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Can we get this a better title? This one is not descriptive, nor widely used. -- Bejnar 18:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The key here is what the intended scope of the article is. I disliked the inclusion of Western European countries to Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII because, IMO, it diluted the message. In fact, I suspect that the inclusion of Western European countries was actually meant to dilute the message (i.e. to exculpate Eastern European countries by suggesting that other countries did similar things). IMO, the magnitudes were so different in scale as to make them dissimilar phenomena.
Likewise, German evacuation during World War II could refer to military and/or civilians, Eastern and/or Western Europe. I would prefer a limited scope to this article thus suggesting a title such as Evacuation of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during WWII. The rationale for focusing on Central and Eastern Europe is that the evacuation was probably larger in scale (presumably there was no similar scale evacuation of German civilians from Western Germany or even the Sudetenland). Also, there is an important connection between the evacuations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe and the expulsions of Germans from the same areas because the inability to determine how many Germans died during these events is a major point of controversy. -- Richard 20:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
After 10 minutes searching - there was a big evacuation from Aachen in Western Germany. Xx236 11:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The title misinforms. The article informs about the evacuation of Soviet Germans in 1943. It wasn't the end of the war. Xx236 ( talk) 14:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I propose flight and evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II. I think that many people fled without waiting for an official evacuation order or evacuation help. Andries ( talk) 12:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't the article title be "Evacuation of German civilians at the end of World War II"? The current title doesn't read well without the "the". BrokenSphere Msg me 15:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The evacuation started in 1943, I wouldn't call that year the end. Xx236 10:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The end of the war in Europe was May the 8, 1945 and calling 1943 the end doesn't help to understand the problem. It was a local end, not the global one. Xx236 07:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The expulsion and the forced flight of the Germans happened at the end and after the war. Evacuation is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing or expulsion.-- 92.230.235.208 ( talk) 20:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The destription of the evacuation of East Prussia is complete rubbish.
Any kind of preparations to evacuate the province were strictly forbidden. Even talking about any possible necessity to evacuate would have been accused as defeatism. Anybody thinking about such thing shows his doubts about the “Endsieg” ( final victory), which was a crime from Nazi POV. As a second reason Gauleiter Koch thougt that german soldiers would fight even harder knowing that the civilists are right behind the frontline, fighting for an empty country isn´t that important. Only a very few people were evacuated from a small area with direct contact to the front in Autumn 1944, but definitely not to Pomerania and Saxony, mostly only inside East Prussia. Evacuation in July 1944 didn´t happen ( defeatism) AND DEFINITELY NOT 25 % of 2.6 MILLION. Most inhabitants left their homes just hours ( or even less) before the red army occupied their hometown and a significant number of them did NOT manage to escape over the Vistula Lagoon.
The allegation that 80 % of the population had already left East Prussia is old propaganda, suggesting polish and russian people later on coming to East Prussia were resettling an uninhabited area.
And this is also obviously wrong for Pomerania, Silesia ( 85 % in 1945 !! nonsense ) and the New March ( 10 % german is absurd, have a look at the WIKI Neumark article: in 1924 the regional polish party got 1.900 votes out of 570.000 voters )( HerkusMonte ( talk) 15:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC))
The article is based on PLANNING, it wasn´t realized!( HerkusMonte ( talk) 10:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC))
Don´t you see a difference between making an evacuation plan somewhere in the backoffice and CONCRETE preparation? Does Nitschke (the source ) explain, who made the plans? As far as I know they were made by the Wehrmacht, based on a realistic evaluation of the war situation. When these plans were presented to Koch, he refused to accept them - and Koch was the one, who decided whats going on in East Prussia. As a part of Goebbels propaganda it was absolutely necessary, to show no doubts about the german success- and an evacuation of 80 % ( or 25 % already in 1944 ) would have shown very obviously, that the Nazis didn´t believe in their own propaganda.( HerkusMonte ( talk) 09:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC))
I cut the following paragraph from the article:
New March
The evacuation of German population from New March was performed simultaneously with the evacuation of General Government and Greater Poland. [1] The territories, although forming the largest province of the Third Reich, had only scarce German population of about 10%; the rest of the population was Polish. [2] Despite the proximity of the province to Oder, only 30-40% of the evacuated managed to cross the river in time. The evacuation orders did not concern the Polish population, which usually remained in place.
