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A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950
The closing phase and the aftermath of World War II saw millions of refugees and displaced persons wandering across Eastern Europe in one of the most brutal and chaotic migrations in world history.
The genocidal barbarism of the Nazi forces has been well documented. What hitherto has been little known is the fate of fifteen million German civilians who found themselves at the mercy of Soviet armies and 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.
Many of these people had supported Hitler, and for the Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, and surviving Jews, their fate must have seemed just. However, the great majority--East Prussian farmers, Silesian industrial workers, their wives and children--were guiltless. Their fate, sentenced purely by race, remains an appalling legacy of the period.
Alfred de Zayas's book describes this horrible retribution. On the basis of extensive research in German and American archives, he outlines the long history of these German communities, scattered from the Baltic to the Danude, and, most movingly, reproduces the testimonies of surviors from the catastrophic exodus that marked the final end to Nazi fantasies of Lebensraum.
The genocidal barbarism of the Nazi forces has been well documented. What hitherto has been little known is the fate of fifteen million German civilians who found themselves at the mercy of Soviet armies and 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.
Many of these people had supported Hitler, and for the Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, and surviving Jews, their fate must have seemed just. However, the great majority--East Prussian farmers, Silesian industrial workers, their wives and children--were guiltless. Their fate, sentenced purely by race, remains an appalling legacy of the period.
Alfred de Zayas's book describes this horrible retribution. On the basis of extensive research in German and American archives, he outlines the long history of these German communities, scattered from the Baltic to the Danude, and, most movingly, reproduces the testimonies of surviors from the catastrophic exodus that marked the final end to Nazi fantasies of Lebensraum.
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First published August 15, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 26, 2015
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.
This book was enlightening and informative; it helped me grasp what was happening to the Ethnic Germans in the East, during and after WWII.
Read
August 25, 2012Should be required reading for ALL students of history.
Read
February 23, 2014I am grateful to the author who wrote about a subject I am part of and always felt nobody wanted to hear.
August 22, 2022
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 .
January 29, 2009
Cannot recommend this enough; a sadly overlooked chapter in history.
May 22, 2016
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.
September 26, 2013
Many very descriptive personal accounts of an almost completely forgotten tragedy of world history.
February 22, 2019
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.
October 1, 2011
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.
June 5, 2022
Heartbreaking. Harrowing.But a must read.
February 19, 2020
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".
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".
July 11, 2012
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 . . .
January 26, 2021
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.
June 27, 2021
How does literature on post-WWII displacement consistently fail to mention the expulsion of 400 000 "Germans" from Hungary? What a blind spot
June 9, 2024
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.
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.
January 20, 2024
This book is about the persecution of Germans from the early to mid early 1900’s. While the title alludes to post-WWII persecution, there are many instances where anti-German persecution took place even prior to or at the brink of the war, which calls into question other underlying motives for racism against Germans despite the Nazi party. This persecution was carried out to some extent by virtually all Allied forces, however, most of the book is about the Soviet, Polish, and Czechoslovakian governments. This is a topic that many people, including myself, are very ignorant of, and this ignorance of the masses of these events was one of the main motivators for de Zayas to write and publish this work.
The book is structured in such a way that the author lays out a summary of events with historic notation, and is typically followed up by eye-witness testimonies, many of them given in court, about the events that occured. These eye-witnesses vary from victims themselves, humanitarian workers, journalists, and politicians. There are countless instances of execution, murder, sexual assault, robbery, and torture of ethnic Germans both in Germany and throughout the diaspora. I will mention just a few that stood out to me to give readers an idea of the contents.
Many Germans throughout Europe were deported from each of their respective homelands and were scattered as refugees. Persecution was much worse in the East than the West, and so many Germans traveled westbound on foot to the Baltic sea, in hopes they could then flee via ships. Aside from the harsh weather conditions that caused many refugees to die, the Soviet air-attacks on these traveling groups also claimed many lives (67). These planes would even shoot the frozen ice which they knew the refugees would have to cross. Instances like this demonstrate that there was much more to just driving Germans away, or eliminating a threat - it was outright ethnic cleansing.
