The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia was the ethnic cleansing of most Germans in Czechoslovakia after World War II. It was part of a broader series of evacuations and deportations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Czech resistance groups demanded the deportation of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government-in-exile had begun calling for the deportation of Germans as early as 1938 and, during the war, obtained the support of the Allies for this proposal.Československo-sovětské vztahy v diplomatických jednáních 1939–1945. Dokumenty. Díl 2 (červenec 1943 – březen 1945). Praha. 1999. () However, a formal decision on the expulsion of the German population was not reached until 2 August 1945, at the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference.
Following the end of the war in Europe on 8 May 1945, forced expulsions, referred to as () due to their widespread violence and brutality, happened from May until August 1945. On 28 October 1945, Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš called for the deportation of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia (, ).
The expulsions were carried out by order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers. However, in some cases it was initiated or pursued with the assistance of the regular army. Several thousand Germans died violently during the expulsion, with many more perishing from hunger and illness as a result. The expulsion process, according to the Potsdam Conference's decisions, officially began on 25 January 1946 and continued until October 1946. Roughly 1.3 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone, and an estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone.
The expulsions ended in 1948, but not all Germans were expelled; estimates for the total number of non-expulsions range from approximately 160,000 to 250,000, or about to per cent.
In 1958, the West German government estimated the ethnic German death toll during the expulsion period to be about 270,000, a figure that has been cited in historical literature since then. Research by a joint German and Czech commission of historians in 1995 claimed that the previous demographic estimates of 220,000 to 270,000 deaths were overstated and based on faulty information; they concluded that the actual death toll was at least 15,000 persons, and that it could range up to a maximum of 30,000 persons if one assumes that some deaths were not reported. The commission statement also said that German records show 18,889 confirmed deaths including 3,411 suicides; Czech records indicated 22,247 deaths including 6,667 unexplained cases or suicides.Haar, Ingo (2009). "Die deutschen "Vertreibungsverluste": Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme". In Mackensen, Rainer (in German). Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts "Bevölkerung" vor, im und nach dem "Dritten Reich": Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissenschaft. VS Verlag. p. 371. .
The German Church Search Service was able to confirm the deaths of 14,215 persons during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia (6,316 violent deaths, 6,989 in internment camps and 907 in the USSR as forced labourers).
Plans to expel the Sudeten Germans
Following the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the subsequent occupation of Bohemia and Moravia by Hitler in March 1939, Edvard Beneš set out to convince the Allies during World War II that the expulsion of ethnic Germans was the best solution. Expulsion was even supported by Czechs who had moderate views about the Germans. The pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party had gained 88% of ethnic German votes in May 1938.
Almost as soon as German troops occupied the Sudetenland in October 1938, Edvard Beneš and, later, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, pursued a twofold policy: the restoration of Czechoslovakia to its pre-Munich boundaries, and the removal, through a combination of minor border rectifications and population transfer, of the state's German minority, so as to bolster the territorial integrity of the state. Although the details changed, along with British public and official opinion, and pressure from Czech resistance groups, the broad goals of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile remained the same throughout the war.
The pre-war policy of minority protection was viewed as counterproductive (and the minorities themselves saw it as the source of unrest and instability), because it was associated with the destruction of the Czechoslovak state and its democratic regime. Therefore, Czechoslovak leaders made a decision to change the multi-ethnic character of the state to a state of two or three ethnicities (namely Czechs, Slovaks and, initially, Ruthenians). That goal was to be reached by the expulsion of most of the other minority groups and the successive assimilation of the rest. Because almost all people of German and Magyar ethnicity gained German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the expulsion could be legalised as the banishment () of foreigners.
On 22 June 1942, after plans for the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans had become known, Wenzel Jaksch (a Sudeten German Social Democrat in exile) wrote a letter to Beneš protesting about the proposed plans.Sudeten German Inferno. Part 4: The hushed-up tragedy of the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia. Ingomar Pust
Initially, only a few hundred thousand Sudeten Germans were to be affectedpeople who were perceived as being disloyal to Czechoslovakia and who, according to Beneš and Czech public opinion, had acted as Hitler's fifth column. Due to the escalation of Nazi atrocities in the Protectorate as the war progressed, there were increasing demands by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, Czech resistance groups, and the majority of Czechs, for the expulsion of more and more Germans, with no individual investigations or inference of guilt on their part. The only exception was to be 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic German anti-fascists, and those ethnic Germans crucial for industries. The Czechs and their government did not want a future Czechoslovakia to be burdened with a sizable German minority.
