Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans

by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

First published in 1979, and now in its 10th edition in German with several revised editions in English, Nemesis at Potsdam is the moving and horrifying account of the expulsion after WWII of 15 million German-speaking men, women, and children from their ancestral homelands in Eastern Central Europe. Over 2 million innocent civilians, mostly women and child, died during the expulsion - one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century.

A great amnesia has overtaken the children and grandchildren of the Allied participants, especially in the West. But today the German nation of 80 million includes 15 million Expulsion survivors and their children and grandchildren. No understanding of modern Germany will ever be complete without greater knowledge of this ghastly period in Germany's and the Allies' past.

This is an important book on a sensitive subject. it reminds genealogists that not all emigrations are voluntary; and not all immigrants to America came hundreds of years ago. A personal favorite; our strongest recommendation.

Genres: History, World War II, Germany

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Ffiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

During the post-war period German citizens and people of German ancestry, were brutally expelled from various Eastern European countries.This book provides a very disturbing account of what has been termed the Potsdam mass atrocity.It was officially demanded that millions of peaceful inhabitants of the Sudetenland,Prussia, Czechoslovakia and the Ruhr,Germany's most industrialized area, be ruthlessly robbed of their homes, their businesses seized and then made to travel to Western Germany.Hundreds of thousands of Germans didn't survive the expulsion or the imprisonment in camps. They either starved & froze to death, or died from diseases and injuries.Many families were callously killed by Russian soldiers.The violence committed against these innocent people was barbaric,they were treated like dirt and no one cared

Anne O Hare McCormick, writing for the the New York Times: “The scale of this resettlement and the conditions in which it takes place are without precedents in history.No one seeing its horrors first hand can doubt that it is a crime against humanity.”

Bertrand Russell wrote, in the Times: “An apparently deliberate attempt is being made to exterminate many millions of Germans by depriving them of their homes and of food, leaving them to die by slow agonizing starvation.This is not done as an act of war, but as part of a deliberate policy of ‘peace’.”

The shocking details and photographic evidence in this book flies in the face of the notion that the Allies had any moral superiority.Their pathological hatred of Germany and the German people led to a systematic starvation, abuse and neglect of innocent civilians. The death count was massive, the disregard of the suffering inflicted seemed to be motivated by a mean type of spiteful retribution.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following WWII, Germany lost the territories of Silesia, Pomerania, the Sudetenland, and East Prussia all of which had been possessed by Germany and populated mostly by German-speakers sicce the middle ages.
In the several months following the war, these areas were "ethnically cleansed" of Germans by the Polish and Czech governments. 16 million ethnic Germans were driven out of their homes, sometimes with only few minutes notice, and forced to live in smoldering ruins of Germany proper.
About 2 million of the 16 million refugees died in the process of transfer.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few accounts of the expulsions in which the author directly indicts the Czech and Polish governments of a crime against humanity deserving of reparations and justice. One of the characteristics of this shoddy episode in European history is the silence that has descended over it like a pall. So much so that the youth of Poland and Czechia are taught that it was necessary to remove the German population for the "purity" of the state. There is no sense of guilt for the loss of up to two million lives and the displacement of fourteen million people from the homes.

[Marie Leshyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

My father grew up in Czechoslovakia. He never talked about what happened to his family during and after the war. He came to the US after the war. It was interesting to see that his story was very similar to what happened to my mother’s family in Yugoslavia. People who were uprooted from their homes simply because they were of German ancestry. They had nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazis but were punished anyway. They lost everything. These are stories that many do not know. Indeed there are those who believe that the Germans were not punished enough.

[Pip · Rating 4 out of 5]

My grandson bought a signed copy of this book in a Berlin, so I borrowed it while on holiday. I was particularly interested in the history of Sudetenland, about which I was vague. It is fascinating that the forced expatriation of fifteen million people was so ignored in popular history. This edition was written in 1988 and therefore predated reunification, and the latter part of the book was therefore somewhat irrelevant, but it was well written, well researched and worth reading.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is yet another example of how little history is actually taught in schools. When I was in school history of WWII mainly talked about the Western fronts, the Jewish Holocaust and Pearl Harbor. There is so little we are taught about what actually happened in other parts of the world. As an adult I have learned more about the Eastern front and the atrocities committed by Stalin than I would have ever believed as a student.

Nemesis at Potsdam deals with the expulsion of the Germans from the eastern areas of Germany and the end of WWII and immediately after. Stalin wanted a communist buffer between Russia and Europe. So Russia took part of Poland. In order to compensate Poland, they are given part of Eastern Germany. Doesn't matter that those parts of Germany were majority German Citizens and had been for hundreds of years. Stalin and Poland and Czechoslovakia pushed for the land grabs and the Western Allies were powerless to stop them. The newly communist Polish and Czech governments proceed to purge their countries of unwanted German citizens. The expulsions generally happened very quickly and the German's were unable to take most of their possessions. They were generally robbed and abused and/or raped on the way into Allied Germany.

Conditions in Germany were not very good either. The land taken by Poland was the rich farmland that could have been used to feed the hungry masses. The area left was mostly industrialized with not enough farmland. The American, British and French governments struggled to feed and house the new immigrants. Poland and Czechoslovakia continued to send more and more Germans despite protests. Some 16 million Germans were displaced with several million of those dying from abuse or starvation. The fact that most people are not aware of this is astounding.

[Vera-Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

It didn't live up to my expectations, though from a historical view point regarding the treaties signed between the countries & what happened in regards to them, it was informative.