Talk:Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)/Archive 19
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Rudolph Rummel uses obsolete data
Rudolph Rummel quotes sources published before 1991, in fact he quotes the same German post-war propaganda rewritten by people, who didn't do any research. Rudolph Rummel has published several anti-Polish texts, proving his ignorance regarding European history.Xx236 (talk) 11:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunaly in the English speaking world Rummel and De Zayas are the only sources in most libraries. The Polish editors need to include a writeup of Jankowiak, Wysiedlenie i emigracja ludności niemieckiej w polityce władz polskich w latach 1945-1970 by IPN. My Polish is only basic otherwise I would do it. Kotinski can you get this book? We need you to present the Polish POV here--Woogie10w (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
- What's wrong with de Zayas? The reason he's the "only source in most librarires" is that he's one of the few who have tackled the issue (see the wikipedia artile on de Zayas himself for corroboration Alfred_de_Zayas).TheKurgan (talk) 18:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- I think the problem here is that it is possible to do very good, solid academic work that is still colored by a biased POV. de Zayas is an example of this. There are two extremes to the POV spectrum: one asserts that the forced population transfer of ethnic Germans was an injustice, even an atrocity reaching to the level of a crime against humanity. As I understand it, this is basically the de Zayas perspective and he is to be praised for bringing the horrors of that aspect of the era to public attention after it had been suppressed and ignored for decades. However, there is another perspective that argues that there was lots of suffering in Europe at the time, the beneficiaries of the Nazi occupation of Poland and Eastern Europe were also the just recipients of retribution by the Poles and Eastern Europeans, many people of all nations were displaced and suffered horribly, much relocation of Germans was due to voluntary evacuation in flight from the advancing Soviet army, etc.
- What's wrong with de Zayas? The reason he's the "only source in most librarires" is that he's one of the few who have tackled the issue (see the wikipedia artile on de Zayas himself for corroboration Alfred_de_Zayas).TheKurgan (talk) 18:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- How you count the number displaced and killed depends on your methodology and that is colored very much by your perspective on the phenomenon. de Zayas is an important source for presenting the "atrocity reaching to the level of crime against humanity" POV. However, one has to remember that there are opposing POVs and de Zayas should not be presented by Wikipedia as the owner of the "gospel truth". Leave it to the reader to decide for him/herself where the truth lies. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 19:30, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- I understand your point, Richard. Both sides need to be presented. There isn't much literature on the subject as a whole that I've found. Both POV's seem to not want to touch the problem (powder keg, perhaps?). Personally, I think that the expulsions were a combination of Revenge on the Germans and Germans hauling butt to get out of the area before they were killed/raped. <POV alert> My opinion is it's probably about 65-35 revenge. I, too, have not found any substantial material other than what's already been mentioned, but, with my job search currently, I haven't had much time to look, either. Rummel seems too self serving, as well, interested merely in buttressing his own theories. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the vibe I get from him. de Zayas is a Crusader/true believer.<end POV>TheKurgan (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
- How you count the number displaced and killed depends on your methodology and that is colored very much by your perspective on the phenomenon. de Zayas is an important source for presenting the "atrocity reaching to the level of crime against humanity" POV. However, one has to remember that there are opposing POVs and de Zayas should not be presented by Wikipedia as the owner of the "gospel truth". Leave it to the reader to decide for him/herself where the truth lies. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 19:30, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- How can one honestly say that it is a POV that the expulsions were a crime against humanity or an injustice to put it mildly? Who would declare them justified aside from those who gained from such war crimes? Based on pre WWII international law as well as numerous treaties signed during WWII, all of the expulsions, Germans, Poles, Romanians, Fins, Balts were not only injustices but illegal and constitute ethnic cleansing with numerous cases of regional genocide and are a case of evil triumphing. The only people who defend such actions are those who gained from them, similar to how a bank robber would defend his or her actions in robbing a bank because they benefited from it and as of yet have not been forced to pay back what they stole. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of the German population of Prussian Lower Silesia, Pomerania, the Neumark, East Prussia, Danzig, the Grenzmark territories and the Sudentenland was a compact majority population, while the Memelland and H Land were inhabited by overwhelmingly pro-German populations. Even in Prussian Upper Sileisa (that is excluding the area that went to Poland following WWI), the population was mixed, yet there were at a minimum, 740,000 Germans in Poland in 1931 and 1,100,000 Poles in Germany, while virtually all of the Masurians considered themselves more akin to Germans than Poles--as shown that virtually none remain in Masuria today, virtually all of them having moved to Germany, along with many of the 'Sileisans.'
- The only problem I've seen with De Zayes is that he fails to pay proper attention to the Eastern Poles and the issues caused there by Stalin's gross territorial gluttony in illegally absorbing 69,398 mi, 179,740 km of pre WWII Poland, illegal in the violation of treaties dating back to Riga in 1921, as well as the UN declaration and the Sikorski–Mayski Agreement. This was/is just as much of a crime against humanity and 'injustice' as the annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Eastern German territories, although it does partial justification for some annexation given the Ukrainian and Belorussian majority over large swaths of the area (Polesia, Wolyn, Stanislawow, most of Nowogrodek and eastern Wilno). Unlike the Germans who were largely concentrated in homogenous groups (save those in the Carpathian Basin), the Poles were far more split up, albeit had high concentrations in two main areas, the 'Wilno Peninsula' and the 'Northeast Galicia Peninsula', albeit northeast Galicia had an overall Ukrainian majority. Even with the adjustments of scholars such as Tomaszewski to 'fix' the census falsifications of 1931, the number of Poles between the 'Curzon Line' and the 'Riga Line' was around 2,950,000 in 1931 (or 27.7% of the total population of 10,653,000), with at the minimum, some 765,000 additional Poles in the USSR (minimum based on the 1926 Soviet census which is believed to have under-counted the Polish population by 200,000 in Ukraine alone and not taking into account the growth between 1926 and 1931) as well as roughly as many Poles in Lithuania as there were Lithuanians in Wilno, Nowgrodek and eastern Bialystok, and not to mention the large Jewish populations around Lwow and Wilno.
- The fact of the matter is that all of the ethnic cleansing following WWII was Nazi and Soviet in character, caused by greater states removing minorities in order to 'justify' their gross territorial gluttony. Just as the Nazis and Soviets sought to eliminate the Polish population via deportation and death at gunpoint to justify the fourth partition of Poland, so too were the Eastern German and Eastern Polish, among others, eliminated via deportation and death at gunpoint. Prussia1231 (talk) 16:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Wikipedia should inform about facts - who, where, when, how many. Legal qualification of facts should be included (if needed) in the last section. Eg. de:Holocaust doesn't discuss legal aspects of the Holocaust, it uses (only once) the word Genozid.
- I find your above accounting of Poles funny. Borders of Communist Poland were defined by Joseph Stalin in 1945 (February ?) and the world accepted Stalin's decision, sometime complaining or pretending to oppose them. The Package included Breslau and Stettin (but not Lwów), kolkhoses and Soviet type terror. Noone asked Poles if they accepted the "Package". What was the difference - one million of Poles more or less? The Soviets didn't allow many Poles to emigrate to Poland in 1945, some travelled later, some died in the Soviet Union. All borders are now legal, accepted by involved countries, is it worth to write now that politicians were opportunictic in 1945? BTW. the same politicians accepted that Katyn was a German crime, (but judges refused to punish alleged German perpetrators in Nurnberg).
- According to you Poles "gained" loosing land and people as the result of WWII. Who exactly gained? The 6 000 000 dead or unborn people? The liberated KZ inmates who robbed or murdered in 1945? The peasants who obtained land and "joined" kolkhoses? My family lost a farm in the East and has never obtained any recompensation.
