crimes in both World War I and World War II. The most notable of these is the Holocaust in which millions of people were murdered or died from abuse and neglect, 60% of them Jews...
. Due to its relative frankness, the final summary volume was suppressed for political reasons and was never finished.
Lebensraum and Generalplan Ost
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
concept, from 1938/1939 Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
expanded its territory far into the east, annexing parts of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
and Poland (Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
, Warthegau). This was intended as only a first step towards establishing the so-called A-A line
A-A line
The Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, or A-A line for short, was the military goal of Operation Barbarossa. It is also known as the Volga-Arkhangelsk line, as well as the Volga-Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line...
from Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...
to Astrakhan
Astrakhan
Astrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of below the sea level. Population:...
(both located in Russia) as Germany's new eastern border. Parts of Poland were "Germanized"
Germanisation
Germanisation is both the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, and the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanisation of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet...
by force, the local Polish majority population being subject to mass executions and murder as well as expelled
Expulsion of Poles by Germany
The Expulsion of Poles by Germany was a prolonged anti-Polish campaign of ethnic cleansing by violent and terror-inspiring means lasting nearly a century. It began with the concept of Pan-Germanism developed in early 19th century and continued in the racial policy of Nazi Germany asserting the...
into other parts of Poland . The Jews were systematically killed. In some cases German historians were involved in determining the fate of villages based on racial criteria. Ethnically German minorities from further east and settlers from within Nazi Reich were invited to settle in the annexed areas. Thousands of children from the occupied territories were kidnapped
Kidnapping of Polish children by Nazi Germany
Kidnapping of Eastern European children by Nazi Germany , part of the Generalplan Ost , involved taking children from Eastern Europe and moving them to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanization, or conversion into Germans....
and examined according to racial criteria. Those who were eventually considered "Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
" were given German names and thoroughly Germanized, but most were sent to orphanages, died from malnutrition or were killed in Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
.
German expellees in early West Germany
- Where they came from. At least 12 million affected, said to be the largest movement of any single ethnic population in modern history (per Expulsion of Germans after World War II#Legacy of the expulsions
- Many fled through the Soviet-controlled territory to the western zones
- Extent of the population influx: MecklenburgMecklenburgMecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
's number of inhabitants doubled. Previously purely Catholic regions got an influx of Protestants and conversely. Explosion of small settlements into big towns, see Heimatvertriebene#Expellee towns. - Conditions in early post-war Germany
- Systematically organized interviews with arriving expellees as material to be used against the Soviet Union
- Federal ministry for expellees
- Integration of expellees into West German society
Origins of the project
The project had its roots in initiatives in the British and American occupation zones that preceded the foundation of West Germany in 1951. At the time German politicians expected that a peace treaty would offer the chance for a revision of Germany's new eastern borderOder-Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. 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...
. A comprehensive, objective scientific account of suffering by Germans, in particular as caused by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, was hoped to balance the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and create international sympathy for claims to formerly German territories. These motivations were fully endorsed by Schieder and other commission members such as Diestelkamp, who felt that Germany had missed a similar chance after it lost the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and that a related Polish project needed a counter-weight. Domestically, the documentation of the expelled persons' fate was meant to support their integration into West German society.
Commission of historians
The commission was headed by Theodor SchiederTheodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder was one of the most influential German historians of the 20th century.Schieder was born in Oettingen and lived in Königsberg in East Prussia since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder became a part of a group of German conservative historians antagonistic towards the Weimar...
. Its other members were Peter Rassow, Hans Rothfels
Hans Rothfels
Hans Rothfels was a nationalist conservative German historian. He supported an idea of authoritarian German state, dominance of Germany over Europe and was hostile to Germany's eastern neighbours...
, Rudolf Laun as well as Adolf Diestelkamp, who died in 1953 and was replaced by Werner Conze
Werner Conze
Werner Conze was a German historian in Nazi Germany and in post-World War II Germany. He was one of the notable members of the Schieder commission. He came from a family of academics and lawyers...
. Apart from international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
expert Laun and archivist Diestelkamp, all were distinguished historians. The monumental project is an important link, and an example of remarkable continuity, between German historical research before and after the Second World War.
The commission was created in 1951 by Hans Lukaschek, the Minister for the Expelled, who after the First World War served as German propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
chief throughout the Upper Silesia plebiscite
Upper Silesia plebiscite
The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a border referendum mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out in March 1921 to determine a section of the border between Weimar Germany and Poland. The region was ethnically mixed, chiefly among Germans, Poles and Silesians. According to prewar statistics,...
. Schieder chose as members of the commission, individuals such as Werner Conze
Werner Conze
Werner Conze was a German historian in Nazi Germany and in post-World War II Germany. He was one of the notable members of the Schieder commission. He came from a family of academics and lawyers...
