![Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1985-021-09, Flüchtlinge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1985-021-09%2C_Fl%C3%BCchtlinge.jpg)
The German Expellees or ''Heimatvertriebene'' (, "homeland expellees") are 12-16 million
German citizens (regardless of ethnicity) and
ethnic Germans (regardless of citizenship)
who fled or were expelled after World War II from
parts of Germany annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union and from other countries (the so-called ''einheitliches Vertreibungsgebiet'', i.e. uniform territory of expulsion), who found refuge in both
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
and
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, and
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
.
Refugees who had fled voluntarily but were later refused permission to return are often not distinguished from those who were forcibly deported. By the definition of the West German
Federal Expellee Law
The Federal Law on Refugees and Exiles (german: Bundesvertriebenengesetz, BVFG; ''Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge''; literally: Law on the affairs of the expellees and refugees) is a federal law passed by the Fede ...
, enacted on 19 May 1953, refugees of German citizenship or German ethnicity, whose return to their home places was denied, were treated like expellees, thus the frequent general usage of the term expellees for refugees alike.
Distinguished are refugees and expellees who had neither German citizenship nor German ethnicity but as a matter of fact had fled or been expelled from their former domiciles and stranded in West Germany or West Berlin before 1951. They were taken care of – as part of the
displaced persons
Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...
– by international refugee organisations until 1951 and then by West German authorities granting them the extra status of "
heimatloser Ausländer" with preferential naturalisation rules, distinct from other legal aliens or stateless people. Occupational functionaries and other German expatriates, who had moved to German-annexed or German-occupied foreign territory only due to the war were not considered expellees by law unless they showed circumstances (such as marrying a resident of the respective area) providing for the intention to settle abroad also for the time after the war. Besides the narrow legal definition for the Heimatvertriebene, there were also other groups accepted as Vertriebene (expellees) such as the
Aussiedler
The right of return is a principle in international law which guarantees everyone's right of voluntary return to, or re-entry to, their country of origin or of citizenship. The right of return is part of the broader human rights concept freedom ...
. These comprised 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 but not later as 31 December 1992.
[Cf. Federal Expellee Law, § 1 (2) No. 3.]
In a document signed in 1950 the ''Heimatvertriebene'' organisations recognised the plight of the different groups of people living in today's Poland who were resettled there by force. The Heimatvertriebene are just one (but by far the largest) of the groups of millions of other people, from many different countries, who all found refuge in today's Germany.
Some of the expellees are active in politics and belong to the political right wing. Many others do not belong to any organizations, but they continue to maintain what they call a
lawful right to their homeland. The vast majority pledged to work peacefully towards that goal while rebuilding post-war Germany and Europe.
The expellees are still highly active in German politics, and are one of the major social groups of the nation, with around 2 million members. A president of the
Federation of Expellees was a member of the
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...
. Although expellees and their descendants were active in West German politics, the prevailing political climate within West Germany was that of atonement for
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
actions. However, the
CDU governments have shown considerable support for the expellees and German civilian victims.
Expellee towns
As a result of the huge influx of expellees, there was a massive increase of population in some areas such as
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg (; nds, label= Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schweri ...
(where population numbers doubled), and in some places the previous homogeneity of the population was broken by Protestant expellees moving to a purely Catholic area or conversely. The population numbers of a number of small settlements in West Germany exploded permanently due to a refugee camp on their territory or nearby. Examples of this phenomenon include ''Neugablonz'', a quarter of
Kaufbeuren
Kaufbeuren (; Bavarian: ''Kaufbeiren'') is an independent town in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Swabia, Bavaria. The town is an enclave within the district of Ostallgäu.
Districts
Kaufbeuren consists of nine districts:
* Kaufbeuren (town core i ...
in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
, founded by the expellees and named after
Gablonz (Jablonec nad Nisou). Neugablonz nowadays makes up a third of the town's population. An extreme example of the population explosion is
Neutraubling (also in Bavaria), which had 53 inhabitants in 1947, 1300 in 1951, and 3800 in 1960. Since the refugee camps were mostly located on the sites of former hidden ammunition factories, most of these ''Vertriebenenstädte'' are located in a (former) forest. See also
Espelkamp
Espelkamp ( nds, Espelkämpe) is a town in the Minden-Lübbecke district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Geography
Espelkamp is situated approximately 10 kilometers north of Lübbecke and 20 kilometers north-west of Minden.
Neighbouring pla ...
.
See also
*
Aussiedler
The right of return is a principle in international law which guarantees everyone's right of voluntary return to, or re-entry to, their country of origin or of citizenship. The right of return is part of the broader human rights concept freedom ...
(
:de:Aussiedler)
*
*
Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)
During later stages of World War II and post-war period from 1944 to 1950, Germans fled and were expelled to present-day Germany from Eastern Europe, which led to de-Germanization there. The idea to expel the Germans from the annexed territor ...
*
Federation of Expellees
*
Glossary of the Third Reich
This is a list of words, terms, concepts and slogans of Nazi Germany used in the historiography covering the Nazi regime.
Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members. Other words and concepts were borrowed and appropriated, ...
Gallery
File:Ostlandkreuz Schorndorf.jpg, Ostlandkreuz
Ostlandkreuz (German for "Eastern Lands Cross") or Kreuz des deutschen Ostens ("Cross of the German East") is the name of memorial crosses in Germany remembering the large-scale Ethnic cleansing of Central and Eastern Europe of its German-speaking ...
between Schorndorf
Schorndorf is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located approximately 26 km east of Stuttgart. Its train station is the terminus of the S2 line of the Stuttgart S-Bahn.
The town is also sometimes referred to as ' (''The Daimler Tow ...
and Winterbach
File:Oberursel, Vertriebenendenkmal.JPG, Memorial in Oberursel
Oberursel (Taunus) () is a town in Germany and part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area. It is located to the north west of Frankfurt, in the Hochtaunuskreis county. It is the 13th largest town in Hesse. In 2011, the town hosted the 51st He ...
File:Bad Homburg Denkmal Egerland.jpg, Memorial in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe
Bad Homburg vor der Höhe () is the district town of the Hochtaunuskreis, Hesse, on the southern slope of the Taunus mountains. Bad Homburg is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area. The town's official name is ''Bad Homburg v.d.Höhe'', w ...
Notes
{{Authority control
Aftermath of World War II in Germany
Post–World War II forced migrations