View source for Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)

{{Short description|Population transfer during and after World War II}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox historical event
| title = Flight and expulsion of Germans
| partof = [[aftermath of World War II]]
| image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1983-0422-315, Umsiedler auf dem Güterbahnhof Berlin-Pankow.jpg
| image_size = 260
| caption = German expellees, 1946
| Location = [[Eastern Europe|Eastern]] and [[Central Europe]]
| Date = 1944–1950
| cause = 
| motive = {{ubl|class=nowrap|
 |[[Anti-German sentiment]]
 |[[Counter-insurgency]]
}}
| Result = 
| fatalities = 500,000 to 2.5 million<ref>Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, ''Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus den Gebieten jenseits von Oder und Neiße'', bpb.de; accessed 6 December 2014. (in German)</ref><ref>Christoph Bergner, Secretary of State in Germany's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in ''Deutschlandfunk'' on 29 November 2006.</ref><ref>Kammerer, Willi. ''Narben bleiben die Arbeit der Suchdienste – 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg'' (PDF). Berlin Dienststelle 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2017. Retrieved 28 October 2017. The foreword to the book was written by German President Horst Köhler and the German interior minister Otto Schily.</ref>
| displaced = 12 million to 14.6 million
}}
{{Expulsion of Germans}}
{{History of Germany}}{{Campaignbox Campaign of Germany (WW2)}}
During the later stages of [[World War II]] and the [[post-war period]], [[Reichsdeutsche]] (German citizens) and [[Volksdeutsche]] (ethnic Germans living outside the Nazi state) fled and were expelled from various [[Eastern Europe|Eastern]] and [[Central Europe]]an countries, including [[Czechoslovakia]], and from the former German provinces of [[Province of Lower Silesia|Lower]] and [[Province of Upper Silesia|Upper Silesia]], [[East Prussia]], and the eastern parts of [[Province of Brandenburg|Brandenburg]] ([[Neumark]]) and [[Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)|Pomerania]] ([[Farther Pomerania]]), which were annexed by [[Provisional Government of National Unity]] of Poland and by the [[Soviet Union]].

The idea to expel the Germans from the annexed territories had been proposed by [[Winston Churchill]], in conjunction with the [[Polish government-in-exile|Polish]] and [[Czechoslovak government-in-exile|Czechoslovak]] governments-in-exile in London since at least 1942.<ref name="spiegelexpulsion"/><ref name="edenexpulsion"/> [[Tomasz Arciszewski]], the [[Prime ministers of the Polish government-in-exile|Polish prime minister in-exile]], supported the annexation of German territory but opposed the idea of expulsion, wanting instead to [[naturalize]] the Germans as Polish citizens and to [[cultural assimilation|assimilate]] them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kamusella |first=Tomasz |url=http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/15298/Dynamics+of+Ethnic+Cleansing.pdf;jsessionid=6D1A4252019DC6AE37BB49852B0657EF?sequence=1 |title=The Dynamics of the Policies of Ethnic Cleansing in Silesia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries |date=1999 |publisher=Open Society Institute |location=Budapest |pages=322, 407}}</ref> [[Joseph Stalin]], in concert with other Communist leaders, planned to expel all ethnic Germans from east of the [[Oder]] and from lands which from May 1945 fell inside the Soviet occupation zones.{{cn|date=January 2025}} In 1941, his government had already transported Germans from Crimea to Central Asia.

Between 1944 and 1948, millions of people, including ethnic Germans ({{lang|de|Volksdeutsche}}) and German citizens ({{lang|de|Reichsdeutsche}}), were [[World War II evacuation and expulsion|permanently or temporarily moved]] from Central and Eastern Europe. By 1950, about 12 million<ref>''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50.'' Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt – Wiesbaden – Stuttgart: [[Kohlhammer Verlag]], 1958, pp. 35–36</ref> Germans had fled or been expelled from east-central Europe into [[Allied-occupied Germany]] and [[Allied-occupied Austria|Austria]]. The West German government put the total at 14.6&nbsp;million,<ref>Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims. ''Facts concerning the problem of the German expellees and refugees'', Bonn: 1967.</ref> including a million ethnic Germans who had settled in territories conquered by Nazi Germany during World War II, ethnic German migrants to Germany after 1950, and the children born to expelled parents. The largest numbers came from [[former eastern territories of Germany]] ceded to the [[Polish People's Republic]] and [[Soviet Union]] (about seven million),<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |url=http://www.igipz.pan.pl/en/zpz/Political_migrations.pdf |title=Political Migrations in Poland 1939–1948 |date=2006 |publisher=Didactica |isbn=978-1-5361-1035-7 |location=Warsaw |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150626151411/http://www.igipz.pan.pl/en/zpz/Political_migrations.pdf |archive-date=26 June 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |url=http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_13607_r2011-nr12_Monografie.pdf |title=Political Migrations On Polish Territories (1939–1950) |date=2011 |publisher=Polish Academy of Sciences |isbn=978-8-3615-9046-0 |location=Warsaw |access-date=31 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140520220409/http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_13607_r2011-nr12_Monografie.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and from Czechoslovakia (about three million).

The areas affected included the former eastern territories of Germany, which [[Recovered Territories|were annexed by Poland]],<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |date=2015 |title=The Oder-Neisse Line as Poland's western border: As postulated and made a reality |url=https://www.geographiapolonica.pl/article/item/9928.html |journal=Geographia Polonica |volume=88 |issue=1 |pages=77–105 |doi=10.7163/GPol.0007 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Hammer |first=Eric |date=2013 |title=Ms. Livni, Remember the Recovered Territories. There is an historical precedent for a workable solution. |url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13702 |website=Arutz Sheva}}</ref> as well as the Soviet Union after the war and Germans who were living within the borders of the pre-war [[Second Polish Republic]], Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the [[Baltic states]]. The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions is disputed, with estimates ranging from 500,000{{Sfn|Haar|2007|page=278}}{{efn|The [[Deutsches Historisches Museum]] puts the figure at 600,000, maintaining that the figure of 2 million deaths in the previous government studies cannot be supported.[http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/wk2/kriegsverlauf/massenflucht Die Flucht der deutschen Bevölkerung 1944/45], dhm.de; accessed 6 December 2014.{{in lang|de}}}} up to 2.5&nbsp;million according to the German government.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kammerer |first=Willi |title=Narben bleiben die Arbeit der Suchdienste – 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg |url=https://www.volksbund.de/fileadmin/redaktion/BereichInfo/BereichPublikationen/Reihe_Allgemeine_Reihe/Erweiterungen/0100_Band_10/0%20Band10%20Narben%20bleiben.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170611215917/http://www.volksbund.de/fileadmin/redaktion/BereichInfo/BereichPublikationen/Reihe_Allgemeine_Reihe/Erweiterungen/0100_Band_10/0%20Band10%20Narben%20bleiben.pdf |archive-date=11 June 2017 |access-date=28 October 2017 |publisher=Berlin Dienststelle 2005}}the foreword to the book was written by German President {{lang|de|[[Horst Köhler]]}} and the German interior minister {{lang|de|[[Otto Schily]]}}</ref><ref>{{lang|de|Christoph Bergner}}, Secretary of State in [[Germany]]'s Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in {{lang|de|[[Deutschlandfunk]]}} on 29 November 2006, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080210034644/http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/kulturheute/569560]</ref><ref name="bpb.de">[http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/nationalsozialismus/dossier-nationalsozialismus/39587/die-vertreibung-der-deutschen "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus den Gebieten jenseits von Oder und Neiße"], bpb.de; accessed 6 December 2014.{{in lang|de}}</ref>

The removals occurred in three overlapping phases, the first of which was the [[German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe|organized evacuation of ethnic Germans]] by the Nazi state in the face of the advancing [[Red Army]] from mid-1944 to early 1945.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/immigrationasylu00matt/page/197 197–198]}} The second phase was the disorganised flight of ethnic Germans immediately following the {{lang|de|[[Wehrmacht]]}}'s surrender. The third phase was a more organised expulsion following the Allied leaders' [[Potsdam Agreement]],{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/immigrationasylu00matt/page/197 197–198]}} which redefined the Central European borders and approved expulsions of ethnic Germans from the former German territories transferred to Poland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Agreements of the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference, 17 July – 2 August 1945 |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101031085625/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html |archive-date=31 October 2010 |access-date=29 August 2009 |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]}}</ref> Many German civilians were sent to internment and labour camps where they were used as [[forced labor of Germans after World War II|forced labour as part of German reparations]] to countries in Eastern Europe.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/germany2000years0000rein/page/57 |title=Germany: 2000 Years: Volume III: From the Nazi Era to German Unification |date=1992 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |isbn=0-8264-0601-7 |editor-last=Gerhart Tubach |edition=2nd |page=[https://archive.org/details/germany2000years0000rein/page/57 57] |access-date=28 August 2009 |editor-last2=Kurt Frank Hoffmeister |editor-last3=Frederic Reinhardt}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Norman M. Naimark |url=https://archive.org/details/firesofhatred00norm/page/131 |title=Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-century Europe |date=2001 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-6740-0994-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/firesofhatred00norm/page/131 131] |access-date=28 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kacowicz |first=Arie Marcelo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ovck_g0xwX0C&pg=PA101 |title=Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study |last2=Lutomski |first2=Paweł |date=2007 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-1607-4 |page=101 |access-date=27 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Tomasz Kamusella |date=2004 |title=The Expulsion of the German Communities from Eastern Europe |url=http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091001022039/http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2009 |access-date=27 August 2009 |publisher=EUI HEC |page=28}}</ref> The major expulsions were completed in 1950.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/immigrationasylu00matt/page/197 197–198]}} Estimates for the total number of people of German ancestry still living in [[Central and Eastern Europe]] in 1950 ranged from 700,000 to 2.7&nbsp;million.
{{TOC limit|3}}
<gallery widths=200px heights=200px>
Verbreitungsgebiet_der_deutschen_Sprache_neu.PNG|[[German language]] area after the official census of 1910
German Expulsion from Poland.png|Germans in each region of Poland as percentage of the total population before the flight and expulsion
Expulsion areas - German - Mixed.png|German language areas in [[Poland]], [[Kaliningrad Oblast]] (Russia), [[Memelland|Lithuania]], and [[Czech Republic]] before expulsion of Germans {{legend|#3ccf12|completely German}} {{legend|#ffdf38|ethnically mixed areas}}
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1985-021-09, Flüchtlinge.jpg|Refugees moving westwards in 1945
</gallery>

== Background==
{{See also|History of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe|Ostsiedlung|Drang nach Osten|World War II|Potsdam Agreement}}

Before World War II, [[East-Central Europe]] generally lacked clearly delineated ethnic settlement areas. There were some ethnic-majority areas, but there were also vast mixed areas and abundant smaller pockets settled by various ethnicities. Within these areas of diversity, including the major cities of [[Central and Eastern Europe]], people in various ethnic groups had interacted every day for centuries, while not always harmoniously, on every civic and economic level.<ref name="Tonkin">Kati Tonkin reviewing Jurgen Tampke's "Czech-German Relations and the Politics of Central Europe: From Bohemia to the EU", ''The Australian Journal of Politics and History'', March 2004 [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1877/is_1_50/ai_n6291863 Findarticles.com] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822030324/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1877/is_1_50/ai_n6291863 |date=22 August 2009}}; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref>

With the rise of [[nationalism]] in the 19th century, the ethnicity of citizens became an issue<ref name="Tonkin"/> in territorial claims, the self-perception/identity of states, and claims of ethnic superiority. The [[German Empire]] introduced the idea of [[Prussian Settlement Commission|ethnicity-based settlement]] in an attempt to ensure its territorial integrity. It was also the first modern European state to propose population transfers as a means of solving "nationality conflicts", intending the removal of Poles and [[Jews]] from the projected post–[[World War I]] "[[Polish Border Strip]]" and its resettlement with Christian ethnic Germans.<ref>Hajo Holborn, ''A History of Modern Germany: 1840–1945''. Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 449 {{ISBN?}}</ref>

Following the [[Dissolution of Austria-Hungary|collapse of Austria-Hungary]], [[Russian Revolution|the Russian Empire]], and the [[German Revolution of 1918–1919|German Empire]] at the end of World War I, the [[Treaty of Versailles]] pronounced the formation of several independent states in Central and Eastern Europe, in territories previously controlled by these imperial powers. None of the new states were ethnically homogeneous.<ref>Jane Boulden, Will Kymlicka, ''International Approaches to Governing Ethnic Diversity'' Oxford UP 2015 {{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref> After 1919, many ethnic Germans emigrated from the former imperial lands back to the [[Weimar Republic]] and the [[First Austrian Republic]] after losing their privileged status in those foreign lands, where they had maintained minority communities. In 1919 ethnic Germans became national minorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania. In the following years, the Nazi ideology encouraged them to demand local autonomy. In Germany during the 1930s, [[Propaganda in Nazi Germany|Nazi propaganda]] claimed that Germans elsewhere were subject to persecution. Nazi supporters throughout eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia's [[Konrad Henlein]], Poland's [[Deutscher Volksverband]] and [[Jungdeutsche Partei]], Hungary's ''Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn'') formed local Nazi political parties sponsored financially by the [[German Ministry of Foreign Affairs]], e.g. by the [[Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle]]. However, by 1939 more than half of Polish Germans lived outside of the formerly German territories of Poland due to improving economic opportunities.<ref name="Chu.pdf">{{Cite book |last=Winson Chu |url=http://users.ox.ac.uk/~oaces/conference/papers/Winson_Chu.pdf |title=Revenge of the Periphery: Regionalism and the German Minority in Lodz, 1918–1939 |series=The Contours of Legitimacy in Central Europe |publisher=St. Antony's College, Oxford |pages=4–6 |access-date=21 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304055424/http://users.ox.ac.uk/~oaces/conference/papers/Winson_Chu.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Population movements===

{| class="wikitable"
|+Ethnic German population: 1958 [[West German]] estimates versus pre-war (1930–31) national census figures
!Geographical<br/>region
! West German estimate<br/>for 1958
! National Census data<br/>1930–31
! Reduction
|-
| Poland (1939 borders)||style="text-align:right"| 1,371,000<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste pp.45/46">Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50.Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt – Wiesbaden. – Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958 pp. 45–46</ref> ||style="text-align:right"| 741,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |title=Historical Atlas of East Central Europe |last2=Matthews |first2=Geoffrey J |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Washington, Seattle |isbn=978-0-2959-7445-3 |page=131}}</ref>
| style="text-align:right"|630,000
|-
| Czechoslovakia ||style="text-align:right"| 3,477,000<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste pp.45/46"/> ||style="text-align:right"| 3,232,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |title=Historical Atlas of East Central Europe |last2=Matthews |first2=Geoffrey J |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Washington, Seattle |isbn=978-0-2959-7445-3 |page=133}}</ref>
 |style="text-align:right"| 245,000
|-
| Romania || style="text-align:right" | 786,000<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste pp.45/46"/> || style="text-align:right" | 745,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |title=Historical Atlas of East Central Europe |last2=Matthews |first2=Geoffrey J |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Washington, Seattle |isbn=978-0-2959-7445-3 |page=137}}</ref>
| style="text-align:right" | 41,000
|-
| Yugoslavia ||style="text-align:right"| 536,800<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste pp.45/46"/> ||style="text-align:right"| 500,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |title=Historical Atlas of East Central Europe |last2=Matthews |first2=Geoffrey J |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Washington, Seattle |isbn=978-0-2959-7445-3 |page=141}}</ref>
 |style="text-align:right"| 36,800
|-
| Hungary ||style="text-align:right"| 623,000<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste pp.45/46"/> ||style="text-align:right"| 478,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |title=Historical Atlas of East Central Europe |last2=Matthews |first2=Geoffrey J |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Washington, Seattle |isbn=978-0-2959-7445-3 |page=135}}</ref>
 |style="text-align:right"| 145,000
|-
| Netherlands ||style="text-align:right"| 3,691<ref>{{Citation |last=Bogaarts |first=Melchior D. |title=Parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland na 1945 |date=1995 |volume=D |chapter=Weg met de moffen |edition=2nd |publisher=Nijmegen |language=nl |isbn=9-0714-7837-8}}</ref>||style="text-align:right"| 3,691<ref>{{Citation |last=Bogaarts |first=M. D. |title='Weg met de Moffen' – De uitwijzing van Duitse ongewenste vreemdelingen uit Nederland na 1945 |date=1981 |work=[[BMGN|Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden]] |volume=96 |issue=2 |pages=334–51 |url=http://www.bmgn-lchr.nl/index.php/bmgn/article/view/2245/2299 |publisher=Royal Dutch Historical Society |language=nl}}</ref> 
|style="text-align:right"| 3,500

|}

Notes:
*According to the national census figures the percentage of ethnic Germans in the total population was: Poland 2.3%; Czechoslovakia 22.3%; Hungary 5.5%; Romania 4.1% and Yugoslavia 3.6%.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |title=Historical Atlas of East Central Europe |last2=Matthews |first2=Geoffrey J |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of Washington, Seattle |isbn=978-0-2959-7445-3 |pages=131–41}}</ref>
*The West German figures are the base used to estimate losses in the expulsions.<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste pp.45/46"/>
*The West German figure for Poland is broken out as 939,000 monolingual German and 432,000 bi-lingual Polish/German.<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste p. 276">Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50.Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt – Wiesbaden – Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958 p. 276</ref>
*The West German figure for Poland includes 60,000 in [[Trans-Olza]] which was annexed by Poland in 1938. In the 1930 census, this region was included in the Czechoslovak population.<ref name="Vertreibungsverluste p. 276"/>
*A West German analysis of the wartime [[Deutsche Volksliste]] by Alfred Bohmann ([[:de:Alfred Bohmann|de]]) put the number of Polish nationals in the [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany]] who identified themselves as German at 709,500 plus 1,846,000 Poles who were considered candidates for [[Germanisation]]. In addition, there were 63,000 Volksdeutsch in the [[General Government]].<ref>Alfred Bohmann, Menschen und Grenzen Band 1: Strukturwandel der deutschen Bevolkerung im polnischen Staats – und Verwaltungsbereich, Köln, Wissenschaft und Politik, 1969 p. 117–121</ref> [[Martin Broszat]] cited a document with different Volksliste figures 1,001,000 were identified as Germans and 1,761,000 candidates for [[Germanisation]].<ref>Martin Broszat Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939–1945 Fischer 1961, p. 125</ref> The figures for the [[Deutsche Volksliste]] exclude ethnic Germans resettled in Poland during the war.
*The national census figures for Germans include German-speaking Jews. Poland (7,000)<ref>[[U.S. Bureau of the Census]], ''The Population of Poland''. Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]], 1954 p. 148</ref> Czech territory not including Slovakia (75,000)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |title=Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |date=2002 |isbn=0-7656-0665-8 |page=129}}</ref> Hungary 10,000,{{Sfn|Eberhardt|2002|page=293}} Yugoslavia (10,000)<ref>''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'' complete ed., "Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien", p. 19.</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 121-1354, Kurt Daluege in Prag.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|[[Karl Hermann Frank]], Secretary of State and [[SS and police leader|Higher SS and Police Leader]] in Nazi [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]] (right) was born in Carlsbad, [[Austria-Hungary]] (present-day [[Karlovy Vary]], Czech Republic).]]

During the Nazi German occupation, many citizens of German descent in Poland registered with the [[Deutsche Volksliste]]. Some were given important positions in the hierarchy of the Nazi administration, and some participated in [[Nazi atrocities]], causing resentment towards German speakers in general. These facts were later used by the [[Allies of World War II|Allied politicians]] as one of the justifications for the expulsion of the Germans.<ref>Valdis O. Lumans, ''Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1939–1945'', Chapel Hill: [[University of North Carolina Press]], 1993, pp. 243, 257–60; accessed 26 May 2015. {{ISBN?}}</ref> The contemporary position of the German government is that, while the Nazi-era war crimes resulted in the expulsion of the Germans, the deaths due to the expulsions were an injustice.<ref>[[Horst Köhler|German President Horst Köhler]], Speech, [http://www.warschau.diplo.de/contentblob/1734030/Daten/126383/Koehler_BdV_2906.pdf Köhler Speech] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121202034858/http://www.warschau.diplo.de/contentblob/1734030/Daten/126383/Koehler_BdV_2906.pdf |date= 2 December 2012}}, warschau.diplo.de, 2 September 2006; accessed 6 December 2014.{{in lang|de}}</ref>

During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, especially after the [[Operation Anthropoid#Consequences|reprisals]] for the assassination of [[Reinhard Heydrich]], most of the [[Czech resistance to Nazi occupation|Czech resistance groups]] demanded that the "German problem" be solved by transfer/expulsion. These demands were adopted by the [[German occupation of Czechoslovakia#Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile|Czechoslovak government-in-exile]], which sought the support of the Allies for this proposal, beginning in 1943.<ref>Československo-sovětské vztahy v diplomatických jednáních 1939–1945. Dokumenty. Díl 2 (červenec 1943 – březen 1945). Praha, 1999; {{ISBN|8-0854-7557-X}}.{{in lang|cs}}</ref> The final agreement for the transfer of the Germans was not reached until the [[Potsdam Agreement|Potsdam Conference]].

