Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans

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Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans have been derived by either the compilation of registered dead and missing persons or by a comparison of pre war and post war population data. Estimates of the number of displaced Germans vary in the range of 12.0–16.5 million. The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions was estimated at 2.2 million by the West German government in 1958 using the population balance method. German records which became public in 1987 have caused some historians in Germany to put the actual total at about 500,000 based on the listing of confirmed deaths. The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000 victims and says that the official figure of 2 million did not stand up to later review. However, the German Red Cross still maintains that the total death toll of the expulsions is 2,251,500 persons.

Due to a lack of accurate records listing confirmed deaths, estimates of German population transfers from 1945–1950 and associated deaths depended upon a population balance methodology. West German government official figures derived during the 1950s using the population balance method put the death toll at about 2 million. Recently some German historians believe the death toll is closer to 500,000 based on recently disclosed documentation that listed only confirmed deaths. The wide range of estimates stems from a number of factors. First, the ethnic German population in 1939 was by no means certain because bilingual persons were of dubious German ethnic identity. Second, Civilian losses were overstated because German military casualties in 1945 were poorly documented. Third, After the war it was difficult to gather reliable population data; post war census data in Central and Eastern Europe did not breakout the ethnic German population and during the Cold War there was a lack of cooperation between West Germany and communist bloc countries in the effort to locate persons reported missing. Persons reported missing may have been living in Eastern Europe after having been assimilated into the local population. Estimates of total populations expelled and deaths often include figures from the evacuation, because these people were not allowed to return, thus making it difficult to arrive at an accurate and undisputed estimate of population movements and deaths due solely to the expulsions. Some of the differences may arise from political bias, as the expulsion of Germans was widely utilized as political weapon during the Cold War. There are also disputes over the definition of "expulsion", which may cover the flight and evacuation during the war as well as forced labor and internment before expulsion and deaths due to malnutrition and disease in the post war era. The estimated losses include civilians killed in battle during the flight and evacuation in the final months of the war as well as direct intentional actions of violent soldiers, militias and senseless killings by opportunistic mobs and individuals in the immediate aftermath of the war. Other deaths occurred in post war internment camps and the deportation to the USSR for forced labor. The privations of a forced migration in a postwar environment characterized by crime, chaos, famine, disease, and cold winter conditions added to the death toll. West German sources give only rough estimates to attribute the proportions of these deaths to specific causes.

The West German government during the cold war conducted investigations of the wartime flight and expulsions. The Schieder commission published a series of reports that documented the expulsions based on eyewitness accounts. Schieder chronicled the flight and expulsions, but did not provide background on the wartime crimes of Nazi Germany in Central and Eastern Europe that motivated the Allies to expel the Germans after the war. Schieder in 1953 estimated that 2 million persons perished in Poland, a figure that continues to endure in Germany. Schieder's estimate of the casualties was superseded by a separate demographic analysis of prepared by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, in 1958 they estimated losses at 2.225 million. The German Church Search Service working with the German Red Cross attempted to trace and identify those who perished in the expulsions. The investigation of the Church Search Service was only partially successful, by 1965 they were able to confirm about 500,000 deaths but could not clarify the fates of 1.9 million persons that were listed as "unsolved". The findings of the Church Search Service were not published until 1987. Another report was issued by the German Federal Archives that identified 600,000 civilian expulsion deaths due to crimes against international law. This report was not published until 1989. Ingo Haar who is currently on the faculty of the University of Vienna said on 14 November 2006 in Deutschlandfunk that about 500,000 to 600,000 victims are realistic, based on a German governmental studies initiated in the 1960s. During the Cold War West Germany wanted to revert to prewar borders in Central Europe. Military historian Rüdiger Overmans said on 6 December 2006 in Deutschlandfunk that only the about 500,000 registered deaths could be counted, and that the unaccounted cases calculated with the population balance method need be confirmed by further research. However, on 29 November 2006 State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Christoph Bergner, reaffirmed the position of the German government that 2 million civilians perished in the flight and expulsion from Central and Eastern Europe. The German Red Cross in 2005 maintained that death toll in the expulsions is 2,251,500 persons.

