Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia
Encyclopedia
The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of evacuations and expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia
, the Czech resistance groups
, based on Nazi terror during occupation, demanded the deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia. The decision to deport the Germans was adopted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile
which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies
for this proposal. The final agreement for the expulsion of the German population however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of the Potsdam Conference.
In the months following the end of the war "wild" expulsions happened from May till August 1945. Czechoslovak President Beneš on October 28,1945 called for the "final solution of the German question" which would have to be "solved" by deportation of the ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. The expulsions were executed by order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers. However in some cases it was initiated or pursued with the assistance of the regular army. Several thousand died violently during the expulsion and more died from hunger and illness as a consequence. The expulsion according to the Potsdam Conference proceeded from 25 January 1946 till October of that year. An estimated 1.6 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany).
The expulsions ended in 1948 when about 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic Germans remained in Czechoslovakia. After the mid 1950's many were allowed to emigrate to Germany.
The following groups of ethnic Germans were not deported:
The West German government in 1958 estimated the death toll be about 270,000This figure has been cited in historical literature since then. Recent research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians in 1995 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 actual death toll was at least 15,000 persons and that it could range up to a maximum of 30,000 dead if one assumes that some deaths were not reported. The Commisson statement also pointed out that German records show 18,889 confirmed deaths including 3,411 suicides. Czech records indicated 22,247 deaths including 6,667 unexplained cases or suicides . The German Church Search Service was able to confirm the deaths of 14,215 persons during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia. (6,316 violent deaths, 6,989 in internment camps and 907 in the USSR as forced laborers.
Harvard Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge
submitted his report to the American Delegation proposing the separation of the Sudetenland
from Bohemia
and Moravia
, since it appeared unwise to force 3.5 million Germans under Czech rule, in violation of the principle of self-determination. Following the Munich Agreement
of 1938 and the Occupation of Bohemia and Moravia
by Hitler in March 1939, Edvard Beneš
set out to convince the Allies during World War II
that expulsion was the best solution. Almost as soon as German troops occupied the Sudetenland in October 1938, Edvard Beneš and later the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile
pursued a twofold policy: the restoration of Czechoslovakia to its pre-Munich boundaries and the removal, through a combination of minor border rectifications and population transfer, of the state’s German minority to restore the territorial integrity of state. Although the details changed along with British public and official opinion and pressure from Czech resistance groups
, the broad goals of the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile remained the same throughout the war.
The pre-war policy of minority protection was now seen as useless and counterproductive (and the minorities themselves were seen as the source of unrest and instability), because it led to the destruction of the democratic régime and the whole Czechoslovak state. Therefore the Czechoslovakian leaders made a decision to change the multiethnic character of the state to a state of 2 or 3 ethnicities (Czechs, Slovaks and initially also the Ruthenians
). This goal was to be reached by the expulsion of the major part of minority members and the successive assimilation of the rest. Because almost all people of German and Magyar ethnicity gained German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the expulsion could be legalized as the banishment of the foreigners.
On June 22, 1942, after plans for the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans
had become known, Wenzel Jaksch
(a Sudeten German Social Democrat in exile) wrote a letter to Edvard Beneš protesting the proposed plans.
Initially only a few hundred thousand Sudeten Germans were to be affected, people who were perceived as being disloyal to Czechoslovakia and who, according to Beneš and Czech public opinion, had acted as Hitler's "fifth column
." Due to escalation of Nazi atrocities in occupied Czechoslovakia the demands of the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile, Czech resistance groups and also the wide majority of the Czechs for expulsion included more and more Germans, with no individual investigation of inference of guilt on their part, the only exception being 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic German "anti-fascists" and those ethnic Germans crucial for industries who were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia. In conclusion the Czechs and their government did not want Czechoslovakia to be burdened in future with a sizable German minority.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia
, especially after the Nazis reprisal for the assassination on Heydrich
, most of the Czech resistance groups
demanded the final solution of the German question which would have to be solved by transfer/expulsion. These demands were adopted by the Government-in-Exile which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies
for this proposal. The final agreement for the transfer of German minority however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of Potsdam Conference. The drafter of article XIII of the Potsdam Communique concerning the expulsions, Sir Geoffrey Harrison, wrote on 31 July 1945 to Sir John Troutbeck, head of the German Department at the Foreign Office: "The Sub-Committee met three times, taking as a basis of discussion a draft which I circulated...Sobolov took the view that the Polish and Czechoslovak wish to expel their German populations was the fulfilment of an historic mission which the Soviet Government were unwilling to try to impede....Cannon and I naturally strongly opposed this view. We made it clear that we did not like the idea of mass transfers anyway. As, however, we could not prevent them, we wished to ensure that they were carried out in as orderly and humane manner as possible..."(FO 371/46811, published in facsimile in A. de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam, pp. 232–34).