The expulsion policy was part of a geopolitical and ethnic reconfiguration of postwar Europe. In part, it was retribution for Nazi Germany's initiation of the war and subsequent atrocities and [[ethnic cleansing]] in [[Nazi-occupied Europe]].<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Us and Them – The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301faessay87203-p30/jerry-z-muller/us-and-them.html |url-status=dead |journal=Foreign Affairs |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080302155203/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301faessay87203-p30/jerry-z-muller/us-and-them.html |archive-date=2 March 2008}}</ref><ref name="Kacowicz101">Arie Marcelo Kacowicz & Paweł Lutomski, ''Population Resettlement in International Conflicts: A Comparative Study'', Lexington Books, 2007, p. 100; {{ISBN|0-7391-1607-X}}</ref> Allied leaders [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] of the United States, [[Winston Churchill]] of the United Kingdom, and [[Joseph Stalin]] of the USSR, had agreed in principle before the end of the war that the border of Poland's territory would be moved west (though how far was not specified) and that the remaining ethnic German population were subject to expulsion. They assured the leaders of the [[Polish government-in-exile|émigré governments of Poland]] and Czechoslovakia, both [[History of Poland (1939–45)|occupied by Nazi Germany]], of their support on this issue.<ref name="Churchill-speech">{{Cite book |title=Text of Churchill Speech in Commons on Soviet-Polish Frontier |date=15 December 1944 |publisher=The United Press}}</ref><ref name="Zayas">[[Alfred de Zayas|Alfred M. de Zayas]], ''A Terrible Revenge'', New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 1994 (reprinted 2006); {{ISBN|1-4039-7308-3}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref><ref name="Brandes398ff">Detlef Brandes, ''Der Weg zur Vertreibung 1938–1945: Pläne und Entscheidungen zum "Transfer" der Deutschen aus der Tschechoslowakei und aus Polen'', Munich: [[Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag]], 2005, pp. 398seq; {{ISBN|3-4865-6731-4}}{{in lang|de}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=S8nsdMcJq4cC&dq=expulsion+germans+poland&pg=PA398 Google.de]</ref><ref>Klaus Rehbein, ''Die westdeutsche Oder/Neisse-Debatte: Hintergründe, Prozess und Ende des Bonner Tabus'', Berlin, Hamburg and Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005, pp. 19seq; {{ISBN|3-8258-9340-5}} {{in lang|de}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=grTPyVvBr2QC&dq=expulsion+germans+poland&pg=PA20 Google.de]; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref>

== Reasons and justifications for the expulsions==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 137-004055, Eger, Besuch Adolf Hitlers.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Adolf Hitler]] being welcomed by a crowd in [[Sudetenland]], where the pro-Nazi [[Sudeten German Party]] gained 88% of ethnic-German votes in May 1938<ref>{{Citation |last=Hruška |first=Emil |title=Boj o pohraničí: Sudetoněmecký Freikorps v roce 1938 |date=2013 |page=11 |edition=1st |place=Prague |publisher=Epocha, Pražská vydavatelská společnost}}</ref>]]
Given the complex history of the affected regions and the divergent interests of the victorious Allied powers, it is difficult to ascribe a definitive set of motives to the expulsions. The respective paragraph of the Potsdam Agreement only states vaguely: "The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agreed that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner." The major motivations revealed were:

*''A desire to create ethnically homogeneous nation-states'': This is presented by several authors as a key issue that motivated the expulsions.<ref name="Iw9AAAAIAAJ page 2">{{Cite book |last=Zayas |first=Alfred M. De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Iw9AAAAIAAJ&dq=expulsion+volksdeutsche&pg=PA2 |title=Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans : Background, Execution, Consequences |date=1979 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |isbn=978-0-7100-0410-9 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name="Renata Fritsch-Bournazel 1992, p.77">Fritsch-Bournazel, Renata. ''Europe and German Unification: Germans on the East-West Divide'', 1992, p. 77; {{ISBN|978-0-8549-6684-4}}: The Soviet Union and the new Communist governments of the countries where these Germans had lived tried between 1945 and 1947 to eliminate the problem of minority populations that in the past had formed an obstacle to the development of their own national identity.</ref><ref name="Ulf Brunnbauer p.91">Ulf Brunnbauer, Michael G. Esch & Holm Sundhaussen, ''Definitionsmacht, Utopie, Vergeltung'', p. 91</ref><ref name="Philipp Ther p.155">Philipp Ther & Ana Siljak, ''Redrawing Nations'', p. 155</ref><ref name="Kacowicz102">Arie Marcelo Kacowicz & Paweł Lutomski, Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study, [[Lexington Books]], 2007, p. 102; {{ISBN|0-7391-1607-X}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=ovck_g0xwX0C&dq=expulsion+germans+poland&pg=PA100 Google.de]</ref><ref name="EU6">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=6}}</ref>
*''View of a German minority as potentially troublesome'': From the Soviet perspective, shared by the communist administrations installed in [[Eastern Bloc|Soviet-occupied Europe]], the remaining large German populations outside postwar Germany were seen as a potentially troublesome '[[fifth column]]' that would, because of its social structure, interfere with the envisioned [[Sovietisation]] of the respective countries.<ref>Valdis O. Lumans, ''Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945'', 1993, p.&nbsp;259; {{ISBN|978-0-8078-2066-7}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TIZSO31iSO4C&dq=expulsion+volksdeutsche&pg=PA257 Google Books]</ref> The Western allies also saw the threat of a potential German 'fifth column', especially in Poland after the agreed-to compensation with former German territory.<ref name="Iw9AAAAIAAJ page 2"/> In general, the Western allies hoped to secure a more lasting peace by eliminating the German minorities, which they thought could be done in a humane manner.<ref name="Iw9AAAAIAAJ page 2"/><ref name="EU5">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=5}}</ref> The proposals from the Polish and Czech governments-in-exile to expel ethnic Germans after the war received support from [[Winston Churchill]]<ref name="spiegelexpulsion">"[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-man-who-saved-europe-how-winston-churchill-stopped-the-nazis-a-712259-9.html How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis]". ''[[Der Spiegel]]''. 20 August 2010.</ref> and [[Anthony Eden]].<ref name="edenexpulsion">"''[https://books.google.com/books?id=EWz5oFDQhaUC&pg=PA113 The Myriad Chronicles]''". Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora, 2010. p. 113. {{ISBN|1-4500-9791-X}}</ref>
*''Another motivation was to punish the Germans'':<ref name="Iw9AAAAIAAJ page 2"/><ref name="Ulf Brunnbauer p.91"/><ref name="EU6"/><ref name="Zybura202">Zybura, p.&nbsp;202</ref> the Allies declared them [[German collective guilt|collectively guilty]] of German war crimes.<ref name="EU5"/><ref name="Ulf Brunnbauer p.92">Ulf, Brunnbauer, Michael G. Esch & Holm Sundhaussen, ''Definitionsmacht, Utopie, Vergeltung'', p. 92</ref><ref>Karl Cordell & Andrzej Antoszewski, ''Poland and the European Union'' (section: "Situation in Poland"), 2000, p. 166; {{ISBN|978-0-4152-3885-4}}; (Situation in Poland: "Almost all Germans were held personally responsible for the policies of the Nazi party.")</ref><ref name="Kacowicz101102"/>
*''Soviet political considerations'': Stalin saw the expulsions as a means of creating antagonism between Germany and its Eastern neighbors, who would thus need Soviet protection.<ref name="dias">{{Cite book |last=Rainer Münz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xGV6gb0w914C&q=german+expulsions+stalin+motivations&pg=PA93 |title=Diasporas and ethnic migrants: German, Israel, and post-Soviet successor states in comparative perspective |last2=Rainer Ohliger |publisher=Routledge |date=2003 |isbn=978-0-7146-5232-0 |page=93}}</ref> The expulsions served several practical purposes as well.

=== Ethnically homogeneous nation-state===
[[File:Curzon line en.svg|thumb|The [[Curzon Line]]]]
The creation of ethnically homogeneous nation states in Central and Eastern Europe<ref name="Renata Fritsch-Bournazel 1992, p.77"/> was presented as the key reason for the official decisions of the Potsdam and previous Allied conferences as well as the resulting expulsions.<ref name="Ulf Brunnbauer p.91"/> The principle of every nation inhabiting its own nation state gave rise to a series of expulsions and resettlements of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and others who after the war found themselves outside their supposed home states.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |date=2012 |title=The Curzon line as the eastern boundary of Poland. The origins and the political background |url=https://www.geographiapolonica.pl/article/item/7563.html |journal=Geographia Polonica |volume=85 |issue=1 |pages=5–21 |doi=10.7163/GPol.2012.1.1}}</ref><ref name="Philipp Ther p.155"/> The [[Population exchange between Greece and Turkey|1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey]] lent legitimacy to the concept. Churchill cited the operation as a success in a speech discussing the German expulsions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chad Carl Bryant |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NOCOVmwJFMMC&q=german+expulsions++greeks+turks&pg=PA97 |title=Prague in Black |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-6740-2451-9 |page=97}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Alfred M. de Zayas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Iw9AAAAIAAJ&q=german+expulsions++greeks+turks+churchill&pg=PA11 |title=Nemesis at Potsdam |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |date=1979 |isbn=978-0-7100-0410-9 |page=11}}</ref>

In view of the desire for ethnically homogeneous nation-states, it did not make sense to draw borders through regions that were already inhabited homogeneously by Germans without any minorities. As early as 9 September 1944, Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]] and Polish communist [[Edward Osóbka-Morawski]] of the [[Polish Committee of National Liberation]] signed a treaty in [[Lublin]] on population exchanges of Ukrainians and Poles living on the "wrong" side of the [[Curzon Line]].<ref name=":0"/><ref name="Philipp Ther p.155"/> Many of the 2.1&nbsp;million Poles expelled from the Soviet-annexed [[Kresy]], so-called 'repatriants', were resettled to former German territories, then dubbed 'Recovered Territories'.<ref name="Kacowicz101102"/> Czech [[Edvard Beneš]], in his decree of 19 May 1945, termed ethnic [[Hungarians]] and Germans "unreliable for the state", clearing a way for confiscations and expulsions.<ref>Ulf Brunnbauer, Michael G. Esch & Holm Sundhaussen, ''Definitionsmacht, Utopie, Vergeltung'', p. 787. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

=== View of German minorities as potential fifth columns===
==== Distrust and enmity====
[[File:NSDAP Wahl 1933.svg|thumb|Votes for the [[Nazi Party]] in the [[March 1933 German federal election|March 1933 elections]]]]
One of the reasons given for the population transfer of Germans from the former eastern territories of Germany was the claim that these areas had been a stronghold of the Nazi movement.<ref>Bogdan Musiał, "Niechaj Niemcy się przesuną". ''Stalin, Niemcy i przesunięcie granic Polski na Zachód'', Arcana nr 79 (1/2008) {{ISBN?}}</ref> Neither Stalin nor the other influential advocates of this argument required that expellees be checked for their political attitudes or their activities. Even in the few cases when this happened and expellees were proven to have been bystanders, opponents or even victims of the Nazi regime, they were rarely spared from expulsion.<ref>Tragic was the fate of Czechoslovaks of German ethnicity and Jewish religion. They were clearly victims of the Nazi occupation but nevertheless qualified to be [[denaturalization|denaturalized]] if they had declared their native language to be German in the census of 1930. In 1945 Czechoslovakian nationalists and communists regarded this entry in the forms as an act of disloyalty against the republic. Cf. Reuven Assor, ""Deutsche Juden" in der Tschechoslowakei 1945–1948", ''Odsun: Die Vertreibung der Sudetendeutschen; Dokumentation zu Ursachen, Planung und Realisierung einer 'ethnischen Säuberung' in der Mitte Europas, 1848/49 – 1945/46'', Alois Harasko & Roland Hoffmann (eds.), Munich: Sudetendeutsches Archiv, 2000, pp. 299seq.</ref> Polish Communist propaganda used and manipulated hatred of the Nazis to intensify the expulsions.<ref name="Kacowicz102"/>

With German communities living within the pre-war borders of Poland, there was an expressed fear of disloyalty of Germans in [[Silesian Voivodeship (1920–39)|Eastern Upper Silesia]] and [[Pomerelia]], based on wartime Nazi activities.<ref>Wojciech Roszkowski, ''Historia Polski 1914–1997'', Warsaw: 1998 PWNW, p. 171. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Created on order of Reichsführer-SS [[Heinrich Himmler]], a Nazi [[ethnic German]] organisation called [[Selbstschutz]] carried out executions during ''[[Intelligenzaktion]]'' alongside operational groups of German military and police, in addition to such activities as identifying Poles for execution and illegally detaining them.<ref name="Wardzyńska"/>

To Poles, expulsion of Germans was seen as an effort to avoid such events in the future. As a result, Polish exile authorities proposed a population transfer of Germans as early as 1941.<ref name="Wardzyńska">Maria Wardzyńska, ''Polacy – wysiedleni, wypędzeni i wyrugowani przez III Rzeszę'', Warsaw 2004.</ref> The [[Czechoslovak government-in-exile]] worked with the [[Polish government-in-exile]] towards this end during the war.<ref name="jud">{{Cite book |last=Dan Diner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACIic5j2OA8C&q=polish+exile+czech+1941+german+expulsions&pg=PA162 |title=Jüdische Geschichte als allgemeine Geschichte |last2=Raphael Gross |last3=Yfaat Weiss |publisher=[[Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht]] |date=2006 |isbn=978-3-5253-6288-4 |location=Göttingen |page=162}}</ref>

==== Preventing ethnic violence====
The participants at the Potsdam Conference asserted that expulsions were the only way to prevent ethnic violence. As [[Winston Churchill]] expounded in the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] in 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by the prospect of disentanglement of populations, not even of these large transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they have ever been before".<ref name="Churchill-speech"/>

Polish resistance fighter, statesman and courier [[Jan Karski]] warned President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in 1943 of the possibility of Polish reprisals, describing them as "unavoidable" and "an encouragement for all the Germans in Poland to go west, to Germany proper, where they belong."<ref>(Karski's 1943 reference to "Poland" meant the pre-war a.k.a. 1937 border of Poland.){{Cite book |last=R.J. Rummel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1j1QdPMockC&q=karski+roosevelt+revenge&pg=PA302 |title=Death by Government |last2=Irving Louis Horowitz |publisher=[[Transaction Publishers]] |date=1997 |isbn=978-1-5600-0927-6 |page=302 |quote=I would rather be frank with you, Mr. President. Nothing on earth will stop the Poles from taking some kind of revenge on the Germans after the Nazi collapse. There will be some [[terrorism]], probably short-lived, but it will be unavoidable. And I think this will be a sort of encouragement for all the Germans in Poland to go west, to Germany proper, where they belong.}}</ref>

=== Punishment for Nazi crimes===
{{see also|German collective guilt}}
[[File:Dolina smierci Bydgoszcz.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Polish teachers from [[Bydgoszcz]] guarded by members of ''[[Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz]]'' before execution]]
The expulsions were also driven by a desire for retribution, given the brutal way German occupiers treated non-German civilians in the German-occupied territories during the war. Thus, the expulsions were at least partly motivated by the animus engendered by the [[German war crimes|war crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the German belligerents]] and their proxies and supporters.<ref name="Ulf Brunnbauer p.91"/><ref name="Zybura202"/> Czechoslovak President [[Edvard Beneš]], in the [[Interim National Assembly (Czechoslovakia)|National Congress]], justified the expulsions on 28 October 1945 by stating that the majority of Germans had acted in full support of Hitler; during a ceremony in remembrance of the [[Lidice massacre]], he blamed all Germans as responsible for the actions of the German state.<ref name="Ulf Brunnbauer p.92"/> In Poland and Czechoslovakia, newspapers,<ref name="Brunnbauer93"/> leaflets and politicians across the political spectrum,<ref name="Brunnbauer93"/><ref name="Snyder"/> which narrowed during the [[Eastern Bloc|post-war Communist take-over]],<ref name="Snyder"/> asked for retribution for wartime German activities.<ref name="Brunnbauer93"/><ref name="Snyder">Timothy Snyder, ''Journal of Cold War Studies'', volume 5, issue 3, ''Forum on Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944–1948'', edited by Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak, Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series, Lanham, MD: [[Rowman & Littlefield]], 2001; Quote: "By 1943, for example, Polish and Czech politicians across the political spectrum were convinced of the desirability of the postwar expulsion of Germans. After 1945 a democratic Czechoslovak government and a Communist Polish government pursued broadly similar policies toward their German minorities. (...) Taken together, and in comparison to the chapters on the Polish expulsion of the Germans, these essays remind us of the importance of politics in the decision to engage in ethnic cleansing. It will not do, for example, to explain the similar Polish and Czechoslovak policies by similar experiences of occupation. The occupation of Poland was incomparably harsher, yet the Czechoslovak policy was (if anything) more vengeful. (...) Revenge is a broad and complex set of motivations and is subject to manipulation and appropriation. The personal forms of revenge taken against people identified as Germans or collaborators were justified by broad legal definitions of these groups..." [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/forumreviews.htm FAS.harvard.edu]; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> Responsibility of the German population for the crimes committed in its name was also asserted by commanders of the late and post-war Polish military.<ref name="Brunnbauer93"/>

[[Karol Świerczewski]], commander of the [[Second Polish Army]], briefed his soldiers to "exact on the Germans what they enacted on us, so they will flee on their own and thank God they saved their lives."<ref name="Brunnbauer93">Detlef Brandes, in Brunnbauer/Esch/Sundhaussen's ''Definitionsmacht, Utopie, Vergeltung: "ethnische Säuberungen" im östlichen Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts'', Berlin, Hamburg and Münster: [[LIT Verlag]], 2006, p. 93; {{ISBN|3-8258-8033-8}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=96wFm4u1Jg8C&dq=Definitionsmacht,+Utopie,+Vergeltung&pg=PA93]; Quote from source (German original): "'Jetzt werden die Deutschen erfahren, was das Prinzip der kollektiven Verantwortung bedeutet', hatte das Organ der polnischen Geheimarmee im Juli 1944 geschrieben. Und der Befehlshaber der 2. Polnischen Armee wies seine Soldaten am 24. Juni 1945 an, mit den Deutschen 'so umzugehen, wie diese es mit uns getan haben', so daß 'die Deutschen von selbst fliehen und Gott danken, daß sie ihren Kopf gerettet haben'. Politiker jeglicher Couleur, Flugblätter und Zeitungen beider Staaten riefen nach Vergeltung für die brutale deutsche Besatzungspolitik" (English translation: "'Now the Germans will get to know the meaning of the principle of collective responsibility', the outlet of the Polish secret army wrote in July 1944. And the commander of the 2nd Polish Army instructed his soldiers on 24 June 1945, to 'treat' the Germans 'how they had treated us', causing 'the Germans to flee on their own and thank God for having saved their lives'. Politicians of all political wings, leaflets and newspapers of both states [i.e. PL and CS] called for revenge for the brutal occupation policy.")</ref>

In Poland, which had suffered the loss of six million citizens, [[Operation Tannenberg|including its elite]] and almost its entire [[History of the Jews in Poland|Jewish population]] due to [[Lebensraum]] and [[the Holocaust]], most Germans were seen as Nazi-perpetrators who could now finally be collectively punished for their past deeds.<ref name="Kacowicz101102">Arie Marcelo Kacowicz & Paweł Lutomski, ''Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study'', [[Lexington Books]], 2007, pp. 101seq; {{ISBN|0-7391-1607-X}}</ref>

=== Soviet political considerations===
Stalin, who had earlier directed several population transfers in the Soviet Union, strongly supported the expulsions, which worked to the Soviet Union's advantage in several ways. The satellite states would now feel the need to be protected by the Soviets from German anger over the expulsions.<ref name="dias"/> The assets left by expellees in Poland and Czechoslovakia were successfully used to reward cooperation with the new governments, and support for the Communists was especially strong in areas that had seen significant expulsions. Settlers in these territories welcomed the opportunities presented by their fertile soils and vacated homes and enterprises, increasing their loyalty.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=182}}

== Movements in the later stages of the war==
{{Main|German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe}}

=== Evacuation and flight to areas within Germany===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-464-0383I-26, Nemmersdorf (Ostpreußen), ermordete Deutsche.jpg|thumb|Massacred German civilians in [[Nemmersdorf massacre|Nemmersdorf, East Prussia]]. News of [[Soviet war crimes#1944–1945|Soviet atrocities]], spread and exaggerated by Nazi propaganda, hastened the flight of ethnic Germans from much of Eastern Europe.<ref name=Kunz92/>]]
Late in the war, as the Red Army advanced westward, many Germans were apprehensive about the impending Soviet occupation.<ref name="Kunz92"/> Most were aware of the Soviet reprisals against German civilians.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}} Soviet soldiers committed numerous rapes and other crimes.<ref name="Kunz92"/>{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}}<ref name="Beck176">Earl R. Beck, ''Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942–1945'', [[University Press of Kentucky]], 1999, p. 176; {{ISBN|0-8131-0977-9}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> News of atrocities such as the [[Nemmersdorf massacre]]<ref name="Kunz92"/>{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}} were exaggerated and disseminated by the Nazi propaganda machine.{{Sfn|Hahn|Hahn|2010|pages=52–65}}

Plans to evacuate the ethnic German population westward into Germany, from Poland and the eastern territories of Germany, were prepared by various Nazi authorities toward the end of the war. In most cases, implementation was delayed until Soviet and Allied forces had defeated the German forces and advanced into the areas to be evacuated. The abandonment of millions of ethnic Germans in these vulnerable areas until combat conditions overwhelmed them can be attributed directly to the measures taken by the Nazis against anyone suspected of 'defeatist' attitudes (as evacuation was considered) and the fanaticism of many Nazi functionaries in their execution of Hitler's 'no retreat' orders.<ref name="Kunz92">Andreas Kunz, ''Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945'' (2nd ed.), Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2007, p. 92; {{ISBN|3-4865-8388-3}} {{in lang|de}}</ref><ref name="Beck176"/><ref>''Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas – Pommern'', Werner Buchholz (ed.), Berlin: Siedler, 1999, p. 516; {{ISBN|3-8868-0272-8}}; reference confirming this for [[Pomerania]].{{in lang|de}}</ref>