- "This was/is just as much of a crime against humanity and 'injustice' as the annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Eastern German territories, although it does partial justification" - so we are brothers in sufferings - Hans Frank and his Polish sklaves, KZ murderers and their victims, Wehrmacht soldiers and Wehrmacht victims, Luftwaffe pilots bombing Wieluń in 1939 and Polish pilots bombing Dresden in 1945? NSDAP members and Polish sklave workers controlled by the NSDAP members? No, thank you. Xx236 (talk) 11:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
- The fact of the matter is that all of the ethnic cleansing following WWII was Nazi and Soviet in character, caused by greater states removing minorities in order to 'justify' their gross territorial gluttony. Just as the Nazis and Soviets sought to eliminate the Polish population via deportation and death at gunpoint to justify the fourth partition of Poland, so too were the Eastern German and Eastern Polish, among others, eliminated via deportation and death at gunpoint. Prussia1231 (talk) 16:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't like any Polish POV either. I want facts, apparently manipulated by the majority of Germans, supported by South Amercan hobby historians. Where and when did Poles kill German civilians? How many? One can organise archeological investigations to find the bodies. Xx236 (talk) 12:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
- BTW Rummel is an American from Ohio, he is not German. Rummel never uses German sources, he uses only English language sources that POV push Schieder and the 1958 Bonn figures. West German propaganda dominated the agument during the cold war. To present the Polish critism of the the 1958 Bonn figures could get you labled as a communist. Today the writings of Overmans and Harr recieve little or no mention in the English speaking academic world except for some very brief snippits. The editors here at English Wikipedia need to present the details of the scholary discourse and steer clear of the food fight between Erika Steinbach-BvD and the Polish tabloid media --Woogie10w (talk) 13:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Condition of the expellees after arriving in post-war Germany-lacks some info
Mainly the political leadership of the "expellees" and their political demands-for instance restoration of Munich Treaty achieved by Adolf Hitler.I believe we should fix this omission--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 02:54, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Single ethnic population
I removed that sentence as it was incorrect. Some German Jews, Silesians, Kashubians were also expelled.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 02:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC) Czechs were also expelled.Xx236 (talk) 09:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
- Most were Protestant who lived in north Germany & Prussia. The article is silent on this Religion in Germany. 174.125.79.195 (talk) 13:50, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Wilfried Krallert deserves to be mentioned in this article, doesn't he?Xx236 (talk) 11:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree. Also in general,the article misses important data about political aspects. We certainly need to add Nazi connections of expellee organizations and role Nazis played in them.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 17:35, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
RE "we certainly need to add Nazi connections of expellee organizations and role Nazis played in them"... why? Because there is a legitimate connection (there isn't) or as an ad hominem attack against expellee organizations and the legitimate basis for their positions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.61.100.169 (talk) 20:17, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Discourse
There is a precise timetable of the discourse - first the German propaganda and later the critic, opposed by a German politician, not a historian. Xx236 (talk) 13:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
- What timetable? please explain? In any case Overmans maintains that Steinbach and Bergner are amateurs who exploit the issue for political reasons. Overmans also makes it clear that the question of the figures for the losses are uncertain and still need to be clarified by professional researchers.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
To back up my comments
This is where Overmans calls Steinbach and Bergner amateurs "als Laien" [2]
Overmans is qualified to speak on the subject, here is his resume. [3]
--Woogie10w (talk) 15:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
- I mean that the section should be ordered according to the timetable of the events. I mean that "Critic" is Ingo Haar's opinion, "opposed by a German politician". When I saw the section, there was no sequence of the events.Xx236 (talk) 13:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
- This discourse occurred in Nov 2006, Haar published an article in a German newspaper and Bergner, Haar and Overmans were interviewed on German radio shortly thereafter. Then Frau Steinbach, the BvD and the Polish tabloid media got involved in a food fight over the numbers. lets avoid a food fight here on Wikipedia --Woogie10w (talk) 14:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
- "Marsch nach Westen", means apparently "including the Flucht". And obviously not "nach Westen", because quite many travelled to Siberia (East) or from Souther Europe, ie. to the North. Xx236 (talk) 09:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
- Rudi Rummel subparagraph informs about 1998 but comes after 2006.Xx236 (talk) 10:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
- Rummel's book was published in 1998, I have a hard copy. It was posted to the internet in 2006 along with an answer to his Polish critics. Rummel is lost, he can't read German or Polish and is unaware of the discourse of Overmans-Haar-German Gov over the Church Service-1974 Archives-1958 figures. You can't blame him he does not read German!--Woogie10w (talk) 10:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
The German media STERN, SPIEGEL and ZDF are looking for eye witnesses.--85.181.48.121 (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
- Eye witnesses after 66 years, after watching tens of movies and documentaries and reading hundreds of accounts?Xx236 (talk) 07:17, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
The Centre isn't planned any more, it has been replaced by the Visible Sign. But facts aren't interesting for BdV fans.Xx236 (talk) 12:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Die Vertreibung im deutschen Erinnern. Legenden, Mythos, Geschichte by Hahn and Hahn
The book describes common German ideas about the "Expulsion" rather than facts.Xx236 (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- The NY Public Library does not have this book yet, It is new(published in 2010). The book is expensive and over 800 pages. I just read this interview with the author [5]. He seems me to be a critical observer who understands not only the history but also the current debates in Germany. He points out that not all BvD members are neo-Nazis and that there is still some valuable information in the Schieder reports even though they are from the cold war era. However he wants to move ahead and develop a modern understanding of the history of these events. He wants to move toward reconciliation not the confrontational politics of Steinbach and the BvD. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- Hahn does not say "not all of them are neo-Nazis", a subtile way to say some (most?) of them are. He says, it's utter nonsense ("Quatsch") to portray them wholesale as revanchists or even "Nazis in disguise". HerkusMonte (talk) 15:15, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Weder Legende noch Mythos. Der norwegische Attentäter Breivik benützt die Vertreibung der Deutschen und insbesondere die Benesdekrete als Begründung für seine Forderung nach Ausweisung von Muslimen aus Europa. Wer sich allerdings in der deutschen Wikipedia als Einheimischer oder Ausländer aus aktuellem Anlaß informieren will, landet auf einer extrem linken oder tschechisch-nationalistischen Propagandaseite.--85.181.150.2 (talk) 10:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC) Neither legend nor mythos. The Norwegian killer Andres Breiwik takes the expulsion of the Germans as a role model for the expulsion of Muslims from Europe. above all the Benes Decrees. The information in Wikipedia, however, is biased. There are either Czech nationalists, like Mrs Hahn or the extreme Left. Many articles in Wiki sound like propaganda pamphlets and not like neutral information.--85.181.150.2 (talk) 11:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
The NY Public Library now has this book, I will check it out soon. stay tuned- [6] --Woogie10w (talk) 15:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
The NY Public Library has finally received the book. The Hahn’s have written an important book that covers a difficult topic, I have read the section on casualties. The authors conclude that the figure of 2 million dead is a historical myth of the cold war that lacks foundation, this myth is still accepted by the German government and the German public. They maintain that the figure of 473,000 dead in the expulsions is reasonable given the lack of information available. They point out ultimate reason for the mass flight and expulsion was the policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. I hope to put these points in the article.--Woogie10w (talk) 03:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the Hahn and Hahns have made an important review of the discussion and you seem to have added the core of their position well. The issue of confounded numbers with Jews who had listed themselves as Germans seems too ambiguous still. They have raised the issue but not provided documentation for the numbers. Given the large numbers of Jews in the borderlands who might have called their mother tongue of Yiddish, German the figure of 27,000 seems much too low. Could you please double check their documentation and interpretation of thes numbers? Are there ny good census numbers for Poland and Czech showing he numebrs of Jews who listed their mother tongue German or were in some way mis-identified as German. Yugoslavia in its censuses gave pretty goo data that out of 500K "Germans" about 10K were Jews. Hungary does not have similar data and more Jews; Romania too has lousy information on this. But given the clear problem with this misidentification in Yugoslavia, the numbers should be mch higher in Poland.Imersion (talk) 22:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)Imersion (talk) 12:44, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- The Hahn's cover the issue "the German minority and the Holocaust" on pages 679-681. They give a brief overview of the German speaking Jews in eastern Europe, they did not claim that Jews who had listed themselves as Germans, but pointed out that in Czechoslovakia, Romania and in Yugoslavia there were Jews who spoke German as a primary language. They mentioned the 2,400 German Jews in Sudetenland and 10,000 in Yugoslavia from the Schieder report.
- The 27,000 German Jews is mentioned by Ingo Harr, this figure is for the eastern territories of Germany in 1937 borders only. These 27,000 Jews are included in the total German population of 9.575 million used to work up the figure of 1.3 dead and missing for the eastern territories of Germany in 1937 borders! Imersion (talk) 13:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- No way, there were only 6,000 German speaking Jews in Poland, almost all spoke Yiddish. This is per the 1931 Polish census. BTW a key point to remember is that 742,000 Germans were counted in the 1931 Polish census, the Search Service puts the total at 1.5 million and the West German government statistical office gave a figure of 929,000. After the war the bilingual Polish-Germans were allowed to stay in Poland and were counted with the missing.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:35, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- So, are you saying that the 1931 Polish census partialled out German speakers from Yiddish speaking Jews in Poland, and there were only 6,000? How many Yiddish speakers were there then? If so, that destroys the issue right there: German speaking Jews could not have been part of the population loss of Germans in Poland. Still I would like to look at those figures. Is there a good source?Imersion (talk) 14:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- No way, there were only 6,000 German speaking Jews in Poland, almost all spoke Yiddish. This is per the 1931 Polish census. BTW a key point to remember is that 742,000 Germans were counted in the 1931 Polish census, the Search Service puts the total at 1.5 million and the West German government statistical office gave a figure of 929,000. After the war the bilingual Polish-Germans were allowed to stay in Poland and were counted with the missing.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:35, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Is there a good source? You bet,:U.S. Bureau of the Census The Population of Poland Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington- 1954BTW I own this book. See Demographic history of Poland--Woogie10w (talk) 14:59, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks that settles it. I guess the Yugoslavian data is so much poorer because Yiddish was not an option on the language census.
- Is there a good source? You bet,:U.S. Bureau of the Census The Population of Poland Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington- 1954BTW I own this book. See Demographic history of Poland--Woogie10w (talk) 14:59, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- The Germans published in 1943 the detailed figures for the 1931 Yugoslav census, there were 499,969 Germans. including 10,026 Jews per the Schieder report of 1961. The 1958 report puts the number of Germans in 1939 at 536,000 based on estimates of the local German groups and churches. de:Wilfried Krallert, was the expert in Bonn who did the writeup.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:52, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- A more comprehensive analysis of the German speaking Jews in Eastern Europe can be found in Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-century Central-Eastern Europe by Piotr Eberhardt. According to Eberhardt the number of German speaking Jews in pre war Czechoslovakia was 75,000; 54,000 in Hungary and and 15,000 in Romania.
- I will try to get a hold of this and see if something from this can be entered into the article. Surely Poland represents the largest potential groupd where misidentified Jews inflate the missing "German" figures.Imersion (talk) 13:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- In looking for the Eberhart book, I see that he has a new book: Political migrations on Polish territories (1939-1950) / Piotr Eberhardt. I will look at it.
- I will try to get a hold of this and see if something from this can be entered into the article. Surely Poland represents the largest potential groupd where misidentified Jews inflate the missing "German" figures.Imersion (talk) 13:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- As for Sudeteland 2,035 German speaking Jews are defitnitely included with the ethnic Germans in the computation for the figure of dead and missing. As for Bohemia-Moravia the Nazi ration card totals were used to estimate the German population.
- In Hungary and Romania Jews apparently are not included with the ethnic Germans. Records of the local German churches and estimates made by the local Volksdeutsch groups were used to estimate the ethnic German population. The population figures for ethnic Germans in Hungary are inflated, the Germans claimed a total of 600,000 but the Hungarian census of 1941 put the total at 300,000. In any case many “Germans” also spoke Hungarian and were assimilated into the local population in Hungary and Romania after the war.
- as an editor here on Wikipedia I cannot post original research, only cite published material. Note well that Rudiger Overmans has made the point that "non Germans" are included with the population used to derive the figures of those dead and missing in the expulsions.--Woogie10w (talk) 00:13, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- I appreciate your inability ot compute these figures and enter them as original research, and thnak you for the summary here; but you do not deal with Poland which is the main effect to try to compute. I am mystified that the thorough review by Hahn and Hahn does not add these computations. Hahn and Hahn offer no insight into this?
Imersion (talk) 12:50, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Off Wiki I compute these figures and but will never enter them as original research on the pages of Wikipedia.
- You wrote Hahn and Hahn offer no insight into this Their review of the statistical data was definitely not thorough, they only cover the main points of the sources published in West Germany that work the figure of 2 million expulsion deaths.
