Expulsion of Germans from Poland after World War II

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[edit] Plans to expel Germans

When Stalin and Churchill made it clear in 1943 that the Soviets would keep the portion of Poland east of the Curzon Line, the Poles were allowed to make claims to Danzig, Upper Silesia, and much of East Prussia.

Though initially hesitant to support widespread post-war population transfers, the British government began signaling approval in late 1940, after German bombing attacks on British cities had radicalized British public opinion. But, British officials were sharply divided on the extentand speed of the transfers. In 1943, the War Office opposed the Foreign Office’s intentions to move Polish borders as far as the Oder-Neisse line and deport the millions of Germans who would be left inside the new borders of Poland. Such a move, the Director of Military Intelligence wrote, would yield an overpopulated and revisionist Germany bordering an underpopulated and weak Poland, and would "sow the seeds of another war"[1] 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.

[edit] Yalta Conference

The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States at the Yalta Conference, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open but the Allies accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes.

At the Yalta Conference, the Allies agreed to place certain territories that had been part of Germany prior to 1937 under Polish and Soviet administration, with the final borders to be determined in the peace treaty following the war. Upon gaining control of these lands, the Soviet and Polish-Communist authorities started to expel the German population of the lands newly under their control. The plan was that, with the German populace expelled, Germany would not be able to make claims to the territories again. The land was then populated with Polish citizens who had been expelled from the eastern kresy areas, which had newly been annexed by the Soviet Union.

[edit] Chronology of the expulsions

Beginning in December 1944, Germans from Südsiebenbürgen, Hungary and Jugoslavia were deported to slave labor camps in the Soviet Union. On November 4, 1944, a decree mandated that all Germans be interned in slave labor camps. Starting in March 1945 the first expulsions were initiated. In the summer of 1945 the first (wild) expulsions wave with expulsions and or forced resettlements of the German population 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 an 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.[2]

[edit] Advance of the Red Army

In the first months of 1945, as the Red Army advanced through the countries of Eastern Europe and the provinces of Eastern Germany, Soviet troops, as well as native populations 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.

[edit] Polish internment camps

As early as November 4, 1944, Poland started collecting all Germans into forced labour camps.[3]

Whereas some of the Germans who remained were randomly rounded up and expelled, hundreds of thousands of Germans either ended up in internment facilities, performed forced labor on farms, or were deported to distant parts of the Soviet Union, where they worked in labor camps.

In postwar Poland many camps and other types of facilities existed for the purposes of housing Germans. Gradually the Polish authorities centralized the interned Germans in six main facilities: Glaz, Milecin, Potulitz, Gronowo, Jaworzno, and Sikawa. In time, Potulitz became the central administrative camp for housing interned Germans. For the most part, these Germans were brought by 1950 to processing facilities near the German-Polish border, where authorities determined their final destination within the new Germanies.[4]

Whereas some of the Germans who remained were randomly rounded up and expelled, hundreds of thousands of Germans either ended up in internment facilities, performed forced labor on farms, or were deported to distant parts of the Soviet Union, where they worked in labor camps.[5]

According to Alfred de Zayas...

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 rest, if that much. Frequently these relatives were so illtreated 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. [6]

[edit] Deportation to the Soviet Union

Main article: Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union

On February 6, 1945, Soviet NKVD ordered mobilisation of all German men (17 to 50 years old) in the Soviet-controlled territories. Many of them were then transported to 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.[7]

[edit] Pre-Potsdam "wild" deportations (May - July 1945)

In 1945, the former German Silesian, Pomeranian and East-Prussian territories were occupied by Soviet and Communist-led Polish military forces. Early expulsions in Poland were undertaken by the Polish communist military authorities already before the Potsdam Conference. To ensure their incorporation to Poland, the Polish communists ordered that Germans were to be expelled. "We must expel all the Germans because countries are build on national lines and not on multi-national once." a cite from Plenum of Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party, May 20-21, 1945.[8] Germans were defined as either Reichsdeutsche, people enlisted in 1st or 2nd Volksliste groups, and those of the 3rd group, who held German citizenship.

During a period of "wild expulsions" from May to July 1945, the Polish military drove up to 400,000 Germans across Poland's new western border. Though apparently inspired by a similar expulsion frenzy in Czechoslovakia, Poles were neither as brutal nor as thorough as their Czech counterparts.

