Alfred de Zayas
THESES ON THE EXPULSION OF THE GERMANS
1. Mass expulsion, deportation for purposes of slave labour and
genocide have existed since biblical times.
2. During the Second World War Nazi demographic manipulation was
done for purposes of gaining “Lebensraum” or vital space.
The German approach to “Lebensraum” had its parallels
in history, including the policy of Spanish “christianization”
of Central and South America, the British and French “colonization”
of North America, and the American policy of “manifest destiny”
pursuant to which the autochthonous population of North America
was decimated and driven out of historical lands.
3. The term “population transfer”, was used at the
Conferences of Teheran, Jalta and Potsdam to refer to the westward
displacement of the German Population of East Prussa, Pomerania,
Silesia, East Brandenburg, Sudetenland etc.
4. By whichever term -- expulsion, deportation, transfer or ethnic
cleansing -- the aim of demographic manipulation is to drive the
original inhabitants out of land intended for annexation and colonization.
5. In the context of the expulsion of the Germans, the term “population
transfer” served as an euphemism for the Soviet Army’s
policy of terrorizing the German civilian population so as to induce
their departure. Those who did not leave on their own accord were
subjected to “transfer”, without any compensation for
the property left behind.
6. The phemonemon of the displacement of the Germans from the East
knew several phases -- first the evacuations of German populations
undertaken by German authorities beginning in the Fall of 1944,
then the general flight of refugees in the Spring of 1945, followed
by the wild expulsions of the summer and fall of 1945, and finally
the forced resettlements which began in 1946.
7. Whereas the Germans who fled in the fall of 1944 and the spring
of 1945 were war “refugees” in the more classical sense,
they could also be subsumed under the broader concept of “expellees”,
because they had fully intended to return to their home regions
at the conclusion of hostilities. However, Polish and Soviet authorities
prevented a return, so the term expulsion can apply with equal force
to all affected.
8. After the subjugation of Poland in September 1939, Hitler and
Stalin employed similar measures to perpetuate the dominion over
their respective shares of booty. Hitler deported about one million
Poles from the western Polish regions annexed by the Reich. This
act was followed by transplanting and settling various groups of
ethnic Germans in these annexed Polish territories, ethnic Germans
who for centuries had lived in several countries of Eastern Europe
and found themselves in 1939-40 within the Soviet sphere of influence
(Heim ins Reich, "Back Home to the Reich" was the slogan).
At the same time, Stalin sought to consolidate his power over the
territory east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line by deporting anti-Soviet
Poles and by murdering the Polish military elite (Katyn, 1940).
9. The principle of “population transfer” of Germans
in the West was first advocated by exiled Czech politician Eduard
Benes, after the Munich Agreement of 1938 and even before the outbreak
of the Second World War. During the course of the war, in his discussions
with Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, Benes made the forced resettlement
of the Germans of the Sudetenland his primary war aim. Initially
only a few hundred thousand Sudeten Germans were to be affected,
people who were perceived as disloyal to the Czech State and who,
according to Benes, had acted as Hitler's "fifth column."
Gradually Benes's demands for expulsion included more and more Germans,
without any inference of guilt on their part, but simply because
the Czech State did not want to be burdened in future with a sizable
10. After the principle of forced resettlement of ethnic Germans
("disloyal minorities") had been accepted by the Allies,
it was extended to a planned westward adjustment of the Polish State
into purely German Reich territory, namely its eastern provinces.
At the Tehran Conference (Nov.-Dec. 1943) it was decided that, in
consideration of Stalin's demand for Polish territory east of the
Ribbentrop-Molotov line (the Curzon line of the Treaty of Versailles),
Poland would be compensated in the West at Germany's expense. Territorial
compensation would be made in conjunction with a plan to expel the
native German population.