- As far as I know there is no detailed critical analysis of these sources. Overmans did provide a general overview of the figures that covers the main flaws in the data. Harr and the Hahn's give readers background information on the authors of the West German reports and the political pressure in Germany that has kept the figure at 2 million. Schieder estimated 2 million deaths in 1953, that figure has remained engrained in the German public discourse for almost 60 years. Despite the critics of the figures and the methodology used to derive the figures the fact still remains that there was a huge death toll of civilians in the expulsion, many women were raped, millions were displaced and lost their property. There is no doubt that the war crimes of Germany triggered the expulsions, this important point was ignored by Schieder and the West German government. They engaged in a numbers game to puff up the figures by manipulating the population data, historians in the English speaking world fell for the bait hook line and sinker, academics continue to regurgitate the figures of Schieder and the West German government statistical office. The ex-Nazi party members who authored these reports must have had a smile on their faces! Poles that were on the Volksliste and Hungarians with German grandparents were counted with expulsion dead. The fact still remains that there was a huge death toll, further research is needed to come up with the accurate figures. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:38, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
A key point that must be taken into account on Wikipedia is that we must have a reliable source that states X number of German speaking Jews were included in the West German figures. One can point out that there were X number of German speaking Jews in the various Eastern European nations. The next step is to provide a reliable source that includes them with the expulsion dead claimed by West Germany. The Hahn's correctly point out 2,400 Jews in the Sudetenland figures and 10,000 in Yougoslavia per Schieder, Ingo Harr mentions 27,000 Jews in prewar German borders( he took this figure from a Polish communist source of 1966!). The Hahn's do not provide figures for Hungary ,Romania and Poland. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- VoMi, wow no way they would have excluded Jews. They did spread propaganda here in NY, my mom said they were idiots, in any case they resettled in Poland 2,300 Germans from the "New World". It seems that some German Americans were tired of Yorkville, Manhattan and the New Deal! --Woogie10w (talk) 15:09, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- I own a copy of the West German government statistical office report and have copies of the 13 sheets that detail the Search Service figures. The West German government statistical office report for Hungary ignores the 1941 Hungarian census that puts the number of ethnic Germans at 308,000, and German speakers at 482,000; instead the statistical office puts the population in 1939 at 623,000 based on a survey conducted by the local ethnic German organizations. The West German government statistical office report for Romania is complicated by the fact that 212,000 Germans from Romania were resettled by Nazi Germany in Poland and were part of the flight and expulsions east of Oder-Neisse. They put the number of ethnic Germans in Romania at 786,000 based on the 1940 Romanian census for “nationality” The West German government statistical office report mentions that the number of expellees in Austria the DDR those abroad are a rough estimates, this makes an accurate estimate of the dead difficult and gave them wiggle room to puff up the numbers. The editor for the section of the 1958 report for Hungary was de:Wilfried Krallert, Krallert was a scholar dealing with Balkan affairs since the 1930's 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. After the war he was rehabilitated and was chosen to author the sections of the demographic report on the expulsions from Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. The sheets that detail the Search Service figures are of little assistance, they group together all of SE Europe and do not breakout Hungary and Romania.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:11, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Wrong title
The title is about the "Expulsion" and the lead about "Flight and expulsion". This is a Wikipedia, not a propaganda site, we should be precise.Xx236 (talk) 07:51, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not sure of the relevance of "propaganda", but for precision, certainly, as I keep saying, the title of this article needs to be changed to match its scope (it's not just Expulsion, and it's not just After). The last proposal I remember was Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950). The precise years are negotiable, but is it generally agreed that a title in that form would be an improvement?--Kotniski (talk) 10:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I maintain that that title needs to be changed to the Flight and Expulsion of the Germans (1944-1950). Here are the main points regarding this topic that need to be addressed .
1-In Germany these events are referred to as the Flight and Expulsion. However historiography in the English speaking world tends to treat these events as occurring only after the war. De Zayas and R.J. Rummel have helped to reinforce this misconception.
2- The article needs to make it clear that it covers not only the expulsion after the war but also the flight during the war and the deportation to the USSR for forced labor. We really need to point out that the forced labor was considered reparations for the enormous destruction caused by Hitler Germany. This was the case in Poland also were German labor was employed to clear the rubble in Warsaw.
3- The article needs to make it clear regarding the time frame,cause and number of the deaths is uncertain and disputed. The flight, deportation, forced labor, internment after the war and plight in Germany after the expulsion are all integral parts of the topic being discussed.
4-The perpetrators of the violence against the civilians were the Soviet forces and their allies (ie. Polish and Czech militia, Yugoslav partisans) , not the Polish, Czech and Yugoslav people as a whole.
5-A major point that needs to be cleared up is the definition of who was a German. German official sources claim as “Germans” those bi-lingual citizens of Eastern European countries. Many supported Germany during the war. German sources puff up the death toll by manipulating the numbers of Germans alive before the war and underestimating the numbers of those assimilated by 1950. For example in Poland there were 1.0 million Cat A & B Volksdeutsche while the Polish census of 1931 indicates the number of ethnic Germans at about 741,000. Some persons signed the Volksliste for opportunistic reasons, many however were Nazi supporters and convicted as traitors by Polish courts after the war. To refer to these people as Slavic, Masurians, Silesians or Kasubians misinforms readers of English Wikipedia. This needs to cleared up. They were in fact Poles who spoke local dialects as well as German. The terms Masurian, Silesian and Kasubian are used by the Nazi census of 1939, they do not appear in the Polish census of 1931.
--Woogie10w (talk) 12:34, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Some sources claim that the evacuation of the Black Sea Germans started in 1943, some others that in 1944.Xx236 (talk) 09:20, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- Good catch, this is mentioned in the Schieder report, Reichling gives a figure of 370,000 Soviet Germans who were resettled during the war(1941-44) by Germany, including 300,000 sent to Poland. 280,000 were sent back to the USSR in 1945 and 90,000 became refugees in Germany after the war.
- This article would be improved if only the editors would take the time to read the the Schieder report.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- But any reader of the Documentation shout remeber the political goals of the Schieder commission.Xx236 (talk) 13:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- This article would be improved if only the editors would take the time to read the the Schieder report.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'd just like to remind that the move was suggested by User:Skäpperöd in March 2009 (Talk:Expulsion of Germans after World War II/Archive 15), the result was "no consensus". Maybe meanwhile this has changed. HerkusMonte (talk) 15:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Requested move
 | It was proposed in this section that Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50)/Archive 19 be renamed and moved to Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950).
The discussion has been closed, and the result will be found in the closer's comment. Links: current log • target log |
- The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: Clear consensus to move. Approved. MacMedtalkstalk 19:27, 23 March 2011 (UTC) MacMedtalkstalk 19:27, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Expulsion of Germans after World War II → Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950) — As discussed in the thread above this one. Basically the present title fails to match the content of the article, which (a) is not restricted to expulsions (as opposed to flight), and (b) is not restricted to the period "after" WWII. --Kotniski (talk) 07:08, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- The proposed title may leave many readers wonder from where? 216.8.175.39 (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
- No more so than the current title. Anyway, they can read the article to find out - in principle, any notable expulsions of (or fleeing by) Germans anywhere during this period would be within the scope of the article (and that seems to be how it's been treated), so I don't see a need to make a long title even longer by adding the geographical specifics.--Kotniski (talk) 07:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
- Support.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 14:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Reasons and justifications for the expulsions
A general reason given by many authors, especially in connection with the expulstion and internment of the Yugoslav Swabians, is to use their emptie property. I will try to elaborate this with references and details. The emptied villages in Yugoslavia were given to war heroes of the Partisans and hill people who were not familiar with the land or farming. To some extent this also allowed the communists to implement their vision of collective farms adn land redistribution. Any help to fix this would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Imersion (talk • contribs) 21:13, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
Germans were expelled /repatriated from Austria
http://www.cas.umn.edu/assets/pdf/WP935.PDF Xx236 (talk) 10:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
The West German researcher Dr. Gerhard Reichling published in 1986 a study of German expellees based on his own calculations. Dr. Kurt Horstmann of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany wrote the forward to the study endorsing the work of Dr. Reichling. Reichling was an employee of the Federal Statistical Office who was involved in the study of German expulsion statistics since 1953. According to Reichling West German Law § 2 BVFG classified Germans expelled from western Europe and Germans resettled in Poland during the war as “heimatvertribenen”. Reichling’s estimates for this group are as follows: Austria- 80,000; Other Europe 135,000; Overseas 20,000 and wartime re-settlers from Poland 525,000.
Source of figures: Dr. Gerhard Reichling, Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, Teil 1, Bonn 1986 (revised edition 1995). Page 59
Bear in mind- German citizens were still allowed to reside in Austria after the war, not all were expelled like in eastern Europe and 430,000 expellees also lived in postwar Austria.
BTW included with the wartime Resettlers from Poland was little Erika Steinbach
I hopes this helps us understand the issue of expellees from Austria.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC) So the article should inform about "Austria- 80,000; Other Europe 135,000; Overseas 20,000". BTW not all Germans were expelled from Poland, too. Some women married Polish men, many Germans declared to be Polish (autochton). See also [7].Xx236 (talk) 10:16, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
the largest movement or transfer of any population
Second Sino-Japanese War says: the war created 95 million refugees (no source of the exact number). 95 is more than 14. Xx236 (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC) [8] some 30 million in 1937.Xx236 (talk) 10:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC) Two quoted sources say "in Europe" or "European".Xx236 (talk) 12:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- It's well-sourced, no reason not to mention it in the lead. HerkusMonte (talk) 14:00, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- I believe that HerkusMonte was correct to restore edit--Woogie10w (talk) 14:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- He didn't restore, but changed the former statement. I'm not sure if Modern history link is correct in recent context.Xx236 (talk) 08:25, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- I believe that HerkusMonte was correct to restore edit--Woogie10w (talk) 14:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Rudolph Joseph Rummel summarised
The statement should be removed, because RJ Rummel summarizes 1950 propaganda. We are in 2011.Xx236 (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- We should not censor Wikipedia, that is not our job as editors. RJ Rummel summarizes the sources that are available in the English language. 1950 propaganda of Rummel is what readers in the English speaking world now have as the source for the figures on the expulsions. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- Even English speaking people understand the difference between war and post-war and between evacuation by own government and deportation by the enemy government. Rummel's method is to collect books and to compute Arithmetic mean. It's not exactly academic methodology. Arithmetic mean of data coming from Schieder's commisssion isn't academy. Xx236 (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- We should not censor Wikipedia, that is not our job as editors. RJ Rummel summarizes the sources that are available in the English language. 1950 propaganda of Rummel is what readers in the English speaking world now have as the source for the figures on the expulsions. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- You wrote Even English speaking people understand the difference between war and post-war and between evacuation by own government and deportation by the enemy government Please cite a source for that statement. We should not censor Wikipedia to agree with just our own POV, that is not our job as editors--Woogie10w (talk) 13:51, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- Also I must point out that the current position of the German government is that that death toll was 2 million. You may not agree with that figure, but there are still many persons who consider it to be correct. The purpose of the section on discourse is to contrast the different POV's on the topic--Woogie10w (talk) 13:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
- And the same German government keeps Erika Steinbach away of the Flight and expulsion museum. Politics isn't about truth.Xx236 (talk) 08:27, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I believe the article should reflect the different POV’s on the question of the number of deaths, because there is a definite dispute on this topic. As editors we must maintain a NPOV and inform readers on the positions of the conflicting sources. We cannot decide what is right and wrong based on our own POV. Here is a summary of these sources:
- In the 1950’s the West German government estimated losses at 2 million.