The early phase of expulsion was often particularly brutal. Polish soldiers, stated one report, "relate to German women as to free booty".[9] Historians disagree as to the number of Germans deported during this phase of expulsion. The estimates range from 300 thousand to 500 thousand people.[citation needed] Many Germans evacuated during the war weren't allowed to return to their homes.

[edit] Transfer of territories to Poland

The Soviet Union transferred territories to the east of the Oder-Neisse Line to Poland in July 1945. These territories included the today's city of Szczecin (former German Stettin) with the exception of the harbor which the Soviet authorities dismantled and removed to Soviet Union until October 1948. After July 1945, most Germans were expelled to the territories west of the Oder-Neisse Line. Stettin was crowded with German expellees already before the transfer, who were then forced to leave to other parts of Germany.

"The president (Truman) complained that there were now five occupation zones because the Soviets had turned over the area extending along the Oder and western Neisse to the Poles. This was in violation of the Yalta agreement. The president did not see how economic controls or reparations could operate if Germany was thus broken up."[10]

"Churchill spoke strongly against giving the Poles 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."[11]

"On July 24 the Polish delegation arrived in Berlin, headed by Prime Minister Boleslaw Bierut and including Mikolajczyk and Foreign Minister Wincenty Rzymowksi. They consistently held to the position that the Oder and western Neisse rivers should be the frontier, and they vehemently argued their case before the foreign ministers, Churchill, and Truman, in turn."[12]

The next day Churchill said to 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."[13]

"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."[14]

[edit] Second wave of expulsions

The second wave of expulsions came after the Potsdam conference, but before the "organized transfer" of remaining Germans began in early 1946. From August to December, 1945, Poles expelled close to 600,000 more Germans in poorly organized transports. Thousands starved and froze to death in slow and ill-equipped trains. The final phase involved the transfer of 2.25 million Germans in a process coordinated with British and Soviet authorities in occupied Germany in 1946 and 1947. Many still died on route, but conditions were far better than those in 1945.

[edit] Poznań and Szczecin

In both Poznań (Posen) and Szczecin (Stettin), Polish officials faced great dilemmas, difficulties, and dangers in expelling Germans. Both areas saw tense conflicts between competing administrative authorities. The worst of these tensions involved Soviet and Polish authorities in and around Szczecin. There, the Soviets even occupied the Szczecin harbor until October, 1948. As far as the Poles were concerned, the Soviets protected Germans so as to exploit their labor; in the harbor area, for example, the Soviets sanctioned German schools for the children of German workers. The Poles thus blamed the Soviets for many of the region's ills, including the continued presence of Germans in the province.

But conflicts between Soviets and Poles were not the only administrative tensions that arose during the expulsions. In both Poznań and Szczecin, civilian authorities were frustrated with the Polish military's inability to guard the German-Polish border. They were also angered that the military undertook a wave of expulsions without informing them in the summer of 1945. At that time, local authorities needed the German work force to maintain a smooth-functioning economy and, most importantly, to ensure a steady stream of cheap agricultural labor. Polish employers were particularly bent on retaining the German work force--to benefit not only from German professional expertise, but also from a labor pool that was forced to work for little or no wages. Central authorities, however, initially wanted to get rid of Germans as quickly as possible. But beginning in 1946, they changed tack. They now often forced local authorities to hold back on deportations (even when these were ready to expel Germans) so that the expulsions could be carried out in the humanitarian manner demanded by the Allies. In fact, however, Polish authorities had little inclination to treat Germans decently during expulsions. But this stance raised yet another dilemma: many officials were concerned with Poland's international image and how the deportation story would fare in the international press.

