Germans of Hungary - Expulsion

Expulsion

The main factor that brought the expulsion of Germans from Hungary into focus during the Potsdam Agreement negotiations was the Czechoslovakian proposal of expelling the Hungarian-speaking population from Slovakia together with the Germans of the Sudetenland. Eduard Benes demanded the expulsion of Hungarians alongside Germans from Czechoslovakian territory already in 1943 supported by the Soviet Union. (He originally planned to expel 600,000 Hungarians, around 90% of the total Hungarian population at that time.) Benes’ plan was not supported by the United States or Great Britain. Due to the diplomatic pressure from the Soviet Union the treaty imposed the expulsion of Germans on Hungary.

In Hungary, the Potsdam decision was the starting point of the expulsion process, whereas for Poland and Czechoslovakia the Allied Powers’ decision gave official recognition to the ethnic cleansing that had already been carried out. Moreover, Hungary, unlike other countries, had never demanded a total expulsion of her Germans and did not start to expel the German speaking population after the end of the war. The Hungarian Government rejected the idea of collective responsibility, for as long as it could. The expulsion of Germans from Hungary was opposed by both the government and the population of Hungary.

The expulsion of German-speaking people from Hungary began in 1946 in Budapest and continued until 1948. The Hungarian government was forced to take action by the occupying Soviet forces. All of their objections were rejected by the US and UK governments.

The Hungarian Parliament decided in the summer of 1945 that the German-speaking population must be expelled from Hungary, and they passed laws forming the framework of such a movement on December 22, 1945. They took effect under an executive order issued January 4, 1946. The expulsion orders affected anyone who claimed German nationality or German as a mother language in the 1941 Hungarian census, anyone who was a member of a German ethnic organization, former members of the SS, and anyone who changed their Hungarianized surnames back to their German equivalents. At first, expelled Hungarian Germans were sent to the American-occupied section of Germany, but this was stopped on June 1, 1946, because the Americans would not allow Hungary to pay its war debts by simply returning seized assets to the displaced Germans. Approximately 170,000 Germans were sent to the American zone of occupied Germany in this time period. Another round of expulsions began in August 1947, but this time the expelled Germans were sent to the Soviet-occupied area of Germany. Many times, Germans were expelled from Hungary because of forced evictions from their properties. This phase of expulsions was more haphazard and unplanned, as some villages of Germans were expelled, whereas others were left untouched. Most Germans removed in this round of expulsions moved to refugee camps in the Soviet-controlled German province of Saxony.