The documentary travellingexhibition "In theClaws of the RedDragon" in Pittsburghin 1988 (2 years before the totally unexpected collapse of Communismin Europe in November, 1989) organized in cooperation with Dr.MarianneBouvier andB. JohnZavrel. The exhibitionwas also shown in the Rotunda of theUS SenateBuilding, under thesponsorship of the lateSenatorHeinz.
The main speaker was Dr.Alfred deZayas, a prominentexpert in international law; he is an American of Spanish-Frenchdescent. After law school at Harvard, de Zayas went to Germany on aFulbrightfellowship, tookdoctorate in History at the University of Goettingen.He works as a legalconsultant in New York and Geneva,Switzerland, and is theauthor of several books dealing with the subject of the Expulsion ofGermans in Europe.
The following is a transcript of the essentialpart of the excellent lecture on the Expulsion which he gave inPittsburgh.
Dear Friends,
When I was a student of history at Harvard back in1970, I knew nothing at all about the Expulsion of Germans. None ofmy history professors considered this event sufficiently notable tomention it, much less to assign a research paper on it. It wascuriously not in history class, but in a seminar on Law of War that Ifirst heard about the Expulsion.
At that time I still could not read or speakGerman, but my law professor, the late Richard Baxter, who wassubsequently the American judge at the International Court ofJustice, encouraged me to pursue the matter and he brought to myattention two books in English that touched upon the subject matter.Those were the books of Victor Gollancz Our Threatened Values and InDarkest Germany. Victor Gollancz was a British socialist and a humanrights activist. I was so impressed by Gollancz that I laterdedicated my first book, Nemesis at Potsdam, to hismemory.
Now, when I first approached the subject matter, Ithought naively enough that it was a legitimate field of research,like any other. But I soon learned that it was no accident that therewas nearly nothing written in English on the theme -- it was taboo,it was not chic, it was not fashionable to do research or to publishin this field.
After all, Germans were looked at in a rathermonolithic fashion as all Nazis, and not deserving any degree ofhuman sympathy. As citizens of the "evil empire" they were morallydisqualified "ad illicio."
It is perhaps curious to compare it with the waythe press today deals with the Soviet system, but thank God the presshas not thought of disqualifying the Russian people and consideringthem "ad illicio" as criminals only because their system is aninhuman, anti-democratic system.
Now, what actually happened with regard to theGermans at the end of the Second World War, the previous speaker hasalready outlined and given you the figures of the Expulsion.Obviously you can take the simplistic view and say, "Hitler startedthe war, he lost the war, therefore the Germans have to take theconsequences," but I don't think that this axiom actually exhauststhe subject matter.
As you may or may not know, theexpulsion syndrome was actually started by Hitler himself. Aftersubjugating Poland, heexpelled over 1 million Poles from western Poland, from the areasthat were annexed by the Reich, and pushed them off into so-calledGeneral-government Poland,and he also expelledover 100,000 French from Alsace-Lorraine into VichyFrance.And this was a matter thatcuriously enough was condemned by the Allies during the war, andat the time of theNuremburg Trials, thisexpulsion that Hitler carried out for the purpose of "Lebensraum" --pushing out one ethnic group in order to settle the area with yourown -- was declared tobe a war crime, and a crime against humanity.
Not only in the London Agreement, that was thebasis of the Nuremberg Trials, but throughout the trials, and thehearings, and the proceedings, it was constantly brought up, and anumber of the German leaders were actually convicted of committingthese specific crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity on thebasis of these mass expulsions.So that it is a particularanomaly that the Alliesthemselves got involvedin a policy ofexpulsion of a far greater extentthan the one that hadbeen carried out under the Nazis.
Now, it is not just the Expulsion that is ofinterest to us and you have seen the pictures, a great many of whichare devoted to the flight of German civilians from the Red Army in1944.
In October of 1944 the Red Armyentered East Prussia, and they entered thearea of Gumbinden,Nemmersdorf, andMetgethen and theyoccupied the area for approximately two weeks and pretty muchslaughtered thecivilian population.
Thereupon the German army was able to re-occupythe area, and they realized what had happened. The legal division ofthe German Army was given the assignment of investigating what hadhappened; a great many persons, -- witnesses who saw the bodies, whenthey came in, -- gave their depositions, and their sworn testimony isavailable for the study of any researchers.
Now, it was this kind ofoccupation by the Russians that forced theflight. You may compare the Americanoccupation of the Rhineland, of Duesseldorf, of Cologne, of Koblenz,and you will realize that the Germans living in these areas had noneed to flee from the American Army,whereas you had5 million Germans fromEast Prussia, from Pomerania, Silesia, EastBrandenburg, whohelter-skelter and pell-mell had to leave the area. Surely, notbecause they wanted to leave the area in the middle of the winter of1945, but because they realized that theentire population ofNemmersdorf and of other citieshad beenliquidated.
This aspect of the Expulsion, just the loss oflife involved would have been enough, I would say, for any historianto devote attention to it, but as I already mentioned, the flight hasbeen largely ignored.
Now, these refugees werebasically turned into expelleeswhen they were notallowed to return to theirhomeland. Becausecertainly at the time of the flight, the German refugees wereexpecting to return to their homelands at the end ofhostilities.
But, before I go into the nature of the Expulsionitself, I wanted to cite from George Kennan as to the nature of theflight. In his Memoirs, Volume 1, page 265, he wrote
"the disaster that befell thisarea, (speaking of East Prussia) with the entry of the Soviet forceshas no parallel in modern European experience. There wereconsiderable sections of it where, to judge by all existing evidence,scarcely a man, woman,or child of the indigenous population was left alive after theinitial passage of Sovietforces; and one cannotbelieve that they all succeeded in fleeing to theWest."
Obviously Kennan's Memoirs are not devoted to theExpulsion of the Germans, but he does have several pages in which hedescribes it from the perspective of an American official at theAmerican embassy in Moscow.
As far as the decisions with regard to theExpulsion of theGermans, those were taken as early as atthe Teheran Conference, and confirmed, or actually expanded, at theYalta Conference, and finally at thePotsdamConference, where they were more or lessarticulated in ARTICLE 13of the Potsdam Protocol.
In thisARTICLE13the allies agreed that itwas necessary to transfer the German populations from what theyreferred to as Poland,Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They did notmention the Donauschwaben, the areas in Yugoslavia, or the areas inRumania, but in fact all of these countries were in the process ofpushing the Germans out at the time.
And the reason for these expulsions from EastPrussia, Rumania and from Silesia was ostensibly that Poland was tobe given compensation. Compensation for the territory of easternPoland that had been annexed by the Soviet Union pursuant to theRibbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939.
People, and very manyhistorians conveniently seem to forget that the outbreak of theWorld War II in 1939was caused not only by Hitler, but also byStalin: Soviet Unioninvading the eastern half of Poland,and Germany invadingthe western half.
Stalin made it very clear atTeheran that he was certainly intending to keep the half of Polandthat he had invaded,and he ended up keeping it. But not only that, he ended up taking upa good slice of East Prussia, which is today part of the SovietUnion, and Koenigsbergis today, as you all probably know, called"Kaliningrad."
As far as the lip service that was paid to humanrights, you will read in ARTICLE 13 of the Potsdam Protocol, thatthese expulsions were to be carried out in an "orderly and humanefashion."
Now, as far as the nature of the Expulsion, or themanner in which the expulsions were carried out, I wanted to quotevery briefly from Victor Gollancz's book "Our Threatened Values", onpage 96 where he says:
"If the conscience of men everagain becomes sensitive, these expulsions will be remembered tothe undying shame ofall who committed or connivedthem ... The Germanswere expelled, not justwith an absence of over-nice consideration,but with the verymaximum of brutality."
Now, I'm quoting Gollancz precisely because he isnot German. In the German archives in Koblenz, you have over 40,000reports of survivors that are open to all researchers, and there youwill see what the survivors have to say.
Some critical voices might say they have an axe togrind, that they are just trying to excuse themselves. But you haveextensive documentation -- American, British, French documentationthat prove the nature of the expulsions as an exceedingly cruel andbrutal expulsion.
Particularly sad is the fact that if you comparethat with our commitments, because after all, ostensibly theAmericans and British entered the war on behalf of democracy and forcertain principles of humanity and fair play -- and, after all, inAugust of 1941 President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill hadagreed in the middle of the Atlantic on the ship Augusta on theso-called Atlantic Charter, and the Atlantic Charter provided thatneither would seek territorial or other aggrandizement, and they bothundertook a commitment to oppose, and I quote, "territorial changesthat do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoplesconcerned."
So, in light of the principleswhich we ourselves proclaimed as our peace aims, it is mostregrettable that at the end of the war we did not live up to thoseprinciples.
The moral question thereforearises: if the allies fought against the Nazi enemy because of thisinhuman message, could they then adopt some of those same methods inretribution? Who was itthen who succeeded in imposing his methods on the other? Whoseoutlook triumphed?
I think this is a question that we all have toanswer to ourselves.
Robert Murphy, the political advisor of GeneralEisenhower, and later the political advisor of Clay during theoccupation in Germany, was one of the first official voices in theAmerican government that opposed the Expulsion, and to criticize themanner in which the Expulsion was being carried out.
In a memorandum to the State Department of 12October 1945 he presented this moral dilemma very eloquently, and Iquote in part:
"Knowledge that they are the victims of a harshpolitical decision carried out with the utmost ruthlessness anddisregard for the humanities does not cushion the effect. The mindreverts to other mass deportations which horrified the world andbrought upon the Nazis the odium which they so deserved. Those massdeportations engineered by the Nazis provided part of the moral basison which we waged war and which gave strength to our cause. Now thesituation is reversed. We find ourselves in the invidious position ofbeing partners in this German enterprise and as partners inevitablysharing the responsiblity."
As a result of this and all thememoranda of Murphy, theAmerican governmentrepeatedly protested atWarsaw and at Prague and tried to get some cooperation from theCzechoslovak government and from the Polishgovernment.
But unfortunately theSoviet occupationforces in those areasencouraged both thePolish and the Czechoslovak governments in theExpulsion, so there was no way for theU.S. to effectively stop it.
With regard to the legalaspects of theExpulsion,were such expulsions to take place today, there isno question that itwould constitute theviolation of variousprovisions ofinternational law.
ARTICLE49 of theGenevaConvention of 1949prohibits specificallysuch expulsions. I'mspeaking of the Geneva Convention for the protection ofcivilians.
ARTICLES3 and4of the Fourth Protocol of theEuropean Human RightsConvention alsoprohibits suchexpulsions.
It would also beincompatiblewith ARTICLES12 and13of the International Covenant on civil and politicalrights.
It would beincompatiblewith the GeneralConvention of 1948 andwith several other instruments.
But obviously, at the time of the Expulsion noneof these instruments were in force.So the only applicableprinciples were theHagueConventions, inparticular, the Hague Regulations,ARTICLES42-56, which limitedthe rights of occupying powers -- and obviouslyoccupying powers haveno rights to expel thepopulations -- so therewas the clear violation of the Hague Regulations.
And, obviously, if you wantto apply theNurembergprinciples to theGerman Expulsions, considering that theLondon Agreement was supposed to reflect, and not to createinternational law, so ifthat was applicable to the German crimes against the Poles withregard to deportation of Poles, anddeportation of French for purposes of "Lebensraum,"certainly it was applicableto the expulsions bythe Poles of Germans and by the Czechs of Germans.
So, if you apply theseNuremberg principlesand the Nurembergjudgement, you wouldhave to arrive at the conclusion thatthe Expulsion of theGermans clearlyconstituted war crimesand crimes against humanity.
Now as you all know, the more than 12 millionGerman expellees who survived, and who have come to the FederalRepublic of Germany, have been integrated into the democracy that theFederal Republic of Germany is, and have contributed to the Europeanreconstruction and to the so-calledWirtschaftswunder, which was facilitated through thefunds of the Marshall Plan.
And one of the most noblethings that the German expellees did, andI would invite all non-Germans to try to place yourselves in theposition of the German expellees, and try to see it through theireyes, what it meant havinglost homelands that were over 700 years German;having lost half oftheir families in the process of theexpulsion, havingsuffered what they all suffered, having being spoliated and havingbeen victimized, -- what it meant to adoptthe Stuttgart Charter of the German Expellees,which provides specificallyforrenunciationof revenge and renunciation of violence.
I wanted to quote from this document, which isalso on one of the placards. I quote:
"We, the expellees, renounce all thought ofrevenge and retaliation. Our resolution is a solemn and sacred one,in memory of the infinite suffering brought upon mankind,particularly during the past decade."
Now, consider what it meant to write that, at atime when the memories were still very fresh, and when the woundswere not yet healed.
I think it is a tremendous contribution to peace,tremendous contribution to the normalization of the post-warEurope.
For this contribution of the German expellees topeace in Europe, earlier this year the German American NationalCongress (DANK) passed a resolution to nominate the Union ofExpellees for the Nobel Peace Prize, thus joining the earlierinitiative of parliament members of several nations from the EuropeanParliament.
Why this honor to the Union ofExpellees?
Because the German expellees have done more forpeace in Europe, than they are credited for. Indeed, the more than 12million surviving expellees from East Prussia, Pomerania, EastBrandenburg, Silesia, Sudetenland, etc. could have turned toterrorism like the Palestinian refugees, and they could havedeveloped into a major destabilizing element in Europe after1945.
Instead, they proclaimed the Charter of the GermanExpellees in 1950, in which they proclaimed themselves to thepeaceful reconstruction of Europe, and pledged never to use violentmeans to achieve their right to the homeland.
We must also keep in mind,however, that theseexpellees and their descendants aretoday -- 43 years afterthe Expulsion -- stillwaiting for a just settlement of this greatinjustice, and forreturn to theirancestral homelands inthe Central and Eastern Europe.
As a final thought, I wanted to encourage allstudents here, to consider the Expulsion of the Germans as aworthwhile field of research.
I would like to encourageprofessors to give research papers and research assignments on thebasis of the many, many aspects of the Expulsion. As I mentioned thearchives, both theBundesarchiv inKoblenz, and also the National Archives in Washington are full ofrelevant, unpublishedmaterials,which would more than satisfy a doctoral requirement, if you wantedto take a doctorate on any question of the Expulsion of theGermans.
And more importantly, and I rather hope that itwill happen, I look forwardto the great novelist, who will put down this history in anovel. I think that there is more thanenough material for a Gone With the Wind,and I would welcome aMargaret Mitchell, who would write a novel depictingthe very human and verydeeply felt tragedy of theExpulsion of thesevictims of politics and of politicians.
I thank you.
Copyright 2004 West-Art, Prometheus 91/2004