A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
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| Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after World War II |
|---|
| (demographic estimates) |
| Background |
| Wartime flight and evacuation |
| Post-war flight and expulsion |
| Later emigration |
| Other themes |
Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans have been derived by either the compilation of registered dead and missing persons or by a comparison of pre-war and post-war population data. Estimates of the number of displaced Germans vary in the range of 12.0–16.5 million. The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions was estimated at 2.2 million by the West German government in 1958 using the population balance method. German records which became public in 1987 have caused some historians in Germany to put the actual total at about 500,000 based on the listing of confirmed deaths. The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000 victims and says that the official figure of 2 million did not stand up to later review.[1] However, the German Red Cross still maintains that the total death toll of the expulsions is 2,251,500 persons.
Difficulty of developing accurate estimates
Due to a lack of accurate records listing confirmed deaths, estimates of German population transfers from 1945–1950 and associated deaths depended upon a population balance methodology. West German government official figures derived during the 1950s using the population balance method put the death toll at about 2 million. Recently some German historians believe the death toll is closer to 500,000 based on recently disclosed documentation that listed only confirmed deaths. The wide range of estimates stems from a number of factors. First, the ethnic German population in 1939 was by no means certain because bilingual persons were of dubious German ethnic identity. Second, Civilian losses were overstated because German military casualties in 1945 were poorly documented. Third, After the war it was difficult to gather reliable population data; post war census data in Central and Eastern Europe did not breakout the ethnic German population and during the Cold War there was a lack of cooperation between West Germany and communist bloc countries in the effort to locate persons reported missing. Persons reported missing may have been living in Eastern Europe after having been assimilated into the local population. Estimates of total populations expelled and deaths often include figures from the evacuation, because these people were not allowed to return, thus making it difficult to arrive at an accurate and undisputed estimate of population movements and deaths due solely to the expulsions. Some of the differences may arise from political bias, as the expulsion of Germans was widely utilized as political weapon during the Cold War.
There are also disputes over the definition of "expulsion", which may cover the flight and evacuation during the war as well as forced labor and internment before expulsion and deaths due to malnutrition and disease in the post war era. The estimated losses include civilians killed in battle during the flight and evacuation in the final months of the war as well as direct intentional actions of violent soldiers, militias and senseless killings by opportunistic mobs and individuals in the immediate aftermath of the war. Other deaths occurred in post war internment camps and the deportation to the USSR for forced labor. The privations of a forced migration in a postwar environment characterized by crime, chaos, famine, disease, and cold winter conditions added to the death toll. West German sources give only rough estimates to attribute the proportions of these deaths to specific causes.
Population balance method versus counts of confirmed deaths
The West German government during the Cold War conducted investigations of the wartime flight and expulsions. The Schieder commission published a series of reports that documented the expulsions based on eyewitness accounts. Schieder chronicled the flight and expulsions, but did not provide background on the wartime crimes of Nazi Germany in Central and Eastern Europe that motivated the Allies to expel the Germans after the war. Schieder in 1953 estimated that 2 million persons perished in Poland, a figure that continues to endure in Germany.[2] Schieder's estimate of the casualties was superseded by a separate demographic analysis of prepared by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, in 1958 they estimated losses at 2.225 million.[3] The German Church Search Service working with the German Red Cross attempted to trace and identify those who perished in the expulsions. The investigation of the Church Search Service was only partially successful, by 1965 they were able to confirm about 500,000 deaths but could not clarify the fates of 1.9 million persons that were listed as "unsolved". The findings of the Church Search Service were not published until 1987.[4][5][6] Another report was issued by the German Federal Archives that identified 600,000 civilian expulsion deaths due to crimes against international law. This report was not published until 1989.[7]
