German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe

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Flight and expulsion of Germans during
and after World War II
(demographic estimates)
Background
Wartime flight and evacuation
Post-war flight and expulsion
Later emigration
Other themes

The German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe ahead of the

Second World War was delayed until the last moment. Plans to evacuate people to present-day Germany from the territories controlled by Nazi Germany in Central and Eastern Europe, including from the former eastern territories of Germany as well as occupied territories, were prepared by the German authorities only when the defeat was inevitable, which resulted in utter chaos. The evacuation in most of the Nazi-occupied areas began in January 1945, when the Red Army was already rapidly advancing westward.[1][2]

Until March 1945, the Nazi authorities had evacuated from the eastern territories (prewar Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia) an estimated 10 to 15 million persons, Germans as well as citizens of other nations.

DAW).[4]

Polish historians put the number of "Germans" in early 1945 on the annexed territory of postwar Poland at 12,339,400 (8,885,400 in prewar German territory, 670,000 from prewar Poland; 900,000 ethnic Germans resettled in Poland; 750,000 administrative staff and 1,134,000 bombing raid evacuees). Along with the native German civilians, the Volksdeutsche from the east (i.e. the German-speakers) were evacuated or fled as well.

ethnic cleansing operations in the preceding years.[7] Meanwhile, the number of returning Reich Germans who had fled eastward temporarily in fear of the British and American bombings in the centre of Germany is also estimated between 825,000 [8][9] and 1,134,000.[7]

Apart from the evacuation of civilians, the Germans also evacuated

death marches starting in March and April 1945. Some of those marches to the geographical centres of Germany and Austria lasted for weeks, causing thousands of deaths along the road.[1][11]

Statistics dealing with the evacuations are incomplete, and there is uncertainty that estimates are accurate because of the atmosphere of the

Polish People's Army took hold of the entire territory of postwar Poland.[13] The West German search service confirmed the deaths of 86,860 civilians from the wartime flight and evacuations from those areas.[14]

Overview

Braunsberg (Braniewo) East Prussia
, February 1945

The plans to evacuate the German speaking population westwards from part of the

Danzig-West Prussia Albert Forster prepared his own evacuation plan called "Fall Eva" to evacuate cultural and strategic goods from the region in accordance with the 'scorched earth' policy. From late 1944 until May 1945 682,536 refugees, 109,337 soldiers and 292,794 wounded passed through the seaports of Danzig, Gdynia, and through the Hel Peninsula.[17]

Nazi officials estimated that in February 1945 ten million refugees were on the move to escape the Russian advance. According to historians Hahn and Hahn humanitarian considerations did not play a role in Nazi evacuation planning, the Nazis considered the evacuation of the entire population as not feasible and that it was better that the population remain in territory occupied by the Soviets.

Oder Neisse line.[26]

In most cases, however, the implementation of the plans was either delayed until Allied forces had already advanced into the areas to be evacuated, or it was prohibited entirely by the Nazi apparatus. Despite the rapid advances of the Red Army, the German authorities in many areas forbade leaving one's place of residence without a permit and an officially valid reason. Millions of Germans were left in these areas until combat conditions overwhelmed them, as a direct result of both the draconian measures taken by the Nazis towards the end of the war against anyone even suspected of 'defeatist' attitudes (such as suggesting evacuation) and the fanaticism of many Nazi functionaries in their mindless support of useless 'no retreat' orders. When the German authorities finally gave people the order to leave their homes, the available means of transport (such as trains and ships) were inadequate, and this forced many to leave most of their belongings behind. The first mass movement of German civilians in the eastern territories included both spontaneous flight and organized evacuation starting in the summer of 1944 and continuing through to the spring of 1945.[27]

The guards and inmates of the

death marches.[11]

Implementation

German street posters in Danzig as the Red Army approaches, warning soldiers that escaping with civilians will be treated as desertion.

The first Volksdeutsche to exit Russian territories were the

Nazi propaganda widely publicized the details of the Soviet atrocities, such as the Nemmersdorf massacre of October 1944, in an attempt to strengthen German morale. The Soviet propaganda machine encouraged a harsh and vengeful attitude toward the Germans. While advancing toward the West, soldiers of the Red Army committed a variety of atrocities, most notably rape, mutilation, murder and looting.[34]

East Prussia

Main article: Evacuation of East Prussia
See also: Soviet war crimes

The evacuation plans for East Prussia were ready in the second half of 1944. They consisted of both general plans and specific instructions for each individual town. The plans encompassed not only people but also industry and livestock.[35] The evacuation was planned to be conducted in three waves: the first two of them in July and October 1944, when about 25% of the 2.6 million population, mostly elderly, women and children, were supposed to be evacuated to Pomerania and Saxony.[36]

