Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans

Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans have been derived by either the compilation of registered dead and missing persons or by a comparison of pre-war and post-war population data. Estimates of the number of displaced Germans vary in the range of 12.0–16.5 million. The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions was estimated at 2.2 million by the West German government in 1958 using the population balance method. German records which became public in 1987 have caused some historians in Germany to put the actual total at about 500,000 based on the listing of confirmed deaths. The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000 victims and says that the official figure of 2 million did not stand up to later review.Die Flucht der deutschen Bevölkerung 1944/45 However, the German Red Cross still maintains that the total death toll of the expulsions is 2,251,500 persons.

Difficulty of developing accurate estimates Due to a lack of accurate records listing confirmed deaths, estimates of German population transfers from 1945–1950 and associated deaths depended upon a population balance methodology. West German government official figures derived during the 1950s using the population balance method put the death toll at about 2 million. Recently some German historians believe the death toll is closer to 500,000 based on recently disclosed documentation that listed only confirmed deaths. The wide range of estimates stems from a number of factors. First, the ethnic German population in 1939 was by no means certain because bilingual persons were of dubious German ethnic identity. Second, Civilian losses were overstated because German military casualties in 1945 were poorly documented. Third, After the war it was difficult to gather reliable population data; post war census data in Central and Eastern Europe did not breakout the ethnic German population and during the Cold War there was a lack of cooperation between West Germany and communist bloc countries in the effort to locate persons reported missing. Persons reported missing may have been living in Eastern Europe after having been assimilated into the local population. Estimates of total populations expelled and deaths often include figures from the evacuation, because these people were not allowed to return, thus making it difficult to arrive at an accurate and undisputed estimate of population movements and deaths due solely to the expulsions. Some of the differences may arise from political bias, as the expulsion of Germans was widely utilized as political weapon during the Cold War.

There are also disputes over the definition of "expulsion", which may cover the flight and evacuation during the war as well as forced labor and internment before expulsion and deaths due to malnutrition and disease in the post war era. The estimated losses include civilians killed in battle during the flight and evacuation in the final months of the war as well as direct intentional actions of violent soldiers, militias and senseless killings by opportunistic mobs and individuals in the immediate aftermath of the war. Other deaths occurred in post war internment camps and the deportation to the USSR for forced labor. The privations of a forced migration in a postwar environment characterized by crime, chaos, famine, disease, and cold winter conditions added to the death toll. West German sources give only rough estimates to attribute the proportions of these deaths to specific causes.

Population balance method versus counts of confirmed deaths The West German government during the Cold War conducted investigations of the wartime flight and expulsions. The Schieder commission published a series of reports that documented the expulsions based on eyewitness accounts. Schieder chronicled the flight and expulsions, but did not provide background on the wartime crimes of Nazi Germany in Central and Eastern Europe that motivated the Allies to expel the Germans after the war. Schieder in 1953 estimated that 2 million persons perished in Poland, a figure that continues to endure in Germany.Bundesministerium für Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge und Kriegsgeschädigte (Hrsg.): Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-MitteleuropaZur Zusammensetzung der Autorengruppe vgl. Bernd Faulenbach: Einführung in die Dokumentation. Schieder's estimate of the casualties was superseded by a separate demographic analysis of prepared by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, in 1958 they estimated losses at 2.225 million.Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevölkerungsbilanzen für die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt - Wiesbaden. - Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1958 The German Church Search Service working with the German Red Cross attempted to trace and identify those who perished in the expulsions. The investigation of the Church Search Service was only partially successful, by 1965 they were able to confirm about 500,000 deaths but could not clarify the fates of 1.9 million persons that were listed as "unsolved". The findings of the Church Search Service were not published until 1987.Pistohlkors, Gert : Informationen zur Klärung der Schicksale von Flüchtlingen aus den. Vertreibungsgebieten östlich von Oder und Neiße. Published in Schulze, Rainer, Flüchtlinge und Vertriebene in der westdeutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte : Bilanzierung der Forschung und Perspektiven für die künftige Forschungsarbeit Hildesheim : A. Lax, 1987Dr. Rűdiger Overmans- Personelle Verluste der deutschen Bevölkerung durch Flucht und Vertreibung. (A parallel Polish summary translation was also included, this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in Warsaw Poland in 1994), Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI-1994Gesamterhebung zur Klärung des Schicksals der deutschen Bevölkerung in den Vertreibungsgebieten, München : Zentralstelle des Kirchl. Suchdienstes, 1965 Another report was issued by the German Federal Archives that identified 600,000 civilian expulsion deaths due to crimes against international law. This report was not published until 1989.German Federal Archive Spieler, Silke. ed. Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945-1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Erlebnisberichte.. Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen. (1989). .

Ingo Haar who is currently on the faculty of the University of Vienna said on 14 November 2006 in Deutschlandfunk that about 500,000 to 600,000 victims are realistic, based on a German governmental studies initiated in the 1960s. Haar said these numbers were compiled from actually reported deaths, while higher figures of about two million deaths were estimated with the population balance method in a German governmental study of 1958. Haar said the higher estimates must be seen in the historical context of the 1950s, when the government of West Germany needed high numbers for political reasons.Ingo Haar, Deutschlandfunk interview of 14 November 2006, During the Cold War West Germany wanted to revert to prewar borders in Central Europe. Military historian Rüdiger Overmans said on 6 December 2006 in Deutschlandfunk that only the about 500,000 registered deaths could be counted, and that the unaccounted cases calculated with the population balance method need be confirmed by further research.Rüdiger Overmans, Deutschlandfunk interview of 6 December 2006 However, on 29 November 2006 State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Christoph Bergner, reaffirmed the position of the German government that 2 million civilians perished in the flight and expulsion from Central and Eastern Europe.Christoph Bergner, Secretary of State in Germany's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in Deutschlandfunk on 29 November 2006, The German Red Cross in 2005 maintained that death toll in the expulsions is 2,251,500 persons.Willi Kammerer; Anja Kammerer- Narben bleiben die Arbeit der Suchdienste - 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg Berlin Dienststelle 2005 ( Published by the Search Service of the German Red Cross. The foreword to the book was written by German President Horst Köhler and the German interior minister Otto Schily)

Demographics

Expulsion area The Federal Expellee Law (BVFGGesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge) defines the expulsion area (einheitliches Vertreibungsgebiet; i.e. uniform territory of expulsion) as the former eastern territories of Germany (lost by the First or Second World War), the former Austria-Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.Cf. Federal Expellee Law, § 2 (1).

According to a 1967 report by the West German Federal Ministry for Expellees, in 1950 there were 14,447,000 persons affected by the expulsions, 11,730,000 had fled or were expelled, and 2,717,000 still remained in their homelands. By 1966 the sum total of German expellees and their offspring had increased to 14,600,000 persons.Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims. Facts concerning the problem of the German expellees and refugees, Bonn: 1967. The higher figure of 14 million expellees is often cited by historians.David P. Forsythe, Encyclopedia of Human Rights, Volume 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, p. 164.Donald Bloxham & A. Dirk Moses, The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2010).Douglas, R.M., Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2012, p. 1Ulrich Merten, Forgotten Voices: The Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II, Transaction 2012 preface, p. xiiAlfred M. de Zayas, A terrible Revenge, St. Martin's (1994), p. 1

Between 1944 and 1950, roughly 12 million ethnic Germans had fled or were expelled from east-central Europe. From 1951 to 1982 an additional 1.1 million persons of German ancestry emigrated from East-Central Europe to Germany.Gerhard Reichling, Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, part 1, Bonn: 1995, pp. 44–59. In the eyes of German law there were a total of 16 million expellees in 1982 (see schedule below) if one also includes Germans resettled in Poland during the war by the Nazis, children born to expellees and persons who immigrated as Aussiedler to Germany from eastern Europe after 1950.Manfred Görtemaker, Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Von der Gründung bis zur Gegenwart, Munich: C.H. Beck, 1999, p. 169; ; accessed 26 May 2015.Michael Levitin, Germany provokes anger over museum to refugees who fled Poland during WWII, Telegraph.co.uk; accessed 6 December 2014.

Germans fled, were evacuated, or were expelled as a result of actions of Nazi Germany, the Red Army, civilian militias, and/or the organized efforts of governments of the reconstituted states of Eastern Europe. Between 1944 and 1950, at least 12 million had fled or had been expelled and resettled to post-war Germany, almost all (11.5 million) from the territories of post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia.Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War, European University Institute, Florence. HEC No. 2004/1, p. 4; accessed 26 May 2015. About three million persons of German ancestry remained in the expulsion areas, but gradually emigrated westward in the Cold War era or have been assimilated into the local populations. The areas from which the Germans fled or were expelled were subsequently repopulated by nationals of the states to which that territory now belonged, many of whom were Poles who fled or were expelled from the former Polish territories in the USSR. 148 000 of Polish citizens declared German nationality in 2011.Raport GUS. W Polsce jest 148 tysięcy Niemców, nto.pl; accessed 6 December 2014.

The German Federal Expellee Law (BVFG) classifies the following as expellees (Vertriebene):