, who had previously advocated "dejewification" of territory occupied by Nazi Germany. During the Nazi era in Germany, both Conze and Schieder had devoted their attention to the issue of Nazi settlement policies, including the matter of "depopulating" Poland of its Jewish population. Schieder was also one of the primary authors of a document entitled Generalplan Ost
Generalplan Ost
Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...
which called for creating "Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
" (living-space) for Germans in Eastern Europe by enslaving or starving to death the Slavs, and killing all the Jews who lived there. Another person chosen was Hans Rothfels
Hans Rothfels
Hans Rothfels was a nationalist conservative German historian. He supported an idea of authoritarian German state, dominance of Germany over Europe and was hostile to Germany's eastern neighbours...
. Rothfels, while opposed to the Nazi regime and forced to emigrate from Germany during World War II, was also a German nationalist who in the interwar period advocated German domination of Eastern Europe and making its population into serfs.
As such, according to Hughes, the members of the commission were "consciously committed to ... propagandist activity in their government's service". The propagandist aims of the German government at the time were to utilize the commission's work to keep the question of the territories lost by Germany as a result of World War II open. Adolf Diestelkamp, another member of the commission, expressed the hope that the work of the commission would be a "decisive factor in our fight to win back the German east", that is, territories which Germany ceded to Poland after World War II. The commission relied heavily on interest groups, including expellee organizations
Federation of Expellees
The Federation of Expellees or Bund der Vertriebenen is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans who either fled their homes in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, or were expelled following World War II....
, to collect their sources.
Rothfels was the one who had originally proposed Schieder as head of the editorial staff, having been his teacher and a key intellectual influence during the Nazi period. Younger historians, such as Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispensable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and...
(who researched Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
) and Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler is a German historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th century Germany.-Career:...
(who helped research Romania), who were later to break with the tradition of Schieder and Conze, served as research assistants (see also Historikerstreit
Historikerstreit
The Historikerstreit was an intellectual and political controversy in late 20th-century West Germany about the historical interpretation of the Holocaust. The German word Streit translates variously as "quarrel", "dispute", or "conflict"...
).
In the immediate post war period the commission was regarded as composed of very accomplished historians.
Theodor Schieder
Theodor SchiederTheodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder was one of the most influential German historians of the 20th century.Schieder was born in Oettingen and lived in Königsberg in East Prussia since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder became a part of a group of German conservative historians antagonistic towards the Weimar...
had lived in Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
in East Prussia
East Prussia
East 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. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder was known as one of a group of conservative historians with little sympathy towards the Weimar republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
Once the Nazis seized power, Schieder directed a regional center devoted to the study of East Prussia and World War I. According to Robert Moeller, after 1945 Schieder merely transferred his ideas about one German defeat to the study of another. In 1937 he joined the Nazi party himself. Schieder enthusiastically supported Hitler's invasion of Poland and wrote academic papers on Germany's role as a "force of order" and a "bearer of a unique cultural mission", in Eastern Europe. During World War II he advocated the "dejudaization" of territories occupied by Germany. As one of the prominent proponents of German racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, he advocated maintaining German "race purity" by not mixing with other, "inferior" nationals. The aim of Schieder's research was to justify alleged German supremacy over other peoples. He fled Königsberg when the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
approached it December 1944.
After World War II Schieder was "deNazified
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
" and kept publicly quiet about his past. As a result, despite his Nazi membership, and his enthusiastic support for Nazi policies in Eastern Europe, Schieder's career took off in post War Germany. He was appointed to a chair in modern history at the University of Cologne
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
in 1947, and in the 1950s edited one of the most known historical journals in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, personal correspondence with Werner Conze from this time, revealed that they still held old antisemitic prejudices.
Werner Conze
Werner ConzeWerner Conze
Werner Conze was a German historian in Nazi Germany and in post-World War II Germany. He was one of the notable members of the Schieder commission. He came from a family of academics and lawyers...
was a doctoral student of Rothfels in Königsberg under the Nazis, where he claimed in his research that Germans had a positive role in the development of eastern Europe. Just like with Schieder's, the goal of his research was to justify alleged German supremacy over other nations and their right to take over new territories. With the Nazis taking power, Conze, together with Schieder and Rothfels helped to institutionalize racial ethnic research in the Third Reich. According to German historian Ingo Haar
Ingo Haar
Ingo Haar is a German historian. He received his Master of Arts from the University of Hamburg in 1993 and his PhD in History in 1998 at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg...
, "the Nazis made use of (this) racist scholarship, which lent itself gladly". While working for German espionage
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
, in 1936, Conze prepared a document which portrayed Poland as backward and in need of German order and which recommended the exclusion of Jews from the legal system as Conze considered them outside the law. In further work issued in 1938 Conze continued in similar vein, blaming lack of industry in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
on "Jewish domination"
During the war Conze fought at the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
. In the meantime his family fled west. At the end of the war Werner Conze ended up in a Soviet POW camp. After the war, Conze moved to Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
, then to Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
.