11. Official government documents in the Public Record Office in
London and in the National Archives in Washington amply prove that
experts in the Foreign Office and the State Department urged limits
on territorial compensation to Poland (initially only East Prussia,
then maximally to the Oder River). They also advised limits on the
concomitant resettlement of Germans (between 2 1/2 and 7 million),
to be supervised by a so-called Population Transfers Commission,
which would guarantee an orderly, step-by-step process and compensation
for abandoned property. The diplomats cited the precedent of a population
exchange between Greece and Turkey from 1923 to 1926 as justification,
an exchange which was conducted under the supervision of the League
of Nations and on the basis of the Lausanne Treaty.
12. At the Potsdam Conference in July, 1945, Article XIII concerning
the transfer of Germans was adopted. It is frequently misinterpreted
when claimed that the Anglo-American alliance advocated or even
condoned the final extent of the transfers. On the contrary, Article
XIII was an emergency measure, drafted and adopted in great haste,
a response to the wild expulsions of Germans from Czechoslovakia,
Poland and the eastern German territories, which had created a chaotic
situation in the American and British zones of occupation. Even
Berlin was affected by the mass influx, as verified by numerous
American and British reports from the period. Article XIII was not
a blank check for the expelling States. Moreover it had its primary
purpose in a moratorium on expulsions, under the jurisdiction of
the Allied Control Council in Berlin, which would then determine
the extent and time for any future transfers of population.
13. The American and British governments repeatedly lodged protests
in Warsaw and Prague with regard to the inhuman treatment of the
German populations, and for non-observance of the guidelines set
forth in Article XIII.
14. After the Allied Control Council had drawn up an admissions
plan in November 1945, the resettlements could be carried out with
fewer human losses. Nonetheless, in 1950 the Walter Commission of
the American House of Representatives issued a detailed report concerning
the expulsions of Germans, criticizing them for the fact that no
phase of the expulsions could be described as humane.
15. An even worse fate befell almost one million deportees. Just
55% of them survived. In this case the joint responsibility of the
Anglo-American alliance is clearly evident. At the Yalta Conference
on February 11, 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt accepted the principle
of German forced labor as war reparations. This common resolution,
also signed by Stalin, sanctioned the deportation of ethnic Germans
from Romania, Yugoslavia and Hungary, and Reich Germans from East
Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia --women as well as men-- into slave
labor in the Soviet Union. The term used to describe the use of
forced labour was “reparations in kind."
16. Flight, expulsion and deportation cost more than two million
innocent victims their lives, all as part of a quasi-peace measure
following the capitulation of Germany. The world must take note
of such an event, without polemics or a rationalization that it
was a balancing of accounts. It is an historical fact. In this context
the renunciation of revenge and retribution in the Charter of the
Expellees deserves special attention.
1. Population transfers should be seen from the perspective of human
rights. The phenomenon of forced resettlement is not limited to
the German experience but continues to threaten and affect other
peoples throughout the world.
2. Expulsion is not the solution of tensions associated with national
or ethnic minorities. The recognition and respect of minority rights
3. The right to national self-determination, recognized as jus
cogens, of necessity must embrace the right to one's homeland, for
self-determination can be exercised only if one is not driven from
4. The Hague Conventions, in particular the Regulations on land
warfare were applicle during World War Two. Articles 42-56 of the
Regulations limit the powers of occupying nations and grant protection
to the populations of occupied territories, especially to the honor
and rights of the family, of life and private property (Article
46). Collective punishment is forbidden (Article 50). Mass expulsions
cannot in any way be brought into harmony with The Hague Conventions.
5. The verdict of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
condemned the expulsions perpetrated by the National Socialists
as war crimes and crimes against humanity. International law has
per definitionem a universal applicability. Therefore, the expulsions
and deportations of the Germans, measured against the same standard,
similarly constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
6. Article XIII of the Potsdam Agreements could not and did not
legalize the expulsions of Germans. The Allies did not have unlimited
powers over the lives of the eastern Germans. Even if there had
been an "Inter-Allied Transfers Treaty" (and Article XIII
of the Potsdam Protocol constitutes no such treaty), it would still
have to be judged according to principles of international law.