The first exodus of German civilians from the eastern territories was composed of both spontaneous flight and organized evacuation, starting in mid-1944 and continuing until early 1945. Conditions turned chaotic during the winter when kilometers-long queues of refugees pushed their carts through the snow trying to stay ahead of the advancing Red Army.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/immigrationasylu00matt/page/197 197–198]}}<ref name="Kunz93"/>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1989-033-33, Pillau, Hafen, Flüchtlinge.jpg|thumb|Evacuation from [[Pillau]], 26 January 1945]]
Refugee treks which came within reach of the advancing Soviets suffered casualties when targeted by low-flying aircraft, and some people were crushed by tanks.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}} The German Federal Archive has estimated that 100–120,000 civilians (1% of the total population) were killed during the flight and evacuations.<ref name="Spieler, Silke 1948. Pages 23-41">Silke Spieler (ed.), ''Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Erlebnisberichte'', Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen, 1989, pp. 23–41; {{ISBN|3-8855-7067-X}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref> Polish historians [[:Pl:Witold Sienkiewicz (historyk)|Witold Sienkiewicz]] and [[:Pl:Grzegorz Hryciuk|Grzegorz Hryciuk]] maintain that civilian deaths in the flight and evacuation were "between 600,000 and 1.2&nbsp;million. The main causes of death were cold, stress, and bombing."<ref>Witold Sienkiewicz & Grzegorz Hryciuk, ''Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki 1939–1959: atlas ziem Polski: Polacy, Żydzi, Niemcy, Ukraińcy'', Warsaw: Demart, 2008, p. 170, ''Określa je wielkosciami między 600tys. a 1.2 mln zmarłych i zabitych. Głowną przyczyną zgonów było zimno, stres i bombardowania''; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|pl}} {{ISBN?}}</ref> The mobilized [[Strength Through Joy]] liner [[MV Wilhelm Gustloff|''Wilhelm Gustloff'']] was sunk in January 1945 by [[Soviet Navy]] submarine [[Soviet submarine S-13|
S-13]], killing about 9,000 civilians and military personnel escaping [[East Prussia]] in [[List of maritime disasters|the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history]]. Many refugees tried to return home when the fighting ended. Before 1 June 1945, 400,000 people crossed back over the [[Oder]] and [[Lusatian Neisse|Neisse]] rivers eastward, before Soviet and Polish communist authorities closed the river crossings; another 800,000 entered [[Silesia]] through Czechoslovakia.<ref name="Brunnbauer8485">Ulf Brunnbauer, Michael G. Esch & Holm Sundhaussen, ''Definitionsmacht, Utopie, Vergeltung'', pp. 84–85 {{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref>

In accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, at the end of 1945—wrote Hahn & Hahn—4.5&nbsp;million Germans who had fled or been expelled were under the control of the Allied governments. From 1946 to 1950 around 4.5&nbsp;million people were brought to Germany in organized mass transports from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. An additional 2.6&nbsp;million released POWs were listed as expellees.{{Sfn|Hahn|Hahn|2010|page=659}}

=== Evacuation and flight to Denmark===
From the [[Baltic coast]], many soldiers and civilians were evacuated by ship in the course of [[Operation Hannibal]].{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}}<ref name="Kunz93">Andreas Kunz, ''Wehrmacht und Niederlage: Die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1944 bis 1945'', 2nd edition, Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2007, p. 93; {{ISBN|3-4865-8388-3}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref>

Between 23 January and 5 May 1945, up to 250,000 Germans, primarily from East Prussia, [[Pomerania]], and the [[Baltic states]], were evacuated to Nazi-occupied [[Denmark]],{{Sfn|Mix|2005|page=16}}<ref name="Ertel">Manfred Ertel, [http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,355772,00.html "A Legacy of Dead German Children"], ''Spiegel Online'', 16 May 2005.{{in lang|de}}</ref> based on an order issued by Hitler on 4 February 1945.{{Sfn|Mix|2005|page=13}} When the war ended, the German refugee population in Denmark amounted to 5% of the total Danish population. The evacuation focused on women, the elderly and children—a third of whom were under the age of fifteen.<ref name="Ertel"/>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0927-501, Dänemark, deutsche Flüchtlinge.jpg|thumb|right|Refugee camp in [[Aabenraa]] (Apenrade) in Denmark, February 1945]]
After the war, the Germans were interned in several hundred refugee camps throughout Denmark, the largest of which was the [[Oksbøl Refugee Camp]] with 37,000 inmates. The camps were guarded by [[Danish Defence]] units.<ref name="Ertel"/> The situation eased after 60 Danish clergymen spoke in defence of the refugees in an open letter,{{Sfn|Mix|2005|pages=36, 352}} and [[Social Democrats (Denmark)|Social Democrat]] Johannes Kjærbøl took over the administration of the refugees on 6 September 1945.{{Sfn|Mix|2005|page=268}} On 9 May 1945, the [[Red Army]] occupied the island of [[Bornholm]]; between 9 May and 1 June 1945, the Soviets shipped 3,000 refugees and 17,000 Wehrmacht soldiers from there to [[Kolberg]].{{Sfn|Mix|2005|page=34}} In 1945, 13,492 German refugees died, among them 7,000 children<ref name="Ertel"/> under five years of age.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mette Zølner |title=Re-imagining the nation: debates on immigrants, identities and memories |publisher=Peter Lang |date=2000 |isbn=9-0520-1911-8 |page=67}}</ref>

According to Danish physician and historian [[Kirsten Lylloff]], these deaths were partially due to denial of medical care by Danish medical staff, as both the Danish Association of Doctors and the Danish [[Red Cross]] began refusing medical treatment to German refugees starting in March 1945.<ref name="Ertel"/> The last refugees left Denmark on 15 February 1949.{{Sfn|Mix|2005|page=228}} In the Treaty of London, signed 26 February 1953, [[West Germany]] and Denmark agreed on compensation payments of 160&nbsp;million [[Danish krone]]r for its extended care of the refugees, which West Germany paid between 1953 and 1958.{{Sfn|Mix|2005|pages=214, 228}}

== Following Germany's defeat==
The [[End of World War II in Europe|Second World War ended]] in Europe with Germany's [[German Instrument of Surrender|defeat in May 1945]]. By this time, all of Eastern and much of Central Europe was under [[Military occupations by the Soviet Union|Soviet occupation]]. This included most of the [[History of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe|historical German settlement areas]], as well as the [[Soviet occupation zone]] in eastern [[Germany]].

The Allies settled on the terms of [[Allied-occupied Germany|occupation]], the [[Territorial evolution of Germany|territorial truncation of Germany]], and the expulsion of ethnic Germans from [[History of Poland (1945–89)|post-war Poland]], Czechoslovakia and Hungary to the Allied Occupation Zones in the Potsdam Agreement,<ref name="Schuck156"/><ref name="US"/> drafted during the [[Potsdam Conference]] between 17 July and 2 August 1945. Article XII of the agreement is concerned with the expulsions to post-war Germany and reads:

<blockquote>The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html Agreements of the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101031085625/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html |date=31 October 2010}}, pbs.org; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref>
</blockquote>

The agreement further called for equal distribution of the transferred Germans for resettlement among American, British, French and Soviet occupation zones comprising post–World War II Germany.<ref name="Bramwell2425">Anna Bramwell, ''Refugees in the Age of Total War'', Routledge, 1988, pp. 24–25; {{ISBN|0-0444-5194-6}}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-29645-0001, Potsdamer Konferenz, Stalin, Truman, Churchill.jpg|thumb|Potsdam Conference: [[Joseph Stalin]] (second from left), [[Harry Truman]] (center), [[Winston Churchill]] (right)]]
Expulsions that took place before the Allies agreed on the terms at Potsdam are referred to as "irregular" expulsions (''Wilde Vertreibungen''). They were conducted by military and civilian authorities in Soviet-occupied post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia in the first half of 1945.<ref name="US"/><ref>Manfred Kittel, Horst Möller & Jiri Peek, ''Deutschsprachige Minderheiten 1945: Ein europäischer Vergleich'', 2007; {{ISBN|978-3-4865-8002-0}}. {{in lang|de}}</ref>

In [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], the remaining Germans were not expelled; [[Danube Swabians|ethnic German]] villages were turned into internment camps where over 50,000 perished from deliberate starvation and direct murders by Yugoslav guards.<ref name="Bramwell2425"/><ref name="Jugoslawien, Sindelfingen 1995">''Leidensweg der Deutschen im kommunistischen Jugoslawien'', authored by Arbeitskreis Dokumentation im Bundesverband der Landsmannschaft der Donauschwaben aus Jugoslawien, Sindelfingen, and by Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung, Munich: Die Stiftung, 1991–1995, vol. 4, pp. 1018–19.{{in lang|de}}{{ISBN?}}</ref>

In late 1945 the Allies requested a temporary halt to the expulsions, due to the refugee problems created by the expulsion of Germans.<ref name="US">[https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/93275.htm US Department of State, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Bureau of Public Affairs, Bureau of Public Affairs: Office of the Historian, Timeline of U.S. Diplomatic History, 1937–1945, The Potsdam Conference, 1945], State.gov; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> While expulsions from Czechoslovakia were temporarily slowed, this was not true in Poland and the former eastern territories of Germany.<ref name="Bramwell2425"/> Sir [[Geoffrey Harrison]], one of the drafters of the cited Potsdam article, stated that the "purpose of this article was not to encourage or legalize the expulsions, but rather to provide a basis for approaching the expelling states and requesting them to co-ordinate transfers with the Occupying Powers in Germany."<ref name="Bramwell2425"/>

After Potsdam, a series of expulsions of ethnic Germans occurred throughout the Soviet-controlled Eastern European countries.<ref name="Wasserstein"/><ref name="Philipp Ther 1998, p.21">Philipp Ther, ''Deutsche und Polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in SBZ/ddr und in Polen 1945–1956'', 1998, p. 21; {{ISBN|978-3-5253-5790-3}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref> Property and materiel in the affected territory that had belonged to Germany or to Germans was confiscated; it was either transferred to the Soviet Union, nationalised, or redistributed among the citizens. Of the many post-war forced migrations, the largest was the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe, primarily from the territory of 1937 Czechoslovakia (which included the historically German-speaking area in the Sudeten mountains along the German-Czech-Polish border (Sudetenland)), and the territory that became post-war Poland. Poland's post-war borders were moved west to the [[Oder-Neisse line]], deep into former German territory and within 80 kilometers of Berlin.<ref name="US"/>

Polish refugees expelled from the Soviet Union were resettled in the former German territories that were awarded to Poland after the war. During and after the war, 2,208,000 Poles fled or were expelled from the [[Kresy|former eastern Polish regions]] that were merged to the USSR after the [[Soviet invasion of Poland|1939 Soviet invasion of Poland]]; 1,652,000 of these refugees were resettled in the former German territories.<ref name="ReferenceA">Piotr Eberhardt, ''Political Migrations in Poland 1939–1948'', pp. 44–49; accessed 26 May 2015. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

=== Czechoslovakia===
{{Main|Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia}}

The final agreement for the transfer of the Germans was reached at the [[Potsdam Agreement|Potsdam Conference]].
[[File:Sudetendeutsche.png|thumb|Czech territories with 50% (red) or more German population in 1935<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bernard Newman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gTA34DxHx4AC&pg=PA382 |title=The new Europe |publisher=Ayer Publishing |date=1972 |isbn=0-8369-2963-2 |page=382 |access-date=2 October 2009}}</ref>]]

According to the West German [[Schieder commission]], there were 4.5&nbsp;million German civilians present in [[Bohemia-Moravia]] in May 1945, including 100,000 from Slovakia and 1.6&nbsp;million refugees from Poland.<ref>[http://z-g-v.de/doku/archiv/frameset04_1.htm ''Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus der Tschechoslowakei Band 1''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050220231512/http://www.z-g-v.de/doku/archiv/frameset04_1.htm |date=20 February 2005}}, p. 18; accessed 25 May 2015.{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref>

Between 700,000 and 800,000 Germans were affected by irregular expulsions between May and August 1945.<ref name="EU17">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=17}}</ref> The expulsions were encouraged by Czechoslovak politicians and were generally executed by order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers and the army.<ref>S. Biman & R. Cílek, ''Poslední mrtví, první živí''. Ústí nad Labem (1989); {{ISBN|8-0704-7002-X}}.{{in lang|cs}}{{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref>

Transfers of population under the Potsdam agreements lasted from January until October 1946. 1.9&nbsp;million ethnic Germans were expelled to the American zone, part of what would become West Germany. More than 1&nbsp;million were expelled to the Soviet zone, which later became [[East Germany]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brian Kenety |date=14 April 2005 |title=Memories of World War II in the Czech Lands: The Expulsion of Sudeten Germans |url=http://www.radio.cz/en/article/65421 |access-date=6 September 2007 |publisher=Radio Prahs}}</ref>

About 250,000 ethnic Germans were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia.<ref name="Overy"/> According to the West German [[Schieder commission]] 250,000 persons who had declared German nationality in the 1939 Nazi census remained in Czechoslovakia; however the Czechs counted 165,790 Germans remaining in December 1955.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schieder |first=Theodor |title=Expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia(English ed.) |date=1960 |publisher=West German government |location=Bonn |pages=125–28}}</ref>

Male Germans with Czech wives were expelled, often with their spouses, while ethnic German women with Czech husbands were allowed to stay.<ref name="Ther305" /> According to the Schieder commission, Sudeten Germans considered essential to the economy were held as [[forced labour]]ers.<ref>Bundesministerium für Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge und Kriegsgeschädigte (Hg.) Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus der Tschechoslowakei Band 1, 2004, pp. 132–33.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

The West German government estimated the expulsion death toll at 273,000 civilians,<ref>Source: ''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50'', Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958, pp. 322–39.</ref> and this figure is cited in historical literature.<ref name="Alfred M Page 152">Alfred M. de Zayas, ''A terrible Revenge'', p. 152</ref> However, in 1995, research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians found that the previous demographic estimates of 220,000 to 270,000 deaths to be overstated and based on faulty information. They concluded that the death toll was between 15,000 and 30,000 dead, assuming that not all deaths were reported.<ref name="ReferenceC">Jörg K. Hoensch & Hans Lemberg, ''Begegnung und Konflikt. Schlaglichter auf das Verhältnis von Tschechen, Slowaken und Deutschen 1815–1989'', Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2001; {{ISBN|3-8986-1002-0}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref><ref name="tschechien-portal.info">[http://www.tschechien-portal.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=134 Final Statement and Conclusions of the Czech-German Historical Commission, 1996] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722002252/http://www.tschechien-portal.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=134 |date=22 July 2011}}</ref><ref name="dt-ds-historikerkommission.de">[http://www.dt-ds-historikerkommission.de/startseite_3.html Česko-německá komise historiků a Slovensko-německá komise historiků] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718231940/http://www.dt-ds-historikerkommission.de/startseite_3.html |date=18 July 2011}}, dt-ds-historikerkommission.de; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|cs}}</ref><ref name="Wallace">P. Wallace (11 March 2002). [https://web.archive.org/web/20050314023222/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901020318-216394,00.html "Putting the Past to Rest"], [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]]; retrieved 16 November 2007.</ref>

The German Red Cross Search Service (''Suchdienst'') confirmed the deaths of 18,889 people during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia. (Violent deaths 5,556; Suicides 3,411; Deported 705; In camps 6,615; During the wartime flight 629; After wartime flight 1,481; Cause undetermined 379; Other misc. 73.){{Sfn|Hahn|Hahn|2010|page=702}}

=== Hungary===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1989-105-13A, Ungarn, deutscher Rückzug.jpg|thumb|Retreating [[Wehrmacht]], Hungary, March 1945]]
In contrast to expulsions from other nations or states, the [[Germans of Hungary#Expulsion|expulsion of the Germans from Hungary]] was dictated from outside Hungary.<ref name="EU8">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=8}}</ref> It began on 22 December 1944 when the Soviet [[Red Army]] Commander-in-Chief ordered the expulsions. In February 1945 the Soviet-dominated [[Allied Commission|Allied Control Commission]] ordered the Hungarian [[Ministry of Interior (Hungary)|Ministry of Interior]] to compile lists of all ethnic Germans living in the country. Initially the Census Bureau refused to divulge information on Hungarians who had registered as [[Volksdeutsche]], but acceded under pressure from the Hungarian [[State Protection Authority]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Applebaum |first=Anne |title=Iron curtain : the crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 |date=2012 |isbn=978-0-3855-1569-6 |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages=123–25 |oclc=776519682}}</ref> Three percent of the German pre-war population (about 20,000 people) had been evacuated by the Volksbund before that. They went to Austria, but many had returned. Overall, 60,000 ethnic Germans had fled.<ref name="Wasserstein">{{Cite web |last=Wasserstein |first=Bernard |date=2005-04-28 |title=History – World Wars: European Refugee Movements After World War Two |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/refugees_02.shtml |access-date=2023-02-25 |website=BBC}}</ref>

According to the West German [[Schieder commission]] report of 1956, in early 1945 between 30 and 35,000 ethnic German civilians and 30,000 military POW were arrested and transported from Hungary to the Soviet Union as forced labourers. In some villages, the entire adult population was taken to labor camps in the [[Donbas]]. 6,000 died there as a result of hardships and ill-treatment.<ref>"Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa", ''Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Ungarn: Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', pp. 44, 72. {{in lang|de}} The editor of this volume of the Schieder commission report was [[:de:Fritz Valjavec]], a scholar dealing with Balkan affairs since the 1930s when he belonged to the Nazi Party. During the war he was an officer in the SS, and was directly implicated in the mass murder of Jews as a member of Einsatzgruppe D in [[Czernowitz]]. After the war, he was rehabilitated and selected to author the report on the expulsions from Hungary.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}<!--what is the source for this information on Valjavec? Needs to be cited.--></ref>

Data from the Russian archives, which were based on an actual enumeration, put the number of ethnic Germans registered by the Soviets in Hungary at 50,292 civilians, of whom 31,923 were deported to the USSR for reparation labor implementing [[Order 7161]]. 9% (2,819) were documented as having died.<ref name="Pavel Polian-Against Their Will Pages 286-293">Pavel Polian, ''Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR'', [[Central European University Press]], 2003, pp. 286–93; {{ISBN|9-6392-4168-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref>

[[File:Elek monument deported Germans.jpg|thumb|upright|Monument to the expelled Germans in [[Elek]], Hungary]]
In 1945, official Hungarian figures showed 477,000 German speakers in Hungary, including German-speaking Jews, 303,000 of whom had declared German nationality. Of the German nationals, 33% were children younger than 12 or elderly people over 60; 51% were women.<ref name="EU38">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=38}}</ref> On 29 December 1945, the postwar Hungarian Government, obeying the directions of the [[Potsdam Conference]] agreements, ordered the expulsion of anyone identified as German in the 1941 census, or who had been a member of the Volksbund, the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], or any other armed German organisation. Accordingly, mass expulsions began.<ref name="Wasserstein"/> The rural population was affected more than the urban population or those ethnic Germans determined to have needed skills, such as [[miner]]s.<ref name="EU39">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=39}}</ref><ref name="EU43"/> Germans married to Hungarians were not expelled, regardless of sex.<ref name="Ther305">Philipp Ther, ''Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in SBZ/DDR und in Polen 1945–1956'', Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998, p. 305; {{ISBN|3-5253-5790-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> The first 5,788 expellees departed from [[Budaörs|Wudersch]] on 19 January 1946.<ref name="EU39"/>

About 180,000 German-speaking Hungarian citizens were stripped of their citizenship and possessions, and expelled to the Western zones of Germany.<ref name="EU47">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=47}}</ref> By July 1948, 35,000 others had been expelled to the [[Soviet occupation zone of Germany]].<ref name="EU47"/> Most of the expellees found new homes in the south-west German province of [[Baden-Württemberg]],<ref name="Phillips86">{{Cite book |last=Phillips |first=Ann L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30uZXxGJaQ4C&pg=PA86 |title=Power and influence after the Cold War: Germany in East-Central Europe |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=2000 |isbn=0-8476-9523-9 |page=86 |access-date=27 August 2009}}</ref> but many others settled in [[Bavaria]] and [[Hesse]]. Other research indicates that, between 1945 and 1950, 150,000 were expelled to western Germany, 103,000 to Austria, and none to eastern Germany.<ref name="Overy"/> During the expulsions, numerous organized protest demonstrations by the Hungarian population took place.<ref name="EU41">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=41}}</ref>

Acquisition of land for distribution to Hungarian refugees and nationals was one of the main reasons stated by the government for the expulsion of the ethnic Germans from Hungary.<ref name="EU43"/> The botched organization of the redistribution led to social tensions.<ref name="EU43">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=43}}</ref>

22,445 people were identified as German in the 1949 census. An order of 15 June 1948 halted the expulsions. A governmental decree of 25 March 1950 declared all expulsion orders void, allowing the expellees to return if they so wished.<ref name="EU43"/> After the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall of Communism]] in the early 1990s, German victims of expulsion and Soviet forced labor were rehabilitated.<ref name="Phillips86"/> Post-Communist laws allowed expellees to be compensated, to return, and to buy property.<ref name="Phillips87">{{Cite book |last=Ann L. Phillips |title=Power and influence after the Cold War: Germany in East-Central Europe |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=2000 |isbn=0-8476-9523-9 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=30uZXxGJaQ4C&pg=PA87 87]}}</ref> There were reportedly no tensions [[Germany–Hungary relations|between Germany and Hungary]] regarding expellees.<ref name="Phillips87"/>

In 1958, the West German government estimated, based on a demographic analysis, that by 1950, 270,000 Germans remained in Hungary; 60,000 had been assimilated into the Hungarian population, and there were 57,000 "unresolved cases" that remained to be clarified.<ref>''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50'', Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958.{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref> The editor for the section of the 1958 report for Hungary was [[:de:Wilfried Krallert|Wilfried Krallert]], a scholar dealing with Balkan affairs since the 1930s when he was a Nazi Party member. During the war, he was an officer in the SS and was directly implicated in the plundering of cultural artifacts in eastern Europe. After the war, he was chosen to author the sections of the demographic report on the expulsions from Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The figure of 57,000 "unresolved cases" in Hungary is included in the figure of 2&nbsp;million dead expellees, which is often cited in official German and historical literature.<ref name="Alfred M Page 152"/>

=== Netherlands===
{{Main|Operation Black Tulip}}
After World War II, the Dutch government decided to expel the German expatriates (25,000) living in the Netherlands.<ref name="geschiedenes">the documentary [http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/afleveringen/23997653 ''Black Tulip''], geschiedenis.vpro.nl; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|nl}}</ref> Germans, including those with Dutch spouses and children, were labelled as "hostile subjects" ("vijandelijke onderdanen").<ref name="geschiedenes"/>

The operation began on 10 September 1946 in [[Amsterdam]], when German expatriates and their families were arrested at their homes in the middle of the night and given one hour to pack {{Convert|50|kg|abbr=on}} of luggage. They were only allowed to take 100 [[guilder]]s with them. The remainder of their possessions were seized by the state. They were taken to internment camps near the German border, the largest of which was [[Mariënbosch concentration camp]], near [[Nijmegen]]. About 3,691 Germans (less than 15% of the total number of German expatriates in the Netherlands) were expelled. The Allied forces occupying the Western zone of Germany opposed this operation, fearing that other nations might follow suit.

