The flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland
was the largest of a series of flights and
expulsions of Germans in Europe during and
after World War II. The German population
fled or was expelled from all regions which
are currently within the territorial boundaries
of Poland, including the former eastern territories
of Germany and parts of pre-war Poland.
During World War II, expulsions were initiated
by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland. The Germans
deported 2.478 million Polish citizens from
the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany,
murdered another 5.38–5.58 million Poles
and Polish Jews and resettled 1.3 million
ethnic Germans in their place.
Around 500,000 Germans were stationed in Poland
as part of its occupation force; these consisted
of people such as clerks, technicians and
support staff.The German population east of
Oder-Neisse was estimated at over 11 million
in early 1945. The first mass flight of Germans
followed the Red Army's advance and was composed
of both spontaneous flight driven by rumours
of Soviet atrocities, and organised evacuation
starting in the summer of 1944 and continuing
through to the spring of 1945. Overall about
1% (100,000) of the German civilian population
east of the Oder–Neisse line perished in
the fighting prior to the surrender in May
1945. In 1945, the eastern territories of
Germany as well as Polish areas annexed by
Germany were occupied by the Soviet Red Army
and Polish Communist military forces. German
civilians were also sent as "reparations labor"
to the USSR. The Soviet Union transferred
former German territories in the east of the
Oder–Neisse line to Poland in July 1945.
In mid-1945, 4.5 to 4.6 million Germans remained
on the territories under Polish control. Early
expulsions in Poland were undertaken by the
Polish Communist military authorities even
before the Potsdam Conference ("wild expulsions"),
to ensure the later integration into an ethnically
homogeneous Poland as envisioned by the Polish
Communists. Between seven hundred and eight
hundred thousand Germans were affected. By
early 1946, 932,000 had been verified as having
Polish nationality. In the February 1946 census,
2,288,000 persons were listed as Germans and
417,400 became subject to verification aiming
at the establishment of nationality. From
the spring of 1946 the expulsions gradually
became better organised, affecting the remaining
German population. By 1950, 3,155,000 German
civilians had been expelled and 1,043,550
were naturalised as Polish citizens. Germans
considered "indispensable" for the Polish
economy were retained; virtually all had left
by 1960. Some 500,000 Germans in Poland, East
Prussia, and Silesia were employed as forced
labor in communist-administered camps prior
to being expelled from Poland. Besides large
camps, some of which were re-used German concentration
camps, numerous other forced labour, punitive
and internment camps, urban ghettos, and detention
centres sometimes consisting only of a small
cellar were set up.The attitude of Polish
civilians, many of whom had experienced brutalities
during the preceding German occupation, was
varied. There were incidents when Poles, even
freed slave labourers, protected Germans,
for example by disguising them as Poles. The
attitude of the Soviet soldiers was ambivalent.
Many committed numerous atrocities, most prominently
rapes and murders, and did not always distinguish
between Poles and Germans, often mistreating
them alike. Other Soviets were taken aback
by the brutal treatment of the Germans and
engaged in their protection. According to
the West German Schieder commission of 1953,
the civilian death toll was 2 million. However,
in 1974 the German Federal Archives estimated
a death toll of about 400,000..
West German government figures of those evacuated,
migrated, or expelled by 1950 totaled 8,030,000.
(6,981,000 former German territories; 290,800
from Danzig, 688,000 pre-war Poland and 170,000
Baltic Germans resettled in Poland during
the war). Gerhard Reichling, a researcher
employed by West German government, put the
figure of Germans emigrating from Poland from
1951 to 1982 at 894,000; they are also considered
expellees under German Federal Expellee Law.
== Background ==
=== Historical background ===
German settlement in the former eastern territories
of Germany and pre-war Poland dates back to
the medieval Ostsiedlung. Germany used the
presence and the alleged persecution of Volksdeutsche
as propaganda tools in preparation for the
invasion of Poland in 1939. With the invasion,
Poland was partitioned between Germany and
the Soviet Union according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop
Pact. This was followed by population exchanges,
and included Baltic Germans who were settled
to occupied Poland.
Germany's Generalplan Ost strategy for Central
and Eastern Europe envisioned the creation
of a Greater Germany, which was to be built
by means of removing a variety of non-Germans
from Poland and other areas in Central and
Eastern Europe, mainly Slavs and Jews believed
by Nazis to be subhuman. These non-Germans
were targeted for slave labor and eventual
extermination. While Generalplan Ost's settlement
ambitions did not come into full effect due
to the war's turn, millions of Germans mostly
from Central and Eastern Europe were settled
by the Nazis to replace Poles removed or killed
during the occupation. Germany deported millions
of Poles either to other territories, to concentration
camps or as slave workers. Many others were
deported by the Soviet Union during the years
1939-1941, when Germany and Soviet Union cooperated
against Poles.
