1,958 words
R. M. Douglas
Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012
After reading a book or two and watching a few hours of TV documentaries on the couch, most smugly imagine that they know something of World War II. Most, of course, know nothing. What most think about WWII is what the winners want them to think about WWII; we call it the victor’s version of history. That version is a rather neat and tidy account, a clean and pleasing morality play of heroes and villains, of good versus evil, of catchy and easy to remember phrases like “Crusade in Europe,” the “Good War,” the “Greatest Generation,” “Nazi butchers,” “Hitler, the Evil Madman,” “Six Million,” etc. That black and white version paints the losers as all-evil, all-vicious, all-enslaving, all-everything bad and it paints the winners as all-good, all-suffering, all-liberating, all-noble, all-virtuous. But then, I’m wasting time on things most of you already know.
World War Two was man’s greatest cataclysm. Nothing else comes close. Tens of millions died, tens of millions were raped, tens of millions were enslaved, tens of millions were uprooted and cast to the wind, and the thing that Western man loves more than life itself—his freedom—was taken. With the fall of Germany and its allies in the spring of 1945, the forces of darkness stood gloating and triumphant. The last significant opposition to their grand designs on the West had been crushed, and now they went to work dividing the spoils and sucking the last drop of blood from the vanquished. One might imagine that from such an earth-shaking, epochal event every facet would have by now been studied down to the last detail by the world’s historians and academics, but one would imagine wrong. Precisely because the war was won by the forces of hate and evil, only one half of the story has ever been told and that, of course, is the side the winners chose to tell us.
Slowly, slowly, after nearly 70 years, the details from what it looked like down there in the grave where the losers lay are beginning to surface. And what is being revealed is a crime so monstrous, so enormous, and so hideous in its length and breadth that words have not yet been invented to describe it. So vicious and persistent was the anti-German propaganda, and so deep and pervasive was the consequent hatred for everything German both during and after the war, that this nearly successful attempt to extirpate the German people was committed with hardly a stir from the “civilized world.” So utterly demonized were the Germans by the largely Jewish press around the world that virtually anything could be said about Germany, virtually any crime could be committed against its helpless population, and none would raise a hand or offer a word against it. The evidence of crimes committed and the criminals who committed them have always been there. The horrifying accounts have remained in various archives and journals gathering nearly 70 years of dust but except for an intrepid few no historians have mustered the courage to reveal these dark secrets to the world.
In addition to deliberate attempts to kill every man, woman, and child in Germany by the Allied air forces with their terror bombing and “targets of opportunity” campaign (red crosses on hospital roofs were especial targets), a similar slaughter was taking place below as the invading hordes of the Soviet Union raped and/or murdered virtually every German that fell into their hands. On the Baltic Sea, a similar slaughter was taking place as Allied submarines and bombers sank every refugee ship they could find, killing tens of thousands of helpless women, children, the sick, and the elderly.
After the war, when the so-called peace was declared, millions of German POWs were herded into muddy outdoor fields where they remained without food, water, shelter, or medical treatment. Although there was plenty of food available, and although rivers often ran just beyond the barbed wire, Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight. D. Eisenhower, was determined to kill as many of the defeated as he could before world reaction stepped in to stop the slaughter.
“God, I hate the German,” hissed the future American president.
In other parts of defeated Germany, hell on earth was unleashed when Jewish émigrés and those released from concentration camps, with Allied bayonets to back them, rounded up German soldiers and civilians, men and women, then placed them in their own Jewish-run death camps. In addition to suffering some of the most sadistic and sickening tortures the mind can conjure, hundreds of thousands of these Germans were simply beaten to death, drowned, or buried alive.
One of the most heartless and deadly crimes committed against helpless Germans was the forced removal from their homes. Orderly and Humane—The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War by R. M. Douglas seeks to shed light on this little known aspect of World War II history. The story is a tragic one. First, some seven million Germans living in the eastern provinces of the Reich–Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia–were violently uprooted by land-hungry and vengeful Poles and ordered to leave, sometimes with only a few minutes’ notice. Then, several million more, many whose families had lived for centuries in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and other central European nations were expelled by their envious and blood-thirsty neighbors. It is estimated that of the 12 to 14 million Germans cast to the wind, as many as two million perished. Many were slaughtered in hideous ways; others succumbed to the elements. In spite of Allied assurances to the world that the removal of these pathetic refugees was carried out in an “orderly and humane” manner, their lies were soon shown to be mere Orwellian double-speak.