Provincial authorities were particularly frustrated by their inability to control the actual process of expulsion. To their dismay, local officials not only did not prevent, but actually condoned and even engaged in plunder and corruption at every step of the deportations. Indeed, of all the complaints voiced by regional authorities, none were more persistent than those concerning the ongoing plunder of German valuables. All too often, these officials complained, German property ended up in private and not state hands. Provincial officials also believed that local authorities were hiding Germans so as to benefit from a low-cost labor force. In addition, they were sorely disappointed by the organization of the deportations. Temporary camps that were set up to process the deportees had atrocious hygiene conditions; epidemic and other illnesses were common and, not infrequently, led to death. The sick, old, and pregnant were supposed to be treated with more care; in fact, they were often subject to the same coarse brutality as healthier Germans. Trains that were to bring the deportees to Germany were generally late or never came at all; the deportation process that was supposed to last just a few days sometimes went on for weeks or even months.[15]

[edit] Germanised Poles

Another problem that Polish authorities were faced with was the disposition of the so-called "Germanized Poles", many of whom were referred to as "autochthons." More than a million residents of Masuria and Upper Silesia were of Slavic descent, but did not identify strongly with Polish nationality. Many spoke German or Germanized dialects of Polish, and large numbers had registered with the German Deutsche Volksliste during the war. Wanting to retain as many Poles as possible, the government put autochthons through a "verification" process to determine which were redeemable as Poland citizens. 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"[16]

[edit] Repopulation of vacated lands

People from all over Poland quickly moved in to fill the void left by the expulsion of the German population. Some of these new arrivals were ethnic Poles, and some ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians residing in the east of Poland. Large numbers of Ukrainians were also forced to move from south eastern Poland under a 1947 Polish government operation, which aimed at dispersing, and therefore assimilating, the Ukrainian population, which had not moved east, throughout the newly acquired territories. Belarusians living around the area around Bialystok 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 to dissolve the unique ethnic identity of groups like the Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lemkos, and broke the proximity and communication necessary for strong communities to form. Such policy implemented Soviet ideas, not Polish nationalistic ones.[citation needed]

Many Poles made the decision to relocate as they preferred to live in Poland rather than in what was now part of the Soviet Union. Others were encouraged to relocate to the west - "the land of opportunity" - by Polish and Soviet newspapers and officials. These new 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". According to some Polish sources Lithuanian authorities expelled educated Poles and hoped to Lithuanize uneducated ones.

Thousands of Jews settled in Lower Silesia creating Jewish cooperatives and institutions.

Poles massively returned from vacated lands because of high criminality, for which mostly Soviet soldiers were responsible.

[edit] Casualties

Of around 12.4 million Germans within the lands of post-war Poland in 1944, six million fled or were evacuated, 3.6 million were expelled, one million were verified as Poles, 300,000 remained in Poland as a German minority, and up to 1.1 million died.[17]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Detlef Brandes. Der Weg zur Vertreibung 1938-1945. Pläne und Entscheidungen zum Transfer" p.233
  2. ^ Meyers Lexicon Online. Vertreibung. Translated from German.
  3. ^ Meyers Lexicon Online. "article on Vertreibung"
  4. ^ http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=198721097755610
  5. ^ http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=198721097755610
  6. ^ Alfred M. de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1977 ISBN 0710084684 pp. 124ff.
  7. ^ Jankowiak, p. 35
  8. ^ Naimark, Russian in Germany. p. 75 reference 31
  9. ^ Naimark, Russian in Germany. p. 76 reference 34
  10. ^ James L. Gormly: From Potsdam to the COLD WAR. Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947. Scholarly Resources Inc. Delaware, 1990 (ISBN 0-8420-2334-8) p. 49)
  11. ^ James L. Gormly: From Potsdam to the COLD WAR. Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947. Scholarly Resources Inc. Delaware, 1990 (ISBN 0-8420-2334-8) (p. 50)
  12. ^ James L. Gormly: From Potsdam to the COLD WAR. Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947. Scholarly Resources Inc. Delaware, 1990 (ISBN 0-8420-2334-8) (p. 50)
  13. ^ James L. Gormly: From Potsdam to the COLD WAR. Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947. Scholarly Resources Inc. Delaware, 1990 (ISBN 0-8420-2334-8) (p.51)
  14. ^ James L. Gormly: From Potsdam to the COLD WAR. Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947. Scholarly Resources Inc. Delaware, 1990 (ISBN 0-8420-2334-8) (p.55f)
  15. ^ http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=39261148316906
  16. ^ Bernadetta Nitschke. Vertreibung und Aussiedlung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus Polen 1945 bis 1949. Translated from Polish by Stephan Niedermeier, Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa 20. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003. (p. 165).
  17. ^ Bernadetta Nitschke. Vertreibung und Aussiedlung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus Polen 1945 bis 1949. Translated from Polish by Stephan Niedermeier, Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa 20. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003.(p. 280).
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