One friend of mine, for example, wrote about music in film through his English class, meaning he wrote his whole research paper in English. Another wrote about epilepsy and seizures through his biology class. Through my history class, I wrote my Facharbeit about the expulsion of 12-16 million Germans after World War II, something that I knew nothing about before I came to Germany.
The topic is very controversial and is therefore very hard to summarize, but I'll give it a shot. Throughout history, there have been many groups of German-speaking populations spread throughout Central Europe. Even the wide borders of the German Empire founded in 1871, which were much different than those of the currentBundesrepublik, didn't contain all German-speaking populations in Europe.
Image from Wikipedia. Please click for a larger version.
In addition, Nazi Germany annexed Austria in March of 1938, the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, which had a very high German population of over 3 million, in November of 1938, and finally the rest of the "Czech" part of Czechoslovakia in March of 1939.
Image from Wikipedia. Please click for a larger version. The red border corresponds to the border in the first picture, and the dotted bluish border is the border of Nazi Germany in the middle of the war in 1943, not including all of the occupied territories and puppet governments throughout Europe.
After invading Poland in 1939 and the start of World War II, Nazi Germany acquired even more terrritory. The Nazis forced Polish citizens from their homes and settled more Germans in this newly acquired territory.
Then came World War II with all of the horrible atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, above all the 6 million Jews and 6 million political dissidents, homosexuals, handicapped people, and other minorities killed during the Holocaust.
But as the war came to a close and it became clear that the Allies were going to win, the question arose, among others: what should be done with these German populations living in other countries?
Meanwhile, the advancing Red Army caused many Germans living in Eastern Europe to flee. The Allies then set new borders for Germany, which can be seen on the first map in this post. They then decided to expel the Germans from the areas outside of these borders. Families were given sometimes just hours' notice and told they could take whatever they could carry with them.
The numbers are highly disputed, but it's safe to say that at least 12 million ethnic Germans made the long journey from countries like Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the former Yugoslavia. They took whatever they could with them using makeshift wagons and horses.
Upon arrival in Germany, they encountered a situation no better than the one they had just left in Eastern Europe. The country lay in ruins, there were hardly any jobs and there was even less to eat. Most of the expellees sought a new home in West Germany in fear of the Russian government.
After the Wirtschaftswunder (econonomic miracle) in the 1950s, the expellees could finally find jobs and homes in Germany. The expulsion, as well as many other topics about World War II, was still a little bit taboo. It took a backseat to the national guilt about the Holocaust.
From Wikipedia, a picture of Germans expelled from the Sudetenland area in Czechoslovakia.
Now, one finds many families in which a grandparent or relative was expelled way back then, and the issue is no longer taboo. But it, along with all of the atrocities associated with World War II, still have a large impact on the German national identity, and they're something that the modern, democratic Germany really struggles with. Images like the one above are still a very meaningful part of German history.
So that's a short summary of the results of my 2,500 word research paper, and hopefully a good enough excuse for why I didn't post last week.
For the Americans, I'd be curious: who had already heard of this event before they read this blog? I knew absolutely nothing about it until I got here.
6 comments:
I knew about it for a couple of reasons. One was doing a search on ethnic German populations outside of Germany after my surprise at learning most Germans have no idea how many of them went to the United States (for example) - ie that people of German descent are the largest ethnic group in the United States! The second is that my great-grandfather was a German who immigrated to the US from Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. He came over well before WWII but there was still family there when he left, as far as I know. I often wonder what became of the rest of them.
Good post!
Yes, that's something that surprised me when I first learned it, as well. I wish I would have taken a picture of the map I saw when
I was in the German Emigrant Center. It showed the ethnic heritage of the regions of the United States on a map. The majority of the population in practically the whole Midwest had German heritage.
Have your parents or grandparents ever passed on to you any stories your great-grandfather told about life in Moravia?
-Kevin
The only story passed down was that life was very hard work on the farm. Only a couple of German words (like Arbeit) were passed down. Maybe it was something he wanted to leave behind. :/
Since I'm behind in reading your posts, you probably won't see this comment. I had never heard of this "relocation." Not as awful as the concentration camps, et al, but still awful.
Aunt Ceil,
I get an e-mail whenever someone leaves a comment, so I'll always see it. No worries. :)
There is absolutely no event in history more horrifying or despicable than the Holocaust and this post wasn't trying to say anything against that.
I mentioned the Holocaust only briefly because I think it really would need a whole post for itself or a series of posts and I was trying to stay on topic.
What would you guys want to know about in a post about the Holocaust as far as its effects on Germans today?
-Kevin
Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.
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