=== Poland, including former German territories===
{{Main|Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II|Recovered Territories}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 175-S00-00326, Flüchtlinge aus Ostpreußen auf Pferdewagen.jpg|thumb|German refugees from East Prussia, 1945]]
Throughout 1944 until May 1945, as the Red Army advanced through Eastern Europe and the provinces of eastern Germany, some German civilians were killed in the fighting. While many had already fled ahead of the advancing Soviet Army, frightened by rumors of Soviet atrocities, which in some cases were exaggerated and exploited by Nazi Germany's propaganda,<ref>[[Julius Streicher]] published "The Horror in the East" in [http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds8.htm ''Der Stürmer'', #8/1945] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415114342/http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds8.htm |date=15 April 2009}}, Calvin.edu; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> millions still remained.<ref>{{Cite book |last=[[Thomas Urban|Urban, Thomas]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xlctn5n33uYC&pg=PA116 |title=Der Verlust: Die Vertreibung der Deutschen und Polen im 20. Jahrhundert |publisher=C.H. Beck |date=2006 |isbn=3-4065-4156-9 |page=116 |language=de |access-date=1 September 2009}}</ref> A 2005 study by the [[Polish Academy of Sciences]] estimated that during the final months of the war, 4 to 5&nbsp;million German civilians fled with the retreating German forces, and in mid-1945, 4.5 to 4.6&nbsp;million Germans remained in the territories under Polish control. By 1950, 3,155,000 had been transported to Germany, 1,043,550 were naturalized as Polish citizens and 170,000 Germans still remained in Poland.<ref name="Gawryszewski2005">{{Cite book |last=Andrzej Gawryszewski |url=http://www.rcin.org.pl/igipz/dlibra/docmetadata?id=2425&from=publication |title=Ludność Polski w XX wieku |date=2005 |publisher=Instytut Geografii i Przestrzennego Zagospodarowania im. Stanisława Leszczyckiego PAN |isbn=978-8-3879-5466-6 |series=Monografie/Instytut Geografii i Przestrzennego Zagospodarowania im. Stanisława Leszczyckiego PAN |volume=5 |location=Warsaw |language=pl |trans-title=Population of Poland in the 20th century |oclc=66381296 |access-date=31 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731190553/http://www.rcin.org.pl/igipz/dlibra/docmetadata?id=2425&from=publication |archive-date=31 July 2017 |url-status=dead}} [http://rcin.org.pl/Content/2425/WA51_13508_r2005-nr5_Monografie.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304000441/http://rcin.org.pl/Content/2425/WA51_13508_r2005-nr5_Monografie.pdf|date=4 March 2016}} pp. 455–60, 466</ref>

According to the West German [[Schieder commission]] of 1953, 5,650,000 Germans remained in what would become Poland's new borders in mid-1945, 3,500,000 had been expelled and 910,000 remained in Poland by 1950.<ref>''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', Theodor Schieder (compiler) in collaboration with A. Diestelkamp [et al.], Bonn, Bundesministerium für Vertriebene (ed.), 1953, pp. 78, 155. {{ISBN?}}</ref> According to the Schieder commission, the civilian death toll was 2&nbsp;million;<ref>Theodor Schieder (compiler) in collaboration with A. Diestelkamp [et al.], ''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', vol. 1 Bonn, Bundesministerium für Vertriebene (ed.), 1953, p. 160.<!--ISSN/ISBN needed if any--></ref> in 1974, the [[German Federal Archives]] estimated the death toll at about 400,000.<ref>Silke Spieler (ed.), ''Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Erlebnisberichte'', Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen 1989; {{ISBN|3-8855-7067-X}}, 28 May 1974.{{in lang|de}}{{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref> (The controversy regarding the casualty figures is covered below in the section on casualties.)

During the 1945 military campaign, most of the male German population remaining east of the Oder–Neisse line were considered potential combatants and held by Soviet military in detention camps subject to verification by the [[NKVD]]. Members of Nazi party organizations and government officials were segregated and sent to the USSR for forced labour as reparations.<ref name="Pavel Polian-Against Their Will Pages 286-293"/><ref name="Cornelius126">Kai Cornelius, ''Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen'', BWV Verlag, 2004, p. 126; {{ISBN|3-8305-1165-5}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref>

In mid-1945, the eastern territories of pre-war Germany were turned over to the Soviet-controlled [[First Polish Army (1944–45)|Polish military forces]]. Early expulsions were undertaken by the Polish Communist military authorities<ref>Philipp Ther, ''Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in SBZ/DDR und in Polen 1945–1956'', 1998, p. 56; {{ISBN|978-3-5253-5790-3}}; "From June until mid-July, Polish military and militia expelled (the 'wild expulsions') nearly all of the residents of the districts immediately east of the rivers [Oder–Neisse line]"</ref> even before the Potsdam Conference placed them under temporary Polish administration pending the final Peace Treaty,<ref name="EU27">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=27}}</ref> in an effort to ensure later territorial integration into an ethnically homogeneous Poland.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=197}} The Polish Communists wrote: "We must expel all the Germans because countries are built on national lines and not on multinational ones."<ref>Naimark, ''Russian in Germany''. p. 75, reference 31: "a citation from the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party, 20–21 May 1945."</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=26}}: confirms motivation to create an ethnically homogeneous Poland</ref> The Polish government defined Germans as either ''Reichsdeutsche'', people enlisted in first or second ''Volksliste'' groups; or those who held German citizenship. Around 1,165,000<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kosiński |first=Leszek |date=1960 |title=Pochodzenie terytorialne ludności Ziem Zachodnich w 1950 r. |trans-title=Territorial origins of inhabitants of the Western Lands in year 1950. |url=http://rcin.org.pl/Content/33932/WA51_50482_r1960-z2_Dokumentacja-Geogr.pdf |journal=Dokumentacja Geograficzna |language=pl |location=Warsaw |volume=2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kosiński |first=Leszek |date=1963 |title=Demographic processes in the Recovered Territories from 1945 to 1960. |url=http://rcin.org.pl/Content/16862/WA51_21995_r1963_nr40_Prace-Geogr.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Geographical Studies |language=pl, en |volume=40 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813180508/http://rcin.org.pl/Content/16862/WA51_21995_r1963_nr40_Prace-Geogr.pdf |archive-date=13 August 2017 |access-date=3 May 2018}}</ref><ref>Ther, Philipp, ''Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in SBZ/DDR und in Polen 1945–1956'', Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998, p. 306; {{ISBN|3-5253-5790-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|de}}</ref> German citizens of Slavic descent were "verified" as "[[indigenous peoples|autochthonous]]" Poles.<ref name="EU28">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=28}}</ref> Of these, most were not expelled; but many<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |url=http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_13607_r2011-nr12_Monografie.pdf |title=Political Migrations On Polish Territories (1939–1950) |date=2011 |publisher=Polish Academy of Sciences |isbn=978-8-3615-9046-0 |location=Warsaw |access-date=31 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140520220409/http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_13607_r2011-nr12_Monografie.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Eberhardt |first=Piotr |url=http://www.instabooks4free.com/books/title/political-migrations-in-poland.html |title=Political Migrations in Poland 1939–1948 |date=2006 |publisher=Didactica |isbn=978-1-5361-1035-7 |location=Warsaw |access-date=3 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503113526/http://www.instabooks4free.com/books/title/political-migrations-in-poland.html |archive-date=3 May 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> chose to migrate to Germany between 1951 and 1982,<ref name="Gerhard Reichling 1995, Page 53">Reichling, Gerhard. ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', Bonn: 1995, p. 53; {{ISBN|3-8855-7046-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|de}}</ref> including most of the [[Masurians]] of East Prussia.<ref name="EU30">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=30}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Belzyt |first=Leszek |date=1996 |title=Zur Frage des nationalen Bewußtseins der Masuren im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (auf der Basis statistischer Angaben) |url=https://www.zfo-online.de/index.php/zfo/article/view/134 |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of East Central European Studies |language=de, en |volume=45 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190206203920/https://www.zfo-online.de/index.php/zfo/article/view/134 |archive-date=6 February 2019 |access-date=3 May 2018}}</ref>

[[File:Marking Polish-German Border in 1945.jpg|thumb|right|Polish boundary post at the Oder–Neisse line in 1945]]
At the Potsdam Conference (17 July&nbsp;– 2 August 1945), the territory to the east of the Oder–Neisse line was assigned to Polish and Soviet Union administration pending the final peace treaty. All Germans had their property confiscated and were placed under restrictive jurisdiction.<ref name="EU28"/><ref name="EU29"/> The [[Silesian Voivodeship|Silesian voivode]] [[Aleksander Zawadzki]] in part had already expropriated the property of the German Silesians on 26 January 1945, another decree of 2 March expropriated that of all Germans east of the Oder and Neisse, and a subsequent decree of 6 May declared all "abandoned" property as belonging to the Polish state.<ref name="Urban114115">{{Cite book |last=Thomas Urban |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xlctn5n33uYC&pg=PA114 |title=Der Verlust: Die Vertreibung der Deutschen und Polen im 20. Jahrhundert |publisher=C.H. Beck |date=2006 |isbn=3-4065-4156-9 |pages=114–115 |language=de |access-date=1 September 2009}}</ref> Germans were also not permitted to hold Polish currency, the only legal currency since July, other than earnings from work assigned to them.<ref name="Urban115">{{Cite book |last=Urban |first=Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xlctn5n33uYC&pg=PA115 |title=Der Verlust: Die Vertreibung der Deutschen und Polen im 20. Jahrhundert |publisher=C.H. Beck |date=2006 |isbn=3-4065-4156-9 |page=115 |language=de |access-date=1 September 2009}}</ref> The remaining population faced theft and looting, and also in some instances rape and murder by the criminal elements, crimes that were rarely prevented nor prosecuted by the [[Milicja Obywatelska|Polish Militia Forces]] and newly [[Polish Committee of National Liberation|installed communist judiciary]].<ref name="Urban114">{{Cite book |last=Urban |first=Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xlctn5n33uYC&pg=PA114 |title=Der Verlust: Die Vertreibung der Deutschen und Polen im 20. Jahrhundert |publisher=C.H. Beck |date=2006 |isbn=3-4065-4156-9 |page=115 |language=de |access-date=1 September 2009}}</ref>

In mid-1945, 4.5 to 4.6&nbsp;million Germans resided in territory east of the [[Oder–Neisse line|Oder–Neisse Line]]. By early 1946, 550,000 Germans had already been expelled from there, and 932,000 had been verified as having Polish nationality. In the February 1946 census, 2,288,000 people were classified as Germans and subject to expulsion, and 417,400 were subject to verification action, to determine nationality.<ref name="Gawryszewski2005"/>{{rp|312, 452–66}} The negatively verified people, who did not succeed in demonstrating their "Polish nationality", were directed for resettlement.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Those Polish citizens who had [[Collaboration in German-occupied Poland|collaborated]] or were believed to have collaborated with the Nazis, were considered "traitors of the nation" and sentenced to forced labor prior to being expelled.<ref name="Spieler, Silke 1948. Pages 23-41"/> By 1950, 3,155,000 German civilians had been expelled and 1,043,550 were naturalized as Polish citizens. 170,000<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Germans considered "indispensable" for the Polish economy were retained until 1956,<ref name="EU29"/> although almost all had left by 1960.<ref name="EU30"/> 200,000 Germans in Poland were employed as [[forced labour|forced labor]] in communist-administered camps prior to being expelled from Poland.<ref name="Gawryszewski2005"/>{{rp|312}} These included [[Central Labour Camp Jaworzno]], [[Central Labour Camp Potulice]], [[Łambinowice]] and [[Zgoda labour camp]]. Besides these large camps, numerous other forced labor, punitive and internment camps, urban ghettos and detention centers, sometimes consisting only of a small cellar, were set up.<ref name="EU29">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=29}}</ref>

The [[German Federal Archives]] estimated in 1974 that more than 200,000 German civilians were interned in Polish camps; they put the death rate at 20–50% and estimated that over 60,000 probably died.<ref>Silke Spieler (ed.), ''Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Erlebnisberichte'', Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen, 1989, p. 40; {{ISBN|3-8855-7067-X}}; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|de}}</ref> Polish historians [[:Pl:Witold Sienkiewicz (historyk)|Witold Sienkiewicz]] and [[:Pl:Grzegorz Hryciuk|Grzegorz Hryciuk]] maintain that the internment:<blockquote>resulted in numerous deaths, which cannot be accurately determined because of lack of statistics or falsification. At certain periods, they could be in the tens of percent of the inmate numbers. Those interned are estimated at 200–250,000 German nationals and the indigenous population and deaths might range from 15,000 to 60,000 persons."<ref>Witold Sienkiewicz & Grzegorz Hryciuk, ''Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki 1939–1959: atlas ziem Polski: Polacy, Żydzi, Niemcy, Ukraińcy'', Warsaw: Demart, 2008, p. 187, {{in lang|pl}}; ''"Efektem były liczne zgony, których nie można dokładnie określic z powodu brak statystyk lub ich fałszowania. Okresowo mogly one sięgać kilkudziesięciu procent osadzonych. Szacunki mówią o 200–250 tys internowanych Niemców i ludności rodzimej, a czego zginąć moglo od 15 do aż 60tys. osób."''</ref></blockquote> Note: The indigenous population were former German citizens who declared Polish ethnicity.<ref>Sakson. Mazurzy – społeczność pogranicza. Wydawnictwo Instytutu Zachodniego. Poznań 1990</ref> Historian R. M. Douglas describes a chaotic and lawless regime in the former German territories in the immediate postwar era. The local population was victimized by criminal elements who arbitrarily seized German property for personal gain. Bilingual people who were on the [[Volksliste]] during the war were declared Germans by Polish officials who then seized their property for personal gain.<ref>Douglas, R.M., ''Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War''. New Haven: [[Yale University Press]], 2012, pp. 275–76</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2003-0703-500, Rückführung deutscher Kinder aus Polen.jpg|thumb|upright|August 1948, German children deported from the eastern areas taken over by Poland arrive in West Germany.]]

The [[Federal Statistical Office of Germany]] estimated that in mid-1945, 250,000 Germans remained in the northern part of the former East Prussia, which became the [[Kaliningrad Oblast]]. They also estimated that more than 100,000 people surviving the Soviet occupation were evacuated to Germany beginning in 1947.<ref>''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50'', Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958, p. 78{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref>

German civilians were held as "reparation labor" by the USSR. Data from the Russian archives, newly published in 2001 and based on an actual enumeration, put the number of German civilians deported from Poland to the USSR in early 1945 for reparation labor at 155,262; 37% (57,586) died in the USSR.<ref name="Pavel Polian-Against Their Will Pages 286-293"/> The [[German Red Cross|West German Red Cross]] had estimated in 1964 that 233,000 German civilians were deported to the USSR from Poland as forced laborers and that 45% (105,000) were dead or missing.<ref name="Kurt W Page 274">Kurt W. Böhme, ''Gesucht wird – Die dramatische Geschichte des Suchdienstes'', Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1965, p. 274{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref> The West German Red Cross estimated at that time that 110,000 German civilians were held as forced labor in the Kaliningrad Oblast, where 50,000 were dead or missing.<ref name="Kurt W Page 274"/> The Soviets deported 7,448 Poles of the [[Armia Krajowa]] from Poland. Soviet records indicated that 506 Poles died in captivity.<ref name="Pavel Polian-Against Their Will Pages 286-293"/> [[Tomasz Kamusella]] maintains that in early 1945, 165,000 Germans were transported to the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=22}}</ref> According to Gerhardt Reichling, an official in the German Finance office, 520,000 German civilians from the Oder–Neisse region were conscripted for forced labor by both the USSR and Poland; he maintains that 206,000 perished.<ref>Reichling, Gerhard. ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', part 1, Bonn: 1986 (revised edition 1995), p. 33{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref>

The attitudes of surviving Poles varied. [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|Many had suffered brutalities and atrocities]] by the Germans, surpassed only by the German policies against Jews, during the [[History of Poland (1939–45)|Nazi occupation]]. The Germans had recently expelled more than a million Poles from territories they annexed during the war.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}} Some Poles engaged in looting and various crimes, including murders, beatings, and rapes against Germans. On the other hand, in many instances Poles, including some who had been made slave laborers by the Germans during the war, protected Germans, for instance by disguising them as Poles.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=198}} Moreover, in the [[Opole]] (Oppeln) region of [[Upper Silesia]], citizens who claimed Polish ethnicity were allowed to remain, even though some, not all, had uncertain nationality, or identified as ethnic Germans. Their status as a national minority was accepted in 1955, along with state subsidies, with regard to economic assistance and education.<ref name="Rocznik">Piotr Madajczyk, Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki Tom I ''"Mniejszość niemiecka w Polsce w polityce wewnętrznej w Polsce i w RFN oraz w stosunkach między obydwu państwami"'', Warsaw, 1992{{in lang|pl}} {{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref>

The attitude of Soviet soldiers was ambiguous. Many committed atrocities, most notably rape and murder,<ref name="Beck176"/> and did not always distinguish between Poles and Germans, mistreating them equally.<ref>Jankowiak, p. 35</ref> Other Soviets were taken aback by the brutal treatment of the German civilians and tried to protect them.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=199|loc="The Poles began driving Germans out of their houses with a brutality that had by then almost become commonplace: People were beaten, shot and raped. Even Soviet soldiers were taken aback, and some protected the German civilians."}}

[[Richard Overy]] cites an approximate total of 7.5&nbsp;million Germans evacuated, migrated, or expelled from Poland between 1944 and 1950.<ref>Overy, ibid. as: from East Prussia – 1.4 million to West Germany, 609,000 to East Germany; from West Prussia – 230,000 to West Germany, 61,000 to East Germany; from the former German provinces east of the Oder-Neisse line, encompassing most of Silesia, Pomerania and East Brandenburg – 3.2 million to West Germany, 2 million to East Germany.</ref> [[Tomasz Kamusella]] cites estimates of 7&nbsp;million expelled in total during both the "wild" and "legal" expulsions from the recovered territories from 1945 to 1948, plus an additional 700,000 from areas of pre-war Poland.<ref name="EU29"/>

=== Romania===
{{Main|Deportation of Germans from Romania after World War II}}
The ethnic German population of Romania in 1939 was estimated at 786,000.<ref>Gerhard Reichling, ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', part 1, Bonn: 1995, p. 17 {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref>''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50'', Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958, p. 46.</ref> In 1940, [[Bessarabia]] and [[Bukovina]] were occupied by the USSR, and the ethnic German population of 130,000 was deported to German-held territory during the [[Nazi–Soviet population transfers]], as well as 80,000 from Romania. 140,000 of these Germans were resettled in German-occupied Poland; in 1945, they were caught up in the flight and expulsion from Poland.<ref>Gerhard Reichling, ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', part 1, Bonn: 1995, p. 23. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Most of the ethnic Germans in Romania resided in [[Transylvania]], the northern part of which was annexed by Hungary during World War II. [[Hungary in World War II|The pro-German Hungarian government]], as well as the pro-German Romanian government of [[Ion Antonescu]], allowed Germany to enlist the German population in Nazi-sponsored organizations. During the war, 54,000 of the male population was conscripted by Nazi Germany, many into the [[Waffen-SS]].<ref>''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', 'Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Rumänien', p. 57. {{ISBN?}}</ref> In mid-1944, roughly 100,000 Germans fled from Romania with the retreating German forces.<ref>''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', 'Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Rumänien', p. 75.</ref> According to the West German [[Schieder commission]] report of 1957, 75,000 German civilians were deported to the USSR as forced labour and 15% (approximately 10,000) did not return.<ref>''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', vol.&nbsp;III, 'Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Rumänien', pp. 79–80. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Data from the Russian archives which were based on an actual enumeration put the number of ethnic Germans registered by the Soviets in Romania at 421,846 civilians, of whom 67,332 were deported to the USSR for reparation labour, where 9% (6,260) died.<ref name="Pavel Polian-Against Their Will Pages 286-293"/>

The roughly 400,000 ethnic Germans who remained in Romania were treated as guilty of collaboration with Nazi Germany{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} and were deprived of their civil liberties and property.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} Many were impressed into forced labour and deported from their homes to other regions of Romania.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} In 1948, Romania began a gradual rehabilitation of the ethnic Germans: they were not expelled, and the communist regime gave them the status of a national minority, the only [[Eastern Bloc]] country to do so.<ref>"Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa", ''Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Rumänien'', pp. 81–116{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref>

In 1958, the West German government estimated, based on a demographic analysis, that by 1950, 253,000 were counted as expellees in Germany or the West, 400,000 Germans still remained in Romania, 32,000 had been assimilated into the Romanian population, and that there were 101,000 "unresolved cases" that remained to be clarified.<ref>''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50'', Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958{{in lang|de}}; the editor for the section of the 1958 report for Romania was [[:de:Wilfried Krallert]], a scholar dealing with Balkan affairs since the 1930s when he was Nazi party member, during the war he was an officer in the SS who was directly implicated in the plundering of cultural artifacts in eastern Europe {{where|date=February 2014}}. After the war he was rehabilitated {{Clarify|date=December 2014}} and chosen to author the sections of the demographic report on the expulsions from Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.</ref> The figure of 101,000 "unresolved cases" in Romania is included in the total German expulsion dead of 2&nbsp;million which is often cited in historical literature.<ref name="Alfred M Page 152"/> 355,000 Germans remained in Romania in 1977. During the 1980s, many began to leave, with over 160,000 leaving in 1989 alone. By 2002, the number of ethnic Germans in Romania was 60,000.<ref name="Wasserstein"/><ref name="Overy"/>

=== Soviet Union and annexed territories===
{{See also|Volga Germans|Baltic Germans|Bessarabian Germans|Evacuation of East Prussia}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1985-0531-500, Kurland, Evakuierung aus Windau.jpg|thumb|upright|Evacuation of German civilians and troops in [[Ventspils]], October 1944]]
The [[Baltic Germans|Baltic]], [[Bessarabia Germans|Bessarabian]] and ethnic Germans in areas that became Soviet-controlled following the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] of 1939 were resettled to [[Nazi Germany]], including annexed areas like [[Reichsgau Wartheland|Warthegau]], during the [[Nazi-Soviet population exchange]]. Only a few returned to their former homes when Germany [[Operation Barbarossa|invaded the Soviet Union]] and temporarily gained control of those areas. These returnees were employed by the Nazi occupation forces to establish a link between the German administration and the local population. Those resettled elsewhere shared the fate of the other Germans in their resettlement area.<ref name="E">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004}}</ref>