Developing a clear picture of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia is difficult because of the chaotic conditions that existed at the end of the war. There was no stable central government and record-keeping was non-existent. Many of the events that occurred during the period were spontaneous and local rather than being the result of coordinated policy directives from a central government. Among these spontaneous events was the removal and detention of the Sudeten Germans which was triggered by the strong anti-German sentiment at the grass-roots level and organized by local officials.
According to the Schieder commission
, records of food rationing coupons show approximately 3,070,899 inhabitants of occupied Sudetenland in January 1945, which included Czechs or other non-Germans. In addition, most of the roughly 100,000 Carpathian Germans
from Slovakia were evacuated on Himmler
's orders to the Bohemia-Moravia region just before the end of the war. During April and May 1945 an estimated 1.6 million Germans from Polish Silesia
fled the advancing Soviet forces and became refugees in Bohemia-Moravia. Thus according to German estimates there were 4.5 million German civilians present in Bohemia-Moravia in May 1945.
, which included oppression and persecution of the non-Czech and non-Slovak populations of the partially restored Czechoslovak Republic. After the proclamation of the Košice program, the German and Hungarian population living in the reborn Czechoslovak state were subjected to various forms of court procedures, citizenship revocations, property confiscation, condemnation to forced labour camps, and appointment of government managers to German and Hungarian owned businesses and farms, referred to euphemistically as “reslovakization.”
A pamphlet issued on June 5 titled "Ten Commandments for Czechoslovak Soldiers in the Border Regions" directed soldiers that "The Germans have remained our irreconcilable enemies. Do not cease to hate the Germans... Behave towards Germans like a victor... Be harsh to the Germans... German women and the Hitler Youth also bear the blame for the crimes of the Germans. Deal with them too in an uncompromising way.
On June 15, 1945, a government decree directed the army to implement measures to apprehend Nazi criminals and carry out the transfer of the German population. On July 27, 1945, the Ministry of National Defence issued a secret order directing that the transfer should be carried out on as large a scale as possible and as expeditiously as possible so as to present the Western powers with a fait accompli. British and American representatives were already calling for discussions about the timing and means by which the transfer was to be conducted. The Anglo-American vision was for the resettlement to start in about five years. In the interim, they envisioned only partial, internal transfers of the German population who were to be subjected to forced labour.
and by the Board of Slovak Commissioners (an appendage of the Czechoslovak government in Bratislava).
The Beneš decrees
are most often associated with the population transfer
in 1945-47 of about 2.6 million former Czechoslovak citizens of German ethnicity (see also Sudetenland
) to Germany and Austria. However, they do not directly refer to the expulsions; its advocates argue that the German exodus from Eastern Europe
was agreed upon by the Allied powers at the Potsdam Conference
.
Decrees 5, 12, 33, 108/1945 concerned the expropriation of wartime traitors and collaborators accused of treason
but also all Germans and Hungarians. They also ordered the removal of citizenship
from people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin
who were treated collectively as collaborators (these provisions were cancelled for the Hungarians in 1948). This was then used to confiscate their property and expel around 90 % of the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia. These people were collectively accused of supporting the Nazis (through the Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP), the political party led by Konrad Henlein
) and the Third Reich's annexation of the Czech borderland in 1938. Decrees 33/1945 and 108/1945 explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to anti-fascists. Typically it was up to the decision of local municipalities. 160,000-250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists, but mostly people crucial for the industry remained in Czechoslovakia.
