Talk:German exodus from Eastern Europe

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[edit] Proposed Merger

My comment is against the proposed merger of "Expulsions of Germans after World War II" into this article. I think that while there was certainly a mass exodus of the German people from Eastern Europe, there is a great difference between "exodus" and "expulsion." The word "exodus" does not account for the 3 million people who died on the forced march. It also does not account for the brutality and wrongdoing of the expelling peoples, including rape and infanticide. This is not to say that there was no wrongdoing from the Germans, but this article is specifically refering to what happened to them after the war. Therefore the two should remain separate, or, if anything, combined into a larger article that could contain both, ie like Cautious suggested below "Fall of German Populations in Eastern Europe."


Cautious, I moved the project from your talk page to your main User page. The purpose is to enable people to comment the article here instead of your talk page. I hope you don't mind.Halibutt 14:48, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Moved from my talk page:

[edit] Dawn_of_German_East

I am preparing the new article, dealing with the whole process User_talk:Cautious/Dawn_of_German_East, while Expulsion of Germans after World War II should remain the description of one of the phases of the process.

Please contribute your comments. Cautious 07:50, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Not at this time, sorry. I'll just comment that the title is —in my opinion of course— ridiculous, as 'dawn of' implies something new, while the 'German East' you appear to want to discuss is centuries old at least. Consider how this looks to others: would you like an article title "Invention of the Polish nation-state" to discuss the Polish Soviet satellite state? Something like "Former eastern Germany" or "Eastern German lands after WW2" would be a better, more NPOV title. — Jor (Talk) 10:36, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I must completely agree with Jor. This is goofy at best and a clear violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view from the outset.
--Wighson 02:16, 2004 Apr 11 (UTC)

How about: "The Dusk of German East"?Space Cadet 17:42, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

<sings>Ain't no sunshine when she's gone</sings>. But seriously, The present title seems rather informal and Jor's proposals seem a little bit better. I'd vote for something like "Lands East of the Oder-Neisse line after 1945", but it might be a bit too long. So perhaps Jor's "Eastern German lands after WW2" could be modified to "Former Eastern German lands after WW2"?Halibutt 18:56, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am going to describe not only Poland, but also the general process that happenned everywhere in Eastern Europe.

My source of information is here: Sources for the Fall of German populations in the East

Currently I consider the name: Fall of German populations in Eastern Europe

Cautious 00:13, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I was about to propose something along the line of
  • westward migration of the Germans or
  • German exodus from Central Europe
– but in all honesty, I don't know if that would be particularly good as article titles either. :-)
--Ruhrjung 00:21, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
How about Fall of German populations in Central and Eastern Europe or simply Fall of German populations in Central Europe, since most of Eastern European Germans simply fled or were evacuated or deported by Stalin long before 1945 (Volga Germans, Ukraine, and so on). Halibutt 10:08, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Resources: Niemcy na Pomorzu Gdanskim

Germans in Slovenia


[edit] Victims

While I'm not out to nitpik this article, "Not only people who had been citizens of Nazi Germany (Reichsdeutsche) but also ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) were successfully evacuated (around 5 milion people) before the rest were overrun by the Red Army." is pretty sanitized, isn't it? Do you intend to ignore the millions who were butchered, frozen and starved? Bwood 00:03, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the exact number of victims of organised persecution (as opposed to victims of war itself) remains unknown. The estimates vary from 10.000 to over 3 millions (remember Nico?), I see no way of presenting the facts without starting an endless revert war. Of course you are right that the maltreatment of German nationals should be mentioned, but I suppose it would be better if we agreed on the wording on the talk page first. What do you say? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 03:48, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Stating the range of estimates is best. I know you want to blame everything on the Soviets, but that's not very plausible. Even if the Poles of 1945 had some moral elevation than every other people on this earth, given the numbers of survivors who had endured unspeakable conditions and lost uncomprehensible numbers of loved ones, to pretend there were not sizable amounts of retributions against the German civilians is pure fantasy. Bwood 04:27, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Please refer to what I say, not to what you think I might say in the future. I don't want to blame anything on anyone, please beware of such statements. As to the problem itself: I think we could handle it in a similar way to the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia article: list all the historians and the numbers proposed. A table would surely do. Which wording do you propose? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 04:57, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 15,000,000 terrorists?