- English language sources continue to use the figure of 2 million deaths based on this West German government estimate.
- In 1994 Dr. Rudiger Overmans questioned the validity of the figure of 2 million deaths, he disclosed the figure of 500-600,000 estimated deaths based on previously secret West German studies, Overmans maintained that the figure of 500-600,000 estimated deaths was not the definitive answer to question. Overmans maintained that further research is necessary to determine the actual number of deaths. Overmans suggested joint Polish-German research on this topic.
- In 2000 Dr. Rudiger Overmans published a study of German WW2 military casualties, the study did not research German civilian deaths. Overmans did point out that recent disclosures have questioned the validity of the figure of 2 million civilian deaths and that only 500,000 deaths have been confirmed. Overmans maintained that civilian expulsion deaths should be subject to a “critical revision”.
- In 2006 Ingo Haar published an article in which he questioned the validity of the figure of 2 million deaths, he maintained that during the cold war political pressure was used to inflate the figure of deaths. Haar maintained that the figure of 500-600,000 estimated deaths was the definitive answer to question. Haar also suggested joint Polish-German research on this topic. In 2007 and 2009 Haar published two additional articles on the issue in which he outlined the historiography of the issue in post war West Germany. These articles were translated into Polish and published in Poland.
- In 2006 the German government continued to maintain the figure of 2 million deaths as being correct.
- In 2006 Dr. Rudiger Overmans in an interview on German TV maintained that the issue needs to be clarified by further research by experts and taken out of the hands of amateurs. By amateurs one may assume that Overmans was referring to politicians in the German government and Erika Steinbach.
We need to inform readers of the above different conflicting POV's. The readers of Wikipedia can then draw their own conclusions--Woogie10w (talk) 14:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Goals of the Schieder comission
Schieder commission describes bias of the comission. "German politicians expected that a peace treaty would offer the chance for a revision of Germany's new eastern border." Does this article inform about Schieder commission's goals?Xx236 (talk) 12:29, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Xx236 you have made a good point about Schieder. The reason I say this is that the Schieder commission and the figures in the 1958 West German demographic study still dominate the accounts in the English speaking world. The best example is DeZayas who is nothing but a slick trial lawyer. The critism published in Poland during the cold war was dismissed as communist propaganda. The recent critism by Overmans and Haar is unknown in the English speaking world except for Wikipedia.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:15, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- IMO Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)# Historiography needs to outline the recent writings of Haar describing the political bias re expulsion issue in post war West Germany.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:25, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- My Polish is limited, I ask that editors who read Polish contribute to the article using Stanisław Jankowiak, Wysiedlenie i emigracja ludności niemieckiej w polityce władz polskich w latach 1945-1970, p.91, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2005, ISBN 83-89078-80-5. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Hahn and Hahn has not yet arrived at the New York Public Library, when it does I will read.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Misquotation
I have ony recently realized that a quote from a book describing textbooks misinformed so I have removed it. I understand that "the biggest transfer" was the transfer of all people (after the war ?), not Germans only .Xx236 (talk) 12:23, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Exchange of population between Poland and Germany after WWI
It was an exchange, Germans moved to Germany and Poles to Poland. Sources are needed.Xx236 (talk) 12:43, 29 September 2011 (UTC) [12] About 400 000 Polish workers emigrated from Germany after WWI to Poland and other countries. Xx236 (talk) 12:56, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Czech emigrants from Lower Silesia
There existed two places with Czech population till 1945 - de:Böhmischer Winkel and Gęsiniec. Thousands Czechs were deported to Germany, some of them went from Germany to Czechoslovakia. Does any German statistics mention the Czech people?Xx236 (talk) 11:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
neutrality tag
The article has a neutrality tag since March. I looked through the discussion from that time but could not find much that was relevant. Have these issues been resolved yet, and can the tag be removed ? --Lysytalk 11:38, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep tag, we need to include the more recent studies by Hahn and Hahn as well as the Polish study by the IPN. That is a hint for the Polish editors. Get a copy of the IPN study. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Stanisław Jankowiak, Wysiedlenie i emigracja ludności niemieckiej w polityce władz polskich w latach 1945-1970, p.91, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2005, ISBN 83-89078-80-5. My Poilsh is poor, I really have trouble without a dictionary, and even then I am slow----Woogie10w (talk) 17:45, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- The real problem with this article is that editors rely on the internet for sources, Google books and self published web pages. Another issue is the POV in English language sources that accept the West German post war POV as gospel truth. What has been published in Poland and the Czech Rep since 1990 needs to be incorporated in the article. --Woogie10w (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- We really need to hear from the other side on this issue in order to give the article a NPOV. For example Polish sources I have seen put the number of Germans in Poland in mid 1945 at 4.5 million Na obszarach przejętych przez Polskę w 1945 r. znajdowało się w tym czasie 4,5–4,6 mln osób [13] see page 452. Lets do some math, Schieder says there were 5.650 million Germans east of Oder Neisse in mid 1945 he also says 650,000 were expelled, leaving 5.0 million Germans in early 1946. In Feb 1946 Poland counted 3,738,000 Germans and there were 150,000 in Soviet East Prussia. That leaves us with 1.1 million dead or missing Germans in a six month time frame, that means 6,000 expelee dead per day from mid 1945 to Feb 1946 if one uses the German figures! 6,000 civilian dead per day for 6 months is simply not credible. Why we must rely only on the academic sources that regurgitate Schieder's figures? Maybe LUDNOŚĆ POLSKI W XX WIEKU will help to offer a balanced POV here.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- According to Pitor Eberhardt in POLITICAL MIGRATIONS IN POLAND 1939-1948 on page 54 The issue here considered was not presented in Polish literature in a very reliable manner, neither. The losses of the German civilian population were neglected and treated, even if implicitly, as the justified compensation for the wrongs suffered by the Poles, displaced here and there over the entire period of the World War II. Currently, efforts are made to achieve a higher degree of objectivity. Evidence to the point is constituted by the report published recently in Torun (B. Nitschke 2000). [14]--Woogie10w (talk) 12:23, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
- As far as I know Nitschke's work (published sevral times) she quotes de Zayas and I doubt she has done anything since 2000. "AS higher degree" of quoting Schieder's vision.Xx236 (talk) 17:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
External links
Do we need two links showing two pictures? The pictures may be available in Commoms area.Xx236 (talk) 12:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC) I have added two Commons definitions pointing to hundreds or thousands of pictures.Xx236 (talk) 12:39, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed. I have removed superfluous external links to individual photos. --Lysytalk 16:30, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
This article does not inform, that Death marches (Holocaust) were parallel to the Flight. German victims of the marches might have been added to "Expulsion" ones.Xx236 (talk) 14:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
- that makes no sense at all when one uses a population balance to determine losses. If one counts actual deaths and the missing it could be true. Overmans has pointed out that that the Church Service count of the dead and missing includes non Germans; He also said the Church Service count on the other hand may have missed actual deaths because there were no surviving witnesses to report the deaths. In any case Overmans believes that these losses need to subject to "serious revision" that is done by experts not by amatuers.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
"Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft", nr 1, 2010, Kurt Nelhiebel opposes Manfred Kittel, the president of "Fluch, Vertreibbung, Versoenung" foundation. The Polish translation is available in the net.Xx236 (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Tomasz Kamusella
Should we still use this Tomasz Kamusella as a source? He claims 7.7 million Germans were expelled from Poland and that millions died in the process. He cites no sources for the figures, IMO he lacks credibility. See page 29 of the Pauser paper [15]--Woogie10w (talk) 00:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC) I have already criticised the story by Kamusella. He apparently means all Germans (?) who left to-day Poland, so Flight and Expulsion.Kamusella is a radical Silesian, he in't interested in history of the whole Po1land.Xx236 (talk) 07:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- a radical Silesian I far as I know they speak a dialect of substandard Polish. Many Poles here in Brooklyn speak various uneducated dialects, I was warned not to imitate them--Woogie10w (talk) 11:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- It's not the problem of language but of "we Upper Silesians are victims of Poles" after WWII, Auschwitz, Silesians in Nazi administration in occupied Poland. Silesians were imprisoned eg. in Central Labour Camp Jaworzno together with Ukrainians and Poles. History of Upper Silesia is very complicated.Xx236 (talk) 12:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- a radical Silesian I far as I know they speak a dialect of substandard Polish. Many Poles here in Brooklyn speak various uneducated dialects, I was warned not to imitate them--Woogie10w (talk) 11:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
PAS numbers
German POWs and miners worked in the SU at 1950, many of them from "Poland".Xx236 (talk) 08:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
The Soviets Captured 60,277 Polish nationals in the German uniform, 57,149 were returned and 3,128 died in captivity. Source[16]
In 2009 IPN reported 250,000 polish citizens were conscripted into the German forces Source Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami.Institute of National Remembrance(IPN) Warszawa 2009 ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6
Overmans reported 29,000 POW still held by USSR in 1950. German Red Cross reported in 1964 that in 1950 7,500 German POW were held in Soviet camps after being convicted of war crimes
The Russian scholar Pavel Polian in 2001 published an account of the deportations of German civilians for reperations labor during the Soviet era, Against Their Will, Polian's study detailed the Soviet statistics on the employment of German civilian labor during the Stalin era. Polian's data points out Soviet records state that they repatriated 21,061 Polish citizens from labor camps which indicates that not all of the internees were ethnic Germans and some could have been ethnic Poles
The 1958 German demopraphic study estimated 108,000 Poilsh nationals died in the German Armed forces during the war.