Ingo Haar who is currently on the faculty of the University of Vienna said on 14 November 2006 in Deutschlandfunk that about 500,000 to 600,000 victims are realistic, based on a German governmental studies initiated in the 1960s.[8] Haar said these numbers were compiled from actually reported deaths, while higher figures of about two million deaths were estimated with the population balance method in a German governmental study of 1958.[8] Haar said the higher estimates must be seen in the historical context of the 1950s, when the government of West Germany needed high numbers for political reasons.[8] During the Cold War West Germany wanted to revert to prewar borders in Central Europe. Military historian Rüdiger Overmans said on 6 December 2006 in Deutschlandfunk that only the about 500,000 registered deaths could be counted, and that the unaccounted cases calculated with the population balance method need be confirmed by further research.[9] However, on 29 November 2006 State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Christoph Bergner, reaffirmed the position of the German government that 2 million civilians perished in the flight and expulsion from Central and Eastern Europe.[10] The German Red Cross in 2005 maintained that death toll in the expulsions is 2,251,500 persons.[11]
Demographics
Expulsion area
The Federal Expellee Law (BVFG[12]) defines the expulsion area (einheitliches Vertreibungsgebiet; i.e. uniform territory of expulsion) as the former eastern territories of Germany (lost by the First or Second World War), the former Austria-Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.[13]
According to a 1967 report by the West German Federal Ministry for Expellees, in 1950 there were 14,447,000 persons affected by the expulsions, 11,730,000 had fled or were expelled, and 2,717,000 still remained in their homelands. By 1966 the sum total of German expellees and their offspring had increased to 14,600,000 persons.[14] The higher figure of 14 million expellees is often cited by historians.[15][16][17][18][19]
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Between 1944 and 1950, roughly 12 million ethnic Germans had fled or were expelled from east-central Europe. From 1951 to 1982 an additional 1.1 million persons of German ancestry emigrated from East-Central Europe to Germany.[20] In the eyes of German law there were a total of 16 million expellees in 1982 (see schedule below) if one also includes Germans resettled in Poland during the war by the Nazis, children born to expellees and persons who immigrated as Aussiedler to Germany from eastern Europe after 1950.[20][21][22]
Germans fled, were evacuated, or were expelled as a result of actions of Nazi Germany, the Red Army, civilian militias, and/or the organized efforts of governments of the reconstituted states of Eastern Europe. Between 1944 and 1950, at least 12 million had fled or had been expelled and resettled to post-war Germany, almost all (11.5 million) from the territories of post-war Poland and Czechoslovakia.[23] About three million persons of German ancestry remained in the expulsion areas, but gradually emigrated westward in the Cold War era or have been assimilated into the local populations.[24] The areas from which the Germans fled or were expelled were subsequently repopulated by nationals of the states to which that territory now belonged, many of whom were Poles who fled or were expelled from the former Polish territories in the USSR. 148 000 of Polish citizens declared German nationality in 2011.[25]
The German Federal Expellee Law (BVFG) classifies the following as expellees (Vertriebene):
- Those German citizens or ethnic Germans who resided in the expulsion area prior to 31 December 1937 but fled or had been expelled (termed: Heimatvertriebene, i.e. homeland expellees;[26] BVFG § 1 (1)).
- German citizens or foreigners of German ethnicity who fled Nazi Germany, or any area it annexed or occupied, due to factual or impending Nazi persecution on political, racist or religious grounds (BVFG § 1 (1) No. 1).
- Ethnic Germans of originally foreign citizenship who were resettled during the war by the Nazis in eastern and western Europe and then fled or had been expelled are defined as expellees of the sub-group of Umsiedler by the West German Federal Expellee Law;[27] BVFG § 1 (1) No. 2);
- German citizens (expatriates) from pre-war western Europe and abroad who resettled in postwar Germany as a consequence of the Second World War (BVFG § 1 (1)). Western European democracies did not denaturalise their citizens of German ethnicity, so they were not systematically expelled, but German expatriates often had to quit as enemy aliens.
- Refugees and emigrants either originally of foreign citizenship but of German ethnicity, or who themselves or whose ancestors had involuntarily lost German citizenship, coming from the above-mentioned uniform territory of expulsion or from Albania, Bulgaria, China, Romania, the Soviet Union, or Yugoslavia, and arriving only after the end of general expulsions (usually by 1950) but not later as 31 December 1992 are also considered expellees under German law (termed: Aussiedler, about: emigrant of German ethnicity or descent; BVFG § 1 (2) No. 3).
- Expellees' spouses of whichever ethnicity or citizenship, and children born to expellees living in postwar Germany and abroad are classified as expellees too.[28]
Those ethnic Germans who emigrated from eastern Europe after 1 January 1993 are no longer classified as expellees under German law, but can apply for immigration and naturalisation under the special terms for Spätaussiedler (ethnic German "late emigrant").[12] Nazi German occupational functionaries and other German expatriates, who had relocated to German-annexed or German-occupied foreign territory during the war, are not considered expellees by German law unless they showed circumstances (such as marrying a resident of the respective area) indicating the intention to permanently settle abroad also for the time after the war (BVFG § 1 (4)).
Treated separately are refugees and expellees who had neither German citizenship nor German ethnicity but had fled or been expelled from their former domiciles and were stranded in West Germany or West Berlin before 1951, amounting to 130,000 in 1951, and only less than 3,000 in 2011. They were classified as displaced persons by the international refugee organizations until 1950, when West German authorities granted them the special status of heimatloser Ausländer (i.e. homeless foreigner, comprising either foreign citizens unable or unwilling to repatriate, or stateless persons with nowhere to go). They were covered under preferential naturalization rules, distinct from other legal aliens or stateless persons.[29]
Flight, expulsion and accounting for expellees up to 1950[30]
| Description | Population |
|---|---|
| Flight of civilians & returned POWs during 1945 | 4,500,000 |
| Official deportations 1946–50 | 4,500,000 |
| Returned POWs 1946–1950 | 2,600,000 |
| Total | 11,600,000 |
Expellees as defined by German law[31]
| Category of expellees (pre-war origin) | 1950 | 1982 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – Pre-war Eastern Europe and Oder–Neisse region | 11,890,000 | 15,150,000 |
| 2 – Pre-war Soviet Union | 100,000 | 250,000 |
| 3 – Germans from west of Oder Neisse Resettled during war | 460,000 | 500,000 |
| 4 – Pre-war Western Europe and abroad | 235,000 | 240,000 |
| 5 – Germans settled in Western Europe during war | 65,000 | 80,000 |
| Total | 12,750,000 | 16,220,000 |
1—Pre-war eastern Europe ethnic Germans who resided in eastern Europe prior to the war.
1950–Oder–Neisse region (pre-war Germany): 6,980,000; Poland: 690,000; Danzig: 290,000; Czechoslovakia: 3,000,000; Hungary: 210,000; Romania: 250,000; Yugoslavia: 300,000; and Baltic States: 170,000.
1982–Oder–Neisse region (pre-war Germany): 8,850,000; Poland: 1,000,000; Danzig: 357,000; Czechoslovakia: 3,521,000; Hungary: 279,000; Romania: 498,000; Yugoslavia: 445,000; and Baltic States: 200,000.
2—Pre-war Soviet Union – ethnic Germans from the USSR who were resettled in German-annexed or occupied Poland during the war. 1950 (100,000); 1982 (250,000). During the war the Nazis resettled 370,000 ethnic Germans from the USSR in Poland; the Soviets returned 280,000 to the USSR after the war.