There are a couple sections about the event known as “The Destruction of Dresden.” After reading this book, I’ve noticed that this particular event has been written about extensively in its own right. Dresden contained no troops and was virtually irrelevant in terms of military strategy. It was home to many Silesian refugees too. Despite this, in February of 1945, the entire city was hit by three waves of bombings, two by the British, one by the Americans (75). To reiterate, de Zayas says, “Ironically, this air attack did not accelerate the end of the war by even one day. The massacre was militarily meaningless” (75). Again, much like the Soviet air-attacks, this is a blatant instance of ethnic cleansing of innocent people. He continues, “What makes the massacre especially repugnant is the fact that it was carried out in cold blood. The crimes against women and children committed in Nemmersdorf and Metgethen discussed earlier occurred in conjunction with an infantry offensive and its attendant high losses among soldiers. Those who perpetrated rape and other excesses against the civilian population were caught up in the psychosis of battle, in the delirium of fear or of alcohol, intoxicated by the roaring sound of guns, enraged by the vision of dead comrades. In contrast, the carpet bombings of German cities by the Anglo-American formations were terrorist attacks, ordered by deskbound trigger-pullers” (79).
At the Conference of Yalta, the Soviets demanded reparations of Germany, and wanted German slaves at their labor camps to satisfy this demand. The Americans and British helped make this a reality. “This was nothing more or less than trade in human beings, slavery. But the statesmen had coined a euphemistic phrase for it: ‘Reparations in kind.’ Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to the Soviet demand” (85). “As previously mentioned, the Yalta Conference granted war reparations to the Soviet Union in the form of labor services. According to German Red Cross documents, it is estimated that 874,000 German civilians were abducted to the Soviet Union. Of these so-called reparations deportees, 45% perished” (118).
Speaking of camps, the Lamsdorf camp was a concentration camp used by the Nazis in Upper Silesia. From 1945 to 1956, however, it was used to house German civilians by Polish forces. It is estimated that 6,480 Germans died there during that time frame (96). In the 1970s, the West German attorney general’s office interrogated over one hundred people involved in the Lamsdorf case. Shockingly, none of the perpetrators were prosecuted due to an amnesty law! (96).
The ethnic cleansing of Germans was also done in many instances by night raids and firing squads. To name a few examples: the Startschowa execution killed 80 German men during the night of October 22nd, 1944. Similar events occurred in Sartscha, Deutsch-Zerne and in Batschka. In Filipovo, 350 Germans were rounded up by a liquidation commando, 240 of them being shot and killed (102). I am willing to belabor the point that none of these have anything to do with military battles - they are all cold-blooded instances of genocide on innocent civilians.
What I find most surprising about learning about this history is that, as de Zayas mentions, most people throughout the world, even history buffs, are completely ignorant of all of this. These things aren’t taught in schools, nor are they brought up in political discourse, at least as far as I am aware. Reading this reminded me of Shlomo Sand’s book How I Stopped Being a Jew, where he talks about instances of studying WWII and his colleagues not wanting to draw any attention to non-Jewish victims. This sentiment, for whatever reason, seems to be universal. I truly feel bad for the German people around the world. Instead of sharing their plight and great accomplishments, they are always referenced as the pinnacle of evil. They were put in concentration camps themselves, yet no one teaches this. They were massacred and expelled from their land, yet no one is willing to acknowledge this. They are often shamed for having either ethnic or national pride, yet their persecutors are allowed to do so.
“Many of the survivors of that ethnic cleansing eventually came to the United States and became American citizens. Some of them may actually be our neighbors, and yet who has cared to listen to their stories? Most of them, not expecting any sympathy or understanding, have kept quiet for decades. Today they are starting to talk” (102).
The book is structured in such a way that the author lays out a summary of events with historic notation, and is typically followed up by eye-witness testimonies, many of them given in court, about the events that occured. These eye-witnesses vary from victims themselves, humanitarian workers, journalists, and politicians. There are countless instances of execution, murder, sexual assault, robbery, and torture of ethnic Germans both in Germany and throughout the diaspora. I will mention just a few that stood out to me to give readers an idea of the contents.
