Flight of the Germans: The Displacement and Survival of Eastern European Germans in the 1940s

Throughout the 1940s, millions of Europeans were displaced by the infrastructural destruction of war, government actions and prejudices. While the first half of the decade saw many displaced by the implementation of ethnic polices like Generalplan Ost (General Plan East) in Eastern Europe by Nazi Germany, displacement would continue into the late 1940s as postwar politics created new political and ideological borders. This project will focus on the experiences of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe under Nazi occupation and in the aftermath of war. It will ask how Nazi policies, the International Refugee Organization’s actions, postwar reconstruction efforts led by the Allies, and relations with non-German populations shaped the experiences of German displaced persons (DPs) in Central and Eastern Europe. By analyzing the treatment of this subsection of Germans by the Nazis between 1940 - 1945, and by the Allied Powers in the decade after World War II, this project will illuminate the impact of Nazi race ideology in the region and the ramifications of both Nazi resettlement projects and Allied-led postwar responses. This project contributes to broader study of displacement and history of migrations in Europe, as it analyses a unique group of Europeans, referred to by the Nazis as Volksdeutsche (German Folk), and highlights their experiences to an audience who are potentially unfamiliar with postwar population displacement.