Flight and Expulsion of Germans From Poland During and After World War II - Expulsions Following The Potsdam Conference

Expulsions Following The Potsdam Conference

After the Potsdam Conference, Poland was officially in charge of the territories east of the Oder Neisse line. Despite the fact that article 8 of Potsdam agreement from August 2, 1945 stated that "population transfer" should be performed in ordered and humane manner, and should not commence until after the creation of an expulsion plan approved by the Allied Control Council, the expulsions continued without rules and were associated with many criminal acts.

While the Polish administration had set up a State Repatriation Office (Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny, PUR), the bureau and its administrative subunits proved ineffective due to quarrels between Communists and opposition and a lack of equipment for the giant task of expelling Germans and resettling Poles in an area devastated by war. Furthermore, rivalry occurred between the Soviet occupation forces and the newly-installed Polish administration, a phenomenon dubbed dwuwladza (double administration). The Soviets kept trains and German workmen regardless of the Polish ambitions and plans.

The waves of expulsions after the Potsdam conference must also be seen in the context of the contemporary, likewise unorganized, resettling of displaced or homeless Poles. Polish settlers, who themselves had been expelled from areas east of the Curzon line, arrived with about nothing, putting an even higher pressure on the remaining Germans to leave. For the Germans, the Potsdam Agreement eased conditions only in one way - because now the Poles were more confident in keeping the former eastern territories of Germany, the expulsions were performed with less haste, which meant the Germans were duly informed about their expulsions earlier and were allowed to carry some luggage.

Another problem the Germans and, to a lesser extent, even the newly arrived Poles were facing was an enormous crime wave, most notably theft and rape, committed by gangs not only consisting of regular criminals but also Soviet soldiers, deserters or former forced laborers (Ostarbeiter), coming back from the west. In Upper Silesia, a party official, complained about some Polish security forces and militia raping and pillaging the German population and a general loss of sense for right and wrong. Much abuse also came from large Soviet contingents stationed in Poland after the war. A high number of crimes committed by regular Soviet soldiers - on both German and Polish populace - had been reported (see Rape during the liberation of Poland). A high death toll among the few Polish officials who dared to investigate these cases followed. Yet, Soviet troops played an ambiguous role, as there are also cases where Soviets freed local Germans imprisoned by Poles, or delayed expulsions to keep German workforce, for example on farms providing Soviet troops (for instance in Słupsk).

The damaged infrastructure and quarrels between the Allied authorities in the occupation zones of Germany and the Polish administration caused long delays in the transport of expellees, who were first ordered to gather at one of the various PUR transportation centers or internment camps and then often forced to wait in ill-equipped barracks, exposed both to criminals, aggressive guards and the cold and not supplied sufficiently with food due to the overall shortages. The "organized transfer" as agreed at the Potsdam Conference began in early 1946 and subsequently evolved in a process coordinated with British and Soviet authorities in occupied Germany. Conditions for expellees improved, yet due to the lack of heating facilities, the cold winters of both 1945/46 and 1946/47 continued to claim many lives. On September 13, 1946 President Bierut signed a decree on “the separation of the Germans from the Polish people" The major evictions were completed in 1946, although another 500,000 Germans arrived in the Soviet Zone from Poland in 1947. An unknown number remained; a small German minority continues to reside in Upper Silesia and Masuria.