This paragraph is definitely not about New March, as New March was neither the greatest nor a "scarcely" German province. Could someone with access to the source please check what province the author actually did write about, correct and reinsert. My guess would be the areas attached to the East Prussian Gau following 1941, but I'm not sure. Skäpperöd ( talk) 15:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Xx236 ( talk) 14:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Xx236 ( talk) 10:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
German Wikipedia quotes the book only once regarding Bucarest, not Germany. The author is an architect and the book is biased. Xx236 ( talk) 07:57, 19 March 2009 (UTC) The book is unreliable according to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Xx236 ( talk) 08:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
According to [1] the text should not be quoted here. Xx236 ( talk) 06:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Soviet propaganda was controlled by Soviet leaders. Selecting Ilya Ehrenburg is POV. Xx236 ( talk) 06:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
This article basically duplicates topics which are already discussed (generally in more detail) at Expulsion of Germans after World War II (which really covers the topics "Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after World War II", which I've proposed as a new title for it). We should either merge this article into this one, or else make this the main page for the events specifically during the later stages of the war (just summarizing them at the other article). But actually I don't see that it's particularly natural to divide this subject matter by the watershed of the end of the war, so I would suggest merging the pages (most of the info here is probably already included in the other article anyway).-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Flight and evacuation during the end of World War II included evacustion of:
The selection of "German civilans" only and renaming the flight and evacuation to "Expulsion" is rewriting of history. Xx236 ( talk) 08:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute about this subject here Vistula–Oder_Offensive#Flight_of_ethnic_Germans. See Talk:Vistula–Oder_Offensive#Continue_to_disagree:_section_Flight_of_ethnic_Germans and https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Vistula%E2%80%93Oder_Offensive&curid=1634994&diff=671194044&oldid=671011227 dispute over this edit regarding flight and evacuation of Germans Because this is the main article on this subject I am hoping for more eyes. Please make comments regarding the contents there ( Talk:Vistula%E2%80%93Oder_Offensive#Continue_to_disagree:_section_Flight_of_ethnic_Germans ), not here. Andries ( talk) 07:56, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
The article presents only German POV:
User:Poeticbent has moved the page twice within a few days. Don't you think a prior discussion would be extremely helpful to find an adequate name and move it after consensus has been reached? The current title ignores the improvised Flight, which was in fact a much more defining aspect of what happened compared to an organized "evacuation". HerkusMonte ( talk) 09:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I maintain that the inclusion of the Death marches (Holocaust) with the flight of the Germans is a Wikipedia:SYNTHESIS to arrive at a conclusion that is not supported by reliable sources. I object to the inclusion of the death marches in an account of the German flight in the wake of the Soviet Army,it's a tacky analogy that trivializes the Holocaust. In my opinion the Death marches (Holocaust) does not belong in the same article as the evacuation of Germans.-- Woogie10w ( talk) 13:25, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
As much as I appreciate User:Woogie10w's contributions to our understanding of the complexities of World War II historiography, I resent his attempts at trying to use Wikipedia policies in order to form an argument in defense of his personal point of view that has nothing to do with reliable third-party sources. Below are just a few examples of historical interpretation of the incredibly complex nature of the subject of German evacuation from East-Central Europe (borrowed from the books in the reference section of this article with a single click).
The Germans from the Eastern territories were certainly neither the first nor the last group to face mass expulsions from their homelands. In the past decade, the topic of forced migration has been in the news regularly... the Nazis' removal and subsequent extermination of the Jews from Central Europe during World War II, the expulsion of the Poles from Eastern Poland at the end of World War II due to the Soviet absorption of that territory, [are] among many other examples. -- Amy A. Alrich, Expulsions in the past and present, 2003
considering the last phase of war on the eastern front exclusively from the viewpoint of the German troops, which ... resisted ... to save the German population from the Red Army's wrath ... amount[s] to apologetic interpretations of the Third Reich ... -- Wulf Kansteiner 2006
the Holocaust has to be interpreted within the overall context of state-of-the-art population policies that entailed large-scale ... relocations as part of wide-ranging plans to reform the political, economic, and ethnic map of eastern "Europe. The attempt to realize these plans set off an chain reaction of failed social engineering that led to ethnic cleansing and genocide. -- the Hamburg School (in) Wulf Kansteiner 2006
For most commentators, these defense mechanisms -- for instance, the self stylization as victims, the projection of all responsibility on Hitler and his henchmen, and the neutralization of Nazism as a natural catastrophe -- were dishonest, self-serving myths that the population and its elected leaders constructed in mutually reinforcing and mutually comforting cycles of collective make-believe. -- Wulf Kansteiner 2006
Poeticbent talk 16:03, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Xx236 ( talk) 13:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Please click on the external link to Google Books preview [p. 67] and look again. HerkusMonte produced a number 824,000 with the edit summary: 2,000,000 is not supported by the source... However, Bessel – who's quoted at the end of the sentence – never said that. If a different source is being used, it ought to be revealed. Thanks,
Poeticbent
talk
15:17, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Side note: I don't know if this new and conspicuously precise number speaks of the so-called "Nachumsiedler" (just guessing), because nothing is said in the edit summary about the eastern Germans from the Soviet Union, Volhynia, Bessarabia and Romania, brought into Poland during "Heim ins Reich". Either the number must be revised to include all of them, or removed altogether.
Poeticbent
talk
15:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Not all Eastern Germans who planned or even tried to flee were able to do so; due to the fact that they did not anticipate the speed with which the Soviets would arrive, many Germans were literally taken by surprise. In Königsberg and in some other areas, many Germans witnessed the arrival of the Red Army because local government or party officials had refused to allow the population to flee. — Alrich 2003, page 202.