I wanted to like this book. I wanted to welcome Professor Douglas into the world of truth-seekers. I wanted to praise both his bravery and honesty as well as his careful scholarship. But after only a short spin through the book, I discovered that I could not. From the outset, Douglas–a card-carrying court historian–wants to make it perfectly clear to his academic peers and the Jewish media watchdogs who stand in his career path with suspicious eyes and folded arms, that he has the “right stuff”; that this project is merely a scholarly study to understand post-war politics and European population dynamics and not an attempt to enlist sympathy for the Germans themselves; for the thousands of brained German babies, for the tens of thousands of murdered German men, for the hundreds of thousands of raped German women.
“It is appropriate at the outset,” sniffs Douglas in his intro, “to state explicitly that no legitimate comparison can be drawn between the postwar expulsions and the appalling record of German offenses against Jews and other innocent victims between 1939 and 1945. The extent of Nazi criminality and barbarity in central and eastern Europe is on a scale and of a degree that is almost impossible to overstate. In the entire span of human history, nothing can be found to surpass it, nor . . . to equal it. Germany’s neighbors suffered most grievously and unjustifiably at her hands, and were profoundly traumatized as a result. Whatever occurred after the war cannot possibly be equated to the atrocities perpetrated by Germans during it, and suggestions to the contrary—including those made by expellees themselves—are both deeply offensive and historically illiterate. Nothing I have written in the book should be taken to suggest otherwise.”
With that nifty bit of genuflecting, with his kosher credentials seemingly intact, Douglas no doubt imagines that he will hence be given a life-long pass to enter the happy halls of historians. As this groveling academic will find out soon enough, a Christian writing about “controversial” Christian subjects will never crawl fast enough or far enough to satisfy his commissars.
In fairness to Douglas, he does go where few have gone before. The expulsion of Germans from the ancestral homes, many families of whom had lived there hundreds of years, is a crime so enormous and cruel that had it been the only crime committed by the Allies it would have been more than enough to convict them for all times to come as war criminals and inhuman monsters. Unfortunately, this Douglas tome is dry and dead as dust.
The German victims themselves are almost never heard from. Perhaps it is because Douglas feels Germans are not to be trusted. Citing that high moral authority, Edvard Beneš, the bloody butcher who orchestrated the massacre of Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, Douglas quotes: “All German stories should not, of course, be believed, for Germans always exaggerated and were the first to whine and to try to enlist outside sympathy.” As a consequence, Douglas thereupon announces that he has thus “made it a rule to exclude direct expellee testimony that is not supported by independent sources.”
One must wonder just who these “independent sources” are that could provide better testimony than the victims themselves, but then again, perhaps that is not too hard to figure out. One must also wonder if Douglas would demand “independent sources” to support the statements of Jewish “survivors” and their extravagant claims of bestial Nazi atrocities? Of human soap? Of human lamp shades? Of shower heads spewing clouds of gas? Would he say those statements were also deeply offensive and historically illiterate? Right! And that is what separates this hypocritical court historian from an honest, unbiased truth-seeker.
Although a capable, competent study, as modern histories go, so intent is Douglas to dwell in the details of politics, borders, statistics, and demographics, that the personal and human is totally lost. One hardly is aware that the subjects of his book were actually real people, people who lived, breathed, suffered, cried, and all too often, people who died.
Nowhere is heard the screams of disarmed German soldiers as they were doused in gas by mobs and hung upside down like living torches. Nowhere is found the pathos of a mother, without shelter or food, watching her tiny child die of starvation right before her eyes. Nowhere are heard the groans of women, “from 8 to 80,” forced to endure one rape after another as they slowly bled to death.
This trend in modern historical writing—“historiography,” as it is stuffily called—is one reason why the reading of history has fallen in disrepute and why such books similar to Douglas’ cannot even be given away to the public. It is also why promising students upon entering college major in anything but history. This is the type of lifeless, insipid writing that kills the heat in a history-loving heart. I suppose it is easier for a reader to dismiss several million dead Germans if they fall asleep reading the book rather than transforming them into very real people who were deliberately murdered in cold blood.
What happened to Germany during and after the war was actually a crime wrapped around a crime—the evil abomination that was committed against the German people was the initial crime and the crime that kept it dark and hidden for almost 70 years was the other. If for no other reason, Orderly and Humane is important simply because of its existence and the tacit admission, tedious as it is, that once upon a time during the “Good War” this terrible crime did indeed occur.