German communities living within the pre-war
borders of Poland participated in wartime
German activities, starting with the invasion
of Poland. Created on order of Reichsführer-SS
Heinrich Himmler, a Nazi ethnic German organisation
called Selbstschutz carried out mass murder
during Intelligenzaktion alongside operational
groups of German military and police. In addition,
the German minority engaged in such activities
as identifying Poles for execution and illegally
detaining them. To Poles, moving Germans out
of Poland was seen as an attempt to avoid
such events in the future and, as a result,
the Polish government in exile proposed a
population transfer of Germans as early as
1941.
=== Allied decisions: Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam
conferences ===
Representatives of the Polish Government were
not present at any of those conference and
felt betrayed by their western Allies who
decided about future Polish borders behind
their backs.
Following the Tehran Conference (November–December
1943) Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill
made it clear that the Soviets would keep
the Polish territories east of the Curzon
Line and offered Poland territorial compensation
in the West. The final decision to move Poland's
boundary westward, preconditioning the expulsion
of Germans, was made by Britain, the Soviet
Union, and the United States at the Yalta
Conference in February 1945, when the Curzon
line was irrevocably fixed as the future Polish-Soviet
border. The precise location of the Polish
western border was left open and, though basically
the Allies had agreed on population transfers,
the extent remained questioned. Concerning
the post-war western frontier of Poland, the
agreement simply read: "If a specific problem
such as the frontiers of liberated Poland
and the complexion of its government allowed
no easy solution, hopes were held out for
the future discussion of all outstanding problems
in an amicable manner." Upon gaining control
of these lands, the Soviet and Polish-Communist
authorities started to expel the German population.
In July 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, the
Allies placed most former eastern territories
of Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line
under Polish administration. Article XIII
concerning the transfer of Germans was adopted
at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. It
was an emergency measure, drafted and adopted
in great haste, a response to the wild expulsions
of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland,
which had created a chaotic situation in the
American and British zones of occupation.
The Soviet Union transferred territories to
the east of the Oder–Neisse line to Poland
in July 1945. Subsequently, most of the remaining
Germans were expelled to the territories west
of the line.
President Harry S. Truman complained that
there were now five occupation zones because
the Soviets had turned over the area extending
along the Oder and western Neisse to Poland
and was concerned about Germany's economic
control and war reparations. Churchill spoke
against giving Poland control over an area
in which some eight million Germans lived.
Stalin insisted that the Germans had all fled
and that the Poles were needed to fill the
vacuum. On July 24, the Polish communist delegation
arrived in Berlin, insisting on the Oder and
western Neisse rivers as the frontier, and
they vehemently argued their case before the
foreign ministers, Churchill, and Truman,
in turn. The next day Churchill warned Stalin:
"The Poles are driving the Germans out of
the Russian zone. That should not be done
without considering its effect on the food
supply and reparations. We are getting into
a position where the Poles have food and coal,
and we have the mass of (the) population thrown
at us." To the Soviets, reparations were more
important than boundaries, and Stalin might
have given up on the Poles if they had not
so vociferously protested when, in spite of
his 'illness', he consulted with them during
the evening of July 29.
=== Polish attitudes ===
With German communities living within the
pre-war borders of Poland, there was an expressed
fear of disloyalty of Germans in Eastern Upper
Silesia and Pomerelia, based on wartime German
activities. As Germany invaded Poland, the
German minority engaged in mass murder, rapes
and plunder of Polish citizens, in addition
to making lists of people that were to be
sent to German concentration camps. Poles
wanted to avoid such events in the future
and as a result, Polish exile authorities
proposed a population transfer of Germans
as early as 1941.
In 1941, Władysław Sikorski of the Polish
government-in-exile insisted on driving "the
German horde (...) back far [westward]", while
in 1942 memoranda he expressed concern about
Poland acquiring Lower Silesia, populated
with "fanatically anti-Polish Germans". Yet
as the war went on, Lower Silesia also became
a Polish war aim, as well as occupation of
the Baltic coast west of Szczecin as far as
Rostock and occupation of the Kiel Canal.
Expulsions of Germans from East Prussia and
pre-war Poland had become a war aim as early
as in February 1940, expressed by Polish Foreign
Minister August Zaleski.After Sikorski's death,
the next Polish Prime Minister Stanisław
Mikołajczyk in a letter to Roosevelt expressed
his concerns about the idea of compensating
Poland in the west. However, pressed by Churchill,
he was forced to accept the Tehran decision,
which was the direct cause of his resignation
from his post.