The bottom line is that some of these people were like the grandfather of Donald Tusk and considered themselves Poles, others on the other hand others were former POW that I knew in Germany 40 years who were still pro-Nazi. Just because a person can speak Polish does not make them a Pole--Woogie10w (talk) 11:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I mean all area in post-war Poland, so mainly etnic Germans.Xx236 (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
According to German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union the 29,000 is valid in the second half of 1950. "the ultimate fate of 1,300,000 German POW's in Allied custody is still unknown".Xx236 (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
"Adenauer had succeeded in concluding negotiations for the release to Germany, by the end of that year, of 15,000 German civilians and prisoners of war." - year 1955.Xx236 (talk) 13:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Czechoslovakia
According to German Wikipedia "drei Millionen Deutsche und kollaborante Tschechen" have been expelled. An interesting comment to "expulsion of Germans".Xx236 (talk) 12:32, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- How do German statistics detail the Czechoslovak population in 1939? I have a copy of the 1958 West German demographic analysis and the Schieder Commission reports and have internet access to the 1941-1942 Statistisches jahrbuch für das Deutsche reich which details the results of the Nazi 1939 census. The entire basis for the computation in 1958 of estimated German expulsion losses for Czechoslovakia was the the 1939 Nazi census in Sudetenland and a 1941 Nazi estimate of the population in Bohemia-Moravia based on ration cards issued. I also have a photocopy of this Nazi document re Bohemia-Moravia. The 1958 West German report did not take into account the 1930 Czechoslovak census which is detailed by Pitor Eberhardt in Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data, Analysis. I also own a copy of the Eberhardt book. Academic sources cited cited in this Wikipedia article tell us that in 1939 there were 3.5 million Germans in Czechoslovakia, 272,000 were killed in the expulsions and that 3.0 million were listed as expellees in 1950. These academic sources do not tell their readers the statistical basis of the 1958 German demographic analysis and the Schieder Commission report. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:47, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- http://dspace.knihovna.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/12885/gr%C3%A1c_2010_bp.pdf?sequence=1 Xx236 (talk) 08:54, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- Interesting link however the author uses the figures from the 1939 Nazi census for the German population. If you use the allocation of the 1930 census by Pitor Eberhardt in Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century Central-Eastern Europe one derives a figure of 160,000 fewer Germans in 1939.--Woogie10w (talk) 11:48, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
German Nazi prisoners outside Germany
Is there any statistics of German prisoners, like Erich Koch? He may be regarded as a victim of expulsion, born in Eastern Prussia, hasn't arrived to Germany.Xx236 (talk) 06:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
^Well-written.
Sources in the lead
The lead quotes however three sources and demands one.Xx236 (talk) 11:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
- Well, what's the problem ? --Lysytalk 14:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
1941 Soviet plans
...schon 1941 von ... einer territorialen Entschädigung Polens durch die deutschen Gebiete östlich der Oder die Rede war.
http://www.sehepunkte.de/2010/02/17357.html Xx236 (talk) 09:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Martin Brozat
I agree with the change made by User:HerkusMonte Based on this article in Die Zeit [17] it appears that Martin Brozat was not an active member of the Nazi party in his adult life. A party card in his name was issued in 1944 while he was a student. Die Zeit points out that the Nazis pressured people to join the party in mass numbers during the war. Brozat has no recollection of his induction into the NSDAP as a teenager, and in any case did not play an active role in the party. It would be misleading to characterize Brozat as a Nazi, in fact his writings as an adult strongly condemn their policies. Brozat cannot be classed with others who had a direct role in Nazi policy, like Schieder, de:Wilfried Krallert and de:Fritz Valjavec Woogie10w (talk) 19:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
some German civilians were killed in the fighting and others were subjected to revenge
How many were killed in the fighting (by tanks, bombs, artillery) and how many were subjected to revenge?
- Wrocław, Flight and evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II - 18,000 people froze to death in icy snowstorms and −20 °C (−4 °F) weather. By the end of the Siege of Breslau, ... An estimated 40,000 civilians lay dead in the ruins - no sources
- http://www.rogermoorhouse.com/article3.html Moorhouse "the initial evacuation claimed a total of 18,000 lives, mainly of the very young and the infirm. In all, some 90,000 Breslauers were to perish trying to leave the city.", "Civilian deaths totalled 30,000 with over 3,000 suicides." - during the siege. It makes 120 000 civilian casualties in Breslau, more than 10%.Xx236 (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting, but the self published web page provides no sources for the figures--Woogie10w (talk) 10:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC) Lecture delivered to the History Faculty, Oxford University, October, 2001 isn't exactly "a self-published". Roger Moorhouse is a co-author of the "Microcosm", which describes the siege of Breslau and probably quotes the sources.Xx236 (talk) 10:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- Evacuation of East Prussia- about 300,000 were killed during the Soviet offensiveXx236 (talk) 11:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC) Allegedly "Andreas Kossert, Damals in Ostpreussen, p. 168, München 2008 "Xx236 (talk) 12:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
- Kossert does not make such a claim and we do not use Kossert as a source for that claim, sorry. HerkusMonte (talk) 11:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- Interesting who manipulates Evacuation of East Prussia ?Xx236 (talk) 11:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Please provide sources for those figures, --Woogie10w (talk) 12:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC) The sources are probably in the quoted articles. If not, let's remove them.Xx236 (talk) 12:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I will check at the New York Public Library to verify those figures. Stay tuned
In any case per the Polish figures the Germans remaning in mid 1945 4.5-4.6 million; 3.155 million transported out to Germany ie. expelled and 1.2 million remained in 1950. Do the math, at least 200,000 died in internment camps or were killed after the war!--Woogie10w (talk) 13:06, 17 October 2011 (UTC) Many of the Germans were transported to Soviet Union or imprisoned in Soviet camps in Poland.Xx236 (talk) 09:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC) Germans were transported to Soviet Union or imprisoned in Soviet camps in Poland- Before May 1945--Woogie10w (talk) 10:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- And your source is? Camp Toszek de:NKWD-Lager Toszek was organized in May. Łabędy camp de:Internierungslager Laband existed probably till 1946. Big areas of Poland were occupied by the Red Army till 1990, so we don't know what was going on there. Hundreds of Poles were murdered after the war during the Augustów roundup, why not the Germans ?Xx236 (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
And my sources are
In mid 1945 4.5 to 4.6 million Germans were on Polish territory.
Stran 452 Na obszarach przejętych przez Polskę w 1945 r. znajdowało się w tym czasie 4,5–4,6 mln osób. W
155,262 German civilians deported from Poland to the USSR in early 1945
Pavel Polian-Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR Central European University Press 2003 ISBN 963-9241-68-7 Pages 286-293
--Woogie10w (talk) 10:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- As I have quoted at least two Soviet camps worked in Poland after the war and people were dying in the camps or after "liberation". Xx236 (talk) 10:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- 200 000 in post-war Poland is a detail. The first estimate was executed in 1946 and first census in 1950. pl:Spis sumaryczny w 1946 Any 1945 demographic data are unreliable. Xx236 (talk) 10:51, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
only 3.5 million of them were German, and 3,155,000 were deported to Germany and 170,000 were still in Poland in 1950 That leaves 175,000 unaccounted for--Woogie10w (talk) 11:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
You cannot do elementary school arithmetics using approximate numbers, it's statistics. I don't know if any source gives serious estimates of errors of the demographic numbers. Xx236 (talk) 11:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC) Demography - "More generally, while the basic demographic equation holds true by definition, in practice the recording and counting of events (births, deaths, immigration, emigration) and the enumeration of the total population size are subject to error. So allowance needs to be made for error in the underlying statistics when any accounting of population size or change is made." - it's about peace time, not about the war in the East.Xx236 (talk) 11:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- Based on our discussion, I think we are in agreement. The figures are by no means certain and new research by experts is necessary to determine the actual losses. At this point sources written in the English and German languages use the 1950's figures of Schieder and the 1958 Bonn study. West Germany in the 1950's was part of the "free world" engaged in the struggle against communism. The analysis published in Poland was dismissed as communist propaganda. From the POV of Wikipedia Bonn's figures are reliable because they are cited by scholars and published by academic presses. We have Overy, Beevor, Rummel and Pauser going to the reference bookshelf looking up Bonn's 1950's figures and then regurgitating them for readers. Yet Overy, Beevor, Rummel and Pauser do not seem to be aware that Overmans and Haar have recently critized the 1950's figures of Schieder and the 1958 Bonn study. Please tell us, what has Institute of National Remembrance written regarding the actual losses?--Woogie10w (talk) 12:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Unsere Heimat
Volume IV/1 is available as .pdf file, see the article. The other volumes are listed here: https://www.herder-institut.de/no_cache/startseite/verlagsprogramm/schriftenreihen/shop/kategorieansicht/kategorie/quellen-zur-geschichte-und-landeskunde-ostmitteleuropas.html Xx236 (talk) 12:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
http://www.zdsk.republika.pl/opracowania/wysiedlenie_niemcow.html Xx236 (talk) 12:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Help me, my Polish is limited. Please summarize the main points that would be of use in this article--Woogie10w (talk) 12:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- June the 30, 1945 - 123 900 Germans
- July the 31, 1945 - 107 200
- Organized deportations - July 1945.
- One train - forced deportation
- One train, July the 27 - the majority volunteered
Summarizing - till November the 1 - 61 451 deported, 16 000 emigrated individually. The table shows ethnic division of Gdańsk population.
- 1946 - 22 934 deported
- 1947 - more than 1100 deported
- end of 1948 - 15 205 autochtons lived in Gdańsk.
Up to 5% Germans died during the transport, the reasons were bad conditions and ilnesses.
- The last phrase comes from "God's playground" - my simplified translation: "For the first time common Germans were treated like all other East and Central Europe citizens had been" (during the war).Xx236 (talk) 13:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
- I have the book, on waht page does tis appear?--Woogie10w (talk) 10:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
- N. Davies, Boże igrzysko. Historia Polski, t. II, Kraków 1991, s. 700 - page 700, vol. 2 in 1991 Polish edition Xx236 (talk) 11:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC) This Polish translation is also at NYPL, I need to check this because I cannot find the 5% figure in the original English version--Woogie10w (talk) 12:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
- I have the book, on waht page does tis appear?--Woogie10w (talk) 10:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Which article? Davies does not have a 5% phrase, --Woogie10w (talk) 12:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes I see it now
Zmasowany charakter przesiedlenia i jego gwałtowne tempo powodowały negatywne następstwa. Do najbardziej tragicznych należała wysoka śmiertelność wśród przewożonych Niemców. Dochodziła ona do 5%. Przyczyną były warunki transportowania ludzi oraz niski stan zdrowotności ludności niemieckiej
My translation "Resettlement was on on a large scale and resulted in negative consequences. Tragic was the high death rate of the Germans. Rate reached 5%. Reasons were conditions in transit and poor health of the Germans." These are the words of a Polish source, not BvD propaganda or Steinbach.