The [[History of Germans in Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union|ethnic German minority in the USSR]] was considered a security risk by the Soviet government, and they were deported during the war in order to prevent their possible collaboration with the Nazi invaders. In August 1941 the Soviet government ordered ethnic Germans to be deported from the European USSR, by early 1942, 1,031,300 Germans were interned in "special settlements" in [[Central Asia]] and [[Siberia]].<ref>Pavel Polian, ''Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR'', Central European University Press, 2003, p. 136; {{ISBN|9-6392-4168-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015</ref> Life in the special settlements was harsh and severe, food was limited, and the deported population was governed by strict regulations. Shortages of food plagued the whole Soviet Union and especially the special settlements. According to data from the Soviet archives, by October 1945, 687,300 Germans remained alive in the special settlements;<ref>J. Otto Pohl, ''The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930–1953'', McFarland, 1997, p. 71; {{ISBN|0-7864-0336-5}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> an additional 316,600 Soviet Germans served as labour conscripts during World War II. Soviet Germans were not accepted in the regular armed forces but were employed instead as conscript labour. The labor army members were arranged into worker battalions that followed camp-like regulations and received [[Gulag]] rations.<ref>Pavel Polian, ''Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR'', [[Central European University Press]], 2003, p. 137; {{ISBN|9-6392-4168-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> In 1945 the USSR deported to the special settlements 203,796 Soviet ethnic Germans who had been previously resettled by Germany in Poland.<ref>J. Otto Pohl, ''Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937–1949'', [[Greenwood Press]], 1999, p. 42; {{ISBN|0-3133-0921-3}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> These post-war deportees increased the German population in the special settlements to 1,035,701 by 1949.<ref>J. Otto Pohl, ''The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930–1953'', McFarland, 1997, p. 80; {{ISBN|0-7864-0336-5}}; accessed 26 May 2015</ref>

According to J. Otto Pohl, 65,599 Germans perished in the special settlements. He believes that an additional 176,352 unaccounted for people "probably died in the labor army".<ref>J. Otto Pohl, ''Ethnic Cleansing in the Ussr, 1937–1949'', Greenwood Press, 1999, p. 54; {{ISBN|0-3133-0921-3}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> Under Stalin, Soviet Germans continued to be confined to the special settlements under strict supervision, in 1955 they were rehabilitated but were not allowed to return to the European USSR.<ref>Pavel Polian, ''Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR'', Central European University Press, 2003, pp. 201–10; {{ISBN|9-6392-4168-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015</ref> The Soviet-German population grew despite deportations and forced labor during the war; in the 1939 Soviet census the German population was 1.427&nbsp;million. By 1959 it had increased to 1.619&nbsp;million.<ref>Pavel Polian, ''Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR'', Central European University Press, 2003, p. 194; {{ISBN|9-6392-4168-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015</ref>

The calculations of the West German researcher Gerhard Reichling do not agree to the figures from the Soviet archives. According to Reichling a total of 980,000 Soviet ethnic Germans were deported during the war; he estimated that 310,000 died in forced labour.<ref name="Gerhard Reichling pp. 21-36">Gerhard Reichling, ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', part 1, Bonn: 1995, pp. 21–36; {{ISBN|3-8855-7065-3}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref> During the early months of the invasion of the USSR in 1941 the Germans occupied the western regions of the USSR that had German settlements. A total of 370,000 ethnic Germans from the USSR were deported to Poland by Germany during the war. In 1945 the Soviets found 280,000 of these resettlers in Soviet-held territory and returned them to the USSR; 90,000 became refugees in Germany after the war.<ref name="Gerhard Reichling pp. 21-36"/>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W0402-500, Flüchtlingstreck in Richtung Deutschland.jpg|thumb|right|A refugee trek of [[Black Sea Germans]] during the Second World War in Hungary, July 1944]]
Those ethnic Germans who remained in the 1939 borders of the Soviet Union occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941 remained where they were until 1943, when the Red Army liberated Soviet territory and the Wehrmacht withdrew westward.<ref>Conseil de l'Europe Assemblée parlementaire Session Strasbourg (Council of the European Union in Straßburg), Documents, Document 7172: Report on the situation of the German ethnic minority in the former Soviet Union, Council of Europe, 1995, p. 7</ref> From January 1943, most of these ethnic Germans moved in treks to the Warthegau or to Silesia, where they were to settle.<ref name="ceu8">Conseil de l'Europe Assemblée parlementaire Session Strasbourg (Council of the European Union in Straßburg), Documents, Document 7172: Report on the situation of the German ethnic minority in the former Soviet Union, Council of Europe, 1995, p. 8; {{ISBN|9-2871-2725-5}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=9dnIhF-zZpcC Google.de]</ref> Between 250,000 and 320,000 had reached Nazi Germany by the end of 1944.<ref name="heinemann469470">Isabel Heinemann, ''"Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut": das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas'', 2nd ed., Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003, p. 469; {{ISBN|3-8924-4623-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|de}}<br/>Heinemann posits that 250,000 is the number given by primary sources, but dismisses as too high the 320,000 estimate given by Ingeborg Fleischmann, ''Die Deutschen'', pp. 284–86.</ref> On their arrival, they were placed in camps and underwent 'racial evaluation' by the Nazi authorities, who dispersed those deemed 'racially valuable' as farm workers in the [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany|annexed provinces]], while those deemed to be of "questionable racial value" were sent to work in Germany.<ref name="heinemann469470"/> The Red Army captured these areas in early 1945, and 200,000 Soviet Germans had not yet been evacuated by the Nazi authorities,<ref name="ceu8"/> who were still occupied with their 'racial evaluation'.<ref name="heinemann469470"/> They were regarded by the USSR as Soviet citizens and repatriated to camps and special settlements in the Soviet Union. 70,000 to 80,000 who found themselves in the [[Soviet occupation zone]] after the war were also returned to the USSR, based on an agreement with the Western Allies. The death toll during their capture and transportation was estimated at 15–30%, and many families were torn apart.<ref name="ceu8"/> The special "German settlements" in the post-war Soviet Union were controlled by the Internal Affairs Commissioner, and the inhabitants had to perform forced labor until the end of 1955. They were released from the special settlements by an amnesty decree of 13 September 1955,<ref name="ceu8"/> and the Nazi collaboration charge was revoked by a decree of 23 August 1964.<ref name="ceu10">[https://books.google.com/books?id=9dnIhF-zZpcC Conseil de l'Europe Assemblée parlementaire Session Strasbourg (Council of the European Union in Straßburg), Documents, Document 7172: Report on the situation of the German ethnic minority in the former Soviet Union], Council of Europe, 1995, p. 10; {{ISBN|9-2871-2725-5}}.{{in lang|fr}}</ref> They were not allowed to return to their former homes and remained in the eastern regions of the USSR, and no individual's former property was restored.<ref name="ceu8"/><ref name="ceu10"/> Since the 1980s, the Soviet and Russian governments have allowed ethnic Germans to emigrate to Germany.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1979-084-05, Ostpreußen, Flüchtlingstreck.jpg|thumb|left|Refugee treks, [[Curonian Lagoon]], northern East Prussia, March 1945]]
Different situations emerged in northern East Prussia regarding [[Königsberg]] (renamed [[Kaliningrad]]) and the adjacent [[Memel territory]] around Memel ([[Klaipėda]]). The Königsberg area of East Prussia was annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming an exclave of the [[RSFSR|Russian Soviet Republic]]. Memel was integrated into the [[Lithuanian Soviet Republic]]. Many Germans were evacuated from East Prussia and the Memel territory by Nazi authorities during [[Operation Hannibal]] or fled in panic as the Red Army approached. The remaining Germans were conscripted for forced labor. Ethnic Russians and the families of military staff were settled in the area. In June 1946, 114,070 Germans and 41,029 Soviet citizens were registered as living in the [[Kaliningrad Oblast]], with an unknown number of unregistered Germans ignored. Between June 1945 and 1947, roughly half a million Germans were expelled.<ref name="eberhardtowsinski456457">{{cite book|first=Piotr |last=Eberhardt |first2=Jan |last2=Owsinski |title=Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |date=2003 |page=456}}</ref> Between 24 August and 26 October 1948, 21 transports with a total of 42,094 Germans left the Kaliningrad Oblast for the [[Soviet Occupation Zone]]. The last remaining Germans were expelled between November 1949<ref name="Wasserstein"/> (1,401 people) and January 1950 (7).<ref>Andreas Kossert, ''Damals in Ostpreussen'', Munich: 2008, pp. 179–83; {{ISBN|978-3-4210-4366-5}}.<!--publishing info needed--></ref> Thousands of German children, called the "[[wolf children]]", had been left orphaned and unattended or died with their parents during the harsh winter without food. Between 1945 and 1947, around 600,000 Soviet citizens settled in the oblast.<ref name="eberhardtowsinski456457"/>

=== Yugoslavia===
Before World War II, roughly 500,000 German-speaking people (mostly [[Danube Swabians]]) lived in the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]].<ref name="Wasserstein"/><ref name=":4">Bundesministerium für Vertriebene (ed.), "Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien", in: ''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa''; vol. 5, 1961. {{in lang|de}}</ref> Most fled during the war or emigrated after 1950 thanks to the [[Displaced Persons Act of 1948]]; some were able to [[Immigration to the United States|emigrate to the United States]]. During the final months of World War II a majority of the ethnic Germans fled Yugoslavia with the retreating Nazi forces.<ref name=":4"/>

After the liberation, [[Yugoslav Partisans]] exacted revenge on ethnic Germans for the [[German war crimes|wartime atrocities of Nazi Germany]], in which many ethnic Germans had participated, especially in the [[Banat]] area of the [[Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia]]. The approximately 200,000 ethnic Germans remaining in Yugoslavia suffered persecution and sustained personal and economic losses. About 7,000 were killed as local populations and partisans took revenge for German wartime atrocities.<ref name="Wasserstein"/><ref name="EU5354"/> From 1945 to 1948 ethnic Germans were held in labour camps where about 50,000 perished.<ref name="EU5354">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|pages=53–54}}</ref> Those surviving were allowed to emigrate to Germany after 1948.<ref name="EU5354"/>

According to West German figures in late 1944 the Soviets transported 27,000 to 30,000 ethnic Germans, a majority of whom were women aged 18 to 35, to Ukraine and the [[Donbas]] for forced labour; about 20% (5,683) were reported dead or missing.<ref name="Wasserstein"/><ref name="EU5354"/><ref>Bundesministerium für Vertriebene (ed.), "Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien", ''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa''; vol. 5 (1961){{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref> Data from Russian archives published in 2001, based on an actual enumeration, put the number of German civilians deported from Yugoslavia to the USSR in early 1945 for reparation labour at 12,579, where 16% (1,994) died.<ref>Pavel Polian, ''Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR'', Central European University Press, 2003, pp. 268–94; {{ISBN|9-6392-4168-7}}; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> After March 1945, a second phase began in which ethnic Germans were massed into villages such as [[Gakovo|Gakowa]] and [[Kruševlje]] that were converted into labour camps. All furniture was removed, straw placed on the floor, and the expellees housed like animals under military guard, with minimal food and rampant, untreated disease. Families were divided into the unfit women, old, and children, and those fit for slave labour. A total of 166,970 ethnic Germans were interned, and 48,447 (29%) perished.<ref name="Jugoslawien, Sindelfingen 1995"/> The camp system was shut down in March 1948.<ref name="cadmus.iue.it">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|pages=53–56}}</ref>

In [[Slovenia]], the ethnic German population at the end of World War II was concentrated in [[Styria (Slovenia)|Slovenian Styria]], more precisely in [[Maribor]], [[Celje]], and a few other smaller towns (like [[Ptuj]] and [[Dravograd]]), and in the rural area around [[Apače]] on the [[Austria]]n border. The second-largest ethnic German community in Slovenia was the predominantly rural [[Gottschee|Gottschee County]] around [[Kočevje]] in [[Lower Carniola]], south of [[Ljubljana]]. Smaller numbers of ethnic Germans also lived in Ljubljana and in some western villages in the [[Prekmurje|Prekmurje region]]. In 1931, the total number of ethnic Germans in Slovenia was around 28,000: around half of them lived in Styria and in Prekmurje, while the other half lived in the Gottschee County and in Ljubljana. In April 1941, southern Slovenia was occupied by Italian troops. By early 1942, ethnic Germans from Gottschee/Kočevje were forcefully transferred to German-occupied Styria by the new German authorities. Most resettled to the [[Posavje]] region (a territory along the [[Sava]] river between the towns of [[Brežice]] and [[Litija]]), from where around 50,000 [[Slovenes]] had been expelled. Gottschee Germans were generally unhappy about their forced transfer from their historical home region. One reason was that the agricultural value of their new area of settlement was perceived as much lower than the Gottschee area. As German forces retreated before the [[Yugoslav Partisans]], most ethnic Germans fled with them in fear of reprisals. By May 1945, only a few Germans remained, mostly in the [[Styria]]n towns of Maribor and Celje. The [[Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation|Liberation Front of the Slovenian People]] expelled most of the remainder after it seized complete control in the region in May 1945.<ref name="cadmus.iue.it"/>

The Yugoslavs set up internment camps at [[Kidričevo#Sterntal Concentration Camp|Sterntal]] and [[Teharje camp|Teharje]]. The government nationalized their property on a "decision on the transition of enemy property into state ownership, on state administration over the property of absent people, and on sequestration of property forcibly appropriated by occupation authorities" of 21 November 1944 by the Presidency of the [[AVNOJ|Anti-Fascist Council for the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia]].<ref name="cadmus.iue.it"/><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.hic.hr/books/seeurope/016e-geiger.htm |title=An International Symposium – Southeastern Europe 1918–1995 |date=1996 |publisher=Croatian Heritage Foundation & Croatian Information Centre |isbn=9-5365-2505-4 |editor-last=Aleksander Ravlic |access-date=6 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090830181956/http://www.hic.hr/books/seeurope/016e-geiger.htm |archive-date=30 August 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

After March 1945, ethnic Germans were placed in so-called "village camps".<ref name="EU55">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=55}}</ref> Separate camps existed for those able to work and for those who were not. In the latter camps, containing mainly children and the elderly, the mortality rate was about 50%. Most of the children under 14 were then placed in state-run homes, where conditions were better, though the German language was banned. These children were later given to Yugoslav families, and not all German parents seeking to reclaim their children in the 1950s were successful.<ref name="cadmus.iue.it"/>

West German government figures from 1958 put the death toll at 135,800 civilians.<ref>''Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50'', Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden (ed.), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958, p. 46{{in lang|de}} {{ISBN?}}</ref> A recent study published by the ethnic Germans of Yugoslavia based on an actual enumeration has revised the death toll down to about 58,000. A total of 48,447 people had died in the camps; 7,199 were shot by partisans, and another 1,994 perished in Soviet labour camps.<ref name="EU57">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=57}}</ref> Those Germans still considered Yugoslav citizens were employed in industry or the military, but could buy themselves free of Yugoslav citizenship for the equivalent of three months' salary. By 1950, 150,000 of the Germans from Yugoslavia were classified as "expelled" in Germany, another 150,000 in Austria, 10,000 in the United States, and 3,000 in France.<ref name="cadmus.iue.it"/> According to West German figures 82,000 ethnic Germans remained in Yugoslavia in 1950.<ref name="Overy"/> After 1950, most emigrated to Germany or were assimilated into the local population.<ref name="Gerhard Reichling pp. 21-36"/>

=== Kehl, Germany===
The population of [[Kehl]] (12,000 people), on the east bank of the [[Rhine]] opposite [[Strasbourg]], fled and was evacuated in the course of the [[Liberation of France]], on 23 November 1944.<ref name="BO"/> The [[French Army]] occupied the town in March 1945 and prevented the inhabitants from returning until 1953.<ref name="BO">{{Cite web |date=23 November 2004 |title=Flucht im Granatenhagel |url=http://archiv.baden-online.de/news/images/news_lokales/artikel_serien/pdf/61.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130530041239/http://archiv.baden-online.de/news/images/news_lokales/artikel_serien/pdf/61.pdf |archive-date=30 May 2013 |access-date=30 April 2013 |publisher=Mittelbadische Presse |language=de |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sonderfall Kehl |url=http://mygoddess.de/files/Veroeffentlichungen/SonderfallKehl.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050302094145/http://mygoddess.de/files/Veroeffentlichungen/SonderfallKehl.pdf |archive-date=2 March 2005 |access-date=30 April 2013}}</ref>

=== Latin America===
{{Main|Deportation of Germans from Latin America during World War II}}
Fearing a [[NSDAP/AO#History|Nazi Fifth Column]], between 1941 and 1945 the US government facilitated the expulsion of 4,058 German citizens from 15 [[Latin America]]n countries to [[Internment of German Americans|internment camps]] in [[Texas]] and [[Louisiana]]. Subsequent investigations showed many of the internees to be harmless, and three-quarters of them were returned to Germany during the war in exchange for citizens of the Americas, while the remainder returned to their homes in Latin America.<ref name="Adam182">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8uxfTF4Lm-kC&q=4%2C058 |title=Transatlantic relations series. Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: a Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia |date=2005 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=1-8510-9628-0 |editor-last=Adam |editor-first=Thomas |volume=II |pages=181–82}}</ref>

=== Palestine===
At the start of World War II, colonists with German citizenship were rounded up by the [[Mandatory Palestine|British authorities]] and sent to internment camps in [[Bethlehem]] in [[Galilee]]. 661 [[Templers (religious believers)|Templers]] were deported to Australia via [[Kingdom of Egypt|Egypt]] on 31 July 1941, leaving 345 in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]]. Internment continued in [[Tatura]], [[Victoria, Australia]], until 1946–47. In 1962 the [[Israel|State of Israel]] paid 54&nbsp;million [[Deutsche Mark]]s in compensation to property owners whose assets were nationalized.<ref name="LorenzCafe">[[Adi Schwartz]], [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946133.html The nine lives of the Lorenz Cafe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080606182838/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946133.html |date=6 June 2008}}, ''Haaretz'', 20 January 2008.</ref>

== Human losses==
{{main|Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans}}

Estimates of total deaths of German civilians in the flight and expulsions, including [[forced labour of Germans in the Soviet Union]], range from 500,000 to a maximum of 3&nbsp;million people.<ref name="Rüdiger Overmans 1994">Rüdiger Overmans, "Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung". A parallel Polish-language summary translation was also included. This paper was a presentation at an academic conference in [[Warsaw]] in 1994: ''Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik, XXI''.</ref> Although the German government's official estimate of deaths has stood at 2&nbsp;million since the 1960s, the publication in 1987–89 of previously classified West German studies has led some historians to the conclusion that the actual number was much lower—in the range of 500,000–600,000. English-language sources have put the death toll at 2–3&nbsp;million based on West German government figures from the 1960s.<ref name="hawaii.edu">R.J. Rummel.[http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP7.HTM ''Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900''] (1,863,000 in post war expulsions and an additional 1.0 million in wartime flight)</ref><ref name="Alfred M 1994. page 152">Alfred M. de Zayas, ''A terrible Revenge''. [[Palgrave Macmillan]], New York (1994); {{ISBN|1-4039-7308-3}}, pp. 152– (2,111,000)</ref><ref name="Charles S Maier page 75">Charles S. Maier, ''The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity'', Harvard University (1988); {{ISBN|0-6749-2975-6}}, pp. 75– (2,000,000)</ref><ref name="Douglas Botting 1983, Pages 21">Douglas Botting, ''The Aftermath: Europe (World War II)'', [[Time-Life Books]] (1983); {{ISBN|0-8094-3411-3}}, pp. 21, 81– (2,000,000)</ref><ref name="H.W. Schoenberg 1945, page 33">H.W. Schoenberg, ''Germans from the East: A Study of their migration, resettlement and subsequent group history, since 1945'', Springer, London, Ltd. (1970); {{ISBN|9-0247-5044-X}}, pp. 33– (2,225,000)</ref><ref>Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann & Ernest A. Menze, ''Anchor Atlas of World History, vol. 2'': 1978– (3,000,000)</ref><ref name="ReferenceB">''Encyclopædia Britannica'': 1992– (2,384,000)</ref><ref>Kurt Glaser & Stephan Possony, ''Victims of Politics'' (1979) {{ISBN?}} – (2,111,000)</ref><ref>Sir [[John Keegan]], ''The Second World War'', 1989 – (3.1 million including 1.0 million during wartime flight)</ref><ref name="German p. 4">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|pages=4ff}} (2,000,000)</ref>

