No better than them

[Incongruous]

Recently there was a lot of talk about the Nazis and one member brought up the expulsions of the Germans from Eastern and central Europe. I have never read anything about this, I will admit that I have never found any sympathy with the Germans, the Blitz, Holocaust and other acts always seemed to justify a demonising of the entire nation. A German killed was not as important as the others killed.

However, I recently got talking to a Hungarian-Germn down the road and he told me how the Czechs had expelled him and his family for being ethnic Germans. I had heard about this but said that such actions, although I cannot condone them (I question myself about this part), are understandable. He flew up from his seat and began telling me that what happened to German minorities in Europe was nothing more than racism and a close brother of Nazi ideology, he told me that no only were Germans cleansed via deportation but hat the Czech had also killed thousands of Germans. That they had done all this with the consent of men like Winston Churchill, the men who had claimed to hate Nazism.

I have read a few articles on the expulsion of the German minorities, and I feel rather angry, it was nothing but full blooded racism but has been overlooked becuse it was aimed at the "Germans".
In effect, what the Allies allowed to happen was nothing better than what they had fought.

I'm not really sure of the point to this thread, other than I feel it should be discussed.

[Rhyfelwyr]

It is shocking, however in reality we need to accept that things can't always be ideal, and sometimes you have to support one evil regime to beat another (we were allied with the Soviets after all, the only state to kill more Jews than the Nazis). The Nazi programme of ethnic cleansing would have been on a much much greater scale had they gotten their way, Nazi Germany was expansionist, the eastern European states with smaller German populations were not.

[LittleGrizzly]

One of the oldest sayings "two wrongs don't make a right" it applys here, there are things that need to be done to secure victory, lets assume that destorying dresden's industrial capacity was essential to winning WW2, then i would have been supportive of the action, but there are too many actions taken in anger....

[Brenus]

“we were allied with the Soviets after all, the only state to kill more Jews than the Nazis”: Can give from where you pick this information? I doubt the Soviets killed around 5 millions Jews in around 3 years in camps specially designed for that.
Can you provide the Soviet equivalent of the Bodensee conference? It will help.

About the “ethnic cleansing” of the German Minorities:
First, you can’t compare the expulsion and the genocide. I know that today it is a word used and abused but…
Second, just study how many volunteers these “minorities” gave to the Nazi, and what attitude did they adapt during the German Occupation. That will gave you a little clues on the reason why the expulsion.
In term of politic, the reason evoked by Hitler for the invasion (then annexing) of Czechoslovakia was the protection of the German minorities. I think he took the same reason for Poland, but this will have to be confirmed.
So, after the WW2, well, it was decided by the victims of the Nazi aggression that this won’t be an pretext again.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

“we were allied with the Soviets after all, the only state to kill more Jews than the Nazis”: Can give from where you pick this information? I doubt the Soviets killed around 5 millions Jews in around 3 years in camps specially designed for that.
Can you provide the Soviet equivalent of the Bodensee conference? It will help.

Actually, it was Tsarist Russia that launched occasional pogroms against Russian Jews. At other times and places, they enjoyed a semi-protected status. All rather mixed up.

Soviet Russia didn't really single Jews out very much at all, at least under Stalin. Stalin killed people in gulags, butchered his own officer corps, starved millions during the forced collectivization of agriculture, and even sent someone to axe Trotsky a question -- in short, he butchered millions (some sources suggest he and Beria killed substantially more people than did the Nazi regime) and was willing to kill anybody who might vaguely, possibly, conceivably, become a threat to Papa Joe sometime in the next half century. He just didn't go after Jews with any particular hatred. He was a very ecumenical monster.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

(some sources suggest he and Beria killed substantially more people than did the Nazi regime)

Some seventeen million (according to some brief research) were killed by the Nazi regime, whereas Stalin's era was responsible for the deaths of between twenty and forty-three million. Just some statistics.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I will shed a tear for the Germans. Of course the treatment of the Germans was wrong. It was a bloody disgrace.

One doesn't have to choose sides, or to belittle the suffering of one side, or to pick a side that was more wrong, or less wrong. Nor to agree with neo-nazi revisionists that all violence was equal, nor to agree with communists apologists about historical necessities.

One can simply denounce hypernationalism, choose to abhor all totalitarian violence, and strife for a peaceful, democratic Europe that never again will have to endure this.


To quote my favourite German poet Schiller, trying to connect form with content:

Joy! Schöner Götterfunken! Fille de l'Élysée!
Intoxicated with your fire, heavenly one, we tread thy sanctuary
Tes charmes relient, was der Mode Schwert geteilt
All men become brothers, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.




(note to self: rewrite Schiller into a multilingual whole whilst retaining metrum, a semblance of rhyme and the integrity of the flow of the language. )

Nazi Germany was expansionist, the eastern European states with smaller German populations were not

I'm afraid they were. Poland was feasting on the flesh of Czechoslovakia together with Germany in 1938. The Hungarians and Bulgarians were perennial irredentists. Apart from Czechoslovakia, none of the Eastern European states were democracies.

And never mind Stalin, who never did not have the conquest of as much of Europe as possible in mind.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

However, I recently got talking to a Hungarian-Germn down the road and he told me how the Czechs had expelled him and his family for being ethnic Germans. I had heard about this but said that such actions, although I cannot condone them (I question myself about this part), are understandable. He flew up from his seat and began telling me that what happened to German minorities in Europe was nothing more than racism and a close brother of Nazi ideology, he told me that no only were Germans cleansed via deportation but hat the Czech had also killed thousands of Germans. That they had done all this with the consent of men like Winston Churchill, the men who had claimed to hate Nazism.

I have read a few articles on the expulsion of the German minorities, and I feel rather angry, it was nothing but full blooded racism but has been overlooked becuse it was aimed at the "Germans".
In effect, what the Allies allowed to happen was nothing better than what they had fought.

And he was absolutely right. It's all well and good for everyone else to sit around and say "the Germans deserved it," but when it happens to your family, when you see the effects in your parents, in your grandparents, you have a bit of a different outlook. Two wrongs do not make a right, and saying that an entire people are guilty of a crime is nothing short of racism.

[Strike For The South]

The Germans reaped what they sowed. Those German minorities had been living there forever and then Hitler comes along and well you know the rest. Do I condone there actions? No but Im not going to shed a tear for the Germans.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Its probably not best to talk about 'the Germans'. Obviously the Allies were very much right in intervening on the side they did, but nonetheless every German story of suffering as a minority in eastern Europe is just as tragic as that of other ethnic groups in Germany.

“we were allied with the Soviets after all, the only state to kill more Jews than the Nazis”: Can give from where you pick this information? I doubt the Soviets killed around 5 millions Jews in around 3 years in camps specially designed for that.
Can you provide the Soviet equivalent of the Bodensee conference? It will help.

I'm afraid I can't, I just remember it from my history class.

[Strike For The South]

Its probably not best to talk about 'the Germans'. Obviously the Allies were very much right in intervening on the side they did, but nonetheless every German story of suffering as a minority in eastern Europe is just as tragic as that of other ethnic groups in Germany.

Maybe this is true, but I dont blame the eastern Europeans one bit. In fact there reaction was very restrained compared to what the Germans had been doing towards them.

[Jolt]

Actually, I see the expulsion of the Germans as the perfectly rational act after the wars if we look into the following things:


- Nazi Germany was using ethnic Germans and historical German settlements outside their own borders as a reason to expand at the expense of the neighbouring countries, in Austria and Czech Sudetenland, and later Bohemia-Moravia

- Ethnic Germans had been a source of great instability for the Czech Government prior to the Munich Agreement, and for the Polish Government prior to the Declaration of War, and escalated (And permitted escalation) things enough so Hitler could intervene.

As a result, this war was indirectly triggered because Germans lived in regions outside of Germany, and these were used as casus belli to start a bloody war which murdered millions. Knowing this, the Allied governments logically decided that such a situation was never to happen again, and as to provide stability to the countries, it was decided to forcefully remove all the Germans from neighbouring countries, into Germany itself. Bloody, true, but it comes as a pretty logical to me, and not as part of some evil mischievous plan to get revenge on the German people.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Maybe this is true, but I dont blame the eastern Europeans one bit. In fact there reaction was very restrained compared to what the Germans had been doing towards them.

Sorry, but a lot of "Eastern European states" were Axis nations.

One doesn't have to choose sides, or to belittle the suffering of one side, or to pick a side that was more wrong, or less wrong. Nor to agree with neo-nazi revisionists that all violence was equal, nor to agree with communists apologists about historical necessities.

[Strike For The South]

Sorry, but a lot of "Eastern European states" were Axis nations.

Eh the biggest expulsions were in Czechoslovakia and Poland while there others were mostly stronged armed by the Soviets. Frankly I dont care how German or Soviet power politics worked at the time nor do I feel it necessary to paint the Germans in a better light. Was the average solider a manic? No but I will always believe the Allies were "right" and the Axis were "wrong"

[InsaneApache]

Recently there was a lot of talk about the Nazis and one member brought up the expulsions of the Germans from Eastern and central Europe. I have never read anything about this, I will admit that I have never found any sympathy with the Germans, the Blitz, Holocaust and other acts always seemed to justify a demonising of the entire nation. A German killed was not as important as the others killed.

However, I recently got talking to a Hungarian-Germn down the road and he told me how the Czechs had expelled him and his family for being ethnic Germans. I had heard about this but said that such actions, although I cannot condone them (I question myself about this part), are understandable. He flew up from his seat and began telling me that what happened to German minorities in Europe was nothing more than racism and a close brother of Nazi ideology, he told me that no only were Germans cleansed via deportation but hat the Czech had also killed thousands of Germans. That they had done all this with the consent of men like Winston Churchill, the men who had claimed to hate Nazism.

I have read a few articles on the expulsion of the German minorities, and I feel rather angry, it was nothing but full blooded racism but has been overlooked becuse it was aimed at the "Germans".
In effect, what the Allies allowed to happen was nothing better than what they had fought.

I'm not really sure of the point to this thread, other than I feel it should be discussed.

Listen mate, it's hard to accept but that's life. The Germans lost. That's what happens when you lose.

Try to think about it this way;

What would the world be like if the Nazis had won?

Much, much more the lesser of two evils, by several magnitudes.

Just my 'umble opinion of course.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Listen mate, it's hard to accept but that's life. The Germans lost. That's what happens when you lose.

We've accepted that it happens - the fact remains that it was unjust and cruel.

[Caius]

We've accepted that it happens - the fact remains that it was unjust and cruel.

Cruel for the Germans? What about the Jews?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Cruel for the Germans? What about the Jews?

Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? Can something be cruel towards Germans while something else is cruel to the Jews? Yes, I think so.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I don't think we should deny the suffering that many Germans endured. Of course, numbers wise it may seem to pale into comparison when considering how many died by the Nazi regime.

But each individual German's suffering was just as great (generally speaking) as that of any individual of another ethnic background, and it should not be ignored or tossed aside as insignificant.

Remember those who were persecuted - all of them.

[Koga No Goshi]

Recently there was a lot of talk about the Nazis and one member brought up the expulsions of the Germans from Eastern and central Europe. I have never read anything about this, I will admit that I have never found any sympathy with the Germans, the Blitz, Holocaust and other acts always seemed to justify a demonising of the entire nation. A German killed was not as important as the others killed.

However, I recently got talking to a Hungarian-Germn down the road and he told me how the Czechs had expelled him and his family for being ethnic Germans. I had heard about this but said that such actions, although I cannot condone them (I question myself about this part), are understandable. He flew up from his seat and began telling me that what happened to German minorities in Europe was nothing more than racism and a close brother of Nazi ideology, he told me that no only were Germans cleansed via deportation but hat the Czech had also killed thousands of Germans. That they had done all this with the consent of men like Winston Churchill, the men who had claimed to hate Nazism.

I have read a few articles on the expulsion of the German minorities, and I feel rather angry, it was nothing but full blooded racism but has been overlooked becuse it was aimed at the "Germans".
In effect, what the Allies allowed to happen was nothing better than what they had fought.

I'm not really sure of the point to this thread, other than I feel it should be discussed.

This kinda thing went all around, Bopa. Look at what happened to Japanese Americans in the U.S., while German Americans and Italian Americans walked around freely.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

This kinda thing went all around, Bopa. Look at what happened to Japanese Americans in the U.S., while German Americans and Italian Americans walked around freely.

Well, Italian-Americans and German-Americans were interned, just not on nearly the same scale.

[PanzerJaeger]

Recently there was a lot of talk about the Nazis and one member brought up the expulsions of the Germans from Eastern and central Europe. I have never read anything about this, I will admit that I have never found any sympathy with the Germans, the Blitz, Holocaust and other acts always seemed to justify a demonising of the entire nation. A German killed was not as important as the others killed.

However, I recently got talking to a Hungarian-Germn down the road and he told me how the Czechs had expelled him and his family for being ethnic Germans. I had heard about this but said that such actions, although I cannot condone them (I question myself about this part), are understandable. He flew up from his seat and began telling me that what happened to German minorities in Europe was nothing more than racism and a close brother of Nazi ideology, he told me that no only were Germans cleansed via deportation but hat the Czech had also killed thousands of Germans. That they had done all this with the consent of men like Winston Churchill, the men who had claimed to hate Nazism.

I have read a few articles on the expulsion of the German minorities, and I feel rather angry, it was nothing but full blooded racism but has been overlooked becuse it was aimed at the "Germans".
In effect, what the Allies allowed to happen was nothing better than what they had fought.

I'm not really sure of the point to this thread, other than I feel it should be discussed.

It's good to know people are finally waking up to reality. The allies were truly no better, they just happened to win. Each side had honorable men who fought for their ideals, and each side showed no hesitation in playing dirty when push came to shove. Germany has no more to be ashamed of than any other nation of power.

[Fragony]

It's a shame these events got kinda hijacked by neo-nazi's, got to allow the germans to come to terms with their history. Germans suffered massivily during and after the war.

[PBI]

I am increasingly of the opinion that this sort if thing, rather than being exceptional, is more or less inevitable once somebody has been stupid enough to start a war.

Was it right to forcibly cleanse these regions of ethnic Germans? No. Does this make the Allies as bad as the Nazis? No. It was the Nazis' waging of aggressive war that led ultimately to these events, and thus they are ultimately to blame.

Yet another thing to add to the list of Adolf Hitler's crimes against the world. Not the most original scapegoat, but the correct one.

[Brenus]

“Remember those who were persecuted - all of them.”: Victims and offenders are equal? Without Nazi Germany’s aggression, who can say that the German of the Volga would have to go? Why the “Germans” had to go from Yugoslavia?

“Stalin killed people in gulags, butchered his own officer corps, starved millions during the forced collectivization of agriculture, and even sent someone to axe Trotsky a question -- in short, he butchered millions (some sources suggest he and Beria killed substantially more people than did the Nazi regime) and was willing to kill anybody who might vaguely, possibly, conceivably, become a threat to Papa Joe sometime in the next half century. He just didn't go after Jews with any particular hatred. He was a very ecumenical monster.”
Uncle Joe.
I agree. Stalin was not nor race, skin colour or gender hatred orientated. He slaughtered without discrimination all potential danger to his power, from the earlier Bolsheviks to the Red Army officers, scientists, intellectuals etc. He was a perfectly democratic butcher.

“They did nothing to stop it”: Some did. The Concentration camps were built for the Socialist and Communist Germans.

“Some seventeen million (according to some brief research) were killed by the Nazi regime, whereas Stalin's era was responsible for the deaths of between twenty and forty-three million. Just some statistics” Ah, statistic!!! What period of time? Er, 3 years for Hitler, some 30 years for Stalin. That doesn’t make it right but it puts it in perspective….

“Germany has no more to be ashamed of than any other nation of power.” Well, except Einsatzgruppen and the very specific EXTERMINATON camps, and all the Nazi System, in fact. I can’t see same in France, UK, Holland and others, even Italy. The Nazi Germany was specific and this past is shameful.

[Fragony]

I don't hold it against the germans. We did a really poor job at preventing it.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Ah, statistic!!! What period of time? Er, 3 years for Hitler, some 30 years for Stalin. That doesn’t make it right but it puts it in perspective….
.

That would be the entire Nazi regime, so from 1933-1945.

[King Henry V]

“Remember those who were persecuted - all of them.”: Victims and offenders are equal? Without Nazi Germany’s aggression, who can say that the German of the Volga would have to go? Why the “Germans” had to go from Yugoslavia?

Did the Volga Germans ask Hitler to invade Russia, or have any influence at all on the war? Most of them were hundreds of miles behind the front line even at the furthest penetration of the German army, and afforded no assistance to the Germans. Perhaps they would have done, if they had not been deported. Nevertheless, they were deported not because they had done anything, but simply because of the fact that they were Germans. Do you think this is a justifiable? If it was right to transport them to prison camps just in case they revolted against the Soviets, does that not also justify German pre-emptive action against possible "enemies" (viz the Reichenau Order)?

Samartian I refer to the process of deporting and settling in the Reichs newfound territory people who were German , might be partially German , might be sorta Germanish or might be able to become German with a thorough Nazi re-education policy .
After all many poles fitted into 4 varying categories of germanism and became "germans" , were they kicked out too when the poles took over the territory again , what about the all Baltic germans that Hilter swapped with Stalin , did they get kicked back to the Baltics or to German territory ?
Since all those people recieved the land and property of other people who were deported or murdered they must be removed from any fair complaint about the numbers of Germans kicked out of territory after the war .

To focus on the relatively small number of Ethnic Germans who had bee subject to the various population swaps between Germany and the USSR and Italy belittles the fact that vast majority of German expellees had lived in places which their ancestors had inhabited as far back as the Middle Ages, and who had come not as pillaging warriors but as settlers and craftsmen, often at the invitation of local rulers.



As for the opinion that "many of them volunteered for Nazi German", I can only ask what you would have done. As the grandson of Sudeten Germans who were expelled after the war, I know that life for German minorities in Eastern Europe between the wars was no picnic.
In the case of the Sudetenland, their wishes were completely ignored by the peace settlement in 1919 (making a mockery of Wilson's principle of self-determination) and their attempts to break away and remain within German Austria were brutally repressed. Following centuries of Austrian rule, the Czechs wanted to exact their revenge on these minorities. The German language was attacked and the German regions were denied any autonomy.
To add to this, the Depression, of course no fault of the Eastern European governments, hit the German regions extremely badly, with huge unemployment. After twenty years of political repression and economic penury, what would you do if suddenly people seeming to be your saviour swept in, allowing you to practice your own language without hindrance, and promising a new future? Do you say "No thank you, your boots are too black and shiny for me, and I don't think you will deliver the same standard of democracy to which we have been used over the past two decades (ha-ha)."? My grandfather was a farm labourer in 1938, earning 80 Pfennig a week, and he was one of the lucky ones. After the annexation, he, like many, volunteered for the army, which offered four times as much pay, plus food, lodging and clothes. Was he wrong?

I must agree that the expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe after the second world war ranks among some of the worst events in the history of the 20th century in Europe. Even at the lowest estimate half a million people were killed, and the rest lost everything that they ever had. I know that female members of my family had their gold earrings torn from their earlobes by their former neighbours, and they were lucky considering they were not raped, as were millions of other German women. There can be no moral justification for such an action.

Nevertheless, as bad as the expulsion was, I will say that it can never even begin to compare with the unspeakably evil event that was the Holocaust. However, I believe that because it was such an unimaginably abhorrent action which had no precedent in history, the vast majority of the German population had no idea that such a mass programme of extermination was being done, especially information for most of them was limited to what the Propaganda Minsitry told them. True, they could see that the Jews were being persecuted, but I don't think that if I had been in their place I could even have begun to conceive that industrial scale murder was being done. What they were therefore faced with was a totalitarian government which might have murdered the odd "undesirable" in front of their eyes, and which would have wiped out their entire family if they had even begun to talk about resistance, a situation which many people have since experienced all over the world but which few have done much about. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing". I for one do not think that such inaction should be punished on the scale of the German expulsion, which was nothing more than opportunism on the part of those who profited from it.




*****

Phew, that's both the longest and the first large backroom venture of mine for years, but this is an issue which has affected both my family and me personally, and I just wished to add something to the discussion. I have not meant to offend anyone, and I apologise in advance if I have.

[Rhyfelwyr]

It's good to know people are finally waking up to reality. The allies were truly no better, they just happened to win. Each side had honorable men who fought for their ideals, and each side showed no hesitation in playing dirty when push came to shove. Germany has no more to be ashamed of than any other nation of power.

If we talk in terms of nations Germany has a lot more to be ashamed of than any of the Allies. Had Hitler been more successful in his expansionism, I think it is safe to say that many more would have died by the Nazi's than the Soviet Union in the resulting decades.

Of course the death of every individual German is as tragic as the death of anyone else, it is ridiculous to say they should have resisted the regime. One word and the Gestapo would have them dead.

What have the people of the US done to stop the war in Iraq? Or as Husar said the situation at Guantanamo? Does this make them responsble for what goes on there?

[Koga No Goshi]

What have the people of the US done to stop the war in Iraq? Or as Husar said the situation at Guantanamo? Does this make them responsble for what goes on there?

At the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, there is this area where there's this mock-up of a little outdoor cafe with mannequinn German people having various recorded conversations. The general gist of it is "but what can we do?" I went there on a seventh grade field trip... years and years ago. And that little section of the museum addressing the old historical question of "how come the Germans didn't do anything?" has always stuck with me, because I believe the question, at least for Americans, has pretty much been answered.