:
According to Alfred de Zayas:
Conditions in the internment camp near Kolín
, in which internees were raped and beaten and two of them were killed were investigated by the Czechoslovak parliament. According to a rough estimate by Tomáš Staněk, approximately 10,000 people died in Czech camps and prisons from 1945 to 1948. The causes of death included epidemics, undernourishment, overall exhaustion and old age, but also ill-treatment and executions.
and it specifies that "Any act committed between September 30, 1938 and October 28, 1945, the object of which was to aid the struggle for liberty of the Czechs and Slovaks or which represented just reprisals for actions of the occupation forces and their accomplices, is not illegal, even when such acts may otherwise be punishable by law." This law, which is still in force, has de facto ensured that no atrocities against Germans during the time-period in question have been prosecuted in Czechoslovakia.
However, the Czech government did express its regret in the 1997 Joint Czech-German Declaration on the Mutual Relations and their Future Development:
apologized, on behalf of his people, for massacres of Germans during the expulsion, and even suggested that former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech nationality to reclaim their lost properties. However, the Czech government never followed through on Havel's suggestion. The UN Human Rights Committee issued decisions in three cases concerning Sudeten Germans (Des Fours Walderode v. Czech Republic; Petzoldova v. Czech Republic; Czernin v. Czech Republic) in which violations of articles 26 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
were established and the Czech Republic was ordered to return the property to the rightful owners. To this date (2010) the Committee's views have not been implemented.(Jakob Th. Möller, United Nations Human Rights Committee Case Law, N.P.Engel Verlag, Kehl am Rhein 2009).
Public opinion surveys indicate that the public is opposed to such measures.
According to an article in the Prague Daily Monitor:
in the Treaty of Lausanne
of 1923 to provide compensation for private property to transferred Greeks and Turks following the Kemalist war
of 1919-1923. But events went faster and the expulsions began in May 1945, long before the Potsdam Conference and before any agreement on a commission had been settled. No population transfer commission with competence to evaluate the claims of the German expellees was ever established. (See Public Record Office documents FO 371/46810 and FO 371/46811). Since the Czechoslovak government-in-exile decided that population transfer was the only solution of the German question, the problem of reparation (war indemnity) was closely associated. The proposed population transfer as presented in negotiations with the governments of U.S., UK and U.S.S.R., presumed the confiscation of the Germans' property to cover the reparation demands of Czechoslovakia; then Germany should pay the compensation to satisfy its citizens. This fait accompli was to prevent Germany's evasion of reparation payment as happened after World War I.
This plan was suggested to the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency (IARA) in 1945, but because of the advent of the Cold war
was never confirmed by any treaty with Germany. The IARA ended its activity in 1959 and the status quo is as follows: Czech Republic kept the property of expelled ethnic Germans while Germany did not pay any reparations (only about 0.5 % of Czechoslovak demands were satisfied ). For this reason, every time the Sudeten Germans request compensation or the abolition of the Beneš decrees, the Czech side strikes back by the threat of reparation demands.
Even during the preparation of the Czech-German declaration the German side avoided the Czech demand to confirm the status quo by the agreement. However, Germany adopted the Czechoslovak fait accompli and has paid compensation to the expellees. It is a little known fact that, up to 1993 the German government paid about 141,000,000,000 DM
to the expellees. This averages out to about 14,000 DM for each expelled Sudeten German. But the total amount of money given to Sudeten Germans by the German state is uncertain.
In contrast to Germany, the issue of compensation of expellees was, at least nominally, closed by several treaties with Austria and Hungary. The most important follows:
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
, the Czech resistance groups
Czech resistance to Nazi occupation
Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance...
, based on Nazi terror during occupation, demanded the deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia. The decision to deport the Germans was adopted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other World War II Allies as they subsequently recognized it...
which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
for this proposal. The final agreement for the expulsion of the German population however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of the Potsdam Conference.
In the months following the end of the war "wild" expulsions happened from May till August 1945. Czechoslovak President Beneš on October 28,1945 called for the "final solution of the German question" which would have to be "solved" by deportation of the ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. The expulsions were executed by order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers. However in some cases it was initiated or pursued with the assistance of the regular army. Several thousand died violently during the expulsion and more died from hunger and illness as a consequence. The expulsion according to the Potsdam Conference proceeded from 25 January 1946 till October of that year. An estimated 1.6 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany).
The expulsions ended in 1948 when about 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic Germans remained in Czechoslovakia. After the mid 1950's many were allowed to emigrate to Germany.