* * *
Thomas Goodrich is a professional writer living in Florida. Tom’s most recent book, Hellstorm: The Death Of Nazi Germany, 1944–1947
21 comments
I am reading this book now, and it is indeed amazing how so very little is known on this subject. While only a few chapters into the book, I feel that I have to come to the defense of the author. In regards to denigrating him for his genuflection to the powers to be, it must be noted that this book would not have been published had he not profered his findings on bented knee. If this book were not published I, along with the thousands of people that will read the book, would know nothing of the largest transfer of population in the history of the world. I also noticed that the author of the book repeatedly pointed out the ineptitude of the Nazi government in handling the in flow of hundreds of thousands of Germans from Eastern Europe. Is it his way of showing the logistical impossibility of moving, housing, and feeding the millions upon millions of jews, gypsies, gays, etc. around Eastern Europe for couple of years just just to ultimately gas them?
Cut the author some slack, at least it’s a beginning…
“In regards to denigrating him for his genuflection to the powers to be, it must be noted that this book would not have been published had he not profered his findings on bented knee. If this book were not published I, along with the thousands of people that will read the book, would know nothing of the largest transfer of population in the history of the world.”
The post-WW2 expulsion of Germans was already known before this book. People who grovel deserve to be denigrated.
I didn’t know about it.
Prior to the book being published I aksed Prof. Douglas whether he was worried that he would be accused of “relativising the Holocaust,” which the sagely Prof. Lipstadt states is worse than “Holocaust denial.” Prof. Douglas replied:
‘Indeed I would not, for reasons that are set forth in the book itself’. (Kerry Bolton, Journal of Inconvenient History, “Historical Revisionism and Relativising the Holocaust,” http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2012/volume_4/number_2/historical_revisionism_and_relativising_the_holocaust.php
Now I understand what he meant.
Quote: ““All German stories should not, of course, be believed, for Germans always exaggerated and were “All German stories should not, of course, be believed, for Germans always exaggerated and were the first to whine and to try to enlist outside sympathy.”.”
There’s only one people who are “ the first to whine and to try to enlist outside sympathy.”
& that’s the chosenite!
While I think that Goodrich’s and Douglas’s books (among others such as by Alfred de Zayas and Giles MacDonogh) are very important, I also think there is no way to deny that “the forces of hate and evil” were at work on the defeated’s side as well, even if revisionist corrections and arguments are considered. Mass killings, genocidal measures, deportations and forced removals did happen on the Axis side on a large scale as well. I don’t think the present image of WWII can be merely reverted, with the good guys and the bad guys switched. Maybe the “good vs. evil” image is the wrong frame in the first place. I initially was drawn to that theme “other side of WWII” out of my disgust for hypocrisy, and I think it is important to remain objective.
Perhaps one of the best example of blow back for Germany sheltering and supporting Jewish Marxist refugees and terrorists from Tsarist Russia and supporting Lenin during WW1 to take over Russia.
The other was Hitler admiration of the British Empire and an envisioned alliance of Britain and Germany ruling over Europe not seeing how it would be seen as an economic threat to British influence in Europe.
In Germany where they had organisations to deal with Jewish refugees during the pogroms in Tzarist Russia and advocacy groups against Russia. They were not supported by the state but tolerated.
Japans expansion was not to fight Communism but increase its own territorial ambition.
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/jews-and-gentiles-living-together-in-america-from-1939-to-1945/
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/jews-and-gentiles-living-together-in-america-from-1945-to-1947/
The real lesson to be learned by Americans, and other nationalities, from what happened to the post war explusion of millions of “folks” Deutche,etc. is, DON’T BE CAUGHT IN A GOVERNMENT THAT NO LONGER CONSIDERS YOU A CITIZEN!! This was exactly why this happened to those people. All of their former rights went up in the smoke of WW ll
It would be a good gesture toward reconciliation if East European countries, Poland, Chekoslovakia,Ukraine and especially Russia, if they formally apologize for the injustices and brutality toward Germans at the end of the WWII. I believe most of the people of Easter Europe have no animosity toward Germans,and many have admiration for the German culture.This is especially true for educated ones.
I’ve read RM Douglas’ account of the ethnic cleansing of Germans from Eastern Europe, it’s quite accurate. It’s one of history’s most forgotten tragedies, one that few people still talk about.
Interestingly, many older Germans (including Martin Heidegger himself) considered the expulsion of the Volksdeutsche to be a far worse tragedy in German history than the bombing of Dresden and other famous WW2 events.
It would be a good gesture toward reconciliation if East European countries, Poland, Chekoslovakia,Ukraine and especially Russia, if they formally apologize for the injustices and brutality toward Germans at the end of the WWII.
I agree that there should be a reconciliation of some sort, although I don’t think it’s possible to get Eastern Europeans to formally apologize to Germany. There are far too many scars left from that war, and some wounds never heal. The war between the Germans and Slavs was of a very different nature from the war between the Germans and the Western Allies.
I believe most of the people of Easter Europe have no animosity toward Germans,and many have admiration for the German culture.
I don’t think they have any animosity toward the modern Germans, no. Still, the people’s feelings about WW2 are the same, and getting Russia or Poland to apologize for their post-war crimes against German civilians is just unrealistic. A very loaded question.
I do sympathize with the Volksdeutsch victims of the ethnic cleansing – but this idea is about as likely as getting Israel to apologize.
My grandmother was one of those Germans who were expelled from East Prussia. A shame I never talked about it with her in-depth, not quite grasping the meaning of it all when I was younger, and also having been brainwashed into feeling ashamed for my nation’s and family’s past. I only remember some anecdotes about fleeing over the frozen Baltic Sea. She died before I became really interested in the history of my family and history in general.
I would have drawn the boundaries differently to give the Baltic Germans and Silesians more living space, at the expense of Poland and perhaps Lithuania. However, separating Germans from Slavic peoples made good sense, particularly given German actions toward the Slavic peoples after 1941, and indeed this separation has contributed to better intra-European relations since then. It makes at least as good sense as separating the various peoples of the Balkans. This is not to condone in any way the brutality of how the separation was effected. I also notice that zionists often point to the expulsion of Germans – as well as the expulsion in the India/Pakistan partition which occurred shortly thereafter – as a justification for granting no consideration to the claims of the Palestinian refugees.
I would have drawn the boundaries differently to give the Baltic Germans and Silesians more living space, at the expense of Poland and perhaps Lithuania.
The Silesian German areas should definitely have stayed a part of Germany, although the Baltic Germans are a less clear-cut case – they were an upper middle-class group in Latvia and Estonia who never really integrated into those societies, but neither were large enough to warrant their own living space as a population.
However, separating Germans from Slavic peoples made good sense, particularly given German actions toward the Slavic peoples after 1941, and indeed this separation has contributed to better intra-European relations since then.
Indeed. Multi-ethnic societies never work out, in the long term. The hatred between Poles and Germans before and during WW2 was pretty reminiscent of the inter-Balkan hatred today.
“This trend in modern historical writing—“historiography,” as it is stuffily called—is one reason why the reading of history has fallen in disrepute and why such books similar to Douglas’ cannot even be given away to the public. It is also why promising students upon entering college major in anything but history.”
And how. I thought I would probably major in History, but retreated to the relative safety of Classics and Medieval Studies as fast as I could once I discovered what the history department was like. “Germany in the 20th Century” was the most painful course I have taken in my life.
Real history died sometime in the later half of the twentieth century.
A hypothetical question, how many Poles,Cheks, Slovaks, Ukrainians and Russians would be glad to ask expelled Germans, or any German,to resettle in Eastern Europe or Russia ?Would not that be of benefit, culturally, technologically ?
The Russian king Peter the Great asked Germans to come to Russia which brought economic and cultural progress.Or would be better to have Asians and Africans in their countries?
I am surprised how many commentators still live with old concepts of ethnicity.
Or may be I am a dreamer?
A hypothetical question, how many Poles,Cheks, Slovaks, Ukrainians and Russians would be glad to ask expelled Germans, or any German,to resettle in Eastern Europe or Russia ?
Poles and Czechs would never ask Germans to return. Especially not the Poles. It’s just not possible. As I said, the historical scars are too deep.
They’d probably fit into Russia without any problem, since it’s such a huge country in the first place. But why would the expelled Germans or their descendants even want to move there? People usually need an urgent economic reason to migrate, and Germans live much more comfortably in Germany than they would in Russia. There simply isn’t enough incentive to move.
(In fact, it’s the descendants of the Volga Germans who have packed their bags and left for Germany, not vice-versa.)
Would not that be of benefit, culturally, technologically ?
Probably a technological benefit, yes. Culturally? That’s subjective.
The Russian king Peter the Great asked Germans to come to Russia which brought economic and cultural progress. Or would be better to have Asians and Africans in their countries?
Today’s situation is not the same as Peter the Great’s time. He imported Germans in order to bring up Russia’s technology and military to the same level as Prussia and other Western countries.
I am surprised how many commentators still live with old concepts of ethnicity.
Those concepts of ethnicity are real, regardless of how you “live” with them. Germans are Germans, Poles are Poles, Russians are Russians, and so on. These are all valid ethnic identities, with their own unique traits and histories behind them. And since identity is only involuntarily cast into your consciousness (i.e., it needs a counter-identity) all these peoples only become “white” in the presence of non-whites.
This is why your comment about African/Asian immigration is totally irrelevant to the debate about the dispossessed Volksdeutsche. It doesn’t matter which race committed the ethnic cleansing against the Volksdeutsche, it’s ethnic cleansing all the same.
If anyone wants proof of this history, my Father lived it! Contact me.
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