7. Any population expulsion or forced resettlement would violate
numerous provisions of international law, in particular human rights
and humanitarian law. Article 49 of the IV. Geneva Convention, dated
August 12, 1949, concerns the protection of civilians in wartime.
It expressly forbids forced resettlement. The only exception is
in cases where military necessity requires evacuation, and for the
single purpose of protection of the civilian population. Such evacuations,
which may only be temporary, are illegal when determined by policies
8. Collective expulsions in times of peace violate the UN Charter,
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948,
and the Human Rights Covenants of 1966. Parties to the Fourth Protocol
to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms are bound by Article 3, Paragraph 1: "No
one shall be expelled, by means either of an individual or of a
collective measure, from the territory of a State of which he is
a national;" and by Article 4: "Collective expulsions
of aliens is prohibited."
9. José Ayala Lasso, the first United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights in a statement of 28 May 1995 to the Assembly of
German expellees at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, stated: “The
right not to be expelled from one’s homeland is a fundamental
right …I submit that if in the years following the Second
World War the States had reflected more on the implications of the
enforced flight and the expulsion of the Germans, today’s
demographic catastrophies, particularly those referred to as “ethnic
cleansing” would, perhaps not have occurred to the same extent.”
10. In his final report on the human rights dimensions of population
transfers, the Sub-Commission’s Special Rapporteur, Judge
Awn Shawkat Al-Khasahnew concluded that population transfers were
incompatible with international law and that the victims of forced
resettlement are entitled to return to their homelands and to restitution.
1. All victims of war and tyranny deserve respect and compassion.
Any attempt to downplay or even conceal crimes offends not only
the ethos of scholarship, it insults the victims and their memory.
2. The expulsion of the Germans is a legitimate subject for scholarly
research. It is one of the most portentous events in modern history,
for it extinguished a community of cooperation between Slavs and
Germans which had grown and flourished over several centuries. It
therefore cannot simply be excluded from the common European experience.
Unfortunately there still exists a certain taboo concerning this
subject matter, which may not restrict research as such, but certainly
restrains public discussion. It is, after all, a question of historical
3. Historians are bound by a scholarly and moral obligation to
research and present historical events, to determine the facts and
organize them into the greater historical context. It is unworthy
of a free society and the spirit of free inquiry when historians
who tackle controversial or unwelcome topics, no matter how serious
and disciplined their work may be, are accused of concocting nothing
more than "a balancing of accounts" or "apologies"
4. The expulsions cannot be regarded as a question of crime and
punishment. The task of punishing those responsible for the war
and war crimes was delegated to the Nuremberg Tribunal, which introduced
a new principle of international law, that of personal liability
for the actions of politicians and soldiers. Nevertheless, 15 million
Germans were expelled, or forced to flee, without any question as
to their individual guilt or innocence. Any punishment which does
not take personal responsibility or extenuating circumstances into
account is juridically and morally indefensible.
5. Similarly, a principle of collective guilt cannot be applied
to the expulsions, just as there can be no collective guilt for
war. But there is surely a collective morality which commits us
all to humane conduct toward one another. In other words, guilt
can only be understood as belonging to the individual, whereas morality
binds us all.
6. There can be no such thing as humane forced resettlement, a
contradiction in terms, for the coerced loss of one's homeland can
never be humane.
7. The tragic experience of the German expellees could have served
as a warning to spare other nations the traumata of expulsion from
their homelands, heritage, and pride. Alas, for decades the facts
of the expulsion of the Germans were systematically ignored by the
media and even by professional historians, whose function was and
remains to do proper research, to chronicle events and to put them
in perspective. No wonder that the ethnic cleansing of the 1990’s
in the former Yugoslavia was presented by the media as unprecedented.
The expulsion and spoliation of the Germans remains an important
subject for study in the high schools and universities. We owe this
recognition to the victims – as we owe the truth to ourselves.