=== West German government estimates of the death toll ===
* In 1950 the West German Government made a preliminary estimate of 3.0&nbsp;million missing people (1.5&nbsp;million in prewar Germany and 1.5&nbsp;million in Eastern Europe) whose fate needed to be clarified.<ref>''Wirtschaft und Statistik'' April 1950</ref> These figures were superseded by the publication of the 1958 study by the [[Statistisches Bundesamt]].
*In 1953 the West German government ordered a survey by the Suchdienst (search service) of the German churches to trace the fate of 16.2&nbsp;million people in the area of the expulsions; the survey was completed in 1964 but kept secret until 1987. The search service was able to confirm 473,013 civilian deaths; there were an additional 1,905,991 cases of persons whose fate could not be determined.<ref>Pistohlkors, Gert : Informationen zur Klärung der Schicksale von Flüchtlingen aus den. Vertreibungsgebieten östlich von Oder und Neiße. Published in Schulze, Rainer, Flüchtlinge und Vertriebene in der westdeutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte : Bilanzierung der Forschung und Perspektiven für die künftige Forschungsarbeit Hildesheim : A. Lax, 1987 pp. 65–66</ref>
*From 1954 to 1961 the [[Schieder commission]] issued five reports on the flight and expulsions. The head of the commission [[Theodor Schieder]] was a rehabilitated former Nazi party member who was involved in the preparation of the Nazi {{lang|de|[[Generalplan Ost]]}} to colonize eastern Europe. The commission estimated a total death toll of about 2.3&nbsp;million civilians including 2&nbsp;million east of the [[Oder Neisse line]].<ref>''Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa'', Bonn 1954–1961 Vol. 1–5</ref>
*The figures of the [[Schieder commission]] were superseded by the publication in 1958 of the study by the West German government [[Statistisches Bundesamt]], Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste (The German Expulsion Casualties). The authors of the report included former Nazi party members, [[:de:Wilfried Krallert]], [[Walter Kuhn]] and [[:de:Alfred Bohmann]]. The [[Statistisches Bundesamt]] put losses at 2,225,000 (1.339&nbsp;million in prewar Germany and 886,000 in Eastern Europe).<ref>Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50.Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt – Wiesbaden.
Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958 pp. 38, 45–46</ref> In 1961 the West German government published slightly revised figures that put losses at 2,111,000 (1,225,000 in prewar Germany and 886,000 in Eastern Europe)<ref>The Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960, p. 78 {{ISBN?}}</ref>
*In 1969, the federal West German government ordered a further study to be conducted by the [[German Federal Archives]], which was finished in 1974 and kept secret until 1989. The study was commissioned to survey [[crimes against humanity]] such as deliberate killings, which according to the report included deaths caused by military activity in the 1944–45 campaign, forced labor in the USSR and civilians kept in post-war internment camps. The authors maintained that the figures included only those deaths caused by violent acts and inhumanities (Unmenschlichkeiten) and do not include post-war deaths due to malnutrition and disease. Also not included are those who were raped or suffered mistreatment and did not die immediately. They estimated 600,000 deaths (150,000 during flight and evacuations, 200,000 as forced labour in the USSR and 250,000 in post-war internment camps. By region 400,000 east of the [[Oder Neisse line]], 130,000 in Czechoslovakia and 80,000 in Yugoslavia). No figures were given for Romania and Hungary.<ref>Silke Spieler (ed.), ''Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Erlebnisberichte'', Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (1989), pp. 53–54; {{ISBN|3-8855-7067-X}}</ref>
*A 1986 study by Gerhard Reichling "Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen" (the German expellees in figures) concluded 2,020,000 ethnic Germans perished after the war including 1,440,000 as a result of the expulsions and 580,000 deaths due to deportation as forced labourers in the Soviet Union. Reichling was an employee of the Federal Statistical Office who was involved in the study of German expulsion statistics since 1953.<ref>Gerhard Reichning, Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, Teil 1, Bonn 1995.(revised edition) p. 36</ref> The Reichling study is cited by the German government to support their estimate of 2&nbsp;million expulsion deaths<ref name="bpb.de"/>

=== Discourse===
The West German figure of 2&nbsp;million deaths in the flight and expulsions was widely accepted by historians in the West prior to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War.<ref name="hawaii.edu"/><ref name="Alfred M 1994. page 152"/><ref name="Charles S Maier page 75"/><ref name="Douglas Botting 1983, Pages 21"/><ref name="H.W. Schoenberg 1945, page 33"/><ref name="German p. 4"/><ref>Kinder, Hermann & Werner Hilgemann & Ernest A. Menze; ''Anchor Atlas of World History'', Vol. 2: 1978 – (3,000,000)</ref><ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref>Kurt Glaser & Stephan Possony, ''Victims of Politics'' (1979) – (2,111,000)</ref><ref>Sir [[John Keegan]], ''The Second World War'' (1989) – (3.1 million including 1.0 million during wartime flight)</ref> The recent disclosure of the German Federal Archives study and the Search Service figures have caused some scholars in Germany and Poland to question the validity of the figure of 2&nbsp;million deaths; they estimate the actual total at 500–600,000.<ref>[[Ingo Haar]], ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' 14. November 2006, "Hochgerechnetes Unglück, Die Zahl der deutschen Opfer nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wird übertrieben"</ref><ref>Rűdiger Overmans, ''Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung'' (a parallel Polish translation was also included, this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in Warsaw Poland in 1994; see ''Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI'').</ref>{{Sfn|Hahn|Hahn|2010}}

The German government continues to maintain that the figure of 2&nbsp;million deaths is correct.<ref>Ingo Haar, "Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts 'Bevölkerung' vor, im und nach dem 'Dritten Reich': Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissenschaft". ''Die deutschen ›Vertreibungsverluste‹ – Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme, Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts "Bevölkerung" vor, im und nach dem "Dritten Reich"'', Berlin: Springer, 2009; {{ISBN|978-3-5311-6152-5}} p. 376{{in lang|de}}</ref> The issue of the "expellees" has been a contentious one in German politics, with the [[Federation of Expellees]] staunchly defending the higher figure.<ref>{{Cite news |title="Haar"-sträubende Zahlenklitterung des Historikers Ingo Haar |publisher=Bund der Vertriebenen, Pressemitteilung vom 17 November 2006}}</ref>

==== Analysis by Rüdiger Overmans====
In 2000 the German historian [[Rüdiger Overmans]] published a study of German military casualties; his research project did not investigate civilian expulsion deaths.<ref name="Rüdiger Overmans 2000. Page 286-289">Rüdiger Overmans, ''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg'', Munich: Oldenbourg 2000, pp. 286–89; {{ISBN|3-4865-6531-1}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref> In 1994, Overmans provided a critical analysis of the previous studies by the German government which he believes are unreliable. Overmans maintains that the studies of expulsion deaths by the German government lack adequate support; he maintains that there are more arguments for the lower figures than for the higher figures. ("{{Lang|de|Letztlich sprechen also mehr Argumente für die niedrigere als für die höhere Zahl.}}")<ref name="Rüdiger Overmans 1994"/>

In a 2006 interview, Overmans maintained that new research is needed to clarify the fate of those reported as missing.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20071011104917/http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/kulturheute/571295 "Zahl der Vertreibungsopfer ist neu zu erforschen: Rüdiger Overmans", Deutschlandfunk]; accessed 6 December 2014.{{in lang|de}}</ref> He found the 1965 figures of the Search Service to be unreliable because they include non-Germans; the figures according to Overmans include military deaths; the numbers of surviving people, natural deaths and births after the war in Eastern Europe are unreliable because the Communist governments in Eastern Europe did not extend full cooperation to West German efforts to trace people in Eastern Europe; the reports given by eyewitnesses surveyed are not reliable in all cases. In particular, Overmans maintains that the figure of 1.9&nbsp;million missing people was based on incomplete information and is unreliable.<ref>Rüdiger Overmans, "Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung" (a parallel Polish summary translation was also included; this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in Warsaw in 1994), ''Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik, XXI'' (1994).{{in lang|pl}}</ref> Overmans found the 1958 demographic study to be unreliable because it inflated the figures of ethnic German deaths by including missing people of doubtful German ethnic identity who survived the war in Eastern Europe; the figures of military deaths is understated; the numbers of surviving people, natural deaths and births after the war in Eastern Europe are unreliable because the Communist governments in Eastern Europe did not extend full cooperation to West German efforts to trace people in Eastern Europe.<ref name="Rüdiger Overmans 1994"/>

Overmans maintains that the 600,000 deaths found by the German Federal Archives in 1974 is only a rough estimate of those killed, not a definitive figure. He pointed out that some deaths were not reported because there were no surviving eyewitnesses of the events; also there was no estimate of losses in Hungary, Romania and the USSR.<ref>Rüdiger Overmans, "Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung" (a parallel Polish summary translation was also included, this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in [[Warsaw, Poland]] in 1994), ''Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik, XXI''.</ref>

Overmans conducted a research project that studied the casualties of the German military during the war and found that the previous estimate of 4.3&nbsp;million dead and missing, especially in the final stages of the war, was about one million short of the actual toll. In his study Overmans researched only military deaths; his project did not investigate civilian expulsion deaths; he merely noted the difference between the 2.2&nbsp;million dead estimated in the 1958 demographic study, of which 500,000 have so far have been verified.<ref>''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg'' (3rd ed.), Munich: [[Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag]], 2004, pp 298–300; {{ISBN|3-4862-0028-3}}{{in lang|de}}</ref> He found that German military deaths from areas in Eastern Europe were about 1.444&nbsp;million, and thus 334,000 higher than the 1.1&nbsp;million figure in the 1958 demographic study, lacking documents available today included the figures with civilian deaths. Overmans believes this will reduce the number of civilian deaths in the expulsions. Overmans further pointed out that the 2.225&nbsp;million number estimated by the 1958 study would imply that the casualty rate among the expellees was equal to or higher than that of the military, which he found implausible.<ref>''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg'' (3rd ed.), Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 298; {{ISBN|3-4862-0028-3}}{{in lang|de}}</ref>

==== Analysis by historian Ingo Haar====
In 2006, Haar called into question the validity of the official government figure of 2&nbsp;million expulsion deaths in an article in the German newspaper ''[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]''.<ref>Ingo Haar, "Hochgerechnetes Unglück, Die Zahl der deutschen Opfer nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wird übertrieben", Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 November 2006.</ref> Since then Haar has published three articles in academic journals that covered the background of the research by the West German government on the expulsions.<ref>Ingo Haar, Die Deutschen "Vertreibungsverluste – Zur Entstehung der "Dokumentation der Vertreibung – Tel Aviver Jahrbuch, 2007, Tel Aviv : Universität Tel Aviv, Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften, Forschungszentrum für Geschichte; Gerlingen [Germany] : Bleicher Verlag</ref><ref>Ingo Haar, "Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts 'Bevölkerung' vor, im und nach dem 'Dritten Reich': Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissenschaft". ''Die deutschen ›Vertreibungsverluste‹ – Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme, Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts "Bevölkerung" vor, im und nach dem "Dritten Reich"'', Berlin: Springer, 2009; {{ISBN|978-3-5311-6152-5}}{{in lang|de}}</ref>{{Sfn|Haar|2007|page=278}}<ref name="pism.pl">[http://www.pism.pl/zalaczniki/PPD_39_Haar.pdf Ingo Haar, "Straty zwiazane z wypedzeniami: stan badañ, problemy, perspektywy", ''Polish Diplomatic Review''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110302035633/http://www.pism.pl/zalaczniki/PPD_39_Haar.pdf |date=2 March 2011}}, 2007, nr 5 (39); accessed 6 December 2014.{{in lang|pl}}</ref>

Haar maintains that all reasonable estimates of deaths from expulsions lie between around 500,000 and 600,000, based on the information of Red Cross Search Service and German Federal Archives. Harr pointed out that some members of the [[Schieder commission]] and officials of the [[Statistisches Bundesamt]] involved in the study of the expulsions were involved in the Nazi [[Generalplan Ost|plan to colonize Eastern Europe]]. Haar posits that figures have been inflated in Germany due to the [[Cold War]] and domestic German politics, and he maintains that the 2.225&nbsp;million number relies on improper statistical methodology and incomplete data, particularly in regard to the expellees who arrived in East Germany. Haar questions the validity of population balances in general. He maintains that 27,000 German Jews who were Nazi victims are included in the West German figures. He rejects the statement by the German government that the figure of 500–600,000 deaths omitted those people who died of disease and hunger, and has stated that this is a "mistaken interpretation" of the data. He maintains that deaths due to disease, hunger and other conditions are already included in the lower numbers. According to Haar the numbers were set too high for decades, for postwar political reasons.<ref name="pism.pl"/><ref>Ingo Haar, "Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts 'Bevölkerung' vor, im und nach dem 'Dritten Reich': Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissensch". ''Die deutschen ›Vertreibungsverluste‹ – Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme, in Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts "Bevölkerung" vor, im und nach dem "Dritten Reich"'', Berlin: Springer, 2009; {{ISBN|978-3-5311-6152-5}}.{{in lang|de}}</ref>{{Sfn|Haar|2007|page=278}}<ref>Haar, Ingo [http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/wyborcza/1,34474,3743824.html "Ile było ofiar wypędzenia?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526153048/http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/wyborcza/1,34474,3743824.html |date=26 May 2011}}, ''Gazeta Wyborcza'', 21 November 2006.{{in lang|pl}}</ref>

==== Studies in Poland====
In 2001, Polish researcher Bernadetta Nitschke puts total losses for Poland at 400,000 (the same figure as the German Federal Archive study). She noted that historians in Poland have maintained that most of the deaths occurred during the flight and evacuation during the war, the deportations to the USSR for forced labour and, after the resettlement, due to the harsh conditions in the [[Soviet occupation zone]] in postwar Germany.<ref>Bernadetta Nitschke, ''Vertreibung und Aussiedlung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus Polen 1945 bis 1949'', Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003, pp. 269–82; {{ISBN|3-4865-6832-9}}; German translation of ''Wysiedlenie czy wypedzenie? ludnosc niemiecka w Polsce w latach 1945–1949''.</ref> Polish demographer Piotr Eberhardt found that, "Generally speaking, the German estimates... are not only highly arbitrary, but also clearly tendentious in presentation of the German losses." He maintains that the German government figures from 1958 overstated the total number of the ethnic Germans living in Poland prior to the war as well as the total civilian deaths due to the expulsions. For example, Eberhardt points out that "the total number of Germans in Poland is given as equal to 1,371,000. According to the Polish census of 1931, there were altogether only 741,000 Germans in the entire territory of Poland."<ref name=":2"/>

==== Study by Hans Henning Hahn and Eva Hahn====
German historians Hans Henning Hahn and Eva Hahn published a detailed study of the flight and expulsions that is sharply critical of German accounts of the Cold War era. The Hahns regard the official German figure of 2&nbsp;million deaths as an historical myth, lacking foundation. They place the ultimate blame for the mass flight and expulsion on the wartime policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. The Hahns maintain that most of the reported 473,013 deaths occurred during the Nazi organized flight and evacuation during the war, and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union; they point out that there are 80,522 confirmed deaths in the postwar internment camps. They put the postwar losses in eastern Europe at a fraction of the total losses: Poland −15,000 deaths from 1945 to 1949 in internment camps; Czechoslovakia – 15,000–30,000 dead, including 4,000–5,000 in internment camps and ca. 15,000 in the [[Prague uprising]]; Yugoslavia – 5,777 deliberate killings and 48,027 deaths in internment camps; Denmark – 17,209 dead in internment camps; Hungary and Romania – no postwar losses reported. The Hahns point out that the official 1958 figure of 273,000 deaths for Czechoslovakia was prepared by Alfred Bohmann, a former Nazi Party member who had served in the wartime SS. Bohmann was a journalist for an ultra-nationalist ''Sudeten-Deutsch'' newspaper in postwar West Germany. The Hahns believe the population figures of ethnic Germans for eastern Europe include German-speaking Jews killed in the Holocaust.{{Sfn|Hahn|Hahn|2010|pages=659–726, 839}} They believe that the fate of German-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe deserves the attention of German historians. ("Deutsche Vertreibungshistoriker haben sich mit der Geschichte der jüdischen Angehörigen der deutschen Minderheiten kaum beschäftigt."){{Sfn|Hahn|Hahn|2010|pages=659–726, 839}}

==== German and Czech commission of historians====
In 1995, research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians found that the previous demographic estimates of 220,000 to 270,000 deaths in Czechoslovakia to be overstated and based on faulty information. They concluded that the death toll was at least 15,000 people and that it could range up to a maximum of 30,000 dead, assuming that not all deaths were reported.<ref name="ReferenceC"/>

==== Rebuttal by the German government====
The German government maintains that the figure of 2–2.5&nbsp;million expulsion deaths is correct. In 2005 the [[German Red Cross]] Search Service put the death toll at 2,251,500 but did not provide details for this estimate.<ref>Willi Kammerer & Anja Kammerer, ''Narben bleiben die Arbeit der Suchdienste – 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg'' Berlin, Dienststelle 2005{{in lang|de}} (published by the Search Service of the German Red Cross; the foreword to the book was written by German President [[Horst Köhler]] and the German interior minister [[Otto Schily]])</ref>

On 29 November 2006, State Secretary in the German [[Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany)|Federal Ministry of the Interior]], [[Christoph Bergner]], outlined the stance of the respective governmental institutions on [[Deutschlandfunk]] (a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany) saying that the numbers presented by the German government and others are not contradictory to the numbers cited by Haar and that the below 600,000 estimate comprises the deaths directly caused by atrocities during the expulsion measures and thus only includes people who were raped, beaten, or else killed on the spot, while the above two million estimate includes people who on their way to postwar Germany died of epidemics, hunger, cold, [[airstrike|air raids]] and the like.<ref name="dfbergner">[[Christoph Bergner]], Secretary of State in Germany's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions on Deutschlandfunk on 29 November 2006. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080210034644/http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/kulturheute/569560], dradio.de; accessed 17 November 2016.{{in lang|de}}</ref>

==== ''Schwarzbuch der Vertreibung'' by Heinz Nawratil====
A German lawyer, [[Heinz Nawratil]], published a study of the expulsions entitled ''Schwarzbuch der Vertreibung'' ("Black Book of Expulsion").<ref>''Schwarzbuch der Vertreibung 1945 bis 1948. Das letzte Kapitel unbewältigter Vergangenheit'', Universitas Verlag, 14th ed., 2007; {{ISBN|3-8004-1387-6}}{{in lang|de}}</ref> Nawratil claimed the death toll was 2.8&nbsp;million: he includes the losses of 2.2&nbsp;million listed in the 1958 West German study, and an estimated 250,000 deaths of Germans resettled in Poland during the war, plus 350,000 ethnic Germans in the USSR. In 1987, German historian [[Martin Broszat]] (former head of the [[Institut für Zeitgeschichte|Institute of Contemporary History]] in Munich) described Nawratil's writings as "polemics with a nationalist-rightist point of view and exaggerates in an absurd manner the scale of 'expulsion crimes'." Broszat found Nawratil's book to have "factual errors taken out of context."<ref>Ingo Haar, "Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts 'Bevölkerung' vor, im und nach dem 'Dritten Reich': Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissensch". ''Die deutschen ›Vertreibungsverluste‹ – Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme, in Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts "Bevölkerung" vor, im und nach dem "Dritten Reich"'', Berlin: Springer, 2009, p. 373; {{ISBN|978-3-5311-6152-5}}{{in lang|de}}</ref><ref>Ingo Haar, [http://www.pism.pl/zalaczniki/PPD_39_Haar.pdf "Straty związane z wypędzeniami": stan badań, problemy, perspektywy", ''Polski Przegląd Dyplomatyczny''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110302035633/http://www.pism.pl/zalaczniki/PPD_39_Haar.pdf |date=2 March 2011}}, t.&nbsp;7 nr 5 (39) 2007, pism.pl{{in lang|pl}}</ref> German historian Thomas E. Fischer calls the book "problematic".<ref>[http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=18940 H-Soz-u-Kult (April 2005), Gegen das Vergessen 3], h-net.org; accessed 6 December 2014.{{in lang|de}}</ref> James Bjork (Department of History, [[King's College London]]) has criticized German educational DVDs based on Nawratil's book.<ref>[http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23744] h-net.org, February 2009; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref>

== Condition of the expellees after arriving in post-war Germany==
[[File:German post war refugees cart DHM.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|left|Push-cart used by German refugees with some items they were able to take with them]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P003214, Eckernförde, Flüchtlingsbaracken.jpg|thumb|Former camp for expellees in [[Eckernförde]], picture taken in 1951]]
Those who arrived were in bad condition{{snd}}particularly during the harsh winter of 1945–46, when arriving trains carried "the dead and dying in each carriage (other dead had been thrown from the train along the way)".{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=199}} After experiencing Red Army atrocities, Germans in the expulsion areas were subject to harsh punitive measures by Yugoslav partisans and in post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia.<ref name="Ahonen21">{{Cite book |last=Pertti Ahonen |title=After the expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945–1990 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2003 |isbn=0-1992-5989-5 |page=20}}</ref> Beatings, [[wartime sexual violence|rapes]] and murders accompanied the expulsions.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=199}}<ref name="Ahonen21"/> Some had experienced massacres, such as the [[Ústí massacre|Ústí (Aussig) massacre]], in which 80–100 ethnic Germans died, or [[Postoloprty|Postoloprty massacre]], or conditions like those in the Upper Silesian Camp [[Łambinowice]] (Lamsdorf), where interned Germans were exposed to sadistic practices and at least 1,000 died.<ref name="Ahonen21"/> Many expellees had experienced hunger and disease, separation from family members, loss of civil rights and familiar environment, and sometimes [[internment]] and forced labour.<ref name="Ahonen21"/>

Once they arrived, they found themselves in a country devastated by war. Housing shortages lasted until the 1960s, which along with other shortages led to conflicts with the local population.<ref name="beck169">Manfred Görtemaker, ''Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Von der Gründung bis zur Gegenwart'', Munich: C.H. Beck, 1999, p. 169; {{ISBN|3-4064-4554-3}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=fs7mgaHRAwUC&pg=PA168 Google Books]</ref>{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=200}} The situation eased only with the [[Wirtschaftswunder|West German economic boom]] in the 1950s that drove unemployment rates close to zero.<ref name="beck170">Manfred Görtemaker, ''Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Von der Gründung bis zur Gegenwart'', Munich: C.H. Beck, 1999, p. 170; {{ISBN|3-4064-4554-3}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=fs7mgaHRAwUC&pg=PA168 Google Books]; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref>

France did not participate in the [[Potsdam Conference]], so it felt free to approve some of the Potsdam Agreements and dismiss others. France maintained the position that it had not approved the expulsions and therefore was not responsible for accommodating and nourishing the destitute expellees in its zone of occupation. While the French military government provided for the few refugees who arrived before July 1945 in the area that became the French zone, it succeeded in preventing entrance by later-arriving ethnic Germans deported from the East.<ref name="Vor 50 Jahren">Cf. the report [http://www.landeshauptarchiv.de/index.php?id=485&printView=1 "Vor 50 Jahren: Der 15. April 1950. Vertriebene finden eine neue Heimat in Rheinland-Pfalz"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130731081922/http://www.landeshauptarchiv.de/index.php?id=485&printView=1 |date=31 July 2013}} {{in lang|de}} of the Central Archive of the State of [[Rhineland-Palatinate]] on the first expellees arriving in that state in 1950 to be resettled from other German states.</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1977-124-30, Berlin, Flüchtlinge.jpg|thumb|Refugees in Berlin, 27 June 1945]]
Britain and the US protested against the actions of the French military government but had no means to force France to bear the consequences of the expulsion policy agreed upon by American, British and Soviet leaders in Potsdam. France persevered with its argument to clearly differentiate between war-related refugees and post-war expellees. In December 1946 it absorbed into its zone German refugees from Denmark,<ref name="Vor 50 Jahren"/> where 250,000 Germans had traveled by sea between February and May 1945 to take refuge from the Soviets. These were refugees from the eastern parts of Germany, not expellees; Danes of German ethnicity remained untouched and Denmark did not expel them. With this humanitarian act the French saved many lives, due to the high death toll German refugees faced in Denmark.<ref>"Children were starved in war aftermath", ''[[Copenhagen Post]]'', 15 April 2005.</ref><ref>Manfred Ertel, [http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,355772,00.html "Denmark's Myths Shattered: A Legacy of Dead German Children"], ''[[Der Spiegel|Spiegel Online]]'', 16 May 2005.</ref><ref>Andrew Osborn,[http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,891930,00.html "Documentary forces Danes to confront past"], observer.guardian.co.uk, 9 February 2003.</ref>