3—Germans from west of Oder Neisse resettled during war. This category includes only those German nationals living west of the Oder–Neisse line in 1939 who were resettled in occupied eastern Europe by Nazi Germany. In all 560,000 were resettled in Eastern Europe (530,000 in the postwar territory of Poland and 30,000 in Czechoslovakia). They are considered expellees in the eyes of German law. In 1950 460,000 were counted as expellees, and by 1982 the number had increased to 500,000. According to the German law defining expellees (BVFG § 1 (4)), Nazi German occupational functionaries and other German expatriates who had relocated to German-annexed or German-occupied foreign territory during the war were not considered expellees unless they showed circumstances (such as marrying a resident of the respective area) indicating the intention to permanently settle abroad after the war.[32] Section BVFG § 1 (5) of the German law excludes those persons as expellees who were implicated in Nazi war crimes and violations of human rights.[33]
An additional 1,320,000 Germans were settled in Poland and Czechoslovakia during war, including 410,000 German nationals living in the pre-war German Oder–Neisse region and 910,000 ethnic Germans from east-central Europe (166,000 from eastern Poland; 127,000 from the Baltic states; 212,000 from Romania; 35,000 from Yugoslavia; and 370,000 from the USSR in 1939 borders). These persons are included above with the first two categories of expellees, 1- Pre-war Eastern Europe and Oder–Neisse region and 2- Pre-war Soviet Union.[34]
3—Pre-war Western Europe and abroad - Ethnic Germans from pre-war Western Europe and abroad who resided in postwar Germany.[35]
4—Resettled in western Europe during war - During the war the Nazis resettled German nationals in western Europe. After the war those who returned to postwar Germany were considered expellees.[35]
Expellees' place of residence[36]
| Place of residence | 1950 | 1982 |
|---|---|---|
| West Germany | 8,100,000 | 11,000,000 |
| East Germany | 4,100,000 | 4,070,000 |
| Austria | 430,000 | 400,000 |
| Other countries | 120,000 | 750,000 |
| Total | 12,750,000 | 16,220,000 |
Post-war Germany and Austria
On 29 October 1946, the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany already held 9.5 million refugees and expellees: 3.6 million in the British zone, 3.1 million in the U.S. zone, 2.7 million in the Soviet zone, 100,000 in Berlin and 60,000 in the French zone.[37]
These numbers subsequently increased, with two million additional expellees counted in West Germany in 1950 for a total of 7.9 million[38] (16.3% of the population).[37][39] By origin, the West German expellee population consisted of about 5.5 million people from post-war Poland, primarily the former German East/new Polish West, two million from the former Sudetenland, and the rest primarily from Southeast Europe, the Baltic states and Russia.[40]
According to estimates made in West Germany, in the Soviet zone the number rose to 4.2 million by 1948 (24.2% of the population) and 4.4 million[38] by 1950,[39][41] when the Soviet zone became East Germany.
Thus, a total of 12.3 million Heimatvertriebene constituted 18% of the population in the two German states created from the Allied occupation zones (the Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic) in 1950, while another 500,000 expellees found refuge in Austria and other countries.[39] Because of their influx, the population of the post-war German territory had risen by 9.3 million (16%) from 1939 to 1950 despite wartime population losses.[38]
After the war, the area west of the new eastern border of Germany was crowded with expellees, some of them living in camps, some looking for relatives, some just stranded. Between 16.5%[42] and 19.3%[21] of the total population were expellees in the Western occupation zones and 24.2% in the Soviet occupation zone.[42] Expellees made up 45% of the population in Schleswig-Holstein and 40% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; similar percentages existed along the eastern border all the way to Bavaria, while in the westernmost German regions the numbers were significantly lower, especially in the French zone of occupation. Of the expellees initially stranded in East Germany, many migrated to West Germany, making up a disproportionally high number of post-war inner-German East-West migrants (close to one million of a three million total between 1949, when the West and East German states were created, and 1961, when the inner-German border was closed).[43]
German naturalisation of foreign ethnic German refugees and expellees
Ethnic German refugees and expellees of foreign or no citizenship, residing within the German borders as they stood in 1937, were granted German citizenship by the West German constitution (Grundgesetz), Art. 116 (1) when this came into force in 1949. Expellees arriving later in the Federal Republic of Germany were almost all granted German citizenship as well, but their detailed legal treatment varied, depending on their or their ancestors' citizenship. Aussiedler (see above) who themselves or whose ancestors had been German citizens before 1945 were mostly legally considered as being German citizens, regardless of any other citizenships they may have held. According to the Nationality Law of the German Empire and States (Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz; RuStAG) of 1913, valid until 1999, loss of German citizenship was only valid if one applied for it (RuStAG § 21 (1)), and the competent German authority issued a denaturalisation deed (Entlassungsurkunde, RuStAG § 23 (1)), and the person to be denaturalised emigrated from German territory within a year after starting the procedure (RuStAG § 24 (1)).