5% of the 4.5 million in mid 1945 is about 200,000; add 100,000 during the war Jan-May 1945 and 50,000 in Soviet forced labor and 50,000 in Kalingrad and we get about 400,000, the figure cited by Haar for Oder-Neisse that is far more reasonable than the 2 million figure of Schieder.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:20, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Also most of the losses occured in 1945, Per the Polish census of Feb 1946 there were 2.288 million Germans, from 1946-50 2.336 million were deported. It seems that most of the losses occur in 1945 when Europe was in a state of chaos.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
"Up to 5%" means less than 5% and is an estimate for Gdańsk, situated several days of railway transport to Oder at that time. It's probably much lower for Germans living near the Oder-Neisse line, some of whom moved inside pre-war cities only. The notorious camps existed in 1945 and a number of pogroms took place also in 1945. But I still don't know who counted living and dead Germans in Gdańsk in 1945 after the Soviet massacers.Xx236 (talk) 07:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
- No way Jose, railway transport to the Oder from Danzig is less than a day, I know since I have traveled the railways in Poland--Woogie10w (talk) 10:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
- In 1945? The trains had low priority, lower than Soviet or Polish army and lower than standard trains.Xx236 (talk) 10:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
- The trains had low priority Starving German civilians, mostly women and children, were packed into freight cars and left standing on the rail lines. The Nazis did the same thing during the war to millions of other people in Europe. --Woogie10w (talk) 11:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
- Sure, bad Poles travelled in Orient Express class cars but packed women and children into freight cars (it's irony). Poles travelled from the Soviet Union and died in comparable conditions. The same trains transporting Germans to Germany transported liberated prisoners or forced workers from Germany to Poland. Inside Poland many people travelled outside cars. There is also an elementary difference between being transported to a gas chamber or a concentration camp and to Western Germany. Zieliński brothers escaped to Sweden under a track in 1985. Xx236 (talk) 11:32, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
- The trains had low priority Starving German civilians, mostly women and children, were packed into freight cars and left standing on the rail lines. The Nazis did the same thing during the war to millions of other people in Europe. --Woogie10w (talk) 11:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
The same period described by Germans living in Poland in Polish [18] and German [19].Xx236 (talk) 11:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Per the article in Polish główną jej przyczyną jest niedożywienie oraz katastrofalne warunki sanitarne w jakich ta ludność przebywała High death rate due to maluntrition and unsanitary conditions. This a Polish source, not BvD propaganda--Woogie10w (talk) 12:20, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Would you please remeber the context - lack of educated Poles to organize local administration (educated Poles had been murdered or emigrated), Communist persecutions of conservative Poles especially pre-war activists and clercks, destruction of Polish police by the Germans and Soviets and post-war persecutions, new police accepting "socially progresive" criminals, lack of resources as the result of the war, German occupation and Soviet robbery. If Poles were discriminated during 5 years one needed UNO forces to defend the Germans and Red Cross deliveries to feed them 1945, but there was no UNO and little Red Cross. The life in Western Germany wasn't also an eden at that time, even if the USA had almost unlimited resources and no Soviet army to feed and deliver watches. Weak Poles starved during the war, weak Germans survived but lost their priviledges in 1945 and died. Germans refused also to live the way they made Slavs to live and thousands committed suicide.Xx236 (talk) 13:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
_____________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I plan to check the book cited below soon at the New York Public Library I would hope the editors from Poland can also contribute using this book
Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki 1939-1959 : atlas ziem Polski : Polacy, Żydzi, Niemcy, Ukraińcy / redakcja atlasu, Witold Sienkiewicz, Grzegorz Hryciuk ; autory tekstów, Grzegorz Hryciuk ... [et al.]. Imprint Warszawa : Demart, 2008
--Woogie10w (talk) 02:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Polish books generally describe situation under Polish rules, so they don't discuss the Flight and Soviet-German fights. Xx236 (talk) 07:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
IPN about crimes against Germans and Poles persecuted as Germans [20].Xx236 (talk) 12:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
2010 book
Migracje polityczne na ziemiach polskich (1939-1950) [21]. My first impression - nothing new. Old Polish numbers, quotes from Nitschke, mentioned Overmans and Haar.Xx236 (talk) 06:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC) [22] - 2006 version.Xx236 (talk) 11:54, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Nazi officials sent to administrate occupied territories and removed after 1945 counted as expelled?
According to Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration by Norbert Frei page 44, Nazi officials who were removed from the East were counted by West Germany as expelled. They also received pensions as compensation it seems.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 10:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Administrative officials and resettlers are considered expellees under German law, including Erika Steinbach and her family. However in the often cited 1958 West German population balance they are not included in the balance of 11.9 million expelled and 2.225 million missing and presumed dead. Gerhard Reichling in 1985 made an estimate of 560,000 Reich Germans and 370,000 Administrative officials being present in Poland in early 1945, his estimate of 2 million dead includes these Administrative officials and Reich Germans.--Woogie10w (talk) 11:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Can you give source that the 1958 count made by former Nazis doesn't include Nazi administration and officials in numbers? --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Also in any case we need to mention this and the compensation issue for occupation staff. An aftermath section is also needed to cover the activity of the expelled organisations and their influence on post-1945 politics and territorial demands against Eastern and Central Europe, as well as inclusion of former Nazis in political system using their political channels.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:49, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- You wrote Can you give source that the 1958 count made by former Nazis doesn't include Nazi administration and officials in numbers? Yes, the 1958 report( which I have) includes only the estimated 1939 population and natural increase in the population from 1939-1950. Administrative officials and Reich resettlers are definitely not in the balance of 11.9 million expelled and 2.225 million missing and presumed dead. Heinz Nawratil for example arrives at his figure of 2.8 million dead by adding an additional 250,000 Administrative officials and Reich resettlers and 350,000 Soviet Germans to the 1958 figure of 2.2 million dead.--Woogie10w (talk) 12:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
academic discourse
"There is still a academic discourse regarding the validity of the methods and their results" - what does the source in regard to this exactly?VolunteerMarek 18:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes indeed, Overmans covers the differnt methods and their results in his 1994 presentation at Warsaw--Woogie10w (talk) 18:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
- I know, but does he say that there is still on going academic discourse on the validity of methods and results. If so, I'm fine with that, but I want to know what it is he says exactly.VolunteerMarek 18:59, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
The discourse continues, the recent (2010) book by the Hahn's does a solid critical analysis. I only covered the their remarks in a cursory manner. --Woogie10w (talk) 19:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, but does the source say the discourse continues? VolunteerMarek 21:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes: The German government puts the figure at 2 million, Haar and the Hahns at 500,000. Overmans wants new research. There is no consensus on a figure. In fact Overmans finds fault with both the higher and the lower numbers. The bottom line is that the issue is disputed.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
- But the German government isn't an "academic". And the difference between Overmans and Haar and the Hahns is rather more specific then the difference between the population balance methods and the newer methods - which what the article is referring to. And again does Overmans explicitly state that the estimates are subject of an academic dispute?VolunteerMarek 21:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
the population balance method of 1958 comes up with a figure of 2.225 million, the body count of 1964 comes up with a figure of 473,000 dead and 1,906,000 missing . There is no newer method or figures to consider. They are 1964 Red Cross figures, not the recent work of Haars or the Hahn's.--Woogie10w (talk) 22:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
The estimates are subject of an academic dispute, there is no question about this point. English language academic sources like Stefan Pauser and Richard Overy regurgitate the figure of 2 million, it is a reality that can’t be denied. Only in German academic sources is the figure of 500,000 mentioned. We need to put that figure of 2 million on the page and subject it to the critical analysis of Overmans, Harr and the Hahn’s. --Woogie10w (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
English language sources dealing with the expulsions put the death toll at about 2 million based on the 1958 German government statistical analysis.[1][2][3][4][5]
- ^ R. J. Rummel. Statistics of democide : Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900
- ^ Alfred M. de Zayas: A terrible Revenge. Palgrave/Macmillan, New York, 1994. ISBN 1-4039-7308-3. page 152
- ^ Charles S Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity Harvard Univ, MA, 1988 ISBN 0674929756 page 75
- ^ Douglas Botting, The Aftermath: Europe (World War II), Time-Life Books, 1983, ISBN 0809434113Pages 21 and 81
- ^ H.W. Schoenberg, Germans from the East: A Study of their migration, resettlement and subsequent group history, since 1945, Springer London, Limited, 1970 ISBN 902475044X page 33
These are the sources that the folks in the English language section of the library will be consulting. The few who read German will be checking out Ingo Haar, Overmans and the Hahn's.--Woogie10w (talk) 23:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
http://www.solonin.org/en/article_the-spring-of-victory Xx236 (talk) 09:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC) As far as I understand (there is a recent interview in "Rezczpospolita") - Stalin implemented the crime using the Red Army and NKVD. Polish Communist army and police organized "wild expulsions" but no author proved they participated in Soviet rapes and murders.
German sources mix up all casualties - standard war casualties, planned Soviet crimes, weather (winter) casualties, suicides, individual crimes moving the responsibility from Soviet leaders. Xx236 (talk) 09:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
- IMO Solonin is not a reliable source for the simple reason he is a proponent of the discredited thesis of Icebreaker (Suvorov). To use this article by Solonin as a source will only bolster the arguments of the folks that seek to highlight the Soviet atrocities in 1945. BTW Solonin uses as his sources for Soviet atrocities the eye witnesses accounts from Schieder and the German Archives. Reading Solonin's rant reminded me of what Heinz Nawratil has written on the expulsions.--Woogie10w (talk) 14:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
- "discredted thesis" - by whom? Which thesis exactly? That Stalin had the biggest offensive army of the world on the German border? He had such an army. Solonin has written his book twice as big as The Icebreaker so the book should be discussed separately.
- The Soviets did terrible things. The problem with Germans is that they prefer to pretend that Poles and Czechs "expelled them", rather to point the Soviets. There is a monument of a Soviet soldier with a German girl in Treptow, there are Stalin's inscriptions there. Someone should finally say, as Solonin does, that Soviet soldiers raped German girls and Stalin was a criminal.Xx236 (talk) 16:34, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- IMO Solonin is not a reliable source for the simple reason he is a proponent of the discredited thesis of Icebreaker (Suvorov). To use this article by Solonin as a source will only bolster the arguments of the folks that seek to highlight the Soviet atrocities in 1945. BTW Solonin uses as his sources for Soviet atrocities the eye witnesses accounts from Schieder and the German Archives. Reading Solonin's rant reminded me of what Heinz Nawratil has written on the expulsions.--Woogie10w (talk) 14:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
- "discredted thesis" - by whom? David Glantz. Case closed.--Woogie10w (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- I doubt if Solonin advances exactly the same theory as Suvorov. Also, Glantz's study Stumbling Colossus mostly concentrates on perceived shortcomings of the Red Army, that according to him made a Soviet assault unthinkable. Well, Wehrmacht's deficiencies did not prevent Hitler from launching the Operation Barbarossa which ended with Soviet tanks reaching Berlin. As for Suvorov, his key points were that Stalin had been planning an offensive war, Hitler realized this and launched as a reaction a pre-emptive strike. This theory is indeed shared by hardly any serious scholar these days, but there are many authors (Meltyukhov comes to my mind), who - based on the documents declassified in 1990s in Russian archives - have reached the conclusion, that Stalin indeed had been planning an offensive, though Hitler's Operation Barbarossa did not result from Hitler's fear of such an offensive, but was planned independently of the Soviet preparations. There's some information on this in respective articles in Russian wiki [23], [24] and here. Estlandia (dialogue) 11:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- "discredted thesis" - by whom? David Glantz. Case closed.--Woogie10w (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- Soviet war plans in 1941 is off topic on this page but I can’t resist the opportunity to comment. In 1941 Soviet armored forces were in a process of reorganization into the new Corps structure and were unable to conduct offensive operations. The war games in Moscow in early 1941 brought to light the shortcomings in the Soviet armed forces at that time. Also when the Germans attacked Soviet dispositions were in a peacetime mode; armor, infantry and artillery were in separate barracks undergoing regular training rather than deployed as unified combat units. In fact 2/3 of the 24,000 Soviet tanks were not ready for combat. Air force units were caught on the ground by the Luftwaffe.