Civilians escaping from Danzig, February 20 or 21, 1945

In fact the population of

Gumbinnen, encountering German civilians and committing the Nemmersdorf massacre. After the Wehrmacht managed to reconquer large parts of the territory, the East Prussian Gauleiter Erich Koch partially conceded the requests of the Wehrmacht and gave permission to evacuate a small strip of 30 km directly behind the front line. Civilians from that area were sent to the northern parts of East Prussia.[38][39]

The third wave of evacuation happened in January 1945, when the

Pillau port.[42] About 450,000 Germans fled East Prussia over the frozen Vistula Lagoon and were then evacuated by ship from Baltic
port cities.

In January 1945 about 3,000 inmates of the East Prussian subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp were murdered in the massacre of Palmnicken.[1][43]

According to West German figures out of a pre-war German speaking population (deutschsprachige Bewohner) in East-Prussia of 2,473,000; 511,000 were killed or missing (including 210,000 military personnel). Some 301,000 civilians died due to the wartime flight and post-war expulsions.

Cold war,[47][48][49][50] Haar pointed out that the West German search service was able to confirm 123,360 civilian fatalities in East Prussia due to the wartime flight and post-war expulsions[51]

Pomerania

The evacuation of

Oder River, or in Denmark, where internment camps were set up by the Danes after the war.[53] In total almost 2.2 million people were evacuated this way,.[54]

Silesia

Refugees, Upper Silesia, January 1945

The evacuation of the 4.7 million population of Silesia began on January 19, 1945. The first orders concerned the elderly, women and children of Upper Silesia.[54][55]

About 85%[

Oder River and then to Saxony or to Bohemia.[citation needed] However, many of the Silesians ignored the evacuation orders, believing that their knowledge of Polish and their Polish provenance would spare them the horrors feared by Germans.[56]

February 1945 the Red Army approached the city of Breslau (now

Festung
to be held at all costs. Hanke finally lifted a ban on the evacuation of women and children when it was almost too late. During his poorly organised evacuation in early March 1945, 18,000 people froze to death in icy snowstorms and −20 °C weather.