The next Polish Prime Minister, Tomasz Arciszewski
claimed that Poland did not "want neither
Breslau nor Stettin".Although the Polish government-in-exile
was recognised by the Allies at that time,
the Soviet Union broke off all diplomatic
relations with it in April 1943 after Polish
government demanded the investigation of the
Katyn massacre. On April 20, 1944, in Moscow,
the Soviet sponsored Polish Communist cell
founded the Polish Committee of National Liberation
(PKWN) on Stalin's initiative. Just one week
later the representatives of the PKWN and
the Soviet Union signed a treaty regulating
the new Polish-Soviet border. A year later,
before the Potsdam Conference, the western
Allies followed Stalin, recognized the Soviet-sponsored
government, which accepted the shift of the
borders westwards, and withdrew their recognition
for the Polish government-in-exile. Poles
were classified as sub-humans (untermenschen)
by the Nazis, with their ultimate fate being
slavery and extermination, while Germans occupied
position of privileged "ubermenschen" that
were to rule over Poles and other nations;
when Stanisław Mikołajczyk joined the "Government
of National Unity" as a deputy prime minister
in 1945, he justified the expulsions of Germans
by national terms following communist Władysław
Gomułka, but also as a revolutionary act,
freeing the Poles of exploitation by a German
middle and upper class.In general the Polish
historiography views the expulsion of Germans
as justified and correct, even when describing
it as a "lesser evil".
== Flight and evacuation following the Red
Army's advance ==
After the Red Army had advanced into the eastern
parts of post-war Poland in the Lublin–Brest
Offensive, launched on 18 July 1944, Soviet
spearheads first reached eastern German territory
on 4 August 1944 at northeastern East Prussia
and Memelland, causing a first wave of refugees.
With the Soviet Vistula–Oder Offensive,
launched on 12 January 1945, and the parallel
East Prussian Offensive launched on 13 January
1945, Soviet gains of pre-war German and annexed
Polish territory became permanent. With the
subsequent East Pomeranian, Lower Silesian
and Upper Silesian Offensives in February
and March, the Red Army seized control of
virtually all territories east of the Oder
river. Wehrmacht counter-offensives like Operation
Solstice and Operation Gemse were repelled,
and only shrinking pockets like Breslau, Danzig,
Heiligenbeil, Hela, Kolberg, Königsberg,
and Pillau remained German controlled. Soviet
soldiers committed reprisal rapes and other
crimes In most cases, implementation of the
evacuation plans was delayed until Soviet
and Allied forces had defeated the German
forces and advanced into the areas to be evacuated.
The responsibility for leaving millions of
Germans in these vulnerable areas until combat
conditions overwhelmed them can be attributed
directly to the draconian measures taken by
the German authorities against anyone even
suspected of 'defeatist' attitudes [as evacuation
was considered] and the fanaticism of many
Nazi functionaries in their execution of Hitler's
'no retreat' orders. Hitler and his staff
refused to accept Soviet military superiority.
Hitler called the Red Army "gleaned punks"
and "booty divisions", who were not able to
win decisive battles. Himmler called the preparation
of the early 1945 Soviet offensive "the biggest
bluff since Dshingis Khan".
The first mass movement of German civilians
in the eastern territories was composed of
both spontaneous flight and organized evacuation,
starting in the summer of 1944 and continuing
through the early spring of 1945. Conditions
turned chaotic in the winter, when miles-long
queues of refugees pushed their carts through
the snow trying to stay ahead of the Red Army.
From the Baltic coast, thousands were evacuated
by ship in Operation Hannibal. Since February
11, refugees were shipped not only to German
ports, but also to German occupied Denmark,
based on an order issued by Hitler on 4 February.
Of 1,180 ships participating in the evacuation,
135 were lost due to bombs, mines, and torpedoes,
an estimated 20,000 died. Between 23 January
1945 and the end of the war, 2,204,477 people,
1,335,585 of them civilians, were transported
via the Baltic Sea, up to 250,000 of them
to occupied Denmark.
Most of the evacuation efforts commenced in
January 1945, when Soviet forces were already
at the eastern border of Germany. About six
million Germans had fled or were evacuated
from the areas east of the Oder–Neisse line
before Soviet and the attached Polish Army
took control of the region. Refugee treks
and ships which came into reach of the advancing
Soviets suffered high casualties when targeted
by low-flying aircraft, torpedoes, or were
rolled over by tanks. The most infamous incidents
during the flight and expulsion from the territory
of later Poland include the sinking of the
military transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff by
a Soviet submarine with a death toll of some
9,000 people; the USAF bombing of refugee-crowded
Swinemünde on 12 March 1945 killing an estimated
23,000 to 25,000; the desperate conditions
under which refugees crossed the frozen Vistula
Lagoon, where thousands broke in, froze to
death, or were killed by Soviet aircraft;
and the poorly organized evacuation and ultimate
sacrifice of refugee-crowded Breslau by the
local German Nazi authorities headed by gaulaiter
Karl Hanke. The Polish historians Witold Sienkiewicz
and Grzegorz Hryciuk maintain that civilian
deaths in the flight and evacuation were between
600,000 and 1.2 million. The main causes of
death were cold, stress, and bombing.The Nazi
German Ministry for Inner Affairs passed a
decree on 14 March 1945 allowing abortion
to women raped by Soviet soldiers.
