#7 - RW 9-24-04 - RW Home
RIA Novosti
September 22, 2004
DON'T REWRITE HISTORY
MOSCOW, (Igor MAXIMYCHEV, D. Sc. (History) for RIA Novosti)

Smaller Europe's attempts to isolate itself from Russia will never facilitate the creation of a Greater Europe. Such efforts will only lead to this particular result. This is highlighted by a rather strange project: The German union of exiles suggests establishing a center of German exiles in Berlin. In short, today when the world has marked the 90th anniversary of the beginning of World War I in August this year, while the 60th anniversary of victory in World War II will be marked next year, some people have started revising history, although it is common knowledge that the Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to the Allied victory.

The afore-mentioned organization officially aims to protect the interests of German nationals, who had been deported from their traditional places of residence on former German or adjacent territories (that were taken away from Germany in line with the 1945 Potsdam conference's decisions).

Eastern European countries had listed this organization among other revenge-seeking organizations in the past. However, today the project's authors keep assuring everyone that they have no intention of hurting old wounds.

In their opinion, European nations should know all about the ordeal of millions of German deportees after the Second World War. This idea's authors believe their project contributes to rapprochement between nations because solid mutual understanding can only be achieved by gaining a complete and objective insight into historic facts.

Well, they seem right, after all. All innocent war victims, Germans included, deserve sympathy and solidarity, regardless of their national affiliation. However, any efforts to use such sympathy and solidarity for inciting a hostile attitude toward a nation that had made the greatest sacrifices for the sake of mankind's peaceful future, i.e. the Russian nation, amount to extreme political unscrupulousness. This is what is the center-of-exiles idea is all about.

A cursory examination of post-war facts highlights a rather unusual Soviet role in deporting German nationals.

Soviet citizens apparently had no reason to sympathize with Germans after those horrible atrocities, which had been committed by the Wehrmacht and the SS on Soviet territory. However, Soviet occupation authorities in Germany had repeatedly contacted Moscow, asking that the Soviet government mitigate the sufferings of Germans being deported from neighboring countries. Soviet military commandants in those specific East German districts, which bordered on Czechoslovakia and Poland, constantly reported the inhuman deportation of Germans by Czech and Polish authorities. This was particularly true of Goerlitz, which accommodated Sudetenland deportees, as well as those from western Poland.

Soviet military authorities in those areas informed Moscow in the summer of 1945 that Sudetenland Germans, mostly women, old people and children, had been given only 60 minutes to pack their belongings. They were not allowed to take property worth more than five marks, leaving their places of residence on foot. The relevant deportee-arrival timeframe wasn't coordinated with the Soviet side. Consequently, the provision of even temporary accommodations in war-ravaged areas presented an extremely serious problem. The arrival of virtually impoverished German deportees into the war-torn Soviet occupation zone right after the cessation of hostilities was a tremendous burden on the local population and the Soviet military administration. Army reserves alone were used to feed the population. Many deportees died en route to Germany, with many of the luckier ones committing suicide on German territory. Soviet officers, who had fought their German foes not so long ago, were really alarmed in this connection, reporting all these outrages to their superiors.

The resettlement of German nationals from Silesia, which became part and parcel of Poland, was even more painful. Famine among the German population, as well as the refusal of Polish authorities to feed the Germans, was reported more than once. Polish paramilitary units used to kill German nationals at random; add to this unjustified arrests and lengthy prison terms involving beatings and other kinds of humiliation. Soviet military authorities also mentioned reprisals against anti-Nazi Germans; the cooperation of German nationals with the Red Army often served as legal grounds for such reprisals. All Germans were given just 20-30 minutes to pack up and leave, with each person taking no more than 20 kg. German nationals often asked Soviet soldiers for help. In some cases, deportees torched their homes, so that the Poles could not use them. There were many sick people, i.e. classical-typhus, itch, dysentery and frostbite cases, among those Silesian Germans arriving in the Soviet occupation zone. They were transported inside unequipped and cold railcars without any prior agreement whatsoever.

Moscow analyzed military-authority reports thoroughly enough, trying to alleviate the plight of deportees leaving Czechoslovakia and Poland (through diplomatic channels), albeit rather cautiously, so as not to sour incipient trustful relations with these countries. The relevant documents prove that Czech authorities were more willing to cooperate, with Polish authorities behaving more reluctantly. One should keep in mind that about 3 million Germans were deported from Czechoslovakia, with nearly 4 million leaving western Poland.

The behavior of Soviet authorities with regard to the Kaliningrad region's population showed that Germans could be resettled in Germany by more humane methods. (The Kaliningrad region became a component part of the USSR in 1945 - Ed.) Most Germans were deported from the Kaliningrad region over the 1947-1948 period, that is, when the situation inside the Soviet occupation zone had become more or less normal. That deportation differed completely from previous ones (though it was still deportation). In October 1947, the first train carried deportees from Kaliningrad into the Soviet occupation zone. Per-family luggage quotas totalled 300 kg in accordance with standard Soviet customs rules. Each person was issued dry 15-day rations in line with Soviet-style norms for industrial workers and communications-industry personnel. Certain sums were exchanged for German marks. Doctors and nurses were placed on trains riding along surviving European-gauge tracks; up to 10,000 people were transported by trains each month. More than 100,000 people were resettled over a 12-month period. Reports dealing with the pace of deportation were sent to Moscow, emphasizing the fact that deportees didn't voice any complaints. The Germans wrote about 280 letters to Soviet guards, thanking them for their humane treatment of them.

Still let's discuss the union of exiles project once more. This project caused quite a stir in Warsaw and Prague. First of all, this can be explained by the Prussian trust foundation's efforts to institute restitution and material-compensation lawsuits at international courts. The German Government launched consultations with Poland and the Czech republic in order to prevent the aggravation of Germany's relations with new members of the European Union. And here is the most interesting aspect of this story.

Polish representatives demanded that such issues be discussed in greater detail, saying that the fate of all European exiles, first of all Polish nationals, who had allegedly been forcibly deported from western Ukraine and western Belarus after their incorporation into the Soviet Union, was one of its aspects. It should be mentioned in this connection that the population of western Ukraine and western Belarus had independently tackled all citizenship issues, either moving to Poland or staying home. Polish authorities themselves insisted on the fastest possible resettlement because they wanted to colonize those depopulated Silesian territories. The resettlement process itself was quite normal, with deportees getting maximum possible assistance and support.

In the long run, German, Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian authorities decided to set up documentation centers all over Europe, rather than the Berlin center of exiles, for the sake of preserving intra-EU peace. These centers will store documents on deportations and deportees. Judging by the statements of some parties to this project, the above-mentioned centers will focus on Stalinist crimes (sic!). It seems that such documentation centers, i.e. the so-called memory and solidarity network, can eventually turn into a network of alienation and animosity, reviving and inciting all previous, existing and incipient intra-EU ethnic, territorial and confessional disputes.

Various problems, which were mentioned by the union of German exiles, do exist. However, such problems are closely linked with specific realities, which were created by the criminal actions on the part of Germany, which had unleashed both world wars, as well as by the behavior of foreign politicians, who had provided Germany with that opportunity. Those inter-related 20-th century events should be examined by scientists, i.e. historians and political scientists, demographers and economists, rather than by acting politicians. These scientists must receive all the required materials.

Quite possibly, we should study the possibility of establishing a European institute of 20-th century history. That institute would compile a joint scientific paper for the sake of objectively covering events of that time, which proved crucial for Europe and the entire world.