Western Germany

Civilians of Aachen were evacuated in Summer 1944.[57]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Yad Vashem, Death Marches. The Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority 2015. PDF direct download.
  2. ^ Eberhardt 2011.
  3. ^ Hahn & Hahn 2010, p. 685; ill., maps; 24 cm. D820.P72 G475 2010 The authors noted German wartime documents as the source of the figure of 10-15 million.
  4. ^
    OCLC 66381296
    – via direct download, PDF file 38.5 MB, 627 pages. '; and Jan Misztal, PWN 1990, page 83.
  5. ^ Eberhardt 2011, p. 110.
  6. ISBN 978-0199646531
    . In March 1944, Greiser sent a telegram to Hitler reporting that the Gau now had one million Germans: "full of pride and joy I may report to you, My Führer; as the first success of this real Germanization process, that today the number of one million has been reached". Greiser raised the proportion of Germans in the Warthegau from 6.6 percent of the population in 1939 to 22.9 percent by April 1944.[page 192] 
  7. ^ a b Eberhardt 2011, pp. 64, 108–110.
  8. ^ Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. pp.5-8
  9. ISBN 978-1849832014
    – via Google Books.
  10. ^ Elizabeth B. White (1997). "Annual 7: Chapter 1". Majdanek: Cornerstone of Himmler's SS Empire in the East. Los Angeles, California: Simon Wiesenthal Center, Multimedia Learning. Archived from the original on 2019-01-31. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  11. ^ a b c d The Holocaust Encyclopedia (2015), The largest death marches, winter of 1944-1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  12. ISBN 978-1845457259
    .
  13. ^ a b c Hahn & Hahn 2010, p. 685.
  14. ^ a b Rűdiger Overmans, Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung. (this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in Warsaw Poland in 1994), Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI- Warsaw 1994 p. 55; (these figures are included in the 473,013 confirmed deaths listed by the search service and do not include missing persons whose death was not confirmed. These figures were kept secret by the West German government until 1986).
  15. ^ Amy A. Alrich (2003). Germans displaced from the East: Crossing actual and imagined Central European borders, 1944-1955. The Ohio State University – via PDF direct download, 460 pages.
  16. ISBN 978-0199646531
    . Note 167: trial of Ludwig Fisher. Evacuation of Warsaw alone encompassed 1,502.5 tons of goods, including 15 tons of medicine, 25 tons of soap, 352 tons of paper, 342 tons of steel goods, 62 tons of steel machine parts, 208 tons of agricultural machinery, 24.5 tons of leather goods, 265 tons of textiles; among other items.
  17. ^ Grzegorz Berendt (August 2006). "Gdańsk – od niemieckości do polskości" [Gdańsk from Germanness to Polishness] (PDF). Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej IPN. Nr. 8–9 (67–68). 57 / 152 in PDF. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  18. ^ Hahn & Hahn 2010, p. 264-65; ill., maps; 24 cm. D820.P72 G475 2010 The authors noted that German wartime documents that stated "daß im allseitigen Interesse [...] notfalls eine Zurüklassung der Bevolkerung in vom feind zu besetzenden Geibiet in Kauf genommen werden müsse" .
  19. ^ Eberhardt 2011, p. 117.
  20. ^ Hahn & Hahn 2010, p. 661: According to authors, in the five years after the end of World War II, the total transfer was 11.6 million by 1950. At the end of 1945 4.5 million civilians were in Germany. From 1946 to 1950 4.5 million German-speaking civilians were expelled and 2.6 million Nazi German POW were released.
  21. ^ a b Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. p.78
  22. ^ a b Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. p.5
  23. ^ a b c Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. p.7
  24. ^ Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. pp.5-7
  25. ISBN 9783486566871
    p. 274
  26. Oder Neisse line. (Paikert 1962, p. 2.) Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ^ Hahn & Hahn 2010, pp. 260–296.
  28. ^ Sobczak 1966, p. 333 (in) Hitlerowskie przesiedlenia
  29. ^ "Nazi Conspriracy and Aggression Volume 4". Archived from the original on 2007-07-09. Retrieved 2007-08-21.
  30. ISBN 0-313-30921-3
    page 54
  31. ISBN 0-7864-0336-5
    Page 80
  32. ISBN 978-0-692-60337-6
    , page 253
  33. ^ Internet Archive, Evacuation out of Slovakia at the end of the World War II.
  34. ^
    ISBN 0-670-88695-5
  35. ^ Nitschke, Wysiedlenie ..., p. 43
  36. ^ Nitschke, Wysiedlenie ..., p. 46
  37. ^ a b Kossert, Damals ..., p. 143
  38. ^ Kossert, Damals ..., p. 145
  39. ^
    ISBN 978-3-423-30079-7
    .
  40. ISBN 978-3-423-30014-8
    .
  41. ^ Jürgen Manthey, Königsberg : Geschichte einer Weltbürgerrepublik, dtv Verlag München 2006, p. 669
  42. ^ Podlasek, Wypędzenie ..., p. 74
  43. ISBN 3-8253-5201-3
    .
  44. ^ Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50.Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt - Wiesbaden. - Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958 p.38
  45. ^ a b Kossert, Damals ..., p. 168
  46. ISBN 3423032707
    .
  47. ^ Ingo Haar, Die Deutschen "Vertreibungsverluste –Zur Entstehung der "Dokumentation der Vertreibung" (The German expulsion losses. Documentation) - Tel Aviver Jahrbuch, 2007, Tel Aviv : Universität Tel Aviv, Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften, Forschungszentrum für Geschichte ; Gerlingen [Germany] : Bleicher Verlag
  48. ISBN 978-3-531-16152-5
    (in German)
  49. ISBN 978-3-531-15556-2
    (in German)
  50. ^ Ingo Haar, Straty zwiazane z wypedzeniami: stan badañ, problemy, perspektywy Archived 2011-03-02 at the Wayback Machine (Human losses associated with expulsions), translation from German, Polish Diplomatic Review, 2007, nr 5 (39); accessed 6 December 2014. (in Polish)
  51. ISBN 978-3-531-16152-5
    p. 369(in German)
  52. ^ Nitschke, Wysiedlenie ..., p. 48
  53. ^ "A Legacy of Dead German Children", Manfred Ertel, Spiegel Online, May 16, 2005
  54. ^ a b Nitschke, Wysiedlenie ..., p. 50
  55. ^ Schieder commission, Die Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa (Documentation of the German expulsions from East Central Europe), Bonn 1954, Band 1, pp. 5-7, 78.
  56. ^ Podlasek, Wypędzenie ..., p. 90
  57. ^ Christopher R. Gabel, Ph.D., "Knock 'em All Down:" The Reduction of Aachen, October 1944. Urban Operations. An Historical Casebook, at GlobalSecurity.org via the Internet Archive.

References

  1. B. Nitschke (2000), Theodor Schieder, Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder−Neiße, Band 1, München 1984 (Table 1).
  2. Jan Misztal (1990), Weryfikacja narodowościowa na Ziemiach Odzyskanych, PWN 1990, page 83.
    ISBN 83-01-10078-8
    .
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