I wonder what this clause, currently in the article, is supposed to mean?

This eviction of german people was the only possible way out from the situation, when all of this states Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Kaliningrad Oblast, have more then 15 000 000 terrorists with million of crimininal acts executed in their areas.

Any clues? I have no idea what the author meant, so it is hard for me to modify it. Thanks! --Irpen July 5, 2005 21:55 (UTC)

I just deleted this until anyone figures this out. mikka (t) 5 July 2005 23:03 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed?

Is this topic still disputed? It sure needs some editing. If there is no objection, i'd like to remove the tag and start with some editing to make it more readable. --The Minister of War 11:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] An earlier beginning

As German whose family has a Silesian background I have to notice that the "exodus" of my people out of this areas already began before WW2. With the industrialisation many Germans(and ethnic Poles) went westwards for example into the booming Ruhr-area while at the same time Poles from Russia moved westward into Germany's eastern territories, thus increasing the number of Poles there by some levels.

After WW1 many Germans left Posen, West-prussia and Upper-silesia, due to a better live in the west, because they didn't saw a future there but even so because they saw themselves opppressed by the new Polish state. Thus the number of Germans there had seriously decreased until the invasion of the Wehrmacht in these territories.

Note: I know that Poles in the Second German Empire sufferred some repressions, too and that this was a common way for most states to treat their miniorities.

[edit] Number of German victims

There is no war Polish and Czech historians against German historians. The division exists mainly between German historians. Xx236 14:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with some definitions

In "Territorial claims of German nationalists" it had been written that:

"German nationalists used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims."

This is inaccurate since not every country with a german minority had to fear german claim. Romania had never been asked to give transylvania over to Germany, as hadn't been Hungary to transfer its german speaking areas.

Which is true is that the status of the territory annexed by Poland and partly of the Czechoslovakia after the war had not been accepted by most of the germans. The presence of germans in these territories can be explained with the fact that it either had been part of germany until the end of WW1, barely 15 years before the Hilter's size of power, or was part of a multi-ethnic state which had been dissolved in the end of WW1, without the germans given the chance to choose their state as promised by Wilson.

"The "Heim ins Reich" rhetoric of the Nazis over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II..."

This merges two topics on a diffused way. Königsberg was the capital of the prussian province of "East Prussia", which has been divorced of Germany after WW1 by the "Polish Corridor", which had been the prussian province of "West Prussia" with Danzig as its capital.

East Prussia had economical problems by being cut of from the rest of germany, while Danzig had been forcefully recreated in the "Free City of Danzig" under the "protection" of the League of Nations. Indeed this meant for Danzig to be independent against the will of the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants(95% were germans to this time) who wished a reunification with Germany.

Sure this gave many reasons for trouble.

"According to the 1920 Czechoslovakian constitution, German minority rights were carefully protected; their educational and cultural institutions were preserved in proportion to the population."

In proportion to the population the germans made the second largest group in the Czechoslovakia without it being given the rights of independece as the slovaks had.

Even when this article shouldn't go into detail too much, it should be noticed that the germans in the Sudetenland had voted for being part of "Deutschösterreich", forming the rest of the german-speaking territory of the former monarchy of Habsburg, but were being invaded by the czech military.

This was one of the main reasons why the germans abandoned this republic in 1938.

The points above may have been written this way because of the lack of time or knowledge, but for a neutral point of view it is important to know all details of the moved history of the germans in this region.