== Behind the frontline ==
Many refugees tried to return home when the
fighting in their homelands ended. Before
June 1, 1945, some 400,000 crossed back over
the Oder and Neisse rivers eastward, before
Soviet and Polish communist authorities closed
the river crossings; another 800,000 entered
Silesia from Czechoslovakia.The Polish courier
Jan Karski warned US President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt of the possibility of Polish reprisals,
describing them as "unavoidable" and "an encouragement
for all the Germans in Poland to go west,
to Germany proper, where they belong".
=== Deportation to the Soviet Union ===
On February 6, 1945, Soviet NKVD ordered mobilisation
of all German men (17 to 50 years old) in
the Soviet-controlled territories. Many of
them were then transported to the Soviet Union
for forced labour. In the former German territories
the Soviet authorities did not always distinguish
between the Poles and Germans and often treated
them alike. German civilians were also held
as "reparations labor" by the USSR. Data from
the Russian archives published in 2001, based
on an actual enumeration, put the number of
German civilians deported from Poland to the
USSR in early 1945 for reparations labor at
155,262 where 37% (57,586) died. However,
the West German Red Cross estimated in 1964
that 233,000 German civilians were deported
to the USSR from Poland as forced laborers
where 45% (105,000) were dead or missing.
The West German Red Cross also estimated 110,000
German civilians were held as forced labor
in Kaliningrad Oblast where 50,000 were dead
or missing. The Soviets also deported from
Poland 7,448 Poles of the Armia Krajowa, Soviet
records indicated 506 of the Poles died in
captivity. Tomasz Kamusella maintains that
in early 1945, some 165,000 Germans were transported
to the Soviet Union, where most perished.
According to Gerhardt Reichling, 520,000 German
civilians from the Oder-Neisse region were
conscripted for forced labor by both the USSR
and Poland, he maintains that 206,000 perished.
=== Internment and forced labor in Poland
===
Ethnic German citizens from pre-war Poland,
who collaborated with the German occupiers,
were considered "traitors of the nation" and
sentenced to forced labor. In territories
that belonged to Poland before the war, Germans
were treated even more harshly than in the
former German territories. Deprived of any
citizen rights, many were used as forced labor
prior to their expulsion, sometimes for years,
in labor battalions or in labour camps. The
major camps were at Glatz, Mielęcin, Gronów,
Sikawa, Central Labour Camp Jaworzno, Central
Labour Camp Potulice, Łambinowice (run by
Czesław Gęborski), Zgoda labour camp and
others. When Gęborski was tried by the Polish
authorities in 1959 for his wanton brutality,
he stated his only goal was to exact revenge
for his own treatment during the war. The
German Federal Archives estimated in 1974
that more than 200,000 German civilians were
interned in Polish camps, they put the death
rate at 20-50% and estimated that more than
likely over 60,000 persons perished. The Polish
historians Witold Sienkiewicz and Grzegorz
Hryciuk maintain that the internment "resulted
in numerous deaths, which cannot be accurately
determined because of lack of statistics or
falsification . Periodically, they could be
10% of inmates. Those interned are estimated
at 200-250,000 Germans and the local population,
and deaths might range from 15,000 to 60,000
persons." Norman Naimark cited Zygmunt Woźniczka
as maintaining that the death toll in all
camps was between twenty and fifty percent
of the inmates.Zayas states that "in many
internment camps no relief from outside was
permitted. In some camps relatives would bring
packages and deliver them to the Polish guards,
who regularly plundered the contents and delivered
only the remains, if any. Frequently, these
relatives were so ill-treated that they never
returned. Internees who came to claim their
packages were also mistreated by the guards,
who insisted the internees should speak Polish,
even if they were Germans born in German-speaking
Silesia or Pomerania."Among the interned were
also German POWs. Up to 10% of the 700,000
to 800,000 POWs of the respective battlegrounds
were handed over to the Poles by the Soviet
military for the use of their work force.
POW labor was employed on the reconstruction
of Warsaw and revival of industrial, agricultural
and other productive enterprises Their number
in 1946 was 40,000 according to the Polish
administration, of whom 30,000 were used as
miners in the Upper Silesian coal industries.