The following groups of ethnic Germans were not deported:
- anti-fascists
- persons crucial for industries
- those married to ethnic Czechs
The West German government in 1958 estimated the death toll be about 270,000This figure has been cited in historical literature since then. Recent research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians in 1995 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 actual death toll was at least 15,000 persons and that it could range up to a maximum of 30,000 dead if one assumes that some deaths were not reported. The Commisson statement also pointed out that German records show 18,889 confirmed deaths including 3,411 suicides. Czech records indicated 22,247 deaths including 6,667 unexplained cases or suicides . The German Church Search Service was able to confirm the deaths of 14,215 persons during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia. (6,316 violent deaths, 6,989 in internment camps and 907 in the USSR as forced laborers.
Plans to expel the Sudeten Germans
The principle of “population transfer” of Germans was advocated in 1918-19 by the Foreign Minister of the new Czechoslovak State, but President Thomas Masaryk opposed it. At the Paris Peace ConferenceParis Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
Harvard Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge
Archibald Cary Coolidge
Archibald Cary Coolidge was an American educator. He was a Professor of History at Harvard College from 1908 and the first Director of the Harvard University Library from 1910 until his death...
submitted his report to the American Delegation proposing the separation of the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
from Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
and Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
, since it appeared unwise to force 3.5 million Germans under Czech rule, in violation of the principle of self-determination. Following the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
of 1938 and the Occupation of Bohemia and Moravia
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
by Hitler in March 1939, Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
set out to convince the Allies during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
that expulsion was the best solution. Almost as soon as German troops occupied the Sudetenland in October 1938, Edvard Beneš and later the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other World War II Allies as they subsequently recognized it...
pursued a twofold policy: the restoration of Czechoslovakia to its pre-Munich boundaries and the removal, through a combination of minor border rectifications and population transfer, of the state’s German minority to restore the territorial integrity of state. Although the details changed along with British public and official opinion and pressure from Czech resistance groups
Czech resistance to Nazi occupation
Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance...
, the broad goals of the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile remained the same throughout the war.
The pre-war policy of minority protection was now seen as useless and counterproductive (and the minorities themselves were seen as the source of unrest and instability), because it led to the destruction of the democratic régime and the whole Czechoslovak state. Therefore the Czechoslovakian leaders made a decision to change the multiethnic character of the state to a state of 2 or 3 ethnicities (Czechs, Slovaks and initially also the Ruthenians
Ruthenians
The name Ruthenian |Rus']]) is a culturally loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is used. Initially, it was the ethnonym used for the East Slavic peoples who lived in Rus'. Later it was used predominantly for Ukrainians...
). This goal was to be reached by the expulsion of the major part of minority members and the successive assimilation of the rest. Because almost all people of German and Magyar ethnicity gained German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the expulsion could be legalized as the banishment of the foreigners.
On June 22, 1942, after plans for the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans
Sudeten Germans
- Importance of Sudeten Germans :Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over 3 million ethnic Germans, comprising about 23 percent of the population of the republic and about 29.5% of Bohemia and Moravia....
had become known, Wenzel Jaksch
Wenzel Jaksch
Wenzel Jaksch was a Sudeten German Socialdemocrat politician and the President of the Federation of Expellees in 1964-66.-Biography:...
(a Sudeten German Social Democrat in exile) wrote a letter to Edvard Beneš protesting the proposed plans.
Initially only a few hundred thousand Sudeten Germans were to be affected, people who were perceived as being disloyal to Czechoslovakia and who, according to Beneš and Czech public opinion, had acted as Hitler's "fifth column
Fifth column
A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group such as a nation from within.-Origin:The term originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, a Nationalist General during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War...
." Due to escalation of Nazi atrocities in occupied Czechoslovakia the demands of the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile, Czech resistance groups and also the wide majority of the Czechs for expulsion included more and more Germans, with no individual investigation of inference of guilt on their part, the only exception being 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic German "anti-fascists" and those ethnic Germans crucial for industries who were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia. In conclusion the Czechs and their government did not want Czechoslovakia to be burdened in future with a sizable German minority.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
, especially after the Nazis reprisal for the assassination on Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
, most of the Czech resistance groups
Czech resistance to Nazi occupation
Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance...
