Wysiedlenie czy wypedzenie?: Ludnosc niemiecka w Polsce w latach 1945-1949 (Polish Edition)

Jan Paczkis|Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The De-Germanization of the Recovered Territories in post-WWII Poland, December 18, 2009 RESETTLED OR DRIVEN OUT? THE GERMAN POPULATION IN POLAND IN 1945-1949 is the title of this Polish-language book, which also has a German-language summary. The title reflects Nitschke's belief that the terms differ more than in semantics. (p. 19). The author faults Alfred Maurice de Zayas for treating the removal of Germans as an illegal act, because this implies that the Third Reich still exists! (p. 10). Much of the content of this book overlap


  The De-Germanization of the Recovered Territories in post-WWII Poland, December 18, 2009 RESETTLED OR DRIVEN OUT? THE GERMAN POPULATION IN POLAND IN 1945-1949 is the title of this Polish-language book, which also has a German-language summary. The title reflects Nitschke's belief that the terms differ more than in semantics. (p. 19). The author faults Alfred Maurice de Zayas for treating the removal of Germans as an illegal act, because this implies that the Third Reich still exists! (p. 10). Much of the content of this book overlaps Wysiedlenie ludnosci niemieckiej z Polski w latach 1945-1949 (Polish Edition).

German scholar Rudiger Overmans has debunked the myth of 2-million German civilians murdered. He contends that the total figure of German civilian dead, from ALL causes, was about 600,000. Of this, 130,000 occurred in Czechoslovakia, 80,000 in Jugoslavia, and the remaining 400,000 in Poland as defined by her post-WWII borders. (p. 240). Most of the 400,000 perished not in the hands of Russians or Poles, but during military action and the German-ordered forced evacuation westward in the brutal winter of 1944/1945. Other German scholars suggest that, just in Glogau (Glogow), Kolberg (Kolobrzeg), and Breslau (Wroclaw) alone, a total of 600,000 German civilians died in early 1945 from Soviet military action, with 90,000 additional German civilians perishing from the severe cold during the forced evacuation. (pp. 52-53). Perhaps 75,000-100,000 German civilians died in revenge killings by the Red Army in East Prussia and Pomerania. (p. 58).

There was a time when Germans were maltreated by the entering Polish Army, though this is unlikely to have occurred without Soviet authorization. (p. 143). Describing the period beginning end-1944-early 1945 and ending July/August 1945, Nitschke writes: "The driving out was carried out by the (Polish) army, rarely with the help of civilian authorities, before the signing of the Potsdam Agreement, often in a brutal manner and with the aim of robbery." (p. 19). Horses were confiscated, as well as various personal valuables. However, those Polish soldiers who killed German civilians were sometimes disciplined. (p. 138). After July-August 1945, there was a major change in policy, and the German population was removed from now-Polish soil in a relatively humane manner.

The Communist authorities (first Soviet, and then their Polish puppets) set up detention camps for Germans (and Poles). The best-known of them were at Lambinowice (Lamsdorf) and Swietochlowice (the latter commanded by Solomon Morel, a Jew, as described in Sack's AN EYE FOR AN EYE.). Some German sources have alleged that there were 200 such camps, that about 200,000 Germans passed through them (p. 88), and that the mortality rate in them was 25-50%. (p. 92). Nitschke presents evidence that all three figures have been greatly exaggerated.

The estimated number of Germans still in Poland in mid-1945 ranged from 2.5 to 3.4 million. (p. 64). After the expulsions were completed, 125,000-160,000 Germans remained in Poland, according to Polish sources, with 431,000 to 903,000 according to German sources. (p. 242).