7,500 Germans alleged of crimes against Poles
were handed over to Poland by the Western
Allies in 1946 and 1947. A number of German
war criminals were imprisoned in Polish jails,
at least 8,000 remained in jail in 1949, many
of them also being POWs. (see also Supreme
National Tribunal) Some Nazi criminals were
executed (Category:Nazis executed in Poland),
some died in prisons (Erich Koch in 1986),
Johann Kremer was released in 1958 and returned
to Germany.
=== Pre-Potsdam "wild" expulsions (May – July
1945) ===
In 1945, the territories east of the Oder-Neisse
line (Silesia, most of Pomerania, East Brandenburg
and East Prussia) were occupied by Soviet
and Soviet-controlled Polish military forces.
Polish militia and military started expulsions
before the Potsdam Conference, referred to
as "wild expulsions" (German: Wilde Vertreibungen),
affecting between 700,000 and 800,000 Germans.
The Polish communists ordered the expulsion
of Germans: "We must expel all the Germans
because countries are built on national lines
and not on multi-national ones" was demanded
by participants of a Plenum of the Central
Committee of the Polish Workers Party on May
20–21, 1945. On the same Plenum, the head
of the Central Committee, Władysław Gomułka,
ordered: "There has to be a border patrol
at the border [Oder-Neisse line] and the Germans
have to be driven out. The main objective
has to be the cleansing of the terrain of
Germans, the building of a nation state".
To ensure the Oder–Neisse line would be
accepted as the new Polish border at a future
Allied Conference (Potsdam Conference), up
to 300,000 Germans living close to the rivers'
eastern bank were expelled subsequently. On
May 26, 1945, the Central Committee ordered
all Germans to be expelled within one year
and the area settled with some 3.5 million
ethnic Poles; 2.5 million of them were already
re-settled by summer.Germans were defined
as either Reichsdeutsche or Volksdeutsche
resembling the 1st or 2nd category in the
Nazis' Volksliste, people who had signed a
lower category were allowed to apply for "verification",
that was to determine whether they would be
granted Polish citizenship as "autochtones".Before
June 1, 1945, some 400,000 Germans managed
to cross the Oder and Neisse rivers eastward
before Polish authorities closed the river
crossings, another 800,000 entered Silesia
from Czechoslovakia, bringing up Silesia's
population to 50% of the pre-war level. This
led to the odd situation of treks of Germans
moving about in all directions, to the east
as well as to the west, each warning the others
of what would await them at their destination
== 
Expulsions following the Potsdam Conference
==
After the Potsdam Conference, Poland was officially
in charge of the territories east of the Oder–Neisse
line. Despite the fact that article 8 of Potsdam
agreement from August 2, 1945 stated that
"population transfer" should be performed
in ordered and humane manner, and should not
commence until after the creation of an expulsion
plan approved by the Allied Control Council,
the expulsions continued without rules and
were associated with many criminal acts.While
the Polish administration had set up a State
Repatriation Office (Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny,
PUR), the bureau and its administrative subunits
proved ineffective due to quarrels between
Communists and opposition and a lack of equipment
for the giant task of expelling Germans and
resettling Poles in an area devastated by
war. Furthermore, rivalry occurred between
the Soviet occupation forces and the newly
installed Polish administration, a phenomenon
dubbed dwuwladza (double administration).
The Soviets kept trains and German workmen
regardless of the Polish ambitions and plans.The
waves of expulsions after the Potsdam conference
must also be seen in the context of the contemporary,
likewise unorganized, resettling of displaced
or homeless Poles. Polish settlers, who themselves
had been expelled from areas east of the Curzon
Line, arrived with about nothing, putting
an even higher pressure on the remaining Germans
to leave. For the Germans, the Potsdam Agreement
eased conditions only in one way - because
now the Poles were more confident in keeping
the former eastern territories of Germany,
the expulsions were performed with less haste,
which meant the Germans were duly informed
about their expulsions earlier and were allowed
to carry some luggage.Another problem the
Germans and, to a lesser extent, even the
newly arrived Poles were facing was an enormous
crime wave, most notably theft and rape, committed
by gangs not only consisting of regular criminals
but also Soviet soldiers, deserters or former
forced laborers (Ost-Arbeiter), coming back
from the west. In Upper Silesia, a party official,
complained about some Polish security forces
and militia raping and pillaging the German
population and a general loss of sense for
right and wrong. Much abuse also came from
large Soviet contingents stationed in Poland
after the war. A high number of crimes committed
by regular Soviet soldiers - on both Germans
and Poles - had been reported (see Rape during
the liberation of Poland). A high death toll
among the few Polish officials who dared to
investigate these cases followed. Yet, Soviet
troops played an ambiguous role, as there
are also cases where Soviets freed local Germans
imprisoned by Poles, or delayed expulsions
to keep German workforce, for example on farms
providing Soviet troops (for instance in Słupsk).
The damaged infrastructure and quarrels between
the Allied authorities in the occupation zones
of Germany and the Polish administration caused
long delays in the transport of expellees,
who were first ordered to gather at one of
the various PUR transportation centers or
internment camps and then often forced to
wait in ill-equipped barracks, exposed both
to criminals, aggressive guards and the cold
and not supplied sufficiently with food due
to the overall shortages. The "organized transfer"
as agreed at the Potsdam Conference began
in early 1946. Conditions for expellees improved,
yet due to the lack of heating facilities,
the cold winters of both 1945/46 and 1946/47
continued to claim many lives. On September
13, 1946 President Bierut signed a decree
on "the exclusion of persons of German nationality
from the Polish National Community" The major
evictions were completed in 1946, although
another 500,000 Germans arrived in the Soviet
Zone from Poland in 1947. An unknown number
remained; a small German minority continues
to reside in Upper Silesia and Masuria.
== "Autochthons" ==
Close to three million residents of Masuria
(Masurs), Pomerania (Kashubians) and Upper
Silesia (Silesians) were considered of Slavic
descent but many of them did not identify
with Polish nationality, were either bilingual
or spoke German only. The Polish government
declared these so-called "Autochthons" to
be Germanized Poles, who would be re-Slavicized
and serve as a proof of a continual Polish
settlement. The Polish government aimed to
retain as many "autochthons" as possible,
as they were needed both for economic reasons
and also for propaganda purposes, as their
presence on former German soil was used to
indicate an intrinsic "Polishness" character
of the area and justify its incorporation
into the Polish state as "Recovered Territories".
"Verification" and "national rehabilitation"
processes were set up to reveal a "dormant
Polishness" and to determine which were redeemable
as Polish citizens; few were actually expelled.The
verification procedure varied in different
territories and was changed several times.
Initially, the applicants had to prove their
past membership in a Polish minority organization
of the German Reich, and in addition needed
a warrant where three Polish locals testified
their Polishness. In April 1945, the Upper
Silesian voivode declared the fulfillment
of only one of these requirements to be sufficient.
In the areas like Lower Silesia and province
of Pomerania, where the Polish authorities
suspected only Germans, verification was handled
much more strictly than in the former German-Polish
borderlands In Masuria a Polish last name
or a Polish-speaking ancestor was sufficient.
Of the 1,104,134 "verified autochtones" in
the census of 1950, close to 900,000 were
natives of Upper Silesia and Masuria.The word
"autochton", introduced by the Polish government
in 1945 for propaganda purposes, is today
sometimes considered an offensive remark and
direct naming as Kashubians, Silesians and
Masurians is preferred to avoid offending
the people described.
=== Origin of the post-war population according
to 1950 census ===
During the Polish post-war census of December
1950, data about the pre-war places of residence
of the inhabitants as of August 1939 was collected.
In case of children born between September
1939 and December 1950, their place of residence
was reported based on the pre-war places of
residence of their mothers. Thanks to this
data it is possible to reconstruct the pre-war
geographical origin of the post-war population.
Many areas located near the pre-war German
border were resettled by people from neighbouring
borderland areas of pre-war Poland. For example,
Kashubians from pre-war Polish Corridor settled
in nearby areas of German Pomerania adjacent
to Polish Pomerania. People from Poznań region
of pre-war Poland settled in East Brandenburg.
People from East Upper Silesia moved into
the rest of Silesia. And people from Masovia
and from Sudovia moved into adjacent Masuria.
Poles expelled from former Polish territories
in the east (today mainly parts of Ukraine,
Belarus and Lithuania) settled in large numbers
everywhere in the Recovered Territories (but
many of them also settled in central Poland).
Between 1950 and 2016 another 1,445,210 ethnic
Germans left Poland as Spätaussiedler.
== Rehabilitation of Volksdeutsche ==
During the war the population of the annexed
areas of Poland was classified by the Nazis
in different categories according to their
"Germanness" in the Deutsche Volksliste. While
most of the Volksdeutsche population of pre-war
Poland fled or was expelled, some were rehabilitated
and offered their pre-war Polish citizenship
back. While those who had signed Volksliste
category "I" were expelled, rehabilitation
was offered to people who had been subject
to forced labour before, spoke Polish and
were rated as not constituting a threat. Once
granted Polish citizenship, they were encouraged
to Polonize their names, or to restore their
original Polish names if they had been Germanized
during the war. Numbers of how many were offered
to stay in Poland as Poles and eventually
did are not available, but it is assumed that
the vast majority had rather opted and left
for Germany by 1960. Those of mixed descent
from within or without the borders of pre-war
Poland were also allowed to stay on the premise
of Polonization, yet likewise no comprehensive
data exists.