Bessel regurgitated that figure of 825,000 from Schieder, I would not use it. It would be correct to say 1.9 million were resettlers but the caveat is that 1.3 million already lived in East-Central Europe in 1939. In the eyes of German law they are also "expellees" because they lost the farm in Latvia-- Woogie10w ( talk) 16:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Schieder’s work referred to the Poles as ... “sadistic,” and “driven by national hatred,” whereas the language applied to Nazi crimes was more benign ... The volumes, published between 1956 and 1963 amounted to a “scholarly seal of approval” for Germany’s victimization narrative. Schieder was a former member of the NSDAP. During the Third Reich his scholarship supported the idea of a German Lebensraum and the inferiority of the Slavic populations . His work was incorporated into the General Plan Ost. — Dr. Deborah Barton (2015), University of Toronto
Annexed area | Deutsche Volksliste, early 1944 | |||
Cat. I | Cat. II | Cat. III | Cat. IV | |
Warthegau | 230,000 | 190,000 | 65,000 | 25,000 |
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia Note: In Polish Pomerania, unlike in the rest of occupied Poland, signing of the list was mandatory for a good portion of the population. |
115,000 | 95,000 | 725,000 | 2,000 |
East Upper Silesia | 130,000 | 210,000 | 875,000 | 55,000 |
South East Prussia | 9,000 | 22,000 | 13,000 | 1,000 |
Total | 484,000 | 517,000 | 1,678,000 | 83,000 |
Total 2.75 million on Volkslisten plus non-German population (whatever that means!) of 6.015 million- Grand Total 8.765 million in annexed territories. | ||||
Source: Wilhelm Deist, Bernhard R Kroener, Germany (Federal Republic). Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Germany and the Second World War, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 132,133, ISBN 0-19-820873-1, citing Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, p. 134 |
This source is available online Eberhardt Piotr: Political migrations on Polish territories (1939-1950). Warszawa: PAN IGiPZ, 2011 - 225 s. (Monografie; 12) PDF file, direct download 7.78 MB. Page 64 and onwards is about Germanization, and has several tables.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 21:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
It looks like we are going to have to find the middle ground all by ourselves somehow. Poeticbent talk 01:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, many former citizens of the Second Polish Republic from across the Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht army in Upper Silesia and in Pomerania. They were declared citizens of the Third Reich by law and therefore subject to drumhead court-martial in case of draft evasion. Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek of the University of Silesia in Katowice, author of a monograph titled Polacy w Wehrmachcie ("Poles in the Wehrmacht") noted that the scale of this phenomenon was much larger than previously assumed, because 90% of the inhabitants of these two westernmost regions of prewar Poland were ordered to register on the Nazi Deutsche Volksliste by the invader regardless of will. The number of the conscripts however, is not known. The data does not exist beyond 1943.
Paweł Dybicz for Tygodnik "Przegląd" 38/2012.
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Poeticbent
talk
17:34, 24 November 2015 (UTC)Those Germans who fled prior to the capitulation frequently encountered Nazi functionaries who generally welcomed the incoming Germans ... when they came in small numbers and were neat and tidy, the local population largely welcomed the refugees; however, when thousands of expellees arrived daily by ship, train, and on foot, and they were frequently dirty, hungry, and sick, the indigenes were often overwhelmed and hostile.
On 20 February 1946 the British launched "Operation Swallow" ... from East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia. Between February and the end of December 1946 over 1,600,000 Germans were transferred ... Germans being transported perceived this relocation as temporary; just as swallows return when conditions have improved ... among those persons transferred out were thousands of Masurians, non-Polish Slavic people who lived in Southern East Prussia --- Alrich 2003, pp. 80-82.
Presenting these numbers as facts however, seems not only unprofessional, but also unfair to the reader.
But the source is Polish, It is reliable and academic. How could it be wrong?--
Woogie10w (
talk)
01:53, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
In 1955, Schieder proposed a concluding volume that would place the expulsion within the long-term context of late-nineteenth-century nationalism, forced population movements after World War I, the history of German minorities in eastern Europe in the interwar period, and Nazi "population policy" and population transfers. This idea, however, was rejected by the Ministry of Expellees on the ground that comparisons would make it impossible to claim the singularity of the expulsion. Subsequently, neither Schieder nor the other editors pursued alternative means to publish the planned volume. The books that did appear contained little evidence of German misdeeds. For example, neither eyewitnesses nor the editors commented on the exploitation of other nationalities as forced laborers by Germans. Indeed, when foreign workers appeared in testimonies, they were often depicted as the gracious recipients of instruction from their German masters, no less eager than Germans to flee the Red Army. — Prof. Robert G Moeller, War stories
I totally understand your rationale Woogie10w, and I find your contributions essential to presenting the NPOV of the facts in this article. Unlike you, however, I have no access to Schieder. That's why I would like you to help me set the record straight. Our article needs to explain to the reader everything we have already learned. Namely, that the German ration cards were the source of data, nothing else. The ration cards originated from March 1944, not from 1945. Please find out: what is the volume and page number of that statement in Schieder. I have full confidence in your ability to provide all the required information.
Schieder was quoted by Nitschke ... who was quoted by Gawryszewski ... who was quoted by Eberhardt. But who was quoted by Hahn & Hahn? Our article states that: – "The number of civilians in the eastern territories during the final stages of World War II is currently estimated at 10 million." What is the source of that number quoted by Hahn & Hahn. – Is it Schieder? If so, where did he say that (according to Hahn & Hahn). Please look into it, with the volume and page number we can use.