demanded the final solution of the German question which would have to be solved by transfer/expulsion. These demands were adopted by the Government-in-Exile which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
for this proposal. The final agreement for the transfer of German minority however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of Potsdam Conference. The drafter of article XIII of the Potsdam Communique concerning the expulsions, Sir Geoffrey Harrison, wrote on 31 July 1945 to Sir John Troutbeck, head of the German Department at the Foreign Office: "The Sub-Committee met three times, taking as a basis of discussion a draft which I circulated...Sobolov took the view that the Polish and Czechoslovak wish to expel their German populations was the fulfilment of an historic mission which the Soviet Government were unwilling to try to impede....Cannon and I naturally strongly opposed this view. We made it clear that we did not like the idea of mass transfers anyway. As, however, we could not prevent them, we wished to ensure that they were carried out in as orderly and humane manner as possible..."(FO 371/46811, published in facsimile in A. de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam, pp. 232–34).
Germans in Czechoslovakia by the time of the armistice
According to the Schieder commission
Schieder commission
Documents on the Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern-Central Europe is the abridged English translation of a multi-volume publication that was created by a commission of West German historians between 1951 and 1961...
, records of food rationing coupons show approximately 3,070,899 inhabitants of occupied Sudetenland in January 1945, which included Czechs or other non-Germans. In addition, most of the roughly 100,000 Carpathian Germans
Carpathian Germans
Carpathian Germans , sometimes simply called Slovak Germans , are a group of German language speakers on the territory of present-day Slovakia...
from Slovakia were evacuated on Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
's orders to the Bohemia-Moravia region just before the end of the war. During April and May 1945 an estimated 1.6 million Germans from Polish Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
fled the advancing Soviet forces and became refugees in Bohemia-Moravia. Thus according to German estimates there were 4.5 million German civilians present in Bohemia-Moravia in May 1945.
Chronology of the expulsions
From London and Moscow, Czech and Slovak political agents in exile followed an advancing Soviet army pursuing German forces westward, to reach the territory of the first former Czechoslovak Republic. Beneš proclaimed the programme of the newly appointed Czechoslovak government on April 5, 1945, in the northeastern city of KošiceKošice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
, which included oppression and persecution of the non-Czech and non-Slovak populations of the partially restored Czechoslovak Republic. After the proclamation of the Košice program, the German and Hungarian population living in the reborn Czechoslovak state were subjected to various forms of court procedures, citizenship revocations, property confiscation, condemnation to forced labour camps, and appointment of government managers to German and Hungarian owned businesses and farms, referred to euphemistically as “reslovakization.”
Role of the Czechoslovak army
General Zdeněk Novák, head of the Prague military command "Alex", issued an order to "deport all Germans from territory within the historical borders".A pamphlet issued on June 5 titled "Ten Commandments for Czechoslovak Soldiers in the Border Regions" directed soldiers that "The Germans have remained our irreconcilable enemies. Do not cease to hate the Germans... Behave towards Germans like a victor... Be harsh to the Germans... German women and the Hitler Youth also bear the blame for the crimes of the Germans. Deal with them too in an uncompromising way.
On June 15, 1945, a government decree directed the army to implement measures to apprehend Nazi criminals and carry out the transfer of the German population. On July 27, 1945, the Ministry of National Defence issued a secret order directing that the transfer should be carried out on as large a scale as possible and as expeditiously as possible so as to present the Western powers with a fait accompli. British and American representatives were already calling for discussions about the timing and means by which the transfer was to be conducted. The Anglo-American vision was for the resettlement to start in about five years. In the interim, they envisioned only partial, internal transfers of the German population who were to be subjected to forced labour.
Beneš decrees
Between 1945 and 1948, a series of presidential decrees, edicts, laws and statutes were proclaimed by the president of the republic, the Prague-based Czechoslovak Parliament, the Slovak National Council (Parliament) in BratislavaBratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
and by the Board of Slovak Commissioners (an appendage of the Czechoslovak government in Bratislava).
The Beneš decrees
Beneš decrees
Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
are most often associated with the population transfer
Population transfer
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
in 1945-47 of about 2.6 million former Czechoslovak citizens of German ethnicity (see also Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
) to Germany and Austria. However, they do not directly refer to the expulsions; its advocates argue that the German exodus from Eastern Europe
German exodus from Eastern Europe
The German exodus from Eastern Europe describes the dramatic reduction of ethnic German populations in lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. The exodus began in the aftermath of World War I and was implicated in the rise of Nazism. It culminated in expulsions of Germans from...
was agreed upon by the Allied powers at the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
.