Many Germans throughout Europe were deported from each of their respective homelands and were scattered as refugees. Persecution was much worse in the East than the West, and so many Germans traveled westbound on foot to the Baltic sea, in hopes they could then flee via ships. Aside from the harsh weather conditions that caused many refugees to die, the Soviet air-attacks on these traveling groups also claimed many lives (67). These planes would even shoot the frozen ice which they knew the refugees would have to cross. Instances like this demonstrate that there was much more to just driving Germans away, or eliminating a threat - it was outright ethnic cleansing.
There are a couple sections about the event known as “The Destruction of Dresden.” After reading this book, I’ve noticed that this particular event has been written about extensively in its own right. Dresden contained no troops and was virtually irrelevant in terms of military strategy. It was home to many Silesian refugees too. Despite this, in February of 1945, the entire city was hit by three waves of bombings, two by the British, one by the Americans (75). To reiterate, de Zayas says, “Ironically, this air attack did not accelerate the end of the war by even one day. The massacre was militarily meaningless” (75). Again, much like the Soviet air-attacks, this is a blatant instance of ethnic cleansing of innocent people. He continues, “What makes the massacre especially repugnant is the fact that it was carried out in cold blood. The crimes against women and children committed in Nemmersdorf and Metgethen discussed earlier occurred in conjunction with an infantry offensive and its attendant high losses among soldiers. Those who perpetrated rape and other excesses against the civilian population were caught up in the psychosis of battle, in the delirium of fear or of alcohol, intoxicated by the roaring sound of guns, enraged by the vision of dead comrades. In contrast, the carpet bombings of German cities by the Anglo-American formations were terrorist attacks, ordered by deskbound trigger-pullers” (79).
At the Conference of Yalta, the Soviets demanded reparations of Germany, and wanted German slaves at their labor camps to satisfy this demand. The Americans and British helped make this a reality. “This was nothing more or less than trade in human beings, slavery. But the statesmen had coined a euphemistic phrase for it: ‘Reparations in kind.’ Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to the Soviet demand” (85). “As previously mentioned, the Yalta Conference granted war reparations to the Soviet Union in the form of labor services. According to German Red Cross documents, it is estimated that 874,000 German civilians were abducted to the Soviet Union. Of these so-called reparations deportees, 45% perished” (118).
Speaking of camps, the Lamsdorf camp was a concentration camp used by the Nazis in Upper Silesia. From 1945 to 1956, however, it was used to house German civilians by Polish forces. It is estimated that 6,480 Germans died there during that time frame (96). In the 1970s, the West German attorney general’s office interrogated over one hundred people involved in the Lamsdorf case. Shockingly, none of the perpetrators were prosecuted due to an amnesty law! (96).
The ethnic cleansing of Germans was also done in many instances by night raids and firing squads. To name a few examples: the Startschowa execution killed 80 German men during the night of October 22nd, 1944. Similar events occurred in Sartscha, Deutsch-Zerne and in Batschka. In Filipovo, 350 Germans were rounded up by a liquidation commando, 240 of them being shot and killed (102). I am willing to belabor the point that none of these have anything to do with military battles - they are all cold-blooded instances of genocide on innocent civilians.
What I find most surprising about learning about this history is that, as de Zayas mentions, most people throughout the world, even history buffs, are completely ignorant of all of this. These things aren’t taught in schools, nor are they brought up in political discourse, at least as far as I am aware. Reading this reminded me of Shlomo Sand’s book How I Stopped Being a Jew, where he talks about instances of studying WWII and his colleagues not wanting to draw any attention to non-Jewish victims. This sentiment, for whatever reason, seems to be universal. I truly feel bad for the German people around the world. Instead of sharing their plight and great accomplishments, they are always referenced as the pinnacle of evil. They were put in concentration camps themselves, yet no one teaches this. They were massacred and expelled from their land, yet no one is willing to acknowledge this. They are often shamed for having either ethnic or national pride, yet their persecutors are allowed to do so.
“Many of the survivors of that ethnic cleansing eventually came to the United States and became American citizens. Some of them may actually be our neighbors, and yet who has cared to listen to their stories? Most of them, not expecting any sympathy or understanding, have kept quiet for decades. Today they are starting to talk” (102).
April 25, 2023
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.
November 17, 2020
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.
Got a pretty good e-copy that was on-line, probably means I'm on a list now.
June 19, 2021
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.
March 8, 2009
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.
November 19, 2014
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.
March 5, 2011
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.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews