Ancient history

German refugees

The displacement of the German population took place following a reshaping of the borders. The Germans who were in Poland, for example, had to set off for Germany. But this also concerned those in the territory prized by Poland. The expulsion of the population was justified by what is called post-war “Germanophobia”. In a Europe that had suffered the yoke of the Third Reich, pity for the executioners was inconceivable, although the displaced Germans did not necessarily have a direct relationship with Nazism. But Nazism has precisely become a reference:it is evoked to say that there is nothing worse. In 1945, the situation turned around:the Germans were the target of humiliation and intimidation, risking death if they did not return home very quickly, and if their home was in Germany. The denunciation no longer concerns the Jews, nor the resistance fighters, but the Germans that no population wants to see on its lands. The latter find themselves uprooted, losing their property and their jobs. If the Red Army deserted countries like Czechoslovakia and Hungary of all Germans, it was first to punish them for the imposed occupation but also to recover the lands that had been stolen from them. The main thing was to regain homogenization in these traumatized countries, and to no longer fear seeing Nazism reborn in them. The suffering of the Germans was ignored, and did not stop when they returned to Germany where the welcome was worse than their hasty departure.