Thursday, February 5, 2015

The Uprooted Germans (1945)

Why did the Germans allow themselves to be uprooted so easily (when the eastern section of Germany was given to Poland after the end of World War II)?


Background: We just saw in the video that Stalin and the Soviet Union took the eastern section of Poland.  In exchange, Poland was given the eastern section of Germany.  The Allies, in a sense, shifted Poland westward.  And like Mr. Stewart said in class, nobody had very much sympathy for the Germans because they were viewed as the aggressors and the Polish as the victims for so long during the war.  But why was there so little opposition?


About 12 million Germans were expelled from the area from about 1945 until 1950.  But there wasn’t a popular demand by these people to regain their homeland.  One source I found hypothesizes that the people had romanticized their homeland, “beautiful in [their] recollection, as it resides in [their] memories1.” Believing that they would not be able to return, they resigned themselves to life in the west with their memories.  This helped them cope with the migration.  


Another idea is that because of the German’s guilt for the Holocaust and other atrocities, the Allies could get away with the mass expulsion with little argument.  The writer from the main website I found says, “Without question, the recognition of the Holocaust’s central role remains essential for gaining an accurate picture of how subsequent collective traumas, such as the expulsion, became possible.” It seems like the Germans felt that they could not argue after what Hitler and the Nazis did.


Finally, some people believe that the Eastern Germans who were relocated simply forgot about their homeland.  But, this is the least likely explanation because of the number of German tourists in that area and because of the idea of the “Lost Germany” and the “Heimat” (which I believe means “homeland”).


I don’t know how helpful this is, because I couldn’t find very much about the German perspective.  But check out the website (below) because when I read the whole thing it made way more sense and I found it quite interesting.  


No comments:

Post a Comment