A Post-World War II Tragedy: The Expulsion of Ethnic Germans From Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1945-49

Abstract

Through a comparative approach, this essay examines the cruel and inhumane way in which ethnic Germans were expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in the years immediately following the end of World War II. It compares the nature of the expulsions in Poland and Czechoslovakia and how this negatively impacted the two countries in the aftermath of the expulsions. In Czechoslovakia especially, the nature of the expulsions of ethnic Germans greatly resembled Nazi policy toward Jewish people during the Third Reich. This essay also briefly examines the integration of ethnic German refugees from Poland and Czechoslovakia into both East and West Germany. As a result of ideological differences in East and West Germany, expellees had very different experiences upon resettlement, depending on where they arrived in Germany. The purpose of this essay is to break through the common misconception that most, or all, Germans at the end of World War II were criminals. Many ethnic Germans expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia saw themselves as Poles or Czechoslovaks, and did not associate themselves with Nazi Germany.