- Stalin miscalculated he felt that he had until 1942 to bring the Red Army up to a level to fight an anticipated war with Germany. Bear in mind that Soviet strategy always considered only offensive operations, never the defensive. The deep operations of Mikhail Tukhachevsky was boilerplate Soviet strategy in 1941. Soviet contingency plans led to the forward deployment of their forces that were poised to go over to offensive operations. That led to the disaster in 1941 when so many Soviet units were caught by surprise in the frontier military districts. In July-September 1941 outnumbered Soviet forces were always ordered to attack and engage the enemy, never to go over to the defensive.
- --Woogie10w (talk) 12:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Quote 267
"By 1943, for example, Polish and Czech politicians across the political spectrum were convinced of the desirability of the postwar expulsion of Germans." - Polish politicians demanded mostly mixed population lands and they believed that many German citizens wanted to be Polish, so the number of expected expellees was much below real numbers. Stalin gave Poland also purely ethnic German lands including big cities Stettin and Breslau. Xx236 (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
New Source/Citation for numbers of Expelled
Johannes-Dieter Steinert wrote - "Die große Flucht und die Jahre danach" (The Great Flight and Years After), which is included in the larger work "Ende des Dritten Reiches – Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Eine perspektivische Rückschau" (The End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A Retrospective) by Hans-Erich Volkmann. This was published in 1995 on behalf of the Military History Research Office in Munich. ISBN 3-492-12056-3, p. 561
- The citation includes the following table (translated)--
| Area | Refugees and Expellees | Dead and Missing | Stayed in the East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Zones | 6,944,999 | 1,225,000 | 1,101,000 |
| Czechloslovakia | 2,921,000 | 267,000 | 250,000 |
| Other Countries | 1,865,000 | 619,000 | 1,294,000 |
| Total | 11,730,000 | 2,111,000 | 2,645,000 |
Seems fairly definitive, and not an English language work (problems listed above with Rummel's research) TheKurgan (talk) 19:38, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
- The question is: where do the numbers come from? Given the total Dead and Missing is 2.1 million, this suggests a "population balance" methodology. The primary alternative to the "population balance" methodology is the "recorded deaths" methodology which yields significantly lower numbers.
- Are you aware of the article Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans? If you consider the data presented in that article, I think you would understand why it is difficult to consider any number "definitive". IMO, there will never be any "definitive" resolution to the controversy over the number killed/missing. The reason I created the Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans article was to provide a place for a detailed presentation of the many different POVs and methodologies used to analyze the data. This article can only provide a very high-level summary of the numbers presented in Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans. IMHO, any attempt to arrive at a definitive answer is highly POV and ultimately futile. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 05:22, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Academic discussion
http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=3901 Xx236 (talk) 13:34, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Lets hope historians writing in the English speaking world pay attention to this. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
irrelevant sentence ?
Michaeljsouth has removed sentence "Formerly, Nazi Germany had planned the deportation of 45 million non-Germanizable people from Eastern Europe. " commenting: "deleting irrelevant sentence--if you put this back, put it in the "possible reasons" section and document that people knew of and were reacting to this plan".
- The sentence puts the "flight and expulsion" into the context of German etnic engineering stopped by the Allies.
- The context of the Holocaust should be also mentioned. The flight and expulsion took part in the Bloodlands as described by Timothy Snyder.
- The context of Population transfer in the Soviet Union isn't mentioned in the article. Deported Germans were replaced by Soviet people and other nationalities in planned way.
- Several German Nazi academicians and officers were involved in the deportations and later documented the "flight and expulsion" and/or created German Mythos Vertreibung. Xx236 (talk) 09:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- The Background section links to German-occupied Europe which links to specific countries, not to a synthesis of German crimes. Xx236 (talk) 09:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Soviet-occupied post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia
- Western Czechoslovakia was liberated by the US Army.
- Mr President Edvard Beneš was Czechoslovak leader.
- Polish government-in-exile wasn't allowed into Poland.
- Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1946) and Soviet executions of Poles eg. Augustów roundup
So apples and oranges.Xx236 (talk) 12:08, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Soviet soldiers - "rape and murder"
And robbery, eg. watches. The Soviets raped sometimes even Soviet women.Xx236 (talk) 07:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
According to Anthony Beevor Russian and Polish women and girls liberated from concentration camps were also violated. [26] --Woogie10w (talk) 11:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
See Rape during the occupation of Germany
Rape and murder began 21. October 1944 when soviet troops captured Nemmersdorf, a village at the eastern frontier of Ostpreußen / the Reich, for some hours: Nemmersdorf Massacre
Ian Kershaw writes that in october 1944, the soviet Propaganda encouraged or summoned the Red Army explicitely to drastic retaliation. Als das Charisma verflogen war
--Neun-x (talk) 07:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
- According to some German authors the Nemmersdorf massacre was partially staged by the Nazi propaganda, so it's not the best example. There are many eyewitness accounts form other places.Xx236 (talk) 08:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Inheritance
According to German law Lineal descendant of evacuated and expelled people become expellees. According to this law the majority of German citizens will in the future become "expellees" even if they are born in contemporary Germany. Xx236 (talk) 12:17, 11 July 2012 (UTC) "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." - the truth is that the German government doesn't want to establish exact numbers because the numbers point out the main criminal - Soviet Union.
The ocean of facts and numbers published in the article misinforms according to German government policy. The longer the worse. Xx236 (talk) 12:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Forgotten Voices: The Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II
The author works in a bank and presents his amateur opinions. The link should be removed.Xx236 (talk) 11:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Joining the articles
Could we add the article German exodus from Eastern Europe two Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)? They are essentially two articles about the same thing. And the name exodus is a bit dramatic and grotesque in its relation to Judaism --Gironauni (talk) 00:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- The article is far too big. Even if people wanted it to happen, who would actually do it? — Fly by Night (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
- I actually think that that's the main reason why the two articles haven't been merged before, even though they should. It would just involve lots of work, unless we just make the Exodus one into a redirect and gradually import whatever extra text there is in that one into this one.VolunteerMarek 22:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Flight and expulsion, but where is the war?
The majority of German refugees died as the result of WWII - they were bombed by all Allies, shot by the Soviets, drowned with ships, murdered and raped by Soviet soldiers directly after fights. But this war doesn't exist - it's called "Flight and expulsion". Germans who died West to Oder-Neisse line are victims of WWII, the ones who died in the East are victims of "Flight and expulsion". BTW - the refugees who died West to Oder-Neisse line are still victims of "Flight and expulsion" in some calculations.Xx236 (talk) 07:17, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Post-war Lithuania and Ukraine expelled
Soviet Union did, Lithuania and Ukraine performed what they were told to do.Xx236 (talk) 09:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
This is off topic IMO--Woogie10w (talk) 10:53, 3 October 2011 (UTC) There were no Lithuania or Ukraine, so they weren't able to expell. But yes - let Lithuanians and Ukrainains decide themselves, they know better. Xx236 (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC) Yes, Lithuania and the Ukraine existed as Soviet republics. They were able to expel citizens, but it is plausible that the orders came from Moscow down to these two republics. Ottawakismet (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
"War children" of German ancestry in Western and Northern Europe
The section doesn't describe the situation "in Western and Northern Europe" but rather in Northern Europe. All sources are non-English, so I don't know what they say.Xx236 (talk) 09:38, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
to 1982 "expulsions"
It's absurd to call the late emigation "expulsions". The emigration was partially based economically. The people weren't expelled.Xx236 (talk) 11:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
- The article goes into considerable detail to explain how expellees are defined by German law. The article makes quite clear that in the eyes of German law that those persons arriving after 1950 were considered (Aussiedler/Spätaussiedler "late emigrants"; de:Aussiedler).--Woogie10w (talk) 11:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
- We need to analyze the figures of 12 and 16 million. I could summarize the details and their sources on a schedule. The reliable sources cited in this article all seem to derive their figures on German population movements from the Schieder Commission reports. Bear in mind the figures are all rough estimates, not an actual enumeration. Schieders footnotes cite German documents from the last months of the war for the period up to May 1945, the Schieder figures after May 1945 are derived from various Allied and Polish sources available in the 1950's. The figures come in six layers 1-Fled during war 1944-45; 2-Wild expulsions 1945; 3-Organized mass transfers 1946-47; 4-Selected transfers 1948-50; 5-Return to Germany/Austria(1945-50) of POWS and civilians from allied captivity. 6-Emigrated after 1950. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
1975 treaty
Poland obtained finnacial credits in exchange or the migration of ethnic Germans from Poland.Xx236 (talk) 08:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Polish-German politician Ryszard Galla informs that some emigrtants to Germany may ask for returning them their Polish citizenship.Xx236 (talk) 08:37, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Removing March 2011 POV tag
Someone added the POV tag to this article in March 2011, but none of the posts in March 2011 refer to a specific POV problem. There is a later suggestion that the article should refer in more depth to Nazi crimes. That, in itself, is not a POV problem. I am removing the tag. If you feel the article has a POV problem, please restore the tag and comment on this page to detail the POV problem. --Duncan (talk) 12:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
- Please read my post here on talk Colgate University professor R.M. Douglas discusses his new book. The Douglas book is in English and will help to improve this article. Douglas discusses the background to the expulsions and why the Allies made the necessary decision to expel the Germans. The POV issues need to be addressed and cleaned up. Lets do the job and fix the problems.--Woogie10w (talk) 12:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
User:DuncanBCS wrote Nazi crimes. That, in itself, is not a POV problem You bet it is, the cold war mentality of West Germany needs to be discussed in the article. --Woogie10w (talk) 13:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
- The issue of neutrality tag was brought up specifically at: Talk:Expulsion of Germans after World War II/Archive 19#neutrality tag in September 2011. However, the points raised there have not been settled as far as I can see, i.e. the offset to West German postwar POV or the unsupported use of the word "Vertreibung" as explained in the discussion. Some of the more far-out claims are dead links (example). – You can compare the subsequent edits to see what has been done, but also try to form a consensus before removing the tag. Poeticbent talk 15:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Bohmann was a journalist for an ultra-nationalist Sudeten-Deutsch newspaper in post war West Germany
The statement is repeated, maybe one instance of it should be removed or rewritten?Xx236 (talk) 07:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- Statistisches Bundesamt is linked several times, isn't once enough?Xx236 (talk) 07:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Detlef Brandes in Ulf Brunnbauer...