Decrees 5, 12, 33, 108/1945 concerned the expropriation of wartime traitors and collaborators accused of treason
Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
The pursuit of Nazi collaborators refers to the post-World War II pursuit and apprehension of individuals who were not citizens of the Third Reich at the outbreak of World War II and collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war...
but also all Germans and Hungarians. They also ordered the removal of citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
from people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin
Ethnic origin
The concept of ethnic origin is an attempt to classify people, not according to their current nationality, but according to where their ancestors came from...
who were treated collectively as collaborators (these provisions were cancelled for the Hungarians in 1948). This was then used to confiscate their property and expel around 90 % of the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia. These people were collectively accused of supporting the Nazis (through the Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP), the political party led by Konrad Henlein
Konrad Henlein
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists...
) and the Third Reich's annexation of the Czech borderland in 1938. Decrees 33/1945 and 108/1945 explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to anti-fascists. Typically it was up to the decision of local municipalities. 160,000-250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists, but mostly people crucial for the industry remained in Czechoslovakia.
Massacres
In the summer of 1945 there were localised massacres of the German population. The following examples are described in a study done by the European University Institute in FlorenceEuropean University Institute
The European University Institute ' in Florence is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute established by European Union member states to contribute to cultural and scientific development in the social sciences, in a European perspective...
:
- June 18–19, 1945, in the PřerovPrerovPřerov is a town in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic where the Bečva river flows through. Přerov is a statute town . It has population of about 47,373 to January 2, 2008. Přerov is about 22 km south west of Olomouc. In the past it was a major crossroad in the heart of Moravia in the...
incident, 71 men, 120 women and 74 children (265 Germans) who were Slovak Germans from DobšináDobšináDobšiná is a town in the Slovenské rudohorie mountains in Slovakia, on the Slaná River, north-west of Košice.-Geography:...
were passing through Horní MoštěniceHorní MošteniceHorní Moštěnice is a village and municipality in Přerov District in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. It has a population of about 1,600, who live in 560 houses. It is south of the town of Přerov, on the road between Přerov and Otrokovice. It is a quite modern village...
near PřerovPrerovPřerov is a town in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic where the Bečva river flows through. Přerov is a statute town . It has population of about 47,373 to January 2, 2008. Přerov is about 22 km south west of Olomouc. In the past it was a major crossroad in the heart of Moravia in the...
railway station. Here they were taken out of the train, taken outside the city to a hill named "Švédské šance", where they were forced to dig their own graves and all were shot. They were all murdered while being transported back to Slovakia by soldiers of the 17th Bratislava Foot Regiment. - 20,000 Germans were forced to leave BrnoBrnoBrno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
for camps in AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Z. Beneš reported 800 deaths. - Estimates of those killed in the Ústí massacreÚstí massacreThe Ústí massacre was a lynching of ethnic Germans in Ústí nad Labem , a largely ethnic German city in northern Bohemia shortly after the end of the World War II, on July 31, 1945....
range from 30 - 50 to 600 - 700 civilians. - 763 people were shot dead in PostoloprtyPostoloprtyPostoloprty is a town in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic, situated about 7 km west of Louny. It has around 5,000 inhabitants....
and the immediate vicinity. In September 1947 a Czechoslovak parliamentary commission investigated reports of mass graves scattered around the north Bohemian town of Postoloprty. In all, the investigation unearthed 763 German bodies, victims of a zealous Czechoslovak army detachment carrying out orders to "cleanse" the region of Germans in late May 1945. Expellees who survived the massacre estimated the number of their murdered neighbors at around 800.
Internment camps
According to the German "Society against Expulsion", some Germans were sent to "concentration camps". A 1964 report by the German Red Cross stated that 1,215 "internment camps" were established, as well as 846 forced labour and "disciplinary centres", and 215 prisons, on Czechoslovak territory. Special Courts sentenced 21,469 persons to prison and 713 were executed for crimes committed during the Nazi occupation. They made rough estimate claiming 350,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia passed through one or more of these institutions and 100,000 perished. However the Red Cross was able to confirm only 6,989 deaths in the internment camps.According to Alfred de Zayas:
Conditions in the internment camp near Kolín
Kolín
Kolín is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic some east from Prague, lying on the Elbe river.-History:Kolín was founded by king Přemysl Otakar II in the 13th century, first mentioned in 1261. Later on, 1437, a castle was founded here...