[edit] Merger

Some articles contain sometimes the same informations:

Isn't it too much? Xx236 12:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

they are all different though, as Recovered Territories is a Polish propoganda term, as they were never really recovered as much as stolen. Historical Eastern Germany refers to all German lands now under foreign administration, not just the polish lands as in "recovered territories". Evacuation of East Prussia refers to the wartime exodus from the province, while expulsion of Germans after WWII describes the post war years.

--Jadger 16:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't like your language (stolen) as some other statements in your texts. Would you be so kind to observe the rules of Wikipedia?

The articles contain the partially the same informations. In fact at least 10 articles contain the same informations (sometimes biased) about the expulsion of Germans. Your answer is about something different. Xx236 11:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

and what rule did I break here? please assume good faith and don't be so uncivil. while articles are supposed to be NPOV, an editor can be as straightforward as he wants on the discussion page, and an editor does not have to be NPOV, as that is impossible. I fail to see how my answer is about something different, you offered to merge the articles because they were all containing the same information as you claim, but what I assume you meant is they are all on the same subject, and we should merge them into one article, which I denied seeing as they are on similar subjects, but not the same ones, as in my explanation before.

--Jadger 19:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

  1. I'm sorry to be unprecise - I'm against repeating the same informations in several articles. I don't demand merging if they are logically structured.
  2. O.K. - I assume your good faith and I inform you that:
  • the Oder-Neisse border was defined in Potsdam by SU, US and UK, not by Poland. BTW - which article uses the word stolen desctribing territorial changes?
  • There existed two Polish propagandas - the Communist one and the London one. You should define which one you mean.
  • According to you you have the right to use in the future any insulting word against me ("as straightforward as he wants") , because I write that 2.1 million story is questioned (eg. by Overmanns)? Where is such a rule written?

Xx236 07:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

--- Historical fact is that Poland did not respect the Oder-Neisse-Line: In violation of the Potsdam conference results Poland annected a lot territory to the west of the Oder-river ("Vorpommern"), including the city of Stettin. Only Stalin supported this polish action against international law. (User, Dec. 1st, 2006)


  • No article that I can think of uses the term because they don't want to offend nationalists into POV edits and from that, edit wars.
  • I mean the communist one, the one that used the term "recovered territories" to justify taking German lands and expelling the inhabitants.
  • In no way does straightforward mean insulting, how did you get that out of my writing? we are still talking about how I referred to the forceful annexation of German lands as a theft. Unless you are an extreme nationalist who believes in a Polish version of Manifest Destiny, I don't see how it can offend you. And, I don't see how it would offend you even if you are an extreme nationalist, as it simply puts your position as bluntly as possible. where is such a rule written? please show me what rule on wikipedia states that a user can't be brutally honest?

--Jadger 18:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Jadger, I find your texts agressive. I assume you aren't aware, so I inform you.

  • Unless you are an extreme nationalist who believes - it's ad-personam.
  • if you are an extreme nationalist, as it simply puts your position as bluntly as possible

The level of my nationalism isn't a subject of German exodus from Eastern Europe.

I repeat, which article (of the Wiki) uses the word stolen desctribing territorial changes? Unless you haven't found one, would you be so kind to use the same words like the ones used in another articles?


Xx236 11:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

you said: I repeat, which article (of the Wiki) uses the word stolen desctribing territorial changes? Unless you haven't found one, would you be so kind to use the same words like the ones used in another articles?

I don't have to, this is not an article, but a talk page, if what you are claiming where an actual rule, then you would have no need for a wikipedia account, as nothing you have ever typed (that was original from you and not a revert to another person's version) would be allowable on wikipedia.

and secondly, Wikipedia is constantly being improved upon, it is never a finished product, much of the time people are too busy reverting extremist POV pushing and stopping your ad-hominem attacks to be able to edit wikipedia as effectively as they should be.