Until mid-1945, the Allies had not reached an agreement on how to deal with the expellees. France suggested immigration to South America and Australia and the settlement of 'productive elements' in France, while the Soviets' [[Soviet Military Administration in Germany|SMAD]] suggested a resettlement of millions of expellees in [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]].<ref name="Philipp Ther p.137">Philipp Ther, ''Deutsche und Polnische Vertriebene'', p. 137.</ref>

The Soviets, who encouraged and partly carried out the expulsions, offered little cooperation with humanitarian efforts, thereby requiring the Americans and British to absorb the expellees in their zones of occupation. In contradiction with the Potsdam Agreements, the Soviets neglected their obligation to provide supplies for the expellees. In Potsdam, it was agreed<ref>Cf. section III. Reparations from Germany, para. 4 [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html Agreements of the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101031085625/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html |date=31 October 2010}}, pbs.org; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> that 15% of all equipment dismantled in the Western zones—especially from the metallurgical, chemical and machine manufacturing industries—would be transferred to the Soviets in return for food, coal, [[potash]] (a basic material for fertiliser), timber, clay products, petroleum products, etc. The Western deliveries started in 1946, but this turned out to be a one-way street. The Soviet deliveries—desperately needed to provide the expellees with food, warmth, and basic necessities and to increase agricultural production in the remaining cultivation area—did not materialize. Consequently, the US stopped all deliveries on 3 May 1946,<ref>Hans Georg Lehmann, ''Chronik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945/49 bis 1981'', Munich: Beck, 1981 (=Beck'sche Schwarze Reihe; vol.&nbsp;235); {{ISBN|3-4060-6035-8}}, pp. 32seq.</ref> while the expellees from the areas under Soviet rule were deported to the West until the end of 1947.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2006-0095, Siedlung für Flüchtlinge.jpg|thumb|left|Refugee settlement in [[Espelkamp]], about 1945 to 1949]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F000102-0008, Bleidenstadt-Taunus, Siedlung für Flüchtlinge.jpg|thumb|left|Refugee settlement in [[Taunusstein|Bleidenstadt]], 1952]]
In the British and US zones the supply situation worsened considerably, especially in the British zone. Due to its location on the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]], the British zone already harbored a great number of refugees who had come by sea, and the already modest rations had to be further shortened by a third in March 1946. In [[Hamburg]], for instance, the average living space per capita, reduced by air raids from {{Convert|13.6|m2}} in 1939 to 8.3 in 1945, was further reduced to {{Convert|5.4|m2}} in 1949 by billeting refugees and expellees.<ref>Rita Bake, ''"Hier spricht Hamburg". Hamburg in der Nachkriegszeit: Rundfunkreportagen, Nachrichtensendungen, Hörspiele und Meldungen des Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunks (NWDR) 1945–1949'', Hamburg: Behörde für Bildung und Sport/Amt für Bildung/Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2007; {{ISBN|978-3-9297-2846-0}}, p. 57.</ref> In May 1947, Hamburg trade unions organized a strike against the small rations, with protesters complaining about the rapid absorption of expellees.<ref>Rita Bake, ''"Hier spricht Hamburg". Hamburg in der Nachkriegszeit: Rundfunkreportagen, Nachrichtensendungen, Hörspiele und Meldungen des Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunks (NWDR) 1945–1949'', Hamburg: Behörde für Bildung und Sport/Amt für Bildung/Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2007, p. 7; {{ISBN|978-3-9297-2846-0}} {{in lang|de}}</ref>

The US and Britain had to import food into their zones, even as Britain was financially exhausted and dependent on food imports having fought Nazi Germany for the entire war, including as the sole opponent from June 1940 to June 1941 (the period when Poland and France were defeated, the Soviet Union supported Nazi Germany, and the United States had not yet entered the war). Consequently, Britain had to incur additional debt to the US, and the US had to spend more for the survival of its zone, while the Soviets gained applause among Eastern Europeans—many of whom were impoverished by the war and German occupation—who plundered the belongings of expellees, often before they were actually expelled. Since the Soviet Union was the only power among the Allies that allowed and/or encouraged the looting and robbery in the area under its military influence, the perpetrators and profiteers blundered into a situation in which they became dependent on the perpetuation of Soviet rule in their countries to not be dispossessed of the booty and to stay unpunished. With ever more expellees sweeping into post-war Germany, the Allies moved towards a policy of [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]], which was believed to be the best way to stabilise Germany and ensure peace in Europe by preventing the creation of a marginalised population.<ref name="Philipp Ther p.137"/> This policy led to the granting of [[German citizenship]] to the ethnic German expellees who had held citizenship of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, etc. before World War II.{{citation needed|date=December 2014}} This effort was led by the [[Sonne Commission]], a 14-member body consisting of nine Americans and five Germans within the [[Economic Cooperation Administration]] which was tasked with devising strategies to solve the refugee crisis.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Klingemann |first=Carsten |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hfjqnzsA4aoC |title=Soziologie und Politik: Sozialwissenschaftliches Expertenwissen im Dritten Reich und in der frühen westdeutschen Nachkriegszeit |date=2009 |publisher=[[Springer-Verlag]] |isbn=978-3-5311-5064-2 |location=Wiesbaden |pages=306–07 |language=de |trans-title=Sociology and Politics: Social Science Expert Knowledge in the Third Reich and in the Early West German Post-War Period}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=October 28, 1950 |title=Amerikanischer Studienausschuß in Singen |trans-title=American Study Committee in Singen |url=https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/NUYAZ6V52SF5D2CJHJ42E4DPRZYCL63L?lang=en&query=%22Zigahl%22&page=2&hit=4&issuepage=10 |access-date=June 10, 2023 |work=[[Südkurier]] |page=10 |language=de}}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F000016-0641, Bonn, Demonstration von Vertriebenenverbänden.jpg|thumb|Expellee organisations demonstrate in [[Bonn]], capital of West Germany, in 1951.]]
When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, a law was drafted on 24 August 1952 that was primarily intended to ease the financial situation of the expellees. The law, termed the ''Lastenausgleichsgesetz,'' granted partial compensation and easy credit to the expellees; the loss of their civilian property had been estimated at 299.6&nbsp;billion [[Deutschmarks]] (out of a total loss of German property due to the border changes and expulsions of 355.3&nbsp;billion Deutschmarks).<ref name="beck171">Manfred Görtemaker, ''Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Von der Gründung bis zur Gegenwart'', Munich: C.H. Beck (1999), p. 171; {{ISBN|3-4064-4554-3}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=fs7mgaHRAwUC&pg=PA168 Google Books]; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> Administrative organisations were set up to integrate the expellees into post-war German society. While the [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] regime in the Soviet occupation zone did not allow the expellees to organise, in the Western zones expellees over time established a variety of organizations, including the [[All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights]].<ref>Dierk Hoffmann & Michael Schwartz, ''Geglückte Integration?: Spezifika und Vergleichbarkeiten der Vertriebenen-eingliederung in der SBZ/ddr'' (1999), p. 156; {{ISBN|978-3-4866-4503-3}}</ref> The most prominent—still active today—is the [[Federation of Expellees]] (''Bund der Vertriebenen'', or BdV).

== "War children" of German ancestry in Western and Northern Europe==
{{Main|War children}}
In countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the war, sexual relations between Wehrmacht soldiers and local women (including rape and voluntary relationships) resulted in the birth of significant numbers of children. Relationships between German soldiers and local women were particularly common in countries whose population was not dubbed "inferior" (''[[Untermensch]]'') by the Nazis. After the Wehrmacht's withdrawal, these women and their children of German descent were often ill-treated.<ref name="Tyskerunger">Anna-Maria Hagerfors, [https://www.dn.se/nyheter/tyskerunger-tvingades-bli-sexslavar/ "'Tyskerunger' tvingades bli sexslavar"], ''[[Dagens Nyheter]]'', 10 July 2004.</ref><ref>[http://www.willy-brandt-stiftung.de/krigsbarn.htm Krigsbarn. Vandreutstilling med fotografier av Einar Bangsund. Barn av norske kvinner og tyske soldater 1940–45], willy-brandt-stiftung.de; accessed 26 May 2015.{{in lang|de}}</ref><ref>[http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=16206 "Norway's Hidden History – 'Aryan' Children Subjected to LSD Experiments, Sexual Abuse & Mass Rape"], redicecreations.com; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref>

== Legacy of the expulsions==
[[File:Wegweiser in Elmshorn.JPG|thumb|upright=0.9|A road sign indicating former German cities at a memorial for the lost eastern territories in [[Elmshorn]]]]

With at least<ref name="EU4">{{Harvnb|Prauser|Rees|2004|page=4}}</ref> 12&nbsp;million<ref name="Schuck156">Schuck, Peter H. & Rainer Münz. ''Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the United States and Germany'', [[Berghahn Books]], 1997, p.&nbsp;156; {{ISBN|1-5718-1092-7}}</ref><ref name="Weber2">Weber, Jürgen. ''Germany, 1945–1990: A Parallel History'', [[Central European University Press]], 2004, p.&nbsp;2; {{ISBN|9-6392-4170-9}}</ref><ref name="Kacowicz100"/> Germans directly involved, possibly 14&nbsp;million<ref name="beck169"/><ref name="Levitin">Michael Levitin, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/4841432/Germany-provokes-anger-over-museum-to-refugees-who-fled-Poland-during-WWII.html Germany provokes anger over museum to refugees who fled Poland during WWII], [[The Daily Telegraph|Telegraph.co.uk]]; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> or more,<ref name="Rummel305"/> it was the largest movement or transfer of any single ethnic population in European history<ref name="Kacowicz100">Arie Marcelo Kacowicz & Paweł Lutomski, ''Population resettlement in international conflicts: a comparative study'', Lexington Books, 2007, p. 100; {{ISBN|0-7391-1607-X}}: "...largest movement of European people in modern history" [https://books.google.com/books?id=ovck_g0xwX0C&dq=expulsion+germans+poland&pg=PA100 Google.de]</ref><ref>Wasserstein, Bernard. ''Barbarism and civilization: a history of Europe in our time'', [[Oxford University Press]], 2007, p. 419: "largest population movement between European countries in the twentieth century and one of the largest of all time"; {{ISBN|0-1987-3074-8}}</ref>{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/immigrationasylu00matt/page/196 196–97]|loc="The largest single case of ethnic cleansing in human history"}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rummel |first=Rudolph Joseph |author-link=Rudolph Joseph Rummel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1j1QdPMockC&pg=PA305 |title=Death by government |publisher=Transaction Publishers |date=1997 |isbn=1-5600-0927-6 |edition=6th |page=305 |access-date=27 August 2009}}{{cite book| title=Ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe|author1=Steven Béla Várdy |author2=T. Hunt Tooley |author3=Ágnes Huszár Várdy | publisher=Social Science Monographs| year=2003| isbn=0-8803-3995-0|page=239}} "the expulsion of the Germans constitutes the largest mass transfer of a population in history"</ref> and the largest among the post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe (which displaced 20 to 31&nbsp;million people in total).<ref name="Weber2"/>

The exact number of Germans expelled after the war is still unknown, because most recent research provides a combined estimate which includes those who were evacuated by the German authorities, fled or were killed during the war. It is estimated that between 12 and 14&nbsp;million German citizens and foreign ethnic Germans and their descendants were displaced from their homes. The exact number of casualties is still unknown and is difficult to establish due to the chaotic nature of the last months of the war. Census figures placed the total number of ethnic Germans still living in Eastern Europe in 1950, after the major expulsions were complete, at approximately 2.6 million, about 12 percent of the pre-war total.<ref name="Overy">{{Cite book |last=Richard Overy |author-link=Richard Overy |url=https://archive.org/details/penguinhistorica00rich/page/144 |title=The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich |publisher=Penguin Books (Non-Classics) |date=1996 |isbn=0-1405-1330-2 |edition=1st |page=[https://archive.org/details/penguinhistorica00rich/page/144 144]}}</ref>

The events have been usually classified as population transfer,<ref>Frank, Matthew. ''Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post-1945 Population Transfer in Context'', [[Oxford University Press]], 2008 {{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref><ref>Renata Fritsch-Bournazel, ''Europe and German unification'', p. 77, [[Berg Publishers]] 1992</ref> or as ethnic cleansing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Osmańczyk |first=Edmund Jan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M734r1ZXW2cC&q=expulsion%20cleansing%20germans&pg=PA657 |title=Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements |publisher=Routledge |date=2003 |isbn=0-4159-3924-0 |page=656 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613105106/https://books.google.com/books?id=M734r1ZXW2cC&q=expulsion%20cleansing%20germans&pg=PA657 |archive-date=13 June 2021 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Naimark |first=Norman M. |url=https://archive.org/details/firesofhatredeth00naim |title=Fires of hatred: ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=2001 |isbn=0-6740-0994-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/firesofhatredeth00naim/page/15 15], 112, 121, 136 |quote=expulsion cleansing germans. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=T. David Curp |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ARxnK1u_WOEC&q=expulsion%20cleansing%20germans&pg=PA53 |title=A clean sweep?: the politics of ethnic cleansing in western Poland, 1945–1960 |publisher=University of Rochester Press |date=2006 |isbn=1-5804-6238-3 |page=200}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cordell |first=Karl |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JFvq55U3wy8C&q=expulsion%20cleansing%20germans&pg=PA175 |title=Ethnicity and democratisation in the new Europe |publisher=Routledge |date=1999 |isbn=0-4151-7312-4 |page=175}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dan Diner |title=Jüdische Geschichte als allgemeine Geschichte |last2=Raphael Gross |last3=Yfaat Weiss |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |date=2006 |isbn=3-5253-6288-9 |page=163}}</ref>{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=[https://archive.org/details/immigrationasylu00matt/page/196 196]}}<ref>{{Cite book |title=Redrawing nations: ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944–1948. Harvard Cold War studies book series |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |date=2001 |isbn=0-7425-1094-8 |editor-first1=Philipp |editor-last1=Ther |page=197 |editor-first2=Ana |editor-last2=Siljak}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Shaw |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Shaw (sociologist) |title=What is genocide? |publisher=Polity |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-7456-3182-0 |page=56}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Paul Totten |title=Dictionary of genocide, Volume 2 |last2=Steven L. Jacobs |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-3133-4644-6 |page=335}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthew James Frank |title=Expelling the Germans: British opinion and post-1945 population transfer in context. Oxford historical monographs |publisher=[[Oxford University]] Press |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-1992-3364-9 |page=5}}</ref> [[R.J. Rummel]] has classified these events as [[democide]],<ref name="Rummel305">{{Cite book |last=Rummel |first=Rudolph Joseph |author-link=Rudolph Joseph Rummel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1j1QdPMockC&pg=PA305 |title=Death by government |publisher=Transaction Publishers |date=1997 |isbn=1-5600-0927-6 |edition=6 |page=305 |access-date=27 August 2009}}</ref> and a few scholars go as far as calling it a [[genocide]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shaw |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Shaw (sociologist) |title=What is genocide? |date=2007 |publisher=Polity |isbn=978-0-7456-3182-0 |pages=56, 60}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=W.D. Rubinstein |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nMMAk4VwLLwC&q=konigsberg |title=Genocide, a history |date=2004 |publisher=Pearson Education Ltd. |isbn=0-5825-0601-8 |page=260}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Felix Ermacora |date=1991 |title=Gutachten Ermacora 1991 |url=http://www.ermacora-institut.at/wDeutsch/dokumente/pdf/gutachten_ermacora_1991.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516024318/http://www.ermacora-institut.at/wDeutsch/dokumente/pdf/gutachten_ermacora_1991.pdf |archive-date=16 May 2011 |language=de}}</ref> Polish sociologist and philosopher Lech Nijakowski objects to the term "genocide" as inaccurate [[agitprop]].<ref>[http://scholar.com.pl/sklep.php?md=products&id_c=1&id_p=2332& Nijakowski, Rozkosz zemsty, Socjologia historyczna mobilizacji ludobójczej] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223753/http://scholar.com.pl/sklep.php?md=products&id_c=1&id_p=2332& |date=3 March 2016}}, scholar.com.pl; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref>

The expulsions created major social disruptions in the receiving territories, which were tasked with providing housing and employment for millions of [[refugee]]s. West Germany established a ministry dedicated to the problem, and several laws created a legal framework. The expellees established several organisations, some demanding compensation. Their grievances, while remaining controversial, were incorporated into public discourse.{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=200}} During 1945 the British press aired concerns over the refugees' situation;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthew James Frank |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5J9OtZ-CxtYC&q=berlin+british+press+1945&pg=PA130 |title=Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post-1945 Population Transfer in Context |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-1992-3364-9 |pages=130–133}}</ref> this was followed by limited discussion of the issue during the Cold War outside West Germany.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Margot Norris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_Zi4EZvYPsC&q=cold+war+german+expulsions+newsweek&pg=PA9-IA1 |title=Writing war in the twentieth century |publisher=[[University of Virginia Press]] |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-8139-1992-8 |page=9 |quote=Except for the bombing of German cities, which is widely known and addressed in such fictions as [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse Five]]'', ''[[Newsweek]]''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s indication that in World War II, "3 million German civilians died, perhaps two-thirds of them in forced expulsions from Eastern Europe" (22 May 1995, p. 30) must seem surprising to many readers.}}</ref> East Germany sought to avoid alienating the Soviet Union and its neighbours; the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments characterised the expulsions as "a just punishment for Nazi crimes".{{Sfn|Gibney|Hansen|2005|page=200}} Western analysts were inclined to see the Soviet Union and its satellites as a single entity, disregarding the national disputes that had preceded the Cold War.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sheldon R. Anderson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hULTnG7vECcC&q=cold+war+german+expulsions&pg=PA2 |title=A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc |publisher=[[Westview Press]] |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-8133-3783-8 |page=2}}{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> The [[fall of the Soviet Union]] and the [[reunification of Germany]] opened the door to a renewed examination of the expulsions in both scholarly and political circles.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Expulsion of the 'German' communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War |url=http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091001022039/http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2009 |access-date=12 July 2009 |publisher=[[European University Institute]] |quote=A reappraisal of the German expulsions from Eastern Europe became possible after 1989 and the collapse of communism. This contributed to a willingness on the part of Eastern European societies to remember the events of 1944 to 1948. An increasing and fruitful collaboration between Germany and the "affected" countries in the east was reflected in growing political contacts and in scholarly exchanges.}}</ref> A factor in the ongoing nature of the dispute may be the relatively large proportion of German citizens who were among the expellees and/or their descendants, estimated at 20% in 2000.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ann L. Phillips |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30uZXxGJaQ4C&q=german+expulsions+properties++communist&pg=PA80 |title=Power and influence after the Cold War: Germany in East-Central Europe |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-8476-9523-2 |page=80}}</ref>

A 1993 novel, ''[[Summer of Dead Dreams]]'', written by [[Harry Thürk]]—a German author who left Upper Silesia annexed by Poland shortly after the war had ended—contained graphic depictions of the treatment of Germans by Soviets and Poles in Thürk's hometown of [[Prudnik]]. It depicted the maltreatment of Germans while also acknowledging German guilt, as well as Polish animosity toward Germans and, in specific instances, friendships between Poles and Germans despite the circumstances. Thürk's novel, when serialized in Polish translation by the ''Tygodnik Prudnicki'' ("Prudnik Weekly") magazine, was met with criticism from some Polish residents of Prudnik, but also with praise, because it revealed to many local citizens that there had been a post-war German ghetto in the town and addressed the tensions between Poles and Soviets in post-war Poland. The serialization was followed by an exhibition on Thurk's life in Prudnik's town museum.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Niven |first=Bill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SeDsAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175 |title=Representations of Flight and Expulsion in East German Prose Works |last2=Niven |first2=William John |date=2014 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-5711-3535-3 |pages=173–75}}</ref>

=== Status in international law===
{{Further|Population transfer#Changing status in international law}}

International law on population transfer underwent considerable evolution during the 20th century. Before World War II, several major population transfers were the result of bilateral treaties and had the support of international bodies such as the [[League of Nations]]. The tide started to turn when the charter of the [[Nuremberg trials]] of German Nazi leaders declared forced deportation of civilian populations to be both a war crime and a crime against humanity, and this opinion was progressively adopted and extended through the remainder of the century. Underlying the change was the trend to assign rights to individuals, thereby limiting the rights of nation-states to impose fiats which could adversely affect such individuals. The Charter of the then-newly formed [[United Nations]] stated that its [[United Nations Security Council|Security Council]] could take no enforcement actions regarding measures taken against World War II "enemy states", defined as enemies of a Charter signatory in WWII.<ref name="uncharter2">[http://www.hrweb.org/legal/unchartr.html Charter of the United Nations.] Chapters 1–19 at Human Rights Web Hrweb.org; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref> The Charter did not preclude action in relation to such enemies "taken or authorized as a result of that war by the Governments having responsibility for such action."<ref name="uncharter"/> Thus, the Charter did not invalidate or preclude action against World War II enemies following the war.<ref name="uncharter">Krzysztof Rak & Mariusz Muszyński. [http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,4570558.html ''Transakcja Wiazana''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140426234243/http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,4570558.html |date=26 April 2014}}; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> This argument is contested by [[Alfred de Zayas]], an American professor of [[international law]].<ref>De Zayas' entry "Forced Population Transfers", ''Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law'' (Oxford University Press, online September 2008) and in his article "International Law and Mass Population Transfers", ''[[Harvard International Law Journal]]'' (1975), pp. 207–58.<!--ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref> [[International Committee of the Red Cross|ICRC]]'s legal adviser Jean-Marie Henckaerts posited that the contemporary expulsions conducted by the Allies of World War II themselves were the reason why expulsion issues were included neither in the [[UN Declaration of Human Rights]] of 1948, nor in the [[European Convention on Human Rights]] in 1950, and says it "may be called 'a tragic anomaly' that while deportations were outlawed at Nuremberg they were used by the same powers as a 'peacetime measure'".<ref name="Henckaerts9">{{Cite book |last=Jean-Marie Henckaerts |title=International studies in human rights. Volume 41. Mass expulsion in modern international law and practice |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |date=1995 |isbn=9-0411-0072-5 |page=9}}</ref> It was only in 1955 that the [[Bonn–Paris conventions#Settlement Convention|Settlement Convention]] regulated expulsions, yet only in respect to expulsions of individuals of the states who signed the convention.<ref name="Henckaerts9"/> The first international treaty condemning mass expulsions was a document issued by the [[Council of Europe]] on 16 September 1963, ''Protocol No 4 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Securing Certain Rights and Freedoms Other than Those Already Included in the Convention and in the First Protocol'',<ref name="Henckaerts9"/> stating in Article 4: "collective expulsion of aliens is prohibited."<ref name="Henckaerts10">{{Cite book |last=Jean-Marie Henckaerts |title=International studies in human rights. Volume 41. Mass expulsion in modern international law and practice |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |date=1995 |isbn=9-0411-0072-5 |page=10}}</ref> This protocol entered into force on 2 May 1968, and as of 1995 was ratified by 19 states.<ref name="Henckaerts10"/>