, in which internees were raped and beaten and two of them were killed were investigated by the Czechoslovak parliament. According to a rough estimate by Tomáš Staněk, approximately 10,000 people died in Czech camps and prisons from 1945 to 1948. The causes of death included epidemics, undernourishment, overall exhaustion and old age, but also ill-treatment and executions.
Expulsions
Germans living in the border regions of Czechoslovakia were expelled from the country in late 1945. The joint German and Czech commission of historians estimated that there were about 15,000 violent deaths.. Czech records report 15-16,000 deaths not including an additional 6,667 unexplained cases or suicides during the expulsion , and others died from hunger and illness in Germany as a consequence. In 1946, an estimated 1.3 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany).Act No. 115/1946 Coll.
On 8 May 1946 the Czechoslovak provisional National Assembly passed Act No. 115/1946 Coll. It was enacted in conjunction with the Beneš decreesBeneš decrees
Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
and it specifies that "Any act committed between September 30, 1938 and October 28, 1945, the object of which was to aid the struggle for liberty of the Czechs and Slovaks or which represented just reprisals for actions of the occupation forces and their accomplices, is not illegal, even when such acts may otherwise be punishable by law." This law, which is still in force, has de facto ensured that no atrocities against Germans during the time-period in question have been prosecuted in Czechoslovakia.
However, the Czech government did express its regret in the 1997 Joint Czech-German Declaration on the Mutual Relations and their Future Development:
Results
The joint Czech-German commission of historians stated in 1996 following numbers: the deaths caused by violence and abnormal living conditions amount approximately to 10,000 persons killed; another 5000 - 6000 persons died of unspecified reasons related to expulsion; making the total amount of victims of the expulsion 15,000 - 16,000 (this excludes suicides, which make another approximately 3400 cases .Legacy
The character of the post-war deportations of Sudeten Germans has been the subject of long-running debate between Germans, Czechs and Slovaks. In 1991 President Václav HavelVáclav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
apologized, on behalf of his people, for massacres of Germans during the expulsion, and even suggested that former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech nationality to reclaim their lost properties. However, the Czech government never followed through on Havel's suggestion. The UN Human Rights Committee issued decisions in three cases concerning Sudeten Germans (Des Fours Walderode v. Czech Republic; Petzoldova v. Czech Republic; Czernin v. Czech Republic) in which violations of articles 26 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...
were established and the Czech Republic was ordered to return the property to the rightful owners. To this date (2010) the Committee's views have not been implemented.(Jakob Th. Möller, United Nations Human Rights Committee Case Law, N.P.Engel Verlag, Kehl am Rhein 2009).
Public opinion surveys indicate that the public is opposed to such measures.
According to an article in the Prague Daily Monitor:
Compensation to expellees
The British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department planned a "population transfer commission" similar to the arrangementPopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey was based upon religious identity, and involved the Greek Orthodox citizens of Turkey and the Muslim citizens of Greece...
in the Treaty of Lausanne
Treaty of Lausanne
The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...
of 1923 to provide compensation for private property to transferred Greeks and Turks following the Kemalist war
Turkish War of Independence
The Turkish War of Independence was a war of independence waged by Turkish nationalists against the Allies, after the country was partitioned by the Allies following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in World War I...
of 1919-1923. But events went faster and the expulsions began in May 1945, long before the Potsdam Conference and before any agreement on a commission had been settled. No population transfer commission with competence to evaluate the claims of the German expellees was ever established. (See Public Record Office documents FO 371/46810 and FO 371/46811). Since the Czechoslovak government-in-exile decided that population transfer was the only solution of the German question, the problem of reparation (war indemnity) was closely associated. The proposed population transfer as presented in negotiations with the governments of U.S., UK and U.S.S.R., presumed the confiscation of the Germans' property to cover the reparation demands of Czechoslovakia; then Germany should pay the compensation to satisfy its citizens. This fait accompli was to prevent Germany's evasion of reparation payment as happened after World War I.