An example of German ideas about Poland and Poles - what is "the secret army", "Geheimarmee"?Xx236 (talk) 07:58, 5 March 2013 (UTC) If it's the Armia Krajowa, it was persecuted more radically than Germans and AK bulletins were illegal after the "liberation".Xx236 (talk) 11:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- the commander of the 2nd Polish Army was Soviet general Karol Świerczewski. Over 56% of the officers were Soviet. The "Polish" Army was controlled by Soviet Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army, controlled by SMERSH. Xx236 (talk) 08:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Colgate University professor R.M. Douglas discusses his new book
From You Tube [27]
I have read the book Orderly and Humane, R.M. Douglas uses American, British, Polish and Czech sources, as well the Red Cross documents. He does not rely on German sources.
I highly reccomend the book. --Woogie10w (talk) 00:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
the largest movement or transfer of any population in modern European history
- The statement "the largest movement or transfer of any population in modern European history" is absurd. Europe includes part of the Soviet Union, where 14 millions tranfers happened several times - either as the results of internal social engeenering, eg. the collectivization or imposed by Germans during WWII.
- The statement is fuzzy - we don't know what is a "population" and what is "movement or transfer" and what is "larger". For me 6 millions of Holocaust victims is more than 14 millions of transfrred Germans. This should be a Wikipedia article, not poetry. Some social scientists use their special "mathematics", apparently different than the academic one. The rules of the mathematics are "Our POV is more important".
Xx236 (talk) 08:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The statement is fuzzy, I agree. But this is Wikipedia where a reliable academic source can be cited. If source A says so we need to find reliable source B to contradict source A.--Woogie10w (talk) 11:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Noone is forced to copy false statements. Either something is fuzzy or academic. Douglas ignores even the difference between the Flight and Expulsion, which is natural for an Irish "expert" in EE matters. Xx236 (talk) 11:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1943evacuation&Year=1943 current estimates range from 17 to 25 million evacuees Xx236 (talk) 11:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668139108411943?journalCode=ceas19 Xx236 (talk) 11:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- http://www.southsaxons.com/staff/staff/hc/Effects%20of%20the%20Five%20Year%20Plans%20Chart.pdf 1926-36 "20 million workers move to cities" plus 6-8 millions of dead people (Great Hunger) plus deported to Siberia.Xx236 (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- The Irish "expert" in EE matters uses Polish, Czech and Red Cross sources to support his arguments. Douglas does not rely on German sources. He tapped sources buried in the archives for 60 years--Woogie10w (talk) 13:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- Please show the documents confirming "the biggest" story.
- There is generally a deep gap between documents and any story written by a historian. Some geniuses make the gap small. Irving proves that Adolf Hitler didn't know about the Holocaust.
- "Eine Differenzierung zwischen Flüchtlingen und Vertriebenen scheint er nicht zu kennen: Alle sind „Vertriebene“. " [28] - it's exactly what I call ann Irish "Expert" in EE matters.
- Joseph Stalin created post-war map of Eastern Europe. No US (Naimark), Irish or German historian can prove anything different even using one million documents. Why to discuss Benes and especially Polish exile government's dreams? Xx236 (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- The Irish "expert" in EE matters uses Polish, Czech and Red Cross sources to support his arguments. Douglas does not rely on German sources. He tapped sources buried in the archives for 60 years--Woogie10w (talk) 13:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- In 1945-46 the men with guns who packed those German women & children into boxcars spoke Polish & Czech, not Russian. Here in the US we knew nothing, the media kept a tight lid on it. Sixty years later the Irish "Expert" in EE matters went to the archives and unearthed Polish, Czech and Red Cross documents that tell the sordid tale--Woogie10w (talk) 11:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- Quote from WP:SOAP: "You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views." Poeticbent talk 21:35, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
- These are not my favorite views, all I am asking is that editors of this article to read Orderly and Humane , the events that Douglas narrates are based on documents in the Polish, Czech and Red Cross archives. The book was published by Yale University Press--Woogie10w (talk) 22:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
- The story is that the world superpower Poland (in London) planned and imposed to the SU, USA and UK the post-war map.
- These are not my favorite views, all I am asking is that editors of this article to read Orderly and Humane , the events that Douglas narrates are based on documents in the Polish, Czech and Red Cross archives. The book was published by Yale University Press--Woogie10w (talk) 22:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
- The Polish governmment wasn't even able to return to Warsaw. It was rather a discussion club than a superpower.
- No Polish government accepted the exachange Lwow+Wilno against Stettin+Breslau.
- Pre-war Poland was encircled by East Prussia so the recreation of Poland in its pre-war borders would have reconstructed the instability. Xx236 (talk) 13:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
They were conducted by military and civilian authorities in Soviet-occupied post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia wasn't Soviet occupied like Poland was. The Soviet Army invided Czechoslovakia in 1968.Xx236 (talk) 13:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Poland wasn't an Ally since 1941
Poland was replaced as an Ally by the SU in 1941. In 1943 the Katyn massacre was published (the Holocaust wasn't) and the Polish leader Sikorski died, Poland became a hot potato for the British. The USA didn't care about Poland. Churchill wasn't able to restore independent Poland (did he want to restore it?). No country lost about 50% of land during WWII, like the alleged winner Poland did. The German lands weren't formally annexed to Poland in 1945 and millions of Polish setttlers were terrorized by Communist and German propaganda till 1990.Xx236 (talk) 13:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Czechoslovakia wasn't exactly occupied
- The Czech part was a Geerman protectorate, small Axis Czech units participated in the war in Italy. Czech people didn't oppose Nazi occupation.
- Slovakia was a German ally, participated in 1939 war against Poland and invided the Soviet Union. Slovakia deported Jews to Auschwitz.
Xx236 (talk) 12:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
- I know that this is true (thats why I keep my mouth shut on Wikipedia and count the numbers), but the history books in English tell us that Czechoslovakia was occupied. We need a real solid source that says Czech people didn't oppose Nazi occupation. otherwise they were occupied like the rest of Europe.--Woogie10w (talk) 12:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
- Any country was occupied in a different way but everyone claims to be a victim of the Nazis.
- The only Czech attentat was planned by the SOE (Operation Anthropoid).Xx236 (talk) 13:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
- I know that this is true (thats why I keep my mouth shut on Wikipedia and count the numbers), but the history books in English tell us that Czechoslovakia was occupied. We need a real solid source that says Czech people didn't oppose Nazi occupation. otherwise they were occupied like the rest of Europe.--Woogie10w (talk) 12:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
- This is off topic. Please contact me off Wiki if you want to chat, this page is for Talk:Flight and expulsion of Germans.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
- "During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia ...".Xx236 (talk) 13:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
- "Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation or Jewish resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject...".Xx236 (talk) 13:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Recompense?
"The policy was [...] in part recompense for atrocities and ethnic cleansings that had occurred during the war."
Seems somewhat dubious to me that the victors of WW2 would agree on something like this, granting eastern european nations the right to slaughter defenceless civilians. In my opinion, just like the public humiliations of "collaborators" in France and Scandinavia, these were spontaneous escalations resulting from grief, anger, undersupply (malnutrition) and an environment of impunity. At the time, red army units were still in most parts of the east the only authority to uphold order. And the red army was itself at the time a pretty violent organization, where beatings and summary executions were still very common. Of course, having spent years fighting the germans, red army soldiers were not very enthusiastic when it came to facing a violent mob in order to protect some german citizens. --Hisredrighthand (talk) 23:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
- May I ask what is your source of your theory that the crimes started when Polish settlers arrived to annexed lands?
The Red Army and NKVD murdered and raped millions (including Poles and Russians), burned and robbed conquested towns and cities.
- The transfer was approved by the US and the UK in early 1945, they expected the process to be "orderly and humane". The transfer was organized by Czech and Polish authorities. At least half were sent to the Soviet zone in Germany and the other half to the western zones of the US and UK. The slaughter defenseless civilians by violent mobs occurred only on a minor scale in the final weeks of the war, most civilian deaths were due to malnutrition and disease. German civilians were also conscripted as forced labor engaged in reconstruction and put in internment camps. The numbers who died is disputed and range from 11% to 3% of the total German population. In order to improve this article I recommend the book by R.M. Douglas "Orderly and Humane" published by Yale, according to a review in the The New Republic It is a major achievement: for the first time it puts the whole subject onto a scholarly footing.[29].--Woogie10w (talk) 00:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
- Woogi, please tell the truth - Polish authorities were defined by the SU, UK and USA and imposed to Poles by the Red Army and NKVD. The Polish authorities organized or approved mass murders of ethnic Poles, eg. during the Augustów roundup.
- The only legal Polish government existed in London and didn't expell Germans.
- Polish politicians living in Poland were arrested by the Soviets, deported to Moscow and tried during the Trial of the Sixteen, so they didn't expell Germans.Xx236 (talk) 07:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
- The scholarly footing is unprofessional, the autor ignores the difference between the refugees and expellees. Is it too much to expect that a writer knows the subject? Xx236 (talk) 07:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
- The Western Allies killed or allowed to kill some KZ wardens without a trial, see Dachau liberation reprisals. So killing wardens was in some way legal in 1945. Xx236 (talk) 07:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
- Germans and Austrians (including civilians) massacred prisoners in 1945, see de:Endphaseverbrechen, Mühlviertler Hasenjagd. Xx236 (talk) 07:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
- The transfer was approved by the US and the UK in early 1945, they expected the process to be "orderly and humane". The transfer was organized by Czech and Polish authorities. At least half were sent to the Soviet zone in Germany and the other half to the western zones of the US and UK. The slaughter defenseless civilians by violent mobs occurred only on a minor scale in the final weeks of the war, most civilian deaths were due to malnutrition and disease. German civilians were also conscripted as forced labor engaged in reconstruction and put in internment camps. The numbers who died is disputed and range from 11% to 3% of the total German population. In order to improve this article I recommend the book by R.M. Douglas "Orderly and Humane" published by Yale, according to a review in the The New Republic It is a major achievement: for the first time it puts the whole subject onto a scholarly footing.[29].--Woogie10w (talk) 00:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
the largest movement or transfer of any single ethnic population in European history
How do you know that it was one ethnic population? The Nazis defined who was German and Nazism isn't ethnicity.Xx236 (talk) 10:02, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
that 2 million civilians perished
"that 2 million civilians perished" and later "the higher figure includes additional post war deaths from malnutrition and disease of those civilians subject to the expulsions".Either one "perishes" or "dies from deseases" and becomes somwhere registered.Xx236 (talk) 05:56, 21 May 2013 (UTC)