German exodus from Eastern Europe
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Template:Cleanup-date The German exodus from Eastern Europe refers to the exodus of the German populations to the east of Germany's and Austria's post-World War II borders. Several stages may be distinguished in this process.
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Nazi-Soviet population transfers
Main article: Nazi-Soviet population transfers.
Germans were resettled from territories which were occupied by Soviet Union in 1940 due to the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, notably Bessarabia and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, all of which traditionally had large German minorities. Notably, the majority of the Baltic Germans had already been resettled in late 1939, prior to the occupation of Estonia and Latvia by Soviet Union in June 1940. The Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) were then resettled in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, but also in Zamosc County as decided by Generalplan Ost. In most cases they were given farms taken from Poles who were deported from the area.
Evacuation
Main article: World War II evacuation and expulsion.
Almost too late Nazi authorities ordered the evacuation of areas close to the advancing front. Not only people who had been citizens of Germany (Reichsdeutsche) but also ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) were successfully evacuated (around 5 million people) by German Navy over the Baltic Sea, before they were overrun by the Red Army. But many lost their lives when their vessels were torpedoed as in the case of the Wilhelm Gustloff.
Expulsion
Main article: Expulsion of Germans after World War II.
The remaining German inhabitants were expelled or fled from present-day Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, today's Kaliningrad Oblast, and other East European countries. Up to 16.5 million Germans of the post-war population were forced to leave. Those who fled in fear of the Red Army where banned to return. Even though some German dwellers were persecuted because of their activities during the war the only reasons for their expulsion was their ethnicity as Germans. They were sent to makeshift camps or cities in western Germany, mostly according to their Landsmannschaft.
According to German sources, more than 2.5 million lost their lives during this process. Czech and Polish sources give a much lower estimate (Czech historians arguing that most of estimated population drop is because of soldiers killed at the front). The actual population transfer included about 7 million from former eastern Germany, 1.5 million from Poland in the borders of 1938 (total of 5.075 million from new borders, see Oder-Neisse Line), 2.5 million from Czechoslovakia, around 2 million from the Soviet Union, 240,000 from Hungary, 300,000 from Romania, and another 1 million from other Eastern European regions.
The eviction of Germans from Eastern Europe was tolerated by the Potsdam Agreement, but it stated that it should be undertaken in a "humane" and "orderly" manner.
Emigration of Germans from Eastern Europe
Image:Vertreibung.png Main article: Emigration of Germans from Eastern Europe.
Between 1950 and 1990, 1.4 million people emigrated from Poland to Germany claiming German ancestry (770 000 of them in the 1980s).
Between 1970 and 1990 Communist Romania allowed the migration of ethnic Germans (Danube Swabians, Carpathian Germans and Transylvanian Saxons) to West Germany and Romanian Jews to Israel in exchange for hard currency. After the Romanian Revolution, this migration has continued.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, large numbers of Russian Germans (Wolgadeutsche) took advantage of Germany's liberal law of return to leave the harsh conditions of the Soviet successor states. By 1999 about 1.7 million former Soviet citizens of German origin had immigrated to Germany. About 6,000 settled in Kaliningrad Oblast (former East Prussia).
See also
- Danube-Swabians
- Population transfer
- Regained Territories
- Volga German
- History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union