On 29 October 1946, the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany already held 9.5 million refugees and expellees: 3.6 million in the British zone, 3.1 million in the U. S. zone, 2.7 million in the Soviet zone, 100,000 in Berlin and 60,000 in the French zone. These numbers subsequently increased, with two million additional expellees counted in West Germany in 1950 for a total of 7.9 million (16.3% of the population). By origin, the West German expellee population consisted of about 5.5 million people from post war Poland, primarily the former German East/new Polish West, two million from the former Sudetenland, and the rest primarily from Southeast Europe, the Baltic states and Russia. According to estimates made in West Germany, in the Soviet zone the number rose to 4.2 million by 1948 (24.2% of the population) and 4.4 million when the Soviet zone became East Germany. Thus, a total of 12.3 million Heimatvertriebene constituted 18% of the population in the two German states created from the Allied occupation zones (the Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic) in 1950, while another 500,000 expellees found refuge in Austria and other countries. Expellees made up 45% of the population in Schleswig Holstein and 40% in Mecklenburg Vorpommern; similar percentages existed along the eastern border all the way to Bavaria, while in the westernmost German regions the numbers were significantly lower, especially in the French zone of occupation. Of the expellees initially stranded in East Germany, many migrated to West Germany, making up a disproportionally high number of post war inner German East West migrants (close to one million of a three million total between 1949, when the West and East German states were created, and 1961, when the inner German border was closed).

Ethnic German refugees and expellees of foreign or no citizenship, residing within the German borders as they stood in 1937, were granted German citizenship by the West German constitution (Grundgesetz), Art. 116 (1) when this came into force in 1949. Expellees arriving later in the Federal Republic of Germany were almost all granted German citizenship as well, but their detailed legal treatment varied, depending on their or their ancestors' citizenship. Aussiedler (see above) who themselves or whose ancestors had been German citizens before 1945 were mostly legally considered as being German citizens, regardless of any other citizenships they may have held. According to the Nationality Law of the German Empire and States (Reichs und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz; RuStAG) of 1913, valid until 1999, loss of German citizenship was only valid if one applied for it (RuStAG § 21 (1)), and the competent German authority issued a denaturalisation deed (Entlassungsurkunde, RuStAG § 23 (1)), and the person to be denaturalised emigrated from German territory within a year after starting the procedure (RuStAG § 24 (1)). West German jurisdiction maintained that until a treaty with all of Germany on the seizures of territories (concluded finally as the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990)) should legalise their de facto status, the eastern territories of Germany annexed to other nations in 1945 and the Saar Protectorate were legally German territory for this purpose. Alternatively for German citizens living abroad – in West German definition outside of the German borders of 1937 – the unilateral voluntary adoption of a foreign citizenship would entail one's denaturalisation as a German (RuStAG § 25 (1)). However, the conditions of voluntarity, issuance of the deed, and leaving German territory (if applicable), were usually not fulfilled for German citizens authoritatively naturalised by the Eastern European states they happened to live in after 1945. Their children gained German citizenship by jus sanguinis (RuStAG § 4). Those Aussiedler of foreign citizenship but descending from ancestors holding German citizenship before 1918 (regardless of ethnicity) were granted German citizenship by the Federal Expellee Law (BVFG § 6 (2)), while those Aussiedler without such German descent but of German ethnicity (to be evidenced by German culture, language, traditions, etc.) received German citizenship also (see BVFG § 1 (1) No. 1).

Studies of this kind try to count individual deaths, by various means. Sources may include registry death records, police and military records, church files of missing and killed persons, or reports of eyewitnesses .

Estimates for the population losses in the Expulsions that appear in historical literature are ultimately derived from reports published by the German government. The methodology behind these figures is a computation of the estimated population deficit.

In 1950 West German Government made a preliminary estimate of 3.0 million dead and missing whose fate needed to be clarified. In 1953 the German scholar Gotthold Rhode made a demographic estimate of 3,140,000 total ethnic German dead in Central and Eastern Europe from 1939 to 1950. Rhode's figures were for total population losses, including the military dead which he did not break out. Bruno Gleitze estimated in 1953 800,000 civilian deaths (for Germany within 1937 borders only) among only "Eastern Germans" in the area of the expulsion These early estimates were superseded by subsequent publication in 1958 of the demographic study by the West German government statistical office.

The German foundation Centre Against Expulsions of the Federation of Expellees has compiled the following data from various sources. Time period Number of expellees (incl. deaths) Group expelled Expelled by Expelled, deported, fled from To Deaths* Aug 1941 Jun 1942 900,000 Russian Germans Soviet Union Ukraine, Volga Republic, Caucasus, etc. Siberia, Central Asia, etc. 210,000 Oct 1944 Mar 1948 200,000 Germans Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Germany, Austria 62,500 Jan/Feb 1945 75,000 Germans Soviet Union, Romanians Romania USSR 11,000 1944 1948 2,209,000 Germans Poland, Soviet Union East Germany, East Prussia West Germany, Middle Germany 299,000 1945 1948 5,820,000 Germans Poland former East Germany, Pomerania, East Brandenburg, Silesia West Germany, Middle Germany 914,000 1945 1948 367,000 Germans Poland Free State of Danzig West Germany, Middle Germany 83,000 1945 1948 3,159,000 Germans Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia West Germany, Middle Germany, Austria 238,000 1945 1948 857,000 Germans Poland Poland West Germany, Middle Germany 185,000 1945 1948 320,000 Baltic Germans, Romanian Germans, etc. Poland, Soviet Union Poland, East Germany West Germany, Middle Germany 99,000 1945 1948 30,000 Baltic Germans, Romanian Germans, etc. Soviet Union Poland, East Germany Siberia, Central Asia 10,000 1945 1946 280,000 Russian Germans Soviet Union, Western Allies Middle Germany Siberia, Central Asia, etc. 90,000 1946 1948 250,000 Germans Hungary Hungary Germany, Austria 6,000 Totals 13,567,000 2,207,500

This more detailed accounting is susceptible to specific objections and questions about the meaning of the numbers. While the table is presented as estimates of the number of expelled, and column Expelled by suggests which government was responsible, these assertions have been questioned. The following points are relevant to the interpretation of the above statistics

The statistics used to compile the list of dead by the Centre Against Expulsions are derived from the Schieder commission reports and the 1958 the West German Government Demographic Study Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Ingo Haar maintains that the statistical basis of the data used by the Centre Against Expulsions is empirically unsound. Haar believes out that the statistics include missing persons whose fate in Central and Eastern Europe could not be clarified during the cold war and does not necessarily mean that they were deaths in the expulsions. Haar points out that the Centre Against Expulsions includes deaths in the wartime flight with the subsequent expulsions. Many Germans were evacuated by German authorities and died during Soviet military operations, starvation and extreme cold during the final months of the war. The German population arrived in a post war Germany that was ravaged by starvation and disease. This is in sharp contrast to the position Centre Against Expulsions which implies that these deaths were due to the post war expulsions. Poland, Hungary and Romania were controlled by Soviet authorities during the post war era when the expulsions occurred. The nominal governments did not have control over policy. Yugoslavia was controlled by Titoist partisans at this time. Czechoslovakia did not come under direct Communist control until 1948. The basis of great part of the expulsion was Potsdam Agreement (Article 12) agreed by the US, UK and the USSR.

In early 1945, the then German city of Swinemünde (Świnoujście in contemporary Poland) was the destination port for refugees from East Prussia. On the 12th of March 1945, the US Eighth Air Force raided the city. Due to uncertainty concerning the number of refugees within the city the exact number of casualties is unknown. As the capacity of air raid shelters was limited to the regular populace, many refugees were killed at the spa gardens. About 500 victims of the raid were identified and buried close to the entrance of the cemetery and the remaining dead were buried in mass graves. The estimated number of victims, including residents of Swinemünde who were also encompassed by the expulsions, varies from about 5,000 to 23,000. 1958 the West German Government demographic study of expellee deaths estimated the total civilian dead in the East Pommerian region due to Anglo American air raids after 1/31/45 at 8,000. The German War Graves Commission estimates that 20,000 victims are buried at the Golm War Cemetery with further burials within the town limits. An unknown number of refugees from the east were among the estimated total 18,000 25,000 dead in the Bombing of Dresden in World War II. The German historian Rüdiger Overmans believes that “the number of refugee dead in the Dresden bombing was only a few hundred, hardly thousands or tens of thousands”