The majority of the ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled from Eastern and Central Europe expellees lived in communities that had existed in territories in the eastern parts of Germany, such as East and West Prussia, East Pomerania, East Brandenburg, and Silesia, for centuries. Others comprised similarly long-established minority populations in various areas of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Russia, and the Baltic states. In 1939, these ethnic Germans totaled approximately 18 million. Part of Hitler’s efforts to expand the Third Reich included consolidating this diasporic German population. The [anticommunist] régime sought to create more Lebensraum (living space) for Germans. As Hitler annexed and occupied territories across Europe, he sought to bring the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) living throughout Central and Eastern Europe “home to the Reich.” Between 1939 and 1944, approximately one million Germans moved to these areas. These resettlements were accompanied by efforts to “purify” these regions of Jews, Poles and other populations targeted by the [Axis].
[Anticommunist] efforts to ethnically cleanse these regions of certain populations and repopulate them with Germans directly led to the flight and expulsion of Germans from these areas after the war.
Germans who could confirm that they had actively aided the Allies, or at least were citizens of neutral states, were seen as trustworthy and could avoid expulsion; this alone complicates the simplistic ‘anti‐German ethnic cleansing’ narrative. Unfortunately, these people were the minority, not only because Allied collaboration was risky, but also because, as the quoted text indicates, Berlin appealed to foreign Germans on an ethnic basis. Consequently, the majority of Germans were Axis sympathizers, and often profited handsomely from Fascism.
Some anticommunists point to the young expellees as further proof that the expulsions were ethnically motivated, but I think that the obvious explanation (obvious except to anticommunists, apparently) is that forcibly separating kids from their families would have been traumatic and far worse than keeping innocents together with their untrustworthy parents. Instead, anticommunists like to emphasize the lack of trials and the inclusions of women, children, and the elderly, implying or suggesting that the internments and expulsions were all simply forms of collective punishment.
Finally, I’d like to add that I noticed that a lot of the people, websites (IHR, DavidDuke, Revisionist, &c.), and organizations promoting the ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘collective punishment’ narratives are either neofascist or closely tied to former Axis personnel, and like to explicitly or implicitly equate the persecution of millions of suspected Axis collaborators with the Shoah…I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that one.
(Emphasis added. Source.)
Germans who could confirm that they had actively aided the Allies, or at least were citizens of neutral states, were seen as trustworthy and could avoid expulsion; this alone complicates the simplistic ‘anti‐German ethnic cleansing’ narrative. Unfortunately, these people were the minority, not only because Allied collaboration was risky, but also because, as the quoted text indicates, Berlin appealed to foreign Germans on an ethnic basis. Consequently, the majority of Germans were Axis sympathizers, and often profited handsomely from Fascism.
Some anticommunists point to the young expellees as further proof that the expulsions were ethnically motivated, but I think that the obvious explanation (obvious except to anticommunists, apparently) is that forcibly separating kids from their families would have been traumatic and far worse than keeping innocents together with their untrustworthy parents. Instead, anticommunists like to emphasize the lack of trials and the inclusions of women, children, and the elderly, implying or suggesting that the internments and expulsions were all simply forms of collective punishment.
Finally, I’d like to add that I noticed that a lot of the people, websites (IHR, DavidDuke, Revisionist, &c.), and organizations promoting the ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘collective punishment’ narratives are either neofascist or closely tied to former Axis personnel, and like to explicitly or implicitly equate the persecution of millions of suspected Axis collaborators with the Shoah…I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that one.
I always appreciate your well-sourced write-ups comrade, thank you.