We ought to be presenting the full description of the postwar research point by point, reveal their authors, and leave it to the reader to decide what they want to believe. It's not that difficult. Thanks in advance. Poeticbent talk 15:59, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Bessel regurgitated the figure of 825,000 from Schiederas you say? The figure 825,000 is not in Schieder, neither 1,134,000 nor 750,000 nor 86,860 nor 93,283 nor 1,200,000 and on, and on, and on. Here's another volume of his work in Google Books I have checked (using search box):
Ok I fixed the numbers per the sources: 825,000 is in Schieder page 5; the 1,134,000 & 750,000 come from Nietschke page 274 not Schieder the 86,860 & 93,283 come from Overmans 1994 and were never attributed to Schieder. In any case I listed Schieder's figures with pages--
Woogie10w (
talk)
01:54, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Schieder's Population Balance east of Oder-Neisse 1945
Description | Pre War 1939 "German"Pop | Natural Increase | Air Raid Evac | Settlers/Administrators | In Military | Pop end 1944 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pre-War Germany | 9,620,000 | 467,000 | 825,000 | 346,000 | (1,500,000) | 9,758,000 |
Memel | 129,000 | 5,000 | 134,000 | |||
Pre-War Poland | 789,000 | 10,000 | 813,000 | 1,612,000 | ||
Danzig | 394,000 | 16,000 | 10,000 | 420,000 | ||
Total | 10,932,000 | 493,000 | 825,000 | 1,174,000 | (1,500,000) | 11,924,000 |
Source:Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutchen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. pp.4-8 and 78
This includes about 2 million German air raid evacuees" → even though the next line reads (quote): "
consisting of 1.5 million bombing raid evacuees..." So, what is it: 2 or 1.5 million in Theodor Schieder's Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung? You are using Theodor Schieder after all. – You also made changes which are no longer supported by the source from before. For example, Hahn & Hahn on pages 264 & 686 say: "10 Millionen angestiegen", period. Meanwhile, you added 15 million to it. Why? And what's the source? You switched parts of the same paragraph around for no particular reason, and made the entire sequence almost illogical (no doubt by accident), i.e. "
7.3 million Reichsdeutsche" in one part and "
6.4 million German speaking Reichsdeutsche" in another (which are one and the same) while the Volksdeutsche are missing. I'm inclined to ask that you self-revert first, and write it again here in case you're not sure how to phrase it so we both can improve on it together. Greetings, Poeticbent talk 19:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
Zu ihnen gehörten jene rund 8 350 000 Menschen, die nach den Schätzungen der Wehrmacht am 20. Februar 1945 unterwegs waren [635]; wenig später sollen es sogar 10 Millionen gewesen sein: »Da in Danzig sich 1 000 000 Flüchtlinge in Bewegung gesetzt haben, ist die Gesamtsumme der Flüchtlinge auf 10 000 000 angestiegen«, hieß es im Lage- buch des Wehrmachtsführungsstabs vom 6. März 1945. [636] Nach anderen Berichten sollen schon am 6. Januar 1945 ...“ — Hahn & Hahn
Polish figures do not include northern east prussia and military c.2million -- Woogie10w ( talk) 21:58, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
Einblicke in die Geschichte des Zahlenlabyrinths "Vertreibung"
Einblicke in die Geschichte des Zahlenlabyrinths können uns zur Orientierung im Erinnern an die Vertreibung verhelfen. Seit der Nachkriegszeit, als viele Gerüchte kursierten und mit unbelegten Zahlen in Millionenhöhe hantiert wurde, verfügten manche Deutsche über annähernd korrekte Informationen. So wusste man im Deutschen Caritasverband beispielsweise im Jahre 1948: Rund "II der insgesamt 15 Millionen deutscher Bewohner aus den ehemals preußischen Provinzen rechts der Oder und Neiße, aus der Tschechoslowakei und aus Ungarn haben die Heimat verlassen müssen oder konnten in ihre Heimatgebiete nicht mehr zurückkehren".[244] Zehn Jahre später konnte man, wie oben erwähnt, in der Schrift "Die Heimatvertriebenen im Spiegel der Statistik" von Gerhard Reichling erfahren, dass die Informationen des Caritasverbandes realistisch waren: Nach Reichlings Forschungen waren 11,6 Millionen Menschen von der Vertreibung betroffen, einschließlich der heimkehrende Kriegsgefangenen und der in "Einzelwanderung" 1946 bis 1950 im heutigen Deutschland eingetroffenen Personen.[245]
I am out with family will answer tonight-- Woogie10w ( talk) 16:13, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
"including 7.3 million permanent residents ie.Reichsdeutsche, (including million ethnic Poles spared the expulsions, and 6.4 million German speaking Reichsdeutsche)" Xx236 ( talk) 14:01, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
—−Civilian evacuation from the provinces of Pomerania and Silesia I find the description of these evacuations limited and not up to the quality, especially the details, of those describing the evacuations of East Prussia and territories lying east of the Oder/Neisse line. For example, the comment was made that the evacuation of Breslau (Wroclaw) requires more discussion. I will place this information in their respective sections and await everyone's comments. Zweisimmen ( talk) 15:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Re [10]. This is on page 25 of Beevor’s book (and a few other ones), as well as in numerous other sources, for example this one. Volunteer Marek 05:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
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Can we get this a better title? This one is not descriptive, nor widely used. -- Bejnar 18:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The key here is what the intended scope of the article is. I disliked the inclusion of Western European countries to Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII because, IMO, it diluted the message. In fact, I suspect that the inclusion of Western European countries was actually meant to dilute the message (i.e. to exculpate Eastern European countries by suggesting that other countries did similar things). IMO, the magnitudes were so different in scale as to make them dissimilar phenomena.