This plan was suggested to the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency (IARA) in 1945, but because of the advent of the Cold war
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
was never confirmed by any treaty with Germany. The IARA ended its activity in 1959 and the status quo is as follows: Czech Republic kept the property of expelled ethnic Germans while Germany did not pay any reparations (only about 0.5 % of Czechoslovak demands were satisfied ). For this reason, every time the Sudeten Germans request compensation or the abolition of the Beneš decrees, the Czech side strikes back by the threat of reparation demands.
Even during the preparation of the Czech-German declaration the German side avoided the Czech demand to confirm the status quo by the agreement. However, Germany adopted the Czechoslovak fait accompli and has paid compensation to the expellees. It is a little known fact that, up to 1993 the German government paid about 141,000,000,000 DM
German mark
The Deutsche Mark |mark]], abbreviated "DM") was the official currency of West Germany and Germany until the adoption of the euro in 2002. It is commonly called the "Deutschmark" in English but not in German. Germans often say "Mark" or "D-Mark"...
to the expellees. This averages out to about 14,000 DM for each expelled Sudeten German. But the total amount of money given to Sudeten Germans by the German state is uncertain.
In contrast to Germany, the issue of compensation of expellees was, at least nominally, closed by several treaties with Austria and Hungary. The most important follows:
- Treaty of 19 December 1974. According to this treaty Czechoslovakia pledged to pay 1,000,000,000 ATSAustrian schillingThe schilling was the currency of Austria from 1924 to 1938 and from 1945 to 1999, and the circulating currency until 2002. The euro was introduced at a fixed parity of €1 = 13.7603 schilling to replace it...
to cover the property demands of Austrian citizens and waived all former territory and all other demands of country or individuals against Austria. The Austrian side waived all demands against ČSSR and pledged to not support any demands of individuals against the ČSSR related to expulsion. - Treaty of 3 February 1964. According to this treaty Czechoslovakia pledged to satisfy all demands of Hungary and Hungarian citizens related to confiscations by paying 20,000,000 KčsCzechoslovak korunaThe Czechoslovak koruna was the currency of Czechoslovakia from April 10, 1919 to March 14, 1939 and from November 1, 1945 to February 7, 1993...
.
General articles
- History of CzechoslovakiaHistory of CzechoslovakiaWith the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed, encouraged by, among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson...
- Czech-German relationsCzech-German relationsCzech–German relations have a long and complicated history.There had been a German minority in Bohemia and Moravia for centuries. The regions later called Sudetenland were situated on the borders of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which also consisted of Moravia and was in turn part of the Holy Roman...
- Germans in Czechoslovakia (1918–1938)
- SudetenlandSudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
- Expulsion of Germans after World War IIExpulsion of Germans after World War IIThe later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
- German exodus from Eastern EuropeGerman exodus from Eastern EuropeThe German exodus from Eastern Europe describes the dramatic reduction of ethnic German populations in lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. The exodus began in the aftermath of World War I and was implicated in the rise of Nazism. It culminated in expulsions of Germans from...
- Demographic estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe
- Beneš decreesBeneš decreesDecrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
External links
- Execution of German Civilians in Prague (9 May 1945) (Czech TV documentary, perpetration disputed) (Adobe Flash PlayerAdobe Flash PlayerThe Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing multimedia, Rich Internet Applications and streaming video and audio, on a computer web browser or on supported mobile devices. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other...
, 2:32 min) - Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. Survivors speak out. Study Group for the Preservation of Sudeten German Interests 1951
- Alfred de Zayas: Anglo-American Responsibility for the Expulsion of the Germans, 1944–48. In Vardy/Tooley: Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe, pp. 239–254), (deals with the culpability of Czechoslovak President-in-exile, Edvard BenešEdvard BenešEdvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
). DOCDOC (computing)In computing, DOC or doc is a filename extension for word processing documents; most commonly for Microsoft Word. Historically, the extension was used for documentation in plain-text format, particularly of programs or computer hardware, on a wide range of operating systems... - Olga Szantová: Sudeten Germans demand punishment for Czech camp commandant. Radio Praha 11-07-2000
- Brian Kenety: Memories of World War II in the Czech Lands: the expulsion of Sudeten Germans. Radio Praha 14-04-2005
- Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus der Tschechoslowakei Band 1