Sudeten Germans - Expulsion and Transfer

Expulsion and Transfer

In the aftermath of WWII, when the Czechoslovak state was restored, the government expelled the majority of ethnic Germans (about 3 million altogether), in the belief that their behavior had been a major cause of the war and subsequent destruction. In the months directly following the end of the war, "wild" expulsions happened from May till August 1945. Several Czechoslovak statesmen encouraged such expulsions by polemical speeches. Generally local authorities ordered the expulsions, which armed volunteers carried out. In some cases the regular army initiated or assisted such expulsions. Several thousand Germans were murdered during the expulsion, and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence of becoming refugees.

The regular transfer of ethnic nationals among nations, authorized according the Potsdam Conference, proceeded from 25 January 1946 till October 1946. An estimated 1.6 million "ethnic Germans" (most of them also had Czech ancestors; and even Czechs, who spoke mainly German over the last years), were deported from Czechoslovakia to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany). Estimates of casualties related to this expulsion range between 20,000 and 200,000 people, depending on source. Casualties included primarily violent deaths and suicides, rape, deaths in internment camps and natural causes.

Even the German Charles-Ferdinand University could not escape expulsion. The remaining faculty, students, and administrators fled to Munich in Bavaria, where they established the Collegium Carolinum, a research institute for the study of the Bohemian lands.

Many German refugees from the Czechoslovak Republic are represented by the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft. In the 2001 census, 39,106 people in the Czech Republic claimed German ancestry.