Likewise, German evacuation during World War II could refer to military and/or civilians, Eastern and/or Western Europe. I would prefer a limited scope to this article thus suggesting a title such as Evacuation of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during WWII. The rationale for focusing on Central and Eastern Europe is that the evacuation was probably larger in scale (presumably there was no similar scale evacuation of German civilians from Western Germany or even the Sudetenland). Also, there is an important connection between the evacuations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe and the expulsions of Germans from the same areas because the inability to determine how many Germans died during these events is a major point of controversy. -- Richard 20:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
After 10 minutes searching - there was a big evacuation from Aachen in Western Germany. Xx236 11:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The title misinforms. The article informs about the evacuation of Soviet Germans in 1943. It wasn't the end of the war. Xx236 ( talk) 14:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I propose flight and evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II. I think that many people fled without waiting for an official evacuation order or evacuation help. Andries ( talk) 12:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't the article title be "Evacuation of German civilians at the end of World War II"? The current title doesn't read well without the "the". BrokenSphere Msg me 15:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The evacuation started in 1943, I wouldn't call that year the end. Xx236 10:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The end of the war in Europe was May the 8, 1945 and calling 1943 the end doesn't help to understand the problem. It was a local end, not the global one. Xx236 07:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The expulsion and the forced flight of the Germans happened at the end and after the war. Evacuation is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing or expulsion.-- 92.230.235.208 ( talk) 20:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The destription of the evacuation of East Prussia is complete rubbish.
Any kind of preparations to evacuate the province were strictly forbidden. Even talking about any possible necessity to evacuate would have been accused as defeatism. Anybody thinking about such thing shows his doubts about the “Endsieg” ( final victory), which was a crime from Nazi POV. As a second reason Gauleiter Koch thougt that german soldiers would fight even harder knowing that the civilists are right behind the frontline, fighting for an empty country isn´t that important. Only a very few people were evacuated from a small area with direct contact to the front in Autumn 1944, but definitely not to Pomerania and Saxony, mostly only inside East Prussia. Evacuation in July 1944 didn´t happen ( defeatism) AND DEFINITELY NOT 25 % of 2.6 MILLION. Most inhabitants left their homes just hours ( or even less) before the red army occupied their hometown and a significant number of them did NOT manage to escape over the Vistula Lagoon.
The allegation that 80 % of the population had already left East Prussia is old propaganda, suggesting polish and russian people later on coming to East Prussia were resettling an uninhabited area.
And this is also obviously wrong for Pomerania, Silesia ( 85 % in 1945 !! nonsense ) and the New March ( 10 % german is absurd, have a look at the WIKI Neumark article: in 1924 the regional polish party got 1.900 votes out of 570.000 voters )( HerkusMonte ( talk) 15:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC))
The article is based on PLANNING, it wasn´t realized!( HerkusMonte ( talk) 10:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC))
Don´t you see a difference between making an evacuation plan somewhere in the backoffice and CONCRETE preparation? Does Nitschke (the source ) explain, who made the plans? As far as I know they were made by the Wehrmacht, based on a realistic evaluation of the war situation. When these plans were presented to Koch, he refused to accept them - and Koch was the one, who decided whats going on in East Prussia. As a part of Goebbels propaganda it was absolutely necessary, to show no doubts about the german success- and an evacuation of 80 % ( or 25 % already in 1944 ) would have shown very obviously, that the Nazis didn´t believe in their own propaganda.( HerkusMonte ( talk) 09:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC))
I cut the following paragraph from the article:
New March
The evacuation of German population from New March was performed simultaneously with the evacuation of General Government and Greater Poland. [1] The territories, although forming the largest province of the Third Reich, had only scarce German population of about 10%; the rest of the population was Polish. [2] Despite the proximity of the province to Oder, only 30-40% of the evacuated managed to cross the river in time. The evacuation orders did not concern the Polish population, which usually remained in place.
This paragraph is definitely not about New March, as New March was neither the greatest nor a "scarcely" German province. Could someone with access to the source please check what province the author actually did write about, correct and reinsert. My guess would be the areas attached to the East Prussian Gau following 1941, but I'm not sure. Skäpperöd ( talk) 15:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Xx236 ( talk) 14:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Xx236 ( talk) 10:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
German Wikipedia quotes the book only once regarding Bucarest, not Germany. The author is an architect and the book is biased. Xx236 ( talk) 07:57, 19 March 2009 (UTC) The book is unreliable according to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Xx236 ( talk) 08:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
According to [1] the text should not be quoted here. Xx236 ( talk) 06:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Soviet propaganda was controlled by Soviet leaders. Selecting Ilya Ehrenburg is POV. Xx236 ( talk) 06:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
This article basically duplicates topics which are already discussed (generally in more detail) at Expulsion of Germans after World War II (which really covers the topics "Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after World War II", which I've proposed as a new title for it). We should either merge this article into this one, or else make this the main page for the events specifically during the later stages of the war (just summarizing them at the other article). But actually I don't see that it's particularly natural to divide this subject matter by the watershed of the end of the war, so I would suggest merging the pages (most of the info here is probably already included in the other article anyway).-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Flight and evacuation during the end of World War II included evacustion of:
The selection of "German civilans" only and renaming the flight and evacuation to "Expulsion" is rewriting of history. Xx236 ( talk) 08:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute about this subject here Vistula–Oder_Offensive#Flight_of_ethnic_Germans. See Talk:Vistula–Oder_Offensive#Continue_to_disagree:_section_Flight_of_ethnic_Germans and https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Vistula%E2%80%93Oder_Offensive&curid=1634994&diff=671194044&oldid=671011227 dispute over this edit regarding flight and evacuation of Germans Because this is the main article on this subject I am hoping for more eyes. Please make comments regarding the contents there ( Talk:Vistula%E2%80%93Oder_Offensive#Continue_to_disagree:_section_Flight_of_ethnic_Germans ), not here. Andries ( talk) 07:56, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
The article presents only German POV:
User:Poeticbent has moved the page twice within a few days. Don't you think a prior discussion would be extremely helpful to find an adequate name and move it after consensus has been reached? The current title ignores the improvised Flight, which was in fact a much more defining aspect of what happened compared to an organized "evacuation". HerkusMonte ( talk) 09:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I maintain that the inclusion of the Death marches (Holocaust) with the flight of the Germans is a Wikipedia:SYNTHESIS to arrive at a conclusion that is not supported by reliable sources. I object to the inclusion of the death marches in an account of the German flight in the wake of the Soviet Army,it's a tacky analogy that trivializes the Holocaust. In my opinion the Death marches (Holocaust) does not belong in the same article as the evacuation of Germans.-- Woogie10w ( talk) 13:25, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
As much as I appreciate User:Woogie10w's contributions to our understanding of the complexities of World War II historiography, I resent his attempts at trying to use Wikipedia policies in order to form an argument in defense of his personal point of view that has nothing to do with reliable third-party sources. Below are just a few examples of historical interpretation of the incredibly complex nature of the subject of German evacuation from East-Central Europe (borrowed from the books in the reference section of this article with a single click).
The Germans from the Eastern territories were certainly neither the first nor the last group to face mass expulsions from their homelands. In the past decade, the topic of forced migration has been in the news regularly... the Nazis' removal and subsequent extermination of the Jews from Central Europe during World War II, the expulsion of the Poles from Eastern Poland at the end of World War II due to the Soviet absorption of that territory, [are] among many other examples. -- Amy A. Alrich, Expulsions in the past and present, 2003
considering the last phase of war on the eastern front exclusively from the viewpoint of the German troops, which ... resisted ... to save the German population from the Red Army's wrath ... amount[s] to apologetic interpretations of the Third Reich ... -- Wulf Kansteiner 2006
the Holocaust has to be interpreted within the overall context of state-of-the-art population policies that entailed large-scale ... relocations as part of wide-ranging plans to reform the political, economic, and ethnic map of eastern "Europe. The attempt to realize these plans set off an chain reaction of failed social engineering that led to ethnic cleansing and genocide. -- the Hamburg School (in) Wulf Kansteiner 2006
For most commentators, these defense mechanisms -- for instance, the self stylization as victims, the projection of all responsibility on Hitler and his henchmen, and the neutralization of Nazism as a natural catastrophe -- were dishonest, self-serving myths that the population and its elected leaders constructed in mutually reinforcing and mutually comforting cycles of collective make-believe. -- Wulf Kansteiner 2006
Poeticbent talk 16:03, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Xx236 ( talk) 13:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Please click on the external link to Google Books preview [p. 67] and look again. HerkusMonte produced a number 824,000 with the edit summary: 2,000,000 is not supported by the source... However, Bessel – who's quoted at the end of the sentence – never said that. If a different source is being used, it ought to be revealed. Thanks,
Poeticbent
talk
15:17, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Side note: I don't know if this new and conspicuously precise number speaks of the so-called "Nachumsiedler" (just guessing), because nothing is said in the edit summary about the eastern Germans from the Soviet Union, Volhynia, Bessarabia and Romania, brought into Poland during "Heim ins Reich". Either the number must be revised to include all of them, or removed altogether.
Poeticbent
talk
15:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Not all Eastern Germans who planned or even tried to flee were able to do so; due to the fact that they did not anticipate the speed with which the Soviets would arrive, many Germans were literally taken by surprise. In Königsberg and in some other areas, many Germans witnessed the arrival of the Red Army because local government or party officials had refused to allow the population to flee. — Alrich 2003, page 202.
Bessel regurgitated that figure of 825,000 from Schieder, I would not use it. It would be correct to say 1.9 million were resettlers but the caveat is that 1.3 million already lived in East-Central Europe in 1939. In the eyes of German law they are also "expellees" because they lost the farm in Latvia-- Woogie10w ( talk) 16:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Schieder’s work referred to the Poles as ... “sadistic,” and “driven by national hatred,” whereas the language applied to Nazi crimes was more benign ... The volumes, published between 1956 and 1963 amounted to a “scholarly seal of approval” for Germany’s victimization narrative. Schieder was a former member of the NSDAP. During the Third Reich his scholarship supported the idea of a German Lebensraum and the inferiority of the Slavic populations . His work was incorporated into the General Plan Ost. — Dr. Deborah Barton (2015), University of Toronto
Annexed area | Deutsche Volksliste, early 1944 | |||
Cat. I | Cat. II | Cat. III | Cat. IV | |
Warthegau | 230,000 | 190,000 | 65,000 | 25,000 |
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia Note: In Polish Pomerania, unlike in the rest of occupied Poland, signing of the list was mandatory for a good portion of the population. |
115,000 | 95,000 | 725,000 | 2,000 |
East Upper Silesia | 130,000 | 210,000 | 875,000 | 55,000 |
South East Prussia | 9,000 | 22,000 | 13,000 | 1,000 |
Total | 484,000 | 517,000 | 1,678,000 | 83,000 |
Total 2.75 million on Volkslisten plus non-German population (whatever that means!) of 6.015 million- Grand Total 8.765 million in annexed territories. | ||||
Source: Wilhelm Deist, Bernhard R Kroener, Germany (Federal Republic). Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Germany and the Second World War, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 132,133, ISBN 0-19-820873-1, citing Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, p. 134 |
This source is available online Eberhardt Piotr: Political migrations on Polish territories (1939-1950). Warszawa: PAN IGiPZ, 2011 - 225 s. (Monografie; 12) PDF file, direct download 7.78 MB. Page 64 and onwards is about Germanization, and has several tables.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 21:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
It looks like we are going to have to find the middle ground all by ourselves somehow. Poeticbent talk 01:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, many former citizens of the Second Polish Republic from across the Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht army in Upper Silesia and in Pomerania. They were declared citizens of the Third Reich by law and therefore subject to drumhead court-martial in case of draft evasion. Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek of the University of Silesia in Katowice, author of a monograph titled Polacy w Wehrmachcie ("Poles in the Wehrmacht") noted that the scale of this phenomenon was much larger than previously assumed, because 90% of the inhabitants of these two westernmost regions of prewar Poland were ordered to register on the Nazi Deutsche Volksliste by the invader regardless of will. The number of the conscripts however, is not known. The data does not exist beyond 1943.
Paweł Dybicz for Tygodnik "Przegląd" 38/2012.
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Poeticbent
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17:34, 24 November 2015 (UTC)Those Germans who fled prior to the capitulation frequently encountered Nazi functionaries who generally welcomed the incoming Germans ... when they came in small numbers and were neat and tidy, the local population largely welcomed the refugees; however, when thousands of expellees arrived daily by ship, train, and on foot, and they were frequently dirty, hungry, and sick, the indigenes were often overwhelmed and hostile.
On 20 February 1946 the British launched "Operation Swallow" ... from East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia. Between February and the end of December 1946 over 1,600,000 Germans were transferred ... Germans being transported perceived this relocation as temporary; just as swallows return when conditions have improved ... among those persons transferred out were thousands of Masurians, non-Polish Slavic people who lived in Southern East Prussia --- Alrich 2003, pp. 80-82.
Presenting these numbers as facts however, seems not only unprofessional, but also unfair to the reader.
But the source is Polish, It is reliable and academic. How could it be wrong?--
Woogie10w (
talk)
01:53, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
In 1955, Schieder proposed a concluding volume that would place the expulsion within the long-term context of late-nineteenth-century nationalism, forced population movements after World War I, the history of German minorities in eastern Europe in the interwar period, and Nazi "population policy" and population transfers. This idea, however, was rejected by the Ministry of Expellees on the ground that comparisons would make it impossible to claim the singularity of the expulsion. Subsequently, neither Schieder nor the other editors pursued alternative means to publish the planned volume. The books that did appear contained little evidence of German misdeeds. For example, neither eyewitnesses nor the editors commented on the exploitation of other nationalities as forced laborers by Germans. Indeed, when foreign workers appeared in testimonies, they were often depicted as the gracious recipients of instruction from their German masters, no less eager than Germans to flee the Red Army. — Prof. Robert G Moeller, War stories
I totally understand your rationale Woogie10w, and I find your contributions essential to presenting the NPOV of the facts in this article. Unlike you, however, I have no access to Schieder. That's why I would like you to help me set the record straight. Our article needs to explain to the reader everything we have already learned. Namely, that the German ration cards were the source of data, nothing else. The ration cards originated from March 1944, not from 1945. Please find out: what is the volume and page number of that statement in Schieder. I have full confidence in your ability to provide all the required information.
Schieder was quoted by Nitschke ... who was quoted by Gawryszewski ... who was quoted by Eberhardt. But who was quoted by Hahn & Hahn? Our article states that: – "The number of civilians in the eastern territories during the final stages of World War II is currently estimated at 10 million." What is the source of that number quoted by Hahn & Hahn. – Is it Schieder? If so, where did he say that (according to Hahn & Hahn). Please look into it, with the volume and page number we can use.
