|
19.
The expulsion of the Sudeten- and Carpathia-Germans
Hitler
compelled the Sudetengermans to follow him along his path into
that most dreadful world conflagration, which ended with the
defeat of Germany in 1945. But the fate of the Sudetengermans
1945/46 was not the immediate result of the German
capitulation, not an act of revenge on the spur of the moment;
it was a meticulously planned action, premeditated -
atrocities included - by President Benes many years beforehand.
And the British government, the USSR and the USA consented to
his "Transfer Plans" as early as 1942/43. Benes
informed the Czechoslovak underground movement in a letter of
July16, 1944: "It is necessary that we proceed on our own
in the first days after the liberation, that in the first days
of the revolution as many Nazis as possible shall flee from us
for fear of their lives, and that as many as possible of those
who defend themselves and resist be slain as Nazis in the
course of the revolution. Always remember, the whole nation
must be prepared." In February 1945 at Yalta, Roosevelt,
Stalin and Churchill agreed to expel the German populations
out of central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. On May 29,
1945, Vaclav Kopecky, Czechoslovak Minister of Information,
declared: "We shall take this occasion of our great
victory over the Germans to launch a monumental national
campaign to cleanse the Germans from the peripheral regions of
our country. General Swoboda will send his troops and his
competent guerrilla units to cleanse these regions of Germans."
In July/August 1945, the Potsdam Conference convened at the
Cecilienhof Palace near Berlin. Churchill, Truman and Stalin
agreed on measures the allied powers would take against
Germany and thereby made themselves party to the crime of
ethnic cleansing i.e. the crime of expropriating and expelling
a native population from their homes for the reason of their
national origin.
 |
Edvard
Benes bei US-Präsident
Franklin D. Roosevelt
im Jahre 1943 |
Edvard
Benes bei Stalin
am 12. Dezember 1943 |
Churchill,
Truman und Stalin (v.l.)
während einer Verhandlungspause.
(17. Juli 1945) |
More
than three million Sudetengermans, regardless of background
and political orientation, have been driven from homes their
families had owned for centuries. Their private and public
property totaling 265 billion DM (value 1981) was confiscated
without compensation. Most often they were forced to leave
home and property overnight with 30 kg of basic necessities.
Thereby over 240,000 lost their lives. Many were slain in
public massacres, committed suicide in desperation, died from
exhaustion on death marches or in camps. For example, during
the infamous death march of 20,000 Germans from Brünn (Brno)
to Lower Austria, several thousand persons were deliberately
slain or died from exhaustion. On July 30, 1945, hundreds of
German workers, women and children were pushed from a bridge
in Aussig (Usti) into the Elbe river and then fired upon and
killed in the water. Beginning in May 1945, roughly 200,000
people - among them also Czechs and Slovaks - were interned
per decree by the so-called "Peoples-Court of Retribution"
and later on, more than 60,000 of them were sentenced for
alleged war crimes and about 1000 were hanged. Most of the
others were condemned to forced labor, some as long as
twenty-three years (up to 1968). They were sent into the
uranium mines of the Ore-Mountains and similar places. The
expulsions alone constituted a million-fold violation of basic
human rights and liberties.
Czechoslovakia
paid for cleansing its country of Germans with selling its own
people to Stalin. As soon as the Sudetengermans had lost their
home, the Czechs and Slovaks lost their freedom. The remaining
Germans were retained mostly for being indispensable
technicians, others for being married to a Czech or for being
antifascist. According to official Czech data their number was
roughly 165,000 in 1950. Although they received Czech
citizenship per decree in 1953, they were not recognized as an
ethnic minority. Assimilation was the goal of Czechoslovak
policy. To what this policy will lead remains to be seen.
20.
After the dispersion
Immediately
after the expulsion, a great number of aid-posts opened in
Germany for helping the expellees in finding the whereabouts
of their family members, relatives and friends, and also for
giving advice and assistance as far as was possible in that
extremely difficult time. Beginning in 1948, Sudetengerman
work-groups and committees were formed in the western
occupation zones, especially in Bavaria. The homeland
association "Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft" was
founded January 16, 1949, and in July its first grand-rally
was held in Memmingen/Bavaria with 30,000 participants. From
then on, the speakers of this association and its subgroups (especially
local volunteers) have worked selflessly for the afflicted
people, for peace and for harmonious relations. As early as
1949/50 they held out their hand for reconciliation.
|