West German jurisdiction maintained that until a treaty with all of Germany on the seizures of territories (concluded finally as the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990)) should legalise their de facto status, the eastern territories of Germany annexed to other nations in 1945 and the Saar Protectorate were legally German territory for this purpose. Alternatively for German citizens living abroad – in West German definition outside of the German borders of 1937 – the unilateral voluntary adoption of a foreign citizenship would entail one's denaturalisation as a German (RuStAG § 25 (1)).
However, the conditions of voluntarity, issuance of the deed, and leaving German territory (if applicable), were usually not fulfilled for German citizens authoritatively naturalised by the Eastern European states they happened to live in after 1945. Their children gained German citizenship by jus sanguinis (RuStAG § 4). Those Aussiedler of foreign citizenship but descending from ancestors holding German citizenship before 1918 (regardless of ethnicity) were granted German citizenship by the Federal Expellee Law (BVFG § 6 (2)), while those Aussiedler without such German descent but of German ethnicity (to be evidenced by German culture, language, traditions, etc.) received German citizenship also (see BVFG § 1 (1) No. 1).
Religious demographics
The West German researcher Gerhard Reichling published a study that estimated the prewar German population at 18,267,000 in Eastern Europe (including the USSR), of whom 2,020,000 were dead in the expulsions and forced labor in the USSR. In addition, he estimated military and civilian war dead in the area of the expulsions at 1,250,000, but did not provide details for this figure. Reichling provided a breakout of the ethnic German population by religion which included German-speaking Jews with other religions and beliefs. He did not give a separate total for German Jews included in his figure for "others", nor he did enumerate Jewish dead in his figures of wartime and postwar losses. Kurt Horstmann of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany wrote the foreword to the study endorsing the work of Reichling, an employee of the Federal Statistical Office who was involved in the study of German expulsion statistics since 1953.[44]
Religion of German refugees from the East according to Reichling
Religion of Germans from the East, according to Gerhard Reichling[45]
| Description | Prewar German population | Protestant | Roman Catholic | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Former eastern territories of Germany | 9,575,000 | 6,411,000 | 2,862,000 | 302,000 |
| Danzig | 380,000 | 215,000 | 147,000 | 18,000 |
| Poland | 1,200,000 | 736,000 | 457,000 | 7,000 |
| Czechoslovakia | 3,544,000 | 166,000 | 3,231,000 | 147,000 |
| Baltic States | 250,000 | 239,000 | 8,000 | 3,000 |
| USSR | 1,400,000 | 1,119,000 | 254,000 | 27,000 |
| Hungary | 600,000 | 94,000 | 492,000 | 14,000 |
| Romania | 782,000 | 437,000 | 330,000 | 15,000 |
| Yugoslavia | 536,000 | 108,000 | 415,000 | 13,000 |
| Total | 18,267,000 | 9,525,000 | 8,196,000 | 546,000 |
Reichling defines "others" as follows: "The term 'other' includes other creeds (Jewish communities and groups, other peoples and world religions, freethinkers and enlightenment associations) and those without a creed or no report of religious belief".[46]
German-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe prior to the war