The idea of expelling ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia was supported by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Britain's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. In 1942, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile received the formal support of the United Kingdom for the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia and, in March 1943, President Beneš received Moscow's support. In June 1943, Beneš travelled to Washington, D.C., and obtained support for the evolving expulsion plans from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.The Myriad Chronicles. Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora, 2010. p. 113.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, especially after the Nazis' brutal reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, most of the Czech resistance groups demanded the final solution of the German question, which would have to be achieved by transfer or expulsion. Those demands were adopted by the government-in-exile which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies for the proposal. The April 1945 Košice Program, which outlined the postwar political settlement of Czechoslovakia, stipulated an expulsion of Germans and Hungarians from the country. The final agreement for the transfer of the German minority however was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of the Potsdam Conference.
Geoffrey Harrison, who drafted article XIII of the Potsdam Communique concerning the expulsions, wrote on 31 July 1945 to John Troutbeck, head of the German Department at the Foreign Office:
Germans in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war
Developing a clear picture of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia is difficult because of the chaotic conditions that existed at the end of the war. There was no stable central government and no rigorous record-keeping. Many of the events that occurred during the period were spontaneous and local rather than governmentally directed or centrally coordinated. Among these spontaneous events was the removal and detention of the Sudeten Germans, which was triggered by the strong anti-German sentiment at the grass-roots level and organised by local officials.
According to the Schieder commission, records of food rationing coupons show approximately 3,070,899 inhabitants of occupied Sudetenland in January 1945, which included Czechs and other non-Germans. In addition, most of the roughly 100,000 Carpathian Germans from Slovakia were evacuated on Himmler's orders to the Czech region just before the end of the war. During April and May 1945, an estimated 1.6 million Germans from Polish Silesia fled the advancing Soviet forces and became refugees in Bohemia-Moravia. Thus according to German estimates there were 4.5 million German civilians present in Bohemia-Moravia in May 1945.
Chronology of the expulsions From London and Moscow, Czech and Slovak political agents in exile followed an advancing Soviet army pursuing German forces westward, to reach the territory of the first former Czechoslovak Republic. Beneš proclaimed the programme of the newly appointed Czechoslovak government on 5 April 1945, in the northeastern city of Košice.
Role of the Czechoslovak army
Western Czechoslovakia was liberated by U.S. forces under General Patton. General Zdeněk Novák, head of the Prague military command "Alex", issued an order to "deport all Germans from territory within the historical borders."
A pamphlet issued on 5 June 1945 titled "Ten Commandments for Czechoslovak Soldiers in the Border Regions" directed soldiers that:
On 15 June, a government decree directed the army to implement measures to apprehend Nazi criminals and carry out the transfer of the German population. On 27 July, the Ministry of National Defence issued a secret order directing the transfer should be carried out on as large a scale as possible, and as expeditiously as possible to present the Western powers with a fait accompli.
Beneš decrees
Between 1945 and 1948, a series of Czechoslovak government decrees, edicts, laws and statutes were proclaimed by the president of the republic, the Prague-based Czechoslovak Parliament, the Slovak National Council (Parliament) in Bratislava and by the Board of Slovak Commissioners (an appendage of the Czechoslovak government in Bratislava).
Decrees 5, 12, 33, 108/1945 concerned the expropriation of wartime traitors and collaborators. Decrees 33/1945 and 108/1945 explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to anti-fascists. Typically it was up to the decision of local municipalities. 160,000–250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists, but mostly people crucial for the industry remained in Czechoslovakia.
Massacres The 1945 expulsion was referred to as the "wild transfer" () due to the widespread violence and brutality not only by mobs but also by soldiers, police, and other officials. In the summer of 1945, for instance, there were localised massacres of the German population. The following examples are described in a study done by the European University Institute in Florence:The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War , Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, European University Institute, Florence. HEC No. 2004/1. pg. 18. 18–19 June 1945, in the incident, 71 men, 120 women and 74 children (265 Germans) who were Carpathian Germans from were passing through near railway station. Here they were taken out of the train by Czechoslovak soldiers, taken outside the city to a hill named , where they were forced to dig their own graves and all were shot. The massacre did not become publicly known until the fall of the Communist regime in 1989. 20,000 Germans were forced to leave Brno for camps in Austria. Z. Beneš reported 800 deaths.