== Indispensable Germans ==
Some Germans were exempted from expulsion
and retained because of their professional
skills, if no Pole was at hand to replace
them. These Germans were treated as second
class citizens, especially regarding salary
and food supply. So-called "abandoned wives",
whose husbands found themselves in post-war
Germany and were not able to return, were
compelled to "seek divorce" and were not allowed
to leave for Germany before 1950–52. The
other ones retained were not allowed to leave
before 1956; these measures also included
the families of the retainees or the parts
thereof remaining with them. About 250,000
had been issued East German passports in the
1950s, ending their former statelessness.
Many were concentrated in the areas of Wrocław
(former Breslau) Wałbrzych (former Waldenburg),
and Legnica (former Liegnitz), all in Lower
Silesia, and in Koszalin (former Köslin)
in Pomerania. How many actually left is uncertain,
though it is generally assumed that the majority
emigrated. The German society of Wałbrzych
has maintained a continuous existence since
1957.
== Repopulation ==
People from all over Poland moved in to replace
the former German population in a process
parallel to the expulsions. While the Germans
were interned and expelled, up to 5 million
settlers were either attracted or forced to
settle the area. The settlers can be grouped
according to their background:
settlers from Central Poland moving in on
a voluntary basis (majority)
Former slave workers of Nazi Germany: 2.8
million Poles that had been freed from forced
labor in Nazi Germany (up to two millions)
Repatriants – Poles expelled from the Kresy
areas east of the Curzon Line annexed by the
Soviet Union, who made up for less than 10%
of the overall Polish population, were preferably
settled in the new western territories where
they made up for 26% of the population (up
to two million)
Poles coming from Western and Southern Europe,
e.g. French miners and farmers from Prnjavor,
Bosnia and Herzegovina region
non-Poles forcefully resettled during Operation
Vistula in 1947. Large numbers of Ukrainians
were forced to move from south eastern Poland
under a 1947 Polish government operation,
termed Operation Vistula, which aimed at breaking
up, and therefore assimilating, the Ukrainian
population, which had not been expelled eastward
already, throughout the newly acquired territories.
Belarusians living around the area around
Białystok were also pressured into relocating
to the areas vacated by fleeing German population
for the same reasons. This scattering of members
of non-Polish ethnic groups throughout the
country was an attempt by the Polish authorities
to dissolve the unique ethnic identity of
groups like the Ukrainians, Belarusians and
Lemkos, and broke the proximity and communication
necessary for strong communities to form.
Tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust-survivors,
most of them being "repatriates" from the
East, settled mostly in Lower Silesia creating
Jewish cooperatives and institutions - the
largest communities were founded in Wrocław,
Szczecin, Dzierżoniów and Wałbrzych. However
most of them later left Poland.
10,000 - 15,000 Greeks and Slavomacedonians
- Refugees of the Greek Civil War
== 
Formal end of the expulsions ==
After 1 January 1948, Germans were primarily
shipped to the Soviet occupation zone (after
3 October 1949, the German Democratic Republic),
based on a Polish-Soviet agreement. Most Germans
had been expelled by the end of 1947. In entire
1948, a relatively small number of 42,700
were expelled, and another 34,100 in 1949.
In 1950, 59,433 Germans were expelled following
a bi-lateral agreement between the People's
Republic of Poland and the German Democratic
Republic (GDR), 26,196 of whom however headed
for West Germany. Between October 1948 and
December 1950 all 35,000 German prisoners
of war detained in Poland were shipped to
Germany.On 10 March 1951, the Polish "Bureau
for Repatriation" (PUR) was disbanded; all
further resettlement from Poland to Germany
was carried out in a non-forcible and peaceful
manner by the Polish state travel agency Orbis.
== Demographic estimates ==
According to the Polish census of 1946, there
were still 2,036,400 Germans in the "Recovered
Territories", 251,900 in the pre-war Polish
territories (primarily eastern Upper Silesia,
Pomerelia and Greater Poland) and the former
Free City of Danzig, and 417,000 in the process
of "verification" as "new" Poles. The census
data did not include former German citizens
already "verified" as ethnic Poles, Germans
in forced labor or detention camps and otherwise
detained Germans, and Germans employed by
the Soviet administration.According to S.
Banasiak, 3,109,900 Germans were expelled
to the Soviet and British occupation zones
in Germany and thereby registered by Polish
officials between 1945 and 1950. Registration
by Polish officials was not exhaustive, especially
in 1945. An unknown number left without formal
registration or was expelled by Soviet military
authorities without notifying by Polish officials
responsible for statistics. Also, especially
in 1945, many Germans returned to their former
homes and some were expelled more than once.Tomasz
Kamusella cites estimates of 7 million expelled
during both "wild" and "legal" expulsions
from the Recovered Territories (Deutsche Ostgebiete)
until 1948. The number is based on 1946 census
in which citizens were asked specifically
if they were Polish or German. The expelled
included German autochthons stripped of Polish
citizenship and additional 700,000 members
of the German minority from areas of pre-war
Poland. Kamusella states that about 5 million
had fled from the former eastern territories
of Germany, and 500,000 from pre-war Poland
in 1944 and 1945, that another 3.325 million
were expelled from the former German territories
in 1946–1948 (3 million from Czechoslovakia,
and 250,000 from Hungary), emphasizing these
numbers are not exhaustive.Overy cites approximate
totals of those evacuated, migrated, or expelled
between 1944–1950 from East Prussia: 1.4
million to Western Germany, 609,000 to Eastern
Germany; from West Prussia: 230,000 to Western
Germany, 61,000 to Eastern Germany; from the
former German area East of the Oder-Neisse:
3.2 million to Western Germany, 2 million
to Eastern Germany.According to Kacowicz,
about 3.5 million people had fled before the
organized expulsions began, mainly driven
by fear of the advancing Soviet Army, between
seven hundred and eight hundred thousand Germans
were affected by the "wild" expulsions, and
another three millions were expelled in 1946
and 1947.
== Legacy ==
=== Post-war ===
In Communist Poland, the expulsions were not
to be questioned, and ideologically defended
by propaganda. The expulsions were perceived
by many Poles as just with respect to the
former Nazi policies, injustices were balanced
off with the injustices during the contemporary
"repatriation" of Poles. Except for the use
in official anti-German propaganda, the expulsions
became a taboo in Polish politics, public,
and education for decades. German expellee
organizations who did not accept the post-war
territorial and population changes fueled
Communist propaganda dismissing them as far-right
revanchists.In the first years after the war,
the bishop of Katowice Stanisław Adamski
criticized the expulsion of Germans as inhumane.According
to Philipp Ther, pre-1989 Polish historiography
has in general either underestimated or concealed
the role of force during the expulsions. Ther
says that this was caused on the one hand
by censorship, and on the other hand by the
interpretation of the registration forms the
expellees had signed as acquiescence to "voluntary
emigration".
=== Post-communist (1989–present) ===
The Polish role in the expulsions could not
be contemplated in Poland until the end of
the Cold War.In the Polish–German border
and neighborhood treaties of 1990 and 1991,
the term "expulsion" for the first time replaced
the old and euphemistic Communist term "resettlement"
or the Potsdam term "population transfer",
which were used by Polish officials before.
Though "Wypędzenie", the Polish term for
"expulsion", is since widely used officially,
in regular linguistic practice it is still
an emotionally loaded term, not as it were,
something that is being acknowledged, and
closely attached to the question of "right"
or "wrong". Polish and joint German-Polish
scholarly research and public debates in Poland
were now concerned with issues like moral
examination of the expulsions, responsibility
for the inflicted suffering, terminology,
numbers, and whether the expellee's status
was that of a political subject or object.In
1995, Polish foreign minister Władysław
Bartoszewski expressed regret for innocent
German suffering before the German parliament
and federative council. In 1996, the Polish
public opinion research institute CBOS polled
public opinion about a phrase in the letter
of reconciliation the Polish bishops had written
in 1965: "We forgive and ask for forgiveness":
28% agreed; 45% agreed with the offering of
forgiveness, but rejected the part that asked
for forgiveness; 22% disagreed altogether.In
addition, anxiety is growing in Poland about
the legal and moral claim to Poland's post-war
territorial gains. The legal aspects have
been investigated by various international
law experts coming to different conclusions,
prompting both Germany and Poland to employ
a joint expert team that gave an overall negative
answer to chances for such legal challenges.
The Polish government made some efforts to
sue Germany for damages inflicted on Poland
during World War II in return. The advancing
German project of erecting a Centre Against
Expulsions depicting the fate of 20th-century
European expellees (mostly, but not only,
German) is controversial in Poland, and was
described by former Polish Prime Minister
Jarosław Kaczyński as "equating the victims
with the persecutors". The Polish reaction
was severely criticized in Germany.
== See also ==
German minority in Poland
Expulsion of Poles by Germany
Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany
Polish population transfers (1944–46)
Germany–Poland relations
World War II evacuation and expulsion
Territorial evolution of Germany
Territorial evolution of Poland
== Notes ==
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