He did? About all I can find is in Chapter 3 of Book Two, discussing the Yalta Conference:
In other words, Churchill and everybody else recognized that the Soviet Union had undergone four years of slaughter during the war, and they were going to demand compensation, and that compensation would involve ethnic cleansing, and there was nothing much anybody could do about it. All Churchill sought to do was limit the damage with a slightly more eastward German/Polish frontier.
Many were, many weren’t. Robert Kaplan, in Balkan Ghosts, discusses the postwar cleansing of the Romanian Saxons (ethnic Germans who had been living in Romania for generations). First he writes of the Saxons:
Bad people, right? But then comes the following:
Even if every one of those deported was a raving fascist (doubtful), think of the suddenly orphaned children. All in all, this is a very depressing chapter in human history.
Its a sad thing. There are days when I wish American had the strength left after the end of the war to roll across Germany into the SovUnion and take out the Russians.
Life sucks, I guess.
I never knew about this…
So, in essence, if you were a German descendant living behind Iron Curtain countries after WW2 finished, you were either forcibly deported “but to where?” or you were punished forever by being made to work as slave labour in a Coal Mine somewhere?
How did the 2.1 million deaths occur?
That song’s not as obscure as I thought…
Actually Daoloth, you are quite right in placing some of the blame on Holocaust deniers. I did a search on Google on the subject and it pulled up a Holocaust denier’s website. Some guy by the surname of Zundel.
Hi Florentine Pogen, welcome to the boards! Just to clear up any confusion, I’m Florentine_Pogen (note the underscore). So if you get any asshats flaming you for something you didn’t say, it’s me they’re after. Just send 'em my way and sorry for the inconvenience.
Anyway, I have good excuse for a sig, now…
I didn’t either, until fairly recently.
The roughly 2 million deaths occurred mainly through starvation and exposure experienced in the grueling deportations. As is often, a vast amount of the dead were the young and the infirm, unable to biologically handle such harsh conditions as were imposed upon them. At least some of the 2 million dead were murdered via firearm, though these numbers don’t exceed more than ten thousand or so. Most likely, the majority of firearm deaths were committed against ex-Wehrmacht soldiers or those displaying resistance.
And where was the most common destination for these deportations Daoloth? Were the German descendants sent to Germany, or Poland, or East Germany?
Thanks for your answer by the way. Much appreciated.
Yeah, the average German citizen deserved to be killed because they were inherently evil and personally responsible for the holocaust. just like the average jew was… oh, nevermind.
:rolleyes:
These were ethnic germans, who had settled along the Volga River , in the reign of Russian Empress Catherine The Great. I have never read anything about the fate of this community…presumably Josef Stalin got rid of them as well. Strange, these people had lived in Russia for at least 5generations…but they had not assimilated, nor did they consider themslves Russian.
Another thing: the Russians took approximately 1.1 million germans as prisoners of war (500,000 at Stalingrad alone). Were these guys ever repatriated? Or did they die mining coal in Siberia? Not that it makes any difference, but Stalin was pretty brutal with everybody!
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Volga Germans that were left were “resettled” in Siberia, but a lot had died during the collectivization of agricululture, or had already been sent to Siberia by the Tsarist government in WWI.
Was what?
Acutally, the “collateral damage” angle might not be too far off. Of the 14 million Germans who were forced out of Eastern Europe, about 2 million died over the course of about 3 years. Assuming a nominal human lifespan of 80 years, we should expect over 1/2 million of the German refugees to have died of old age during this mass-exodus. This means about 4 times as many Germans died during this Forced Deportation as would be expected to die had they been left alone. (And certainly, the stress of travelling against ones will, alone, should have contributed at least a couple hundred thousand more deaths.)
How does this survival rate compare with the survival rate of non-combatant Nazi soldiers (or German civilians) at the end of WW2?
How many of those deaths were caused by lack of adequate food or water or medicine for the trip?
How many of those deaths were caused by angry locals seeking “vengeance” against the Nazis by, say, throwing rocks out of their window at the passing Germans?
What were the majority of deaths caused by?
The deaths of those being deported may not have been intentional at all. They might have just been “collateral damage” of the expediency (and cheapness) employed by Eastern Europe in deporting the Germans.
I was trying to point out the irony in that people were willing to overlook the deaths of many innocents because a tiny minority of them were guilty, since they were condemning them for the deaths of many innocents.
In other words, I think it’s hypocritical to say that millions of innocent Germans deserved to die when they had nothing to do with the holocaust, while obviously caring about the death of millions of other innocents. It sort of resembles the logic used by some that conducted the holocaust.
Also remember, the main cause of WWII was that Germany was claiming those areas outside of Germany that had majority ethnic German populations, like the Sudetenland, Memel, and Danzig. So, I think part of the feeling was that the ethnic Germans were responsible…that if they had never been there, the war wouldn’t have happened. So, by getting rid of them, the other countries removed a potential future German cause for war.
I’m not buying it. Don’t try to invent parallels that aren’t there.
And don’t talk to me about “tiny minorities”.
I don’t think they deserved to die, but I do think the people who were previously ‘cleansed’ from the areas that were resettled by Germans had the right of return, and the right of forcing the settlers out. Those Germans might not have been involved in the Holocaust per se but many were certainly involved in plans for expansion. Those are the breaks when your side loses.
I understand what you’re saying Alessan. But (IIRC, to paraphrase South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission) a hallmark of truly evil regimes and truly desperate moral situations is that many victims are denied even their innocence.
Maybe, but in a lot of the cases, those “settlers” and their families had lived there for quite a while. The Volga Germans had lived in Russia since the 1760s, the Sudeten Germans had been there since the 12th or 13th centuries, and the same was true of the Germans in Danzig and West Prussia, etc.
You don’t see the paralell between believing one group of innocents deserves death on a massive scale because they “deserved it” and another group of innocents deserving death on a massive scale because they “deserved it”?
Ah, so great lengths weren’t taken to hide the Holocaust from the average German, to keeping the actual process far distant from all but the hardened few “true believers”, to making up propoganda and excuses to hide the holocaust with alternate explanations because every German knew exactly what was happening and fully advocated the Holocaust and were just inherently evil and would stomp kittens if they could?
That’s a long sentence.
I may have misread you - you may be saying that some deserved it for settling on conquered lands - and that makes sense to some degree. But I had the impression that you’re putting the blame of the Holocaust on all Germans, as knowing and willing accomplises. They, largely, weren’t. And so you’re saying that the death of millions of innocents is “deserved” in this case but not deserved in another? Why? Because the Germans were cough sub-human?