There is now general consensus about the legal status of involuntary population transfers: "Where population transfers used to be accepted as a means to settle ethnic conflict, today, forced population transfers are considered violations of international law."<ref>''Denver Journal of International Law and Policy'', Spring 2001, p. 116<!--ISBN/ISSN needed--></ref> No legal distinction is made between one-way and two-way transfers, since the rights of each individual are regarded as independent of the experience of others. Although the signatories to the Potsdam Agreements and the expelling countries may have considered the expulsions to be legal under international law at the time, there are historians and scholars in international law and human rights who argue that the expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe should now be considered as episodes of [[ethnic cleansing]], and thus a violation of human rights. For example, Timothy V. Waters argues in "On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing" that if similar circumstances arise in the future, the precedent of the expulsions of the Germans without legal redress would also allow the future ethnic cleansing of other populations under international law.<ref>Timothy V. Waters,[http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4600&context=expresso ''On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing''], Paper 951 (2006), [[University of Mississippi School of Law]]; retrieved 13 December 2006.</ref>
[[File:034 10 Jahre Espelkamp-Mittwald 1959-10-03.jpg|thumb|Parade of German expellees in October 1959 in [[Espelkamp]], [[North Rhine-Westphalia]]]]

In the 1970s and 1980s, a [[Harvard]]-trained lawyer and historian, [[Alfred de Zayas]], published ''[[Nemesis at Potsdam]]'' and ''[[A Terrible Revenge]]'', both of which became bestsellers in Germany.<ref name="expulsion">Alfred M. de Zayas, [http://www.meaus.com/expulsion-by-czechs-1945.htm "The Expulsion: a crime against humanity"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060329040455/http://www.meaus.com/expulsion-by-czechs-1945.htm |date=29 March 2006}}, meaus.com; accessed 26 May 2015; Transcript of part of a lecture given in [[Pittsburgh]] in 1988.</ref> De Zayas argues that the expulsions were [[war crime]]s and [[crimes against humanity]] even in the context of international law of the time, stating, "the only applicable principles were the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907|Hague Conventions]], in particular, the Hague Regulations, Articles 42–56, which limited the rights of occupying powers—and obviously occupying powers have no rights to expel the populations—so there was the clear violation of the Hague Regulations."<ref name="expulsion"/><ref>Alfred M. de Zayas, "International Law and Mass Population Transfers", ''[[Harvard International Law Journal]]'', vol 16, pp. 207–58.</ref><ref>Alfred M. de Zayas, "The Right to One's Homeland, Ethnic Cleansing and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia", ''Criminal Law Forum'', 1995, pp. 257–314</ref> He argued that the expulsions violated the [[Nuremberg Principles]].<ref name="expulsion"/>

In November 2000, a major conference on ethnic cleansing in the 20th century was held at [[Duquesne University]] in [[Pittsburgh]], along with the publication of a book containing participants' conclusions.<ref>Steven Vardy & Hunt Tooley, ''Ethnic Cleansing in 20th-Century Europe'', [[Columbia University Press]] 2003; {{ISBN|0-8803-3995-0}}{{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref>

The former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [[José Ayala Lasso]] of [[Ecuador]] endorsed the establishment of the Centre Against Expulsions in [[Berlin]].<ref>Text of his speech of 6 August 2005 in Berlin, in the presence of [[Angela Merkel]], is reproduced in de Zayas's ''50 Thesen zur Vertreibung'' (2008), pp. 36–41; {{ISBN|978-3-9812-1100-9}}</ref> José Ayala Lasso recognized the "expellees" as victims of gross violations of human rights.<ref>Ayala Lasso at the memorial service at the [[St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt am Main|Paulskirche]] in [[Frankfurt]] on 28 May 1995. Text of Ayala's words in Alfred de Zayas' ''Nemesis at Potsdam'', Picton Press, 6th ed., 2003, Appendix {{ISBN?}}</ref> De Zayas, a member of the advisory board of the [[Centre Against Expulsions]], endorses the full participation of the organisation representing the expellees, the [[Bund der Vertriebenen]] (Federation of Expellees), in the Centre in Berlin.<ref>''[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]]'' [https://www.faz.net/IN/INtemplates/faznet/default.asp?tpl=common/zwischenseite.asp&dx1={2F7DA1A0-C0C2-AAB8-0FA2-A51139BF3716}&rub={E9236266-3C6E-4937-AB14-A07CB297CA09}]; accessed 26 May 2015.</ref>

=== Berlin Centre===
A Centre Against Expulsions was to be{{when|date=December 2020}} set up in Berlin by the German government based on an initiative and with active participation of the German Federation of Expellees. The centre's creation has been criticized in Poland.<ref name="tele">{{Cite news |last=Michael Levitin |date=26 February 2009 |title=Germany provokes anger over museum to refugees who fled Poland during WWII |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/4841432/Germany-provokes-anger-over-museum-to-refugees-who-fled-Poland-during-WWII.html |access-date=2 May 2010 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |location=London |quote=Germany has provoked anger in Poland over plans to build a museum dedicated to German refugees who fled or were expelled from Poland after the Second World War.}}</ref> It was strongly opposed by the Polish government and president [[Lech Kaczyński]]. Former Polish prime minister [[Donald Tusk]] restricted his comments to a recommendation that Germany pursue a neutral approach at the museum.<ref name="tele"/><ref>[http://www.rp.pl/artykul/9102,73756_Chcialem_zmienic_pania_Steinbach_.html RP.pl] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927015125/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/9102,73756_Chcialem_zmienic_pania_Steinbach_.html |date=27 September 2011}}; accessed 6 December 2014.</ref> The museum apparently did not materialize. The only project along the same lines in Germany is "Visual Sign" (''Sichtbares Zeichen'') under the auspices of the Stiftung Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung (SFVV).<ref>[http://www.sfvv.de/en SFVV website]; accessed 8 December 2015.{{in lang|en}}</ref>
Several members of two consecutive international Advisory (scholar) Councils criticised some activities of the foundation and the new Director Winfried Halder resigned. Dr Gundula Bavendamm is a current Director.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Dr Gundula Bavendamm &#124; Stiftung Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung |url=https://www.sfvv.de/en/foundation/foundation-team/dr-gundula-bavendamm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506105616/https://www.sfvv.de/en/foundation/foundation-team/dr-gundula-bavendamm |archive-date=6 May 2019 |access-date=6 May 2019}}</ref>

=== Historiography===
British historian [[Richard J. Evans]] wrote that although the expulsions of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe was done in an extremely brutal manner that could not be defended, the basic aim of expelling the ethnic German population of Poland and Czechoslovakia was justified by the subversive role played by the German minorities before World War II.<ref name="evans95100">Richard J. Evans, ''In Hitler's Shadow'', New York: [[Pantheon Books|Pantheon]], 1989, pp. 95–100. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Evans wrote that under the [[Weimar Republic]] the vast majority of ethnic Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia made it clear that they were not loyal to the states they happened to live under, and under Nazi rule, the German minorities in Eastern Europe were willing tools of German foreign policy.<ref name="evans95100"/> Evans also wrote that many areas of eastern Europe featured a jumble of various ethnic groups aside from Germans, and that it was the destructive role played by ethnic Germans as instruments of Nazi Germany that led to their expulsion after the war.<ref name="evans95100"/> Evans concluded by positing that the expulsions were justified as they put an end to a major problem that plagued Europe before the war; that gains to the cause of peace were a further benefit of the expulsions; and that if the Germans had been allowed to remain in Eastern Europe after the war, West Germany would have used their presence to make territorial claims against Poland and Czechoslovakia, and that given the Cold War, this could have helped cause World War III.<ref name="evans95100"/>

Historian [[Gerhard Weinberg]] wrote that the expulsions of the Sudeten Germans was justified as the Germans themselves had scrapped the [[Munich Agreement]].<ref>Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World In Arms'', Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1994, p. 519 {{ISBN?}}</ref>

=== Political issues===
[[File:DBP 1955 215 Vertreibung.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|A stamp issued in [[West Germany]] ten years after expulsions began]]

In January 1990, the president of Czechoslovakia, [[Václav Havel]], requested forgiveness on his country's behalf, using the term expulsion rather than transfer.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Peter S. Green |date=22 December 2002 |title=A Czech Seeks to Atone for a Nation's Revenge |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/world/a-czech-seeks-to-atone-for-a-nation-s-revenge.html |access-date=9 July 2009 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |editor-last1=Ther |editor-first1=Philipp |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oGmTs2SceAgC&q=Vaclav+Havel++forgiveness+expulsion++transfer&pg=PA22 |title=Redrawing nations |editor-last2=Siljak |editor-first2=Ana |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-7425-1094-4 |page=22}}</ref> Public approval for Havel's stance was limited; in a 1996 opinion poll, 86% of Czechs stated they would not support a party that endorsed such an apology.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stefan Wolff |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WCjxIMz0o8QC&q=german+expulsions+czech+poll&pg=PA117 |title=Germany's Foreign Policy Towards Poland and the Czech Republic: Ostpolitik Revisited |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=2005 |isbn=978-0-4153-6974-9 |page=117}}</ref> The expulsion issue surfaced in 2002 during the [[Czech Republic]]'s application for membership in the [[European Union]], since the authorisation decrees issued by [[Edvard Beneš]] had not been formally renounced.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=11 March 2002 |title=Putting the Past to Rest |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,216394,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011215958/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,216394,00.html |archive-date=11 October 2008 |access-date=12 July 2009 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref>

In October 2009, Czech president [[Václav Klaus]] stated that the Czech Republic would require exemption from the [[European Charter of Fundamental Rights]] to ensure that the descendants of expelled Germans could not press legal claims against the Czech Republic.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Dan Bilefsky |last2=Stephen Castle |date=10 October 2009 |title=Czech President Objects to Treaty's Property Rights |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/world/europe/10union.html |access-date=2 May 2010 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> Five years later, in 2014, the government of Prime Minister [[Bohuslav Sobotka]] decided that the exemption was "no longer relevant" and that the withdrawal of the opt-out "would help improve Prague's position with regard to other EU international agreements."<ref>{{Cite web |date=19 February 2014 |title=Czechs to drop EU Charter of Fundamental Rights exemption |url=https://www.radio.cz/en/section/news/czechs-to-drop-eu-charter-of-fundamental-rights-exemption}}</ref>

On 20 June 2018, which was [[World Refugee Day]], German Chancellor [[Angela Merkel]] said that there had been "no moral or political justification" for the post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans.<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 June 2018 |title=Merkel calls Sudeten German expulsion "immoral", drawing Czech ire |url=http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/merkel-calls-sudeten-german-expulsion-immoral-drawing-czech-ire |work=Czech Radio}}</ref>

=== Misuse of graphical materials===
Nazi propaganda pictures produced during the [[Heim ins Reich]] and pictures of [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|expelled Poles]] are sometimes published to show the flight and expulsion of Germans.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kellerhoff |first=Sven Felix |date=16 October 2014 |title=Falsche Bilder : NS-Propaganda-Foto war lange das Symbol für Flucht |url=https://www.welt.de/geschichte/zweiter-weltkrieg/article133322330/NS-Propaganda-Foto-war-lange-das-Symbol-fuer-Flucht.html |work=Die Welt |via=www.welt.de}}</ref>

== See also==
{{colbegin}}
* {{lang|de|[[Generalplan Ost]]}}
* [[Dutch annexation of German territory after World War II]]
* [[Expulsion of Poles by Germany]]
* [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany]]
* [[German reparations for World War II]]
* [[Integration of immigrants]]
* [[Internment of German Americans]]
* [[Istrian-Dalmatian exodus]]
* [[Operation Paperclip]]
* [[Persecution of Germans]]
* [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union]]
* [[Pursuit of Nazi collaborators]]
* [[Treaty of Zgorzelec]]
* [[Victor Gollancz]]
* [[War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II]]
* [[World War II evacuation and expulsion]]
* [[Deportation of Germans from Latin America during World War II]]
* [[Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe]]
{{colend}}

== Notes ==
<references group="lower-alpha" />
== References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Sources==
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Baziur, Grzegorz. ''Armia Czerwona na Pomorzu Gdańskim 1945–1947'' [Red Army Gdańsk Pomerania 1945–1947], Warsaw: [[Instytut Pamięci Narodowej]], 2003; {{ISBN|8-3890-7819-8}}
* Beneš, Z., D. Jančík et al., ''Facing History: The Evolution of Czech and German Relations in the Czech Provinces, 1848–1948'', Prague: Gallery; {{ISBN|8-0860-1060-0}}
* Blumenwitz, Dieter: ''Flucht und Vertreibung'', Cologne: Carl Heymanns, 1987; {{ISBN|3-4522-0998-9}}
* Brandes, Detlef: [http://nbn-resolving.de/nbn:de:0159-20101025367 Flucht und Vertreibung (1938–1950)]{{Dead link|date=March 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}, [[European History Online]], Mainz: [[Institute of European History]], 2011, retrieved 25 February 2013.
* De Zayas, Alfred M.: ''A terrible Revenge''. [[Palgrave Macmillan]], New York, 1994. {{ISBN|1-4039-7308-3}}.
* De Zayas, Alfred M.: ''Nemesis at Potsdam'', London, 1977; {{ISBN|0-8032-4910-1}}.
* Douglas, R.M.: ''Orderly and Humane. The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War''. [[Yale University Press]], 2012; {{ISBN|978-0-3001-6660-6}}
* [http://www.cvce.eu/ena/?url_ena=european_navigator-2-7862 German statistics] (Statistical and graphical data illustrating German population movements in the aftermath of the Second World War published in 1966 by the West German Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons)
* {{Cite book |last=Gibney |first=Matthew J. |title=Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present |last2=Hansen |first2=Randall |date=2005 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-5760-7796-2 |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |ol=17736208W}}
* Grau, Karl F. ''Silesian Inferno, War Crimes of the Red Army on its March into Silesia in 1945'', Valley Forge, PA: The Landpost Press, 1992; {{ISBN|1-8808-8109-8}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hahn |first=Hans Henning |title=Die Vertreibung im deutschen Erinnern. Legenden, Mythos, Geschichte |last2=Hahn |first2=Eva |publisher=Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag |date=2010 |isbn=978-3-5067-7044-8 |location=Paderborn |language=de}}
* {{Cite book |last=Haar |first=Ingo |lang=de |title=Herausforderung Bevölkerung: zu Entwicklungen des modernen Denkens über die Bevölkerung vor, im und nach dem Dritten Reich". ''"Bevölkerungsbilanzen" und "Vertreibungsverluste". Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte der deutschen Opferangaben aus Flucht und Vertreibung'' |publisher=Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften |date=2007 |isbn=978-3-5311-5556-2 |ol=23163187M}}
* Jankowiak, Stanisław. ''Wysiedlenie i emigracja ludności niemieckiej w polityce władz polskich w latach 1945–1970'' [Expulsion and emigration of German population in the policies of Polish authorities in 1945–1970], Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2005; {{ISBN|8-3890-7880-5}}
* {{Cite book |last=Mix |first=Karl-Georg |title=Deutsche Flüchtlinge in Dänemark 1945–1949 |publisher=Franz Steiner Verlag |date=2005 |isbn=3-5150-8690-0 |language=de}}
* Naimark, Norman M. ''The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949'', Cambridge: [[Harvard University Press]], 1995; {{ISBN|0-6747-8405-7}}
* Naimark, Norman M.: ''Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth–Century Europe''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001; {{ISBN|0-6740-0994-0}}
* Overy, Richard. ''The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich'', London: [[Penguin Books]], 1996; {{ISBN|0-1405-1330-2}}, p.&nbsp;111.
* Podlasek, Maria. ''Wypędzenie Niemców z terenów na wschód od Odry i Nysy Łużyckiej'', Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Polsko-Niemieckie, 1995; {{ISBN|8-3866-5300-0}}
* {{Cite web |first=Steffen |last=Prauser |first2=Arfon|last2=Rees |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091001022039/http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf |title=The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War {{!}} EUI Working Paper HEC No. 2004/1 |url=http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf |location=Florence |publisher=European University Institute |archive-date=October 1, 2009 |date=December 2004}}. Contributors: Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, Piotr Pykel, Tomasz Kamusella, Balazs Apor, Stanislav Sretenovic, Markus Wien, Tillmann Tegeler, and Luigi Cajani.
* Reichling, Gerhard. ''Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen'', 1986; {{ISBN|3-8855-7046-7}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061108172059/http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/marshall/large/documents/index.php Truman Presidential Library: Marshall Plan Documents], trumanlibrary.org; accessed 6 December 2014.
<!-- ''[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/marshall/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=28 February 1947&documentid=24&studycollectionid=mp&pagenumber=1 Report on Agricultural and Food Requirements of Germany]'', 1947. (provides statistics about population transfer) ??? -->
<!-- If previous link changes it may be located again in Truman Presidential Library, section on Marshall Plan Documents here:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/marshall/large/index.php Truman Presidential Library: Marshal Plan Documents -->
* Zybura, Marek. ''Niemcy w Polsce'' [Germans in Poland], Wrocław: [[Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie]], 2004; {{ISBN|8-3738-4171-7}}.
* Suppan, Arnold: "Hitler – Benes – Tito". Wien 2014. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Drei Bände. {{ISBN|978-3-7001-7309-0}}.
{{Refend}}

== External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://vimeo.com/39264897 A documentary film about the expulsion of the Germans from Hungary]
* [http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4600&context=expresso Timothy V. Waters, ''On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing''], Paper 951, 2006, [[University of Mississippi School of Law]] (PDF)
* [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1945v02.p1240&isize=M Interest of the United States in the transfer of German populations from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Austria], Foreign relations of the United States: diplomatic papers, Volume II (1945) pp.&nbsp;1227–1327 (Note: p.&nbsp;1227 begins with a Czechoslovak document dated 23 November 1944, several months before Czechoslovakia was "liberated" by the Soviet Army.) ([http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1945v02 Main URL], wisc.edu)
* [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1945Berlinv01.p0874 Frontiers and areas of administration.] Foreign relations of the United States (the Potsdam Conference), Volume I (1945), wisc.edu
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110727225420/http://www.iz.poznan.pl/news/99_Biuletyn%20IZ%20nr%2021.%20History%20and%20Memory%20(numer%20specjalny).pdf History and Memory: mass expulsions and transfers 1939–1945–1949], M. Rutowska, Z. Mazur, H. Orłowski
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=it0-Zi2nEX0C Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, 1939–1950]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150924025900/http://www.herder-institut.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/vergriffene_Publikationen/Losy_Band1.pdf "Unsere Heimat ist uns ein fremdes Land geworden..." Die Deutschen östlich von Oder und Neiße 1945–1950. Dokumente aus polnischen Archiven. Band 1: Zentrale Behörden, Wojewodschaft Allenstein]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120413231136/http://www.z-g-v.de/doku/index5.htm Dokumentation der Vertreibung] {{in lang|de}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120127050938/http://library.uwb.edu/guides/USimmigration/1948_displaced_persons_act.html Displaced Persons Act of 1948]
* [https://archive.today/20130826223717/http://www.many-roads.com/galleries/Photo%20Galleries/Senger%20Family%20Photos/Flucht%20Expulsion/ Flucht und Vertreibung Gallerie- Flight & Expulsion Gallery]
* [http://www.many-roads.com/libraries/prussia-histories/deutsche-vertriebenen-german-expulsions-history/ Deutsche Vertriebenen – German Expulsions (Histories & Documentation)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160401112530/http://www.many-roads.com/libraries/prussia-histories/deutsche-vertriebenen-german-expulsions-history |date=1 April 2016}}

{{Germany topics}}
{{German diaspora}}
{{World War II}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Expulsion Of Germans After World War Ii}}
[[Category:1940s in Germany]]
[[Category:1950 in Germany]]
[[Category:Post–World War II forced migrations|Germans]]
[[Category:Forced migration in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Sudetenland]]
[[Category:Prussia]]
[[Category:Aftermath of World War II in Germany]]
[[Category:Aftermath of World War II in Poland]]
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[[Category:German diaspora in Europe]]
[[Category:German diaspora in Poland]]
[[Category:Germany–Soviet Union relations]]
[[Category:Czechoslovakia–Germany relations]]
[[Category:Estonia–Germany relations]]
[[Category:Germany–Latvia relations]]
[[Category:German occupation of Lithuania during World War II]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing of Germans]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing in Europe]]
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[[Category:Genocides in Europe]]
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[[Category:American collusion with Soviet World War II crimes]]
[[Category:British collusion with Soviet World War II crimes]]
[[Category:Polish war crimes in World War II]]
[[Category:Soviet World War II crimes]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing| ]]
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[[Category:Forced migrations in Europe]]
[[Category:Human rights abuses]]
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[[Category:Racially motivated violence]]
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