We ought to be presenting the full description of the postwar research point by point, reveal their authors, and leave it to the reader to decide what they want to believe. It's not that difficult. Thanks in advance. Poeticbent talk 15:59, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Bessel regurgitated the figure of 825,000 from Schiederas you say? The figure 825,000 is not in Schieder, neither 1,134,000 nor 750,000 nor 86,860 nor 93,283 nor 1,200,000 and on, and on, and on. Here's another volume of his work in Google Books I have checked (using search box):
Ok I fixed the numbers per the sources: 825,000 is in Schieder page 5; the 1,134,000 & 750,000 come from Nietschke page 274 not Schieder the 86,860 & 93,283 come from Overmans 1994 and were never attributed to Schieder. In any case I listed Schieder's figures with pages--
Woogie10w (
talk)
01:54, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Schieder's Population Balance east of Oder-Neisse 1945
Description | Pre War 1939 "German"Pop | Natural Increase | Air Raid Evac | Settlers/Administrators | In Military | Pop end 1944 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pre-War Germany | 9,620,000 | 467,000 | 825,000 | 346,000 | (1,500,000) | 9,758,000 |
Memel | 129,000 | 5,000 | 134,000 | |||
Pre-War Poland | 789,000 | 10,000 | 813,000 | 1,612,000 | ||
Danzig | 394,000 | 16,000 | 10,000 | 420,000 | ||
Total | 10,932,000 | 493,000 | 825,000 | 1,174,000 | (1,500,000) | 11,924,000 |
Source:Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutchen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa Band I/1. Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten östlich der Oder-Neisse. pp.4-8 and 78
This includes about 2 million German air raid evacuees" → even though the next line reads (quote): "
consisting of 1.5 million bombing raid evacuees..." So, what is it: 2 or 1.5 million in Theodor Schieder's Die Verteibung der deutschen Bevölkerung? You are using Theodor Schieder after all. – You also made changes which are no longer supported by the source from before. For example, Hahn & Hahn on pages 264 & 686 say: "10 Millionen angestiegen", period. Meanwhile, you added 15 million to it. Why? And what's the source? You switched parts of the same paragraph around for no particular reason, and made the entire sequence almost illogical (no doubt by accident), i.e. "
7.3 million Reichsdeutsche" in one part and "
6.4 million German speaking Reichsdeutsche" in another (which are one and the same) while the Volksdeutsche are missing. I'm inclined to ask that you self-revert first, and write it again here in case you're not sure how to phrase it so we both can improve on it together. Greetings, Poeticbent talk 19:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
Zu ihnen gehörten jene rund 8 350 000 Menschen, die nach den Schätzungen der Wehrmacht am 20. Februar 1945 unterwegs waren [635]; wenig später sollen es sogar 10 Millionen gewesen sein: »Da in Danzig sich 1 000 000 Flüchtlinge in Bewegung gesetzt haben, ist die Gesamtsumme der Flüchtlinge auf 10 000 000 angestiegen«, hieß es im Lage- buch des Wehrmachtsführungsstabs vom 6. März 1945. [636] Nach anderen Berichten sollen schon am 6. Januar 1945 ...“ — Hahn & Hahn
Polish figures do not include northern east prussia and military c.2million -- Woogie10w ( talk) 21:58, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
Einblicke in die Geschichte des Zahlenlabyrinths "Vertreibung"
Einblicke in die Geschichte des Zahlenlabyrinths können uns zur Orientierung im Erinnern an die Vertreibung verhelfen. Seit der Nachkriegszeit, als viele Gerüchte kursierten und mit unbelegten Zahlen in Millionenhöhe hantiert wurde, verfügten manche Deutsche über annähernd korrekte Informationen. So wusste man im Deutschen Caritasverband beispielsweise im Jahre 1948: Rund "II der insgesamt 15 Millionen deutscher Bewohner aus den ehemals preußischen Provinzen rechts der Oder und Neiße, aus der Tschechoslowakei und aus Ungarn haben die Heimat verlassen müssen oder konnten in ihre Heimatgebiete nicht mehr zurückkehren".[244] Zehn Jahre später konnte man, wie oben erwähnt, in der Schrift "Die Heimatvertriebenen im Spiegel der Statistik" von Gerhard Reichling erfahren, dass die Informationen des Caritasverbandes realistisch waren: Nach Reichlings Forschungen waren 11,6 Millionen Menschen von der Vertreibung betroffen, einschließlich der heimkehrende Kriegsgefangenen und der in "Einzelwanderung" 1946 bis 1950 im heutigen Deutschland eingetroffenen Personen.[245]
I am out with family will answer tonight-- Woogie10w ( talk) 16:13, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
"including 7.3 million permanent residents ie.Reichsdeutsche, (including million ethnic Poles spared the expulsions, and 6.4 million German speaking Reichsdeutsche)" Xx236 ( talk) 14:01, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
—−Civilian evacuation from the provinces of Pomerania and Silesia I find the description of these evacuations limited and not up to the quality, especially the details, of those describing the evacuations of East Prussia and territories lying east of the Oder/Neisse line. For example, the comment was made that the evacuation of Breslau (Wroclaw) requires more discussion. I will place this information in their respective sections and await everyone's comments. Zweisimmen ( talk) 15:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Re [10]. This is on page 25 of Beevor’s book (and a few other ones), as well as in numerous other sources, for example this one. Volunteer Marek 05:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)