--Jadger 01:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree those articles should be merged, or at least put in a clear structure, with one main article, and cleary identified subarticles. Currently it's a mess.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 01:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] more than 2.5 million lost their lives

The discussion about the number of German victims is here Estimates of number of deaths in connection with expulsion of Germans after WWII. Xx236 07:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We need to go further back in Time

I have studied that the German people themselves originally arose as distinct Indo-European people millennia before 0 CE near the headwaters of the Elbe river. I do not see such information at all in Wikipedia at all, just does not seem to go back that far. I think this will need to be stated … something I hope I might be able to add as long as the references line up as my time permits. Nonprof. Frinkus 00:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

When I first read the above post, I sloughed it off as irrelevant to this article (which it is). However, upon re-reading it, I am appreciating that there may be a valid point. If you look at History of Germany, it starts at about the 6th or 8th century A.D. If Nonprof. Frinkus wishes information about Germanic tribes before the 6th century A.D. to be included in Wikipedia, we will probably have to start a new article titled something like History of the German people or Prehistory of the German people. I am going to copy this thread to Talk:History of Germany. Please continue the discussion there.
--Richard 17:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish criticism of German "revisionism"

"politicians who certain Germans claim play the anti-German card for political reasons"

I would rather say, that elderly people are more critical, than the majority of the politicians. One of the main Polish politicians Donald Tusk has probably German family. Quite many German texts about the expulsion sound crazy for many Poles, so we don't need any politicians to lead us. Xx236 15:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Both this section and the "German criticism of the Polish collectivist view" are highly POV and totally devoid of citations. We need to say things like "According to X, A is B" and support the sentence with a citation instead of just saying "A is B". I have tagged both sections with the {{pov-section}} tag.

--Richard 22:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] was tolerated by the Potsdam Agreement

The Potsdam Agreement paragraph says something different. Xx236 13:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further improvements

I hope I have wikified the article to the satisfaction of those editing here. Can I suggest your next steps to improvement?

I take it that the page is not going to be merged with Expulsions of Germans after World War II. Therefore it might be useful to think again about the scope of this article. It is not currently clear when the exodus that this article deals with began. After WWI, I guess, but there is far too much detail, to my mind, about how German speakers came to be living in eastern countries. The reader will be worn out before getting to the actual exodus.

This is my fault. I originally wrote that stuff as background for the Expulsions of Germans after World War II and then moved it here because it was applicable here as well. Any suggestions for cutting it down would be appreciated. --Richard 17:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, there might be enough material for a separate article on the present-day movements related to the exodus.

Referencing is the most important thing of all. There are extra guidelines for history articles. References should ideally be only to books and scholarly papers written by historians (people with postgraduate qualifications in history) who publish in the field. Preference should be given to material written in English, so that people who speak only English can verify the facts. I really enjoyed reading the article. It is a fascinating topic in modern history. Itsmejudith 16:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I'm going to boldly cut most of the history out, and then you can feel free either to undo the whole edit or put back piecemeal anything you consider essential. I don't get on with sandboxes much. Just see how it looks. I'm not going to hang around to defend my changes. Itsmejudith 17:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shortening the "Background" section

User:Itsmejudith trimmed the "Background" section which is a great improvement. However, in doing so, she dropped the following paragraph:

The expulsion of Germans after World War II must be interpreted in the context of the evolution of global nationalism in general and European nationalism in particular. It is also useful to compare the mass migrations and forced expulsion of ethnic Germans out of Eastern Europe with other massive transfers of populations, such as exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey and population exchange that occurred after the Partition of India. In all cases those expelled suffered greatly.

I think some of the above information is useful even if the wording could be improved. What do you think?

--Richard 19:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree the major trim was an improvement, but perhaps a shortened version of the paragraph Richard cites could be restored. Jd2718 19:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
My advice, for what it's worth, is to refer to what good historians say about this, rather than the views of lay editors. The phrase "must be interpreted", in an unsourced paragraph, rang alarm bells for me. If the context is important, could it not be enough to refer the reader to ethnic cleansing? I'll leave it to your collective wisdom to consider this though, and won't be watching the page any more. Itsmejudith 23:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I think she's right even though I wrote the paragraph in question. Anybody know of a good source for this material? --Richard 00:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
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