A. Former eastern territories of Germany – Based on the May 1939 census in the eastern regions of Germany there were according to Nazi antisemitic terminology – full Jews 27,526; one-half Jewish 6,371; and one-quarter Jewish 4,464.[47][48][49] Ingo Haar maintains that 27,533 Jews in the former eastern territories of Germany, most of whom perished in the Holocaust, were included with the dead expellees in West German figures.[50]
B. Czechoslovakia - Polish demographer Piotr Eberhardt estimated that there were 75,000 German-speaking Jews in the Czech lands in 1930; he did not give a figure for Slovakia.[51] Based on the May 1939 census in the Sudetenland there were – using Nazi terminology – full Jews 2,363; one-half Jewish 2,183; and one-quarter Jewish 1,396.[47] 2,035 Jews in the Sudetenland were included with the German population in the West German figures used to calculate expulsion losses.[52]
C. Hungary - Eberhardt estimated that there were 10,000 German-speaking Jews in Hungary in 1930.[53]
D. Poland - According to the December 1931 census of Poland there were 7,000 German-speaking Jews in Poland.[54]
C. Yugoslavia - The Schieder commission report for Yugoslavia put the number of German-speaking Jews at 10,026 in 1931.[55]
German historians Hans Henning Hahn and Eva Hahn have raised the issue of the German minority in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust. They point out that German historians of the expulsions have hardly covered the fate of the German-speaking Jews in the Holocaust. There were many Jews in Eastern Europe who spoke German as a primary language and identified with the German nationality prior to the war, and many others spoke German as a second language. In Czechoslovakia there 46,000 Jews that identified with the German nationality in 1930.
Many Jews fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 prior to the beginning of the war; most of those who remained perished in the Holocaust. The Hahns mentioned that many of the Jewish victims in Czechoslovakia have German-sounding names. According to the Hahns a wartime estimate by a Nazi researcher put the number of Jews outside of Czech lands at 6.8 million, of whom 4% spoke German.[56]
Germans remaining in Central Europe in 1950
| Country | Per West Germany | Per Reichling | Per Eberhardt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland (including annexed land) | 1,536,000 | 1,700,000 | 170,000 |
| Czechoslovakia | 250,000 | 300,000 | 165,000 |
| Hungary | 270,000 | 270,000 | 22,500 |
| Romania | 400,000 | 400,000 | 343,900 |
| Baltic (Memel/Klaipėda) | 15,000 | 18,000 | 0 |
| Yugoslavia | 82,000 | 82,000 | 0 |
| Total | 2,553,000 | 2,770,000 | 701,400 |
The table summarizes the estimates for ethnic Germans remaining in eastern Europe in 1950. The West German government in 1958 made an estimate that is often cited in historical literature.[57] In 1985, Gerhard Reichling, a researcher employed by the West German government, provided his own estimate of Germans remaining in east Europe in 1950, plus an additional 1,312,000 living in the USSR. Reichling detailed 1,410,000 persons who emigrated from 1951 to 1982 who were also considered expellees under West German law; Poland: 894,000; Czechoslovakia: 160,000; Hungary: 30,000; Romania: 144,000; Yugoslavia: 80,000; and USSR: 102,000.[58] In 2003, Eberhardt made his estimates for remaining Germans in 1950 that are significantly lower than those made in Germany.[59]
Method of counting confirmed deaths
Studies of this kind try to count individual deaths, by various means. Sources may include registry death records, police and military records, church files of missing and killed persons, or reports of eyewitnesses .
