how you can support german expellees

Despite suffering one of the worst human rights abuses and refugee diasporas of the 20th century, the history and legacy of the 10-15,000,000 expelled or displaced ethnic German civilians is almost unknown in popular academic and collective awareness. So too, the involved governments of Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and to a far lesser extent Hungary and Romania have made very little to no effort to commemorate this history or raise the question of property compensation. The human rights-conscious European Union has consistently declined to discuss the issue. Germany has refused to demand restitution or commemoration of the German expellees from Poland or the Czech Republic because it would understandably damage auspicious political relations and greatly hamper positive trade opportunities (read our essay on the history of this problem). Since over 2,200,000 German civilians died out of starvation and in some cases murder, the story of the German expellees should not continue to be unrecognised and uncommemorated regardless of the fears of attributing blame to any nation or attempting to assuage German guilt of Nazi atrocities. With the new atmosphere of social justice and human rights instated by the European Union, now is the time to honour the suffering of one of the 20th century's largest and least-known refugee communities.

Because of the severity of this calamity and its largely obscured status in historical memory, it is crucial for as many researchers and individuals – in Germany, Austria, and abroad – to raise awareness of these historical processes and human rights transgressions that collectively targeted any and all who happened to speak German or claim German descent because of inaccurate links to the crimes of the Nazis. Post-war regimes did not only target the murderous SS killing squads and their supporters, but the entire German ethnicity regardless of their diverse political and personal ideologies and convictions. It is this – whether defined as a genocide or a human rights abuse – that must be commemorated in historiography, education, and society. The Institute for Research of Expelled Germans encourages its readers and contributors to spread information about the fate of the German expellees to newspapers, online news and article publications, scholarly journals, essays, university classroom dialogues, forums, websites, human rights conventions and symposia, and even to politicians. Any effort can make a marked impact, even writing an article for an online newspaper simply describing this forgotten calamity or documenting the ongoing political debate over restitution.

It is crucial to proliferate and document this awareness very meticulously. The suffering of ethnic German civilians has been largely ignored due to many factors: 1) the legacy of undeniable atrocities by the German state and its henchmen in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the USSR, etc.; 2) the false perception of apologetically defending Nazi crimes or attempting to make a German irredentist claim to these regions (like reclaiming Prussia from Poland by proving that they are 'rightfully German'); 3) the fear by German, Czech, and Polish politicians to appear to divert blame from Germans onto other peoples and; 4) the longstanding emphasis by the West on the Germans as the perpetrators of genocide against Jews and other ethnic groups rather than being victims of genocide at the same time. It is important that anyone working to commemorate the story of the German expellees strongly rejects any notions of Holocaust denial, revisionism, or any attempt to justify the atrocities of the Third Reich or divert blame from the Germans onto other ethnic groups that were subject to genocide at the same time.

Please spread links to our Institute (expelledgermans.org), circulate our articles and essays via emails and forums, and raise awareness and commemoration of the story of the German expellees to websites, forums, newspapers, politicians, and in human rights symposia as vociferously as possible. Please encourage the creation of commemorative monuments, foundations, lectures, and academic attention in museums by writing letters, making phone calls, and emphasizing your support for this forgotten tragedy of over 2,000,000 dead civilians. As one of the most-read and unpolitical representative academic groups of German expellees for both German and international audiences, we encourage you to write and submit your articles or contribute your research to our organisation and distribute links to our website.

You can also support German expellees and the movement to commemorate their story by donating or contributing to recognized political lobbies for restitution and human rights in Germany and the European Union, including the Federation of Expellees (Bund der Vertriebenen) and the Prussian Trust. You can also offer your research and financial support to the International Tracing Service, or the Centre Against Expulsion (Zentrum gegen Vertreibung), a new museum foundation being organized in Germany to commemorate the crimes of forced population expulsions in general, and also plans to devote a section to the 10,000,000 expelled Germans. You can also contact the leading representative group of expelled Germans and Volga Germans in Kazakhstan, the Deutsch-Kasachstanische Assoziation der Unternehmer.