Presenting expulsions as greatest tragedy in German history
Part of Schieder's purpose was to make sure that the expulsions were be established as "one of the most momentous events in all of European history and one of the greatest catastrophes in the development of the German people". He sought to make sure that the publishing of "selected documents" would bring to light events which he felt had so far been "hushed up" The intended audience of the commission's findings were not just Germans, but also readers in other Western countries, particularly the Allies who had signed the Potsdam agreementPotsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...
. To that end, substantial excerpts from the five volumes published by the commission were made available in English language translation.
Supporting revision of post-war settlements
Schieder and other members of the commission were interested in more than just sympathy for the expellees. They also hoped that the propaganda work of the commission would help to convince the victorious Western alliesWestern Allies
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Soviet Union,...
to revise their position with regard to Germany's post war eastern borders with Poland
Oder-Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. 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...
. In doing so Schieder endorsed the ties between work of his historians and the Federal Republic's desire to for revision of post-war boundary settlement, being fully convinced such result would outweigh the problem of responses from Eastern Europe.
Countering information about atrocities committed by Nazi Germany
Another goal of the commission, as stated by Ministry of Expellees, was to counter the "false impression, produced by the propaganda of the opponent" that Nazi German forces of occupation in Eastern Europe "had raped robbed, terrorized, and butchered the population as long as Hitler was in power", which the ministry claimed was presented in "perverted" documents of the Polish government.Methodology
The commissioned gathered and used a large number of primary sources and Schieder also wanted the volumes produced to also include supposed political context of the events. Two out of the five volumes, about Romania, prepared by Wehler, and the one on Yugoslavia prepared by Broszat, included some form of analysis of collaboration by the local Germans during the war, Nazi plans and the atrocities of German occupation. At the center of the project were documents prepared by expellee organizations, German government, testimonies dictated in response to questions from officials of regional expellee interest groups, and personal diaries initially written as retrospective for the author or family. Together the volumes contained 4,300 densely printed pages.While the commission was aware that first person accounts of the expulsions were often unreliable, the members believed it was necessary to utilize these in their work, as they did not trust either Nazi era sources, nor those published by post war communist governments. The use of personal testimonies was part of the "modern history" approach developed earlier by Rothfels and applied in practice by the commission. Both Rothfels and Schieder were concerned with the accuracy of these accounts. As a result Rothfels insisted that the relevant documents were subjected to "historical standards of measurement" that characterized other historical research. Schieder insisted if an account failed to pass official "testing procedures" set up by the commission, then the account would be completely excluded. As a result, the commission claimed that their methods "transform(ed) subjective memory into unassailable fact".
Commission's conclusions
In 1953, Hans Lukaschek presented an interim report of the commission for the Oder-Neisse territory, estimating 2.167 million deaths out of twelve million expellees, including 500,000 WehrmachtWehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
and as many aerial warfare casualties. In 1958, the commission issued its final report, estimating a total of some 2.225 million deaths.
The five volumes produced by the commission were entitled Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa (Documents on the Expulsions of Germans from East-Central Europe). The first volume dealt with former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, the second with Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, the third with Romania, the fourth with Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and the fifth with Yugoslavia. Additional three volumes included the documents used in the work of the commission.
The estimates of deaths due to expulsions have been criticized by subsequent researchers. For example according to the German demographer Rüdiger Overmans it is only possible to establish the deaths of 500,000 individuals and there is nothing in German historiography which could explain the other 1.5 million supposed deaths. A 1969-1974 study by the German Federal Archives
German Federal Archives
The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv are the National Archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952....
found 630,000 deaths, including 400,000 in the Oder-Neisse territory after excluding 600,000 Soviet Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
deported within the Soviet Union.
Overmans and Ingo Haar state that confirmed deaths result in a number between 500,000 and 600,000. Both believe that further research is needed to determine the fate of the estimated additional 1.5 million civilians listed as missing However, according to Overmans the 600,000 deaths found by the German Federal Archives are as close to the truth as can be established with present data. Haar has said that all reasonable estimates of deaths from expulsions lie between around 500,000 to 600,000.
According to Overmans the difference between the more than two million missing persons estimated by the Schieder commission and the some 500,000 deaths that so far could be verified included people who never existed or were never born (due to lower wartime fertility), German Jews who had been murdered by the German state, and individuals who were deported to the Soviet Union. He also stated that the commission's 2.225 million number relied on improper statistical methodology and incomplete data, particularly in regard to the expellees who arrived in East Germany after the war.
See also
- Drang nach OstenDrang nach OstenDrang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
("The Drive Eastward") - LebensraumLebensraumwas one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
("Room to Live") - Generalplan OstGeneralplan OstGeneralplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...
- historiography and nationalismHistoriography and nationalismHistoriography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and "cultural identity". Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former...