Research by German Church Search Service
A. The work and findings of the German Church Search Service
Already at the end of the war in August 1945 efforts were being made in Germany to trace those civilians who were dead or missing in Central and Eastern Europe. A Suchdienst (search service) was set up by the German Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches working with the German Red Cross. In 1950 the West German government provided funding for these efforts and in 1953 they set up a unified body of the Suchdienst (search service) to coordinate these various efforts, organize a complete system of records, clarify the fates of the missing and prepare a final report. The German Red Cross sent 2.8 million questionnaires to survivors in order to obtain relevant information on the fates of the dead and missing. Information was compiled from the records of the local communities in Central and Eastern Europe (Soll-Listen) and eyewitness accounts of the expellees. The work of the Suchdienst (search service) was only partially successful. They were able to survey the records (Soll-Listen) local communities that encompassed 8.6 million persons, only one half of all Germans in the territory of the expulsions. The work of the Suchdienst (search service) was hampered during the Cold War by the Communist Bloc governments in Central and Eastern Europe who did not extend full cooperation for these West German efforts to trace missing persons.[11] In 1965 the conclusions and final report was issued by the Suchdienst (search service) of the German churches which was able to confirm 473,013 civilian deaths, there were an additional 1,905,991 cases of persons whose fate could not be determined by 1965. This report remained confidential until the end of the Cold War. The West German government authorized its release in 1986 and summary of the findings was published in 1987 by the German scholar de:Gert von Pistohlkors.[60] The German Search Service is currently located in Munich Germany, they continue to investigate the fates of those persons missing in the war, in 2005 they maintained that their research put losses at 2,251,500 persons in the expulsions and deportations. They did not provide details of the figure.[11][61]
Summary of the Population Surveyed by Search Service Investigation [62][5][6]
| Description | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total Cases Investigated by Search Service 1953-1965 | 17,625,742 |
| Military deaths | (450,809) |
| Natural deaths | (296,084) |
| Relocated before expulsion | (340,826) |
| Born after expulsion | (135,876) |
| Resettled before expulsion | (203,061) |
| Total population before flight & expulsion | 16,199,086 |
Summary of Results of the Search Service Investigation As of Dec. 31, 1965 [5][6][63]
| Description | Amount |
|---|---|
| Confirmed alive | 12,848,497 |
| Natural deaths after expulsion | 971,585 |
| Confirmed deaths in expulsion | 473,013 (see Schedule below) |
| Unsolved cases | 1,905,991 |
| Total population before flight & expulsion | 16,199,086 |
Details of the 1,905,991 Unsolved Cases - Deported 68,416; Interned 17,704; Missing 768,010; Deaths 179,810; No Information provided (ohne jeden Hinweis) 872,051. Rüdiger Overmans maintains that the 872,051 cases with no information provided are “Karteileichen” (“card corpses”) of persons who could not be traced because insufficient information was provided and therefore of doubtful validity. He considers this to be the most important consideration in the analysis of the 1.9 million unsolved cases.[5]
Summary of the German Church Search Service Figures in 1965[64][62][5][6]
| Description | Total | Poland | Baltic States (resettled in Poland during war) | Resettled in Poland during war (from USSR and Romania) | Sudetenland | SE Europe
(Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia & Slovakia) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total 1945 population before flight & expulsion | 16,199,086 | 11,038,826 | 145,615 | 365,622 | 3,160,216 | 1,488,807 |
| Confirmed deaths: | ||||||
| Violent deaths | 58,256 | 44,603 | 383 | 747 | 5,596 | 6,927 |
| Suicides | 14,356 | 10,330 | 157 | 84 | 3,411 | 374 |
| Deported (forced labor, USSR) | 49,542 | 32,947 | 1,566 | 6,465 | 705 | 7,859 |
| In internment camps | 80,522 | 27,847 | 952 | 1,037 | 6,615 | 44,071 |
| During the wartime flight | 93,283 | 86,860 | 2,394 | 738 | 629 | 2,662 |
| In the course of the expulsions | 63,876 | 57,814 | 3,510 | 561 | 1,481 | 510 |
| Cause undetermined | 112,612 | 106,991 | 64 | 3,116 | 379 | 2,062 |
| Other, misc. | 566 | - | 38 | 141 | 73 | Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Demographic_estimates_of_the_flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans