A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans

by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

The genocidal barbarism of the Nazi forces has been well documented. What is little known is the fate of fifteen million German civilians who found themselves on the wrong side of new postwar borders. All over Eastern Europe, the inhabitants of communities that had been established for many centuries were either expelled or killed. Over two million Germans did not survive. Some of these people had supported Hitler, but the great majority were guiltless. In A Terrible Revenge, de Zayas describes this horrible retribution. This new edition includes an updated foreword, epilogue and additional information from recent interviews with the children of the displaced.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Germany, World War II, War, European History, True Crime

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1994

Reviews

[Alexandra Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This weekend I read the book " A terrible revenge" out aloud to my Husband since he was not aware of any of that part of history. A few times I stopped reading because my voice was choked with emotion. This book tells the brutal expulsion of Ethnic Germans in the entire East; the killings, the torture, the brutal mass rapes, starvation, looting, the mass deportation carried out on a unprecedented scale. Nazi camps in the East were not dismantled but rather been taken over by the new owners, turned into camps for Germans. Many perished in those camps due starvation, murder, sickness and torture. Rapes were common. This was not done as an act of war, but as a part of a deliberate policy of "peace". Even when the war was over their suffering did not end for at least another year. The Germans in the West did not had to flee and mostly welcomed the British and Americans as their liberators. In May the war was over for them, but not so much for the Germans remaining in the East. Although the American and French soldiers did commit numerous abuses against the civilian population BUT no massacres, rapes, torture and such brutality occurred in the West as it did in the East.
This book was enlightening and informative; it helped me grasp what was happening to the Ethnic Germans in the East, during and after WWII.

[Heinz]

Should be required reading for ALL students of history.

[Rosemarie]

I am grateful to the author who wrote about a subject I am part of and always felt nobody wanted to hear.

[yodelmama · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing powerful description of the ethnic cleaning of the Volksdeutsche ie Danube Schwabians and other Eastern Europeans after WW 2. 15 million lost their homes and native lands many sent to labor and concentration camps where many starved including my mother and her family after she watched her father get shot in front of their home . Men were forced to dig their own graves before being shot- their crime was German ancestry even tho they had no participation in Hitlers war. These crimes against humanity continue in many places today and the innocents suffer. It’s well written and a short book with important messages .

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cannot recommend this enough; a sadly overlooked chapter in history.

[Gabriele Goldstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book. This is my second time reading it. Contains photos, maps and extensive notes for further research into the time and place. Corresponds with a lot of my own research interviewing family and friends who survived the end of the Second World War—with long lasting psychological scars. Could be an eye opener for many. Highly recommended.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many very descriptive personal accounts of an almost completely forgotten tragedy of world history.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chilling account of what happened to the German communities who lived in eastern europe at the tail end of world war 2 and afterwards. Another form of ethnic cleansing. Horrorific.

[Dave Bugbee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping account of a side of European history little known in the US. This is book discusses what happened to those German civilians who lived in the path of the Red Army in the latter part of World War II. The Red Army acted with incredible brutality, avenging the brutalization of their own land with horrific intensity. Millions of Germans fled for their lives, some escaped, many did not. This book describes their plight.

[Harinie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking. Harrowing.But a must read.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, although not the usual autobiographical I prefer to read. This one is more of a historical study on how ethnic Germans were treated after WWII. The author also goes into the history of displaced people and how Europe was divided geographically over the centuries, including negotiations during and after WWII. Good information but a little dry.
It saddens me to read about how some of the victors of that war turned to revenge on all Germans, weather responsible or not, as comparatively badly as the Nazis had mistreated the Poles, Jews, Sinties, Gypsies, POWs and others who didn't go along with their "new order".

[TR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghastly. A good starting point for those looking for records of what happened to people associated with the defeated side. The Second World War didn't end happily with that sailor kissing the nurse on the street . . .

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief summary of the post war deportation of the Volksdeutsch from the liberated territories back into the ruins of Germany. Contains a number of harrowing personal testimonies. A introduction to a huge topic.

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

How does literature on post-WWII displacement consistently fail to mention the expulsion of 400 000 "Germans" from Hungary? What a blind spot

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an expanded and translated edition of de Zayas' 1979 work on the ethic cleansing of Germans in postwar east Europe, containing new interviews and post-Soviet insights. He was one of the first academics to write objectively (or at all) on a subject long taboo in Western scholarship - like the current cleansing underway in Gaza. The parallel will be referenced here throughout, for both began at the same time in the wake of the same war.

De Zayas concentrates on the brutality of the anti-German expulsions, and gives his account a more "sensationalist" color than Douglas' relatively nuanced "Orderly and Humane." The ugliest scenes were enacted under Soviet occupation or in Yugoslavia under the partisans, and most of de Zayas' rough testimony comes from these regions, as well as Czechoslovakia's "wild expulsions" of 1945. Elsewhere, as the Allied Control Commission established oversight, the procedure was more routine. But "orderly" is merely a synonym for bureaucratic, meaning in practice inefficiency, irresponsibility, negligence; while the humaneness was relative. There really is no nice way to uproot people from their homes and thrust them elsewhere because they are labeled as unwanted.

The parallels with contemporary Palestine were more than coincidental. Both peoples were considered on the wrong side of history, smeared with the Nazi brush because a faction of Sudeten Germans looked to Henlein's pro-Hitler party, as a faction of Palestinians did to the collaborating Grand Mufti. The notion of "population transfer" was endorsed at the highest (and lowest) levels of East and West. It was Czechoslovakia that shipped arms to the Zionist Haganah, and its example of transfer was apparently as helpful as the arms crates. Those Germans fleeing the Soviet advance had their own "Nakba," and in Nemmersdorf, East Prussia, their own Deir Yassin.

The comparison doesn't hold in one regard, however: there was no white privilege for the Germans of East Europe, for here whiteness was stripped from them like their land and property (further proof that its status is more social than biological.) Nor was it "a Communist thing," the excuse one hears in the Czech Republic and Poland. The Sudeten expulsions were ordered by the liberal patriot, Eduard Benes, three years before the Communists came to power. Even the most anti-Communist Poles were eager to seize the new lands and old houses Stalin gave them at Potsdam.

All in all, this process proves that not all of the oppressed, nor their oppressors, are created equal in the eyes of their beholders. Inhumanity always cloaks itself in justice; and what you do to me is always a hundred times worse than what I do to you.

[Todd McCown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should be a required subject of study along with other WWII subject matter. The subject is given passing reference in some works on the final days of WWII in Europe, and not discussed at all in contemporary history classes in the US. A shame as this experience is also part of the broader post-war and early Cold War narrative. Well documented accounts in this book. A must read for students of history.

[Chad Montabon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think a banned book because it documents atrocities against ethnic Germans after WWII.

Got a pretty good e-copy that was on-line, probably means I'm on a list now.

[Kjǫlsigʀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very often bitter and bleak, still well documented facts about WWII-related atrocities that did actually happen, politically correct denials (then, failing that, excuses) notwithstanding.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the fate of the ethnic Germans in Easternish Europe at the end of World War II. It discusses the treatment of native ethnic Germans by the Allied powers and the now old Soviet-Bloc nations, i.e. forced migrations, genocide, rape, theft.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it's important as historians to always remember that just because one side did something unjust in the war, it doesn't make the actions of the other side right.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you ever want to read about the futile monstrosity of humanity, read this book. I dare anyone to read this without starting to feel ill.